36 ms·

Microsoft announces Windows 11

551 points by neogodless 5y ago

sbadger 5y ago
24 years ago my company moved from mac to windows (granted macs would crash every 20 minutes). At the time we were given a windows laptop to try for a bit, with the rollout a month or so later. When I went to shut it down I asked how to... 'press start', I was told. I thought 'nope, they still don't get it... pressing start to stop... send it back to them and tell them to try again and harder'. Its still true.
- Crono 5y ago
  That old joke ... But i have a solution for you: You could use that fancy thing called a "power button" - no joke, it will actually help you in turing of the computer - or do you want to only start it with this button? Jokes aside: cmon, its not a big deal to open the windows menu to power of the machine. The Word "Start" is now missing since Windows Vista which released 2007 - nearly 15 Years ago!
nly 5y ago
Stealing all the advanced window management features from the Linux DE world... say repeatedly that no other OS does it. Stay classy MS.
- 1_player 5y ago
  Ask the Linux DE world to put a patent on it and litigate everyone that tries to steal their ground-breaking ideas.
_benj 5y ago
I honestly was expecting more "innovation", more daring decisions and deep convictions that "this new way", even though it might get some backlash, will prove to improve the wellbeing of it's users, even if they don't know it yet. I haven't seen anything like that since the days of Steven Jobs and it kind of saddens me. Have we reached a plateau in tech? Are we just up for making more of the same, just a little different, as long as we can get VC or increase the stock price? Are there no more Wright Brothers? Alex G. Bell? Elon Musk for more industries? Sorry for the sad comment, but this release just disappointed me. Idk what I was expecting, but it wasn't just another Windows...
- tomtheelder 5y ago
  Desktop OSes have been basically stagnant for almost 20 years. There's plenty of software innovation out there, but not in this space.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  I was hoping 11 would get rid of a bunch of old Windows backwards compatibility cruft. Make Windows 10 the long-run version and Windows 11 the forward looking one. Almost like what Apple did with Mac OS X.
  - wvenable 5y ago
    Mac OS X has direct linage from NeXTStep that was first released in 1989 -- four years before Windows NT. When it was originally rebranded OS X there was so much backlash from developers and Apple had to go back and spend a year creating a new API (Carbon) to mimic the one in Mac OS classic. There is no reason to complain about "backwards compatibility cruft". An OS exists to run software and an OS that runs less software is less useful. Over time this backwards compatibility stuff is less and less significant -- you can run several copies of Windows 95 entirely in the L2 cache of a modern system.
  - timw4mail 5y ago
    16bit support isn't legacy enough? No 32bit install?
  - marcthe12 5y ago
    Well did drop 32 bit and bios. So they probably dropped a huge chunk of kernel code
- rhengles 5y ago
  They tried that with Windows 8, the backslash was so enormous that I think they will be on the safe side and stick with 'familiarity' for the foreseeable future.
  - imbnwa 5y ago
arathore 5y ago
I am looking forward to performance improvements. It would be great if the core window services were optimized to use less resources to improve the windows experience on less impressive hardware.
nevi-me 5y ago
I didn't hear anything about availability, previews, etc. Did I miss something? I listened to the live stream in the background, and also skimmed through The Verge's article and live stream. As a happy Windows user, this looks exciting. I hope that there'll be a Windows Pro upgrade path that's not pocket-heavy, so I can update my 8 year old laptop, and my recent desktop without paying too much.
oramit 5y ago
Microsoft and Apple both said a few years back that they had "finished" their respective operating systems and were no longer going to do versioning like this. I wonder why the change of heart?
- charwalker 5y ago
  New execs need to make their mark.
priyanmuthu 5y ago
I see that it supports Android apps. Does that mean we have complete GUI support for WSL2? I believe it will use WSL2 in the backend?
- ewzimm 5y ago
  Full GUI support is available now in preview, so by the time Windows 11 launches, it should be ready for mainstream support. It uses Wayland and RDP natively. I haven't seen any announcement of if this will be used for the Android support layer, but it will likely be using something similar. Edit: It looks like this will be using Intel Bridge Technology to cross compile into x86. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-tech-unleashes-windows-experience.html#gs.45gu1s https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-...
janandonly 5y ago
After looking at these screenshots I’m more grateful to be using macOS now than ever before...
- 72deluxe 5y ago
  Because it looks exactly the same??
- imbnwa 5y ago
  Real question is where are all the old Win2K dialogs and menus hiding
A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
Wasn't 10 supposed to be the last Windows ever? Isn't that how some of the more annoying update habits were justified to the users? I am underwhelmed with Win 11. I did not see a feature that felt sufficiently useful to justify coming back. I am not sure, who would consciously choose it outside of business sector and gaming.
jl6 5y ago
So many questions… Will Win10 users be able to upgrade to Win11 for free or will they have to buy it? What’s the end-of-life date for Win10 now? Will the minimum hardware requirements be increased? Will this be used as an opportunity to make backwards-compatibility-breaking improvements? Are they actually going to fix the whole UI or just 80% of it and leave the remaining 20% as sedimentary layers of previous UIs? And I really really really hope they fix Teams’ performance and stability issues before bundling it with the OS and running it continuously.
- MarcScott 5y ago
  Some answers here - https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22546801/microsoft-windows-11-free-upgrade-details https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22546801/microsoft-window...
  - acwan93 5y ago
    More details here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica...
    - ehsankia 5y ago
      Great link, thanks! Found this unfortunate change deep down: > Taskbar functionality is changed including: Alignment to the bottom of the screen is the only location allowed.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  Free. 2025. Yes, 32-bit CPUs are out. I guess with 32-bit mode so goes 16-bit support? Probably not to the last two?
  - xxpor 5y ago
    IIRC 16 bit support was dropped with 8 or 10?
1-6 5y ago
I think most people scratch their heads when they hear Windows 11 because it seems like the same Windows but skinned with a slightly new UI. This is also from a company which puts function over form.
extrememacaroni 5y ago
It looks so much like a theme/skin from a linux distro to me. Can't put my finger on which.
notRobot 5y ago
Can't we just go back to Windows 7 UI and UX with modern Windows 10 feature and security enhancements?
- antisthenes 5y ago
  W7 was the only MS product I ever paid money for (as a student), and feel like it was a great deal. Would gladly keep paying for security enhancements for it and don't really see anything that W10 (or W11 for that matter) offers over it for work or gaming. It's a real shame that taking away controls from power users seem to be more important than providing a great product. But I guess when you're a monopoly you can do whatever you want.
  - NtGuy25 5y ago
    What control is taken away from power users? Most things can be toggled in the registry, and won't go away due to compatibility reasons. And patchguard can be disabled extremely easily. Same with DSE. I can't think of a single thing a power user can't do on Win 10 that they can on Win 7.
    - antisthenes 5y ago
      Can you make the interface of W10 look like W7? How about easily removing bloatware without being an internet detective? Customize those ugly flat panels that MS stuck everywhere next to Windows 3.1 legacy selection boxes? Also, yes. I guess if you are willing to spend an extra 10-20hrs of your time to configure group policies and registry tweaks and removing telemetry to get it into an "acceptable" state...for exactly the same experience, then it's fine. Even then, I keep reading horror stories about settings being reverted after updates and the OS generally not respecting uptime over vague "security" updates. I don't find that acceptable, unless MS cuts me a check for wasted hours of my time every time I have to fix something that wasn't broken. For comparison, my W7 system has been rock stable since 2016, with most system downtime due to physical hardware changes and updates. To be fair, some use cases were improved in W10. Mobile (bluetooth) connectivity seems to be working great. So are things like making a wi-fi hotspot and networking in general. (I don't have in-depth knowledge about other improvements because they're outside of my use cases)
hughrr 5y ago
Sorry for the not very constructive comment but it looks like ass. Like a B grade KDE theme.
- dawnerd 5y ago
  Microsoft needs to hire a proper UX/UI team. It looks like developers designed it.
  - jtvjan 5y ago
    If developers designed it, it wouldn't have all these rounded corners, superfluous animations, and useless padding everywhere.
    - hughrr 5y ago
      Yea as a developer if I did it, it’d still look like windows NT.
    - dawnerd 5y ago
      It would if you have product people saying they want it to look like Macos but just lets the developers run with it.
- voldacar 5y ago
  OS aesthetics just seem so bland and meek these days. I think Win7 Aero/OSX Lion/Compiz cube thing was the peak and after that everything became homogenized and boring. I want my computer to look cool, goddammit
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    At least they aren't trying to make everything as white and minimalist as possible...
    - hughrr 5y ago
      To be fair that’s actually working the best for me at the moment. Mostly because it is at least consistently white and consistently minimalist.
fader 5y ago
Putting the start menu button in the middle of the panel rather than at a corner seems to forget Fitts' Law. Is this a push to make people use hotkeys more or just bad design?
- nly 5y ago
  My hunch is that it's a controversial change made for no purpose other than to deliberately get people talking about W11. It's easy to 'fix' via preferences so serves no other purpose.
- lp0_on_fire 5y ago
  It's bad design in the sense that they took a part of the operating system that's been in the same place for a quarter century and moved it for seemingly no reason while leaving a bunch of other neglected issues to be dealt with later. I guess fixing the damned control panel and various settings apps isn't sexy enough. Frankly this whole update stinks of "oh we hired a bunch of new MBAs and they have to make their mark otherwise they're out of a job".
  - wvenable 5y ago
    I think it's ironic how often HN discusses various software development methodologies, release early-and-often, etc. But Microsoft slowly iterating on the Settings panel over time is seen as a bad thing.
    - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
      If they're iterating on this at all it's at a glacial pace. The settings and control panel workflow has been broken since Windows 8.
      - wvenable 5y ago
        They are iterating; the Settings panel gets more settings on every release. The first version on Windows 10 was incredibly sparse. It's also fair to say that there is a novice/expert divide -- Microsoft wants the settings panel to be as simple as settings on a mobile phone. That's great. However, occasionally I need to revert and diagnose the Wifi driver on my cheap Chinese mini laptop and I need a more powerful UI than most average people are never going to need. At this point, I can't think of a setting that my parents would need that isn't there.
JoshTriplett 5y ago
Getting rid of tiles and similar seems like a substantial improvement, and might address part of people's complaints about Windows 10. The most important question, though: is Windows still "evergreen" with free updates, or will people have to buy Windows 11? The latter would mean we can't count on Windows systems being up to date. I was happily looking forward to the day when software could just support Windows 10 and no other Windows version.
- MrOxiMoron 5y ago
  yeah, no... I know a hospital that just upgraded to Windows 7...
  - roblabla 5y ago
    That hospital is dumb and will likely face issues in the near future then. Win7 isn't supported by Microsoft since early 2020, which means no more security updates. Given hospitals are getting more and more frequently targeted by ransomware... Well, we'll see how that goes. There's still win8 and win8.1 to worry about though, and win10 also has LTSC releases that stay supported for at least 10 years IIRC.
    - mrweasel 5y ago
      What I don’t get is hospitals buying things like MRI scanners, with Windows based “controller” with no upgrade path. The hospital, and the manufacturer, knows that the version of Windows they’re running will be EOL before the hardware, yet nobody ask the manufacturer how they plan to deal with that fact. The promise of Windows 10 being the last Windows could have but an end to that nonsense.
      - mimsee 5y ago
        > ...with no upgrade path. The manufacturer of the MRI machine doesn't care. In their mind the "upgrade path" is to buy a new one. That might support the current iteration of Windows + their drivers until the next Windows is released. Sure it's nonsense but the hospital can't just not have an MRI machine. They need one and someone will capitalize on that need.
speeder 5y ago
Snap layout felt to me a cute name for a feature I have seen last on Windows 3.1 That said I did liked that feature I am happy it is back.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
