New features and settings
I f you’re going to release a major new version of Windows, it needs more than a lick of a paint. There are many new features in Windows 11, although whether any of them are major enough to justify an entirely new version is questionable – especially as some of them will also come to Windows 10.
Here’s what you can look forward to when the operating system is released in the autumn. MULTIPLE DISPLAY HANDLING
Windows’ multi-monitor handling has been a mess for years. It seems someone at Microsoft has noticed as there are two very welcome new Display settings in Windows 11.
First off is the option to remember window locations based on monitor connection. This means you can unplug your laptop from an external display – when you go to a meeting in the office, for example – and then when you come back and plug back in, the windows will be as you left them on the external display.
The second option has a similar effect by automatically minimising open windows on a screen that has been disconnected. This should avoid the problem of oversized windows suddenly appearing on your primary display, which are difficult to close.
Both of these options are switched on by default, so you shouldn’t have to do anything to benefit from them.
TEAMS BUILT INTO WINDOWS
That rustling noise you can hear in the ackground is the EU’s antitrust department rubbing its hands.
Yes, Microsoft is bundling Teams with Windows, meaning you can no longer duck out of meetings on the pretence you don’t have it installed.
Given that Teams has been one of Microsoft’s big recent success stories, it’s no real surprise it’s trying to press that advantage home by bundling it with Windows 11. Whether Microsoft’s rivals and the competition authorities agree that it’s a good thing awaits to be seen.
The victim is Skype. It’s no longer preinstalled with Windows 11.
GAMING GOODIES
Microsoft made a big deal of gaming in its Windows 11 announcement and there are several features that promise to boost the gaming experience, even if you don’t have a “gaming” PC.
Let’s start with the features designed for players with gaming rigs, both of which have been borrowed from the latest generations of Xbox games consoles. Auto HDR will crank up the visuals for selected games – including the forthcoming Age of
Empires IV and staples such as Rocket League – without user intervention. You’ll obviously need an HDRsupporting display to get the full graphical goodness.
Also swiped from the Xbox is
D i r ec tSt or a g e t e chn olo g y, w hi c h load s g a m e a s se t s f r o m t h e S S D directly to the graphics card. This allows the CPU cores to get on with tasks such as game physics or boosting the number of non-player characters, which should increase frame rates.
Perhaps the biggest boom to Windows 11 gaming, however, is having cloud streaming built directly into the Xbox app that comes preinstalled in Windows 11. This means that Game Pass Ultimate members will be able to stream and play a huge library of games on their PC, even if the PC doesn’t have the graphics capability to cope with the game itself. This will allow, for example, titles such as Microsoft’s hugely demanding Flight Simulator to run on five-year-old laptops with no dedicated graphics chips.
However, Microsoft has already promised Windows 10 users will get cloud gaming in the browser in the summer, so we’ll have to wait and see how the experience differs on Windows 11.
THE ALL-NEW MICROSOFT STORE
You certainly can’t fault Microsoft’s persistence. Ever since Windows 8, it’s tried desperately to make the Microsoft Store for Windows the equivalent of Apple’s App Store. But with software vendors able to sell direct downloads to customers, instead of letting Microsoft take a cut by selling through the Store, it’s remained something of a software ghost town.
Microsoft has acknowledged the anomaly and is making a huge concession to software publishers by allowing them to list their apps in the Microsoft Store for free, as long as they use their own payment mechanism and not Microsoft’s own.
Will this turn the Microsoft Store into the one-stop shop that the company has always wanted? It’s hard to say, especially as Microsoft isn’t outlawing direct download and installation of apps purchased elsewhere. However, with the Store now supporting almost all types of app – including Win32, .NET, UWP, Xamarin, Electron, React Native, Java and Progressive Web Apps – there’s no real barrier to entry.
Microsoft also seems keen to drag people into the Store by offering download badges for publishers’ websites, so that the Microsoft Store will pop up and “manage the install” if you go directly to the publisher. Once more, we’ll have to wait to see how this works in practice.
The Windows 10 Store will get the same features.
ANDROID APPS… VIA AMAZON
There will be another type of app in the Microsoft Store: Android apps.
Microsoft has long dallied with the idea of bringing Android apps to Windows, previously by mirroring them through the Your Phone app, although that only worked with a select few handsets.
Now the Android apps will run natively in Windows 11, avoiding the awkward dance with the smartphone. The odd thing is the library of apps is being supplied by Amazon, which forks a version of Android for its own tablet devices.
Amazon has a thinner library of Android apps than the Google Play store, so don’t expect all of your favourites to be available. Although we have no evidence to back this up, our hunch is that Google is none too pleased with the idea of Windows PCs running Android apps – seeing it as a direct competitor to its Chromebooks – and thus wouldn’t grant Microsoft access to the full Google Play store.
TOUCH-FRIENDLY TABLET CONTROLS
Ever since Windows 8, Microsoft has been trying to walk the tightrope of
providing a touchscreen interface for tablet/convertible users, and a mouse/keyboard-friendly desktop. It’s yet to nail it, but Windows 11 moves a step in the right direction.
The touch controls seem – from the demonstrations at least – better thought through than in previous generations of Windows. For example, the gestures that are used to swipe between apps are now identical for both touchscreen and touchpad, which provides a degree of consistency. Visual clues appear on screen when you’re using touch controls, helping users to snap windows or switch between desktops. And, if you rotate your tablet, apps that were snapped horizontally will now snap vertically.
Microsoft has also done away with the hulking software keyboard that took over half the screen every time it was engaged in Windows 10. The new touch keyboard is more widgetlike, smartphone-sized and able to take advantages of swipe-typing and gestures, allowing you to move the cursor by dragging your finger across the space bar, for instance.
It’s small touches like these that could make a big difference to touch users, although we’ll reserve full judgement until we can literally get our hands on the final code.
HAPTIC FEEDBACK FROM PENS
The pen experience on Windows has rarely reached the heights of the Apple Pencil, for example, but Microsoft has announced something that could possibly give Windows 11 the edge.
Haptic feedback is being built into styluses for the first time, meaning you’ll get vibrations as you click on links, or erase items when drawing, for example. Of course, much will depend on the hardware implementation – and it will be interesting to see what effect that has on the small batteries inside these devices – but it’s a point of difference.