Windows 11 is getting a new start menu. EDIT: this replaces the "all apps" page by default, not the home screem
More info about it here: https://www.ghacks.net/2024/08/13/windows-11-start-menu-is-getting-a-new-layout-to-organize-your-apps/
I love how microsoft never learns their lessons.
With more room for ads, I hope?!
ha, oh look another revision no one asked for.
i had to use this recently, and its all kinds of useless now. the 'search' didnt find my installed app, the 'all apps' list is a click or two in, and then absurdly inefficiently styled.. the win98 start menu was easier for me to navigate.
Every update with these new UI changes seems to increase empty wasted space each time
And create more steps to get places.
how else are they supposed to get you to use their AI for everything
I love how modern UI = eating up as much space as possible, while displaying as little information as possible. Glad I can watch this shitshow from afar.
It's hard to even take Windows seriously as a business OS when they're shoving this overly padded UI down everyone's throats. Windows 10 supported small task bars, among many other things that Windows 11 doesn't. There seems to be a lot of really tone deaf people at Microsoft working in silos, not really aware of the features people care about in their own product.
I doubt it will happen, but I’m hoping that windows 12 will make windows a more reasonable operating system.
Can’t wait until my work will be able to be done 100% on Linux.
Oh cool, good to see the power button is still on the other side of the fucking menu. You know, the thing that I'm clicking on 90% of the time I'm opening the Start Menu? Why have that easily reachable like in past versions of Windows? Silly me I guess.
This isn't the first time Microsoft has done this, I remember this being a huge gripe for me with Windows 8/8.1
Hey that was when they thought it was also a smart idea to force that shit tablet view on users...
Strangly this UI always reminds me of the hospital scene from Idiocracy... Click the icon for where it hurts
Yeach the ui sucked, kinda sucked. I actually kinda liked it on 8.1 . But the one thing windows 8 did right was efficiency. I still remember my update from windows 8 to 10 when witcher 3 on my laptop went from barerly playbale to unplaybale. Sad story.
Then you wouldn't notice all the fun and exciting recommendations they have for you! /s
genuine question, why do you click that button? Why not use the physical button on the device?
Software shutdown button presser chiming in.
There's two reasons I tend to use the software button. I know for a fact that clicking "Shut Down" will actually shut down the computer. If I press the hardware button, the computer usually is configured by default to sleep. Yes, I could change this default behaviour on all the devices I use, but then there's the second reason:
From a psychological perspective, I tend to associate the hardware button as a "only use if system is locked up" button.
I'm sitting at my desk and my computer tower is out of reach unless I get up and reach over. Gotta showcase that RGB
Power options: sleep after 5 minutes
Power button action: shutdown
You're welcome
Alt+F4
Sorry if you already know but if you can also do win+x to get to shutdown menu
Win+x, u, u shuts down.
Oof, that's a very good point.
Pressing Alt + F4 on the desktop brings up the Shutdown menu. You can fully navigate it using the keyboard. Back in my Windows times I found this more convenient than using the start menu.
How's Linux doing in regards to Nvidia graphics cards these days? I was planning to switch to linux for my next build but wanted to keep my current GPU since its not that old and still solid.
The proprietary drivers got much better, they're really usable without any noticeable issues. There's also an effort to get solid open-source drivers, but these don't work with older cards yet.
I recommend that you boot your distro of choice from USB and see if it works for you.
You might be surprised.
If it doesn’t work with one, try a different distribution.
I’ve used Linux with nvidia cards and didn’t have issues, but I am not very demanding.
Personally I've been using a Nvidia card on Linux for 4 ish years now originally on a 970 which had a few problems but really only with Wayland, x was flawless now I have a 3070 which I haven't had any issues on Wayland with the newer drivers and id say I taxed both fairly hard between gaming and blender
A lot better these days. While I still don't like nvidia, I think they're generally moving in the right direction.
I've got a GTX 1080 Ti and after a couple hours of finagling on initial install of Linux Mint I haven't had any trouble at all. Nvidia ships some proprietary drivers you can use instead of the unofficial open source ones and nvidia-driver-535 has been getting it done no problem.
