Category: Windows

Earlier this month, I wrote about a new version of the Windows tweaker Win11Debloat and its new feature to block automatic driver companion app installations on Windows. I also listed native Windows options to remove the LG Monitor App and unwanted installations.

This came after LG was found to push its Monitor App via Microsoft’s cloud to Windows devices with LG monitors. The app gives users some control over monitor features and also popup ads.

The outcry must have been loud enough to reach the higher ups at Microsoft, as the company just posted an official announcement on X:

Thanks again for bringing this to our attention. We’ve connected with the team at LG and as an immediate next step, they have agreed to disable the McAfee pop-up from their app. We appreciate LG working with us toward a shared goal of a better experience for our mutual customers.…

— Pavan Davuluri (@pavandavuluri) July 22, 2026

According to the post of Microsoft Executive Vice President, Windows and Devices, Pavan Davuluri’s post, Microsoft has come to an agreement with LG regarding the matter. LG, according to Microsoft, will stop showing the popup ad on Windows devices.

While that is the right thing to do, considering that the app auto-installed and started to show the popup without users knowing what hit them, it does not address the elephant in the room: nothing is keeping LG or any other device maker from doing so again in the future.

At the very least, Microsoft should introduce new regulations that prevents a scenario like this from happening in the future. Should companies be allowed to display ads or popups in their apps? Certainly, but not when they have the power to auto-install software or updates on user devices.

Until that happens, it may be a good idea to block the automatic installation of manufacturer apps on your Windows devices to avoid these scenarios. You may still download and install (most) apps manually from the Microsoft Store or the manufacturer’s website.

Windows has this interesting feature that enables OEMs to push software to user devices. This installs the apps automatically on unmanaged devices and supposedly helps get the most out of certain devices, such as monitors or printers.

While that sounds useful in theory, this feature has been abused in the past. The most recent example is LG installing its Monitor App on Windows PCs and using it to display advertisement for McAfee products.

Since this is unwanted by the vast majority of users, it is fair to say that this falls into the misuse of power category.

You can use Win11Debloat, a popular Windows tweaker, to get rid of the app and block LG from installing it again. Or, you could do it manually.

Here are the steps:

Remove the existing LG Monitor App

Because this is packaged as a standard modern Windows app, it can be uninstalled normally without needing to scrub your registry:

1. Open Windows Settings (Win + I).
2. Navigate to Apps > Installed apps.
3. Search for LG Monitor App Installer (or just “LG”).
4. Click the three dots (…) next to it and select Uninstall.

Prevent Windows from Auto-Installing Device Apps

Windows automatically downloads these OEM companion apps using a feature called “Device Metadata Retrieval.” You can disable this natively in the GUI:

1. Open System Properties: Press Win + R, type sysdm.cpl, and press Enter.
2. Navigate to Device Installation Settings:Select the Hardware tab, then click the Device Installation Settings button.
3. Disable Automatic Downloads:This stops all manufacturer companion apps.Select “No” (your device might not work as expected).
4. Save Changes:Click Save Changes and restart your PC.

Note that you can also make the change in the Registry or using the Group Policy.

Registry:

1. Press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter.
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Device Metadata
3. Find the DWORD named PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork. If it’s missing, right-click an empty space > New > DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it exactly that.
4. Double-click the key and change its Value data from 0 to 1. Click OK and restart your computer.

Group Policy:

1. Press Win + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.
2. Navigate to: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Installation.
3. Double-click Prevent device metadata retrieval from the Internet (or Prevent automatic download of applications associated with metadata, depending on your exact Windows build).
4. Set it to Enabled, click Apply, and restart.

Here is the effect

By disabling this feature, you are shutting the door on all OEMs. This blocks automatic, silent installations of software from ASUS (Armoury Crate), Razer (Razer Synapse), Dell (Alienware Command Center), HP, Logitech, and others.

Importantly, this will not break your hardware. Windows will still automatically load the basic, essential drivers required to make the device function.

Disabling this setting only stops the automatic background installations triggered by Windows. You retain complete control to install whatever you want, whenever you want.

