Windows Insiders now have access to the Canary Channel, which allows Microsoft to test new features and updates for this upcoming release.

While the tech world eagerly awaits an official word on “Windows 12,” enthusiasts and fans are already imagining what they hope to see in the next iteration.

One such vision comes from designer and YouTuber Addy Visual, who recently shared a concept video showcasing an amalgamation of user-requested features and innovative ideas.

Windows 12 Concept Video

Conceptualizing the Next Start Menu

Addy Visual’s concept video introduces a fresh take on the Start menu, combining elements from Windows 11 and Windows 10.

While adopting Windows 11’s aesthetic appeal, the concept retains the functional aspects of Windows 10, such as the prominent display of the All Programs list. Additionally, the Start menu incorporates widgets, allowing users to access these interactive elements within the menu itself.

Revamping the Taskbar

The concept video also breathes new life into the taskbar, introducing dynamic elements that display relevant information and notifications. Users can now interact with the taskbar to summon widgets, which can then be placed directly onto the desktop. This fluid integration between the taskbar and widgets provides a more versatile and efficient user experience.

Prioritizing User Choice

Throughout the video, the underlying theme is the importance of user choice. Many users expressed dissatisfaction when Microsoft removed various options while transitioning from Windows 10 to Windows 11. In stark contrast, Addy Visual’s concept embraces choices, allowing users to have either a separate taskbar or one that spans across the entire screen, depending on their preference. This emphasis on customization seeks to cater to individual needs and preferences.

Welcome Return of App Groups

A particularly well-received feature from Windows 10, App Groups makes a comeback in the concept video. This reintroduction would delight users who found great utility in organizing their apps more efficiently. Additionally, the video explores similar functionalities available on smartphones and tablets, highlighting the potential for cross-platform integration.

Redesigned File Explorer and Innovative Features

The concept video also delves into a redesigned File Explorer, aiming to enhance the user experience when navigating and managing files. Furthermore, the video introduces several innovative features, promising exciting possibilities for Windows users.

The Reality of Designing an Operating System

While Addy Visual’s concept video presents an inspiring vision of the future, it’s crucial to recognize the immense effort required to create an operating system with functional and cohesive moving parts.

Designing an OS involves extensive work, coding, and rigorous testing.

Microsoft cannot merely drag and drop elements to effect changes; rather, each alteration must be meticulously evaluated to ensure smooth functionality, usability, and backward compatibility.

Conclusion

As the tech community awaits official updates on Microsoft’s next major Windows version, enthusiasts and designers like Addy Visual offer inspiring conceptual glimpses into what the future could hold.

Emphasizing choice and familiarity, this Windows 12 concept seeks to address user feedback and demands while introducing innovative features.

However, it’s essential to remember that creating a new operating system is a complex process that requires careful consideration of various factors to deliver a seamless and user-friendly experience.

Sometimes, we get changes related to the UI, and sometimes, the company sneaks in yet another search element.

The point is that the Taskbar in the operating system never stands still.

This is taking into account the fact that this side of the OS has evolved significantly in Windows 11. Microsoft centered all the icons alongside the Start Menu, giving the Windows desktop a modern look that many opined was inspired by macOS.

Taking a cue from this transformation, even more, concepts started appearing, promising even more radical changes to the Taskbar.

None more so, perhaps, than this new one that was shared on Reddit.

Observe:

The concept proposes a massively resigned Taskbar that pretty much transforms the desktop Taskbar in Windows 11 into a clone of the dock that Apple floats on its macOS operating system. In other words, while the design looks good, it has too much of the fruity company DNA in it.

And this pretty much makes it a zero chance that Microsoft will ever go with something like this.

But there is no arguing that the design looks great as a fusion of the two platforms.

You have flyouts that normally sit in the system tray, and a dedicated shortcut to launch the notifications is also provided. Also included is a battery indicator. But the biggest addition, without a doubt, is the integration of an apps folder with a folder icon expanding to display more apps.

This is, of course, something that Microsoft is currently exploring for the desktop.

Yet, expecting Redmond to go with this approach is asking for the moon!

The inbox apps, in particular, are the focus right now.