I'd love to watch the event stream but it is down.
dukeofdoom 5y ago
Except it will be the same old windows disguised.
- lupinglade 5y ago
  Exactly, just more lipstick on a pig. They never seem to fully commit to anything.
  - MaxBarraclough 5y ago
    That's too broad, they fully committed to Direct3D, and they're more committed to backward-compatibility than anyone else I could name. They have real trouble committing to a UI toolkit or design language, though.
    - lupinglade 5y ago
      That is what I am talking about, committing to UI changes and removing old crud that interferes with or goes against these changes.
sumthinprofound 5y ago
still no windows explorer tabs?
- djdjdkdkdkd 5y ago
  This. I thought they announced that feature as coming soon a couple of years ago.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    They did. Then they threw out the entire concept.
DethNinja 5y ago
So taskbar extends horizontally and places icons in the middle, which means: 1. It creates unnecessary visual clutter in the right and left sides and takes up valuable space. 2. Users will have harder time clicking to start button. I’m having hard time seeing what is UX benefit of this?
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  Why does MacOS do it?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - DethNinja 5y ago
    But macOS does it differently, visually it looks far pleasing that what is shown here. I’m not a huge fan of macOS dock bar but UX wise it isn’t so bad.
  - iaml 5y ago
    Because they don't have start button and corners are used to trigger actions (hot corners).
- partiallypro 5y ago
  You can move it back to the corner in the settings.
  - Grimm665 5y ago
    But why the change at all? I wonder what their user story for this one was.
    - partiallypro 5y ago
      I have wondered that too, I don't like the look of the new taskbar, I was hoping they'd do more with it with some of the user concepts floating around (such as a rounded floating taskbar.) I'm sure the true reason is that is what MacOS does, so they just copied it.
ThrowawayR2 5y ago
> "Microsoft is also integrating Microsoft Teams directly into Windows 11, for both consumers and commercial users." Not that I have any objections to Teams per se but attempting to drive adoption by bundling got Microsoft in trouble in the IE era; didn't they learn their lesson? Either way, probably the first thing I'll be doing after a fresh install of Windows 11 is uninstalling Teams.
- bun_at_work 5y ago
  Will uninstalling be an option? They say it's integrated, so that seems unlikely.
  - bserge 5y ago
    Most likely easy to disable. Pretty sure I have Cortana and Microsoft Store but I disabled the services, removed the Taskbar icons and never think about it heh.
    - CursedUrn 5y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if both of those are still running in Task Manager's process list if you look, under unassuming names like SearchUI.exe. It's quite hard to disable Microsoft's malware in my experience, a lot of it relaunches itself, or comes back after an OS update. The number of running Microsoft processes goes up every year.
      - swiley 5y ago
        I've given up. If you have a computer with a spinning rust disk this crap alone will saturate the I/O and become completely unusable. (then you have OEM bloatware which has also become harder to remove and bloated software in general on top of that.) At this point I just hand people thumbdrives with PopOS on them when they complain that their computer is slow. Both OSes run Android apps and between that, the web, and wine most people hardly miss anything.
  - bick_nyers 5y ago
MarcScott 5y ago
Developers can use their own payment systems, and MS take nothing. That's a bit of a kick in the teeth to Apple.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Except for, twist, if you are an Android developer. Amazon takes it's 20% cut no doubt, and to avoid the cut you need to make a native Windows app. Which actually isn't an awful incentive structure, but it's not 0% in the Store across the board. Also it doesn't count if you make Xbox games. Microsoft still takes a cut there. So it's 0% if it's a native Windows app and it isn't an Xbox Game. So let's just say Epic Games will still not be satisfied with this.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    I'd be surprised if they somehow limited side-loading apks on a PC.
- apozem 5y ago
  Absolutely. Microsoft doesn't have a large existing Windows Store business to protect, so why not make Apple's life harder? I think it's also the solution that best meets the reality of apps in 2021. Big third-party devs like Netflix and Amazon will opt out of in-app purchase entirely before giving a cut to the platform owner. May as well let them use their own payment system so users get a better experience than signing up on the web.
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    > Microsoft doesn't have a large existing Windows Store business to protect, This is how you GET a large existing Windows Store business.
    - flohofwoe 5y ago
      It's not like Microsoft hasn't tried very hard in the last 10 years to emulate the iOS business model, but I guess Windows users don't like walled gardens.
nsriv 5y ago
Looks like a ton of nice little QoL improvements for the vast majority of people especially with Snap and Multiple Desktops, with monitor layout memory. Hope that taskbar can still have programs with "non-combined" windows, as opposed to dock style. Using PowerToys Run personally seems like it's going to sidestep most of the complaints I'm seeing from this comment section.
- mdldndndn 5y ago
  My guess is they are just making a macOS style application taskbar default. I actually already use it that way on Windows 10, but there are occasions when I miss having minimized application instances in little rectangles. But these days I can run so many applications at a time that it quickly becomes too crowded to be of any use.
danirod 5y ago
At this point, I feel I don't have the energy to hate unjustified changes in user interfaces anymore such as integrating Microsoft Teams with the taskbar. As someone who doesn't use Microsoft Teams, as long as I can right click and remove the button from the taskbar so that I can move on until the next "forced UI change", I'll be good.
neogodless 5y ago
Integrated Android apps through the Amazon App Store (and Widgets). Otherwise nothing too significant announced yet.
ttty2 5y ago
I'm pretty sure the main point is to send more spam within the os. I hated Linux ux ui for long time but windows is pushing it to the limits... And I'm finally thinking to move to Linux.
kyriakos 5y ago
Apart from the UI there seem to be some interesting gaming upgrades backported from xbox into windows (direct storage and autohdr). Autohdr in particular works really well on my xbox / tv combo.
Ecstatify 5y ago
Presentation is so cringe. Why does the main presenter sound like he's about to start crying and tell me he always loved me.
JamesAdir 5y ago
Anyone has a good guess why Microsoft needed to bump the version? All of these updates seems something that can be easily updated to Windows 10 in several or one half year update. Is this something related to it's corporate clients or licensing services? Really can't understand why a need to create a new version with so much hype, when they've announced in the past that W10 will be the last Windows version.
- TonyTrapp 5y ago
  Maybe they had to now that macOS finally arrived at version 11 as well ;)
- somebody_amzn 5y ago
  They wanted to drop support for quite some old hardware, like 32-bit only machines, which are no longer supported in Windows 11. (and some newer ones too, rumours say that a TPM might be mandatory to have, finally) Dumping support for HW and major UX changes without bumping the version number is a bad idea.
- EvanAnderson 5y ago
  I'm betting that getting out of support / lifecycle requirements is part of the major version bump. Internet Explorer 11 support is likely tied to the lifecycle of Windows 10.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    Sadly, I'll still be supporting IE11 on Windows 10 for the next decade. The bane of a massive company with old people that panic at opening chrome.
    - charrondev 5y ago
      Should edge be replacing that?
      - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
Retric 5y ago
Wow, Windows just keeps getting worse. Anyone know who’s responsible for the Mac OS inspired start menu? Presumably it’s an easy to change default, but why exactly copy such a user hostile layout.
- aaomidi 5y ago
  I do. It was Microsoft.
72deluxe 5y ago
Looks like Windows Monterey, with the "Start menu" now being a Spotlight clone! I am unsure if the removal of the titlebar is a good thing - there is still an alt-space menu to the left of windows that do not have an icon top left, and double-clicking on a titlebar is a convenient place to double-click; this isn't possible with no titlebar (eg. in Chrome/Firefox at the moment). Looks a nice modern UI refresh though.
nsriv 5y ago
I think an interesting thing mentioned at the end about the Microsoft Store is that if developers use their own "commerce engine" they keep 100% of the profits.
nsriv 5y ago
Not a fan of the Android apps installable and discoverable onto Windows...but through the Amazon appstore. Weird, and I'd much more prefer installing to PC from Google Play itself.
- jccalhoun 5y ago
  Probably not google because google wouldn't play ball. I wonder if users will be able to (easily) sideload android apps since not everything is in Amazon's app store and apps there are often not updated as often as the google play store version.
  - nsriv 5y ago
    Right, that was my assumption too. Sideloading would be my way around, but I'm guessing there may be some runtime signing or containerizing involved as well, else every Android vulnerability just became a Windows vulnerability.
- yellowfish 5y ago
  I think amazon's appstore is free of google play services which could be a big reason
  - fooey 5y ago
    Not having google play services is a big reason the amazon store is a barren wasteland
- jannes 5y ago
  Do you really think Google would allow that?
  - nsriv 5y ago
    Honestly, yes. Someone else mentioned Google Play Services being a probable point of contention. Overall, with Surface Duo, Microsoft Launcher and Google's work towards making Flutter along with the leverage and developer interest they'd gain through having the Windows install base using the Play Store, it seems like a fair relationship.
was_a_dev 5y ago
I have my taskbar vertical on the left of my screen - so that will be interesting in Windows 11
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  Me too is that no longer an option?
scoutt 5y ago
So the first tweak would be something like: .bar_icons { float: left; padding: 10px; }
bun_at_work 5y ago
Now is the time to abandon Windows. I don't know what can replace it right now, for non-technical users, but the market is ready for an OS that isn't tied to hardware (MacOS) and doesn't require as much expertise or effort as Linux variants (especially when running specific software). Microsoft is here with Windows 11, integrating teams into the OS, because they want to shill it, not because it's what users want. They are making claims about it being more performant, but that's hard to imagine when considering their promises for backwards compatibility. Windows is a bloated nuisance OS that only stays around because of legacy software and DirectX. The folks at Microsoft who work on Windows have demonstrated for decades now that they care more about implementing new features than they care about user experience, consistency, and reliability. Here comes another UI overhaul instead of simply fixing the trash menus and numerous other problems the OS has. Why? It's time to move on from Windows.
- seniorThrowaway 5y ago
  >Windows is a bloated nuisance OS that only stays around because of legacy software and DirectX The reason it stays around is because of it's entrenched market share at very large enterprises. Until there is a replacement for managing huge numbers of end user devices centrally that is as easy or easier then Active Directory that won't change.
  - bun_at_work 5y ago
    Ah yeah, AD is another reason it stays around, however, like DirectX, it can be replaced. It's a ripe market opportunity.
    - imbnwa 5y ago
      Replacing DX is a tall order
- nsriv 5y ago
  I think Teams integration is more of an acknowledgement that video-calling and workplace collaboration is a default usecase for desktop computing (like email, calendar, calculator, text editing). >They are making claims about it being more performant, but that's hard to imagine when considering their promises for backwards compatibility. I can run Windows 95 programs on Windows 10, not sure where the knock is coming from on backwards compatibility. >Here comes another UI overhaul instead of simply fixing the trash menus From the leaked ISO, the menus are much improved and overhauled. Sure, I want a modern tabbed File Explorer too, but it's clearly being worked on.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
We fired shots at BlueStacks and Zoom. Rejoice with us.
ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
I would really like to know if there's anything positive besides UI and up-to-date security this brings to a user's table compared to Windows 7.
partiallypro 5y ago
One thing that stood out to me as missing, was a file explorer demo. Have they just given up on revamping that?
- 72deluxe 5y ago
  Let's hope it wasn't as bad as the "revamp" in Windows 10 where that dumb ribbon replaced a usable toolbar for good, where Quick Access apparently was necessary because obviously the file directory listing wasn't obvious enough... And pressing tab to get to the other pane now gave focus to the list header when in details view, forcing you to press tab 30 times to get between the left and right panes. I think the most useful Explorer version was the Windows 98 one or possibly XP, but it went downhill in Vista. Let's hope they had a change of heart and just reverted to that old version!!!
aplkorex 5y ago
