Can someone enlighten me on why Windows 11 exists? Or why would anyone even bother using it?

[podkall]

To me and others Windows 11 just looks like Windows 10 with slightly different UI and many, many, many simplified features. (or buried deep options)

Not to mention that there is a list with "supported hardware" and the possibility of not being able to upgrade due to "unsupported hardware".

 

"Here's a new OS, it's the same thing, lot of options are hidden or buried deep, and some systems will have to use USB to update because they aren't supported."

 - Microsoft for some reason.

 

What useful featuers/things does it offer?

 

Is it faster or more efficient?

 

Is there some new tech hidden in new Alder Lake Intel CPUs that can be only utilised by Windows 11?

[Applefreak]

3 minutes ago, podkall said:

To me and others Windows 11 just looks like Windows 10 with slightly different UI and many, many, many simplified features. (or buried deep options)

Not to mention that there is a list with "supported hardware" and the possibility of not being able to upgrade due to "unsupported hardware".

 

"Here's a new OS, it's the same thing, lot of options are hidden or buried deep, and some systems will have to use USB to update because they aren't supported."

 - Microsoft for some reason.

 

What useful featuers/things does it offer?

 

Is it faster or more efficient?

 

Is there some new tech hidden in new Alder Lake Intel CPUs that can be only utilised by Windows 11?

It is supposed to be more efficient but not that I have noticed that on my laptop. So why does it exist, to make money.  

[da na]

It exists to make money

People use it because their new computer came with it or they just don't care

[Senzelian]

I like it. Looks nice.

But I'm sure @GoodBytescan tell you many more reasons, even tho he's likely very tired of it  

[PDifolco]

3 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

It exists to make money

People use it because their new computer came with it or they just don't care

This ^

I didn't bother installing it and even voluntary disable TPM to be sure it won't install.. Really a shame that it has so few improvements over Win 10, it only confuses Windows 10 users !

I'm using Windows since 3.1 days in the early 90s, and it seems that each new version is less and less of an improvement over the previous one...

 

 

[podkall]

22 minutes ago, Applefreak said:

to make money.  

21 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

It exists to make money

15 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

This ^

14 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

1. Money

2 minutes ago, Ian Greenhalgh said:

It's all about the money....

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by podkall
edit

[Oshino Shinobu]

Support for new hardware features (think things like efficiency and performance cores in new Intel CPUs).

Increased focus on security (things like enforced UEFI, GPT, TPM2.0 etc. usage in order to meet "supported" requirements)

Integration of new features/tools and removal of depreciated ones

 

And yes, it's also there to make money. Arguably, Microsoft could just push it out as another build update for W10, but to be fair, Microsoft has been pretty generous with allowing people to get W10 for free from various upgrade paths, but it's not the best business decision to just keep rolling out updates for free when a lot of time and money has gone into development. Also, when you make large changes to low level operation, pushing it as a simple update can be more difficult than treating it as a new product.

 

Almost all the reasons your hardware may be unsupported are due to increased baseline security measures. At some point, they do have to remove support for legacy hardware and software in order to push the better standards to become the default.

[SpookyCitrus]

1. Money

2. Security

3. Hardware and Software Support

4. "staying ahead of the curve"

5. They wanted to make it look and feel more like MacOS to compete with Apple

 

The first three answers are serious, the other two are just what Microsoft likes to do. OS upgrades like this have been a thing since pretty much the beginning. This isn't new with Windows 11, you should already know this.

 

[Applefreak]

1 minute ago, PDifolco said:

even voluntary disable TPM to be sure it won't install

Did the same on my computer after the new BIOS enabled it

[Applefreak]

1 minute ago, SpookyCitrus said:

They wanted to make it look and feel more like MacOS to compete with Apple

I debug and fix computers on the side. Fixing Macs, even reinstalling the OS is getting difficult and very time consuming. Not something to live up to.

[podkall]

Just now, PDifolco said:

I didn't bother installing it

me neither

 

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

At some point, they do have to remove support for legacy hardware and software in order to push the better standards to become the default.

What does support mean anyway? I have CPU the cpu crunches instructions sent by software and spits out results, support what? 1s and 0s?

 

1 minute ago, SpookyCitrus said:

2. Security

that was a great joke

 

1 minute ago, SpookyCitrus said:

5. They wanted to make it look and feel more like MacOS to compete with Apple

The first thing I noticed with taskbar being in center option.

 

1 minute ago, Applefreak said:

after the new BIOS enabled it

it's sentient, kill it

 

 

[podkall]

4 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Support for new hardware features (think things like efficiency and performance cores in new Intel CPUs).

