Windows 11 Short Review

Legal: Review and advice is at your own risk. Neither myself nor McNeel accept any responsibility in your computer maintenance or data safety. Something as drastic as upgrading an operating system is not a trivial matter, as it requires a fair amount to knowledge, experience, patience, and the attention to detail.

I tried Windows 11 on my newish laptop. From the getgo, you need Secure boot and a Trusted Computer Platform Version 2.0 for the privilege to install it. Some later AMD systems emulate this in the CPU, but it needs to be activated in the UEFI/BIOS.

Anyway, if you are going to play with Windows 11, I suggest that you first associate your computer with your Microsoft Account. This will help if there is a problem with Activation.

You should also first back up your computer twice, making sure you get all of your Documents, Pictures, Music, Media, and Downloads. Also be careful to grab things like email, and browser data, and little things like spell checker dictionaries. Make sure you copy the files and folder from your desktop! Oddly it would be easy to miss them, because we “think” we put all of our documents in the documents folder.

[Hint: Except for Downloads, Trash, Networking, My Computer, and (USER), if you copy the relative links you might have made on your desktop–when you put the data back on your system, those relative links to your Documents may indeed work on the new installation–if you recreate your user the same name.]

I recommend making at least 2 copies, and set them aside. If you are considering upgrading your SSD/nVME/Drive, this is a great time to do it, so that you can put the old drive away from the computer setting it on a shelf–so that at any time, you can pick its bones clean of any data you might have forgotten

Using a blank reliable 32GB Flash-Drive (smaller might work, but use a good drive), I used the Windows 11 Media Creation Wtility, to write an installer on the drive, which is similar the the Windows 10 process.

On installation, I always set my machines for local login. The web login is a fool-hearty choice for most occasions.

Like Windows 10, the user is faced with a desperate struggle to retain any privacy, so check all of those little switches. Comment: We really need legislation to ban Opt-Ins by default.

For my Thinkpad P15 Gen2, the installer did grab all drivers, but there are some Lenovo utilities that are helpful. Lenovo wanted to update the UEFI to a current one; the machine is backed up, under warranty, and plugged in with a full charge–so I did that as well.

Windows 11 sped up the transition times for its effects so it appears to do things faster, though it’s actually a slower operating system, as tested. Daring to turning on Windows virtualization-based memory security would just about put an end to your computer’s performance, so obviously I did not turn it on.

As for the GUI design, the rounded corners are nice. The icons are more colorful.

As for the rest…

The Task Bar is larger, and cannot be made smaller. This is a problem when doing graphics. In the screenshot below, this is how needlessly huge the Task bar is–on a 4K (3840x2160) screen. The start menu is now disembodied from the the Start button, so the context is lost, as in: poor UI design.

There is an intolerable issue with the file manager. If you click on a file to copy, cut, or paste it, you have to first expand the menu. I hate this F**king thing! There were hacks to make it work, and Microsoft worked to kill them both of the fixes, just to screw the user. The user can still use the keyboard combo to copy, cut, and past, the files–so why kill trash the menu in such a way that the user might actually have to do dozens of clicks a day that they would not have to have done with Windows 10, OSX, or Linux?

Also, for some reason, the separated the Log-Off button with the Power Down button. Someone thought so hard about this–and made the wrong decision. No, actually, we want all these severe options in the sample place: User-Change, Reboot, Shut-Down. When it comes down to it, the power button often doesn’t really power down the computer anymore, unless you hold [SHIFT]–otherwise it does a “Hybrid Shutdown” which does not benefit people who use heavy-hitter applications, such as Rhino in any way.

Well, apparently, (Check the date for yourself, please ) we have until September to “upgrade” to Windows 11, so, until then I am going to reinstall Windows 10.

