Trying to get Windows 11 to show seconds.

Click the clock on the taskbar, which has worked as far as I remember, maybe even before Windows 95. Notifications and calendar pop up but no seconds.

Search “seconds” in settings. Apparently you can only have them shown on the taskbar permanently (with implied distraction and CPU usage).

Look in time settings. No seconds, either.

Open the Clock app. The update takes a minute. No seconds there, either.

Search the internet. Apparently this is a function Microsoft disabled in Windows 11 but can be restored with Explorer Patcher, along with the option to set taskbar transparency via Classic Shell (so that you can watch the status in another window while others are maximized).

Don't have time for that, install Linux instead

(I’m not even kodding. The only place where a vanilla Windows 11 installation will show seconds in GUI is a very obscure page deep in the unintuitive jungle of settings. Interesting that a $3 watch does something a Windows computer with a million times more transistors doesn't.)

Welcome to Clock 2.0, the new time and reminder experience from Microsoft! Powered by Bing AI and Microsoft OneDrive.

• Sync your time zones, alarms, and reminders to all your devices via Microsoft OneDrive
• Get suggested wake-up times powered by Bing AI and your calendar!
• Use of Clock is governed by the Microsoft Cloud Connected Experiences Privacy Policy (click here to view).
• Click I Agree to start your use of Microsoft Clock!

and for all this, your alarm reminders become yet another datapoint for personalized ads, your phone alarm to wake you up then plays at full blast through the living room computer and wakes everybody else up, and you agreed to a 750kb privacy policy that displays in a 2"x3" window with 500 pages to scroll through.

Finally! Time v1 hasn't had an update in 4.54 billion years.

Time 2

Which we can tell on theclock 2

Do we lose another eleven days during the switchover?