Windows Upcoming Redesign May Finally Include a New Settings App
Microsoft started off with a teaser at the Build conference, and then it made things official last week: A new version of Windows is coming. Microsoft will unveil the new OS, code-named Sun Valley, at an event on June 24, and according to Windows Latest, it will include a redesigned Settings app. Microsoft will probably focus on all the flashy whiz-bang new features, but a new Settings app is reason enough to be excited about Sun Valley.
Microsoft introduced the current modern UI Settings app almost a decade ago in Windows 8. It didn’t have all the necessary features to replace the venerable Control Panel, so Microsoft kept both of them in the OS. It said the Control Panel would stick around until the new Settings app was fully developed. So, we waited, and we waited… and we waited. Here we are in 2021, Windows 10 has been out for five years, and Windows still has two settings apps.
Windows 10 tries to direct you to the modern Settings app whenever possible, but almost none of the advanced features work in Settings. If you want to control power profiles, modify network properties, or manage your local storage hardware, you have to use the traditional Control Panel-style settings.
The new redesign will allegedly address this annoyance with a new Settings app that actually has all the features from the classic Control Panel. Presumably, that means the Control Panel will go away. According to the new report, this new app will look a lot like the one we already have in Windows 10.
The upcoming Settings app will allegedly sport a slightly reorganized layout with easier access to all your settings via a navigation pane. The app should also have brighter, more colorful icons that match the recently redesigned system icons that rolled out to Windows 10. We may also be privy to a few new settings for the on-screen keyboard, which is notoriously bad in Windows 10.
This is all still theoretical — we won’t know if the leaks are legit until Microsoft unveils the new Windows, which it has managed to keep largely under wraps. We’re not even sure if Microsoft will choose to call this another update for Windows 10 or if it’ll finally move on to Windows 11. Or maybe it’ll just drop the number altogether.
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