The Windows 11 start menu is moving towards Windows 10 with the category view

If you’ve been resisting the move to Windows 11 because you hate the Start menu… well, it looks like things might be getting a little better.

Eagle-eyed code hunters examining the latest Windows betas have discovered a “Category” view that organizes startup apps in a way that’s similar to the old Windows 10 Start menu. The category view isn’t fully customizable—you can’t create a separate category for “nice stuff,” for example—but it appears that the apps organize themselves into categories like “Entertainment,” “Music,” and so on.

The last revision was excavated by Twitter/X user @phantomofearth, who dug up the changes in the latest beta of Windows 11, build 22635.4082, in the Beta Channel. That’s a good thing, because it means these beta features will eventually see the light of day on your PC.

The catch is that they won’t do that for now. The new category view is apparently still enabled by special tools that can activate hidden registry entries. As Neowin notes, this hasn’t even been acknowledged by Microsoft yet. But one of the criticisms of Windows 11’s Start menu is that it’s so damn rigid that you can’t organize things the way you want. Categories are a step forward.

The latest beta also places media controls on the lock screen, so if you’re sitting in front of a PC without a Windows Hello camera, you can still access the controls without having to unlock your PC. (If you have a Windows Hello camera, it will probably recognize you and unlock your PC, so…)

Windows continues to march towards a more general release of Windows 11 24H2 sometime this fall. Perhaps Startup Categories will be included as a feature?