 Hello. Welcome to our first episode of Techpad. My name is Jackson Statz, and this is my co-host, Blay Smith. Hello. Today, we are going to be covering Windows 11, why it matters, and why you should care. Okay. Well, without further ado, what is Windows 11? Windows 11, it goes back on first, whether it's a version or an update of Windows 10. Yeah. I'm going to say update. Okay. Up for debate, we'll debate that. We'll continue. Yeah. So, it's an update of Windows 10, where they drastically change quite a lot of the interface. Oh, yeah. Definitely. From what I've seen, they've changed the interface quite a bit in Windows 11 in this update. I guess we should talk about that. Is it an update or a new version of Windows? What do you say, Blizz? Update, new version? Well, I think it really depends on, if it's just interface, I think it's more of an update. I would call it an update as well, but the thing is that Microsoft is releasing it as its own separate version. As opposed to your regular update on Microsoft, when you go into the settings and you hit update, and it downloads and installs an update, and Windows does the weird restart thing. I hate Windows sometimes, just for that reason. But this time, it's more like you have to opt in. It's definitely a little bit different. Yeah. I feel like it's taking a Mac OS vibe. It is. Every year, Mac OS re-releases their operating system. Essentially, they call it something different, but they make some major changes to it. Like, it was a Catalina to Big Sur. It was a pretty big change in the UI. They did change a couple of things, like they optimized it for M1. But the big thing for me, at least, when I first installed it on my Mac, was just the interface. The interface. There's a lot of controversy with that. Maybe we should discuss that in a future episode of Techpad. But I think if you were to ask me, I'd say that they changed the interface to be more touch-friendly. Maybe touch screen MacBooks are coming. I mean, who knows? But from what I understand, that's where Microsoft is going. They made it more touch-friendly because they have actual laptops that require touch. Is that right? I mean, yeah. So what kind of things did they change in the UI? So they're trying to make it more so it's easier to be creative and create things. Yeah. Make it more sleek and smooth. Yeah, so they improved productivity, essentially. Productivity, yes. That was the major changes to the interface. And they made it look pretty similar to the Big Sur interface. Yeah, so modern vibe, modern like Big Sur vibe, I guess. It's really, it almost seems like Microsoft is trying to mimic Big Sur in a way. Because they moved the taskbar. They forced it to be on the bottom. I know some people like to move it to the sides or the top. And those people are weird. But now it's forced to be at the bottom. And they've kind of... They centered it. They centered it. Yeah, they centered it. And honestly, I think it looks good. I think they call it like glass kind of feel to it. It looks a lot less blocky. Yeah, they rounded out the edges of the windows a little bit. Maca West kind of, it really does seem like they're mimicking Maca West here, doesn't it? But, you know, it just feels a lot different. But all of this stuff is purely, all the stuff we're talking about so far is very surface level. Very user interface. I mean, have they changed anything in the background? They've changed, oh, they have changed a few things. Like the Microsoft Store, for example. That's actually a great example. If we go to that. Great example. Well, tell me a little bit more about the ways they've changed the store up. So they are making it so that they're trying to make it so Android apps are compatible on your computer without having to run any third party. So the idea is, is there, once again, taking a kind of like approach to this? Yeah. Because in Mac, you now have the split system. You have Intel on one side and ARM, what they call Apple Silicon on the other side. And so they have to make apps. So that allows them essentially to take their ARM apps that have been developed for iPhone and iPad and allow them to be run natively on a laptop, which is pretty cool. But it's my understanding that the Windows is trying to do this as well for Android devices. I'm sorry, Android developed apps. So can you just download and install? They're trying to make most of them so that it's just download and install and you can use them on your computer. That's pretty cool. I mean, I guess it's cool. But did anybody ask? I mean, would you use that sort of thing? I mean, it's kind of cool, but I don't really know how to. I don't know if it's really something that we need. I think that it depends really what you want out of your PC and Windows. Personally, I believe most people don't really care for having Android apps on PC. Yeah. Most of the time you're not playing Android developed apps. Yeah, I it'll definitely if it does one thing, I'd say it probably does make. The Microsoft Store a little bit less like a ghost, like a graveyard, you know, like a ghost town because if you right now, if you go, assuming you don't have Windows 11, if you go into the Microsoft Store, it is is pretty bare. There's you can get some things. There's only a few games that are actually highly rated or widely used. Yeah, I mean, I guess you can download the Microsoft Office. Yeah, collection of things, but really, that's that's about all you can say about it is now, however, I have gone to the had this new thing called Xbox Game Pass for PC. I don't know if I'm getting that name right, but it's only like a couple of dollars a month. And so I wouldn't I tried it out, you know, yeah, that's pretty cool. There's a lot of games that I actually would play like some