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Windows 11 First Impressions


Dave-H

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On 10/29/2021 at 4:33 PM, BYTE-ME said:

@ UCyborg. So it sounds like many of the taskbar, startmenu and interface issues can be fixed with 3rd party tools?

Looks like it. Some of these will break with future builds if MS purges the code of the old Explorer/taskbar, which is still there. Win11 will have feature updates like 10 so who knows what will change in the next one.

On 10/29/2021 at 4:33 PM, BYTE-ME said:

Also, I've used OldNewExplorer but not ExplorerPatcher. Yet on the ExplorerPatcher website, isn't that the old style drive grouping shown or am I missing  something?

ExplorerPatcher author must have OldNewExplorer installed as old drive grouping certainly doesn't come from ExplorerPatcher.


Out-of-the-box, it's pretty bleak. Sure, there are some useful additions, but they don't make up for omissions. Dumbing down is pretty radical in this one.

Funny someone mentioned KDE. KDE is nowhere near like this.

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  • 3 weeks later...

While it is interesting that Microsoft has decided to pull its decision that "Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows", it doesn't change the fact that this isn't the way to do it. Not only do they release an operating system with LESS features than their previous one, it feels like an update to the original 10 that is only supposed to modify the UI (which, as Microsoft has shown prior, is doable without changing the whole OS!) and remove some features for "safety" and "user experience" reasons. Only serves to prove that tech corporations probably have the most power over people right now...

Keep in mind that this whole post is based on 22000.51, 22000.65 and 22000.71, so the Insider builds and the leaked one.

What do I like:

  • new icons feel fresh and modern
  • most windows are rounded, a really welcome change, easier on the eyes
  • the new Settings app is finally usable and doesn't require the Control Panel to do half of the stuff it was supposed to do (probably my biggest gripe with Win10!)
  • native Android app support
  • I really like Edge Chromium and I won't change my opinion. It is basically Chrome but better in any way

What I do not like:

  • what cretin came up with the idea of the whole taskbar, action center etc. UI being drawn using Chromium??? Why?? For what reason?? (seriously, pressing either F6 or F7 pops up a box asking if you want to use Caret Browsing hahaha). This is simply a waste of both computing power and resources.
  • the new Start menu is absolutely horrible and a disgrace to not only usability, but also ergonomics and users' habits. This is (at least for me) easily on par with the whole catastrophe that happened when they decided not to include a traditional Start menu in Windows 8.0.
  • once again about the UI, now there are either 4 or 5 distinct styles in Windows at once (3.1, 95, 7, 10, 11 if I'm not mistaken)... no comment.
  • for some reason, it keeps disabling TRIM on any SSD drive I came across as of now. Windows literally breaking hardware, I think this is a new one...
  • performance issues due to Microsoft experimenting with the system again. Apparently there's this thing called Virtualization-based Security (VBS) which does... something, while nuking performance for most people. And, still, for Ryzen users it's not the worst thing, as there is (or at least was) some weird bug which limited the performance on Ryzens, reportedly noting some insane number like 20% of performance loss when compared to Windows 10.
  • forcing TPM to be on - seriously??? There are probably millions of computers out there now that would easily be able to run 11 with NO problems if it wasn't for this dumb requirement. Hell, according to their own "PC Health" app they released for people to check whether they can run 11, computers running 10th gen Intel Core i9's are somehow worse than $200 Celeron laptops which are only good for displaying the Desktop (and barely that)...

Pretty much everything I can remember for now (if I remember something I'll just edit this post). Summing this up, I don't think I will be using 11 anytime soon, considering XP does everything I need to do other than the occasional gaming... great job, Microsoft, keep destroying your own reputation.

Edited by baluw
I somehow didn't write about the biggest failure of them all...
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1 hour ago, baluw said:

Not only do they release an operating system with LESS features than their previous one

This is a GIGANTIC leap FORWARD in my view.  LESS is MORE.  It takes me hours upon hours spanning several weeks to REMOVE all of the "features" that is 'included'.