Other GPU models I can't speak for, as I don't own them, and I see some history of folks having trouble with Nvidia. But I got mine done with barely a hitch.
I run fedora 40 on a desktop and laptop and it's perfect. Installing the drivers through rpm fusion was dead easy, 3 commands in the terminal and done. Wayland is FINALLY there. Fractional scaling is there. Steam games launch fine. I only miss a handful of programs I can't live without. Affinity software suite and a few games that use EAC are the only reason I keep a windows partition installed. After windows 11 bloatware and lag and intrusive ads and useless AI crap Linux is now home for me. Install and dual boot, you will find yourself more and more running in linux because it works great and privacy is nice.
pretty great, i would avoid wayland though, there still seems to be nvidia problems there.
Nvidia cards are supported with the proprietary drivers; the game I play (Stepmania, OutFox) historically was without artifacts on nvidia systems. Nowadays, Wayland is moving forward, and nvidia is just behind on supporting it compared to AMD. According to this thread below you should be fine as long as you use nvidia drivers from version 560+.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1d5kwpu/wayland_on_nvidia_do_they_play_well_together/
Works fine.
The irony is, unlike the old days - actually AMD (ATI) is recommend for Linux now because the drivers are better.
This is in stark contrast to the fglrx days where that driver was an absolute abortion and NVIDIA was really the only usable one.
Not sure when you started your Linux journey but I avoided AMD for years based on that.
Now the tables have turned but I didn't realize until after I purchased my NUC which has NVIDIA RTX graphics. So I guess I'm stuck on NVIDIA for the foreseeable future
Indeed, that is incredible.
I left Linux 13 years ago and to this day, I have never seen anything to temp me back. And in fairness, they have improved some things in that time
Exact same experience as cutting cable... Can't even remember why I hesitated so long
Looks like someone at Microsoft saw someone's iPad and went "That's what we need! Icons in boxes that need an extra click to be used!" and their MBA boss figures they'll get a bonus for "increasing user engagement" by making everything take two actions instead of one now.
Sigh.
Oh for fucks sake, auto categorization is one of the thing I dreaded the most on iOS because it's almost always incorrect and it doesn't fit my usage at all. Hopefully it will be possible to disable this crap.
Agreed. I miss live tiles, but I want full control over that menu.
They want to be as sleek as apple but it comes off as an old man trying to be hip
And maybe I'm using it wrong, but it just...doesn't work. I use spotlight search on my MacBook to find programs and things and it just finds them. It's fast enough to be faster than me opening things off the dock.
I try to use the search on my wife's Win11 computer and half the time it sends me to a website for a program she already has installed.
Like if you want to imitate, even badly, the imitation should at least be functional.
Apple hasn't innovated in decades... It's anything but sleek if we're talking about macs.
Interesting design but I've literally never used the start menu for the past 5 years I think. I only ever press the windows key and then type the name of the app I need.
PowerToys Run > Start Menu
To my surprise, I even recently discovered that PowerToys is open-source, even though it's made by Microsoft. It really drastically improves the terrible Windows experience. Thankfully I don't have to use Windows at all anymore, but if I had to, PowerToys would be the first thing I'd install.
On Linux (KDE) I enjoy using KRunner
Not even that,I have like 5-10 programs I use regularly and I have those pinned. Only knew they changed that thing due to postings here on Lemmy.
What the fuck is the point of the start button in the middle? Like, did they forget why the space to the right of it even exists.
i keep forgetting it's in the middle by default. first thing i did was change the setting to put it back on the left corner.
well they essentially copied the Mac dock for no reason. The icons will still go to the right of start but overall the elements will be centered.
Makes sense on ultrawides.
Also, a start menu that opens in the centre is technically the best. It's in the most prominent part of the screen, and your mouse typically isn't far from there.
The start button is harder to hit than simply flinging it into the corner though, definitely.
If you're the kind of person who opens the start menu with the Windows key, a centre start menu is only an upgrade IMO.
Makes sense on ultrawides.
