Microsoft Windows 11

Windows 11 ushers in the age of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on the desktop. Copilot, the company's new AI system, assists with many tasks, from summarizing documents to writing cover letters to creating unique images. Microsoft has even added a Copilot key on the PC keyboard and markets a new line of Windows PCs under the Copilot+ banner. The AI updates follow in the bold new look of Windows, with its centered Taskbar, rounded window corners, and translucent textures. Despite these interface changes, using Windows 11 doesn't feel drastically different from using Windows 10, and the newer OS still runs the same applications. Overall, Windows 11 is an Editors' Choice winner for operating systems, alongside Apple's polished macOS Sequoia. For the latest on how Windows and macOS stack up, check out our head-to-head comparison.

What's the Latest in Windows 11?

For the 2024 update of Windows 11, otherwise known as version 24H2 (meaning 2024, second half), Microsoft rebuilt much of the underlying kernel code for better performance and security. Rather than exciting new features, we see some helpful interface tweaks, like the ability to scroll the Quick Actions panel for more settings and a redesigned Copilot that no longer plants itself on the right side of your screen. It also adds updates to File Explorer and improves the Phone Link features.

But the biggest changes come for Copilot+ PCs, which can now run on long-battery-life Qualcomm Snapdragon CPUs or those from Intel and AMD. Those NPU-equipped devices get new AI-powered features like Click to Do, Super Resolution in the Photos app, natural-language search in OS components, and generative Erase and Fill in the Paint app.

The newest version isn't the end of updates. Microsoft adds new features in what it calls "continuous innovation." In other words, in addition to an annual big update, you get new features and changes throughout the year.

How to Get Windows 11

Windows 11 is available free for Windows 10 systems. The new OS is an option for all PCs that meet the requirements (more on that in a moment), and new computers ship with it preloaded. Anyone with a recent CPU, though, should have no trouble installing Windows 11 via Windows Update.

Can you buy Windows 11 without buying a new machine? Yes. DIY PC builders, virtual machine installations, and non-Windows 10 computers can buy a Windows 11 Home license for $139.99 and the Windows 11 Pro edition for $199.99 from the online Microsoft Store. The company no longer directly sells Windows 10 licenses in its online shop.

Much has been made of the system requirements for Windows 11, but they’re very low: 1GHz CPU, 4GB RAM, and 64GB storage. A 64-bit processor is a must; there's no longer a 32-bit version of the OS. You also need a computer with a TPM security chip and Secure Boot capability. That has been standard on most PCs for the last six or so years. The real limiter is the CPU model, which needs to be from about the last four years. PC Health Check app is a tool that assesses your PC's ability to run Windows 11.

Another type of CPU that runs Windows 11 is Arm64. The company has shown commitment to this lower-battery-usage, always-connected platform by producing a full set of development software for it. The recent Prism feature allows non-Arm software to run on Arm PCs, most popularly of the Qualcomm Snapdragon variety. The neural processing units, which power AI, will become very prevalent in computers, as evidenced by nearly every PC at the 2024 Computex trade show. AI is already built into Windows with the Window ML component, and the company highlighted AI features in Copilot+ PCs, such as the controversial Recall feature.

As with Windows 10, there’s a Home and a Pro version of Windows 11. You need to sign in to an online Microsoft account to upgrade to Windows 11 Home, a fact that’s raised the ire of some commenters, though I don’t think it’s an issue worth getting worked up about, and you can switch to a local account or even go through a few simple hoops to bypass the account requirement. If you really object to signing in with an online account for your operating system, since macOS and ChromeOS also de facto require it, may I suggest Ubuntu?

A final note about installation: If you prefer the older OS version, you can roll back to Windows 10 for 10 days after upgrading. Microsoft has announced support for Windows 10 through 2025, though individuals and corporations will be able to extend security updates for it beyond that date for a subscription fee. If you want to go beyond that, it's worth considering something like 0Patch.

Design: A New Look (and More) for Windows

Much of the work on the initial Windows 11 release went toward redesigning the interface rather than building wholly new features, so the OS is more familiar than you might expect. It borrows ideas from ChromeOS, though you can still place app icons on the desktop background, which Google’s lightweight desktop OS doesn't allow.

Windowing and multitasking remain more advanced in Windows than its competitors. The interface has rounded corners (like those in macOS) for all windows, which is not a significant change, but it does give the OS a smoother, more consistent look. Microsoft's Fluent Design System and the system's Mica material play large roles in the redesign. This semi-transparent look is appearing in more and more included apps and utilities.