Below is my Win10 start menu once I've removed all of the crap, my "baseline" operating system for a couple company laptops.

That's EVERYTHING (as far as the operating system goes, everything else is ran from a local "cloud").  I don't just remove the "features" from the menu, they're completely uninstalled and blocked from installing themselves.

Took several "permission slips" from Corporate IT because our "Local IT" department keeps BS like XBOX and gaming "features" and "apps" and "solitaire" and a bunch of useless s#!t for a COMPANY COMPUTER.

"Local IT" prefers to just redirect things like Xbox and solitaire, even a weather and map app that came on these laptops, with a big popup, "You do not have permission to run this app".

I take a different approach, I don't want the crap cluttering my start menu!

spacer.png

Edited by NotHereToPlayGames
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10 minutes ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

This is a GIGANTIC leap FORWARD in my view.  LESS is MORE.  It takes me hours upon hours spanning several weeks to REMOVE all of the "features" that is 'included'.

Should have added that in my post - I am talking about "features" comparing them to 10 LTSC 1809. You can't get a more clean image of Windows off Microsoft - heck, not even Edge and Store made it in. Example of a feature I really missed on 11 is small taskbar icons - seriously, the default taskbar on 11 itself wastes 32 (!!!!!) pixels on a 1080p monitor and there is no option to hide it or make the taskbar icons smaller without breaking half of the damn UI.

 

 

18 minutes ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

"Local IT" prefers to just redirect things like Xbox and solitaire, even a weather and map app that came on these laptops, with a big popup, "You do not have permission to run this app".

Even if you have a bajillion computers at your company, deleting all of that bullcrap requires writing ONE PowerShell script and then just running it on the computers. While I don't know if it can be done remotely, it most certainly can be done pretty quick manually, or, probably, even streamlined into a Windows 10 install used to configure the computers. Of course, this all is just speculation - heck, I have 0 IT background (and 0 work background at all, to be honest...) and I am critiquing someone's work. :buehehe:

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I find it interesting that I haven't done any work with Windows 11 since installing it two times before GA, and that it appears to be the case that there is no interest in this OS. I am aware of one instance of something asking about availability of editions and that seems to be it.

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I find Windows 11 no better or worse than Windows 10. I migrated to 11 only because none of Microsoft's Windows 10 patches fixed the OS glitch that kept old network print jobs in my print queue without clearing them and because my experience with sleep and hibernation was better with Windows 11. After applying the 3rd party fixes listed by @UCyborg, my Windows 11 experience is pretty much identical with Windows 10. I clean installed Windows 11 and bypassed TPM using  Rufus so I can't speak to any hardware related snafus.

 

Edited by BYTE-ME
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If you are talking about svchost, wininit and system, yes, and those had access with Windows 10 as well. You'd have to go back to Windows 8 or 7 to avoid that, no? Also, I should have said I disable the default public, private settings on the Windows firewall, so that, with the exception of those baked into the OS system and kernel, the firewall rules are the one's I set with W10FC and on my router. 

Edited by BYTE-ME
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Windows 11 does have an embedded keylogger and other allegedly diagnostics collection tools that periodically send user activity to Microsoft. They cannot be fully disabled. But my point was that is no different than Windows 10. However, you can cut down a lot of the chatter by disabling Windows update, by hacking DNSAPI.dll and by locking down other Windows services and files that request network access.

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11 hours ago, BYTE-ME said:

Windows 11 does have an embedded keylogger and other allegedly diagnostics collection tools that periodically send user activity to Microsoft. They cannot be fully disabled. But my point was that is no different than Windows 10. However, you can cut down a lot of the chatter by disabling Windows update, by hacking DNSAPI.dll and by locking down other Windows services and files that request network access.

i use windows firewall control

removed all the rules that came default by Microsoft

changing filtering level to medium

added only dns dhcp and firefox

i cant see in the logs something that is going outside like telemetry and such

Edited by aviv00
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