New system (after a few settings changes) is offering me the upgrade from W10.
Any reason I shouldn't accept?
Also, how are people liking it by comparison to W10? And, how long does the upgrade take (and what level of user involvement)? And, should everything else be preserved and still work?
Apologies for my personal stuck record but :
the issue is Office.
The system is such that Office 365 ( Software As A Subscription )
is the ONLY version they let you use easily.
Maybe you could reinstall the version of Office 2019 or whatever
but why do you need that pain ?
Couldn't get back to W10 fast enough.
Office would not be an issue for me, as my minimal needs in this respect can be met with one of the free alternatives.
I've been using it for ages and it's mainly window dressing to a windows 10 installation. upgrade took as long as any other windows 10 feature update. I like it but took a moment to find things they had moved.
Things like the task manager is no longer available by right clicking the toolbar, you have to right click the start button to find it. Also took me a while to figure out how to show all tray icons, there is no longer an option in taskbar settings to show all. You have to click and drag each one into the tray area now.
Fiddly bits but it's fine.
There are options to customize the taskbar tray under Personalization -> Taskbar settings -> Taskbar corner overflow.
I didn't use Win10 so I can't comment on the upgrade but I like the preinstalled Win 11 that came with my recent laptop.
Win-X for the system menu you get from right clicking the start button. Then T for task manager. Or ctrl-shift-esc to go straight to task manager.
Taskbar icons all appear in the taskbar and what you are picking is if they appear in the main taskbar or in the "overflow area" (the flyout menu). You should do this from Taskbar settings under Taskbar corner overflow rather than dragging and dropping.
Any reason I shouldn't accept?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Should? It's surely a personal preference?
Except, as you yourself noted, it's a massively fiddly operation especially as there are likely a lot of taskbar icons (there is about 20 on my system). It's just an objectively better way of doing this task given you cannot multi-select the icons because they are both left and right click targets (Some arcane multi-select process I am not aware of notwithstanding).
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Although note that specifically Windows releases are now on a much quicker cadence specifically for this reason and taking the quarterly updates is likely to be much less painful than waiting a few years until things stop working.
Also the change from 10 to 11 is really just because the UI changed but in substance it's not much more significant than other quarterly updates.
Since my PC "doesn't currently meet the minimum system requirements for Windows 11" I shall wait until I change PC.
Just switched the thing on, and a very aggressive full-screen thing from Windows has demanded that I immediately choose to install or not install W11, with no obvious way to put the process off to a more convenient moment (Perhaps it's hidden in the 'Stay with Windows 10' option...or maybe that just takes the option away forever...)
Couldn't even get at the Task Manager and get around it that way.
Very bad bit of design there, Microsoft, and does not bode well for the future.
I had been planning to do the upgrade at the weekend, but this has brought it forward somewhat. But I am not happy about this development.
You can put it off and then just upgrade at your leisure at any time by using the upgrade tool
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows11
Yes. However the ominous full-screen-that-shuts-everything-else-out thing did not make this clear.
Anyway it is the weekend now.
I could
(a) do something fun.
or
(b) install Windows 11.
I suspect I know which option I will be picking. :-(
Windows smugly tells me that none of my systems meets the specifications. Fine, I'll stick with Windows 10 until it goes out of support and then switch totally to Linux.
Well, the changeover seems to have gone fairly smoothly.
Time will show what annoyances the upgrade can heap upon me.
Pro or Home?
I've read a few articles saying Win11 can be installed in at least some/quite a lot of those PCs which don't qualify. A bit of fiddling in the registry may be necessary.
I can't comment, though, as I'm not doing this myself, and have been avoiding upgrading the qualifying new PC as long as possible.
I bought a new CPU to be compatible with Win11. Can't be arsed installing it for now.
I'll stick with Windows 10 until it goes out of support and then switch totally to Linux.
Gooble, Gobble, One Of Us ...
I'll always have at least one Windows machine for all the wierd and wonderful little utils that only run on it, but all their other non-OS stuff, and their efforts to corrall you into an 'account', and making you an income stream? Nah. No need for any of it.