Tag: windows 11

Crapfixer is the latest open source Windows tweaker by serial developer Belim. He calls it “the tool Microsoft would build, if they hated bloatware as much as we do”. I have reviewed several of his tools in the past, including the tweaker TidyOS, the app remover NoBloatBox and the tweaker ThisIsNot11.

The main idea behind Crapfixer is to create a simple tool that gives users control over popular tweaks. These tweaks improve privacy, remove features, or even applications that come preinstalled with the operating system.

With Crapfixer, it is as easy as it gets. Run the program with elevated rights after you have downloaded its 150 kilobyte executable. Windows may throw a SmartScreen warning, which is displayed because the app is new and relatively unknown, not because it is malicious.

The app displays all available tweaks in a sidebar on the left. Hit the analyze button to check if tweaks are already applied. You can uncheck some of the tweaks so that they are not checked by the tool.

Recommended tweaks are marked in red and you may apply them all at once with a click on the CFixer button. It is recommended that you check them first to avoid that a feature is changed or removed that you require.

As far as tweaks are concerned, you find the usual assortment of tweaks supported by the application. From disabling the “First run experience” over “showing full context menus in Windows 11” to disabling Power Throttling and Game DVR.

While the tweaker does not support as many tweaks as WinAero Tweaker, which many consider the richest when it comes to tweaking Windows, it does support major tweaks that you come to expect from an app of its kind. Even new AI tweaks, such as turning off Recall in Windows 11, are supported.

The application is easy to use and the description displayed for each tweak is sufficient in most cases. You can press F1 after selecting a tweak, or right-click and select Help, to display more information. This is usually just a sentence though and may not be enough sometimes to determine its use or usefulness.

CrapFixer features a restore button, which restores functionality. All in all, it is a good tweaker for Windows, but not that special when compared to Belim’s other tools or popular tweakers by other developers. If you have not used a tweaker yet, this could be it. Anyone else may not find much use anymore in that tool.

Microsoft has released out-of-band updates for Windows shortly after it released the cumulative security updates for Windows earlier this week.

These new updates are available for Windows 11, version 23H2 and 22H2, as well as several Enterprise and server versions of Windows.

Good to know: out-of-band updates are usually released to fix pressing issues. Most need to be downloaded and installed manually, as the issue may not affect all installations.

The updates affect a logon auditing issue in Windows. Since logon auditing is usually not configured on home systems or unmanaged systems, it is an issue that affects Enterprise devices mostly.

Here is Microsoft’s description of the issue:

It addresses a known issue where Audit Logon/Logoff events in the local policy of the Active Directory Group Policy might not show as enabled on the device even if they are enabled and working as expected. This can be observed in the Local Group Policy Editor or Local Security Policy, where local audit policies show the “Audit logon events” policy with Security Setting of “No auditing”.

To sum it up: this is a reporting issue only that does not impact functionality.

The patch can be installed on affected systems to resolve the issue. The vast majority of home users does not need the patch.

Here are the links to the support articles:

• Windows 10, version 23H2 and 22H2: KB5058919
• Windows Server 2022: KB5058920
• Windows 10, version 20H2, and Windows Server, version 20H2: KB505892
• Windows 10, version 1809 and Windows Server, version 1909: KB5058922

Click on the link to the Microsoft Update Catalog website on the linked support websites to download the patch. It needs to be installed manually after download. This is usually done by double-clicking on the downloaded patch file and following the instructions that appear on screen.

While it is generally recommended to install Windows security updates, there are situations that make you want to postpone the installation. Maybe it is because of another faulty update that Microsoft released, a bug that you already experienced after an update was installed on your system, or just the desire to keep the PC running for a long period without forced update reboots.

Quite a few solutions exist that let you toggle the functionality using applications or scripts. Sordum’s Windows Update Blocker is just one program that you may use for the purpose.

And now there is also Pause Windows Updates. It is a tiny open source script that you may run on your Windows PC to pause updates.

Here is how it works: run the script after you have downloaded it and accept the security prompt to get a simple interface. There you may press keys on the keyboard to run corresponding actions. There are:

• (1) Disable Updates
• (2) Enable Updates
• (3) Disable Microsoft Telemetry
• (4) Remove Update Files
• (5) Manage Update Service

Press the h-key to get information about each of the actions. When you select the disable option, all update downloading and installing is halted. This includes updates that are in the process of being downloaded to the system.

Any update that has not been installed fully at this point needs to be downloaded in its entirety again once you enable updates on the system.

