Windows 10's Start Menu is getting transparent tiles with Project NEON in Redstone 3

Back in January, we gave you an exclusive first look at the upcoming UI upgrade for Windows 10, codenamed Project NEON. For the most part, NEON focuses on blur and animations. In fact, parts of Project NEON are already appearing on some Windows 10 apps, including Groove Music, Movies & TV, and even the View 3D app.

More importantly, Project NEON will also include an improved Start Menu design, according to an internal concept received by MSPU. First and foremost, the Start Menu will now have a blurred background which is known as the Acrylic component of Project NEON. As you can see in the concept above, Project NEON will also introduce transparent tiles for the Start Menu on PCs — which is something a lot of users have requested in the past. Right now, tiles in the Start Menu have a solid background but the Start Menu’s background still has a bit of transparency. However, with the Windows 10 Redstone 3 release, tiles will be transparent and utilize the Acrylic component of NEON.

As you can see in the screenshot above, Microsoft also seems to be interested in a dark and a light themed taskbar for Windows 10. At the moment, the taskbar in Windows 10 is dark by default (but you can change it to show your device’s accent color) but with Project NEON, users may be able to enable a light them for the taskbar as well.

We believe the improvements coming to the Start Menu as part of Project NEON will arrive with the Windows 10 ‘Redstone 3’ release, and that is expected to arrive later this Fall. Microsoft is going to give us an official look at Project NEON and some of the other new features that are coming with Redstone 3 at Build 2017 in May — we’ll be attending the conference as per usual, so make sure to keep an eye on MSPU for the latest Windows 10 and other Microsoft related coverage!