I work at a company where the majority of the employees complain about every new version of Windows, some rather aggressively. They resist adoption until the last possible minute. Then when they upgrade, what do they do? — continue to use Windows to make cool stuff so our company continues to grow and, in reality, persist with the same exact workflow they had the week before... it just looks a little different. Then the complaints die off, and, well, on to other things.... Until the next version of Windows is announced.
- Shadonototro 5y ago
  and then management have to upgrade PCs because it runs noticeably slower and tinker with services even more because it interrupts workflow (remember the windows update popups during weather forecasts?)
DoctorDabadedoo 5y ago
I wish MS stopped doing redesign of their interfaces every couple of years and just fixed the broken stuff the introduced somewhere along the way. - Settings / control panel inconsistency and the other dozen places you can change configs for a single thing - Telemetry, ads and system crap - Package management and sandboxing And the list goes on.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  Most of those are actually features. 1. Old control panels: Drivers may overlay or modify the window, so you can't really change them (don't forget: Windows supports many obscure devices like DAWs and heavy machinery, many things Linux users have never even considered connecting to a PC, and all of those have custom drivers from the device manufacturer that Microsoft doesn't control) 2. Telemetry, ads: Yes, this is a serious "bug" that Microsoft needs to fix, how do they keep accidentally adding fully-featured invasive telemetry and ad platforms into their OS? I guess that's what copying code from StackOverflow gets you! 3. Package management: NuGet? 4. Sandboxing: All modern OSs support lots of sandboxing options, not sure what you mean by this
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
    > 3. Package management: NuGet? WinGet is their answer to this one: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-package-manager-1-0/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-package-m... It's not proper package management, but it's a start.
    - stinos 5y ago
      Powershell + ChocolateyGet (+ DSC if you want) does a pretty good job already. Apart from specialized software it's been years I had to install via tedious hunt for link + download + execute + go through wizards or similar. That being said, the meat of it is 3rd party so not having package management builtin is a valid complaint. Then again, if you think about what that would take: non-trivial.
  - infogulch 5y ago
LyalinDotCom 5y ago
FYI the official announcement is here: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/06/24/introducing-windows-11/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/06/24/intro...
satysin 5y ago
So to summerize what they have announced (so far) - * A new look task bar. Centred similar to the macOS dock by default but lacking the ability to position on any other screen edge? * A new start menu design * Windows have rounded corners * Some built in apps such as the Xbox app and Microsoft Store have been redesigned (Xbox Game Pass and xCloud built into the Xbox app) * New touch keyboard (SwiftKey?) with improved speech recognition * New haptics when a stylus is used * Teams integrated into Windows * Support for Android apps built into the OS (using Intel Bridge technology whatever that is?). Apparently this works via the Amazon App Store although I am not sure what this actually means in a practical sense? * A new widgets fly out for weather, news, etc. (appears this will require you login with a Microsoft Account) * Improved windows snapping with a dynamic (based on your screen(s) size and layout) UI built into the maximize button * DirectX 12 improvements (unsure if limited to Windows 11 only?) * Auto HDR for games * Improved experience when switching between tablet and desktop modes * Apparently there will be "Windows 11 ready" PCs for sale "today"? * Microsoft say they have been working with AMD, Intel and Qualcomm to optimise the silicon for Windows 11 * 40% smaller Windows Updates * TPM 2.0 and UEFI are hardware requirements. No legacy BIOS compatibility at all? * A Microsoft account and internet connectivity is required for Windows 11 Home setup * 64-bit processor required (no 32-bit build at all?) * There is a universal mute button in the system tray so you can mute yourself system wide rather than in the app Probably some other things I have missed
- zeusk 5y ago
  I work on displays, AutoHDR and DX12 changes are coming to 10 as well (unsure about win7 or dx12on11).
- Semaphor 5y ago
  > lacking the ability to position on any other screen edge? I didn’t watch the video, and your question mark gives me hope: Was this actually said? A horizontal taskbar would be horrible.
  - satysin 5y ago
    They didn't say however in the leaked build last week the taskbar could not be moved to the left, right or top of the screen as it previously could. Hopefully it was just a limitation in that particular developer build.
Datagenerator 5y ago
How to downvote?
colechristensen 5y ago
I was happy with Windows 95 UI, really. Congratulations on incrementing a number and changing things so I'll be annoyed by a marginally different set of things? I can't raise to caring about something which should be done at this point. To some people it is important I'm sure but a lot of us just want the OS to keep doing the basics and get out of the way.
- swiley 5y ago
  One of the biggest arguments I hear for using Windows instead of Linux is that people are used to the UI. I've been using the same FVWM config and shells inside Xterms since I started using Linux 18 years ago, meanwhile Windows has gone through something like 4 redesigns.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
mandeepj 5y ago
"Teams" sound great in a work environment. But, at home - I'm not sure.
uncomputation 5y ago
> Windows updates are 40 percent smaller, and more efficient as they now happen in the background. Hopefully that will mean that Windows 11 doesn’t disturb you in the middle of work. I wonder why this was never done sooner considering Windows is basically synonymous with “enterprise.”
SavantIdiot 5y ago
I can't wait to see if "Device Manager" still uses the same Windows 95 GUI.
- CursedUrn 5y ago
  If you're lucky they've built a new one with reduced functionality and a button to open the old one. That's how they usually handle things.
pavlov 5y ago
Pop-up file previews with spacebar in Explorer please...? That's my #1 pain point when moving between Mac and Windows. It's so annoying that the spacebar does nothing.
- MikusR 5y ago
  There is an app for that "good" feature.
  - pavlov 5y ago
    Windows has an admirable amount of API hooks, so there's presumably an app for everything. That's not an excuse not to improve base Explorer, though.
- fleaaaa 5y ago
  Quicklook does the job fine
TheDudeMan 5y ago
How about they just re-release Windows 7 instead?
nprateem 5y ago
Could have been a release video for KDE.
desktopninja 5y ago
But can it run winamp-v2.92? :)
mmastrac 5y ago
Remember: always skip every second version of Windows! But seriously, 10 is pretty good and is there really a compelling reason to move?
awiesenhofer 5y ago
> Windows 11 will be available through a free upgrade for eligible Windows 10 PCs and on new PCs beginning this holiday. which holiday? Do they mean Christmas 2021? Edit: via https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/06/24/introducing-windows-11/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/06/24/intro...
mdavid626 5y ago
Hmm, nice improvements, but is it just me who doesn’t care about them at all? Most of them feels like change just for the sake of change, but not an actual improvement.
- silicon2401 5y ago
  > change just for the sake of change, but not an actual improvement. That's a lot of software change. I couldn't care less about aesthetic changes in MacOS, windows, android, xbox, but they're all forced on the users no matter what. If I had the choice, I'd still be using whatever android version my galaxy s3 had, the windows 95 UI, and the Mac OSX UI. But the easiest way to make people want something new is to make it look new I guess
- dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
  Not you, re not alone, and some of them (like no local accounts) seem like a step backward.
  - satysin 5y ago
    To clarify there are still local accounts in all versions. However to complete the setup a Microsoft account is required in the Home edition. You can then create other local accounts. In other editions you can create a local account during setup. In the leaked build it is possible to cancel out of the forced Microsoft account requirement in Home by closing the screen with a simple Alt+F4 however that may be changed in the final build.
- marcthe12 5y ago
  There is a severe bump in hardware requirement. Prob the main reason the even did this (big enough to warrant some kind of LTS). Obviously that doesn't sell so there so other random changes
Ajedi32 5y ago
Looks like some pretty nice improvements, particularly in regards to window management. From the video, it sounds like they're adding persistent grid layouts, with apps able to be assigned to specific tiles in the grid, and Windows remembers and restores those positions when you restart apps or switch monitor layouts (e.g. when connecting a laptop to a docking station). Looks like they've also expanded the multi-desktop feature to integrate nicely with these new persistent grid layouts, with labeled desktops for particular tasks. The new native support for Android apps also seems like it could be really useful, depending on how well-integrated it is with the rest of the OS.
thibran 5y ago
Looks like KDE with fixed magins :)
wodenokoto 5y ago
How does word look using the new design language? Still ribbons or is it back to menus or something completely different?
watertom 5y ago
macos
smusamashah 5y ago
The trailer made me feel like a dumb windows user who doesn't know how to do anything. Those big zoomed in windows, buttons and other interfaces felt popping directly on face. What does it offer for power users?
- d0gbread 5y ago
  You sound like my dad watching car commercials. If you're a power user, the trailer isn't for you. You'll find what you care about; spec sheets, etc.
bigtex 5y ago
Will Windows 11 run on ARM and be publicly available?
chadlavi 5y ago
Quite a lot of stuff in that new UI looks directly pilfered from apple. And "you can run android apps" sounds like a direct copy of macOS running iPad apps. Even the (in windows' case, completely nonsensical) decision to center the taskbar feels like a ripoff of apple ui.
Shadonototro 5y ago
meh, sounds like more of the same atrocities since Windows8 no fundamental changes other than cosmetics no tabs on file explorer, why the heck they kept ribbon interface... wasn't windows 11 supposed to be about having an uniform and consistent design? no changes on filesystem? still have to wait 88486468468 minutes when deleting a folder with lot of files? -- the only positive surprise was android apps, BUT quickly became uninterested the minute they mentioned amazon store.. yeah no thanks
dang 5y ago
Related ongoing thread: Introducing Windows 11 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27619354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27619354
vmateixeira 5y ago
Does it come spyware free?
- Phil_Latio 5y ago
  It's just telemetry bro!
aloer 5y ago
First screenshots look like they have a normal curve for rounded corners. Not that special apple curve thing. Is that protected in any way?
kleiba 5y ago
> "Microsoft is also integrating Microsoft Teams directly into Windows 11, for both consumers and commercial users." Have they not learned from the legal backlash with IE back in the day?
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I think we're beyond that now. So many illegal monopolistic activities have happened in the past decade that I've lost all faith in the US government. If a new Teddy Roosevelt doesn't come around soon, it's gonna be the railroads owning the country all over again.
- WesleyLivesay 5y ago
  Not really different than Apple including iMessage and Facetime.
dragonwriter 5y ago
The lack of support for start menu folders and named groups of apps probably means that not only with the Start Menu suck even worse than in Win 8-10, but third party replacements will no longer have the data available to restore a decent experience. As with the “task bar only can be attached to the bottom of the screen”, um, “feature”, I really don’t get this. Okay, sure, MS targets a default UX that I’m not partial too, fine, maybe its better for more of the market; lots of it is subjective so I don’t expect my tastes to be catered to in every default. But why throw roadblocks in the way of what people who don’t prefer the default experience have been doing for years to optimize their personal experience?
- zubspace 5y ago
  It's even more annoying if the change just happens because of 'design'. Can you imagine being the developer who says: "Well, let's redesign that thing to make it look awesome. And well, let's also remove all those existing features, which only complicate the code. Don't need them." Never in my life could I work at my current company with this mindset without being thrown out in an instant. It's such an odd way to approach redesigns.
literallyaduck 5y ago
Every time this happens someone says fuck it and installs Linux. After two weeks some of them come back, but the Linux market share grows. I want an OS that stays current on security patches, attempts to be as unobtrusive as possible, allows for Desktop Environment customization but has sane defaults. I don't want special integrations. The OS should follow single responsibility and defer special functionality to app developers.
- dgan 5y ago
  I said exactly that to myself when Windows 8 was out, quite happy since then:)
- miroz 5y ago
