Microsoft Highlights More Windows 10 Project NEON UI Changes Including Refreshed Taskbar

We've been talking about Microsoft's 'Project NEON' for a couple of months now, and while we now have a good idea of what it's going to be bringing to the table, we're in for a rather long wait. The public release isn't slated to arrive until late 2017.

Project NEON is an evolution of the design language in Windows 10, and will give a noticeable fresh coat of paint to both Windows 10 itself, and apps found in the Windows Store. The goal is to continue with the modern push, and implement a lot of blur for aesthetic enhancement.

At a Windows Developer Day which took place yesterday, Microsoft inadvertently revealed Project NEON's updated look, although it was obfuscated behind marketing blurbs. Today, a clean version of the image has risen to the surface (seen above), giving us our best look at NEON up to this point.

While your eyes are naturally going to focus on the Groove Music app in the center, the toolbar might be even more notable. When Project NEON drops with Windows 10 Redstone 3, it looks like it could bring a brand-new all-white theme (which we'd hope would not be a replacement), and it looks incredibly clean. This is primarily because Microsoft may have a trick in store for the system tray, which normally results in ten or more icons cluttering up the bottom right-side.

In a couple of months, Microsoft is going to be releasing its much-anticipated "Creators Update" of Windows 10, which among many other things introduces Game Mode, as well as Compact Overlay and Picture-in-Picture, as we discussed yesterday. The Creators Update will preface Redstone 3, likely by 5 or 6 months. That is still far off in the future, but the way things are shaping up, it could prove to be well worth the wait.