Windows 11

Microsoft put a lot of focus on Windows 11’s design when it released the operating system in 2021, making a clean break with the design language of Windows 10 (which had, itself, simply tweaked and adapted Windows 8’s design language from 2012). Since then, Microsoft has continued to modify the software’s design in bits and pieces, both for individual apps and for foundational UI elements like the Taskbar, system tray, and Windows Explorer.

Microsoft is currently testing a redesigned version of the Windows 11 Start menu, one that reuses most of the familiar elements from the current design but reorganizes them and gives users a few additional customization options. On its Microsoft Design blog today, the company walked through the new design and showed some of the ideas that were tried and discarded in the process.

Microsoft says it tested its menu designs with “over 300 Windows 11 fans” in unmoderated studies, “and dozens more” in “live co-creation calls.” These testers’ behavior and reactions informed what Microsoft kept and what it discarded.

Many of the discarded menu ideas include larger previews for recently opened files, more space given to calendar reminders, and recommended “For You” content areas; one has a “create” button that would presumably activate some generative AI feature. Looking at the discarded designs, it’s easier to appreciate that Microsoft went with a somewhat more restrained redesign of the Start menu that remixes existing elements rather than dramatically reimagining it.

Microsoft has also tweaked the side menu that’s available when you have a phone paired to your PC, making it toggleable via a button in the upper-right corner. That area is used to display recent texts and calls and other phone notifications, recent contacts, and battery information, among a couple other things.

Microsoft’s team wanted to make sure the new menu “felt like it belonged on both a [10.5-inch] Surface Go and a 49-inch ultrawide,” a nod to the variety of hardware Microsoft needs to consider when making any design changes to Windows. The menu the team landed on is essentially what has been visible in Windows Insider Preview builds for a month or so now: two rows of pinned icons, a “Recommended” section with recently installed apps, recently opened files, a (sigh) Windows Store app that Microsoft thinks you should try, and a few different ways to access all the apps on your PC. By default, these will be arranged by category, though you can also view a hierarchical alphabetized list like you can in the current Start menu; the big difference is that this view is at the top level of the Start menu in the new version, rather than being tucked away behind a button.

For more on the history of the Start menu from its inception in the early ’90s through the release of Windows 10, we’ve collected tons of screenshots and other reminiscences here.

Microsoft released a new Windows Insider build of Windows 11 to its experimental Dev Channel today, with a fairly extensive batch of new features and tweaks. But the most important one for enthusiasts and PC administrators is buried halfway down the list: This build removes a command prompt script called bypassnro, which up until now has been a relatively easy and reliable way to circumvent the otherwise mandatory Microsoft Account sign-in requirement on new Windows 11 PCs and fresh installs of Windows 11 on existing PCs.

Microsoft’s Windows Insider Program lead Amanda Langowski and Principal Product Manager Brandon LeBlanc were clear that this change is considered a feature and not a bug.

“We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11,” Langowski and LeBlanc write in the post. “This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account.”

Of course, the removal of bypassnro makes life harder for people who want to exit Windows setup without Internet connectivity or a Microsoft Account. You might be setting up a computer in a place with no Internet connection, or you might simply prefer a local user account like the ones that all past Windows versions allowed you to use.

There are benefits to a Microsoft Account—easy access to any existing Microsoft 365 or OneDrive subscriptions, automated encryption for your local disk and backup of your drive’s encryption key for recovery purposes, and syncing of certain settings between PCs. But using a local account reduces the number of notifications and other upsells that Windows 11 will bother you with. Whatever your reasoning, you’ll need to find a different workaround for future Windows versions.

Windows 10’s free, guaranteed security updates stop in October 2025, less than a year from now. Windows 10 users with supported PCs have been offered the Windows 11 upgrade plenty of times before. But now Microsoft is apparently making a fresh push to get users to upgrade, sending them full-screen reminders recommending they buy new computers.

The reminders, which users have seen within the last few days, all mention the end of Windows 10 support but otherwise seem to differ from computer to computer. My Ars colleague Kyle Orland got one focused on Windows 11’s gaming features, while posters on X (formerly Twitter) got screens that emphasized the ease of migrating from old PCs to new ones and other Windows 11 features. One specifically recommended upgrading to a Copilot+ PC, which supports a handful of extra AI features that other Windows 11 PCs don’t, but other messages didn’t mention Copilot+ specifically.

None of the messages mention upgrading to Windows 11 directly, though Kyle said his PC meets Windows 11’s requirements. These messages may be intended mostly for people using older PCs that can’t officially install the Windows 11 update.