Microsoft Confirms the Windows 10 Start Menu Is Getting New Features

Third-party apps that bring back the Start menu on modern Windows and try to make the desktop a better world might not be needed anymore, as Microsoft is working to make the original Start menu powerful enough to be capable of addressing users’ needs with the default feature package.

Windows 10 Technical Preview build 9926 already comes with a pretty decent Start menu, which features live tiles and expands into a full-featured Start screen, but the company is already working to add more options in future updates.

And according to Gabe Aul, head of the Windows Insider program, new Start menu features are already ready to be shipped to users in the next Windows 10 build. Once again, he has refused to provide any kind of details, although he has admitted that he sees “nice progress” since the last build.

Transparency and new effects

While Aul has refused to provide any specifics on these improvements, it’s believed that the Start menu would get transparency and some new effects in the upcoming builds, with both features already spotted in a number of leaked screenshots that have reached the web lately.

Transparency is one of the features that users have requested from the very beginning and which Microsoft has already confirmed would come in a future update, and given the fact that it’s already available in the recently compiled builds, expect it to be part of the upcoming release as well.

At the same time, Start menu visual effects are also in the works since the first build of Windows 10, and Microsoft is indeed planning to make launching and closing the Start menu a bit more visually appealing. Options to improve the effects when maximizing the Start menu to Start screen are also being developed.

As far as the next Windows 10 build is concerned, sources say that it could launch sometime this week. The final version should get the go-ahead in the second half of 2015 after previously reaching RTM in June.