Windows 11 Build Leaks Ahead of Launch
We've been hearing about Microsoft's upcoming major update to Windows 10 for quite some time now. Codenamed Sun Valley, information so far on the internet indicated deep changes to the OS and the UI. We have also come across news that pointed to the Sun Valley update being likely christened as Windows 11. We can now confirm that it the next version of Windows will indeed be called Windows 11.
We have managed to get our hands on a leaked build of the OS. Given that we are just about 10 days from the official unveiling, we don't expect too many changes from the current build 21996.1 to the RTM candidate, but it still helps to be skeptical till launch.
[...] Microsoft will take wraps off Windows 11 on June 24. It is possible that the company may show off a few more visual changes not seen in these leaked builds. For now, take a look at the screenshots below and let us know what you think. We are still fiddling around with the build and will update this article if we come across anything noteworthy.
Also at The Verge and Videocardz.
See also: Make way for Windows 11? Windows 10 end-of-life is October 2025
The first strong indication that bigger things may be coming landed last week from a Microsoft-published EOL notice for Windows 10. "Windows 10 Home and Pro"—no code names, no minor version numbers—is now listed as retiring on October 14, 2025. "Retiring" is a part of the Modern Lifecycle Policy and means that the retired product leaves support entirely; this does not follow the old Fixed Lifecycle Policy with "mainstream" and "extended" support. Retired is retired—hit the pasture.
Windows 11 has leaked, will have rounded corners and revised start menu
Windows 11 has leaked online, giving us a first glimpse of Microsoft's next operating system and all the small ways it'll annoy and unsettle us until we finally Google how to change it back. This time around: it has rounded corners, the app icons are centered in the task bar, and the Start menu has changed.
As reported by The Verge, screenshots of Windows 11 first appeared on Chinese website Baidu Tieba, before it seems the whole operating system leaked.
Related Stories
Microsoft's Windows 11 Release Event: TLDR Version
Windows 11 features and significant changes
- Centered Taskbar and Start Menu.
- Taskbar is fixed to the bottom and can't be moved elsewhere (we are hoping this changes as the development process progresses).
- An improved File Explorer design (nothing radical).
- OS features glassy transitions, new animations, and rounded corners.
- New Microsoft Store, which will also go live for Windows 10.
- Android apps are finally here!
- The company says Windows 11 is built for gaming: DirectX 12 Ultimate, Direct Storage, and Auto HDR are all coming.
- Xbox Game Pass is being integrated into the OS.
- New Chat app powered by Microsoft Teams.
- Teams is integrated into the Windows 11 Taskbar.
- Snap Layouts: Windows 11 allows you to quickly snap apps into different modes.
- Widgets get a prime spot.
- Improved touch gestures for a better 2-in-1 experience.
- Quick Actions are now Quick Settings.
- New out of box experience (OOBE).
For the first time, Windows will be 64-bit only, supporting dual-core CPUs with 4 GB of RAM at a minimum. A 64 GB drive is required, probably to avoid the messy update process that Windows 10 often required on machines with only 32 GB. Recent builds require a TPM 2.0 but the official release will only require TPM 1.2. Windows 11 will be released sometime in Fall 2021 as a free update for Windows 10 users (who meet the minimum requirements).
See also: Most Modern PCs Will Have No Issues Running Windows 11 – AMD & Intel CPUs With A Minimum of TPM 1.2 Required, TPM 2.0 Recommended
Windows 11 is much more than a new theme slapped onto Windows 10
DirectStorage on Windows 11: Next-gen gaming performance, with PC requirements
Previously: Windows 11 Build Leaks Ahead of Launch
Windows 11 Look Inspired by KDE Plasma and GNOME?
This story presents a roundup of a selection of Microsoft Windows 11 prerelease story submissions. Included are the following:
- Windows 11 To Only Support One Intel 7th Gen CPU, No AMD Zen CPUs
- Why Windows 11 Has Such Strict Hardware Requirements, According to Microsoft
- Microsoft Won't Stop You Installing Windows 11 on Older PCs
- Start or Please Stop? Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'
If Windows isn't your cup of tea, then please feel free to skip this story; another story will appear presently. Otherwise, please see the rest of the story below the fold:
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday June 16 2021, @02:39PM (25 children)
I thought it was going to forever be called
Windows OS X
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Wednesday June 16 2021, @02:48PM (10 children)
I was wondering that to. I might be remembering wrong but I was fairly sure that they said 10 was the last version and everything from there on was just going to be tweaks and updates. Not that I really believed in that but still.