Copilot in Windows

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Microsoft Copilot is an increasingly optional AI tool, but it's also become increasingly humanlike. In the 24H2 version of Windows, you access it and resize its window just as you would any other Windows app. It's actually a progressive web app. You give Copilot prompts or commands by typing in a chat box or clicking a microphone icon and speaking. The updated app now shows illustrated suggestions for possible activities and carries on remarkably human-sounding conversions in a choice of four new AI voices.

Copilot supports plug-ins, which let you use the AI to do things like make dinner reservations on OpenTable or order deliveries from Instacart. Having plug-ins saves you from burrowing through website menus because Copilot understands what you want to do when you tell it in natural language.

The Copilot+ Difference

Strangely enough, Copilot+ has little to do with Copilot itself; it's instead a set of locally processed AI features that some newer PCs offer. Among them are Cocreator image generation, Live Caption translation, Studio Effects for video calls (like background blur and live filters), and the aforementioned Recall feature, which lets you search anything you've recently done on your computer in a timeline.

New Copilot+ features announced alongside the launch of version 24H2 of Windows 11 include Click to Do, which overlays a context menu on any screen element with buttons for likely tasks; Super Resolution in the Photos app, which upscales low-res photos; generative Erase and Fill; and natural language searching in Windows elements like Settings and File Explorer.

Start Menu and Taskbar

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For decades, the Windows Start button lived in the lower-left-hand corner. Getting used to it being at the left edge of centered icons could be one of the bigger adjustments you need to make in Windows 11. The issue for me is that, until now, the Start menu has always been in the exact same place. Now, if you run more programs, it moves a bit more to the left. Not having to think at all about the Start button’s position was a plus in Windows versions going back more than 20 years. Happily, a Taskbar alignment option in Settings lets you move the Start button back to its rightful position in the left corner.

I wasn't crazy about the new Taskbar in the initial release of Windows 11, but subsequent updates have rectified the issues I had with it. You can choose to have the Taskbar buttons wider by selecting the Never Combine option in Settings. In Windows 11, you can still hover over the buttons to see a thumbnail of the app window and right-click to view the Jump List that shows recent documents or other common actions for the app.

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The Start menu is completely overhauled compared with Windows 10. Pinned app buttons (larger than icons but smaller than Windows 10 tiles) are at the top of its panel. The Recommended section below them doesn't work well for me. I'd prefer simple Recently Added and Most Used sections like those in Windows 10. The Start menu’s icons are adequate for touch input, but they're smaller, and you lose the info that Windows 10's live tiles offer, as annoying as some users find those to be.

Another quibble I have with the Start menu is that it's harder to get to the All Apps view than in Windows 10. With that version of Windows, you can see all installed apps as soon as you open the Start menu; they're in a list on the left, while tiles for your pinned apps are on the right. You can now group pinned app icons into folders and change the portion of Pinned vs. Recommended icons that appear in the Start menu.

File Explorer

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File Explorer is a good example of Windows 11’s new look, particularly its left panel controls and colorful folder icons. Note the simplified ribbon along the top, which is far less busy and distracting than Windows 10's File Explorer. It also now has tabs, so you can use several pages in one window. The Gallery view shows recent photos you've added, no matter where they reside on the disk. Finally, the system can handle RAR and 7-Zip files without the need for third-party software.

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File Explorer's New button at the top left works for new folders or documents supported by your apps, and the same viewing options (list, details, differently sized icons) for files are available. The overflow menu has file compression, selection, and Properties options, as well as the old Folder Options dialog. The right-click context menus get a small update for version 24H2: They now show text in addition to the icons for copy, paste, and so on across the top. The context menus, in general, are shorter, smarter, and clearer in Windows 11. They show only the most often-needed options, but you tap "Show more options" to see the extra menu items added by installed programs.

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If you want still more functionality out of your file manager, you always have the option of using one of several File Explorer Alternatives. But you no longer need one of those to use tabs.

Windows Search

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The search function started life in Windows 11 as a mere button, but it once again can display as a real space that you type in. You can choose whether you want a button, box, or no search at all in Settings. Once you do, or if you just click in the search box, a panel appears showing results from your documents, photos, folders, settings, or the web. Note the Copilot button in the top-right corner, which takes you to Copilot on the web. Just clicking in the search box shows you a daily spotlight on the left and a list of icons of recently used apps along the left. This layout is actually more useful than the Start menu if you're just looking to jump back into an app.

