I have, and I generally prefer it to Slack, unlike Slack, it (off the top of my head):
- Has much richer message formatting and doesn't regularly do weird things to mess up the formatting as I'm composing a message. (Just this morning I was fighting Slack to try have nested bullet points not disappearing or de-indenting as I was composing a message).
- Consistently marks messages as read without me having to click chats multiple times for the unread indicator to disappear. With Slack I somewhat regularly have this problem, more than once a week.
- Like every other application on Windows, Ctrl+K works for adding a hyperlink. Slack is in fact so aware that people are used to using the Ctrl+K shortcut it even catches you trying to do it and then tells you how to add hyperlinks in their own special snowflake way.
- Doesn't clutter my Windows notification centre. Unless I clicked the notification center message it doesn't ever disappear. WhatsApp by comparison which also uses the Windows notification center does this perfectly. Slack is the same on iOS, it doesn't clear messages from the notification center once a message is read unless you clicked the notification.
Teams has its warts for sure, but I find it's considerably more polished than Slack in general.
It's not perfect, but I'm very productive and happy using it.
Windows 11 Pro on my Dell Latitude 5540 and it's a rock solid experience.
I on principle always format my disk drive when getting a new PC and reinstall using an ISO downloaded from Microsoft to ensure no OEM software is on them. For my Dell the only thing I install is "Dell Command | Update" (not to be confused with Dell SupportAssist which is crap targeting general consumers). It's for updating drivers and firmware and it does absolutely no nonsense, only prompting me when a driver or firmware update is available.
I use no third-party anti-malware, no "corporate management software", just Windows Defender, but with Dev Drive and exclusions to my working directories so everything is very fast for my development work with Visual Studio.
My work is mostly developing for .NET and Electron which works on Linux and macOS as well. WSL with Visual Studio is super impressive that I can seamlessly debug processes running under WSL from normal Visual Studio. For Electron / NodeJS debugging I can use VS Code which also supports debugging processes running under WSL.
I have done two registry tweaks to Windows 11 to remove a couple of annoyances:
- I've turned off the "simplified" context menu which shows by default in Windows Explorer, otherwise most of what I need is hidden behind an extra click of my mouse.
- I've turned off internet search results from showing on the Start Menu. This is a huge quality of life improvement, I've never ever cared for searching outside of my web browser and it makes the Start Menu super responsive and stops it showing web results above stuff on my local computer which was what I was looking for.
(As a side remark, I was very happy when I only somewhat recently worked out how to get iOS to stop showing web search results when I search my home screen for apps, that was a huge annoyance as I only want to search for apps on my phone by name and often it would show web searches over a locally installed app name.)
People constantly complain here about all the adverts on Windows 11. I honestly don't get any adverts, maybe it's because I'm in South Africa and not the US (marketing sounds like it's beyond obnoxious there). I think it came pre-installed (even when installing with the ISO downloaded from MS) with a few rubbish Windows Store apps (like Candy Crush), but I uninstalled them normally and nothing ever came back. I also use OneDrive already (which integrates really nicely with Windows), maybe if I didn't have it set up, Windows would be bugging me about it.
No experience with slack but channels in teams are pretty terrible.
Notifications off by default so people create new channels with you as a member, write extremely important information inside them and you find out weeks later.
Each post is like an announcement so nobody uses them for the everyday trivial stuff you need a channel for. For casual technical discussion, asking for help. Whenever you post in a channel, assuming people enabled notifications and your post will be actually seen, everyone is compelled to answer as the UI screams for attention.
And don't get me started about it hiding part of a post by default so you answer thinking you read everything but you missed an essential part because post was 4 rows and 2 were hidden.
I really don't get the hate for Teams. At least on Windows and Android it works well enough. One thing I find impressive is since I can't join my earbuds to my company PC I join a meeting on the PC and my phone so I can use my earbuds and microphone while watching video on my PC screen.
An app so broken that can tell you lost access to the Chat... WHILE...you are in a meeting hearing and seeing a visual presentation...Open bug for at least 6 years...
Unable to pause screen during a presentation, one of the most basic features of a professional platform. A feature requested here by more than 2460 users, for at least the last five years:
No, we are talking about pausing or providing a smooth transition to another page. Essential features of a professional presentation. Features present for ever and ever in GotoMeeting, Zoom and Webex...
Have you used Microsoft Teams?