Newsletter Archives

• Controlling the Moments

  Posted on April 8, 2024 at 02:42 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  PATCH WATCH

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Microsoft releases more changes to Windows 10 and 11.

  Last year, Microsoft announced that 22H2 would be the last version of Windows 10 and hinted that no more changes would be rolled out. The reality is vastly different.

  Included in the preview updates for Windows 10 22H2, and therefore in the April updates, are the following changes for Windows 10.

  • Windows Spotlight is added to your desktop background.
  • More content is added to your lock screen, such as weather, sports, traffic, and finance.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.15.0, 2024-04-08).

  Patch Watch Copilot, Copilot app, KB5035942, Kerberos, Lock screen, Moment Updates, Newsletters, NTLM, Patch Lady Posts, SMB Signing, Windows Server 2025, Windows Spotlight

• Say goodbye to Windows’ screen-saver app

  Posted on February 24, 2020 at 01:10 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  LANGALIST

  By Fred Langa

  Built for a bygone need, the classic screen saver is slowly disappearing from Windows 10.

  It’s now gone in Win10’s Themes, and it’ll likely be dropped completely in a future update. If you’re still using a screen saver on your Win10 system, it could be time to move on. Here’s how.

  Plus: Outstanding reader recommendations for Windows Media Center replacements.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.8.0 (2020-02-24).

  LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Lock screen, Screen saver, Windows Media Center

• Windows Lock Screen showing ad for Chredge – even with advertising turned off

  Posted on February 14, 2020 at 07:11 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Another bit of sludge from @howardagoldberg….

  He’s been telling me that his Win10 Lock Screen is showing a Chredge ad. I suggested he make sure that he has all of the Lock Screen advertising settings turned off — there’s nothing strange under Start > Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen. In particular, he isn’t using Windows spotlight as his Preview screen.

  About half an hour ago, he made this snapshot of his Lock Screen:

  

  Apparently this isn’t the full ad. He explains:

  Not all text displayed … there was another sentence that mentioned Edge by name before (battery icon on the lower right also didn’t resolve – sometimes happens before logging in). At any rate you get the idea. It’s there. All notifications turned off for lock screen …

  And this is on a PC that uses a Local Account – not a Microsoft Account.

  Have you been around long enough to remember the righteous indignation about PC manufacturers installing bloatware on PCs? You can still find Microsoft’s ad for their Signature Edition PCs, although you can’t buy one any more…

  

  Apparently Microsoft stopped selling Signature Edition PCs after August 2018. (If you have a more precise date I’d sure like to hear about it.)

  How the mighty have fallen. Microsoft continues to slide down that slippery road….

  UPDATE: Goldberg now advises that he may have had “Fun Facts” turned on in the Lock Screen dialog. This may be a self-inflicted wound (although I continue to lament the passing of the Signature Edition PC program). Will keep you posted.

  Windows News Chredge, Lock screen, Win10 advertising

• Win10’s default lock screen is a wasted opportunity

  Posted on January 20, 2020 at 01:10 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  LANGALIST

  By Fred Langa

  The default Win10 lock screen is awful — a cluttered mess of ads, random impersonal images, and vanilla system information.

  But all three of those elements are easily customized; you can make the lock screen truly your own, with the information you need, the images you want — and with no ads!

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.3.0 (2020-01-20).

  LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Lock screen, Personalization