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WriteNow

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 27, 2021
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Interesting piece talking about Windows 11 as the new Vista. I can't comment, since I haven't seen Windows 11--but I found this interesting argument for why the author thinks history will repeat itself. A quote:

Now, Windows 11 is coming. As I've done many times in the past, I logged into my Insiders account and started testing, to see what awaits me. Right away, I found the experience quite dejecting. My early impression of Windows 11 Dev Build was mediocre at best, and it progressively got worse with each update. Different from Windows 10, though. What happened was, I found myself reliving 2011, when I tested Windows 8 and came to pretty much the same conclusions. To wit, this is what I think will unfold.​

 

grmlin

macrumors 65816
Feb 16, 2015
1,110
777
The last time a Windows release was broken as hell was 95 ME I think. XP was good, Vista was good (didn't have any problems with it), 8 was stupid but worked, and 10 promised a lot and didn't deliver. It runs good enough but there is just too much old waste dragged along in it.

11 is just a version number, I guess because MS needs to make money? It could have been one of their big upgrades for 10 but they decided to call it 11. It's whatever, as if version numbers mean much in 2021.

I have a lot of problems with the 11 beta as I already said in other threads and unless MS has a stable branch with all these bugs fixed lying around, it's quite the adventure to release this as a final version October 5th. Personally my biggest offenders are

- highdpi scaling that's broken and bugs out all the time
- the taskbar that's a mess and with parts of it broken

It definitely looks better in some places than 10, and looks the same in all the other places lol. So technically you can call that an improvement, yes :)
 
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ian87w

macrumors G3
Feb 22, 2020
8,704
12,636
Indonesia
11 technically is just 10. It wasn't supposed to be a new version as Microsoft had said Windows 10 being the last version of Windows.

Imo 11 is just a marketing opportunity triggered by the pandemic. The pandemic and WFH have caused many people upgrading their home computers. Pc sales are going up, so I'm guessing the OEMs are asking Microsoft to do Windows 11 and just drop support for some processors to force more people to upgrade. It's a sleazy move.

Microsoft being Microsoft, they botched the launch marketing, creating confusion even amongst the tech enthusiasts.

Imo Windows 11 should've been an exclusive Windows ARM, leaving 10 continuing for x86. The new number is an opportunity to cut off a lot of the legacy crud.
 
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grmlin

macrumors 65816
Feb 16, 2015
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Imo Windows 11 should've been an exclusive Windows ARM, leaving 10 continuing for x86. The new number is an opportunity to cut off a lot of the legacy crud.
Didn't they have this weird new Windows version that would have done just that? But after the Surface event with all the Intel hardware yesterday it should be clear, that ARM has no priority in Microsofts plans for Windows. The Pro X is two years old now.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,657
43,671
He comes off a showing a anti-ms bias from the get go, and truth be told, I've never heard of him, so it seems like one of those folks jumping on the anti-ms bandwagon.

With that said, here's some of my thoughts to that article.
First he calls it windows 11 the new vista but then just reference's vista just once - there's no logical thought process on why its the new vista. Yes he does write up some criticisms but not in reference or comparison to vista.

Hardware requirements - Windows 11 has rather strict requirements - TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, newer generations of processors, and all that. If you judge these from the perspective of Windows 10 EOL in 2025, they aren't bad. But that's four years into the future. From the current perspective, they are ridiculous. This is just like Vista.
I agree, MS is artificially making TPM 2.0 a requirement when it doesn't need too, perhaps making it optional and then a year or two (after providing lots of notice) make it a requirement. Also the high hardware requirements is questionable. BUT unlike Vista, where low spec'd machines ran vista like crap, MS doesn't want a repeat of that, so its very much NOT like Vista.

