Windows 11 was released in October 2021, but has not taken the world by storm, indeed 71% of Windows users are on Windows 10, with only 23% on Win 11 (as of Oct 2023). The good news for Win 10 users is that it is now fixed, the features will no longer change and support will continue until October 2025. Here are some reasons to stick with Win 10 https://www.xda-developers.com/4-reasons-stay-on-windows-10-in-2023/ (Note: Windows 11 currently requires processors released from around 2018 onward. So old hardware is not compatible.)
By contrast, Windows 11 will continually change due to “feature updates”. Some of the huge number of “improvements” and “highlights” in the upcoming release, codenamend “Moment 4” are listed in the following article: https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-releases-windows-11-kb5030310-build-226212361-moment-4-update/ There seem to be a huge number of bug fixes – why where there so many problems, such as some USB printers not working?
Some apps have been removed by default- 3D Viewer, OneNote for Windows 10, Paint 3D, Wordpad and Skype.
Most of the work on Windows 11 went toward redesigning the interface rather than building wholly new features, They have changed the (Windows) icons and rounded the corners on windows, (Yawn). Some Android apps can be installed under Win 11 via the Amazon Appstore.
The Start Menu is different – Live tiles and Cortana from Windows 10 have gone. Peter Bayliss recommends that Windows 11 users review the Start Menu Settings because:
- The Start button and other icons are centred by default – you may wish to put them back on the left.
- The list of All Programs is more difficult to access
- You may need to to re-enable icons for documents, pictures, music etc
- There are more options to configure the Start panel.
Similarly its worth tweaking the Taskbar settings. Note that
- the Taskbar can no longer be moved to the other edges of the screen,
- Widgets (Weather) are on the left (where bthe start button used to be), and things like Chat and Task View can be disabled
File Explorer has changed a lot, making it more difficult to use. Probably the only worthwhile addition is tabbed windows.
The major addition that is being rolled out in Windows 11 is Copilot
Copilot
Starting with the Windows 11 update for September 2023 (KB5030310), Microsoft made available the first preview of Copilot. This is the BIG “enhancement”. It is basically the integration of Artificial Intelligence in the form of Chat GPT 4 into the operating system. Other apps such as Paint, are also AI enhanced. This article describes the new AI enhanced features: https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-11-moment-4-update-is-now-available-for-download/ and this promotional video sings CoPilot’s praises:
Copilot is the replacement for Cortana and it can even access system settings. A major reason for Microsoft developing Copilot is to enable (even more) promotions of Microsoft services. Here’s a review of Copilot enabled Win11: https://uk.pcmag.com/operating-systems/134264/microsoft-windows-11 This will not be rolled out to the general public in the EU yet because of a dispute between the EU and Microsoft over privacy and monopoly, but the JCC has a preview version on one of its laptops for members to play with. We demonstrated this with some examples and noted that: The Copilot search box only offers minimal help on how to use it. It is started by a new button on the taskbar or “Windows key + C” . It opens in a fixed sidebar instead of a in new window and offers three conversation types.
- “Balanced,” allows the chatbot to respond more neutrally, meaning it will try not to take sides on a specific topic.
- “Creative,” which will generate more playful and original responses, or
- “Precise,” to generate the most accurate response with more facts.
Some of the features of Copilot are: Voice search. To enable this, click the Copilot button on the Taskbar. (there’s no “wake up” word). Click the Microphone icon, ask your question and it will reply in voice and text (strangely we had an English female voice answering one question, and an American female voice took over for another answer. You can ask it to summarise a web page (in Edge), or tell you about Windows 11. Copilot told us Win 11 was going to be released in October 2021…hang on… we were in October 2023. It had used an old news article for its information. This illustrated that CoPilot is an unthinking ChatBot which uncritically pulls information from the Internet. Use with care!
You can use it to Find Settings. For example, “turn on Bluetooth,” or “enable dark mode.” and Open (microsoft ONLY) apps via voice command. e.g. “Open Word”. “Take a screenshot.” will open the snipping tool. However if you ask it to open a specific website it will just fire up the Edge browser. It can Create an Image. from a precise description of something or an uploaded image. However, faces may be blurred and you cannot refine the image, but have to regenerate it. It adds metadata to identify the image as being AI generated (not real) . Note that Microsoft will be adding AI to Microsoft “Paint Cocreator”
It can create Create a Table of values. e.g “Create a table showing the average sea temperature in degrees centigrade for Javea for each month of 2023” – Copilot pulled information from a website…though it wasn’t quite what we asked for. As with other attempts to use GPT, the results are often wrong or misleading, so they should be checked very carefully. There are still some annoyances e.g. if you open an email link in the Gmail web interface it will fire up the Microsoft Mail app – which you may not want to use., There are workarounds, though these are techie. Microsoft will be integrating CoPilot with Onedrive and Office 365 – you won’t be able to get away from it. Still, if you want to remove Copilot from your PC, this is probably the easiest way
https://hothardware.com/news/disable-or-reenable-copilot-in-windows-with-registry-keys-powershell
Windows 12
This is due in 2024 . To date there arew only rumours about what’s in it. Though it may well be designed to manage laptops with foldable screens. Here’s what we know so far: https://www.techadvisor.com/article/745965/will-there-be-a-windows-12.html
Windows 11 requires 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, so at the very least, Windows 12 will need just as much. Here’s a “concept video” of what it may be like, based on the rumours:
The concept shows a few interesting changes, including a floating taskbar and some system icons that are now displayed at the top of the screen, such as the Wi-Fi and battery indicators, along with a weather widget. This would make Windows more similar to macOS or some Linux distributions.
Peter Bayliss and Chris Betterton-Jones – Knowledge junkies