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Windows 11 is here.

Agent Orange

Agent Orange

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 24, 2008
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SE MI
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. :)
 
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Does Windows 11 force you sign up for a "Microsoft account". Windows 10 really pushed for that, but if one unplugged the network connection during setup it would still create a proper local account.

Am I correct in hearing there is no 32-bit version, like there was with Windows 10?

Has anyone actually identified what it "requires" TPM for? As far as anyone can tell, this requirement is probably fake. Microsoft has been very quiet about this. In Windows 10 it was only needed if one used Bitlocker to encrypt a hard drive (although there was even a workaround for that).

I'm not convinced that they even changed that much under the hood, especially given the short development cycle.

If one has to rely on a keyboard to get around a GUI, then there is something horribly broken with that GUI. Heck, the keyboard I am using right now doesn't even have the crash keys. -- I mean Windows Logo (R)(TM) keys.
 
MS account for Home version.

64-bit only though I suspect that for Windows 7, 8 , and 10 most uses of the 32-bit version were in testing VMs making sure programs didn't blow up when run on a 32-bit OS.

Bitlocker should be faster using the TPM. I think the main reason for requiring TPM is to cut down the number of systems that need support. It looks like MS has set a backwards compatibility cap at about 4 years.
 
SomeGuy said:
Does Windows 11 force you sign up for a "Microsoft account". Windows 10 really pushed for that, but if one unplugged the network connection during setup it would still create a proper local account.

Am I correct in hearing there is no 32-bit version, like there was with Windows 10?

Has anyone actually identified what it "requires" TPM for? As far as anyone can tell, this requirement is probably fake. Microsoft has been very quiet about this. In Windows 10 it was only needed if one used Bitlocker to encrypt a hard drive (although there was even a workaround for that).

I'm not convinced that they even changed that much under the hood, especially given the short development cycle.

If one has to rely on a keyboard to get around a GUI, then there is something horribly broken with that GUI. Heck, the keyboard I am using right now doesn't even have the crash keys. -- I mean Windows Logo (R)(TM) keys.
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It's 64-bit only but will continue to support 32-bit. MS has hauled back on TPM requirements, you'll have to stay tuned. I don't understand what you're referring tp about navigating the GUI with a keyboard. I use a mouse. It's free to try.
 
vwestlife said:
The latest articles I can find say that the TPM 2.0 requirement is here to stay.
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Don't know for sure but there has been some stuff on that over on Tom's, and it seems to b still up in the air. Either way it doesn't affect me. This laptop I'm on now will be dead in the water by the time W10 expires.
 
Agent Orange said:
There may be a work around:

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/upgrade-to-windows-11-now
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So it looks like you can force Windows 11 to install if you don't have TPM 2.0, but you won't get automatic updates. Presumably you could still download and install the updates manually, which may actually be an advantage if you want to avoid the buggy ones, but most people don't want to go through that hassle.

And now is exactly the wrong time for Microsoft to basically be forcing people to buy new computers. A friend of mine just went into an electronics store looking to buy a new PC, and all of the computers on display were sold out, with none in the warehouse and no idea when more would be coming in! He asked the sales guy why they were displaying the computers if they didn't have any to sell, and the guy told him "because we're paid to display them".
 
vwestlife said:
So it looks like you can force Windows 11 to install if you don't have TPM 2.0, but you won't get automatic updates. Presumably you could still download and install the updates manually, which may actually be an advantage if you want to avoid the buggy ones, but most people don't want to go through that hassle.

And now is exactly the wrong time for Microsoft to basically be forcing people to buy new computers. A friend of mine just went into an electronics store looking to buy a new PC, and all of the computers on display were sold out, with none in the warehouse and no idea when more would be coming in! He asked the sales guy why they were displaying the computers if they didn't have any to sell, and the guy told him "because we're paid to display them".
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For most of this last summer, Micro Center, for example, featured the hard to get Nvidia 30 series video cards, and AMD 5000 series CPUs, only in fully equipped PC's. A good way to clear their shelves of crapola. Most of those units were going for 3 large or more and people were snapping them up and putting the plucked chassis on the local Craig's List.
 
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Agent Orange said:
There may be a work around:

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/...windows-11-now
Click to expand...

Best workaround is to ditch Windows entirely. There's very little that explicitly needs WIndows to run these days, and the few things that do run fine on a VM or older computer. I ditched Windows earlier this year for Linux when I built my new workstation and have had very few inconveniences so far. The few inconveniences I've had have mostly been solved with VMs or just digging into stuff to see how to make it work the way I want it to.

I promised myself that I'd never use Windows 10, and now 11 because they're landfill fires. Microsoft is making that easy with their perpetual disaster after disaster with Windows 10 trashing machines with untested broken updates. I don't have to deal with that crap anymore. I want a workstation for work, not to pay them to be a beta tester in perpetuity.
 
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GiGaBiTe said:
Best workaround is to ditch Windows entirely. There's very little that explicitly needs WIndows to run these days, and the few things that do run fine on a VM or older computer. I ditched Windows earlier this year for Linux when I built my new workstation and have had very few inconveniences so far. The few inconveniences I've had have mostly been solved with VMs or just digging into stuff to see how to make it work the way I want it to.

