What’s New and Familiar in Windows 11 (24H2)

Microsoft describes Windows 11 as being “fresh and familiar,” and while that sounds paradoxical, it’s true. That is, Windows 11 offers a fresh new user experience that is simpler, prettier, and more modern than that of its predecessor, Windows 10. But it is also instantly familiar, providing all the same basic interfaces that Windows users expect, know, and use.

For those who were using Windows 11 already, the latest version–called Windows 11 version 24H2–is largely consistent with its predecessors, though Microsoft has made many changes throughout the system by improving existing features and adding new features and apps.

We will dive into these topics in more detail throughout the book, but here is a quick breakdown of the major changes, improvements, and features available in Windows 11, whether you’re coming from Windows 10 or an earlier version of Windows 11.

New design

The first thing you’ll notice when you boot into Windows 11 is its fresh new design. Microsoft has dramatically simplified the user interface in Windows 11 while retaining the basic look and feel of previous Windows versions.

Familiar interfaces like the Desktop, Taskbar, and Start are all present as before, but they’re more streamlined and prettier than before. Even the system sounds have been completely overhauled to help create an overall sense of calm, Microsoft claims.

Where did it go?

One side effect of Microsoft’s simplification work in Windows 11 is that some common interfaces in Windows 10 are now harder to find, require extra steps, or are simply missing. We will point out these stumbling blocks as needed and any workarounds when available.

At a high level, the new Windows 11 design consists of several key components. It’s simpler and more modern looking than Windows 10, and more naturally transitions between Light and Dark modes. Key interfaces like Start and the icons on the Taskbar are now centered by default to more closely align with the look and feel of mobile platforms like Android and iPhone. And windows and controls now display with curved corners instead of the sharp-edged corners from before, helping to make Windows 11 feel calmer and cleaner.

Lock screen and sign-in screen

The Lock screen appears when you power on or wake up your PC. The version you see in Windows 11 is very similar to that of Windows 10, but it’s been updated with the new Windows 11 font treatment and now displays an enhanced “Weather and more” experience with weather, finance, traffic, and sports cards along the bottom of the screen.

Where did it go?

The Windows 11 Lock screen is missing one feature from Windows 10: You can no longer configure up to 7 apps that display quick status alerts. (The old detailed status alert functionality is now called Lock screen status.) There is no workaround for this regression.

When you click past the Lock screen Windows 11 displays the Sign-in screen, where you authenticate your account and sign in to Windows. There are no functional changes to this screen when compared to Windows 10.

Desktop

The Windows 11 Desktop is largely unchanged from that of Windows 10, and you will find the same basic functionality and a single icon, for Recycle Bin.

Like the other top-level interfaces in Windows 11, the Desktop has, of course, been updated with new wallpapers and the new design. Context menus–which are accessed as before by right-clicking the Desktop or icons on the Desktop–are simplified, with fewer choices than before and visually updated to match the Windows 11 look and feel.

Where did it go?

The word “simplified” should act as a trigger for power users because in this case it means that some options that were previously available in the Desktop’s context menus are no longer available in Windows 11. To display the classic context menus, hold down SHIFT when you right-click. Or, choose “Show more options” from the default context menu.

You can learn more in the Desktop chapter.

Taskbar

Windows 11 delivers an all-new Taskbar along the bottom of the screen. As before, it features a Start button, a row of icons representing pinned app shortcuts and running apps, a system tray with small system icons, and a clock and calendar display to the far right.

The Windows 11 Taskbar also brings some changes. The app icons it contains are now centered by default. And Microsoft places four new default items in the Taskbar: A Widgets icon with a weather display and other notifications in the far left and then a Search bar and Task view icon to the right of the Start button.

There are other, less obvious changes: the Network, Volume, and Power system icons are now interconnected and launch the new Quick settings interface when selected. And the clock and date display launches two new interfaces, Notifications and Calendar, when selected.

Microsoft has also updated the Taskbar since the initial release of Windows 11 to address some of the features it was initially missing. For example, you can configure whether Taskbar icons from the same app are combined into a single button without text labels, as was possible in Windows 10.

You can learn more in the Taskbar chapter. You can also learn more about Quick settings in–wait for it–the Quick Settings chapter.

Where did it go?

The Windows 11 Taskbar can be configured to display its icons–and the Start menu–on the left side of the screen, but it is missing many key features that you may be used to from Windows 10. For example, you can no longer move the Taskbar to the top, left, or right edge of the screen, and it no longer supports a small icon mode.

