[SOLVED] Windows 11 worth the upgrade yet?

Randi Poling

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I finally broke down and bought myself a shiny new 5800x (was only 20 bucks more than the 5600x) and Mobo and all that fun stuff and have 10 Pro on it at the moment.

I'm curious as to if moving to Windows 11 would give any performance benefits, stability issues with the OS? I mostly do gaming, web browsing, school work, nothing intensive like photo or video editing, might do some streaming to YouTube/twitch soon though.

Looking for thoughts from a consumer view outside of the chet and pcgamer articles.
 
Solution
Any new software will contain some bugs.
Windows 11 too.

Unless there is a specific feature of win 11 that appeals to you, I would defer for a longish while.
You probably could not tell any performance differences without a synthetic benchmark.
Were you on intel 12th gen with big/little cores, that might be different.
Any new software will contain some bugs.
Windows 11 too.

Unless there is a specific feature of win 11 that appeals to you, I would defer for a longish while.
You probably could not tell any performance differences without a synthetic benchmark.
Were you on intel 12th gen with big/little cores, that might be different.
 
Solution

punkncat

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I now have W11 on two of my Intel machines. Both of those upgrades went flawlessly and along with the install assistant was super easy and I didn't lose anything, or have to re-install anything.
I have one AMD machine in the house and it's capable on paper, and yet there seems to be hoop after hoop with getting the installer to see it as compatible. Right now it's telling me I have issue with secure boot even though the format is right, and the items are turned on. Before that it was something about the TPM, etc. ad nauseum.

My thought having been using it, is that this is nothing more than W10 with different color drapes. Absolutely not worth going to any length to make it happen, and especially if you think it's going to gain you something. At this point it's still questionable as to whether it is still damaging performance for compatible AMD.
 

orlbuckeye

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Yes no one would ask if they should upgrade if it was called Win 10 SP1. But calling it Windows 11 brings up many questions. What is was taught in computer school "Software is never finished it's just released.". In other words there is no software with out bugs.
 
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liberty610

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There is no rush to upgrade to 11 if you are on 10. I was going to hold off as I run a small privy studio for video and audio production with lots of hardware for potential issues, but I was super bored the past week and decided to give Windows 11 a whirl.

Keep in mind, my experience has been after I did FRESH installs of the OS. Meaning I formatted my boot drive and then installed Windows 11 instead of upgrading windows 11 from pre-installed 10. There is likely to be way less issues with a fresh install.

I have 2 computers I use for production work. An AMD desktop age an Intel laptop. My install went so smoothly on my desktop, I loaded it into my laptop as well. So far, all testing and uses under windows 11 have been painless and everything has been solid. I use different capture cards, audio interfaces with ASIO drivers, age even dabble in some gaming. No real issues or crashes.

Now having said that, as mentioned earlier, there are of course some bugs. I have some mapped network drives from my NAS unit, age windows explorer has crashed or froze up a time or two when trying to drag aha drop files to and from the NAS. And there's been a couple times the interface has glitches out. Like my blue tooth button in the task bar disappeared once, but a stubble reboot brought it back.

I've been a "power user" since windows xp, and Windows 11 has been the smoothest I've ever upgraded too. I have enjoyed it so far, age I think the new UI is a step in a better direction.
 
You should only upgrade to a new OS for the following reasons:
  • It does something you want/need
  • The current OS your computer has is no longer supported
  • You enjoy playing around with the latest and greatest, but understand there's caveats to doing this
If your computer runs fine and you're satisfied with how it's performing, then there's no reason to upgrade.
 
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Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
If its free, why not

Its not really new, its just windows 10 with a new desktop. So I don't see the reason to not get it. They aren't charging you for it if you have 10 now.

If its just a service pack, why not get it? They used to charge us for Service packs (or were they the Plus packs?)

It doesn't feel better or worse than win 10 was to me. Just looks a little different.

I would totally agree its not worth Paying for but as its free, why not. I wouldn't have bought it.
 
If its free, why not

Its not really new, its just windows 10 with a new desktop. So I don't see the reason to not get it. They aren't charging you for it if you have 10 now.

If its just a service pack, why not get it? They used to charge us for Service packs (or were they the Plus packs?)

