Microsoft is finally removing web-based components from Windows 11 to make the OS more native.

Ever since Windows 11 launched, newer desktop applications have felt like a massive compromise. Microsoft originally launched the operating system with a beautiful new visual language, but it was executed with sluggish web wrappers, React Native components, and Electron frameworks.

Developers originally flocked to these web-based frameworks because they simplified cross-platform development. A single codebase could theoretically run across Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and the web. Unfortunately, it was the regular users who suffered the severe downsides of that convenience. Higher memory consumption, slower startup times, increased CPU activity, and choppy animations became the new normal for Windows 11 users. The criticism became so widespread that terms like “web app slop” started appearing regularly under any post about Windows.

Now, Microsoft is finally changing course. At the Build 2026 developer conference, the software giant confirmed they are rewriting core parts of the Windows 11 shell in native code and wants third-party developers to follow suit. The era of treating Windows 11 as a delivery container for heavy web apps is seemingly coming to an end.

Microsoft drops the “3” in WinUI 3 to prove it won’t abandon developers

Convincing software engineers to build native Windows applications requires an enormous amount of trust. Microsoft has spent the last two decades asking developers to migrate through a graveyard of abandoned user interface frameworks. WinForms gave way to WPF, which was followed by Silverlight, UWP, and eventually the Windows App SDK.

Windows developers are understandably exhausted by the constant version churn. Chris Anderson, Vice President of Software Engineering at Microsoft, acknowledged the skepticism surrounding the company’s current native framework, WinUI 3.

During his Build 2026 session, Anderson said Microsoft has zero plans to build a new UI framework, and hence the engineering teams are dropping the “3” from the WinUI 3 branding and will refer to the platform simply as “WinUI” moving forward.

The company wants to assure developers that there is no WinUI 4 looming on the horizon. WinUI is officially the permanent production platform for modern Windows applications.

Microsoft confirms Windows 11 will use WinUI for more first-party shell features

Telling third-party developers to adopt a native framework rings hollow if Microsoft refuses to use the technology internally. Fortunately, the company is finally practicing what it preaches.

Anderson confirmed that Microsoft has started integrating WinUI into the Windows 11 shell “at a much faster rate”. Users will soon see significantly more first-party Microsoft features built directly on top of the native framework and not web-based components.

“We’ve started to integrate it into the shell at a much faster rate. And so you’re going to see a lot of the first-party features coming from Microsoft being built on top of WinUI.”

The software giant recently created a dedicated team focused specifically on building what Microsoft internally describes as “100% native” Windows applications and experiences. Led by Partner Architect Rudy Huyn, the initiative will reduce reliance on WebView-powered interfaces across the operating system.

We can already see the fruits of that labor. As Windows Latest first reported, Microsoft is killing Windows 11’s web app slop, and the Windows 11 Start menu, which uses React Native to render the Recommended feed and the All Apps list, is getting a major update. These web layers are the reason why your Start menu doesn’t open smoothly.

Microsoft is now fully rewriting those Start menu components in native WinUI. Replacing the React shell with native code reduces additional RAM and CPU usage at the platform level and makes the operating system respond instantaneously to your input. Seeing the software giant rip out its own web components to prioritize native responsiveness is probably the strongest possible endorsement for WinUI.

Microsoft says performance, memory usage, and fixing bugs are the highest priority in WinUI

Microsoft was surprisingly grounded while talking about Windows quality, before introducing any new interface capabilities at Build 2026. Anderson stated that the engineering teams first need to earn the right to build new features by fixing the absolute basics.

Performance, fundamentals, and quality control are now the highest priorities for the WinUI team. Microsoft invested heavily over the last few months to drastically improve baseline memory usage. Bloated RAM usage has been a primary complaint among developers trying to build lightweight desktop software. Optimizing WinUI framework addresses those concerns, and it seems like the company is keeping the promises they made in March about how Windows 11 will run faster under heavy load, reduce RAM usage, and feel more responsive.

Windows 11 adopts a new system compositor for smoother UI performance

Engineers are also switching the framework over to a new system compositor. Moving composition work to the system level should yield performance improvements for complex user interfaces. Architectural upgrades like these have already landed in the public GitHub repositories and will appear in upcoming experimental previews of the Windows App SDK.

Getting the fundamentals right also means fixing embarrassing visual bugs that currently infest native apps. If you use native Windows 11 apps like Photos, you have likely noticed the black borders (tearing) that appear when resizing the window.