All I have seen so far is that it's supposed to feel faster, the UI has rounded corners (who cares?) and that the start menu is centered on screen (something I care even less about). It's not exactly blowing the user away with new and improved things here.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday June 16 2021, @03:01PM (2 children)
I had heard the same thing.
Microsoft may have gotten wind of Apple planning a version 11 of Mac OS and is planning and reacting accordingly.
Apple's lawyers might care. Rounded corners was one of the major innovations of the iPhone. Along with bouncy scrolling. Apple claimed that either of these patents alone was worth Samsung's entire, 100% of their profits, on Samsung's devices. Yes, really.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:32AM
Forget iPhones, round-rects have been a signature UI element Mac OS (and later, GS/OS) since day one. Everything from the desktop itself to windows to buttons had rounded corners. Apple just carried that over to iOS, probably at The Steve's insistence.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jb on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:20AM
Yes, that's what Microsoft themselves said a year or two back. So?
Why is anybody surprised that a company that has spend decades lying to it customers just did the same thing once more?
More to the point, why is anybody crazy enough to buy anything from such a bunch of crooks?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:02PM
MSDN always listed an EOL date for Windus 10.
(Score: 4, Informative) by fliptop on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:13PM (1 child)
FTFY
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Sunday June 20 2021, @02:29AM
I have to agree. This was the motivation. It was one of many ways to convince users to move from the "purchased" model of Windows to a model more like a cell phone. And yes they want to eventually bill you monthly for it, but I think the bigger goal is they want license to retroactively change your running system in any way that suits them. They were some-what starting to do that via "security" updates in win7 & win8, but it's a design point in win 10.
And people are idiots to go along with it. But if they feel they have no choice, they shrug and move on. If it seemed there might be a win 11 after win 10 then there would have been hope that Microsoft would realize people do not want to be idiots. If you hold out long enough you can skip the bad release, just like the prior windows releases that had stupid UI treatments.
If there were never a win 11, then there is not hope that you (and most of the other intelligent people) could hold out to encourage Microsoft to make an OS that does not expect users to be idiots. Microsoft had to destroy hope.
(Score: 1) by WeekendMonkey on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:22PM
Whenever Marketing tell me a negative (we will not need X, or we will not support X) I know it is a given that they will be back at some point changing their mind. If Microsoft say there will never be a Windows 11 I just start taking bets when it will appear.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:10PM (1 child)
This is actually pretty bad. It means you cannot navigate to the start menu by feel. The corners of the screen (and wherever the cursor is right now) are the only places where you can move the mouse without thinking about it. It also means that the buttons will wiggle around whenever you launch a new program, so you can't even find the start menu in the same place. This isn't a problem for Apple because their "start" menu is in the menu bar, which is always in the same place. This is just slavishly copying Apple without thinking about the implications for the UI.
Moreover, it just looks wrong. Taskbar icons have been along the left side and the systray has been on the right side for 25 years. It's a big part of what makes Windows feel like Windows, kind of like having the window control buttons on the top right instead of the top left.
This seems like a trivial thing but it really isn't. People are going to hate it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:11AM
The issue is that touch interfaces have different demands from mouse interfaces. With a touch interface, having large icons in the center is the best for usability, even if they move around on you. On mouse interfaces, having smaller icons justified to the right or left corner is the best. Microsoft seems to be taking the bet on touchscreens by changing the default (and so far you can change it back), to the detriment of their users that use a mouse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @08:05PM
Correct. I think it's just down to "version envy" with MacOS 11, and Windows doesn't want to have a smaller number. They have no substantive selling points for Windows, so it's pretty much down to minor marketing department stuff so nobody else appears to have a selling point.
Somewhere in relatively recent history, OS development got utterly boring. A new OS version used to be about major kernel features, new filesystems, new network protocols. Actual OS features. At this point, every OS has a decent filesystem with decent virtual memory and preemptive multitasking with a decent scheduler. So major work on the big desktop OS's is all about justifying the existence of the dev team, making minor changes to user facing apps and the UI. It's not unique to Microsoft. These days a major OS announcement from Apple talks about the new version of Safari and iTunes.
