Microsoft is accelerating the nativeization process of Windows 11 and plans to migrate more system functions and applications from web-based components to WinUI to reduce interaction delays and make the entire system more "handy" in actual use. One of the direct beneficiaries of this adjustment is the Start menu: Microsoft has confirmed that it will replace the existing React Shell with WinUI in the Start menu, covering at least part of the interface and interaction logic.
Currently, the "Recommended" information flow and the "All Apps" list in the Windows 11 start menu are implemented by a React-driven web technology stack. As early as the Chain React Conference in 2023, Microsoft publicly stated that it was betting on React Native and "choose to trust this platform to carry some experiences, even some key experiences of users." On modern hardware devices, this implementation is not too slow, but Microsoft also admits that even optimized web components are still difficult to fully match native frameworks such as WinUI in terms of immediacy of interaction. The fundamental reason is that latency overhead and web technology itself are not designed for all system-level scenarios.
From the appearance, the Windows 11 Start menu is "native" enough and visually unified with the rest of the system, but users generally feel that its response speed is not as fast as the previous version. This has also become a major motivation for Microsoft's decision to "shrink" the scope of React and return to the native UI. Microsoft leadership has confirmed that it is migrating Windows' "shared UI infrastructure" to WinUI to reduce interaction delays and overhead at the platform level and improve overall responsiveness. Microsoft said in its internal statement that this was "reducing interaction delays by migrating the core Windows (experience) to a native framework" and regarded it as an important part of improving the smoothness of the experience.
In fact, in order to enable Windows to work with React, Microsoft has done a lot of "adaptation projects" in the past few years. One of the difficulties is to maintain the system's consistent native look and feel while introducing JavaScript and Web technology stacks, which is what Microsoft calls "visual coherence." To this end, Microsoft has developed tools such as React Native XAML and Fluent UI React Native, so that React-based applications can still be as close to the traditional WinUI experience in interface style and interaction, even if the underlying layer is JavaScript-driven. However, judging from the current adjustment route, Microsoft is now more willing to "go back to the basics" and re-invest in the native UI framework on the key interfaces of the system, rather than continue to tilt towards the Web UI.
In addition to adjustments to the underlying UI framework, Microsoft is also testing a smarter "recommended" area in the Start menu, hoping to increase the practical value of this area through algorithm improvements. Although the specific algorithm details have not been disclosed, Windows Latest understands that the new version of the recommended information flow will be more inclined to display applications or recently accessed files that are more relevant to the user's current workflow, with the goal of reducing the feeling of "empty space but not useful".
For users who don't like the recommended information flow, Windows 11 currently provides a switch to turn it off directly: users can go to the "Personalization" → "Taskbar" page in "Settings" and turn off the "Show recommended files in the Start menu, show recently used files in File Explorer, and show items in jump lists" option, after which the recommended area in the Start menu will disappear completely. However, this setting is a global switch. When turning off the recommended information flow, it will also disable the "Recent Files" in the taskbar jump list and remove the "Recently Used" area from the file explorer, which is equivalent to sacrificing a complete set of history recording functions.
This linkage behavior has caused dissatisfaction among some users. Some users hope to be able to turn off the recommendation card in the start menu separately, but continue to retain the "Recent Files" list in the taskbar and explorer. In this regard, the author of the report has asked Microsoft whether it will provide more granular control options for the recommendation engine in Windows 11 in the future, but there has been no official response yet.
Judging from the overall trend, on the one hand, Microsoft is "de-Webizing" at the system level and migrating the shared UI infrastructure to WinUI to shorten interaction paths and improve performance; on the other hand, it is introducing more complex logic in recommended content and personalized experience. The superposition of the two ultimately points to one goal: to allow Windows 11 to restore as much as possible or even surpass the response speed and smoothness of traditional desktop systems while maintaining a modern appearance and intelligent features.