If you decide you actually need an OEM companion app—for example, to configure mouse macros, change RGB lighting, or update hardware firmware—you can easily bypass the restriction manually:

• Download directly from the manufacturer: Go to the official support page for your specific hardware (e.g., LG or Razer’s website) and download the driver package or software suite yourself.
• Install via the Microsoft Store: Many of these OEM control panels are hosted on the Microsoft Store. You can simply search for the app by name and click install.

Turning off automatic metadata retrieval is highly recommended for keeping a clean OS. It shifts control from Windows back to you, ensuring you only install the companion apps you actually plan to use.

ShutUp10 is one of my favorite tweakers for Windows 10 and 11. The base version is free, it does not need to be installed, and it is super-easy to use but also comes with a good amount of tweaks to turn off features that you don’t need on Windows PCs.

The last version, released yesterday by O&O Software, adds some mighty options to the application’s already impressive arsenal. The new options deal largely with recent Windows changes, like AI in Notepad or File Explorer, denying apps access to generative AI, and taming annoyances, like Windows Search with Bing, Settings app account notifications, or Start menu recommendations.

Here is the full list:

• Disable Click to Do
• Disable the Settings agent
• Disable AI features in Notepad
• Disable AI actions in File Explorer
• Disable Find My Device
• Disable Microsoft account cloud content search (
• Disable work or school cloud content search
• Disable device search history
• Disable Start menu recommendations for tips, shortcuts and new apps
• Disable Start menu account notifications
• Disable Settings app account notifications
• Disable extension of Windows search with Bing
• Deny app access to generative AI
• Deny app access to generative AI
• Deny app access to presence sensing
• Deny app access to presence sensing
• Do not send device name in diagnostic data
• Windows Insider Program conflict detection: when the PC is enrolled in the Windows Insider Program, a notice explains that certain diagnostic-data settings prevent participation, and a dialog offers to disable those settings

Using the app is straightforward. Just download the latest version from the developer website and run it on a Windows machine. The app loads immediately and displays its tweaks in the interface. O&O Software uses colors to distinguish between tweaks that are enabled already and those that aren’t. Furthermore, you gain recommendations for each tweak which range from “yes” to “no”. However, no does not necessarily mean that a tweak is bad, but users should read the description to find out about potential issues that may be experienced after applying it.

“Yes”-Tweaks should be save to apply, but it is always a good idea to read the description to make sure. You can speed things up by selecting Actions to apply all “recommended tweaks”, “recommended and somewhat recommended” or “all tweaks”. I would not recommend doing so unless you are certain that the selection does not cause any issues. If you have the time, it may be better to go through the tweaks one-by-one just to make sure nothing unwanted comes out of it.

The app has a couple of other sections of interest. You can switch to other tabs, e.g. AI, to get a bit of extra control over certain features, or “Secure Boot” to check the status and whether the latest certificates are already used on the system.

The lackluster Windows Search has been a hot topic ever since its introduction. One of the main points of criticism is the inclusion of web-based search results, which Microsoft started to introduced with the release of Windows 8.1.

Today, Windows Search continues to return local and web-based search results. What makes matters worse, at least to some users, is the inclusion of advertisement.

Microsoft published a blog post on the official Windows Insider blog today promising to improve the Windows Search box in the near future.

Here is what Microsoft plans to change:

• Less visual clutter. Search will only display recent searches, not other content, such as “top apps”, image of the day, trending searches, or games for you.
• Clearer results. Search results will make it clearer where a result comes from.
• Removal of promotional content from web results.
• New control to turn off web and Microsoft Store suggestions in Search.
• Local results have priority when they are the stronger match.
• Better app search to handle typos, dropped and extra letters, and partial words better.
• Settings results are improving. More relevant settings should appear higher in the results.
• Finding local files is improving and support for two-character file searches.
• Improved search reliability.

The improvements are integrated in the latest Windows Insider builds of the experimental channel. Microsoft has yet to announce when the changes will land in stable builds of the operating system. One potential option is the coming feature update for Windows 11, which is expected in the coming months.

When things go wrong, Windows administrators have a few options at their disposal to fix problems. From built-in repair tools and restore options to backups and setting up the PC anew.

