Microsoft Explains Why It Won’t Add Seconds to Windows 11’s Taskbar Clock, Says It Would Affect Performance

[Tsing]

Windows 11 users have been wondering why they can't use a registry hack like they did in Windows 10 to enable a seconds readout in the taskbar clock. Microsoft developer Raymond Chen has now shared a blog post explaining why, advising that the omission has a lot to do with performance.

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[Grimlakin]

So it boils down to not being able to de clock a CPU because changing the clock rate on the fly would disrupt the algorithm used to calculate the passage of seconds for accurate display in the system tray clock flyout?

Does that seem like a rather ****ty reason...

I can see SOME logic to it. 1. How do you know if the time calculation is on a P core or E core on systems that have both. Is it always tied to a physical thread or a virtual thread (hyperthreading). How is it done on systems that are virtual as oppose to physical? What if someone is running a VM on a host with P cores and E cores? All of those things have to come into play.

In essence though I would think the calculation would be based on raw mhz rating for timing purposes. Perhaps I'm misguided though... I mean... couldn't they just grab the time value from the bios and reflect that on the clock?

 

[Brian_B]

Funny, the BIOS clock can do it just fine, and has been for decades now. And you are worried about drift, just sync to a NTS once an hour or so.

 

[Burticus]

That is MS speak for "we don't want to"