11 Features in Windows 11 You (Probably) Never Found
Over time, I have found many features in Windows 11 that many users probably never knew existed. These 11 features range from being simple additions to make your Windows experience more convenient, to other tricks that are so elusive that you never realised existed. Let’s get started.
1. End Task in Taskbar
This feature is admittedly the most well-known of the list, but nevertheless, it’s quite useful. For example, if you have an open process and you want to force close it, rather than opening Task Manager and finding the program, you can just right-click on the application on the taskbar, and select “End Task”.
However, this feature is disabled by default. To enable it, go to Settings>Advanced> and enable the toggle.
2. Scrolling Over Volume Icon in Taskbar
If you want a quick way to change your computers’ volume, rather than pressing the physical function keys or opening the Action Center, you can simply use your mouse scrollwheel to adjust the volume.
3. Bringing Back the Old Notepad
By default, Windows 11 uses a new WinUI notepad that has a tabbed interface, Markdown support, and a dark mode. Earlier versions only allowed plain text editing. If you want the old Notepad UI, you can go to Settings>Apps>Advanced app settings>App execution aliases, and uncheck Notepad. Then open Run by pressing Windows+R and typing notepad.exe.
4. Repair Your OS With an Update
If your computer is running into issues, rather than resetting it, clean installing Windows or doing an in-place upgrade, you can do the same fully unattended, and you keep your files, apps and settings. How? Go to Settings>System>Recovery and under “Fix problems with Windows Update”, select “Reinstall now”. Then under Windows Update, you will see a new update, titled Windows 11, [version code] (repair version).
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If you’re on the latest version, it’ll say Windows 11, Version 25H2 (repair version). It’ll download and install itself, and after a restart, your computer will have a fresh copy of the OS.
5. Temporarily Prevent Windows from Sleeping or Turning off Screen
While many people know that you can adjust your power settings to automatically sleep after 1 hour for example, you can make Windows stay awake forever. To do this, you can either right-click on the Start Menu or press Windows+X to bring up the menu, and then select Mobility Center. Then, you can turn on presentation settings:
Note that this only shows on Windows 11 Pro, not Windows 11 Home.
6. “Run as Administrator” for Run
Typically, if you want to quicky access a system component that is usually unelevated by default (e.g. Command Prompt), you type it into Run and press Enter. However, if you want to give administrator permissions, you can press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to do the same.
7. Old Task Manager on Windows 11
Windows 11 introduced a new Task Manager experience, with a dark mode and partial WinUI interface. However, if you want to access the old interface that Windows 10 used, you can type into Run “taskmgr -d”, and it will bring up the old interface. The new Task Manager appears to be an overlay to the legacy interface.
8. Emergency Restart
Many people will know about the Ctrl+alt+Delete menu that gives you several options like signing out or opening Task Manager. However, if you press and hold Ctrl while pressing on the Power button in the corner, you can perform an emergency restart on Windows 11.
9. Windows 10 File Explorer on Windows 11
If you want to temporarily experience the Windows 10 File Explorer on Windows 11, you can do so by opening the legacy Control Panel, and pressing the Up button. It’ll close and then open Windows 10 File Explorer in its place. It shows so plainly that Windows 11 just overlays Windows 10 Explorer!
10. Speed Up Loading On Windows 11 File Explorer
If you find that Explorer isn’t let you see the files and folders fast enough, a quick 2 taps of the F11 key will do the trick. This opens the Explorer in full-screen and then pressing it again returns back to normal. No-one knows definitively why this happens, but obviously indexing or something is turned off in full screen mode. Nevertheless, it makes the loading instantaneous.
11. Windows Media Player on Windows 11
Although Microsoft removed the legacy WordPad application, they still haven’t fully removed the legacy Windows Media Player. (Although by default they have replaced it with a WinUI version.)
However, if you want to get the old Media Player back, you can! Go to Settings>System>Optional Features and click on “View Features”. You will then need to accept an Admistrator prompt, then click on “See available features”. You can then check the checkbox to install the Media Player.
After installing, you can search for it in Windows Search, and use it!
I hope you find these settings/tweaks imformative and useful!