It doesn't feel better or worse than win 10 was to me. Just looks a little different.

I would totally agree its not worth Paying for but as its free, why not. I wouldn't have bought it.
If we're going that route, can we call Windows 7 Windows Vista Service Pack 3? That's really all it was. ;)

If we really want to get into this more, Windows 8 was just Windows Vista Version Pack 5 since the NT Kernel was still version 6.x. And if we want to go into Insane Troll Logic territory with the price tag thing, you could still upgrade to Windows 10 for free with a 7 or 8 license. So Windows 10 is really just Windows Vista Service Pack 7. Which makes Windows 11 Windows Vista Service Pack 22, Electric Boogaloo.

But you're thinking of Plus Packs. Service Packs were always free.

EDIT: I would argue that Service Packs don't remove features unless there was a good reason for it (e.g. XP SP2 removing a networking feature because it could be easily exploited). Windows 11 does.
 
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Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
Almost every version of windows since XP has just sold us a new interface. Sure, there are other changes that were additions and subtractions along the way.

Win 7 had intro noises
win 10 took them away
Win 11 re adds them and makes a song and dance about it ...

many of its changes went unnoticed by me. I didn't have to change anything I do to use it

I expect there isn't much you can add to windows to make it must have.

I always just get new versions, I don't wonder what it does for me really. I didn't have to update to 10 when I did last PC but I still did. I had more troubles after updating to 10 from 7 than I have updating from 10 to 11. It operates just like a win 10 version update, considering that is what it is...
 

Endre

Reputable
I finally broke down and bought myself a shiny new 5800x (was only 20 bucks more than the 5600x) and Mobo and all that fun stuff and have 10 Pro on it at the moment.

I'm curious as to if moving to Windows 11 would give any performance benefits, stability issues with the OS? I mostly do gaming, web browsing, school work, nothing intensive like photo or video editing, might do some streaming to YouTube/twitch soon though.

Looking for thoughts from a consumer view outside of the chet and pcgamer articles.

Hello!

I’ve installed it immediately as it was available & had no issues with it.

I wouldn’t say that “you need it” for anything particular, but Windows 11 is just “nicer” visually compared to Windows 10.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
My understanding is that it auto updates
Incorrect. On a compatible device, you are given the option, but it does not auto.

My Beelink HTPC, bought just under a year ago, is apparently Win 11 capable.
Yet it is still happily on Win 10.

My other systems, which are not WIn 11 capable, specifically tell me they are not.

Have a link to your PCWorld article? So that we're all on the same page.


Other links:

 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Did you read the article you posted as URL? Your makeusof article states exactly what I say, it will be forced down your throat: "It's a staged rollout, as it's usually the case with most Windows updates. However, this time it's very staged, to the point some people won't be getting their respective Windows 11 update through Windows Update until mid-2022. That's code for, Here it comes, like it or not. Yeesch you must be familiar with MS, I mean look at all the badges!
"thats code for...." - "I assume it will be forced, with no supporting data."

What is, and Microsoft says, is that all systems will not be notified immediately. Some not until mid 2022.
Nothing about being "forced".
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
I just pointed out to you, the article YOU posted at me (the makeusof article) says the same thing. I quoted it in italics. Read it. And YOU ask ME for refs??

You posted two URLs at me, I checked one, and it took me about 30 seconds to confirm what I knew, and I am sure your other URL has the same info. If you expect to read, "We will be shoving this up your keister!" sorry it's not worded like that.


-------------------
If your PC is supported and you're being offered a Windows 11 update right now, you can choose to skip the upgrade. On the Windows Update page in Settings, you're given the option to "stay on Windows 10 for now" if you don't want to install Windows 11. That should dismiss the dialog and keep the upgrade from showing up again, at least for a few weeks. The keyword here is "for now," though. Microsoft might eventually make it mandatory for eligible Windows 10 users.
-------------------

"might"


Whatever.
 

orlbuckeye

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You should only upgrade to a new OS for the following reasons:
  • It does something you want/need
  • The current OS your computer has is no longer supported
  • You enjoy playing around with the latest and greatest, but understand there's caveats to doing this
If your computer runs fine and you're satisfied with how it's performing, then there's no reason to upgrade.

