Windows 11 - Official Release Demo

hey everyone zack here from windows central and welcome back to another video now today we're taking a look at windows 11 version 21 h2 this is the first version of windows 11 shipping this fall that includes a whole bunch of new features and enhancements over the last major version of windows which of course was windows 10 first released all the way back in 2015. so it's been six long years since the last mainline version of windows of course windows 10 was updated over time but we haven't had a mainline version of windows since windows 10 first debuted so microsoft is back and they've changed up a whole bunch of new things as you can clearly see windows 11 on the surface is quite a bit different from windows 10. so what this video is going to do is sort of walk through all of those top level changes this won't go over everything because there's frankly too much and we'd be here all day but we will take a look at most of the things that you're likely to encounter within your first couple of days of using windows 11 and where better to start than with the start menu so yes microsoft has updated the start menu on windows 11. uh it's completely redone essentially the live tile interface is gone and in its place is a simple grid of icons and you'll hear me use the term simple a lot here because one of the goals with windows 11 that microsoft had was to sort of simplify the ux as much as possible and you know the start menu is one of those areas where they certainly try to do that so along the top here we have access to our search function if we click on that that will just simply take us to the search ui which you can also find in the taskbar if we search for something such as windows here you'll get a whole bunch of different options including best match as well as apps that are installed settings and of course the web as well which is fairly nice anyway back to the start menu itself below that is our pinned area so this is the replacement for live tiles this is where you can pin and unpin your favorite apps this is easily customizable just by sort of dragging them around and you can also pin and unpin apps if you'd like as well and that works as expected there are multiple pages so you can swipe up and down if you run out of space on the first pinned area there you can keep adding if you'd like and pages will just continue to be added similar to your smartphone of course you do have access to your all apps list up here which works as you would expect you can scroll through the list right click and add things to the pinned area if you'd like as well so we just pinned microsoft news which is now there and if i want to move that to my first page i can right click and select move to top or i can even manually drag these apps and move them around myself if i'd like to do it that way as well so there you are that's how that works very simple like i said microsoft tried to simplify this ux as much as possible so there's no resizing of the icons now the icons don't update or change it simply just shows you the icon and the name and you can sort of move them around and reorganize them as you wish now below the pinned area is this new recommended feed and this is essentially a replacement or rather a successor to the windows 10 timeline feature it shows you your recently installed apps as well as recently accessed documents and other file types so as you can see here we have netflix which was recently added as well as skype but below that we have our onenote here as well as a powerpoint presentation and indeed an excel spreadsheet and if we click on more that will give you an even longer list so you can see there's also a word document down here as well and if you click on any one of those that will open in its respective app which works as you would expect and then below that we have access to our account settings as well as being able to lock the pc and sign out and then we have our power options as well and that's pretty much all there is to the new start menu like i said it's a very simplistic app launcher now it's designed to sort of get out the way and get you to what you want as quickly as possible uh you may have also noticed and it's quite a big one it's now in the center of the screen this is the first version of windows really to sort of move the start menu not including windows 8 of course uh previously in previous versions of windows it was aligned to the left and you can still do that if i click on the taskbar here and head to taskbar settings you'll be able to jump in here and align the taskbar back to the left if you prefer that and that of course will also make it so the start menu and search ui also open on the left but by default now it is centered and i really like that change i know not everybody will which is why microsoft still gives you the option to move it back uh but by default it is now centered and i think it looks really nice along that same vein the taskbar is now also centered and all of your pinned and running apps show up in the middle now rather than left aligned by default again you can move them back as i just showed you but the system tray has also been updated as well it's now been split into sort of two main fly-outs in previous versions of windows every icon down here had its own separate flyout which was kind of convoluted and especially for touch users kind of annoying but now it's been simplified so the wi-fi volume and battery indicator down here is all one button and i can click on that to open up this quick settings panel and i can do a bunch of different things with this panel i can customize and configure my wireless network through here which is super nice i can enable or disable accessibility options and i can turn on and off things like bluetooth or focus assist and even customize this menu i can add more options if i'd like so there's a whole bunch of options here i can choose from and i can add say let's see we can add casting battery saver and why not rotation lock as well i can even rearrange these if i'd like as well press on done and that works as you would expect so a simplified quick settings panel which is nice because you're no longer thrown into the main settings app for simple tasks like connecting to a new network uh previous versions of windows would take you back and forth between the flyout and the settings app and that's been reduced it's not gone completely but it's certainly been reduced on windows 11. so you may be wondering where are all of my notifications well they are accessed via the second button in the system tray now the date and time button so if you click on this here you'll see that we have our notifications panel here and that gives us quick access to focus assist settings as well as the ability to clear our notifications and then we also have our calendar fly out below that which has lost some functionality in