Tag: windows 11

Microsoft introduced the Settings app in 2015 as a replacement for the Control Panel. The Control Panel is still available, but Microsoft moved some of its features to Settings in the years that followed.

A recent addition is the Settings Home page. It is the new start page of the Settings app and lists a number of custom information and options to the user.

Apart from the name of the device and the Internet connection status, it also lists Windows Update information, recommended settings, personalization options and options linked to a Microsoft account.

Not all users need the homepage. Those who prefer to use the Settings app without it can hide in using two different methods. This restores the classic Windows 11 Settings startpage, which is System.

The first makes the change in the Group Policy Editor. Please note that this tool is only available in Pro, Education, Enterprise and Workstation editions of Windows 11. In other words, in all Windows 11 editions except for Windows 11 Home.

Microsoft launched Windows 11 version 23H2 and the Moment 4 update for Windows 11 recently.

Hide the Settings Home page in Windows 11 using the Group Policy Editor

The Group Policy Editor is a widely used tool to configure the operating system for specific or all users. It includes a policy to hide pages in Settings.

Note: it is recommended to back up the PC before you edit the Registry. You should not run into any issues if you follow the guide exactly, but backups are a good precaution nevertheless.

Here is a step-by-step guide to hide the homepage in Settings:

1. Open the Start Menu, type gpedit.msc and select Edit Group Policy from the search results. This opens the Group Policy Editor.
2. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel.
3. Double-click on Settings Page Visibility to display the configuration window for that policy.
4. Set the status to Enabled.
5. Type hide:home in the Settings Page Visibility box.
6. Select OK to apply the change.
7. Restart the PC.

The home link is no longer visible in Settings after the restart. Windows 11 opens the System page in Settings from now on.

Remove the Home page in Settings using the Registry

Every Group Policy setting is matched in the Registry. Home administrators may make the same configuration change in the Registry to hide the Settings home page.

1. Open the Start Menu, type Regedit and select the Registry Editor result.
2. Confirm the UAC security prompt.
3. Paste the following URL into the address field in Registry Editor: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
4. Right-click on Explorer (left sidebar) and select New > String Value.
5. Name it SettingsPageVisibility.
6. Double-click on the new entry and type hide:home.
7. Select OK to apply the change.
8. Close the Registry Editor and restart the PC.

Closing Words

Windows 11 users who prefer the classic experience may use the instructions above to restore it. Those who don’t mind or prefer the new Settings home don’t have to do anything, as this is the new default experience.

Now You: home or not, what is your take on the new homepage?

Optional Windows Updates fly under the radar on many Home systems. They come as different types. The most common is the monthly non-security preview update for Windows 10 and Windows 11.

There are other optional updates, e.g., bug fixes, other non-security updates and also improvements.

Up until recently, administrators had to search for optional updates manually on Windows to install them. This changed with the introduction of a new setting in Windows Updates.

Administrators who open Settings > Windows Update on Windows 11 see the “Get updates as soon as they’re available” option there. The same option is also available on Windows 10.

Microsoft explains on this Help page that the setting allows users to get “the latest non-security and feature updates as soon as they become available”. The caveat; Microsoft says that this only applies if the update becomes available for the device.

In other words: while it ensures that the update is installed when it becomes available, it still leaves it to Microsoft when that happens.

The following happens when the functionality is enabled in Settings. The device “will be among the first to get the latest non-security updates, fixes, improvements, and enhancements” says Microsoft. The setting does not affect security updates, which will still be pushed to devices, even if set to Off.

The “check for updates” button of Windows Updates also downloads and installs the most recent updates for the device.

The Group Policy gives administrators more control over the functionality.

Optional Windows Updates Group Policy configuration

Administrators may use the Enable Optional Updates policy to control the installation of these updates on managed devices.

1. Open the Start Menu, type gpedit.msc and select the Edit Group Policy from the results. This launches the program.
2. Navigate to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates >B Windows Components > Windows Update > Manage updates offered from Windows Update > Enable optional updates.
3. Set the policy to Enabled to configure the delivery of optional options. Set it to Disabled to turn off the optional updates delivery on the device.

A menu lists the three configuration options when Enabled is selected.

