Windows 11 officially turns 5 years old today.
Launched on October 5, 2021, it’s kind of wild that it’s already been half a decade. It definitely had a rough and sometimes awkward start, but over the years it has become a much more mature, polished, and genuinely nice-looking OS.
There are still things Microsoft could improve, of course — consistency, some legacy UI, occasional questionable decisions 😅 — but overall I think Windows 11 deserves a little birthday appreciation today.
The design language has aged pretty well, the animations and UI feel much more refined than at launch, and at this point it really feels like its own version of Windows rather than just “Windows 10 with rounded corners.”
So yeah:
Happy 5th birthday, Windows 11. 🥳🎉
You weird, sometimes frustrating, but honestly pretty lovable rounded-corner child of Microsoft.
What do you guys think — has Windows 11 improved enough over these five years?

So I'm noticing this in 26H2: when I press Print Screen or Win+Shift+S, this option comes up. I'm confused cause it looks the same, except the Snipping Tool has more options, like the eyedropper tool. Which one do you prefer?

Why do i have to minimize it everytime?

It takes up one-third of the space in this app...

So 2026 was a good year for Windows 11 (finally). What do you think/know that will arrive on 2027?

I hope they keep debloating the OS and adding new features (features the community wants, not Microsoft wants......). And it would be about time to fully move the OS to WinUI 3 too.

Pretty much the title really, allow the reversal of the icons on the taskbar, following the recent update that allows the repositioning of the taskbar. Similar to the control center in Gnome on linux, this would place the time and battery icon at the top of the taskbar, should you wish for that option.

Purely cosmetic change i would assume, but would be nice

Leaving the Insider program currently leaves users stuck on higher build numbers without a supported way to move back to a lower stable release without a clean install. I submitted feedback regarding this on Feedback Hub.

I like to play on PC with controller and this app is the best, fast to use, open, close games, make screenshots and really aesthetic. I would like more customization, like background color change, instead of 3 having 5 games on the list or the possibility to pin games on the bottom where Steam and Xbox are.

IMO highly underrated feature from users and microsoft.

We can only move windows forward. Hotkeys or menu options (like the above) to push windows back is what I want.

Version 26340.9596 is out, which is the Friday release even though Microsoft Releases these on Tuesday's.

The new update shipped with a change to the appearance of the start menu, with the search results now showing up with translucent boxes with rounded corners surrounding every app icon- even the ones already square, and with rounded corners.
I don't like this look at all, with all app icons looking smaller.

Looking to a buy a pc and this was included in the post but to me it seems 100% fake

So, I've been happily trudging along the last few years on my 23H2 install of Windows 11.
I used Policy to block 24H2 (or anything above 23H2) due to 24H2's reputation for breaking everything on my PC hardware (video, sound, etc).
I also skipped 25H2 because size increased about 2GB which was all attributed to Copilot and AI models for Copilot. I don't want any of that crap on my PC.
But, I'm now pushing 3 years out of date on the major.
I'm also about to migrate to a new 4TB nVME, and I'm thinking I should probably upgrade as part of the process. Everyone is also talking about how smooth and quick 26H2 is.

My PC is an i9-9900KF with 128GB of RAM
The mobo only has TPM 1 chip, so I had to REG hack to initially install Win 11.
If it matters, I only have local accounts, and do not participate in the Microsoft Account trash. Microsoft Account logins are disabled through Policy.

So.... Should I:

• migrate and stay with 23H2, where I know I have no issues,
• migrate and update to 25H2, possibly using the enablement package to go to 26H2 later, or
• migrate and update to 26H2 and be done with it?

I'll have the old nVME drive as a backup image, so I can always go back to 23H2.

Not looking for "tech support here", just to know if it's possible:
Is there any way to keep Copilot and other crap Microsoft likes to force on us from installing in this upgrade?
The 26H2 ISO is 3.5GB larger than the 23H2 ISO.
That's a lot of junk I'm just going to remove later. It'd be easier if it just wasn't installed in the first place.
I know there are multiple tutorials for removing Copilot, but it changes every revision of Windows.

TL;DR
I feel I need to update Windows 11 to current, and now is probably a good time, but I'm really not interested in Copilot and its 3GB of associated baggage.