Win11 has been out for 5 years, going from a half-finished product to something usable—just how many holes did Microsoft actually fill? In October 2021, Microsoft officially released Windows 11. At the time, Microsoft said this was Windows' biggest visual overhaul in nearly a decade—a centered taskbar, rounded window corners, and a brand-new Start menu. It did look pretty modern. But when people actually used it, many had the same first reaction: why is this system missing so many features? The taskbar can't

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Win11 has been out for 5 years, going from a half-finished product to something usable—just how many holes did Microsoft actually fill? In October 2021, Microsoft officially released Windows 11. At th

Windows 11 Has Been Out for 5 Years: From Half-Baked to Usable — How Many Holes Did Microsoft Actually Fill?

In October 2021, Microsoft officially released Windows 11. At the time, Microsoft said it was the biggest visual overhaul of Windows in nearly a decade — a centered taskbar, rounded window corners, a brand-new Start menu. It did look pretty modern. But when people actually started using it, their first reaction was often: how is this system missing so many features?

The taskbar couldn't drag and drop files, had no labels, and couldn't be repositioned. File Explorer had no tabs, so opening a bunch of windows turned into a cluttered mess. The right-click context menu required an extra "Show more options" step to find commonly used features. Many options in Settings still redirected you to Control Panel when you clicked into them. The whole system looked like a new house, but once you walked in, you found the walls weren't painted and the faucets weren't installed.

Five years later, which holes has Microsoft filled? Let me go through them one by one, drawing on Windows Central's comprehensive comparison.

Taskbar: What was torn out back then has been reinstalled piece by piece over five years

The 2021 Windows 11 taskbar was the most controversial part. In pursuit of "clean design," Microsoft cut all the features users had relied on for decades in Windows 10: you couldn't drag files to the taskbar, couldn't show app labels, couldn't ungroup taskbar buttons, and couldn't move the taskbar to the top or left side of the screen.

Five years later, Microsoft has added all of these back one by one. Drag-and-drop support is back, app labels and the "never combine" option are back, and the taskbar can now be placed on the top, left, or right. The 2026 taskbar looks similar to the 2021 version on the surface, but using it is a completely different experience.

File Explorer: From missing tabs to far better than before

The 2021 File Explorer looked prettier but was a step backward in functionality. No tabs, so browsing folders meant opening a pile of windows. The right-click menu required "Show more options" to find legacy features. It was even slower at opening folders than Windows 10.

Now, tabs are here, Gallery view is here, thumbnails are optimized, cloud integration is improved, and middle-clicking a folder to open it in a new tab is available too. Day-to-day responsiveness is much faster than in 2021. Windows Central's assessment: File Explorer is one of the areas where Windows 11 has made the most progress over these five years.

AI: From 0 to 1, and also the most controversial change

Windows 11 in 2021 had no AI. No Copilot, no Recall, no Click to Do, no AI search. Five years later, Microsoft has stuffed AI into every corner of the system — Copilot is part of the taskbar, Recall can help you retrace what you've seen, Click to Do can recognize content on screen and take actions, and AI search can understand natural language.

But this is also the most controversial direction. Recall raised privacy concerns, some people find AI search useful while others find it superfluous, and Microsoft accounts are becoming increasingly mandatory. The Windows Central author put it objectively: AI gives Windows 11 capabilities it didn't have in 2021, but it also makes users feel like the system is increasingly out of their control and instead serves as a gateway to Microsoft's services.

Some holes still haven't been filled after five years

Control Panel still exists. Five years on, Microsoft has been moving settings into the new Settings app, but some advanced options still redirect to Control Panel, and the two interfaces are used side by side.

Microsoft accounts are increasingly mandatory. In 2021, you could still install the system with a local account; now on Home edition it's nearly impossible to find an option to skip the Microsoft account.

System updates still occasionally go wrong. Whether you want AI features or ad recommendations — users have less and less choice.

Summary: Five years of fixes, but the holes were self-dug

Over these five years, Windows 11 went from "half-baked" to "usable." Performance is optimized, features are filled in, AI has been added, and the overall experience is indeed much better than in 2021.

But thinking about it more carefully, a large part of what Microsoft has done over these five years is restore what it originally tore out — taskbar features, File Explorer tabs, the full right-click menu options. These features already existed in Windows 10. Microsoft cut them for the sake of "clean design," then spent five years adding them back.

So Windows 11 has genuinely become more usable — that's true. But ask a user whether they should upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11, and the answer might still be: let's wait a bit longer. After all, it took five years just to get to this point — who knows what new holes 2026 will bring.