Published Jun 3, 2026, 3:30 PM EDT
Oluwademilade is a tech enthusiast with over five years of writing experience. He joined the MUO team in 2022 and covers various topics, including consumer tech, iOS, Android, artificial intelligence, hardware, software, and cybersecurity. In addition to writing at MUO, his work has appeared on HowtoGeek, Cryptoknowmics, TechNerdiness, and SlashGear.
Oluwademilade attended the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, earning a medical degree from the College of Medicine. Excelling in public service, Oluwademilade was honored with the title of Global Action Ambassador by a student organization affiliated with the United Nations. He received this designation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in recognition of his efforts to make a positive global impact in 2020
In his free time, Oluwademilade enjoys testing new AI apps and features, troubleshooting tech problems for family and friends, learning new coding languages, and traveling to new places whenever possible.
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Windows has a longstanding talent for hiding useful tools and features in plain sight. That quirk probably explains why so many of us instinctively reach for a third-party download before checking whether Windows already includes a perfectly serviceable solution. I am just as guilty of it. More than once, I have installed a promising new app, handed over permissions, and then remembered that Microsoft had already tucked away a good-enough equivalent somewhere in the operating system.
I am not suggesting these tools are hidden masterpieces, nor am I about to claim Windows has solved every frustration that comes with using a PC. A handful of built-in utilities have earned a permanent place in my workflow because they are dependable, practical, and overlooked.
Resource Monitor
It is what Task Manager pretends to be
Task Manager is the Windows tool everyone opens when a laptop starts panting like it has discovered cryptocurrency. It is fast and good enough for killing a frozen app. But when I actually want to know why something is chewing through disk activity, hammering the network, or making my system feel sticky, I open Resource Monitor instead.
You can find it by searching for Resource Monitor in the Start menu, typing resmon into the Run dialog box and hitting Enter, or by opening Task Manager, going to the Performance tab, clicking the three dots (the "See More" menu) in the top right, and selecting Resource Monitor from there. (If you want to bypass everything and go straight to the executable file, you can also run perfmon.exe /res).
The interface looks like it wandered in from a previous Windows era — specifically Windows 7 — because it basically did, but I do not hold that against it. While Task Manager received a sleek, modern Fluent Design overhaul in recent Windows 11 updates, Resource Monitor remains wonderfully frozen in time. It splits activity into CPU, Memory, Disk, and Network tabs, which give you a much clearer, more granular view of what a process is doing. Task Manager may tell you that an app is busy, but Resource Monitor reveals what Windows hides from it, letting you see whether it is reading files, writing to disk, opening network connections, or dragging memory around like furniture.
The Disk tab is the one I use most. When Windows feels slow, but CPU usage looks normal, disk activity is often the culprit. Resource Monitor lets me see which process is writing constantly, the exact system file paths involved, and whether a background updater, cloud sync tool, game launcher, or antivirus scan is the real villain. The Network tab is also useful when an app seems suspiciously chatty, or when I want to know which process is using bandwidth without installing a heavy, third-party network packet sniffer. It will literally show you the exact remote IP addresses and active TCP connections each app is making.
The caveat is that Resource Monitor will not flatter you with friendliness. It uses terms like "hard faults/sec" and "disk queue length," which sound more dramatic than they often are. For instance, "hard faults" don't mean your RAM is physically broken; it just means the system had to fetch data from your slower storage drive or the pagefile because it wasn't waiting in the physical memory. I treat it as an evidence board, not a courtroom verdict. It helps me ask better questions before I start uninstalling things with righteous confidence.
Clipboard history
It makes copy and paste less fragile
The normal Windows clipboard is a small trap. You copy one thing, then another, and the first thing vanishes. Clipboard history fixes that, though it's not enabled by default. Press Win + V, and if you haven't already, Windows will prompt you to toggle it on. Once you do so, you won't have to think about it again — though you can always manage it later in Settings -> System -> Clipboard. From that point forward, Win + V opens a scrollable panel of everything you have copied in the current session, storing up to 25 items, including plain text, screenshots or images under 4 megabytes, and HTML.
