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Windows 11 Pro Overview Windows 11

The main part of this announcement was to be a presentation of a significant user interface change, codenamed Sun Valley. As we know, a significant portion of the UX changes will be borrowed from the Windows 10X shell, and Windows 10X is not coming to market. Now, as expected, the Windows 11 information leak begins. Features of Windows 11 Pro Windows 11 will receive a completely new design. Microsoft clearly needs a good reason to reverse its past claims and still ditch Windows 10 by 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, under this name it was Windows 11. The Sun Valley project flashed on the network for a long time – Microsoft regularly disclosed details of the new interface style, insiders shared the previously unknown information, and popular designers in their circles drew realistic concepts based on all this data. Start and System elements will float above the bottom bar. Start is the calling card and face of every recent version of Windows. Not surprisingly, in Windows 11, developers will transform it again, but not so much in functional as in visual terms – the Start window will hover above the bottom bar.

Right angles will disappear, they will be replaced by fillets

We have to admit that this small change makes the appearance of the system much fresher. Judging by information from the network, Microsoft will not radically change the “insides” of this menu – the innovations will affect only 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 the 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 – the control buttons will be located on one separate panel, notifications will be on another, and specific elements (like a player) on another separate one.

There will be a translucent background with blur everywhere

In truth, 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 fashion for fillets. The latter fits better with the definition of “Completely new Windows” – just hovering menus aren’t enough for a new design to be considered truly new. Fillets are expected to affect virtually 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 in all possible interface elements, others combine them with right angles. There is some disagreement on the web about the island style of displaying windows, the design of the corners and the levitation effect of the menu, but almost everyone is unanimous about the transparency of the windows.

New font that has already been shown

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, these 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 increased spacing between elements – those areas of the interface with which the user interacts will certainly become larger, and page titles will be thickened. Windows 11 will most likely use the default responsive Segoe UI Variable font, which has already appeared in Windows 10 Build 21376 for Insiders.