Review: Windows 11

mcgrew writes:

My (not so) old Dell Windows 10 notebook that poorly converts to a tablet is on its last legs; the E, A, and 5 keys are troublesome. Annoying; I have an old HP laptop running XP that mostly works; the headphone jack and DVD are shot, but everything else works, albeit with a noisy fan.

So I replaced it with a new, non-convertible Asus notebook running Windows 11, and it was an incredible surprise. For the first time I've seen since DOS 6.2 (I skipped Windows 8 after finding out it was just a test to see how much grief Windows' customers were willing to take), Microsoft actually produced an operating system that not only didn't suck worse than the last iteration, but is an actual improvement in a few ways.

It seems to be snappier than 10. Usually a brand new Windows on a brand new computer is slower than the old one, if you've maintained it, because of the bloat. Yes, that's not always true for everyone, but the hardware looks to be mostly compatible with the old Dell. It actually does some things, like copying to or from a thumb drive, faster than Kubuntu and Dolphin.

Microsoft may have actually started listening to their customers! Setting up the new computer was far less hassle and nonsense than the old Windows 10 computer, but not nearly as effortless as installing Linux on a new, clean drive. Like 10, it gave me nonsense when I tried to install open source software, but I didn't have to jump through nearly so many hoops to install everything that is on all of my Windows computers. And Audacity will play on Windows 11, unlike 10 after their last "upgrade". I don't know if it will record because like the Dell, its sound input is hard-wired to the microphone, which you can record with.

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