UKH

Well is it worth the upgrade or do I stick with 10? Are there any advantages? Apologies if this has been posted previously.

I was given a Surface Pro with Windows 11 to play with for a few days. General impression was that it was the finished version of Windows 10 with all the legacy Windows 7 stuff finally gone.

Microsoft appear to be going the Apple route and dumbing down the OS to make it more appealing to users who want something that 'just works'. Also more attractive to the mobile generation. It's less cosmetically configurable from the UI than Windows 10, but the registry entries to modify the look and feel are still there to edit if you know what you're doing.

No noticeable performance improvements although Microsoft say a lot has changed behind the scenes. I was not able to test the integration with MS Teams.

Would I upgrade? I felt like I could take it or leave it really, not particularly exciting but I probably wouldn't object if it turned up on my laptop.

Edit: One big change - no more live tiles on the start menu, it looks more like an Android device.

Hi Sean

Just debating the same thing myself. There are those who say it is more secure, due to how it works behind the scenes (use of TPM). However that also means that machines over 4 or so years old (like mine) probably can't run it except by editing the registry. I might swap my motherboard - kinda fancy a newer processor anyway. You can find a compatibility tool which checks your machine and tells you whether you could run it. 

Cheers

Paul  

I thought the professional editions of OS for a while have integrated TPM and bitlocker, I'm struggling to understand what's actually new and more secure from the marketing hyperbole

My thinking is the demise of security updates for W10 Paul. 2025 I believe. If I leave that  upgrade too late then we might have to pay or risk future security issues. Then again some past upgrades have caused problems. My PC is practically new so no problems about actually doing the upgrade, just is it worth possible hassle when everything is working fine at the moment. If it's not broken, don't fix it!

When does the free upgrade offer end ?

I will probably upgrade a few weeks before the deadline.  Let them work out all the kinks first. 

I imagine it'll be like the Windows 10 upgrade - they'll set a date to try to get people over but allow the upgrade after. 

Be careful with the upgrade readiness tool. I ran it on mine and it said there was one issue - it sent me to a web page that explained how to switch to EUFI boot in the BIOS, but didn't mention that if you do so your OS will no longer load and will need to be reinstalled!

I imagine there will be a fair few folk following the instructions without the background knowledge to either realise what they're doing, or fix it afterwards.

Call me paranoid but my suspicion is medium/long term 'more secure' means less control of your PC and more chance of forcing you to buy things through Microsoft rather than use shareware or buy direct from the developer.   Every big tech company is looking at Apple's App store and thinking look at the amount of money those guys make by taking a percentage of every app that runs on their hardware.    

It's already happening - the last consumer laptop I bought defaulted to only allowing apps to be installed from the Microsoft store. I had to go into settings and allow apps to be installed from other locations before I could start doing anything useful. Another nail in the coffin!

You guys still on Windows?  Geez, been on Linux Mint for years, oh yeah and libreoffice - no monthly fee for me to run my business.

This made me smile. Haven't they been doing this since Windows 95? I first learnt as a kid with 3.11 and Dos, and never felt as competent with anything that came later because they took away the ability to easily do things that felt 'advanced' and dumbed it all down. XP was very good tho.