Microsoft's head of Windows Design and Research, Marcus Ash, has provided a much needed update on the progress of Windows 11's dark mode, which to this day is still incomplete. In a new post on X, Ash confirms that Microsoft is continuing to work on dark mode, bringing it more more areas of the OS, including legacy UI interfaces.
"We are pushing to get our tools/techniques to the point where we can get dark theme into more areas across Windows," Ash says. "As we make progress in various legacy system panels/dialogs, we will keep improving consistency." His post comes in response to myself and others discussing dark mode in Regedit, to which Ash says there's "No timelines to commit to yet for Regedit."
While there may not be a timeline, it's clear the company wants to deliver dark mode to Regedit and other legacy areas of the interface eventually, which makes total sense. Windows is never going to escape the "feels unfinished" allegations for as long as dark mode is incomplete in the way it currently is.
It's so refreshing to see Microsoft executives be so open and honest about plans and roadmaps for features and improvements that the company is considering and working on for Windows 11. This is the first update we've had on the progress of dark mode on Windows 11 in a very long time, and I'm so glad to see it.
It's clear Microsoft is taking its promise to fix Windows 11 seriously, even if some of the improvements are still far out, such as a total completed system wide dark mode. It is unfortunate that it has taken Microsoft this long to get to this point, and even more unfortunate that it's going to take more time to complete, but it's good to hear that the company is working on the tooling to speed up this process for future UI elements.
Right now, Windows 11's dark mode looks like this:
There are a number of legacy interfaces littered across Windows 11 that still don't support dark mode. File Properties in File Explorer is just one example, but Regedit, Run, Device Manager, Disk Management, and many more old school Windows control panels and applets are still dark mode-less.
Microsoft is currently focused on improving dark mode in File Explorer. Just recently, it shipped dark mode support for interfaces like file copy and deletion popups, but File Properties, archive extraction, and others are still missing dark mode. Hopefully these will be addressed shortly.
Either way, it's good to see Microsoft once again working on improving dark mode in Windows, after basically neglecting it for almost a decade. Fun fact, Windows' dark mode first debuted in 2016, and was rarely updated until just last year. Incredible that it took this long, but at least it's now happening.
Microsoft has announced a major plan that will address Windows 11's biggest issues, and that includes making the UI and experience more consistent.
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