some real good titles. So far, the only one I've downloaded is SnowRunner, which is awesome, you know, kind of off-roading transport game. I'm having a lot of fun and it take me months to pay off the game with the rate I'm paying the monthly fee for Xbox Game Passes. So speaking of which, I feel like that's something they updated in Windows. Did you know anything about that? About the game change the gearing Windows 11 a little bit more towards gaming? They have talked a little bit about that, making it more so that the performance of the games are higher. I'm not sure how that would affect games that aren't on the Xbox companion or Microsoft Store. So I think it might be only for games specifically there. Yeah, I did see one improvement. I don't remember where I saw this from. It might have been might even burn from their announcement, but they're integrating support. I don't know it's on a game by game basis, but they have support for it in Windows through their DirectX, you know, whatever. I think I think it's through DirectX to allow the GPU to the graphics card to effectively pull information straight from other devices like a hard drive or your game drive on your on your PC without having to go through the CPU. Like bypass the CPU in its entirety and just access the drive. Now, that is yet to be yet to be determined if that is actually you know, would increase the speed, the loading times of scenes and games. I thought that was pretty cool. At least they're trying. That's pretty interesting. I didn't see that. They're trying. Yeah. So I. I feel like they did. They are. I think they're reengineered. Don't quote me on this. I'm almost 100 percent sure about not 99 percent sure that they are revamping in addition to the Microsoft Store. They're revamping the game bar Xbox game bar kind of piece Xbox game pass for PC. So they're going to try to push that a little heavier. Also, Microsoft Flight Simulator is available. That's also that's that's a big game pass through the game pass. Yeah, through the game pass. That's that makes it worth it for me. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, gaming is great, but only a lot of people use Windows for productivity. Yes, they made any productivity. So the Microsoft Office, which use I currently I currently don't use Microsoft Office that much. Yeah, I use it all the time. Now, I guess we wrote our intro script on Google Docs, Google Docs. Anyways, not word, but they are making changes to the interface through those apps. Really? So they're making them try and make them more intuitive for people to use. That reminds me. A productivity that they pushed kind of hard was the ability to snap Windows. They did add that. Now, that is there was an interesting quote from there. They pulled. I think they said something like like nobody has done before. Yeah, like this is this is completely new. Absolutely awesome feature. Now it is awesome. I would use it all the time. But hello. I mean, Linux exists. I mean, they've supported that for a long time. I mean, I guess you could say that for a lot of things about oh, my monitor just died. Snap. Interesting. Snap screen. Yeah. I mean, they've had that for forever, effectively. But that's pretty cool in my opinion. I mean, I would use that all the time. I've wished Mac that it's almost enough for me to just use PC all the time. Use PC's gaming. I mean, I use PC's gaming all the time. But it just kind of sucks having to on Mac or West, just having to you have to either buy an app or manually resize your windows. Yeah, it's kind of kind of a pain. It is a pain on Windows 10 as well. Yeah, I mean, at least Windows 10 has the the corner like you can do is put it into quarters and quarters. Yeah, it's a little better. But it's still improved upon. So if I remember correctly, I was reading through stuff about Windows 11 and I read somewhere that there are special requirements, new hardware requirements for installing Windows 11. There are new system requirements. So some of the new system requirements are that well, they are trying to make Windows 11 more compatible with older CPUs. But for now, the system requirements that are out is that you need. We'll start with the top CPU. So for the CPU, you need at least one gigahertz. Yeah, that's right. Gigahertz, two core and 64 bit compatibility processor. Yeah, like every like everything, everything. The graphics card, I think I've read something. Well, the official requirements said it needs to exist. It's a GPO somewhere there. It needs to be DirectX 12 or DirectX 12X. Does it? I feel like I saw that there. DirectX 12, DirectX, is it DirectX 11? It's a 12 when you figure that out. Figure that out. Nope, I don't have it in the source. Oh, well, we'll figure it out. So you can Google it too, of course. Yes, they have a whole list of the requirements. What interested me was the four gigs of RAM minimum. Yes, that's I mean, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that much. I would consider four gigs the absolute minimum. But I mean, Windows 10 can run on like two gigs and it runs. I mean, it runs OK, I guess. But so this is a jump. Yeah, quite a jump. Yeah, and they also have added requirements for. A special chip, the trusted platform. Yes, chip that's ever required to install Windows. And they've also added you have to be your motherboard BIOS has to support secure boot, which I guess is good for security reasons. But I mean, if you have an older computer, I mean, that might leave you might leave you high and dry. Yeah, you'd have to stick with Windows 10. So I guess that's a great segue to our next talking point. Are they going to support Windows 10 after this? Yes. So they are going to support Windows 10 after this. I they say they're going to. Sorry, support it