Microsoft is rumored to be working on a new Windows 11 update that would add the search bar to the taskbar. This would make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for on their computer. If this rumor is true, it would be a big change from Windows 10, which has had the search bar at the bottom of the screen.
Microsoft started rolling out Windows 11 Preview Build 25158 to the Windows Insider Dev Channel this week, which includes three new designs for the search button in the taskbar — each one is being tested with a random group of people. One of them is simply a more colorful version of the current search, with a blue color instead of the current dark grey, while the other two options are larger search bars that look close to the default design on Windows 10.
There’s also another interface change in testing: notification badges for widgets. If one of your widgets has an alert, it can show a badge on top of the widget panel in the taskbar. Clicking to open the widget panel reveals the alert. The current implementation seems a bit confusing, since the widget button in the taskbar always shows the weather, but the notification badge could be for something unrelated to weather (such as breaking news).
The taskbar has been one of the main points of contention with Windows 11, since it was rebuilt from Windows 10 and still lacks some of the features found on earlier versions. The taskbar still can’t (officially) be moved to the left or right sides of the screen, for example.
Microsoft plans to evaluate feedback from the taskbar experiments before they are rolled out to more people. It’s also possible all these changes will be tossed out in the next Preview build — such is the nature of bleeding-edge software.
Source: Windows Blog
