Windows 11 GUI - Not Bad! And that comment from a MS Windows critic

I started working with MS Windows back in the Win 3.1 and NT 3.1 days (and DOS before that) so I've been around including running Windows-based server farms back before I said, "Ok - Freaking Enough" to the thankless grind of systems administration back in my IT days and bailing completely and taking early retirement.  In my humble opinion, each iteration of Windows came with a Graphical User Interface and "bloat" problems that were significantly worse then the preceding versions.

As I caveat, I run Linux and have been since getting out of IT, but generally dual-booted (in the past) and more currently running in a Virtual Machine that keeps it sandboxes from my Linux OS.  But I've been setting up a laptop for my son to use for some legacy application.  Today I downloaded Win11 and installed it on a Windows_To_Go USB configuration just to take a look. 

I'm pleasantly surprised.  The GUI is actually better than Win10.  It's cleaner and actually is more intuitive although you can find the tools and apps that come with Win10, just with a hell of a lot less clutter.  And from my understanding, if you have the hardware, it actually runs more efficiently.  I thinks I'll go ahead and set up a Win11 VM to run on my primary desktop because I actually like it better than Windows 10 - now over the last 30 years, that's a first with me and Microsoft.  I'd be interested to know how their server products stack up nowadays, but?  I gave that up and really don't want to go down that path again.  Linux it is until I check out.

Anyway - kudos MS.  You did something right for a change.  Did you actually listen to your users for a change?  <laughs>