Buying New Computer; Win 10 Pro or Win 11 Pro?

850c

The time has come to move on from Windows 7 Pro SP1 to something more up to date. I would prefer to go with Win 11 Pro, but have seen numerous posts saying Quicken Subscription does/does not run on Win 11.

Few, if any, of the posts add any granularity as to what hardware Win 11 was running on when the Quicken difficulties occurred; perhaps there is a hardware correlation?

For my part I'm considering a Dell XPS laptop with Win 11Pro. Alternately I can get the same XPS laptop with Win 10 Pro with a Win 11 Pro license. The later means having to go through a Windows upgrade process at some time in the future which I would prefer to avoid if possible.

So, anyone successfully running a Dell laptop/Win 11 Pro with Quicken Subscription? TIA

Best Regards

bmciance

I am running the latest Quicken on a Dell laptop with Win11 with no problems.  In fact it runs much better than on my Win 10 HP laptop. There will always be people with problems no matter what OS.  I would go with Win 11. 

mrzookie

I upgraded my 1 yr old Dell XPS13 to WIN 11 (home vers) from WIN 10. The upgrade itself went flawlessly. My laptop has an ultra hi rez screen, which has caused a lot off issues with Quicken so I was anticipating some troubles there. Happy to say I've experienced no problems at all with the exception of some minor GUI inconsistencies (different shaped scroll bars in different places). Only other thing I've seen is that the new WIN 11 enhanced screen minimize/maximize function does not work. It works the same as it does in WIN 10.

Chris_QPW

There isn't anything inherently different about Windows 11 that stops Quicken from running on it.
But like all "installs" there is always a chance that there might be something that doesn't work right.

Note people (other than the SuperUser that are always on here) mostly come here to post about their problems.  That gives a lopsided view of what works and what doesn't work.

I'm on Windows 10 and have tried the Windows 11 upgrade and reversed it several times with no problems, but also with no clear big benefits.  The reasons for reversing it are some minor things, but when it comes right down to it, I have no reason not wait until they have put more of the Windows 10 features back into Windows 11.

BK

Chris_QPW said:

There isn't anything inherently different about Windows 11 that stops Quicken from running on it.

Agreed.  I have been running Quicken on it since the July beta days and including on an unsupported 12 year old laptop without any problems.  During the same time frame I purchased a Dell laptop where I had problems with the Win10>11 migration process, so I installed Win11 from scratch.  Win11 boots and performs faster than Win10.  But zero difference with Quicken and no issues.  We no longer have a Win10 setup in our household and all but one of my VMs are Win11 as well.

FYI: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compatibility/windows-11/

Chris_QPW

BK said:

Chris_QPW said:

There isn't anything inherently different about Windows 11 that stops Quicken from running on it.

so I installed Win11 from scratch.  Win11 boots and performs faster than Win10.  But zero difference with Quicken and no issues. 

Makes me wonder if I should do a full reinstall to see benefits.

On the other hand, my Windows 10 performance is really good, so more likely I wouldn't even notice it if it was "better" or it might be that you are simply falling into Windows upgrade trap.

As in, there are two things that make it seem like the "new operating system" is performing better.  One is a new clean registry.  The other is new hardware.

My Windows boot time is about 11 seconds.  I log in with Windows Hello/face in just a couple of seconds, and about 23 seconds to get my background startup tasks done (I really keep those to a minimum).

BK

Chris_QPW said:

Makes me wonder if I should do a full reinstall to see benefits.

That is very possible @Chris_QPW .  We have 5 PCs and I experienced migration issues on two of them where a fresh install resolved them.  The issues were rather odd and sporadic, such as display flickers, BOSD, second display acting up after a sleep, updates getting stuck.  Once we did a reformat and an OS install, all went away.

This goes to show that any program, installation, migration, patch update is prone to issues as there are many variables.  So a fresh reinstall can often resolve them.

All, I don't recommend using the tools out there that remove "bloatware" on Win11.  I used them and didn't care for the results.  Rather after a while of using Win11, decide which features of Win11 you will absolutely not use and research to see how to uninstall them individually if you wish, one at a time.

