22 ms·

Windows 11 available on October 5

125 points by WalterSobchak 5y ago

corey_moncure 5y ago
> 1. The new design and sounds are modern, fresh, clean and beautiful, bringing you a sense of calm and ease. THIS? is the number one point they want to highlight? Feel at ease, user, while we mine all your data and force feed you buggy release after buggy release of changes you don't want and didn't ask for!
- byproxy 5y ago
  I haven’t heard enough about the under-the-hood details of Windows 11 to not believe that this release is not much more than a slight refresh to the desktop environment.
  - cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
    They redesigned the app store, the settings, the file manager, added android emulation and changed the update cycle. it's also snappy with more agressive caching from what i heard. the search was also overhauled to be faster and more relevant i would have loved for them to include more privacy and security features instead of the widgets panel for instance (which only allows microsoft services anyways so far) but it still looks like a decent release
    - byproxy 5y ago
      I’d say the first two things you listed fall under “slight refresh to the desktop environment”, but, yea… forgot about the Android emulation. That’s pretty cool. And the last couple of things you mentioned are certainly welcome improvements.
    - misnome 5y ago
      > the settings Did they actually redesign it this time, or just redesigned - again - the "most common" options and fall back to the old version, old version+2, old version +4 etc for any of the more detailed panes....
      - cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
        full redesign, it's significantly better than before
        plopz 5y ago
        what does the network adapter options look like now?
        TingPing 5y ago
        Its still split across like 3 dialogs from 3 eras.
      - banana_giraffe 5y ago
        Reminds me: https://youtu.be/-rwoPiM-8Qk?t=305 https://youtu.be/-rwoPiM-8Qk?t=305 They're doing the same thing with the Explorer context menu, hiding the old options behind another layer.
        misnome 5y ago
        Oh no, that's awful. 7Zip is the perfect example to demonstrate that. (not too taken with the plus it gets in that video for windows terminal, which has been available for ages)
        polytely 5y ago
        I guess I'm staying on windows 10 until 2025
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      The Widgets Panel seems like the place that Live Tiles have gone to die. Outside of the "new AI widgets" they keep trying to hype the rest of the apps that show up there are just Live Tiles apps showing their old Live Tiles in new slightly more rounded boxes.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Modern software in a nutshell really. It's garbage, it's going to get more garbage, we don't give a shit how bloated and painful it is, here are some pretty pictures.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    This isn't just a modern trend. The XP everyone remembers is SP3 and that came very late in the life of Windows XP. It's first release, however, was an uglier version of Windows 2000 (albeit with a few bug fixes here and there). Most insulting of all, XP had twice the CPU and memory foot print of 2000. The Win ME crowd loved XP but many of the Windows 2000 folk ended up waiting it out for a few years before upgrading (or switching to Linux in my case). I expect the same will happen here. MS will still officially support 10 for a few years but not really show it much love. Eventually 11 will diverge into something worth upgrading to (or the last stubborn few will have migrated onto another platform entirely).
    - kasabali 5y ago
      What makes you so optimistic? Windows 10 didn't get any better in 6 years.
GiorgioG 5y ago
As the owner of a 1st generation Threadripper I'm pretty pissed off that my 4 year old CPU is unsupported.
- AndrewDucker 5y ago
  My desktop is a bit older - but can handle everything other than the security chip changes. Also pretty pissed off.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - joveian 5y ago
    Are you sure your CPU doesn't have the required security chip? On Intel systems it is called PTT and is present in almost all CPUs over the past decade IIRC. But often disabled in the BIOS. I thought AMD CPUs have also had it for a while.
    - AndrewDucker 5y ago
      Sadly not. i5-6600K doesn't support it, and my motherboard is literally one version short of having the chip.
      - joveian 5y ago
        I have the regular i5-6600 in my game system and it does have it so I am almost certain that chip does as well (and a quick search shows up someone with the k version who was able to enable it). For some reason the setting is under "peripherals" for me, I guess most likely the setting is hidden somewhere for you as well.
        junar 5y ago
        It looks like for CPU/firmware TPMs, not all motherboard manufacturers supported it on their 100/200-series models. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/motherboards-that-support-tpm-windows-11/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/motherboards-that-su...
thrower123 5y ago
This feels extremely rushed. They didn't even push it out to QA (aka Windows Insiders) until the end of July. It doesn't really look like a compelling case to upgrade, for somebody who is happily using an LTSC build of Windows 10 that is rock-solid.
- nly 5y ago
  I agree. My first reaction was "too soon" as well.
lostmsu 5y ago
Bottom taskbar on laptop screens is a no-no.
- cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
  you can change the location of the icons to the left, if the centered layout is what you mean
  - byproxy 5y ago
    The taskbar itself is what is being referred to, I believe. Having the taskbar mounted to one side of the screen allows for a bit more vertical space to be used by apps, which is pretty nice on aspect ratios that limit vertical space, i.e. 16:9. It’s the way I currently run my taskbar and I can’t really imagine having to use it locked to the bottom of the screen.
  - andrewmackrodt 5y ago
    I think they want a vertical bar versus horizontal, I prefer this setup for laptops too, e.g. I have the dock on macOS on the left and Ubuntu/Gnome it is the default. It makes a huge difference when vertical screen estate is at a premium, as is the case with many laptops.
    - spicybright 5y ago
      I would too but mac does it in a pretty annoying way compared to say ubuntu unity. With multiple monitors, it snaps to the side most one you have plugged in regardless of your primary screen. I get there's a lot of dragging and dropping involved with the bar, but in Unity it let you set a threshold for mouse speed to limit you going to another monitor. Just let me put it on the side and do that if I'm dragging something, it's not too difficult.
- cfn 5y ago
  Amen, I use vertical bars on all my screens, even desktop screens. It is the aspect ratio...
- 5y ago
JohnWhigham 5y ago
This probably means it's finally time to move on from Windows 7. Too many games are starting to require W10/DX12...
- peakaboo 5y ago
  Hope you enjoy no privacy.. :) I think windows 7 was the last good version of windows.
  - speeder 5y ago
    My personal workstation is still Win7 (+ Garuda Linux). When it becomes impossible to use it with Win7 I still just stick with Linux, Windows 10 is really, really disappointing, and Win 11 is somehow, worse. Thing is, even MS is aware of that, helping developers port some AAA games to Win7 (but NOT Win8! for example Cyberpunk 2077 runs on Win7 and Win10, but not on Win8)
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    Planning to move to the LTSC branch so at least some of that telemetry will be minimized.
- dharmab 5y ago
  My plan is to stay on W10 until the 2025 EOL approaches, then evaluate Linux+Proton. I suspect by 2025 I will mostly be playing games old enough to work fine on Proton and not interested in keeping up with every new release.
- liketochill 5y ago
  I think I will move back to Linux and put windows in a vm for any windows software I need to run. I did this in 2008-2012 and it worked well. Then you can easily deny network access to the VM except for whitelisted IPs. Since the vm is just for a specific task it doesn’t need to talk to many.
rkangel 5y ago
