Explore what's new in Windows client

  • 2 minutes

The differences you notice between Windows 10 and 11 depend on the operating system from which you're transitioning. If you're Windows 8.1 or earlier, you'll find significant differences in functionalities, look, and feel. If you're using Windows 10, you find Windows 11 is similar in functionality and management, with many elements of the user interface and general user experience updated.

This unit highlights some essential new features in Windows 10 and 11.

  • Start screen and Start menu improvements: Windows 10 continued the tile-based Start menu first introduced in Windows 8. Windows 11 has simplified the Start menu by removing live tiles. It now contains three groupings:

    • Pinned apps: Pinned Apps are a customizable area that allows users to select frequently used apps.
    • All apps: Displays an alphabetical list of all apps on the device.
    • Recommended: Shows recently opened files and newly installed apps.

  • Cloud integration: Windows 10 and later provides increased integration with cloud-based services and information. Users signing into a Windows device can connect instantly to the information and essential settings. The Windows client ensures a consistent user experience across devices, regardless of a specific device's location.

  • Snap Layouts and Snap Groups: Windows 7 first introduced Windows Snap. Snap layouts are a new Windows 11 feature to help introduce users to the power of window snapping. Snap layouts are easily accessible by hovering the mouse over a window’s maximize button or pressing Win + Z. After invoking the menu that shows the available layouts, users can click on a zone in a layout to snap a window to that zone and then use Snap Assist to finish building an entire layout of windows. Snap layouts are tailored to the current screen size and orientation, including support for three side-by-side windows on large landscape screens and top/bottom, stacked windows on portrait screens. When working on a specific task, it's helpful to have two or more open apps or windows that create a snap group. You can open another app if you’re interrupted, and then when you want to get back to the snap group later, hover over one of your open apps in the taskbar to find it.

  • Widgets: Windows 11 introduced Widgets found on the taskbar. A customizable area allows users to configure a personalized feed such as weather, calendar, stock prices, news, etc.

  • Windows Terminal app: Previously a separate download, this is now included with Windows 11. This app combines Windows PowerShell, Command Prompt, and Azure Cloud Shell within the same terminal window, negating the need to open separate applications.

  • Chromium-based Microsoft Edge: While previously a separate download, this version is now included starting with Windows 10 version 20H2 and Windows 11.

Recovery tools

  • Reset this PC: Introduced in Windows 10, you can use the Reset this PC feature to return a device to its initial state or recover Windows from corrupted operating system files and other errors. When you launch Reset this PC, you can choose to:

    • Keep my files: This option keeps your personal files, removes apps and settings, and reinstalls Windows.
    • Remove everything: This option removes all personal data, apps, and settings from the device and reinstalls Windows.

  • Advanced start-up options: These recovery features enable you to recover Windows 10 and 11 from common errors. Options include:

    • Use a device: This option enables you to recover Windows using a universal serial bus (USB) drive, network connection, or recovery disk.
    • Troubleshoot: This option enables you to access Advanced options, including System Restore, System Image Recovery, Startup Repair, Command Prompt, and Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) settings.

Virtualization

  • Client Hyper-V: Windows provides a flexible and high-performing client virtualization environment. You can use this environment to test applications and IT scenarios in multiple operating system configurations. Using Client Hyper-V, IT departments can provide a consolidated and efficient virtual environment through virtual-machine compatibility with Windows Server.
  • Windows Sandbox: Windows Sandbox provides a lightweight desktop environment for temporarily running applications in an isolated environment. Launching Sandbox creates a clean installation of Windows, isolated from the host and without the need to download or create a separate VHD. You're discarding everything when the application is closed.

Mobility improvements

  • Support for multiple device types: Windows client runs on desktop and laptop computers, tablets and similar devices, phones, the Xbox platform, and Microsoft HoloLens, providing users extensive access to the Windows 10 environment.
  • Bring Your Own Device support: Many users have personal computing devices, and they might wish to connect these devices to their corporate networks to access apps and services and work with data files. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is the ability to secure users’ devices to a corporate network. Windows 10 introduced many features that improve the support of users who wish to bring their own devices.
  • Mobile broadband: Windows provides support for embedded wireless radio. This support helps to improve power efficiency and reduce the size of some devices.
  • Broadband tethering: You can turn your Windows 10 or current device into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
  • Autotriggered VPN: Windows can automatically trigger a virtual private network (VPN) connection if an app requires your company's intranet access.

Security enhancements

  • Remote Business Data Removal: With Windows client and Windows Server, you can use Remote Business Data Removal to classify and flag corporate files and to differentiate between these files and user files. With this classification, the remote wipe of a Windows device won't remove user-owned data when securing or removing corporate data on the device.
  • Improved biometrics: Windows 10 introduced many improvements in biometrics, including the use of Windows sign-in, remote access, and user account control (UAC). You can configure biometric authentication to enable Microsoft Store access.
  • Pervasive device encryption: Microsoft Surface devices have Device encryption enabled by default. You can configure additional BitLocker Drive Encryption protection. You also can allow additional management capabilities on the Windows client Pro and Enterprise editions.
  • Malware resistance: Microsoft Defender now includes network-behavior monitoring that can help to detect and prevent the execution of known and unknown malware.
  • Device lockdown: The Assigned Access feature enables you to restrict the Microsoft Store app experience on a device to a specific subset of apps or even to a single app. This Assigned Access could be a line-of-business (LOB) app in a kiosk scenario or a set of educational apps for children in a school setting.
  • Virtual secure mode: Virtual secure mode is a secure process-execution environment that Windows 10 introduces. This execution environment helps protect system processes by running them in a separate, virtualized container, known as a trustlet, rather than in the operating system itself. Because the Windows operating system doesn't have access to these trustlets, processes and data within them are safer.
  • Nearby Sharing: Nearby Sharing lets you instantly share your videos, photos, documents, and websites with people and devices near you over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

Windows as a service

Windows 10 introduced a new method for delivering new features and functional changes. We know this method as Windows as a Service. Windows as a Service is a significant change from when new versions arrived approximately every three years. Windows releases quality updates regularly, while substantial changes, also known as feature updates, will occur annually. Security and driver updates automatically download and install as soon as they become available for some Windows client editions. Other editions can defer some updates for a non-configurable period.