Tech News Weekly: Issue 24
News
My book is currently getting its layout. Once that is done, I’ll make it available to supporters of this site for free. I expect it to be ready next week, fingers crossed.
Operating Systems
Setting up a Home or Pro Windows 11 device without Microsoft account is not an easy task for most users. Microsoft removed the visible option from the out-of-box experience dialog. There are still options, and the best, right now, is to use no@thankyou.com as the username and any password as the password. This breaks the Microsoft account setup and enables the option to create a local password on the device.
Speaking of which, Microsoft confirmed this week that it will release a feature update for Windows 11 later this year. There will be one feature update each year, around October, and several Moments update, which introduce smaller sets of features.
Microsoft is also working on a Recommended section in File Explorer, but only for users with an Azure Active Directory (AAD) account. The recommended files highlight new comments, edits or schedules.
Windows 11 users who have troubles removing apps and programs from the device, may check out my tutorial about this.
Microsoft announced a new Canary Insider channel for Windows 11. Basically, what Microsoft did is split the Dev channel into two channels. First, the new Canary channel, in which future changes are tested for the most part, and then what remains of the Dev channel, which gets features which will make it into Beta, Release Preview and then Windows 11 Stable.
Microsoft released security updates for all client and server versions of Windows that it supports yesterday. All have critically rated issues. As always, create a backup before updating Windows to avoid any issues and a world of troubles.
One the patches addresses an issue that is exploited in the wild. It is a security bypass that bypasses SmartScreen security on Windows. You can check out my full overview here.
Mobile
Microsoft plans to add multi-factor authentication support to its Outlook app for Android and iOS. It is only for Microsoft 365 authentication, and the main idea behind it, likely, is that Outlook is installed on more devices already than the company’s Microsoft Authenticator app.
Android 14, which Google plans to release later this year, will prevent apps from killing background apps. Many “speed boosting apps” use the technique to free up RAM, but this will be a thing of the past in Android 14.
Google patched several critical issues in the Android March 2023 security update. Should already be out on select devices, and many more soon.
Browser
I have published a list of ten good extensions for Firefox this week on Ghacks. Everyone has different favorites, but the ten listed add-ons are highly popular and well worth a closer look.
Google updates its Chrome web browser stable this week. The company fixed 40 different security issues in Google Chrome 111.
Microsoft Edge has a new Super Video Resolution feature that promises to improve the quality of low resolution videos. It requires a fairly potent video card, ATI and NVIDIA supported.
Firefox 111 was released on Tuesday. The new version of Mozilla’s open source browser fixes security issues and introduces support for native notifications on Windows 10 and 11 devices.
Firefox for Android comes with Total Cookie Protection now. The feature is designed to improve user privacy by blocking cross-site tracking using cookies. Firefox users need to use the Strict Tracking Protection mode to make use of it.
Microsoft Edge 111.0.1661.41 was released this week. It features the “new Microsoft Edge sidebar” and, at least for some users, a very annoying new on-hover action of the Bing icon. When you hover over the Bing icon in the Microsoft Edge toolbar, it is automatically showing the sidebar.
There is no option in Edge to turn the hover effect off. It is possible to configure a policy to remove the Bing icon; this will disable the sidebar entirely, however.
Privacy and Security
NordVPN open sourced some of its components this week.
Software Updates
Microsoft added a Paste Text Only shortcut to Word Insider. The shortcut Ctrl-Shift-V will paste text only in Word, once the feature lands in the stable version. It works in Word for Mac and Windows, but there is a caveat: these are only available in Microsoft 365 Home and Business Standard at the time.
Gaming
Microsoft enabled Virtualization Based Security recently on Windows 10, and it seems that the feature is dragging down game performance by up to 10%. Tom’s Hardware did a round of testing on a powerful Windows 11 device and concluded that the security feature was impacting performance significantly.
Google announced today that it is expanding Google Play Games on PC to more regions, including Japan and “countries in Europe” in the next couple of months. It is also making it easier to join Google Play Games on PC through a partnership with Intel.
Other
Google announced this week that all paying Google One customers in certain regions will get access to the Google VPN in the coming weeks. Regions include the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and many more.
