How to Enable Start Menu Badges in Windows 11 Build 25227

With recently released Build 25227, Microsoft announced a new mysterious feature for Windows 11  - Start menu badges. According to Microsoft, they will remind the user to do this or that important action. There will be a small orange dot overlay icon over the user profile, and an extra item(s) in the menu.

In typical modern fashion, Microsoft has made this new feature available to a small select group of Insiders. So, there is a little chance that you have it after installing Windows 11 Build 25227.

Luckily, enthusiasts have discovered how to enable this new feature. This can be done with help of the open-source ViveTool app. Here is a screenshot of how it may look in action:

If you are interested in giving it a try, do the following to enable the Start menu badges feature.

Enable Start Menu Badges in Windows 11

1. Download VivetTool from it project pageon GitHub.
2. Unzip the downloaded archive to the c:\vivetool folder, so you will have the c:\vivetool\vivetool.exe path.
3. Now, right-click the Start icon on the taskbar (or press Win + X), and select  Terminal (Admin).
4. Finally, enter the following command in a PowerShell or Command Prompt tab, and press Enter: c:\vivetool\vivetool /enable /id:36435151.
5. Restart the operating system to apply the change.

You are done.

Once Windows 11 will have a reason to attract your attention to some maintenance task, you'll see the orange dot over your profile icon, and extra actions in the profile menu.

But keep in mind that there's no way to trigger this new behavior manually. After you enable the feature with ViveTool, you won't see the badge immediately if the OS has nothing to remind you about.

Finally, the undo command for the feature is

c:\vivetool\vivetool /disable /id:36435151

Don't forget to run it as Administrator and restart the OS to apply the change.

via PhantomOfEarth