Microsoft improves Windows 11 Start menu, with no new ads in sight – and there’s a bonus for the lock screen in latest preview

Windows 11 has a new preview build, and it comes with a few notable changes to the interface – for the better, thankfully, with no new adverts or promos anywhere to be seen.

Microsoft just introduced Windows 11 build 22635 (KB5041876) in the Beta channel, and the most interesting change is a hidden one, as flagged up by regular leaker PhantomOfEarth on X (who regularly uncovers features that aren’t live in testing yet by enabling them via a Windows configuration tool).

Category view for Start > All apps has been updated in 22635.4082 – tooltips containing app names are now displayed on hover, and the categories themselves are different. https://t.co/ljO2tW4XvL pic.twitter.com/LVu3RHy4YeAugust 26, 2024

As you can see in the above post, the Start menu’s (hidden) ‘All apps’ category view now has not just icons representing all the apps shown in each category, but tooltips for their names when you hover the cursor over them.

The categories are mentioned in a follow-up tweet, as they have now been changed to mirror the same categories used in the Microsoft Store, the leaker observes based on a clue unearthed when rifling through Windows 11’s Start menu assets.

It looks like category view will group apps using the same categories used by the Microsoft Store. They are numbered in this build. You can see which apps go where in “C:WindowsSystemAppsMicrosoftWindows.Client.Core_cw5n1h2txyewyStartMenuAssetsAllAppCategoryMappings.json” pic.twitter.com/ztA3TjVavVAugust 26, 2024

Elsewhere in build 22635, as Microsoft explains in the usual blog post, there’s been some work on the lock screen, whereby media controls are now shown at the bottom of the screen when audio content is being played. This comes complete with a blur effect on the visuals that’s a nice touch, PhantomOfEarth notes elsewhere.

On top of that, Microsoft has modified another tweak made in testing in the past, namely the introduction of notification suggestions, whereby Windows 11 will suggest turning off notification toasts from any given app if you don’t interact with them for some time. This preview build witnesses the ability to turn off those suggestions (as opposed to the notifications themselves, we should clarify).

There’s the usual bunch of fixes here too, including resolutions for crashes with File Explorer and the Start menu.

(Image credit: Ollyy / Shutterstock)

Analysis: More choice is always good

It’s good to see that work is progressing nicely on the new category view in the All apps panel. As we’ve discussed before, this is a refreshing change of layout from the default list of apps in the Start menu, a clunky affair that’s simply presented in alphabetical order (leaving you with a lot of scrolling to do, potentially, if you have lots of software installed).

Those who feel the category layout is perhaps more cluttered to look at, and prefer the list view as they feel it’s more streamlined, will be able to stick with it, by the way. A choice is set to be offered including the default list, this new category view, and another grid view which is also in preview (if the latter two options ever emerge from testing, that is – they may not, only time will tell).

For us, we feel that pinpointing apps using organized categories could be pretty handy, though it’s not surprising to see Microsoft adopt the categories used in its store here -hopefully, that’s not a sign that the store is going to be promoted somehow in this fresh take on the interface.

The way things are going, we assume this functionality will be live in a preview build before too long, but it’s probably too late to make the cut for Windows 11 24H2 at this stage.