Microsoft Gives the Windows 10 Start Menu a New Look

(Image: Microsoft)

In the latest Insider Preview Build of Windows 10, Microsoft has made a visual change to the Start menu you can’t fail to notice.

Build 20161 of Windows 10 on the Dev Channel introduces theme-aware tiles in the Start menu. As Brandon LeBlanc, Senior Program Manager on the Windows Insider Program explains, “We are freshening up the Start menu with a more streamlined design that removes the solid color backplates behind the logos in the apps list and applies a uniform, partially transparent background to the tiles. This design creates a beautiful stage for your apps.”

The new look works with both dark and light themes, but you can also enhance the final look further by applying an accent color. This can be achieved by first turning on the dark theme and then navigating to Settings > Personalization > Color and enabling “Show accent color on the following srufaces” for “Start, taskbar, and action center.”

Other new features this build introduces includes the ability to Alt-Tab between apps and websites when using Microsoft’s Edge browser. It means all open tabs can be flicked through alongside open apps, not just the tab that happens to have focus which is the more common way of handling giving a browser focus. You can change it back to the “classic” Alt-Tab experience if you want, though.

Microsoft has decided to “evaluate the performance of individual default properties, monitoring diagnostic data and user feedback” in a bid to offer a “cleaner, more personalized, out-of-box experience” when it comes to the Taskbar. So for example, the default apps that appear pinned to the Taskbar will change for new accounts dependent on whether the user has an Android phone linked or an Xbox Live account.

Finally, notifications are being improved with the addition of an app’s logo to the top left corner so you can more easily see where the notification came from. Settings are also being improved by moving the information typically found in the System page of the Control Panel to Settings > System > About.

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