Windows 11 Updates 2025: File Explorer, Start Menu & Usability Enhancements

A sense of anticipation has accompanied each major update to Windows 11, and the recent debut of new File Explorer capabilities, Start menu refinements, and a wave of usability tweaks marks a significant step in Microsoft’s evolving vision for its flagship operating system. For power users, casual consumers, and IT admins alike, these improvements underscore the relentless strides Microsoft has made toward refining Windows 11’s experience—even as debates continue around the balance between innovation and backward compatibility.

The Modern Windows 11 Experience: Balancing Tradition and Progress​

Since its unveiling, Windows 11 has been both lauded and critiqued for its modern design choices and evolving control schemes. Yet with each Insider Preview and cumulative update, it's clear the platform is shifting toward smarter workflows, greater integration with cloud and mobile, and a more intuitive, visually appealing interface. The latest builds exemplify this progression, delivering practical changes targeting some of the system’s most essential daily touch points.

File Explorer: From Stalwart to Smart Hub​

No Windows feature is more universally used—and occasionally maligned—than File Explorer. The latest round of updates transforms this workhorse utility into a smarter, more efficient, and aesthetically modernized tool, addressing both long-standing grievances and calls for new capabilities.

Duplicating Tabs and Revamped Context Menus​

Perhaps the most user-celebrated addition is the ability to quickly duplicate tabs within File Explorer. By right-clicking any open tab and selecting "Duplicate tab," users can effortlessly spawn a carbon copy—streamlining workflows for anyone who juggles multiple directories, project folders, or network shares. This feature, familiar to users of modern web browsers, eliminates repetitive navigation and enhances multitasking.
Complementing this are changes to the context menus: Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete are now prominently labeled and placed atop the right-click menu, banishing ambiguity—especially for newcomers and touchscreen users. Holding Shift while right-clicking still summons the classic menu for accessing legacy commands, maintaining a bridge to the workflows of Windows past.

Seamless Multi-Device Collaboration​

Another noteworthy evolution is deepened integration with OneDrive and Phone Link. Users can now browse and manage phone storage directly from File Explorer, and sharing files with Android devices is as simple as a context menu tap, provided the Phone Link app is set up. This bridges the gap between PC and mobile, a critical step as hybrid device usage becomes the norm for both home and work environments.

New Archiving Power and Under-the-Hood Improvements​

Native support for advanced archive formats (ZIP, 7z, TAR), including a new Create Archive wizard, demonstrates Microsoft’s answer to years of requests for better built-in file compression and extraction. While RAR and encryption remain unsupported for now, the wizard does allow custom methods (e.g., LZMA2 for 7z and Gzip for TAR) and even retains hard/sym links for power users—a testament to Microsoft’s focus on both casual and professional needs.
Other File Explorer tweaks include:

• Improved thumbnail previews: Hovering over tabs now reveals the active tab’s name and open count, improving navigation clarity.
• PNG metadata editing: Users can now add ratings, descriptions, and keywords directly to PNG files—a boon for photo management.
• Revamped Home page: The Quick Access, Favorites, and Recent sections are unified in a streamlined tabbed interface, with a dedicated Shared section for organization-wide collaborations.
• Reintroduced drag-and-drop: After platform-wide outcry when address bar drag-and-drop was removed, Microsoft has wisely restored this time-saving method for moving files around.

Performance and reliability are also front and center, with bug fixes addressing memory leaks, unreliable SharePoint integration, missing progress dialogs, and ghost icons. Such details, though easily overlooked, resolve real-world user complaints and contribute appreciably to smooth day-to-day productivity.

Accessibility and Forward-Looking Features​

File Explorer dialog boxes now honor system text scaling, finally delivering a consistent, accessible experience for users on large or high-DPI displays—an overdue win for inclusivity. For Copilot+ PCs with NPUs, AI-powered semantic search debuts, offering natural language file queries such as “January event notes.” While this remains limited to select hardware, it offers a glimpse of File Explorer’s potential as an intelligent digital assistant.

