While Windows 11 has been one of the largest visual and under-the-hood overhauls Windows has ever seen, a ton of UI elements, options, and even apps from older Windows versions still linger in Windows 11’s nooks and crannies. While some, like the Control Panel, Command Prompt, and Device Manager, are hiding in plain sight, many more are buried beneath the surface.

I went digging around and uncovered a bunch of Windows 11 elements left over from older Windows versions. Some of them haven’t changed in decades and require specific steps to invoke again, while others only require typing a command into the Run window, which also looks like it hasn’t changed from the Windows XP days. Here are the six I find the most interesting.

Bring it back with a single command

I’ve never liked the new Windows 11 right-click menu, so last year, when I finally switched to Windows 11, one of the first things I did was restore the good old Windows 10 right-click menu. It looks better, is more useful, and I simply like it much more than the Windows 11 version. You can have it too by typing a single command into Command Prompt. Make sure to open Command Prompt as administrator and type:

reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve Then restart your PC. Once it reboots, the Windows 10 contextual menu should appear by default.

If you’d like to restore the Windows 11 contextual menu, open Command Prompt as administrator and type:

reg.exe delete "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}" /f Again, you’ll need to restart your PC for the changes to take effect.

If, on the other hand, you like the Windows 11 context menu but would like to customize it, be sure to check the Custom Context Menu.

The Windows 8-era Task Manager still lingers in Windows 11

Dark mode? Never heard of it

If you want to check out the Task Manager from the Windows 8 era (which was also used in Windows 10), go to the SysWOW64 directory (C > Windows > SysWOW64) and look for Taskmgr.exe. That executable opens the older version of Task Manager, which has a different menu design compared to the Windows 11 version and doesn’t support dark mode.

In general, it’s quite similar to the modern Task Manager, but it has a top-level menu bar, doesn’t support dark mode (dark mode was enabled on my PC when I took the screenshots), features an old-school settings menu instead of the Settings button that opens the Windows 11-style settings page, and includes a button that opens Resource Monitor.

Control Panel in general hasn’t received a major redesign since Windows 7, with the utility still featuring Windows 7-style menus and buttons. One of those elements is the Windows 7 personalization menu that somehow slipped under the radar and made its way into Windows 11. You can access it by opening the Run window (Windows + R) and typing:

shell:::{ED834ED6-4B5A-4bfe-8F11-A626DCB6A921} As you can see in the screenshots above, the Personalization page comes straight from the Windows 7 era. You’ve got the same theme layout, along with the classic Sounds and Screen Saver icons.

Yep, that’s the old screensaver menu you can open by clicking its icon. It hasn’t changed in decades, doesn’t support dark mode, and still uses an icon of a CRT monitor as the preview window. While I installed a bunch of classic Windows screensavers a while ago, shown in the screenshot, you should also have access to at least a few preinstalled ones on your Windows 11 PC.

Neither have the DiskPart utility and most Microsoft Management Console snap-ins

If you’ve ever had to add or remove a partition, assign it a drive letter, or do any advanced disk management on your Windows 11 machine, you’ve probably noticed that the Disk Management tool looks like it came straight out of the 1990s. That’s not far from the truth; its design hasn’t changed much since the Windows 95 era.

The same can be said about the DiskPart command line utility, which you can open by typing diskpart into Search or by opening the Run window and entering the same command.

That said, Microsoft did introduce a modern disk management tool in 2020, which you can access by opening Settings and going to System > Storage > Advanced storage settings > Disks & volumes, but typing Disk Management into Windows search still opens the old, reliable Disk Management version.

The classic Disk Management tool is actually one of many MMC (Microsoft Management Console) snap-ins, and most of them haven’t been redesigned in ages. Aside from Disk Management, they include Device Manager, Event Viewer, Services, Performance Monitor, and many more.

The Windows Dialer app is another remnant of the past

And you can actually use it on Windows 11

Yep, Windows 11 still has the Phone Dialer app that dates back to the Windows 95 era. It hasn’t been updated in three decades and Microsoft is still shipping it on Windows 11.

You don’t even have to jump through hoops to open it, just type dialer into the search box. Best of all, it should still work if you have a modem connected to your PC. I don’t, so I couldn’t test it myself, but according to people online, the feature is still functional.

Windows Photo Viewer from the Windows 7 era is part of Windows 11 as well

You can unlock it with a single registry edit file

If the Windows 11 Photos app is too much for your needs, especially with all the editing and AI-related features it has picked up recently, you can restore the classic Windows Photo Viewer from the Windows 7 era.

To do so, go to this Windows 10 Forums thread and follow the tutorial. It involves downloading a registry modification file and running it on your PC (you’ll need admin privileges). The tutorial is written for Windows 10, but it works on Windows 11 too.

After running the registry file, you should be able to access Windows Photo Viewer by right-clicking any supported image on your PC. As you can see, the app still rocks the classic Windows 7 design, including the original menu with the option to burn the photo to a CD or DVD! I don’t have a disc drive, so all I got was an error telling me I couldn’t use the feature. Bummer.

Windows 11 is rife with UI elements, tools, and apps from past Windows versions

While Microsoft is constantly updating Windows 11 and slowly deprecating old utilities, UI elements, and apps (for instance, Command Prompt is getting a major overhaul), there’s still a deluge of old Windows parts and pieces scattered across Windows 11.

Aside from the ones I’ve shown, parts of Internet Explorer 11 still exist under the Windows 11 hood, the Disk Cleanup tool hasn’t changed much since the Windows 98 era, a bunch of dialog boxes haven’t changed for years or even decades, the Windows Media folder still includes old audio files from earlier Windows versions (including a few MIDI files from Windows XP), and there are old icons scattered everywhere.

Lastly, let’s not forget that Win32 API, which dates back to the Windows 95 era, is still a major part of Windows 11. While the OS is clearly built for modern PCs and packed with flashy UI, plenty of its parts still come straight from the 1990s and 2000s, and honestly, we wouldn’t have it any other way.