What to Expect with Windows 11: A Day One Hands-On
by Brett Howse on October 4, 2021 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Software
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Microsoft
- Windows 11
Improved Docking And Snap Layout Experiences
Multi-monitor laptop users rejoice. Microsoft has finally addressed the frustration that is docking and undocking in Windows with an improved experience. It seems crazy that in 2021, Windows 10 still makes a complete mess of the desktop layout when docking and undocking a laptop from a monitor or multiple monitors, but that is indeed the case. In Windows 10, if you have a laptop connected to any number of external monitors, if you undock, all of your open applications will be moved to and resized onto your laptop display. Then, if you reconnect to the external display, you get the wonderful task of moving all of your applications back and resizing them. With Windows 11, the operating system will finally remember where everything was, and put it back automatically.
Snap options on a large display
If you are a user of the current Windows Snap functionality, where you can drag an open window to the side or corner of the display and then snap another application beside it, you will be happy to see the improvements to snap functionality. If you had no idea this existed, because the discoverability of dragging an open application to the side of your display is a non-obvious task, you will be even happier to see that Microsoft has greatly improved the discoverability of Snap by adding it to the maximize button on any open window.
Snap Options on a small display
Hovering over the maximize button will now provide a graphics representation of different options to snap one or more applications to different locations on the display, and the choices will depend on the size and resolution of the display in question so that you don’t end up with a selection that does not leave enough of an open window usable.
You can now easily snap up to four applications open at once and choose how they are arranged with far less difficulty than Windows 10.
Security Changes
Likely one of the most controversial changes to Windows 11 is the requirement for a trusted platform module (TPM) to be active in the system. Microsoft is now requiring TPM 2.0, and this is a major hurdle for a lot of older devices. Microsoft has stated that “Most PCs that have shipped in the last 5 years are capable of running Trusted Platform Module version 2.0” which is a true statement, but for it to be true that only means that over 50% of computers have TPM 2.0. It is a vague statement and is likely driven by laptop sales outpacing desktop sales.
The requirement for TPM 2.0 does allow Microsoft to enable security features that they had previously supported, but never enabled by default such as Virtualization-Based Security (VBS). VBS can be implemented without a TPM, but it is highly recommended to have one, and in an age of phishing, malware, and ransomware, it makes sense to want to enable all of the security features that you can. The communication of this change was not very clear though, and this single requirement is going to impede the rapid adoption of the new OS.
Windows 11 is also very stringent on its CPU requirements. Intel processors basically have to be 8th generation (Coffee Lake) or newer, with AMD processors needing to be 2nd generation Ryzen (Zen+) or newer. For a full list of the supported processors, you can check out the information on Microsoft’s support page: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/windows-processor-requirements
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cc2onouui - Wednesday, October 6, 2021 - link
Sorry.. this is where my comment should beWell I'm with you on the fact that android is a complete garbage compared to windows, Linux on the other hand is only a failure on a adoption, the OS have nothing to do, DirectX "and" MS support for windows apps developers is an important key factor, no matter what a superior Linux you build the users will not give up their games and apps library, games developers rarely consider Linux, the shitty android has a big store you can't ignore, a device with android installed is a shame on a compute machine, Apps stores density decides what share an OS will take, most people will buy even Xbox "one" instead of a cheaper PS5 if PS5 has only one game
Oxford Guy - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
‘Linux has been a catastrophic failure, capturing only 2% market share’Consumers have been the failure, allowing monopolies and duopolies to shake them down with asinine releases like this one.
flyingpants265 - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
Agreed, but "consumers" are just normies, they are mostly the people you see working at Subway and commenting on YouTube. Increasingly moreso as people make more money and the internet is integrated more into everyday life. It's the eternal september again, v2 or v10 (not sure). Large companies make the decisions about what to put out, and consumers will buy and enjoy whatever they are told to buy (whatever's available, within certain limits). 99% of people well tell you "Heh heh I don't care" and some will make a big point about how pointless it is to spend your time worrying about this stuff, they just want an iPhone.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, October 6, 2021 - link
The humour is that the same thing that causes pseudo-communism to fail causes this pseudo-capitalism to fail.AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, October 13, 2021 - link
I tried installing Linux on my desktop one time. The graphics barely worked, sound didn't work at all, and the Linux guru helping me couldn't easily figure it out and started searching on forums. I went back to Win95 and everything simply worked perfectly including WinAMP and music.jtiller90 - Thursday, October 14, 2021 - link
funny maybe you should try it againI have been trying linux kubuntu and installed steam and proprietary nvidia drivers and have been playing Doom Eternal with RTX enabled without any problems
Strangely Kubuntu Plasma desktop looks very similar to win 10 and 11 if you want Apple style go with Ubuntu
I also have Linux Manjaro with KDE plasma desktop and similar experiance to Kubuntu
again playing most of my steam games witout degredation
but this was not the case just 2 years ago.
relux - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
Although I’m not as over-the-top about disliking Windows, I also experienced the calculator no longer working around Windows 10 1903.It’s worth noting that Server 2016, 2019, and 2022 Datacenter are all available for free to students and faculty with a .edu email address through Azure, and I find these to be faster and more stable than the mainline Windows releases.
However, on desktop systems with more than 64 logical processors, it’s worth noting that much otherwise “embarrassingly parallel” binary software cannot make use of the hardware due to Windows processor groups (and by extension the fact that legacy programs are not processor group aware). If these programs cannot be compiled again due to missing dependencies, etc. then Linux is the only viable option for exploiting this hardware. So, while Linux is a failure in the desktop market as you say, the underlying system is much more scalable than Windows has proven to be thus far.
coburn_c - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
Yeah it's a lot easier to break backwards compatibility when you don't really have any functionality worth saving.Threska - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
Virtualization and VFIO are still a thing. One can gain the advantages of both OS.flyingpants265 - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
How's 2022 datacenter?