Nothing beats system backups in my opinion, but some problems can also be dealt with using built-in tools, such as the option to reset the PC.

Cloud rebuild is a new feature that Microsoft announced in the most recent test build of the Windows operating system this week. It can be run from the Windows Recovery Environment and will download everything it needs from the cloud. That is a big difference to the “Reset this PC” option, as it will also download drivers and such from the cloud.

However, it is not the only difference. Another main difference is that Cloud rebuild erases pretty much everything on the main drive. You can’t keep apps, settings or personal files, which makes this more of a last resort kind of option or something that you would run if you have proper backups of apps and files. The only data that is not touched is data on other drives or cloud-based files, which do get synced to the PC again after Windows 11 starts booting again to the desktop.

Windows 11 boots directly into the out-of-box experience. For unmanaged PCs, this means going through the whole setup process as if this were a new PC. The operation requires a working network connection to function at all.

This leaves one main use case: users who need to start anew who have few or none apps installed or personal files on the main drive. Experienced users may want to stick to USB images that may include customizations, including OOBE bypasses and such.

If you are a home user running Windows 10 on a PC, you may know that support for the operating system is coming to an official end. While Microsoft ended support back in October 2025 officially, it introduced an Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for home users for the first time.

Once joined, Windows 10 would get another year of security updates until October 2026. Now, with the deadline looming over the heads of millions, Microsoft announced an extension of support.

In short: Windows 10 machines that joined ESU will receive security updates until October 2027 now. That is valid for Home and Pro editions only, as Enterprise customers get other, mostly paid, options to extend support by up to three years.

If the Windows 10 PC receives security updates via ESU already, then it will continue to receive updates after October 2026.

Microsoft confirmed the extension on the official Windows blog. It updated the original article about Windows 10’s future with the information:

This post has been updated to reflect that the Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for personal use devices is being provided for an additional year, with coverage now available through Oct. 12, 2027. This extension provides customers with more time to transition to a new Windows 11 PC while continuing to receive critical security updates.

The decision makes sense on several levels. While Microsoft claims that this is done to give Windows 10 customers more time to migrate, which it does, it is likely that other reasons have played a role.

For one, Microsoft has received some regulatory pressure to extend support for Windows 10, as millions of customers continue to use the operating system. Some, millions as well, can’t upgrade to Windows 11, which leaves them stranded on the older version of Windows.

While Microsoft hopes that these users will buy new PCs or components, the reality is that some won’t. They may continue to use Windows 10, even at the risk of running a system that has known security issues, or make the switch to Linux to continue using the PC and its components, which in many cases work just fine.

Imagine if a bad driver update or a bad update completely trashed your PC setup, but you could instantly roll the entire machine back to exactly how it was yesterday—local user files and all—in just a few minutes.

That scenario required use of third-party backup solutions until now. On June 23, 2026, Microsoft announced the general availability of its new, built-in Point-in-Time Restore feature for Windows 11 PCs (versions 24H2 and later).

According to the official release on the Microsoft Windows IT Pro Blog, this native recovery tool automatically captures full-system snapshots every 24 hours, giving Home, Pro, and Enterprise users a safety net to bypass hours of painful troubleshooting when something breaks the PC.

How Point-in-Time Restore works

Point-in-Time Restore acts as a comprehensive safety net for your operating system. Operating quietly in the background, the feature automatically captures full-system snapshots on a recurring schedule—defaulting to every 24 hours—and saves them directly to local storage.

Using it, you can roll back the PC to a previous state in minutes, according to Microsoft. That is excellent when a driver, Windows update or corrupted application affects the machine.

While it sounds similar to the classic “System Restore” tool windows users have known for decades, Microsoft built this version from scratch for modern PC management. The key upgrades include:

• Inclusion of User Files: Legacy System Restore intentionally ignored personal data. Point-in-Time Restore captures the exact state of your machine, including the Windows OS, system configurations, settings, installed applications, and your local user files.
• Smart Storage Management: To avoid eating up your hard drive, it integrates directly with Windows’ “reserved storage” (space set aside for updates). It enforces strict cleanup policies and caps its default disk footprint at just 2% of your drive.
• Native Integration: The interface is cleanly built into the modern Settings app (System > Recovery), making it accessible without digging into the legacy Control Panel.