windows 11 you can no longer sort of add events straight through this panel it's simply now a sort of glorified date viewer but other than that this works very nicely it looks really nice at least and that's another sort of theme of windows 11. the design language has been updated in almost all of the top level areas things are much more consistent now it's certainly not perfect but it's definitely a big improvement over windows 10. now real quick before we move on i just want to quickly highlight some of the nice animations they've added to the system icons here on the taskbar so these five icons here are system icons which can't be unpinned directly from the taskbar you have to jump into settings here to turn them on and off which is a little bit annoying but you can do that through here if you'd like but each of these icons have their own unique animation which i think looks really nice so the start button has one for example as so as does search and task view and widgets and microsoft teams chat we will talk about all of those features as we go but i just wanted to quickly show you those animations as i think they look really nice also you can hover over the search icon as well as the task view icon to see mini versions of those full features if you'd like to quickly jump into something without actually clicking into the icon itself so windows 11 isn't just a pretty face microsoft has also added a number of productivity enhancing features that makes using windows easier when you know manipulating multiple windows and so on and so forth so if we jump into an app here and hover over the maximize button you'll see a new drop down menu which gives you a sort of grid view of all the different snapping layouts you can have in windows 11 depending on your screen size so if you have a larger screen this will actually have more snapping options for you we're using a laptop here so it only has four options for us but within those four options there's a number of different layouts you can choose from we can have side by side we can have one bigger than the other we can have three or we can have a quadrant snapping grid as well and clicking on any of these will simply snap that app into position and if you have multiple apps open here such as the microsoft store we can snap both of these and snap assist will come into play and help you snap those side by side just as so very handy so you no longer have to sort of drag to the very edge of your display you can still do that if you'd like so you can see here if we just snap that to the side we can do that if you prefer doing it that way that is of course still an option for you but you can now also use the snapping menu which i think is a little bit easier especially for those who aren't using persistent touch pads if you're using a synaptics touchpad which this laptop is dragging apps around is kind of annoying so being able to access that same feature via this drop down menu is really nice you may have also noticed microsoft has updated the animations involved with manipulating windows as well things are much smoother the maximizer minimize animations are much smoother as well and that just adds to the overall fluidity effect of windows 11 which i think is really nice now while we have the file explorer open we might as well take a look at it this has also been updated on windows 11. you may have already noticed it but the ribbon interface at the top here has been replaced with this simplified command bar as microsoft calls it so you get access to your sort of common tasks here such as creating a new file or folder as well as cut copy paste rename share and delete we'll we also have our sorting options here view options and then additional options in this drop down ellipsis menu and this is very simple it works as expected we can create a new thing here so let's create a text document then we can right click on that and of course the right click menu has also been updated with a new interface we get our cut copy paste options along the top and then a bunch of different options below that there's also a show more options button which takes you back to the classic sort of windows 10 context menu which has a whole bunch of additional things but developers can update their apps to support the new context menu if they like just most of them haven't yet so we'll see this get updated over time but for now you may find yourself going back to the old context menu quite a bit especially if you have you know third-party programs such as 7-zip which haven't yet updated and still require you to access this old menu now since we're still talking about productivity features task view has been updated quite significantly uh with a bigger emphasis on virtual desktops timeline is gone as i mentioned it's sort of in the start menu now and in its place is this uh very clean and consistent looking task view experience if you have an app open here you'll see that it sort of shows up along the top there which is very nice and below that is our virtual desktops which are now front and center and we can create new virtual desktops with these but microsoft has made these a little more um useful in windows 11. you can now right-click on each individual one and rename them so if we click on this here we can call this one play so we have one work and one play and we can even customize the background of each so we can change the background of this one to something else to make it stand out from our work environment so let's use this one i like this wallpaper it's very play-esque so there we are we now have two different wallpapers along with our virtual desktops and these will now also persist across reboot so if i restart my pc and come back to virtual desktops these virtual desktops will still be there and it should remember the kind of apps you open in each as well so that's very nice you can also rearrange these as well so if i want to put the play one in front i can do so so there you are that's a look at the new virtual desktops feature very nice improvements there so moving right along the next feature i want to talk about is the new widgets panel which is well it's exactly what it says on the tin it's a widgets panel we have a total of eight widgets to choose from in this version of windows 11 i'm sure they'll add more over time but as of right now there's things like weather or stocks sports leader boards outlook calendar and so on and so forth and you can move these around and some of these are even resizable so if i click on this button here and the widget i can change the size of it from small medium to large which is kind of nice not every widget has the option of resizing like the entertainment one for example has the option to remove it so let's do that then i can uh retract this one up here if i'd like and that looks quite nice let's make that one large and then we can shrink this one and then unpin