I turned on 7 Windows 11 options Microsoft ships switched off, and I stored 3 however turned 4 again off
Windows 11 has a humorous relationship with its personal options. Microsoft will spend the engineering time constructing one thing helpful, tuck a superbly purposeful change someplace in Settings, after which depart it disabled on a recent setup.
That bought me questioning whether or not these defaults had been truly doing me a favor. I turned on seven options that had been switched off on my Windows 11 PC and used them as a part of my regular routine. Three have earned everlasting residency. The different 4 jogged my memory why Windows generally leaves the nerdier switches alone till anyone goes in search of them.
Clipboard historical past survived the primary lower
Ctrl+C lastly will get an undo button
The normal Windows clipboard is fairly unforgiving. If you copy a brand new merchandise, the earlier one will get shoved apart, and that is fantastic till you’re bouncing between a browser, doc, and terminal and wish a number of snippets directly. Clipboard history fixes that by protecting as much as 25 entries behind Win + V, with help for textual content, HTML, and bitmap photographs as much as 4MB every. You may also pin entries you reuse usually so that they stick round after a restart.
I seen the advance nearly instantly. I may copy a URL, seize a command from one other window, snag a paragraph I needed to cite, and paste each once I truly wanted it. I wasn’t ricocheting between apps after each Ctrl + C simply to retrieve no matter I’d overwritten few seconds earlier.
Cross-device clipboard syncing has its personal setting, so I left that disabled and stored my historical past native. Clipboard historical past eliminated sufficient repetitive window hopping from my day that leaving it enabled was a simple name.
End Task belongs on the taskbar
Task Manager can sit this one out
Windows already offers you many methods to take care of a frozen app, however one of many quickest is disabled by default. Go to Settings > System > Advanced, toggle on End Task, and also you’ll get an choice to terminate an open app directly from its taskbar right-click menu.
I do not use it as a routine substitute for closing software program usually, since killing a course of can take unsaved work down with it. When an app has utterly stopped responding and its Close button has been demoted to ornamental trim, although, ending it from the taskbar saves me the same old journey by Task Manager.
If I really need to analyze what a course of is doing, Task Manager or Microsoft’s rather more detailed Process Explorer is still the better place to do it.
Dynamic refresh fee earned the third spot
My 120Hz show can tempo itself
A 120Hz laptop computer show is tough to surrender when you’ve gotten used to the smoother movement, although all these further refreshes nonetheless draw energy. On supported {hardware}, Windows 11’s Dynamic Refresh Rate can alter the show’s refresh fee as your workload adjustments as a substitute of leaving it pegged at one worth all day.
DRR requires a suitable variable refresh fee show able to a minimum of 120Hz. If your {hardware} qualifies, you’ll discover the choice underneath Settings > System > Display > Advanced show.
After enabling it, I may depart the laptop computer arrange for the smoother high-refresh expertise with out remembering to dial it again every time battery life grew to become a precedence. Windows can decrease the refresh fee whereas I’m studying or working in principally static home windows, then ramp it again up when the additional fluidity has a purpose to be there.
DRR received’t in some way erase the battery price of operating a 120Hz panel. It simply manages that compromise higher than my outdated routine of manually altering refresh charges relying on the place my charger occurred to be, which was sufficient to make it my third keeper.
Title bar window shake lasted a couple of day
Desktop whiplash will get outdated shortly
I’ve written earlier than about how delighted I used to be to find that Aero Shake never actually disappeared from Windows. Microsoft tucked it away underneath Settings > System > Multitasking, the place the Title bar window shake toggle is ready for anybody with sufficient Windows nostalgia to resurrect it.
Grab a window by its title bar and shake it, and Windows minimizes every part else. Shake it once more and the opposite home windows return. It nonetheless works precisely the best way I bear in mind, full with that very particular old-Windows intuition of fixing a desktop drawback with aggressive mouse motion.
I simply couldn’t discover a lot purpose to maintain utilizing it. Snap layouts and virtual desktops already give me better ways to manage a crowded desktop, whereas Win + Home minimizes each window besides the one I’m utilizing with none mouse gymnastics.
After by accident triggering Aero Shake just a few instances whereas shifting home windows round, I turned it again off.
Seconds on the clock made time annoyingly exact
I didn’t want my taskbar respiratory
Windows usually retains the system tray clock restricted to hours and minutes, however you may add seconds underneath Settings > Time & language > Date & time > Show time and date within the System tray. Microsoft even notes within the setting that displaying seconds can improve energy consumption.
I anticipated to love the additional precision. Instead, I ended up with a quantity altering within the nook of my imaginative and prescient each second, feeding me data I nearly by no means wanted. Whenever I’m doing one thing that truly is dependent upon seconds, I’m already watching a stopwatch, timer, benchmark, obtain estimate, or progress indicator. The taskbar clock wasn’t serving to with any of that. It was principally simply saying the passage of time with pointless enthusiasm.
Microsoft can hold this one disabled by default. I turned seconds off once more.
Nearby sharing wanted a job I did not have
Windows has its personal close by file handoff
Nearby sharing lets Windows PCs send files, photos, and links directly to one another utilizing Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. You can allow it underneath Settings > System > Nearby sharing and select whether or not transfers are restricted to your individual gadgets or obtainable to everybody close by. Current Windows 11 methods on the identical non-public Wi-Fi community can use Wi-Fi for transfers, which is a significantly better proposition than shifting a sizeable file over Bluetooth.
I attempted it, it labored, and I may simply see myself protecting it enabled if I recurrently moved information between a number of Windows PCs.
I simply do not. Most of my cross-device transfers already take one other route, so Nearby sharing spent many of the take a look at ready for a use case that by no means arrived. It wasn’t doing something incorrect. My workflow merely did not give it a lot to do, so I switched it again off.
Dynamic Lock sounded higher than it felt
Win + L stays undefeated
Dynamic Lock turns a paired Bluetooth telephone right into a tough proximity sensor in your PC. If you stroll away with the telephone, Windows can lock itself after deciding the device has moved out of range. Once your telephone is paired, you may allow the characteristic underneath Settings > Accounts > Sign-in choices > Dynamic lock.
I can see the attraction should you recurrently wander off out of your desk and bear in mind the unlocked PC thirty seconds later. However, the delay stored me from trusting it as my regular locking technique, since Windows can take roughly a minute to lock after figuring out that the paired machine has left Bluetooth vary.
That nonetheless offers Dynamic Lock some worth as a fallback for the second you overlook to lock the PC your self. I have already got Win + L welded into muscle reminiscence, although, and it locks the machine the moment I press it with out ready for Bluetooth to determine the place my telephone went.
Microsoft’s defaults did higher than I anticipated
Clipboard historical past, taskbar End Task, and Dynamic Refresh Rate mounted issues I run into usually sufficient that leaving them enabled was a simple name. The different 4 all labored as marketed, however every introduced alongside an annoyance, a restricted use case, or another that already match my routine higher.
Turns out Microsoft generally leaves a characteristic off for a purpose.
