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.
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.
How do you know and learn this stuff? i dont even know what “plasma” is and why you need it.
“Just use linux” doesnt help in this scenario i use it for productivity for the past 5 years but i havent felt ive really learned shit.
How do you learn this stuff?
The same way you got your knowledge about Windows 🙂
But I dont know anything about windows drivers?
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.)
The Steam Deck is an exception to the rule, unfortunately. Game mode runs using Gamescope as the compositor, which allows it to directly manage rendering surfaces and support HDR output.
Support for HDR under a regular DE is still either nonexistent or a work-in-progress last I checked.
It’s been a hot minute, but they might have gotten HDR through some gamescope trickery. Sounds vaguely familiar…
Was this a call for help or…?
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
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.
With more room for ads, I hope?!
i assume that’s what the sidebar is for
The sidebar looks like it’s dedicated to phone access?
it is, that was just me trying to be funny
My bad, I got whooshed
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.
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…
And they did it on Windows Server too, which made even less sense.
Don’t your servers run on phones?
I didn’t mind it actually. Like I don’t mind the GNOME overview or whatever the thing that comes up when you press Meta is called
i love the workflow of gnome, it takes time to get used to but its really nice
Strangly this UI always reminds me of the hospital scene from Idiocracy… Click the icon for where it hurts
With Windows 8, they all hurt.
Uh THIS one goes in your mouth
… wait, no.
Then you wouldn’t notice all the fun and exciting recommendations they have for you! /s
Right click the start button instead
If they didn’t take that away.
Just wait. At the rate they’re going it won’t be long before you’re forced to sit through a 30 second full screen ad in order to even open the start menu.
not yet, they haven’t.
I was about to comment this. And to anyone saying they are taking that away we all know how bad they are at removing legacy options so I’m sure this will be here until at least windows 14.
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.
Yep, if you’re in charge of managing hundreds of computers, you don’t want to guess at what it’ll do. We have our defaults but also have people who make exceptions depending on their own work needs. Tbh, I rarely use that button anyhow though, I right click on the start menu to get that menu instead and use shutdown, restart, or log out.
Further reason, the physical button isn’t always in a location that’s convenient to push. Sure it’s usually accessible, but sometimes it’s under a desk or behind a monitor or some other awkward location. Mouse and keyboard by their nature are always located in a conveniently accessible location.
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
Win+X > U > U
Shuts down your machine with no mouse required, use U > R if you wanna restart
This is the way
Power options: sleep after 5 minutes
Power button action: shutdown
You’re welcome
Alt+F4
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.
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.
There’s a reason they made PowerToys Run. It’s miles ahead of the default Windows search experience.
feels to me that people who work on other parts of the OS are getting fed up with the default shell experience to such an extent that they have to build their own skunkwoks solutions
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.
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.
200%+ engagement ratio
Llol, it’s funny but also probably true. God I hate statistics and MBAs.
From the linked article:
One interesting thing about it is that clicking on an icon instantly launches the app, without opening the folder.
Isn’t that what start menu icons do already?
Yeah but soon they’ll be automatically grouped together into something that looks like folders
Another 500k lines of new code? Yay more bloat!
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 but overall the icons 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.
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.
even when using keyboard shortcuts having it in the middle is just an additional adjustment from what it used to be.
How? It’s closer to where your mouse will be, and to where your eyes naturally gravitate.
An OS should get out of my way and let me do what I do.
Yeah. Windows moved from that path a long time ago.
It’s an easier click target when it’s in the corner. Moving cursor from the middle to the corner is negligible for me since I can reach the whole screen with relatively minor mouse movement.
In the end it’s a muscle memory thing for me. Having the button in the middle just means I have to look for it in a different location than I’ve used to over the years.
Yeah that’s why I said corner is superior if you open it with a mouse, and centre is superior for if you do it with your keyboard.
I wouldn’t consider it superior, just different, in case of a keyboard shortcut.
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.
After Microsoft Edge decided to import all my chrome passwords and data I decided to get rid of windows as much as possible.
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 yeah, now one can accidentally close the Start menu by clicking in the gap between the panels.
Every update with these new UI changes seems to increase empty wasted space each time
