Ways to Enable or Disable Optional Windows Features on Windows 10

Windows operating systems come with a lot of features. These features are sometimes are not intended to be used directly by normal customers. This means that only a small percentage of the huge user base of the operating system leverages the use of these features. But still, they add some major value to the feature list of the operating system. These features are found under the option called – Turn Windows Features on and off. This means that if the user wants, he can just type in Turn Windows Features on and off in the Search box and enable any feature that the user wants to.

Enable or Disable Optional Windows Features

The simplest way is to open the Control Panel > Uninstall a Program, and then in the left side select Turn Windows features On or Off. In this post, we will be discussing other ways to enable or disable Optional Windows Features on Windows 10. We will be checking out the following 3 methods:

1. Using Windows Powershell.
2. Using DISM Command line.
3. Using an external installation source.

1] Using Windows Powershell

Windows Powershell is indeed a very powerful tool. You can do a lot of things with this command line too. While using this, we will be first populating the list of available features, then we will be downloading the desired feature, and finally, we will be talking about enabling and disabling that feature.

So first, in order to populate the list of features, enter this command,

Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online

After that, in order to install any feature from the list of features, enter this command:

Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName *Type feature name*

Then, in order to enable any downloaded feature, enter this command,

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName “Type feature name” -all

Finally, in order to disable any enabled feature, enter this command,

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName “Type feature name”

2] Using Command Prompt

Start by pressing WINKEY + X button combo or right-click on the Start button and click on Command Prompt (Admin) or just search for cmd in the Cortana search box, right click on the Command Prompt icon and click on Run as Administrator. Click on Yes for the UAC or User Account Control prompt that you get.

Now, type in the following command to populate the list of the available features:

DISM /online /get-features /format:table | more

All you need to do now is copy the name of the feature that you need to enable.

Now, in order to enable the feature, enter the following command:

DISM /online /enable-feature /featurename:[Enter the name of the feature here] -All

Now, in order to disable any feature that is enabled on your computer, you need to follow some separate steps.

First, you need to check what all features are enabled. To populate a list of enabled features, enter this command,

DISM /online /get-features /format:table | find “Enabled" | more

Now, in order to disable the Enabled feature, enter this command,

DISM /online /disable-feature /featurename:[Enter the name of the feature here] -All

As a bonus, if you wish to check information in detail about a specific feature, enter this command,

DISM /online /get-featureinfo/featurename:[Enter the name of the feature here]

3] Using an external installation source

You can also fetch the latest features from an updated offline source.

This source can be an ISO or any other type of image or just a folder.

For that, all you need to do is decide if you want to use the Command Prompt or Windows Powershell.

If you are using the Command Prompt, enter this command,

Dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:< /All /Source:<Enter the path of the feature here>

And if you tend to use Windows Powershell command line, you can do it too. Just enter this command,

Install-WindowsFeature  –Source “<Enter the path of the feature here>”

To get the latest features, you need to get the latest version of the image of the operating system that you are trying to install the feature from.