It’s been just over three weeks since I installed Windows 11. Here are some additional thoughts now that I’ve had some time to get more comfortable with it.
Bugs
I haven’t encountered much in the way of bugs, but one is the Start menu sometimes not opening, whether it’s clicked on with a mouse or accessed through the Windows key. The usual fix is to restart the explorer.exe task, which is pretty simple, but hardly something most people would know how to do. For them, a reboot would still work. It’s happened a few times since I installed Win11, so I have no idea what triggers it.
UPDATE: I have now seen this bug manifest differently, where the Start menu opens but only appears as a translucent outline, with nothing else visible. The same fix restores it.
Things I miss
Invoking Task Manager via the mouse: I don’t use Task Manager that often, but I don’t like having to right-click on the Start button to launch it. I liked the old, more flexible way of just right-clicking anywhere on the taskbar. Taking this away is not an improvement.
Program management via tiles: With tiles (live or otherwise) completely gone in Windows 11, the ability to organize apps into groups is also gone and this is something I will miss more as time goes on and I use more apps. I previously had them organized into groups like Writing and Graphics. Now all I can do is pin them to the Start menu and shuffle the order around, but without any discrete organization. It adds a small bit of friction to launching apps, but it’s still there. I’ve even thought about installing Fences to mimic this feature on the desktop.
Resizing the taskbar: You can hack this with registry edits, but you should be able to resize and move the taskbar. Neither is possible right now. You get the taskbar where it is and you like it!
Stuff I like
I can now confirm I do indeed like the following:
Dark mode. A few inconsistencies, but not enough to keep me from switching away from it.
The general look of the UI. It feels cleaner and more refined. Windows is now more pleasant to use. It’s hard to capture this in words, but it’s a thing.
The Settings app. It really is significantly better. It shows how mediocre the one in Windows 10 is (and how horrible the one in Windows 8 was).
Faster updates. Microsoft Store apps seem to update much faster, and the Library link makes it easy to see what you’ve installed from the store. And general Windows updates also seem to be swifter now. Smaller ones don’t even require a reboot. The future has finally arrived.
Stuff I don’t like
Ghosts of Windows past. It’s still pretty easy to find UI elements that hearken back to Windows 7 or earlier. I was cutting Microsoft some slack when Windows 10 launched, but that was six years ago. They should do better in unifying the design and look of the OS.
Teams integration. Teams keeps coming back. Go away, Teams, I don’t need you. I think this might be fixed after I disabled it from starting up in Task Manager’s Startup tab, but I feel like a random update will set it back to enabled again.
Multiple screens, singular clock. No clock/date on a second display. Why? This irritates me. The clock/date/system tray only shows on the primary display. There should at least be a toggle to enable this on additional monitors.