until. Yes, 20, 25, 20, 25. Yes, I should give you enough time to upgrade your PC. Yeah, and for those late adopters, I am a late adopter myself because, you know, I work, I do real work on a computer. I'm the media manager here for a lot of my public media. I mean, we have to have computers that are reliable now. We're using Windows, so I don't know if it's actually that reliable because we've had a couple of issues in the past with Windows not working. I mean, Windows, Windows works great, you know. It works all the way up until we really need it to work. And then it just it doesn't update or something does it just shuts down. I hope I hope they fix. I hope they make it more reliable because in the past, they've it's sort of been on a trend, you know, like good, bad, good, bad, good, bad. Windows 7, good, like Windows 8. That was terrible. Windows 10, good. Hopefully the next sequence, it's good looking, looking back. I mean, you can say this. I mean, you know, like, I mean, Windows NT, you know, for examples, but. I mean, hopefully they can break the sequence and do a good Windows 11 as well. You know, yeah, they are hopefully it's good because it's bad. Yeah, it's getting me excited. Just with the interface, I mean, they're having a lot of people up and it'd be it'd be quite sad. I'd be disappointed myself when does 11 didn't didn't make it out on top. So I guess that brings us to, you know, who really should be thinking about upgrade? Should should you upgrade to Windows 10? I'm sorry, I was 11, I'm so used to saying Windows 10. It's been the standard forever. I mean, you can always try it out. I believe I stayed before that there's a 10 day period. Yeah, if it's your personal computer, I'm not sure if it's for if you should upgrade, if it's for like a full business, you might want to wait and wait for them to get a lot of bugs out of the way because that's bugs are pretty much inevitable with a new OS. Well, my public media, I think represents a pretty good. Array of. People, you know, like use cases for Windows. We have our channel eight server runs off of Windows. It runs cable cast and it runs cable cast on a Windows platform. So somebody that's probably running a Windows server. I'd probably stay away. Yes, stay away for now. I would stay away from upgrading if you have a Windows based server. Because upgrading OS versions on your server does not seem fun. It's yet to be as. I would like to personally see how well it handles software that hasn't been optimized for Windows 11 or I don't know if it has to be optimized at all. I mean, does new software have to be optimized for Windows 11 or old software? I haven't seen anything needs to be optimized. OK, well, maybe it'll be able to run. I'd still I'd still stay away because yeah, upgrading. I'd stay away from any Windows updates. If it works, if it broke, don't don't don't try to fix it. Yeah, exactly. For a home user, like just somebody like a student, like a college student, like me, when I'm in high school, I. I don't see what the issue is. I mean, you might want to back up your files just in case. But well, yeah, I mean, that's good advice for any issue back up your files. But with the productivity enhancements, the snapping, you know, responsiveness enhancements, I would say if you're just doing web browsing and doing that sort of thing, that's fine. I mean, it looks better. You'll get more work done faster. Yeah, and you're not stuck to it if you don't like it. Are you really? Can you go back? You can go back. You can go back. OK, so there you go. You can go back if you don't like it. I mean, yeah. Now, for somebody like me, who really does a whole combination of stuff like I'm doing gaming on the side, video rendering, you know, like if I'm editing a video or re-encoding it to our standards, you know, on public media, I would. I would. I would probably upgrade me personally. I would upgrade because really the. Well, I take that back. I would upgrade, but I would wait a couple of months for all the major bugs to be kind of wrinkled out of the system. Say that for anything. For yeah, I find myself a late adopter. Because my I really just in my line of work, like live streaming and making sure things are running properly for cable channels and that sort of thing. I really need things to just work. Like, yeah, I can handle bugs. I mean, I'm pretty tech savvy. This is the right word. But it just things just really need to work for me, because it just takes time. Yeah, if you're if you're running a live show and Windows does something weird because of a bug, it just it's not fun. Like if we were running a Windows system right now and a couple of minutes before we went live, it just something weird happens. I mean, that's it just it just sucks. Stress acts. I mean, I can probably get through it, but it just it's nice if it just works. Yeah. And so that's from my standpoint. I would wait like for somebody that like a video producer or a somebody that can have downtime, but you know, just wants to keep up with the times and is working somebody that can have downtime, but not very much. I would upgrade. Yeah. After winning. What about you? I mean, you're you personally, I you stream. I suffer some self promotion, self promotion. I've just been messing around with streaming. I haven't really done a proper stream. It was mostly just me and my friend, my friend just watching the stream and making sure everything goes well. But personally, if since I don't do anything that really requires any critical moments that I need something to work, like I only gaming and then school work, which would be annoying to have bugs, but I don't have a real like a hard due date, really. Yeah, I can get it done the next day if I needed to. If there is a due date for