Meta plans to let go another 10,000 employees, according to a new post on the official Facebook website.
Everybody seems to start adding AI to their products, rather frantically, fearing that they miss out on the next big thing. Just two examples. Khan Academy added GPT-4 as a virtual tutor and classroom assistant for teachers to its, admittedly, incredible learning resource.
Language learning service Duolingo launched Duolingo Max, a “learning experienced powered by GPT-4”. It adds two new features, “explain my answer” and “roleplay” to the service.
Article(s)
The second Moments update is here
Microsoft releases the second Moments update for Windows 11 on March 14, 2023. It is the second update that introduces new features to Windows 11 after the release of the first feature update for Windows 11, called Windows 11 version 22H2 or Windows 11 2022 Update.
I listed the features in issue 22 in detail, and do not want to rehash these. Notable additions are tabs for Notepad, the first third-party widgets, Braille improvements, new Phone Link capabilities, and a handful of other features, including AI recommendations in Start for Azure Active Directory joined machines.
The update was released as a preview in February by Microsoft, but it will be pushed to all non-managed Windows 11 devices starting March 14, 2023. Most home users may not mind these new features, but at least some users and administrators may prefer to block the feature additions and postpone them until the next feature update for Windows 11 is installed later this year.
Can this Moments update be blocked, without blocking all future cumulative updates for Windows 11? The answer is yes. On managed devices, nothing needs to be done, as these feature updates are not enabled by default.
On unmanaged devices, Windows 11 administrators need to configure a policy or set a Registry key (on Windows 11 Home). Michael Niehaus posted the details. He notes that the update KB5022913 introduced the updated GPO setting on Windows 11, which makes it a requirement.
Group Policy: Go to Windows Components > Windows Update > Manage end user experience > Enable features introduced via servicing that are off by default
Set this policy to Disabled, to block the installation of (most) features introduced in Moments updates on Windows 11. Even Niehaus admits that he does not know whether the policy will also prevent updates via the Microsoft Store. App updates, like Notepad’s new tab functionality, are released via Microsoft Store.
Configuration Service Provider policy: /Policy/Config/Update/AllowTemporaryEnterpriseFeatureControl
The corresponding Registry key: HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
Set AllowTemporaryEnterpriseFeatureControl to 0.
This prevents most feature additions from being installed outside of major feature update releases, which continue to happen once a year.
How to install Windows on a USB Flash Drive
Windows installations benefit from fast hard drives, and installing Windows on USB Flash Drives may sound counter-intuitive on first glance. While it is true that dedicated hard drives, especially Solid State Drives, are better suited for running Windows, USB Flash drive Windows installations offer some features that these dedicated installations don’t.
Installation on a USB drive makes the Windows installation portable. You can connect it to different PCs and use it on these, provided that booting from USB is supported. One downside is that this works best with PCs that have the same hardware. This solution has other benefits; it can be used to boot a copy of Windows on a PC it was created on, even if the main hard drive is no longer available.
FlashBoot is a free and commercial program for Windows that serves a number of purposes:
Clone Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11 Windows installations on a USB drive. It can be run independently, but also be used to restore the OS on the main PC.
Easier installation of older versions of Windows, Windows 7 in particular, on modern AMD and Intel platforms.
The free version of FlashBoot, called FlashBoot Free, has a few limitations. It supports the installation of Windows 8.1 or newer on USB drives, and may also be used to prepare USB drives for the installation of Windows to internal hard drives or Solid State Drives.
The free version supports a handful of other features, including securely wiping data on USB devices, saving the USB drive to an image file or restoring images, and installing DOS.
The commercial version, Called FlashBoot Pro is available for a one-time payment of USD $29.95. It features the option to create installable clones of existing Windows installations (with optional driver integration and improved preparation of installation media.
Using FlashBoot is an easy process. You do need access to a USB Flash Drive. Just select the desired action after launching FlashBoot on a Windows system and follow the on-screen wizard. The user guide is available here.
FlashBoot is a handy tool; it is updated regularly, and the developers have honored the lifetime license since the launch of the tool in 2005.
Links
If you like history, then you may love the Real Time History channel. Excellent high quality videos in an interesting format.