In Windows 10, the Start Menu was a hybrid. Left side: Traditional app list. Right side: A customizable grid of Live Tiles. You could resize them (Small, Medium, Wide, Large). You could group them into logical categories ("Work," "Play," "Adobe Suite").
Drag the Calculator icon on top of the Calendar icon. Boom. A folder. Name it "Productivity." Do the same for Edge + Chrome (Name it "Browsers").
For your top 5 apps (Browser, Email, Slack, Spotify, File Explorer), right-click them and select "Pin to taskbar." This removes the need to open Start at all. windows 11 tile manager
More importantly, they were active . The Mail tile showed your latest unread message. The News tile cycled headlines. The Weather tile showed if you needed a jacket before you even clicked it.
Furthermore, the "Recommended" section of the Start Menu is slowly becoming smarter. It now predicts which files you need based on your calendar. In Windows 10, the Start Menu was a hybrid
Go to Settings > System > Multitasking > Turn on "Snap windows." Now, every time you open your email + browser + calendar together, Windows will remember that "group" in the taskbar.
Download PowerToys. Open FancyZones. Create a custom layout (e.g., 70% browser / 30% Spotify). Hold Shift while dragging apps into those zones. You could resize them (Small, Medium, Wide, Large)
But "few users" doesn't mean "zero users." For project managers, streamers, and workflow nerds, the loss stung. Before you download any software, let’s look at what Windows 11 actually gives you out of the box. Microsoft didn't remove organization ; they just removed life .