  I did this when Vista came out. I said fuck it and installed Ubuntu, I had enough of Microsoft bullshit. Then Ubuntu upgraded and moved all window icons to the left side and rearranged them awkwardly. On the next update, they upgraded the sound subsystem and I was without sound until I bought my next PC. Another update came and computer went to sleep when watching movies, so I had to move the mouse every minute to fix it. I said fuck it and installed Windows 7. There's no escape.
  - handrous 5y ago
    My most recent attempt, last year, ended when xorg and Wayland both crashed, reliably, at least once per day, on two different distros (Fedora, Ubuntu) when just using the desktop normally—not even running games or anything like that. Nope. Not accepting that shit in the year 2021. 2000-me would have been like, OK, cool, Windows does that too. Not anymore. ... and that's just for my screwing-around desktop machine. Work goes on macOS. I wish I had other decent options, but it's the only game in town. No time or patience for messing with my OS, these days.
  - zamadatix 5y ago
    The upside to Linux is when one of these kinds of changes happen you have the freedom to modify or swap out components to your liking. The downside to Linux is nobody actually wants to constantly modify or maintain components to their liking and nobody can agree what a good liking is so nobody likes the way somebody else does it.
Koshkin 5y ago
Yet another related ongoing thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27619831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27619831
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
It's OK, 2022 will be the year of the Linux desktop
polskibus 5y ago
I hope embedding Teams will lead to antitrust like IE did. This is basically making everyone use Teams and will cut out a lot of competitors and other companies who have some form of collaboration built-in into their product.
- kinjba11 5y ago
  I'm with you, but I doubt it. To my knowledge, Apple hasn't faced any antitrust pressure from bundling FaceTime and iMessage into iOS/Mac OS.
- sbelskie 5y ago
  How does this make everyone use Teams?
  - kinjba11 5y ago
    "Everyone" in a casual sense. You don't have to use Safari, iMessage and FaceTime on Apple devices, but for all intents and purposes "everyone" does because it's the default. Similar to Internet Explorer on Windows - clearly inferior product, but it took years for it to become common knowledge among the non-technical folks that you really should install a better browser.
- ziml77 5y ago
  Just like everyone is using OneDrive, Edge, and Bing?
stewx 5y ago
The Xbox app is terrible, performance-wise. It feels like a poorly implemented Electron app.
schlotzisk 5y ago
It's mind boggling to me, that Microsoft went with a redesign here. Personally the Windows UI never bothered me that much. I just feel like that they could have focused more on things like, stability, the search functionality or, and I'm not even kidding, printer and scanner support.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  There's nothing wrong with redesign as long as they do it consistently across the whole OS, but from my experience, they reskin like 30% of the stuff and everything else stays inconsistent [0]. If they're gonna work on UI, I'd like to see them actually grow that 30% rather than keep changing things up. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27556754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27556754
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    I agree, they should have done the boring but worthwhile work of updating the control panel, font selector, etc. But nope. Add more inconsistency. And make the start button harder to click while you're at it.
typh00n 5y ago
I really do like Windows, but it has a lot of issues for me: Pushing its users to Microsoft Accounts, telemetry, ads, bloatware it automatically installs, and last but not least inconsistencies all the way through the OS - and adding another design-layer with windows 11 wont help that. I think microsoft really need to address some of this and get back to the needs of "prosumers". I personally want a slim but nice looking OS. The only thing keeping me away from Linux at this point are games. I know, Proton opened huge possibilities but unfortunately it is not enough in my case. Either games won't work because of DRM (e.g. FallGuys), or the game itself runs fine but needed mods to run online-multiplayer are not possible on Linux. (e.g. Command & Conquer 3 + CnC-Online)
- Icathian 5y ago
  I've said for years the day I can reliably play League of Legends on Linux you'll never see me using anything else at home again. Just frustrating that gaming is still largely a best-effort crapshoot despite all the work by Valve and others.
  - fermentation 5y ago
    Last summer all I had was a linux box to play games, and I found that a lot of games I wanted to play (like the witcher 3) worked surprisingly well via Proton. I think the main issues come from the massive GaaS like LoL and Destiny that have so many moving parts and points of failure.
- npteljes 5y ago
  "Pushing" really is the thing that bother me most about Windows. Just so pushy about a lot of stuff. Putting things here, there, switching it around, turning it off when it was always on, and vice versa. I just have the feeling that it very strongly wants something, and that's not what I want. Windows as a requirement is really unfortunate. I have the same reasons as you to keep it around. Win compatibility came a really, really long way, but anti-cheat will always be a problem, which cuts out a good chunk of games.
russli1993 5y ago
they are integrating teams, onedrive, office, microsoft 365 stuff directly into windows 11. Doesn't that spark anti-trust concerns? Think about Microsoft was fined for anti-trust for integrating internet explorer into windows and making it the default. Looks like every platform holder is just using the dominance of their platform to push their other stuff.
chris_wot 5y ago
40% smaller Windows updates? I think they are missing the point. It’s not the size of the download, it’s the time it takes for Windows to work out its package dependency treee, it’s ridiculous SxS system that was only ever a massive kluge, and the incredible number of forced reboots. If it takes me no more than five minutes to run an apt update && apt upgrade —-yes with no reboots, how on earth is it that Microsoft is still so behind the eight ball? Note that apt upgrades everything in minutes, whilst Windows does not.
fastball 5y ago
But does it run on ARM?
dustinc1 5y ago
seems there's free upgrade from windows 10 to windows 11, but not from windows 7 to 11.
- franciscodias00 5y ago
  yup!
markus_zhang 5y ago
I think this actually going to convice me to move to Linux for daily use...
eljimmy 5y ago
I wonder if Microsoft would ever release a flavor of Windows targeted at the user who wants a minimalist but equally powerful OS which gives the user absolute control. Someone who wants local only accounts, bare-bones UI, no tablet or touch screen support, no app stores or telemetry, no integrations, just plain old Windows. Wishful thinking, probably.
- achn 5y ago
  Very wishful, unfortunately. The entire goal of this update is to move windows closer to an AppStore model where MS makes money off of driving the behaviour of its users and monetizing external developers. Even on the server, admins have less and less control over the services running.
- wilsonnb3 5y ago
  Windows server is pretty close to what you want
meamin 5y ago
> Android Apps Not long till the Surface Dou will be running Windows 11 instead of Android. Then comes the Surface Phone.
virgulino 5y ago
No AMD Zen 1st gen support: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-11-supported-amd-processors https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/min... Zen+ supported. I wonder why.
- TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
  There are some hardware issues with the first gen. Could it be related?
- bloggie 5y ago
  Only 8th gen and up Intels supported... 5 year old computers are unsupported. Surprising.
- easton 5y ago
  I bet the TPM isn’t 2.0. I was hoping buying into AM4 would mean I could keep this board longer too, but the but the 5xxx chips aren’t compatible with the original chipset. My machine is super fast, but I guess unless I feel like staying on insider (which will have the TPM requirement patched out for the next little while according to MS), I’ll need to upgrade sooner than I planned.
  - virgulino 5y ago
    I don't think the problem is the TPM. I am running a Ryzen 2200G (1st gen Zen) on an Asus Tuf B450M-Pro S. I have fTPM (firmware TPM) enabled in the BIOS. My Windows 10 detects a running TPM 2.0. I just ran the MS "PC Health Check", and it tells me "This PC cannot run Windows 11" . This is a brand new machine. I built it 2 months ago. It was the only Ryzen APU available to buy online here in Brazil! Bummer.
    - shing3232 5y ago
      You need secureboot,GPT partition table as well
binkHN 5y ago
I think I might switch to Chrome OS when this happens.
n_io 5y ago
Am I the only one who feels like Windows 11, at its core, is just one giant telemetry upgrade with a shinier UI?
agumonkey 5y ago
I'm still baffled it's still about moving windows and apps around (now with a global mute button).
dolmen 5y ago
"people will be able to discover Android apps in the Microsoft Store and download them through the Amazon Appstore" 3 big tech in one sentence from Microsoft.
aj7 5y ago
That’s all well and good, but I’d just like search to work as well as it does on MacOSX.
akagusu 5y ago
Windows is extremely hostile to user's privacy, usability, and anything else you can imagine. Microsoft has extremely hostile business practices for both consumers and competitors and yet nobody cares. All Microsoft needs to do is to show a nice list of features nobody asked for even if you are forced to upgrade your machine because high minimum requirements. This is the world we live.
fomine3 5y ago
Removing feature to move taskbar is horrible. It must be reverted.
murrayb 5y ago
What happened to "Windows 10 is the last version of Windows?" (eg. https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-ve...) Will the upgrade be in-place as per Windows 10 updates?
- zamadatix 5y ago
  > That was the message from Microsoft employee Jerry Nixon, a developer evangelist That was just one employees comment at initial release and the guy probably just intended to communicate the idea Windows 10 will get continuous incremental features updates for a very long time without version change not make a lifelong promise they'll never make another version again (even though that's the literal meaning of what he ended up saying). Upgrade wise it'll be free and automatic just like any normal Windows 10 update assuming your hardware qualifies.
kaptain 5y ago
I tried switching to Windows about 2 years ago from macOS. I found that the lack of a good replacement for Preview was a real deal breaker for me. I tried a lot of different things to make it work. It wasn't the only thing, but the fact that I spent so much time finding a PDF viewer/light-editor that didn't have adware, was free, and had enough functionality was difficult (in my case I was unsuccessful) on Windows. Hopefully they'll include a great PDF viewer/editor. Making PDF ubiquitous on macOS was a real smart move.
- _coveredInBees 5y ago
  I'm the opposite. I can't believe that Finder is the best Apple can do for a file explorer. It is an absolute abomination and after 4 years of using my MBP I still hate it passionately every time I have to use it. I agree that preview is nice, as is Spotlight. But for me, OSX is getting too locked down at this point as a "power user". The sandbox makes apps take obscenely long to open like as if I've been teleported to the 90s with spinning disk laptop hard drives. A bunch of useful preview extensions all broke with Catalina's latest efforts to lock things down more and more. I hate how many hoops you are forced to jump through to get any non appstore app to get installed. I thought OSX + MBP would be a solid and stable experience but I've been plagued by a well known kernel panic based error very frequently when I plug into a dock, resulting in hard reboots. I'm definitely going to switch back to Windows with my next laptop. I'm sure there will be things I will miss, but OSX hasn't lived up to my expectations. I do most of my work on an Ubuntu box via VNC/SSH, and the lack of CUDA support makes the MBP kinda useless for prototyping ML/DL stuff as well.
  - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
    > I'm the opposite. I can't believe that Finder is the best Apple can do for a file explorer. It is an absolute abomination and after 4 years of using my MBP I still hate it passionately every time I have to use it. Brother, I feel you. I hate finder so much I operate almost exclusively from the command line in os x.
    - Exuma 5y ago
nevster 5y ago
Panos Panay: "I'm super excited". That guy cracks me up.
koirapoika 5y ago
Each Microsoft Windows release makes me check how ReactOS is doing.
boublepop 5y ago
Sounds like the business plan is: Murder zoom, Burn down slack, Destroy steam I’m surprised they aren’t trying to eliminate Facebook by integrating a social network and messaging. Perhaps the year of Linux on the desktop will come about when all the giants of the industry get together to fund a viable competitor to windows because they get fed up with Microsoft trying to “compete” by sucking the oxygen out of the room with features forced upon users.
graphenus 5y ago
Teams are now an integrated part of Windows. Smells like an another antitrust case, or Europeans are going to get a version without this.
samuell 5y ago
Re. the UI, I can't believe my eyes! When Windows (with 10) finally arrived at a sharper, better UI than anything else (albeit destroyed by ads and constant privacy violations) they suddenly throw that out for a crappy version of the KDE 5 Plasma desktop, a remnant from last decade ...
Wildgoose 5y ago
Note what Microsoft has said about the taskbar: "Alignment to the bottom of the screen is the only location allowed." Screens are much wider than they are tall, if this has to be fixed it should be on the left/right side of the screen. (As appropriate for the direction in which you read, i.e. left-to-right or right-to-left).