Google wrote an actual OS with Fuchsia, and nobody really cares because fundamentally it does all of the same low level stuff as every other OS. Maybe some of the API's or implementation details are a little cleaner than UNIX. But all your existing software needs the UNIX style API's anyway, so that's what 99% of software will use anyway.
So, you get major announcements about rounded corners. Or a new Print dialog or something.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday June 16 2021, @02:51PM (9 children)
Well at least the flip-flopping is consistent, back to round again:
And in terms of changing the version number, since they haven't done anything except flip-flop from round to square windows and back for over a decade now they have to change at least something else or people will think they're just selling them the same crap in a different box.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday June 16 2021, @03:04PM (8 children)
If you haven't noticed, Microsoft just cannot stop playing with their start menu. They are obsessed with playing with it.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:13PM
They need an End menu?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @08:14PM
Dude, don't you know anything. Doing what's not being done *right now* is *innovation*.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:36AM (1 child)
Are you comparing Microsoft's Start menu to a penis? Because it sound a lot like you're saying that Microsoft continually plays with their Start menu the way a toddler or teenager plays with his penis.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:45AM
... and thus the phrase, "dicking around".
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:25AM (3 children)
Ah, yeah, that was the other thing. So it's: Change window borders from A to B and back, rearrange the deckchairs on the Start menu, and add more whitespace (or at least pastelspace) around everything while making fonts and borders thinner and thinner. That's the sum total of Microsoft's "innovation" for the last ten years.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:35PM (1 child)
At some point wouldn't Microsoft exhaust all combinations of changes to:
* window borders
* start menu
* task bar
* blue screen
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:34PM
Naah, because it's more than just binary, just for borders alone you've got square, rounded, opaque, translucent, transparent, thick, thin, and then for rearranging the Start menu there's near-infinite possibilities. Microsoft can keep in "innovating" with this for years if not decades.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday June 18 2021, @12:31AM
To be fair, Microsoft has upgraded a bunch of stuff under the hood -- but how much of it has ANY relevance to the average home user, or even the average office-level user? Enterprise and sysadmins, yeah, they got some fixes and features they needed. The rest of us? We got terminally annoyed by everything we were used to and that we LIKED being changed and made ugly for no visible reason, generally making it less pleasant to use, and harder on the eyes. And let's not forget all the 'telemetry' and ads on the desktop.
If I can't stand the interface, it doesn't matter how good the internal improvements are, or how advanced the OS is. I'm still going to go find another OS that doesn't constantly annoy me, and it'll be their own damn fault.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:19PM
Well it is, and it isn't. I've seen the leaked preview screenshot, and Windows finally after 30 years looks like Apple's MacOS, or a recent Gnome/clone desktop Linux. Visually they have caught up to the rest of the planet. But now they have a legal naming problem. "Windows OS X" is too close to sue-happy Apple's names, so "X" has to die. Besides, profits!!!
And worrying that Win11 looks SO much like Linux(es) [Linuxii? - sp?] because of their proven and infamous Embrace, Enhance, Extinguish policy. With their "Linux within" project we had Embrace, now stealing the UI we get to Enhance, though as always with MicroSoft involved, it just means more levels of spyware behind relaxing, hypnotic eye-candy fronts. Next it will be Extinguish, because their 1st attempt using UEFI failed to kill Linux.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:23PM
Windows Nukem Forever™
(Score: 3, Funny) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:39AM (1 child)
Windows XI. Isn't the guy in charge of China called Xi?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:48AM
Looks like it's "11" to me. I wonder if Denny Hamlin will be signed up for a NASCAR endorsement?
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nascar/news/denny-hamlin-nascar-championship-race/iv1ssze5af4q1oyj8qeofqf7c [sportingnews.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @03:12PM (14 children)
"Leak", you say? That's a very interesting way of spelling "marketing trying to drum up excitement for a big nothing-burger"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 16 2021, @03:13PM (3 children)
It's called maintaining relevance.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @07:03PM (2 children)
So its just a maintenance release?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:26PM (1 child)
Yeah, like perpetual maintenance at a cemetery.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday June 18 2021, @12:57AM
More like grave robbing.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday June 16 2021, @03:20PM (7 children)
This exactly!