Collaboration Tools: Activity and Persona Cards​

Collaboration takes center stage in upcoming builds, with File Explorer soon able to display which Microsoft account last accessed a file and offer “live persona cards” for quick colleague interactions—an innovation that, if fully realized, could rival enterprise document management platforms. However, as of this writing, these features are still being rolled out and may require insider tools (e.g., ViveTool) to activate.

Start Menu: Customization, Organization, and Phone Integration​

Windows 11’s Start menu, the perennial flashpoint of user debate, is seeing some of its most profound changes in years.

Category and Grid Views, More Pins, Less Clutter​

Insiders now see an option to toggle between “Category” and “Grid” layouts in the All Apps section. Categories group related apps for faster access, while a full-page of pinned items is possible, even allowing users to hide Recommended items entirely.
The Start menu’s layout on large displays is “roomier,” enhancing usability when lots of apps are installed. Navigation across both grid and category modes is smoother and more visually consistent, and personalization extends further with enhanced grouping and pinning options.

Start Menu Phone Companion Panel​

Perhaps the most significant change is a floating sidebar that surfaces phone information for users connected through Phone Link: Bluetooth status, battery, recent messages, and photos now appear right in the Start menu, reinforcing Microsoft’s seamless ecosystem vision. Recommended apps and recently added software are also grouped for easy discovery.

Instant Access and Personalization​

App pinning and drag-to-taskbar actions are restored, eliminating friction when reorganizing commonly used programs. For administrators, a new policy allows predefined Start Menu pins to persist after first login, but remain user-editable—striking a delicate balance between IT control and individual preference.

Design and Performance Tweaks​

With every release, Microsoft edges closer to a more responsive and stable Start menu—fixing lag, enhancing search speed, and making scrolling more intuitive. Interviews with Microsoft engineers confirm that prioritizing user feedback, especially from business environments, has influenced these changes. Still, some aesthetic choices (like the persistent grid-based menu and fixed menu size) remain divisive among power users who yearn for classic levels of tweakability.

Taskbar, System Tray, and Quick Settings: Streamlined and Customizable​

Windows 11’s taskbar has undergone continuous refinement. The most recent updates reintroduce long-missed features and offer novel customization options that echo both Windows 10’s legacy and new workflow methodologies.
Key improvements include:

• Optional taskbar button labels, making navigation clearer for users who juggle many open windows.
• Buttons combine only as needed, reducing visual clutter yet retaining efficient space usage.
• The taskbar clock can display seconds, a nostalgic nod to power users.
• System tray icons, including notifications and quick actions, have been simplified; superfluous indicators are hidden, promoting a focused workspace.
• Quick Settings now mimics mobile OS-style panels, with scrollable lists and paginated pages for easier management of toggles. However, the ability to hide individual quick actions has been dropped, sparking debate over forced clutter versus overall accessibility.

Animations return to taskbar thumbnail previews, enhancing the “polished” feel of Windows 11 and visually guiding users—again, an example of subtle yet impactful changes forged from ongoing fit-and-finish work.

Application, Power Management, and Accessibility Overhauls​

The trend toward a more streamlined Windows environment continues with the removal of deprecated apps such as Cortana, Mail, and Calendar, replaced by a robust Outlook app that consolidates communication—a move welcomed by users seeking simplicity, though not without complaints from those clinging to legacy tools.
Energy Saver, a replacement for the old Battery Saver, lands as a headline feature for both laptops and desktops. Users can fine-tune when it activates, and transparency effects are paused to conserve power. New color management tools for creatives have also emerged, giving more direct control over display profiles in Settings.
Accessibility sees steady gains, from system-wide support for text sizing to enhanced Narrator and speech-to-text usability, as confirmed in update breakdowns and accessibility changelogs.

Usability Gains and Persistent Pain Points​

A hallmark of recent Windows 11 updates is the systematic squashing of long-standing bugs:

• File Explorer’s performance and memory leak issues are addressed, especially when working with large archives, SharePoint sites, and complex file operations.
• The notorious missing “file operation progress” dialogs, which made users unsure if their transfers were actually running, are now reliably displayed.
• Default launch location for File Explorer (Home, This PC, or OneDrive) is adjustable again, restoring customization lost in early builds.
• Game Mode and battery drain complaints on laptops have been resolved—though, as always, some regressions remain possible in edge-case hardware setups.