As bad, where the Windows 10 Taskbar displayed a large context menu with many useful choices when right-clicked, the Windows 11 Taskbar displays just two choices, “Task Manager” and “Taskbar settings.”

We explain available workarounds to missing Taskbar functionality in the Taskbar chapter too.

Start

Like the Taskbar, Start in Windows 11 is all-new, and a major departure from its predecessors.

The basics are the same, of course: You can still use Start to find and launch apps, access Search, access shortcuts to user account and power options.

But tart features a simpler new design in Windows 11, with two major areas, Pinned, for app shortcuts, and Recommended, which commingles recently installed apps and recently accessed documents and files. (And even throws in an advertisement here and there.)

Start also offers basic customization capabilities. You can add, remove, and reposition icons as desired in Pinned, and even arrange them in folders. And you can choose between three different layouts.

You can learn more in the Start chapter.

Where did it go?

As with the Taskbar, Start is missing some expected functionality, including some features that were present in Windows 10. The most obvious is live tiles, but Start also can’t be resized in Windows 11, and there are no options for removing the Pinned or Recommended areas. These regressions are explored further in the Start chapter as well.

To toggle Start with the keyboard, tape the WINKEY key on your keyboard or type CTRL + ESC.

Widgets

Windows 11 includes a web-based interface called Widgets that is accessible via a new icon that sits at the left end of the Taskbar.

Widgets displays a customizable board of widgets, which are small cards that display dynamic data from apps and online services. It is pre-configured to display personal information like weather, photos, local news and sports, traffic, and the like at the top left and then a scrolling feed of mostly low-quality news and other web-based articles.

Widgets replaces a Windows 10 feature called News and interests, and it looks and works similarly despite being located in a different place in the Taskbar.

You can learn more in the Widgets chapter.

To toggle Widgets with the keyboard, type WINKEY + W.

Search

As with previous Windows versions, Windows 11 features multiple entry points to Search, or what many still think of as Start search. One of the more discoverable is the prominent Search item on the Taskbar, which can be configured to display as a Search box (the default), an icon and label (informally called the “Search pill”) or just an icon. Or, you can remove it from the Taskbar altogether.

To configure how Search appears in the Taskbar, right-click an empty area of the Taskbar and choose “Taskbar settings” from the context menu that appears.

You can also access Search from Start. When you select the Search box in the Start menu, Search appears (replacing Start), offering a search box, recent items from Start, and a feature called Search highlights that displays web links related to the current day along with trending online searches.

As with the Search interface in Windows 10, you will find a more traditional Start search-like experience when you open Start and begin typing a search term without selecting the search box first. And as before, you can filter the results to display only apps, documents, web results, or other items.

You can learn more in the Search chapter.

You can also launch Search by typing WINKEY + S or WINKEY + Q. It’s not clear why there are two keyboard shortcuts.

Task view

Like Windows 10, Windows 11 supports a Task view interface that lets you select from a list of running apps and other open windows, and do so across multiple virtual desktops. This interface can also be used to manage these virtual desktops (which Microsoft confusingly calls Desktops): you can create new virtual desktops, close virtual existing desktops, and move apps and windows between different virtual desktops.

In addition to sporting a new layout and visual style, Task view in Windows 11 differs from that in its predecessor in another notable way: It no longer supports the Timeline feature from Windows 10.

You can learn more in theTask View chapter. Windows 11’s virtual desktops feature is discussed in the Desktops chapter.

You can also display Task view by typing WINKEY + TAB.

Quick settings

As its name implies, Quick settings provides quick access to commonly needed system settings without requiring you to open the Settings app. It appears as a small pane when you select the Network, Volume, or Power icons in the system tray.

Since the initial release of Windows 11, Quick settings has been updated with an integrated volume mixer and the ability to scroll between all available quick settings, which appear as buttons at the top of this pane.

The quick settings buttons replace the quick actions tiles found in the Windows 10 Action Center.

You can learn more in the Quick Settings chapter.

You can also display Quick settings by typing WINKEY + A.

Notifications and Calendar

When you click the time/date display in the system tray, the Notifications and Calendar panes appear.

Notifications is Windows 11’s notifications manager, and it displays app and system notifications you previously ignored or missed. It also has a “Do not disturb” button for muting notifications so you can focus on your work.

You can learn more about Do not disturb in the Do Not Disturb and Focus chapter.

The Notifications pane replaces the notifications functionality that was previously available in the Windows 10 Action Center.

Calendar provides a read-only view of the current month with the current day highlighted. You can also use its “Focus” button–and the related focus timer–to start a focus session.

You can learn more about focus sessions in the Do Not Disturb and Focus chapter.

