Upgrade to Windows 11

I have a 3 year old HP laptop.  Fully patched / licensed Windows 10, 12GB RAM, Intel i5-8250U CPU @ 1.80 GHz.  Upgraded last year to a TB SSD drive.  Sitting around yesterday and saw that the Windows 11 update was available, so though 'why not?'

I had already downloaded and run the PC Health Check, which tells you if your system meets the Windows 11 system requirements - my system passed.  Went to the Download Windows 11 website and chose the Download Now option - this option allows you to upgrade your system in place.  There is also the option of downloading an ISO image to do a clean install.  I had a complete backup, so decided to update in place. 

The only issue I had during the install was that I forgot that my login account does not have full admin permissions and so the install failed a couple of times.  When I figured what was happening, I located the Windows 11 Installation Assistant file that is downloaded at the beginning of the process, right-clicked on it, selected Run as Administrator, and all was well. 

The update took about an hour with a couple of restarts.  When it had finished, I logged into Windows 11 without any drama at all.  All files, folders, and programs are where I left them.  The taskbar looks different, with the icons centered (I right-clicked on the taskbar, opened Taskbar Settings, selected Taskbar alignment and selected Left - looks more normal to me).

Today, I ran Windows Update, installed a couple of updates and some driver updates; all installed fine.  System runs great, seems a bit faster than Windows 10, but may be me with something 'bright shiny'.

So initial thoughts are that Microsoft nailed it, producing an update was essentially flawless. 

Will follow up if anything odd happens.

I did the same, but downloaded the .iso and did a clean install.  It gave me some driver update failures until all the Windows updates had run and restarted, but all-in it was only about 45 minutes from download to finished and updated. I agree that it seems to run faster and use fewer system resources thus far.

What are the advantages to 11 over 10? 

Is it just the lower use of resources or is it actually a better interface?

Hilariously, my hand built gaming pc with R5, tons of ram, and everything aplenty does not "qualify" for w11. Yet the trash, Best Buy work laptop of four years does...#### you Micropenis. 

I just really don't like the new Right-Click context menu.   That's really my only gripe about Win11

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

What are the advantages to 11 over 10? 

Is it just the lower use of resources or is it actually a better interface?

 

Win10 ends support in a couple years for security patches.  Win11 should run for another 10

In reply to Grtechguy :

So I have a few years before I need to worry about it. 

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

In reply to Grtechguy :

So I have a few years before I need to worry about it. 

 

Yes. And it will still have updates, for now. 

I went ahead and said "go for it" when  it came up in the update box. Figured there'd be all manner of promtps to backup files, then n that, but nope, there it goes. I'd done a backup earluer so I didn't panic, but still.. no prompts no nuthin just dowload n install. Half an hour later it asked for restart, it spent a few minutes doing drivers, and there it is. Taskbar looks different. Havent done hardware benchmarks but interestingly, ookla speedtest went from 50 mps to 70, just like that. By far and away the easiest OS upgrade I ever did see.

Why do we need Windows 11?

Junghole said:

Hilariously, my hand built gaming pc with R5, tons of ram, and everything aplenty does not "qualify" for w11. Yet the trash, Best Buy work laptop of four years does...#### you Micropenis. 

If your motherboard or CPU doesn't have a recent enough TPM hardware solution, Windows 11 isn't yet supported. It's MS's move towards hardware over software security implementation.  You might run a shmoogle search and check your bios for options relating to security that can be enabled; it seems to be solving a lot of issues with newer hardware that "doesn't qualify" for the upgrade.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

Why do we need Windows 11?

Same reason we needed Windows 10, 8, 7, me, xp, 95, 3.11, etc. the inexorable march of time results in upgrades to both hardware and software.

The real question is: when will they drop support for Win 10.

When they do that, then you can get mad.  That could essentially invalidate a lot of computers (from being connected to the internet).

(edit) just looked it up.  Apparently 2025.  That's a lot sooner then I would think.  It might get extended though if the hardware restriction issues are as large as they seem to be.

OP here.  Been a few days and my system is stable; no issues.  Was doing updates on my bride's system - a bit newer than mine - and the Windows 11 update popped up.  Her's also updated flawlessly.

My first computer ran MS DOS 3.1.  I have basically run every version of Windows since Win 3.1.  All have made changes in the interface; although some changes seem to have been made for the sake of making a change.  The only one I absolutely hated was Win 8 - with a passion.  Win 11 has consolidated access to some functions and seems to use fewer resources.  The interface differences aren't jarring, so I don't think most users will have problems adapting.  I'm not even going to tell my bride that I updated her system and see if she figures it out...

As mentioned by others, the Windows 11 update will provide security patches and OS feature updates until any hardware currently running it is obsolete.  So far as Windows 10 support, all I can add is that I was managing a network that included a couple of hundred Windows 7 systems when Win 7 support supposedly ended.  Microsoft put the Win 7 into Extended Support for another five years.  Given the base of Windows 10 systems, I would not be suprised if they did something similar with it.  Microsoft has fought the 'Windows is unstable and prone to viruses' accusations long enough that they just won't chance Win 10 systems being the source of more PR issues. 

Here's a bet - Win 10 will be supported with patches until the OS is no longer a significant portion of the installed Windows base, maybe 20%.  I am amazed that Win 7 is still almost 15%, of the installed base.  EDIT - There seem to be a lot of Win 7 systems in Africa and Asia, not unexpected, I guess.

Desktop Windows Version Market Share Worldwide - October 2021

Win10    81.44%

Win7      13.56%

Win8.1     3.17%

Win8       1.07%

WinXP    0.53%

WinVista 0.21%

Cuz this one goes to 11?