Microsoft Gives Windows 10 Start Menu an Overhaul

[AleksandarK]

Microsoft is giving the Windows 10 OS some finishing touches still, as a lot of UI is slowly changing over time. For example, just a few months back we have received a new icon pack that brought the material design to Windows 10 icons. However, now Microsoft is going even further in its mission to blend UI elements and give users the best possible viewing pleasure. This time, Microsoft is giving the start menu an overhaul. "We are freshening up the Start menu with a more streamlined design that removes the solid color backplates behind the logos in the apps list and applies a uniform, partially transparent background to the tiles. This design creates a beautiful stage for your apps, especially the Fluent Design icons for Office and Microsoft Edge, as well as the redesigned icons for built-in apps like Calculator, Mail, and Calendar that we started rolling out earlier this year."

It is available in Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 20161 and should come to mainstream later on. If you want to splash a bit of color (see images below) you can apply that theme by going to Settings > Personalization > Color, then toggle the "Show accent color on the following surfaces" for "Start, taskbar, and action center". Below, you can check before and after comparison between old and new designs, along with the new color theme.


View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[SL2]

Incoming: Bitter ramblings about how good Windows 7 looks.

 

[Vayra86]

Its mind blowing how MS can fiddle around with something as simple as color settings and a start menu.

Its like, they intentionally break it so they can fix things again. The same goes for Windows Settings. Window after window of redirection into yet another window with minimal information density. How is this better than having everything together in one Window with tabs like the old days? Irony, if you dig too deep into advanced settings you DO end up in that good old window with tabs to discover it was all in one place to begin with

This start menu and its woes... yes. I recognize them. The color picker they offer was horrible to begin with. Another mind blowing thing is how they arrange those tiles and how the drag and drop works technically. You can barely see what you're doing until its too late and the whole tile space has been rearranged to 'fit' whatever you are dragging. Give me a clear outline or something... its not hard, its been done about 1814812931480 times before, MS.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Incoming: Bitter ramblings about how good Windows 7 looks.

and performs...

Its mind blowing how MS can fiddle around with something as simple as color settings and a start menu.

Its like, they intentionally break it so they can fix things again. The same goes for Windows Settings. Window after window of redirection into yet another window with minimal information density. How is this better than having everything together in one Window with tabs like the old days? Irony, if you dig too deep into advanced settings you DO end up in that good old window with tabs to discover it was all in one place to begin with

This start menu and its woes... yes. I recognize them. The color picker they offer was horrible to begin with. Another mind blowing thing is how they arrange those tiles and how the drag and drop works technically. You can barely see what you're doing until its too late and the whole tile space has been rearranged to 'fit' whatever you are dragging. Give me a clear outline or something... its not hard, its been done about 1814812931480 times before, MS.

m$ makes up reasons to screw up your perfect windows settings and appearance because they "know whats best" for you, assuming that you are too stupid to think for yourself, or its a ploy to cause premature baldness since it makes you pull your hair out. Let me pass the well oiled tin hat around here.

 

[W1zzard]

imagine going from this

to this

people would be "omg, where is my candy crush?"

 

[windwhirl]

imagine going from this

to this

people would be "omg, where is my candy crush?"

Frankly, I just want Windows 2000' Start menu back

Seriously, though, I saw the headline and my first thought was "Oh, Microsoft, what the heck did you do now?!"

 

[dorsetknob]

people would be "omg, where is my candy crush?"

"Its on your phone where it belongs"

 

[dj-electric]

I'm just sitting here waiting for search function to work properly, instead of relying on 3rd party software

 

[windwhirl]

I'm just sitting here waiting for search function to work properly, instead of relying on 3rd party software

Using the command line is faster if you have the file's name.

True Story.

 

[anselhelm]

For anyone who hasn't already come across this, I recommend StartIsBack - https://www.startisback.com

It gives you customisation options for the Windows 10 start menu, so you can have it pretty much however you want. For me, it's an essential (and very cheap) program for any Windows 10 installation, due to increasing useability.

 

[cucker tarlson]

really ? I just installed 2004 on a new machine and can't see the difference
I can't go into personalization tho,cause reasons.