school, there's a due date, but it's not like two minutes before a stream. Yeah, you're not going to lie. You're not turning it in. Yeah, you could. So from a gaming standpoint, I mean, are the benefits or sorry, that the enhancements provided by the various, you know, like like the GPU stuff we talked about, the the game game pass for PC, would those be worth it for you? Would you upgrade? Yeah, I would upgrade to Windows 11. It's there you go. Yeah, she upgrade. Well, there's always a bug. Yeah, if I'm going to upgrade because I find it interesting enough with everything new that's going on with Windows 11, that I might as well upgrade and I could I'll be sent. I might be sending a lot of feedback to Microsoft. You need that kind of guy who crashes furious report to Microsoft. Yeah, I've never had Windows crash on me. Really, you've never had a blue screen. No, I'd be interested to see how they change the blue screen if they changed it at all. So it's not the blue screen of death. It's just just maybe black. They could try a different color. They could. They can try out multiple different colors. Rainbow. They're probably not going to change it, but it'd be cool to see. Well, that's pretty interesting. I mean, I guess that brings us, you know, to sort of our conclusion here if it's time. Windows 11 is an interest. I think that pretty much sums it up. It's interesting. Yeah, I wouldn't consider it a new version of Windows. Like, if we're not going from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Yeah, Windows 10 is now like a as a service, you know, product as a service kind of thing where they just you get you get a certain amount of upgrades through time. Yeah. And this Windows, this Windows 11 update is really just that. It's just an update. I think it's kind of overhyped. Overhyped. Because there are improvements, yes. But it's just like it's just like the like iOS releases for your iPhone. You know, yeah, it's they call it a new version, but they're just adding features or taking away features. They're just making it a little bit better, which is trying to make it better. Trying to make it better, which isn't bad, but it always introduces bugs and that sort of thing. So it's really, I would consider it interesting. If you're somebody that can afford to have some, some downtime, you know, you can deal with bugs and you're somebody who works on, on the computer, or if you're somebody that games. I mean, I would, I would download it because it from what I can tell is just a lot better than the Windows 10. I mean, for me, the reason why I like macOS so much is because it's fun to use. I mean, like all of the, all of the Windows, all of the buttons are just nice looking. And I feel like Windows was that, but with the release of macOS Big Sur and the way really Apple has been influencing and the UI has been getting more modern across a lot of different platforms. You know, I think it's really time for Microsoft to release this. I mean, it's a good time to release this because really they need to catch up quite frankly. They're getting behind. Yeah, if it all works, then it's. Then works. I mean, it'll be great. Yeah, it'll be great. So, Windows 11. Just 11, yes. That's weird to say. It's not right. I've been saying Windows 10 for, what was it, how old is Windows? Wow, Windows 10. Wow, like five years. I've been. I've been saying Windows 10. Yelling at Windows 10. Yelling at Windows 10. Yes, yes. So, well, I guess it's a pretty cool conclusion. If you're interested in your tech savvy, sure, why not? What's the worst that could happen? Losing all your files. Yeah, we should back them up anyways. See what happens. If you like it, stay with it. We'll definitely be checking it out because this is definitely interesting and on probably one of the next episodes of Techpad, we should just have like a little section dedicated to. A quick update. What do we think? Speaking of which, the update will be available in quarter four of 2021. So later this year, it'll come out. Later this year. If you guys were wondering about, you know. There's no precise date. Nothing, they did not issue a precise date. No. I'll probably tweet out when they do. You'll know when they release it because everybody will be talking about it. But there you go. If you're a gamer, do it. If you're working like a student, do it. But if you're a, somebody who really depends on your computer, server, video production, I mean, that sort of thing, I would wait. Just wait. Yeah, so is that what you think? Yeah, just wait. It can't hurt really to wait. So I'd like to thank you for watching this episode. The first episode of Techpad. Techpad is a weekly, every Wednesday at six. It's a weekly show designed to be unscripted, very conversational, laid back conversation. I've said that a couple of times. Easygoing. Easygoing, something you can watch when you're ready. And hopefully we get to learn a little bit about streaming and all that. And hopefully you get to learn a little bit more about technology. I hope this video was helpful to you. If you have ideas, you should tweet me at therealJDS or you should go and email me at jackson.stats at longmouthpublicmedia.org to give us your ideas. We'll talk about them, definitely will. We're hoping to plan some cool stuff, like special guests and that sort of thing. And do you have any updates, please? I don't, don't contact me. Don't contact you. Okay, yeah. I'm the media manager, so if you want me to do something and I'll do it. So thank you for watching Techpad. And that concludes today's Techpad, Windows 11. I'll see you guys next time Wednesday at six. You can find us on all platforms, channel eight on publicmedia.org, YouTube, Twitch, I mean all the platforms. So I'll see you in the next Techpad episode.