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I bought a used Dell G5 gaming laptop that came with Windows 11. Had to setup a MS account as I could not find a way around that BS which is okay since I have it on my old laptop. Anyway, my question is around Open Shell. Does it work with Windows 11? Not really liking the desktop. Have to use search to find simple things like computer management.

Open Shell has a beta that seems to be working on Win11, but it's not public yet, and not without problems: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shel ... ssions/894

The author is running into some serious issues because Microsoft has broken a lot of things to make it very hard for Open Shell to work, and the author is a one man band working in his spare time.

If I had to run Win11 on a PC right now (and I will cling to Win10 until they pry it out of my cold, dead hands), I would use Stardock's Start 11: https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/

I used Stardock's Start 10 on one of my Win11 PCs before Open Shell was fully compatible with it, and it worked just fine. It's not free, but it's pretty damn cheap, and it's worth it if you want the classic start menu back.

If it's Win11 Pro, you can switch it from an MS account to a local user account: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ho ... ws-11-pro/

Nope - I don't have the pro version and thanks for that additional info. According to the person I bought it from, it still has the win10 image from the dell factory. He removed it and installed 11 fresh because he did not like all that dell crap. 11 seems to work fine, and I'll guess I'll have to get use to it.

You can always download the Win10 installer from Microsoft and install that. The license is in the BIOS.

It's a Dell G5 SE 5505 gaming laptop. R7 4800H, RX 5600M, 16gb G.Skill DDR4 3200, 512gb NVME storage with second open NVME slot. 15" 144hz Freesync Premium display as well. Also includes an extra charging brick. I already ordered a 1TB nvme for the open slot since 500gb is not enough. The only issue I'm having is I can't get the back light to turn on. According to the person I bought it from, I need to install the Alienware Command Center.

i have the pro windows 11 running open shell no problems we have found ~windows defender will try and keep you from loading the program .
once loaded and the shell start tab installed = I found all kinds of small programs MS preloaded .

I'm going to wait for a while until OpenShell is more refined with 11. If that does not happen, then I'll grab Stardock.

Well I got tired of the new Win11 desktop and ordered Stardock. Since I was a previous owner, I got it for only $3.99 as an upgrade.

we just read some place today the latest update for windows 11. on some computers are making the keyboards stop working .
wish I remember were we read it at .there is a work around for it do.

https://www.techadvisor.com/article/812 ... -bugs.html
Windows 11’s July security update breaks the Start menu

So I'm usually all for change and I actually through the Start Menu's progression to what ended up in Windows 10 was actually great. I just finally actually used a desktop running Windows 11. Holy hell, WTF? They turned it into a phone/tablet interface. I'm going to really have to dig into whatever customization options are available to see if I ever find something I like.

Worst case Stardock does have a Start11 utility that let's you customize the start menu. Mainly to make it work more like Win 7.

Stardock has been working perfectly on my laptop. Since installing it, it was updated twice.

I dislike when they don't give us familiar interfaces or the option to have the older interface. Sometimes new isn't better.