I particularly like the new Settings app. Or even a small widget that simply had an unread count. One for Mail, for instance, that showed, maybe the five newest unread messages. I do wish, however, that there were more options for widgets. But the change to widgets is something I've found myself using, if for no other reason than to skim the never ending news feed that's below the widgets I've customized. I found them annoying and more work to manage than they were worth. Unfortunately, you can't add third-party widgets to the panel, so you're stuck with what Microsoft includes. There's even a Family Safety widget so you can keep tabs on your kids screen time and approve any requests. The top of the panel is where you can add one of the 11 different widgets currently available, ranging from Weather and Stocks to Traffic and Sports Scores. On a desktop, however, you have to either use the shortcut button on the taskbar, or press the Windows key + W.
If you have a 2-in-1 or laptop with a touchscreen, you can swipe from the left edge towards the middle of the screen to view your widgets. Instead, you'll have to get accustomed to using the new Widgets panel that slides out from the left edge of the screen. Live Tiles are no longer present on the Start menu.
If the taskbar icons were larger it'd be all too easy to say this particular update in Windows 11 feels very Mac-like, and I can see why some would say that even in its current form, but the first time the Start menu shoots up from the Start button, it's very clear you're using Windows. But I can't tell you how many times I've, without thinking or even looking, moved the mouse pointer to the bottom corner of the screen and clicked, expecting to see the Start menu pop up. I've fought the temptation to move it back, thus far. You can also move the Start button back to the bottom-left corner of the screen. You can manually add those shortcuts, among others. Not only is it in the middle of the screen now, but it defaults to lacking any sort of shortcuts to things like File Explorer or the Settings app next to the power button. It took me a few days to get acclimated to the new Start menu. There's a search bar at the top of the popover, your pinned apps just below that (with a button to view all installed apps), and then a recommended section where you'll find shortcuts to recent files and apps. The Start menu has a completely new look. Finally, there's the Chat app, which you can use to message friends, family, and coworkers. Then there's the Widget button that will prompt a widget menu to slide out from the left side of your screen. Next to the Start button is a shortcut to reveal all of your desktops, on which you can arrange open apps and windows to your liking.
Once your PC reboots after successfully installing Windows 11, the first thing you're going to notice is that the Start button – along with all of the items pinned to your Taskbar – is now centered along the bottom of your screen. It wasn't the smoothest process, but at the end of the day, the results are the same. Ultimately, I had to create a bootable Windows 11 USB drive and use that to update my test gaming PC to the release build of Windows 11. I tried to use the installation assistant that Microsoft has on its website, but the app failed to launch (something I've seen on more than one PC that's part of the Insider program). I tried to wait for Microsoft to push the launch build of Windows 11 to my test PC, but after waiting roughly 36 hours I grew impatient.
I have been using Windows 11 for the last few weeks on a pre-built NZXT Streaming Plus PC featuring an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, and 16GB of memory.
You can check to see if your PC is compatible with Windows 11 using Microsoft's free PC Health Check tool. You'll need to have a compatible PC, and then have to wait for Microsoft to push the update to your computer. The new operating system is now available for all to download.