In which case, the question becomes: what percentage of users are actually using ultrawides? If it isn't >50%, then the default should be the setting most appropriate to non-ultrawides. Unless you're going to autodetect screen resolution and set the button's location appropriately.
This is not rocket science, but Windows has been blowing it for quite some time now.
Never thought about ultrawide screens, that makes sense. Other than that I see no improvement whatsoever. Corner space is way easier to hit with a mouse, but even when using keyboard shortcuts having it in the middle is just an additional adjustment from what it used to be.
An OS should get out of my way and let me do what I do. Changing design language forces me to relearn what I had already had a flow for. In other words it's utterly useless.
And I just know I'm gonna hate that automatic categorisation of apps, just as I hate web searches from start menu. Alphabetical order is predictable, but this I'd have to relearn.
It’s actually ideal with an ultra wide I have come to realise.
I actually use it like that. I dont really see the reason pepole hate it so much. Geniuenly a better place for it (mind you im only talking about placement. The design itself is something else ). Since generaly if you use start menu you focus on it to launch something so it might as well be in tge middle of your screen.
I guess that's fair, but then keep the button on the left.
Another 500k lines of new code? Yay more bloat!
Win 11 still looks ugly.
My main desktop OS in Linux. But on my Windows 11 VM I'm using StartAllBack app. It makes start menu, task panel to be normal again, like it was in Windows 7 and XP.
I'm using StartAllBack app.
God, I hope MS doesn't find out this exists. I'm sure they'd find some way to break it on an update.
This reminds me of the time when they broke the ability to disable the god damn Windows 10 lockscreen from the registry. Like why??? What the actual fuck is the reasoning behind this microsoft?!?!? You're actually paying people to put in the work and make the user experience worse for absolutely no reason, while not even benefitting from it in any way??? This is one of the reasons I will never touch any of this proprietary Microsoft garbage again and strictly use FOSS software, which actually respects the user.
Clearly they learned nothing from windows 8...
No wonder why alot of people are on windows 10
Windows 10 IOT Enterprise LTSC until the heat death of the universe
Oh yeah it's for business
Uggggh fucking whhhhhy.
I don’t even use Windows and I have to put up with this shit. My parents are going to call and ask how and why they have to use this new thing.
What was gained from this exercise in self-lobotomization? Pick a design language and stick to it.
Stirring the pot like this is driving away even enterprise users. My last org only approved Macs and Chromebooks because we didn’t want to deal with the headaches that windows brought. Imagine saying that statement 10 years ago!
If there aren't any visible changes then the lusers won't upgrade. "Why did I have to switch to Windows 11 if nothing changed??" etc.
By shuffling the look and feel of the product constantly they can give an impression of actual upgrades being made. The system looks different after your update, after all.
Microsoft already knows that anyone with technical knowledge is looking to dodge this update, they don't need to make the regular users want to dodge it too.
Uhhh! Ahhh! How about the mouse pointer? Make it AI! Nobody likes the little ⬆️ arrow following all the stupid motions. Plus when you loose it and you had wanted to click somewhere, where the fuck is it? Make it jiggle around! That's it! A jiggling mouse pointer that is composed of the two letters AI and jiggles around randomly is surely something everyone could use!
Amazing! Reading this headline made my bazzite partition grow by 2 whole disk drives!
Oh it's good they have the "Messages" and "Calls" buttons right there for easy access since so many people message or call my desktop PC.
"The return of the Windows Phone"? 🤷♂️
Another shitty clone of the KDE launcher
the kde launcher is very nice
Indeed it is! And customizable
"Another shitty clone of the KDE launcher", not "Another clone of the shitty KDE launcher" 😜
We've come full circle. KDE imitating Windows, and now Windows trying to catch up with KDE.
Microsoft can not stop fucking up. I have to wonder what the turnaround is like on their UI teams that every god damn version needs a complete rework.
It's not just Microsoft... Most big companies are absolute trash. Google, Apple, Microsoft... They're all garbage, and they're bad for us.
