Since there's all ready a Windows 11 thread and people were wondering about support... I decided to post some updates.
Against my better judgment and with all the FUD I've seen about Windows 11, I decided to give Windows 11 a try.
I want to state I am no way a fanboy of Microsoft nor am I condoning the confusing mess that was announcing Windows 11.
I am simply stating my personal experience.The hardest part was enabling the TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot in my BIOS and updating said BIOS. Mainly because my mouse hates the BIOS interface and it was hard to move the cursor around.
I'm hoping future BIOS updates have TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot enabled or this will be a clusterfuck.
The upgrade process required me to do a
SFC /scannow
check and force the updater into admin mode, but once that happened, the upgrade was pretty quick. I was up and running on Windows 11 within... about 20 minutes? Maybe sooner? Maybe longer? I lost track. I've done so many updates to Windows under the Windows 10 SaaS model I literally have grown numb to how long they take.
The first thing I noticed was how quick it booted. It boots even quicker on my Samsung 970 SSD - which is NVMe based.
Aside the task bar being centered - an easy fix in the options - the interface looks mostly the same at start. I don't really care for the macOS type interface change, though some might like it I suppose.
I all ready had a Microsoft Account on this computer, so I didn't need to set it up. I know some people this will be a deal breaker, but if you want to save yourself some time, just link your account to a Microsoft account before updating.
It also didn't ask me for additional option changes. It also respected my choices - such as me forcing Cortana off and having many apps disabled. I know in the past Windows 10 has tried to sneakily re-enable these things.
I had some initial problems with apps like Photoshop not working properly. I can't tell if this is a Windows issue or Adobe being a piece of shit software company. A restart fixed that however. I reckon it was due to the graphics driver not working properly. So if you do update, best to restart after the initial desktop boot and the drivers are all installed.
The only noticeable thing is some apps take a while to start and some folders take a while to load initially. UDB and TF2 both took a bit to load a map and the game itself respectively. GZDoom (and our inhouse WIGZDoom fork) didn't, and seemed to have no issues distinctly related to Windows 11. However, loading folders wasn't as snappy as I'd hope. Maybe there's a tweaked setting I did that didn't carry over very well. However the issues as time went on seemed to ease up, so maybe Windows 11 is sentient and has growing pains on my rig - which I christened when I got it the
RubyStation 255, because it's a shortstack workstation akin to the Ruby gems from Steven Universe.
The only thing that didn't work was Open-Shell, we'll get to the remedy in a moment. It's okay though.
Aside some of the initial program apps not working and folders not being as snappy, overall it seems to be more or less the same as Windows 10 - except I really dig the new icons. They're minimalist without being
too minimalist. The rest of the UI is still very flat with apps like Firefox and UDB, but I like the rounded corners of many apps, especially built in ones now and the slightly more defined buttons. IT generally feels more like a cross between Windows 10 and 7.
None of my drivers needed updated AFAIK. I did reinstall the graphics drivers to be sure, and restarted my PC to resolve the Photoshop crash issue.
I brought the old context and start menu back using StartAllBack - which is in a RC state and cost 5USD (which is a lot of money). You can get the old Win 10 start menu back and the context menu back by regedit entries though for free, but I like a more Windows 7 style start menu.
I've experienced no stability problems, I was expecting a blue screen or something immediately because everyone was telling me
DON'T UPDATE IT MIGHT CAUSES A CATACLYSMIC EVENT HORIZON THAT'LL DOOM US ALL it will crash and steal all your data
and babies.
I decided to give the Windows Terminal Preview a try. I kind of like it, though I use the Command Prompt more than Powershell. However it works wonderfully. However the old Command Prompt Host app is around, as well as alternatives I still use like ConEmu... so you'll have your pick of consoles for Windows.
Speaking of TF2, it seems to run fine. So does other games I've recently been playing like Mini Motorways. So I've noticed no actual issues with support. I'm sure some older games might have significant problems with the new OS if there's no modern patches available. However, most old games I play have emulators or source ports available.
The only thing that really chafes me is the fact there's still two control panels. Is it really that difficult for them to modernize and unify the both of them? It's awful to have to switch between the two.

Here's my desktop for those who are curious.
So is it the worst thing since sliced Hitlermegastalin? Probably not. It's actually very usable, though some hiccups and inconsistencies with how the dark/light themes work is a bit off putting. As you can see - I actually have dark theme on but some of these themes are still light theme. It... is... dare I say... hhhhideous. Put that aside, and the OS is quite nice and ran everything I normally use at it after a restart.
Even works with Discord's finnicky screen sharing. I always worry about that breaking, as me and my development team use it extensively for our job.
Is it worth upgrading? Not right away. You're not missing out on anything spectacular, except some interface eye candy.
If Windows 10 is working fine for you, keep using it for a bit longer.
I just like living on the edge tech-wise. Plus I noticed some stability improvements. I dunno why, but my old OS was constantly - even on my Ryzen 7 - chugging along with some apps. This seems to have fixed it... short term perhaps. I dunno why but Windows 10 for me never really worked optimally... so this seems to be a bit of an improvement.
I will say, the setting up the bios and running the checks to make sure Windows 11 can run is probably going to turn some people off. I'm pretty sure new machines will come with these settings enabled.
Anyhow, I don't do numerical ratings normally, but I'll give this one a Nathan's hot dog out of 1024 for those who are numerically inclined.