Decision Support: Which Windows is Best for You?

Just looking at the reader reactions we received on the subject of Windows 11, we can see that the new system has a bad reputation six months after its release. Above all, it suffers from usability: the new taskbar is pretty, but it can’t do much of anything; Explorer feels bulky with its new context menus. Also, the service is harder and some things still taste half cooked.

We wanted to get a more accurate impression of what readers think and therefore sent out a survey to c’t subscribers via the club newsletter at the end of February. A good four thousand readers participated. Due to preselection, the results are not representative, but still give a useful idea.

Four and a half months after the launch of Windows 11, about a quarter of the participants were using the new system. There were many reasons for the change. The most common was not a better range of functions, a longer support or a elegant appearance, but simply curiosity, a reason that we know very well. The thing about this: Anyone who’s ever switched to Windows 11 only did so in one in fourteen cases when buying a new computer that it was pre-installed on. Most were clean updates and reinstalls.

Also notable: Four out of five people switching have a PC that meets the official system requirements, and most of the rest were able to get the upgrade via Microsoft’s very simple official registry trick. With a single registry change, it enables convenient upgrade installation using a Microsoft Media Creation Tool setup USB stick, on which settings, data, and programs are preserved. However, the PC must not fall too far below the very strict minimum requirements – the hack only accepts older CPUs and TPM 1.2 instead of 2.0.

Instead, if you want to install Windows 11 without TPM, you have more work. It requires a clean reinstallation and the inoculation of registry keys forcing the installation to ignore such a thing. Not even all of the 20th transfer travelers made this effort. This suggests that, from the point of view of many, Windows 11 apparently has nothing to offer worth playing with.

Those who aren’t already using Windows 11 don’t intend to anytime soon: Nearly half of survey participants with older Windows only want to install it when their older Windows is no longer supported. And another good quarter said they would rather switch to an alternative like Linux or Mac after the end of Windows 10 than to the successor system.

The reasons for rejection are a colorful potpourri: from incompatibility with your own PC to satisfaction with your old Windows, avoiding the stress of upgrading, concerns about teething and comfort drawbacks to wanting to boycott a system with a minimum of absurd appearance. requirements Appropriately, the impression respondents have of the new operating system is also quite mixed. Three quarters of them consider Windows 10 to be good or very good, but only about 45 percent say the same about Windows 11.

It seems that Windows 11 is still more widespread among our readers than in general. There, for example, the ad network AdDuplex saw about 19 percent of Windows 11 in March, not related to all versions of Windows, but just everything since the original release of Windows 10, since AdDuplex is a network cross-promotional advertising for -Apps stores and uses it to determine version shares. The numbers are really slim even in the professional area: The company Lansweeper, which sells asset management software for corporate networks, saw in its “Windows 11 Readiness Audit” just under 1.5 percent of systems that customers manage with tools, on Windows 11 We expected the proportion in our survey to be higher than the general public: As c’t readers, you are more curious and interested in technology than average.

Now what is it really like?

What are the differences between Windows 10 and 11 besides the taskbar, start menu and explorer? Has Microsoft already improved criticism of Windows 11? And what about the accusation that Windows 11 runs slower than its predecessor? In the post, we did a comparison showing which features you gain or lose with which version.

If after reading the comparison you decide on Windows 10, but you already have 11: then downgrade, that is, replace Windows 11 with Windows 10. Read what you have to take into account in terms of licensing and under what conditions you can obtain it to receive free. First of all: Microsoft actually interprets its own license terms surprisingly laxly. The article gives you practical tips for the downgrade process, including step-by-step instructions.

Windows 10 or Windows 11? We show which Windows works best in terms of performance, security, and account requirements and how upgrading to Windows 10 works. We also test black and white printers for the small office or home office, and review Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Linux distributions. and Fedora 36. There are also new Raspi projects that solve problems or are fun.

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