Microsoft’s new Windows 11 Start menu is bigger and fixes a major pain point

Microsoft is working on a new Windows 11 Start menu design that’s bigger and more customizable than what exists today. Windows watcher phantomofearth discovered the new design in recent builds of Windows 11, where the updated Start menu has a larger layout and finally lets you disable the recommended feed of files and apps.

The recommended feed had been a major pain point for Windows 11 users who upgraded from Windows 10, because it takes up a lot of space on the Start menu, and not everyone needs to see their recent files and apps. Microsoft’s new Start menu design now keeps everything on one scrollable page, and you can even access all apps without having to navigate to a separate section.

The all apps view is also easily accessible and can be set to a category view or list, depending on what you prefer the UI to look like. This larger Start menu also means that you can now pin more apps, up to 8 per row, and there’s no longer a limit of just three rows.

Microsoft has started testing this new Start menu design in 24H2 builds of Windows 11, but the software maker has also backported this to 23H2 versions. This suggests that this new design will make its way to all Windows 11 users in the coming weeks or months.