Discussion Why do you dislike Windows 11

[Corwin65]

I've been running Windows 11 on my laptop now for about a year.
I have not had a bad experience myself with it.

I am trying to understand all these threads where people hate it and want to go back to win 7 or 10 because it's horrible.

Would some of you give specifics other than "I hate it".

I just want to see if I'm missing something.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ralston18]

I am reminded of:

"There is nothing like change to give the illusion of progress."

(Generally attributed to Petronius Arbiter but has had numerous variations and spin-offs. )

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Honestly, I would’ve been happy with Windows 10 if it just stopped there

 

[Colif]

Microsoft must make extra money selling a new OS to OEM , I assume there is some initial payment that could be useful to MS to get every 5 years. Some talk of the 5 year gap being reduced... i don't know what they plan.

It didn't take them long to take the theme swapper out that was in 98, they have been selling us a new theme every 5 years ever since. Shame there is no choice of using previous themes without swapping shells.

They would make some people happy if you could just use say the win 7 shell on top of whatever new version is. I don't see why they enforce people to use the new theme each time... must be ego. It makes sense to have a new look as then people won't buy the new one if it looks the same ... but why not include choices.

People complain if it looks the same or if it looks different. Microsoft can't win.

 

[hotaru.hino]

It's not that I mind a fresh coat of paint once in a while. It's that I mind Microsoft tends to half-ass features and UX changes. A few standout points:

• Settings. I like the concept, but it continues to exist with Control Panel and Control Panel can still service a non-trivial amount of things. So there's this constant going back and forth between "is this thing serviced in Settings or Control Panel?"
• They really don't know what to do with widgets. Is it going to be on the desktop? The how about make a screen for them like Apple did? Oh, so how about integrate it into the Start Menu? Okay, now we'll make it an item in the Task Bar. And most of the time the options are incompatible with each other.
• The File Explorer going through phases of "Add all the actions in a tool bar" to "It's too complicated/cluttered, remove everything but the 'basics'"

It's like Microsoft wanted to try to truly modernize Windows in terms of UX in Windows 8 (with some hints starting in Vista, but Vista/7 was largely compatible with prior usage patterns) to try to unify the UX across devices, but they really have no vision on what that UX should be.

 

[Colif]

There must be a constant war to get features add/removed. Its why we get features that are half baked. My fav is the Virtual desktops. How many windows versions before we get a finished version? One new change to it every version of windows.

Control panel is slowly disappearing, to reappear as Windows tools.. which is just control panel sort of merged with explorer. No idea whats going on there. Guess its where they put things that don't need to be in settings for most users... regedit... no, don't need that showing in settings for normal users. Its odd Control panel shows in windows tools... redundant?

Windows is a work in progress but 11 seems to be too obvious

I ignore widgets, i don't want to know most of the stuff they think people want on there. If I could just have weather on it, I would remove rest... but I can't so i just ignore it.

File exploder just got tabs, shame it doesn't remember what was on them as I would use it then. I probably forget them otherwise.

 

[alceryes]

I've been running Windows 11 on my laptop now for about a year.
I have not had a bad experience myself with it.

I am trying to understand all these threads where people hate it and want to go back to win 7 or 10 because it's horrible.

Would some of you give specifics other than "I hate it".

I just want to see if I'm missing something.

Thanks in advance.

Horrible OS privacy and metadata collection practices.
Forcing an online account creation for no other reason than to tag, track, and advertise to you.
Forcing OS changes without giving users the easy option to go back to the previous version.
Pushing add-on paid services like OneDrive and Microsoft Office and integrating functions for these paid services into the base OS so that users are forced to see them and take extra steps to click through them, even if they don't subscribe those paid services.
Continually forcing the Edge browser down everyone's throat. But no worries, unless you've made changes to its behavior it's running in the background - regardless of what browser you actually use.
Making it increasingly more difficult to change the default apps.
Less intuitive start menu.

These are just the ones that came to mind right away. Some of the above may have been mitigated with the latest version of Windows 11.

The TL;DR version is that Windows 11 give me, an IT professional, nothing that I want or need over Windows 10 and, instead, puts obstacles in my way that make it MORE difficult for me to do my job.

 

[USAFRet]

Forcing an online account creation for no other reason than to tag, track, and advertise to you.

You do know that this is only for licensing/activation issues, right?

A local Standard and Admin accounts are still viable and recommended.

