Is Windows 11 worth the upgrade?

Delly10 · 3 Weeks Ago

When Win11 first came out, I remember people saying it was just a "prettier" version of Win10. But now a lot of time has passed. What's the situation now? Is it worth going to Win11 if I'm satisfied with Win10?

My laptop today got a full screen prompt for me to download Win11, and I had a hard time trying to get past it. It seemed like MS is aggressively prompting people to get it. Has Win11 finally become worthy enough to make the switch?

Hearsepilot · 3 Weeks Ago

Millions of people seem to think so.

Bree · 3 Weeks Ago

Delly10 said:

....Has Win11 finally become worthy enough to make the switch?

I made the switch for those of my machines that were supported devices for Win11 back when the first version 21H2 was released. I had some minor annoyances, it felt not quite 'finished'. Click-and-drag to the taskbar had been left out, for example, and there was no way to make groups of apps on the Start menu. Those issues were addressed in version 22H2, which has now been updated to 23H2 by an enablement package. I was happy with it from 22H2 on.

There's a version 24H2 due for release around September/October this year. I'm running the Insider Preview of it on one of my machines and like it very much.

You have until October 2025 when Win10 reaches EoL to make up your mind, but I don't regret making the switch. If/when you do, you'll find a lot of us, and all Brink's tutorials, over on Eleven Forums.

Delly10 · 3 Weeks Ago

Bree said:

I made the switch for those of my machines that were supported devices for Win11 back when the first version 21H2 was released. I had some minor annoyances, it felt not quite 'finished'. Click-and-drag to the taskbar had been left out, for example, and there was no way to make groups of apps on the Start menu. Those issues were addressed in version 22H2, which has now been updated to 23H2 by an enablement package. I was happy with it from 22H2 on.

There's a version 24H2 due for release around September/October this year. I'm running the Insider Preview of it on one of my machines and like it very much.

You have until October 2025 when Win10 reaches EoL to make up your mind, but I don't regret making the switch. If/when you do, you'll find a lot of us, and all Brink's tutorials, over on Eleven Forums.

it sounds like Microsoft has made a lot of progress on it. I'm not an early adopter of anything, so I haven't downloaded it to the one laptop I have that is eligible for it. Nice to know that I have until Oct. of 2025. That's quite a ways off.

Bree · 3 Weeks Ago

Delly10 said:

it sounds like Microsoft has made a lot of progress on it. I'm not an early adopter of anything, so I haven't downloaded it to the one laptop I have that is eligible for it. Nice to know that I have until Oct. of 2025. That's quite a ways off.

If you have a spare unsupported laptop that isn't doing much, you could still try Win11 on it. There are many ways to bypass the checks for a supported device and install it anyway. Once installed Win11 will run fine on an unsupported device. Many recommend using Rufus to modify the install media, but I prefer to use the standard install media and use my own workarounds.

spunk · 3 Weeks Ago

If you want to "Test Drive" Windows 11 you can create Virtual Machine on your Windows 10 computer using VirtualBox or similar.
Then you can decide to make the leap. Also if you Do upgrade and you don't like it, you have 10 days to revert your computer back to Windows 10.

Oracle VM VirtualBox

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As stated, Windows 10 is supported until October 2025. Paid support may be available after that.

dalchina · 3 Weeks Ago

My laptop today got a full screen prompt for me to download Win11, and I had a hard time trying to get past it.

Don't want that? There was another thread quite recently on how not to see that .. target feature update.

Prettier? Hmm, that's subjective. Much harder to 'skin', it seems.

Steve C · 3 Weeks Ago

All my PCs are now on Windows 11 with no issues including a 2014 Dell laptop having non-compliant hardware on which I forced the update.

AK6DN · 3 Weeks Ago

Win10 market share is still about 70% compared to Win11 of about 26% as of April 2024.
Win10 has held in the 70% range for the last two years or so, while Win11 grew from the 10% range to the 26% range (at the expense of Win7/8).
Ref: Desktop Windows Version Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats

It will be interesting to see what Win10 does over the next year and a half before the magic date of Oct 2025.
My guess is it will still be well above 50%. Switching to Win11 if you can is just not compelling, and if you 'have' to buy new hardware is even less compelling.

I run Win10 on technically incompatible Win11 hardware and have a real nice Xeon 8core CPU system with 128GB of RAM and see no reason to junk it.
I put Win11 in a Virtualbox VM to play around with and basically it is a big yawn.

So if I have to pay hush money to M$ to keep Win10 going I probably will. Cheaper than buying a new PC.

Bree · 3 Weeks Ago

spunk said:

If you want to "Test Drive" Windows 11 you can create Virtual Machine on your Windows 10 computer using VirtualBox or similar.
Then you can decide to make the leap. Also if you Do upgrade and you don't like it, you have 10 days to revert your computer back to Windows 10.

You don't need to install virtulabox or similar (or use Hyper-V if you have W10 Pro). You can just create a virtual disk (.vhdx file) and use native boot to use it just as if you had a second disk installed in the PC. (Native boot was even available in Win7 provided you use a .vhd file. I have native booted a W11 .vhd on a W7 machine.)

Native Boot Windows 11 Virtual Hard Disk (VHDX) Tutorial | Windows 11 Forum
Create Windows 11 Virtual Hard Disk (VHDX) at Boot to Native Boot Tutorial | Windows 11 Forum

That '10 days to revert' is the default, but (as long as it hasn't expired yet) you can extend that to anything you like (up to 60 days) the same way in W11 as you can in W10.

Set Number of Days can Go Back to Previous Version of Windows