Where to start with Windows 11

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we look at the new features on offer from Microsoft’s new version of its flagship operating system, Windows 11. Our latest buyer’s guide examines the trends in secure, agile app development. And we find out what you need to consider when buying a VPN. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

A very useful and previously unknown Windows tip was revealed this week, where you can halt process jumping in Task Manager by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard, allowing easier access to a listed process.

The Windows Task Manager is one of the most useful built-in tools for managing your system, allowing you to terminate unresponsive applications and see what processes are using too much CPU, memory, and other resources.

However, when you sort by resources, like CPU utilization, and have many running processes, you will find that the processes jump around in the list due to constantly changing processor utilization.

This process jumping can make it hard to select a process or see a snapshot in time. time.

This week, Microsoft Windows Program Manager Jen Gentleman shared a helpful tip on X (Twitter), saying that you can press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard to temporarily freeze the task manager refresh so you can better see what resources a process is using.

To let the process list auto-refresh again, simply release the Ctrl key.

Yesterday, Microsoft developer Dave Plummer shared that he was behind this useful feature, coding it so you can select processes that are jumping around.

"Someone finally noticed that if you hold down CTRL, the process list in Task Manager conveniently freezes so you can select rows without them jumping around," Plummer posted on X.

"I did this so you could sort by CPU and other dynamic columns but then still be able to click stuff..."

While it's possible to control the Task Manager refresh speed in the tool's settings, it is not nearly as helpful as you can only pause the refresh entirely or set the refresh speed (Low, Normal, High).

However, with this new method, you can run the refresh speed on 'High' and then pause it as needed using the Ctrl key method.

BleepingComputer has tested this Task Manager tip and can confirm it works on Windows 7, Windows 10, and Windows 11.

Microsoft recently released a new Canary build of Windows 11, which allows users to remove more built-in apps than what was previously allowed. When a user first boots into Windows 11 on a new machine, or clean installs Windows 11 on their system, a lot of built-in apps are present. These include apps like Camera, Cortana, OneDrive, Photos, People, and many others. With the latest insider build, Microsoft has loosened the rules and allows users to uninstall more of these built-in apps.

Uninstall Built-in Microsoft Apps for a Bloatware-Free Experience

With this new update, users can finally uninstall more built-in apps than ever before. This is excellent news because many do not end up using these built-in apps at all. In such a situation, these apps become “bloatware” and sometimes silently run in the background, sipping on your precious computational resources.

For some users, uninstalling the built-in apps means more storage space. Even though they don’t take up a meaningful amount of storage, some people have limited space on their operating system drive and want to uninstall as many apps as possible. Regardless, removing these built-in apps will make the Windows 11 experience more bloat-free.

Personally speaking, I never use apps such as Photos, Cortana, People, or the Remote Desktop app. Currently, most users won’t be able to uninstall these apps on the current Windows 11 build. Once the changes on the insider preview make their way to the stable Windows 11 build, people will finally get the option to uninstall these system apps.

Until then, read our dedicated guide on how to speed up your Windows 11 experience. It also includes steps on how to debloat your PC with certain third-party apps, if that is something that you are into. What are your thoughts on this new change in Windows? Let us know in the comments below.

IBM has announced a collaboration with software giant Microsoft. The partnership will focus on integrating and scaling the powerful capabilities of Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft’s robust and fully managed AI platform.

The move will equip businesses to innovate and optimize processes via carefully curated AI applications.

IBM will intensify its collaboration with Microsoft and dedicate resources to help clients implement Azure OpenAI Service on a wider scale. Furthermore, a newly introduced offering available on the Azure Marketplace will extend the reach and power of generative AI in business applications and processes.

The addition is aimed at helping businesses identify potential benefits, formulate an adoption strategy, and target generative AI use cases that can add substantial value to their core operations.