this one and now my widgets panel looks kind of nice and then of course below the widgets we have the microsoft start news feed which gives you you know headlines and so on and so forth which you can also tailor to your specific likings if we come into our profile picture here and go down to personalize your interests that will take us to microsoft edge where we can customize the different topics we want to see within that news feed if that's something you'd like to use but that's basically all there is to the widgets panel there's also the ability to obviously search the web at the top here but that's that basically now i had to quickly switch pieces for this demo but there's also a new feature called microsoft teams chat which is essentially just teams integration in windows 11. if we come down to the chat icon here and click on that that will bring up this ui which gives you access to things like the ability to create a quick meet through microsoft teams as well as a new chat and then we have our recent chats below here which if we click on one of those that will open up the team's client into a chat that i've been having with a recent contact uh of course we also have the ability to create a video call straight through this interface as well as well as search for recent chats if you'd like and then below that of course we have our syncs applications but the main app here is a very sort of simple chat app we have the ability to sort of type messages here hello there as well as format our text if we'd like as well as attach files emojis and gifs if we'd like and then of course we can just send that off like so and you can also get access to the full teams client by clicking open microsoft teams below like so and that will bring you into a familiar looking teams environment if you are familiar with teams of course though this is not the full version of teams this is not like the work client you use at work this is for consumers so it's essentially a stripped back version of teams designed for um well consumer use friends and family and stuff so you add all your friends and family then you can message them or video call them across windows 11 pcs and whatnot in fact you can do it on any platform because teams consumer is available on android and ios as well uh but there you have it that's a quick look at the new microsoft teams integration you get things like your calendar view here as well as well as the activity similar to the full teams clients but again designed for consumers which is kind of nice now you may have seen me open it earlier but i want to take another look at the microsoft store because it has been updated significantly on windows 11 with a new ui and stuff but not just with a new ui microsoft has changed the policies that govern the kind of apps that can sort of appear in the microsoft store or windows 11 so that more developers can submit their apps for discoverability within the storefront so apps such as discord as you can see there are now available in the microsoft store previously they were not allowed in the store for many reasons but now they can be and you can see i can click on install and that will begin downloading and install to my pc and there's even apps like the full version of visual studio here so if you type visual studio at the top you'll see that visual studio 2019 is listed in the microsoft store and i can install that if i'd like microsoft says many developers are bringing their apps to the store now including things like the opera web browser at the epic game store and adobe's creative cloud are all supposed to be coming at some point in the future and i'm sure we're going to see many more apps over time this is early days for the numerix store of course but it's already off to a very strong start you can see down here we have things like itunes and whatsapp and obviously taking a look at the app itself very fluid very nice and if we click on an icon here that will take us into the app page which has a bunch of nice animations involved as well we get our ratings and so on here we can see pictures of the app and stuff very nice of course we have different categories along the top here so we have apps which shows you all the apps games which shows you all the games and of course movies and tv which shows you all of the available movies and tv this will also eventually be updated to show you movies and tv from other services such as disney plus and stuff but that's not there yet i believe that's coming in the future we also have our library down here which gives you a list of all of the recently updated apps on your pc as well as the ability to get more app updates if they are available so there you go a quick look at the new microsoft store huge improvement over the previous one and i'm very excited to see where that goes now since we're talking about new apps let's take a look at some of the new apps in windows 11 starting with paint a classic microsoft has updated paints with a new interface that gives it a sort of windows 11 vibe unfortunately there are no additional new features here this is very much just a facelift for the classic paint app but hey it's better than nothing we can still do our usual doodles if we like very much like so and of course we can also add text stuff and do what you normally do within paint if you're a paint artist i commend you that is brilliant i am very much not a paint artist and that is probably the best i can do moving on there's also a new snipping tool if you remember windows 10 there were sort of two snipping tools there was the classic windows 7 snipping tool as well as the sort of modern snip and sketch environment microsoft has combined them in windows 11. it's now just called snipping tool and it sort of is the best of both of those features so you can see here we have this little classic snipping tool ux but if we click on new that will take us to the snip and sketch ui which we can then uh take a screenshot like so and then that will take us to the area where we can either ink onto it or do other things which is really quite nice so love to see that combining of two apps there really makes sense for this sort of feature another app i think's worth mentioning is this new clock app which has been updated with a new feature called focus sessions which is a cool idea it allows you to sort of sync up microsoft to do with spotify create yourself a number of tasks set a timer and then complete those tasks within the timer that you've set really cool idea it also obviously has the usual timer alarm stopwatch and world clock features that the old version had but again with slightly newer interfaces designed to align with windows 11. microsoft edge is another app that's being updated to align its design with windows 11. i think this update will be coming a little bit later but you can see it in preview here if you right click on things the context