Microsoft, in a blog post earlier today, announced the launch date for their latest Windows version. Windows 11 will start to roll out on October 5 as a free upgrade to Windows 10 users and will come pre-loaded on new PC sold.
In the Microsoft blog post detailing the release date, Microsoft gave us eleven release highlights that include more weird marketing. The first “highlight” is a gem, ‘The new design and sounds are modern, fresh, clean and beautiful, bringing you a sense of calm and ease.’ Yeah. That’s what Microsoft Windows is most known for, its calming nature. It’s surely not the five UIs stacked on top of each other, giving you five different ways to get to every setting.
The second highlight sounds like a privacy violation or a divorce waiting to happen. A quote from the second highlight, ‘With Start, we’ve put you and your content at the center. Start utilizes the power of the cloud and Microsoft 365 to show you your recent files no matter what device you were viewing them on.’ Is this how your wife finds out your into stepmoms?
You can check out all eleven highlights on the Microsoft Windows blog. They go over more changes and improvements, like a redesigned store, the AI-powered widgets, which sounds like unavoidable, forced advertising, and we can’t forget gaming.
Microsoft is taking what they’ve learned from Windows 10 and applying that knowledge to their planned launch of Windows 11. Meaning they will take baby steps at first and only offering the upgrade to newer modern devices. They will then slowly extend the offer of the free upgrade to more and more devices. They hope to have all eligible devices at least offered the upgrade by mid-2022.
I am still a bit confused by Microsoft’s reasons for launching a new version of Windows. In my mind, if they were going to launch a new Windows version, they should have taken the opportunity to purge the past garbage. Start fresh with a new, single UI, with no hidden back doors to the past. To me, that would be the only reason to launch a new version. Otherwise, why not just add these changes to the next Windows 10 update?