5 historic components 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 lengthen 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 components 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 components, in contrast, have not been refreshed in a number of years.

Fortunately, Microsoft is slowly however absolutely engaged on modernizing the whole thing 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 components of the OS. Listed here are 5 historic corners of Home windows that I hope to see be rejuvenated sooner slightly than later.

Laptop Administration

Managing a PC does not should be so drab

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

Because it at present stands, Laptop Administration is likely one of the oldest-looking components of Home windows 11 from a person interface perspective. Except for missing darkish mode and colour theming assist, the appliance is stylized with archaic icons, it encompasses a UX that is adversarial to the touch interactions, and it is not in the slightest degree aware of window resizing. Worst of all, the app’s textual content seems barely blurry on trendy PCs with high-DPI shows, owing to an absence of optimization for modern-day display screen resolutions.

Registry Editor

Even energy person interfaces need to look good

The Home windows Registry Editor is an influence person characteristic inside Home windows 11 that means that you can modify and configure varied components of the working system’s settings and applications. Through its hierarchical organizational construction and its use of administrative privileges, the Registry Editor is extremely highly effective (and probably harmful to fiddle with if you do not know what you are doing).

Sadly, the fashionable Registry Editor is a basic Win32-style utility through-and-through, with no darkish mode or colour theming, subpar contact assist and home windows scalability, and a critical lack of animations or different user-friendly UX design issues. Certain, Microsoft would most likely desire you keep distant from the Registry Editor altogether, however that does not imply it does not deserve a recent, 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 come in useful when the occasional have to sort an obscure character arises, however its end-user expertise is regrettably fairly antiquated. As with different entries on this listing, Character Map’s person interface hasn’t been touched in years, and it stands proud like a sore thumb in 2025.

To be truthful 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 current clipboard exercise. In fact, this is not a full-fledged alternative for Character Map, neither is it making an attempt to be. In the interim, when you’re on the lookout for a really trendy character picker expertise for Home windows 11, take into account downloading the third-party Character Map UWP app at no cost from the Microsoft Retailer.

Mobility Heart

Does this even have to 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 characteristic 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 didn’t evolve with the occasions, now current as a relic of Home windows’ storied previous. In the present day, the characteristic has been nicely and actually outdated 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 objective? To be truthful, Mobility Heart does enable third-party OEMs to plug into it with extra fast settings tiles; I might personally like to see an identical 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 prior to now, but it surely bears repeating. The characteristic 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 person interface. The flyout itself is downright historic wanting, with no trendy design rules or integration with Home windows 11’s trendy Settings utility.

Worse nonetheless, the out-of-box number of screensavers supplied by Microsoft in recent 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. Certain, screensavers may not be a technical necessity in at present’s day and age, however I can not be the one one who loves a good idle display animation on my PC.