Widgets

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Windows 11 has a Widget panel that shows you tiles for news, weather, stock quotes, sports scores, and more. It’s not entirely new since the News and Interests Taskbar pop-up in Windows 10 is similar, down to including a weather indicator on the Taskbar. You can full-screen the panel if you really want to dig into it. In addition to Microsoft-produced first-party tiles in the Widgets panel, third-party developers can offer content through Windows 11’s widgets. Third-party entrants include Spotify and Met a Messenger. Touch screen users can easily swipe in from the left to open them and can full-screen the widget panel to get a bigger view. User-picked widgets appear separate from system ones.

The left column is where the widgets you choose appear, and the right side has widgets in Discover, Following, Play, and Gaming sections. The first three are mostly content from news sites. An Entertainment widget surfaces new movies and TV shows, and the Family widget is good for those who use Microsoft Family Safety parental controls tools.

Notifications and Quick Settings

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Windows 11's Notifications resemble macOS's notification area, which used to be a clean, simple, single panel but is now a collection of smaller pop-ups. The Windows 11 version isn’t quite as bad as the macOS one since it doesn't pop up a new box for every notification that has to be dismissed by clicking an x, but I still prefer Windows 10's single Action Center panel for notifications and quick settings. I appreciate the circled number that shows how many notifications you have. Touch users can swipe in from the right to display the Notifications panel.

The Quick Settings panel opens when you click on or tap the connection, speaker, or battery (if it's a laptop) icon. By default, you see buttons for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Airplane mode, Battery Saver, Focus Assist, and Accessibility, along with sliders for audio volume (now with a source mixer) and screen brightness. The 24H2 update adds the ability to scroll the panel so that it can accommodate more control buttons. A Pencil icon lets you customize what buttons appear, with a choice of Connect (for external displays and audio), Keyboard Layout, Nearby Sharing (like AirDrop for PCs), Night Light, and Project. You can still hover over each of the three icons in the Taskbar to see their status, but I prefer to have just sound settings pop up when I press the speaker and just Wi-Fi options when I press the Wi-Fi icon.

Snap Layouts and Multitasking

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Windows has long surpassed macOS in the way it lets you arrange app windows on the screen, and the gap grows wider with Windows 11’s new Snap Layouts option, even after macOS Sequoia started mimicking the Windows feature closely. You get to Windows' Snap Layout feature by hovering the cursor over the maximize button at the top right of any window. When you hover over the maximize button, you see a choice of layouts—two windows side-by-side, three with one large and two small, and so on, as shown above. The layout thumbnails even show you the app icons of running apps to help you choose where to place them.

Snap Layouts appear as options in the Taskbar, so you can either open a group of apps or a single app. You also see layouts preserved when you open a group of apps on an external monitor multiple times. Snap Layouts also works on touch tablets, but using it isn't particularly intuitive. (See the section below called Windows 11 on Tablets.)

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Windows still gives you multiple virtual desktops, something I find incredibly useful for separating work apps and websites from personal ones. I either press Ctrl-Windows Key-Arrow to move back and forth between them or the Windows Key-Tab keyboard shortcut to choose one from Task View. With Windows 11, you can use a four-finger swipe to move back and forth, something Mac users have long enjoyed, though only via trackpad rather than right on the screen. Also new is the ability to set different desktop backgrounds (aka wallpapers) for each desktop.

Redesigned Settings

One of the more irksome things about Windows 10 is the inconsistent settings of windows and dialogs. Sometimes, you uninstall a program in the Settings app and sometimes via the antiquated Control Panel. That inconsistency goes away in Windows 11, almost entirely. For some detailed controls, such as sound devices, you still see the content in the old style, though the window uses the new design.

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The Light and Dark mode settings are still in the Personalization > Colors setting area, and the modes look much better than in Windows 10, particularly the Dark mode, which effectively uses transparency. Dark mode can now proudly hold its head up when compared with that of macOS.

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You can still change system sounds in Settings, but the Windows 11 default set of sounds is slick, quick, and modern.

An Updated Task Manager

Another area with a fresh design is Task Manager. It lets you shut down misbehaving programs and see which are hogging system resources like the CPU, disk, and network connection. An Efficiency mode lets you reduce an app's drain on the system.

