Windows 10: Microsoft says Windows 11 is 2.3x faster than Windows 10

Microsoft has published an article that boasts that Windows 11 is better and faster than Windows 10. It claims that the newer OS is 2.3x faster, is it?

Windows 10 reaches end of support in October, and Microsoft has already tried to scare people by warning that unsupported PCs will no longer receive security updates, it has also advised people to trade their old computers and buy a new one. All of this is marketing, and so is the claim that Windows 11 is twice as faster than Windows 10.

The company has published an article which is captioned "Windows 11 PCs performance claims", which explains how the tests were conducted. Microsoft says that the test involved playing a local video on various laptops. You can go through all the details in the page I linked above, or read the text in the screenshot below.



The page also lists a table with information about all the computers and their processors. Allow me to split the table into 2, I'll tell you why in just a bit. Take a look at the screenshots, what do they tell you?



These tests were not conducted on the same PC, multiple models were used for the benchmark. While that's good, do you notice something odd in the table?



Microsoft did not test Windows 10 on the machines that ran Windows 11, or vice versa. A proper way to benchmark the systems would be to install Windows 10 on the computers, observe the results, then upgrade them to Windows 11 and test them again. That's not what seems to have happened here, does it? Hey, if you are not upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11, why would your users?

Another issue with this test is that all of these Windows 10 computers have a CPU that is at least 5 years older or more, most of them are from 2017-19. In fact, the i5-6200U is from 2015. Microsoft acknowledges it in the documentation. Yup, they actually used a 10-year-old chip in a modern benchmark.

Can you guess how old the CPUs on all these Windows 11 PCs are? They are all from 2022 or later, the only exception to this is the i7-1065G7 which was released in 2019. It also happens to be the only CPU which was also tested on Windows 10. Notice how the CPU frequencies of the Windows 11 machines have been casually omitted?

I'm not saying the older CPUs are bad, but Microsoft's claim is wild. Nope, Windows 11 isn't 2.3x faster, the computers were faster in the benchmarks because they have newer hardware that are more powerful. I've said this many times, never rely on benchmarks, it is absolutely meaningless compared to real-life usage.

There are so many factors that need to be taken into account, the battery capacity, cache, etc. Take the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H for example, it is manufactured on a 7nm process, whereas the Intel Core i5-1135G7 was based on a 10nm process. That makes a huge difference in power efficiency, and performance. That would explain the results in the other table, which highlights the video playback battery life tests.

You see, these benchmarks are not meant for power-users, they are just numbers to confuse the average user. There are innocent people who would be fooled by this marketing, and really believe their PC will be much faster with Windows 11. Some people might even go and purchase a new PC because they may think Windows 10 is 2.3x times slower.

What about AMD PCs, why doesn't the test include any? Why base this claim on Intel PCs alone? I'm an Intel user, and I think this is an unethical way to market Windows 11, don't fall for these tricks.

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Microsoft Selects Dolby Audio for Windows 10

it would've been great if microsoft added HEVC decoders, LAV filters along with other codecs with Windows 10, and developing WMP to be better than VLC, KMPlayer and such sorts of media players.

Nevertheless, this is good step for microsoft, by far.

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

As you may already know, Windows 10 (as well as Windows 8) allow you to log in with a valid Microsoft account, instead of creating a local account that only works on your machine. However, you may prefer to keep a local account for privacy reasons. If you do, though, some Windows 10 features—like Cortana—may not work. Despite the default behavior, the Windows 10 Store is not one of them. You can still log in to your Microsoft account for just the Store without switching to a full Microsoft account. The process, however, is not terribly obvious. To do so, follow these steps:

• Launch the Store from your Start menu.
• Click the user icon next to the search box.
• Click “Sign-in” from the menu that appears.
• Choose “Microsoft account” and log in like normal.
• When the “Make it yours” box appears do not enter your password. Instead, click “Sign in to just this app instead.”

from Lifehacker