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Win11

ian elliot

ian elliot

SOH-CM-2025
Just curious, im getting quite a few offer's lately for a free upgrade from 10 to 11 on my system when i start up from MS, im wondering if anyone here has taken them up on there offer. havent worked out my needs yet, and im a few years away from a new PC upgrade as im happy with my set-up at the moment, and there seems a difference of opinion between installing over 10 on an older system, or holding out till you purchases a factory fresh system with 11 pre installed. There's a few threads running on other forums at the moment concerning 11 that got me thinking.
 
When my last confutor went belly up I test drove a friend's Win11 machine. I very quickly knew that I'd rather switch to Apple than have a Win11 rig. Aside from a horrendous interface, I found, by trying them, that most of my peripherals wouldn't work in it. I thought that W11 must be the new Vista and a friend who is a retired computer tech made the same comment. I would've made the switch to Apple and hoped there might be a Windows emulator that would let me run FS on an Apple, but my techie friend had a clean copy of Win10 and a little program that Allen told me about dresses up W10 to look and act like Win7. But don't take my word for it - just go to your local computer emporium and test drive Win11. You'll see. :tommygun2: W11
 
Classic Shell/OpenShell to get a good and editable Start Menu and OldNewExplorer to get rid of the
"ribbon" UI that came from the cursed Win 8 and the dumb AF push to touch screen UIs that came with it.

I have used a little of Win11 and it is worse. You can't even right click to copy/paste with out having to go to another menu.
 
I'm very happy with my Windows 11. Like everything else, it has a learning curve, & if you have used W10, it is a very easy transition to make & to get used to.
Ermmm.. yes, you can copy & paste without going to other menus.
I've gone through them all, Windows 7, 8, 10 & obviously 11, as I prefer to have an updated OS, with all the security fixes. For older hardware, stick to the appropriate OS, as W11 has be optimized for newer hardware.
FS2004 actually, for me, runs smoother & a bit faster in W11.
Regarding the Start menu, I'm using Start11 to customize it. It also gives a few more features when right-clicking the Task bar.
Also, when right-clicking the Task Bar, it give you the option to open Task Manager, which, for me, is a winner. (Windows 11 only)
I'm also using Edge web browser. Over the years, I've tried them all, & Edge has some great features, including 'Collections', that saves multiple web pages, & also allows for split screens.

Anyway....
 
Just to add, I'm also using a program called 'Quick Access Popup'.
On clicking the mouse-wheel, a 'pop-up' menu appears, that you can customise.
I actually hardly use the normal Start menu.
I'm using OneCommander as a file manager to replace the default manager.
I also use the Taskbar with a couple of programs pinned there.
 
zswobbie1 said:
Just to add, I'm also using a program called 'Quick Access Popup'.
On clicking the mouse-wheel, a 'pop-up' menu appears, that you can customise.
I actually hardly use the normal Start menu.
I'm using OneCommander as a file manager to replace the default manager.
I also use the Taskbar with a couple of programs pinned there.
Click to expand...

Sounds kinda like how I sort of like Win10 - after using add-on programs to make it look and act like something completely different. I wonder if or when Microsoft will give us another operating system that we can use and enjoy straight out of the box.
 
Where is the fun in that? :D
Think of it as a more or less blank 'page' to set up how you want.
I'm also using 'Rainmeter' to customise my Desktop.

1722013902929.png
 
Interesting reading, so thanks guys, and on similer replys on other forums to give an overview, although, it raise's more questions than answers,
But, like Mick, i do need to pop into PC world and have a look at the 11 as i dont have a clue what it looks like
 
My new computer came with Win11 and I hated it. But, I found this...

StartAllBack, that put most everything back to like Win7. Happy now. Don't know why the words got bigger lol.​

 
I googled and saw that StartAllBack says it has a Win7 style command bar but none of the screen shot I can find show File Edit .ect. Is this something StartAllBack can have when using the Win7 style command bar?

1722032340187.png

On a side note it looks like Open Shell and OldNewExplorer still works with Win11 judging by YouTube videos from early 2024 so free options are still around for Win11.
 
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I no longer run FS2000/FS2002, but finished building a new rig a few weeks ago and am running Windows 11. It certainly has a learning curve, but youtube.com is a great resource.

What I do like about W11 is that File Explorer has a tab feature so that I don't have to open multiple sessions for different folders. MAkes copy and paste a lot faster.
 
Tabs are the only thing that make me feel jelly but every thing about 11 I have to deal with so far is cluster:censored: so tabs are not going to make me go and buy a new PC.
 