System menu - Windows 8 came with a new design, in the early preview builds you could do it, and later you couldn't. Public response: total rejection of the new start screen nonsense, and the techies went all Classic Shell. Now, Windows 11 is doing the same - it has a new menu that has an inefficient design, early on you could switch to the Windows 10 menu, now you cannot. The techies are clamoring for a replacement, including the awesome Open-Shell, a successor to Classic Shell.
The windows 8 start menu was horrible, this isn't bad, its logical and fresh and new. The windows 8 start menu was designed as a touch first interface which is great for tablets but horrible for desktop/laptops. I really don't see "techies" clamoring for the old start menu or a replacement (which there are already a number of utilities to do just that

Touch paradigms - Back in the Windows 8 era, Microsoft (and everyone else) believed that the future would be all touch, forgetting basic human evolution and anatomy. As it happens, Win32 desktop-designed mouse-and-keyboard applications remain the absolute monarch of the desktop, and this will never change. Because we still have only ten fingers, our hands can only do so and so, and no amount of marketing will ever change that. Windows 8 tried with tablet and mobile apps and failed. Windows 11 is trying with phone and mobile apps. This will of course not work, because mobile apps have zero merit or value on the desktop. They work great on tiny, finger-operated devices. They work awfully on big devices, operated by mouse and keyboard.
I think this is a complaint just for the sake of complaining. Win11 has done a great job at enhancing touch capability and improving the experience for tablet or two in one users but (unlike win8) not at the expense of desktop/laptop users. We're not losing any capability or ease of use.


Windows updates & online account - As you can lightly peruse from my Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Enterprise RTM Preview, back then, I complained about the new "strategy" on forcing updates onto users, and the attempts to get users to log into their system with an online (Microsoft) account. In Windows 11 Home Edition, this is almost a must now.
I don't disagree, MS, like others are increasingly going to leverage cloud and online connectivity. Its harder and harder to have an account that is not attached to a MS account. Most people probably won't care, but I understand some privacy minded folks may not care for it.

Performance - For me, Windows 11 is slower than Windows 10. Please disclaim this with the fact I tested only on one hardware piece, my IdeaPad 3 machine (with AMD Ryzen 5 processor and NVMe storage), and that we're still dealing with the preview build of Windows 11. That said, this is not different from what I encountered with Windows 8 back in the day.
It is, no question BUT at best its a developer preview - its a beta and so this complaint is more or less unfounded. He'll have a right to complain once the release version hits the streets and its slower - and yet I'm sure he'll complain that its slower but also why does MS force faster/newer CPUs to be used. You can't really complain about the hardware requirements being high and then complain that its running slow, maybe MS put those requirements in there for a reason, i.e., it needs it Overall for my experience, its been good, the desktop/interaction has been a bit pokey when using apps like Acrobat Pro but overall its not bad.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,657
43,671
I want to add that I don't think windows 11 is all unicorns and rainbows, and there is certainly things that MS has messed up, such as TPM 2.0 being a requirement and some UI/UIX that could be improved

My take on Vista is that it was long delayed, over promised with features that never made it into released OS. On top of that, the ready for Vista program was horrible and many low end PCs that were sold as compatible were to underpowered and provided a horrible experience.

Conversely, Windows 11 was sprung onto us earlier this year with no prior notice with a small but nice set of changes and improvements (some of those improvements will not make it on release day). Additionally MS has set the requirement bar higher then it has in the past. I'm of the opinion that this is so there will not a repeat of Vista, where its running horribly on lower end machines.

Overall my personal experience of running win11 has largely been positive, probably better then any of the recent macOS betas - but I stopped using Macs a couple of years ago, so I cannot comment on the last couple of versions. I can only see how people were/are complaining about the bugs - that's neither here nor there for this discussion but its a nice comparison to highlight updating operating systems is not easy.
 

mmomega

macrumors demi-god
Dec 30, 2009
3,879
2,089
DFW, TX
I am a very mixed bag of computers and OS's and they all have their own purpose for me, Mac desktops for my actual offices and one at home, MacBook and phone.
PC's are everywhere else, 4 - gaming PC's in the house, PC NAS, etc other little places.
But back to Windows 11.
I won't be installing it on employee workstations for a little while, maybe 2nd quarter 2022, at home I am much more leniant as I am in complete control of what goes on on the computer and backups and restores with nvme drives are ridiculous quick.
I started using 11 at the first leak, then to the insider dev builds, still on that personally with family on beta/prerelease builds, because I am their tech support and I don't enjoy spending my days troubleshooting when they mess something up.
I like it, I have been using it exclusively on my main personal and gaming PC and it works very, very well.
I use a few other apps to give it the features I like, but all in all on it's on, I like the refreshed look. The Win95 icons and menus still in 10 have gotten a little long in the tooth, very comfortable to use because some of Windows hadn't changed over 30 years but I am comfortable with the change and dive into it looking at the new menus at what has changed.