But this is more of an update than an upgrade. MS has never done an upgrade through updates before. It's more of an update with a new name.
 

punkncat

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I got bored over the weekend and went ahead jumping through some hoops to install this on an AMD machine. It was a complete PITA. I couldn't get the "health check" to say it was ready, even though everything was. Of course, the upgrade assistant which made everything so smooth and pain free on the Intel machines wouldn't run. An aspect of the issue turned out to be a CSM compatible mode within the motherboard settings that had to be disabled. For some reason my OS disk kept throwing errors so I ended up having to delete/format that disk as well as another disk within the system that at some point got a system reserved partition on it. IE couldn't boot with it unplugged and then later couldn't boot with it plugged in.

Once that was all accomplished my next hurdle was the insistence of the installer to make you use Windows Hello and set a PIN on the initial startup. This led to issues connecting to my local network devices and NAS. I still can't get it to map the network drive for the NAS, but can access it as a network device so I can chase that issue later. I am still fighting with the scale and text size settings to make my eyes happy. All in all have everything running well enough now, took me about half a night.

As far as the supposed issues with slowing an AMD processor, I cannot tell a difference. Admittedly I have yet to run any comparative benchmarks for that or the supposed slow NVME issues being reported on random ops.
I think there may be some truth to the gaming performance issue (being better) but only in respect to its scheduler. It appears that you can turn on/off a gaming mode which will then turn off or 'sleep' a good many of the background processes (along with a change to the power plan). If this was something that you had already done by hand in W10 I would consider it a lot less likely to note a difference. If the type user to just leave things stock I would see it as a considerable improvement.

I would say the single bothersome aspect to me for work is the whole "show more options" menu on right click. They could very readily have left the full right click menu.
 
But this is more of an update than an upgrade. MS has never done an upgrade through updates before. It's more of an update with a new name.

Microsoft's provided Windows upgrades through Windows Update before. And even outside of Windows, Linux provides kernel updating through package repos. So this logic of "you're only updating, not upgrading because it's through the updating mechanism" isn't holding any water.

Besides, why should the only way to upgrade to a new OS be through an ISO or a standalone app? It makes perfect sense to use your normal update channels to deliver OS upgrades.
 

orlbuckeye

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Oh i couldn't remember how I did my Windows 10 upgrade i though is was a downloaded file but OK before Windows 10 it was done with a separate install file. Also I remember buy a new PC with the older OS and you had to sign up for the free upgrade to the new OS. The you received the actual upgrade file from the OEM.
 
D

Deleted member 14196

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i've been testing with it in VMs, and so far, I must admit i really do like it. but once again they have changed where things are, but I only ever use search anyway to find stuff, so it really does not matter.

it runs very well; all our software products work as expected.

i would say, if you are happy with the current performance of what you have, why bother right now? wait for some time for things to mature and problems to get ironed out.

at home, my win 10 is so fast and efficient that i am going to stick with it as long as it's supported which is 2025
 

orlbuckeye

Distinguished
Any new software will contain some bugs.
Windows 11 too.

Unless there is a specific feature of win 11 that appeals to you, I would defer for a longish while.
You probably could not tell any performance differences without a synthetic benchmark.
Were you on intel 12th gen with big/little cores, that might be different.

You should reword the statement and leave out the word NEW. Any software will contain some bugs. Especially software that runs on Intel systems with 1000's of configurations. I remember in grad school my professor for IT classes used to say Software is never complete it's just released. That goes for updates also.
 

Dean0919

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People will tell you different opinions. My opinion is that it's not worth to upgrade. If something is new it doesn't mean it's better. This is something that a lot of people don't realize. Windows 11 is a simplified (I would say oversimplified) version of Windows 10. They have removed a lot of things in Windows 11, especially in start menu and taskbar, so I strongly suggest you to look at the changes before deciding to upgrade. Here is the link to see the changes what they removed. If you're power user and like and care for customization, you should stay on Windows 10, because Windows 11 will feel like a castrated OS after Windows 10. Also I will add that Windows 11 looks ugly compared to Windows 10, but it's my personal opinion.