Windows 11 (Preview) Discussuion/Review - Bugs, Issues, Changes & Complaints [Version: 10.0.22000 Build: 22000]

[OfficialTechSpace]

Windows 11 (Preview) Review: first 48 hours with the latest version

 

 

Intro

 

Initially (as I'm sure most of us experienced), there was a bound of excitement and interest when the preview build for Windows 11 was leaked not too long ago.

After we took a closer look however, excitement quickly faded for some of us. We still had some hope that Windows 11 would be something special (and I'm sure it is), it's just not quite there yet. 

 

After enabling fTPM in my BIOS, joining the Windows Insider program, and checking for updates, the preview build was easily installed. The original files downloaded took up less than a Gig, but after unpacking only took up an extra 5GB on my boot drive. Seemed a little small for an entire Operating System, but then again this is when updating from Windows 10, not from a clean install. I guess that just goes to show how much of Windows 10 was carried over to the new version OR how much wasn't overwritten (because after all this is just a preview version, they wouldn't intentionally completely overwrite your Windows 10 install for a buggy and unreleased to public version, right?).

 

Overall though, I'm curious about what everyone else's thoughts/experiences with the Windows 11 preview build are so far. 

 

My initial thoughts & Rating: 6/10
+Newer & smoother animations between windows
+More visually appealing UI & Icons (arguably)

+Easily navigateable, better/updated layout in settings menus
~... Not much else, other than that the Windows 11 preview build is mostly just Windows 10 with a UI overhaul/facelift, missing features, and common broken Windows behavior.

 

Here are some problems that I encountered on my 24hr journey with the new build

 

 

Priority levels:      
HIGH - Needs to be fixed immediately
MEDIUM - Basic issue, inconvenience, or frustrating change
LOW - Simple suggestions or observations, weird behaviors, and new things to consider
LEGACY - Issue has been prominent since previous versions of Windows
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The ability to drag and drop files between programs is broken. 

This bricks the basic functionality of windows and can deem certain programs either completely unusable or inconvenient to maneuver. In certain programs this bug can be overridden by simply resizing certain windows, but when trying to drag and drop through your taskbar, this is currently impossible.
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Individual drives are no longer shown independently by default in the ‘File Explorer’ side-panel; they now have to be manually pinned to ‘Quick access’.

Hiding basic functionality deep within menus to make the UI look more modern is not attractive to power users. I suggest reimplementing this by default, as all other Windows versions have.
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Downloads folder is no longer linked to the libraries folder; now has to be manually pinned to ‘Quick access’.

*insert above text here*
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Right-click taskbar customization function has been removed, and now reverts to the ‘Taskbar Settings’ window.

This particular change can’t even be justified as a modernized UI implementation, it is a complete feature removal and can’t be accessed deeper within the settings.
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‘Control Panel’ is still using the same outdated UI with a minor makeover in terms of icons. Also is forced into light-mode.

Minor oversight, not really an issue, just a tad hard on the eyes when digging through mostly dark-themed and modernized programs to be then confronted with it.
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Poor responsiveness when swapping between themes, freezes for about ~5 seconds. Windows 10 did not have this issue.

Low-level bug and/or lacking optimization within the new (as of recorded) Windows 11 version.
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Windows desktop tab has been removed. 

Doesn’t seem like an issue until you notice how often you actually used it on previous versions. Win + D is arguably just as quick, but requires some getting used to if you've never used it.
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Alt. + PrtSc cannot be used to screenshot your main display when viewing the Windows desktop, only within programs.

I actually just noticed this while still creating this posts, very weird behavior, not entirely sure why this issue persists.

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File explorer remains unresponsive/fails to sort when dealing with folders containing a large substructure of files.

Folders with more than a few hundred files at a time can fail to sort by all variances.
When the sort functionality is disabled, this behavior ceases, and the folder regains responsiveness. This has been an issue with previous versions of Windows, dating to before the release of Windows 11.
_________________________________________________________________________

Windows still continues to restrict themes in certain programs, forcing light-mode / restricting certain colors.

As far as I can tell, this has been an issue since every version after Windows 7.
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When searching the web from the Windows search tab, your default browser reverts to Bing.

Mostly just frustrating, barely anybody likes or uses Bing (some unlucky people do).
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[Version: 10.0.22000 Build: 22000]

 

To be continued...

Feel free to share your thoughts below, and add to what's here if you've tried it for yourself or I've missed anything! 

[jaslion]

For me another HIGH priority feature is moving the damn taskbar or making it thinner. When I do art or programming I always move it to the left side with a simple powershell script that I doubleclick on desktop. Removing this functionality literally destroys my workflow to no end as all my muscle memory has been trained like this for a decade now.

 

Also a sidenote maybe make the legacy and high priority colours more distinct? I can barely see a difference. Since they are in the order you put the priorities it is still obvious what is what but it would be helpful to avoid confusion.

[OfficialTechSpace]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Also a sidenote maybe make the legacy and high priority colours more distinct? I can barely see a difference. Since they are in the order you put the priorities it is still obvious what is what but it would be helpful to avoid confusion.

Good idea! I changed it to cyan to make the colors more distinct. They looked a lot better defined in the document I originally wrote the review in. 

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

For me another HIGH priority feature is moving the damn taskbar or making it thinner. When I do art or programming I always move it to the left side with a simple powershell script that I doubleclick on desktop. Removing this functionality literally destroys my workflow to no end as all my muscle memory has been trained like this for a decade now.

Would enabling auto-hide in your taskbar behavior settings be helpful in this circumstance?

[jaslion]

46 minutes ago, OfficialTechSpace said:

Good idea! I changed it to cyan to make the colors more distinct. They looked a lot better defined in the document I originally wrote the review in. 

Would enabling auto-hide in your taskbar behavior settings be helpful in this circumstance?

Nope. I want my taskbar there because I use a pen and the auto hide and show feature has basically not worked well or at all since xp with a pen input.