Vista wasn't too bad either if you were on rather new hardware, within 1-2 years old, but it definitely didn't care for 5+ yr old equipment very much. Same as with 11 for me, I ran Vista on my personal and Win2000 or 98SE (no ME) and a couple XP machines at work. It wasn't terrible but I definitely welcomed Win7 when it hit. IMO 8/8.1 was trashy, then 10 I moved a lot of work computers to fairly early on.
 

eltoslightfoot

macrumors 68020
Feb 25, 2011
2,314
2,788
So, I am typing this on a Surface Pro 7 (with Powertoys installed admittedly) and have been running Windows 11 for just over a day. It really seems nice to me, got to be honest. Definitely not in the same league as Vista so far. (I reserve the right to change my mind).
 

k24a1

macrumors regular
Mar 1, 2019
213
118
louisville, KY
personally i've had no issues with vista, but i've always had service pack 1 or 2 installed. RTM was a hot mess. 11 may seem like the new vista, especially with the jump in its system "requirements", but your mileage may vary. the main reason why people hated vista was because of their systems being insufficient. plus, when vista first came out, it was quite rushed (especially after a 5 YEAR LONG development cycle) and it was very ahead for its time. service pack 1 and 2 optimized the CRAP out of vista in many aspects, even if it did still require a hefty system for the time. arguably, i've had computers run vista sp2 better than 7 SP1 and in some cases, 7 RTM.

i haven't looked into 11 so much because my system does not support it officially. i might just stick with 10 and 8.1 for the time being anyways.
 
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Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
Vista was originally bad because no drivers were written for it by hardware suppliers (or not many of them). It caused mayhem for a while.
I thought it was an improvement visually over XP.
I thought XP was a total lard-arse when you take into account how long it was around and how many tweaks, updates and massages it had. Total garbage imho.
I never got to grips with 8 at all and although I haven't used it too much 10 was much the same - even with the "make it look like Windows 7" addon installed.
I'm not sure any system can work nowadays that still uses a registry as its backbone.
 

mi7chy

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2014
10,495
11,155
Only bad part of Vista for me was the out of box indexing and running on spindle HDD which made booting into Windows painfully long. It was fine after disabling indexing or moving to SSD.
 

MBAir2010

macrumors 603
May 30, 2018
6,433
5,922
there
Overall my personal experience of running win11 has largely been positive, probably better then any of the recent macOS betas - but I stopped using Macs a couple of years ago, so I cannot comment on the last couple of versions. I can only see how people were/are complaining about the bugs - that's neither here nor there for this discussion but its a nice comparison to highlight updating operating systems is not easy.
the icons on the images such as the video and music surprisingly help!
the second right click to perform an action like copy, paste is an extra step which no one likes.
but this was the smoothest upgrade next to lion, mountain lion.

I was wondering if there will be a reverse of a unsupported OSX were Mojave can run in a M1?
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,657
43,671
the second right click to perform an action like copy, paste is an extra step which no one likes.
As of right now, this is easily fixed:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/pu5aa3
Code:
reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve

To revert it back:
Code:
reg.exe delete "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}" /f
 

AndyMacAndMic

macrumors 65816
May 25, 2017
1,071
1,617
Western Europe
the second right click to perform an action like copy, paste is an extra step which no one likes.

Maybe I missed something in your post, but on the new right click context menu the copy, paste etc. options are visible as clickable icons. So why would you need a second right click?

1634897125799.png


I agree though that the 'show more options' (here in Dutch) at the bottom is an extra step for getting the 'old' context options menu back.
 
