Have you upgraded to Windows 11?

[Sandy Bridge]

Hopefully the question is self-explanatory.

[Aaron44126]

I was really excited when Windows 11 was announced.  I've upgraded to each new Windows release at launch since XP.

 

...My excitement quickly turned sour.  I have some major issues with how Microsoft is handling things.

 

• Silly launch bugs (Start Menu "recommendations" service bringing down the desktop (happened before launch but not by much); expired certificate breaking apps)
• Missing power user features (Start Menu is greatly simplified, no more subfolders for tiles or free placement of pinned items; taskbar is a mess)
• Their general attitude of "just ship whatever, we'll fix it up later" — you'd almost think that they rushed this out for the holiday shopping season —  I am glad that they are making improvements, but in the past (before Windows 10) Microsoft has held off releases until they were ready and then bent over backwards to avoid any user-facing changes afterwards ... now you never know if a monthly update will introduce a new "feature" or change the way that something behaves
• Trying really hard to monetize Windows users (half-baked widgets system, Start menu search links sending you to Bing, all OS links open Edge rather than chosen default browser, even if you put a workaround in place — Edge itself is becoming a monetization platform by including "helpful" features like this and this which end up providing a kickback to MS, either in the form of money, or user data that can be used to make money)
• System requirements are arbitrary; Windows 11 works fine on hardware without secure boot, TPM, or a CPU on their "supported" list — you'd almost think that they're trying to drive up PC sales by not offering the upgrade to older systems
• ...and more.

 

I know there is some good stuff happening in Windows 11 and some real, technical improvements.  I'm just disappointed that they had to pile this junk on top of it.

 

I like Daniel Aleksanderson's wording:

 

Microsoft still charges 200 USD for a Windows license while simultaneously filling the operating system with ads and crapware. Weeks before launch, Windows 11 wouldn’t even show the taskbar when it failed to display an advertisement dialog. Just last week, first-party apps and features of Windows 11 stopped working due to an expired encryption certificate.

 

These aren’t the actions of an attentive company that cares about its product anymore. Microsoft isn’t a good steward of the Windows operating system. They’re prioritizing ads, bundleware, and service subscriptions over their users’ productivity.

 

I'm preparing my own detailed post on the subject which I will post as a separate thread here in about two weeks.

 

That said, I have been helping out other users with upgrades to Windows 11, just not recommending it at this point.  Myself, I have recently "upgraded" to Windows 10 LTSC 2021.  I'll look at Windows 11 when there is a LTSC version.

[RS4]

I am using Windows 10 and will keep using it till October 2025, even after that there will be ways to get ESU updates for another 3-4 years.

[cucubits]

I also voted no and will probably avoid for the near future. Aaron's post sums it up well.

 

On another note, I'm currently mad at microsoft for rolling out KB5009543 recently which broke the default VPN client. I had to play the uninstall game a few times as it would sneak it back the next day.

[Aaron44126]

Oh, for the most part it is fine to stick on Windows 10 for a good long while, but here's wrinkle about Windows 10 vs Windows 11 that I can bring up.  It's the process scheduler, and in particular, how it works with Intel's new Alder Lake hybrid architecture which features two types of CPU cores, "performance" and "efficiency".

 

You (currently) need Windows 11 to make use of Intel's "Thread Director" hardware-assisted process scheduling with Intel's hybrid architecture Alder Lake CPUs.  This helps Windows decide which threads to run on "performance cores" and which threads to run on "efficiency cores".  Windows 10 is aware of the difference between the types of cores, but it doesn't support Intel's hardware-assist feature for scheduling.  Benchmarks show that in most cases it doesn't matter if you are running Alder Lake on Windows 10 or Windows 11, but in some cases it totally does.  For one, Windows 10 automatically runs "low priority" processes on E cores only.  So, for example, if you do a Handbrake video encode, that job runs low priority and now performance is poop because it it locked to the E cores.  Windows 11 will run such a process across all cores but still give first priority to the "active" application.  (...Technically it seems like full Thread Director support wouldn't be required to "fix" this but this is how it stands on Windows 10 + Alder Lake right now in any case.)