However, the Task Manager is one feature that is not getting as much love as others in the upcoming OS. It continues to be mostly the same as in Windows 10. This is not exactly a surprise as this is a system applet that is often called in times of crises.

And the last thing you want is to confuse users while their system is behaving wildly.

Still, since this new version of Windows is getting a new look on almost every wall, one would expect the Task Manager to also be redesigned to better align with the rest of the operating system. Even as Microsoft is extra cautious in bringing wholesale changes to this critical component.

Speaking of wholesale changes, a Reddit user is not afraid of this, and has come up with their very own approach that reimagines this important feature of the operating platform.

See:

This concept gives the Task Manager a facelift that is wholly inspired by Windows 11.

The initial version of this design was met with thoughtful applause, but most users noted that the first screen did not make much sense. That’s because the original design was less focused on usability and more on organization.

But a subsequent redesign, which you see above, takes care of this issue with the tabs, and gets you straight to the key elements like running processes and system resources.

The designer has also posted this concept as a suggestion in the Feedback Hub so that the Windows development team can take a look. And, perhaps, implement some or all of the ideas laid out in this excellent little concept design.

Hard to see Microsoft giving the Task Manager such a dramatic facelift right off the bat, but you never know with these things.

Right?

Microsoft may have completely redesigned the Start Menu in the upcoming OS, and pulled a few surprises along the way. The famous Live Tiles are now part of history, and in their stead is a more static approach first introduced by Windows 10X.

This simplified Start Menu makes sense for so many people.

But others might want something a little spicier.

A concept recently published on Reddit provides us with a peek at this idea. It envisions the Windows 11 Start Menu with widgets and icon groups, thereby substantially improving the current design to better serve its purpose.

Behold:

As you can see, the weather tile, which has now become a widget in Windows 11, makes the Start Menu more dynamic and animated. And you also have better organization of the icons thanks to icon groups that house relevant applications under one banner.

Or rather, application folders.

More importantly, widgets are far more useful here, where they are more likely to be seen.

Hard to tell whether Microsoft might go with something like this, not when the company already has a dedicated widget section. But making an interface like this optional would serve everyone well.

Thoughts?

Of course, Microsoft will not stop here — the company wants this design philosophy to reflect across all its software and services. Work is already underway to give Office this new look, and the same holds true for many other apps and programs.

In the meantime, though, designers are busy with their own creations.

Now that a pattern is set, it simply makes sense to let the imagination run wild and cook up some new designs that showcase just how good this thing could look once all is said and done. And as this fresh new concept shows, it could look rather swell.

Designer Zee-Al-Eid Ahmad Rana, a familiar face in the Windows community, is back after a little break.

And this time, he has envisioned the Windows 11 look and feel in several Microsoft products, including Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and GitHub Desktop.

The screenshots above show how these development platforms could look if they got refreshed with this design philosophy. Images are available in both light and dark implementations, which has become quite a talking point lately.

And well, they all look brilliant, without a doubt.

Microsoft may well be crafting something similar for these applications as of this moment, now that the company has a set direction where it wants to take its operating systems and software in terms of the visuals.

What are your thoughts on these designs?

The Microsoft of yesteryear rarely changed things up to this extent — particularly when it came to the user interface and defining features like the Start Menu and Taskbar. Those kinds of trickeries were left to third-party customization programs.

However, in Windows 11 the Taskbar is evolving alongside the Start Menu.

Redmond has moved both to the center of the screen, with icons resonant with the MacOS feel. This has been done to boost productivity in the upcoming operating system, as Microsoft says this change is intentional, putting you in control and bringing a sense of calm and ease.

If calm and ease is not your cup of tea, then you might want to take a look this concept created by Ehsan Vaeghi that redefines the Taskbar with a new and more modern approach.

See for yourself:

The floating Taskbar has been divided into multiple parts, and the System Tray itself has space for its own. The Start Menu is also in another pane that is aligned to the left of the screen. The clean styling ensures that this is about as modern a look as you can get these days.

And while some may say that the space between the icons and separators is a bit too big, overall, this is a design that is both stylish and workable.