Increased focus on security (things like enforced UEFI, GPT, TPM2.0 etc. usage in order to meet "supported" requirements)

Integration of new features/tools and removal of depreciated ones

 

And yes, it's also there to make money. Arguably, Microsoft could just push it out as another build update for W10, but to be fair, Microsoft has been pretty generous with allowing people to get W10 for free from various upgrade paths, but it's not the best business decision to just keep rolling out updates for free when a lot of time and money has gone into development. Also, when you make large changes to low level operation, pushing it as a simple update can be more difficult than treating it as a new product.

 

Almost all the reasons your hardware may be unsupported are due to increased baseline security measures. At some point, they do have to remove support for legacy hardware and software in order to push the better standards to become the default.

Honestly why won't Microsoft just make a new OS with new backbone?

 

Like I get it that it's time and money consuming but an OS that doesn't need an update every 12 miliseconds can sound appealing to vast majority.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, podkall said:

What does support mean anyway? I have CPU the cpu crunches instructions sent by software and spits out results, support what? 1s and 0s?

Things like supporting legacy BIOS, booting from MBR partitions, old hardware that has no measures to support something like TPM2.0.

 

CPUs aren't as simple as just processing 1s and 0s. They have microcode embeded. Even fairly recently, code vulnerabilities were found within basically every CPU and fixes had to be released and applied. You can't support that forever, you need to draw a line of where support ends or the amount of development required would be limitless.

[cmndr]

On balance each version of windows pushes forward a bunch of new technologies. Each update to a version aims to make those things more stable, reliable and performant. 

One good use case for Win 11 is better thread scheduling. 
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16959/intel-innovation-alder-lake-november-4th/3

[SpookyCitrus]

5 minutes ago, Applefreak said:

I debug and fix computers on the side. Fixing Macs, even reinstalling the OS is getting difficult and very time consuming. Not something to live up to.

Look and feel not functionality.

[Oshino Shinobu]

2 minutes ago, podkall said:

Honestly why won't Microsoft just make a new OS with new backbone?

 

Like I get it that it's time and money consuming but an OS that doesn't need an update every 12 miliseconds can sound appealing to vast majority.

Honestly, not sure on that. Even with W11 with how they've tried to move things into the "new" settings menus, so much is still reliant on the old control panel and everything's still running off Windows NT essentially.

 

I imagine a large part of it is business use. If they completely changed the base of Windows client operating systems, they'd end up breaking all backwards and forwards compatibility between other versions of Windows. Not a big deal for home users, but for business use where you'll often have systems spanning from Server 2012 R2 to 2019, everything being compatible is very important and difficult to achieve without inflating the size and complexity of a newly designed base.

[Ian Greenhalgh]

It's all about the money....

 

They even released updates that broke Win10 so people would upgrad to 11

 

Win10 was stable for years, then they released updates that broke the memory management so that win10 now has a serious memory leak problem and my PC runs out of memory and crashes a couple of times a day, despite me having 128Gb.

 

Lots of other people report the same problem witgh this memory leak, it seems to be impossible to fix.

 

I love Linux but need a wondows box to run several pieces of software that are unavailable on Linux.

[podkall]

9 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Things like supporting legacy BIOS, booting from MBR partitions, old hardware that has no measures to support something like TPM2.0.

 

CPUs aren't as simple as just processing 1s and 0s. They have microcode embeded. Even fairly recently, code vulnerabilities were found within basically every CPU and fixes had to be released and applied. You can't support that forever, you need to draw a line of where support ends or the amount of development required would be limitless.

9 minutes ago, cmndr said:

On balance each version of windows pushes forward a bunch of new technologies. Each update to a version aims to make those things more stable, reliable and performant. 

One good use case for Win 11 is better thread scheduling. 
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16959/intel-innovation-alder-lake-november-4th/3

 

Like based on past OS experience and these thoughts and comments.

 

OS developers sound like Game developers that launch game too early and then constantly release patches for bug fixes, stabilities, etc...

 

6 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Honestly, not sure on that. Even with W11 with how they've tried to move things into the "new" settings menus, so much is still reliant on the old control panel and everything's still running off Windows NT essentially.

exactly

 

6 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I imagine a large part of it is business use. If they completely changed the base of Windows client operating systems, they'd end up breaking all backwards and forwards compatibility between other versions of Windows. Not a big deal for home users, but for business use where you'll often have systems spanning from Server 2012 R2 to 2019, everything being compatible is very important and difficult to achieve without inflating the size and complexity of a newly designed base.