Here is a table that Microsoft provided to compare it to System Restore:

	Point-in-time restore	System Restore
Restore points	Automatic, configurable cadence; user files are included in restore point	Event-triggered or manual only; user files are excluded from restore point
Reliability	Strict retention and cleanup policies	No retention limits
User experience	Integrated in system settings	Limited to control panel
Storage impact	Minimizes storage impact by integrating with reserved storage*	Higher impact to storage space
Management	Will support robust remote management capabilities	Limited remote management capabilities

Default Availability and Rules

The feature is turned on by default on unmanaged Windows 11 Home and Pro devices, provided that the primary drive partition is 200 GB or larger.

If disaster strikes and your PC won’t boot into the main desktop, the recovery process is designed to work securely inside the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE).

The feature has its shortcomings though, especially when compared to third-party backup solutions. For one, restore points are kept for up to 72 hours only. That is a big problem in some cases, as issues may occur after the period. There is seemingly no option to store a restore point indefinitely, While Enterprise admins may change the retention period, 72 hours appears to be the longest.

Means: while Point-in-time restore is easier to use and in some cases better than System Restore, it won’t replace traditional backup options due to its 72 hour retention period.

There are not many good reasons for being first when it comes to installing new updates for the Windows operating system. In fact, being second has the potential of avoiding the usual assortment of bugs that happen to be confirmed regularly after releases.

Take the June 2026 security updates as an example. Microsoft confirmed a new bug just days after releasing the update. It affects Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems that use custom folder icons or localized folder names that are defined by desktop.ini.

First spotted by Deskmodder, the issue is described on a new support page on Microsoft’s website:

After installing a Windows security update released on or after June 9, 2026, you might notice one or both of the following behaviors for some folders:

A custom folder icon defined by desktop.ini no longer appears.

A localized folder display name defined by desktop.ini no longer appears, and the folder shows its original name instead.

This behavior might occur even when the user has not changed an application or folder configuration. ​​​​​​

Microsoft notes that this behavior is expected, as it introduced a security hardening change that affects desktop.ini.

This new behavior is expected. Starting with the Windows security updates released on June 9, 2026, a security hardening change is introduced to desktop.ini handling. When Windows cannot establish that the source of a desktop.ini file is trusted, Windows ignores that file and treats it as if it is not present. However, desktop.ini files from trusted sources continue to work normally.

Microsoft did not first mention this change in the release notes, but has since then added the information.

When is desktop.ini not trusted? When it is downloaded from the Internet and carries the Mark-of-the-Web, copied from “certain” remote locations, or when “files on network paths are not classified as intranet or trusted by zone policy”.

Microsoft has a few workarounds for affected users.

Option 1: Add the source to Trusted Sites (Recommended)

If the affected content is stored on a known internal or managed source, add that source to the Trusted Sites list. Once the source is treated as trusted, Windows processes desktop.ini from that source normally. This keeps the protection in place for other locations and is the lower-risk option.

Option 2: Use policy to restore previous behavior

Organizations that need broader compatibility can enable the policy Allow the use of remote paths in file shortcut icons.Enabling this policy restores the pre-June 2026 behavior for affected remote or untrusted scenarios.

IMPORTANT Using a broad opt-out reduces protection against malicious remote folder-customization content. If you use a workaround, Microsoft recommends trusting only controlled internal sources and keeping trust settings as narrow as possible. ​​​​​​​

Option 3: Check for and remove the Mark of the Web (MotW)

If the desktop.ini file has a Mark of the Web (MotW), Windows may treat it as coming from an untrusted source and block customization. Verify whether MotW is present and, if appropriate, remove it from the desktop.ini file. This can restore expected behavior, but should only be done for trusted content, as it removes the associated security protection.

To remove the MotW tag, open PowerShell and run one of the following commands:

For a single desktop.ini file:

Unblock-File “C:\Your\Folder\Path\desktop.ini”

For all desktop.ini files in a folder:

Get-ChildItem “C:\Your\Folder\Path” -Recurse -Filter desktop.ini -Force | Unblock-File