Is it now worth trying Windows 11?

[Infraviolet]

I can see your point james_s, for just about everything except the browser and internet facing parts of an OS.

[james_s]

I do keep my browser up to date, other than that I've never spent much time worrying about it, and the only infections I've ever had to deal with involved somebody installing something that came bundled with crapware. Or Microsoft's own "Get Windows 10" campaign, which was indistinguishable from malware.

[IDEngineer]

My "line in the sand" stays the same: Once i am forced to create a Microsoft Account to use Windows, I'm out.

They're darned near that today with new machines. My wife needed a new laptop so we picked up a nice Acer at Costco (they double the warranty and have a bombproof return policy). It has Win11 on it, and it's impossible to get it started without 1) a wireless network connection, and 2) an existing or newly created Microsoft Account.

Hating the latter as much as you apparently do, I used bogus credentials to get past those steps. I've now discovered that this locks you out of certain user authentication details once the machine is running... they simply will NOT expose certain user properties (example: your own username!) unless you first log in to your Microsoft Account. The machine is functional for now but I bet someday we'll run into some setting that is "protected" and at that point Costco's return policy may become very useful indeed.

Here's a question relating to #1 above: What if you are intentionally trying to create an airgapped, standalone machine? One that has never, and will never, be connected to the Internet? I can imagine quite a few scenarios where that would be true, many of them in industrial control situations where the machine is literally acting like an embedded controller and has no use for an external connection ever. Have such applications and users just been utterly abandoned?

This is an awful way to run a product and a company. If I thought about it for a while I suspect there's a way to invoke antitrust or another legal remedy, likely based on "market saturation" etc. I normally shun using government power to address problems but I'd make an exception here. This is bad business practice, unethical, and borderline immoral. We need to make an example of Microsoft so other industries - like automobiles and their "heated seat subscriptions" - are terrified to even look in the same direction.

[TimFox]

Before retirement, I was involved in installations for imaging containers and trucks at customs stations here and abroad.
Naturally, the customer demanded that the imaging system computers be isolated from the public network.
(I don't remember precisely, but I think the last one I worked on used Windows XP.)

[IDEngineer]

Exactly. Are such people now forced to use custom embedded systems? Auduino stealing market share from Microsoft?

[Messtechniker]

My "line in the sand" stays the same: Once i am forced to create a Microsoft Account to use Windows, I'm out.

They're darned near that today with new machines. My wife needed a new laptop so we picked up a nice Acer at Costco (they double the warranty and have a bombproof return policy). It has Win11 on it, and it's impossible to get it started without 1) a wireless network connection, and 2) an existing or newly created Microsoft Account.

Hating the latter as much as you apparently do, I used bogus credentials to get past those steps. I've now discovered that this locks you out of certain user authentication details once the machine is running... they simply will NOT expose certain user properties (example: your own username!) unless you first log in to your Microsoft Account. The machine is functional for now but I bet someday we'll run into some setting that is "protected" and at that point Costco's return policy may become very useful indeed.

Here's a question relating to #1 above: What if you are intentionally trying to create an airgapped, standalone machine? One that has never, and will never, be connected to the Internet? I can imagine quite a few scenarios where that would be true, many of them in industrial control situations where the machine is literally acting like an embedded controller and has no use for an external connection ever. Have such applications and users just been utterly abandoned?

Simply search for "microsoft account windows 11 skip". And Bob's your....

[TimFox]

That's an extremely popular topic on Google.

[Infraviolet]

I guess the best way to skip it would be the very first time you boot, go in to BIOS/UEFI, turn off the secureboot cr*p, and install a Linux distro from USB media.

Inevitably by murphy's law, there's almost certainly specific software you need that hasn't a Linux version available and where the Windows version won't run under Wine, but there's always virtual machines for that.

[coromonadalix]

you have tools and know how  to do that    just do google fuu ...

and for win 11 usabiliy   you have some startallisback  or others 3rd party  with very low costs purchase to help you a bit in that @@$2 of win 11

[Ranayna]

you have tools and know how  to do that    just do google fuu ...

and for win 11 usabiliy   you have some startallisback  or others 3rd party  with very low costs purchase to help you a bit in that @@$2 of win 11

That reminds me...
I need to evaluate the stability of these third party tools like Startallisback to be able to use it at work. I have heard several reports of instability and crashing explorer.exe.
I guess i really need to upgrade to 11 then 
At least Enterprise will not force a Microsoft Account.

