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Posts tagged "taskbar"

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Start11 continues to solve Windows 11’s taskbar issues before Sun Valley 2 arrives
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Stardock has updated its Start menu for Windows 11, which brings more options to help manage the Taskbar.

Since the release of Windows 11 in November 2021, reception to the new Start menu has been mixed at best. The centered icons and the fewer features of the Start menu have frustrated some, and while feature updates from Microsoft have refined the Taskbar, users are still wanting more customization.

The recent 1.2 version of Start11 brings the ability to group multiple icons into one on the taskbar, alongside bringing drag and drop to the taskbar from today (March 17), instead of waiting for a future Windows 11 update, most likely Sun Valley 2.

The app is available as a free download for 30 days, after which you can buy a license for $ 4.99 / £5.99 / AU$ 5.99 for your PC.

Analysis: Take note, Microsoft

Start11 on Windows 11

(Image credit: Stardock)

The impressive aspect of Start11 isn't that you can use features that were removed in Windows 11. Rather, it's how you can customize it to levels that Microsoft wouldn't consider including.

From the color scheme of the Taskbar, to changing the design to better mimic the Start menus of Windows XP and Windows 8, Start11 offers that level of curation that Microsoft seemingly hasn't thought of.

In our review of Windows 11 we noted that it was the first step of a reboot to Windows as a whole. We're already seeing the results of this with Windows Media Player returning, and other apps that are finally seeing a design refresh.

But the Start menu is an iconic feature of Windows, ever since it debuted in Windows 95, so any change was bound to spark some debate between users. However, Start11 looks set to ease those concerns, regardless of what Microsoft may have planned for the Start menu in the future.

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Start11 continues to solve Windows 11’s taskbar issues before Sun Valley 2 arrives
  • No Comments

Stardock has updated its Start menu for Windows 11, which brings more options to help manage the Taskbar.

Since the release of Windows 11 in November 2021, reception to the new Start menu has been mixed at best. The centered icons and the fewer features of the Start menu have frustrated some, and while feature updates from Microsoft have refined the Taskbar, users are still wanting more customization.

The recent 1.2 version of Start11 brings the ability to group multiple icons into one on the taskbar, alongside bringing drag and drop to the taskbar from today (March 17), instead of waiting for a future Windows 11 update, most likely Sun Valley 2.

The app is available as a free download for 30 days, after which you can buy a license for $ 4.99 / £5.99 / AU$ 5.99 for your PC.

Analysis: Take note, Microsoft

Start11 on Windows 11

(Image credit: Stardock)

The impressive aspect of Start11 isn't that you can use features that were removed in Windows 11. Rather, it's how you can customize it to levels that Microsoft wouldn't consider including.

From the color scheme of the Taskbar, to changing the design to better mimic the Start menus of Windows XP and Windows 8, Start11 offers that level of curation that Microsoft seemingly hasn't thought of.

In our review of Windows 11 we noted that it was the first step of a reboot to Windows as a whole. We're already seeing the results of this with Windows Media Player returning, and other apps that are finally seeing a design refresh.

But the Start menu is an iconic feature of Windows, ever since it debuted in Windows 95, so any change was bound to spark some debate between users. However, Start11 looks set to ease those concerns, regardless of what Microsoft may have planned for the Start menu in the future.

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Ditch the Microsoft Teams icon from the taskbar to speed up Windows 11
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There is a lot to take in if you've moved to Windows 11 from Windows 10, with many of the major changes visible in the taskbar. Yes, there is the repositioned Start button and the centered shortcuts, but there are plenty of other changes too. Just look to the right-hand side of the taskbar, and you'll notice all manner of changes since previous versions of Windows.

As Microsoft has tried to encourage people away from using the likes of Slack and Zoom, the company has been pushing its own Microsoft Teams app. A seemingly innocuous addition to the taskbar has been a shortcut to Teams, and while you may resent giving up space to the icon if you're not a user of the app, there are more reasons to hide the icon than simply saving space in your taskbar.

You might be surprised to learn that so long as the Microsoft Teams icon is housed in the Windows 11 taskbar, it is firing up processes in the background. These Microsoft Edge WebView2 processes are associated with the browser rendering engine, and they use up system resources that could be put to better use.

Drain on resources

The same is true of the Widgets icon that sits in the taskbar but, as developer Michael Niehaus points out, there is key difference between the two icons. While Widgets only launches processes when the icon is clicked, the mere presence of the Teams icon is enough to use up many megabytes of RAM.

If you're not using Teams, you might want to consider simply uninstalling the app. But to avoid the problem of having to reinstall it should you find you need it further down the line, there is an alternative – just hide the icon. This simple act is enough to prevent Teams from gobbling up resources in the background.

If you try right-clicking the Teams icon to delete it, you'll notice that no context menu appears. To remove the icon you will instead have to head to Windows 11's Settings app and go to Personalization > Taskbar, before moving the 'Chats' toggle to the 'Off' position.  

Via Ars Technica

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Windows 11 taskbar is getting fixed (but not in a hurry)
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Windows 11 is receiving further attention in terms of ironing out bugs with the taskbar, and there’s been some fresh buzz from the grapevine suggesting that a major change to drag and drop functionality won’t appear until late in 2022.

Windows Latest pointed out that the major development in the works requested by many – the ability to drag and drop apps onto the taskbar, to swiftly and easily create shortcuts to the most commonly used programs – is still underway as previously rumored, with Microsoft testing the feature internally.

The word from sources at Microsoft is that this capability will come to preview builds in a few months, but won’t arrive in the release version of Windows 11 until later in 2022 – it’ll come as part of the 22H2 update.

This aside, Microsoft is also busy on minor fixes for the taskbar, and that includes resolving an issue whereby the battery icon tooltip sometimes mistakenly shows a charge level above 100%. This fix has been applied with the latest preview build 22523 (which emerged a couple of weeks back), and so it should be delivered in a cumulative update soon enough.

Other taskbar bug squashing in that preview build includes fixing an issue where app icons could overlap with the date and time display on secondary monitors, and the solution for a gremlin with ARM64-powered PCs which caused the taskbar’s core UI (search box, Start menu) to become unresponsive.

Analysis: Microsoft dragging (and dropping) its heels – but better late than never

The Windows 11 taskbar has drawn a lot of criticism for some of the changes made by Microsoft in terms of options for tweaking this part of the UI, and in particular losing the drag and drop functionality which is a simple and core part of the Windows experience, let’s face it.

As to the timeframe of the potential return of this feature – and remember, this is just rumored, and only the plans apparently underway at Microsoft currently (which could presumably change) – it’s a little disappointing that we may not get drag and drop back until much later in 2022, in theory.

That said, remember that there isn’t a 22H1 update, as Windows 11 has dropped to a once-per-year cadence for delivering major upgrades, but it’s a long wait until what could be September or October 2022 (or possibly even later) for this feature to make its much-requested return.

We had hoped that maybe Microsoft could squeeze this move in with some kind of a feature pack update beforehand – or online service pack as the company has renamed these with Windows 11 – but it seems not, and drag and drop will only be in testing when it comes to the near-term future.

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