I was really hoping that we were past having to think about different versions of Windows. Microsoft hyped Windows 10 as the 'last version of Windows' and that's how it should be. But now we have to go through this stupid cycle again, wasting user and IT department time doing upgrades, as well as developer time worrying about version support.
- arsome 5y ago
  I also distinctly remember Microsoft saying they would never wait as long between releases as XP to Vista. I always wondered which promise would be kept, guess we have our answer.
- neogodless 5y ago
  Within Windows 10, the updates really were versions in several significant ways. - They have support end dates! - Hardware support can vary between version (updates). I could not even get Windows 10 Build 1903 to boot with a newer GPU. I had to boot using the iGPU and update to 21H1, and then I could boot. Trying to install the driver on 1903, the installer said this version of Windows was not supported (!) - The UI can be changed. Just one small example, early versions of Windows Hello did not support using a PIN to login. Later versions started to roll back all the pushes to use Cortana.
  - merb 5y ago
    > I could not even get Windows 10 Build 1903 to boot with a newer GPU. I had to boot using the iGPU and update to 21H1, and then I could boot. Trying to install the driver on 1903, the installer said this version of Windows was not supported (!) but this is a driver/software issue. you can pinpoint your software to higher versions.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  Windows 10 didn't get rid of any of that. If anything it accelerated the rate of new OS versions. You're going to have more differences comparing the initial release of Windows 10 with the current release of Windows 10 vs the current release of Windows 10 and the initial release of Windows 11.
city41 5y ago
> As the PC continues to play a more central role in our lives than ever before Does Microsoft really think this? I'm finding it's pretty common to meet people who don't own a PC at all. They just use their phone and possibly a tablet.
- nightcracker 5y ago
  Yes they think this, but not in the way you or I think about it. At least this is my admittedly cynical take. There is a strong push across tech to erase the concept of a Personal Computer, and make everything function like a tablet. Calling tablets/phones PCs is part of this, by muddying the water, as well as attempts like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfR_Jj4grZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfR_Jj4grZE Interfaces and functionality keep being dumbed and locked down like they are on tablets and phones. Microsoft and Apple are watering at the mouth for the day when the true personal computer is gone and every computing device is a walled garden where every user uses their pre-approved apps doing only the pre-approved tasks, preferably as thin clients into their controlled cloud.
  - bitwize 5y ago
    And millions if not billions of users will be perfectly content with that -- especially if it means they won't have to deal with the hassle of keeping their computing devices clean, updated, and malware-free on their own. Nerds mewling about "general purpose computing" do not understand the market, and do not want to.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      I think it's fine that a lot of what we've traditionally used a PC for is now available in more appliance like devices for people. But I also think that personal computing is a revolutionary tool and absolutely should exist for people inclined to use it. Problem is, pretty much everyone who used to make PCs would much rather burn them to the ground so they can sell appliances instead.
      - 5y ago
hnlmorg 5y ago
There's a fine line that PR has to toe in order to make a product sound supernaturally good but without it sounding like obvious hyperbole. This is a great example of PR failing to toe that line: > The new design and sounds are modern, fresh, clean and beautiful, bringing you a sense of calm and ease. The default desktop theme brings me a sense of calm and ease...? > Snap Layouts, Snap Groups and Desktops provide an even more powerful way to multitask and optimize your screen real estate. So you've added some features to the way I drag windows about a screen? > Widgets, a new personalized feed powered by AI, provides a faster way to access the information you care about, and with Microsoft Edge’s world class performance, speed and productivity features you can get more done on the web. So many buzzwords to unpack there. > Windows 11 delivers the best Windows ever for gaming and unlocks the full potential of your system’s hardware with technology like DirectX12 Ultimate, DirectStorage and Auto HDR. Hasn't every release of Windows and/or DirectX made that same claim? > Windows 11 is optimized for speed, efficiency and improved experiences with touch, digital pen and voice input. Yet wont run on 4 year old hardware....that's some piss poor optimisations. I'm probably not the target audience for these kinds of press announcements but I really wish companies would dial it back a bit.
- TingPing 5y ago
  DirectStorage will become important, but of course its artificially limited to a Windows version like usual.
  - minedwiz 5y ago
    https://www.pcgamer.com/windows-11-directstorage-windows-10/ https://www.pcgamer.com/windows-11-directstorage-windows-10/ It's not even exclusive.
- jobigoud 5y ago
  > Widgets, a new personalized feed powered by AI Who asked for that?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
flohofwoe 5y ago
Uff, I wonder if it's possible to decline the upgrade and still be served Win10 security fixes for a few years. Looking at past Win10 updates which mostly added fluff but never really improved anything I am not looking forward to Win11.
- samtheDamned 5y ago
  Windows 10 will still be supported until around 2025 but after that you're SOL
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ajay-b 5y ago
But I don’t want Windows 11. Windows 10 works just fine.
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
> Windows 11 is optimized for speed, efficiency So why does it not support five-year-old hardware? I realize it's all just marketing, but I'm actually really frustrated with how developers seem to be defining "performance" nowadays. There's nothing impressive about running fast on a fast machine. Not everyone has access to the latest and greatest hardware, nor should they, lest we want to ruin the planet. If you're doing complex 3D modeling, that's one thing, but please tell me—what is the average office worker doing today that wouldn't have been possible on a PC ten years ago? And then please explain why Windows 11 needs a minimum of 4 GB of memory.
- hbn 5y ago
  "What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away"
- thrower123 5y ago
  > And then please explain why Windows 11 needs a minimum of 4 GB of memory. It has Teams integrated directly into the operating system. There's a GB of RAM right there off the top.
  - LeSaucy 5y ago
    Worth waiting 6-8 months for debloat scripts to become refined
  - eric__cartman 5y ago
    To be fair that might be a minimum for a decent experience. Even using Linux with less that 4GB of ram is sub-optimal. Open a few browser tabs, some documents and maybe some ram-hogging Spotify playing in the background and you'll be hitting the swap in no time.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      It's simpler to ask for 4GB straight than have the bad publicity of people buying cheapest netbooks and then complaining how they are slow... And 4GB is not unrealistic minimum in todays world of bloated software.
Someone1234 5y ago
I've been reading the feedback on /r/windows11 for a few weeks, and this release feels rushed. First available to public test at the end of June[0], and they're shipping it less than four months later with almost none of the issues/limitations/complaints being addressed. This whole release feels very, if you'll excuse the expression, "lipstick on a pig." They didn't really fix any of the underlying and longstanding issues people had with Windows 10, threw a new thin veneer on top, and called it a new thing. This October 5th release just feels like them expanding their public beta test to most Windows 10 users. I'm normally an early adopter (e.g. running iOS 15 Beta 7 right now), but I'm going to wait six months or more after Oct5 because this isn't even close to being production ready. [0] https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/06/28/announcing-the-first-insider-preview-for-windows-11/ https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/06/28/announc...