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A Better Screenshot Tool

Windows 10 introduced a terrific utility for taking screenshots called Snip & Sketch. With a press of the Windows Key-Shift-S keyboard shortcut, it lets you select an area (either rectangular or free-form), a window, or the entire screen and snap a screenshot you could paste from the clipboard or open in an image editor. Windows 11 instead has a Snipping Tool. It's named after an earlier, less functional screenshot tool that had been a fan favorite among Windows enthusiasts.

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The Snipping Tool adds an optional timer delay before taking a screenshot, and it lets you record screen activity and still images of the screen. Other ways to take screenshots in Windows 11 remain, including the tried-and-true PrtSc key, the Game Bar, third-party screenshot utilities, and so forth.

This tool's latest capability is extracting text from screenshots. It uses AI to determine sensitive text, such as phone numbers and email addresses, and redact it automatically. What's more, you can use these tools with any image on your PC that has text in it.

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Read my article on how to take screenshots in Windows 11 for all the details. Microsoft recently updated the Snipping Tool with screen recording capabilities to produce videos of action on your screen.

Link to Your Phone

Since most people carry a small mobile computer wherever they go, it's essential that any tech product include a phone link, and that's what Microsoft gives you with Windows 11. Windows 10's Your Phone app has been enhanced and renamed Phone Link. It's a truly powerful way to connect your phone to your Windows 11 PC.

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I used to be envious of the way Mac users could do SMS texting, but no more. Windows Phone Link goes way beyond that for Android users, with photos shot on the phone instantly appearing on the PC and the ability to run multiple mobile apps on the computer's screen for some phone models. That's in addition to calling and texting. You get desktop notifications from any app with messaging and can respond directly from the notification. Read how to make the connection in how to connect your Android phone to your Windows 11 PC. And you can connect an iPhone to Windows 11, too, though with reduced capabilities.

Another way your phone and PC can interact is with the mobile version of the Edge browser, which lets you see sites you've visited on either device as well as send files back and forth using the Drop feature.

Windows 11 on Tablets

Windows 11, regrettably, ditches a couple of its best tablet- and touch-friendly features. Most importantly, you can no longer swipe in from the left to open the task-switching view, a gesture I use all the time on my Surface Go tablet. You can no longer swipe down from the top to close an app, either. This omission is less of a big deal because you can still press the X in the window’s upper right corner as you would in desktop mode. You can get to the Snap layouts via touch on a tablet; holding a finger on a window's top bar causes a bar to descend from the top with choices of layouts.

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Again, though, for a handheld device, the down-swipe is more direct and requires less dexterity. There are new three-finger swipe gestures to show the Task View and to minimize (but not close) an app on the desktop. A sideways three-finger swipe switches between running apps. You can use the Task View button in the Taskbar, but it's not as immediate as a swipe of the thumb. I’d argue switching tasks is more important to tablet users than accessing Widgets, which is what swiping your left thumb in from the edge now accomplishes.

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On the plus side, Windows 11 tablet users have stylus options and on-screen touch keyboard tricks. The Surface Slim Pen 2 has haptic feedback—always a plus. This pen (available on Surface Pro 8 and Surface Laptop Studio) buzzes in your hand, for example, when you delete previously written text and when you tap the Back button to open the Whiteboard app. In that app, you can experience the full digital inking experience, which now rivals a traditional writing experience. You can, for example, highlight text, write freehand (even sloppily), and sketch diagrams. You can even convert what you write to digital text. The on-screen keyboard supports swipe text entry, gives you a healthy selection of emoji and gifs, and lets you choose custom backgrounds.

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Speaking of emoji, Microsoft released Fluent design-influenced emoji. On Windows 11, just as on its predecessor, you can tap Windows Key-. (period) to access a small panel with a generous selection of symbols, special characters, and emojis.

App Store: UWPs, Games, and an AI Hub, But No More Android Apps

Like the rest of the interface, the Microsoft Store app gets a slick design refresh. In addition to apps, the Store has Movies and TV shows as well as games. For some ideas on what to install, read our roundup of the best apps for Windows 11.

Though support for running Android apps directly was a much-touted new feature at Windows 11's initial launch, that endeavor has fizzled, and Microsoft recently decided to retire the Windows Subsystem for Android, effective March 25, 2025. That doesn't stop you from running multiple Android apps on your Windows 11 desktop via Phone Link (see above), which I find preferable anyway since this doesn't restrict you to apps in the Amazon AppStore like the Windows Subsystem for Android did.