850c

Ok, I think that puts the Windows 10 vs 11 question bed; Windows 11 it will be. On a side note, it does seem that the majority of the issues revolve around downloading transactions; I have always maintained my transactions manually (30 years worth :smile: )

I do have a Windows 11 Home vs Pro question, which version are you running? TIA

I need to be able to map drives to other network computers and a shared Synology 218+ NAS drive. I'm going to guess that Windows 11 Home will do this and that WIndows 11 Pro is overkill for a Non-Enterprise installation.

I ask only because not that many years ago, you had to buy the Pro version of Windows 7 to map drives.


Best Regards

Chris_QPW

Windows 11 Home will allow mapping network drives.  The number one reason I use Pro is because I use Remote Desktop.  Home can be the client (connect to another machine), but it can't be the "server" (the one you connect to).

BK

Ditto as @Chris_QPW said.  I use Pro for the built-in VM, Bitlocker, and Remote Desktop.

Chris_QPW

BTW you got to love it, I went looking for the "official comparison".  And of course, it really didn't go into that kind of detail, but while there I found a comparison between Windows 10 and 11, and sure enough the comparison only shows the features that Windows 10 lacks in comparison to Windows 11, but not the features that Windows 11 lacks in comparison to Windows 10.  Marketing would have you believe that you are always getting more features by going to the newer operating systems instead pointing out that it is a tradeoff.  In the case of Windows 10 to Windows 11, there are quite a few gaps at the moment.

Chris_QPW

BK said:

Ditto as @Chris_QPW said.  I use Pro for the built-in VM, Bitlocker, and Remote Desktop.

I'm glad you mentioned the VM.  I was going to mention it.  I tend to forget about it because for my work I have to use VirtualBox, and you can't use both Microsoft's built-in VM and VirtualBox.  But for others it would certainly be a selling point.

850c

VM, now that is interesting. One of the reasons I have held onto WIndows 7 so long is that it supports an XP virtual machine.

I have many years of data using a legacy Broker/Home Office investment program called Captool. They dropped the individual investor market in 2006 so that last retail version only runs on XP. Never found a another program to equal its flexibility/capability. The company is still around and they do now offer a subscription model for individual investors.

I would be interested if there's a way to run an XP machine on Windows 11 Pro. Realistically though, going back to Captools and getting a subscription is probably the smartest way to go...

Best Regards

Chris_QPW

Probably the best way would be to export your VM from your existing machine, and import it into the Windows 11 machine, provided that the export/import is supported.  That would avoid trying to figure out how to install Windows XP.  Supporting Windows XP in a VM is a "given" for any of the VMs out there.

What VM tool are you using now?

850c

Just 'Windows XP Mode' (see attached). Win 7 Pro was closer in time to XP so they proactively supported it via a built in virtual machine. The Win 7 Pro 'XP Mode' did not require any XP credentials that I recall. I don't believe that Win 8 Pro had an 'XP Mode', but I could wrong.

If, in the past, you purchased an individual copy of XP, you can create a legitimate XP VM using various tools. But, an OEM installation of XP on a box from a vendor does not count; you cannot create an XP VM using the OEM credentials (that I know of). A colleague of mine did purchase a copy of XP in the dim, dark past and has created an XP VM using some 3rd party tools.


Best Regards

Chris_QPW

Oh, yeah now I remember.  You could spin up a Windows XP VM from scratch without ever installing Windows XP in a new VM.  I don't know if that is still true or not.  I will say that Windows 10/11 VM are just the predecessors to the one that was put into Windows 7, so most likely they have the same features, plus more, but like I said I can't use it on my machine, so I don't know the details.  Even if you can't spin up one from scratch I wouldn't be surprised if there is a way to move one from the Windows 7 machine to the Windows 11 machine.

BTW just read an article that Windows 11 is getting a new security feature, that will require a reinstall to add it.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/629717/this-new-windows-11-security-feature-will-force-you-to-reset-your-pc.html

I'm not really sure how much this applies to the average user though.  Whenever you talk about something that blocks applications from running based on some "knowledge" the question comes up of how hard it is (or if impossible) to get around it when the "knowledge" is incomplete.

850c

Just to wrap up this discussion, I'd like to thank all the contributors, your input is greatly appreciated.

Thx!

Best Regards