I decide that I would splash out on a Windows 11 ready laptop to a) try out Windows 11 and b) see what the upgrade was like to do. The reason for this being as an AbilityNet County Co-ordinator I need to see how easy or difficult the process is as we will soon get clients asking for this. . I started 4 hours ago and with many updates I have got to a Windows 11 preview prerelease version as offered by this Windows 10 S machine.
Windows 10 S is a basic mode that only allows Windows Apps to be downloaded but it would let me run the PC Health check app either! That is a Microsoft app so confusion as step one. After searching for a solution online I found that if I went to Windows Setting then Updates and then Activation I could connect the Microsoft’s Store and switch it off there! A bit of a convoluted way of doing things. I discovered that I did have a Windows 11 ready machine and so could go ahead with either the update of preview or I downloaded the Windows Creation Tool but favoured the update as being the first option to try,
All these steps don’t make the process easy but its getting somewhere now. At this moment I am installing Windows 11 on my brand new laptop. An Asus E410M .
The install took 35 minutes and produced the desktop which is cleaner that Windows 10. Gone as the tiles. But then you are wondering where the settings are? To find that I right clicked on the taskbar and that brought up settings. The clue was the cogwheel symbol as in Windows 10 or I could have clicked on the 4 squares and selected from the icons there.
Conclusion
I bought a machine that was ” Windows 11 Ready” and I specifically asked the shop assistant if this can be downloaded in updates and he confirmed that to be the case. On firing up the machine I set it up using the Cotana voice which was friendly and clear and was able to connect to my Microsoft Account easily.
Going to updates I had about 15 updates to do which were necessary. I switched on Windows Insiders Preview in order to get his faster and found that happened by the final updates on Windows 10. I had to switch off Windows 10 S becuase it wouldn’t let me install the Windows PC health check to see if my laptop was compatible with Windows 11. Once checked and gained a successful response I started the Windows 11 update. It took an hour to download and then 35 minutes to install. But then I was up and running. Please note no Windows 10 everything is docked on the taskbar and away you go.
I would allow 5 hours to do this depending on updates, etc, .
One final thing I checked whether it was Activated under System and Activation and it showed “Active” on the Windows Insider Preview. I check updates and there were about 9 to do which happened very quickly and didn’t need to restart. Then how do you shutdown? Go to the 4 squares and next to your account is the switch icon and left click that. To fire up it was all up and running in less than a minute!
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