Agent Orange
Veteran Member
I've had the Windows Insider W11 beta running for a while on a Samsung 970 in my big gamer, and I'm going to say, they did a good job with this one. Last Tuesday, the 5th, you could download the real deal for free if you were running an activated W10. I did a clean install on a new Samsung 980 (bee's knees) and it went without issues. I needed to add the password for the internet and download the Nvidia driver set and that was about it. One thing that made the transition a little easier was that I was able to dig down into the W10 'documents and photos' without having to take ownership, and drag them into the W11 setup.
There is a small learning curve involved with this version as things are not where they used to be, but they are there. The 'Win +' key is your friend, especially 'Win + X" which gives a small drop down menu with most of the tools that you are familiar with. The control panel has been revised and it takes some getting used to but it's all there and more. Windows backup and system image are still there in the old W7 version. Edge, of course, is the default browser, and it is really fast but I still opted for Google Chrome as all of my personal goodies are there and it's what I'm used to.
This is the first time that I installed an OS using EFI as I always went with legacy because it was easier to swap HDs in and out to some other setups. My motherboard, an ASRock Taichi X570, has an auto function in the BIOS to self select whatever version it sees and that makes the setup pretty much automatic. Since I have an EVGA 3080TI FTW3 Ultra video card, I was able to take advantage of 'Re-Bar' function (Resizable Base Address Register) which kicks in in some games. You'll need to Google for a further explanation,
According to Intel and AMD, there has been a small hit in CPU performance and both have patches on the way. I ran a few benchmarks and actually came out a little better. The whole new experience seems crisper and a lot faster, and of course, it goes without saying that a lot depends on your setup, and my box is pretty much at the top of the heap (yes, lots of bucks but it's what I do these days).
So, I know there will be naysayers here, but MS says that this edition has some Linux stuff for you.
There is a small learning curve involved with this version as things are not where they used to be, but they are there. The 'Win +' key is your friend, especially 'Win + X" which gives a small drop down menu with most of the tools that you are familiar with. The control panel has been revised and it takes some getting used to but it's all there and more. Windows backup and system image are still there in the old W7 version. Edge, of course, is the default browser, and it is really fast but I still opted for Google Chrome as all of my personal goodies are there and it's what I'm used to.
This is the first time that I installed an OS using EFI as I always went with legacy because it was easier to swap HDs in and out to some other setups. My motherboard, an ASRock Taichi X570, has an auto function in the BIOS to self select whatever version it sees and that makes the setup pretty much automatic. Since I have an EVGA 3080TI FTW3 Ultra video card, I was able to take advantage of 'Re-Bar' function (Resizable Base Address Register) which kicks in in some games. You'll need to Google for a further explanation,
According to Intel and AMD, there has been a small hit in CPU performance and both have patches on the way. I ran a few benchmarks and actually came out a little better. The whole new experience seems crisper and a lot faster, and of course, it goes without saying that a lot depends on your setup, and my box is pretty much at the top of the heap (yes, lots of bucks but it's what I do these days).
So, I know there will be naysayers here, but MS says that this edition has some Linux stuff for you.
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