Latest news with #StartMenu
The Verge
8 hours ago
- The Verge
You can now try Microsoft's new Start menu for Windows 11
Microsoft is now allowing Windows 11 testers to try out a new, larger Start menu that includes a scrollable interface, new views, and more customizability. An early version of the new Start menu first started showing up in Windows 11 builds in April, followed by Microsoft's official announcement in May. Today's Dev Channel release lets you try it out officially for the first time. 'We're making it easier for you to launch your apps with our updated, scrollable Start menu,' explains the Windows Insider team. This scrollable Start menu means that all apps is now at the top level, so you don't have to navigate to a second page to find your apps. You'll also be able to disable the recommended section so you can see more of your apps, and choose two new views: category and grid. The default category view groups apps by category, and the grid view is ordered alphabetically more like a traditional list view. Microsoft has also made the Start menu larger based on the screen size of your device or monitor. 'On larger devices, users can expect to see 8 columns of pinned apps, 6 recommendations, and 4 columns of categories in the Start menu,' says the Windows Insider team. 'On smaller devices, you'll see 6 columns of pinned apps, 4 recommendations, and 3 columns of categories.' There's also a new mobile device button on the Start menu that lets you expand or collapse the Phone Link interface that appears alongside the Start menu. Microsoft is also allowing Windows 11 users to choose what lock screen widgets appear, allowing you to add or remove widgets and rearrange them for the lock screen.
The Verge
13-05-2025
- The Verge
Microsoft reveals its rejected Start menu redesigns
Microsoft is redesigning the Start menu in Windows 11 this month with a new, wider design that finally lets you disable the recommended feed of files and apps. While the new Start menu looks different to what exists in Windows 11 today, this design refresh could have looked a lot different as Microsoft has now revealed in concept images. In a blog post detailing the process of redesigning the Start menu, Microsoft has revealed five concept designs that could have radically overhauled how the menu works in Windows. One includes an even more rounded menu with widget-like functionality, and a separate For You section that lists Teams meetings, YouTube videos, and recently used files. Another concept has the For You section separated at the side, with the main menu focused on categories of apps, and another prototype imagines a landing page as the Start menu, complete with shortcuts, apps, files, and separate sections to access your Android phone, personalized app lists, and creation tools. There's even a start menu concept that appears to take up the entire vertical space of a screen, complete with separated sections that you seem to scroll vertically to access. Image: Microsoft Image: Microsoft 'Whiteboards, Figma frames, floor-to-ceiling paper prototypes—nothing was too scrappy,' says the Windows design team. 'We sketched out a plethora of layouts, letting ourselves go wild and discover new things before applying the editorial pen.' Microsoft tested its various Start menu designs with more than 300 Windows 11 fans and even co-creation calls with select fans. 'We watched eye-tracking heat maps swirl, counted scroll wheels, and listened for 'oh!'s of delight to know where we were hitting the mark,' says the design team. The focus of the new Start menu has been on being able to easily see your apps, customizability, speed, and not overhauling it too much to 'respect three decades of muscle memory.' The result is a new Start menu that's bigger and more customizable than what exists today. Being able to remove the recommended feed will be a welcome addition for many, and the phone companion panel looks like it's fully built into the Start menu to provide quick access to recent calls, messages, and phone files. Microsoft is testing this new Start menu with Windows Insiders over the coming month, so expect to see it show up for all Windows 11 users in the coming months.
Phone Arena
13-05-2025
- Phone Arena
The new Windows 11 Start menu is tame – but these rejected designs are anything but
Image Credit - Windows on Unsplash Microsoft is bringing a new Start menu to Windows 11 later this year. The new customizable layout combines the all-app list and the main Start menu page. Now, Microsoft is sharing in a new blog post how this new Start menu was designed, with the aim of maintaining familiarity while making it easier to access your apps. The blog post also gives us a glimpse at some other design concepts for the new Start menu that the company explored during the development and early planning of the changes. As you can see from the designs, the company has explored a variety of options, some more exciting than others. One of the designs appears to attempt to fuse the Windows 10 Start menu with Windows 11: all apps list is to the forefront on the left side, while Windows 11's pinned and recent files are on the right. Another design seems to be somewhat of a successor to Windows 8's full-screen menu. That, I reckon, not a lot of Windows 11 fans would have been fans of. This design shows a "Start screen" and a blurred background taking up the display area. You can see your pinned apps above, and a "create" section where you can launch Microsoft services like Designer, Clipchamp, or PowerPoint. Many of the shown designs have such an area, or both a "create" and a "for you" section. The "for you" section was aimed at showing your upcoming day, including any meetings or tasks to complete, alongside recent files. The Start menu that will start shipping soon doesn't have both of these sections. Another Start menu design shows an area dedicated to your phone. The Phone Link companion is shipping now with the new Start menu, but one of the designs shows it integrated into the menu itself, instead of appearing just as a sidebar. The customizable Start menu Microsoft has picked. | Image Credit - Microsoft All of these designs were discarded, and Microsoft has preferred a simpler Start menu.
The Verge
06-05-2025
- The Verge
Windows 11 is getting a new Start menu this month
Microsoft is revamping the Windows 11 Start menu and adding a glut of new AI features over the next month, coming first to Windows Insiders running Snapdragon X Copilot Plus PCs like the newly announced Surface devices. The new Start menu, first discovered last month in an early build preview, is roomier and gives easier scrollable access to the all apps view — complete with category organization. Aside from likely looking much better on large displays, the updated Windows 11 Start menu will have a new phone companion panel, giving quick access to recent contacts, messages, calls, battery level, and more on a synced iPhone or Android device. Windows 11 is also getting a variety of new AI features, including an AI agent baked into the Windows settings menu; more Click to Do text and image actions; AI editing features for Paint, Photos, and the Snipping Tool; Copilot Vision visual search; improved Windows Search; rich image descriptions for Narrator; AI writing functions in Notepad; and AI actions from within File Explorer. In its detailed blog post Microsoft says the AI features are designed to 'make our experiences more intuitive, more accessible, and ultimately more useful.' Users will be able to ask an on-device AI to adjust Windows settings for them, or seek help troubleshooting a problem they're experiencing — like the mouse cursor being too small. According to Microsoft's example image above, Windows will flag these with a 'Recommendations are AI-generated and may be incorrect' warning. That doesn't exactly instill the most confidence, considering Windows settings can do things like factory reset your computer. As for the File Explorer, right-clicking a file will offer new Click to Do-like shortcuts such as editing images and generating text summaries before you open a file. For those that actually use Microsoft's core Windows apps for editing images, you'll be able to use a new 'Relight' feature in the Photos app to add up to three positional light sources to a picture. The Paint app will get a new content-aware selection tool for moving, erasing, and generative fill, and it will be able to generate digital stickers from a text prompt. The other big image-related features are for the Snipping Tool: a function called Perfect Screenshot that automatically crops to the most prominent content, the ability to copy text from images and screenshots, and an eyedropper tool for sampling on-screen colors. Windows on Arm users with Snapdragon X chips will be first on deck for these new features, but Copilot Plus PC owners with Intel and AMD chips will also get the updates a little later.
