Windows 11. Anyone going to install it? Plus discussion and observations, experience etc.

[Chris Turnbull]

I've just bought a new Dell PC with Windows 11 already installed and, after a day of having a near vertical learning curve, have now got it working as I would like.  It is a question of working out where everything is which is very different to the Windows 8.1 that I was running previously and Windows 11 for dummies is a good buy.  The most difficult part was getting my Epson scanner to work.  I had to reinstall the software several times to get it to work which, with the obligatory restart, took ages.  I don't like the idea of using Office 365 which you only hire and have ordered Office 2021 which should arrive soon.  I will keep my fingers crossed that the installation will go smoothly.

 

Chris Turnbull 

[Miss Prism]

Apparently, the file explorer memory leak problem has been fixed.

 

[Butler Henderson]

I've got to like file manager over W10s - the main use I have of it is moving and renaming video files and in W10 remame was annoyingly in the drop down list next to delete meaning a number of uses of the recycle bin. Now once you have worked out the icons its a lot safer to use,

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Chris Turnbull said:

I've just bought a new Dell PC with Windows 11 already installed and, after a day of having a near vertical learning curve, have now got it working as I would like.  It is a question of working out where everything is which is very different to the Windows 8.1 that I was running previously and Windows 11 for dummies is a good buy.  The most difficult part was getting my Epson scanner to work.  I had to reinstall the software several times to get it to work which, with the obligatory restart, took ages.  I don't like the idea of using Office 365 which you only hire and have ordered Office 2021 which should arrive soon.  I will keep my fingers crossed that the installation will go smoothly.

 

Chris Turnbull 

Have you ordered the Professional version?

It's only £29 from Amazon. I wonder what the catch is? It should be £300+

[Chris Turnbull]

7 hours ago, melmerby said:

Have you ordered the Professional version?

It's only £29 from Amazon. I wonder what the catch is? It should be £300+

 

No, I ordered the Home version for £115.  I don't know what the catch is but I am very wary of offers that are too good to be true.  My wife has just been caught by a link on a reputable company's website that led to scammers.  She ordered some clothes at what she thought were bargain prices but which never arrived and when we contacted the reputable company they told us their website had been hacked.  We contacted our bank and have now got our money back - fortunately!

 

Chris Turnbull

[Jonboy]

If you buy volume license keys (typically companies with over 250 users or some such) or the OEM licenses for pc builders(for resale rather than home brew) from Microsoft the licenses are incredibly cheap. Some people resell these which is not strictly kosher, but Microsoft rarely seem to take action. They apparently normally activate and run without a problem.

 

More details here on the ins and outs of it https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/get-windows-10-free-or-cheap,5717.html

[Butler Henderson]

Libre office is free.

[Butler Henderson]

2 hours ago, Chris Turnbull said:

No, I ordered the Home version for £115.  I don't know what the catch is but I am very wary of offers that are too good to be true. 

The £29 one is a once only download that is locked to the pc it is installed on and cannot be subsequently installed on another pc.

[Miss Prism]

I bought a copy of Office 2007 (it does everything I need) for £10. Hope it will still work ok when I press the Win11 install button.

[woodenhead]

3 hours ago, Butler Henderson said:

Libre office is free.

And fully compatible with office documents as everything is based on open source architecture these days.

[Chris Turnbull]

5 hours ago, Butler Henderson said:

The £29 one is a once only download that is locked to the pc it is installed on and cannot be subsequently installed on another pc.

 

Thank you for the tip.  That's all I need so I may return the Office 2021 and buy that instead.  I could do with saving some money as it transpires that I need a new printer.  My vintage Canon MP250 is so old it is not compatible with Windows 11.  And after I have bought some more ink cartridges as well.  Ho, hum. 

 

Chris Turnbull 

[melmerby]

7 hours ago, Butler Henderson said:

Libre office is free.

Unless you do the right thing and donate to towards the development.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

Unless you do the right thing and donate to towards the development.

 

Its still cheaper than donating towards Bill Gates Pension Fund!

 

Anyhow, after the trauma of moving house (and still only 50% of the boxes unpacked...) I've got my main PC up and running again.  After an of AV, browser, mail, and Windows updating, because it hasn't been online for 4 months, Update tells me that my PC can run Win 11. If I want to.

 

I've had too much mental anguish over the last 18 months, I think I'll give byself a break and not download Win 11 just yet....

