How are you liking Windows 11?

[Ramen]

It's been a year. Have the bugs been worked out? My main laptop is ready for the upgrade. Any reason not to do it? Are the monthly updates smaller and less annoying?

I've read that one con is a required Microsoft account. What does this mean? Do you have to log in online just to use the OS? I have an account with W10 but always log in to the laptop with a local user account. My MS login is only for when I need to download something from the MS Store. Same with W11? Or is the login required for all daily use? I work offline sometimes and don't want to have to be on the internet if I don't need to be.

 

[Aerides]

The login is only needed for a start up from a shut down. Waking up from sleep mode, nope.

I hardly ever do a full shut down anyway, so I can't remember the last time I had to log in via Windows - probably only with the last update.

 

[Ramen]

Thanks. So could I set up a local user account as on W10 and just log in to it offline from a shutdown? Or would I need to be on Wi-Fi so I can log in to headquarters each time, so to speak?

 

[Alex The Great]

Still using W10. Any reason to replace it with W11? I hear there are plenty of bugs.

 

[Car-Guy]

I bought a new HP Laptop a few months ago with W11 loaded on it along with the latest MS office suite. Never had anything work so well from MS. Learning curve was measured in minutes (far less than a hour), and certainly not in hours or days. Zero bugs/issues so far....

I reboot it about once a week (just out of habit) since so far it hasn't locked up.

 

[W2R]

I love Windows 11. It's a lot like Window 10, but (IMO) faster and more trouble free. For me, it's the best operating system yet.

But will you like it too? You'll never know until you try it.

 

[RobbieB]

Good to know. So far I haven't had any problems with win 10, so I avoided the update.

 

[Jerry1]

The login is only needed for a start up from a shut down. Waking up from sleep mode, nope.

I hardly ever do a full shut down anyway, so I can't remember the last time I had to log in via Windows - probably only with the last update.

So if I shut off my computer every night (or just shut down frequently), I have to log into my windows account every time? In windows 10, I know it stores my account, but I only have to log in when in want to do certain things, like download an app. Generally, I don’t have to do so.

Though I guess, that’s not a lot different than my iPad that need my passcode or thumbprint to open it (except I guess I could shut that off if I didn’t want to password protect my iPad).

 

[plex]

Don't do it, I would go back to windows 10 if it wouldn't be a slightly bigger PITA setting everything back up again. It forces you to login or use a PIN every restart. 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, occasional inability to enter sleep mode, or more frequent memory leaks, requiring a fair bit more restarts than before.

 

[NW-Bound]

I always dragged my feet when it came to upgrading Windows. This time, my old and still working fine laptop will not support Win 11. One day, I saw at Costco a Lenovo laptop on sale, and after checking the specs, decided to buy it.

After setting up the new laptop, I put it aside and kept using the old Win10 laptop. It was only until the recent European trip that I brought the new, slim, and powerful laptop along and started using it more.

There's not much difference with Win 10 that I could see (or remember). I have always had an account with Microsoft, so that was no problem. When I log into my PC account, it is linked to the MS account, so it's all transparent. It's not different than you having an Android or Apple account to use a smartphone.

About bugs, I have not encountered any that's notable. On the other hand, my Win10 started to get buggy, requiring more reboot as time goes on. Makes me wonder if MS does this intentionally to force people to upgrade. Or perhaps it just happens when they stop paying attention to old products and devote more time to the newer stuff.

 

[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".

 

[NW-Bound]

Here's another thing. I bought a new machine with Win 11 pre-installed. If I upgrade an old machine, the experience may be different.

Perhaps the PC makers spend more time working with MS to ensure their new machines will work OK. They would lose a lot of money if people return their PC. On the other hand, when you update an old machine, there are more risks of something going wrong, because nobody but you cares.

It's a theory, and I don't know if it describes real life.

 

[NW-Bound]

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".

Same here. When I go to "Settings", my MS account is shown on the upper left corner.

 

[zinger1457]

I just log in with my fingerprint when I restart Win11, starts up fast, just a few seconds. I like Windows 11, no issues.

 

[Jerry1]

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".

Thank you. I was wondering what it actually entailed. Seems no different than my iPad except that I don’t think I’m automatically signed into my Apple account when I open my iPad. Being logged into my account all the time and especially needing to be logged in, bothers me, but it’s the way things are going. Same thing with Quicken - you’re logged in if you’re using it. Seems a little intrusive for the base operating system, but like I said, that seems to be where everything is going.

 

[njhowie]

I've read that one con is a required Microsoft account. What does this mean? Do you have to log in online just to use the OS? I have an account with W10 but always log in to the laptop with a local user account. My MS login is only for when I need to download something from the MS Store. Same with W11? Or is the login required for all daily use? I work offline sometimes and don't want to have to be on the internet if I don't need to be.

You do not need a MS account. During the install process you can skip over the Microsoft account stuff and create it as a local account. That being the case, if you did set up with a MS account, you can go into settings and change it to a local account instead.

How to switch from Microsoft account to local account on Windows 11
https://pureinfotech.com/switch-from-microsoft-account-to-local-account-windows-11/

 

[jim584672]

Ehh, its ok. Put it on some of my old media machines. One gripe, File explorer opening a folder with lots of files takes some time and says "working on it".

 

[grasshopper]

I only use Windoze for Quicken and TurboTax. I won't upgrade until I am forced to. A Chromebook is my go to laptop.

 

[camfused]

On my Win 11 box, I just push the power button, it boots, and I have a desktop. No login or pin. I have a local account. If this is how you want it to work, you can set it up that way.

As for Win 11 itself, I don't use this box much (I am a Mac guy), but I think it is a big improvement over Win 10 (again, probably because it is more Mac-like). On the previous Win 10 machines in the family, I used Open Shell and other tricks to make Win 10 look like Win 7, because the Win 10 interface was so bad, but I don't feel the need to do that on my Win 11 box.

 

[finnski1]

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".

That's exactly the same process for my windows 10 machine right now. So I don't see a problem with either win 10 or 11 as far as log ins are concerned. I have been waiting to do the win 11 upgrade. Haven't had any real problems with Win10 so dragging my feet.

 

[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]

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.