- smallbizdev420 5y ago
  There is no lipstick. It is all pig. Windows exists because people run it on laptops and desktops. Not tablets and phones. Every time MS tried to make it otherwise, they failed. Windows RT, Windows 8, Windows 10S, Windows 10X - each was less attractive than its predecessors, and each damaged the desktop attractiveness of Windows. Now we have an OS that tries to pretend it is a mobile OS, not a laptop and desktop OS. Control Panel that takes away more control from the user with each update, Search that won't find the most simple things, Explorer hanging randomly, OneDrive's broken sync and the rest of the UI are painful to use even on a beefy desktop. Even worse, it doesn't work well on mobile/touch devices. The new Control Painal changes from update to update, the Explorer UI gets less and less responsive and obvious, the and the file selection dialog is about as broken as someone could make it on purpose. I really have no clue who they're building Windows for anymore. I'm reminded of the joke https://milk.com/random-humor/suit_joke.html https://milk.com/random-humor/suit_joke.html about the tailor. Windows is the suit.
  - ToFab123 5y ago
    People do run in on tablets. OK, maybe not tablets like the iPad, but many people, including me, has 2-in-1 devices, where you laptop has a touch screen and where you use the device like it was a tablet.
muststopmyths 5y ago
As a long time Windows user, this is what is making me seriously think about quitting. To be fair, if Apple let you put MacOS on your own hardware I would probably have quit long ago. I just have to figure out if I am done with game development as well (which has been brewing for me recently). Anyway, back to the point. This is the most anti-Windows step that this pathologically anti-Windows management has taken. You were never, in the past, forced to upgrade hardware because Windows flat-out refused to run on it. I have run Windows 7,8 and 10 on a laptop shipped with XP and it ran fine. 10 even added in-box support for Sony peripherals that 8 and 7 didn't have. I fail to see how requiring TPM 2.0 or newer CPU features is going to protect the average user from malware, which is still the biggest risk to Windows users. If anyone knows, please educate me. Enterprises can impose these hardware requirements on their systems, there was no need to force home users to upgrade. Instead of improving Windows so that it works better for users, it seems like MSFT wants to improve OEM bottom lines and sell more licenses.
- blibble 5y ago
  it's not there to protect users against malware it's there to protect "content producer's" business models against you and MS are hoping to take a cut of that
- TingPing 5y ago
  TPM does make disk encryption more simple and effective for a typical user.
  - muststopmyths 5y ago
    but would TPM prevent you from downloading ransomware that encrypts your files ? It doesn't seem so to me, but I have not delved very deep into how Windows uses TPM.
    - my123 5y ago
      It does not, once the system has booted, the TPM doesn’t protect you. (For drive encryption purposes)
ivraatiems 5y ago
Why should I upgrade? What is the point? What would I get for all my trouble? Nothing in the article is compelling. Windows' quality control is abysmal. I'll stick with the devil I know in Windows 10.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  You get Teams forced into your taskbar, a news feed that forces you to use Edge and adverts for Microsoft 365 in your start menu! Hooray!
halotrope 5y ago
Am I the only one who really enjoys Windows 11 so far? I use the beta daily and it has been quite reliable and way more snappy than W10 on my Thinkpad. I really like the new UI which feels more modern and harmonic, settings are finally cohesive and uncluttered (Control Panel is still in there somewhere but why should I care?). Animations are snappy, the window management is improved, new GPU accelerated Terminal is really nice, WSL has GUI support and even some Cuda now. It really feels like a nice mix between Mac OS and Linux (with WSL) so I really don‘t get all the hate. Does it have tons of telemetry, cruft from 20 years in the kernel and some rough edges? Sure! Is the hardware requirements a bit ridiculous? Sure! But I think it is a nice OS that feels very productive and provides me with tons of value. And it is so much easier on the eyes wich I care about a lot. To each their own I guess but it sometimes feels a bit depressing how HN crowd trashes every OS. (I feel its similar with MacOS and Linux) Is everyone here still using C64, Windows 2000 or OS9 because it „was the last good system“?
- nailer 5y ago
  Win+Z tiling is a life changer. Nice to see Terminal is now part of the OS too.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  > Does it have tons of telemetry. . .? Sure! I'm somehow unable to identify the moment where the computer stopped being your kingdom and we started to happily share access to it with various companies. It was not always like this! I remember repeatedly clicking "no" when Windows 98 politely asked if I agree to send a bug report to Microsoft.
  - hypothesis 5y ago
    It was definitely when one agreed to use Windows 10, if we’re talking about MS operating systems.
  - fartcannon 5y ago
    No one sensible is happy about it. Many are happily being paid to promote Win11 in a fake grass roots kinda way. Microsoft has admitted to gaming Hackernews and yet hacker news continues to permit their submarine advertisements.
yabones 5y ago
I'm sure the 'third world' is bracing for the ecological disaster this will create. Anybody with a device more than four years old will toss it right in the trash and buy something new. Sure, it will create lots of devices for us *nix people, but that won't stop tens or hundreds of thousands of working computers going to "recycling". Of course, we don't actually recycle e-waste, we just put it on a barge and take it to SE Asia or Africa where children burn it to harvest the metals. The "greenwashing" of new devices is harmful - the best thing we can do is continue to use the ones we already have, and make them more repairable and supportable. A big part of that responsibility falls to Microsoft, who has done something reprehensible here.
- bserge 5y ago
  "Best" part is, a large percentage new computers (laptops, small desktops, AIOs) have all the components soldered. Just toss that motherboard complete with the processor, GPU and SSD - who cares, you're using a glass straw!
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  > I'm sure the 'third world' is bracing for the ecological disaster this will create. Anybody with a device more than four years old will toss it right in the trash and buy something new. They really won't. Much like with Windows 8-10, a lot of people are just going to refuse to upgrade and stick with 10 (or even 7) for years and years until something finally breaks compatibility with something they care about.
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    I've seen many commenters positioning Windows 11 as a "bad" windows in the good, bad, good, bad... alternating theory of windows versions. We'll see if that perception is widespread, but Microsoft may be back with a Windows 12 that fixes some of the issues before too long.
kingnight 5y ago
How on earth are microsoft/windows.com images still low resolution. It really stands out and detracts from the visuals they're trying to sell.
octopoc 5y ago
Comparing tech specs for Windows 10 vs 11: they doubled RAM requirements from 2GB to 4GB. They tripled storage requirements from 20GB to 64GB. Minimum CPU speed stays the same. That's comparing 64-bit vs 64-bit, the increased specs are even more extreme when considering Windows 10 32-bit. Windows 10 system reqs [1]: - 1 GHz or better processor - RAM: 1 GB of 32-bit OS. 2 GB for 64 bit OS. - Storage: 16 GB for 32 bit OS and 20 GB for 64-bit OS - Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.o driver - Display 800×600 Windows 11 system reqs [2]: - 1 GHz 64-bit processor - RAM: 4GB - Storage: 64GB - Graphics card: DirectX 12 or later with WDDM 2.0 driver - Display: High definition (720p) display that is greater than 9” diagonally, 8 bits per color channel - Internet connection (Windows 11 Home edition) [1] https://www.technologytips.com/windows-system-requirements/ https://www.technologytips.com/windows-system-requirements/ [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica...
