At the time of this writing, Microsoft officially released Win 11 but did not kick off the rollout for all PC models. The older your PC is, the longer you probably must wait to be able to update via the normal settings menu. But hold up, if you want to update right now, you can go another fairly easy way. On Microsoft’s website you can get the installer from the “downloads” section and the just execute it on your PC. If you want to check if your PC is capable of running Win 11 before making the switch, you can download a software that checks on that too.
I already knew from a list that Lenovo provided that my laptop is supported for Windows 11, so I just went straight for the installation. The whole process took round about an hour in my test and finished without issues. All my data was still at its place and the new Win 11 desktop layout was catching my eyes.
Let’s be honest, I’m a windows girl, and I became friendly with Linux over the years, but I never had the money or reason to use a mac. But unfortunately, I really love the style of the apple mac OS… And with Microsoft bringing new graphics with Windows 11 let’s start with the most obvious but also must unimportant thing first: the design.
The design
At the first look, the new design remembers me strongly of the mac OS design. Its softer than its precursor and overall, more centered. Window corners are rounded and the taskbar as well as for example the lock-screen clock is centered to the mid instead of a left-oriented alignment. The status-icons remain in the right bottom corner but are new arranged and to me it feels like that’s the first functional change in design. When using Windows 11 it felt like the status-icons and messages are easier to access now and I’m less likely ignoring them like I did on Windows 10. Another alteration to the taskbar is that they removed the option to snap it to the left, right or upper edge of the screen. I was especially annoyed by this because the Lenovo L380 Yoga is a convertible device, and I had the taskbar configured to the top of the screen as I tended to move around the icons on the taskbar with my wrist while writing on the screen. But to my surprise: I couldn’t reconstruct that problem while testing on Win 11 so I’m kind of fine with having the taskbar back on the bottom screen edge. Also, Microsoft did a few changes to the settings menu. The main categories stayed but a few rearrangements of the panels and options makes it way easier to orientate and navigate. And I really like this because if I don’t want to play around with my tec, I just want it to be easy and functional.
Aside of this, if you dig deeper into the OS, you meet the old designs again. As in Windows 10, the underlying layers like network-settings or the system controls got new icons but aside this, didn’t changed.
Ok, so the design is pretty neat, no tiles, nothing to special, just nice to look at, kind of clean and orientated on the key points what makes similar mac OS or Linux designs as good as they are. But how does it behave with the underlying functionality?
Over-all functionality
I was a little bit concerned with updating the laptop to Win 11 as it already had a little heat-problem under Win 10 and when I tortured it with Fusion 360 it was usable but far from a good experience. They told me that Win 11 is quiet a heavy OS and so I was prepared to maybe must downgrade back to Windows 10 after my tryout.
But… I got really; I mean really really surprised! Not only that I can’t trace any bigger heat-problem than I had before, but it might even have gotten a little better! I don’t know what leads to this, but it seems like the OS processes are more balanced now. Also, to my surprise, using Fusion 360 got way smoother under Windows 11. You still can go and cook coffee for the whole department while Fusion is starting on the L380 Yoga, but it actually is capable of moving 3D objects without workflow-interrupting frame drops. I’m honest, I was a little impressed.
But enough of the good news, there need to be some bad once! And here they come:
It seems like some software integrations are not completely bug free yet. Starting with OS native things: sometimes the status-Icons don’t react probably. So, they sometimes just don’t do anything if I clicked them. That’s annoying and can make it really frustrating for now, but I expect Microsoft to fix issues like this soon as they belong to the typical childhood diseases of a new OS. It gets more complex when it comes to third party software. Since the upgrade, in some cases, a bug appears in Fusion 360 that disables the “orbit” functionality if you want to access it from the button. It’s still possible to use it via the shortkey combination but the button seams like not proper loaded or something. The issue is mostly resolvable by restarting Fusion but it never appeared before the Win 11 upgrade so this might be some small incompatibility.
However, most of the software I daily use runs without issues, and I think this will also get better as soon as Windows 11 becomes more common. Overall, the OS is usable for me as a daily productive tool so… good job on this Microsoft, I guess!
New Features and workflow-changing modifications
Some people might call me out for this but for me it actually is a big deal: being able to open a PowerShell directly through the context-menu after a right click without breaking my fingers on the shift key simultaneously. It just makes it a such easier workflow and also makes the PowerShell more present for people who aren’t as used to it and maybe gives it a less scary feeling.
In the design part I also already talked about the status-icons that got re arranged. It’s easier to get more done via this section and so I would name this another new likely feature.
Also oriented on other OS’s, Microsoft implemented the capability of using multiple desktops and being able to switch between them like between different work-settings. I’m sure this is a cool and productive feature and native users of other OS’s might get productive with it really quickly but as a Windows-kid I have my problems to get used to it until now… mainly, because I forget to use it.
Microsoft wouldn’t be Microsoft if it would not try to make us use more of it’s products (we remember how annoying getting asked to use edge was, after every good damn update…) and so we can find MS Teams in the shape of a chat bubble in the pre-set of taskbar-applications now. As I already use MS Teams for family intern communication, I’m quiet fine with that but I know at least a hand full of people who will replace this for sure.
Also predefined in the taskbar instead of the right bottom corner is the widgets field. This feature is what I really have the most problems with as I don’t understand it neither find it usable in any way. The thought of making news, the weather and the latest sports results visible in one overview is… nice. Yeah, I guess for the average home user this is what I would expect from a daily driver laptop OS but… why do I have to get it as a window from the taskbar? Is it something I don’t use right or is it just the way I would prefer it? For me, widgets like this need to be permanently and directly visible on the desktop so if I start up the PC, that is the first thing I see, if I close all my applications that is the last thing I see and why can’t I get them on my lock screen too?
So, am I going to keep it?
Definitely yes! Windows 11 is a daily usable OS. It is new and therefore has some childhood diseases what the reason is why I would not deploy it on critical machines or infrastructures jet. But it has quiet some advantages and if you are interested in it I can just recommend giving it a try!
Did you already have your hands on the new Windows 11? Did you maybe make a different experience? Feel free to share your thoughts on that down below!