Since it is a script, you may review it before you run it on your system. Just load it in a plain text editor like Notepad to do so.

Closing Words

Pause Windows Update is an easy to use option to block updates on Windows machines temporarily. Most users probably won’t need the script or similar apps ever, but there are situations where it may come in handy.

Now You: how do you handle updates on your Windows PCs? Do you let them install automatically or prefer manual control over updates? Any tools you use? Feel free to leave a comment down below. (via Deskmodder)

If you’d ask me to name the most annoying feature of Windows 11’s Start menu, I’d probably pick the Recommended section. Here specifically the inability to remove it from the Start menu.

While you can configure Windows to stop giving recommendations, you cannot remove the then-blank section from the Start menu. That is, until now.

The Sherlock Holmes of Windows, Phantom of Earth, discovered that Microsoft has had a change of heart in the latest Windows 11 Insider build.

The hidden feature introduces major changes to the operating system’s start menu, including the ability to remove the recommended section.

Here is his post on X that highlights the change.

Hidden in today's Dev/Beta CUs: a major update to the Windows 11 Start menu! It has a new, larger layout with everything on one scrollable page, with the "All" list below recommendations – which can FINALLY be turned off! Pinned list is now limited to 2 rows, but can be expanded. pic.twitter.com/JkP3V2I5g6

— phantomofearth 🌳 (@phantomofearth) April 3, 2025

Here is how this works:

1. Open the Settings on the system.
2. Switch to the Start category.
3. Disable “Show recently added apps”.

Disabling the option will remove the entire Recommended section of the Start menu, including the header that could not be removed previously.

Here is why this is important. Up until now, Recommended would take up space in the Start menu, even if you did not use it. You could not use the space to display more pinned apps, which some users might prefer.

Phantom of Earth notes that there is another feature available now that complements the change. You may now choose to display “all pins by default”. You had to click on the All button up until now to display them all. The change places these icons in the area of the recommended section.

Closing Words

It is rare these days that I applaud Microsoft for the changes that it makes to the Windows operating system, but this one, albeit years too late, is a welcome addition.

Considering that it is currently only available in Insider builds, it may take a while before it lands in Stable. And yes, there is always the chance that a feature gets pulled again. Let us hope that this is not one of those cases.

Now You: do you use the Windows start menu or do you prefer to use a replacement?

When Microsoft launched its Edge web browser, it used Windows to quickly push the usage share of the browser. One of Microsoft’s ways of doing so was to create artificial protocols in Windows that would open only in Edge.

Clicks on web searches in Start or news would always open in Edge, even if the browser was not the default browser on Windows.

The small tool MSEdgeRedirect was created to address this. The main idea was to redirect requests that Windows would push towards Edge to another browser.

There have not been any updates for over a year, but a new update just hit. Good news for users of the project, as it is improving the redirector in several ways.

Note: The open source program is still a beta officially. While it works well, you may run into bugs or issues using it. Also, Microsoft may change things and that may break functionality.

So, here is what is new in MSEdgeRedirect 0.8.0.0:

• The minimum supported system is now Windows 10. Windows 8 is no longer supported.
• Fixed Windows Spotlight, PDF file handling, some UWP apps no longer working in Service Mode.
• New AI-less Google Search results option.
• Improved news handler.
• Adds support for –from-ie-to-edge and bing.com/WS/redirect.
• Adds passthroughs for –user-data-dir and –win-session-start.

The update is a bug fix update for the most part that fixes some existing issues. If you use the tool already, you should upgrade to the latest version. That is, unless you still run Windows 8.1, as this is no longer supported. Oh, and Europe mode is still a thing, why not give it a try.

All in all, it is good to see that the project has not been discontinued.

Now You: do you use MSEdgeRedirect or have used the app in the past?

If you have used Windows long enough, you have probably come into contact with Startup Repair at one point. The feature aims to resolve issues that prevent the operating system from starting up. It is a hit and miss kind of feature for many users though, as it relies solely on local files. All in all, it is not overly reliable.

Quick Machine Recovery extends the functionality to the cloud and Windows Update. The main idea is to improve recovery of Windows systems when boot issues are encountered. Designed primarily for administrators who manage multiple devices, Quick Machine Recovery adds cloud files and data to the recovery process.

The new feature uses a Windows Recovery Environment to “scan Windows Update for remediation options” according to Microsoft. The company says that this “allows devices to be recovered without requiring manual intervention”.

