Microsoft Showcases a New Start Menu with More Fluent Design

Windows 10 has recently reached 1 billion active devices, so Panos Panay, the man who brought us everything Surface, decided to publish a celebration video created by the Windows team. 

The video itself highlights some of the improvements that the operating system received lately, but at the same time, it also seems to tease a couple of features that aren’t yet available, including a more polished Start menu.

Microsoft updating the Start menu is something that we’re hearing more often, and this new video published by Panay is living proof that more refinements in this area are indeed planned.

The new Start menu includes additional design improvements for live tiles and is based even more on Fluent Design, Microsoft’s design language that Windows 10 is supposed to use from one end to another. Of course, the Start menu adapts to both the light and the dark mode, but overall, it appears to look a bit more modern than the current version.

Live tiles are here to stay 

The good news is that the live tiles aren’t going anywhere for now. Last year, the rumor mill suggested that Microsoft was pondering killing off the live tiles because its data pointed to reduced usage, with the software giant said to be particularly interested in bringing the Windows 10X static Start menu to full Windows 10.

Live tiles were thus expected to get the ax, but judging from this teaser, it’s pretty clear they’re here to stay. Of course, there’s a good chance Microsoft further polishes them with additional UI touches, but other than that, the company doesn’t seem to plan their complete removal.

The next version of Windows 10 is version 2004 due in the spring. Microsoft is expected to sign off the RTM build in April, while the public rollout should kick off the same month or in April.

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The team made this video to celebrate making it to 1 billion MAD on Windows 10 and I wanted to share it with all of you. Now at a time when so much of our work and communication is taking place through our devices, it’s especially humbling to know that Windows can help empower a billion people to stay connected to the things and people they care about #Windows

A post shared by Panos Panay (@panospanay) on Mar 19, 2020 at 12:47pm PDT