A few years in the past, my spouse were given an exquisite new Acer all-in-one PC working Home windows 10. Only a few months later, Microsoft shipped Home windows 11. Up to now, my spouse has doggedly refused to improve.
Her device will get the entreaties each few weeks. She’ll open her device and as an alternative of the Home windows 10 desktop, she’ll see what looks as if a step in a Home windows set up development. “Does she need to improve to Windows 11,” it asks. “It is such a lot prettier, more uncomplicated, extra protected, blah, blah, blah.” My spouse’s eyes glaze over and she or he turns to me. “Will have to I?” she asks.
Now I need to be truthful right here. I do know that she will have to improve to Home windows 11, as it is a greater running device than Windows 10. However it is also other and in my spouse’s computing global, other = unhealthy.
Despite the fact that I migrated her to the Microsoft Edge browser a yr in the past (and she or he likes it), I fear that the center-focused and core-elements-redesign of Home windows 11 could be a step too some distance.
Her hesitancy to move thru that ultimate step isn’t unusual. In line with StatCounter (opens in new tab), as of December 2022, kind of 18% of the worldwide Home windows consumer base used to be working Home windows 11. Home windows 10 has 68% and Windows 7 continues to be maintaining onto kind of 12%. Sure, that ultimate quantity is startling even though no longer as insane because the part % nonetheless clutching onto 22-year-old PCs and Windows XP.
We are not like that, me and my spouse. I am working Home windows 11 as a result of I really like the following large factor and am by no means do away with through other or new. And my spouse has up-to-date iPhones, iPads, and this quite new PC. I think most of the people, even though, are like my spouse in a minimum of a method. “Why trade what is not damaged?” they suspect.
To be honest to those that have pressed pause on upgrading, Microsoft is a minimum of in part accountable. Numerous the best computers offered during the last decade don’t mechanically improve this extra protected model of Home windows as a result of they don’t come with Relied on Platform Module 2.0. This hardware-based safety era, which gives improve for safety features like Home windows Hi biometric face ID and BitLocker for information coverage, is in maximum computer systems that shipped over the previous couple of years however no longer many prior to that. Because of this, Home windows 11 used to be some of the first Home windows launches to leave behind a huge chunk of relatively new machines. There’s a method round this requirement, however it’s not easy or recommended.
Naturally, after letting folks nonetheless purchase Home windows 10 licenses for greater than a yr since Home windows 11 release, Microsoft is after all drawing a difficult line. It announced last week that Home windows 10 House and 10 Professional gross sales will stop as of January 31, 2023. After all, Microsoft will fortuitously improve its growing older OS thru 2025.
I spotted that regardless of writing glowingly about Home windows 11, I can have completed a deficient task of convincing customers like my spouse to improve. Possibly I used to be being too technical. I determined to invite Microsoft how it could manner this conundrum.
At the query of Home windows 11
That is the question that I despatched out to Microsoft:
“If a shopper walked as much as [Microsoft CEO] Satya Nadella and requested that query, what would he say? How would he persuade (and no longer confuse) a shopper that upgrading to Home windows 11 is recommended and can lend a hand and give protection to them ultimately? And, Satya Nadella being a hectic guy, how would he do it in only some transient mins?”
I did not actually be expecting a right away solution from Nadella and, after all, didn’t obtain one. As a substitute, I were given this regurgitation of previously-shared Microsoft knowledge from Amy Bartlow, Home windows Advertising and marketing Director, Microsoft:
“An replace used to be made to the Windows 10 product page to make sure consumers have the newest knowledge on buying choices for Home windows 10. Consumers have till January 31, 2023 to buy Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro from this web site. Designed to make the on a regular basis more uncomplicated, Microsoft recommends Windows 11 for customers to enjoy the latest advancements in productiveness, safety, creativity and extra. As formerly mentioned, Home windows 10 will remain supported until October 14, 2025. ”
Bartlow is true, Home windows 11 is streamlined sufficient to “make the on a daily basis more uncomplicated.” I just like the platform. Smartly maximum of it, the slide-in widgets are an anxious abomination. They seem on their very own and I extremely suggest turning Widgets off. That apart, that is the most secure, maximum tough, and maximum solid model of Home windows I have ever run.
Possibly that is what Nadella would’ve mentioned to me if we chatted and perhaps it is what I will have to say to my spouse. In any case, I don’t need her working a platform that best has a pair extra years of improve forward of it.