As useful as the Windows 10 context menu is, there are aspects of its design we sought to improve in Windows 11.

• The most common commands – cut, copy, paste, delete, and rename – are far from the mouse pointer, touch point, or pen.
• The menu is exceptionally long. It has grown in an unregulated environment for 20 years, since Windows XP, when IContextMenu was introduced.
• It includes commands which are rarely used.
• Commands that should be grouped together – such as Open and Open with – are sometimes far apart.
• Commands added by apps have no common organizational schema and can interrupt sections of inbox commands.
• Commands added by apps are not attributable to the app itself.