[SiliconWizard]

Does anyone know whether Altium Designer runs with Wine?

Edit: Well, I tried, and it does not. It crashes.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Does anyone know whether Altium Designer runs with Wine?

Edit: Well, I tried, and it does not. It crashes.

Which Library (is crashing), do you know?

[Bryn]

I've only ever tried out Windows 11 with this online simulator, but I would not be confident on actually using the real thing, just based on the negativity I've been hearing about Windows 10 in the past (and with Win11 being just as bad as it, like forced updates).

I'm still happy with Windows 7 though.

[nigelwright7557]

I wouldn't. From what little experience I've had with it, it's like Windows 10 only worse, and 10 is already virtually unusable.

Windows 12 is due in 2024.
I try not to upgrade straight away until some of the bugs are out.

[Fredderic]

Windows 12 is due in 2024.

So we should all upgrade to Win11 in December, so we can ignore Win12 until Win13 comes out.  Or Win12b because some people still don't like 13's, or Win24 (or 28, or whatever it'll be) to just skip the whole 13 issue Samsung-style.

[beanflying]

I have 'upgraded' one out of my 4 boxes to Windoze11 as a test subject and apart from trying to do way more than I ask and force/intrude Microsnot products as 'solutions' into my use of it it works as well or as badly as W10 so  I really see zero advantage to it in daily use.

As all my gear is now 11 compliant and the software I need suits I am still likely to move them all to 11 late in the year and repeat the same late adopter process with the next one.

I do also have a dedicated Linux box and am playing with a stash of SBC's so in spite of my former heresy against the distro mess I am not hating it either as an experience.

[fluxcapacity]

I definitely have been enjoying some of the little things in windows 11, like, the photo viewer works a little better for resizing images.

Overall, 11 is fine, but, I didn't mind 10 either.

[DavidAlfa]

You won't be missed! (W11 chief officer)
He did what it did, maybe following higher staff directions, or he was simply terrible at it.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/18/23878609/microsoft-windows-panos-panay-leaving

[beanflying]

I definitely have been enjoying some of the little things in windows 11, like, the photo viewer works a little better for resizing images.

Overall, 11 is fine, but, I didn't mind 10 either.

Much better at EVERYTHING is https://www.irfanview.com/ you can run batch resizing and it is still a nice simple GUI to use.

[SiliconWizard]

You won't be missed! (W11 chief officer)

FTFY.

[Messtechniker]

Simply go ahead an try it. And if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages keep using it. Otherwise move on to someting else.
There is no such thing as the "Best". Everything has its pro and cons. 

[ptluis]

The first thing to do on a windows 11 machine is to disable automatic updates! it's really annoying when we need to use the computer and you get stuck in the frequent  " installing updates" message... wait and wait 

The other dangerous thing with automatic updates is when your computer uefi bios is updated without your consent. I receive many laptops for repair due to non success bios updates.

I use all windows OS and 10 is enough for all tasks and old laser printers for example. with 11 old laser printers won't work without some degree of modification of the OS.

Windows 11 is like Android or ios system, they control your machine and change whatever they want, whenever they want without your consent because they own the OS

And BTW windows 11 is full of telemetry, spyware, after removing all this useless trash the OS is nice, but the concept of cloud dependency is a no no.

[radiolistener]

Microsoft Linux 11 isn't worth spending time on, just install Debian, it works better... 

[porter]

And BTW windows 11 is full of telemetry, spyware, after removing all this useless trash the OS is nice, but the concept of cloud dependency is a no no.

All the garbage that was piled onto every corner of windows 11 on my new laptop almost made a grown old man cry. They even added "personalization/crap" to the search bar which in my case showed up as a zucinni with related search suggestions.  TVs manufacturers are getting in on the trend.

"Ad fatigue — LG TVs start showing ads on screensavers"
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/lg-tvs-continue-down-advertising-rabbit-hole-with-new-screensaver-ads/

[abeyer]

I need to evaluate the stability of these third party tools like Startallisback to be able to use it at work. I have heard several reports of instability and crashing explorer.exe.

I've been using startallisback on my work machine for a while without any noticeable problems.