 

So part of the reason that i was torn up early on about whether to get on Windows 11 is, I'm planning to replace my nearly 10-year-old personal laptop with an Alder Lake one this spring.  Do I have to decide between dealing with Windows 11 bloatware or not having Thread Director support?

 

I think that there's a decent chance Windows 10 will be getting a new process scheduler within a few months.

• Windows Server 2022 and Windows 10, version 21H2 are pretty similar.  Windows Server is only refreshed once every 3 years.  Server 2022 just launched like three or four months ago, so a follow-up won't drop until late 2024.  Hybrid architecture CPUs will surely show up in the server space before then.  Will Microsoft refuse to give Thread Director support to Windows Server until late 2024?  Rather doubt it.  (If they push a process scheduler update to Server 2022 then it wouldn't be a big stretch to also push it to Windows 10.)
• Dell has zero Alder Lake business systems.  All of the Alder Lake systems that they have announced so far ship with Windows 11 as the only option (probably because of the scheduler).  On the laptop side, only Alienware and XPS Alder Lake models have been announced.  On the desktop side, Alder Lake CPUs have been available for nearly three months but there are still no Alder Lake Vostro, OptiPlex, or Precision desktop systems.  Dell knows that most businesses don't want Windows 11 yet.  Does Dell know something that we don't about when Windows 10 and Alder Lake will get along?  (I haven't checked the situation with other vendors' business systems.)
• Intel's Alder Lake Game Dev Guide states the following, emphasis added by me.  (Kind of vague, but there you go.)
  • With the release of Windows 11, you can automatically have your threads scheduled by the OS using hardware hints from Intel Thread Director. If your strategy is to allow the OS and ITD to do the heavy lifting for your thread scheduling, you will need to detect which version of Windows your application is running on. Without the updates for Windows 11, ITD will not be supported. Some ITD features will be backported, but it is essential to check for a minimum supported version of Windows. You can use VerifyVersionInfo API, which will allow you to include Service Pack Minor and Build Number in your version specification.

[luisxd]

I have too many things installed on my PC I'm afraid some of them stop working so I'll wait until my next OS refresh.

[Trevayne10]

Tried WIndows 11 Pro a few months ago - took an instant, intense dislike to it, quickly removed it.  Will stay with WIndows 10 Pro until support ends in October 2025 (or until a viable "Windows 12" is released).

Running Windows 10 Pro on all 8 systems on my home network (two of which also dual boot to Ubuntu Linux 21.10; one runs Ubuntu 21.10 24/7/365).

 

-Trev

[defcon42]

Yes (Windows 11 Pro) and without any issues on a 2017 Clevo laptop. My wife has a 2020 Honor laptop, also no issues with Windows 11 Home.

[John Ratsey]

I let Windows 11 install itself a few days ago to see what it looked like, discovered that I couldn't dock the task bar on the left side of the screen (which I've been doing for years to maximise the veritcal space), tried registry hacks found by Google but they didn't work and then restored Windows 10. If Microsoft fix the task bar problem then I might try it again but this may mean waiting for Windows 12. History shows that Microsoft have a habit of making a mess of alternate versions of Windows.

[Sandy Bridge]

The two points that Aaron mentioned about getting "features" in updates and the increasing monetization of Windows are why I'm still on 8.1 on my desktop.  It seems Microsoft is going more in that direction for Windows 11 than they did for Windows 10.  And while I'll admit that I haven't had any real horror stories with 10 on my laptop, I also didn't jump on it right away in 2015, giving it a few years to mature.  I tried pre-SP1 Windows once, with Vista... never again.  Stability is king.

