You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who isn’t displeased with Windows 11 in some shape or form, but Microsoft is developing a new Windows 11 Start menu that’s bound to make a lot of people happy.
Bluesky user phantomofearth, who dives into Windows Insider builds, discovered the new Start menu in a recent build. The menu offers a larger, more streamlined look that finally displays all of your apps in one place. More importantly, you can finally axe the Recommended feed.
Getting the apps front and center is nice and all, but I’m more excited about the overall customization.
The new Windows 11 Start menu
Previous Windows 10 users have been asking for this back forever now, which makes sense why people are so excited. Going a step backward is obviously a step forward for Windows, which surprises (let me check) no one.
To be clear, I am still using Windows 10 for my gaming PC for these exact issues… and also Microsoft put a ridiculous hardware requirement on Windows 11. (At least I get to experience the silliness on each laptop I review.)
Again, I love that I don’t need to go through two different menus just to see my apps and that I don’t need to see the (generally) useless Recommended section anymore. However, a list of all the apps in alphabetical order isn’t exactly clean, either. It just makes it more accessible.
With the new UI, you can easily switch between seeing “All” apps alphabetically, all apps in a Name Grid, and then in Categories. This isn’t anything new, but the Category setting previously felt useless because I’d have to click into the Start menu, click All, then click on the category with the app I want, and finally click the app.
However, now with Categories, you'd get an instant, clean look at all my apps in the Start menu on one page with little-to-no scrolling. This isn’t revolutionary by any means, but Microsoft makes Windows hard to love. Heck, that’s why some folks ditched Windows 11 for Linux.
But if the Categories aren’t your style, you can now pin more apps, up to 8 per row. And you’re not stuck with 3 rows anymore, you can technically customize all the apps you see on your Start menu by doing this. So, folks who are very particular will have a field day customizing their Start menu.
If all you care about is ditching the Recommended section, however, you can disable it in the Personalization section in the Settings. Or at least whenever this update becomes available.
Technically, this feature was found in both the 23H2 and 24H2 versions of Windows 11. All that means is that we’ll likely see these new features soon, ideally in the coming weeks.
I won’t be surprised if Laptop Mag Windows expert Rael Hornby has a few things to say about it, so stay tuned for that.
