Windows 11 feedback/questions

S

statsman

Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Joined
Apr 17, 2008
Messages
2,331
I finally upgraded my Windows 10 Pro PC to Windows 11 Pro the middle of last week. For the most part, everything is working, but there are several annoyances with Windows 11. For the sake of my comments, Windows 11 refers to version 24H2.

Here are some of the annoyances/issues/questions I have so far:
  • The right-click context menu for files and folders has changed. The new ordering sucks, and there appears to be a bit of a delay entering the new context menus. I understand I can go directly to the Windows 10 style context menu by holding down the Shift key while right-clicking the mouse. Honestly, that menu opens faster than the standard Windows 11 context menu. Is this typical?
  • I used to be able to right-click on the taskbar. Doesn't work, including the ability to right-click on an application in the taskbar, which I sometimes used to close the application under Windows 10.
  • They really changed Windows Explorer, and not for the better. The Windows 10 style ribbon is gone, as is the menu at the top of the Explorer window. Opening Windows Explorer under Windows 10 was instantaneous. With Windows 11, there is a bit of a hesitation, similar to the slowdown accessing the right-click context menu.
  • Also with Windows Explorer, if a new file or folder is added to a folder, it shows up at the bottom of the folder, regardless of the sort order. With Windows 10, the new addition(s) would show up in the proper sorted order. Windows 11 requires a forced sort (or F5) to get the new additions in sorted order. Again, another slowdown in usage.
  • The taskbar preview of applications cannot be turned off. Some people like this feature. I find it just slows down the computer by having images flash above the taskbar if the mouse pointer happens to head in that direction.
  • Individual windows of the same application cannot be moved independently. For instance, if I have two separate windows opened for Windows Explorer, they will be locked side-by-side on the taskbar. If you move one, you move the another. The order of the locked taskbar entries cannot be switched. I had far more control with Windows 10. To be fair, I used an application called 7+ Taskbar Tweaker with Windows 10 that was a time saver. That application does not work with Windows 11.
I am using the Open Shell application, which helps a lot with setting up a Windows 7 styled start menu. Some of the Open Shell features with Windows 10 seem to not work or have been OBE with Windows 11.

I have yet to find an application that worked with Windows 10 that won't work with Windows 11. Much of my frustration is with the Windows 11 taskbar, menus, and Windows Explorer for working around files and folders. In the past, Microsoft left hooks in place to access previous features, whether through Windows itself, through registry tweaks, or through 3rd party applications. So far, it seems like Windows 11 has closed or is preventing those avenues.
 
Have you gone to Advanced system settings and under Performance adjusted the settings. Microsoft obscures the some of taskbar settings using terms like Peek and Thumbnails.
 
frank05 said:
Have you gone to Advanced system settings and under Performance adjusted the settings. Microsoft obscures the some of taskbar settings using terms like Peek and Thumbnails.
Click to expand...
Yes, I have. In fact, the settings I had in that menu carried over from Windows 10 with the upgrade. I only have two items selected, Smooth edges of screen fonts and Show window contents while dragging. Everything else is unchecked.
 
I can right click on my Win 11 taskbar, either on the blank part, which brings up a context menu that has only Task Manager and Taskbar Settings; or on one of the icons, which brings up the context menu that includes things like unpin and close. My Taskbar settings include "Left Align" and "Combine taskbar buttons = Always". I don't know that those would make a difference and you may not like these settings, but at least you'll know if they're related to the issue.

For the context menu on desktop icons, I have no speed difference between the Win 10 and Win 11 style menus. I now prefer the Win 11 style menus after having gotten used to them in recent years. You might take a look at your display settings and see if turning hardware graphics acceleration on or off helps at all.

I use Chrome instead of Explorer, so I can't help with those issues.
 
FYI Windows Explorer is the file manager in Windows 10 and Windows 11 - it has nothing to do with web browsing.

Microsoft Edge has been the default web browser in Windows since 2015.
 
Al18 said:
FYI Windows Explorer is the file manager in Windows 10 and Windows 11 - it has nothing to do with web browsing.

Microsoft Edge has been the default web browser in Windows since 2015.
Click to expand...
Ah sorry, brain freeze there. I've been a Chrome user forever.
 
You can also use programs like "WinAero Tweaker" and "Windhawk" to change a lot of the worst parts of Windows 11.

Personally, I think the way Windows 11 handles the personalization of colors horrible. Dark mode/light mode, and a choice of a few colors. It really makes it difficult to adjust various aspects of the user interface (like the title bars of windows to show which is the active (top most) window). Some aspects can be adjusted with third party tweaking tools, but some can't.
 
I have been playing around with Windhawk, and it has a few mods available that accomplish most of what I would like to see.

The bad news is I still cannot right-click on most of the Windows 11 taskbar. If I right-click on a blank spot on the taskbar: nothing. If I right-click on an application on the taskbar to bring up the context menu: nothing.

I can right-click on the icons in the system tray, the start button, and anywhere on the desktop, and those functions work.

It's possible the in-place upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 fouled something up with the taskbar. I used to have the application 7+ Taskbar Tweaker installed on Windows 10 that the upgrade to Windows 11 barked about after the install of Windows 11. Maybe my Windows 10 registry tweaks are preventing this.

I was hoping the install of the cumulative September 2025 updates from Windows Update would have fixed it, but it's still not working. This isn't critical, but it is an annoyance to lose that flexibility. I even tried installing a mod from Windhawk for the taskbar, but that didn't fix the right-click issue.
 