551 points by neogodless 5y ago

24 years ago my company moved from mac to windows (granted macs would crash every 20 minutes). At the time we were given a windows laptop to try for a bit, with the rollout a month or so later. When I went to shut it down I asked how to... 'press start', I was told. I thought 'nope, they still don't get it... pressing start to stop... send it back to them and tell them to try again and harder'. Its still true.

Crono 5y ago
That old joke ... But i have a solution for you: You could use that fancy thing called a "power button" - no joke, it will actually help you in turing of the computer - or do you want to only start it with this button? Jokes aside: cmon, its not a big deal to open the windows menu to power of the machine. The Word "Start" is now missing since Windows Vista which released 2007 - nearly 15 Years ago!

nly 5y ago

Stealing all the advanced window management features from the Linux DE world... say repeatedly that no other OS does it. Stay classy MS.

1_player 5y ago
Ask the Linux DE world to put a patent on it and litigate everyone that tries to steal their ground-breaking ideas.

_benj 5y ago

I honestly was expecting more "innovation", more daring decisions and deep convictions that "this new way", even though it might get some backlash, will prove to improve the wellbeing of it's users, even if they don't know it yet. I haven't seen anything like that since the days of Steven Jobs and it kind of saddens me. Have we reached a plateau in tech? Are we just up for making more of the same, just a little different, as long as we can get VC or increase the stock price? Are there no more Wright Brothers? Alex G. Bell? Elon Musk for more industries? Sorry for the sad comment, but this release just disappointed me. Idk what I was expecting, but it wasn't just another Windows...

tomtheelder 5y ago
Desktop OSes have been basically stagnant for almost 20 years. There's plenty of software innovation out there, but not in this space.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
I was hoping 11 would get rid of a bunch of old Windows backwards compatibility cruft. Make Windows 10 the long-run version and Windows 11 the forward looking one. Almost like what Apple did with Mac OS X.
- wvenable 5y ago
  Mac OS X has direct linage from NeXTStep that was first released in 1989 -- four years before Windows NT. When it was originally rebranded OS X there was so much backlash from developers and Apple had to go back and spend a year creating a new API (Carbon) to mimic the one in Mac OS classic. There is no reason to complain about "backwards compatibility cruft". An OS exists to run software and an OS that runs less software is less useful. Over time this backwards compatibility stuff is less and less significant -- you can run several copies of Windows 95 entirely in the L2 cache of a modern system.
- timw4mail 5y ago
  16bit support isn't legacy enough? No 32bit install?
- marcthe12 5y ago
  Well did drop 32 bit and bios. So they probably dropped a huge chunk of kernel code
rhengles 5y ago
They tried that with Windows 8, the backslash was so enormous that I think they will be on the safe side and stick with 'familiarity' for the foreseeable future.
- imbnwa 5y ago

arathore 5y ago

I am looking forward to performance improvements. It would be great if the core window services were optimized to use less resources to improve the windows experience on less impressive hardware.

nevi-me 5y ago

I didn't hear anything about availability, previews, etc. Did I miss something? I listened to the live stream in the background, and also skimmed through The Verge's article and live stream. As a happy Windows user, this looks exciting. I hope that there'll be a Windows Pro upgrade path that's not pocket-heavy, so I can update my 8 year old laptop, and my recent desktop without paying too much.

oramit 5y ago

Microsoft and Apple both said a few years back that they had "finished" their respective operating systems and were no longer going to do versioning like this. I wonder why the change of heart?

charwalker 5y ago
New execs need to make their mark.

priyanmuthu 5y ago

I see that it supports Android apps. Does that mean we have complete GUI support for WSL2? I believe it will use WSL2 in the backend?

ewzimm 5y ago
Full GUI support is available now in preview, so by the time Windows 11 launches, it should be ready for mainstream support. It uses Wayland and RDP natively. I haven't seen any announcement of if this will be used for the Android support layer, but it will likely be using something similar. Edit: It looks like this will be using Intel Bridge Technology to cross compile into x86. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-tech-unleashes-windows-experience.html#gs.45gu1s https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-...

janandonly 5y ago

After looking at these screenshots I’m more grateful to be using macOS now than ever before...

72deluxe 5y ago
Because it looks exactly the same??
imbnwa 5y ago
Real question is where are all the old Win2K dialogs and menus hiding

A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago

Wasn't 10 supposed to be the last Windows ever? Isn't that how some of the more annoying update habits were justified to the users? I am underwhelmed with Win 11. I did not see a feature that felt sufficiently useful to justify coming back. I am not sure, who would consciously choose it outside of business sector and gaming.

jl6 5y ago

So many questions… Will Win10 users be able to upgrade to Win11 for free or will they have to buy it? What’s the end-of-life date for Win10 now? Will the minimum hardware requirements be increased? Will this be used as an opportunity to make backwards-compatibility-breaking improvements? Are they actually going to fix the whole UI or just 80% of it and leave the remaining 20% as sedimentary layers of previous UIs? And I really really really hope they fix Teams’ performance and stability issues before bundling it with the OS and running it continuously.

MarcScott 5y ago
Some answers here - https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22546801/microsoft-windows-11-free-upgrade-details https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22546801/microsoft-window...
- acwan93 5y ago
  More details here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica...
  - ehsankia 5y ago
    Great link, thanks! Found this unfortunate change deep down: > Taskbar functionality is changed including: Alignment to the bottom of the screen is the only location allowed.
salamandersauce 5y ago
Free. 2025. Yes, 32-bit CPUs are out. I guess with 32-bit mode so goes 16-bit support? Probably not to the last two?
- xxpor 5y ago
  IIRC 16 bit support was dropped with 8 or 10?

1-6 5y ago

I think most people scratch their heads when they hear Windows 11 because it seems like the same Windows but skinned with a slightly new UI. This is also from a company which puts function over form.

extrememacaroni 5y ago

It looks so much like a theme/skin from a linux distro to me. Can't put my finger on which.

notRobot 5y ago

Can't we just go back to Windows 7 UI and UX with modern Windows 10 feature and security enhancements?

antisthenes 5y ago
W7 was the only MS product I ever paid money for (as a student), and feel like it was a great deal. Would gladly keep paying for security enhancements for it and don't really see anything that W10 (or W11 for that matter) offers over it for work or gaming. It's a real shame that taking away controls from power users seem to be more important than providing a great product. But I guess when you're a monopoly you can do whatever you want.
- NtGuy25 5y ago
  What control is taken away from power users? Most things can be toggled in the registry, and won't go away due to compatibility reasons. And patchguard can be disabled extremely easily. Same with DSE. I can't think of a single thing a power user can't do on Win 10 that they can on Win 7.
  - antisthenes 5y ago
    Can you make the interface of W10 look like W7? How about easily removing bloatware without being an internet detective? Customize those ugly flat panels that MS stuck everywhere next to Windows 3.1 legacy selection boxes? Also, yes. I guess if you are willing to spend an extra 10-20hrs of your time to configure group policies and registry tweaks and removing telemetry to get it into an "acceptable" state...for exactly the same experience, then it's fine. Even then, I keep reading horror stories about settings being reverted after updates and the OS generally not respecting uptime over vague "security" updates. I don't find that acceptable, unless MS cuts me a check for wasted hours of my time every time I have to fix something that wasn't broken. For comparison, my W7 system has been rock stable since 2016, with most system downtime due to physical hardware changes and updates. To be fair, some use cases were improved in W10. Mobile (bluetooth) connectivity seems to be working great. So are things like making a wi-fi hotspot and networking in general. (I don't have in-depth knowledge about other improvements because they're outside of my use cases)

hughrr 5y ago

Sorry for the not very constructive comment but it looks like ass. Like a B grade KDE theme.

dawnerd 5y ago
Microsoft needs to hire a proper UX/UI team. It looks like developers designed it.
- jtvjan 5y ago
  If developers designed it, it wouldn't have all these rounded corners, superfluous animations, and useless padding everywhere.
  - hughrr 5y ago
    Yea as a developer if I did it, it’d still look like windows NT.
  - dawnerd 5y ago
    It would if you have product people saying they want it to look like Macos but just lets the developers run with it.
voldacar 5y ago
OS aesthetics just seem so bland and meek these days. I think Win7 Aero/OSX Lion/Compiz cube thing was the peak and after that everything became homogenized and boring. I want my computer to look cool, goddammit
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  At least they aren't trying to make everything as white and minimalist as possible...
  - hughrr 5y ago
    To be fair that’s actually working the best for me at the moment. Mostly because it is at least consistently white and consistently minimalist.

fader 5y ago

Putting the start menu button in the middle of the panel rather than at a corner seems to forget Fitts' Law. Is this a push to make people use hotkeys more or just bad design?

nly 5y ago
My hunch is that it's a controversial change made for no purpose other than to deliberately get people talking about W11. It's easy to 'fix' via preferences so serves no other purpose.
lp0_on_fire 5y ago
It's bad design in the sense that they took a part of the operating system that's been in the same place for a quarter century and moved it for seemingly no reason while leaving a bunch of other neglected issues to be dealt with later. I guess fixing the damned control panel and various settings apps isn't sexy enough. Frankly this whole update stinks of "oh we hired a bunch of new MBAs and they have to make their mark otherwise they're out of a job".
- wvenable 5y ago
  I think it's ironic how often HN discusses various software development methodologies, release early-and-often, etc. But Microsoft slowly iterating on the Settings panel over time is seen as a bad thing.
  - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
    If they're iterating on this at all it's at a glacial pace. The settings and control panel workflow has been broken since Windows 8.
    - wvenable 5y ago
      They are iterating; the Settings panel gets more settings on every release. The first version on Windows 10 was incredibly sparse. It's also fair to say that there is a novice/expert divide -- Microsoft wants the settings panel to be as simple as settings on a mobile phone. That's great. However, occasionally I need to revert and diagnose the Wifi driver on my cheap Chinese mini laptop and I need a more powerful UI than most average people are never going to need. At this point, I can't think of a setting that my parents would need that isn't there.

JoshTriplett 5y ago

Getting rid of tiles and similar seems like a substantial improvement, and might address part of people's complaints about Windows 10. The most important question, though: is Windows still "evergreen" with free updates, or will people have to buy Windows 11? The latter would mean we can't count on Windows systems being up to date. I was happily looking forward to the day when software could just support Windows 10 and no other Windows version.

MrOxiMoron 5y ago
yeah, no... I know a hospital that just upgraded to Windows 7...
- roblabla 5y ago
  That hospital is dumb and will likely face issues in the near future then. Win7 isn't supported by Microsoft since early 2020, which means no more security updates. Given hospitals are getting more and more frequently targeted by ransomware... Well, we'll see how that goes. There's still win8 and win8.1 to worry about though, and win10 also has LTSC releases that stay supported for at least 10 years IIRC.
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    What I don’t get is hospitals buying things like MRI scanners, with Windows based “controller” with no upgrade path. The hospital, and the manufacturer, knows that the version of Windows they’re running will be EOL before the hardware, yet nobody ask the manufacturer how they plan to deal with that fact. The promise of Windows 10 being the last Windows could have but an end to that nonsense.
    - mimsee 5y ago
      > ...with no upgrade path. The manufacturer of the MRI machine doesn't care. In their mind the "upgrade path" is to buy a new one. That might support the current iteration of Windows + their drivers until the next Windows is released. Sure it's nonsense but the hospital can't just not have an MRI machine. They need one and someone will capitalize on that need.

speeder 5y ago

Snap layout felt to me a cute name for a feature I have seen last on Windows 3.1 That said I did liked that feature I am happy it is back.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

I'd love to watch the event stream but it is down.

dukeofdoom 5y ago

Except it will be the same old windows disguised.

lupinglade 5y ago
Exactly, just more lipstick on a pig. They never seem to fully commit to anything.
- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  That's too broad, they fully committed to Direct3D, and they're more committed to backward-compatibility than anyone else I could name. They have real trouble committing to a UI toolkit or design language, though.
  - lupinglade 5y ago
    That is what I am talking about, committing to UI changes and removing old crud that interferes with or goes against these changes.

sumthinprofound 5y ago

still no windows explorer tabs?

djdjdkdkdkd 5y ago
This. I thought they announced that feature as coming soon a couple of years ago.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  They did. Then they threw out the entire concept.

