start menu

Windows 11 has become a paradox: it is simultaneously the most polished Windows release in years and the most aggressively curated one. That tension is exactly why a thriving ecosystem of third-party mods has emerged around the desktop shell, giving users back the control Microsoft removed or...

Microsoft’s Windows 11 strategy is at an important inflection point: after several years of pushing Copilot, AI-powered helpers, and increasingly prominent recommendations across the shell, the company is now clearly trying to make the desktop feel calmer and more controllable again. The most...

Windows 11’s interface has spent years irritating users in exactly the places they touch most: the taskbar, the Start menu, Search, and Widgets. Now Microsoft appears to be conceding that core-shell polish matters more than novelty, promising a round of changes that could finally restore some of...

Windows 11’s Start menu has become one of the clearest examples of how a polished interface can still frustrate the people who use it every day. Microsoft has spent years sanding down the desktop into something cleaner and more consistent, but in the process it has also stripped away a lot of...

Microsoft’s February preview update for Windows 11 made two small-but-visible changes that matter to everyday users: the taskbar battery icon has been reworked with colour cues and a visible percentage option, and the redesigned Start menu is being flipped on for more devices. At the same time...

Windows 11’s Start menu redesign is the latest Microsoft UI makeover to generate a polarized reaction from users: praised by some for integrating a single, scrollable app surface and deeper Phone Link/AI hooks, but slammed by others for being oversized, tightly controlled, and surprisingly...

Windows 11’s Start menu has quietly grown into a full-blown workspace on many machines: taller, wider, and now often bridged to your phone — which is great for some users but an unwelcome takeover for others. This article walks power users and everyday readers through safe, practical ways to...

Microsoft has quietly begun turning on a dramatically redesigned Start menu for Windows 11 as part of the 25H2/24H2 servicing wave — a single, vertically scrollable launcher that promotes the full All apps list to the main surface, adds Category/Grid/List views for app discovery, and surfaces a...

Microsoft has quietly begun replacing the familiar Windows 11 Start menu with a much larger, single-page design that rearranges pinned apps, promotes Microsoft’s recommendations, and folds the complete app list into the main surface — and it’s rolling out now as part of the late‑2025 feature and...

Microsoft keeps promising a sleeker, more unified Windows. What it actually shipped in many places is a modern skin that looks cleaner but often gets in the way of speed, clarity, and control — and for a surprising number of everyday tasks the old, battle‑tested tools still outperform the shiny...

Windows 11 still doesn’t give users a built‑edged way to change the visible size of the Start menu, but community tools — most notably the Windhawk modding platform — now offer a practical workaround that lets you resize the Start menu immediately. What began as a small, repeatable community mod...

Most people treat Windows Search like a glorified File Explorer search box — and that simple habit turns a capable, context-aware tool into a source of frustration. The problem isn't always that Windows Search is "broken"; more often it's that we misunderstand which search we're using, what...

Microsoft has begun widening the rollout of the biggest Start menu overhaul Windows 11 has seen since the OS launched, delivering a single‑page, mobile‑inspired launcher, a denser app grid for large monitors, an automatically generated “Category” app view, and an integrated Phone Link sidebar —...

Windows Search is trying to be helpful — and sometimes that help is the problem. If your Start menu search feels slow, hangs while you type, or returns a stream of Bing results and news you never asked for, there’s a simple, low-risk registry tweak and an equivalent Group Policy you can use to...

Microsoft has quietly pushed another Start menu redesign into the mainstream Windows 11 rollout cycle, and this time the changes are arriving for most regular users as part of the January cumulative update KB5074109 — an extension of the Start overhaul first seeded in the October 2025 preview...

Microsoft’s phased, servicing‑update rollout of a redesigned Start menu for Windows 11 has quietly reached a much larger audience in recent weeks, arriving as part of the platform’s cumulative updates and optional servicing packages and accompanied by an explicit explanation from Microsoft about...

Windows 11 doesn’t have to look like every other Windows 11 install on the planet. If you’re tired of Microsoft’s rounded corners, centered taskbar, and predictable Start menu, a new generation of alternative shells can give your desktop a fresh personality — from a near–macOS aesthetic to...

I stopped Windows from searching the web and the Start menu is instant again — but there’s more to know than a quick registry tweak. Windows Search in modern Windows blends two very different worlds: an indexed, local search engine that knows your installed apps, files and settings, and a...

Microsoft's redesigned Start menu for Windows 11 has won praise for its unified, scrollable layout — but an unexpected and widespread complaint has already become the defining user story: the new Start menu is simply too large, and people want a manual resize control back. Background Since late...

Microsoft shipped a polished-looking, single-page Start menu to Windows 11, but the new automatic app categorization has rekindled a long-standing argument about control versus convenience: users are frustrated that the OS sorts apps into fixed, non-editable categories (and dumps too many into a...