Back during the first part of October this year, I made a statement that I stood by until two weeks ago. Do you remember when Windows 11 was made available to the public? It was on October 5, 2021. Well, I do, and I said that I would wait for four or five months before trying it out. As always, when a new Operating System comes out, I like other people work on the inevitable problems that will occur. Once they have dealt with all of that, I run with it. Most companies may wait a year or more before updating, so I am not the only one that feels this way.
However, the marketing for Windows 11 looked very cool. So, a couple of weeks ago, I updated my best notebook computer to the new Microsoft OS. Am I happy, sad, encouraged, excited, disappointed…well, I am at least one of those.
I was notified by Microsoft one day that my computer was ready to upgrade. I ignored it for a few weeks. Then one day I thought, “Ah, gee, I might as well try it. People may ask me questions about it soon.” And it looks so good! So, I pulled the trigger.
The update process took an hour or more. That includes the download and the installation process. I have a fast internet connection so, it could take longer if you have a slower connection. Anytime you upgrade to a new OS, it is a large download and takes a while. No surprises there.
It automatically rebooted my computer several times. When that was done, it walked me through the regular phrases, telling me to wait as they installed some fabulous new features, etc. I waited and once done up pops Windows 11 in all its glory.
I used it with rounded corners on every window. New colors, beautiful. But you know what? The one word above that describes it the best is not there. It would be “blah.” It is very similar to W10, just prettier. At least that part of the marketing was accurate. It does some new things that we will take looks at in the future.
The parts that did not make me want to stand up and cheer at the new OS were small but bothersome. Microsoft changed some useful features that were in W10. In W10, if you right-clicked on the taskbar you have 10 or so, options to choose from, now there is one, “Taskbar settings.” This takes you to a few of the original choices you could select but not wall of them. In other words, one of the standards would be Task Manage; however, now you must select the Taskbar settings then type in “task manger” to get to that same option. Too many additional clicks. This is the same for all of those choices and others. You must select one option and then go hunt for it. Not a friendly user interface. I hope that in the future these are easier to get too and that Microsoft will make me much more simple to get to. But we will see and I will write about it in the future.
For now, I would put off updated to Windows 11 unless you, like me, just want to see what is there. Again, everything works fine. It is just difficult to find what was easily found before the update. Good luck and let me know if you have made the switch. More to follow regarding Windows 11 in the future.
