For most of my life, I used Windows. I grew up on them, since my father worked in software that almost exclusively depended on PCs. Macs were what we used in school. At home, and then later into early adulthood, I had a succession of PC through every iteration of Windows between Windows 95 and Windows 10.
To this day, I keep an old Intel-chip MacBook with a partition for Windows 10 for when I need to access something a Mac can’t, such as NTFS-formatted disk drives. Firing it up always feels immediately familiar. I could almost navigate it with my eyes closed. At least, I could open the start menu.
It’s muscle memory. Just swing the cursor all the way to the lower left-hand part of the screen. Microsoft’s finally changing that, though, in an upcoming update to Windows 11.
changes, front and center
“Start is getting personal,” wrote Microsoft in its announcement of a slew of changes to Windows on May 6, “with more options to customize and organize your apps.
“The new all apps category view automatically sorts based on the apps and categories you use most, so you can quickly access all your favorites. And now with the phone companion in Start, your connected Android or iOS device is only a click away.”
What’s behind this greater customization and organization of apps? Turning the Start Menu into a single window with pinned apps located at the top, recommended apps below that, and the complete variety of apps in a scrollable panel. And, thank the heavens, the recommended apps can be turned off, as @phantomofearth.
As for me, I won’t see the update, since I can’t download Windows 11 to my Mac. Blame the quirks of macOS’s Boot Camp, and the fact that Apple seems not to have an appetite anymore for devoting much time to polishing Boot Camp when it flat-out doesn’t work on the Apple-designed chips that’ve comprised their Mac lineup since 2020.
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