- sleavey 5y ago
  > - Internet connection (Windows 11 Home edition) Does this signal the end of Microsoft account-less logins?
  - xeromal 5y ago
    Unless you have pro, yeah.
  - bserge 5y ago
    How does that work on holidays? "Just" use mobile data?
    - KingMachiavelli 5y ago
      It only requires an internet connection to setup. You can login with an Microsoft/'Online' account even when offline.
  - MrMember 5y ago
    Yes, Windows 11 Home will require an internet connection and Microsoft account on first startup.
karmakaze 5y ago
The first thing I think of when I see that UI is that it looks like a Linux desktop knockoff of a better desktop experience. That better experience used to me MacOS and/or Windows but now Windows is no better than Linux desktops. Will Windows 11 finally bring in the year of the Linux desktop?
- voidfunc 5y ago
  Windows already brought the year of the Linux desktop with WSL2 lol. I've been using Win11 Dev Channel Insider builds for a few months now and it works well. The UI is better than Win 10 and arguable better than Win7.
- jayd16 5y ago
  Just set the task bar to use the traditional left side style and it looks pretty much identical to how it looks now. What makes it look like a knock off?
  - karmakaze 5y ago
    The flatness of the UI and lack of colours are things that a UI made by someone without design skills would fallback on to avoid looking ugly. If the elements aren't there, there's less to complain about--except there is.
- meibo 5y ago
  > Will Windows 11 finally bring in the year of the Linux desktop? Is this sarcasm? After so many years, it's just hard for me to take seriously. Linux UX, not just in the DE department, is still trash for any non-technical user.
  - eric__cartman 5y ago
    Even as a technical user the mixture of the settings app, control panel, and other misc administrative tools in Windows 10 are a bit confusing at first. A non technical user will struggle with any advanced system configuration no matter what operating system they use. My mom has been using the latest LTS Ubuntu for a while now and it once unattended upgrades and automatic backups were configured (the latter was done with a built-in gui program that even allows you to restore a previous version of a file by left clicking on it and clicking a button) there have been zero issues about things not working or being hard to find. The software center is similar to the app stores in smartphones and more intuitive that going online to download an .exe installer file from hopefully the official website of the software creator. I have seen many PCs of people that ended up downloading software from Softonic and having the installer sideload "PC Optimizer Pro <current year> edition".
stronglikedan 5y ago
Will it ship with a vertical task bar option? Will it ship with a task bar that I can copy/paste between windows by dragging objects onto the taskbar button of the paste target?
asdswe 5y ago
Time to switch to Linux. Apparently these days even gaming works pretty well.
dugmartin 5y ago
I've been a Windows user since Windows 2 and I'm hoping I never have to run Windows 11. I've switched to Ubuntu on my work laptop and my (System 76 Meerkat) side-project/consulting work mini-PC. Desktop Linux is not great but is good enough, especially when running under alternative DEs like Regolith. I used to be a diehard Windows user. I was even a contractor on Longhorn for Microsoft and I have a DLL I wrote that still ships in the System32 folder (it used to be two but I don't see that one in the System32 folder now in Windows 10). I used to be proud that I could walk up to any PC in a store and hit a key combo and tell me kids "I wrote that" when the Narrator window popped up. I still run Windows 10 on my old personal laptop just to run Quicken/Quickbooks but my current side-project is an app to replace both of those with a single app. I'm looking forward to the day I can wipe Windows off that laptop and install Ubuntu (or maybe ElementaryOS as I've heard good things). Goodbye Windows.
- Diederich 5y ago
  If you have a moment, can you say the primary drivers behind your move? Thanks!
  - dugmartin 5y ago
    The #1 I have to say is my current Windows 10 Pro version (which I paid $100 for) is throwing a huge modal up each time I reboot trying to get me to create a non-local Windows account. The only options are to create an account or dismiss the modal - no option to not ask me again. #2 is all the telemetry.
- Chirael 5y ago
  Have you looked into GNUCash (GnuCash.org)? It’s a venerable open source project that I believe was started to offer an alternative to Quicken and may be an acceptable alternative to QuickBooks at this point. I haven’t used it personally but if I could go back in time I would make a strong effort to make that work before using Quicken/QuickBooks.
  - dugmartin 5y ago
JohnFen 5y ago
None of the Windows dev machines where I work qualify for Windows 11, and that makes me very happy indeed.
runjake 5y ago
I use macOS and Pop_OS! as my main desktops but I have Windows 11 installed for gaming. I like Windows 11 a heck of a lot better than Windows 10, which wasn't too awful. Performance is really good. The UI is much nicer. The OS is slowly getting less cluttered. winget is passable. The system monitoring tools are really good. The colors are really well done (well, aside from the new icons, which I find ugly). The new tiling features are great -- although #!@!$ Windows Terminal Preview still does not support them, even with today's release! If Windows 11 sat upon some sort of *NIX-based OS, it's probably at the point where I'd switch away from macOS, although I'm not sure whether that's because Windows is improving or macOS is getting worse. WSL exists, but it's still just a VM.
adonese 5y ago
Windows 11 (the insider builds) are very buggy. I'm usijg w11 on two machines: MSI with 7th generation CPU, and Lenovo Thinkpad e14 with 10th generation CPU and they both have serious issues. The MSI have an audio driver issue where I have this noise from the speakers coming in constantly and the only way is to disable the audio driver. Thinkpad issue is even more annoying. Thinkpad won't shutdown or even sleep. It always auto reboots! And it's very annoying! I would have to fully drain the battery for the laptop to shutdown and I know that will be very disastrous on the laptop.
dboreham 5y ago
A contrarian note in the sea of negativity here: I have it on all my machines since the insiders release a couple of months ago and I'm very happy. Everything works. WSL2 has GUI support. UI looks nicer than Win10. I'm not sure about the hardware compatibility gripes -- will it really not install on old hardware or is this about "supported" status? It runs just fine on my Surface Go fwiw.
- johnday 5y ago
  The taskbar for me is the thing which makes Windows 11 completely ruinous: 1. No drag and drop support, so you need to drag + alt-tab in order to find the right window to dnd into. 2. Windows in the same program always collapse into the same item, with no option to have them split out. To find the one you want, you have to use the flyout previews, which do not have titles. Clicking the taskbar button itself nondeterministically chooses which window to open. 3. No text on the taskbar. Got two programs with similar icons? Tough. 4. The Start button is now completely useless once the crapware is removed. Clicking into the start menu's search bar actually switches you to a different, more useful menu (the search menu). There is no way to make the search menu the default. 5. The default menu size is enormous, taking up about 8% of screen retail for the sake of 5 or 6 buttons. Had to resort to registry hacks to get it down to a usable scale. Those are just a few of the things that I stumble over daily, after about 6 weeks of using Windows 11. Windows 11 is NOT ready for general release and they seem to be actively punishing power users by removing the features they need in favour of "simplifying" the surface-level.
GDC7 5y ago
Classic Shell please come back!
crawsome 5y ago
It's going to be a buggy POS. XP Good, Vista Bad buggy half-baked UX nightmare 7 Basically a sendoff of Vista / Apology for it. *They could have updated 7 forever and I'd be happy.* 8 Bad 8.1 Less Bad, but bad. 10 Passable but stealing your data and watching everything you fucking do and you can't do shit about it, you must get updates and we buried all the system settings you loved behind stupid tablet UX 11 (I have no faith in m$)

