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Like the rest of the Windows 11 user experience, the Start menu has been streamlined to be both fresh and familiar. The success of this evolution will depend, in part, on your needs and expectations, as some features of the Windows 10 Start menu have been removed or require additional steps to access them.
As you probably know, the Start menu made its debut in Windows 95, and it’s interesting that one of the core concepts of this original design – the focus on the document – is making a comeback in Windows 11, plus 25 years later. In other words, in addition to providing app launch capabilities, the Windows 11 Start menu also displays your most recently used documents and other files.
You access Start as you did in previous versions of Windows: by selecting the Start button on the taskbar, by pressing the Windows key on your keyboard, or by typing Ctrl + Esc. When you do, the redesigned Start menu rises from the center of the screen and, at first, is visually separated from the taskbar and presented as a floating window. Like other elements of the Windows 11 user interface, Start features rounded window corners and seamlessly adopts the theme you have selected.
There are several interfaces in the new Start menu:
Look for. A browser-like search box appears at the top of Start so that search results appear below your search, much like in web search engines. As with the Start Search feature in Windows 10, Search in Windows 11 helps you find and launch apps, documents, and other installed files, settings, and other content, and it’s customized for your sign-in account ( Microsoft or Azure Active account Directory-based work or school account) to deliver results from your OneDrive, SharePoint, and Outlook, and Bing on the web.
Pin. Similar to the pinned area in the Windows 10 Start menu, this area displays icons for apps that you, Microsoft, or your PC maker have pinned to Start. Unlike its Windows 10 cousin, however, Windows 11 doesn’t provide live thumbnails, but instead uses more traditional icons. You can, of course, customize the pinned apps that appear here and drag and drop the pinned icons to position them. If there are more than three rows of icons in Pinned, you can scroll down that area to see the pinned overflow icons.
All applications. To access your complete list of installed apps, select the All apps button. All apps support the display of the Start menu and look and function like the All apps list in the Windows 10 Start menu.
Recommended. This crowded and confusing area provides access to two different pieces of content: recent documents and other files and recently installed applications. If you want to remove an item from this area, right-click on it and choose “Remove from List” from the context menu that appears.
Following. To access a longer list of recent documents and files and recently installed applications, select the More button. Recommended supports the display of the Start menu and provides a much longer list of this content. (As with the recommended primary view, you can also move items away from that view.)
Account. In the lower left corner of Start, you will find an image representing your user account. (You can edit or edit this image by opening Settings (Winkey + i) and going to Accounts> Your Info.) When you select this image, a small pop-up menu appears with choices to change account settings, lock PC , sign out of this account or, if available, switch to any other account configured for use on this PC.
Power. In the lower right corner of Start, you’ll find a power icon that displays options like Sleep, Shut Down, and Restart when selected.
You can also right-click the Start button on the taskbar to bring up the Quick Access menu – which some mistakenly refer to as the “advanced user menu” – as was the case with Windows 10. This menu, like Start, is somewhat simplified compared to its predecessor, but it still functions the same by providing access to legacy management interfaces such as Device Manager and Computer Management, as well as tools like task manager, settings, file explorer, search and run, etc. You can also display the Quick Access menu by typing Winkey + x. (Note that a System item will be added to this menu before the release of Windows 11.)
Compared to Windows 10, customizing the Start menu has also been simplified, but you can see the remaining options by going to Settings> Personalization> Start as before. Here, you can toggle the view of recently added and most used apps in Recommended, as well as the view of recently opened items in Start, Shortcut Lists, and File Explorer (in its Quick Access view).
You can also enable the display of a wide range of folder icons, such as file explorer, documents, downloads, music, pictures, etc. in Start. None are enabled by default, but if you enable one or more here, they’ll appear at the bottom of Start, to the left of the power button.
The new, streamlined Start menu leaves behind some key features of Start in Windows 10. There are no more Live Tiles, as noted, and no way to create and manage groups and folders in Pinned. And you can no longer display Start in full screen mode. You cannot display more items in Pinned, which increases the size of this area.
More problematic, perhaps, there is no way to configure the size of Pinned and Recommended relative to each other. If you remove enough icons from Pinned, for example, so that there are less than 12 icons, in two rows of six icons each, Pinned shows an empty row instead of providing the extra space for Recommended.
Hopefully this will be fixed before Microsoft ships Windows 11 in October 2021.
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