If this "leak" was real, you'd hear about Russian or Chinese hackers gaining unauthorized access to MS' servers, the FBI / NSA / CIA / KGB / Mossad / GHQ / DGSE on the case, Microsoft shouting right and left that the bad guys will be caught and will pay for what they've done, reassuring Azure customers that they're safe because that bit wasn't penetrated, and yaba-daba-doo...
Here, not a word. It's pure marketing and it's not even remotely convincing.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @03:22PM (6 children)
HA HA! Made you look though. Marketing FTW!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday June 16 2021, @03:45PM (5 children)
Look what?
I didn't look. I'm not interested in Windows UI cosmetic changes in the slightest. I'm only interested in new versions of Windows insofar as my employer's IT manager has to purchase new machines with Windows preinstalled every now and then, and we're interested in knowing in what creative and sneaky ways Microsoft does telemetry on us.
I'm 100% sure this marketing piece has nothing on telemetry, personal data exfiltration, surveillance and general mothership-reporting in Windows 11. So I didn't even bother clicking on the link.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @08:20PM (4 children)
You know, I think we should stop accepting the "rebranding" of spyware to telemetry.
Telemetry is okay. Wanna know when and why your software crashed, maybe the specs of the machine it crashed on - that's all good.
But Microsoft style "telemetry" has become 'let me discretely gobble up as inhumanly much information as I possibly can about you, so I can monetize in some way or another.' That's not telemetry, that's spyware.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday June 16 2021, @09:41PM (2 children)
What if I don't want Microsoft to know what software runs on my PC and why it crashed?
Remember: telemetry as you describe is you generously stress-testing Windows for Microsoft for free - and I have no desire to help Microsoft's business for free under any circumstances, even if they have the best of intentions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:16AM (1 child)
On the black market data is worth money. Is Microsoft paying for the data it is hoovering from millions of computers? Imagine if they had to pay even 1c per piece of data. Like the music industry pay per play Clearview. The lawyers could make a mint from this.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:19AM
Could I sue Microsoft to force them to pay me for the data they have taken a copy of from me?
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Sunday June 20 2021, @02:41AM
Anti-virus and anti-malware software used to flag software that did less spying than Windows, office, etc does now. That includes windows defender of old. It should not be any more acceptable now.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Wednesday June 16 2021, @07:02PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @08:21PM
You're new to software, aren't you?
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Wednesday June 16 2021, @03:46PM (6 children)
Looking at the screenshots in the articles, I have to say I actually like the visual element changes and new start menu. It's decidedly more Mac-like.
And they've supposedly finally figured out how to have just one control panel, which feels mind-blowing at this point.
Now if only they stop with the bullshit shovelware.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Tork on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:16PM
Hahahahaha!
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Insightful) by WeekendMonkey on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:26PM (1 child)
I know I shouldn't get my hopes up, but do the control panel apps have useful settings once more, or is it still acres of white space and a single switch?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:20AM
Even more acres of white space and nothing fits gracefully.
MichaelMJD on YT found a copy and reviewed it earlier this week. It's basically Gnome3, only worse.
Well, to be fair, the terminal added some nice features.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Wednesday June 16 2021, @07:06PM
Maybe when it hits GA but the leaked ISO certainly does not. Settings are still split between Settings and Control Panel.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @07:40PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Booga1 on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:14AM
According to another comment, apparently they do still have two control panels. The reason why is readily discovered when you see how the old split control panels worked.
The new control panel items were crap. They were missing key functionality from the old versions, so they had to keep them both. Beside the flat and intuitive interface, a lot of the options simply did nothing except inform you of the current condition of various settings. The only way to actually configure things was to open the related "true" control panel that underpins the useless and bland veneer of wasted space that is the new control panel.
If the new control panel could do everything the old one did, I would still hate the appearance, but at least they could have let the old stuff go. Instead, they've been half-assing the entire OS for the last decade.
(Score: 5, Funny) by SomeGuy on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:40PM (11 children)
Of course, apple bumps their version number so Microsoft absolutely, positively, MUST do that do.
I'm waiting for the list of things they are going to take away from us now.
What is it this time? No more 32-bit version? Kill floppy drive and CD support? Some older machines that run windows 10 no longer supported? More locked down? That retarded cortana shit can't be turned off? More control panels with totally different and inconsistent user interfaces? Is it even more dumbed down for babies that think everything should work like a toy cell phone? Is it even more locked down now? Is Microsoft going to try and drink the desktop ARM cool-aid too? Are they bringing back clippy/rover again?