125 points by WalterSobchak 5y ago

> 1. The new design and sounds are modern, fresh, clean and beautiful, bringing you a sense of calm and ease. THIS? is the number one point they want to highlight? Feel at ease, user, while we mine all your data and force feed you buggy release after buggy release of changes you don't want and didn't ask for!

byproxy 5y ago
I haven’t heard enough about the under-the-hood details of Windows 11 to not believe that this release is not much more than a slight refresh to the desktop environment.
- cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
  They redesigned the app store, the settings, the file manager, added android emulation and changed the update cycle. it's also snappy with more agressive caching from what i heard. the search was also overhauled to be faster and more relevant i would have loved for them to include more privacy and security features instead of the widgets panel for instance (which only allows microsoft services anyways so far) but it still looks like a decent release
  - byproxy 5y ago
    I’d say the first two things you listed fall under “slight refresh to the desktop environment”, but, yea… forgot about the Android emulation. That’s pretty cool. And the last couple of things you mentioned are certainly welcome improvements.
  - misnome 5y ago
    > the settings Did they actually redesign it this time, or just redesigned - again - the "most common" options and fall back to the old version, old version+2, old version +4 etc for any of the more detailed panes....
    - cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
      full redesign, it's significantly better than before
      - plopz 5y ago
        what does the network adapter options look like now?
        TingPing 5y ago
        Its still split across like 3 dialogs from 3 eras.
    - banana_giraffe 5y ago
      Reminds me: https://youtu.be/-rwoPiM-8Qk?t=305 https://youtu.be/-rwoPiM-8Qk?t=305 They're doing the same thing with the Explorer context menu, hiding the old options behind another layer.
      - misnome 5y ago
        Oh no, that's awful. 7Zip is the perfect example to demonstrate that. (not too taken with the plus it gets in that video for windows terminal, which has been available for ages)
      - polytely 5y ago
        I guess I'm staying on windows 10 until 2025
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    The Widgets Panel seems like the place that Live Tiles have gone to die. Outside of the "new AI widgets" they keep trying to hype the rest of the apps that show up there are just Live Tiles apps showing their old Live Tiles in new slightly more rounded boxes.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Modern software in a nutshell really. It's garbage, it's going to get more garbage, we don't give a shit how bloated and painful it is, here are some pretty pictures.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  This isn't just a modern trend. The XP everyone remembers is SP3 and that came very late in the life of Windows XP. It's first release, however, was an uglier version of Windows 2000 (albeit with a few bug fixes here and there). Most insulting of all, XP had twice the CPU and memory foot print of 2000. The Win ME crowd loved XP but many of the Windows 2000 folk ended up waiting it out for a few years before upgrading (or switching to Linux in my case). I expect the same will happen here. MS will still officially support 10 for a few years but not really show it much love. Eventually 11 will diverge into something worth upgrading to (or the last stubborn few will have migrated onto another platform entirely).
  - kasabali 5y ago
    What makes you so optimistic? Windows 10 didn't get any better in 6 years.

GiorgioG 5y ago

As the owner of a 1st generation Threadripper I'm pretty pissed off that my 4 year old CPU is unsupported.

AndrewDucker 5y ago
My desktop is a bit older - but can handle everything other than the security chip changes. Also pretty pissed off.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- joveian 5y ago
  Are you sure your CPU doesn't have the required security chip? On Intel systems it is called PTT and is present in almost all CPUs over the past decade IIRC. But often disabled in the BIOS. I thought AMD CPUs have also had it for a while.
  - AndrewDucker 5y ago
    Sadly not. i5-6600K doesn't support it, and my motherboard is literally one version short of having the chip.
    - joveian 5y ago
      I have the regular i5-6600 in my game system and it does have it so I am almost certain that chip does as well (and a quick search shows up someone with the k version who was able to enable it). For some reason the setting is under "peripherals" for me, I guess most likely the setting is hidden somewhere for you as well.
      - junar 5y ago
        It looks like for CPU/firmware TPMs, not all motherboard manufacturers supported it on their 100/200-series models. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/motherboards-that-support-tpm-windows-11/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/motherboards-that-su...

thrower123 5y ago

This feels extremely rushed. They didn't even push it out to QA (aka Windows Insiders) until the end of July. It doesn't really look like a compelling case to upgrade, for somebody who is happily using an LTSC build of Windows 10 that is rock-solid.

nly 5y ago
I agree. My first reaction was "too soon" as well.

lostmsu 5y ago

Bottom taskbar on laptop screens is a no-no.

cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
you can change the location of the icons to the left, if the centered layout is what you mean
- byproxy 5y ago
  The taskbar itself is what is being referred to, I believe. Having the taskbar mounted to one side of the screen allows for a bit more vertical space to be used by apps, which is pretty nice on aspect ratios that limit vertical space, i.e. 16:9. It’s the way I currently run my taskbar and I can’t really imagine having to use it locked to the bottom of the screen.
- andrewmackrodt 5y ago
  I think they want a vertical bar versus horizontal, I prefer this setup for laptops too, e.g. I have the dock on macOS on the left and Ubuntu/Gnome it is the default. It makes a huge difference when vertical screen estate is at a premium, as is the case with many laptops.
  - spicybright 5y ago
    I would too but mac does it in a pretty annoying way compared to say ubuntu unity. With multiple monitors, it snaps to the side most one you have plugged in regardless of your primary screen. I get there's a lot of dragging and dropping involved with the bar, but in Unity it let you set a threshold for mouse speed to limit you going to another monitor. Just let me put it on the side and do that if I'm dragging something, it's not too difficult.
cfn 5y ago
Amen, I use vertical bars on all my screens, even desktop screens. It is the aspect ratio...
5y ago

JohnWhigham 5y ago

This probably means it's finally time to move on from Windows 7. Too many games are starting to require W10/DX12...

peakaboo 5y ago
Hope you enjoy no privacy.. :) I think windows 7 was the last good version of windows.
- speeder 5y ago
  My personal workstation is still Win7 (+ Garuda Linux). When it becomes impossible to use it with Win7 I still just stick with Linux, Windows 10 is really, really disappointing, and Win 11 is somehow, worse. Thing is, even MS is aware of that, helping developers port some AAA games to Win7 (but NOT Win8! for example Cyberpunk 2077 runs on Win7 and Win10, but not on Win8)
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Planning to move to the LTSC branch so at least some of that telemetry will be minimized.
dharmab 5y ago
My plan is to stay on W10 until the 2025 EOL approaches, then evaluate Linux+Proton. I suspect by 2025 I will mostly be playing games old enough to work fine on Proton and not interested in keeping up with every new release.
liketochill 5y ago
I think I will move back to Linux and put windows in a vm for any windows software I need to run. I did this in 2008-2012 and it worked well. Then you can easily deny network access to the VM except for whitelisted IPs. Since the vm is just for a specific task it doesn’t need to talk to many.

