Category: Windows 11

Several days ago, somebody at Microsoft spilled the beans by leaking a pre-release build of the upcoming Windows 11, aka "the next generation of Windows." The leaked build 21996 revealed some curious UI and feature changes coming to Windows, for example, a centered taskbar and a brand-new Start menu. Besides, there is a new mysterious Widgets button.

This week, an internal build of Windows 11 was leaked online, confirming both the name of the new system and showcasing a new user interface and some features. There was no doubt about the authenticity of the image initially, but some users still sure that it is a half-baked Windows 10X proto from Microsoft, and by the end of this month the company will demonstrate "the real system and its name."

You can disable Snap Layouts for the maximize button in Windows 11 if you find them annoying. The windows snapping feature is not exclusive to the OS, but the Layouts pop-up is a new feature of Windows 11.

Here's how you can install Windows 11 with a Local Account and omit the Microsoft Account requirement. It forces the latter by default if you have connected your device to the Internet. However, if it is not your plan, you can bypass the enforcement and set up Windows 11 with a traditional account type.

You can enable or disable Remember Window Locations in Windows 11, a feature that makes the OS remember window locations based on monitor connection. Thanks to it, the next you open an app or a File Explorer window, it will open right at the position where you close it.

The leaked Windows 11 build comes with a new panel called "Widgets", the icon of which is pinned to the taskbar by default. However, these are not at all the same desktop gadgets that were in the days of Windows 7. In fact, what we see is just a different implementation of the "News and Interests" function from Windows 10 with a different user interface. The Widget panel connects to the MSN service and displays tiles with news, weather, sports and finance.

You can add or remove the widgets button from taskbar in Windows 11 that is visible by default and opens the Widgets view. Besides the button, the Widgets feature can be open using the Win + W shortcut.

The recent leak of Windows 11 build 21996 reveals one more interesting thing. There's Windows 11 SE, the successor to the Windows 10 Cloud Edition. During the installation it only allows using an online account.

You can change the taskbar size in Windows 11 to one of the three different presets. A recently leaked build of Windows 11 exposes the appropriate settings. Windows 10 offers users two size options for the taskbar - standard or small. In Windows 11, things are slightly different. While there's no GUI option for that, you still can resize the taskbar.

The Snap feature in Windows 11 has got useful additions and is possibly inspired by Fancy Zones of PowerToys. The snapping process remains unchanged since Windows 10 and supports the same keyboard shortcuts. However, the new thing here is when you move your mouse  pointer over the Maximize window button on any open window, a pop-up will allow you to quickly pick the desired position of the window on the screen.