Windows 11: This is the one feature that will convince me to upgrade
Windows 11 is not, I’ll admit, as exciting an upgrade as I’d hoped for. Windows 10 felt like it was rescuing us from the touchscreen-warped horrors of Windows 8, but in the absence of anything seriously wrong with the current OS, Windows 11 looks a lot more modest.
That said, there is one big change I’m looking forward to: the new Windows 11 Start Menu. For this alone, I’ll probably take advantage of my free upgrade from Windows 10 as soon as the finished version launches.
Yes, the fact that this opens from the middle of the Windows 11 taskbar is a little weird, and will likely need a reconditioning of several decades’ muscle memory. But it’s a wholly sensible, practical upgrade for a feature that’s acted as the very backbone of Windows since its inception.
To truly understand why it’s worth getting hyped for a UI element, you first need to understand what’s wrong with the Windows 10 Start Menu. And to demonstrate, here’s a completely candid, no-changes-made screenshot of my own PC’s Start Menu:
I mean, just look at all that… nothing. I vaguely remember opting for as few Live Tiles as possible, but this just leaves digital acres of grey void. And of the tiles that remain, why are most of them even there? I haven’t used Microsoft Edge since I last installed Chrome, and there’s an “Xbox Console Companion” despite the minor detail that I have never owned an Xbox console in my life. I think the Blue app is on me — probably pinned by accident — but I don’t even know how to play Solitaire.
