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Windows 10X has a new Start Menu and no more Live Tiles

Windows 10X has a new Start Menu and no more Live Tiles

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Dual-screen devices won’t get animated and flipping Start Menu icons

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The Verge

Microsoft is making some big Start Menu changes to Windows 10X. The software maker just unveiled Windows 10X, a new variant of Windows 10 that’s designed to run on dual-screen and foldable devices that are coming in the future, including the Surface Neo. There have been a number of tweaks to the operating system to make it more touch-friendly, but the Start Menu is perhaps the most obvious.

Microsoft is scrapping its Live Tiles, the animated and flipping icons from the Windows Phone days, in favor of a more simplified look. The Windows 10X Start Menu includes apps you can pin in place, and a list of recent documents. It looks like more of a task launcher than what exists in Windows 10 today.

Prerelease version of Windows 10X
Prerelease version of Windows 10X

It’s not surprising to see a new Start Menu on this Windows 10 variant. Microsoft accidentally revealed this exact Start Menu change earlier this year, after an internal version of Windows 10 was distributed by mistake.

Live Tiles were originally part of Windows Phone, and Microsoft added them to Windows 8 in an effort to encourage developers to create apps that updated the information displayed on them. They were designed to be “glance and go” so you could quickly look at the front of a phone and see information, but that didn’t translate well into the Windows 10 Start Menu and not every app even fully supports the animated tiles.

It’s not clear whether the regular version of Windows 10 will also be updated to include some of these Windows 10X Start Menu changes, but it’s obvious that Microsoft doesn’t see Live Tiles as part of its Windows future anymore.