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Windows 11 Enterprise Overview
Windows 11. The main part of this announcement was supposed to be a presentation of a significant change in the user interface, codenamed Sun Valley. As we know, a significant part of the UX changes will be borrowed from the Windows 10X shell, and Windows 10X will not hit the market. Now, as expected, the Windows 11 information leak begins.
Key features of Windows 11 Enterprise
Windows 11 will receive a completely new design. Microsoft clearly needs a good reason to reverse its previous claims and still abandon Windows 10, introducing a new operating system number. And a completely new design is great for that. The Redmond giant has long been preparing a redesign for an update codenamed Sun Valley (“Sun Valley”) – apparently, this was the name Windows 11 was under. The Sun Valley project has been flashing on the network for a long time – Microsoft regularly disclosed details of the new interface style, insiders shared previously unknown information, and popular designers in their circles drew realistic concepts based on all this data.
The Start and System elements will float above the bottom bar. The Start is the calling card and face of all recent versions of Windows. It is not surprising that in Windows 11, the developers will transform it again, but not so much in functional terms as in visual terms – the Start window will hover above the bottom bar. We have to admit that this small change makes the appearance of the system much fresher. Judging by the information on the network, Microsoft is not going to radically change the “insides” of this menu – the innovations will only affect the design of the window itself. The control panel will also float, and its design will be exactly the same as that of the “Start”. The action center will be combined with control buttons together – a similar one has long been used in some other operating systems. Almost all mentions of this new menu indicate that it will be an island – control buttons will be located on a separate panel, notifications will be on another, and specific elements (such as a player) on a separate one.
The right angles will disappear, they will be replaced by fillets. In fact, insiders and concept designers disagree on this point – some are confident that Microsoft will not change its traditions and will keep right angles, while others are convinced that in 2021 Microsoft will follow the fillet fashion. The latter fits better with the definition of “completely new Windows” – just floating menus are not enough for a new design to be considered truly new. Fillets are expected to affect almost everything in the system, from context menus and system panels to all application windows. True, even on this issue, the opinions of concept designers differ – some draw fillets on all possible interface elements, others combine them with right angles.
There will be a translucent background with blur everywhere. There is disagreement on the web about the island style of displaying windows, the design of corners and the levitation effect of the menu, but almost everyone is unanimous about the transparency of windows. The vast majority of leaks and design renders show transparency and blur in all windows, be it at least the Start menu or Explorer. Moreover, such effects are even in the assembly of the canceled Windows 10X operating system, which Microsoft was developing for devices with two screens and weak gadgets in parallel with the Sun Valley project. The so-called acrylic transparency implies the use of new effects when hovering over elements, as well as increasing the spacing between elements – those areas of the interface with which the user interacts will certainly become larger, and page titles will be thickened.
New font that has already been shown. Windows 11 will likely use the default responsive Segoe UI Variable font, which has already appeared in Windows 10 Build 21376 for Insiders.