Perhaps even more significant for the store is that developers no longer need to code with the UWP app type to be included. Even Microsoft's own gargantuan Visual Studio development program is in the store now. Microsoft also announced that Progressive Web Apps, which are websites with some extra code that bestows app-like qualities, will also find their way into the Store. Win32 apps can now be submitted by any developer. PWAs also get some nice new capabilities, including Meta Quest VR support, URL protocol handling, and custom title bars.

The Store even lets you play casual games without the need to install them—you can play directly in the Store app. An AI hub highlights apps that use artificial intelligence to help you write a resume, fix a photo, and more.

Teams Integration

At launch, Microsoft’s Teams app was a prominent part of the Windows Taskbar by default. Teams grew phenomenally during the COVID-19 pandemic, from 20 million to 145 million active users, but it hasn't impacted consumers as much as businesses.

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Microsoft recently combined the previously separate Teams Chat and Teams Meetings apps into one, and you can separate work and personal communication in that one app. A cool feature is that it lets you call or text anyone's mobile phone from your PC for free!

Teams Chat on Copilot+ PCs includes AI-powered Windows Studio Effects that you can control from the Taskbar in Quick Settings. These effects include eye contact, background blur, automatic framing, and voice focus.

Updated Stock Apps

In addition to apps you can get in the store, Windows 11 comes with standard apps like an updated Photos app (which now lets you easily sync iCloud photos), the new Media Player, Voice Recorder, two Paint apps (3D and a redesigned classic Paint), Mail, Calendar, and more.

The Paint app has gotten several updates, including Cocreator AI image generation and an AI Background Blur feature. New versions of Calculator and Notepad with Dark mode and autosave have arrived. A dedicated template-based video editing app called ClipChamp now comes with Windows. The 2023 Windows 11 update added an AI feature to Clipchamp that lets you describe the kind of video you want to create to build a template for you.

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New Windows Photos app AI tools include Generative Erase (which removes objects and replaces them with background content), Retouch, Background Blur, and an AI search feature that lets you find photos based on their contents.

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Both the legacy Windows Media Player and the Groove music player have been replaced by the Media Player app. If you had music stored in Groove, your library and playlists automatically migrate to the new Media Player when your PC gets the update. The new player does not, however, replace the Movies & TV app, the default video player and catalog app for content bought through the Microsoft Store. Movies & TV also supports the cross-platform Movies Anywhere system. The 22H2 Windows 11 update added CD ripping capability to the Media Player app.

The Chromium-based Microsoft Edge is the default browser, with Internet Explorer no longer existing as a standalone program. Companies that need IE functionality for their custom business apps can invoke it through Edge. Web pundits have panned Microsoft's decision to require Edge for some OS-related features like the news widget and the built-in search, but you can still use the browser of your choice as the default link opener. The company has added a Set Default Browser button to make switching easier.

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Of special note is the updated Clock app, which has a way to help you complete tasks. Its Focus Sessions feature integrates with Spotify to give you appropriate background music for your tasks. It also works with the To-Do app, so you can check off those tasks upon completion.

When it comes to setting apps as the default for certain file types, Windows 11 makes things somewhat trickier. For most app types aside from web browsers, you have to change the setting for each file type rather than just choosing an app to handle, for example, all photo files.

The OneDrive cloud storage and syncing service and app is a key piece of the Windows ecosystem. It can automatically back up your desktop folders, documents, and photos, making it easy to access them from a web browser anywhere, including your mobile phone. It also considerably eases moving to a new PC and can automatically save screenshots snapped with the Print Screen key.

Gaming Gets Even Better

PC gamers benefit from several features that arrived with Windows 11's initial release and continue to arrive. These benefit both game selection and game performance technologies.

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For game selection, the Xbox app built into Windows 11 gives you access to the Xbox Game Pass collection of video games. It includes titles like Age of Empires IV, Halo Infinite, and Twelve Minutes. The app also enables Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft’s streaming game platform. It puts PCs on par with Xbox consoles, though with users in control of how much hardware power they want to throw at their games. PCMag gaming senior analyst Jordan Minor goes so far as to declare that with Windows 11, Microsoft makes every PC an Xbox. You can also read about how to optimize your Windows 11 PC for gaming.

As for new gaming technology, Windows 11 introduces Auto HDR and DirectStorage. The first expands the color space to reveal superior clarity even with non-HDR game titles. The second technology, DirectStorage (a subset of the Xbox Velocity Architecture), can speed up game loading times by bypassing the CPU and allowing graphics memory to load directly. Microsoft and Qualcomm have also made strides toward improving gaming on Windows on Arm PCs. And the Copilot+ PCs just got AI-powered upscaling capability in what Microsoft calls Auto Super Resolution (Auto SR).