The pinned items are the real trick. I keep small reusable bits there: an email template, a recurring address, a command I always forget, or a phrase I need while editing. Clicking the tiny pushpin icon on an entry instructs Windows to exclude it from normal automated housecleaning. While unpinned clips vanish forever the moment you hit "Clear all" or restart your computer, pinned entries survive the usual clipboard clearing behavior.
I would not treat it as a vault. Clipboard history can store sensitive material you copy, including passwords, private messages, banking details, and client information. If you copy a password from your manager app, it sits plainly visible in the history tray until 25 subsequent items cycle it out. Microsoft also offers clipboard sync across devices — linking your data to a Microsoft account to mirror your tray onto another PC or phone — but I leave that as a personal judgment call rather than a blanket recommendation.
Windows Sandbox
This is where dubious downloads go to behave
Windows Sandbox sounds like the kind of feature reserved for IT professionals, security researchers, and the sort of people who casually discuss attack surfaces over coffee. However, it is just as useful for everyday experimentation. The feature creates a temporary, isolated Windows environment powered by Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization technology. It effectively gives you a disposable PC hidden within your main system, where you can run software, open files, or test settings without exposing your host installation to any surprises lurking within.
That makes it perfect for moments of uncertainty. Whether I am trying out a utility from an unfamiliar developer, opening a questionable installer, inspecting a strange file, or simply satisfying my curiosity about what an application actually does, Sandbox gives me room to explore without consequences spilling into my everyday system. Once the window closes, everything inside it vanishes — files, settings, installations, and mistakes all disappear with it. That disposable nature is the feature's greatest strength.
There are a few caveats worth mentioning before you get too excited. Microsoft officially limits Windows Sandbox to supported editions such as Pro, Enterprise, and Education, and it requires hardware virtualization support to be enabled in your system's BIOS or UEFI settings. If you're running Windows Home, you won't find it in the Start menu. Even on supported versions, Sandbox remains hidden until you manually enable it through the aging "Turn Windows Features on or off" menu, which explains why many Windows users go years without realizing it exists.
Recent versions of Windows 11 also introduced a few peculiarities. Starting with version 24H2, several inbox applications, including Notepad, Calculator, Photos, and Windows Terminal, no longer appear in Sandbox by default due to changes to the underlying image. The environment still works perfectly well, though it can feel a little sparse when compared to a regular Windows installation. It is also worth remembering that Sandbox is not an impenetrable security barrier. Features such as shared folders, host file mapping, network modifications, and clipboard integration can be enabled via custom .wsb configuration files, thereby creating pathways between the sandboxed environment and your host system.
The more connections you introduce, the less isolated the environment becomes, which gradually erodes the very protection that makes the feature valuable in the first place.
Reliability Monitor
Windows' crash diary with manners
Event Viewer is powerful, but it also looks like punishment for being curious. Reliability Monitor is a built-in crash history tool I wish more people knew about. It shows a visual timeline of app crashes, Windows hardware failures, driver problems, system updates, software installs, and other critical events that directly affect system stability.
The easiest way to open it is to search for "reliability" in the Start menu and choose "View reliability history," or use the direct command perfmon /rel from the Run dialog box. What you get is a line graph showing your PC's stability index over time on a scale from 1 to 10, marked with red crosses for critical application crashes or unexpected shutdowns, with additional contextual details listed in the summary panel below. It is not glamorous, but it is incredibly useful when a hardware or software problem has a specific timeline.
That timeline is the point. If my laptop started freezing on Tuesday, Reliability Monitor can show whether a silent background driver update, a third-party app crash, Windows Update, or a new installation occurred around the same time. It will not always solve the mystery on its own, but it often gives me the first proper diagnostic clue. Instead of wasting time searching the web for "Windows keeps crashing help," I can look up the actual failing executable (.exe) file, the specific faulting module (.dll), the error name, or the precise KB update number.
Windows already has some decent tools
Before you install another essential app, it is worth opening the drawer that Windows already gave you. Some of what you find there is dusty. Some of it is better left alone. But a few tools are still sharp enough to use.
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