The Thread Director and Windows 11 item reminds me of how Kaby Lake and Ryzen only supported Windows 10, at least officially.  The uncertainty about whether I'd get the full performance and functionality of Ryzen with Windows 8.1 was part of why I didn't upgrade to Ryzen and am still Sandy Bridge.  I wonder how many people will decide to stick with Rocket Lake or Zen 3 due to the lack of Thread Scheduler support in Windows 11.

[User]

No reason to yet. Absolutely chuffed with my current Win10 performance and optimization and see no real reason to have to start over in a new OS.

[Aaron44126]

12 minutes ago, Sandy Bridge said:

The two points that Aaron mentioned about getting "features" in updates and the increasing monetization of Windows are why I'm still on 8.1 on my desktop.

Getting into the weeds, but...

With Windows 8.1 losing support next year, maybe you should give Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 a look.  Since switching, I'm kind of seeing the LTSC version "as if you were in an alternate universe and this change of direction they took with Windows never happened" (or at least was rather less extreme).

The LTSC version is a lot more like traditional Windows in terms of how it is supported.  There are no user experience changes in the monthly updates (that is a "promise" of LTSC) — for example, LTSC did not get the "News & Interests" widget thing that landed on everyone else's taskbar without warning last year.  You won't be hounded to upgrade to any newer version of Windows.  It's built off of Windows 10, version 2004 (released April 2020) so it is mature enough.  (Windows 10, versions 20H2, 21H1, and 21H2 are all built off of the 2004 base — same binaries/updates, as with Windows Server 2021 as well.)  It is supported until January, 2032.

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC doesn't have some things that regular Windows 10 has.  The Microsoft Store is missing and most of the bundled "modern"-style apps are as well.  There are PowerShell scripts floating around to add them back if you like.  (I have Microsoft Store loaded on mine and it works as intended.)  Otherwise, it is basically the same.

(It does have the new Edge browser pre-loaded...  You can remove web search results from the Start menu search with a simple registry value though and then you basically never have to look at it.)

The problem is getting a license.  (They want you on the main release train so that they can force the new monetizing stuff on you, so they don't make LTSC easy to grab unless you are a business or OEM.)  Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 is probably the way to go.  You can get a license from resellers (i.e. CDW) or from eBay.  "Enterprise LTSC" and "IoT Enterprise LTSC" are functionally identical, the difference is in how they are licensed.  IoT is supposed to be bundled with some sort of single-function product.  If you do buy it make sure you are getting the 2021 version.  License keys are tied to a specific version, you can't upgrade without paying anything as you can with "regular" Windows 10.

You can get an evaluation version here if you want to play with it before buying anything — https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-10-enterprise

To upgrade in-place from 8.1 I think you would need to go through Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB version 2015 first.  If you have interest in going this way, I can grab the ISO for you (you shouldn't need an actual license for it if you are just using it as an in-between point).

[Sandy Bridge]

Interesting... Win10 Enterprise's feature stability is what I wanted, but I didn't see a way to purchase it as a non-enterprise.

There's a pretty decent chance I'll be building a new system in the second half of the year, but either at that point or if I do decide to stick with my ancient rig another few years, I might have to look into that more seriously (and double-check that I'd be buying the right one).  I wouldn't miss the Microsoft Store, but would appreciate not be surprised with new features.

Although maybe by that point Windows 11 will have stabilized enough to consider... still preferably without free feature upgrades.

[Katja]

I've been jumping back and forth between 10 and 11, but I've settled on 10 LTSC for the time being. I like 11 for the looks, but it tried way too hard to be like KDE, and I guess I'm not a fan of where Microsoft is headed with Windows at this point.

LTSC being stable is what I aim for, and since 21H2 is now available, I can daily drive it due to being a newer version with game support (since gaming is a priority on my system asides from some productivity and low downtime, due to being sick). Windows 11 has a lot of potential, but my one wish is that Microsoft would just stop bundling so much added crapware that people don't tend to use, but that'd be asking too much. My main system's control panel didn't work under 11 unless using the Eluktronics one, but it's something.