DethNinja 5y ago

So taskbar extends horizontally and places icons in the middle, which means: 1. It creates unnecessary visual clutter in the right and left sides and takes up valuable space. 2. Users will have harder time clicking to start button. I’m having hard time seeing what is UX benefit of this?

whywhywhywhy 5y ago
Why does MacOS do it?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- DethNinja 5y ago
  But macOS does it differently, visually it looks far pleasing that what is shown here. I’m not a huge fan of macOS dock bar but UX wise it isn’t so bad.
- iaml 5y ago
  Because they don't have start button and corners are used to trigger actions (hot corners).
partiallypro 5y ago
You can move it back to the corner in the settings.
- Grimm665 5y ago
  But why the change at all? I wonder what their user story for this one was.
  - partiallypro 5y ago
    I have wondered that too, I don't like the look of the new taskbar, I was hoping they'd do more with it with some of the user concepts floating around (such as a rounded floating taskbar.) I'm sure the true reason is that is what MacOS does, so they just copied it.

ThrowawayR2 5y ago

> "Microsoft is also integrating Microsoft Teams directly into Windows 11, for both consumers and commercial users." Not that I have any objections to Teams per se but attempting to drive adoption by bundling got Microsoft in trouble in the IE era; didn't they learn their lesson? Either way, probably the first thing I'll be doing after a fresh install of Windows 11 is uninstalling Teams.

bun_at_work 5y ago
Will uninstalling be an option? They say it's integrated, so that seems unlikely.
- bserge 5y ago
  Most likely easy to disable. Pretty sure I have Cortana and Microsoft Store but I disabled the services, removed the Taskbar icons and never think about it heh.
  - CursedUrn 5y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if both of those are still running in Task Manager's process list if you look, under unassuming names like SearchUI.exe. It's quite hard to disable Microsoft's malware in my experience, a lot of it relaunches itself, or comes back after an OS update. The number of running Microsoft processes goes up every year.
    - swiley 5y ago
      I've given up. If you have a computer with a spinning rust disk this crap alone will saturate the I/O and become completely unusable. (then you have OEM bloatware which has also become harder to remove and bloated software in general on top of that.) At this point I just hand people thumbdrives with PopOS on them when they complain that their computer is slow. Both OSes run Android apps and between that, the web, and wine most people hardly miss anything.
- bick_nyers 5y ago

MarcScott 5y ago

Developers can use their own payment systems, and MS take nothing. That's a bit of a kick in the teeth to Apple.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
Except for, twist, if you are an Android developer. Amazon takes it's 20% cut no doubt, and to avoid the cut you need to make a native Windows app. Which actually isn't an awful incentive structure, but it's not 0% in the Store across the board. Also it doesn't count if you make Xbox games. Microsoft still takes a cut there. So it's 0% if it's a native Windows app and it isn't an Xbox Game. So let's just say Epic Games will still not be satisfied with this.
- beerandt 5y ago
  I'd be surprised if they somehow limited side-loading apks on a PC.
apozem 5y ago
Absolutely. Microsoft doesn't have a large existing Windows Store business to protect, so why not make Apple's life harder? I think it's also the solution that best meets the reality of apps in 2021. Big third-party devs like Netflix and Amazon will opt out of in-app purchase entirely before giving a cut to the platform owner. May as well let them use their own payment system so users get a better experience than signing up on the web.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  > Microsoft doesn't have a large existing Windows Store business to protect, This is how you GET a large existing Windows Store business.
  - flohofwoe 5y ago
    It's not like Microsoft hasn't tried very hard in the last 10 years to emulate the iOS business model, but I guess Windows users don't like walled gardens.

nsriv 5y ago

Looks like a ton of nice little QoL improvements for the vast majority of people especially with Snap and Multiple Desktops, with monitor layout memory. Hope that taskbar can still have programs with "non-combined" windows, as opposed to dock style. Using PowerToys Run personally seems like it's going to sidestep most of the complaints I'm seeing from this comment section.

mdldndndn 5y ago
My guess is they are just making a macOS style application taskbar default. I actually already use it that way on Windows 10, but there are occasions when I miss having minimized application instances in little rectangles. But these days I can run so many applications at a time that it quickly becomes too crowded to be of any use.

danirod 5y ago

At this point, I feel I don't have the energy to hate unjustified changes in user interfaces anymore such as integrating Microsoft Teams with the taskbar. As someone who doesn't use Microsoft Teams, as long as I can right click and remove the button from the taskbar so that I can move on until the next "forced UI change", I'll be good.

neogodless 5y ago

Integrated Android apps through the Amazon App Store (and Widgets). Otherwise nothing too significant announced yet.

ttty2 5y ago

I'm pretty sure the main point is to send more spam within the os. I hated Linux ux ui for long time but windows is pushing it to the limits... And I'm finally thinking to move to Linux.

kyriakos 5y ago

Apart from the UI there seem to be some interesting gaming upgrades backported from xbox into windows (direct storage and autohdr). Autohdr in particular works really well on my xbox / tv combo.

Ecstatify 5y ago

Presentation is so cringe. Why does the main presenter sound like he's about to start crying and tell me he always loved me.

JamesAdir 5y ago

Anyone has a good guess why Microsoft needed to bump the version? All of these updates seems something that can be easily updated to Windows 10 in several or one half year update. Is this something related to it's corporate clients or licensing services? Really can't understand why a need to create a new version with so much hype, when they've announced in the past that W10 will be the last Windows version.

TonyTrapp 5y ago
Maybe they had to now that macOS finally arrived at version 11 as well ;)
somebody_amzn 5y ago
They wanted to drop support for quite some old hardware, like 32-bit only machines, which are no longer supported in Windows 11. (and some newer ones too, rumours say that a TPM might be mandatory to have, finally) Dumping support for HW and major UX changes without bumping the version number is a bad idea.
EvanAnderson 5y ago
I'm betting that getting out of support / lifecycle requirements is part of the major version bump. Internet Explorer 11 support is likely tied to the lifecycle of Windows 10.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  Sadly, I'll still be supporting IE11 on Windows 10 for the next decade. The bane of a massive company with old people that panic at opening chrome.
  - charrondev 5y ago
    Should edge be replacing that?
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

Retric 5y ago

Wow, Windows just keeps getting worse. Anyone know who’s responsible for the Mac OS inspired start menu? Presumably it’s an easy to change default, but why exactly copy such a user hostile layout.

aaomidi 5y ago
I do. It was Microsoft.

72deluxe 5y ago

Looks like Windows Monterey, with the "Start menu" now being a Spotlight clone! I am unsure if the removal of the titlebar is a good thing - there is still an alt-space menu to the left of windows that do not have an icon top left, and double-clicking on a titlebar is a convenient place to double-click; this isn't possible with no titlebar (eg. in Chrome/Firefox at the moment). Looks a nice modern UI refresh though.

nsriv 5y ago

I think an interesting thing mentioned at the end about the Microsoft Store is that if developers use their own "commerce engine" they keep 100% of the profits.

nsriv 5y ago

Not a fan of the Android apps installable and discoverable onto Windows...but through the Amazon appstore. Weird, and I'd much more prefer installing to PC from Google Play itself.

jccalhoun 5y ago
Probably not google because google wouldn't play ball. I wonder if users will be able to (easily) sideload android apps since not everything is in Amazon's app store and apps there are often not updated as often as the google play store version.
- nsriv 5y ago
  Right, that was my assumption too. Sideloading would be my way around, but I'm guessing there may be some runtime signing or containerizing involved as well, else every Android vulnerability just became a Windows vulnerability.
yellowfish 5y ago
I think amazon's appstore is free of google play services which could be a big reason
- fooey 5y ago
  Not having google play services is a big reason the amazon store is a barren wasteland
jannes 5y ago
Do you really think Google would allow that?
- nsriv 5y ago
  Honestly, yes. Someone else mentioned Google Play Services being a probable point of contention. Overall, with Surface Duo, Microsoft Launcher and Google's work towards making Flutter along with the leverage and developer interest they'd gain through having the Windows install base using the Play Store, it seems like a fair relationship.

was_a_dev 5y ago

I have my taskbar vertical on the left of my screen - so that will be interesting in Windows 11

twobitshifter 5y ago
Me too is that no longer an option?

scoutt 5y ago

So the first tweak would be something like: .bar_icons { float: left; padding: 10px; }

bun_at_work 5y ago

Now is the time to abandon Windows. I don't know what can replace it right now, for non-technical users, but the market is ready for an OS that isn't tied to hardware (MacOS) and doesn't require as much expertise or effort as Linux variants (especially when running specific software). Microsoft is here with Windows 11, integrating teams into the OS, because they want to shill it, not because it's what users want. They are making claims about it being more performant, but that's hard to imagine when considering their promises for backwards compatibility. Windows is a bloated nuisance OS that only stays around because of legacy software and DirectX. The folks at Microsoft who work on Windows have demonstrated for decades now that they care more about implementing new features than they care about user experience, consistency, and reliability. Here comes another UI overhaul instead of simply fixing the trash menus and numerous other problems the OS has. Why? It's time to move on from Windows.

seniorThrowaway 5y ago
>Windows is a bloated nuisance OS that only stays around because of legacy software and DirectX The reason it stays around is because of it's entrenched market share at very large enterprises. Until there is a replacement for managing huge numbers of end user devices centrally that is as easy or easier then Active Directory that won't change.
- bun_at_work 5y ago
  Ah yeah, AD is another reason it stays around, however, like DirectX, it can be replaced. It's a ripe market opportunity.
  - imbnwa 5y ago
    Replacing DX is a tall order
nsriv 5y ago
I think Teams integration is more of an acknowledgement that video-calling and workplace collaboration is a default usecase for desktop computing (like email, calendar, calculator, text editing). >They are making claims about it being more performant, but that's hard to imagine when considering their promises for backwards compatibility. I can run Windows 95 programs on Windows 10, not sure where the knock is coming from on backwards compatibility. >Here comes another UI overhaul instead of simply fixing the trash menus From the leaked ISO, the menus are much improved and overhauled. Sure, I want a modern tabbed File Explorer too, but it's clearly being worked on.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

We fired shots at BlueStacks and Zoom. Rejoice with us.

ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago

I would really like to know if there's anything positive besides UI and up-to-date security this brings to a user's table compared to Windows 7.

partiallypro 5y ago

One thing that stood out to me as missing, was a file explorer demo. Have they just given up on revamping that?

72deluxe 5y ago
Let's hope it wasn't as bad as the "revamp" in Windows 10 where that dumb ribbon replaced a usable toolbar for good, where Quick Access apparently was necessary because obviously the file directory listing wasn't obvious enough... And pressing tab to get to the other pane now gave focus to the list header when in details view, forcing you to press tab 30 times to get between the left and right panes. I think the most useful Explorer version was the Windows 98 one or possibly XP, but it went downhill in Vista. Let's hope they had a change of heart and just reverted to that old version!!!

aplkorex 5y ago

I work at a company where the majority of the employees complain about every new version of Windows, some rather aggressively. They resist adoption until the last possible minute. Then when they upgrade, what do they do? — continue to use Windows to make cool stuff so our company continues to grow and, in reality, persist with the same exact workflow they had the week before... it just looks a little different. Then the complaints die off, and, well, on to other things.... Until the next version of Windows is announced.