All my Win 11 systems have 3 accounts.
MS, only for licensing and in the incredibly rare instance I need something from the MS Store
Local Standard - Daily ops.
Local Admin - For those things that need admin rights.

And my "MS account" is simply a rarely used gmail address. It does not have to be @microsoft.com or @hotmail.com.

 

[alceryes]

You do know that this is only for licensing/activation issues, right?
A local Standard and Admin accounts are still viable and recommended.

Of course, and I agree 100%.
I usually just shift + F10 - ipconfig /release when I get to the sign in to bypass the sign in silliness, but it's still extra, unneeded steps.

Edit - oh, and it's not only for licensing and activation. If you stay logged in, with your MS account, all the metadata that Microsoft collects is attached to that Microsoft profile.

 

[Colif]

Pushing add-on paid services like OneDrive and Microsoft Office and integrating functions for these paid services into the base OS so that users are forced to see them and take extra steps to click through them, even if they don't subscribe those paid services.

if you buy MIcrosoft 365 (as its called now) you get 1tb of Onedrive space, so its not really 2 paid services if you smart about it. Office is useful to have, still more useful compared to Google's offerings. Google Sheets doesn't use a right click shortcut menu.

I think they fixed the default apps menu in recent months.

I don't really like start menu, even if you can create folders... it just looks too empty if you hide all of them in folders. Maybe I just don't use enough programs. I don't really use it but its just sort of there. I reduced recommended down to minimal and then put it back at default as there was too much free space., I wouldn't mind if you could resize start, then I just make it smaller.

 

[Endre]

I've been running Windows 11 on my laptop now for about a year.
I have not had a bad experience myself with it.

I am trying to understand all these threads where people hate it and want to go back to win 7 or 10 because it's horrible.

Would some of you give specifics other than "I hate it".

I just want to see if I'm missing something.

Thanks in advance.

My experience:
I've installed Windows 11 as soon as it was available.
Being on an officially "supported platform", my experience with Windows 11 has been very positive.
I had no errors, no issues of any kind, and I, actually, love the look of its dark theme.
I also love the fact that they've added tabs into File Explorer.

Cons:
•People hate Windows 11 because of its "minimum requirements", and also because it looks a bit different (some people hate changes).
•The right-click menu was annoying initially, but now they've repaired it (partially).
•The drag & drop option used to be removed as a feature (but now it's back).

 

[USAFRet]

I don't really like start menu, even if you can create folders... it just looks too empty if you hide all of them in folders. Maybe I just don't use enough programs. I don't really use it but its just sort of there. I reduced recommended down to minimal and then put it back at default as there was too much free space., I wouldn't mind if you could resize start, then I just make it smaller.

As has been my use case for years, my most used applications are pinned tot he taskbar.
Current.y, 30 of them.
Start Menu is rarely used.

 

[Colif]

i have 16 pinned on taskbar

All i use in start menu is the power menu.
I am more likely to right click start than left click it.

I could attach more to start but then have to remember they are there.
Its like tabs in explorer, I would need to use every day to remember it exists.

 

[hotaru.hino]

The thing with Windows collecting data is that while I've seen an article saying how much it collects, I don't believe I've ever seen an article detailing what it collects or from where. A casual research tells me that Microsoft enabled a bunch of web-based services by default, and it's those services that do the data gathering. It's not like Windows is collecting my Firefox browsing usage (I'm pretty sure Mozilla would've made a huge stink if this was the case) or what files I'm looking at.

 

[Colif]

This doesn't show specific locations but what is now classified as required over optional, I forget how you set if its only using required or all
https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/data-collection-windows

 

[USAFRet]

This doesn't show specific locations but what is now classified as required over optional, I forget how you set if its only using required or all
https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/data-collection-windows

Your cellphone laughs at that trivial amount of anonymous info.

 

[joeldf]

I waited several months before jumping in on Win 11. I have no problems with it. I got the Pro version, and since it was an update from Win 10 with a local account, it never asked to make an MS account - which I do have, BTW, having an outlook email address. I also have the MS Office 365 Family package. That way, my wife and my kids can share the Office programs.

The only thing I don't like is the inability to totally remove that "Recommended" section in the Start Menu. The new update allows us to reduce it's size, but I want it totally gone. I don't need anything recommended to me - I know what's on my machine, and I know where to find what I need when I need it.

I use a combination of desktop icons, the start menu and only a few in the taskbar to start programs.

