Nine features nothing will miss
These live under Settings → System → Optional features → Installed features (and a couple in the classic "Turn Windows features on or off" dialog), and all nine are self-contained relics: removing them removes only them. WordPad was retired by Microsoft itself; Internet Explorer 11 ended support in June 2022; the rest are leftovers from workflows most people never had. None of them are load-bearing for Windows Update, Store apps or drivers — that's the part viral debloat guides get wrong.
- WordPad, Steps Recorder and the legacy Media Player — deprecated by Microsoft itself, all three in Optional features
- Windows Fax and Scan — a fax terminal in 2024; remove unless you actually fax
- Internet Explorer 11 — unsupported since June 2022, a stub on modern builds
- XPS Viewer with the XPS printing stack — the document format PDF beat a decade ago
- Work Folders client — corporate file sync, dead weight on a home PC
- Windows TIFF IFilter and Math Recognizer — OCR for TIFF scans and handwriting math from another era
How to remove them — and what it actually frees
Open Settings → System → Optional features, find the feature in the Installed list and click Uninstall — most disappear without a reboot. XPS Viewer, Work Folders and the printing stack sit in the classic dialog: press Win+R, type optionalfeatures.exe and untick them there. Power users can script it with DISM (DISM /Online /Get-Capabilities lists what's installed), but the GUI is plenty for a one-time cleanup.
Honest numbers: all nine together free maybe 100–200 MB, not gigabytes. The value is a leaner component store and fewer legacy binaries on disk, not a rescue mission for a full drive. If you need space, look at WinSxS, downloads and caches instead.
What not to touch while you're in there
The same dialogs contain features that look removable and aren't. SMB 1.0/CIFS should go only if you're certain no ancient NAS, printer or XP-era box lives on your network — it's a security win when you can, a broken file share when you can't. .NET Framework 3.5 is required by a long tail of older desktop apps, and Hyper-V is the engine behind WSL2, Docker and Visual Studio emulators, so removing it quietly breaks developer setups. When in doubt, leave it installed: an unused feature costs megabytes, a wrongly removed one costs an evening.
Questions and Answers
Is it safe to uninstall optional features in Windows 11?
Yes — the nine in this list are self-contained relics with no dependents; Windows Update, the Store and drivers don't rely on any of them.
Does removing Windows features free up disk space?
A little — typically 100–200 MB for the whole set. The real payoff is fewer legacy components, not rescued gigabytes.
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