IBM and Microsoft have unified their expertise and experience around AI to devise potential solutions that specifically address business pain points:

• Procurement and sourcing automation: The combination of Microsoft Power Platform and Azure OpenAI Service provides a solution to automate complex sourcing and procurement processes, providing actionable supply chain insights.
• Content generation and summarization: Financial institutions can leverage generative AI to automate the creation of personalized content for customers.
• Streamlining Healthcare procedures: IBM Consulting uses Azure OpenAI Service to reengineer the process of ingesting and analyzing complex medical records and policy documents.
• Enterprise search and knowledge base: IBM Consulting and Microsoft collaborated to develop a knowledge extraction tool to simplify search and data retrieval across dispersed organizational data banks.

“The collaboration between IBM and Microsoft is a testament to our commitment to an open ecosystem model that amplifies the value to our clients,” said Francesco Brenna, Global VP & Senior Partner, Microsoft Practice at IBM Consulting. “This collaboration makes it possible for clients to responsibly scale generative AI across their businesses.”

Expressing enthusiasm about this venture, Dinis Couto, GM Global Partner Solutions, Microsoft, noted, “Together, Microsoft and IBM are collaborating to deliver innovative solutions, that will help customers responsibly accelerate deployment of generative AI. As a leader in the delivery of generative AI and data solutions, we believe that partners like IBM are critical to enabling customers’ successful use of generative AI to advance business transformation.”

Notably, the partnership builds on both companies’ intent to revolutionize businesses, leveraging AI and data solutions to fuel progress and productivity. Let us know your view on this in the comments section below.

Via PR News Wire

Bing Chat Enterprise is being introduced in preview to provide AI-powered chat capabilities for educators, staff, and researchers. This tool aims to help them save time, access better answers, and focus on more meaningful tasks.

Microsoft 365 A3 and A5 faculty users can enable Bing Chat Enterprise through their accounts. If not opted out, Microsoft will enable it by default for eligible users after a certain date.

Here are some use cases:

1. Draft Content: Bing Chat Enterprise can help educators create lesson plans and assignments by providing detailed information on specific topics, including learning objectives, materials, and activities.
2. Personalize Learning: Bing Chat Enterprise helps educators generate personalized practicing materials for students of different levels by providing content tailored to specific Lexile practicing levels.
3. Brainstorming: Teachers can use AI-powered chat to develop creative ideas for projects, assignments, or classroom activities. They can request unique project ideas related to their subject, which can help plan engaging lessons.
4. Summarize PDFs: Bing Chat Enterprise can assist in summarizing complex research papers or documents. Educators can ask the AI to recap the findings of a specific research paper and provide recommendations and challenges mentioned in the paper.
5. Improve Efficiency: The AI can be an expert consultant for various tasks. For example, educators can seek help reviewing and optimizing school schedules, identifying problems, and suggesting changes to provide more planning time for teachers.

With all this, Search Progress for Teams for Education was also announced. It is a tool that provides real-time coaching to students during online research, helping them develop effective search queries and identify credible resources.

Google has worked with Cameyo to provide enterprise Chromebooks another way to run Windows applications using ChromeOS Virtual App Delivery.

Cameyo is an enterprise company that offers a “Virtual App Delivery” (VAD) platform that can stream Windows, Linux, internal web, and SaaS applications to other devices. This offering is now getting tight integration with ChromeOS.

These Windows apps appear like other icons in a Chromebook’s launcher and taskbar. Behind the scenes, they are PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) that aim to blur their streamed nature with native file system integration. This includes letting users access local files and folders from within the virtual instances. Similarly, integration with the ChromeOS Clipboard Connector allows for local copy and paste.

When a user opens a specific file type, Cameyo makes it so that the appropriate virtual app launches.

These virtual apps can be streamed from the cloud or on-premises data centers. Compared to full virtual desktop apps, this approach is said to “eliminate the infrastructure and licensing complexity.”

On the security front: “apps and devices are isolated from network resources and segmented by default so that users only access the apps and data they need to get their jobs done, all while eliminating the need to expose firewall and server ports to the open internet.”

ChromeOS Virtual App Delivery with Cameyo is available today as an enterprise offering. There is no consumer equivalent.

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