Where did it go?

The Calendar pane in Windows 11 is an unsatisfactory replacement for the Clock/calendar pane that appeared when you selected the time/date display in the Windows 10 Taskbar. This calendar is not interactive, and it does not let you add events and meetings as did the Clock/calendar pane in Windows 10. There are no workarounds for these shortcomings, sorry.

You can also display the Notifications and Calendar panes by typing WINKEY + N.

Quick link menu

The Quick link menu in Windows 11 provides links to advanced legacy system tools like Device Manager, Disk Management, and Power Options. This tool existed in Windows 10, and it continues forward with just minor changes in Windows 11.

To display the Quick link menu, right-click the Start button.

You can also type WINKEY + X to display this menu.

File Explorer

File Explorer is a file management app, and it’s been extensively redesigned for Windows 11, with a simpler and prettier new look and feel.

File Explorer has been updated multiple times since in the initial release of Windows 11. It now sports a new layout with a redesigned Home page, a pretty new Gallery view that displays your photo collection, even deeper OneDrive integration, integrated support for archive file formats like ZIP, 7Z, and TAR.GZ, and more.

You can learn more in the File Explorer chapter.

Fans of keyboard shortcuts can type WINKEY + E to open a new File Explorer window at any time.

Multitasking

Windows 11 provides the same basic multitasking features that you’re familiar with from previous Windows versions. But each has been visually updated, and there is some useful new functionality as well.

Alt + Tab

Alt + Tab is the original multitasking keyboard shortcut in Windows–as you would expect, it’s triggered by typing ALT + TAB–and it lets you switch between any open apps, windows, and, by default, the three most recently accessed tabs in the Microsoft Edge web browser. Alt + Tab appears as a floating pane centered on-screen, and only while you continue to hold down the ALT key.

You can learn more in the Alt + Tab chapter.

Task view

As noted earlier in this chapter, Task view works similarly to Alt + Tab, while adding additional functionality. First, the interface is full-screen and persistent, so you don’t need to hold down the TAB key to keep it on screen. Second, Windows 11 provides a Taskbar icon for Task view by default, so you can easily discover this feature and then access it via mouse, touchpad, or touch. And Task view also provides access to Desktops, the virtual desktop feature described (and shown) earlier in the chapter.

You can learn more in the Task View chapter.

Shake

It’s disabled by default, but Windows 11 still includes the fun Shake feature, which lets you “shake” an app or other window by its title bar to minimize all other windows. Then, you can shake it again to restore the previously minimized windows.

You can learn more in the Desktop chapter.

Snap

Windows has long included a feature called Snap that lets you arrange two or more apps or other open windows on-screen so that they can all be seen at the same time. In Windows 11, Snap has been dramatically improved with three new features, Snap layouts, Snap suggestions, and Snap groups.

Snap layouts provides a visual display of the available layouts by which you can place the current window exactly where you want it and then use the preexisting Snap assist feature to place other windows in the remaining space.

Snap suggestions appears as a flyout when you hover the mouse cursor over the Restore window button of any floating app or other window. It provides Snap layout suggestions that include the current window and other open windows.

Snap groups lets you recreate a previous Snap layout. Just mouse over one of the apps that was in the group you wish to reuse and then select the group, instead of the app, from the pop-up that appears.

You can learn more in the Snap chapter.

Task Manager

Functionally, Task Manager works as before: It provides a set of system management features, including Processes (the default), Performance, App history, Startup apps, Users, Details, and Services.

The most commonly used are Processes (tasks) and Startup apps management.

Task Manager receives a significant visual update in Windows 11 that, among other things, supports both Light and Dark modes. And it offers new features like Process search and Efficiency mode, the latter of which helps you fix app processes that are over-stressing your computer’s CPU.

You can learn more in the Task Manager chapter.

You can also launch Task Manager by typing CTRL + SHIFT + ESC. Or, right-click the Taskbar and choose “Task Manager” from the context menu that appears.

Do not disturb and Focus assist

Microsoft has been evolving its approach to interruption-free productivity in Windows for several years, And in Windows 11, we see the latest rendition of this functionality via two related features, Do not disturb and Focus assist.

Do not disturb is a toggle that prevents notifications from interrupting you while you work. You can configure it to disable all notifications or to allow specific important notifications through. When Do not disturb is enabled, notifications are silently sent to the Notifications pane, where they can be reviewed later.

Do not disturb was called Focus assist in Windows 10.

