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The latest Windows 11 patch, which, it should be noted, is a preview version, has made a change to the operating system settings that may confuse some people.
Windows Last Detected This KB5074105 patch makes a silent optimization where Windows 11 will now request administrative privileges when accessing storage settings.
In other words, when you open the Storage window in the Settings app, Windows 11 displays a User Account Control dialog box before granting access. This dialog box contains different options depending on your local account type.
If you have an administrator account, which is the case if your account is the only local account ever created and this is your PC, simply click “Yes” to answer the question about whether the (Settings) app can make changes to your device. You will then be shown all the storage options as usual.
However, if you are not an administrator – as would be the case for other family members on a family PC that many people use, for example – you will not have access to this storage area (unless you enter the administrator password, which is necessary to access it).
Analysis: a sensible approach, but one that could confuse some
Ultimately, this prevents anyone who is not an administrator from messing with the storage.
This gives Windows 11 users a higher level of security in case a family member goes “rogue”, or if an unauthorized person with local access somehow gains access to the PC, meaning they can’t tamper with your drive and, for example, delete content. (This could also prove to be a hurdle for a hacker who could take advantage of remote access to gain access to your PC. While this wouldn’t be a major hurdle in this scenario, it is still a problem.)
Therefore, it makes sense to make the operation of the memory panel accessible only to the primary user of the PC (the owner or administrator).
The problem is that with this unannounced change, if the box appears out of nowhere the first time you access the save field, there may be confusion as to why this question appears (although this has never happened before). The appearance of these warning messages also breaks the flow of the user interface and adds an extra click to each storage-related operation.
Overall, however, it seems prudent to leave some more sensitive parts of the Windows 11 interface behind a practically closed door, but we should have received some kind of notification from Microsoft about this decision.
Note that this is currently an optional change, in the interim update that arrived at the end of January, but it will be part of the full Windows 11 February update that arrives next week, assuming Microsoft is happy with how this feature works.
On this final note, there appears to be a small error in this introduction, because as Windows Latest points out, some drive cleanup options appear to have disappeared from the storage area. This affects temporary files from old Windows updates and device drivers, he said.
We hope Microsoft is aware of this and fixes the issue so they can get back to normal. Instead, they can still be deleted using Disk Cleanup, Windows Latest tells us.
