Windows 11 continues to be updated regularly, and there are reports that a new version code-named Sun Valley 2 will solve most of the major existing problems with the new operating system. Includes a new Start menu, Notification Center, taskbar, and modern context menu.
Context menus, a core part of the operating system interface (especially File Explorer), introduce a refreshing new design, but this seems to cause slow performance when right-clicking to call out.
As part of its efforts to modernize the operating system, Microsoft reduced the number of options in the context menu and started using icons/buttons to display options such as copy and paste. While this move should be intended to improve performance and reduce the load on File Explorer, the new design still has unnecessary latency. This is when a file or folder is right-clicked in File Explorer, and Windows 11’s context menu takes some time to pop up, which proves to be problematic.
On some hardware, there is even a 1 to 2-second delay when right-clicking, and sometimes the Explorer’s right-click menu flashes as it tries to resize and load the main options.
Microsoft acknowledges that the performance of this operating system’s underlying features is erratic and has been working to reduce the impact of the new design.
With Windows 11 Build 22572, Microsoft offers additional fixes to make menus faster, and users have confirmed that context menus load much faster than before.
“We did some work in 22572 to improve the performance of context menus,” said one Microsoft executive. Unfortunately, the Windows 11 update has so far failed to resolve a bug where the context menu opens larger than the original size, there is a problem with no icons, and so on.
Starting with Sun Valley 2, users can use Shift + right-click on File Explorer and desktop to trigger the Show More Options button, which opens the old context menu. Of course, Microsoft still needs to do a good job of these Windows 11 context menus, because they are important for the overall usability of the operating system and the overall way Windows 11 works.
The next relatively large Windows 11 update is scheduled to roll out in the fall of 2022, and it could eventually fix most of the critical issues. For example, Sun Valley 2 or 22H2 will restore support for taskbar drag-and-drop, which will allow users to easily open files in any open application by simply dragging them onto the taskbar.
In addition, Windows 11 version 22H2 will also refresh stale areas of the operating system, such as the print queue screen for UWP and Win32 applications.
