False alarm, folks! It appears that Windows 11 will, indeed, ship with light mode by default. Of course, customers will be able to choose between the light and dark mode settings in the new OS.
But the operating system will not be using dark mode by default, as was so surely reported earlier.
That previous report had a Microsoft employee announcing at the company’s Inspire conference last week that Redmond plans to ship all of the Windows 11 commercial SKUS in the IT favorite beautiful dark mode by default.
This caused a bounteous amount of confusion, leading the company to release another statement:
“We are aware that inaccurate information about Windows 11 shipping in dark mode on by default to all commercial SKUs was recently shared and apologize for the confusion. To clarify, Microsoft will ship Windows 11 SKUs in light mode on by default. However, OEMs can choose to ship their devices in dark mode and customers will have the choice to easily customize their experience in Settings to dark mode or light mode. As with all of our products, we will continue listening to customer feedback to ensure Windows 11 meets customers’ needs, wherever they are in their computing journey.”
So, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the previous information was inaccurate.
Of course, vendors and OEMs will retain the final choice on how they want their devices to look and can ship their hardware in dark mode if they want. Plus, with how easy it is to switch things back, this is pretty much a non-issue, if ever there was one.
Then again, both the light and dark modes in Windows 11 look really beautiful and richly designed, even as the software titan has some work to do to transition legacy elements in its operating system to the dark theme.
Going with a light theme by default at least becomes a safe choice, when you consider this, as this side of the operating platform is, shall we say, more complete.
