Microsoft announced Windows 11 today, and one of the headline features of the “next generation” operating system is its visual overhaul. It’s released an entire video about how it designed its new OS, which shows off the new rounded corners, icons, and more.
Here’s a look at some of the UI changes Microsoft showed off in its presentation today (along with some that we got a look at from subsequent videos), and how they compare to Windows 10.
Microsoft has moved the Start button from its time-honored place in the lower left-hand corner to the middle of the screen. While it’s a smaller change than what Microsoft did with the Start screen in Windows 8, it’s still likely going to take some getting used to — for some, it’ll be going against over 25 years of muscle memory. The pinned taskbar items are also moving with it, taking center stage on your screen.
(Microsoft will let people move things back to the left if they don’t like the change, though, according to The Wall Street Journal.)
Clicking that Start button reveals the updated Start menu, which Microsoft says is powered by the cloud and Office 365. Where the Start menu in Windows 10 mostly acted as a list of apps, the version in Windows 11 will recommend which apps and documents you may like to work on.
Live Tiles, which used to live in the Start menu, have been replaced by widgets, which get their own space.
Microsoft says it’s rebuilt its store to make it faster and to give it a new design.