Windows Will Soon Help You Ditch Microsoft Bloatware; Microsoft’s Migration Tool Will Make It Easy to Move to a New PC; Nearly 60% of Older Adults Have Been Scammed… and More!
Every day, we scan the tech world for interesting news, sometimes from outside the tech world. Every Thursday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week’s ‘Thursday Newsbytes’ informative and interesting!
Windows 11 25H2 Will Now Help You Ditch Microsoft’s Own Bloatware Apps
Don’t want the Camera app? It’s gone. Notepad? Ditch it. Xbox? Bye bye.
Windows Insiders testing out the upcoming 25H2 update for Windows 11 have found that it’s letting them remove some of the default applications that Windows 11 ships with. That includes apps like Camera, Notepad, Xbox, Sound Recorder, Terminal, Calculator, and more. For Windows users looking for the ultimate in lean setups, this could be particularly useful.
PC builders are often criticized for the so-called “bloatware” that they ship with: additional applications that provide dubiously useful functions. But those apps are present in Windows, too. For many, even classic apps like Calculator and Notepad are surplus to requirements, and they’d rather just remove them. To date, that hasn’t been possible, but in the future 25H2 update, Microsoft looks set to give Windows users greater control over their Windows experience.
Although there have always been ways to remove some of the default Windows apps that Microsoft wants you to keep on hand, these typically involved complicated registry edits and PowerShell commands. This new process seems much more straightforward: You just navigate to the correct settings page, untick the boxes of the apps you no longer want, and it’ll uninstall them for you…
Microsoft finally makes PC migration a lot easier for Windows 11’s Patch Tuesday
Every second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft publishes what it calls “Patch Tuesday.” It’s a big round of updates for all of Microsoft’s currently supported operating systems, and they can vary wildly in their contents. Sometimes you just get a wave of security tweaks, and sometimes you get whole new features to try out.
If you’re on Windows 11, this Patch Tuesday has a ton of nice features ready for you to try out. My personal favorite is the new PC migration feature we’ve seen crop up in the beta builds finally making its grand debut on the release branch.
On the Windows 11 July 8th patch notes page, Microsoft details what arrived with this update. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like a lot; the highlights section only states that the update has security updates for your security system. However, as is the case with Patch Tuesday, the real meat of the patch is hidden away under the “Improvements” section…
However, my personal favorite addition is this one:
[PC Migration] New! The PC-to-PC migration experience in Windows is starting to roll out. You’ll begin to see the landing and the pairing page in the Windows Backup app, giving you a first look at what’s coming. In the full experience, you’ll be able to transfer files and settings from an old PC to a new one during setup. Support for this feature during PC setup will arrive in a future update…
Nearly 60% of older adults have fallen for cyber scams, report finds
Online scams are evolving quickly, and while younger people often adapt with ease, older adults may not be keeping up.
According to Avast, nearly 60 percent of older loved ones have already fallen victim to cybercrime. Even when younger family members raise the alarm, the message does not always get through. Although 84 percent of adults say they have spoken to older relatives about potentially risky online habits, only 53 percent of those warned have taken the advice seriously and made changes
Avast reports that more than 80 percent of cybercrime stems from scams and social engineering. These attacks rely less on hacking and more on tricking people into handing over money or personal information.
Older adults, who may not be as familiar with common digital warning signs, are especially vulnerable. The issue is not just about awareness, but also about action.
Some older adults dismiss the warnings, while others get confused…
New formatting powers are proving seriously polarizing
Windows 11’s Notepad app has been fleshed out with new formatting powers, and the app is morphing, slowly but surely, to become more like WordPad (the more extensive text editor that Microsoft canned quite some time ago).
Windows Latest reports that it downloaded an update for Notepad from the Microsoft Store which provided the new functionality to a PC running the finished version of Windows 11 (as opposed to test builds, where these features were previously being trialled).
The fresh formatting powers include the ability to add different kinds of headings or subheadings, use italics or bold text, and create numbered or bullet-point lists. It’s also now possible to add hyperlinks to selected text.
Others on Reddit have been sharing their opinions on the introduction of these new lightweight formatting abilities over the past few days, so it seems the rollout is definitely underway.
So how’s the new Notepad being received so far? To say it’s had a mixed reception, going by the reactions on Reddit, is an understatement…
Amazon Resale: Where Amazon Prime Returns Become Your Online Bargains
Amazon Resale products may have some imperfections, but that often leads to wildly discounted prices.
With Amazon Prime Day coming up on July 8, some shoppers are already scouring the site for early Prime Day deals and impatiently waiting to score some savings. The good news is there are tons of ways to save money shopping with Amazon, so you don’t have to wait for the major sales event to shop.
One of the best-kept secrets for year-round savings is Amazon Resale. It’s basically a deal hunter’s paradise for scoring secret savings on smartphones, appliances, laptops and tons of other big-ticket items. The catch? All of it is either used or open box (meaning the product is new, but it’s been taken out of the box).
If you’ve ever bought something new on Amazon only to return it days later because it wasn’t quite what you were looking for, that item likely ended up on Amazon Resale. It’s the online retailer’s one-stop shop for discounted used or open-box items. If you’ve never used Amazon Resale, here’s how the process works and some tips for shopping the platform…
Thanks for reading this week’s Thursday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful.
