8 Built-in Windows 11 Tools You’re Not Using: Sandbox, OCR, Winget, God Mode and More

Most people install a pile of utilities on a new PC – a sandbox app, a screenshot-to-text tool, an archive manager, an “app updater”. Windows 11 already has all of these built in; they are just switched off or hidden. Here are eight that I set up on almost every PC I support, what each one is for, and exactly how to turn it on.

1. Windows Sandbox – test anything without risking your PC

Windows Sandbox starts a clean, temporary copy of Windows in a window. Open a suspicious email attachment, try an unknown installer or test a setting there – when you close the window, everything inside is deleted and your real PC is untouched.

• Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise or Education (not Home)
• Virtualisation turned on in the BIOS/UEFI (most PCs from the last few years have it on)
• At least 4 GB of RAM – 8 GB or more is comfortable

1. Press Win+R, type optionalfeatures and press Enter.
2. Tick Windows Sandbox and click OK.
3. Restart when asked, then open Windows Sandbox from the Start menu.

Or turn it on from an administrator PowerShell window:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName "Containers-DisposableClientVM" -All

2. OCR – copy text from screenshots and images

Need the text from a photo of a document, an error message in a screenshot or a slide in a video call? The Snipping Tool reads it for you.

1. Press Win+Shift+S and select the area with the text.
2. Click the notification to open the capture in Snipping Tool.
3. Click Text actions in the toolbar, then Copy all text – or select just the lines you need.

Text actions also has Quick redact, which blacks out email addresses and phone numbers before you share a screenshot. To read text from an image file, open it in Snipping Tool (Open file) and use the same button.

3. Reliability Monitor – find out why the PC crashed

When someone says “my computer keeps freezing”, this is the first thing I open. Reliability Monitor draws a day-by-day stability score from 1 to 10 and marks every app crash, Windows failure, failed update and new install on a timeline.

perfmon /rel

• A red ✕ is a critical event (app or Windows crash) – click the day to see which program failed.
• A yellow ! is a warning, often a failed update.
• Click View technical details for the error code to search for, or View all problem reports for the full history.

Look for the day the trouble started: a driver or app installed the same day is usually the cause. If system files themselves are damaged, follow Fix a Slow or Unstable Windows PC with DISM and SFC.

4. Winget – install and update apps with one command

Winget (Windows Package Manager) is built into Windows 11. It downloads apps from their official sources, so there are no bundled toolbars and no hunting for the right download button.

winget search vlc
winget install --id VideoLAN.VLC -e

The command I use most – update every app that has a newer version:

winget upgrade --all

Moving to a new PC? Save your app list on the old one and install everything on the new one in one go:

winget export -o apps.json
winget import -i apps.json

5. Live Captions – subtitles for any audio

Live Captions turns any sound on the PC – a video, a Teams or Zoom call, a voice note – into on-screen text. It works in every app and runs on the PC itself, so the audio isn’t sent to the cloud.

1. Press Win+Ctrl+L.
2. The first time, agree to download the speech files for your language.
3. Use the ⚙ button to place the captions at the top, at the bottom or in a floating window, and to include your microphone.

It is useful in noisy offices, for people who are hard of hearing, and for following fast speakers. On Copilot+ PCs it can also translate captions from many languages into English.

6. God Mode – every setting in one list

Despite the name, “God Mode” is not a hack. It is a special folder that lists every Control Panel task – around 200 of them – grouped and searchable. Handy when a setting has moved again between Windows versions.

1. Right-click the desktop → New → Folder.
2. Rename it to exactly: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
3. The icon changes to a Control Panel icon – open it.

Or create it with one PowerShell line:

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"

It changes nothing by itself – delete the folder whenever you like.

7. Open RAR, 7z and TAR files without extra software

Since the 23H2 update, File Explorer opens .rar, .7z, .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz and other archive types natively. Double-click one to browse it, or right-click → Extract All.

From 24H2 it can also create them: right-click files → Compress to → 7z or TAR, with Additional options for the compression level.

There is also a command-line tar in every Windows 11 install:

tar -xf backup.tar.gz
tar -czf site-backup.tar.gz C:\Sites\mysite

8. Dynamic Lock – lock the PC when you walk away

Forgot to press Win+L again? Dynamic Lock uses your phone’s Bluetooth signal: when the phone (in your pocket) goes out of range, Windows locks the PC shortly after.

1. Pair your phone: Settings → Bluetooth & devices → Add device → Bluetooth.
2. Go to Settings → Accounts → Sign-in options.
3. Open Dynamic lock and tick Allow Windows to automatically lock your device when you’re away.

Which ones should you turn on?

• Everyone: Winget (update apps monthly), OCR, native archive support and Dynamic Lock.
• When something breaks: Reliability Monitor first, then God Mode to reach the old settings quickly.
• Before opening anything you don’t trust: Windows Sandbox (Pro and above).
• Calls and videos: Live Captions.

• #dynamic lock
• #god mode
• #live captions
• #ocr
• #reliability monitor
• #windows 11
• #windows sandbox
• #winget

लेखक

Inder Kochar

सिस्टम्स और नेटवर्क इंजीनियर – मैं वही समाधान लिखता हूँ जो क्लाइंट्स के साथ इस्तेमाल करता हूँ, असली सिस्टम पर परखे हुए। ऐसी ही किसी समस्या में फँसे हैं?

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