 

[dyonoctis]

Its mind blowing how MS can fiddle around with something as simple as color settings and a start menu.

Its like, they intentionally break it so they can fix things again. The same goes for Windows Settings. Window after window of redirection into yet another window with minimal information density. How is this better than having everything together in one Window with tabs like the old days? Irony, if you dig too deep into advanced settings you DO end up in that good old window with tabs to discover it was all in one place to begin with

This start menu and its woes... yes. I recognize them. The color picker they offer was horrible to begin with. Another mind blowing thing is how they arrange those tiles and how the drag and drop works technically. You can barely see what you're doing until its too late and the whole tile space has been rearranged to 'fit' whatever you are dragging. Give me a clear outline or something... its not hard, its been done about 1814812931480 times before, MS.

For all the shit that microsoft gets about having copied apple, the settings is the one thing that I wish that they actually copied if they wanted to make it more mainstream. It's faster to find what you look for in osx than in windows.

The irony is that the system settings allow you to hide the apps, but not the tiles . We already have our phone to check the weather/news, even Apple decided to kill the dashboard and their widgets, the user is the one deciding weither or not they want to have third party widget in the notification center.
Pinned apps in the start menu are overlapping with pinned apps in the task bar. The new icons are nice though.

 

[birdie]

Starting with W8, the start menu in W10 has been an unmitigated unusable disaster that's why the first thing I do after I install W10 is installing Open Shell (previously known as Classic Shell).

 

[R00kie]

Hate me or don't (please don't), but I like it.

 

[dgianstefani]

It's a 2 minute job to clean up the start menu to have it windows 2000 reminiscent as has already been posted, or to be a slightly better windows 7 start menu.

Quit whinging, Windows has always allowed easy customisation, and if stock UI settings are whats keeping you on an 11 year old OS, then maybe question your status as a techie.

 

[toilet pepper]

imagine going from this

to this

people would be "omg, where is my candy crush?"

And when you type it int the search bar it wont come out.

 

[Caring1]

people would be "omg, where is my candy crush?"

But I like my Candy Crush on the start menu.

 

[SL2]

Since I don't have OCD I'm able to fill the task bar with program shortcuts. I open Start about once a week.

But yeah, I don't use a lot of programs to being with, there's room for at least 40 of them on a 1080 screen, and other rarely programs I open from Start or Explorer.

 

[Deleted member 181753]

So do you lads and gents like the windows 10 start menu or something more precise more lite

 

[Chrispy_]

The biggest problem with the start menu is still - 5 years after launch - that the search function is often broken.

Sometimes you can type "control panel" and get Bing web results for Control panel rather than the actual control panel.
Sometimes it works for modernUI app subsections like Activation or Themes, sometimes it just claims no matches.

For power users that know the Win+R command it's not a big deal, but for your average user it's a frickin' disaster. I've seen total start-menu meltdown on fresh installs from ISO, and vendor pre-installed windows from Lenovo and Asus alike.

 

[windwhirl]

And sometimes it's not responsive. Like, I click on the icon, the menu doesn't show up immediately, it takes its sweet time to do so (time being measured in seconds or even minutes).

Although thankfully that happens a lot less now than when Windows 10 launched.

 

[ymbaja]

Here’s how it went down at MS...

Mgmt: So what can we do to create a lot of buzz that doesn’t take much effort?

Bob: Well.. We haven’t f’d with the start menu in a while?

Mgmt: Brilliant! Give that man a raise from the QA layoffs pool.

 

[bonehead123]

MS SAY:

If it aint broke...

then break it, like, yesterday...

Then we can release an update and claim we made it moar betta, hahahahahahaha !

 

[bobbybluz]

Newer isn't always moar betterer. I have several Win 10 Enterprise rigs and all use Classic Shell. If I wanted my PC's to look like a smart phone I wouldn't have PC's. Yes, I'm old and stuck in my ways and things are going to stay that way.

 

[windwhirl]

Newer isn't always moar betterer. I have several Win 10 Enterprise rigs and all use Classic Shell. If I wanted my PC's to look like a smart phone I wouldn't have PC's. Yes, I'm old and stuck in my ways and things are going to stay that way.

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