Windows 11 Insider Preview hands-on: It's all about flow

After the leaked version we saw earlier, Microsoft released the first insider preview of Windows 11. This release made it clear the earlier leak was a pretty rough version, and we're now seeing a more refined approach to the OS that build a cleaner, icon-heavy OS experience.

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[technodrone]

i do it deployments for a living. ive seen every version of windows since 3.1. All the ups and downs over the years. This one is pretty good in my book. Only one bug that really bothers me. the task bar on the 2nd screen is blank. but thats on the known list. other than that it feels like win10 with a fresh coat of paint. nothing groundbreaking. also nothing stupid.

[yxles]

4:03 did he just said Safari instead of Edge?

[TerriTerriHotSauce]

Looks a lot like Linux with Gnome Desktop environment. A lot closer to Linux than Mac OS.

[ol_uap]

I really hope that they could change the look of the icons/fonts on the desktop because it's really outdated.

[contournut]

Hard to imagine this would run fine on my surface pro 7 but not on my AMD 2600x (zen+). That desktop chip, while older, is several times quicker on multithread and noticeably snappier for single threaded performance.

[TimLongson]

Windows 11 should use a DirectX HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) & HEL (hardware emulation layer) which could encapsulate ALL your multiple CPU cores (whether you have just 2 cores or as many as 64 cores) into a single "black box" interface, so when games make CPU calculation requests, it is instead passed to the CPU DirectX HAL/HEL black box, which breaks up the task and spreads it efficiently across ALL the cores and threads. This way, even though computer games programmers only currently optimise their games to make FULL use of 4 to 6 cores in most games, windows DirectX could act as an interim step which makes the game THINK you just have one AMAZINGLY fast CPU core, with windows 11 DirectX HAL/HEL creating that illusion. The net effect would be that ANY game doesn't need to be rewritten, it just pasts CPU calculation to this DirectX HAL/HEL black box interface, and then gets its answer back incredibly quickly from the other end of that same black box, without the game programmers needing to know how it did it. And this will FINALLY mean that PC owners get the FULL power of EVERY CPU core being used, with this DirectX HAL/HEL making it appear it is only dealing with an incredibly powerful single core, and removing complications like multithreading. My Masters degree was looking at DirectX (with HAL and HEL) and how it could be used in VR, so I KNOW this is possible, and it would make a HUGE improvement for gamers with CPUs that have lots of cores. :)

[sba]

Did the keyboard layout change bs get fixed with windows 11?

[Pac.Thadon]

So we can run this windows 11 version as a daily driver? Along with gaming and everything else?

[thaminduKavinda]

Can we change the app list view to grid view in windows menu. I just don't like list view.

[therealgamebase]

What happened to just updating Windows 10 every 6 months
And personally I don’t think anyone is gonna miss Live Tiles
Alhough I want an option to have start menu on left hand side and pinned apps next to it

[MrAdhiSuryana]

This WILL BE the next Vista, why?
Basically MS forcing out many people to buy new hardware IN THE MIDDLE of the biggest Chip Shortages and crazy price hike everywhere

[rc]

They could at least move the icons on the bottom right to directly above the main start menu bar, so it's also centered or to both sides of those centered icons.. By having it the way it is just makes it asymmetrical and messy.

[danfry]

I wonder how far I'll need to dig before I come across a Windows 95 style dialogue box?

[benyoung]

I would be really excited to see Windows 11 runs on Surface Go 2, because the new features on Windows 11 will let us use the 2-in-1 device way easier without the keyboard.

[jessieduran]

Just me or is it looking more like a linux distro?

[thegorn]

Does it still have the legacy control panel? DON’T TAKE MY CONTROL PANEL!!

[kurono]

"It sucks but it's fine"

[xjp]

My first grumble, the start and the shutdown buttons are so very far apart. It's frustrating especially when you are using the touchpad.

[rimurutempest]

what about battery mode? how do we change the battery mode to best performance?

[zeniktorres]

I'll be moving that 'dock' back to the left.
Any option to pin a window on top yet? I'm currently using autohotkey to implement this. A feature more useful than the centre dock.