• Automatically receive optional updates (including CFRs) — This installs the latest optional updates on the device. It includes Controlled Feature Rollouts and optional cumulative updates.
• Automatically receive optional updates — Same as above, but without Controlled Feature Rollouts.
• User scan select which optional updates to receive — The user is in control via Windows Updates in Settings.

Notes on optional updates and their delivery

At least some optional updates need to be considered beta. This is true for the optional non-security updates that Microsoft releases about two weeks before their inclusion in the regular cumulative updates for the operating system.

Most Windows users may want to skip the installation of optional updates, especially on production machines.

It is also a good idea to create backups regularly, not Windows Backup though, as it doesn’t include all data. Windows includes some restoration functionality, but it has failed for some users in the past.

Closing Words

Administrators may want to disable Optional Windows Updates on most managed devices to limit potential issues that could arise from the installation. Home users may also want to block these for the most part. There is still the option to activate the “check for updates” button, if you read about a new update that you want to install.

Now You: how do you handle optional updates?

Microsoft released security updates for all supported client versions of Windows yesterday. Only three non-Enterprise versions are supported right now: Windows 10 version 22H2, Windows 11 version 22H2 and the new Windows 11 version 23H2.

A quick check of KB5032190, the update for both Windows 11 versions, reveals, that it includes the Moment 4 features. Microsoft lists Copilot, Windows Spotlight, security and graphics changes on the support page.

If you follow releases of Microsoft updates, you may wonder why Microsoft highlights the update again here. Did not Microsoft release the Moment 4 update already in October 2023?

The chronology of the Moment 4 update for Windows 11

Microsoft announced in September 2023 that it would launch the Moment 4 update for Windows 11 on September 26, 2023. This was the first release of the update for the operating system.

At the time, it was part of the September 2023 preview update for Windows 11. Only users who installed the update manually or configured their devices to install optional updates automatically received it at the time.

Then came the October 2023 Patch Day update. Microsoft used the cumulative update for Windows 11 to deliver the Moment 4 update to Windows 11 devices.

The release of the preview update of the November 2023 security update included the Moment 4 update again.

Yesterday’s release of the November 2023 update for Windows 11 listed the features of the Moment 4 update again on the release notes page.

One has to wonder why the update is highlighted this often by Microsoft.

An explanation attempt

Microsoft did not post a news article or comment on this specifically. Clearly, most would have expected two announcements about the Moment 4 update integration in Windows 11.

First about the integration of the update in the preview update for the operating system, and second about the full integration for all users.

The repeat performance is puzzling. Martin Geuß over at the German site Dr. Windows suggests that it has something to do with Microsoft’s staged rollout approach to updates.

Many features are not enabled for all users at the same time. Microsoft controls features on the server side. It is an explanation that makes sense. Microsoft did not enable Moment 4 on all devices when it released the update in October 2023.

We don’t even know if the November 2023 announcement is the final one for the update.

This topic may not be of interest to average users of Windows. They don’t follow Microsoft announcements or have an interest in updates most of the time, unless they go wrong.

Users and admins interested in new features and when these features are introduced on their devices are, however. Many want to play around with features early or know exactly when something becomes available.

Microsoft’s recent approach to staged rollouts of features makes this nearly impossible.

Now You: what is your take on this development?

Microsoft added support for creating and extracting ZIP archives into its Windows operating system. The Moment 4 update and the Windows 11 version 23H2 update introduced support for extracting additional formats, including RAR, TAR and 7Z.

The archive functionality is certainly a useful feature. Right-click on an archive and select the extract option to decompress it right away. Third-party tools are no longer required.

You may also right-click on files to create ZIP archives out of the selection. It is a handy feature, especially for users who encounter ZIP only occasionally.

Experienced users may have noticed that the implementation is basic. It lacks support for advanced features, especially on the creation side. You can’t create password protected archives, change the compression level or add comments to archives. All of this continues to require dedicated archive apps such as WinRAR, 7-Zip or PeaZip.

A comparison of the time that it takes to extract archives shows, furthermore, that the built-in feature is slower in most cases.

Windows 11: native archive extraction tests

I ran several benchmarking tests to find out if Windows 11’s native archive extraction feature is slower than that of third-party apps.

I ran all extraction jobs 5 times and used the average for the comparison. The first file was an 18.6 gigabyte ZIP archive with 1205 files.

