Windows Latest

Windows 11 just keeps getting better, and Microsoft has finally added a checkbox to the Sticky Keys pop-up, allowing you to permanently dismiss it instead of accidentally triggering the same annoying dialog every time you press Shift five times.

Funnily enough, this pop-up exists because of a game!

Charles Oppermann, who wrote the original dialog in 1995, revealed that Brad Silverberg, who led Windows 95, had kids who kept accidentally activating Sticky Keys while playing Space Cadet Pinball.

Microsoft actually considered adding a checkbox back then, but decided against it to make accessibility features more visible.

It took 31 years to reconsider that decision!

I tested the new option in Windows 11's latest Insider build, and it also applies to the Filter Keys prompt.

Microsoft's design boss Marcus Ash has separately confirmed that modernizing these old Win32 dialogs is also on the team's list.

I love these little improvements, especially when Microsoft is finally paying attention to the everyday annoyances that have survived in Windows for decades.

Here's your first look at Microsoft's new WinUI 3 Registry Editor, but it's a developer sample preview, so it may not ship on Windows 11 anytime soon.

Windows Latest found the app inside Microsoft's open-source Reactor repository, and I built it myself on Windows 11.

It keeps the familiar two-pane layout but replaces the cramped Windows 95-era interface with native WinUI 3 controls, a dark-mode-ready design, and smoother animations.

It can read, create, rename, and delete registry keys, edit values, and search the registry. It even uses Mica, with no Electron or WebView2 involved.

There are still unfinished features, and Microsoft hasn't announced plans to replace regedit.exe.

This is a developer sample made by Microsoft, not an official Windows 11 replacement.

Every Windows 11 app should kill Electron, and Discord just showed why: no “Starting” screen and 70% less RAM, even with two accounts signed in.

Discord's new Rust client is so fast that it had the friends list loaded before the current Electron app could even get past its loading screen!

Discord's CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy shared a 15-second comparison video, and we went through it frame by frame.

Surprisingly, the old Electron app was launched first, but the new Rust client opened almost instantly and loaded the friends list while the old app was still struggling

And before anyone says the new app was already running in the background, Discord confirmed that both were cold starts.

The performance improvements go beyond launch times. Discord's new client, codenamed Phoenix, uses just 290.2MB of RAM with TWO accounts signed in simultaneously, according to Vishnevskiy.

For comparison, the current Electron app regularly uses 1–2GB on my PCs, and Discord previously admitted that memory usage could exceed 4GB!

Discord is rebuilding the client in Rust with GPUI, which means it no longer needs to bundle Chromium just to display its interface. The new app also skips the annoying "Starting" screen, with updates happening in the background.

Of course, these are early results, and I'll be testing the new app myself when it becomes available.

But I think Discord has just given Microsoft and Meta something to think about. WhatsApp and Teams are still WebView2 apps, and both have serious RAM problems.

If Discord can rebuild its desktop client without Electron while keeping the same interface and cross-platform support, I would love to know what's stopping companies like Meta from doing something similar!

Discord is finally ditching Electron, and its new Windows 11 client written in Rust is already showing some promising RAM usage!

The company is rebuilding its entire desktop client in Rust, using GPUI for the interface. Discord said it's not using Tauri.

Discord has even shared an early screenshot of the new app, codenamed Discord Phoenix, showing just 290.2MB of RAM usage!

For comparison, the current Electron-based Discord regularly uses 1–2GB of RAM on my PC, even when idle, and the company has admitted that some users can hit 4GB.

Discord has been using Rust since 2018 for backend infra, but getting the entire client onto it was the "holy grail."

I'm particularly interested in this because Windows 11 has too many popular apps carrying their own browser engines, eating RAM while doing relatively simple things.

Microsoft says Windows 11 is now up to 20% more responsive on 8GB PCs, with multitasking up to 40% faster, and it has shared some impressive numbers showing how much RAM its latest optimizations can save!

Here's what Microsoft says has improved:

- 20% faster responses: Start, Search, right-click menus, Settings, Snipping Tool, and File Explorer.
- 40% faster multitasking: In Microsoft's lab test involving 20 Edge tabs, a 4K video, large Office files, Outlook, and File Explorer on the same 8GB PC.
- 2GB more active data in RAM: Better memory compression and management reduce the need to move data to slower storage.
- 900MB less memory growth: Across Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365 apps in a multitasking test, including 360MB in savings from Office apps.
200MB saved by Widgets: On PCs with 8GB RAM or less, Widgets now loads only when opened.
33% faster Edge launches: Windows can skip an unnecessary process when Edge is already running.

Of course, these are Microsoft's own results under specific testing conditions, so your experience will vary.

However, I observed similar performance gains in my own tests: windowslatest.com/2026/11/03/mic…

I genuinely like where Windows 11 is heading. Microsoft is also optimizing WinUI 3, reducing unnecessary background work, and making Windows components share web engines to save RAM.

If Microsoft can make Windows 11 noticeably faster on 8GB PCs without requiring more expensive hardware, I think it'll be one of the most useful improvements the OS has received in years!