Yes, I hate it so much, I am going to reinstall–and then see if they fix it, later. AFAIK

There is an intolerable issue with the file manager. If you click on a file to copy, cut, or paste it, you have to first expand the menu. I hate this F**king thing! There were hacks to make it work, and Microsoft worked to kill them both of the fixes, just to screw the user. The user can still use the keyboard combo to copy, cut, and past, the files–so why kill trash the menu in such a way that the user might actually have to do dozens of clicks a day that they would not have to have done with Windows 10, OSX, or Linux?

also below is the only reason I upgraded

3 Likes

Having just finished (more or less) setting up a new Win 11 machine, I can add some comments/observations.

I can agree that many of the “improvements” in Win 11 are actually the opposite. Microsoft insists on trying to ‘tabletize’ the Windows interface and it’s frustrating for anyone who actually has to do some real work…

For me Windows 10 was already awful compared to Win 8.1, but that’s just my opinion. Windows search was really useful and fast under Windows 8, they broke it in Windows 10 and it’s even worse (way worse) in Windows 11. Much of the other stuff can be fixed with various tweaks (3rd party programs, registry hacks, etc.) but search cannot.

Notable things:
You can no longer have separate taksbar buttons for different instances of the same app. So all open Rhino files are stuck together under one taskbar icon, the same with every other program. Ostensibly because ‘tablet’ users don’t have enough screen space to see all that stuff, but they decided to penalize everyone who actually does. Apparently there has been enough outcry among users that they will be bringing this back (maybe sometime in the fall). In the meantime there are a couple of third-party programs that can at least partially restore this feature.

Also removed from the taskbar is the ability to drag and drop a file onto a taskbar icon to open that file with a running program. I use this functionality all the time. Apparently this will also come back due to user protests, but in the meantime I installed a hack I found - this stuff is always a bit scary to do, because you have no idea what it is actually doing and whether it is really safe…

Another registry hack can restore the old full right click context menu mentioned above, but it’s very long, so finding anything in it is slow. You get used to the new shorter one pretty quickly.

I’m sure there are a bunch of other hacks I’ve already forgotten about - like turning off the stupid lock screen etc. - those were already necessary in Win 10.

One of the things that has made Win 11 tolerable for me is a third party start menu program - Start11 - which I have been using in various iterations since Win 8 (Start8, Start10, etc.). It gives you a lot of options to customize the start menu and how it behaves. One thing they did for Start11 is to implement custom tiles - which have been gone since Windows 8 - and allowed me to more or less reproduce my beloved Win 8 start screen - from which I do all my major navigation tasks. You can put images/custom icons on the tiles, color them, etc. This is still a work in progress…

4 Likes

I have not tried it in Windows 11, but the ability to very quickly make a software take up half or quarter the screen has been around forever. Just drag the top bar of a window to the right/left edge of the screen!? What is different about this new thing in Win 11?

2 Likes

I’d highly recommend Everything for searching “files and folders by name instantly” specifically. It’s fantastic!

8 Likes

I’ll try that, thanks Anders!

1 Like

“Everything” is fantastic.
Works great with servers too.

Yes Aero snap is here since win 7. But having UI options is a nice addition especially if you have a ultra-wide screen.

Also this feature was a part of Ms Power Toys called " Fancy Zones"

2 Likes

Ah okay, fair enough. Yes, I agree it looks nice to be able to do it visually!

One other thing I can add (that’s annoying) is Windows 11’s multi-monitor support. According to what I read they did a big revamp that is supposed to solve problems people had with Windows 10 when for example one of the monitors was unplugged and then plugged back in again - the open windows went all crazy. I never experienced that as I never unplug my monitors, and Win 8.1 was rock stable as to remembering which app was on which monitor etc.

Not anymore. If the computer goes to sleep with some stuff open on one monitor and some other stuff open on the other, it all goes south when it wakes back up… One of the monitors - in power save mode when the computer sleeps - will come on a split second before the other, and all the open windows (maximized or not) will switch to the monitor that woke up first. The other monitor will just show the desktop. This despite the following:

This is starting to make me want to throw the computer out of my second-story window…

My first reaction* to the upgrade was incredulity: in Windows 10 I had a carefully crafted Start panel with all my important programs organised into meaningful categories (business apps, software development, creative etc). Microsoft, in their wisdom, decided that what I actually need quick access to is a bunch of social meejah apps and ditched my entire Start setup for theirs.