Yet, light controversy lingers:

• The inability to move the taskbar to the top or sides of the screen remains a key gripe, despite widespread feedback.
• The grid-based Start menu persists in its rigidity, with third-party solutions needed for those longing for older layouts.
• Some users view the new minimalist File Explorer ribbon and context menus as hiding (not removing) power features, trading off discoverability for visual clarity. Power users, especially those running customized workflows, may need to adapt or seek registry tweaks and keyboard shortcuts to restore classic behavior.

Security, Stability, and Ecosystem Readiness​

A less visible but vital area is the slew of security and enterprise improvements: File Explorer’s search process now runs in lower-privileged app containers, reducing exposure to exploits. Improvements in Local Security Authority handling, ReFS file system memory, and Event Viewer reliability are rolling out, according to Microsoft’s official health dashboards and corroborated by independent changelogs.
Meanwhile, the line between consumer and enterprise editions blurs, as features like Recommended Cards in File Explorer and Office file integration become standard for all, not just business subscribers.

Comparing Insider, Beta, and Stable Channels​

Microsoft’s Insider Program continues to serve as a bellwether for what’s coming down the pipeline. Most of the features outlined above have spent months in Dev and Beta builds, allowing for extensive community feedback, bug reporting, and refinement before release to the general population—a process credited for the restoration of beloved features and regression rollbacks.
Both Neowin and Thurrott.com have reported in-depth on the cadence and scope of these updates, noting the unique strength of the Windows Insider ecosystem: real-world testing at massive scale, shaping the final product in iterative cycles.

Critical Assessment: The Strengths, the Risks, and the Road Ahead​

Standout Strengths​

• Productivity-driven enhancements: Tab duplication, improved context menus, and drag-and-drop functionality empower faster workflows for everyone from students to IT pros.
• Integrated ecosystem: Phone Link, OneDrive, and cloud-first design enable multi-device productivity without compromising on local file management or legacy application support.
• Accessibility: From text scaling to improved speech tools, real progress has been made for users with disabilities.
• User choice rebounding: Microsoft’s willingness to restore and patch features based on feedback (even after public outcry) reflects a growing transparency and user engagement.

Potential Risks and Controversies​

• Legacy feature loss: Power users and enterprises relying on deep customization or familiar UI paradigms may struggle with the shift to minimalism and the sunsetting of legacy settings.
• Gradual rollout caveats: Many high-profile enhancements are rolled out in phases or hidden behind flags; impatient users may feel left behind until features reach their region or hardware.
• Co-Pilot and AI feature flux: The regression of Copilot’s system-level control raises eyebrows, and the division of features between standard and Copilot+ hardware may complicate IT planning for years to come.
• Persistent UI and navigation pain points: The ongoing inability to fully move or resize the taskbar, or to extensively customize the Start menu, continues to spawn frustration and the use of unsupported third-party utilities.

Conclusion: Incremental Progress, Enduring Debate​

Windows 11’s new File Explorer features, Start menu improvements, and ecosystem-wide refinements demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment to moving the platform into the future—sometimes at the cost of the past. The operational benefits for most users are real, particularly in everyday file management, accessibility, and cross-device productivity.
Yet the story is still one of ongoing tension between modernization and the enduring affection (and requirements) for classic Windows flexibility. As each update rolls out, the best way forward is to remain informed, vocal, and adaptive—ready to embrace practical gains but unafraid to push back when critical workflows are disrupted.
In the rapidly shifting landscape of operating systems, Windows 11 stands as proof that progress—when coupled with community feedback—can refine even the most entrenched features, letting a decades-old OS remain vital in a world of ever-evolving user needs. Those invested in navigating these changes, whether for personal productivity, business continuity, or sheer Windows nostalgia, will find that the recent updates offer meaningful benefits—while also hinting at the complex balancing act that lies ahead.

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Source: Neowin Windows 11 gets a new File Explorer feature, Start menu fixes, and more in new builds
Source: Thurrott.com New Windows 11 Dev and Beta Builds Are Available for Insiders