5 historic elements of Home windows 11 that have not been up to date in a long time

Windows 11 would possibly’ve solely been launched to the general public back in 2021, however the technical underpinnings of the desktop working system prolong a long time into the previous. The NT kernel, which lies on the coronary heart of the Windows platform, dates again to the ’90s, and subsequent generations of the OS have all constructed over high of their predecessors.

With all these layers of code — each trendy and legacy — stacked on high of each other, it is maybe no shock that 2025-era Home windows 11 suffers from notable visible design inconsistencies. Some elements of the system, just like the Home windows Shell (taskbar, Start Menu, and different user-facing UI surfaces) are constructed utilizing up to date codebases; many different system parts, against this, have not been refreshed in a number of years.

Fortunately, Microsoft is slowly however absolutely engaged on modernizing everything of Home windows 11, with the corporate continuing to bring dark mode support and refreshed Fluent Design and WinUI 3 design rules to previously-untouched elements of the OS. Listed here are 5 historic corners of Home windows that I hope to see be rejuvenated sooner reasonably than later.

Laptop Administration

Managing a PC would not must be so drab

Laptop Administration is a core aspect of the Home windows 11 platform, serving as a one-stop-shop for managing system administration instruments, viewing occasion logs, scheduling duties, controlling consumer accounts, monitoring {hardware} efficiency, and way more. Admittedly, most informal PC customers have no use for Laptop Administration’s function set, nevertheless it’s nonetheless an vital a part of the working system that deserves to feel and appear up-to-date.

Because it at the moment stands, Laptop Administration is likely one of the oldest-looking elements of Home windows 11 from a consumer interface perspective. Apart from missing darkish mode and shade theming assist, the applying is stylized with archaic icons, it incorporates a UX that is adversarial to the touch interactions, and it is not in the slightest degree attentive to window resizing. Worst of all, the app’s textual content seems barely blurry on trendy PCs with high-DPI shows, owing to a scarcity of optimization for modern-day display screen resolutions.

Registry Editor

Even energy consumer interfaces should look good

The Home windows Registry Editor is an influence consumer function inside Home windows 11 that means that you can modify and configure numerous parts of the working system’s settings and packages. By way of its hierarchical organizational construction and its use of administrative privileges, the Registry Editor is extremely highly effective (and doubtlessly harmful to fiddle with if you do not know what you are doing).

Sadly, the trendy Registry Editor is a basic Win32-style software through-and-through, with no darkish mode or shade theming, subpar contact assist and home windows scalability, and a critical lack of animations or different user-friendly UX design issues. Positive, Microsoft would in all probability desire you keep distant from the Registry Editor altogether, however that does not imply it would not deserve a contemporary, modern-feeling interface to name its personal.

Character Map

In want of a critical UI revamp

Character Map is a legacy a part of the Home windows 11 OS that swimming pools collectively symbols, particular characters, accented letters, and different lesser-used glyphs inside a single, centralized location. The utility can turn out to be useful when the occasional must kind an obscure character arises, however its end-user expertise is regrettably fairly antiquated. As with different entries on this listing, Character Map’s consumer interface hasn’t been touched in years, and it stands proud like a sore thumb in 2025.

To be honest to Microsoft, it does present a contemporary character choice instrument within the type of the Emojis and extra panel, which lets you choose emojis, GIFs, symbols, and extra from inside a flyout that additionally incorporates your latest clipboard exercise. After all, this is not a full-fledged substitute for Character Map, neither is it making an attempt to be. In the intervening time, when you’re in search of a really trendy character picker expertise for Home windows 11, contemplate downloading the third-party Character Map UWP app totally free from the Microsoft Retailer.

Mobility Heart

Does this even must exist anymore?

Home windows Mobility Heart is a single-windowed dashboard that gives fast entry to show brightness, quantity, energy profiles, display screen orientation, and several other different helpful instruments, every contained inside its personal tile. The function first arrived on the scene within the Home windows Vista days, serving as an analog to modern-day fast settings panels with the intent of getting used totally on pill PCs.

Sadly, Mobility Heart did not evolve with the instances, now current as a relic of Home windows’ storied previous. At the moment, the function has been properly and really outmoded by the Home windows 11 Fast Settings panel, making for the apparent query: why maintain this eyesore of an interface round when it serves such little function? To be honest, Mobility Heart does permit third-party OEMs to plug into it with further fast settings tiles; I would personally like to see a similar developer API for third-party tiles make its manner over to Home windows 11’s trendy Fast Settings expertise.

Screensavers

Misplaced however removed from forgotten

I’ve lamented Microsoft’s shunning of the Windows screensaver experience up to now, nevertheless it bears repeating. The function hasn’t been up to date in years, to the purpose the place the flyout shows a hilariously old school graphic of a cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor inside its consumer interface. The flyout itself is downright historic wanting, with no trendy design rules or integration with Home windows 11’s trendy Settings software.

Worse nonetheless, the out-of-box number of screensavers supplied by Microsoft in contemporary installations of Home windows 11 is downright miserable. Over time, many iconic screensavers like Pipes, 3D Maze, Flying Home windows and Starfield Simulation have been gutted from the working system, leaving the present-day choice an emaciated shell of its former self. Positive, screensavers won’t be a technical necessity in right this moment’s day and age, however I can not be the one one who loves a good idle display animation on my PC.