I conclude that, in Microsoft’s opinion, Windows is no longer intended to be a tool for business.

Once I had a replacement for my Start panel (albeit truncated because you cannot expand the panel in w11) I have found that Rhino has run OK. Menu item lines are a little further apart (on a large monitor).

One positive: I have both Quadro and GeForce cards in that PC. The correct driver is the GeForce one, but in W10 whenever Update had a new Quadro driver, it got installed, breaking the GeForce card setup. W11 seems happy to use the correct driver.

* Actually that was my second reaction. My first reaction was that they’d ditched the attractive modern font which they used to tell me who I am on login (a font that looks purpose designed for use on displays) for an old-fashioned boxy font that probably predates computers. They are trying to make Windows more stylish with rounded corners and, at the same time, removing a rare instance of style from the screen. Confusing.

1 Like

Yikes!

[I already switch safely back to 10]

Another thing that 11 removed: the ability to throttle the computer manual. This is really important to me. On 10, I could raise the performance, and then when I want to watch an evening youtube without the computer going full afterburner–I could just lower it, as seen in the lower right.

(Image swapped with one that doesn’t confuse the user by showing this exact webpage. Sorry.)
(Why can’t I click on this! : )

One other fun wrinkle I’m seeing here… don’t know if this is a local phenomenon or not.

If I have a Rhino open with a Python editor window (on the same monitor) and Windows 11 goes to sleep, when it wakes up the taskbar icon is blank. I occasionally even get a spurious Rhino icon that does nothing when you click on it.:

If you hover over the blank spot, you see there are two windows (but the tb icons are still blank)

Another fun thing: If I have a Rhino instance open on each monitor (rare, but it happens) and a Python editor window associated with one of the Rhino instances but located on the opposite monitor, the Python editor taskbar icon gets grouped with the other Rhino instance’s icon - the one that is on the same monitor as the editor window, but is not the one the Python editor is running in.

Great thread, and to even out the negativity a bit I have to jump in and say that I run Windows 11 on three machines and to me it has been a great experience. Rhino is stable, the OS is responsive and great. The center toolbar is great once the muscle memory is adjusted to hitting the windows button instead of using the mouse etc. All machines run intel i7’s and RTX cards, all different though and one is a laptop.

The only thing I really miss is the ability to right-click the startmenu to open the taskmanager, but using Ctrl-Alt-Del isn’t that hard, and rarely done by most. Oh, and the pale icons that all look the same isn’t really my cup of efficiency-tea, but that’s the price to pay for minimalist aesthetics I guess. I do like clean designs so I’ll live with that.

IMO Windows 11 feels just like a nice ‘skin’ for Windows 10, and windows 10 is IMO hands down the best OS MS has delivered to date. (For the record: I loved W7, HATED W8 (until I gave it a real chance, then discovered that it surpassed W7, but I still hated it and then was very pleased with W10. I guess I have lived too long to love or hate an OS any more :wink:

So those are my two cents.

3 Likes

Or RMB on the start button > Task Manager.
I have to say I like Windows 11. The looks is more ‘mature’ and polished than W10, by a long way.
The old start menu I did miss a little bit. Some grouping in this new start menu should be there.
This cut/copy/paste/delete icons in the context menu I like. Nothing wrong with that in my book.

1 Like

True, I forgot about that, that works in W10 too if memory serves me well, it’s just not one of those shortcuts I usually use, I guess I have to reprogram my self :slight_smile:

And I guess this is relatable to most of us:

3 Likes

About the existence of cut, paste, delete icons: Interesting. Good find. Why ever would they take away functionality–and have replacement functionality–and not activate it.

(Picard-Style Face-Palm)

Yeah a Typical Microsoft behavior since the old good days, build a feature, then kill it.

1 Like

Ctrl-Shift-Esc is the one I have always used for Task Manager. I am still on Win 10 but would assume it works in Win 11 as well.

4 Likes