Microsoft’s new Windows 11 Run dialog is faster than the Windows 95-era version it’s replacing

windowslatest.com May 5, 2026

Microsoft’s new Windows 11 Run dialog is faster than the Windows 95-era version it’s replacing

Curated by Shubham · TechCapsules · May 5, 2026

AI-summarised brief · reviewed before publication

Microsoft has revamped the Windows 11 Run dialog, a tool that has remained largely unchanged since the Windows 95 era. The new version, built using C# and WinUI 3, boasts a median "time-to-show" of 94 milliseconds, a 9ms improvement over the old dialog. This upgrade is part of Microsoft's efforts to modernize classic tools and align them with the Fluent Design language of modern operating systems. The new run dialog, however, is receiving severe backlash from the users.

💡 Why It Matters

· Microsoft measured the old Run dialog's performance across 35 million users before rewriting it, finding a median load time of 103ms.
· That's the detail the outrage entirely missed — the "slow" modern replacement is actually faster than the legacy version nobody ever complained about, which makes the backlash a case study in how benchmark numbers get weaponized without context.

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