Other technical advances in Windows 11 include Dynamic Refresh, which can save laptop batteries by decreasing a screen’s high refresh rate when it’s not needed. The OS also supports the much faster Wi-Fi 6E standard.

A More Secure, Faster Windows

The requirements of TPM and Secure Boot are part of Microsoft’s beefing up the OS’s security technology—a topic worthy of an entire article. PCMag lead analyst Neil Rubenking has written one one on how to keep Windows 11 secure. He also notes that the included Microsoft Defender antivirus software has greatly improved, though he still recommends using third-party antivirus software.

In terms of raw performance on traditional synthetic benchmarks, the new OS is largely equal to Windows 10. Our hardware team ran benchmark tests both for gaming performance and productivity performance on the same PC with Windows 10 and then again after upgrading to Windows 11. The team found Windows 11 performs just as well or even better in terms of frame rates and has a slight edge in the productivity tests. In any case, you can still speed up Windows 11 with a few tricks if you notice it getting sluggish.

Beyond Accessibility

Microsoft has written extensively about the new accessibility features in Windows 11 that join existing ones like Narrator, Magnifier, Closed Captions, and Windows Speech Recognition, along with support for third-party assistive hardware and software. For example, Windows 11 has Contrast themes, redesigned closed caption themes, and AI-powered voice typing. The OS also adds APIs for programming assistive apps, and even the Windows Subsystem for Linux now has accessibility options.

Voice typing is the name for Windows 10’s speech dictation tool. Windows’ voice-to-text feature has improved remarkably in recent years and now uses machine learning algorithms to correct its guesses and punctuation. As with the previous dictation feature, you press the Windows Key-H keyboard shortcut or press the on-screen touch keyboard’s mic icon to launch the tool. Then, you simply dictate the text you want to enter in any on-screen text area.

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Live captions can display transcriptions of spoken words whether they come from playing video or audio or from the PC's microphone. And Microsoft has added braille display support that lets users switch between Narrator and other screen readers.

Copilot on Windows is adding accessibility features, too, such as skills for turning on Narrator, launching Magnifier, changing text size, and starting live captions.

What’s Gone in Windows 11?

It only makes sense that some legacy features no longer fit in with Windows 11's new approach. A couple of conveniences I like (but are apparently hardly used) are gone. Aero Peek and Aero Shake are off by default in Windows 11, though you can re-enable them in Settings.

The Cortana AI voice assistant isn't preinstalled on Windows 11 systems, but it's still available in the app store—for now. Microsoft is quietly retiring it. Live tiles are gone, too, with Widgets now replacing their functionality. Tablet mode is replaced by what Microsoft calls "new functionality and capability...for keyboard attach and detach postures." Another casualty is the Windows 10 Timeline, although the Start menu's Recommended section still shows your recent documents and apps, and the Copilot+ PCs' Recall feature could be considered a rebirth of Timeline.

More recently, in the 24H2 update, Microsoft removed the WordPad app, Windows Mixed Reality, and the Tips app. There are other removals, but they're less commonly used.

What's Next for Windows?

The software-as-a-service strategy has hit its stride with Windows 11, so it's still a work in progress. The company is committed to delivering some feature updates when they're ready rather than waiting for a major release. Anyone can see feature updates in the Windows Insider builds of Windows 11.

Alongside the slipstreamed updates, Microsoft issues big annual updates, with the 2024 version clearly going even deeper into generative AI. ChromeOS, too, benefits from a steady stream of updates rather than a big annual one like macOS.

As with Windows 10, you can let the company know what you'd like to see added to the software in a dedicated Feedback Hub app, and it responds more often than you might expect. Anyone can sign up for preview builds of the OS through the Windows Insider Program, which lets you experience new features before they're available for general release.

Microsoft has updated its major upgrade schedule to a more traditional three-year release cycle. We may see Windows 12 in 2025, when Windows 10 is officially retired.

Verdict: Windows Is Better Than Ever

Windows 11 has a slick new look, useful new tools, updated default apps, extra capabilities, and performance advances. With Copilot, it's the first desktop operating system to have built-in generative and assistive AI. It surpasses both ChromeOS and macOS on that front and goes further than either on mobile connection features. For dedicated Microsoft users, Windows 11 retains most of the vast feature set of Windows 10. Along with Apple's excellent macOS Sequoia, Windows 11 earns our Editors' Choice award for desktop operating systems.