rkangel 5y ago

I was really hoping that we were past having to think about different versions of Windows. Microsoft hyped Windows 10 as the 'last version of Windows' and that's how it should be. But now we have to go through this stupid cycle again, wasting user and IT department time doing upgrades, as well as developer time worrying about version support.

arsome 5y ago
I also distinctly remember Microsoft saying they would never wait as long between releases as XP to Vista. I always wondered which promise would be kept, guess we have our answer.
neogodless 5y ago
Within Windows 10, the updates really were versions in several significant ways. - They have support end dates! - Hardware support can vary between version (updates). I could not even get Windows 10 Build 1903 to boot with a newer GPU. I had to boot using the iGPU and update to 21H1, and then I could boot. Trying to install the driver on 1903, the installer said this version of Windows was not supported (!) - The UI can be changed. Just one small example, early versions of Windows Hello did not support using a PIN to login. Later versions started to roll back all the pushes to use Cortana.
- merb 5y ago
  > I could not even get Windows 10 Build 1903 to boot with a newer GPU. I had to boot using the iGPU and update to 21H1, and then I could boot. Trying to install the driver on 1903, the installer said this version of Windows was not supported (!) but this is a driver/software issue. you can pinpoint your software to higher versions.
zamadatix 5y ago
Windows 10 didn't get rid of any of that. If anything it accelerated the rate of new OS versions. You're going to have more differences comparing the initial release of Windows 10 with the current release of Windows 10 vs the current release of Windows 10 and the initial release of Windows 11.

city41 5y ago

> As the PC continues to play a more central role in our lives than ever before Does Microsoft really think this? I'm finding it's pretty common to meet people who don't own a PC at all. They just use their phone and possibly a tablet.

nightcracker 5y ago
Yes they think this, but not in the way you or I think about it. At least this is my admittedly cynical take. There is a strong push across tech to erase the concept of a Personal Computer, and make everything function like a tablet. Calling tablets/phones PCs is part of this, by muddying the water, as well as attempts like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfR_Jj4grZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfR_Jj4grZE Interfaces and functionality keep being dumbed and locked down like they are on tablets and phones. Microsoft and Apple are watering at the mouth for the day when the true personal computer is gone and every computing device is a walled garden where every user uses their pre-approved apps doing only the pre-approved tasks, preferably as thin clients into their controlled cloud.
- bitwize 5y ago
  And millions if not billions of users will be perfectly content with that -- especially if it means they won't have to deal with the hassle of keeping their computing devices clean, updated, and malware-free on their own. Nerds mewling about "general purpose computing" do not understand the market, and do not want to.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    I think it's fine that a lot of what we've traditionally used a PC for is now available in more appliance like devices for people. But I also think that personal computing is a revolutionary tool and absolutely should exist for people inclined to use it. Problem is, pretty much everyone who used to make PCs would much rather burn them to the ground so they can sell appliances instead.
    - 5y ago

hnlmorg 5y ago

There's a fine line that PR has to toe in order to make a product sound supernaturally good but without it sounding like obvious hyperbole. This is a great example of PR failing to toe that line: > The new design and sounds are modern, fresh, clean and beautiful, bringing you a sense of calm and ease. The default desktop theme brings me a sense of calm and ease...? > Snap Layouts, Snap Groups and Desktops provide an even more powerful way to multitask and optimize your screen real estate. So you've added some features to the way I drag windows about a screen? > Widgets, a new personalized feed powered by AI, provides a faster way to access the information you care about, and with Microsoft Edge’s world class performance, speed and productivity features you can get more done on the web. So many buzzwords to unpack there. > Windows 11 delivers the best Windows ever for gaming and unlocks the full potential of your system’s hardware with technology like DirectX12 Ultimate, DirectStorage and Auto HDR. Hasn't every release of Windows and/or DirectX made that same claim? > Windows 11 is optimized for speed, efficiency and improved experiences with touch, digital pen and voice input. Yet wont run on 4 year old hardware....that's some piss poor optimisations. I'm probably not the target audience for these kinds of press announcements but I really wish companies would dial it back a bit.

TingPing 5y ago
DirectStorage will become important, but of course its artificially limited to a Windows version like usual.
- minedwiz 5y ago
  https://www.pcgamer.com/windows-11-directstorage-windows-10/ https://www.pcgamer.com/windows-11-directstorage-windows-10/ It's not even exclusive.
jobigoud 5y ago
> Widgets, a new personalized feed powered by AI Who asked for that?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

flohofwoe 5y ago

Uff, I wonder if it's possible to decline the upgrade and still be served Win10 security fixes for a few years. Looking at past Win10 updates which mostly added fluff but never really improved anything I am not looking forward to Win11.

samtheDamned 5y ago
Windows 10 will still be supported until around 2025 but after that you're SOL

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ajay-b 5y ago

But I don’t want Windows 11. Windows 10 works just fine.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

> Windows 11 is optimized for speed, efficiency So why does it not support five-year-old hardware? I realize it's all just marketing, but I'm actually really frustrated with how developers seem to be defining "performance" nowadays. There's nothing impressive about running fast on a fast machine. Not everyone has access to the latest and greatest hardware, nor should they, lest we want to ruin the planet. If you're doing complex 3D modeling, that's one thing, but please tell me—what is the average office worker doing today that wouldn't have been possible on a PC ten years ago? And then please explain why Windows 11 needs a minimum of 4 GB of memory.

hbn 5y ago
"What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away"
thrower123 5y ago
> And then please explain why Windows 11 needs a minimum of 4 GB of memory. It has Teams integrated directly into the operating system. There's a GB of RAM right there off the top.
- LeSaucy 5y ago
  Worth waiting 6-8 months for debloat scripts to become refined
- eric__cartman 5y ago
  To be fair that might be a minimum for a decent experience. Even using Linux with less that 4GB of ram is sub-optimal. Open a few browser tabs, some documents and maybe some ram-hogging Spotify playing in the background and you'll be hitting the swap in no time.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    It's simpler to ask for 4GB straight than have the bad publicity of people buying cheapest netbooks and then complaining how they are slow... And 4GB is not unrealistic minimum in todays world of bloated software.

Someone1234 5y ago

I've been reading the feedback on /r/windows11 for a few weeks, and this release feels rushed. First available to public test at the end of June[0], and they're shipping it less than four months later with almost none of the issues/limitations/complaints being addressed. This whole release feels very, if you'll excuse the expression, "lipstick on a pig." They didn't really fix any of the underlying and longstanding issues people had with Windows 10, threw a new thin veneer on top, and called it a new thing. This October 5th release just feels like them expanding their public beta test to most Windows 10 users. I'm normally an early adopter (e.g. running iOS 15 Beta 7 right now), but I'm going to wait six months or more after Oct5 because this isn't even close to being production ready. [0] https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/06/28/announcing-the-first-insider-preview-for-windows-11/ https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/06/28/announc...

