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How to Watch Microsoft's June 24th Windows 11 Reveal
Microsoft's all set to announce some major changes to Windows during a heavily marketed livestream tomorrow. And while the company hasn't confirmed that the changes involve a move to Windows 11, it's hinted at it heavily. The stream's set to air at 11 am EST. Its key art also shows a Windows logo inexplicably casting a shadow that looks like an 11, and oh yeah, the operating system already leaked online.
Here's how to watch the stream, including where you can catch it and what details to expect.
When does Microsoft's stream start?
Microsoft's stream starts at 11 am EST on June 24th, which translates to 8 am PST and 10 am CST. Cute.
The Windows 11 stream is currently up right now at Microsoft's website, but it's crashing for a lot of our team members. There's no listing for it on the company's YouTube channel yet, but we have found a more stable stream over on Twitter.
What to expect?
Here's the big kicker. Microsoft's been putting some major hype behind this event since it first announced the stream towards the start of June. While we initially thought it might involve the rumored Sun Valley redesign or even the mothballed Windows 10X, we're now pretty confident saying this event is going to be all Windows 11.
The big evidence behind these Windows 11 expectations is a leaked build of the operating system that hit the internet last week. Aside from being called Windows 11, the most immediately noticeable new features in this build were a centered taskbar, rounded corners and a new start menu without Live Tiles.
(Image credit: sdra_owen on Baidu)
It's a distinctly more Mac-like appearance, although it seems like you will be able to at least customize the taskbar position. It also looks like it might be more touch friendly, which points to Windows 11 being a potential new home for former Windows 10X features.
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Microsoft's also teased new Windows startup sounds via a "slo-fi remix" it posted to its YouTube channel.
Aside from these little morsels, though, official details straight from the source have been few and far between. Tune in tomorrow to hear what Microsoft's got planned for the future of its operating system.
Michelle Ehrhardt is an editor at Tom's Hardware. She's been following tech since her family got a Gateway running Windows 95, and is now on her third custom-built system. Her work has been published in publications like Paste, The Atlantic, and Kill Screen, just to name a few. She also holds a master's degree in game design from NYU.
this centered task bar is just another annoyance in a sea of flaky stuff with microsoft. I mean seriously .. with some users its hard enough just getting them to know that button down there .. yeah.. that one.. that looks like a window icon .. that's the Start Button ..
People are that illiterate about the OS ... I find myself wishing for the days when windows 95 actually had the word "START" on the button .. :(
standards and standardization are the reasons one to the next that people can exist with "the computer" and it started with shifting to the gui intensive start screen, continued with the BS re-write of everything out of a CPL / Control Panel Applet and all for what?
The first few minutes of this were supposed to impress us with the new OS. Looks to me like a bloatware filled sandbox made to force on you all the items we have just been disabling in 10.....This broken stream is far from impressive.
I just really hope we can turn most of that junk off.
