It only took half a decade for Microsoft to remember how to build a functional user interface. On May 15, 2026, the tech giant took to the Windows Insider Blog to announce Preview Build 26300, a supposedly major update designed to give users “more flexibility” over their Taskbar and Start menu.
However, beneath the marketing spin, these groundbreaking additions—like the ability to finally shrink the taskbar, move it to the side or top of the screen, and independently toggle off intrusive file recommendations—are nothing more than basic features Microsoft stripped out of Windows years ago.
Rather than pushing the operating system forward, this long-overdue update rolling out to the Experimental channel feels less like innovation and more like a reluctant apology to power users who have been fighting a restrictive, dumbed-down user interface since 2021.
This is what build 26300 brings back from the dead
Let’s look exactly at what Preview Build 26300 actually brings to the table. The headline “feature” of this update is the reinstatement of taskbar mobility. After years of being glued to the bottom of the screen, users can once again click and drag the taskbar to the left, right, or top edges of their monitors—a decades-old Windows function that was axed during the initial jump to Windows 11.
Accompanying this is the return of taskbar resizing, allowing users to finally shrink the increasingly bloated bar to save precious vertical screen real estate, or expand it for better touch visibility.
Meanwhile, the Start menu receives what is arguably the most highly requested fix: a dedicated, single-click toggle to permanently disable the “Recommended” section. Instead of being forced to look at a useless blank void or unwanted cloud documents, users can now reclaim that entire bottom half of the menu for their own pinned applications.
Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft’s head of Windows and Surface, championed these tweaks on X as a testament to the company “deeply listening to Insiders” and “empowering personalized workflows.”
But celebrating the restoration of basic functionality as a triumph of active listening is a massive stretch. While it is undoubtedly a relief to have these customization options back where they belong, packaging them as a bold new step forward highlights a recurring, frustrating cycle in Microsoft’s development ethos: breaking something that works perfectly fine, ignoring the immediate community outcry, and then expecting applause when they finally patch it back together five years later.
I assume that the “Drag & Drop to the Taskbar” option has always remained in the closet… but there’s a little hope now.