Now, with the Dev channel builds, however, this is getting better … and even weirder. But I’ve also found it even weirder that you can’t easily toggle this mode from that icon. I’ve always thought it was weird that Windows 11 starts with Focus assist enabled, which you can see by the obtuse crescent moon icon in the system tray. I feel like this should be visible everywhere, but whatever: it displays your OneDrive sync status, storage usage, and other related info. You will also get a handy OneDrive status icon in File Explorer, but only when viewing OneDrive. But if you do use Quick access, you’ll now see files from there by default, which is nice, and you can pin files (instead of just folders). File ExplorerĮxplorer has a few minor changes mostly related to Quick access, but I won’t see those normally because I configure this UI to display This PC by default, not Quick access. It won’t impact me personally since I don’t use PCs as tablets all that much. In the most recent Dev build, Microsoft also added a new tablet-optimized taskbar option, but I’m not seeing that on this PC for whatever reason. (I’ve been using Windows 11 full-time since last June.) This means, among other things, that I can once again drag an image file to the Affinity Photo icon in the taskbar an app window will open so I can drop it there and edit it. There is another, more important change: Microsoft has (re)added drag and drop support to the taskbar. Previously, the right-mounted system tray area gave the taskbar a weird visually tilt. But I like the weather forecast and think that it visually balances the taskbar. Overall, I’m mixed on the changes to Widgets. But there is one obvious change to the taskbar: the icon for Widgets is now found at the far left of the taskbar (assuming you keep the default centered view for taskbar icons) and it has a weather preview like its predecessor in Windows 10. TaskbarĪt first glance, not much has changed here: the taskbar still only has one right-click option, “Taskbar settings,” and taskbar-based items like the Search, Task view, and Chat icons, and system tray icons like Touch keyboard, still can’t be interacted with directly. But it still represents a nice step up from what we got last October. It’s not a complete list, as there are many other small changes that I’ve not run across yet. Here is a list of the more notable changes I’ve noticed so far. Microsoft is also, less nobly, adding features no one wanted, like blocking attempts to circumvent Windows 11’s customer-unfriendly Default apps interface and forcing users to sign in the Windows 11 with a Microsoft account.īut no matter how you view these things, it’s clear that the Windows 11 of late 2022 will differ in important ways from the first version we received in October 2021. It’s not all peaches and cream, of course. And it is updating more in-box apps to take on the Windows 11 look and feel and, more notably, add functional improvements that differentiate them from their predecessors. It is adding those features it promised but never delivered, most notably Amazon’s Appstore and Android app compatibility. It is finally responding to feedback and adding back Windows 10 features that we all miss. Good news: Microsoft is addressing each of these problems. And we have the bundled apps, none of which received major updates in Windows 11, making it seem like less of an upgrade and more of a minor Windows 10 update. We have broken promises in the form of several features Microsoft promised when it announced Windows 11 but never delivered. Windows 11 is full of regressions, meaning that features we had in Windows 10-mostly notable related to the taskbar-are no longer available, blocking our muscle memories. Here, we have a three-pronged attack on over one billion Windows users. But there are irritants too, like the ridiculous Widgets interface. And there are some nice usability improvements, most notably Snap Layouts, Snap Groups, and then new docking/undocking experience. It has a prettier and simpler UI, originally planned for Windows 10X and heavily influenced by Chrome OS. But I still prefer this system over Windows 10 for a few reasons. If you’ve ignored Windows 11 so far because of all the regressions, I get it. This will also help with the Windows 11 Field Guide as I’d like the coming book to be up to date on new features when Microsoft finally ships a reasonable version of this system later this year. I’ve been testing Dev channel builds of Windows 11 sporadically since last year, but Microsoft has delivered so many new features-many via its dreaded A/B testing silliness-that I figured it was time to start experiencing them on the PCs I use the most every day. How is this platform shaping up several months after a lackluster launch? Microsoft has finally opened the spigot on new Windows 11 features.
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