Windows 11

[Memory]

What are your thoughts on Windows 11 so far? Have you upgraded? Are you avoiding upgrading? Do you even use Windows?

I actually like it quite a bit so far, but I absolutely hated Windows 10 so it'd be hard for them to do worse. The last Windows version I liked was 7 (although 8.1 was really good on a tablet), and 11 reminds me a lot of the Aero design aesthetics from that era. The default centred task bar also reminds me of OSX and Gnome, which I think is a positive comparison. Design-wise, I have mostly good things to say. It also feels a lot punchier than Windows 10, which I found to be really slow even on a decent PC that was designed for it.

The only complaint I have is the icons on the right-click menu for things like copy, paste, rename and delete are a lot less intuitive than the old menu where everything was labelled. It's even worse because it isn't even consistent. Sometimes those things are fully labelled and sometimes they're just icons. It'd be nice to be able to bring back the classic, full right-click menu without having to edit the registry.

I haven't noticed any of the intrusive advertising that has been reported about Win11, but I'm not on the insider builds where they preview a lot of that stuff so maybe I'll end up inundated with it later. So far, though, I'm enjoying the experience.

[Memory]

I haven't used Windows since the controversial Windows 8, but at the workplace I recently started at I am forced to use it.

I am actually extremely surprised how utterly unusable it is. I don't think anyone can now say in full faith without laughing that the average Linux computer is harder to use than Windows. Settings strewn across myriads of programs, ads, "intelligent" text selection constantly overriding my choices, slow popups for file dialogs, downloading software from random internet sites instead of an "app store" or a CLI package manager, update and upgrade reminders, completely visually overwhelming office suite, ...

I recently had to set up a Windows 10 PC and genuinely spent hours with the installation because it just refused to read one of my hard drives during installation.

That all plus spyware, the high license fee and constant interruptions, account obligations, forced updates, clunky huge UI, and paid plans just baffle me how anyone can use Windows, let alone if they're "bad with computers".
I can fully imagine people who are overwhelmed by PCs to have a good time with something like Linux Mint or Elementary OS over Windows.

[Cele]

I don't really like how it works because I think that UI design peaked at Windows XP and anything that's going away from that is just too difficult to operate (see, I am already a grandma incapable of learning new things hahaha). I also don't like the needing to have a Microsoft account etc stuff. I was not planning on switching to it... I'll run Windows 10 as long as I can until they release something better I guess... (on my desktop because I need Windows for many programs and games).

[Melooon]

The only complaint I have is the icons on the right-click menu for things like copy, paste, rename and delete are a lot less intuitive

I came here to bring up the icon situation on windows 11! It came preinstalled on my gaming laptop; so Im not using it as a main computer, but i have had a bit of time to work with it - overall visually I quite like it, they made it look more like a Mac with the rounded corners and heavy icon use.. but they just got the icons so wrong! In the Explorer, I would say 50% of the time I delete files when Im trying to rename them because the modify icons are just bizarre! You could say thats just lack of experience on my side, but isn't the point of icons to make things simpler?

The startmenu is.. not great.. its not bad - but I feel like after 20 years they should have something much better - if an app is not pinned to my taskbar I get annoyed trying to find it

Oh and my other big issue - in 2009 I imported my facebook friends birthdays to the windows calendar.. and they are still there! They auto import anytime use my MS account; there is no way to remove them unless you delete each one individually. Every day I get three birthday notifications from people Iv not seen since I left school.. some of them I happen to know are not alive any more and thats always depressing Its just wild that there is no way to stop this.

So how would I summarise it.. hmm.. visually Its fine, I like it more than 10; but usability wise, I just feel like Im constantly flighting it, Windows 11 feels like a hostile environment where I have to put on my boots and hardhat before I go computing.

[TheFrugalGamer]

... "intelligent" text selection constantly overriding my choices...

Oh man, not to derail things, but you know how everyone has those recurring dreams about missing classes you haven't attended in forever, or showing up naked somewhere? Well added to mine are now dreams where I'm constantly trying to type something, and my phone replaces every word with something I don't want. UUUUUGH I HATE IT.

Anyways, I'm sure I'll be using Win11 at work at some point, but I'm really on the fence about whether I'll switch at home. I'm really considering switching my main PC to Linux at this point, because I'm really not fond of all the advertising that's being added to OSes these days.