Any delays doing simple file system tasks would definitely be annoying. It seems most people are never happy when Microsoft comes out with a new OS. I was hoping Microsoft would have some of these issues sorted out by now. I'm glad I have another full year with Windows 10 updates on my systems with ESU.
 
statsman said:
The bad news is I still cannot right-click on most of the Windows 11 taskbar. If I right-click on a blank spot on the taskbar: nothing. If I right-click on an application on the taskbar to bring up the context menu: nothing.
Click to expand...

I determined the reason for the right-click issue, and the solution. Several solutions were suggested online to fix this problem, but none of them solved the issue. But one of the registry edit suggestions made me decide to check the group policy settings on my PC as it was upgraded from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 11 Pro.

It took a bit to search the settings until I found one that was Enabled that appeared to be the cause.

Group Policy Editor:
User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar

Within this folder was the setting "Remove access to the context menus for the taskbar". It was set to "Enabled". Setting this to "Not Configured" eliminated the problem.

I have no idea how this was assigned. I don't have it anywhere in my Windows 10 notes. It may be related to the "7+ Taskbar Tweaker" for Windows 10 that the Windows 11 upgrade barked about and disabled, maybe causing this setting to be enabled. Or maybe it's always been that way and the taskbar tweaker bypassed it for Windows 10, but once it was disabled for Windows 11, the issue resurfaced. Anyway, all is fixed now.
 
I too have noticed sometimes launching an application takes longer than in Win 10. I try to not customize browsers or their settings and eventually I get used to how they work.

I didn't run across this until the other day. For some reason the dates of my checking statements were all screwed up but they were in dd/mm/yy format in Chrome while in Brave they were displayed mm/dd/yy. In Chrome settings under languages it was set to United Kingdom! Just now it flagged "customized" as misspelled and it was using the UK spell checker!

My install of windows was done at the shop I bought this pc from several years ago. The first 3 days were frustrating setting up things to display or function like I was used to and mostly that was trying to figure out what the proper term was to search. The Snipping tool was major issue until someone told me the Print Screen goes into the Snip. There are still a couple of buggy things I can't figure out but I am using 11 OK. I can right click in empty space or on an icon on the task bar so I have no idea why you can't. Sorry I really have no suggestions for your problems, I was hoping I could help.
 
GenXguy said:
Any delays doing simple file system tasks would definitely be annoying. It seems most people are never happy when Microsoft comes out with a new OS. I was hoping Microsoft would have some of these issues sorted out by now. I'm glad I have another full year with Windows 10 updates on my systems with ESU.
Click to expand...
I almost went that route, but Intuit indicated the next release of TurboTax for the 2025 tax season won't be able to run on Windows 10. So, I went ahead and upgraded my six year-old Windows 10 PC last week.

I wanted to build a PC for Windows 11, but I was running out of time before Windows 10 EOL. Now that I've done the upgrade, I have a fair handle on Windows 11 (and Windhawk!) should I replace the older PC.
 
This question has been asked before, I'm sure, but is Microsoft downloading Windows 11 for free, like they did with Windows 10?

Thanks,

Roy in New Mexico
 
Just got a new computer and switching from Windows 10 to 11. I use Chrome as my primary browser. On Windows 10 usernames would automatically be fill in and I would just need to type in the password. Can't seem to find a way to do that in windows 11. I know there's a way to save passwords but I don't want to do that, just usernames. Any suggestions?
 
CincyDave said:
Just got a new computer and switching from Windows 10 to 11. I use Chrome as my primary browser. On Windows 10 usernames would automatically be fill in and I would just need to type in the password. Can't seem to find a way to do that in windows 11. I know there's a way to save passwords but I don't want to do that, just usernames. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
I would have thought that by default, the last signed in name would have been displayed. Some people think it is better to have it hidden anyway for security reasons.

Here is one website that describes how to display or hide the last signed-in user's name. In your case, you would want to "disable" the "Don’t display last signed-in" option, which I assume has been enabled in your case.

Enable or Disable Don't Display Last Signed-in in Windows 11 | NinjaOne

If you are a Windows 11 Home user, this involves a registry edit using one of methods 2 thru 4. Proceed carefully. Method 1, involving the Local Group Policy Editor, requires Windows 11 Pro. It's the main reason why I opt for the Pro version of Windows 11. Less direct registry edits and chances for mistakes.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Statsman. I don't think I was clear in my initial post. It looks like this article is referring to signing on to the computer itself and I was referring to logging onto individual web pages. For example at fidelity.com, on my old Win 10 computer the username would automatically fill in and I would just need to fill in the password. Same with other websites. I'm not all that computer savvy and would never try to Edit the registry or anything like that. I did find in chrome where you can auto fill user name and password but I don't want to auto fill passwords.
 
Cincy Dave,
The browser feature is called something like auto complete.
 
There's a setting in Chrome called Autofill and Passwords. From there you can save all login information including password, but I don't want to save passwords to fill in automatically, Just the username.
 
CincyDave said:
Thanks Statsman. I don't think I was clear in my initial post. It looks like this article is referring to signing on to the computer itself and I was referring to logging onto individual web pages. For example at fidelity.com, on my old Win 10 computer the username would automatically fill in and I would just need to fill in the password. Same with other websites. I'm not all that computer savvy and would never try to Edit the registry or anything like that. I did find in chrome where you can auto fill user name and password but I don't want to auto fill passwords.
Click to expand...
Sorry about that. I tend to have fields blank whenever possible (no auto fill names or passwords), so I misunderstood the question.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

R
Can't copy music from my Windows 11 PC to a blank CD
2
Golden Mean
Golden Mean
M
Sharing issues with new laptop on home network
Kings over Queens
Kings over Queens
sengsational
Zorin and WinBoat
camfused
camfused
sengsational
Cheap Windows 10 Hardware
jim584672
J
Qs Laptop
I Woke Up in Microsoft OneDrive Hell
2
Graybeard
Graybeard

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom