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Windows 11 Pro Overview Windows 11

The main part of this announcement was supposed to be the unveiling 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 leaks about Windows 11 begin. Windows 11 Pro Features Windows 11 will receive a completely new design. Microsoft clearly needs a good reason to reverse its past claims and abandon Windows 10 by introducing a new OS number.

And a completely new design is great for this

The Redmond giant has long been preparing a redesign for an update codenamed Sun Valley (“Sun Valley”) – apparently, this is the name that Windows 11 was called. The Sun Valley project has been floating around the Internet for a long time – Microsoft regularly disclosed details of the new interface style, insiders shared previously unknown information, and the most famous designers in their circles drew realistic concepts based on all this data. Start and system items float above the bottom bar. Start is the business card and face of every recent version of Windows. It is not surprising that in Windows 11, developers will transform it again, but not so much in functional terms as in visual terms: the Start window will remain floating above the bottom bar.

Right angles will disappear and will be replaced by fillets

We must admit that this small change makes the look of the system much fresher. Judging by the information coming from the network, Microsoft will not radically change the “interior” of this menu: 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 “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 placed on a separate panel, notifications on another, and specific elements (such as 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 the right angles, while others are convinced that in 2021 Microsoft will follow the trend of fillets. The latter fits the definition of “a completely new Windows” better: simply hovering over the menus is not enough for a new design to be considered truly new. Fillets are expected to affect practically 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 connections in all possible interface elements, others combine them with right angles. There is disagreement on the web about the island style of displaying shop windows, the design of corners and the levitation effect of the menu, but almost everyone is unanimous about the transparency of the shop windows.

New font that has already been shown

The vast majority of leaks and design renders show transparency and blur in all windows, at least in the Start menu or Explorer. Moreover, these effects are also found in the assembly of the canceled Windows 10X operating system, which Microsoft was developing in parallel with the Sun Valley project for devices with two screens and weak gadgets. The so-called acrylic transparency involves the use of new effects when hovering over elements, as well as increased spacing between elements: the areas of the interface with which the user interacts will certainly become larger, and the page titles will be thicker. Windows 11 will most likely use the default Segoe UI Variable responsive font, which already appeared in Windows 10 Build 21376 for Insiders.