I was just pissed at my PC for "Update and Shutdown" and returning to my PC with it at the lock screen. I think this might be enough for me to leave windows.
Edit: on my gaming PC. Everything else is already KDE Neon or ubuntu.
Fam, jail that windows into a gaming partition and either get a Mac if you aren’t a computer nerd or use Ubuntu if you are. My computing quality of life improved greatly when I didn’t have to use Windows anymore.
Who even plays games that don't run well on Linux/proton these days?
You don't need to be a nerd. Just need to watch a vid or follow ubiquitous guide on how to partition a disk or install second disk. Installing and running Linux is easier than windows these days with most common distros.
The learning curve is easier than the one for each windows update too. At least for plasma, i would assume gnome too.
Still, some enterprise class software only running on windows is a reasonable excuse(for the user). Also not everyone has the drive space or can afford extra hardware. Obligatory privilege check ig.
I disagree. Microsoft is learning its lesson. It's just that the vast majority of people are teaching Microsoft that its actions are perfectly acceptable, or, at the very least, not totally unacceptable... so it continues.
Oh, dang. Laughing in KDE Plasma.
I die every workday when I have to boot in windows because our CAD doesn't work on Linux. On the other hand it makes switching back to plasma at the end of work feel as sweet as day 1! I don't feel like I'll ever take it for granted.
After Microsoft Edge decided to import all my chrome passwords and data I decided to get rid of windows as much as possible.
I'm really enjoying my Mint 22 experience, the only downside is that I have to switch to windows to play Once Human.
why? protondb says it works fine.
Yes, i saw that, I was troubleshooting it for a while and when I got it to run the performance was ass but today I tired again and basically the problem is that the game must absolutely not be run from an HDD. It's running fine on linux now.
Why do they keep changing the thing? Linux mint Cinnamon desktop has kept the same look and I appreciate that.
New manager need to prove themselves -> can't do that by small improvements -> dreams up major changes -> gets promoted -> repeat
Is my guess
^ this guy corporates
Also, new manager would be part owner in a UX design firm of "experts" that conveniently, via their expert advice, convince management that a major redesign is needed and their firm is the only one that can do it (since everyone knows you can't get expert advice internally)
80% of the way through the project, the manager gets promoted and moves on, leaving a new manager with no vested interest in their predecessors project to try and clean up the steaming dumpster fire that is now 300x over budget
and why do they keep making it as actively shitty as they possibly can?
like, I get it, there was room for improvement back when it was just 'good'. they filled all that room with crap.
the good things about crap, though? nitrogen, phosphorous.
not the home screem
if had to use windows at home i'ld screem too.
not too surprised they didn't change that.
Cool, will this one work, or will it still go unresponsive and/or fail to find the app called the exact thing you typed?
it only changes the look, not how search works, unfortunately for windows users
Looks even worse than the one they had before
So is Nadella redesigning all this stuff? Because it certainly doesn’t look like someone who is familiar with UI is doing it. Reminds me of when the CEO of Yahoo decided she could create a new logo in Corel Draw one night.
tvf this is still in canary, the final implementation will be more polished
I was worried this was going to be a problem when I bought new Windows 11 laptops for my octogenerian parents to use. Fortunately, it turns out they never even knew how to use the start menu on earlier versions of Windows - they always just used the desktop or toolbar shortcuts I had set up for them. "The more things change, the more they never were in the first place".
Linux and gnome pretty much gtfo of the way for me - as an OS should. I used to care a lot about what Microsoft did, now I couldn’t care less - F em
KDE is the best and much easier and polished to ex windows users
oh yeah, now one can accidentally close the Start menu by clicking in the gap between the panels.
Not my home screem!
It looks like the little windows you'd use to organise your applications in Windows 3.1
Well that looks like pure garbage. Glad I no longer have to deal with it.
Looks like a welcome change, assuming you can edit everything fully.
Bold of you to say something nice about Windows here on Lemmy, of all places.
Bold of you to use the word bold
I need to start doing that
Can write reskin Windows 11 to look like 95/98?
Cuz that would be cool. Just hide all the bullshit. Have a functional desktop again.