 

[Hroth]

It might be noted that there's an oddity in the line

Quote

After an of AV, browser, mail, and Windows updating,

because the word "*" should appear between "and" and "of".  Looks like the Net Nanny has become flustered again!

 

Confirmed, the Net Nanny doesn't like 0rgies!

 

* The word 0rgy should have appeared here...

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Hroth

[Chris Turnbull]

I don't want to speak too soon but, so far, everything is going splendidly.  Windows 11 and Office 2021 are up and running on my new desktop and I was so pleased that I have upgraded my darling wife's laptop as well with the free download.  It took nine hours, start to finish, so allow yourself plenty of time.  Of that time the download was but one hour, the rest was installation but when it did finish I was pleased to find that everything worked as it had before.

 

I had to buy a new printer and scanner which, being wireless, allows my better half to print directly from her laptop.  Thanks to Butler Henderson I saved myself a few bob on the new office software so I haven't spent any more than I intended to.

 

Chris Turnbull

[Miss Prism]

For my video card (an nVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti), I've downloaded a new video driver. It is an exe file. Do I just click on the exe and trust it will install correctly?

[Izzy]

Others probably know better but personally I’d go into device manager, find the video card, and then update the driver while pointing it to the file location. 
 

Bob

[melmerby]

9 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

For my video card (an nVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti), I've downloaded a new video driver. It is an exe file. Do I just click on the exe and trust it will install correctly?

I thought nVidia normally did an automatic update.

Have you got nVidia update (program) installed?

https://www.nvidia.com/en-in/drivers/nvidia-update/

[woodenhead]

I get my Nvidia updates offered to me via Geforce Experience, I have to click to install.

[Reorte]

31 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

I get my Nvidia updates offered to me via Geforce Experience, I have to click to install.

 

I assume it's doing the same thing - downloading and running the exe - just in the background. At least downloading it gives you a chance to virus scan it (last time I downloaded video card drivers it was at least the whole thing, not one of those dodgy exes that then downloads the rest). I never bother installing Geforce Experience, it insists on setting up an account and logging in for no good reason.

[Miss Prism]

Urrggghhh. What a morning! First port of call was Device Manager. It looked like my driver was out of date:

 

 

Next port of call was NVidia Update:

 

 

Oh dear. On my Help menu on the NVIDIA Control Panel, I do not have Updates. Secondly, I do not have 'the new NVIDIA logo' in my sys tray. Useless (unless I am missing something obvious).

 

Next, I got to this:

 

 

Although I could select the correct Product, NVidia had forgotten to include the correct Product Series in the menu, so it refused to continue.

 

I had at this stage I had discovered Geforce Experience, and set up an account, thinking this was the only way I was going to get to a proper update, but as Reorte notes, there doesn't seem to be much point.

 

Backtracking a bit, I found this:

This one actually worked, and got me to a 'Game Ready Driver' (version 511.23). But there was an option of 'Game Ready Driver' or 'Studio Driver'. Which one do I need?

 

 

 

 

[Reorte]

"Game ready" is the standard driver for users. The "studio" drivers are, I think, older versions that have gone through more testing so won't be up to date but are more likely to be stable, which could be important in professional settings. Might also be a slightly better choice if you don't care about the latest and greatest, squeezing out every drop of performance.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Reorte

[Nickey Line]

5 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

First port of call was Device Manager. It looked like my driver was out of date:

 

 

This doesn't necessarily mean the driver is out of date, the dialog will look the same whatever driver version is installed. Did you click on the 'Update Driver' button? It checks first to see if updates are available; you might find the driver is up to date anyway.

[Miss Prism]

8 minutes ago, Nickey Line said:

Did you click on the 'Update Driver' button?

 

Yes. As far as I can tell, it looks for a driver on the PC, i.e. it doesn't look outside of the PC. Not surprisingly, it says 'The best drivers for your device are already installed'. The driver date is given as 22/11/2020.

 

On the NVIDIA site, it says my currently installed driver is v 457.51, release date 02/12/20. The driver it is offering me to download is v 511.23, date 14/1/2022.

[Nickey Line]

32 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

As far as I can tell, it looks for a driver on the PC,

 

Yes you're right... I have an NVIDIA graphics card too, a GT710, with a driver date of 30/09/2020... I'm kind of hoping that Win11 will manage any necessary driver updates (I seem to get at least 1 a month...) or is that too much to expect?

Either way it works fine at the moment...