As for privacy - what Win 11 does is no different that what Win 10 did before it. And even Win 7 has been having extra telemetry collections added to it over the years. And, as USAFRet says, wait until you find out what your cellphones sends out about you. Not just Google or Apple, but your carrier probably knows more about you than MS could ever hope for. Same with your ISP that your computer is using.

 

[boju]

Will be jumping on the 11 bandwagon soon myself. It doesn't look like id be bothered with any of the changes made i guess, obviously i will have to try and see 😊

Main interest for me wanting 11 is this. Although DS in 10 should perform great as well, it seems 11 would have the edge.

DirectStorage 1.1 Coming Soon - DirectX Developer Blog

When we shared our first public release of DirectStorage on Windows to reduce CPU overhead and increase IO throughput, we also shared that GPU decompression was next on our roadmap. We are now in the final stretch of development and plan to release DirectStorage 1.1 with GPU Decompression to...

devblogs.microsoft.com

 

[Colif]

That is a shame, its currently easy answer if someone asks if faster nvme help in games... its No... Now its not as clear cut and well, possibly not a 1 size fits all Answer. I guess hardware makers had to think of some reason to keep selling us faster nvme.

 

[boju]

Asset loading or what not and open world games ssds can play a pretty big role in overall experience. Im all for ssds for that, not just loading levels before playing but whilst playing. Im hoping up and coming Starfield game supports DS, it's a big enough game to benefit something like that.

Pcie 3 ssds should perform well and be also supported. Pcie 4 is where it would shine i think.

Potential is hopefully there, i hope there isn't some unforseen consequence to gpu performance, like some tradeoff to fps or something.

 

[Colif]

I would hope there are sliders so you can decide how much is used. That is if its noticeable.
Expect it only works with certain cards. Newer ones have so much vram its probably easy enough.
Wonder if it also only works on certain motherboards as well.

 

[boju]

Yeah, we'll have to see if there's such option how much gpu resources can be directed or how vram is affected. Any dx12 gpu supporting shader model 6 will support this. Looking at Gtx 1060 specs it supports shader model 6.4 so probably looking good for gpus older than that.

 

[Colif]

it depends how it works but if its the nvme talking direct to GPU the amount of ram may not matter. I expect the vram more needed for graphics, not decompression. use a nvme space for that.

PCIe 5 nvme aren't completely unessential now.
is this the same as resizzable bar as it might require that on MB to work.

Need more info.

 

[palladin9479]

The #1 issue is the GUI, I loath MacOS's GUI and Microsoft is trying to get as close as possible without triggering Apple Lawyers. I didn't like Windows 10 GUI either and feel that Windows 7 Aero Glass was the best they've ever done. I run Open-Shell on all my current Windows 10 systems and have them set to the Aero Glass look, which works for now. The Windows 11 switchover will likely happen in a few years when they've stabilized their GUI changes enouh that Open-Shell and anti-spyware programs will work reliably without breaking every update.

By then they'll be working on Windows 12 with even more data mining and revenue boosting features.

 

[palladin9479]

That is a shame, its currently easy answer if someone asks if faster nvme help in games... its No... Now its not as clear cut and well, possibly not a 1 size fits all Answer. I guess hardware makers had to think of some reason to keep selling us faster nvme.

Hmm, it won't help in benchmark average FPS, but it definitely helps in load times, especially as games have gotten rather .. large lately.

 

[alceryes]

Will be jumping on the 11 bandwagon soon myself. It doesn't look like id be bothered with any of the changes made i guess, obviously i will have to try and see 😊

Main interest for me wanting 11 is this. Although DS in 10 should perform great as well, it seems 11 would have the edge.

DirectStorage 1.1 Coming Soon - DirectX Developer Blog

When we shared our first public release of DirectStorage on Windows to reduce CPU overhead and increase IO throughput, we also shared that GPU decompression was next on our roadmap. We are now in the final stretch of development and plan to release DirectStorage 1.1 with GPU Decompression to...

devblogs.microsoft.com

Why not just stick with Windows 10?

DirectStorage Is Coming to Windows 10: Here's How to Get Your PC Ready

Despite once being a Windows 11 exclusive feature, DirectStorage is coming to Windows 10 too. Here's how to get started with this feature.

www.makeuseof.com

I would wait until actual tests are done before believing the "won't work as good on 10," disclaimer. Microsoft REALLY wants you to upgrade to Windows 11. They will spin stuff thusly.