Just upgraded to win 11 . advice needed

I have upgraded my win 10 laptop to win 11.
What I need to know is do I need to install all my programs again because they are not showing on desktop or do I have to do something to access them?
thanks
arbee

Hello @arbee and welcome to ElevenForum.



The first thing I would do, is check in Program Files and Program Files (x86), to make sure the programs are still there.
Most everything that worked on Windows 10 should work on Windows 11.

It would also help to know, "how" you upgraded?
Windows Update? In-Place Upgrade? Clean install?



And I'm just putting these here for future reference. They are not important... right at this moment.

Thanks for the response.
My programs are not in Program Files and Program Files (x86),
I upgraded by using Rufus to install the win11 home.

arbee said:

My programs are not in Program Files and Program Files (x86),
I upgraded by using Rufus to install the win11 home.

Click to expand...

Sounds like you did a clean install.
If that's the case, you erased all your programs.

Can we assume your computer is "not" compatible with Windows 11, and that's why you used RUFUS?
It's OK... lots of folks do that. We just need to know... "how" to help with this.


1. If you did a clean install... then you probably have to re-install all your programs.
2. If you did an In-Place upgrade and didn't choose to "Keep all programs and files"... then you'll have to re-install your programs.

yes my computer was not compatible with win11

arbee said:

yes my computer was not compatible with win11

Click to expand...

If you don't have a full backup of your old Windows 10 install... then yes, you will have to re-install all your programs.

Also... up above, the "Windows 11 Tweaks - Leader Board", has many of the most requested, "make it look like Win 10" tweaks.

ok thanks

arbee said:

ok thanks

Click to expand...

Many of us have... "been there, done that".
In the long run, a clean install will probably generate fewer problems... down the road.


This is probably the first tweak you should do, and do it fast... Windows Updates start in 10 minutes...
Most of us have already applied this tweak.


Do Option #2, step #3, 4, 5, 6, 7... and reboot, quickly. You now have seven minutes.


Many times a driver included with Windows Update will break something on non-compatible computers.

Any driver that was offered with a Windows Update will still be there. It just won't get installed without your permission.
It will be under the "Drivers" section in Windows Updates.
This tweak, just makes them... Optional.

Thanks for the advice.
I have just restored back to win10. Everything is back to normal.
I will leave the win11 until I can do it properly.
once again thankyou

arbee said:

Thanks for the advice.
I have just restored back to win10. Everything is back to normal.
I will leave the win11 until I can do it properly.
once again thankyou

Click to expand...

Reading many of the topics and problems others have had and overcome will help with that.
Never, upgrade a computer on Microsoft Patch Tuesday (2nd Tuesday of each month).

Here's a good topic to read...




Another thing you should do, is fill out your computer specs, in your Eleven Forum profile.
That will help a lot in the future.

arbee said:

Thanks for the advice.
I have just restored back to win10. Everything is back to normal.
I will leave the win11 until I can do it properly.
once again thankyou

Click to expand...

If you made the drive via rufus, launch the setup from within windows 10. You can upgrade to 11 from there and it should skip the requirements your machine lacks. That will keep your programs and data. If you did it at boot, you did a clean install as others have mentioned.

If you upgrade from an iso. you're offered to keep your personal files and settings.

Everything should be there when you login to Windows after the OOBE is completed.

arbee said:

Thanks for the advice.
I have just restored back to win10. Everything is back to normal.
I will leave the win11 until I can do it properly.
once again thankyou

Click to expand...

Being it's Patch Tuesday today, you can do the updates in Windows 10. If later you decide to upgrade to 11 on the unsupported machine, you can do the in-place upgrade from your Rufus flash drive by doing it from within Windows. Just insert the flash drive and run setup from the flash drive.

Ghot said:

Reading many of the topics and problems others have had and overcome will help with that.
Never, upgrade a computer on Microsoft Patch Tuesday (2nd Tuesday of each month).

Here's a good topic to read...

Let's install Windows 11 on incompatible hardware

Inspired on this thread: Let's run Win10 on really really old hardware - Windows 10 Help Forums Most of our machines are unsupported on Windows 11, why not force it? --------- Run Windows 11 on unsupported machines --------- 1. How to Bypass Windows 11's TPM, CPU and RAM Requirements 2...

www.elevenforum.com

Another thing you should do, is fill out your computer specs, in your Eleven Forum profile.
That will help a lot in the future.

Click to expand...

I always update on patch Tuesday and let windows update handle my drivers. Never had an issue since the days of XP so guess I must be doing it wrong if I’ve never had a problem.

You have learned from experience why you need to backup before upgrading your PC!

NormanF said:

If you upgrade from an iso. you're offered to keep your personal files and settings.

Everything should be there when you login to Windows after the OOBE is completed.

Click to expand...

I did check the keep personal files and settings and they documents and downloads etc were all there but not the installed programs.

I finally upgraded to win11 onb another older laptop and it everything seems ok. I had t install prorams again which also went pretty well. The only problem I hgave is with recycle bin. There are no options shown to empty recycle bin. In fact no text in the top of the window. I have posted a pic of the screenshot. As you can see the top is blank.

arbee said:

I finally upgraded to win11 onb another older laptop and it everything seems ok. I had t install prorams again which also went pretty well. The only problem I hgave is with recycle bin. There are no options shown to empty recycle bin. In fact no text in the top of the window. I have posted a pic of the screenshot. As you can see the top is blank.View attachment 93338

Click to expand...

Looks like you are using open/classic shell. I would remove it and see if the problem goes away.

arbee said:

I did check the keep personal files and settings and they documents and downloads etc were all there but not the installed programs.

Click to expand...

In my experience, traditional programs have to be freshly installed but web apps and Microsoft Store apps usually have to be synced again from OneDrive.

Thanks for the replies. I have got it all sorted now .
Win11 seems just a bit slower than 10 but its ok though now I am getting used to it..