5 Windows features I can’t live without

Main points

• Windows has been around for many years and has been developing a mature feature set.
• There are some features in Windows that really should be brought to competing operating systems.
• If the future of computing is mobile, then mobile operating systems need to adopt more desktop capabilities.

If there’s one thing that’s absolutely constant in my life, it’s Windows. My earliest memory of interacting with a computer dates back to the early 2000s, to my family’s desktop computer running the much-maligned Windows ME. While Millennium Edition itself is fairly crash-prone as far as the operating system is concerned, its basic utilities are already in place.

We’re all familiar with the basics – a desktop littered with program icons, a taskbar at the bottom of the screen showing the currently running software, and of course, the now-ubiquitous Start menu. Since then, I’ve started venturing out and getting familiar with competing operating systems. While I consider myself platform agnostic today, I can never fully escape the familiarity and feature set I’ve gained from Windows over the years. Here are five standard features on Windows that I can’t live without.

1 Windows snapshot feature

This one is first on the list for good reason. The best feature of the Windows operating system is its window management, which I think is a perfect fit. Since the legendary launch of Windows 7 in 2009, quickly tiling windows side by side has been a piece of cake. Simply drag the window’s title bar to the left or right side of the screen and it will automatically snap into place.

The best feature of the Windows operating system is its window management, which I think is a perfect fit.

Windows 10, released in 2015, further iterated on this concept. Windows can now be snapped into quadrants and the system will intelligently suggest other running windows to launch alongside them.

Competing platforms all have their own approaches to application windows, but none are as powerful as Windows Snap. At least for macOS users, there are some solid third-party solutions that mimic the Windows experience, such as the popular Magnet and BetterSnapTool apps.

2 Clipboard interface

Effectively save time on countless computing tasks

The ability to view your clipboard history, pin useful clips, and delete entire contents at will is a Windows mainstay that comes in handy every day for me. This saves a lot of time whenever I’m working on a spreadsheet and need to quote multiple lines of text, or when I want to send a screenshot without saving a file to my device in the process.

Unfortunately, Apple’s software lineup lacks a proper, dedicated, and honest clipboard manager. As with window snapping, there are third-party solutions that bring this feature to macOS, including Maccy and CopyClip. Apple’s Universal Clipboard feature is great for quickly copying and pasting from one iDevice to another, but as I use the clipboard more frequently, I wish it had more flexibility.

3 Volume mixer interface

Sometimes you just want to silence a rogue app

While third-party tools like EarTrumpet have been popular on Windows for years, the operating system does come with a basic volume mixer out of the box. It allows you to manually adjust the volume of each app, and you can easily mute any app you don’t want to hear audio from.

This feature is sorely lacking in both Android and iPadOS, and the audio control settings are very anemic.

Maybe some would say this is a power user feature that regular users won’t use, but I disagree. It has a lot of value – although I only use it to lower the volume of music on Spotify without having to lower the volume of my entire system in the process.

This feature is sorely lacking in both Android and iPadOS, and the audio control settings are very anemic. If you’re running macOS, there’s at least a tool called “BackgroundMusic” that can bring this functionality to the platform.

4 AltTab with thumbnail preview

A simple but essential inclusion for keyboard lovers

Windows provides a quick solution to cycle between open windows on any PC using the ALT + TAB keyboard shortcut. The interface provides an easy-to-navigate thumbnail preview of all running applications, which comes in handy when I’m switching between all applications during a project.

MacOS and iPadOS offer similar functionality in the form of CMD + TAB, but they lack any previews and don’t show multiple instances of a single app. MacOS users may find the third-party tool AltTab useful in porting this feature from Windows, but it would be better if it was just built into the system by default.

5 Properly flesh out mouse controls

Even without third-party apps, there’s a lot of flexibility here

This is a big problem—Windows works better with the vast majority of computer mice than its competitors. Customizing the mouse function is very simple and straightforward, and importantly, the entire interface is optimized for cursor input, which feels smooth and natural to me.

Android has had basic pointer options for years, but they weren’t very powerful. iPadOS now also supports cursors, and while its snazzy new-age cursor looks really cool, there are very few customization options.

Even macOS, a direct descendant of one of the pioneer operating systems that supported mouse input, doesn’t work well with most mice. You have to download utilities like MacMouseFix and Mos to unlock the basic functionality of operating through the interface, which is far from ideal.

Towards mobile-first computing

Of course, some of these features can indeed be replicated on other platforms through third-party software. However, the simplicity of having them built into the native Windows experience cannot be underestimated.

I’d like to see some of these features introduced to mobile devices sooner rather than later, otherwise I simply can’t imagine a future where tablets are replacing traditional PCs in the consumer market.

As far as MacOS goes, it’s pretty instantly customizable. There is a rich ecosystem of third-party software that can help bridge the gap when migrating from Windows. The real trouble lies in the mobile platform space. Both Android and iPadOS are far less flexible than traditional desktop systems, so they would benefit most from building a Windows-style set of features.

I’d like to see some of these features introduced to mobile devices sooner rather than later, otherwise I simply can’t imagine a future where tablets are replacing traditional PCs in the consumer market. Apple’s long-rumored updated iPad Pro with OLED and new Magic Keyboard are expected to be available soon, and the hardware package is very tempting. But without flexibility like proper window snapping, per-app volume controls, and more, I can’t imagine myself making the switch anytime soon.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is rumored to be launching some very nifty Surface products at Build 2024.