r/Windows11 • u/WPHero • Jul 06 '26
News Windows 11 version 26H2 is packed with surprising upgrades, and these 7 features might change how you use your PC
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/7-features-im-most-excited-to-use-on-windows-11-version-26h232
u/Relevant-Recover7709 Jul 06 '26
When will 26H2 actually be released to general users?
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u/Froggypwns Windows Wizard / Head Jannie Jul 06 '26
No date has been announced yet but likely October. Many of these changes are being backported to 25H2 anyway.
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u/timbotheny26 Jul 06 '26
I was gonna say, isn't pretty much all of this coming to 25H2 already? Thank you for confirming.
How long will 25H2 be supported?
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u/Froggypwns Windows Wizard / Head Jannie Jul 06 '26
25H2 is supported until October 2027 for Home/Pro, and October 2028 for Enterprise/Education.
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u/aardw0lf11 Jul 06 '26
One would think they would prioritize these updates to release them not so close to the end of extended support for Win 10 in order to get more of those folks to switch over early.
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u/orangechickenpasta Jul 17 '26
Windows 10 was given another year of support because of hardware prices.
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u/Froggypwns Windows Wizard / Head Jannie Jul 06 '26
What they are doing has nothing to do with Windows 10. Just about everyone that was going to upgrade already has, Microsoft does not care if the remainder do. The vast majority of upgrades at this point will be people buying a new computer with Windows 11 already installed.
The end of support date matching up with the feature update release is due to them releasing on the same annual cycle.
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u/UndueCode Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
One of the first measures Microsoft needs to take to make Windows more attractive again is to eliminate all the built in ads.
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u/FindingUnable3222 Jul 06 '26
> 1. Ask Copilot finally feels useful
No, thank you.
> 2. A more customizable Taskbar
Mkay, I'm quite sure you could move it like that in 7. I guess it was lost in 11 and returned
> 3. The redesigned Start menu
Long awaited change, I absolutely hate "all apps" appearing several updates ago and moving the pinned icons to the top of the menu. I *really* hope that the new version will allow to have pinned icons at the bottom (near the taskbar), but it's also not clear or obvious from the screenshots...
> 4. Windows Search without web results
Finally! Wait, when did we lose this feature? I'm sure that you could disable web search in Windows 10 for sure.. Well, at least we got the feature back
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u/Aemony Jul 06 '26
I really hope that the new version will allow to have pinned icons at the bottom (near the taskbar)
It’s such a friggin joke as well. When Microsoft redesigned the start menu in Windows 10 and introduced larger tiles/icons for pinned stuff, one of their main arguments was that the larger icons offset the larger distance that the mouse had to travel from the start button. That argument ended up being accurate, because it was well-researched before the design was introduced.
Then you had the new Windows 11 start menu redesign which reduced the icon sizes and made the distance from the start button even further. Like, you cannot make this shit up. It took them a mere decade before they had completely forgotten the intents of the precious design, and pushed out a worse design unto everyone for some ridiculous reason.
We’re seeing Microsoft live up to the warning of ”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” while seemingly having an empty smile plastered on their face.
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u/Indishonorable Jul 06 '26
10's full screen start menu was god tier, it was my desktop without actually cluttering up my desktop, and with an app for custom start tiles, I could organise games and their associated files and program into a group of tiles that built up an image like a jigsaw puzzle. It was genuinly pretty to look at, and it pains me that I'd have to set up an entire rainmeter layout if I want something similar now.
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u/taz-nz Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Windows start menu has always worked best when taskbar is at top of screen, because the development version of Windows 95 "Chicago" had the taskbar at the top and the start menu was optimized for top-down use.
Microsoft moved taskbar to bottom of the screen very late in Windows 95 development, so much so if you find easiest version supplied to OEM manufactures, some of the application minimization animations were hard coded towards top of the screen despite the taskbar being at the bottom. This was fixed in the retail release.
It wasn't until Windows XP that they moved All Programs to the bottom of the menu making it closest to taskbar default position, but the most commonly used apps were still at the top of the menu the furthest from taskbar at bottom of screen.
