How are you liking Windows 11?

[ShokWaveRider]

For me, Windows 10 or 11 are drastically improved with "Open Shell", a Windows 7 start menu alternative.

I personally find the Windows 10 and 11 GUI very intrusive and much prefer the older left click start menu interface. Makes life much easier, at least for me.

I much prefer a Mouse style interface to a touch interface. I think it is a personal preference thing. But there must be a lot of folks out there like me as to the reasoning why "Open Shell" was created in the first place.

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I like it, but that's probably because I got a blazing fast new Framework laptop, and that's my first exposure to it. I have it set to use a fingerprint, but I've always required either a password or used Windows Hello, to make sure someone can't shut down and restart my laptop to get access to it.

I'm not crazy about the new Start menu, but I've been tweaking it, and it's fine, I'm getting used to it. I did have to install ElevenClock, because I find it frustrating that MS took away the seconds counter on the system clock. It has taken me a while to customize other things, too, as Win11 seems to try to hide more from users, but TBH I understand that, and while it was annoying at first, now it's no different than before. Like the swipe gestures took me a while to customize, but I figured it out. The learning curve was probably not that different for Win10, maybe it's just we've gotten used to it.

My favorite part Win11 is that they added desktops, like in MacOS. So if I'm not using external monitors, I can still 4-finger swipe to switch between desktops, a much more efficient way of switching quickly between apps IME. Very helpful when trying to go back and forth quickly and frequently between apps.

[NW-Bound]

A reason for having a login to your PC is that it allows Windows to encrypt your HD. If someone steals your PC, he cannot remove the HD, install it on another PC and get your data.

For a laptop that I take on travel, this is very important. As mentioned, when I log in to my PC, I automatically log onto my MS account. There's no extra step.

Perhaps you can still have the HD encrypted by using a local account and not an MS account. I have not investigated this.

[jim584672]

Microsoft uses Bitlocker as the HD encrypter. Veracrypt is another app that I would use for that.

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by plex Incompatible with a few programs that work perfectly fine on any older version (simulation mode is useless) and has some serious bugs including chrome locking up....

Ah, I wondered about that. I upgraded a few months ago on a computer I bought in August of last year. A few weeks after that, Windows wouldn't boot up so the computer was pretty much useless. Getting it up and running again was painstaking- it required supplying some lengthy recovery code that was supposedly burned in my files somewhere (except I couldn't access them). Using an ancient laptop and my phone I walked through a process to "restore" it to the configuration it had a few days before.

Just last night, Chrome locked up. I shut it down and restarted it but it happened a few times more and eventually the whole computer locked up. I couldn't even re-boot. I unplugged it, it ran out of charge overnight and it's fine now.

Frustrating.

[Freedom56]

A lot of third party software still does not support Windows 11. So I will wait and wait for my media creation software to support for Windows 11. I already have login by pin number with Windows 10.

[zinger1457]

Windows 11 offers two options for disk encryption. The first is Bitlocker but that requires Windows Pro, Ent, or Edu. The second option is called Device Encryption, my understanding is it's more of a Bitlocker Lite, doesn't give you all the features of Bitlocker but will encrypt your drive. It's what I use on my Windows 11 laptop.

[jim584672]

Latest Win 11 update totally hosed my system. The DVD started going crazy and then things froze up. Restored a backup image and it works as normal. ALWAYS BACKUP!

Win 11 is a hot pile of garbage.

[camfused]

^^^ Do you know which version of Win 11 did this?

[jim584672]

Quote:

Originally Posted by camfused ^^^ Do you know which version of Win 11 did this?

The cumulative update KB5019157 was the last thing done before the event.

21H2 Win 11 Pro.

[mountainsoft]

I tried Win 11 last year, discovered several issues I didn't like, and reverted back to Win 10. I haven't looked at it since. Can anyone tell me if these items have changed?

- The taskbar can't be moved

- Taskbar icons are always grouped and no longer allow labels

- Taskbar clock is very small.

- The Start menu doesn't allow pinned items to be grouped, and the small tiles cut off longer filenames.

- An unnecessary "recommended" section can't be removed or hidden.

- The file explorer menu is difficult to use, and lists default to double line spacing for touch screen users.

- Right click context menus require an extra click for "more options".

- Windows have rounded corners, and sliders have a skinny design with hidden scroll buttons that are tiny and hard to click on.

[Lsbcal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R I don't even know my login to Microsoft and all of this discussion was making me curious. So, I just shut my laptop completely down in order to see what I had to do to get back in. 1) Hit my laptop's "On" button and waited for my pretty login graphics (an oceanic scene) to come up. 2) Typed in my 4 digit PIN. Boom. I'm in. Didn't even have to punch "enter".

Is the 4 digit pin all you need to login? If so, that sounds like a security issue to me. Could you not increase the number of digits? Apple allows me to use 6 digits.

On Windows 10 I use my strong MS password. My 4 year old PC doesn't support Win 11

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lsbcal Is the 4 digit pin all you need to login? If so, that sounds like a security issue to me. Could you not increase the number of digits? Apple allows me to use 6 digits. On Windows 10 I use my strong MS password. My 4 year old PC doesn't support Win 11

Attached are some of the options you have for signing in to your computer, if you prefer one of these instead of the PIN.

[Another Reader]

Old thread but I have an annoying issue on the almost new Windows 11 desktop. On the old Windows 10 desktop I was able to bypass the lock and log in game after a few minutes of non-use. How do I disable that feature on the new desktop? I use the computer all day and this is super annoying.

[Gryphon]

In Settings -> Accounts -> Sign-in options, under Additional Settings there's a selection for "If you've been away, when should Windows require you to sign in again?" Try setting that to "Never". And right below that there's an option for "Dynamic lock", you probably want to turn that off as well.

[Another Reader]

Made the change, fingers crossed. Thanks for making it simple!

[5Miler]

I replaced my broken Windows 10 HP Laptop with a new Lenovo Windows 11 laptop back in November. I use Linux on most of my equipment except those that require Windows for the software I run such as Quicken, TurboTax, Blue Iris, and my video editing software and Scuba Dive logging software.

The last two are orphan programs as the Scuba logging software had support dropped almost 10 years ago and the sole owner/developer of the video editing software died last year after a short, non-Covid related illness.

I installed both programs on my new laptop in November and all was working fine. This week as I'm getting ready for our annual dive trip to Bonaire, I was finalizing the updates to my Dive Logging programs and found out it throws an error when attempting to backup my files. I never thought to check this out back in November.

Further research shows that it's an issue with SQL Server required for the dive database program. My software requires SQL Server 2012 which is not supported by Windows 11. It will not run on any of the new versions of SQL Server currently supported by Windows 11. Bummer!

I will try a workaround by running Window 10 in a Virtual Machine on my new laptop which theoretically should work. Seems like nothing ever goes as easy as it should when it comes to technology. In the meantime I had to revert back to using my old laptop to update my records but I can't take it with me on my dive trip as it has a broken hinge which threatens to totally separate at any time.

[jim584672]

Chris Titus Tech
Microsoft is DESTROYING Windows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7JmN8_URGY

[ShokWaveRider]

I am still running 10 pro. But I am in the market for a new laptop. I would never consider on unless it came with 11 Pro. That way I have control over the setup. JMHO. I did the same with my current laptops, I made sure they came with 10 pro. No reason to upgrade them.