In this post I’m going to show how to quickly configure Windows Updates so that you only receive important security updates. We’ll cover Home and Pro/Enterprise users of both Windows 10 and Windows 11. These are also the settings I use myself and recommend for most users. These settings may also be helpful for IT admins. Set Active Hours - Windows 10 By default Active Hours are configured to be automatic but personally I think it’s better to set them manually.

Windows 11 is very similar to Windows 10 is terms of technology and core services, however with the new UI and Start Menu refresh there are some new elements that you may want to remove. Start Menu Layout Microsoft now expects the Start menu layout to be managed by an MDM service, if you want to do it without that then the easiest method is to copy the start.bin files.

The New News and Interests Bar for Windows 10 In the June updates for Windows 10 the News and interests bar has been rolled out to Windows 10 and is enabled by default. If you want to disable it as a user, it’s easily done by right-clicking on the Taskbar > News and Interests > Turn off. Job done. 👍 Registry The registry entry for the setting is per-user and is located here:

Fully disabling Network Discovery in Windows 10 using Group Policy To properly disable Network Discovery in Windows 10 in a way that the user cannot easily re-enable we must create some firewall rules and prevent some services from running on start-up. We can do both things using Group Policy. Firewall Rules Create a new Group Policy or use an existing one that takes effect on computer objects. Go to Computer Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

Hi all, In these interesting times I thought I’d create a round-up of some tips and recommendations for those of you who are looking to improve your technology - whatever your situation. It’s a grab bag of various items I’ve been collecting for a while but I hope some of these suggestions are useful to you. I usually write posts geared towards IT professionals but this post is aimed at people from all walks of life working from home with little IT assistance.

I’ve avoided posting about this for a while mostly because I thought Windows Photo Viewer would get removed. But it’s still there in Windows 10 1909 and it’s still good - even though it doesn’t play animated GIFs and hasn’t been updated since the time of Windows 7. Here’s how to enable it in Windows 10. Enable Windows Photo Viewer To enable Windows Photo Viewer so it shows up as an option to open image file types with, copy and paste the text below as is into a new text file and save it with a “.

UPDATE 2017-11-07 After testing the method below on Windows 10 1703, I found that it wasn’t working as it did with 1607. To disable One Drive and remove the One Drive folder from the Navigation Pane of Windows Explorer, enable the group policy item: Computer Configuration/Policies/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/OneDrive/Prevent Usage of OneDrive for file storage and also set the following registry key from 1 to 0: 1 2 HKEY\_CLASSES\_ROOT\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6} "System.IsPinnedToNameSpaceTree"=dword:00000000 Please note that the registry key must be set on a per user basis.

When deploying Windows 10/11 you might want to remove some of the included Microsoft Store Apps to help speed up the login process, save storage space, bandwidth etc. Important note! A “provisioned app” is an app that is a part of the Windows 10/11 installation and will be available for all users. Otherwise the app is only installed for the currently logged on user. To remove apps for all future users and the currently logged on user, you must remove both types of app.

I thought about trying to find a better name for this post and this issue, but this is all I could come up with. Update 2017-10-16: A few people have contacted me and made me aware that doing the reg hack below can prevent users from using Microsoft Office Clipart, so you should be aware of that before proceeding. Additionally, I’ve found that with Windows 10 1703 (Creators Update), allowing access to http://www.