Focus sessions is a new Windows 11 feature that allows you to set up and configure a block of time for deep work. In addition to enabling Do not disturb, which blocks notifications, Focus sessions also disables Taskbar icon interruptions (via badges and flashing) and displays a focus timer via the Clock app onscreen. Focus sessions can also optionally integrate with Microsoft To Do (a task management service) and Spotify (the popular music service, for calming background music).

You can learn more in the Do Not Disturb and Focus assist chapter.

Windows Backup

Windows 11 now includes a new Windows Backup app that provides a centralized front-end to several related but separate features—OneDrive Folder Backup, installed Microsoft Store apps and their settings, system settings, and passwords and other credentials—that Windows has had for years. This app lets you save a backup of these items at any time, and if you buy a new computer or reset your current PC, you can restore these items during the initial Windows 11 setup.

Like so many Windows 11 features, Windows Backup requires a Microsoft account (or, for business users, a Microsoft Work or School account), and it assumes that you sign in to Windows with that account.

You can learn more in the Windows Backup chapter.

Tablet optimized experience

Windows 10 provided a discrete tablet mode when you removed the keyboard from a tablet or 2-in-1 PC. But with Windows 11, tablet mode is gone, and the PC just automatically optimizes itself for touch when you remove the keyboard. When you’re using an app, the Taskbar minimizes and displays only a handful of notification icons and, in its middle, a drag handle.

But if you swipe up on the drag handle in the middle of the minimized Taskbar or close the apps, a taller version of the traditional Taskbar appears with larger and more spread-out icons that are more finger-friendly.

Additionally, Windows 11 supports new multitouch gestures related to accessing key user interfaces like Start, Quick settings, Snap layouts, and Widgets by swiping in from a screen edge.

You can learn more in the Touch, Pen, and Tablet chapter.

Games

Microsoft is positioning Windows 11 as the future of PC gaming, with built-in support for key foundational gaming technologies like DirectX 12 Ultimate, DirectStorage, and Auto HDR. But gamers will interact more commonly with two key gaming features, the Xbox app and the Game Bar.

The Xbox app lets Xbox users and Game Pass subscribers interact with their friends, browse and buy Xbox-capable PC games, access, install, and manage game titles from their purchased and subscription-based libraries, and, if available, stream cloud-hosted games via Xbox Cloud Gaming.

You can learn more about the Xbox app in the Xbox App chapter.

When invoked, the Game Bar appears as a set of overlays over the game you’re playing and let you take screenshots, record videos, broadcast live game play footage, interact with your friends, and more.

You can learn more about this feature in the Game Bar chapter.

Microsoft Store

The Microsoft Store has been completely redesigned in Windows 11 with a new look and feel and improved navigation. As before, it offers PC apps and games and a selection of movies and TV shows to buy (and, with movies, to rent).

You can learn more in the Microsoft Store chapter.

Microsoft Edge

Like Windows 10, Windows ships with Microsoft Edge as its default web browser, the modern replacement for Internet Explorer. And while the functionality and system integration are basically the same, Microsoft Edge includes many more features and adopts the Windows 11 design, with softer curved corners, for a more native look and feel.

Microsoft Edge is important enough that we devote several chapters to this web browser. You can get started in the Microsoft Edge Basics chapter.

New and improved apps

Microsoft has updated many of the apps that it includes with Windows to adopt the new Windows 11 design. But it has also introduced new apps, and it updated many existing apps with new features.

Key among these apps is Copilot, a personal AI assistant that’s tied into the same AI-based back-end used by Microsoft Copilot on the web. You can use Copilot to get answers to simple or complex questions, to rewrite, summarize, or explain content, and get help with creating new content using simple Internet search-like prompts.

Windows 11 also delivers the powerful but easy to use Clipchamp video editor (shown below), Outlook (a replacement for Mail and Calendar), a modern Media Player app, a Microsoft Teams app that supports consumer and commercial accounts, Quick Assist, and many others.

Media Player replaces the music-focused Groove Music app from Windows 10 and adds video playback and management capabilities.

Windows 11 also provides a growing range of functionality, much of it AI-based, across many of its in-box apps. For example, Notepad now automatically saves your session state and supports spell check and autocorrect. Microsoft Paint delivers AI-based background removal and Cocreator capabilities, plus transparency and layers support. Photos offers background blur (shown below) and other AI editing features. And Snipping Tool provides AI-based text extraction functionality.

We examine these apps and features as possible throughout the book.

Finally, Microsoft also provides its Phone Link app for integrating with your iPhone or Android phone. This app has improved greatly in recent years, especially for those with an Android phone–Apple’s lock-in strategy makes this type of integration more difficult for iPhone users–and most especially for those with high-end Samsung and other select Android flagship devices. New system integration lets you access key Android phone features from outside the Phone Link app too.

