You no longer need to set up a dial-up connection to connect a PC to the internet, but Windows 11 still comes with the legacy code, and it’s one example of decades-old features still in the operating system. Microsoft is now aware that one such feature, Phone Dialer, is still here.
To try it yourself, just open Windows Run (Win+R) and type dialer. Press Enter, and you’ll be staring at a Windows 95-era dialog called Phone Dialer. If you’ve ever used a modem to make calls from your PC, you’d instantly recognize it.
For anyone who has never used a modem to connect a PC to the internet, Phone Dialer basically let your computer dial a regular landline phone number. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many PCs had a modem, which was either connected separately or built in, and a telephone cable ran from the modem to a landline socket.
If you wanted to call someone, you could open Phone Dialer, type a number or choose one of the saved speed-dial numbers, and click Dial. You were basically asking Windows to instruct the modem to dial that number over the phone line. Once the call connected, you could pick up a telephone handset connected to the same line and talk.
The same modem could also be used to connect your PC to the internet, but that was done through a separate feature called Dial-Up Networking. Your modem would dial your internet provider’s number, and the two modems would exchange those famous screeching sounds as they established a data connection.
Fast forward to today, and most people no longer need a dial-up modem to get online. Phone Dialer is also unlikely to have much use on a typical modern PC, but it’s one of the many remnants of older Windows releases that have survived into Windows 11.
Phone Dialer could soon be removed from Windows 11
When a user asked Microsoft if it ever plans to remove old interfaces like Phone Dialer from Windows 11, Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft’s Windows communications director, said he’d passed along the feedback. He also questioned why something from the Windows 95 days is still included in Windows 11!
“I don’t even know why we still have Phone Dialer, it was meant for a time where PCs had modems. I passed this along, doesn’t seem like that needs to be included anymore,” he wrote in a post on X spotted by Windows Latest.
It’s quite interesting how stuff like this might be news to Microsoft employees themselves, and it makes sense given how old and versatile the operating system is. And it’s not just Phone Dialer, as you can still come across pop-ups and dialogs from the Windows 3.1 days.
Of course, this doesn’t mean Microsoft has decided to remove Phone Dialer in the next update, but you can count on the company to take it off the table soon, as the app no longer seems necessary.