I assume all new software is overnight going to magically start requiring Windows 11?
Que the Microsoft fan boys fawning over the super 1337 "leeeked" pre-release. They are sooo special, to them it feels so naughty when they touch it. :P barf.
Oh, look, translucency and rounded shit is back in style this week. Hey, is that the goatse wallpaper behind your translucent start menu? (shoots self).
--
Posted from Microsoft Windows 95.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by WizardFusion on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:57PM (1 child)
You forgot the extra telemetry that can't be turned off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @07:20AM
You forgot the extra spyware that can't be turned off.
FTFY
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 16 2021, @06:28PM (1 child)
I assume the blue screens will continue to be Azure in color. [wikipedia.org] (I'm being serious here.) I don't remember exactly when, maybe Vista or Win 7, but the blue screens are now Azure screens, #007FFF.
Sent from my Windows ME.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:23AM
That's to remind us all to move to Microsoft Azure.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday June 16 2021, @07:08PM
Of course, apple bumps their version number so Microsoft absolutely, positively, MUST do that do.
It'd be their style to do so. I seem to recall they did that before with Netware 4.x versus Windows NT 4.x. They one-upped Novell by planning to release NT 5 an it worked to distract the magazines (which they did not own as thoroughly back then) and the public as well. However, it got terrible reviews and when all the computer magazines were done panning NT 5, M$ released it as Windows 2000 instead, sloughing off the bad press along with the version number. They did a similar slough with "Longhorn" and Vista. However for that one, the naming was probably also aimed at to burying the real VistA completely with all the M$ search engine spam. It took only a few days for the real VistA [vistapedia.net] to drop off the radar in all the search engines, replaced by M$ Vista. So in addition to the gratuitous version number bump, expect further action against Apple in the near future. M$ continued action against GNU/Linux goes without saying.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @07:45PM (4 children)
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:09PM (2 children)
(I work for Microsoft, therefore my opinion is invalid. I have no insider knowledge of this product.)
We'll have to have some way to turn off SecureBoot; it's required for kernel debugging.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:29PM
Can you ask them to stop making it consume ALL the goddam SSD? Christ! It's as if they don't know about laptops.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @07:16AM
Sure. Microshaft can disable suckyboot. The rest of us plebs have to shovel through the sht it creates. "I can't do that!" Why? Because some crappy bootloader check is off? On my PC. It's as though they think they own the right to control any PC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:15PM
Requiring TPM 2, which almost nobody has, would be a good way to guarantee that no one uses it.
Requiring Secure Boot would be a good way to guarantee that nobody competent will use it, which is going to translate into everyone hating it because the people who shape public opinion will hate it.
Not that that means MS *won't* do these things... But it would be incredibly foolish to do so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @08:32PM
this story shows additions or changes to DiskManager
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-11-may-be-unveiled-next-week-heres-what-we-know/ [bleepingcomputer.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @05:06PM (2 children)
windows [primenumber] has a chance to be 50% good.
anyways, living open-air without windows since version 7 EOLed.
it's a drag sometimes but i have nothing to compare to and honestly, so far, no funnay-business.
printer works, boot-up times is consistently the same since first install, lots of games work (with some fiddeling), "everything network" is at least two magnitudes betta (tcp/ip/udp/etc. is *nix originally), no network traffic at all if there's no program open ('cept some arp-ing around). i gotta say, life without windows is a lot more consistent!
so i don't think i will start adding windows again ...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 16 2021, @05:39PM (1 child)
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.'' -Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, pg. 265
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:18AM
Hey Bill, it's easy. If it's prime the the factors are one and itself.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday June 16 2021, @05:07PM (6 children)
Having looked a bit more at the example, or included, screenshots there are a few things I really don't like about it.
First I really dislike it when the taskbar is at the bottom of the screen, it should be at the top. But it has been like that for quite a while now. I guess this is just something you got used to from how it was when you learned to use a GUI and then it stuck like this was the proper way and all other ways are shit. But all the early classic OS:es I can recall now had a top bar.
Centered buttons are stupid as fuck since they keep moving around if you add more stuff. If you go lefty-righty the bar just grows in one direction and things don't fucking move around.
