Earlier this year, Microsoft rolled out a new Sticky Notes application on Windows based around OneNote. A few changes are coming to the Sticky Notes experience to make it more useful and familiar.

First, Microsoft is adding a “Sticky Notes (new)” shortcut to the Start Menu, which opens OneNote in the new Sticky Notes view. It will be added to your Start Menu when you install or update the OneNote app. Presumably, most of the people using sticky notes in Windows were looking for it in the Start Menu (where it has always been accessible), so this fixes a major discoverability problem with the new version. However, some PCs will now have “Sticky Notes” and “Sticky Notes (new)” in the Start Menu, which also isn’t ideal.

There’s also a new pin button that appears when you move a sticky note to its own window. If you click it, the sticky note will float above all other open windows, making it easier to multi-task while viewing and editing the note. The widgets in the Windows Game Bar, the Windows 11 Task Manager, and other Windows tools have a similar pinning feature.

Finally, Microsoft has added a new “Copy Note” option to the main menu in each sticky note. As you might guess, clicking it will copy the entire contents of the sticky note to your clipboard, including any images. It might save you a few clicks compared to selecting all the contents manually and doing a copy action.

Microsoft mentioned that these features might take a while to roll out to everyone, and it’s still only available in the Microsoft 365 version of OneNote. If you don’t have that installed, or you have an Office LTSC license (such as Office 2021), you’re still limited to the regular Windows Sticky Notes. Microsoft hasn’t said when, if ever, the older Sticky Notes will be removed from Windows.

Source: Microsoft 365 Blog