Windows 11 September Update: Features Actually Worth Enabling

Install the Update Regardless of Which Features You Want

The security fixes in KB5124008 apply automatically the moment you install the update — you don't need to enable anything for those. This update addresses 974 vulnerabilities across Microsoft's products, 723 of them in Windows itself, including two that were already being actively exploited before the patch shipped. That alone makes installing it worthwhile independent of whether you care about any of the cosmetic changes below, and it's not something to postpone while you decide which optional settings to explore afterward.

1. Taskbar Position — If You Use an Ultrawide or External Monitor

Moving the taskbar to the left or right edge genuinely reclaims usable space on a wide monitor, where horizontal room is abundant but vertical space stays fixed. If you work primarily on a laptop's built-in 16:9 screen, the benefit is smaller — you'll mostly be choosing between Bottom (familiar) and Top (a personal preference, common among people coming from macOS). Either way, it costs nothing to try since switching back takes the same three clicks through Settings, and there's no downside to experimenting with all four positions for a day or two before settling on one.

2. Search Privacy Toggles — Worth It for Almost Everyone

Turning off web and Microsoft Store results under Settings > Privacy & security > Search is one of the highest-value, lowest-effort changes in this entire update. It takes ten seconds, makes taskbar Search noticeably faster by removing a network round-trip from every query, and directly fixes the most common complaint about Windows 11 search — that it buries your actual file under web suggestions you didn't ask for.

3. Start Menu Size — Only If Your Current Size Actually Bothers You

Start menu size is worth changing only if the default has genuinely bothered you — it's not a change most people notice needing.

This one's genuinely a matter of taste. If you've never thought "the Start menu feels too big or too small," there's no strong reason to go looking for this setting — Automatic already adapts reasonably well to most screens. It's worth knowing it exists mainly for the specific cases it solves: small laptop screens where Start takes up too much vertical room, or large monitors where Small feels cramped relative to everything else on screen.

4. Administrator Protection — Worth Understanding Before It Reaches You

Administrator Protection is a genuinely more significant change than the cosmetic ones above, even though it's less visible day to day. Instead of your everyday account running with full admin rights for an entire session, it keeps you on standard privileges and only elevates for the specific action that needs admin rights — closer to how elevation works on macOS and Linux. This is a real security improvement, and it mirrors an approach that's existed on macOS and Linux for years, but because it changes how elevation prompts behave — you may see prompts appear in slightly different moments than you're used to — it's worth reading a quick summary of what changes before it activates on your PC, rather than being caught off guard mid-task. Microsoft is rolling this out gradually across the Windows 11 install base, so most people will have some lead time to read up on it before it actually activates on their specific device, rather than needing to act on it immediately the day KB5124008 installs.

5. Taskbar Small Size and Left/Right Positioning Together

Combining a side-docked taskbar with the small size option sounds appealing for maximizing screen space, but remember the current limitation: small taskbar size and the full search box are only supported when the taskbar sits at Top or Bottom. If screen real estate is your main goal, Top plus Small currently gets you further than Left or Right, since you keep the full search box and the size reduction together, rather than trading away search functionality for a side position that doesn't yet support the smaller size anyway.

If You Only Have Five Minutes: Priority Order

Notice that the two highest-impact items — the security patch and the search toggles — both take under a minute combined, while the more visually dramatic taskbar and Start menu changes are genuinely optional depending on your hardware and habits. That's a useful reminder that "new" doesn't automatically mean "necessary" — some of this update's most talked-about changes are the ones you're least likely to actually need, while the quiet, unglamorous security patch is doing the actual heavy lifting in terms of protecting your PC.

Don't Chase Every Feature Through ViVeTool

Because several of these changes roll out gradually, it's tempting to reach for a tool like ViVeTool to force everything on immediately rather than waiting. For features you've decided you actually want — after reading what they do, as covered above — that's a reasonable choice for advanced users comfortable with Command Prompt. But force-enabling every flag in an update just because it's technically possible skips the very testing period Microsoft uses that staged approach to benefit from, and increases your odds of hitting a rough edge that a slower rollout would have caught first. Prioritize based on what you've actually decided is worth having, not based on what's simply unlockable.

Frequently Asked Questions