TL; DR
- A near-final version of Windows 11 has been leaked online.
- The operating system offers a number of design tweaks that appear to have been carried over from Windows 10X.
- Microsoft will officially present the operating system on June 24th.
After a lot of hints and teasing, Microsoft’s next operating system is finally out of the bag. A series of leaks posted on the Chinese website Baidu (via The edge) apparently confirmed the Windows 11 title. Now a leaked ISO of Windows 11 Pro Build 21996.1 has detailed the upcoming changes and features of the new operating system.
The biggest change in the operating system is at the bottom of the desktop. Centered icons and a new start menu seem to come from Windows 10X. It is understandable that the latter operating system hit the market earlier this year. If you don’t like it, the Start menu can also be reset to the Windows 10 specification.
Further improvements to the user interface included rounded window corners, new icons in the file explorer and in the start menu, and a clearer search interface. The Xbox app is also getting new design elements.
Despite the updated features, it is clear that the leaked ISO is an early, incomplete build. Some of these UI improvements didn’t find it in the Action Center or the Windows Store. If you were hoping for a new settings page, all you get is a new splash screen. You can use all of the new features in. see better Neowin11-minute deep dive.
Windows 11 vs Windows 10
At first glance, there isn’t a drastic difference between Windows 10 and Windows 11. The two operating systems seem to share the same fundamentals, and the leap from one to the other won’t be as big a leap as Windows XP to Windows 7. Nonetheless, Microsoft has been It’s not yet my turn to explain key advances in Windows 11.
Microsoft will officially announce Windows 11 on June 24th at 11 a.m. ET. Expect Windows Insiders to get their first taste of the operating system before it makes its official mainstream consumer debut later this year.
Before the leak, Microsoft also announced that support for Windows 10 will end in 2025 – ten years after the operating system first debuted. So there is plenty of time to decide if you want to take the plunge to Windows 11.
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