Here's a sneak peek at Microsoft's new Windows 10 Start menu

Windows 10 start menu

Microsoft has given us an early taste of changes which are planned for the Start menu on Windows 10.

The Start menu has been something of a sensitive area for Microsoft since Windows 8 famously messed with its mojo, so it was interesting to see a software engineer from Redmond, Jen Gentleman, give us a glimpse of what's in the pipeline, posting up an animated GIF to Twitter.

The new scheme of things is that when you click to bring up the Start menu, you get the All Apps list displayed in full in the left panel (currently to get this, you need to click on it at the bottom left of the menu).

Some other options which are currently available front and centre on the menu – such as Settings – have been hidden in a hamburger menu, although they're still easy enough to access.

Feedback pending

Gentleman wouldn't be drawn on speculating when this rejig will be rolled out to a preview build for Insiders to test, but this tweak is apparently going to be part of the big Windows 10 Anniversary Update (due this summer).

Although whether the design as it stands makes it or not depends on feedback, of course – and some folks are already complaining that All Apps doesn't need such a prominent position in the menu.

The Anniversary Update was shown off at last week's Build conference, with major improvements to Cortana planned, as well as the introduction of Windows Ink, which is designed to make stylus use much more intuitive with the OS. We'll also be seeing a lot more universal apps, too.

Windows 10 is now on over 270 million devices worldwide according to Redmond's own figures.

Via: Windows Central

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).