After almost a month of teasers, and a little over a week after the first build was leaked, Microsoft today made Windows 11 official. The company leaves behind Windows 10, which will cease to have support in 2025, and gives way to a operating system with a completely renewed interface . We go with everything that the company has presented today.
Panos Panay started with an example of the house where he grew up, where, despite the changes it has undergone, it still feels like home. That analogy serves to talk about the new design of Windows with Windows 11, which we could already see a few days ago in the leak.
Windows 11 is official with a new design
The novelties of the operating system are multiple, focusing mainly on a new design, as well as some new functionalities. The new design has a modern touch where the company fully embraces Fluent Design , with rounded edges and a certain look that is inevitably reminiscent of macOS.
The start menu is in the center of the screen, although it can be turned to the left if we want. We have shortcuts to all kinds of tools and recent documents to more comfortably access the tools, synchronizing content even between mobiles. There are details in all kinds of elements of the system, such as curves, transparencies , etc. We have new themes that adapt to the wallpaper that we put to give it a touch of unity that makes it more pleasant to use, in addition to being able to organize wallpapers and color settings by type of work, whether to play or work. In the following video we can see what the new interface looks like.
Also multitasking is more comfortable with Layouts , since we can organize the windows more quickly in the way we want.
Also Windows will remember how we had organized the windows with Snap Group , being able to see the windows more comfortably by projects, and not by type of program.
Faster, safer and more efficient
Microsoft also confirms a more convenient way to connect and disconnect screens, where they will save where the windows were when reconnecting it. In Edge we can also put the tabs vertically if we want to access them more comfortably.
Internally, the system boots faster, surfing the Internet faster , and Windows updates now take 40% less and more efficient to occur in the background. It also consumes less battery in laptops, and responds faster. It is also the most secure Windows they have ever made.
Teams will be natively integrated into the operating system to make calls, video calls, or simply to send text messages, thus betting Microsoft on its own messaging application for all platforms, unlike iMessage.
Microsoft also brings back the gadgets with the new widgets , with a dynamic content that breaks with the old dynamic icons of Windows 10, and where we can see information such as news, weather, photos, the stock market, etc. We can see them even in full screen or adjust the size.
Gaming on Windows 11
Microsoft will also bet heavily on gaming on Windows 11. Starting with Auto HDR , this feature was first launched on Xbox, and now it also comes to PC, where any game is converted to a 10-bit palette to improve color and brightness. 1,000 games will have support for this feature automatically from the start.
Direct Storage will also allow games to load as fast as on new consoles, connecting the graphics card more directly with the NVMe storage , loading an entire game in just 3 or 4 seconds.
The Game Pass will also be integrated natively in Windows 11, conveniently accessing the games from the same interface without having to resort to other platforms. It can be synced with the Xbox account with cross-play. You can buy the games directly from Game Pass.
New Microsoft Store
Microsoft has also announced a new design for the Microsoft Store. The company will allow uploading Win32 and UWP apps, as well as facilitating development for both parties. For example, Adobe‘s Creative Cloud will be available natively in the store, where Microsoft will take a 0% commission to allow more companies to offer their content there.
Android apps will also be natively integrated into Windows 11, and can be installed through the Microsoft Store through the Amazon app store.
Windows 11 Price, Date, and Minimum Requirements
Microsoft has not detailed prices or anything about the availability of Windows 11 at the conference, but we have already been able to verify that the update will be free from Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 , in addition to that it will arrive around October or November of this year. They have also updated the minimum requirements, and there will be versions of Windows Home and Pro as before. Additionally, it appears that Microsoft will enforce the following requirements:
- 64 bit processor
- 64GB or more of storage (hard drive, SSD, or eMMC memory)
- TPM 2.0 support
- Secure Boot support
- RAM memory 4 GB or more
- Internet connection
However, Microsoft states that if you are currently running Windows 10 64-bit on your computer, and you meet the minimum requirements, you will not have a problem updating to the latest version. However, it seems that computers prior to 2016 will have a difficult time using Windows 11 according to the minimum requirements, since TPM 2.0 only began to be required as a requirement on computers released since 2016.
If you have doubts, you can download the official Microsoft tool at this link , which will check if our PC is compatible with Windows 11.
