The Start menu has never been particularly well-liked and remains one of the most critiqued parts of the Windows operating system. It has always lacked customization tools, and its interface has often felt cluttered.

While Microsoft has made small tweaks over the years, none of them have been significant enough to truly improve the experience, and users have consistently found something to complain about. Now, though, the Start menu is finally getting a major overhaul, and thankfully, this update seems to be addressing the long-standing issues that users have been complaining about for years.

The revamped Start menu is wider and more customizable

As spotted by our favorite Windows tinkerer @phantomofearth, Windows 11 preview builds 26200.5518 and 26120.3671, released today for the Dev and Beta channels respectively, include a massive Start menu redesign.

The refreshed Windows 11 Start menu is smaller and more compact than its predecessor in Windows 10. While some may find that it provides a cleaner, more streamlined view, many believe the smaller design sacrifices functionality and makes the Start menu feel cluttered. Thankfully, that's not the case for much longer. The new Start menu appears to be wider and features a larger layout.

The two-section design also seems to be finally going away and is being replaced with a single scrollable view. Instead of needing to click the All apps button next to the Pinned section's header, a list of all your apps will now be displayed right below your pinned apps and recommendations, which appear at the very top.

If you think it's still too cluttered (which many people likely will), you can finally toggle off the Recommended section, which shows recent apps and files you've installed or opened. You can do this by heading to Settings > Personalization and toggling off all the recommended-related options, including:

• Show recently added apps
• Show most used apps
• Show recommended files in Start, recent files in File Explorer, and items in Jump Lists, tips
• Show recommendations for tips, shortcuts, new apps, and more

On the same page, you'll also find an option to automatically show all your pinned apps without needing to expand the view first.

All in all, it’s great to see that Microsoft is finally listening to user feedback and working on a major overhaul, instead of just tinkering with a few features here and there. Since the feature is currently hidden in the latest Windows 11 developer and beta builds, you won’t be able to test it just by installing the latest Insider update.

To access it, you’ll need to enable feature ID 4940238, along with the All Apps layouts (feature IDs 49221331 and 47205210). If that doesn’t work, make sure to enable feature ID 48433719.