Windows 11 does things I don’t understand. For example, today it wouldn’t let me change to my sound option of having headphones. Ok, so when I go to restart the computer it tells me that a sound add-in called Namik needs to be installed. I didn’t install that, it was part of the computer’s default install and I didn’t change it. My system had no update, so nothing should have changed, yet it did.
When I rebooted I was able to change my sound output source. Windows has terrible sound management and always has. It doesn’t seem to handle changing the source and destination very well and doesn’t correctly identify when something is in use. A few weeks ago I joined a meeting and it said that the default built-in speakers were the sound output but it was going through my headphones. It showed one thing and did another. That’s not cool.
The more that I use Windows 11 the less that I like it. This is not to rag on change, because I embrace change. However, this change is not an improvement. Windows 10 was great and it looked better than Windows 11. I don’t like not being able to customize the position of the bottom bar and having fewer options than the previous version.
I use Mac/Windows equally during the day and Windows does some things well and others poorly. Like I said in an earlier post, at least to my projector a PC output looks better. Yet the sound is less reliable than it is when switching on a Mac. I wish they could fix their issues and just make something reliable.
Does this mean that I am going to stop using Windows 11? No, but I am less likely to recommend it to my clients, and every little bit of friction that MS causes makes it more unlikely people will continue with their products.