New changes to the Start menu in testing are a dark cloud on the horizon of Windows.
Windows 11 has just witnessed two preview releases, and the one that arrived for the Dev channel came with a useful feature for File Explorer – but there are more controversial ad-related elements here (we’ll come back to that).
We’ve covered the preview build for the Canary channel elsewhere today, and that added a Facebook widget – an introduction also made with this new build for the Dev channel (version 23451).
Dev-based testers also got a new piece of functionality bolted onto File Explorer, namely a modernized details pane.
When enabled, the pane – benefiting from a modern design, as seen elsewhere in the ongoing overhaul of File Explorer – displays details about any given file along the lines of contextual info. So, for example, recent activity on the file, related files and emails, or its sharing status.
This replaces the old details pane for File Explorer, but if you’re not keen on having these extra bits of info, you can just turn off the pane.
It’s worth noting that this feature won’t be seen by all testers to begin with, but is one of those that Microsoft is testing the waters with and gradually rolling out among Windows Insiders.
Build 23451 has also given some attention to Windows Spotlight (lock screen background), trying out a couple of different variations here (both will sport 4K portrait images, though).