smallbizdev420 5y ago
There is no lipstick. It is all pig. Windows exists because people run it on laptops and desktops. Not tablets and phones. Every time MS tried to make it otherwise, they failed. Windows RT, Windows 8, Windows 10S, Windows 10X - each was less attractive than its predecessors, and each damaged the desktop attractiveness of Windows. Now we have an OS that tries to pretend it is a mobile OS, not a laptop and desktop OS. Control Panel that takes away more control from the user with each update, Search that won't find the most simple things, Explorer hanging randomly, OneDrive's broken sync and the rest of the UI are painful to use even on a beefy desktop. Even worse, it doesn't work well on mobile/touch devices. The new Control Painal changes from update to update, the Explorer UI gets less and less responsive and obvious, the and the file selection dialog is about as broken as someone could make it on purpose. I really have no clue who they're building Windows for anymore. I'm reminded of the joke https://milk.com/random-humor/suit_joke.html https://milk.com/random-humor/suit_joke.html about the tailor. Windows is the suit.
- ToFab123 5y ago
  People do run in on tablets. OK, maybe not tablets like the iPad, but many people, including me, has 2-in-1 devices, where you laptop has a touch screen and where you use the device like it was a tablet.

muststopmyths 5y ago

As a long time Windows user, this is what is making me seriously think about quitting. To be fair, if Apple let you put MacOS on your own hardware I would probably have quit long ago. I just have to figure out if I am done with game development as well (which has been brewing for me recently). Anyway, back to the point. This is the most anti-Windows step that this pathologically anti-Windows management has taken. You were never, in the past, forced to upgrade hardware because Windows flat-out refused to run on it. I have run Windows 7,8 and 10 on a laptop shipped with XP and it ran fine. 10 even added in-box support for Sony peripherals that 8 and 7 didn't have. I fail to see how requiring TPM 2.0 or newer CPU features is going to protect the average user from malware, which is still the biggest risk to Windows users. If anyone knows, please educate me. Enterprises can impose these hardware requirements on their systems, there was no need to force home users to upgrade. Instead of improving Windows so that it works better for users, it seems like MSFT wants to improve OEM bottom lines and sell more licenses.

blibble 5y ago
it's not there to protect users against malware it's there to protect "content producer's" business models against you and MS are hoping to take a cut of that
TingPing 5y ago
TPM does make disk encryption more simple and effective for a typical user.
- muststopmyths 5y ago
  but would TPM prevent you from downloading ransomware that encrypts your files ? It doesn't seem so to me, but I have not delved very deep into how Windows uses TPM.
  - my123 5y ago
    It does not, once the system has booted, the TPM doesn’t protect you. (For drive encryption purposes)

ivraatiems 5y ago

Why should I upgrade? What is the point? What would I get for all my trouble? Nothing in the article is compelling. Windows' quality control is abysmal. I'll stick with the devil I know in Windows 10.

IshKebab 5y ago
You get Teams forced into your taskbar, a news feed that forces you to use Edge and adverts for Microsoft 365 in your start menu! Hooray!

halotrope 5y ago

Am I the only one who really enjoys Windows 11 so far? I use the beta daily and it has been quite reliable and way more snappy than W10 on my Thinkpad. I really like the new UI which feels more modern and harmonic, settings are finally cohesive and uncluttered (Control Panel is still in there somewhere but why should I care?). Animations are snappy, the window management is improved, new GPU accelerated Terminal is really nice, WSL has GUI support and even some Cuda now. It really feels like a nice mix between Mac OS and Linux (with WSL) so I really don‘t get all the hate. Does it have tons of telemetry, cruft from 20 years in the kernel and some rough edges? Sure! Is the hardware requirements a bit ridiculous? Sure! But I think it is a nice OS that feels very productive and provides me with tons of value. And it is so much easier on the eyes wich I care about a lot. To each their own I guess but it sometimes feels a bit depressing how HN crowd trashes every OS. (I feel its similar with MacOS and Linux) Is everyone here still using C64, Windows 2000 or OS9 because it „was the last good system“?

nailer 5y ago
Win+Z tiling is a life changer. Nice to see Terminal is now part of the OS too.
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> Does it have tons of telemetry. . .? Sure! I'm somehow unable to identify the moment where the computer stopped being your kingdom and we started to happily share access to it with various companies. It was not always like this! I remember repeatedly clicking "no" when Windows 98 politely asked if I agree to send a bug report to Microsoft.
- hypothesis 5y ago
  It was definitely when one agreed to use Windows 10, if we’re talking about MS operating systems.
- fartcannon 5y ago
  No one sensible is happy about it. Many are happily being paid to promote Win11 in a fake grass roots kinda way. Microsoft has admitted to gaming Hackernews and yet hacker news continues to permit their submarine advertisements.

yabones 5y ago

I'm sure the 'third world' is bracing for the ecological disaster this will create. Anybody with a device more than four years old will toss it right in the trash and buy something new. Sure, it will create lots of devices for us *nix people, but that won't stop tens or hundreds of thousands of working computers going to "recycling". Of course, we don't actually recycle e-waste, we just put it on a barge and take it to SE Asia or Africa where children burn it to harvest the metals. The "greenwashing" of new devices is harmful - the best thing we can do is continue to use the ones we already have, and make them more repairable and supportable. A big part of that responsibility falls to Microsoft, who has done something reprehensible here.

bserge 5y ago
"Best" part is, a large percentage new computers (laptops, small desktops, AIOs) have all the components soldered. Just toss that motherboard complete with the processor, GPU and SSD - who cares, you're using a glass straw!
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> I'm sure the 'third world' is bracing for the ecological disaster this will create. Anybody with a device more than four years old will toss it right in the trash and buy something new. They really won't. Much like with Windows 8-10, a lot of people are just going to refuse to upgrade and stick with 10 (or even 7) for years and years until something finally breaks compatibility with something they care about.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  I've seen many commenters positioning Windows 11 as a "bad" windows in the good, bad, good, bad... alternating theory of windows versions. We'll see if that perception is widespread, but Microsoft may be back with a Windows 12 that fixes some of the issues before too long.

kingnight 5y ago

How on earth are microsoft/windows.com images still low resolution. It really stands out and detracts from the visuals they're trying to sell.

octopoc 5y ago

Comparing tech specs for Windows 10 vs 11: they doubled RAM requirements from 2GB to 4GB. They tripled storage requirements from 20GB to 64GB. Minimum CPU speed stays the same. That's comparing 64-bit vs 64-bit, the increased specs are even more extreme when considering Windows 10 32-bit. Windows 10 system reqs [1]: - 1 GHz or better processor - RAM: 1 GB of 32-bit OS. 2 GB for 64 bit OS. - Storage: 16 GB for 32 bit OS and 20 GB for 64-bit OS - Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.o driver - Display 800×600 Windows 11 system reqs [2]: - 1 GHz 64-bit processor - RAM: 4GB - Storage: 64GB - Graphics card: DirectX 12 or later with WDDM 2.0 driver - Display: High definition (720p) display that is greater than 9” diagonally, 8 bits per color channel - Internet connection (Windows 11 Home edition) [1] https://www.technologytips.com/windows-system-requirements/ https://www.technologytips.com/windows-system-requirements/ [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica...