Shadonototro 5y ago
and then management have to upgrade PCs because it runs noticeably slower and tinker with services even more because it interrupts workflow (remember the windows update popups during weather forecasts?)

DoctorDabadedoo 5y ago

I wish MS stopped doing redesign of their interfaces every couple of years and just fixed the broken stuff the introduced somewhere along the way. - Settings / control panel inconsistency and the other dozen places you can change configs for a single thing - Telemetry, ads and system crap - Package management and sandboxing And the list goes on.

phendrenad2 5y ago
Most of those are actually features. 1. Old control panels: Drivers may overlay or modify the window, so you can't really change them (don't forget: Windows supports many obscure devices like DAWs and heavy machinery, many things Linux users have never even considered connecting to a PC, and all of those have custom drivers from the device manufacturer that Microsoft doesn't control) 2. Telemetry, ads: Yes, this is a serious "bug" that Microsoft needs to fix, how do they keep accidentally adding fully-featured invasive telemetry and ad platforms into their OS? I guess that's what copying code from StackOverflow gets you! 3. Package management: NuGet? 4. Sandboxing: All modern OSs support lots of sandboxing options, not sure what you mean by this
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
  > 3. Package management: NuGet? WinGet is their answer to this one: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-package-manager-1-0/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-package-m... It's not proper package management, but it's a start.
  - stinos 5y ago
    Powershell + ChocolateyGet (+ DSC if you want) does a pretty good job already. Apart from specialized software it's been years I had to install via tedious hunt for link + download + execute + go through wizards or similar. That being said, the meat of it is 3rd party so not having package management builtin is a valid complaint. Then again, if you think about what that would take: non-trivial.
- infogulch 5y ago

LyalinDotCom 5y ago

FYI the official announcement is here: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/06/24/introducing-windows-11/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/06/24/intro...

satysin 5y ago

So to summerize what they have announced (so far) - * A new look task bar. Centred similar to the macOS dock by default but lacking the ability to position on any other screen edge? * A new start menu design * Windows have rounded corners * Some built in apps such as the Xbox app and Microsoft Store have been redesigned (Xbox Game Pass and xCloud built into the Xbox app) * New touch keyboard (SwiftKey?) with improved speech recognition * New haptics when a stylus is used * Teams integrated into Windows * Support for Android apps built into the OS (using Intel Bridge technology whatever that is?). Apparently this works via the Amazon App Store although I am not sure what this actually means in a practical sense? * A new widgets fly out for weather, news, etc. (appears this will require you login with a Microsoft Account) * Improved windows snapping with a dynamic (based on your screen(s) size and layout) UI built into the maximize button * DirectX 12 improvements (unsure if limited to Windows 11 only?) * Auto HDR for games * Improved experience when switching between tablet and desktop modes * Apparently there will be "Windows 11 ready" PCs for sale "today"? * Microsoft say they have been working with AMD, Intel and Qualcomm to optimise the silicon for Windows 11 * 40% smaller Windows Updates * TPM 2.0 and UEFI are hardware requirements. No legacy BIOS compatibility at all? * A Microsoft account and internet connectivity is required for Windows 11 Home setup * 64-bit processor required (no 32-bit build at all?) * There is a universal mute button in the system tray so you can mute yourself system wide rather than in the app Probably some other things I have missed

zeusk 5y ago
I work on displays, AutoHDR and DX12 changes are coming to 10 as well (unsure about win7 or dx12on11).
Semaphor 5y ago
> lacking the ability to position on any other screen edge? I didn’t watch the video, and your question mark gives me hope: Was this actually said? A horizontal taskbar would be horrible.
- satysin 5y ago
  They didn't say however in the leaked build last week the taskbar could not be moved to the left, right or top of the screen as it previously could. Hopefully it was just a limitation in that particular developer build.

Datagenerator 5y ago

How to downvote?

colechristensen 5y ago

I was happy with Windows 95 UI, really. Congratulations on incrementing a number and changing things so I'll be annoyed by a marginally different set of things? I can't raise to caring about something which should be done at this point. To some people it is important I'm sure but a lot of us just want the OS to keep doing the basics and get out of the way.

swiley 5y ago
One of the biggest arguments I hear for using Windows instead of Linux is that people are used to the UI. I've been using the same FVWM config and shells inside Xterms since I started using Linux 18 years ago, meanwhile Windows has gone through something like 4 redesigns.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

mandeepj 5y ago

"Teams" sound great in a work environment. But, at home - I'm not sure.

uncomputation 5y ago

> Windows updates are 40 percent smaller, and more efficient as they now happen in the background. Hopefully that will mean that Windows 11 doesn’t disturb you in the middle of work. I wonder why this was never done sooner considering Windows is basically synonymous with “enterprise.”

SavantIdiot 5y ago

I can't wait to see if "Device Manager" still uses the same Windows 95 GUI.

CursedUrn 5y ago
If you're lucky they've built a new one with reduced functionality and a button to open the old one. That's how they usually handle things.

pavlov 5y ago

Pop-up file previews with spacebar in Explorer please...? That's my #1 pain point when moving between Mac and Windows. It's so annoying that the spacebar does nothing.

MikusR 5y ago
There is an app for that "good" feature.
- pavlov 5y ago
  Windows has an admirable amount of API hooks, so there's presumably an app for everything. That's not an excuse not to improve base Explorer, though.
fleaaaa 5y ago
Quicklook does the job fine

TheDudeMan 5y ago

How about they just re-release Windows 7 instead?

nprateem 5y ago

Could have been a release video for KDE.

desktopninja 5y ago

But can it run winamp-v2.92? :)

mmastrac 5y ago

Remember: always skip every second version of Windows! But seriously, 10 is pretty good and is there really a compelling reason to move?

awiesenhofer 5y ago

> Windows 11 will be available through a free upgrade for eligible Windows 10 PCs and on new PCs beginning this holiday. which holiday? Do they mean Christmas 2021? Edit: via https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/06/24/introducing-windows-11/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/06/24/intro...

mdavid626 5y ago

Hmm, nice improvements, but is it just me who doesn’t care about them at all? Most of them feels like change just for the sake of change, but not an actual improvement.

silicon2401 5y ago
> change just for the sake of change, but not an actual improvement. That's a lot of software change. I couldn't care less about aesthetic changes in MacOS, windows, android, xbox, but they're all forced on the users no matter what. If I had the choice, I'd still be using whatever android version my galaxy s3 had, the windows 95 UI, and the Mac OSX UI. But the easiest way to make people want something new is to make it look new I guess
dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
Not you, re not alone, and some of them (like no local accounts) seem like a step backward.
- satysin 5y ago
  To clarify there are still local accounts in all versions. However to complete the setup a Microsoft account is required in the Home edition. You can then create other local accounts. In other editions you can create a local account during setup. In the leaked build it is possible to cancel out of the forced Microsoft account requirement in Home by closing the screen with a simple Alt+F4 however that may be changed in the final build.
marcthe12 5y ago
There is a severe bump in hardware requirement. Prob the main reason the even did this (big enough to warrant some kind of LTS). Obviously that doesn't sell so there so other random changes

Ajedi32 5y ago

Looks like some pretty nice improvements, particularly in regards to window management. From the video, it sounds like they're adding persistent grid layouts, with apps able to be assigned to specific tiles in the grid, and Windows remembers and restores those positions when you restart apps or switch monitor layouts (e.g. when connecting a laptop to a docking station). Looks like they've also expanded the multi-desktop feature to integrate nicely with these new persistent grid layouts, with labeled desktops for particular tasks. The new native support for Android apps also seems like it could be really useful, depending on how well-integrated it is with the rest of the OS.

thibran 5y ago

Looks like KDE with fixed magins :)

wodenokoto 5y ago

How does word look using the new design language? Still ribbons or is it back to menus or something completely different?

watertom 5y ago

macos

smusamashah 5y ago

The trailer made me feel like a dumb windows user who doesn't know how to do anything. Those big zoomed in windows, buttons and other interfaces felt popping directly on face. What does it offer for power users?

d0gbread 5y ago
You sound like my dad watching car commercials. If you're a power user, the trailer isn't for you. You'll find what you care about; spec sheets, etc.

bigtex 5y ago

Will Windows 11 run on ARM and be publicly available?

chadlavi 5y ago

Quite a lot of stuff in that new UI looks directly pilfered from apple. And "you can run android apps" sounds like a direct copy of macOS running iPad apps. Even the (in windows' case, completely nonsensical) decision to center the taskbar feels like a ripoff of apple ui.

Shadonototro 5y ago

meh, sounds like more of the same atrocities since Windows8 no fundamental changes other than cosmetics no tabs on file explorer, why the heck they kept ribbon interface... wasn't windows 11 supposed to be about having an uniform and consistent design? no changes on filesystem? still have to wait 88486468468 minutes when deleting a folder with lot of files? -- the only positive surprise was android apps, BUT quickly became uninterested the minute they mentioned amazon store.. yeah no thanks

dang 5y ago

Related ongoing thread: Introducing Windows 11 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27619354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27619354

vmateixeira 5y ago

Does it come spyware free?

Phil_Latio 5y ago
It's just telemetry bro!

aloer 5y ago

First screenshots look like they have a normal curve for rounded corners. Not that special apple curve thing. Is that protected in any way?

kleiba 5y ago

> "Microsoft is also integrating Microsoft Teams directly into Windows 11, for both consumers and commercial users." Have they not learned from the legal backlash with IE back in the day?

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I think we're beyond that now. So many illegal monopolistic activities have happened in the past decade that I've lost all faith in the US government. If a new Teddy Roosevelt doesn't come around soon, it's gonna be the railroads owning the country all over again.
WesleyLivesay 5y ago
Not really different than Apple including iMessage and Facetime.

dragonwriter 5y ago

The lack of support for start menu folders and named groups of apps probably means that not only with the Start Menu suck even worse than in Win 8-10, but third party replacements will no longer have the data available to restore a decent experience. As with the “task bar only can be attached to the bottom of the screen”, um, “feature”, I really don’t get this. Okay, sure, MS targets a default UX that I’m not partial too, fine, maybe its better for more of the market; lots of it is subjective so I don’t expect my tastes to be catered to in every default. But why throw roadblocks in the way of what people who don’t prefer the default experience have been doing for years to optimize their personal experience?

zubspace 5y ago
It's even more annoying if the change just happens because of 'design'. Can you imagine being the developer who says: "Well, let's redesign that thing to make it look awesome. And well, let's also remove all those existing features, which only complicate the code. Don't need them." Never in my life could I work at my current company with this mindset without being thrown out in an instant. It's such an odd way to approach redesigns.

literallyaduck 5y ago

Every time this happens someone says fuck it and installs Linux. After two weeks some of them come back, but the Linux market share grows. I want an OS that stays current on security patches, attempts to be as unobtrusive as possible, allows for Desktop Environment customization but has sane defaults. I don't want special integrations. The OS should follow single responsibility and defer special functionality to app developers.

dgan 5y ago
I said exactly that to myself when Windows 8 was out, quite happy since then:)
miroz 5y ago
I did this when Vista came out. I said fuck it and installed Ubuntu, I had enough of Microsoft bullshit. Then Ubuntu upgraded and moved all window icons to the left side and rearranged them awkwardly. On the next update, they upgraded the sound subsystem and I was without sound until I bought my next PC. Another update came and computer went to sleep when watching movies, so I had to move the mouse every minute to fix it. I said fuck it and installed Windows 7. There's no escape.
- handrous 5y ago
  My most recent attempt, last year, ended when xorg and Wayland both crashed, reliably, at least once per day, on two different distros (Fedora, Ubuntu) when just using the desktop normally—not even running games or anything like that. Nope. Not accepting that shit in the year 2021. 2000-me would have been like, OK, cool, Windows does that too. Not anymore. ... and that's just for my screwing-around desktop machine. Work goes on macOS. I wish I had other decent options, but it's the only game in town. No time or patience for messing with my OS, these days.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  The upside to Linux is when one of these kinds of changes happen you have the freedom to modify or swap out components to your liking. The downside to Linux is nobody actually wants to constantly modify or maintain components to their liking and nobody can agree what a good liking is so nobody likes the way somebody else does it.