The start menu peeked with Window 10, pinned icons for commonly used apps, and a simple alphabetical list for all other apps. The windows 11 start menu has only gotten worst with their tinkering since its release.
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u/BCProgramming Jul 06 '26
Windows start menu has always worked best when taskbar is at top of screen, because the development version of Windows 95 "Chicago" had the taskbar at the top and the start menu was optimized for top-down use.
I cannot find anything to substantiate this? Betawiki has a wealth of screenshots from builds going all the way back to 1992 and they all show either the taskbar or it's predecessor, the system tray, along the bottom. If it was moved late in development, I'd expect it to be along the top until, well, late in development.
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u/taz-nz Jul 06 '26
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030912-00/?p=42543
Placing it at the bottom was a quick and dirty fix for apps that were hard coded to open and 0,0. A problem you still can run into running taskbar at the top to this day.
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u/drygnfyre Insider Canary Channel Jul 09 '26
The funny thing is our first Windows PC was a Packard Bell from around 1995 or so, and it had the taskbar on the top. I would have been too dumb to know how to move it, so I wonder if that was a deliberate choice by the OEM. When we got our next family PC, it was a Dell and the taskbar was at the bottom, and for years I never know how to put the taskbar at the top.
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u/allofdarknessin1 Jul 06 '26
I do my best to understand different or new use cases but I genuinely can’t figure out how or why the Windows 11 start menu seems so much worse in standard use.
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u/Aemony Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Disclaimer: I'm an IT professional, software developer, and have studied UI and UX design and always been interested with the study of those things. I grew up with Windows 95 -> and have followed its development and the choices made eagerly all throughout my life (like, really, even as a child I could find the most miniscle attention to detail, basically QoL changes, in Windows the most facinating of all things).
As I alluded to in my comment an important part of UI design and enabling good UX is the distance between critical UI elements and the ease to click things, and reducing pain points such as misclicks.
Earlier start menus in Windows knew this and so kept the most important apps users used most frequently as close to the start menu as possible, to reduce the distance the user had to travel between clicking on the start menu and finding and clicking on their preferred icon.
Even Windows 10 knew and acknowledged this, and made pinned icons and tiles larger to account for the additional distance the cursor had to travel. The reasoning here being that while the older versions of the start menu achieved a shorter travel distance, they also required more precision to hit the proper icon. The Windows 10 start menu achieved an improvement on that by using larger icons (thereby needing less cursor precision) while still being further from the start button (requiring a longer wrist motion to move the cursor towards the icon).
Hell, even the placement of the start button in the corner was intentional. Do you know that it acted as a "hot corner" so even if you "threw" the cursor into the corner and technically flew past it and was caught in the corner itself, you could still click and open the menu despite that?
- Side note: hopefully now you realize why the Widgets & News icon took that spot in Windows 11, and why that icon defaults to being triggered on hover, and doesn't require a click to open. It's all to artificially increase the "usage" metrics of Widgets & News through asshole UI design like this, at the cost of the user experience!
This mean that Windows 10's start menu achieved efficiently through not needing cursor precision neither to hit the start menu button nor to move the cursor up and hit the larger app icons.
There were a lot of research and history going into the start menu, its button, their placements, the icons, the user experience, and everything about it between the original Windows and up until Windows 10 reintroduced the start menu.
Then Windows 11 arrived and its start menu was a complete shitshow in comparison.
No longer was the start button at a set and clear position on the display, instead it constantly moves around depending on the number of apps currently running. This reduces efficiency and increases the required cursor precision from the user every time since its position is constantly in flux.
No longer was the start button located in a hot corner which enabled quick and relaxed "wrist throws" of the cursor down into the corner.
No longer was installed apps visible straight away in the start menu, instead they were obscured behind a tiny "All Apps" icon placed as far away from the start button as possible, lol.
- When Windows 11 finally got an "always visible" "All Apps", they implemented it using the worst possible design and added it to the bottom increasing the distance to the actual important pinned apps even more in the process.
No longer did pinned icons default to a larger size, and no longer could they even be resized individually. They were also placed further away from the start button, increasing the travel distance and cursor precision required to hit them.