I like 11's aesthetic, but it's trying way too hard to be something it isn't; I'll keep using Win10 LTSC 2021 for the time being, until the last of the games I play finally have proper anticheat support in Linux (nProtect GameGuard namely).

I was honestly just more irked with Win11's issues with AMD CPUs around launch, but I haven't touched it in a month or two, so I can't say where it's at right now. I'm more than happy with 10 LTSC since it doesn't change much and it's more lightweight than both 11 and 10 Pro.

[Aaron44126]

1 hour ago, Sandy Bridge said:

Interesting... Win10 Enterprise's feature stability is what I wanted, but I didn't see a way to purchase it as a non-enterprise.

Yeah, so careful with words/terms here, ha.  I've spent quite a bit of time on both Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise (non-LTSC).  Windows 10 Enterprise is exactly like Windows 10 Pro in terms of "feature stability" — i.e. cruft that they add to Pro, like the "News & Interests" widget thing, is also on Enterprise.  Only Enterprise LTSC is free from that (for now).  For the foreseeable future I would assume that Windows 11 is going to be "shifting sand" (new minor "features" dropping somewhat regularly + major "feature updates" once per year, in the fall).  There won't be another LTSC release until late 2024 at which point hopefully Windows 11 has solidified somewhat.

39 minutes ago, Katja said:

LTSC being stable is what I aim for, and since 21H2 is now available, I can daily drive it due to being a newer version with game support.

I do see gaming as a downside for LTSC but only somewhat.  There weren't that many games that wouldn't work on Windows 10 LTSC 2019.  Now, I only hopped on LTSC recently so maybe I missed some but the only ones I remember seeing being thrown around were Forza Horizon 5 and maybe the new Battlefield game?  Some games like Ori and the Will of the Wisps claim to require a certain version of Windows 10 to run but actually still work even on Windows 7 and 8.  Anyway, there is indeed a chance that some new games will not work at the tail end of a 3-year LTSC release cycle.  I think the chance of that is pretty low this time around, since Windows 10 (non-LTSC) will be sticking around for a good while after Windows 11's release.  Myself, my game backlog is large enough that I wouldn't mind putting off a new game for a while if I needed to.

Don't want to turn this into the LTSC thread.  Maybe we should spin up a new one if the conversation is going that way.  🙂

[KabyZen]

Let my Clevo upgrade to 11, overall not too bad but the "run as admin" option in search bar only appears for installed programs and not portable ones. So I have to manually go to the folder to run non-installed programs as admin. That's currently my only gripe with it.

Oh yeah and Clevo Control Center threw a fit for a while so my hotkeys were gone (had to mess with the task scheduler to fix that).

[Azther]

personally i have no intention of upgrading, Win10 IoT LTSC 2021 all the way 🙂

[Ishayin]

10 hours ago, Sandy Bridge said:

The two points that Aaron mentioned about getting "features" in updates and the increasing monetization of Windows are why I'm still on 8.1 on my desktop.  ...

9 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

With Windows 8.1 losing support next year, maybe you should give Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 a look...

I am also still on 8.1 on my Clevo laptop here, mainly for the same reasons Sandy Bridge mentions, along with the less clutter, and perhaps also a little too much experience of fixing other people's Win10 laptops at work for them 😆

I have no plans to upgrade or replace in the foreseeable future. Hardware developments seem to have slowed down a lot in recent years such that I'm likely to get a decade out of this laptop before needing to replace it. Only three more years to go! But good to hear of that LTSC Win10 which does look a good option at the present time.

