Windows 11 - 18 months later

Hey folks..

Back in late June of 2021 - I started down the Windows Insider track with Windows 11 and installed build 22000.51 on both an Intel NUC 8th Gen and a Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 laptop.

Back then I made the comment that effectively Windows was just a Chromebook/MacOS mashup and that really I had noticed any major performance improvements over the Windows 10 builds I had been running...

Okay so here we are some 18 months later and I'm running build Windows 11 Pro build 25267.   

So what's changed ?

To be honest not much.   Sure there have been some improvements with the overall start menu and task bar, there is now tabs for Windows Explorer and the extremely glacial migration of system settings from Control Panel has continued

The biggest thing that Windows 11 had forced me to do is to upgrade my NUC as Intel effectively stopped upgrading the Iris 655 Graphics drivers for my NUC 8 and I didn't want end up with a platform that wouldn't support newer builds.

So the good news is I have a bright shiny new NUC 12 Wall Street Canyon that increased CPU Core/Thread to 12/16 and added ARC graphics.  

Does my NUC 8 still work and run Windows 11 ?  Sure it does and I replaced my wife's NUC 7 with the NUC 8 and the release version of Windows 11.  I'll probably be able to get another 2 years out of the NUC 8.

But back to Windows 11.   Has Windows 11 improved my productivity ?  No it's the same as it's always been.  Regardless of where MS locates start it's still just start.  To me the OS maybe just became a little more tablet friendly or lets say Surface friendly - but if you don't own one - yawn...

I'm not one of those folks who looks back to the old days of Windows 7 or even 8.1 and says the OS ruined because of something simple like the start menu or task bar.  It's the same basic navigation and click count you had 10 years ago..

Do I care about the updated icons, etc - no not really as long as I can find things I'm fine.  There are a few cleaner tools - I like the snipping tool but again yawn.

And with MS effectively out of the music business - apps like Media Player are kind of irrelevant.  Clipchamp doesn't do that much for me either.  Yeah I can do some video editing - but have been doing that for years with various tools out there.

I really don't use the MS Store - there's nothing there of any interest - period.  And for the most part - many of the apps are just web launchers anyway.

I still don't use MS Edge - I'll stick with Chrome - thank you very much.  

I also don't use the Linux and/or Android subsystems.  Why would I waste my time with them.  If I want Linux - I'll just grab one of my Linux devices and if I want Android - I use my Pixel devices.  

If I was developer would having one of the subsystems be helpful ?   Maybe - but to be honest if you're really a Linux developer - why not just develop in Linux vs a subsystem running on top of another OS ?  And would I really develop like containers or web apps in the subsystem and test on a desktop OS ?

So after 18 months I'll ask the same questions I did back in late June of 2021.

Would I run out an buy a new PC just to run Windows 11 ?   No.  The only reason I did was for graphics support going forward.  

My one Inspiron I test with is a Gen 7 i7 with native graphics and TPM - it runs Windows 11 fine..

Is Windows 11 better than Windows 10 ? It depends on how you define better.  

Is it better in that some of the code is newer and therefore potentially more secure - yes.   

Will my productivity increase ? - No not really.   

Is it easier to use and manage ?  - No not really 

Let's face it - for a large portion of the user base - Windows is simply something to run Office apps from.  But you could access Office apps from anything.  I use MacOS, Linux, ChromeOS and Windows.  From any of those via the native browser I can access Office  So why do I need a massive OS with a bunch of native apps and 3rd party bloatware that I barely use ?

So to me Windows is effectively dead.  

Outside of the occasional 3rd party app - which is typically not even in the store - I can perform my job across any platform - so who cares about Windows ?

As someone who has been in this industry 40+ years - so before MS and Windows were even around and have been an Insider since the beginning - the OS has just become bloated and old - I don't care how much they try and change the UI.

In my opinion MS should trim Windows way back - gut out all the old legacy crap and make it a simple, fast and easy to update OS.   Kind of like ChromeOS.  

And by the way MacOS is in the same boat - it's also an ancient pig.   


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