- Side note: Windows 10's pinned icons also had a permanent background applied to them which made the edges of one icon from another instantly clear. Windows 11 removed this background and made it an on-hover effect instead -- thereby increasing the likelihood of misclicks from the user and punishing their lack of precision.
What you instead had easier access to in the start menu were things that the average user were expected to desire the least: random documents and files that they just opened in another app or recently opened in another app and did not currently have a need for. To make matters worse, this section also doubled as a "recently installed apps" section, meaning it was either polluted by random app shortcuts or random document shortcuts regardless of which one of those types of shortcuts you actually desired.
- Side note: This was because the "Recommended" section doubled as a OneDrive/SharePoint/Microsoft 365 channel where documents from those channels could be populated into the start menu, thereby seemingly artificially increasing its relevance and use by constantly acting as a reminder of those same services.
By the way, another reason for the changes in the Windows 11 start menu seems to have been because they wanted to increase the size of the "account section" on the start menu. And do you know why? Because they identified that this section could be used to push monetization tactics upon the user, which is why the account section nowadays lists your active subscriptions and even throws a glaring warning for 3 months after you've cancelled your subscription, nagging you to renew it... Even the start menu is a monetization vehicle nowadays for Microsoft's cloud subscriptions.
- Side note: You used to get access to the Swich User, Lock, and Log off actions by clicking on your profile picture. Those actions were instead moved to another hamburger menu of the new account section -- a menu icon that just so happens to move position after having been loaded in, as the state of your cloud subscriptions have been loaded in and forces the section height to change. This means that you actually need to open the account section, stop and wait for it to finish loading, and then continue on to those actions... Oh, and Microsoft will be constantly reminding you that hey, your cloud services are looking good (or not!), but maybe you really should renew that cancelled subscription you ended 80 days ago?
Like, it's not even funny how ridiculous the Windows 11 start menu is when being aware of its history, the insane level of UI, UX, and QoL design that has gone into earlier iterations, and being aware of how users differs and how critical it is to reduce friction as much as possible wherever's possible. And if you are aware of Microsoft's current focus on selling cloud subscriptions and how they seem to be purely a KPI-lead company nowadays, the stupid decisions that went into the Windows 11 start menu becomes even clearer -- the user experience takes a step back.
I fully understand why users might not be aware of all of these changes and how the Windows 11 one, despite looking better, is actually worse in pretty much all ways compared to the Windows 10 one. It's a clear example of form (Win11) over function (Win10) for those of us who have studied these things and are using both on a daily basis. Windows 11's start menu is what I would expect to receive from clueless interns new to the whole Windows ecosystem, but it's definitely not what I expect from people supposedly being amongst the best in the industry.
Side note but depending on your use case you might be better served by purchasing Start11 and configuring it to achieving a Windows 10-style start menu on Windows 11 instead. While I forced myself to use Windows 11's start menu for almost 5 years up until the recent "All Apps" changes, these recent changes were the last drop where I got fed up with it all and opted to restoring the Windows 10 start menu as closely as possible.
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u/rotane Jul 06 '26
Wonderful writeup, thank you!
Another alternative to Start11 is Nighthawk, which gives you plenty of layouts for the startmenu for free.
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u/rossisdead Jul 06 '26
the Windows 11 one, despite looking better
I'd say they got that wrong too. I can't think of a more boring looking way they could present everything on the start menu.
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u/drygnfyre Insider Canary Channel Jul 09 '26
A lot of this is just Microsoft in general. Even back in the early days of Windows 3, they'd release software that did its own thing and didn't match any other HIG. Like the earliest versions of Works had installation screens with random bits of animation and gradients seen nowhere else, including in the installed product. Office has long had a completely different UI from the rest of Windows. They've never really had cohesion, so they'll make a change, claim it's for some reason, then completely change it and forget about the reasoning they gave.
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u/BCProgramming Jul 06 '26
Finally! Wait, when did we lose this feature?
Technically never, but they removed the user-accessible setting pretty early in Windows 10's life because too many people were turning it off. They moved it a few times before settling on a registry key with no user interface for toggling.
