The Windows 11 insider build is noticeably sloppy and unfinished.

 

The Windows 11 insider build is noticeably sloppy and unfinished.

 


Windows 11 appears to be a good improvement, but not one to get excited about.

The week after its first major announcement, Microsoft made early Windows 11 releases available via its Windows Insider program, and we've spent quite a few hours spinning the tires. When Windows 11 is released to the public, it will very certainly be a great operating system—but right now, it's a sloppy, incomplete mess.

This isn't surprising, given that Windows 11 is still only available in the Insider program's Dev channel. Release Preview, Beta, and Dev are the three Insider channels; Dev is roughly equivalent to a software alpha, and Microsoft characterizes it as "the newest code," with "rough edges and occasional instability."

Windows 11 is only available as an upgrade (for now)



The first disappointment we had with Windows 11 was that it couldn't (yet) be installed as a fresh operating system. To install Windows 11 Build 22000.51, start with a completely patched and up-to-date Windows 10 installation, then fly it into the Dev channel, and then upgrade it to Windows 11 via Windows Update.

We had no issues updating a highly-used Windows 10 VM as well as a brand-new one, but we strongly advise against upgrading to Windows 11 on a system or VM that is important to you unless you have a guaranteed method of recovery that you both trust and are willing to employ. Although we rely on one of our test VMs as a "daily driver," It's on top of a ZFS dataset, and we took a manual snapshot before upgrading to make rollbacks easier.

Ironically, the feared BSOU (Blue Screen Of Updates) is the first look anyone gets at Windows 11 right now—after flying our Windows 10 VM into the Dev channel and one short download, it rebooted. The typical "don't switch off your computer" message appears during the reboot, but it's in a new typeface and maybe on a slightly different shade of blue background.

The first download via Windows Update is speedy, but the "working on updates" step takes a long time. On each of the Windows 10 VMs we upgraded—one that had been around for a while and one that was brand new—this process took around an hour.

Alpha denotes the letter A.




The DNS resolver was strangely and inconsistently broken, and the network configuration dialog under Settings was also broken. It took us almost no time to find our first and second nasty Windows 11 bugs—the DNS resolver was strangely and inconsistently broken, and the network configuration dialog under Settings was also broken.

The DNS resolver difficulties are seen in the first screenshot. We can ping 8.8.8.8—Google's anycast DNS provider—successfully, so we know that overall connection is good both inside and outside the LAN. However, attempts to ping google.com are unsuccessful! When we use nslookup to directly query our DNS server, the uncertainty grows even more—it answers our queries perfectly.

Attempting to ping the same hostname directly, as well as most browser tries using Edge or Chrome, fails.

The second bug appeared while trying to troubleshoot the first—trying to set IP address configuration directly using Windows 11's Settings dialog fails miserably, with a cryptic message to "check one or more settings and try again." There's nothing wrong with the settings; the dialog is simply broken. Is Control Panel still available?

Thankfully, Control Panel hasn't been completely removed from Windows 11, and its tried-and-true network adapter configuration dialog still works as expected. Unfortunately, this did not resolve the original DNS problem, which was caused by a conflict between Windows 11 and the VirtIO network driver we were using.

Changing the VM's network adapter to an emulated Intel e1000 resolved the DNS problem, as did, amusingly, leaving the NIC as VirtIO and simply using a DNS server on the other side of a WireGuard tunnel. (Because WireGuard has its own virtual NIC, we're not technically using our "real" network card to connect to the DNS server on the other side of the tunnel.)

We've been playing with Windows 11 for about a week now, and the entire VM has locked up several times, necessitating a hard reset. Did we mention that this is still beta software, and no one should be running anything important on it just yet?

Snap layouts and snap groups are two types of snaps.



Snap layouts and snap groups are two features in Windows 11 that we are particularly excited about—finally, a tiling window manager for the rest of us! Unfortunately, they are not yet as useful or intuitive as they should be. To add an app to a snap layout, hover over the app's maximize button until the snap layout selection appears. When you click a specific box within one of the four snap layouts available, the application will resize, reshape, and move to fit.

Snap grouping becomes available after you've added several apps to a single snap layout—but it's not easy to find, and the current clumsiness of its use significantly reduces the value of this promising feature. To access snap groups, hover your mouse over the taskbar button for any of the snapped groups. After a few moments, this generates the familiar Aero-style application preview bubble over the app's taskbar icon—but in this case, it also generates a second Aero bubble for the entire group.

From here, you can interact with the snap group by right-clicking the group's Aero bubble, which allows you to restore, minimize, or close the group as a whole. It also provides "Group settings," which are not settings for that specific snap group, but rather a link to the Multitasking section of Windows 11's Settings dialog.

Task view, aka virtual desktops



Virtual desktops are given an update in Windows 11, bringing them front and center in an attempt to pique the interest of more Windows users. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, it entails creating additional desktop workspaces that can be accessed via the Task view button on the taskbar.

Apps open on one virtual desktop do not appear on other virtual desktops—the apps can still communicate with one another if necessary; this is not a separate user session. However, they are visually separated into different spaces. This allows you to have one "work" desktop with your work email, a selection of work-related websites, and professional applications, for example. as well as a second "play" desktop with shortcuts to all of your favorite games, your personal email open, and so on.

After you've created and populated your virtual desktops, the Task view button will assist you in managing and switching between them. Hovering over Task view displays the open virtual desktops; clicking it displays a list of running applications on the current desktop as well as a list (and previews) of the virtual desktops themselves. You can also rename individual desktops in Task view by right-clicking them, so your virtual desktops can truly be "work" and "play" rather than the default "Desktop 1" and "Desktop 2."

Unlike previous versions of Windows virtual desktops, you can set wallpaper for each virtual desktop individually in Windows 11. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the entire theme—if we change one virtual desktop from Windows (light) to Glow, the Glow theme is applied to all virtual desktops. However, we were able to set one desktop to Windows (light) and another to Windows (normal) (dark). As a result, this could still improve before Windows 11 is released.

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                            





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