It took Windows 11’s native feature an average of 6.28 minutes to extract the contents of the file on a 2019 idle PC.

WinRAR, which focuses primarily on its own format RAR, extracted the archive on average in 3.51 minutes, which is is more than a third faster.

The open source tool 7-Zip extracted the archive’s content on average in 3.15 minutes, which is almost half the time it took Windows 11’s native implementation to extract the archive.

What about the extraction of RAR archives? I used WinRAR to create a RAR archive out of the extracted ZIP archive and ran the same test again to see how the performance is. The RAR archive had a size of 18.8 GB and the same number of included files.

It took Windows 11’s native RAR extraction feature an average of 5.39 minutes to extract the archive to the system.

WinRAR extracted the same RAR archive in 2.54 minutes on average. 7-Zip was just a few seconds slower, as it took an average of 3.05 minutes to decompress the RAR archive.

Windows 11: compressing ZIP archives comparison

Current stable versions of Windows 11 support the creation of ZIP archives only. This changes in the future.

This time, I picked a a folder with 5307 files and a total size of 2.41 gigabytes . The native ZIP creation feature of Windows 11 created the ZIP archive in 2.29 minutes on average. WinRAR managed to create the archive in 1.28 minutes. 7-Zip flew through the creation of the archive. It took an average of 45 seconds to create it. Both apps have a different native format.

Closing Words

The native integration of support for extracting archive formats and creating some archives is a useful addition to Windows. While that is the case, it is clear that the implementation is not up-to-par with dedicated software.

Users who extract or create archives regularly may want to use third-party solutions for that. It is likely that most of them are faster than the native implementation.

Now You: do you use third-party software to create and extract archives?

Microsoft is working on adding support for creating 7-zip and Tar archives in Windows 11. The feature is in testing in the latest Canary build of Windows 11.

Microsoft expanded support for different archive types in its Windows 11 operating system in 2023. Previously, Windows users could only extract ZIP archives or compress files using Zip.

An update added extract support for formats such as Rar, Tar or 7z, but not support for creating archives other than Zip. The Moment 4 update for Windows 11 version 22H2 added several features, including Windows Copilot.

All features were included in the 2023 feature update for Windows 11, Windows 11 version 23H2.

Compressing and unpacking files in Windows 11

It is actually pretty easy to use the functionality. Right-click on a supported archive and you get the option to extract its contents on the device.

A right-click on any file displays the “compress to Zip file” option currently, even if the selection is already an archive.

As is the case with many native Windows features and tools, they are somewhat limited. While you can create archives, you don’t get options to configure advanced options.

There is no option to password protect files, change dictionary sizes, create recovery files or change the compression level. Similarly, extracting files is limited to selecting a target location.

Another issue that users of third-party archivers may have noticed when using the native extraction and compression functionality is that the performance is slower. It takes longer to extract files and also longer to compress them.

This may not be a problem for many Windows 11 users. If you use the functionality once or twice a week, you may not have a problem with its performance.

It is convenient after all that the functionality is baked in.

Creating Tar and 7z archives

The latest Windows 11 Canary build introduces support for creating Tar and 7z archives. Microsoft revealed the new functionality in the official release notes:

[ADDED] We’ve added support for creating 7-zip and TAR archives in addition to ZIP.

Microsoft changed the “Compress to Zip file” in File Explorer to “Compress to”. Selecting this option displays all supported formats: Zip file, 7z file and Tar file.

These work identical. Select the desired format and then wait for Windows to create the archive in the same directory.

Rar support is missing, notably, from the list of supported formats. Microsoft did not mention why it did not add support for the format.

Microsoft uses the open source libarchive for the functionality. This library does not support rar writes, which may explain the absence.

Closing Words

Microsoft is making the handling of archive formats comfortable on Windows 11. Users may now extract lots of formats without installing third-party software. Support for compressing files to 7z and Tar is also a welcome addition.

The functionality won’t keep advanced users from installing and using third-party apps. These offer better functionality and performance. Also, support for formats is still limited in comparison.

Is security a problem? More users may find the option to extract archives, which may tempt malicious actors to spread malware using archive formats.

It is a possibility and it will be interesting to see how Microsoft will react to potential threats.

Now You: native or third-party, how do you like your compression software?