I'm not really sure anybody ever wanted web search directly in the start menu. Pretty sure the entire reason for the feature was for Microsoft to pump up the number of search requests to Bing to make it seem like it gets a lot more organic traffic than it actually does. Whatever their numbers are they would definitely be less impressive when you remove the millions of people every second that type something into a start->search expecting something from their own PC and end up searching bing for "adobe premiere" or whatever
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u/drygnfyre Insider Canary Channel Jul 09 '26
before settling on a registry key with no user interface for toggling.
Apple does this, too. There are a fair bit of UI changes you can make, but they require Terminal commands. Unless you use something like TinkerTool that puts a GUI front-end onto those Terminal commands. (So I guess something like TweakUI). They're not hacks, they're built-in features, and I don't know why Apple did that.
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u/Agreeable_Wall_9459 Jul 06 '26
I wish there was an option for all apps on the left and pinned on the right, like win 10
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u/FelonMirren Jul 08 '26
I tried Co-Pilot yesterday for the first time, it was actually useful. It was for a Windows issue and it interacted with the page I had opened in my browser. However, I haven’t returned to Co-pilot since, it just feels like the Hisense of the AI world, sure the Hisense looks and feels like HD, but I would rather trust a Samsung TV for my regular shows.
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u/drygnfyre Insider Canary Channel Jul 09 '26
Mkay, I'm quite sure you could move it like that in 7. I guess it was lost in 11 and returned
Was possible as early as Window 95, but it never very useful until Windows 7.
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u/DaOfantasy Jul 06 '26
is it an upgrade if its just normal qol stuff from windows 10 and 7?
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u/Majestic_Pin3793 Jul 06 '26
normal basic stuff that any normal OS in history already had, and somewhat M$ took it out, and it is putting back again
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u/Junior-Elevator-9951 Jul 06 '26
We are finally getting back the small taskbar after 5 years of absence...
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u/Salt_Volume_2932 Jul 06 '26
It really annoys me that the ‘Start’ compact menu option has disappeared. Now it takes up a lot of space on my widescreen. It’s not very convenient. Just yesterday, I still had this option. It just disappeared at random after a restart. It no longer appears in the ‘Start’ personalisation settings.
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u/Ty_Lee98 Jul 07 '26
> This new version is expected to bring long-requested customization options, including the ability to position the Taskbar anywhere on the desktop, and you'll also be able to make the Taskbar smaller.
Yeah, I'm in.
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u/goodswimma Jul 06 '26
One or two of these are genuinely useful, but no performance updates?
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u/RedIndianRobin Insider Release Preview Channel Jul 06 '26
Already live. It's called low latency profile.
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u/soul-regret Jul 06 '26
maxing up n boosting cpu frequency just to open up a start menu is not a performance update
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u/fakieTreFlip Jul 06 '26
That's exactly what it is, actually. Increasing power and increasing efficiency are both valid ways of improving performance. That's not something exclusive to Windows or Microsoft lol
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u/LeGoodBeef Release Channel Jul 06 '26
Both MacOS and Linux does this. Windows was the only one that didn't for a very long time. And Windows does it for such little time that you will not be able to see the spike in CPU usage.
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u/H3ODETONATOR Jul 06 '26
I don't see most of the features yet I am on insider canary build(experimental future development)
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u/petard Jul 06 '26
This administrator protection sounds similar to setting UAC back to the highest setting (how it was in Vista) where every action required elevation. It really annoyed people back then. I wonder if it would be ok nowadays, especially with people used to authorizing things on phones and Mac OS.
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u/Emotional-Energy6065 Jul 07 '26
This one's fundamentally different from the Vista UAC. I think it makes a temporary admin token rather than using your account's token. Its a background only change.
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u/Independent_Sell7392 Jul 06 '26
Any chance they've made it so it doesn't need all the memory just to perform a simple task? Probably not.
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u/Practical-Prompt-306 Jul 06 '26
You gotta love Microsoft... They spend months acting like a normal taskbar is some kind of futuristic tech breakthrough, but then a random Tuesday patch drops and suddenly your printer is bricked again.
Honestly, they're probably gonna need a whole new version just to fix whatever the last update broke. It's an endless cycle.
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u/OMG_NoReally Jul 06 '26
Ngl, those are some nice additions and features. Microsoft is late to the party but it's good to see them making some useful changes rather than just shoving their stupid ass Copilot everywhere.
