In Windows 10, the Action Center hides all sorts of useful little functions, including VPN options, screen snip, the ability to connect to other screens and devices, and so on. In Windows 11, this has been pared down considerably, to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles, Airplane mode, a Battery saver mode, Focus assist, and an Accessibility menu. You still have the option to add functions like Nearby Sharing, the blue-light blocking Night Light, and more, but you’ll have to manually add them by clicking the tiny little “pencil” icon at the very bottom of the Action Center.
Oddly, in Windows 11 part of this column has now been replaced by a non-functional calendar. Want to add an event to your personal calendar? In Windows 10, a small pane allows you to do this. In Windows 11, that pane is gone, and right-clicking or double-clicking a date does absolutely nothing to what is basically a bit better than wasted space.
To be fair, in Windows 11 notifications seem to be organized far more usefully than within Windows 10. That may be because the calendar reduces the available screen space for notifications, forcing Microsoft to be economical.
Revamped Windows Settings menu
I don’t really like how Microsoft scatters buttons throughout the Windows shell to point users to overflow menus like the Start menu’s “More apps.” In the redesigned Settings menu, however, Microsoft uses these buttons, drop-down menus, and “breadcrumb” navigation (placing, for example, a clickable System>Sound>Properties at the top of the screen) so that you can navigate back and forth) to much better effect.
That’s good, because Settings now oversees a ton of information. Yes, it can feel a trifle overwhelming in places as you dig down through layers of menus. A search box to the upper left helps here, with dynamically generated results as you type.
Settings also does away with the overarching Settings index https://hookupdate.net/pl/quickflirt-recenzja/ page found in Windows 10, launching directly from within Settings > System, with direct shortcuts to Display, Sound, Notifications, and other pages. This does away with an additional click, though it’s a bit disconcerting to be dropped right into a Settings section. At the top, you’ll see the current theme or background you’ve set within Windows, too. If your Windows 11 desktop background is dark, you may see Windows 11 automatically enable Dark Mode.
Windows 11’s Settings menu hides little goodies like Game Mode, a toggle that allows Windows to turn off unnecessary tasks while playing a game-including Windows updates and restarts!-and smooths frame rates by default. (We didn’t test this latter function in Windows 11 yet, but it sometimes proved invaluable in Windows 10.) I also like the visual representation of Windows 11’s battery consumption, which sort of reproduces the Command Line command powercfg /batteryreport and its graphical report of your laptop’s power usage. This is also where the performance slider is hidden, by the way, to get more performance out of Windows 11.
There’s still cruft. Do I really need to download offline maps and manage them? Has Windows Update’s Delivery Optimization ever worked? Why is Windows Security still its own separate menu, and not just part of Settings? And yes, the Control Panel still exists, too. There’s just far less reason to visit these days.
Search, Cortana, and Timeline
Windows 10 launched with helpful assistant Cortana perched next to a dedicated search box designed to search both your PC and the web for whatever you were looking for. Over the past six years, Cortana has faded away, relegated to a semi-functional app that really doesn’t do all that much any more. Cortana isn’t even one of the pinned Windows 11 apps!