While round corners is nice, I'm sure in a few years square or right angled corners will be all the rage again. Come to think of it, my W7 UI has rounded corners already. But then I'm running some kind of theme that I installed when I installed the OS for the first time and just liked and then never bothered with again, also all the bars have gradients on them instead of this one solid color look. I'm not even really sure of what it looks like stock anymore, and I don't really care. I just know it looks better then this eyesore.
Overall the UI looks like something that was rejected from a smartphone UI. At best this is just style over substance. Not a big fan. It better be damn impressive in other aspects if I'm going to install that.
I have not even installed W10 at home yet, guess I can safely skip that version then. Come to think about it I'll probably skip 11 to, lets wait and see what fresh hell comes after this in about five years.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday June 16 2021, @05:41PM (4 children)
That was one of the acceptance requirements.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @07:09PM (2 children)
"One of"? Implying there were more criteria? An assertion like that needs a citation!
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday June 16 2021, @08:39PM (1 child)
Need I point out that Windows 8 basically redesigned the UI, dumped the Start menu, and gave us a rejected phone UI -- on the desktop!
Or are you not old enough to remember that?
Isn't that enough citation?
The entire UI was a rejected phone UI. And that is no small undertaking! Quite am impressive waste of effort on Microsoft's part.
And we're saddled with that bad decision to this day. Modern Windows now has a schizophrenic UI that is:
* half legacy Windows desktop
* half recycled phone UI
* half other mixed in things from other UIs
That's three halves.
Just look at modern Windows control panels. Or worse, look at Windows Server editions.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @09:23PM
I guess I was unclear - I meant a citation that there were _other_ acceptance requirements.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday June 16 2021, @08:12PM
They had to do something with all that Windows phone software.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EvilSS on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:27PM
I was going to say you know you can move it there, but it looks like you can't in this build of 11 (you can in 10 and earlier). The unlock task bar option is gone, which allowed you to resize or move the task bar. That's going to annoy some folks that like it on the top or side.
That you can actually change. You can flip a setting to put it back on the left.
As for the rest, meh? It's Windows 10 with tweaked fonts, new icons (long overdue in my opinion) and someone sanded all the corners round. I think people are being a little overly dramatic about it personally. That said I'd really like it if they just brought back true themes like we used to have, and let people do what they want with it.
The only part I'm really, REALLY, not liking is the start menu itself. You have to click the All Apps button to get to apps that are not pinned. Not to mention a ton of white space for no real reason. But if they keep it that way in the GA, I'm sure there will be plenty of start menu replacements just like we had in Windows 8.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:13AM (1 child)
https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/a/a/csm_windows_11_desktop_8858c2eef0.png [notebookcheck.net]
thoughts:
fonts are too small. This shit is barely readable, zoomed-in, on my 100dpi screen!
five windows are up. Can you tell which one has keyboard focus? I can't.
I assume that junk at the bottom center is the latest version of the quick-launch toolbar? (I always turn that off in every version of Windows that has it.) Where is the start button??
please don't tell me that gray line at the right side of the about window is supposed to be a scroll bar!?
now that they've abandoned the concept of a button, how does one know what can be clicked on?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:06AM
I can't be sure but I think the 'start menu' is the blue quad square at the most left next to the spyglass. I think the active window is the device manager cause it's topbar font is not faded. But it's all guesswork on my part.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:03AM (3 children)
Yeesh...that is awful. What are they thinking at Redmond? Are they insisting that something be done with the cancelled Windows 10X and deciding to recompile for x86 and just ship it as-is? At this point they may as well just drop Windows entirely and turn into another Plasma distro with custom theming.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:16AM (2 children)
I also had the reaction that it looked sort of like KDE. Can't exactly put my finger on why that is or what I regard as KDE-ish. But I am glad to see someone else say the same.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:40AM
It looks sort of like one of the more brutalist themes and icon sets for KDE. Some distros default to that. My own KDE setup looks nothing like this.
Otherwise, it looks like they recycled all the rejected UI elements from Gnome3, Android, and OSX.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:53AM
So Windows is now copying GNU/Linux window managers instead of GUN/Linux window managers copying Windows?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday June 17 2021, @08:54AM
Codenamed Spinal Tap: you can't dust for vomit!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday June 18 2021, @10:26PM
Once again, the window dressing changes with the fashion of the day. What about the technical aspects of the OS? Did they fix the ability to copy files yet or is it still as slow as a wet Sunday afternoon?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].