A change of backbone that is more reliant, etc. can also aleviate security things and whatnot...

 

4 minutes ago, Ian Greenhalgh said:

They even released updates that broke Win10 so people would upgrad to 11

Is it 22H2? because that one is pending to be installed on my device.

 

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by podkall
spelling

[Lurick]

8 minutes ago, podkall said:

Honestly why won't Microsoft just make a new OS with new backbone?

 

Like I get it that it's time and money consuming but an OS that doesn't need an update every 12 miliseconds can sound appealing to vast majority.

You're kidding me right?

Do you have any idea how many applications would break with a whole new underlying infrastructure and how many years and billions of dollars it would cost companies to uplift for a new underlying OS?

[podkall]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Do you have any idea how many applications would break with a whole new underlying infrastructure and how many years and billions of dollars it would cost companies to uplift for a new underlying OS?

Yeah, the situation would be similar to Linux then?

[Ian Greenhalgh]

1 minute ago, podkall said:

Is it 22H2? because that one is pending to be installed on my device.

22H2 has the memory leak, don't touch it, it's f&*$ed.

 

I think it was 21H2 that introduced the memory leak, not sure.

 

1909 from back in Novemeber 2019 works fine, wish I'd stuck with that.

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, podkall said:

OS developers sound like Game developers that launch game too early and then constantly release patches for bug fixes, stabilities, etc...

I mean, they're really not comparable in terms of breadth and scope. An OS is infiniately more complex and has so many more areas for bugs, security holes etc. than a game.

 

Bear in mind that even Server 2008/Windows 7, still have security updates to fix issues released on a monthly basis as new issues are constantly being found. If they waited until it was completely finished, it'd never release.

 

Also, Microsoft massively cut back its testing department quite a while ago, which is a big part of why W10 and W11 have released with so many issues.

[Termater]

Might be beating a dead horse here but.. Better multi-core CPU usage, refined UI, additional settings, and new security features.

 

But why couldn't that all just be a Windows 10 update is beyond me, it should have been.

[Holmes108]

While I agree any potential positive benefits won't matter to everyday users, the same is probably true of the negatives. Even myself, I use it and it doesn't bother me. I don't really think about windows, even as a daily user. Once I was able to move the start menu back to the left, it's just another windows. I don't really care what they call it. 

 

My only complaint is I haven't liked the direction the settings screens have been going, but that's a Windows 10 problem too, not exclusive to Windows 11. I'll cry when control panel is gone though.

 

It's much ado about nothing, but so are most windows updates, unless there's a very specific use case or bug fix you're looking for. And if nothing had changed in the last 10 years, they'd get criticized for that too I'm sure. 

 

My slogan for it would just be "Windows 11... yep, it works too."

[podkall]

2 minutes ago, Ian Greenhalgh said:

22H2 has the memory leak, don't touch it, it's f&*$ed.

 

I think it was 21H2 that introduced the memory leak, not sure.

 

1909 from back in Novemeber 2019 works fine, wish I'd stuck with that.

So like the update is installed but won't update unless I select the shutdown and update option,

 

is there a way to uninstall the 22H2 so that I don't have to bother?

 

4 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I mean, they're really not comparable in terms of breadth and scope. An OS is infiniately more complex and has so many more areas for bugs, security holes etc. than a game.

Window moves left, window moves right, app executable gets double clicked,

 

windows redistributable c++ 2005-2019 code gets installed for game,

 

such complexity, I think the complexity Microsoft worries about is outside what users will ever need,

 

like telemetry, etc.

 

6 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Bear in mind that even Server 2008/Windows 7, still have security updates to fix issues released on a monthly basis as new issues are constantly being found. If they waited until it was completely finished, it'd never release.

I'm not saying there aren't leaks or that some individuals won't try to find them,

 

but a different programs/systems have different kind of leaks/holes, that have different kind of size, or the difficulty of finding such holes/leaks...

 

7 minutes ago, Holmes108 said:

My only complaint is I haven't liked the direction the settings screens have been going, but that's a Windows 10 problem too, not exclusive to Windows 11. I'll cry when control panel is gone though.

yep

 

7 minutes ago, Holmes108 said:

And if nothing had changed in the last 10 years, they'd get criticized for that too I'm sure. 

if it works they won't need updates and recieve positive criticism/reviews

 

8 minutes ago, Holmes108 said:

My slogan for it would just be "Windows 11... yep, it works too."

It's not like I won't use Windows 11, but I won't really consider moving/updating unless they iron out all the mistakes to the point where it actually is better Windows 10, until then it is just a worse Windows 10 with more features...