Really, I would much prefer to move to say Linux Mint, except for the compatibility issues with just a few remaining bits of software nowadays, mainly Winamp. I tweak my Windows UI quite a lot to be more like the pre-Win7 / Cinnamon style anyway, with a double row of separated windows in the taskbar (i.e. not bundled together and hidden away under separate program icons), and I find that the longer/further you stay off the accepted mainstream "norm" with software, the more likely things will break, be removed, or no longer supported in the future. 😩

[saturnotaku]

The IdeaPad 5 Pro in my signature, which is primarily my wife's, came with Windows 11 pre-installed. I've also bought and returned a few laptops that came with it as well. There are still plenty of bugs to be worked out with it, and I really don't like how they've messed with the settings sub-system. For what my wife does, it's fine, but needless to say I was very happy my ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 came with Windows 10 Pro. Speaking of, this was probably the most bloat-free OEM Windows install I've ever seen - no McAfee, not even the stupid pre-installed games that Microsoft likes to put on (eg Candy Crush, etc). The only extra software was the commercial edition of Lenovo Vantage, which allows you to set a specific maximum battery charge instead of the fixed 55-60 percent that you're limited to with the Legion line of laptops.

[Steerpike]

I just ordered a new Dell XPS that will ship with Win 11.  Reading this thread, I'm beginning to have concerns as I'm quite comfortable with how Win 10 behaves, finally.  I was a big fan of Windows 7, hated Vista and 8, and finally learned to live with win 10.  Will I be able to downgrade to Win 10 or am I stuck with Win 11, being pre-installed? 

[Aaron44126]

6 hours ago, Steerpike said:

I just ordered a new Dell XPS that will ship with Win 11.  Reading this thread, I'm beginning to have concerns as I'm quite comfortable with how Win 10 behaves, finally.  I was a big fan of Windows 7, hated Vista and 8, and finally learned to live with win 10.  Will I be able to downgrade to Win 10 or am I stuck with Win 11, being pre-installed? 

A Windows 11 license is a Windows 10 license.  Microsoft has always offered downgrade rights.  However... to install Windows 10 on this XPS you will have to do it yourself, via clean install.  There won't be a rollback option offered from Window 11 after you boot it up.

[Steerpike]

6 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

A Windows 11 license is a Windows 10 license.  Microsoft has always offered downgrade rights.  However... to install Windows 10 on this XPS you will have to do it yourself, via clean install.  There won't be a rollback option offered from Window 11 after you boot it up.

I guess I'll just have to get it and see whether I can live with it or not. I have a spare machine which I guess I could upgrade to W11 to check it out, but an upgrade won't necessarily behave the same as a clean install anyway.  It's hard to know what I will 'miss' after using W10 for so long. 

Here's a list off the top of my head of things I could imagine could change ... perhaps if anyone has Win11 they could comment on whether the same functionality exists ... 

1. I have implemented the registry hack on W10 to restore Win7-like behavior of taskbar icons; I want one icon per app, and when I click the taskbar icon (assuming multiple documents are open for the app), I want a vertical stack of documents rather than the horizontal 'thumbnail peek' representation. Fixed in W10 by following this article - How do I change Taskbar icon preview from Thumbnail peek to List peek - Microsoft Community 
2. I presume task manager remains somewhat functionally unchanged; I keep task manager active all the time and keep an eye on the icon in the tray to see if anything is consuming unusual amounts of CPU. I use the task manager's 'startup' tab to disable most of the stuff I don't want to have running. 
3. I run things like Notepad using 'WinKey+R' to get the 'Run' dialog and type 'notepad'. 
4. I use Alt-tab all the time to switch between active tasks; 
5. For 'daily use' apps, like excel, I have their launch icon pinned to the taskbar. For less frequent tasks, I use the 'start' menu. I never did like the way win 10 handled the 'icons' on the right side of the 'start' menu, but I've learned to live with it and have placed my most common apps near the top for easy access. I do have a few sub-groups, which I read have gone away but as long as I can physically group things, I'll be OK. 
6. I've disabled cortana, and try to keep the task bar pretty clean. 
7. I don't use the 'desktop' much, but do place the occasional file or shortcut there for temporary quick access. 
8. I have avoided the 'Microsoft Store' like the plague and get all apps from the respective vendor. 
9. I use both Edge and Chrome, and set Google as my default search in both. 
10. I use IrfanView as my default jpg viewer; I use VideoLan as my default movie viewer; Foxit as my default PDF viewer.  I'm used to having W10 occasionally reset these, but not too often. 
11. I login using a local account, not a Microsoft Account. I've already read that with win 11 home, you can't do this so I'm ready for that. 
12. I use the control panel 'power' app to reduce (throttle) CPU power to 70% for daily use - described here 