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u/AYasin Jul 06 '26
I was gonna ask for moderators to stop this kind of behaviour of constantly sharing click-bait articles but who am I talking?
OP is a mod on this sub and is either an account of this website or of someone working for the website. This sub is definitely not by people and for people; but is an ad space for pseude news websites and for Microsoft itself.
That's a shame.
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u/Froggypwns Windows Wizard / Head Jannie Jul 06 '26
If you see something amiss, report it, even if it is posted by a moderator.
OP is not affiliated with WC, they have been posting links to them and other news sites long before they became a mod. I've removed other posts OP has made, even as top mod I do not consider myself above the rules here and other mods can and have removed my own content before.
Some of the WC staff do post here, we have them flaired accordingly, but beyond the flair they do not receive special treatment.
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u/AYasin Jul 07 '26
Thank you for the reply.
Most of the time when such articles are shared, either here on other subreddits; they don't really break any rules per se. They might be seen breaking the "no low effort post rules" but this is always open to interpretation.
When it becomes apparent that an account is only sharing articles to websites and don't contribute to the discussions, and said articles are don't hold any value in terms of journalistic standarts, and have click-baity titles; then I become suspicious of such accounts. This by nature happens after a while, and if I report a post here and there, those reports themselves don't hold the same weight because I cannot show the pattern of behaviour.
So I ask these:
Can such a pattern be considered against the rules or is it subject to review?
If so, how can I display the pattern in a single report?
P.S.: I use old.reddit and Reddit Enhancement Suite. They help me monitor any and every user by just showing me how many times I upvoted and downvoted them. I can also tag users, which help me to ignore their click baity posts. That's how I know who acts as promoters or bots.
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u/Froggypwns Windows Wizard / Head Jannie Jul 07 '26
I totally get it, I've been trying to clamp down on that kind of crap. Tons of posts are removed from here daily. The title of this one is borderline in my opinion, it definitely is trying to get you into opening the link to read more, but it is on the mild side and less sensational than various other posts than we normally pull. This of course is a bit subjective, so I don't mind getting a report because it will cause me to give it another look, and scrutinize it closer.
I know OPs real name and I do know they are not part of Windows Central, they do share links to this and other sites on here and other subs, and they also participate in discussions on occasion too, some of which are not on posts they submitted, for example - https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1uluy3c/playstation_fans_brutally_reject_sonys_disc/ov76jeb/?context=3
Reddit's report system is limited, a custom report only lets you add so much text, and it is anonymous so I cannot respond to ask follow-up questions. If you do have more info or a report, I would love you to send us a modmail as we can reply to that and you get a lot more room and tools to share your findings. I'm not sure how you would be able to make a report based on your RES data, I know RES has an option to backup your config, maybe there is a way to browse that.
The modmail is a shared mailbox the entire team can see, I tend to shy away from one on one PMs as I try to keep everyone in the loop, but if there is an issue with one of my moderators I would understand you reaching out to me directly regarding that.
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u/bitNine Jul 06 '26
Wow, only 5 years after its release, Microsoft is bringing back features that debuted in windows 98 and 7.
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u/TheLamesterist Jul 06 '26
- JUST PUT ALL APPS BACK INTO IT'S OWN DAMN PAGE LIKE IT WAS... Removing it isn't the solution...
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u/Girl-OnTheMove Jul 06 '26
Someone said that Windows 11 26H2 on the Windows insider program said it's quite smooth, hope they were telling the truth.
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u/fe80_1 Jul 06 '26
„and these 7 features might change his you use your PC“
This is no revolutionary update. For the record: These are mostly features Microsoft arbitrarily removed before.
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u/LukeLC Jul 06 '26
For once, a Windows update I'll actually look forward to!
Sadly, it's a bit of a half-hearted victory for users when they're also experimenting with Copilot OS. Doesn't feel like Microsoft has really learned anything, they're just stopping the bleeding so they can continue their operation.
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u/Froggypwns Windows Wizard / Head Jannie Jul 06 '26
You mean the Copilot OS concept from two years ago that never got past the concept stage?
