Windows 10 Sun Valley’s Floating Taskbar redesign is hidden in latest Windows Insider builds

3 min. read

Published on April 26, 2021

published on April 26, 2021

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Though Microsoft hasn’t admitted it, Windows 10 Sun Valley is rumored to be coming this Fall and could finally bring a massive design overhaul to Windows 10. We’ve yet to see any major hints of this redesign in the latest Windows Insider builds, but one software engineer has done some tweaking to expose what could end up becoming Windows 10 Sun Valley’s Floating Taskbar menu (via Windows Latest.)

????A part of Sun Valley in ShellExperienceHost? Toggled JumpListRestyledAcrylic visibility to be visible and collapsed JumpListAcrylic and SystemItemsAcrylic border. pic.twitter.com/rFkzShSx8Q

— Dan (@TheXamlGuy) April 22, 2021

Naturally, the feature isn’t publicly available and is tucked away under a flag in the Windows Shell Experience Host. Once toggled, it looks quite beautiful. As seen above, the jump menus (also known as right-click menus) in the Windows 10 Taskbar end up looking a lot like what we’ve seen in Windows 10X. Basically, these menus no longer end up being a glued part of the Windows 10 Taskbar and now has a small space between Taskbar and the desktop, hence the “floating” name. You also see that the design language has shifted to more rounded corners, too, instead of the flat rectangular shapes in the current versions of Windows.

This currently only works with a limited scope, as the menus do appear to have borders in some cases, according to Windows Latest. But Microsoft could be moving more of 10X design elements into Windows 10, too. That’s because the software engineer who uncovered this also revealed in a separate tweet that new “gripper” and “expander” elements from Windows 10X are hidden in the Windows 10 Notification Center, too.

I am assuming these hidden elements (gripper and expander) from Windows 10X but present in Windows 10 notification centre albeit hidden are already known about? ????‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/xn9YKV6Wpw

— Dan (@TheXamlGuy) April 25, 2021

As far as we can tell, this is the first time that we’ve seen live-code of elements of Windows 10 Sun Valley inside an active Windows Insider Build. Previously, we only knew of the Sun Valley redesign through floating Start Menu mock-ups released by Windows Central’s Zac Bowden.

It is a bit of a stretch to say so, but this does seemingly hint that more Sun Valley design elements could be on the way since Microsoft has now put it into the code for the Windows Shell. We’ll be keeping an eye on this, so best tune into our Windows 10 news hub if you’re hoping to get the latest, right when we learn more.

Radu Tyrsina

Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time). For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web. Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they're looking for.