Cool new stuff in Win 11 Start menu

By Justin Harris, 22 May, 2025

Forum
Windows

Guys, I might very well be late to the party on this one, but figured I'd post anyway, just in case there are folks out there who are like me and didn't know.
I really really like the Windows 11 start menu. I have for a while. That was back when the only option we were given to reorganize it was "move to front." This is done by hitting applications, or if you are sighted, by doing a right click. Back when "move to front" was introduced, while it may have been tedeous, you could finally reorder pinned apps in the start menu. I finally had apps in the order I wanted. But recently, they made two more options available in that right click, or applications, context menu. They gave us "move left" and "move right." So, now it is super easy to get all your pinned apps in the exact order you want them, instead of having to go through and keep moving apps to front until they are ordered the way you want.
But not only that, you can now create folders in that pinned apps area. It's best when you start out by grouping close together, then hit ctrl shift and then either left or right arrow. I was just playing around in start, trying to see if I could figure anything out at all, starting to give up hope, and the last key combination I tried ended up being the one that did it.
Again, I could be super late to the party, and this could be common knowledge for a lot of folks, but it was new to me, and it allowed me to really make that start menu my own, so thought it would be worth sharing.

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Comments

By Brian on Friday, May 23, 2025 - 00:09

I did not know we could move things to left or right manually either, so good fine! 🙂‍↕️🥳

By JC on Friday, May 23, 2025 - 01:09

Hi,

Are you still using UTM? I tryed it, and it works very well on windows 11 with NVDA.

By Justin Harris on Friday, May 23, 2025 - 02:09

Hey, actually no. UTM is good, but after trying with the mac for a while and getting more annoyed with voiceover with each release, I went back to using my cheapo Chuwi laptop. It's nothing to write home about. Only 8 gb ram, and an Intell N5100 processor, so far from being any kind of powerhouse, but I did some major debloating and optimizations, and it is super snappy. All the greatness of Windows with NVDA, but is handling more like some kinda lite weight linux distro. I mean, on the mac, with both UTM and VMWare, I would have Windows glitch out on me, have to deal with keyboard mapping issues, etc. If you absolutely need to run Windows on the mac, UTM is, I feel, the best way to go, and pretty stable. But honestly, web navigation and over all voiceover clunkiness have made the mac less desirable for me. I'm actually looking at trying to sell it in the next few weeks. Will just stick to this Chuwi laptop, and maybe grab an iPad, for just media consumption and the like.
If you do need help with UTM or Windows on the Mac, I'm still happy to try and help.

By TheBlindGuy07 on Friday, May 23, 2025 - 03:09

Nah, personally unless things have changed VMWare is way better than UTM, more stable, I didn't have any of the weird sound cutting issues and it just feels overall more responsive and everything.
But yeah back to the topic cool! I am one of those rare who stick to the defaults of windows 10/11 so no classic/open shell, because I use too many of MS services and apps to want to risk everything collapsing with oen random removal. Bloatwares alone (I have never tried a Surface yet) are a very good reason why I stick to macOS despite the accessibility shortcoming because I am (now, currently) willing to deal with them and most are not (yet) a dealbreaker.
On the taskbar as well you can just do alt shift l/r arrow keys to rearrange them.

By SeasonKing on Friday, May 23, 2025 - 03:09

Since your windows+number keys shortcuts corispond to how those apps are organized on taskbar, rearranging them is a super useful functionality. Glad we can do this with keyboard.

By SeasonKing on Friday, May 23, 2025 - 03:09

Microsoft is currently revamping the start menu, allowing users to completely get rid of recommendations section, make it all the way pinned apps only, plus some way to see content from your phone in the start menu.
I am curious how Screen reader behaves with that.

By Justin Harris on Friday, May 23, 2025 - 12:09

Wooow, that will be incredible! I already absolutely love the current start. I used to use Classic Shell back in Windows 10, but since 11, I'm perfectly happy with the default start, especially being able to completely reorder it without any sighted help.
As for the task bar, I remember the time when that was specifically for opened apps only. None of this pinned apps on the taskbar. To this day, I keep it like that. If I can't pin it to start, or don't want to, I'll just open it in Windows search. lol But taskbar to me should only be stuff that is currently open.

By Brian on Friday, May 23, 2025 - 16:09

The Windows 11 taskbar is basically like the dock on macOS, you could put all kinds of app shortcuts there, and then use them with hot keys like Windows key plus one, etc. makes for an easy desktop environment. :-)

Edit, had to fix a typo…

By Justin Harris on Saturday, May 24, 2025 - 01:09

Ah, never thought of it like that. When I actually started using computers, the task bar really was only for stuff currently running. And when they started pinning stuff to it that wasn't actually running, like internet explorer, windows explorer, etc, it drove me nuts. I spent hours trying to figure out how to successfully unpin that stuff back in Windows 7. lol I know a lot of people might have found it helpfull, but I really disliked it. Now at least they make it easy to pin and unpin, but for a while, there were things that without some work put in to it, they would not let you just remove. I see how the hotkey thing could really help though, but I am pretty happy with my start setup. That's one of the cool things about tech though, being able to make it work for you, not the other way around, so everyone's setup will be slightly different.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, May 24, 2025 - 08:09

Eventually I will need to move to W 11. Will need to get a new Desk Top and somehow transfer my folders and music to the new PC. Does windows have the same feature that apple has when moving to a new iPhone? Be able to transfer all my folders to the new Desk Top? Will get it because I prefer it. Have a wireless keyboard, wireless head set. I am typing from my couch and the desk top is on my desk.

By Brian on Saturday, May 24, 2025 - 23:09

If you have OneDrive, it should be just as easy as using iCloud on macOS. Otherwise, if you are using a third-party cloud drive, you can still do it, but requires a little more manual input.

HTH. :-)