I got to check out Win 11 when a neighbor tried to install a new browser (quack quack OOPs) for some reason and gorked their Win10 machine, so they had to buy a new tower. :indecisiveness: I was trying to help out without getting too involved, IYKWIM.
Its different, alright. It took me 10 minutes to find out what kind of CPU was in the new rig.
I'm fairly sure I can get used to '11 in about the same amount of time it took me to figure out '10, the question is- do I really have to? :icon_eek:

Its like that really cool grocery store in town where they only speak Spanish now only speaks Portuguese. :dizzy:
Do I need their donuts that bad?
 
Come on, really? W11 is not that bad to get used to. & it has great features. But.. It needs a relatively newish PC to work properly.
It's a case of setting it up to the way you want.
 
My friend who is a retired computer techie has a theory that Microsoft has two operating system development teams, one with all the best people and the other definitely second-string, that alternately develop the series of Windows operating systems. The first team gave us WinXP. Then the second team brought us the notorious Vista. The first team produced Win7 and the second team made Win8, which was so bad that the first team had to jump in to help and made Win8.1. Win8 was so awful that 8.1 was really a whole new OS but MS didn't want to admit it so they pretended it was just an upgrade and called it 8.1 - but they gave it away when they skipped the Win9 name and went to Win10, which wasn't bad (just an ugly, garish interface) and now the second team has begat Win11. Maybe that bodes well for Win12?
I know my friend's theory is a fantasy - if it was real to begin with, team two would've been on the unemployment line years ago - but we're left with the sad fact that Microsoft hasn't given us an operating system that we can enjoy without hacking it into something quite different than what comes out of the box since Win7.
 
I think that the older we get, the less we like change. Hence the 'complaints' over Windows 11.
I'm 71 now, & I've kept up with technology, computers & such like. I've gone from Windows 95, 98, XP, 7, 8, 8.1, 10 & obviously 11, either by upgrading or by getting a laptop with a current operating system. And it's been a great journey.

I've always tweaked & modified the operating system to suit the way that I prefer. It's most certainly not hacking.
I'm using different media players, file managers & dare I say it, I'm using Edge! the developer version..
What, for me, makes absolute sense, is to match the operating system to your current hardware, as it's obvious that older operating systems are not 100% optimized for the newer hardware. So, I keep up to date with all the W11 updates & in the 2 years that I've been running W11, never a day's problem. I'm also using Microsoft Defender as my anti-virus, with the optional DefenderUI front end.

I've also found that FS2004 is actually working better & smoother in W11. (for me!)
 
When we bough a new laptop for my wife it came with windows 11 and in the meanwhile the laptop which I use for work was switched to windows 11 (Company choice, not mine.)

For me the main differences are the more "graphic" approach in W11. Basic things like copy/paste/rename etc. are now a symbol instead of text. Things which weren't in a very logical place in W10 have been moved to another not very logical place in W11. So I needed so search a lot.
On my work laptop I notice the introduction of "ai" and "the cloud". My laptop assesses for me which file I most likely want to open. I think this is the combination with Microsoft Office. But when I open a application, I not longer see which file I opened most recently, but my laptop seems to randomly display some files.

Not really W11, but my company also wants us to store everything in the cloud, which obviously has some advantages. But as I often have to work in areas without WiFi, LAN or in shielded areas, I have most of my files on the HD from my laptop. As the system is not intended to work this way it often gives problems. Due to company policy, I can't switch off the synchronising with the cloud, and the system seems to see the cloud version automatically as the best version. So when I have changed a local file I must be very careful not to have it overwritten with the (older) cloud version. And although they can be different, the cloud and local version of the file have the same name, due to which it is not immediately clear which version you open.

No doubt the cloud issue will remain, but I'm pretty sure I will manage to work with W11 as I do now with W10, within 6 months. Do I think it is progress? No, not for the user, but perhaps it is from security perspective.
 
zswobbie1 said:
I'm also using Microsoft Defender as my anti-virus.
Click to expand...
Robin, I also switched over to MS Defender about two years ago. :encouragement:
I used to use a combo of AVG and CCleaner but I didn't like how they started leaning on "the cloud" so much.
To be honest, I think AVG flagged one download over a five-year period, my surfing seems to be fairly boring. :kilroy:
Meanwhile, I did some research on Defender and found out it was very reliable and it was more than possible that the other programs were simply using Defender and some built-in MS programs to do their thing. :indecisiveness:
 
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