Thoughts on Windows 11 from an IT Pro’s Perspective
I have been beta testing Windows 11 since it first became available to Windows Insiders in the Developer Channel so largely I have liked it. It feels like a further modernizing of Windows 10 with greater consistency across icons, more fluid animations, simpler navigation in the form of the new Star Menu and design of certain apps such as File Explorer. Unfortunately, in the simplification of Windows, they did strip out some of the customization that a lot of power users have enjoyed for years, but I think this is largely fine for the simple reason that these things can be added back in time. As it stands right now, Windows 11 is targeted toward consumers buying new PCs for the holiday season 2021 and next spring for the back-to-school season. For enterprises, I think most of them will stick with Windows 10 for the next couple of years to avoid the retraining costs and to wait for the product to mature a bit. In my own environment, I’ve set the target release to be Windows 10 21H2 via Group Policy + Intune, but no further at the moment. I may release that lock after exams this December, but I just didn’t want people accidentally updating their machines in the middle of the semester. Its been a long year with “2020 Jr”, so for most IT Pro’s my suggestion is to install it on your own workstation and portable Windows devices, see what Microsoft talks about during Microsoft Ignite the first week of November, and then maybe consider doing a Windows 11 test group early next year. By then we should know more about the enterprise features and direction of Windows 11 and that would be a good time to start getting feedback from your end users. That being said, here are a few things I’m excited about with Windows 11
Cutting down on duplication: Instead of being two snipping tool app, two browsers, two OneNotes, two Paints, etc, Microsoft is starting to simplify their offering by pushing out a modern user experience to apps like Snipping Tool while keeping the power of the legacy applications. A fresh look really does go a long way in Windows 11 towards making it feel like a more coherent experience. Yeah, there are still a few administrator tasks that will take you back to the legacy Control Panel, but for most operations these days you can get to them from the Settings app in Windows 11.
The Store maybe useful: The Store in the Windows 8 and Windows 10 era were jokes. Microsoft started off by requiring the apps being their new modern frameworks that nobody used so most of the apps where lightweight tablet apps in the Windows 8 era with more desktop apps in the Windows 10 era as they started to ease up on the requirements and you started to see apps like Spotify, Adobe Lightroom, etc in the store, but now with Windows 11 the gates are much more open. Apps that people actually want to use are in the Store now since they can simply be pointers to another company’s servers. Apps like Zoom, OBS Studio, Adobe Creative Cloud, etc are all starting to show up in the Windows 11 Store. I’m hoping this keeps expanding and we see apps like Firefox and Google Chrome in the Store so that going forward it can be like the Mac in MDM environment and we push the Store version of the apps so that the update mechanism goes through that. I’ve found on the Macs, having Mac App Store versions of apps typically update much more reliably than relying on every app developers update mechanisms and end users actually applying the updates instead of delaying into the heat death of the universe.
Productivity Improvements: Windows 11 does have some great productivity improves and a lot of that gets ignored when most people just focus on the look and feel of the operating system. The Notification Center has been disconnected from quick actions its less cluttered. The snap assist being accessible by hovering over the maximum square is going to show snap assist to a much larger host of people than it ever has been. Widgets are much nicer than Live Tiles were already and I’m hoping that 3rd party devices will be able to make their own soon. I like that its tucked behind that 1x button and can be easily turned off. Virtual desktops are still a thing and they cleaned it up by removing the timelines feature that nobody really used and cluttered things up. We’re still waiting for the universal mute button in the taskbar to be turned on, but that looks like a brilliant addition that everyone who is used to hours of Zoom/Teams calls every week will appreciate. Tablet mode is still present, but acknowledges that people who use Windows devices in a tablet or 2-in-1 stand mode really just want windows to go full screen and be manipulated with their fingers instead of a completely different mode and I think that’s a more honest representation of the Windows tablet market and the way people use their devices than trying to turn Windows into an iPad.
Edge is excellent: A lot of people use the built-in browser that comes with Windows. Some call it the tyranny of the default, but I think it’s a great thing that for the first time since…Windows XP? The default Windows browser was best-of-breed. Being Chromium underneath, websites are fast and accurate to load and does not have the same glitches that you would run into with the old Edge. Microsoft also has done some optimization to make Edge use less battery life than Google Chrome and therefore be less of a memory hog than Google Chrome can be at times. Microsoft also has done a lot of work to make Progressive Web apps first class citizens in Windows 11, even to the point that I’d argue that Windows 11 is as good as Chromebooks as making web apps feel native. You can easily “Install” web apps in Edge and it gives you a little menu now asking you how deep you want the integration. You can have desktop and taskbar icons created of course, but also you can have these PWAs have notifications that show up in the Notification Center along with badge icons and less window border around them than just using the app in Edge or Chrome. A lot of modern enterprise applications and school apps are simply written for the web and not a particular operating system these days. Financially that does not make sense anymore when there are so many Chromebooks and Apple devices these days and Microsoft has acknowledged these trend and embraces it.
Android apps: This feature is not out yet, but I’m hoping at Microsoft Ignite we see this get a release date. I’m thinking that for consumers this will make Windows tablets like the Surface or 2-in-1 one laptops to be much better iPad alternatives. Windows 11 is great at productivity apps like Microsoft Office, Edge, Teams, Zoom, Google Chrome, etc., but they’ve traditionally been missing apps and games that people use on tablets…that’s what killed Windows Phone is the app gap that they could never fill in. Running Android apps on Windows 11 should fix this for people want to have their Surface Go or Surface Pro’s that they already use for work or school pull double duty instead of them having to own a separate Kindle Fire or iPad. I think that brings more value to people out of their current devices. For enterprises, I’m kinda excited about this as well. I am of the weird opinion that I rather open up the Android App Store to my enterprise users and allow them to use approved apps over them going out to the open web when they are bored and then trying to pirate Squid Games or the next HBO hit TV show. As long as the enterprise controls are there to separate the Enterprise information from the consumer apps I’m fine with them running in my environment. I rather somebody using the official Kindle, Netflix, Audible app, etc than something else.
Wrapping things up
So, with all of that being said, that’s what I’m excited about with Windows 11. Does it deserve a full version number? I would say so at this point. It cleans up things, simplifies things, and adds some useful new features. I think users will like it and I look forward to seeing more news about it this week at Ignite.