menu looks like windows 11's context menus as does the drop down menu here and you may also notice a slight blur effect or micro effects as they now call it in the title bar when you have the window uh not full screen which is kind of nice so the last app i want to sort of dive into here is the new settings app which has been redesigned from the ground up and also many of the options within it have been re-categorized and moved around for simplicity's sake so we won't take a look at everything because this will be here forever because there's so many things in here but i do want to highlight some of the sort of star new things within the settings app outside of its design starting with power and battery microsoft has finally finally added a sort of detailed battery graph here which ios and android have had for a while and now windows joins the fray in that department as well we can view detailed info here which gives you a breakdown of what's using your battery at any given hour you can see here that windows explorer is using 31 for some reason you can see our screen on and screen off time as well as our sleep time and you can choose between the last 24 hours and the last seven days you can see there that my pc is all sort of sitting idle until i sort of charged it up to do this video very nice indeed we can also change our power mode here as well as our screen and sleep settings of course very nice stuff a big improvement over windows 10. if we come down to bluetooth and devices microsoft has added this interface up here which gives you a sort of overview of everything that's connected as well as their battery percentage if that's supported we also have your phone which is now located in this area as well we have a bunch of different options things like the touchpad and and indeed touch uh there's also a bunch of new sort of gestures for touch screens if you're using a tablet or two in one you can use three or four fingers now to manipulate app windows so i can do three fingers to swipe down or three fingers to swipe that back up then i can use four fingers to swipe up to task view here and if i have multiple desktops running i can actually use four fingers to tap and hold and then switch between those virtual desktops if i'd like as well so very nice for touch users now since we're talking about touch real quickly i just want to highlight another improvement for touch users and that's with the new touch keyboard which is a huge improvement over the previous one it has new sounds and animations when typing and stuff it also has a new emoji panel up here which gives you access to things like well emoji as well as gifs and so on and so forth we also have access to our cloud clipboard if we have it enabled which is super nice but you can also customize the touch keyboard in ways you couldn't before so you can see here we have the option to theme and resize if we jump into that that will give us theming options similar to swiftkey in fact you know the back end of the touch keyboard is powered by swiftkey so it's no surprise to see that the sort of themings aspect of it has shown up in windows 11 as well now you can choose between different themes and then you can even open up the changes you've made and this is one of the themes we just chose from and there's also uh the option to create custom themes as well so if we go down here we can edit our custom theme and we can choose all the different colors and we can change the key sizes and whatnot which is really nice very in-depth customizability here for the touch keyboard which windows 10 just didn't have and i you know you'd love to see it really this is very nice and again like i said a pair of the new gestures and stuff touch on windows 11 i feel is a little bit better there is one downside touch tablet mode is gone so apps no longer sort of automatically run full screen kind of annoying if you're using a small tablet such as the surface go but outside of that i think touch overall is a big improvement on windows 11. okay we really did get sidetracked there let's quickly jump back to the settings app here just a couple more things i want to sort of walk you through the personalization area here now prioritizes theming along the top here so you can quickly choose between light and dark theme why not move to light theme as we are halfway through this video to showcase what it looks like and there you are very nice indeed we also have options for things like the background of course colors start taskbar if we jump in here real quick uh you can see there's a bunch of different options we could turn on and off the system icons as i mentioned and then we also have our taskbar behaviors i just sort of looked at earlier so there you are and then finally the windows update area microsoft has improved windows update on windows 11. the company says windows updates are now 40 smaller which should mean they take up less data when downloading and installing which is always nice also i really admire this new sort of update history area which sort of better categorizes uh what what updates you've installed and stuff so you can see here we have driver updates as well as definition updates and other updates and so on and so forth so they are now much better categorized within this interface and no longer just show up in one list which is kind of what windows 10 used to do so there you are there's a quick look at the new settings app as well and a look at some of the app updates that are coming in windows 11. the lock screen has also been updated looks like this now not much has changed really the date and time is now centered but if we swipe up here you'll see that the buttons and stuff on the task on the lock screen have been updated with rounded icons and so on and so forth just to align them with windows 11 as well which is fairly nice so there we are that's a quick look at windows 11. as i mentioned this did not go through everything uh there's a lot to windows 11 we'd be here all day but this was certainly a look at sort of the biggest changes that you will likely hit within your first few days of using the os if you'd like a more in-depth review of windows 11 make sure you check out windowscentral.com where we will have a written review which dives into the nitty-gritty details of all of the new features and stuff including opinions on whether or not the features are good and whatnot but there you have it windows 11 uh it should be generally available now as a free update for windows 10 users as long as your pc is eligible and it will also be available on pre-loaded pcs starting october 5th as well thank you so much for watching and we shall see you in the next one bye-bye

Channel: Windows Central

Views: 147,093

Keywords: windows central, windows 10, windows 11, demo, walkthrough

Id: 4P9sf8XRryc

Length: 22min 39sec (1359 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021