WinUI gains enterprise-focused DataGrid and Charting controls

Microsoft also admits WinUI still has major gaps.

Developers have spent years asking for basic enterprise controls that older frameworks already handled properly. Anderson confirmed Microsoft is finally adding DataGrid and Charting components directly into WinUI, which is a pretty big deal for business software, analytics dashboards, financial tools, reporting systems, and internal enterprise apps.

Right now, many developers still use third-party libraries or community-built open-source projects just to get functionality that should arguably exist out of the box.

Microsoft says it’s now working to close those gaps across the platform.

Microsoft expands open-source development for WinUI

Another major shift is transparency, and this is huge, coming from an organization like Microsoft.

Microsoft says WinUI is moving toward a future where development increasingly happens in public repositories instead of behind closed doors inside Microsoft.

The company recently reached what it calls Phase 3 of its open-source journey, which allows developers to build WinUI, run tests, and validate changes publicly.

Phase 4 is even more ambitious. Microsoft wants engineers working primarily in public repositories so developers can see changes as they happen, contribute fixes, and directly influence the future of the framework.

Microsoft improves WinForms and WPF migration support

For developers stuck maintaining older Windows apps, Microsoft says it’s making WinForms interoperability “bulletproof” so companies don’t have to rip apart decades of existing software just to adopt modern Windows technologies.

WPF migration is also getting serious attention. Instead of forcing developers into painful full rewrites, Microsoft now wants WPF and WinUI components to coexist properly inside the same app without rendering issues or weird compatibility problems, which I feel is a huge deal for enterprise software because nobody rewrites million-line business apps overnight, and Microsoft finally seems to understand it.

All of these changes push Windows 11 closer toward becoming a truly native operating system.

By improving WinUI performance, fixing rendering bugs, modernizing the compositor, and making migration easier for older desktop apps, Microsoft is rebuilding confidence in native Windows development. If developers adopt these tools at scale, future Windows 11 apps and even core shell experiences could feel faster, lighter, more responsive, and far more integrated with the OS.

Microsoft UI Reactor and AI-assisted coding modernize native development

While stabilizing the core platform is important, Microsoft also needs to ensure native Windows development feels modern. Writing verbose XAML markup language can feel incredibly archaic to younger developers accustomed to the sleek, declarative syntax found in modern web frameworks or Apple’s SwiftUI.

To bridge the gap, Microsoft introduced a new experimental open-source project called Microsoft UI Reactor.

Reactor operates as a C#-first declarative user interface framework. The platform allows developers to build native WinUI applications entirely in pure C# code without ever touching XAML, data binding, or view models. You simply describe your user interface as a function of state, and Reactor automatically keeps the native control tree synchronized on the screen.

The experimental framework brings modern concepts like hooks, state management, and flex layouts directly to Windows development. While Reactor remains a highly volatile testing ground, Microsoft expects the best ideas from the project to eventually merge into the production WinUI codebase.

Fortunately for Microsoft, modernizing the code syntax plays perfectly into their AI strategy. Writing applications in pure, declarative C# is significantly easier for AI coding assistants to understand and generate.

Developers are increasingly using tools like GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and local autonomous agents to write boilerplate code, structure user interfaces, and execute tests. Moving to a C#-first development model helps WinUI to integrate into agentic AI workloads.

The return of native desktop software benefits every Windows user

None of these announcements means web technologies are disappearing from Windows entirely. Unlike macOS, Windows 11 is a fundamentally open platform, and Microsoft will continue supporting React, Electron, WebView, Tauri, Flutter, and countless other cross-platform frameworks. However, for the first time in several years, the software giant is making the case that native Windows development is important.

Microsoft pushing developers toward WinUI represents an enormous victory for everyday consumers. If you think about it, even budget Windows laptops will start to feel more useful, and that would help people who can’t afford higher-end hardware get more work done.

For far too long, Windows 11 has suffered under the weight of generic wrappers that drain laptop batteries and consume ridiculous amounts of system memory.

Rebuilding the Windows 11 shell in native code proves Microsoft is finally willing to prioritize user experience. A native Start menu, an optimized file explorer, and a faster operating system shell all contribute to the quality push we have witnessed so far in 2026.

Encouraging third-party developers to use WinUI may give us future Windows applications that are cohesive, launch instantly, and respect system resources. The era of web app slop may finally be coming to an end.

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