In fact, something like this makes much more sense on touch devices like tablets and 2-in-1 machines that could use a little separation of each individual element.

It’s hard to see Microsoft making such a dramatic change, even with its recent tendency to make bold changes to the UI.

But this is a uniquely neat design, all things considered.

What do you think?

For some reason, Microsoft is still not ready to bring a tabbed experience to what is clearly the most widely used application in the operating system.

So, while File Explorer will get better in the new OS, it will not function better.

Redmond is making the experience a little bit better by making it easier to work with multiple windows at the same time via additional snap options that are available by simply hovering over the maximize button in the window.

But it is clear that the company does not want to bake in a tabs feature — not yet, at least.

However, that does not stop the community from submitting proposals in the form of concepts. This latest one is a simple enough implementation that adds tabs to File Explorer while keeping the overall UI of the app pretty clean.

Take a look:

It’s a blurry dream, as the image quality could be a lot better. But the design seeps through.

And it is inspired by Microsoft Edge and appears to be based on the concept of Sets that the Redmond-based technology company itself was pursuing a few years back. That, too, went nowhere, as the firm encountered technical difficulties in implementing that.

It clearly could work here, as the design above shows.

As long as there’s a will, that is.

The OS comes with a built-in application to handle emails.

In theory, this should be the ideal client for most users. But in practice, the default Windows 10 Mail app leaves a lot to be desired — not only in terms of looks and features but also when it comes to performance, stability, and overall reliability.

Not only is the Mail app painfully slow to load, it also sometimes fails to retrieve new email, even if you manually check for new messages.

This is the reason why Outlook, Thunderbird, and other alternatives remain in high demand.

The only way to fix that is to go in with a complete refresh of the Windows 10 Mail app, rethinking the application not only in terms of features but usability as well. At the very least, a refresh of its design and UI would be very much welcome.

Which is exactly what someone on Reddit has done.

A new concept published there is supposed to improve the Mail app in terms of looks.

And truth be told, this redesigned application looks better overall. A case can be made that a design like this might make juggling multiple accounts at the same time a challenge, but all things considered, this can be improved.

Which is not something that can be readily said for the default Windows 10 Mail app that often gets left behind when it comes to updates. Even with Windows 10 set to receive a new feature update next month, no big changes for the built-in Mail app are included this time.

A shame, honestly.

It still remains a basic yet powerful app.

Integral, even.

This classic program is being used for a million different things by the Windows user base — from taking notes to coding, opening up text and other types of files, even creating ASCII art. As said, a million different uses of this amazing little utility.

Redmond knows this very well. And this is why it has served up a number of important updates for Notepad lately, including the extended line endings feature.

But despite this, what good old Notepad did not get was a visual makeover. You know, something at par with what Windows 10 itself, and several other preloaded apps in the OS have already received in the recent past.

This concept above has been created by Zee-Al-Eid Ahmad Rana, who is very well known in the community.

And as you can see, it most definitely gets it done. The design envisions a modern, Fluent Design inspired transformation for Notepad that not only gives it a whole new look but also some nice new options.

All said and done, something like a Fluent Design makeover could transform Notepad quiet heavily.

Users are thereby recommended to make the switch to Windows 10 to keep their data safe.

But while Windows 7 may be a dead platform now, not everyone is ready or willing to give up on it. Some of these users are beholden to compatibility issues with their peripherals or custom software, and others simply don’t agree with the modern direction Microsoft has taken the Windows platform.

For these users, Windows 7 is the last Windows OS that is optimized for the desktop.

And modern Windows 10 additions like the Microsoft Store, Cortana, and the modern UWP applications simply make the experience too cluttered.

If you are one such user, then this new concept that has been published this week is the perfect imagining of what a blend of old and new generation features in Windows might look like. The best of both worlds, so to say.

Essentially, what you have here is the classic Windows 7 look that borrows a bunch of modern ideas from Windows 10. At the same time, it also comes with a bunch of features on its own that make this a rather compelling design.

You have the Aero style that is still available, but then you have a refreshed File Explorer with tabs. There is support for gadgets on the desktop that help add functionality to the experience.

Neat stuff, as far as concepts go, don’t you think?