Open Forum: Are you upgrading to Windows 11?

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Why it matters: After months of Insider previews, Microsoft has launched Windows 11 to the general public. It's sleek, it's modern, and, if we were to take the company's words at face value, an absolute must-have upgrade for any Windows user (and free!). But is that really the case? Opinions are mixed, to say the least, even amongst our own staff members. Some of us have already upgraded to the new OS, and some, like myself, have not.

There's a lot to like about what Windows 11 brings to the table. Many users appreciate the refreshed UI (rounded corners included), and it's nice to see virtual desktops finally get some more love. And I love the idea of Snap Groups and Snap Layouts: as a habitual multitasker, I'll take any new tool that makes it a little easier to streamline my workflow.

There's also Auto HDR, which is, by all accounts, an excellent and seamless addition to the OS that gamers -- at least, those with an HDR monitor -- are sure to love. And how about DirectStorage, the feature that Microsoft promises will (eventually) transform game load times as it has on the Xbox. That could be pretty cool, whenever developers begin to properly support it.

With all of that said, Windows 11 seemingly brings just as many changes that users dislike. The truncated right-click context menu is a particular pain point, and people aren't exactly ecstatic about being forced to link their Microsoft account to use Windows 11's Home Edition.

Personally, I'm more inclined to agree with Windows 11's detractors for now. There just aren't enough unique features in Windows 11 to win me over yet, and I don't agree with all of the changes. However, I'm open to altering my mindset in the future.

At any rate, that's just my opinion. What we're looking for here is your thoughts on Windows 11. Are you planning to upgrade? Have you done so already? Why, or why not? Let us know via the poll or comments below.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91654-open-forum-you-upgrading-windows-11.html

 
I upgraded one of my PCs to dip a toe in the water, but I backed it up first so I can roll back if I feel like it.

Kind of underwhelmed so far. It looks like a new skin with very similar underpinnings. And I'm not wild about the new skin - but then I wasn't that fond of Windows 10's UI either. We'll see how it goes.
 
Yep. I downloaded the latest Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft, clean installed Pro without installing ANY updates. Then I downloaded the Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft, ran some PowerShell scripts I found to bypass TPM and Secure Boot, kept none of my files and I'm up and running just fine.

It's running just fine on an I7-4790k w/ an RTX 2070 with an offline account. Many aspects feel snappier. No this isn't a placebo I've swiped this computer 600 times. Once you set the OS up to your liking it's more than "useable" and there's nothing technically "missing" compared to 10 from what I see.

I would have fresh installed from a USB drive but I couldn't find a reliable way to bypass TPM with this method so I chose the upgrade path mentioned above.
 
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I upgraded!

The only problem was with my Office 365 subscription. It started to show me the "Sign in required" warning even after signing in automatically. I couldn't get rid of that crap and guess what? I bought an Office 2019 key and problem resolved. MS bug with Office 365 and sign in is just infuriating.
 
No, Despite everything checking out my laptop won't be able to upgrade as the cpu is too old apparently. It's a 4 year old Dell XPS 9560. As soon as I found out I booted into my Linux partition and have stayed there since. There is no way I am binning this laptop for an OS that arbitrarily decided it's no longer suitable. It's an unbelievable limitation. My Mrs has one too, Slightly older 9550 and she will have to stick with 10 for now.
 
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I installed the beta in VMWare Workstation Pro just to check it out. In the course of checking Windows 11 out I did not find any feature or function that I had to have right now. So I may upgrade in 6 months or so. The only feature I am interested in is Android app support and it is not even included in the Windows 11 launch release.
 
I upgraded, but are a couple things I worked around:
1. Explorer has cut the context menus off at the balls. Reverted to Windows 10 context menus.
2. I prefer Windows 7's start menu over anything from that point onward so I put OpenShell on it - had to work around some compatibility issues

and more than a few things I don't like...

Microsoft took away the toolstrip from explorer. If I want to do things like change the folder options I have to go to the control panel or use the menu "..." item - It is clumsy.
Microsoft replaced Cut, Copy, Paste menu items with unhelpful little unlabeled icons on its toolstrip replacement menu. -- ugly as hell and not friendly at all.
With Windows 10 you could include the title bar in your color selections. They dropped that option
Taskbar Volume control is now buried in the middle of a bunch of other stuff. If I click on the speaker taskbar item, I want to control the volume. Period.
Windows took away the ability to create new taskbars.

After evaluating, I have since reverted to Windows 10. I see no overpowering reason to go to windows 11.
 
Last edited:
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At the least I'm waiting for a solid 3rd party tool (or MS to admit that some of their choices were stupid) to re-add features that I do use (like non-grouped taskbar windows).
 
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I will upgrade by early next year. I am still waiting until more bugs get fixed.
DirectStorage seems nice but I don't know if it will do much on PC games since the GPUs usually have a lot of VRAM anyway. It could also be that I still don't really know how it works yet.
 
Can I move taskbar to top without having to use some sort of hack and breaking other things yet? No? Bummer.

Will I have to try to figure out if the custom right click menu options will still work? Probably won't. Bummer.

It'll cripple performance on my CPU currently? Bummer. You'd think something like that would be sorted before actual live launch.

No. I won't be upgrading for a while.
 
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envirovore said:
Can I move taskbar to top without having to use some sort of hack and breaking other things yet? No? Bummer.

Will I have to try to figure out if the custom right click menu options will still work? Probably won't. Bummer.

It'll cripple performance on my CPU currently? Bummer. You'd think something like that would be sorted before actual live launch.

No. I won't be upgrading for a while.
Click to expand...
There is a simple hack for the taskbar without breaking anything else. It is on Github.
 
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winjer said:
I already did, but already regret it.
It's buggy and has performance issues. And the UI is much worse than Windows 10.
I've been affected by the L3 latency bug.
Click to expand...
How do you know it's the cache latency causing it? I only noticed perf issues when I got lower scores in CPU's bench and indeed AIDA64 had my latency at 25ns with bandwidth recorded in MB/s not GB/s. Also, AMD mentioned a potential drop of up to 15% (not static) in competitive games etc, but not overall performance.

I know this is just me, but I haven't noticed any drops in real world perf.
 
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