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

Windows 11 may’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 fashionable 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 modern codebases; many different system parts, in contrast, have not been refreshed in a number of years.

Fortunately, Microsoft is slowly however certainly 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 ideas to previously-untouched components of the OS. Listed here are 5 historical corners of Home windows that I hope to see be rejuvenated sooner quite than later.

Pc Administration

Managing a PC does not must be so drab

Pc Administration is a core factor 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 rather more. Admittedly, most informal PC customers have no need for Pc Administration’s characteristic set, nevertheless it’s nonetheless an essential a part of the working system that deserves to appear and feel up-to-date.

Because it presently stands, Pc Administration is likely one of the oldest-looking components of Home windows 11 from a consumer interface perspective. Apart from missing darkish mode and colour theming help, the appliance is stylized with archaic icons, it contains a UX that is adversarial to the touch interactions, and it is not in the least conscious of window resizing. Worst of all, the app’s textual content seems barely blurry on fashionable PCs with high-DPI shows, owing to an absence of optimization for modern-day display resolutions.

Registry Editor

Even energy consumer interfaces should look good

The Home windows Registry Editor is an influence consumer characteristic inside Home windows 11 that permits you to modify and configure varied 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 probably harmful to fiddle with if you do not know what you are doing).

Sadly, the fashionable Registry Editor is a basic Win32-style software through-and-through, with no darkish mode or colour theming, subpar contact help and home windows scalability, and a critical lack of animations or different user-friendly UX design issues. Positive, Microsoft would in all probability favor you keep far-off 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 consumer interface hasn’t been touched in years, and it stands out 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 accommodates your latest clipboard exercise. In fact, this is not a full-fledged substitute for Character Map, neither is it making an attempt to be. In the intervening time, for those who’re in search of a very fashionable character picker expertise for Home windows 11, contemplate downloading the third-party Character Map UWP app without spending a dime 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 orientation, and a number of 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 instances, now present as a relic of Home windows’ storied previous. As we speak, the characteristic has been effectively and really outdated by the Home windows 11 Fast Settings panel, making for the plain query: why preserve this eyesore of an interface round when it serves such little function? To be truthful, Mobility Heart does enable third-party OEMs to plug into it with further fast settings tiles; I might personally like to see a similar developer API for third-party tiles make its method over to Home windows 11’s fashionable 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 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 consumer interface. The flyout itself is downright historical wanting, with no fashionable design ideas or integration with Home windows 11’s fashionable Settings software.

Worse nonetheless, the out-of-box collection 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. Positive, screensavers may not be a technical necessity in at this time’s day and age, however I can not be the one one who loves a good idle display animation on my PC.