I decided it was time.

Microsoft has fixed a few of the most egregious Windows 11 launch bugs, I’d done my weekly backup, and I had a day off coming. So I went ahead and did the upgrade.

It’s been less than a week, so don’t expect a detailed catalog of everything that’s right and wrong with the latest opus from Redmond. Remember: it’s never too soon to make a good first impression.

The upgrade itself went smoothly enough, though Microsoft sucks at estimation. After ten minutes or so, the progress indicator said 70%. Ninety minutes later, it said 91%. The last nine percent took another couple of hours. Then, of course, there was the inevitable reboot, followed by more thumb-twiddling while Windows shuffled things into place.

Once my desktop appeared, it looked a lot like the old one. Some exceptions: the Taskbar can’t be at the top of the screen–my preferred location–any more, and having the icons centered instead of at the left side of the screen* looks decidedly odd.

* Windows 11 does allow you to left-align the icons, but I stuck with the default. It’s been easier getting used to than I expected, but I do have a lot of muscle memory around the Start button being in the upper left corner of the screen; there are still occasional delays while I reorient myself.

So far, I’ve only found one major annoyance. You may have heard that the Windows 10 Live Tiles (those tiny windows and icons to the right when you open the Start menu) are gone in Windows 11. It’s true. They are gone. I mean really gone.

At least three-quarters of Windows users will never notice or care–there’s a reason Microsoft got rid of Live Tiles, after all. But some of us actually used them. Clean out all the useless games links and other such nonsense Microsoft put there, and the Tile area became a convenient place to put frequently used files and programs. Anything you put there was no more than two clicks away.

Windows 11 does let you pin things to the Start Menu. It does not, however, transfer your pinned items from Win10. Instead, you get a no-doubt-carefully curated selection of useless nonsensepinned programs. Unpinning Microsoft’s choices and re-pinning mine took almost as long as installing the upgrade.

* Sources online seem to be unanimous in saying that you cannot pin individual documents–Word files, pictures, and so on–to the new Start Menu. This seems to be a half-truth. I was able to pin several spreadsheets, but Word documents and pictures don’t seem to work. I suspect it has something to do with the spreadsheets having been pinned in Win10. Further investigation seems warranted.

I could run through my list of Things That Don’t Work Right, but there’s not much point. Most of the glitches are minor-but-annoying, and can probably all be fixed with a little effort. I shouldn’t need to, mind you, but again, Win11 is new and needs some polishing. The upgrade experience should get better over time.

And now that I’ve finished playing the Upgrade Blues, Win11 seems to be working well. Anecdotally, it feels snappier than Win10. Searches are a little faster, programs feel like they’re launching more quickly, and the Windows Photos program–which used to take forever to load and display the first picture–is enormously faster.

WSL–the part of Windows that allows you to run Linux programs–finally supports graphical programs. There were already ways to run those programs, using some third-party tools. Now the functionality is there without any special setup. In theory, one can even add Linux programs to the Start Menu or Taskbar, but that doesn’t seem quite functional yet. Or maybe it’s one of those little glitches.

It’s going to take people some time to get past the whole “It doesn’t look like what I’m used to” thing, but once they do, I think the consensus will be that Win11 is an improvement over the past.

I’m still not recommending a general upgrade. There are plenty of issues that Microsoft needs to work out. Unless you have a specific need for something in Win11, stick with Win10 for now.

On the other hand, if you’re looking to buy a new computer, it’s probably going to come with Win11. Don’t be put off by it and don’t try to downgrade to Win10.

Trust me, Windows 11 will not be the horrid shock that was Windows 8.

Hey, did you hear about Windows 11?

Remember when Microsoft said Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows?

To be fair, times have changed since then. That statement was made back when Apple was still cheerfully turning out version after version of OS X with no hint they’d ever turn up macOS to 11. So now Microsoft has to keep pace, lest they be seen as behind the times. That means updating the user interface to match current fashion trends and, yes, updating the version number.

Still, I wish one company or the other would have invoked Spinal Tap in their product announcement, instead of leaving it up to the tech press.

Anyway, it looks like Windows 11 is going to be more of an evolution than a radical departure. Microsoft has clearly learned from the Windows 8 debacle, and isn’t going to give us something so wildly different that we’ll have to totally readjust our muscle memory just to carry out basic tasks. Like launching programs. From what I’ve seen so far, we’ll all be able to manage the learning curve.

For appropriate values of “all”, anyway. Because it’s important to realize that not everyone is going to get Windows 11 on Day One*. And hurray for that.

* Which won’t be until “holiday season”. Which, given that it’s a marketing term with no agreed-upon meaning, could be anything from September–when the stores start pushing Christmas and Christmas gifting–to January or February. Wouldn’t you like your loved one to give you an upgrade to Windows 11 for Valentines Day? Don’t sneer: it may be a free download, but I’m sure not going to install the upgrade without first backing up my systems, and you should too. Let a competent loved one (or paid professional) spend the time and effort, while you eat the chocolate you were going to give them. You do give chocolate to your computer repair person, right? Much safer for your equipment than alcohol.

Even once it’s released, not everyone is going to get Windows 11.

Microsoft is still fine-tuning the limits, but right now it appears that Windows 11 won’t even try to install on systems that are more than about five years old.

Unlike most of the rest of the tech industry, I’m okay with that. One doesn’t run Windows 10 on machines that were originally sold with Windows 7 (or, Goddess help us, Vista). At best, one walks it; more often, one crawls it.

And Microsoft will continue to support and update Windows 10 for at least five years. That means that, by the time Windows 10 is fully retired*, all those computers that can’t run Windows 11 will be at least a decade old. That’s about 90 in human years. Let them retire gracefully. Please.

* In the same sense that Windows 7 is now fully retired, of course. Which means there are still millions of people using it.

Another bit of good news: Apparently Microsoft has finally admitted that Cortana is massively annoying. She’ll still be in Windows 11, but somewhat harder to find. And computer technicians around the world are still celebrating the news that she’s being removed from the setup workflow. I know people who have to set up multiple machines every day; they hear that awful “Hi, there!” in their sleep. Good riddance.

And, just to close out my rambling, a bit of bad news; the only thing we’ve been told about Windows 11 that makes my head hurt: Windows 11 Home (the version pre-installed on over 90% of the Windows computers sold in stores) will require a Microsoft account to get through the initial setup. There are a lot of open questions around this little nugget of information. In theory, Windows 10 has a similar requirement, but you can get around it by not connecting the computer to the Internet until after the setup workflow is finished. Maybe 11 will work the same way. Maybe not–but if not, how will Microsoft handle it if there legitimately isn’t an available Internet connection?

Because, let’s be blunt here: not everyone wants to give Microsoft that much control over their computer. (Want to see a techie froth at the mouth? Ask them to help you with a Bitlocker recovery.) Even Apple, that vociferous proponent of the “walled garden”, doesn’t force you to enter your Apple ID when you set up a Mac. They’ll nag you if you don’t, but they won’t stop you. And their setup workflow always creates a local user account. You create the account and then, several steps later, they ask you to enter the Apple ID–and most recent versions of macOS have a prominent “Ask me later” or “No thanks” option.

I’d be willing to bet that Microsoft will back down from their current “must” stance. But it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they do it quietly and in a highly non-obvious way.

About ten minutes after the formal release of Windows 11, some repair technician or security analyst will discover that the requirement can by bypassed by entering “microsoft.accounts@sucks.rocks” as the Microsoft account name. Word will spread, and eventually Microsoft will blame it on a rogue programmer–but not remove the capability.

At least, that’s what I’m hoping.