[Software] Windows 11 could completely change its start menu, but not for the better

[Noticias ALEJANDRO]

The start menu is one of the most criticized elements of Windows 11. After carrying many versions of the system with a more or less similar menu, until Windows 7, with the arrival of Windows 8 Microsoft completely broke the concept of the system menu. With the arrival of Windows 10, experiments continued with this section, without success. And, with Windows 11, Microsoft did it again, generating even more discomfort among users.

 

 

We know very well that, with the launch of Windows 12, one of the Windows elements that will change the most will be this menu. However, it is possible that we could see a new version of it much sooner than we imagine. Of course, it probably doesn't fit exactly what we all had in mind.

Start Menu Companions, the new start menu add-on
As we can see on the Twitter account of Albacore, one of the largest Windows Insiders, the latest development version of the Microsoft system, build 26212, has been introduced silently (that is, without reflecting it in the list of changes). Windows) a new feature called “Start Menu Companions”.

 

 

As can be seen in the leaked screenshots, in the Settings panel > Personalization > Start Menu we will have a new option that will allow us to activate or deactivate this feature, as well as choose which side of the menu we want to display the widgets on.

Another important novelty that we have been able to find is the possibility of asking Copilot for help to help us find any term we are looking for in the search bar of the Configuration window. To use it, it is necessary that our PC already has Copilot enabled, and activate the function using the ID "49445394" using the Vivetool tool.

How to test it
At the moment there is not much more information about this function. This is something very experimental that only this Insider has been tested. We don't really know how the feature will work in the end, whether it will read data directly from the widgets or have a JSON that we can configure. Nor what are the widgets that we can pin, because right now we have only seen the stock market and the weather.

At the moment, even if we have this latest Insider build of Windows 11 installed, we will not be able to enable this feature even if we wanted to. But, if it eventually becomes an official feature, it won't take long for Microsoft to let it see and test users within the Insider program. And, if in the end everything goes ahead, it will surely be one of the star features of the Windows 11 24H2 update, which should be released in the fall of this year.

 

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