Windows news sites are reviewing context menus and it’s perversely delightful

When I wrote about using Windows 11 for a month as part of the ongoing OSNews fundraiser (keep donating to get me to do the same for macOS!), one of the things I mentioned was that the modern desktop context menu has its own classic Win32 context menu". This is, in fact, a long-standing complaint I've repeatedly used as the perfect example of just how chaotic and low-quality Windows has become. Thankfully, and naturally I fully attribute this to my repeated complaints (*), Microsoft has been working on a brand new, faster, configurable context menu, and Neowin actually reviewed it.

If you ask me, this revamped context menu addresses just about the biggest problem users had with the one in Windows 11, and that is the need to click through more buttons than necessary to do simple things like renaming a file or opening its properties. That problem is now basically gone.

I have no issues with the new design. It looks modern, it feels more consistent with the rest of Windows, and even though all the new sections can still make it look a little busy, you now have the option to make it as simple or as button-packed as you want. That should cover most use cases and preferences well. I'd even say that when the new context menu becomes available to everyone, my guide on how to bring back the classic context menu might become obsolete.

Ivan Jenic at Neowin

The biggest reason I'm linking to this is not because I care about whatever monster of a context menu Windows users are having to deal with. No, I'm only linking to this because I never in my life imagined I'd be linking to a review of a context menu. I mean, at least it's not the chess application icon. That would be embarrassing.

I get a perverse sense of joy out of this.