Ask HN: Should I accept the free Windows 11 upgrade?

Also I've tried etherium mining on the desktpp gpu, which uses memory parameter overrides and overclocking. I worry that support could change?

I do some development, CUDA, python, mingw64 C++ stack. Possible WSL. Does WSL change/improve in Windows 11?

Maybe something will come along and change my mind, but at the moment I've seen no compelling reason to update, and I value stability over shiny latest.

The last major super annoying bug of Windows 10 (windows moving around on a multi-monitor setup when coming back from sleep or monitors off) was fixed with the 21H2 update, so I'm good.

Other than "free offer", do you have a specific reason to want Windows 11?

Actually, I did a fresh install, and saved the iso on a bootable USB stick just in case it sucked and I had to downgrade.

That said, I can't really think of a reason a 10 user would upgrade. It's my impression that it's primarily for new machines. On the other hand, Microsoft may starting building improvements to 11 that won't make it to 10, which is why I upgraded.

Windows 11 is Windows 10 with exactly two changes; Windows 10 is not Windows 8 with several changes, but still in the same branch/evolution in the same NT family.

The first change is: the Sun Valley theme update, which finally gives all the WinForms/WPF/UWP/WinUI apps ("Metro" or "Modern" style) apps a real theme instead of bad full-white and full-black themes that destroy any sense of visual ergonomics Windows had. Microsoft was afraid people would be confused and need to be retrained in corporate environments (fun fact: this happened when Vista became 7), so they increased the major version.

The second change is: VBS (Virtualization Based Security) is now enabled by default and the installer won't let you install without it working. This means UEFI must be enabled, legacy boot must be disabled, secureboot via TPM must be enabled, and due to the previous one, your TPM must be enabled and new enough, else you cannot use Windows 11 (unless you do an underdocumented hack to the installer; I did this on my Ivy Bridge laptop, I know what I'm doing and I accept the risk). All Skylake family CPUs and all Zen family CPUs have a firwmare TPM that meets requirements; first generation Skylake and Zen 1 have security vulnerabilities that blacklist them from default Windows 11 installations (or, roughly, to run Windows 11, you need a CPU made in the past ~5 years). Again, because hardware requirements changed (even though "sold with Windows 10" required such features exist in the first place), major version changed.

The second change is not a huge issue either, as all sold-with/for-Windows-10 machines are required to have these features; the flaw is, many mobos default to being broke out of the box, as in, TPM is not enabled, secureboot isn't turned on, and hypervisor CPU features are not enabled: these are technically defective mobos whose fix is to just turn the features on. Some mobos have gotten Windows 11 BIOS updates that just change their defaults and turn it on; 99.9% of users have no clue what I just wrote or what any of it means... and a BIOS update won't fix this because they, again, have no clue what any of this means.

Now, one last thing, the semi-kicker: with the first change, they finally jettisoned the old taskbar: it predates the original Metro UI, and is very finnicky to work with as it has a lot of custom behavior. The new one is written entirely in normal XAML as a completely normal and conventional app.

Why is this a semi-kicker? If you use small taskbar and/or task grouping disabled, as you're a competent and knowledgeable Windows user, you need to use Explorer Patcher to re-enable both of those features. Microsoft is currently denying the lack of those features are a bug, and do not understand that their decision has already been vetoed by the community and some of their largest enterprise customers.

Their reasoning is that both Apple and Google poison kids in education environments by putting Macs and Chromebooks in school and making that their first exposure to computing, so instead of fighting this, they default to an identically functioning dock-esque giant centered task-grouping taskbar instead of, you know, the one you expect from a product named Windows.

So yeah, go accept the upgrade, then install Explorer Patcher to fix the backwards taskbar issues.

That's when you know a Windows release is actually done.

Still, there are reasons to upgrade: Stronger security (maybe), much-improved Settings app. Better WSL 2. Most new development will be for 11.

I’m working at a Microsoft dev shop, so I’ll be forced to use it sooner or later anyway.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2349-windows-11-performance...

Seriously, need random people to make choice for you?

There are too many downgrades in terms of UX in Windows 11 to upgrade just because it is new.

My advice: if you aren't doing anything critical, it's probably fine to upgrade sooner rather than later. It sounds like there are a few benefits to Windows 11. If you are doing anything critical, give it a year for the bugs to be ironed out.

The first major point of concern is the issue during late beta where the chunk of advertising JSON that was malformed took out Explorer entirely, rendering the system unusable. That speaks to how tightly Microsoft has integrated "things I consider worthless crap" (advertising) with the core OS. In my preferred model of computers, the OS is core, and nothing from the internet can render the core OS inoperative (short of actual OS updates being defective). Advertising updates definitely can't render the OS entirely non-usable. They got it fixed before too long, but that tight integration between "core OS" and "advertising delivery" is exceedingly concerning.

Microsoft has also been steadily making "offline accounts" harder, and with Win11, has made offline accounts no longer an option for Win11 Home. You are now required to have an online Microsoft account in order to use your local computer (or pay up for the Pro version, because you're not being as profitable on the backend). My read of this, given the advertising tie-in, is that Microsoft has decided that the "behavioral surplus collection" benefits from having what's likely to be your common email tied to your account (and at least your IP address) exceed the small costs of annoying a few technical users - and are therefore almost certainly hoovering up more information about use than they were with Win10. Again, my model of computers is that the local login information, at least for personal computing, has no business being tied to whatever online accounts I care to use or not use, and my OS definitely shouldn't be actively reporting up what I use or not (yes, I know Win10 and MacOS are both doing this in some form or another, and I'm moving away from both of them).

These two, combined, tell me that Win11 has diverged so far from what I consider an OS should be (serving me, not using my behavior as a raw material source for the OS company) that I'm just not willing to use it for personal use. I've been heading more completely down the Linux road lately, and will likely continue that, just because of how I think computers should function in relation to my goals.

This does mean there are probably certain things I won't be able to do eventually in the context of gaming, though the Steam/Linux/Windows compatibility layers (Proton?) are getting better, from what I hear. But I've accepted that there will be things I can't do with computers if I use computers in the way I think they should behave, and I'm OK with that.

The bad, power users thrown to the side in favor of reducing clutter in some areas. In particular, the Explorer right-click menu has been gutted. Now there's an annoying "show all options" step to get to common actions you may have installed such as "open in Notepad++". By default, the menu shows 5 options and a few context actions but is designed to avoid the massive (and perhaps confusing) menus users would have after installing 20+ apps. Perhaps this is "mixed" rather than bad but I find it annoying.

The ugly, there's a small but noticeable latency in Explorer when navigating back and forth rapidly between drives/directories. A search for "windows 11 explorer slow" shows a common theme. It's not a constant, more like some sort of indexing hiccup that occurs from time to time when backing out of a folder or entering a new one.

That performance bug may be resolved in a bit, most bugs reported on the bug tracker have gotten surprisingly quick response rates. I reported a critical bug in the snip tool that was resolved in an emergency patch a week later.

There's probably other "good" items but as a Windows 10 power user/developer, this is what I noticed as part of the transition.

If MS believes I will replace totally fine hardware functioning and still really up to all I throw at it, because it wants me to update a OS they must be delusional. Why should I buy new stuff when all is good?

I am way past tbe 'I need new shiny stuff each year'-phase of my life.

So as long as my employer doesn't force me to switch I really would need to see good reasons to jump.