There's a lot of things about Windows 10 that frustrated me that Windows 11 doesn't.
1. the start menu is a mess of live tiles and nested menus. Nothing one-click away. I've always thought the start menu was stupid from the first instance of it in Windows 95. I always preferred Program Manager with everything one-click away organized in program groups, which I often tiled so literally every app at the time was one click away.
2. The settings UI is so simplistic that you
need control panel to do anything. Even if it's possible to do it in Settings, it refuses to allow it (such as setting any static IP it complains the settings are invalid and won't let you save)
3. The updates. My GOD! the updates. IT refuses to wait until you feel it's convenient. It will update whenever it feels that you're in 'inactive hours'. Even if you delay them, it will constantly pop-up messages nagging you to go through with it, even interrupting gameplay
4. It's full of idiot proofing nonsense. It has no way to convey what an error actually is; 'that didn't work'. '[app name] was closed due to high memory usage' (32GB RAM means nothing to you?), 'Can't connect to this network' (why?!) and so on.
5. The UI has not changed since 2015. It's 2022 Microsoft.
6. It will be EOL in October 2025, and I'm not sure if that means I can still use it and accept the risks (like Windows 7) or if they will force me to move on or limit the OS in any way, since they can do a lot of other annoying things like push updates forcefully. Who says that it won't just cease to boot?
7. I HATE the Metro UI, which remnants of it still exist in Windows 10. Windows 11 feels more like we're going back to Skeuomorphism in the future which I have high hopes for. I am sick to death of flat UI design. Windows 10 will remain flat until its EOL date.
As for Windows 11's right click menu, compared with Windows 10's, it's far more visible. The spacing and font is just easier for me to read. Icons such as copy/paste and so on are pretty standard today; as ubiquitous as the floppy disk save icon. I find Windows 10's harder to read and has too many things in it.
Windows 11 is patient. It wants to update right now on my home PC, but never annoys me. Just places an icon in the system tray (well it's gone now since I delayed updates indefinitely until I feel it's the right time--something you can do!) and NEVER pops-up messages. It boots faster (literally 5 seconds and you're at the login screen), it feels smoother (closer to iOS/MacOS) and I LOVE the start menu, a more modern Program Manager, and with every app (that's not pinned to the taskbar, because I hate desktop clutter) literally one tap or click away, as it was in Windows 3.1. Also, no CPU cycles or lag caused by animated tiles which I never liked since Windows 8.
The Xbox app and store are close, the Store on 11 will offer Android apps (but I have Phone Link so why?) but I don't use the store at all. I don't need app stores. The Xbox app has the same UI (both got the same updates in 10 and 11) but it seems completely borked in 11, with install or purchase issues. Not sure what's happening there. In my case it's probably because I blocked the updates and servers for Microsoft at the router from the time I actually had to use Windows 10.
I would prefer there being no app stores on desktop/laptop OSs though. It's still idiot proofing and we never needed an app store on Windows 7. Why today? Are people just afraid to learn anymore how to use a PC? I grew up having to put the darned things together and install over 7 system disks to just get CP/M going. But I loved learning about how it worked. Are people just not able to enjoy that today?
NOW that isn't to say that Win11 doesn't have annoying things about it:
1. Still cannot unpin the store icon from taskbar. I am not an idiot, Microsoft, I know how to install apps. I don't need a freaking app store!
2. They removed the ability to never hide system tray icons behind the taskbar corner overflow icon. I want all my icons showing all the time. This was one thing that existed in Windows 10. Even if you choose to tell it to unhide them all, they eventually revert to hiding certain apps (such as Teams) behind the overflow when it updates.
3. Cortana still exists (why?)
4. Widgets fail to load/update their info randomly. Often I have to mouse over them to force the weather to update. At work, the widgets bar won't even load. It just sits at a 'skeleton page' and the weather icon is just a grey sun/cloud and never shows data. Hoping for a future fix there.
5. Still no 1x1 compatibility with Xbox titles for PC. I was hoping with Windows 11 introducing DirectX 12 built into the OS, that we'd finally have the entire app/games from Xbox offered via Game Pass Ultimate for PC as well.
