Three Windows 10 Features You Should Be Able to Disable Easily

[nir]

And which you can’t do it easily because of obvious reasons

Leaving aside the controversy on whether Windows 10 feature updates are based on user feedback or not, the operating system has evolved a lot since the first version went live in July 2015.

Every new feature update brought a ton of improvements, several of them quite significant, as well as a plethora of smaller refinements supposed to overhaul the general experience with Windows 10.

And truth be told, Windows 10 has indeed become a more modern operating system, even though this isn’t necessarily everyone’s cup of tea.

But when it comes to the features that are bundled into Windows 10, Microsoft has made several controversial changes that some adopters don’t seem to agree with, including making it harder to block certain features.

As for the reasons for this approach, it’s pretty hard to tell why Microsoft makes it more difficult, if not impossible, to disable certain Windows 10 features. But the first thing that comes to my mind is the Windows 8 Start screen, which originally was forced on users and displayed every time the operating system booted.

A Microsoft engineer later explained this was a strategy implemented to make people aware of the Start screen, and after everyone learned about the new feature, the company agreed to introduce an option that would get users straight to the desktop when booting their computers.

If this is the case with these Windows 10 versions or not is something we won’t find out too soon, but for the moment, these are the features I think users should be allowed to disable easily:

To clarify, the features mentioned here can be disabled with more complex workarounds, but Microsoft should make it a more straightforward experience, thus allowing even beginners to turn them on or off.

Cortana

First and foremost, it’s Cortana. The digital assistant comes enabled by default in Windows 10, and when you install the operating system, you’re guided throughout a wizard whose purpose is to help you configure Windows 10 and get to know Cortana.

Disabling Cortana completely isn’t the easiest thing to do and a quick toggle in this regard isn’t available, though as mentioned above, you can still do it.

Cortana comes to Windows 10 with a gigantic search box, and you can replace it with just the icon or the search icon that lets you search the PC or the web if you disable the digital assistant.

While there are no specifics as to how many people use Cortana on their PCs, updates that Microsoft is planning for Windows 10 seem to suggest they are quite a few. Cortana will soon be separated from the Windows Search.

 

Action Center

While I do find the Action Center a feature that comes in handy, this isn’t happening for others, and most often, users upgrading from Windows 7 are the ones who’d like to see it going away.

Again there are ways to disable the Action Center, but a simple toggle that would allow users to do it easily would be more than welcome

Of course, without the Action Center you’d lose other functionality like access to your notifications and quick actions, so if you want a modern experience, you can’t live without it. Those who just love the traditional Windows desktop are better off without it.

How to disable the Windows 10 Action Center

 

Timeline

Timeline is one of the latest features added in Windows 10, and it creates snapshots of apps, documents, and browser tabs to let you restore them at any point within the next days.

This is quite a helpful feature, especially in the enterprise, but home users find it rather useless. Without Microsoft Edge, browser tabs can’t be restored (though a Google Chrome extension adds support for this feature to Google’s browser), and given that only a few users run the native Windows 10 browser, it’s easy to see where this is going.

A toggle to disable Timeline does exist, but the wording used by Microsoft makes it pretty hard for those who aren't necessarily tech-savvy to find it.

Needless to say, this means beginners are very likely to stick with these features on their desktops even though they don’t use them, eventually turning Windows 10 into a cluttered operating system that Windows 7 users struggle to avoid.

How to disable Timeline in Windows 10

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[BimBamSmash]

Most people resist change. Throw too much of it at them in a short time frame and they will resent the product altogether. It might be helpful to turn Windows into a modular OS, where people can install features on demand from the store when they are ready for them, instead of throwing everything at them out of the box. I have been dealing with Windows desktops for long and even I haven't quite warmed up to some of these new additions and feel compelled to hide or disable them on desktops I have to spend time on for a while. The Action Center in particularly is quite an annoyance when it reminds me that it is not supposed to remind me of anything because of the Quiet Hours or Focus Assist or whatever that thing's name has become - or when it reveals it had just scanned my hard disk for viruses for the fifth time on the same frigging day. Still not sure what's the story with that. That poor SSD.

 

[Karlston]

Don't much care what "features" M$ add to Windows, as long as they provide a simple on/off switch for them.

 

And, not one buried deep in the Settings/Control Panel mess and mislabelled or needing registry editing.  And, ones that actually work.

[The AchieVer]

They don’t want us to disable and or uninstall them, that’s why there are layers to access them and multiple layers to get rid of them.

[BimBamSmash]

13 hours ago, Karlston said:

Don't much care what "features" M$ add to Windows, as long as they provide a simple on/off switch for them.

 

And, not one buried deep in the Settings/Control Panel mess and mislabelled or needing registry editing.  And, ones that actually work.

 

There may never be a toggle switch for data collection or ads that does what it says on the tin, but given their track records in the past three years I do expect one to be made available for just about everything else over time. Once them Redmond boys are done rewriting the OS, that is.

 

As for the settings mess, I can cut them some slack for some of it. I know from experience that it is never easy to arrange so many options into a structure that is clean and presentable enough for all to use or relate. Especially when those options are not what you use to get things done. I doubt most MS folks are using the GUI to go about their things on Windows.

 

What I do not understand is why they had to restructure this thing in the first place. Control Panel has never been any easier to use when it comes to finding things but it has been out there for too long for people to memorize the options they need or use often at least. Why not port that same hierarchy to the Settings app and cut everyone some slack?

 

8 hours ago, The AchieVer said:

They don’t want us to disable and or uninstall them, that’s why there are layers to access them and multiple layers to get rid of them.

 

Of course. What I said in my previous post was something from an end-user's point of view. It is easy to see their view; why they go about their current routines, and why think it is right: They need users to interact with these features. The telemetry feedback they receive is all that will determine whether or not it is worth expanding or investing on each individual feature further. They will want to spend their resources on building features that people interact with frequently; things that become inseparable parts of user's daily routines; all with the goal of monetizing on the said features at a later time. They won't get that data out of the blue, or from surveys or questionnaires. They get it from real time data. And it is successful business practice as far as results are concerned. I think the evolution of Office into the 365 service is a prime example of that, as is all the recent changes and swaps with respect to Cortana that pretty much stole the spotlights away from it; e.g. development moved to the Office team, will be separated from the search in the future Windows builds, has interactions with Amazon's virtual assistant now, etc.