sleavey 5y ago
> - Internet connection (Windows 11 Home edition) Does this signal the end of Microsoft account-less logins?
- xeromal 5y ago
  Unless you have pro, yeah.
- bserge 5y ago
  How does that work on holidays? "Just" use mobile data?
  - KingMachiavelli 5y ago
    It only requires an internet connection to setup. You can login with an Microsoft/'Online' account even when offline.
- MrMember 5y ago
  Yes, Windows 11 Home will require an internet connection and Microsoft account on first startup.

karmakaze 5y ago

The first thing I think of when I see that UI is that it looks like a Linux desktop knockoff of a better desktop experience. That better experience used to me MacOS and/or Windows but now Windows is no better than Linux desktops. Will Windows 11 finally bring in the year of the Linux desktop?

voidfunc 5y ago
Windows already brought the year of the Linux desktop with WSL2 lol. I've been using Win11 Dev Channel Insider builds for a few months now and it works well. The UI is better than Win 10 and arguable better than Win7.
jayd16 5y ago
Just set the task bar to use the traditional left side style and it looks pretty much identical to how it looks now. What makes it look like a knock off?
- karmakaze 5y ago
  The flatness of the UI and lack of colours are things that a UI made by someone without design skills would fallback on to avoid looking ugly. If the elements aren't there, there's less to complain about--except there is.
meibo 5y ago
> Will Windows 11 finally bring in the year of the Linux desktop? Is this sarcasm? After so many years, it's just hard for me to take seriously. Linux UX, not just in the DE department, is still trash for any non-technical user.
- eric__cartman 5y ago
  Even as a technical user the mixture of the settings app, control panel, and other misc administrative tools in Windows 10 are a bit confusing at first. A non technical user will struggle with any advanced system configuration no matter what operating system they use. My mom has been using the latest LTS Ubuntu for a while now and it once unattended upgrades and automatic backups were configured (the latter was done with a built-in gui program that even allows you to restore a previous version of a file by left clicking on it and clicking a button) there have been zero issues about things not working or being hard to find. The software center is similar to the app stores in smartphones and more intuitive that going online to download an .exe installer file from hopefully the official website of the software creator. I have seen many PCs of people that ended up downloading software from Softonic and having the installer sideload "PC Optimizer Pro <current year> edition".

stronglikedan 5y ago

Will it ship with a vertical task bar option? Will it ship with a task bar that I can copy/paste between windows by dragging objects onto the taskbar button of the paste target?

asdswe 5y ago

Time to switch to Linux. Apparently these days even gaming works pretty well.

dugmartin 5y ago

I've been a Windows user since Windows 2 and I'm hoping I never have to run Windows 11. I've switched to Ubuntu on my work laptop and my (System 76 Meerkat) side-project/consulting work mini-PC. Desktop Linux is not great but is good enough, especially when running under alternative DEs like Regolith. I used to be a diehard Windows user. I was even a contractor on Longhorn for Microsoft and I have a DLL I wrote that still ships in the System32 folder (it used to be two but I don't see that one in the System32 folder now in Windows 10). I used to be proud that I could walk up to any PC in a store and hit a key combo and tell me kids "I wrote that" when the Narrator window popped up. I still run Windows 10 on my old personal laptop just to run Quicken/Quickbooks but my current side-project is an app to replace both of those with a single app. I'm looking forward to the day I can wipe Windows off that laptop and install Ubuntu (or maybe ElementaryOS as I've heard good things). Goodbye Windows.

Diederich 5y ago
If you have a moment, can you say the primary drivers behind your move? Thanks!
- dugmartin 5y ago
  The #1 I have to say is my current Windows 10 Pro version (which I paid $100 for) is throwing a huge modal up each time I reboot trying to get me to create a non-local Windows account. The only options are to create an account or dismiss the modal - no option to not ask me again. #2 is all the telemetry.
Chirael 5y ago
Have you looked into GNUCash (GnuCash.org)? It’s a venerable open source project that I believe was started to offer an alternative to Quicken and may be an acceptable alternative to QuickBooks at this point. I haven’t used it personally but if I could go back in time I would make a strong effort to make that work before using Quicken/QuickBooks.
- dugmartin 5y ago

JohnFen 5y ago

None of the Windows dev machines where I work qualify for Windows 11, and that makes me very happy indeed.

runjake 5y ago

I use macOS and Pop_OS! as my main desktops but I have Windows 11 installed for gaming. I like Windows 11 a heck of a lot better than Windows 10, which wasn't too awful. Performance is really good. The UI is much nicer. The OS is slowly getting less cluttered. winget is passable. The system monitoring tools are really good. The colors are really well done (well, aside from the new icons, which I find ugly). The new tiling features are great -- although #!@!$ Windows Terminal Preview still does not support them, even with today's release! If Windows 11 sat upon some sort of *NIX-based OS, it's probably at the point where I'd switch away from macOS, although I'm not sure whether that's because Windows is improving or macOS is getting worse. WSL exists, but it's still just a VM.

adonese 5y ago

Windows 11 (the insider builds) are very buggy. I'm usijg w11 on two machines: MSI with 7th generation CPU, and Lenovo Thinkpad e14 with 10th generation CPU and they both have serious issues. The MSI have an audio driver issue where I have this noise from the speakers coming in constantly and the only way is to disable the audio driver. Thinkpad issue is even more annoying. Thinkpad won't shutdown or even sleep. It always auto reboots! And it's very annoying! I would have to fully drain the battery for the laptop to shutdown and I know that will be very disastrous on the laptop.

dboreham 5y ago

A contrarian note in the sea of negativity here: I have it on all my machines since the insiders release a couple of months ago and I'm very happy. Everything works. WSL2 has GUI support. UI looks nicer than Win10. I'm not sure about the hardware compatibility gripes -- will it really not install on old hardware or is this about "supported" status? It runs just fine on my Surface Go fwiw.

johnday 5y ago
The taskbar for me is the thing which makes Windows 11 completely ruinous: 1. No drag and drop support, so you need to drag + alt-tab in order to find the right window to dnd into. 2. Windows in the same program always collapse into the same item, with no option to have them split out. To find the one you want, you have to use the flyout previews, which do not have titles. Clicking the taskbar button itself nondeterministically chooses which window to open. 3. No text on the taskbar. Got two programs with similar icons? Tough. 4. The Start button is now completely useless once the crapware is removed. Clicking into the start menu's search bar actually switches you to a different, more useful menu (the search menu). There is no way to make the search menu the default. 5. The default menu size is enormous, taking up about 8% of screen retail for the sake of 5 or 6 buttons. Had to resort to registry hacks to get it down to a usable scale. Those are just a few of the things that I stumble over daily, after about 6 weeks of using Windows 11. Windows 11 is NOT ready for general release and they seem to be actively punishing power users by removing the features they need in favour of "simplifying" the surface-level.

GDC7 5y ago

Classic Shell please come back!

crawsome 5y ago

It's going to be a buggy POS. XP Good, Vista Bad buggy half-baked UX nightmare 7 Basically a sendoff of Vista / Apology for it. *They could have updated 7 forever and I'd be happy.* 8 Bad 8.1 Less Bad, but bad. 10 Passable but stealing your data and watching everything you fucking do and you can't do shit about it, you must get updates and we buried all the system settings you loved behind stupid tablet UX 11 (I have no faith in m$)