You can't rewrite windows to look like that, but you can make linux look like this:
That's awesome.
@RangerJosie @Blisterexe Best I found online. https://uxthemepatcher.com/windows-98-classic-theme-for-windows-11/
I don't know how good it is though. I don't mess with my windows installation.
Looks like they're going full speed ahead towards their mobile/tablet/TV/PC unishittification.
I believe they want you to seamlessly transfer stuff from device to device, regardless of which, where and why.
unishittification, that's a new one.
I like it!
but why not use an iterface optimized for each device?
I mean, I know the answers, but I find all of them deeply insulting.
Hmm. Not a marketing person, but I'll try to make an idea that sounds only slightly insulting.
Think of it like this. You're working from home, a coworker is out in the field doing live research and your boss will be doing a presentation in front of the shareholders. The coworker in the field records data with their phone, sends it to your laptop, you arrange it for your boss, send it to their tablet and the boss just slides it over on the giant TV as they take the credit for your work.
Or a more personal example. You're at home in the mood for a movie or a game on your budget smart TV, but you're too lazy to do all the whatever to get it going. So instead just sync your phone, PC/Xbox and TV with a Microsoft/Xbox account and do everything remotely using your phone/tablet as a controller, from the comfort of your couch.
It's Microsoft NSYNC, baby! And that's why everything has to be tailored to fit your lovely, greasy fingers. Comfortable comfort. You know you want it!
I genuinely in 2024 I don't see why would anyone want to use any Microsoft product. They (alongside with Google) present themselves as malicious companies that only care about user data and providing user notorious ads.
unfortunately they are like the only two competitive corporate email providers. all the business tools integrate with gmail or outlook and almost never anything else. shit is annoying af
Ugh, I just had to get an organization outlook and they've been screwing with backend server protocol support, which kills most third-party apps. For E-MAIL! Nothing about this need a new standard!
Windows 11 gets a new all apps screen in the start menu*
they need to bring back a windows 2000 classic style start menu
These people are stupid fucks.
bunch of fucking interface designers so deep into their shit that they're forcing everyone to chase the UX meta and play ranked competitive UI when 90% of everyone is just trying to be casuals and play what they're accustomed to so they can unwind at the end of the day
"yes well you see moving every interface element on your computer to a totally new location results in a 0.0001% improvement in the average user's workflow, therefore: bite the pillow, changes are coming, we're the experts you dumb schlubs!"
When was it ever about improving it for the end user? From the picture, it's absolutely terrible. You have what, four folders taking up the whole menu? Yeah, Windows XP had a more efficient workflow than that.
When was it ever about improving it for the end user?
back in the day when it was about building the best interface you could to last the product lifespan, maybe.
that's not profitable for the designers tho - chasing the current design meta is their version of planned obsolescence for interfaces. "oh that interface looks old so it doesn't work anymore" - statements dreamed up by the deranged and greedy.
It's awful, but KDE will copy it one day.
i guess they couldn't find a way to not make it look fucking awful
I actually liked how the start menu works in Win10, with the rearrangeable/resizable tiles you can put wherever and categorize however you want. That was closer to what's pictured here, but this is still worse.
How do I get that back?
(...I actually liked Windows 8's Start Screen as well. I understand this puts me in the minority. Everything else about the Win8 UI was a five alarm dumpster fire, but I liked having a big colorful full screen app launcher that could be arranged in any way you wanted.)
How do I get that back?
you can change the kde (linux) launcher to look like that
Thanks, I hate it
Had to spin up a virtual windows machine the other day and was just honestly appalled at how bad the desktop experience is these days
its not really that bad though half of the time i dont even use the start menu; i just use something like flow launcher or wox.
That looks pretty ugly. I'm not really a fan of trying to make computers look more like phones but I think I'm in the minority there. Oh well, I never use the start menu anyways, I only have a few programs and they're all pinned to my taskbar.
Looks like MacOS and various Linux distros had a deformed, illegitimate child.
how lol? i see absolutely no influence from macOS or DEs
Right? That’s nothing like those… that’s insulting to MacOS and Linux.
