A new Windows 11 Start Menu. You heard that right! Like how you swipe through your smartphone app menu on a daily, a frequent PC user will tell you just how much the Start Menu saves the day. One important change we took note of from the recent Microsoft OS unveil is the repainted PC experience with a new home on the taskbar and a redesigned layout of apps and functions.
You won’t get the advanced graphics or designs. But we can promise you that Microsoft is making some big changes to the Windows Start Menu. There a visible changes to the layout and your user experience will be much more boosted with the features included now fully streamlined.
The Start Button is in a different place
In the new operating system, you will find the default home of the Start Button is in a different place from where you are used to seeing it in the past versions of Windows. Away from the rather static icon in the lower-left corner of the screen, it is now in the middle part of the taskbar.
Well, the good news is that you have all the room to set it back to the left position – if it is what you find satisfying. What has not changed is your ability to open the Windows 11 Start Menu with a tap of the Windows key. So, when you open the Start Menu, what do you see? Let’s get into this briefly.
What makes up the Windows 11 Start Menu?
The new Windows 11 Start Menu has four sections: the Search bar, the pinned apps, the recommended apps, and Account section.
Search bar
The Start Menu search bar lets you input text to search through all of the apps and files. This also crawls content from the internet as well as the Windows Store, all depending on what you are searching for. It outputs a search results interface that lets you quickly sort between Apps, Documents, Web results and other positive hits.
Pinned apps
These are your pinned apps – a list of your frequently used apps and not necessarily generated automatically by the system. This implies that you can fully customize the start menu to be perfect for you and your needs. Alongside this is a button for All Apps. This should list all apps and programs installed on your PC.
Recommended
The next section labeled Recommended should be made up of automatically generated recommendations for the apps and files you are most likely to need. We are yet to know the specifics of how these items are selected. But we can believe that it could be based on your frequently used apps or on the files that you open in the course of your daily work.
User account
At the bottom of the Start Menu is a profile picture, identifying the active user account. Clicking on this will probably give you the option of signing out, switching users or locking your system. In the lower right-hand corner of the Start Menu is a power icon. We assume this will pull up options to shut down or restart the machine, or just put it in sleep mode, when you click on it.
When will Windows 11 be available?
Windows 10 users can know if their PCs are eligible to upgrade to Windows 11 by checking the PC Health Check app from Microsoft free of charge. The upgrade will start to become available through the Windows Update section of the Settings app later this year and continue through 2022. If you want to try an early version of Windows 11, you can access it through the Windows Insider Program.