I promised myself that I'd never use Windows 10, and now 11 because they're landfill fires. Microsoft is making that easy with their perpetual disaster after disaster with Windows 10 trashing machines with untested broken updates. I don't have to deal with that crap anymore. I want a workstation for work, not to pay them to be a beta tester in perpetuity.
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I don't know why you're trashing Windows, seems like you're overreacting. Windows can be setup and run almost immediately right out of the box by the novice, not so for Linux. I've been running Windows from the very beginning with very few problems. Also, I've had server experience with NT, and although it had its share of problems, it was pretty damn reliable and easy to maintain. It just seems to be 'fashionable' these days to knock Windows. I'm not a MS slappy, but the W11 product seems pretty good and I like my benchmarks so far, and haven't had any crashes or even flatliners in games like CP2077.
 
Agent Orange said:
I don't know why you're trashing Windows, seems like you're overreacting. Windows can be setup and run almost immediately right out of the box by the novice, not so for Linux.
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I've been using Windows for 30 years, I'll trash it all I want, thanks. Microsoft is one of the major reasons why technological progress was stuck in time for almost a decade.

Your quip about Linux being hard for the novice is nonsense. Even 20 years ago when I got into Linux, it wasn't any more difficult to install than Windows at the time, especially Windows 9x/ME where you had to use fdisk to partition the drive. Today, Linux can be as easy or hard to install as you want. Linux novice? Use Ubuntu or Open SuSE where it holds your hand every step of the way. Advanced Linux user? Use a more difficult distro like Fedora, Arch or Debian.

Hell, you don't even need to install Linux anymore, you can create a LiveCD or USB and run it without even installing it. Windows has never been able to to do that natively, it requires 3rd party tools and scripts. Prepackaged live installs have been around for years at this point, and they work great in almost all cases.

Agent Orange said:
I've been running Windows from the very beginning with very few problems. Also, I've had server experience with NT, and although it had its share of problems, it was pretty damn reliable and easy to maintain.
Click to expand...

Yes, Windows NT 4.0 and 2000 were rock solid, but that doesn't translate to an OS 15-20 years later that has absolutely nothing in common with them other than the kernel lineage. Both 10 and 11 are absolute landfill fires.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
I've been using Windows for 30 years, I'll trash it all I want, thanks. Microsoft is one of the major reasons why technological progress was stuck in time for almost a decade.

Your quip about Linux being hard for the novice is nonsense. Even 20 years ago when I got into Linux, it wasn't any more difficult to install than Windows at the time, especially Windows 9x/ME where you had to use fdisk to partition the drive. Today, Linux can be as easy or hard to install as you want. Linux novice? Use Ubuntu or Open SuSE where it holds your hand every step of the way. Advanced Linux user? Use a more difficult distro like Fedora, Arch or Debian.

Hell, you don't even need to install Linux anymore, you can create a LiveCD or USB and run it without even installing it. Windows has never been able to to do that natively, it requires 3rd party tools and scripts. Prepackaged live installs have been around for years at this point, and they work great in almost all cases.



Yes, Windows NT 4.0 and 2000 were rock solid, but that doesn't translate to an OS 15-20 years later that has absolutely nothing in common with them other than the kernel lineage. Both 10 and 11 are absolute landfill fires.
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Sorry, I don't share you philosophy. According to you all the millions of people using Windows have made the wrong choice. Don't misquote me. I never said Linux was hard for the novice. What I said was a novice could install Windows out of the box.
 
Agent Orange said:
Sorry, I don't share you philosophy. According to you all the millions of people using Windows have made the wrong choice. Don't misquote me.
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Straw man fallacies do not an argument make. You're also not qualified to speak for millions of computer users. When Microsoft screws up so badly that they have to recall major OS updates dozens of times for bricking hundreds of thousands of machines, and it makes international news dozens of times, there's a big problem. You're using anecdotal experience and applying it in the worst way possible. I'm a deskside support tech, I see the trash fires that Microsoft starts DAILY.

Agent Orange said:
I never said Linux was hard for the novice. What I said was a novice could install Windows out of the box.
Click to expand...

Amazing, you can't even remember what you wrote in your previous post.

Agent Orange said:
Windows can be setup and run almost immediately right out of the box by the novice, not so for Linux.
Click to expand...

Categorically and patently false.

You can keep your head buried in the sand and "LINUX BAD" mentality, but don't pretend to even remotely know what you're talking about, because you don't.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
Straw man fallacies do not an argument make. You're also not qualified to speak for millions of computer users. When Microsoft screws up so badly that they have to recall major OS updates dozens of times for bricking hundreds of thousands of machines, and it makes international news dozens of times, there's a big problem. You're using anecdotal experience and applying it in the worst way possible. I'm a deskside support tech, I see the trash fires that Microsoft starts DAILY.



Amazing, you can't even remember what you wrote in your previous post.



Categorically and patently false.

You can keep your head buried in the sand and "LINUX BAD" mentality, but don't pretend to even remotely know what you're talking about, because you don't.
Click to expand...

Who are you to judge my qualifications on any matter? I'm not speaking for any one, it's just a fact as it's estimated that Windows usage is about 73% worldwide.. Here's what I said "Windows can be setup and run almost immediately right out of the box by the novice, not so for Linux". You are tossing a lot of BS around on this thread. It was originally about W11. If you don't like it then just move on.
 
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