Trying out Wind'ohs 11

[maycontainthunder]

Now that they have finally fixed the missing taskbar window grouping/labels option after twos years waiting I've decided to give it a try.

First impressions are the taskbar is too big but, with a third party app to make it translucent it isn't that bad. Start menu is missing a number of things in the list of apps/programs but a quick search has found the ones needed. One thing I found incredibly annoying was the updated audio control panel... with half the functionality missing. Still, the most recent Windows 10 driver from 2017 works alright. Weirdly the download from MS gave me the old 22H2 version not 23H2 that it advertised. Maybe that will come via Update at a later time.

Wonder how long until it bluescreens?

 

[Kaz2012]

Too scared to 'upgrade' - still on 10 (I have lots of games installed, some older and want them to keep working)...wishing you all the best

 

[Judge]

Wasn't it Horace Greeley who said, "Go Linux, young man. Linux!"

 

[Slime_Punk]

My new PC runs Windoze 11 and I can't really tell the difference between that and 10, and I technically work with a lot of things that could really go wrong easily (extensive VST plugins, Photoshop plugins, programming languages and tons of libraries for them, etc). Even gaming so far has been totally seamless and I haven't had any crashes.

I honestly wish I could say the same about my recent Linux escapades, but I'm definitely digging this one so far.

 

[Crossbreed]

My biggest disappointment with 11 was the loss of a working Fax (& Scan) app.
(11's emoji set is pretty ugly, too.)
Otherwise, it does what Windows is supposed to do.

 

[maycontainthunder]

Well, it's misbehaved. Pinned items on the start menu vanished and so did a load of programs from the app list. Deleted icon cache and reboot fixed it... for now.

 

[Slime_Punk]

Well, it's misbehaved. Pinned items on the start menu vanished and so did a load of programs from the app list. Deleted icon cache and reboot fixed it... for now.

I don't know if this helps, but you might be able to do a 'factory' reset to 11 (now that you have it) and it might run better. The only real downside is having to back up and reinstall data and programs, but that can clean out the things that don't routinely get nuked when upgrading on Windows.

I also do a reset once per year anyway typically, because things get so slow. Small price to pay for a convenient OS, but I see why people don't even bother with Windows sometimes

 

[Judge]

In the past I've always done full installations and disk repartitions of any version of Windows, always avoiding any "upgrade" of one version to the next. Too many things that can and will go wrong.

With Linux Mint 21 I haven't had any such issues in upgrading, but these are minor upgrades regarding the LTS version that is good to 2027. Not the same as the difference between Windows 10 & 11.

Agree, since you've already upgraded with issues, might be best to do a factory reset which should be close to a clean installation. But yes, you'll have to reload and configure all your applications and data.

Save what you can- now . BTW, a number of Linux distros beat the pants off Windows when it comes to customizing the panel (task bar).

 

[Judge]

I honestly wish I could say the same about my recent Linux escapades, but I'm definitely digging this one so far.

You a gamer? That's the one major caveat I still see when migrating to Linux, apart from older hardware requiring certain "tweaks" to run optimally.

You can download and play native Linux versions of games, but if you're depending on third-party platforms to run Windows games through Linux it seems a "hit-and-miss" proposition more often than not, and with varying degrees of functionality.

I run Photoshop 5.5 just great using Wine, but that's just a graphics app. The few games I run are all native Linux ones. Ironically this 1998 graphics program runs better through Linux than it does in Windows 10. If I try to marquee an object of size, it always causes the program to crash in Windows 7 and 10. Have to assume it would fare no better with Windows 11. But then few OS developers give a damn about really old 32-bit programs.

 

[maycontainthunder]

I don't know if this helps, but you might be able to do a 'factory' reset to 11 (now that you have it) and it might run better. The only real downside is having to back up and reinstall data and programs, but that can clean out the things that don't routinely get nuked when upgrading on Windows.

I also do a reset once per year anyway typically, because things get so slow. Small price to pay for a convenient OS, but I see why people don't even bother with Windows sometimes

It was actually a clean install on Saturday. Two days isn't a record for Windows misbehaving for me!

 

[Slime_Punk]

You a gamer? That's the one major caveat I still see when migrating to Linux, apart from older hardware requiring certain "tweaks" to run optimally.

You can download and play native Linux versions of games, but if you're depending on third-party platforms to run Windows games through Linux it seems a "hit-and-miss" proposition. I run Photoshop 5.5 just great using Wine, but that's just a productivity app. The few games I run are all native Linux ones.

Not as much as a lot of people on here (unless you count retro!), but thanks to Steam's Proton there's actually a lot of games that you can play on Linux now, pretty much right out of the box. It's also insane to me how many devs have just started offering native Linux support as well within the past couple of years.

Oddly enough, the biggest snags I've hit so far are in the realms of coding and making music (Wine's PS + plugin support would be really interesting to check out as well, now that you mention it!). Usually I need a library or something that just doesn't have the correct permissions (not to mention like 50 preinstalled versions of Python for some reason) and going through all of the interpreters and testing just doesn't solve the issue, likely because 1/6 of the installed versions has permissions or libraries set somewhere by default that doesn't make sense.

I also think we were talking about my nagging pulse audio / jack issue a while back, and I think the way to solve that turned out to be manually starting the jack server every time I needed to use it, when on Windows it just kind of works automatically and you never have to think about starting and stopping processes manually like that. The same FOSSware from the Linux world actually seems to work and integrate 99x better on Windows systems somehow!

If it weren't for those bizarre issues I'd have ditched Windows a long time ago, however!

 

[Judge]

Not as much as a lot of people on here (unless you count retro!), but thanks to Steam's Proton there's actually a lot of games that you can play on Linux now, pretty much right out of the box. It's also insane to me how many devs have just started offering native Linux support as well within the past couple of years.

Oddly enough, the biggest snags I've hit so far are in the realms of coding and making music (Wine's PS + plugin support would be really interesting to check out as well, now that you mention it!). Usually I need a library or something that just doesn't have the correct permissions (not to mention like 50 preinstalled versions of Python for some reason) and going through all of the interpreters and testing just doesn't solve the issue, likely because 1/6 of the installed versions has permissions or libraries set somewhere by default that doesn't make sense.

If it weren't for those bizarre issues I'd have ditched Windows a long time ago, however!

Coding? Yeah I haven't done any coding in years and none of it involved compiling ...except for ancient Java.

Making music? The only app I use that comes even close to that description is Audacity to edit MP3 files. Never had a problem with it, but I'm guessing you mean something far more elaborate.

You can always go to WineHQ to see commentaries on various Windows apps and how well or not at all they may fare under Wine 8.0.2. But in all fairness Wine remains a hit-and-miss proposition as well.

Can't blame you though...I've always been "married" to Photoshop 5.5 and will follow any system that can make it run more than two decades later. So yeah, I can see how even one or two critical apps can leave you stuck in Windows. I've only recently been able to finally cut the cord with Microsoft after nearly two years of dabbling with various Linux distros (Mint and Pop!OS).