Offered the opportunity to replace Windows 10 with Windows 11, I took it up. Having done so, I had mixed feelings.

Chat

The Chat app is integrated with Windows 11 and its icon appears on the Taskbar by default. At first, the app did not work at all, reporting only that it ran into unspecified problems. Perhaps it was coincidence, but after installing Windows updates KB5006746 (2021-10 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 for x64-based Systems) and KB5005537 (2021-10 Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 11 for x64), the problems disappeared.

Microsoft Teams

I use MS Teams 1.4.00.26376 (64-bit) with a work account. Windows 11 comes with another app, also called MS Teams which appears to be ‘Teams for personal use’ (version 21253.510.996.1465). That app appears to be buggy, often reporting that ‘something went wrong’ and, effectively, crashing.

Start

The Start ‘app’ takes an ‘iPad’ approach to organising icons – although, unlike an iPad, you cannot chose on which ‘pane’ the icons appear. Unlike Windows 10, there is no ability to group icons by topic. Work-arounds include grouping icons in folders on the desktop or purchasing third-party applications which mimic some of the functionality provided by Windows 10. Unlike Windows 10, folder icons on the Windows 11 desktop cannot indicate graphically what apps they contain.

The Windows 11 desktop appears to be the primary place to organise app icons. However, adding icons for Universal Windows Platform apps to the desktop is not straightforward. The steps are:

1. Use explorer.exe in a terminal to open the Applications shell folder, with command explorer shell:AppsFolder.
2. Right-click the app icon in question and select ‘Create shortcut’.