Oh and Melooon, there's a way to fix the birthdays thing! I did the same and it annoyed me for ages, but I finally was able to turn it off. If you're online, you go to your account and fix it this way:

Settings Icon (cog in the upper right hand corner)  >  Options  >  Calendar  >  Other Calendars  >  Birthday Calendar  >  Turn off the birthday calendar  >  Save

This is the link that helped me; hopefully it'll help you too:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/removing-facebook-birthday-calendar-from-outlook/4f044b55-2e42-4ac8-a516-45dc1d498003

[Memory]

Oh man, not to derail things, but you know how everyone has those recurring dreams about missing classes you haven't attended in forever, or showing up naked somewhere? Well added to mine are now dreams where I'm constantly trying to type something, and my phone replaces every word with something I don't want. UUUUUGH I HATE IT.

I had this exact same nightmare again last night! I never had this nightmare when I still had my Blackberry. Touch keyboards are clearly destroying us psychologically.

[Commodorn]

I'm certainly delaying getting it despite not being fond of W10 ever since it came out. Mostly because I.. uh.. having to figure out a whole new interface after just getting used to this one sounds like a fuck and a half. I wish Windows would give people the option to have the same interface and/or look as systems like XP or 7 while still running the current OS.. y'know, officially. I have a good feeling plenty of people would appreciate that. Especially cavemen like me who couldn't give a single shit about every new way you can poke thing to make light change. Just work!

--All I have right now is OpenShell. It lets me have a real simple (and thoroughly customizable) start menu that just does what it's supposed to. Heavenly, really.

(Ignore ActiveWorlds3D, by the way. I never got that to work.)

 

[PurpleHello98]

I personally think Windows peaked in its design with XP, Vista and 7, and I think that even though the original Windows 10 UI was bad enough, since they at least didn't really mess with the desktop in Win8 and mostly Windows 10, the Win11 UI is atrocious. It's just so ugly IMO, and seems dumbed down to run on tablets and like computers were barely even a consideration--at least Win10 considered computers! You can't even have the taskbar on the side anymore, or remove the pinned files section from the start menu without having a placeholder, instead of being able to replace it with more program shortcuts.

I don't like the recent Mac redesign very much either, but it's leagues better than the Windows redesign because at least it's just a fresh--albeit not very pretty, and somewhat tablet-ified--coat of paint, whereby every new Windows version changed the way everything works even when it clearly doesn't need to be changed. After ten years, you'd think Microsoft would've finally learned that if it ain't broke, you don't fix it!

[SilkSkull]

I'm a month or so into it now and although it gets the job done, I couldn't dislike the UI more. I don't really hate it, it just feels so bland and corporate to me. Other than that I have had no issue running anything, doing anything or scrolling anything so it works for what I need it for. If anyone knows a good place to start with making it look a little better would be much appreciated 

[lime360]

i couldn't install windows 11 because of my pc's hardware, thank god...

[starbreaker]

What are your thoughts on Windows 11 so far? Have you upgraded? Are you avoiding upgrading? Do you even use Windows?

I only use Windows on the company laptop I use at my day job. At home I use macOS and Debian GNU/Linux. I suspect I'll get stuck with Windows 11 the next time I get a new company laptop, but if that happens I'm damn well going to demand a pay raise; I don't get paid enough to put up with Windows.

[brisray]

OS's don't bother me at all. I've been using Win 11 for a little under a year at home. Work is really conservative and won't change from the Win 10 or Ubuntu boxes we have for a while yet.

I view OS's (Windows, Macs, Linux, whatever) simply as toolboxes. So long as I can get to the settings I need  and they run the programs I want then I'm happy with them. Probably a bit unusually, especially among the people here, I don't even change the default background or screensaver, just the program icons I pin to the Start menu and Task Bar.

[bby]

I'm still on 10. I need to enable SecureBoot and TPM 2.0 to upgrade to 11, but honestly I've been too lazy to deal with it lmao.

[Badgersaurus]

I was curious about it and wanted to give it a fair shake but it wanted me to enable TPM before installing it. So I did that, and now it still won't let me install it, but it won't tell me why now. So that's that I guess.