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Enable secret hidden Continuum UI (new Start screen) in Windows 10 TP3

As you might have noticed from screenshots circulating on the Internet, Windows 10 Technical Preview 3 (Build 9879) comes with a secret, hidden Start Screen feature, known as the Continuum UI. In this article, we will enable it with a simple registry tweak. Continuum is the improved version of Metro. It's about seamlessly switching between the touch UI and the mouse/keyboard centric UI depending on which peripherals are attached to your PC/tablet and whether it is docked or undocked.

The Continuum user interface replaces both the current Start menu and the Start screen UIs. It looks like it's the intended replacement for both of them in the near future. Basically, it's an improved version of the Start screen, which can also work in windowed mode. Here is how it looks:
new start screen continuum windows 10
To enable it, you need to have the latest Windows 10 build 9879 (Technical Preview 3) installed and then apply a Registry tweak as described below:

  1. Open Registry Editor.
  2. Go to the following Registry key:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Launcher

    If this key does not exist, then just create it.
    Tip: see how to jump to the desired registry key with one click.

  3. Create a new DWORD value named UseExperience and set it to 1. See the following screenshot:
    enable continuum windows 10
  4. Sign out and log in back to your Windows account. Alternatively, you can just restart the Explorer shell.

That's it. Feel free to share your opinion about this new feature in the comments of this article.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

9 thoughts on “Enable secret hidden Continuum UI (new Start screen) in Windows 10 TP3”

  1. I did everything as you said and it doesnt work for me… My start button does NOTHING until I undo the reg hack… Help?

    1. Well, it must be some bug in TP3. I have no idea why it fails.
      For me, the Start button and whole Explorer hanged, but after two mins it started to work.

      1. Sorry, i was mistook between HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_CURRENT_USER. I have done and it worked fine. Thanks so much! Have a nice day!

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