(Forum meta question - I really didn't want the link above to 'render' a preview of the page I linked to - I just wanted a simple URL paste for anyone to follow if they felt like it. It disturbs the flow of the list (so I put it at the end 🙂 ). I don't see any way to alter this behavior. 

[Aaron44126]

7 minutes ago, Steerpike said:

Here's a list off the top of my head of things I could imagine could change ... perhaps if anyone has Win11 they could comment on whether the same functionality exists ...

1. I haven't tried this but I'd assume that this behavior has been lost along with most other taskbar customization.
2. Task Manager is the same.
3. This still works... but you can also just press the "Windows" key (to pop up the Start Menu) and then start typing to search.  It will take "run" commands from this screen as well.
4. Alt+Tab still works.
5. No more grouping pinned apps on the Start Menu.  You can pin things but they cannot be grouped and arrangement is basically like it is on the iPhone.  (It fills out rows from left to right; you can't "free place" items.)
6. You can remove the search icon from the taskbar.
7. Desktop is the same.
8. Microsoft Store is not any more or less in-your-face than before.
9. Browser situation is basically the same (but it's harder to switch default browsers now).
10. Setting file associations is the same.
11. You can jump through hoops to get a local account.  Basically, set up a throwaway MS account, then once at the desktop, create a local account.  (Might have to use command line if the GUI doesn't let you do it.)  Log into the local account and then delete the online account.  It shouldn't bother you about it anymore.
12. There are no changes to this in Windows 11.  However, there are changes to it in both Windows 10 and Windows 11 if the system supports "modern standby", and pretty much all new laptops do.  Most of the advanced power options are gone in this case.  You can get them back by disabling modern standby, which adds those options back, but then you won't be able to use the "Sleep" function on your system.  (Hibernate still works.)  This Reddit post explains how to do it.  Just a registry change and reboot.

If you paste a link and it makes that box, check the bottom of the post writing area.  A popup appears with an option to change back to a regular link.

[Steerpike]

1 hour ago, Aaron44126 said:

1. I haven't tried this but I'd assume that this behavior has been lost along with most other taskbar customization.

...

12. There are no changes to this in Windows 11.  However, there are changes to it in both Windows 10 and Windows 11 if the system supports "modern standby", and pretty much all new laptops do.  Most of the advanced power options are gone in this case.  You can get them back by disabling modern standby, which adds those options back, but then you won't be able to use the "Sleep" function on your system.  (Hibernate still works.)  This Reddit post explains how to do it.  Just a registry change and reboot.

 

Thanks for the detailed response!  Regarding #12, it seems that's not win11 related so maybe it deserves another thread.  I'll create one under the Dell XPS forum, as it seems there are Dell specifics in there. I'll post a link here when I'm done with it. (update - here it is ... XPS 17, 'Modern Standby', S3 sleep, and Windows 10/11 - XPS - NBR 3.1B (efgxt.net)  Regarding #1, the taskbar ... I guess I'll have to get it and find out just how bad it is. Not being able to see the document names is going to be a killer for me (I tend to have many excel spreadsheets open at once, and having a thumbnail of each is pretty useless - I need the filename). This article suggests MS are making changes to the win11 taskbar ...  

 

[HexagonWin]

I'll probably be on Windows 7 until 2024. The OS is so stable, and W10 is so slow on my old laptops.

After that I should probably go on to LTSC 10s which would probably be supported until 2029.

And then, maybe I will switch to ReactOS of 2029...?