What you need to know about Windows 11

Should you upgrade now to Windows 11? Bill Bennett explains there’s no need to rush into it. But the day will certainly come.

When Microsoft announced Windows 10 in 2015, the company said it would be the last version of its personal computer operating system. Over the past six years Microsoft has repeatedly tweaked and improved the system – so it’s better, but it hasn’t changed much.

Meanwhile Microsoft’s competitors have marched on. Apple’s MacOS was still called OS X when Windows 10 first appeared. Apple took market share from Microsoft as people switched from Windows to Mac computers – some moving because they prefer Apple’s operating system.

At the same time Google’s Chromebooks won business from Windows in education. It is also popular overseas with large customers like government departments and corporations, although this is less true in New Zealand.
While part of Chromebook’s attraction is that the computers are less expensive than PCs or Macs, it helps that the operating system is easier to use.

All of which is why we now have Windows 11. In technical terms it is not a huge jump from Windows 10. People won’t need retraining to use it, although they may need time to find their way around at first.

There’s a dramatic new design. Windows 11 has picked up some of its looks from MacOS and ChromeOS. If you’ve used a Chromebook, you should find Windows 11 familiar.

Cosmetics aside, Windows 11 feels almost identical to Windows 10. There are a handful of new features, but few compelling reasons for most users to upgrade immediately.

In fact, many users can’t upgrade, because their computers can’t work with Windows 11.

In simple terms, you don’t need much computer to run Windows 11. The basic requirements are a 1GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anything on sale today that doesn’t get over that bar.

Microsoft also insists on a TPM chip with Secure Boot. That’s a little harder to find, yet almost every PC from the last five years includes the chip, so no big deal.

The difficult part is that Windows 11 is fussy about the exact processor version required. It has to be from Intel’s Generation 8. Which means, as things stand, it won’t run on laptops and desktops using Intel Core i5 processors.

Many, but not all computers sold in the past three or four years qualify, yet popular computer brands were still selling devices with i5 processors until recently. You may even find models still on sale today.  

If you brought one of those or make a habit of recycling older computers, you’ll need to wait. It is possible to upgrade a PC’s processor – gamers do it all the time – but it’s not simple for everyday users and harder still if you use a laptop.

To make planning easier, Microsoft has a PC Health Check app which can tell you if your computer is ready for Windows 11. If you meet the requirements the upgrade is simple. If you don’t there are workarounds. But you may be better off waiting until either you buy a new computer or Microsoft changes its requirements. There have been hints that Windows 11 will support older hardware at some later date.

Windows 10 support continues
If you are reading this and worrying about upgrading, relax. Microsoft says it will support Windows 10 until at least 2025. That’s plenty of time. In the past Microsoft has extended its support after planned switch-off dates, that could be the case with Windows 10.

There’s little that’s essential you can do with Windows 11 that you can’t do with Windows 10. Which means if your business computers have three or four more years of life left in them you can leave the upgrade for now.

What’s new with Windows 11?
Microsoft has integrated its Teams video-conferencing software into Windows 11. Like its rival Zoom, Teams became something of a lifeline during the Covid lockdowns. It is how many businesses stayed in touch with staff and customers.

Teams works on every popular operating system including iOS, Android and MacOS. With Windows 11 you’ll have fast access to the app; it now sits front and centre of the Taskbar where you’ll find all your important apps.

Meanwhile the Windows 11 app allows you to text anyone’s phone from your PC at no cost.

Speaking of phones, Windows 11 will soon be able to run Android apps. At the time of writing this feature doesn’t work, however Microsoft aims to roll it out over New Zealand’s summer. And there’s a catch, you can’t download Android Apps from the Google Play store, only from the Amazon AppStore, which you can get to from the new Windows app store. Or you can install Android apps from scratch yourself.

There’s no sign yet of how well this works in practice – Chromebooks can run Android apps but it’s not always a good experience.

But wait… there’s more
Windows 11 includes a phone-like Widget panel which has tiles for things like news, weather and stock prices. There was something similar to this in recent versions of Windows 10, but Microsoft has pushed them forward and now allows third parties to develop their widgets.

There’s also a new tablet mode, which is useful if you own a Surface device. That said, Microsoft has removed some of the familiar actions for people who run Windows 11 on a tablet. Surface users get new features provided they own the optional Surface Slim Pen 2. Vibration-based ‘Haptic Feedback’ makes writing on the screen feel more like writing on paper by making the pen vibrate in different ways.

Windows 11 allows users to set up multiple virtual workspaces. This means, for example, you can have a workspace set up for your business applications and another set up for your leisure applications. Snap Layouts is a feature that lets you have pre-set configurations of applications in on-screen windows.

Early days
It’s still early days for Windows 11. Look at it as a work in progress. Some of the promised features are not ready yet, other updates are expected to turn up over the next year or so.

There are more than 1.3 billion PCs using Windows 10, so it’s going to take years for everyone to upgrade. There’s clearly no need to hurry.  

Bill Bennett is an Auckland-based business IT writer and commentator. Email [email protected]