14 DAY TRIAL // The Windows 10 Task Manager has received several welcome improvements in the last few feature updates, including more detailed information like disk type in the Performance tab, but one thing still missing is a dark theme.
As long-time Windows 10 users certainly know already, Microsoft has been gradually adding dark modes in the operating system, either for built-in features or for the first-party apps that come pre-loaded.
However, given this is work in progress, not everything in Windows 10 switched to dark, and Task Manager is one of the tools that are yet to receive this visual treatment.
For many, this is quite surprising, especially because, as I said earlier, Task Manager has already received a handful of welcome updates lately.
A post in the Windows Feedback Hub also calls for the software giant to update Task Manager in Windows 10 with a dark theme. At the time of writing, this suggestion already has more than 1,300 upvotes, and there’s a chance more would be added as this idea gains more exposure in the Feedback Hub.
“So many PURE WHITE elements (including this text box as I'm typing in it) exist in dark mode, for every app, and it's genuinely painful on the eyes,” one user explains in a comment in the Feedback Hub.
“Would love this, providing that there be an in-app setting for manually choosing Light, Dark, or System Theme - as is the case on well-made universal apps,” another one adds.
Worth knowing, however, is that this feature request isn’t new, as it was posted more than a year ago. At that point, users hoped to see the Task Manager getting a dark mode in Windows 10 20H1 – in the meantime, the feature lineup of this release, which will be called version 2004, has already been finalized, and a dark mode for the Task Manager is missing.
There are good news and bad news regarding the chances of getting a dark mode for the Windows 10 Task Manager.
The good news is that Microsoft responded to the feature suggestion last week, more than a year after it was posted in the Feedback Hub. The bad news is that the company hasn’t shared any specifics, other than the feedback was received and it would be looked into by the dev team.
“Thanks for the feedback, I’ve shared the interest in this with the team,” Microsoft engineer Jen Gentleman said.
So when could we get a dark mode in Task Manager?
Theoretically, with Windows 10 20H1 already feature complete, the next Windows 10 feature update is due in the fall of this year as version 2009 or 20H2. However, rumor has it this feature update would follow in the footsteps of version 1909 (November 2019 Update) and be “a little bit more” than a service pack, meaning that the focus wouldn’t necessarily be on new features but on smaller improvements under the hood.
Given that a dark theme for the Task Manager isn’t necessarily such a major improvement, there’s a chance it would make the cut for the Windows 10 2009 feature update. If it doesn’t, we should expect the Task Manager to receive this visual facelift by this time next year when Microsoft is projected to release the first feature update of 2021 (as per the company’s schedule, this one could be finalized in the spring of the next year and shipped to production devices in April or May).
In the meantime, the best thing you can do is head over to the Feedback Hub and upvote the feature request to let Microsoft that you too want such an update in Windows 10.