Your impressions of 24H2, plus/minus of moving to it

Apologies in advance for what will sound like a clueless newb post, the type that usually prompts replies like "use the search function" or "why haven't you read this or that existing thread that answers your exact question." I'll just say that I'm dealing with some seriously urgent things at the minute and can't summon the energy to scrape through a lot of threads. And so...

I keep seeing the little icon on my taskbar hoping to entice me to move from 23H2 to 24H2.
-Any reason that waiting to install it would be a bad decision? The last thing I need is a time sink to fix a newly installed problem.
-Are there known issues for a garden-variety user with Chrome browsing, MS Office, Quicken, and other odds and ends on a Lenovo tablet?
-Is there a performance difference vs 23H2, better or worse?

My computer is coming up on 3 years old and that's getting close to the age when I've sometimes found further OS upgrades to slow down a computer. My last PC, I stopped upgrading at 4 or 5 years (other than virus definitions, of course) and it ran quite well until it was 10 years old.

According to Microsoft, Windows 11 version 24H2 is significantly faster than previous Windows 11 versions, particularly in terms of update installation speed, with claims of up to 45% faster installation times and reduced CPU usage during updates due to improvements in the Windows Update process; this also leads to faster restart times after updates. However, I can't say I can notice any differences lol. It is currently running pretty smoothly on both my machines now however.

FrancoDT said:

According to Microsoft, Windows 11 version 24H2 is significantly faster than previous Windows 11 versions, particularly in terms of update installation speed, with claims of up to 45% faster installation times and reduced CPU usage during updates due to improvements in the Windows Update process; this also leads to faster restart times after updates. However, I can't say I can notice any differences lol. It is currently running pretty smoothly on both my machines now however.

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Same here. I agree.

For me, 24H2 seems to work as good as 23H2. I installed 24H2 on December 5 and an update (KB5048667) on December 12. I have no real issues, just some cosmetic stuff. I use Chrome and MS Office 2007, but I don't use Quicken. I use a lot of other applications and 24H2 doesn't seem to bother them at all (IRFanview, Filezilla, ZonerDraw, DOSBox, Cygwin64, GTKWave, etc..).

The only cosmetic issue I found was that, the calendar had regular numbers and Chinese numbers. Why would MS think that I would, all of a sudden, want Chinese characters on my calendar? It was quick to fix and eliminate the Chinese numbers. Also, now you can set the Notifications to Do Not Disturb. The the little notifications bell has z's on it. Waste of time, if you ask me.

Buddy said:

I keep seeing the little icon on my taskbar hoping to entice me to move from 23H2 to 24H2.
-Any reason that waiting to install it would be a bad decision? The last thing I need is a time sink to fix a newly installed problem.
-Are there known issues for a garden-variety user with Chrome browsing, MS Office, Quicken, and other odds and ends on a Lenovo tablet?
-Is there a performance difference vs 23H2, better or worse?

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I have three laptops that are supported devices for Windows 11. The first I jumped the queue when 24H2 was released, using the target feature update trick to persuade Windows Update to find and install 24H2 within days of release. The other two would wait until offered while I assessed 24H2.

Generally there's little difference in performance, 24H2 may be a touch faster, it certainly isn't any slower. There are some minor bugs though, so I was in no hurry to force it on the other two.

The second was offered 24H2 a week or so ago. My first upgrade was disappointing, so I went straight back to 23H2. I tried the update again after the Patch Tuesday update had addressed some issues. This time I decided to keep it for now.

My third machine hasn't been offered it, and from what I've seen I'm in no hurry to get it.

No, there are no compelling reasons to get 24H2, and waiting a few month for more bugs to get fixed can do no harm.

Buddy said:

My computer is coming up on 3 years old and that's getting close to the age when I've sometimes found further OS upgrades to slow down a computer. My last PC, I stopped upgrading at 4 or 5 years (other than virus definitions, of course) and it ran quite well until it was 10 years old.

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I routinely clean up system files after each Patch Tuesday cumulative update. Perhaps that's why I've never found any of my machines to slow down with age. In fact, my System One in My Computers below has an OS that started life on another machine as Windows 7, then had the Windows 10 free upgrade, and every upgrade since. Then it got the Windows 11 upgrade in 2021 after moving the OS to a new machine...

Bree said:

...As such it's probably the only Win11 machine that has an upgrade history going back through 17 upgrades over nine years

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How to get the Windows 11 2024 Update (24H2) - post #88

I strongly recommend you make a full system image before upgrading to protect yourself. The upgrade has applied without issues for a lot of people, but has failed for others. If the upgrade encounters a problem during application, if things work as they are designed to, the system will rollback. However, things can and do go wrong. It's best to be prepared just in case.

glasskuter said:

I strongly recommend you make a full system image before upgrading to protect yourself. The upgrade has applied without issues for a lot of people, but has failed for others. If the upgrade encounters a problem during application, if things work as they are designed to, the system will rollback. However, things can and do go wrong. It's best to be prepared just in case.

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Not what I wanted to hear. I've got Macrium and am comfortable making full images. But. I haven't worked out the particulars of doing a restore, nor have I tested it (to whatever extent you can do that without actually restoring). And that adds a level that will likely have to wait a month or two until some things get resolved. Don't have the time or the inclination to do that for now.

Buddy said:

Not what I wanted to hear. I've got Macrium and am comfortable making full images. But. I haven't worked out the particulars of doing a restore, nor have I tested it (to whatever extent you can do that without actually restoring). And that adds a level that will likely have to wait a month or two until some things get resolved. Don't have the time or the inclination to do that for now.

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For what it's worth I restored my Macrium backup two times when I tried upgrading from 23H2 to 24H2 without any problems lol. It was straight forward and smooth. I did mine right from the startup boot menu. Why because the two versions of 24H2 I installed on one machine kept causing my file explorer to crash constantly when I right clicked any file or folder. The third time I installed 24H2 I had happened to find a fix for the explorer crash issue so once that problem was solved it became a keeper and both machines have been running it smoothly since then. It's a roll of the dice without a backup however.

Buddy said:

Not what I wanted to hear. I've got Macrium and am comfortable making full images. But. I haven't worked out the particulars of doing a restore, nor have I tested it (to whatever extent you can do that without actually restoring). And that adds a level that will likely have to wait a month or two until some things get resolved. Don't have the time or the inclination to do that for now.

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Macrium restores are pretty simple.

Have you already created a bootable USB rescue drive? That's simple, too.

Whether the horror stories about 24H2 are worse than for previous updates, I have no idea.

I had an issue with monitor profiling software. (Used for color management.) Turned out to be a feature ("automatically manage color for apps") that interfered with profiling software, not a bug. Windows keeps enabling it. I can't use it.