At my house, the question that entitles this post is an interesting one. Let me repeat: Is Windows 11 Production Ready? Like most good questions, the answer starts with two familiar words “That depends…” What the answer depends on includes the following elements:
- Background of the user (more Windows-savvy users will suffer less distress from an upgrade)
- Daily computing requirements (Windows 11 still suffers from some minor, but real, performance gotchas that will bother some users more than others)
- Target PCs (though you can install Windows 11 on hardware that fails to meet its requirements, that means future updates may not work on your hardware)
There’s a lot to consider about Windows 11 when pondering upgrades or larger-scale migrations. (I’ve also speculated about the numbers of upgrades so far–see this December 1 item: Windows 11 MarketShare Q421.)
“Is Windows 11 Production Ready” Holds Numerous Nuances
At my house, I’m already running Windows 11 on 6 PCs. Except for my production desktop (which doesn’t meet the hardware requirements), I run all of those PCs myself. I’ve been using Windows 11 since Day 1. I’ve made sure that the hardware requirements are met, and I’ve had a uniformly positive experience in running the new OS across all Insider Preview and Production versions.
I haven’t upgraded my wife’s daily driver (an 11th-Gen Dell Optiplex 7080 Micro) because she hates change. I will wait for Windows 11 to solidify and stabilize before I upgrade her to the new OS. Hopefully that will involve only minimal stress and strain for everyone involved.
I haven’t upgraded my son’s Ryzen 5800 B550 PC to Windows 11 yet, either. He’s a heavy gamer, and the new Ryzens remain subject to “interesting” issues with gaming use on Windows 11. Frankly, I’m waiting for prices on a 3070 or 3080 Nvidia GPU to become affordable before I get serious about upgrading his system to Windows 11.
I’ve got a new desktop to build with the same components as my son’s PC (but I’m not a gamer). Thus, as soon as I find the time to stand it up and get it running (early 2022 is as soon as that can happen) I’ll be pioneering Windows 11 on a Ryzen 5800 CPU and so forth. Stay tuned: I’ll keep you posted on how that all turns out.
Implications for Your PC Fleet
Most businesses wait at least a year after a new Windows version makes it debut before starting migration. Many wait 2 years or longer. There’s still plenty of time to wait and watch how things go for other users before taking the plunge yourself. Or, you can do as I have, and upgrade the more forward-leaning and adventurous users, while planning for (and waiting) for the trailing edge to gain urgency and impetus.
