Windows 11 Pro Insider Preview Experience on a 6th Gen Intel Mobile Processor

[Imperialdramon]

Today I installed Windows 11 Pro Insider Preview from the Dev Channel on my Asus N552VW laptop that I bought 4.5 years ago with the specifications below:

- Intel Core-i7 6700HQ + Intel HD Graphics 530

- 16 GB of 2133 MHz RAM

- Nvidia GeForce 960M

- 128GB boot drive SSD + 1TB HDD.

 

It seems that my machine fell in the yellow column here. My laptop had TPM 2.0, but before installation I had to convert my boot drive from MBR to GPT, change from Legacy BIOS to UEFI, and enable Secure Boot. These were my impressions of the Windows 11 Pro Insider Preview on my (relatively) old machine:

 

The Good:

1. Centered Task Bar: I don't have any complaints about Windows 10's left-aligned task bar, but a centered one feels more convenient. I didn't think I would like it as much as I did, and would hope that it comes to future builds of Windows 10.
2. Window Snaps: These are really wonderful and convenient. I hope they too make their way to Windows 10.
3. Battery Tracker: There is a battery tracker built into settings that gives you an overview of your usage which I found quite helpful.

Apart from the new aesthetics and the features above, it felt pretty much like Windows 10.

 

The Bad:

1. Lag: The animations were smooth, but the whole experience felt a little bit slower and not as snappy as Windows 10. Whenever I clicked on something from the taskbar there would be a 0.5-1 second delay before that program launched. Moving back and forward between Settings menus also took ~1-2 seconds with each click, which was not as snappy as the Settings in Windows 10. Changing from Light to Dark theme and vice versa would take ~5-6 seconds to complete, whereas it would only take ~1-2 seconds on Windows 10. I suspect this is because of the new glassy design, but it may also be because I only had ~5GB available on my boot drive, with it being filled by a 24.6 GB Windows.old folder.
2. Widgets: I just couldn't get them to work. It would ask me to sign in to my Microsoft account, and then just freeze.
3. Random Crashes: There were a few times that it randomly crashed and closed all my programs.

The Ugly:

1. Microsoft's Messaging: Microsoft really needs to figure out its messaging (and maybe steal a few presentation tactics from Apple?). In here it clearly says that those machines not meeting the minimum hardware requirements for the Windows Insider program that get Windows 11 builds now (the red column) will stop getting them at General Availability and have to reinstall Windows 10, but it doesn't say anything about people like me who don't meet Windows 11's minimum hardware requirements, but meet the Insider Program's minimum hardware requirements. Do I also get a Windows 11 at General Availability, or am I gonna be kicked out?

 

At the end of the day, I decided to roll back to Windows 10, mainly because it's just easier to roll back now than do it in 6 months if and when Microsoft decides to kick me out and force a clean install. I really don't have any use for thing like Auto HDR in gaming or improvements in multi-window and touch support, and I can live without the other minor improvements.

[-CLASSIFIED-]

one nice thing ive noticed is that you can change back to the task bar being on the left (traditional windows task bar location ) if you want

[Gamer4714]

The windows 11 is very hardware intensive. I tried running the insider preview one on a vm and even if I set the ram limit to 8gb or so when the os starts it just takes up 10 or 11gb of ram. And as he said it's kinda slow with all the graphics.

[Imperialdramon]

14 hours ago, -CLASSIFIED- said:

one nice thing ive noticed is that you can change back to the task bar being on the left (traditional windows task bar location ) if you want

Yeah, I tried it but then reverted back to the center because it felt more convenient.

[m9x3mos]

15 hours ago, Gamer4714 said:

The windows 11 is very hardware intensive. I tried running the insider preview one on a vm and even if I set the ram limit to 8gb or so when the os starts it just takes up 10 or 11gb of ram. And as he said it's kinda slow with all the graphics.

What are you installing or from? My vm has no problem running it with only 4 threads assigned to it and 2gb ram.

[Gamer4714]

8 hours ago, m9x3mos said:

What are you installing or from? My vm has no problem running it with only 4 threads assigned to it and 2gb ram.

It doesn't have any problem in virtual box. But my virtual box installation corrupted so I had to install in VMware because after the corruption even when I make a new virtual machine it shows me the requirement of tpm 2.0. So I made it in VMware and ran it was good no issues but the system was still laggy. Even after I installed VMware tools in it and tuned off all graphics and set it to performance mode, it laggs. The vm takes more system resources than assigned

[m9x3mos]

8 minutes ago, Gamer4714 said:

It doesn't have any problem in virtual box. But my virtual box installation corrupted so I had to install in VMware because after the corruption even when I make a new virtual machine it shows me the requirement of tpm 2.0. So I made it in VMware and ran it was good no issues but the system was still laggy. Even after I installed VMware tools in it and tuned off all graphics and set it to performance mode, it laggs. The vm takes more system resources than assigned

That has to be dynamic assignment then. I am using hyper v. Hard cap of 2gb and no graphics acceleration. 

[Gamer4714]

Just now, m9x3mos said:

That has to be dynamic assignment then. I am using hyper v. Hard cap of 2gb and no graphics acceleration. 

No it's fixed

[m9x3mos]

Just now, Gamer4714 said:

No it's fixed

That's really weird. Not sure how it can use more ram than what's assigned. Though I haven't used anything other than hyper v in a long time as the overall performance is better. 

[Mark Kaine]

On 7/2/2021 at 5:52 AM, Gamer4714 said:

The windows 11 is very hardware intensive. I tried running the insider preview one on a vm and even if I set the ram limit to 8gb or so when the os starts it just takes up 10 or 11gb of ram. And as he said it's kinda slow with all the graphics.

People always have these issues with Ram, prob they never close unused apps or something… but win 11 is pretty lightweight overall, there are clearly some bugs, but generally its fast, and id say less sluggish than 10…

[Gamer4714]

2 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

People always have these issues with Ram, prob they never close unused apps or something… but win 11 is pretty lightweight overall, there are clearly some bugs, but generally its fast, and id say less sluggish than 10…

It's kinda better than a vanilla non-debloated windows 10 install.

I closed all the other apps I even rebooted and ran the vm still it's using all the ram.

[Mark Kaine]

1 minute ago, Gamer4714 said:

It's kinda better than a vanilla non-debloated windows 10 install.

I closed all the other apps I even rebooted and ran the vm still it's using all the ram.

but maybe its the vm? the most ram usage i had was downloading from the store + watching videos + settings app + taskmanager (obviously) and it was like 47% Ram usage, so under 4GB.

 

[Gamer4714]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

but maybe its the vm? the most ram usage i had was downloading from the store + watching videos + settings app + taskmanager (obviously) and it was like 47% Ram usage, so under 4GB.

 

I only had the vm running so it has to be the vm itself.

[Imperialdramon]

So... after reverting back to Windows 10, my laptop automatically updated to Windows 11 again yesterday which kinda suprised me, since I remember Microsoft saying if you go back your PC will be removed from flighting Windows 11. Anyhow, as you can see in the image below I think I got Windows 10.5:

 

 

It shows that it's Windows 11 Pro and some of the visuals have changed (e.g. settings and folders looks), but some things have not, most noticeably the task bar. It has the look of Windows 10, but when you click on the notification or setting buttons newly designed Windows 11 menus pop up. On the other hand, the Start menu doesn't work and I can't seem to get that new glassy look for the windows.

 

Has anyone had a similar experience?