WINDOWS 10

Windows 10 New Start menu de-emphasizes Live Tiles

Microsoft is “exploring” a new Windows 10 Start menu design that will see the company de-emphasize its Live Tiles. The potential changes were revealed in a Windows Insider podcast today and are designed to “visually differentiate the Start menu from something that’s chaotic color to something that’s more uniform.” Microsoft is looking at reducing the color of the blocks of the tiled interface on the Start menu to simplify it and make it easier to scan for apps.

The software maker has been using Live Tiles on the Start menu in Windows 10 ever since it launched nearly five years ago, providing animated and flipping icons that were similar to Windows Phone. Microsoft has already dropped Live Tiles from its Windows 10X Start menu for dual screens, but the company claims the colorful tiled interface isn’t going away in the main desktop OS despite this new design direction.

Windows 10X is the canary in the coal mine. This new version of Windows 10 is designed for dual-screen devices, but that’s not all it is. Windows 10X is a modern version of Windows 10 that runs applications in containers. Beyond that, it includes a new, simplified interface.That simplified interface includes a new Start menu. Rather than featuring live tiles, it provides a simplified list of your installed applications. It’s a grid-based view with icons rather than tiles.Windows 10X is still in development and hasn’t been released yet. Microsoft is clearly using it as a test platform for a simplified desktop interface, and the new Start menu is a part of that. If you want to know the safest way to buy Windows 10 Key Code, I recommend you buy it via z2u.com, the site has been officially certified,so it’s very safe.

Currently, Microsoft plans to continue supporting Live Tiles. You can disable them in the current builds of Windows 10, but the UI looks odd without them. With the new Star Menu, Microsoft is exploring ways to make the icons pop. The large colored squares are gone, replaced with translucent squares and rectangles with icons inside. Microsoft also showed the new design in both light and dark mode. It looks a lot like the new Windows 10X start menu for dual-screen devices.

While Microsoft is professing a commitment to Live Tiles, this feels like unenthusiastic lip service. It seems likely that Google will ditch Live Tiles entirely if Windows 10X and the tentative redesign shown in the livestream work out. This is still just an early preview of proposed design changes. It might take a long time for the new Start menu to become part of Windows.