Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025. Well, not really. Enterprise customers can opt for the paid multi-year Extended Support Update (ESU) program, while consumers can get one extra year of support by shelling out $30, spending 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, or for free using the Windows Backup app to sync their settings to the cloud. However, these are all just options for Windows 11 naysayers to consider, not a mandate from Microsoft.
With support for Windows 10 winding down, I was just looking at how my experience would differ as I consider an upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Some of you might recall that right now, I am using Windows 11 on my work PC while Windows 10 serves as the daily driver on my personal PC. In the same piece, I emphasized how, despite the passage of four years, Microsoft hasn't been able to convince me to use Windows 11 as my sole daily driver.
In the same vein, as I used both my laptops over the weekend, I realized that Windows 10 is actually far inferior compared to Windows 11 in one particular area that I use heavily. That is, the Snipping Tool / Snip & Sketch experience.
Windows 10 has a fairly muddy experience when it comes to taking screenshots. This is because it offers two apps for the same purpose in the default installation of the operating system. You have the legacy Snipping Tool software, which provides a relatively basic UX for taking screenshots and editing them. I find it good but fairly simplistic in terms of capabilities, as it does not have advanced editing options.
Then you have the relatively modern experience in the form of Snip & Sketch, a Microsoft Store app that is actually a rebrand of the Screen Sketch experience that was first introduced back in June 2018 through Windows 10 Insider Preview build 17704. This app has longer delays of up to 10 seconds in screen captures and more editing options. I am not a fan of the blank canvas UI that you get when you open the app and have yet to take a screenshot, but I appreciate the additional functionality.
Finally, we have the Snipping Tool experience in Windows 11, which builds upon the foundations of Snip & Sketch, and is my preferred piece of software. For starters, it adds another 5-second delay step for screenshots, in addition to 3 seconds and 10 seconds. This is a sweet spot for me as it offers just the right amount of delay in most of my workflows. It also has screen recording capabilities, which are completely absent in the Windows 10 version.
But perhaps my favorite feature in Snipping Tool on Windows 11 is the ability to add shapes to my screenshots. As someone working professionally in the tech space, not a day goes by that I don't have to take a screenshot and then emphasize certain sub-areas of the capture through rectangles, circles, or arrows. I do this when writing technical guides, capturing instances of data errors, and sending content to colleagues for further discussions on bugs. This is something I sorely miss when I am using Windows 10 in a personal capacity, where I still need these shapes when writing news articles on Neowin or just conversing with friends using screen-grabs as a reference.
The Snipping Tool in Windows 11 has other useful features that are absent on Windows 10, too. These include text actions such as automatically detecting text in images for copying as free-form text or a data table, as well as the ability to automatically redact phone numbers and email addresses in one fell swoop. There is also a quick navigation button for Edit in Paint, but that's not something I use heavily. Microsoft isn't just resting there with regards to the Snipping Tool in Windows 11 either. The company is also testing screen-recording as GIFs as a capability in the software right now. Snipping Tool in Windows 11 isn't perfect, but it's a superior experience to Windows 10, in my view.
And all of this makes me a bit sad that we likely aren't getting the same features in the Windows 10 snipping experience. Well, there's no technical limitation as to why Microsoft can't backport these enhancements to Windows 10, but there's probably no motivation to do so considering that the operating system is reaching the end of its life (EoL). If anything, this probably serves as a decent differentiator between Windows 10 and Windows 11. Perhaps Snipping Tool is what will finally get me to update to Microsoft's latest OS.
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