11 Things I Hate About Windows 11

Some of us at the office have been daily driving Windows 11 for a few weeks now and it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Come check out some of the biggest issues we've been running into.

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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova

Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
0:58 Cert Expiry
1:40 Internet Required
2:20 Driver Downgrade
2:45 File Explorer
3:14 Weather
3:35 Taskbar
4:00 Gaming
4:50 Scaling
5:15 Updater
5:45 Overflow Icons
6:25 UI
8:00 Search
9:50 Outro

[LinusTechTips]

Some of our FP members have provided us with a couple workarounds for some of these and we wanted to address the certificate expiry. This does help protect against malware, but it shouldn't expire.

You can use a registry edit to disable online search if you're comfortable doing so.

You can still make offline accounts by removing your internet connection after you reach the account creation page, go back and open that page again, then once it's created reconnect your internet.

Another alternative is to type in only one letter when asked for your email and password, apparently the setup will prompt you that something went wrong and you'll then be able to make an offline account.

[rjnegative]

It drives me absolutely insane that Window's start menu search uses web results. If I WANTED to search the web, I would've opened a browser. I hate this feature with a passion in windows 10.

[ShortHax]

I remember when I was excited to see new versions of Windows, now I'm just terrified how much more buggy it will be

[iansimpson]

My suspicion is that Microsoft prioritises Web results on Search to give them extra hits for Microsoft Bing. They don't want to give you the option to change the priority because it could slightly reduce Bing's market share. It's for the benefit of Microsoft, not the user.

[CubeComputerChannel]

Removal of folder thumbnail previews for images and videos was a deal breaker for me. And despite a fix being released to easily change the default browser, setting defaults for picture viewers, video players, etc is still a pain.

Oh and let's not forget that MS got so obsessed over requiring a MS account to set up Windows 11 home that they forgot the possible scenario of a computer having no network adapters (or missing network adapter drivers). In that case, it's just a dead end at the connect screen as there are no networks to choose and you can't click next (there is a workaround).

[fallenmercury]

So many new additions feel like anti-QOL features. Microsoft seems to hire people with odd definitions of 'user friendly'.

[kwedl]

My main issue is the lack of customization.
You can barely customize the start menu, can't change the start menu, can't remove the recommended section, can't move the taskbar, can't resize taskbar icons and the new ricght click menu is horrible.
I've been using W11 for a few months now since the early dev channel days and literally nothing has changed or improved since then.
The sad thing is that all of that can be fixed instantly with third party software like start11, but that really shouldn't even be required and that all of it worked perfectly fine in W10.

[MrVidification]

There was never a major need to create a new OS design (11), each windows 8.1 or 10 'major update' was always a new OS revamp. They could have concentrated on fixing security issues, adding more customisation to keep users happy, and reducing the amount of bloated features many won't use that do little but kill off third party competition

[DL-mkmz]

You need to do another one of these, especially after they've been hacked through remote login which they did not take seriously, forcing the elimination of hdds even performance ones meant for gaming, and requiring secure boot so that you can never use Linux on the computer that you own, not them. Also might address being forced to create a Microsoft account. When you do it, I hope you address some of these issues instead of the nitty-gritty.

[enigmaPL]

The thing I hate most about Windows 11; is that it exists after Microsoft promised Windows 10 would be the last iteration.
They said that it being "modular" they could indefinitely continue to upgrade and improve it as time went on, to support the latest advancements.
In doing it this way, Windows 10 would be the last and only OS you would have to buy.
...and yet here we are.

[ceasormayhem]

The most annoying thing for me is how the Internet, Wifi, and Battery Icons are now one button, which opens up a menu with way more options than you needed. It would be better if each icon had their own individual function instead.

[a.windowsuser]

Here's an update on the problems brought up in the video as of December 2023 (correct me if I'm wrong on some of this stuff):

Certificate expiry bug - Fix released during and after the video was published
Local account creation - Same now as when the video was published.
Driver downgrading - Still apparently an issue (can't recreate this myself however).
File Explorer crashing - Microsoft is apparently (slowly) working to fix the file explorer crashing/performance issues, but it is still a problem.
Weather display on the taskbar - Same now as when the video was published.
Taskbar right-click menu - Only change to the right-click menu was the reimplementation of the option to bring up the Task Manager, no other additions to the taskbar right-click menu besides that occurred.
Taskbar clock display on multiple monitors - Reimplemented via an update since the video was published.
Gaming issues - Can't verify if any of the gaming issues brought up in the video still occur myself, but I assume at least most of the issues brought up in the video are fixed by now.
Window scaling issues - Can't verify if this still happens (don't have a multi-monitor setup)
Update Assistant issues - Presumably fixed at this point.

Taskbar overflow icons - I can't recreate the issue where you can't right-click on overflow icons in the taskbar as demonstrated in the video myself, so it must've been fixed at some point(?).

UI:
- Windows are still hard to resize (no changes since the video was published).
- No real changes to the right-click menu on the desktop since the video was published.
- Start menu is still functionally the same since the video was published (it did have some minor changes, but doesn't address the core problems mentioned in the video)
- Search is functionally the same as when the video was published.

[ThePinkus]

My first gripes going from W10 to W11(22H2):
- Start menu: grouping tiles in W10 was a good thing, as it was a good thing that we cloud resize the area, in W11 it is unorganized and limited in space -- getting to the right app takes longer
- Desktop toolbar: the menu worked well as an alternative to the start menu (organizing the links in directories so that they would appear as a tree-view), now the latter is worse and the former is missing!
- Storage pool: why doesn't it report the SN of the disks as it did in W10? It is an essential part of making sure I am removing the one drive I intend to remove. Supposedly it should report it in the disk properties, but a) it doesn't show the information (is it a bug? the label is there, but the field is empty! or is it just my PC?), b) it should have this information in the disk list view!

[Imasundaj]

I'm surprised that with these kind of bugs Windows 11 is actually released. I think it should still be in beta.

[DatMageDoe]

My nitpick: You can't make the taskbar smaller. It's stuck at the default size, and while you can use regedit to make it appear smaller, doing so breaks it and causes it to act as if it's larger than normal, defeating the purpose of the smaller taskbar.

[williambergmann]

Probably my biggest annoyance is that you can no longer set system tray icons to 'Display All'. If you want them all displayed, you have to check each one individually, and then go back into the menu every time there's a new one and toggle it on.

[keystothebox]

You forgot to mention that Win11 is doing even more data gathering (aka. Telemetry) and Win11 now requires you to to have TPM and Bit-locker enabled allowing Microsoft to ransomware you by encrypting your computer via a windows update or a certificate failure if they don't like what they saw when snooping on your PC via telemetry or do something they dislike with the Microsoft Account you are required to use to log into windows with.

[tabdggaming]

One of the biggest pains for me is having to open the settings for the volume mixer, it used to be so easy to access it. Why did they need to complicate it.

[maybeanonymous]

"If it ain't broken, try to fix it, fail miserably."
- Microsoft, 2021

[IanTheGreatYT]

It would be nice to have the ability to just swap between versions in the sense of design. Like you can have all the advanced features of windows 11, but if you want you can swap to the layout of windows 7, or xp, or 10 or 8 etc