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k24a1

macrumors regular
Mar 1, 2019
213
118
louisville, KY
I thought it was an improvement visually over XP.
I thought XP was a total lard-arse when you take into account how long it was around and how many tweaks, updates and massages it had. Total garbage imho.
god, i really dislike XP. it's an overrated piece of garbage OS and essentially an overglorified 2000. you know those OS-tan characters? XP was the one who would keep binge eating. LOL

if one were to strip vista SP2 to a level of lightweightedness at XP, vista would run better provided you have an adequate video card. vista and 7 will work with XP and 2k video drivers, but they will not work too well with rendering and 3d acceleration.

also, server 2003 runs better than XP does. it also feels more complete than XP. yes, these are old systems for sure, but i frequently work on a lot of older computers (i browse the ppc forum all the time!) and i wanted to talk about my experiences.
 
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MBAir2010

macrumors 603
May 30, 2018
6,433
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the "Show More Options" in finder with folders is a step backwards from any windows 10.
Maybe I missed something in your post, but on the new right click context menu the copy, paste etc. options are visible as clickable icons. So why would you need a second right click?
right tap/laptop click and the Dell XPS 9380 shows these useless options:

Screenshot (15).png
what is a skype anyways?
since there are many photos i need to rename, copy and save
on an external hd those options are not needed quickly.
therefore:
the "Show More Options" in finder with folders is a step backwards from any windows 10.

i hope this clears up my other post
just reluctant to use terminal, i cant spell and i screw up anything that is easy.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,657
43,671
i really dislike XP.
I didn't hate (or love) XP, I used it primarily for work, either on my Mac or my work PC - it had its issues. I feel that feature for feature, macOS surpassed windows XP in features, stability and overall user experience.
 

AndyMacAndMic

macrumors 65816
May 25, 2017
1,071
1,617
Western Europe
the "Show More Options" in finder with folders is a step backwards from any windows 10.

right tap/laptop click and the Dell XPS 9380 shows these useless options:

View attachment 1874545
what is a skype anyways?
since there are many photos i need to rename, copy and save
on an external hd those options are not needed quickly.
therefore:
the "Show More Options" in finder with folders is a step backwards from any windows 10.

i hope this clears up my other post
just reluctant to use terminal, i cant spell and i screw up anything that is easy.

Also on your screenshot I can see the Cut, Copy, Paste options on the top of the menu. So no extra right click necessary.
Skype is a program like 'Microsoft Teams' or 'Zoom'. Probably you have installed Skype at one time and now it is shown in the context menu.
 
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Feyl

Cancelled
Aug 24, 2013
964
1,951
Windows 11 is literally just Windows 10 but with a slightly different skin. All the new stuff was even planned as an update to Windows 10. But they later gave it a new number.
 

MBAir2010

macrumors 603
May 30, 2018
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Windows 11 is literally just Windows 10 but with a slightly different skin. All the new stuff was even planned as an update to Windows 10. But they later gave it a new number.
which is good because what else can Microsoft do to improve windows 10?
beside speed, interface and easy access really nothing.
I noticed Catalina is Mojave but infused with a learning curve to let you KNOW  is in control.
case in point with iTunes-music and iCloud dominance.

I don't remember using Vista or even exactly when that came out, mid 200? would be my guess.
 

Feyl

Cancelled
Aug 24, 2013
964
1,951
I don't remember using Vista or even exactly when that came out, mid 200? would be my guess.
I think 2006 or 2007. I remember using it from the first beta that included the final Aero theme. It was great and pretty futuristic looking. I loved it. Vista is very underrated basically because the drivers and app developers were lazy and people tried it on old computers. I think Vista was the greatest OS from Microsoft.
 
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MBAir2010

macrumors 603
May 30, 2018
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I think 2006 or 2007. I remember using it from the first beta that included the final Aero theme. It was great and pretty futuristic looking. I loved it. Vista is very underrated basically because the drivers and app developers were lazy and people tried it on old computers. I think Vista was the greatest OS from Microsoft.
oh that had the best pasture screen saver?
I remember liking windows 7 for some work-related reason.

now I can relate to windows11 being like vista maybe the small 3d flat icons?
then again I never thought I would ever use windows os in my house.
 
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