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I got into the Feedback Hub and upvoted this feedback.

I wholeheartedly agree with the guideline to never replace a device before you’ve paid it off. In fact, I was in this very scenario at the beginning of January 2025, when I noticed a carrier deal on Apple’s website for up to 1000 USD off an iPhone 16 Pro with an eligible trade-in. I went to my local AT&T store, and they let me trade in my iPhone 14 before it was fully paid off. After getting the paper trade-in receipt, I noticed that I would not get any trade-in credit for my new phone until my old phone was paid off. I called AT&T customer service, waited a long time, and then patiently and thoroughly explained my situation to the representative. Ultimately, I was allowed to pay off my old phone with a single credit card charge, which allowed trade-in credit to take effect on my new phone.

By the way, I was surprised to find out that AT&T added “Next Up” to my plan. I asked that same representative to discontinue it. It was discontinued, but I still had to pay the additional 10 USD on the first month’s bill.

You may also want to try Wedge.

This Super User thread suggests deleting desktop.ini and clearing the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU

This Microsoft Answers thread suggests uninstalling “3D Viewer” and “HP Smart” if they are installed.

If you’re willing to try third-party software, I recommend Iconoid (free) or Fences (paid).

I’m glad you were able to solve the issue and get rid of that dross. 🙂 Now that everything is up to date, you might want to consider making a new disk image when you get a chance.

I think the Windows icon cache may have become corrupted. Try saving the following commands into a .bat file and then running it:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
attrib -h IconCache.db
del IconCache.db
start explorer

Edit: I also attached my own batch file for convenience.

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Robertos42

In my contrary opinion, the Windows taskbar has been undergoing “un-innovation” ever since Windows 10, with features being removed instead of added. Such features include:

• underlined access keys in the context menu for a jump list item
• the ability to rearrange jump list items via drag and drop
• since Windows 11, the ability to add a file to a jump list via drag and drop
• since Windows 11, choice of taskbar placement on the top or left/right side

This is one area in which I wish Microsoft would innovate more, or rather restore features they removed.

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satrow, windbg, Cybertooth

I haven’t yet installed the March Windows updates, but when I visited the Chrome Web Store, I saw a pop-up in the lower right corner of my screen advertising Bing Chat. At first, I thought the ad was coming from the Web Store itself. But I clicked on the browser window and the Bing Chat ad disappeared, or so I thought. When I closed the browser, the ad was still there. I used Sysinternals Process Explorer to determine which process was responsible and terminate it. Then I used FileASSASSIN to remove the adware (BingChatInstaller.exe and the MUBSTemp folder). Finally, I opened Sysinternals Autoruns to disable the startup item.

I would include a snack in my toolkit and/or eat a filling meal prior to troubleshooting.

Today, I successfully installed KB5034441 and the other monthly updates on a spare PC running Windows 10 Pro x64 22H2 with a 500 MB recovery partition. Neither BitLocker nor device encryption are enabled on this PC. I did not run the PowerShell script.

Another annoyance of the combined inbox is that it doesn’t let you access folders you created in each mailbox. I tend to view one inbox at a time by tapping the icon in the upper left (next to the word “Inbox”), then tapping the icon corresponding to the mailbox I wish to access. Unfortunately, visiting an empty folder within that mailbox (such as “Drafts” in my case) and tapping the “Go to Inbox” link brings me back to the combined inbox.

I have experienced additional annoyances with the Outlook app on iOS. There is no offline mode, so visiting some folders will require re-downloading their messages, unlike in Apple’s Mail app. There is no support for e-mail categories, unlike desktop Outlook, Outlook.com, and the “new” Outlook app. (The calendar does support them though.) But one annoyance that stands out in particular to me is the “Read More” button at the bottom of e-mails that the app thinks are too long (such as AskWoody newsletter issues).

For me, the only reason I keep using Outlook for iOS is its support for rendering e-mails in dark mode. However, when I want to access old e-mails on my iPhone, I turn to Apple’s Mail app. It may not render as many e-mails in dark mode, but it doesn’t force me to tap “Read More” on long e-mails or wait for a folder’s contents to re-download.

I am also against wasted screen real estate. In fact, I posted a suggestion in Microsoft’s Feedback Portal to make OneNote’s section tabs slimmer.

I wish I could vote, but both feedback links provided by Susan Bradley and rpodric resulted in the message “Your account doesn’t have access to this feedback.” I’m running Windows 10 1903 Home and am not enrolled in the Insider Program.

Steven Sinofsky’s account was quarantined as well.

I also use my iPhone’s Mail app to sync the e-mail in my Microsoft account. Thankfully, my account hasn’t been quarantined. But then again, I believe I set up syncing on my current iPhone before these quarantine messages appeared, so I may not run into this problem unless I set up syncing on a new iPhone. I hope no more accounts get quarantined.

I am using Office 365, and I am able to open and save Excel spreadsheets with charts embedded without crashes.

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bobcat5536