Laptop bloatware is still a big problem – and Windows 11 needs to step up and sort it out

You can spend hours choosing the best laptop , comparing processor options with the display and wondering how long the battery will last.

Then you switch it on and discover another part of the experience that rarely enters the buying decision: the manufacturer’s preinstalled software, often billed as tools to help optimize your device.

Sometimes, they earn their right to come pre-installed.

The pre-installed software might be where you change performance mode or cap the battery charge, alongside model-specific settings Windows 11 simply doesn’t offer.

The strange part? How much bigger the role of pre-installed software (sometimes called 'bloatware') has become.

A simple utility can now feel like another software layer sitting on top of Windows 11 , with launchers and user accounts jostling with the settings you actually want.

And because some of those controls are legitimately important, uninstalling the whole thing isn’t always an option. (Image credit: TechRadar) Windows 11 can’t actually control everything on your Windows laptop For all the settings tucked inside Windows 11, there are still plenty of things it can’t manage on its own.

And this isn’t just a gaming laptop quirk.

On supported Asus models, MyASUS handles things such as Battery Care Mode and model-specific fan profiles that Windows 11 doesn’t offer.

Gaming laptops simply take the idea much further.

Take the Alienware 16X Aurora .

Alienware Command Center offers several performance settings, and in our testing, its 'Overdrive' mode pushed the fans harder while making use of the laptop’s Cryo-Chamber cooling system.

None of that feels especially unreasonable.

Laptop makers know how their own hardware is designed to behave, and a dedicated utility gives them somewhere to offer controls that would otherwise be buried in the BIOS or unavailable altogether.