You can learn more in the Phone Link chapter.

Settings

Like the Microsoft Store and other in-box apps in Windows 11, Settings has been completely redesigned for Windows 11 with a new look and feel and improved navigation. In recent years, it’s been updated with a new Home view that provides a dashboard-like experience that surfaces commonly needed user and system settings, plus several other small changes.

You can also launch Settings by typing WINKEY + I.

The Settings app comes up again and again as needed throughout the book.

Accessibility

Windows 11 builds on the already impressive accessibility capabilities of its predecessor. It brings forward existing tools like Closed captions, Magnifier, Narrator, and Windows Speech Recognition, often with many improvements.

But there are other differences. In the Settings app, Ease of Access has been renamed to the more obvious Accessibility. And Windows 11 provides two incredible new accessibility features: Live captions and Voice access.

Live captions, shown below, provides captioning in real-time to any audio or video source, including online meetings.

Voice access builds on the other voice control capabilities in Windows–voice typing and Windows Speech Recognition–and lets you control Windows using just your voice.

Security

Windows 11 soldiers forward with all the security features from Windows 10. But it also includes some enhancements.

At a low level, Windows 11-based PCs must support Secure Boot and have a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 chip available and enabled, for example, raising the security baseline for the entire ecosystem. And Smart App Control takes the browser-based SmartScreen technologies from the past, improves them with AI-based application trust prediction capabilities, and integrates it directly into the operating system, ensuring that unsafe apps won’t run.

That said, most users will interact with Windows 11’s security features through system features like Windows Hello and via apps like Windows Security (shown below), Windows Defender, and Windows Update. Each of these topics gets its own chapter, of course.

Command-line improvements

Like its predecessor, Windows 11 ships with two command-line shells, the MS-DOS-like Command Prompt and Windows PowerShell. But you can optionally install one or more Linux command-line shells via the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) as well.

Windows 11 also includes a new application called Terminal that lets you access these command-line environments–plus the Azure Cloud Shell–from a single, tab-based interface.

Terminal, Command Prompt and WSL each have separate dedicated chapters for the budding power user.

Developer improvements

Windows 11 version 23H2 offers a new experience for developers called Dev Home that helps install and configure developer tools like Visual Studio Code using the Windows Package Manager (Winget), configure a faster and more secure Dev Drive on your PC for software projects, connect to your GitHub repositories, and access Microsoft cloud-based developer services like Dev Box and GitHub Codespaces.

If all of that reads like gibberish, no worries: This solution is designed for developers, not mainstream Windows users.

Windows 11 also ships with Microsoft’s Power Automate for desktop, a so-called “low-code” automation solution that helps you optimize workflows and automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks visually.

Servicing and updating

In 2015, Microsoft introduced Windows as a service (WaaS), a system by which it updated Windows 10 as if it were an online service, with two major version upgrades, called feature updates, every year and one or more quality updates with security and bug fixes and other changes every month. The software giant worked to ensure that updates would be less risky to install and more reliable than they had been in the past. And it created more efficient methods for updating key system components outside of feature updates.

Windows 11 inherits those underlying changes, but it brings some new improvements–or, at least, changes–of its own as well.

In Windows 11, feature updates–again, version upgrades–arrive only once per year, in the second half of each year.

This explains Windows 11’s version-based naming scheme. The first release of this system was called Windows 11 version 21H2 because it was released in the second half (H2) of 2021 (21), while the second release was Windows 11 version 22H2. The current version is Windows 11 version 24H2.

But this doesn’t mean that Microsoft waits for one year before adding new features to Windows. Instead, it uses various technologies to deploy new features as frequently as once every month via an evolution of WaaS it now calls continuous innovation. Generally speaking, these monthly quality updates are much smaller than the annual feature updates. But there have been exceptions: Microsoft likes to keep its users on their toes.

Thanks to new packaging efficiencies, quality updates are, on average, about 40 percent smaller than their Windows 10 counterparts.

Most Windows 11 updates are delivered via a service called Windows Update, which is accessible via the Settings app, as shown below. You won’t normally need to access Windows Update directly, as updates will install automatically in time and Windows will prompt you to reboot—or do so overnight regardless—automatically.

Some Windows 11 system components are updated through the Microsoft Store. But you don’t need to worry about that, as those updates will install automatically and never require a reboot.

Of course, most of these changes will be invisible to users aside from the occasional reboot. The theory here is that users today are accustomed to frequent small updates thanks to how mobile platforms like Android and the iPhone work.