winui

Microsoft is not just patching Windows 11 this April — it is attempting to rebuild the trust it has spent four years quietly eroding. The April 14, 2026 Patch Tuesday release (KB5086672) delivers a focused set of quality-of-life improvements across Smart App Control, Narrator, Settings, File...

Microsoft is finally signaling that it understands a complaint Windows users have been making for years: the operating system cannot keep leaning on web wrappers and still expect to feel like a premium desktop platform. The renewed push for native Windows apps is more than a technical...

Microsoft is moving toward a more native-first Windows 11 experience, and if the shift holds, it could materially improve how the operating system feels in daily use. The core idea is simple but important: replace more web-wrapped interfaces with WinUI and other native Microsoft tools, a...

Microsoft’s latest recruiting signal suggests something many Windows users have been asking for all along: a return to real native apps. According to the company’s own public-facing messaging, the team is looking for developers who can build 100% native Windows experiences, not web-wrapped...

Microsoft’s reported push to build fully native Windows 11 apps would be more than a cosmetic refresh. It signals a possible reset in how the company thinks about its own desktop software, with WinUI and the Windows App SDK moving back to the center of the story instead of web wrappers and...

The long, messy era of mismatched Windows apps — where polished system UI sat beside half-finished, inconsistent third‑party windows — may finally be getting a pragmatic, developer‑facing fix: Microsoft’s WinUI Gallery has been updated to version 2.8, and the changes are squarely aimed at making...

Microsoft began rolling out Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7653 (KB5074157) to the Beta Channel on January 16, 2026, a focused preview quality update that brings WinUI‑based modernized dialogs for Settings > Accounts > Other users, faster Copilot suggestions in Click to Do on eligible...

Windows 11’s latest Beta preview, delivered as KB5074157 (Build 26220.7653), is a compact but meaningful update that blends UI modernization, practical format support, and a broad set of stability fixes — while keeping a handful of notable known issues active for testers and IT professionals to...

Windows 11’s ongoing visual refresh continues to creep into the operating system’s smallest interaction surfaces: the latest Insider Preview — build 26220.7653 (KB5074157) — brings modernized, WinUI-based dialogs to Account settings and polishes several user-facing touches such as desktop...

Every fresh Windows 11 installation ships with a grab bag of first‑party apps—some genuinely useful, some quietly redundant, and a handful that feel like marketing dressed up as convenience—and ZDNet’s pragmatic “11 I keep / 11 I ditch” checklist is one of the clearest, user‑centric guides for...

After more than three decades of near‑identical presentation, the Run dialog in Windows has finally been given a visual and functional refresh in recent preview builds of Windows 11, introducing a modern, Fluent‑aligned overlay while leaving the classic Win32 Run box available for those who need...

Microsoft is quietly experimenting with a redesigned, modern Windows Run (Win+R) experience built on WinUI 3 — an optional, toggleable overlay that brings Fluent Design, rounded corners, and a larger, history-aware interface to a tool that has effectively remained unchanged for decades. Early...

A simple, reversible tweak that disables the WinUI-based command bar in Windows 11 File Explorer can eliminate the glaring dark‑mode “white flash” introduced by Microsoft’s recent preview update and — for many users — deliver noticeably faster Explorer launches and a much smaller memory...

Microsoft’s attempt to make File Explorer feel “instant” by preloading it on startup has exposed a simple truth: warming a window in memory is not the same as fixing the underlying architecture that makes the app feel sluggish, and in practice the preload experiment increases memory usage...

Microsoft’s ongoing tinkering with Windows 11 has produced one of its most practical previews yet: an experimental rework of File Explorer’s right‑click context menu combined with an optional “preload” for Explorer that aims to make opening folders feel instant — changes currently visible to...

Windows 11 is quietly cleaning up one of its most frequently used — and most complained‑about — interface elements: the right‑click context menu. This user‑facing overhaul, prototyped as a Split Context Menu and exposed to developers through a new WinUI control called SplitMenuFlyoutItem...

Microsoft is quietly testing a background preloading feature for File Explorer in Windows 11 that aims to eliminate the familiar "cold start" pause and make the file manager appear ready the instant a user clicks its icon. Background File Explorer has long been a cornerstone of the Windows...

Microsoft’s WinUI team has quietly sketched a practical way to fix one of Windows 11’s most persistent user complaints: the cluttered, inconsistent right‑click context menu. A new split‑menu pattern — shown during a recent WinUI Community Call and surfaced in developer preview materials —...

Microsoft's WinUI team has quietly handed developers the first real tool to address one of Windows 11’s most persistent annoyances: the bloated, hard-to-scan right‑click context menu—by prototyping a split, hybrid menu control that groups related actions under a single, smarter line item...

Microsoft’s WinUI team has quietly offered a practical route to uncluttering one of Windows 11’s most persistent annoyances: the right‑click context menu in File Explorer and other shell surfaces. The proposal — shown in a recent WinUI Community Call demo and exposed to developers through...