Recently, I watched a Youtube video by Mark Ellis where he expressed confusion and frustration regarding Microsoft’s Windows 11 product launch. Everything he mentioned is entirely understandable. Furthermore, I’ll try to help clarify the situation for everyday users.
I’m a 20 year IT pro, consultant, and Microsoft partner. I sell Office 365 and Azure services regularly. I have 8 Microsoft certifications and have worked with Microsoft products daily for well over 20 years, so what I’m about to talk about are things I’ve learned from trial error, experience, and navigating the waters of the tech industry’s most frustrating company.
Let’s start with the launch. Microsoft recently announced Windows 11 launching in the late fall to partners, followed shortly by the general public. Their stream crashed and all sorts of technical problems. For a company that is positioning itself as a global cloud leader, this is incredibly embarrassing. They could have easily streamed it via Youtube, and it would have been fine, but you know, Google.
Lack of communication
Shortly after that, they released the spec requirements, who are getting this, who are not, which, as Mark mentioned, was absolutely terrible. He was actually too generous in his criticism. Historically, Microsoft is horrible at communication. Terrible at branding and terrible at marketing. They have a history of confusing SKUs. Home Editions, Pro Editions, Business Editions, Home Premium…what? Yes. It’s bad.
Microsoft way overshared during their rambling press release. Apple assumes that their customers are disinterested in the minutiae about the technical side of it. They say our new OS will support such and such Macbook lines, mid-2017 and up, for example. Anything older, you have to buy a new computer. Apple never apologizes because they don’t care, shut up and buy it. Moving right along.
Microsoft just said the exact same thing; only they used 13,000 words to say that. This is what the press release should have said: “Windows 11 will be focused on security, reliability. Most laptops and computers two years old and newer will be able to get it for free. For computers older than that, we’ll continue to support Windows 10. You’ll continue to receive feature and security upgrades through at least 2026”. That’s it.
Microsoft has a lot of different customers, partners, resellers, etc. Someone is bound to be upset about something.
So how does a regular Joe err Mark navigate this mess?
Ignore the marketing talk
You’ll never be able to make heads or tails of Microsoft’s press releases, product launches, etc. So everything that Mark did don’t do it. Look for the launch date and go about your day. After the launch, Microsoft has to get on the same page as the OEMs, enterprise customers, system integrators. They’re going to change many the requirements, operating system features, and even launch dates along the way. The goalposts are constantly moving, in some cases pretty far.
Wait
Microsoft has a track record of hits and misses. The misses have been pretty bad. Windows Vista and Windows 8 were terrible. Especially Windows 8 that removed and replaced most of the primary navigation UI and didn’t bother to tell the customer. What is Windows 11 going to be? I would wait for it to be released, read reviews and watch Youtube Videos. Thurrott.com, WindowsCentral.com are great resources for all things Microsoft and Windows. Play with a sample computer at Best Buy. Once you’re comfortable, make your purchase.
Get ready to buy
The biggest mistake people make is the actual purchase. Buying a Windows computer is a fairly complicated process or more complex than it should be. Luckily, there’s a pretty good formula. If you’re coming from the Apple world, you know that Apple doesn’t sell anything for cheap. Aside from greed, the reason for this is that they don’t want you to purchase anything where you’ll have a bad experience. You’re going to pay a hefty price, but you’re at least going to a good experience. Microsoft has done the same thing with the Surface line. You’re going to get a good experience with any Surface-branded product, from a 2 in 1 to laptops to even the headphones and earbuds. They’re not going to be cheap, but they shouldn’t be as Windows. You can also consider high-end HP Envy, Dell XPS, and Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon laptops. These are beautiful laptops with a great user experience and have little if no preinstalled unwanted software, aka crapware.
For those coming from the MacOS ChromeOS world, PC manufacturers historically have shipping Windows laptops filled with trials of lousy antivirus, registry editor tools, useless pdf viewers, spyware-filled toolbars, etc. As computer prices dropped, PC manufacturers looked to maximize their profits by charging these companies to preinstall this crapware on the computer you just purchased. This cheapened the Windows experience. Microsoft should have stepped in to block them from doing this in hindsight, but the damage has been done.
Because of this, there’s the balance that you can almost chart it out on a scale. The cheaper the sticker price of a PC is, the more crapware you should expect.
If you choose to buy one of these computers, you will undoubtedly be able to receive a free Windows 11 upgrade when it becomes available to you.
Once you get past the purchasing hurdles, the marketing confusion, your experience will be pretty good. Windows 10 and presumably Windows 11 are modern, flexible, and dare I say ‘fun’ to use, especially on laptops or 2 in 1 devices. Turn it on and use it. Microsoft will hammer out all their confusion and deliver Windows 11 to your device when it’s ready. Don’t try to sideload anything, sign up for betas, trials, or insider versions. Don’t try to force anything. When it’s ready, they’ll let you know, and it will work fine.
Just be sure to back everything up first.
