New Windows 10 Start menu design without live tiles.
@NTAuthority on Twitter

Microsoft messed up today, releasing an internal build of Windows 10 to Windows Insiders. This build was never meant to see the light of day, but it features a new Start menu design—without live tiles.

The biggest change in the new Start menu design is the removal of live tiles. No more automatically updating tiles with information about your email, the weather, or news stories. Live tiles were pioneered in Windows Phone and were one of the platform’s best features, so it would be sad to see Microsoft give up on them.

On the other hand, live tiles are underused on Windows 10. They make for sense on a phone’s home screen—how many people are opening their Start menu to read the information on the tiles, especially when so many desktop applications don’t offer live tile support at all?

Remember: There are no guarantees that this new Start menu will ever make it out of development. Microsoft is clearly testing it, but that doesn’t mean we’ll all be using it soon. Even if this is the future of Windows 10’s Start menu, it will likely see a lot more polish before then.

In our opinion, the best feature of the leaked Start menu is that Candy Crush is nowhere to be found—so far.

Leaked Windows 10 Start menu without live tiles
@NTAuthority on Twitter
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Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. He's written about technology for over a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Chris has written for The New York Times, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami's NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read nearly one billion times---and that's just here at How-To Geek.
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