Windows 11 has caused a lot of frustration since its release, with relentless pushes to Windows 10 users to upgrade and the incredible amount of bloat the system came with. However, it wasn't all bad, as it came with some features that Windows 10 didn't have that users appreciated. Having said that, there are plenty of features that it inexplicably left out or poorly implemented that can make it frustrating to use, and these are some of the most frustrating that I've noticed.

5 Moving the taskbar

Why is it locked to the bottom?

One of the most inexplicable feature removals with Windows 11 was the removal of the ability to move the taskbar. Before, you could place it anywhere on your screen, but now it's locked to the bottom without any way to move it. It was a feature going all the way back to Windows XP, and its inexplicable removal in Windows 11 makes no sense.

4 Add more built-in customization

Third-party apps aren't the same

Windows used to be customizable, and it's been a gripe of mine for a long time that it isn't anymore. Back in the Windows XP days, you could modify the color of practically everything, but nowadays, the best you'll get is something like WindowBlinds by Stardock. It's a good application, but this used to be native functionality. Microsoft doesn't seem too big on customization, which is a real shame.

3 I despise "Show more options"

Just show me the options!

In Windows 11, one of the changes made is that right-clicking a file will no longer show you the full context menu. You'll need to click Show more options to see them. You can actually bypass that entirely with a registry tweak (or by holding shift when you right-click), but there should really be a system setting for it. For managed devices, this isn't really an option. All you need to do is the following:

reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f You can then restart Explorer, and you'll be able to see all options immediately. Why is it so cumbersome?

2 Bing in Windows search

It can slow things down

Another feature that I absolutely despise in Windows is the Searching capabilities. When you search by default, it also queries Bing with what you're typing. If you want something local, though, then that's just needless extra processing for something that you don't even care about. I've typed "cmd" countless times only to have a Bing search opened for "cmd" rather than opening the command prompt itself. That's part of why I debloated my Windows PC, just to disable that functionality.

Since disabling it, Search is faster, and I'm not alone in that. I've seen other users say that their search is faster since disabling it too, which is frankly ridiculous. Let me turn it off without a registry tweak!

1 Setting default apps needs to change

Now, it's too cumbersome

Windows 10 and Windows 11 handle default applications differently, and I'm not a fan of how Windows 11 does it. In Windows 10, users could set six different default apps, and once a default was changed, it would automatically apply to all file extensions associated with that type of app. This made it easier to switch default programs across various file formats with a single change.

Windows 11, however, takes a more detailed, but arguably less user-friendly approach. The operating system requires users to set a default app for each specific file type. For instance, if you want to change your media player, you can no longer just select a third-party app as the default for all media formats. Instead, you have to manually assign the app as the default for each relevant file extension, such as .mp4, .mkv, and .mov.

This is great from a granularity perspective, but I can't help but feel like it simply discourages users from setting defaults. Some apps will ask the user to set a default, or you can right-click a file, click Open with, and save the application as the default for that file type, but it's a frustrating change that makes setting defaults more difficult.