Koshkin 5y ago

Yet another related ongoing thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27619831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27619831

only_as_i_fall 5y ago

It's OK, 2022 will be the year of the Linux desktop

polskibus 5y ago

I hope embedding Teams will lead to antitrust like IE did. This is basically making everyone use Teams and will cut out a lot of competitors and other companies who have some form of collaboration built-in into their product.

kinjba11 5y ago
I'm with you, but I doubt it. To my knowledge, Apple hasn't faced any antitrust pressure from bundling FaceTime and iMessage into iOS/Mac OS.
sbelskie 5y ago
How does this make everyone use Teams?
- kinjba11 5y ago
  "Everyone" in a casual sense. You don't have to use Safari, iMessage and FaceTime on Apple devices, but for all intents and purposes "everyone" does because it's the default. Similar to Internet Explorer on Windows - clearly inferior product, but it took years for it to become common knowledge among the non-technical folks that you really should install a better browser.
ziml77 5y ago
Just like everyone is using OneDrive, Edge, and Bing?

stewx 5y ago

The Xbox app is terrible, performance-wise. It feels like a poorly implemented Electron app.

schlotzisk 5y ago

It's mind boggling to me, that Microsoft went with a redesign here. Personally the Windows UI never bothered me that much. I just feel like that they could have focused more on things like, stability, the search functionality or, and I'm not even kidding, printer and scanner support.

ehsankia 5y ago
There's nothing wrong with redesign as long as they do it consistently across the whole OS, but from my experience, they reskin like 30% of the stuff and everything else stays inconsistent [0]. If they're gonna work on UI, I'd like to see them actually grow that 30% rather than keep changing things up. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27556754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27556754
- IshKebab 5y ago
  I agree, they should have done the boring but worthwhile work of updating the control panel, font selector, etc. But nope. Add more inconsistency. And make the start button harder to click while you're at it.

typh00n 5y ago

I really do like Windows, but it has a lot of issues for me: Pushing its users to Microsoft Accounts, telemetry, ads, bloatware it automatically installs, and last but not least inconsistencies all the way through the OS - and adding another design-layer with windows 11 wont help that. I think microsoft really need to address some of this and get back to the needs of "prosumers". I personally want a slim but nice looking OS. The only thing keeping me away from Linux at this point are games. I know, Proton opened huge possibilities but unfortunately it is not enough in my case. Either games won't work because of DRM (e.g. FallGuys), or the game itself runs fine but needed mods to run online-multiplayer are not possible on Linux. (e.g. Command & Conquer 3 + CnC-Online)

Icathian 5y ago
I've said for years the day I can reliably play League of Legends on Linux you'll never see me using anything else at home again. Just frustrating that gaming is still largely a best-effort crapshoot despite all the work by Valve and others.
- fermentation 5y ago
  Last summer all I had was a linux box to play games, and I found that a lot of games I wanted to play (like the witcher 3) worked surprisingly well via Proton. I think the main issues come from the massive GaaS like LoL and Destiny that have so many moving parts and points of failure.
npteljes 5y ago
"Pushing" really is the thing that bother me most about Windows. Just so pushy about a lot of stuff. Putting things here, there, switching it around, turning it off when it was always on, and vice versa. I just have the feeling that it very strongly wants something, and that's not what I want. Windows as a requirement is really unfortunate. I have the same reasons as you to keep it around. Win compatibility came a really, really long way, but anti-cheat will always be a problem, which cuts out a good chunk of games.

russli1993 5y ago

they are integrating teams, onedrive, office, microsoft 365 stuff directly into windows 11. Doesn't that spark anti-trust concerns? Think about Microsoft was fined for anti-trust for integrating internet explorer into windows and making it the default. Looks like every platform holder is just using the dominance of their platform to push their other stuff.

chris_wot 5y ago

40% smaller Windows updates? I think they are missing the point. It’s not the size of the download, it’s the time it takes for Windows to work out its package dependency treee, it’s ridiculous SxS system that was only ever a massive kluge, and the incredible number of forced reboots. If it takes me no more than five minutes to run an apt update && apt upgrade —-yes with no reboots, how on earth is it that Microsoft is still so behind the eight ball? Note that apt upgrades everything in minutes, whilst Windows does not.

fastball 5y ago

But does it run on ARM?

dustinc1 5y ago

seems there's free upgrade from windows 10 to windows 11, but not from windows 7 to 11.

franciscodias00 5y ago
yup!

markus_zhang 5y ago

I think this actually going to convice me to move to Linux for daily use...

eljimmy 5y ago

I wonder if Microsoft would ever release a flavor of Windows targeted at the user who wants a minimalist but equally powerful OS which gives the user absolute control. Someone who wants local only accounts, bare-bones UI, no tablet or touch screen support, no app stores or telemetry, no integrations, just plain old Windows. Wishful thinking, probably.

achn 5y ago
Very wishful, unfortunately. The entire goal of this update is to move windows closer to an AppStore model where MS makes money off of driving the behaviour of its users and monetizing external developers. Even on the server, admins have less and less control over the services running.
wilsonnb3 5y ago
Windows server is pretty close to what you want

meamin 5y ago

> Android Apps Not long till the Surface Dou will be running Windows 11 instead of Android. Then comes the Surface Phone.

virgulino 5y ago

No AMD Zen 1st gen support: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-11-supported-amd-processors https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/min... Zen+ supported. I wonder why.

TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
There are some hardware issues with the first gen. Could it be related?
bloggie 5y ago
Only 8th gen and up Intels supported... 5 year old computers are unsupported. Surprising.
easton 5y ago
I bet the TPM isn’t 2.0. I was hoping buying into AM4 would mean I could keep this board longer too, but the but the 5xxx chips aren’t compatible with the original chipset. My machine is super fast, but I guess unless I feel like staying on insider (which will have the TPM requirement patched out for the next little while according to MS), I’ll need to upgrade sooner than I planned.
- virgulino 5y ago
  I don't think the problem is the TPM. I am running a Ryzen 2200G (1st gen Zen) on an Asus Tuf B450M-Pro S. I have fTPM (firmware TPM) enabled in the BIOS. My Windows 10 detects a running TPM 2.0. I just ran the MS "PC Health Check", and it tells me "This PC cannot run Windows 11" . This is a brand new machine. I built it 2 months ago. It was the only Ryzen APU available to buy online here in Brazil! Bummer.
  - shing3232 5y ago
    You need secureboot,GPT partition table as well

binkHN 5y ago

I think I might switch to Chrome OS when this happens.

n_io 5y ago

Am I the only one who feels like Windows 11, at its core, is just one giant telemetry upgrade with a shinier UI?

agumonkey 5y ago

I'm still baffled it's still about moving windows and apps around (now with a global mute button).

dolmen 5y ago

"people will be able to discover Android apps in the Microsoft Store and download them through the Amazon Appstore" 3 big tech in one sentence from Microsoft.

aj7 5y ago

That’s all well and good, but I’d just like search to work as well as it does on MacOSX.

akagusu 5y ago

Windows is extremely hostile to user's privacy, usability, and anything else you can imagine. Microsoft has extremely hostile business practices for both consumers and competitors and yet nobody cares. All Microsoft needs to do is to show a nice list of features nobody asked for even if you are forced to upgrade your machine because high minimum requirements. This is the world we live.

fomine3 5y ago

Removing feature to move taskbar is horrible. It must be reverted.

murrayb 5y ago

What happened to "Windows 10 is the last version of Windows?" (eg. https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-ve...) Will the upgrade be in-place as per Windows 10 updates?

zamadatix 5y ago
> That was the message from Microsoft employee Jerry Nixon, a developer evangelist That was just one employees comment at initial release and the guy probably just intended to communicate the idea Windows 10 will get continuous incremental features updates for a very long time without version change not make a lifelong promise they'll never make another version again (even though that's the literal meaning of what he ended up saying). Upgrade wise it'll be free and automatic just like any normal Windows 10 update assuming your hardware qualifies.

kaptain 5y ago

I tried switching to Windows about 2 years ago from macOS. I found that the lack of a good replacement for Preview was a real deal breaker for me. I tried a lot of different things to make it work. It wasn't the only thing, but the fact that I spent so much time finding a PDF viewer/light-editor that didn't have adware, was free, and had enough functionality was difficult (in my case I was unsuccessful) on Windows. Hopefully they'll include a great PDF viewer/editor. Making PDF ubiquitous on macOS was a real smart move.

_coveredInBees 5y ago
I'm the opposite. I can't believe that Finder is the best Apple can do for a file explorer. It is an absolute abomination and after 4 years of using my MBP I still hate it passionately every time I have to use it. I agree that preview is nice, as is Spotlight. But for me, OSX is getting too locked down at this point as a "power user". The sandbox makes apps take obscenely long to open like as if I've been teleported to the 90s with spinning disk laptop hard drives. A bunch of useful preview extensions all broke with Catalina's latest efforts to lock things down more and more. I hate how many hoops you are forced to jump through to get any non appstore app to get installed. I thought OSX + MBP would be a solid and stable experience but I've been plagued by a well known kernel panic based error very frequently when I plug into a dock, resulting in hard reboots. I'm definitely going to switch back to Windows with my next laptop. I'm sure there will be things I will miss, but OSX hasn't lived up to my expectations. I do most of my work on an Ubuntu box via VNC/SSH, and the lack of CUDA support makes the MBP kinda useless for prototyping ML/DL stuff as well.
- wing-_-nuts 5y ago
  > I'm the opposite. I can't believe that Finder is the best Apple can do for a file explorer. It is an absolute abomination and after 4 years of using my MBP I still hate it passionately every time I have to use it. Brother, I feel you. I hate finder so much I operate almost exclusively from the command line in os x.
  - Exuma 5y ago

nevster 5y ago

Panos Panay: "I'm super excited". That guy cracks me up.

koirapoika 5y ago

Each Microsoft Windows release makes me check how ReactOS is doing.

boublepop 5y ago

Sounds like the business plan is: Murder zoom, Burn down slack, Destroy steam I’m surprised they aren’t trying to eliminate Facebook by integrating a social network and messaging. Perhaps the year of Linux on the desktop will come about when all the giants of the industry get together to fund a viable competitor to windows because they get fed up with Microsoft trying to “compete” by sucking the oxygen out of the room with features forced upon users.

graphenus 5y ago

Teams are now an integrated part of Windows. Smells like an another antitrust case, or Europeans are going to get a version without this.

samuell 5y ago

Re. the UI, I can't believe my eyes! When Windows (with 10) finally arrived at a sharper, better UI than anything else (albeit destroyed by ads and constant privacy violations) they suddenly throw that out for a crappy version of the KDE 5 Plasma desktop, a remnant from last decade ...

Wildgoose 5y ago

Note what Microsoft has said about the taskbar: "Alignment to the bottom of the screen is the only location allowed." Screens are much wider than they are tall, if this has to be fixed it should be on the left/right side of the screen. (As appropriate for the direction in which you read, i.e. left-to-right or right-to-left).