Quick Machine Recovery supports two recovery options:

• Cloud remediation.
• Auto remediation.

Cloud remediation

The feature uses Windows Update to fix issues experienced on the device. It requires an Internet connection and may download data from Windows Update to correct issues. If the feature is not enabled, Windows will use the local-only Startup Repair feature instead to attempt to fix the problem.

Auto remediation

This automates the problem solving. Windows will connect to Windows Update automatically to try and fix the issue. It will retry to correct the issue several times automatically.

The Quick Machine Recovery process

Five steps make up the remediation process:

1. Device crashes or fails to boot.
2. Boot into recovery to start the Quick Machine Recovery process.
3. Establish a network connection to scan Windows Update for fixes.
4. Remediation, which attempts to apply fixes found by downloading data from Windows Update.
5. Reboot to either boot into Windows, if a fix was applied successfully, or to restart the process from step 2.

Default configuration

The default configuration depends on the Windows edition:

• Windows Home: cloud remediation is enabled by default, auto remediation is disabled by default.
• Windows Pro, Enterprise: both remediations are disabled by default.

Administrators find instructions on Microsoft’s Learn website that explain how to enable or disable the feature.

Closing Words

Tests will show how well the cloud-based recovery feature will perform. For now, it is only available in test versions of Windows 11.

Now You: what is your take on this new recovery feature? Do you think it will work better than the local-only Startup Repair?

Just a few days ago, Microsoft released the cumulative security updates for Windows 10 and 11 to the public. The company did not confirm any new issues at the time, but that has changed now.

A new issue has been confirmed that is affecting all supported client versions of Windows.

The details:

• Windows 10, version 22H2 and Windows 11, versions 22H2, 23H2, and 24H2 are affected.
• The bug uninstalls the Copilot app from the operating systems.
• The Copilot icon is removed from the taskbar in the process as well.

Microsoft confirms furthermore that only the native Copilot app for Windows is affected. In other words, Microsoft 365 Copilot remains unaffected by the issue and won’t be uninstalled.

Microsoft writes:

We’re aware of an issue with the Microsoft Copilot app affecting some devices. The app is unintentionally uninstalled and unpinned from the taskbar.

Note: This issue has not been observed with the Microsoft 365 Copilot app.

It is unclear how widespread the issue is.

Workaround: affected users are asked to reinstall the Microsoft Copilot application from the Microsoft Store and pin it manually to the taskbar to restore the functionality.

Here are the links to the support articles and the KB IDs.

• Windows 11, version 24H2 — KB5053598
• Windows 11, version 23H2 / 22H2 — KB5053602
• Windows 10, version 22H2 — KB5053606

Not all Windows users may be unhappy about this new bug. Granted, it is easy enough to remove Copilot from the system or hide it at least.

If you do not want to do it manually, you could give helper apps like O&O AppBuster or NoBloatBox a try.

Now it is your turn. Have you tried any of the Copilot apps on Windows ever since it was pushed onto systems by Microsoft?

One of the new features of Windows 11 was the recommendations section of the start menu. Windows displays recently added programs or opened files in the section.

Microsoft likes it that much, that it made it a mandatory feature. You can reduce the number of recommendations or even display none at all, but you can’t remove the entire section to make room for more pinned items and other useful things.

Note: third-party programs or Start menu replacement apps do away with this, but that is another story.

The latest Windows 11 Insider preview build adds another recommendations section to the operating system. It is not really a new feature, considering that Microsoft tested it in the year 2023 already. It does come with a new design though.

File Explorer: Recommendations

This time, it is File Explorer that is going to show a recommended section when you launch it or display the home section.

Here is how Microsoft describes the feature:

These files will provide you quick access to relevant files based on your activity in the Recommended section which is displayed as a carousel with thumbnail previews. This includes content such as files you frequently use, have recently downloaded, or added to your File Explorer Gallery.

It is interesting to note that Home is already showing recently used files on the very page. Even Microsoft’s screenshot shows the same file under recommended and recent.

The new section is displayed only for users who sign-in with a personal Microsoft account or a local account. Users from the European Economic Area do not get the feature at this point.

It is unclear at this point whether this section will also be mandatory, or if users may disable it. There is an option to collapse it.

Registry hacks exist to remove the entire Home section in File Explorer. This could be another option for users who do not really need the recommendations there.

What is your take on these recommendations? Is it a useful feature that you would like to use? Or do you prefer to hide these whenever possible?