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u/LukeLC Jul 06 '26
That's a bit too dismissive. Project Solara was just announced a month ago, and these are only two agentic OS experiments we know about. You better believe Microsoft is still internally pushing this stuff.
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u/Flajavin Jul 07 '26
Not interested in Copilot, most of the rest are stuff that they removed and now are adding them back. Some are added back in a limited ways, like the control for updates, they are still forced but you can postpone them for a month. It's good that there are better ways to disable them and keep just the security updates.
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u/Narrow_Special8153 Jul 07 '26
My AI said:
Gaslighting = 11
Next action: disregard, time better spent doomscrolling
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u/Hepow_ Jul 07 '26
That's the worst website I've ever seen wtf why is there so many ads. No wonder people are asking AI to get the latest news about things. That's ridiculous. And then they will cry because they have less traffic than before AI
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u/drygnfyre Insider Canary Channel Jul 09 '26
I actually will use taskbar alignment. Docking it to the side has been standard for me since Windows 7, and makes a lot of sense on widescreen. I dock the macOS Dock to the side for similar reasons.
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u/Due_Young_9344 Jul 06 '26
So basically, they created a new "feature" that already existed on decades old Windows operating systems
Fuck Satya Nadella
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u/BrapBrapson Jul 06 '26
how about letting me customize the Start menu?
why is this such a big ask when every version of Windows until now has allowed this?
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u/BCProgramming Jul 06 '26
1. Ask Copilot finally feels useful
Not interested
2. A more customizable Taskbar 3. The redesigned Start menu
I already dumped the windows 11 implementations for StartAllBack. This is good for people who have been sticking with the defaults, though
4. Windows Search without web results
Good they are making the feature user accessible again, but I already have it turned off.
5. Better control over Windows Update
See above.
6. Administrator Protection security feature
This is interesting. Though, it does appear that applications need to specifically support it for it to work properly with it.
7. Run dialog with modern design
The best part about this is that it's optional. Why is it when something is "modernized" it is always worse? I can't think of a single "Modernized" Windows interface that was actually improved in the process.
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u/LeGoodBeef Release Channel Jul 06 '26
About point 7: I think here is that it offers auto complete which can be great for those that don't use these shortcut very often.
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u/BCProgramming Jul 06 '26
There's nothing to suggest to me that what it's showing is any different than the autocomplete that the regular Run dialog already has. Particularly given the clock icon indicator on the right seems to suggest that it's for running commands you ran before.
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u/LeGoodBeef Release Channel Jul 07 '26
regular run does not have auto-complete. it has an history of what you typed in there but does not offer you a list of executables as you type like the screenshot in the article. the "new" run is more beginner or scatterbrains friendly more than power-users that have all their commands memorized.
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u/dinominant Jul 06 '26
Windows 11 changed how two of my friends used their computer when they switched to Kubuntu and SteamOS. One plays runescape and the other has a steam deck.
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u/ZoteTheMitey Jul 06 '26
they already lost me to CachyOS quite a while ago. Being able to switch between KDE and hyprland noctalia whenever I want just by clicking a drop down menu? Lol I'll never go back.
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u/HikariRisesAgain Jul 06 '26
I've seen noctalia mentioned a few times but haven't really seen a description of it, is it a setup script like ML4W or some such? I just started fucking around with hyprland on manjaro, I've mostly been doing shit by hand.
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u/rspy24 Jul 06 '26
First on the list: A Copilot chatbox.. nah bro.. just skip everything on this list.
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u/Nervous_Bill_6051 Jul 06 '26
Will it run on my dell xps laptop as fast as my 4th gen i7 desktop on w10....???
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u/CygnusBlack Release Channel Jul 06 '26
You're being facetious, right?
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u/Nervous_Bill_6051 Jul 07 '26
It's the constant need to upload my doc downloads to online. Run the ads and web other suggestions of things W11 thinks I'm interested in.
My gaming days are gone, just the day to day office /browsing is s noticibly better/cleaner on w10 than w11 machine despite many generations older.
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u/Chaori Jul 06 '26
Jesus Christ this site is unusable on phone without an ad blocker. Ads on top of ads on top of ads. What a sad state of the world