Should I update to Windows 11?

I’m still on Windows 7 so my philosophy is the same!

@janbb Well, Windows 7 isn’t supported anymore and my software wasn’t supported with Windows 7 so I had to update to Windows 10

^^ That’s fine for you. I wasn’t suggesting that you go back to it.

I updated to Windows 11 as soon as I could. I have had zero problems. The user interface is very similar.

I am not an expert software engineer. I am an advanced user.

There’s a lot of Microsoft haters around. I’m sure you’ll hear from them.

@Hawaii_Jake I’m not a Microsoft hater. I’ve been using Windows since 3.1. I just remember when Windows 8 came out and it was universally hated.

(And I have nothing against MacOS either. It’s just that my astronomy software is native to Windows and I have to run emulators to make it work on Mac).

You don’t need to. I use windows 10 but I don’t need an upgrade.

Well, I did it on my one laptop that I don’t need any of my astronomy stuff for—just my cheap portable one that I take to conferences. So far the changes seem mostly cosmetic although I assume there is more stuff under the hood.

I switched to Windows11 immediately. No issues. There is a glaring security flaw with every single Windows OS on computers not using secure boot. It’s easily googled if you know how to ask. It’s an open secret that most IT people if they know it, are hush hush about. Windows 11 forced most users to use secure boot even though there is a workaround.

I have Windows 10 pro and so far it still works okay (mostly) every once in a while my command prompt pops up and I hit the space bar and it goes away.

I have 11 on my new laptop and it’s fine. I think it probably came with it.

@Blackwater_Park Well, my computer booted without a problem on 11 so I guess it’s fine. I’m not a tech guy.

Win11 has tighter security “under the hood” than Win10 so if you like to click on links in spam you should upgrade. I upgraded my “new” laptop and it seems to work exactly the same. The only exception is that I have a 4K UHD screen and the driver or firmware doesn’t like Win11, so the bottom ¼ in of my screen is showing only half the scan lines. I’m not thrilled that I upgraded.

@RocketGuy Well that’s a really good reason for me NOT to upgrade since I use my large format 4K screens for photography processing.

I hesitated for quite a while, but finally switched to Win11 in 2020 & I’ve NOT looked back!!! Honestly, I didn’t see much difference in 10 & 11. I think you’re being pushed to update to 11 now because it’s not that long before Win12 will be coming out & I think I read/heard that you’ll need 11 to upgrade to 12. Win10 will become a dinosaur in 2025.

IF I remember right, you had something like 30 days to revert to 10 if you didn’t like 11. Don’t know if they still offer that or not.

When W 12 comes out I’ll probably just get a new computer.

@Caravanfan – it would be really annoying to have half the stars at the bottom of your screen not visible. I can work around my problem if I set the Taskbar to always be visible (and blurry).

@RocketGuy Can you go back to WIn 10?
(on a completely different note, we’re working out dates for Stubar)

I have had 11 since it was in beta and I’ve not had any issues with it. The start menu is slightly different but not to the scale that it was with 8 and unless you know what you’re looking at it you might mistake 11 for 10. I have a 4k 240hz monitor and have no issues with 11.

You can reinstall 10 on top of 11 but it would have to be clean ie boot up from the media with the installer and overwrite everything. Assuming you have your data on a different drive to OS, which you should do – makes life so much easier.

Someday I’ll have time to put Win10 back in, but by that time maybe a Win11 driver will be available. The reason I got this laptop was because it had a discreet graphics card. That allows me to spin the sliced models of my 3D printing projects around in real time to look for unprintable areas. I can scoot the models away from the blurry zone of my screen, as needed.

@RocketGuy Still totally annoying. Can you get Microsft supoort on it?

They point towards asking the vendor to provide updated drivers, which hasn’t happened yet. I check every few months. Lenovo must be too busy with new models.

@RocketGuy Did you update windows 10 to Windows 11 rather than do a clean install? I found some reports of people having screen issues after updating to 11 that they resolved by completely removing the display driver (easier said than done) and then reinstalling it. Display Driver Uninstaller in safe mode will completely remove the driver. Might be worth a go.

@Lightlyseared – great idea! I forgot that’s what I had to do when I upgraded to Win7 on my previous laptop. I was getting BSOD. Clean install instead of upgrade made it work.

I did a clean install too.