Moving from Windows 10 to Windows 11? What’s different, and how to adapt

The bells are ringing for Windows 10, and many users who have waited are now choosing to update to Windows 11. If you’re one of them, congratulations on continued security updates and new features, but also on an operating system that has received a lot of criticism since its launch in 2021 — sometimes justified, but often exaggerated.

Because when you look beyond the glassy surface with its rounded corners and the Start menu in its strict position, the differences are not that insanely big actually. It’s not like switching to Mac or Linux, not by a long shot.

In many cases, these are fairly small changes that you can quickly get used to. In many cases, it’s even possible to restore or mimic old behavior, and new additions you don’t need can often be turned off or hidden.

Price When Reviewed: 69,99 Euro

Best Prices Today: 49,99 € at PC-WELT Software-Shop – Windows 11 Home | 69,99 € at PC-WELT Software-Shop – Windows 11 Pro

Relax and enjoy the ride and everything will be easier, right?

Microsoft has become a bit more like Apple in one area in recent years. Where the company used to make an effort to step aside and let users choose how they want to use their computer, it now prefers you to do certain things in a certain way.

Foundry

The most obvious example is that you’re almost forced to sign in with a Microsoft account instead of a traditional local account. For example, it is not normally possible to choose a local account when installing the system. This can be circumvented fairly easily, but Microsoft keeps harping on about all the benefits of its account.

In a way, the company is right. With a Microsoft account, for example, you don’t have to worry about registering Windows because the licence key is linked to the account and it’s easy to reactivate if you make changes to the hardware. I find this very useful as I sometimes boot my Windows installation directly and sometimes in a virtual machine — even though the hardware is completely different, the system has no problem with activation.

Windows 11 Home can encrypt the local storage with Device Encryption, but it requires a Microsoft account to store a copy of the recovery key — so if you want to use a local account you need a Pro license to encrypt the disk.

Further reading: Windows 10 will hit end of life in 2025. Here’s what to expect

Other benefits include synchronization of settings and applications installed from the Microsoft Store between computers and automatic authentication for all other Microsoft services and applications. If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription for Office, it will be much easier if you are logged into Windows with the same Microsoft account.

But if you don’t subscribe to Microsoft 365, don’t use OneDrive, have no need for disk encryption, and rarely or never change hardware, there’s no practical gain from a Microsoft account. If you prefer, you can then opt for local account anyway, even with Windows 11 Home.

Create local account with Rufus

Rufus

The easiest way to do this when reinstalling the system and not updating from an older version is by creating an installation media with the Rufus program.

Download an .iso file of Windows 11 from Microsoft and select it in Rufus.
Select a connected USB stick of at least 16 gigabytes that has nothing important on it (all current files will be deleted) and click Start.
In the dialog box that pops up, tick Remove requirement for an online Microsoft account.
You can also tick Create a local account with username and fill in the account name you want, so you don’t have to do it during installation.

Microsoft

The most visible difference in Windows 11 from its predecessor is that the Start menu and program icons have been centered in the Taskbar instead of being on the far left as in all previous versions. But it’s a quick thing to change if you prefer to have it the way it used to be (go to Settings > Customization > Start and change to left-aligned). The big difference lies in the content of the menu.

As soon as you click on the Start icon, it is obvious that it is not the old familiar Start menu. There is no list of installed programs, but instead a number of preselected “favorites” are listed in a grid under the heading Pinned. Below these is an area called Recommended, where you can find recently opened and added programs, files, and more.

Further reading: Windows 10 support ends soon. Here’s how to upgrade to Windows 11

You can switch off all these recommendations, but the section will still be there. Microsoft hasn’t made it easy, but at the time of writing there is a method that works in the latest version. It requires three additions to the registry. You can save the below code in a plain text file with a .reg extension and import into the Registry Editor.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\Start] "HideRecommendedSection"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\Education] "IsEducationEnvironment"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer] "HideRecommendedSection"=dword:00000001

After a reboot, the pinned items area fills the entire center section of the menu.

Foundry

With a trick, you can get rid of Recommendations and get a cleaner Start menu.

What you can’t do anything about, however, is that the Start menu doesn’t show a list of all installed programs. You can still access such a list by clicking All in the top right, but there doesn’t seem to be any hidden setting to make it open that list automatically.

In the narrow strip at the bottom you will see the on/off button and an icon for your account, but you can also add other shortcuts in Settings > Customisation > Start > Folders.

The Taskbar

Aside from the default placement in the center, the big change in the Taskbar is that programs group all their windows behind one icon instead of one icon per window. But just like the placement, you can easily restore the old behavior. You can find the different settings in Settings > Customization > Taskbar (or Taskbar Behaviors).