TRADE CHAT
Windows 11: We’re just going to have to live with it.
HAVING SPENT SOME TIME running tests (and watching YouTube) in Maximum PC’s underground lab, we have come to the following conclusions about Windows 11: It is from Microsoft. It is an operating system. And we’re all going to have to get used to it, because it’s the future.
Windows 11 is a good-looking OS on the surface (also on the Surface, if you’ve got the right model) with its excellent new desktop background images and, yes, even the rounded corners on its windows. There’s loads to like about it, such as the revamped Microsoft Store that seems to run at twice the speed of the Windows 10 version, even in a virtual machine, or the Widgets that slide effortlessly from the left of the screen, a much more elegant solution than a weather report embedded on the taskbar.
But Windows 10 was supposed to be the end. Windows-as-a-service, updated for free, new tech patched in, and old features removed. Such as Live Tiles, which have been removed in 11 to make way for the new technology of static icons. Things like the centralized Start menu are going to take a little while to get used to (of course, there’s a few software workarounds for that), but I’m sure we’ll get there, just as we learned to accept the Start screen in Windows 8. Oh.
That new Start menu, though, is an awful lot like the one in Windows 10 X, an OS meant for the canned Surface Neo device, which was to run on an Intel Lakefield CPU. Guess what? Intel just endof-lifed Lakefield, with its successor, Alder Lake, due to launch later this year. The future, for Intel at least, is hybrid CPUs, with one (or more) powerful cores surrounded by low-power cores and a GPU. Apple has taken the same approach with its M1, and
it’s been common in smartphone processors for years.
Then there’s Microsoft’s new fixation on hardware security, restricting the new OS to PCs that hit its spec targets, and being a bit vague about what they are (Zen 2 chips, for example, are mentioned as the oldest AMD architecture supported, but Zen+ model numbers are on the list of compatible chips). For the price of entry, you get a few bonuses immediately—Auto HDR in games, and Direct Storage (where the GPU can talk to the RAM directly instead of having to ask the CPU to take a message), which is an Xbox feature but might benefit non-gamers, too.
So why is it Windows 11, and not a new version of Windows 10? The installation screens we’ve seen sure do look like the Windows 10 ones. We can only guess that Microsoft needs a New Thing so people will upgrade, so it’s drawing a line. The day will come when an app will be Windows 11 only. If it’s TikTok, maybe no one will mind, but if it’s Office, many thousands of people will be forced to buy new PCs. Then Win 10 will stop getting security patches, forcing the hangers-on to change, too.
Apple does this all the time, but controls its hardware and isn’t averse to changing the entire architecture on which it runs. Windows on ARM is going to be a pretty major force in the future, though we’re not there yet, and it’s possible that this has something to do with the sudden appearance of Windows 11, a shared code-base between X86 and ARM64 that MS suits decided was different enough that it needed a new version number. Note the newfound ability to run Android (ARM) apps on X86.
Windows 11 isn’t anything to be afraid of. TPM 2.0 will inevitably become a part of motherboards, Processors will support the virtualization-based security MS is so hot for right now, and it will all happen again with Windows 12. Even if we’re told it won’t.
We’ll get there, just as we learned to accept the Start screen in Windows 8. Oh.