Microsoft Update – Sometimes, Microsoft has no choice but to upgrade Windows. Windows Millennium Edition, aka Windows Me, is terrible. Its successor, Windows XP, is much better.
XP’s successor, Vista, is pretty bad. Microsoft made us forget about Vista with Windows 7, which for many people—I’m one of them—is the best version of Windows. Microsoft then tried, and failed, to replace it with dismal Windows 8 and 8.1. Then, the company fixed it again with Windows 10. That should be over.
While Windows continues to get major updates, like Windows 10 version 21H1, the brand is still Windows 10 until it’s not. So now we have Windows 11.
Do you see a pattern here? Microsoft seems to replace bad operating system releases and then good ones. If Windows 10 was good, Windows 11 would be a bad successor.
After working with Windows 11 for a few weeks, I wouldn’t call it bad. On the other hand, I find it pointless.
Yes, Windows 11 security updates are great — if you have the right hardware. But as I pointed out recently, you can already use those security updates if you are running Windows 10 20H2 release (Windows 10 October 2020 Update). So the whole point of upgrading from Windows 10 to 11 is…what, exactly?
Some people think it looks good. It’s a matter of taste. To me, it’s a “Meh.” This is the face of Windows 10 with some cosmetic “enhancements” like the taskbar with all your icons centered by default. The Start menu is back and now comes with pinned and recommended apps. Windows 7 style widgets have also returned. I don’t use them, mind you, but they are there. Oh, and Live Tiles, goodbye! (Has anyone used it?)
Upgrading an existing PC to Windows 11 is still a trifle. Some fast processors can’t run it. And without Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0, you’re not going anywhere. Of the half a dozen Windows 10 systems my partner or I have in 2020, none can run Windows 11. Before you even think about moving to Windows 11, you should be running Microsoft’s PC Health Check app.
Updating a Windows 10 PC to 11 is also time consuming. My primary Windows 11 test system was a Dell XPS 8940 Special Edition tower PC. This unit comes with 11th-Intel Core 2.5GHz i7-11700 Processor; AMD Radeon RX 5700 8GB GDDR6 graphics; 32 GB RAM, 512 GB PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (SSD), and 1 TB SATA 7200 RPM HDD; and connected to the Internet with a Gigabit connection. In other words, this is one fast machine. And it still took me over an hour to upgrade it.
It’s just me in my office, so no problem. But, if I have to upgrade dozens, or hundreds of machines, that’s a lot of time expensive for your IT staff and your workers twiddling their thumbs.
Oh, and did I mention that Windows 11 slows down AMD Ryzen CPUs by 10% to 15% on demanding applications? Or that Windows 11 doesn’t work properly with Intel Killer and SmartByte networking software? Microsoft promised both issues would be fixed on October 12.
Maybe everything will be fine soon. What worries me though is that this issue is fairly easy to spot, and is a fundamental issue with AMD and Intel hardware. I mean, who runs Windows without an AMD or Intel processor? How could Microsoft not notice and fix this bug long before the final release of Windows 11 was released? What other, more obscure hardware or software issues might be waiting for you to stumble?
Oh, and it’s a problem I didn’t see at first because I’m running Windows 11 Pro. It turns out
If you are using Windows 11 Home, you must have an Internet connection and a Microsoft account to run Windows 11 at all. No, Internet, no Microsoft account, no Windows 11. You can’t set up a local user account or use your PC at all.
Sure, there weren’t many people in that situation, but they were out there. I know. I spent an hour troubleshooting what looked like a failed Windows 11 installation when I finally came across Windows 11 Home hiccups. Thank you, Microsoft.
Here’s my bottom line. I’m not looking good enough in Windows 11 to make it worth your time upgrading. Windows 11 doesn’t bring me the slightest bit closer to anything I love. It’s just a tedious and somewhat annoying update that I can happily skip.
There’s really no point in a good word for it.
Stick with Windows 10 for now. In the end, you’ll have to buy a new PC with Windows 11, but there’s no need to rush. If you really feel like you want something different, and potentially better, can I suggest Linux Mint, Chromebook, or Windows 365 Cloud PC?
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