If you’ve read my Windows 11 coverage over the past year, including my review of the OS, you probably know that there are a lot of things I like about the OS and a few things I don’t. However, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but I actually have a dual-boot setup on my personal PC, with both Windows 10 and 11 installed.
For the past seven years, Windows 10 has been my primary OS, and it remains so today, despite the release of Windows 11 in October 2021. Thanks to my dual-boot setup, I use Windows 10 about 80 percent of the time. Time and the Windows 11 Dev Channel make up the rest. The latter use is primarily for checking out new features and coverage of the dev channel builds I do on Nuveen.
Importantly, despite meeting all the major Windows 11 strict requirements such as a recent CPU and TPM 2.0, my PC was not offered an upgrade due to a security hold. After this month’s Patch Tuesday update, it looks like my PC is finally allowed to update… but I’m not sure if I want to or not.
Let me explain myself a bit. As some of you already know, I love many of the features in Windows 11, including the aesthetics, snap layout, convenient context menus, tabbed file explorer, and more. However, I also think that Microsoft made many unnecessary changes just for the sake of it, including Teams integration, removing seconds from the system clock, dumbed-down taskbar, smaller start menu, and more.
And while the good certainly outweighs the bad, I’ve been asking myself: Do I? Really Need Windows 11? It has an elegant design with improved productivity. Really Worth migrating from a stable OS that causes problems after updating every month? So far the answer has been negative.
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I fully expect that Windows 11 will become more stable and better over time, but unlike Windows 10 where I did my basic setup on the first day of the Technical Preview (basically an internal program from yesteryear). As the OS was installed, I don’t feel the need for it. Do the same this time too. One of the main reasons is that I found both Windows 8 and 8.1 – the predecessors of Windows 10 – and I couldn’t wait to jump ship to the new OS.
Things just aren’t the same. I really like Windows 10 and have become quite familiar with it. I’m not itching to upgrade to Windows 11 as soon as possible. Perhaps one of the reasons is that Windows 11 leverages a lot of the core functionality that Windows 10 already has and improves on it in some areas. For me, Windows 11 is just a beautiful but unstable version of Windows 10 right now. And is this something I want to upgrade to ASAP? I don’t think so.
The situation is somewhat similar when it comes to my work PC, though in a different context. On this machine, I’ve been offered Windows 11 since day one but haven’t pulled the trigger yet, just because of the spell. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Windows 10 meets all my work needs and I’ve always considered installing feature updates a risk for fear that it might break some important functionality I need.
I know I may sound a bit irrational but that’s how my mind works when it comes to my work PC. I install security updates as they become available but I take feature updates differently and delay them until they are forced upon me. Being contracted as a software engineer for offshore clients in different time zones means I really can’t afford downtime. If I run into blocking issues on my PCs that require admin privileges from my clients, I wait for the offshore IT admins to come online at least once. May lose an entire day’s productivity.
Overall, while I really like Windows 11 in some aspects, I’m currently struggling to convince myself to upgrade to the OS despite the update being available on both of my PCs. Will I be able to convince myself to update in the short term? What Microsoft? The chances are slim, but you never know. The fact of the matter is simply that Windows 11 doesn’t have major differentiating factors compared to Windows 10, and while Microsoft’s latest OS may be beautiful, its predecessor is relatively more stable and familiar.
Have you updated to Windows 11 or are you on the fence? What is your justification for upgrading? Let us know in the comments section below!