IF the categorization works well, and that's a big if, I like it.
And if the categorization isn't absolutely perfect, you can bet everyone will be clamoring to be allowed to customize it or disable it.
They are removing the only really useful part of the start menu. Fucking genious.
Not sure when it started, but I've already noticed some Start Menu fuckery with just the 'Sign Out' portion. I believe you previously just clicked on your profile picture/name and the options for signing out were right there. They've "helpfully" hidden those options now beneath a ••• menu for no apparent reason. I was a little aggravated when I first noticed it because it seemingly changed out of nowhere. Not a huge change, but it requires one more click to do now.
Right click the start menu should be easier to get to iirc
the changes in windows since 7 are a master class in UX design, as long as you remember it's a negative.
This is a new layout for the "all apps" section. It is toggle able, so if you don't like it you don't need to use it. I will give it a try but I don't often go into all apps anyway.
So much negativity here.
Yeah its pretty funny to see people that allegedly don't even use windows acting like it kicked their dog when they do anything.
I for one dont see the fault in the design itself. Geniuenly looks like something usefull for pepole that use lots of tools.
If not for the fact that it already exist in the goddam pinned section in start menu and it replaces all items menu. Whyyy? These are not replecable by each other.
I use a lot of tools. I access them by hitting the windows key and typing the name of what I want. Or at least I used to before they incorporated a web search into the start menu that fucks it up 8 times out of 10. IDK how they ever thought that was a good idea. If I want to search the web I'll do it in a fucking web browser.
I like the phone link integration. I've never been a fan out auto-populating app folders though.
Where's all the ads though? They've gotta be thinking about turning one of the folders into a recommended apps folder or something dumb. They'll sneak something in somewhere.
It's not as bad as people here are making it out to be. It actually might even be an improvement. It's only for the all apps tab, and it organizes apps by their purpose, and you don't have to click the folder to expand it and then click the icon, as you can just click the icon and it will launch it. I've been using Windows 11 since it came out, and the all apps tab is something I have barely ever used. All my important stuff is neatly organized in one single tab of my home star menu screen, and anything that is not there I'll just look it up with search.
But wont this change how search is displayed? Honestly, I hope I can keep my alphabetical order. Learning some algorithmic categorization is not what I want to spend my time at work.
I guess it’s better but it should be manual not automatic and it doesn’t fix the “can’t be placed at the top of the screen” bug
This is why I use Fedora for everything except gaming and MS Office.
Thanks, I still hate it
People still use the start menu?
I just use the search bar and type in the app I'm wanting to run
well window's search is almost non-functional, so there's that
I can't even tell you the number of times and apps I've literally typed the name of, and windows either doesn't find it, or decides to make me wait 5-10 seconds while it searches the web instead. Super helpful....
It’s the same thing. Click bottom left corner, start typin. best workflow.
I like the Phone Companion bar too. The folder grid is reminiscent of Windows 8 and is a nod to iOS… I guess haters gonna hate, but this seems like a nice improvement.
Ugh, fine Microsoft. I'll finish my migration to Linux this weekend.
I tried it but stopped once I realised there was no hdr support :(
There is HDR support. At least Plasma 6 supports it.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. It literally only exists on a single desktop environment and even then it's practically beta. On my TV it just shows everyhing as green and purple when I enable HDR.
I love linux and want it to keep improving but man people need to stop circlejerking linux so much when it comes to people using windows when it suits their needs
Someone made a post about enabling HDR support on Linux a day or two ago. Times have changed, and you might want to look into it again.
(I don't have HDR monitors, but it works on my OLED Steam Deck.)
Was this a call for help or...?
It takes some fiddling, but I've been using HDR on Linux since Plasma 6 came out. If you don't have an AMD GPU it would probably be really difficult to set up though.
Depends on your desktop environment. HDR works just fine in KDE.
Can't miss what I've never had, suppose I'm lucky there - HDR might as well not exist (in my mind) until it does exist on GNU+Linux.
Unpopular opinion: HDR is overrated and causes more eye fatigue.