Windows 11 is continuing to receive regular updates, with reports that the development of a new version codenamed Sun Valley 2 will address most of the existing major issues with the new operating system. Windows 11 eats money with several design overhauls, including a new start menu, notification center, taskbar, and a modern context menu.
The context menu is a core part of the OS interface (specifically the file explorer), and it introduces a refreshing new design, but this seems to cause sluggish performance when right-clicking.
As part of its efforts to modernize the operating system, Microsoft reduced the number of options in context menus and started using icons/buttons to display options like copy-paste.
While the move was supposed to improve performance and reduce file explorer load, the new design still has unnecessary delays. Specifically, when right-clicking a file or folder in File Explorer, the Windows 11 context menu took some time to pop up, which proved to be problematic.
On some hardware, there is even a 1 to 2-second delay when right-clicking, and sometimes the explorer context menu flickers as it tries to resize and load the main options.
Microsoft has acknowledged the erratic performance of this fundamental feature of the operating system and has been working to reduce the impact of the new design.
With Windows 11 Build 22572, Microsoft has provided additional fixes to make menus faster, and users have confirmed that context menus load a lot faster than before.
“We’ve done some work in 22572 to improve context menu performance,” said a Microsoft executive. Unfortunately, Windows 11 updates have so far failed to address a bug where context menus open larger than they should, problems with no icons, and more.
Starting with Sun Valley 2, users can use Shift+right-click on File Explorer and the desktop to trigger the “Show More Options” button, which opens the old context menu. Of course, Microsoft still needs to get these Windows 11 context menus right, as they are important to the overall usability of the operating system and how Windows 11 works in general.
The next relatively big Windows 11 update is scheduled to roll out in the fall of 2022, and it may eventually fix most of the critical issues. For example, version 2 or 22H2 of Sun Valley will restore support for drag and drop to the taskbar, which will allow users to easily open files from any open application by simply dragging files onto the taskbar.
Additionally, Windows 11 version 22H2 will refresh stale areas of the operating system, such as print queue screens for UWP and Win32 applications, and more.