Buy Now or Wait for Notebook with Windows 11 Preinstalled?

Windows 11 is releasing on Oct. 5.

I think I would prefer having Windows 11 preinstalled because then the "Restore Partition" will be Windows 11 by default, and I will not need to update Windows and drivers if I restore the notebook to factory settings?

I want to purchase a notebook, specifically the "Gigabyte AERO 15 OLED YD", latest by November.

Do you think Windows 11 will be available preinstalled by then? Or should I just purchase it now?

Thanks for any input!

 

It's more about planning. Restore partitions are one thing but, how often are you gong back to "new"? Reinstalling Windows vs Restore isn't that much different. If you have a decent USB drive to do it then it only takes a few minutes to reinstall windows fresh with a cleaned drive and partitions.

I opt to just wipe the drive and start over periodically as new versions are released. System updates don't increment the version # when upgrading from one to another. Decluttering the system files / patches saves space and performance when installing from new. Even with a fresh install it's a good idea to go into the system updates portion of add/remove and remove the older updates that aren't needed any longer.

If I didn't have to use alternative methods / VM to run certain software in Linux I would just use that instead as my main OS. The HW upgrade either way should be a significant improvement over what you're running currently and make up for the W11 install later when it's fully released and if we know anything about the past the new release won't be something to do day 1 or even day 60 until they work out all of the kinks.

 

Out of intetest: what is the appeal of Windows 11?

 

Not sure. it comes with plenty of hurdles from a HW perspective. Then again there are still people content with running W7 or even XP at this point. From a security aspect though it's not the best idea but, you can't convince everyone to be up to date.

 

Windows 10 will be supported for quite a few more years.

 

thanks tech junky!

i think i won't wait, then.. i guess there isn't really a reason to wait for it to come preinstalled since it might be better to simply reinstall windows from usb

and.. correct me if i'm wrong, but the Windows activation key is somehow "in the motherboard", right? therefore, if i were to install windows 11 from usb and then connect to the internet, the microsoft servers should recognize my laptop and activate it, right?

 

Usually a sticker on the bottom of the case.

There may be something different coming w/ W11 though. There are ways around the activation process w/ a little googling No sense in paying for Windows "upgrades" if you already paid the Microsoft tax when purchasing the hardware w/ Windows installed already.

I haven't seen an embedded software activation though other than eSIM's for phone vs a SIM card being inserted for different providers. Anything is possible though as tech advances. The days of Microsoft charging though for consumer licensing seem to be dwindling as they're releasing new versions w/ free upgrade periods of years to do so. Comes back to the tax theory... I'm sure they're making revenue on consumer OS either way from the OEM's installing it on their systems and other revenue streams from app releases.

 

The key is injected in the BIOS, that same key can be used to activate Windows 11 it's a free upgrade.

To find out your Windows 10 Product key that's injected in your computer's motherboard

Even the key is not needed though, Windows setup won't even ask you for it since it will pick it up automatically from the key injected in the BIOS and install the relevant version accordingly (ie. Home or Pro)

Sticker?? LOL, that was like 10 or more years ago. Stickers are a thing of the past now.

 

I don't really pay attn and you're right my laptop doesn't have one on it. I thought I saw one on the inside of the case while working on it. Maybe not... it's not hard to google to find one though.

It may be contained in the "image" that's applied during the build phase. It's not tied to the HW though.

The whole process is archaic at this point anyway.

 

The activation key is injected into the mainboard of the laptop, not the image manufacturers use to load the os with the drivers preinstalled in the factory. You can test this by using a generic Windows image from Microsoft - it will activate and say ‘Activated using a digital license’.
And if the mainboard is missing a key even recovery using a manufacturer’s factory image will not allow you to activate Windows. Unless it was activated before and Microsoft account was used on that computer. In that case when the user signs into their MS account, Windows will activate saying ‘Activated using a a Microsoft account’.

Digital license keys are injected into the mainboards since Windows 8 was released. That is why all (maybe most) Win 8 and above laptops will not have a sticker with an old style Win 7 and below license key printed out. There might be some exceptions, but most laptops should follow the rule.

 

I recall a couple of W8 devices having the # on them. Not all that appealing though if you go and replace parts / disassociate the key from the PC. *shrug*

This does explain why less devices are shipping with media for recovery in addition to the partition I just usually wipe the drive and start from scratch when I pick up something new w/o regard to what it ships with. Typically power it up to make sure it works and then rip it apart to swap parts and reconfigure everything.

 

That is the best way as most manufacturers are paid to ship the laptops with all the extra crap nobody will ever use.

Most laptops are no longer shipped with the recovery media as they have a hidden recovery partition. And most units have a piece of software preinstalled, which allows the customer to create the recovery media inside windows or even download recovery media over the internet. All newer Dell machines can just download the recovery image via F12 menu, HP have Windows store app, which downloads recovery media to a usb drive.

 

@ mariussx

I've been messing with this stuff for decades and it never ceases to amaze me how dumb OEM's / MSFT can be with certain things. Of course you can dummy it up for the average consumer to where they can't F it up 99% of the time if they actually follow the procedure. The only annoying thing would be not being able to have the key in an obvious location to be entered if you needed it. I don't subscribe to the whole process of activating windows and just point the server it's trying to reach >> 127.0.0.1 and let it timeout. In my DNS server I block MSFT and all of their sub domains to prevent "patches" being automagically applied. I've tried the disabling them from policies and it just isn't 100% and things sneak through when they shouldn't be able to. Patches used to be useful and now they just break more stuff when fixing 1 thing that broke on the previous patch. Someone needs to teach them the KISS methods again apparently and emphasize the "if it's not broken, don't fix it" philosophy as the engineers seem to have forgotten.

 

Only time to go W11 is if it's a pro version or x64 version to get the best usage of your system. Anything Home is basically worthless if you want to change or tweaks settings to your needs. So unless there is some needs for W11 if W10 still works that will be supported from long time to come MS isn't going to alienate that user base that just Switched over to Win10 that would be shooting themselves in the foot or having "Foot-in-Mouth" disease.