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Two Windows 11 apps are being ditched – one you might miss, and another you’ve probably forgotten about
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Microsoft is dropping two of the core apps which are installed with Windows 11 by default.

As of Windows 11 preview build 26020 (which has just been unleashed in the Canary channel), the WordPad and People apps have been given the elbow.

Although technically, while the People app itself is being dispensed with, that’s because its functionality (or at least much of it) is being transferred to Outlook for Windows, the new default mailbox app for Windows 11 devices (as of the start of 2024).

In short, you’ll still get the People app (contacts) in that mailbox client, but there’ll no longer be an actual People application that can be fired up separately.

WordPad, on the other hand, is being completely dispensed with, or rather it will be when the changes made in this preview build come to the release version of Windows 11.

Going forward from then, any clean installation of Windows 11 won’t have WordPad, and eventually, this app will be removed when users upgrade to a new version of Microsoft’s OS.

You won’t be able to reinstall WordPad once it has gone, either, so this will be a final farewell to the application, which was marked as a deprecated feature back in September 2023.

Also in build 26020, a raft of additions for Voice Access have strengthened Windows 11 on the accessibility front (as seen elsewhere in testing last month).On top of that, Narrator now has natural voices for 10 new locales (in preview), and that includes English (UK) and English (India), as well as the following: Chinese, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Mexico), Japanese, French, Portuguese, German and Korean.

Furthermore, when the energy saver feature is enabled on a desktop PC (a machine that’s plugged in, rather than running on battery), a new icon is present in the system tray (far-right of the taskbar) to indicate it’s running and saving you a bit of power.

For the full list of changes, check out Microsoft’s blog post for the build.

Analysis: Word up

One thing to clarify here is not to confuse WordPad with Notepad, or Microsoft Word for that matter.

Word is the heavyweight word processor in Microsoft 365 (the suite formerly known as Office), and not a default app. Both WordPad and Notepad are currently default apps in Windows 11, but Notepad is staying firmly put – indeed Microsoft is busy improving this piece of software (adding an autosave feature most recently).

Notepad remains a useful and highly streamlined, much-liked app for jotting notes and the like, whereas WordPad is kind of a ‘lite’ version of Word, and as such a bit more complex in nature (but not anything like a full-on effort such as Word).

WordPad sort of falls between stools a little in that respect, and another reason Microsoft may have decided to drop the app is due to potential security risks (or that was a theory floating around last year, when the software was deprecated).

Even so, there are some folks who will miss WordPad, and with no option to reinstall, they’ll just have to look for a different lightweight word processor for Windows 11 – fortunately, we explore some good alternatives right here.

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Microsoft has tossed a Windows 11 help feature on the scrapheap – probably because of Copilot
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Windows 11’s 23H2 update has recently been released, and while that annual upgrade obviously adds features, some have also been dropped by Microsoft.

PhantomOfEarth picked up on this, spotting that Microsoft just added the latest round of cutting to its list of deprecated features for Windows 11, and posting on X (formerly Twitter) to let us know.

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The big move here – and the only one that’ll affect consumers (the others are business-related) – is the deprecation of the Tips app in Windows 11.

This means that Tips will remain in Windows 11 for now, but in stasis, with no further development – and it’s scheduled to be removed in a future update of the OS.

Microsoft does, however, observe that in this case the app will continue to get (small) updates with info about new Windows features.

The Tips app provides help for Windows 11 users regarding customizing the interface, as well as imparting useful keyboard shortcuts and other miscellaneous tips, and highlighting new features that have arrived in the operating system.

PhantomOfEarth also recently tweeted about another interesting change for Windows 11, namely the ability to make custom commands for the Voice Access feature. This is still a long way off, as it’s not even live in testing, but hidden in the background – even so, it’d be an excellent addition on the accessibility front.

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Analysis: Clearing the way for Copilot?

It’s likely that with the next major update for Windows 11 – which could turn it into Windows 12, maybe, later next year – the Tips app will get the axe and be fully removed.

In fairness, this app isn’t the greatest help resource anyway, but nonetheless, for those new to Windows, it could be useful. That said, we’re betting there’s a reason for it being ditched now – namely Copilot.

Remember that in a year’s time, a fully developed Copilot AI – which will doubtless have been considerably bolstered over the course of 2024 – will be able to handle all help duties ably. We’d imagine that’s the plan, anyway.

Microsoft appears to be on a spree of tidying up Windows 11 of late, as we recently saw the Windows Maps and Movies & TV applications being removed from default installations of the OS.

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Windows 11 has a hidden ‘emergency restart’ feature you probably don’t know about
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Windows 11 has an ‘emergency restart’ feature that’s tucked away, and you’ve likely never seen it, but the function could come in handy if your PC freezes up.

Indeed, this option has been hidden deep in the restart machinery of Microsoft’s OS since Windows Vista, apparently (so yes, it’s in Windows 10 as well as 11, and all the other outdated incarnations of Windows going back to the big ‘V’).

What exactly does this feature do? It reboots your PC when all has gone awry, with the warning: “Click OK to immediately restart. Any unsaved data will be lost. Use this only as a last resort.”

Can’t you just reboot your PC anyway, using the Start menu (Power button)? Indeed you can, and that’s the way to go normally, but the emergency restart option is for situations where the interface has partly fallen over when your system has frozen, and the Start menu is unresponsive (or a crashed app is interfering with the reboot process, stalling it).

In such cases, as Betanews discovered, you can press CTRL+ALT+DELETE together, and here’s the clever bit, hold down the CTRL key and click on the Power button at the bottom-right of the screen (the icon that’s a little circle with a line at 12 o’clock).

That will put you into the Emergency Restart screen, with the message mentioned above, so you can then click OK and an emergency reboot will be performed.

Analysis: A useful extra escape route – but not without risks

This is a pretty cool ability to have, because if you can’t action a normal reboot (via the Start menu) for whatever reason – including a crashed application messing that option up, as mentioned – you can (hopefully) access this emergency restart.

Now, Microsoft only advises it as a last resort (and this is maybe why the feature isn’t documented, too) because it’s a short and sharp reboot that doesn’t bother with any of the pleasantries that a normal restart executes. Meaning all that housekeeping stuff that really should be done before shutting down the system. It quickly kills everything and turns off the system without safeguards, but that comes with some risks (data corruption is the most obvious potential peril that springs to mind).

However, and this is the key bit, it’s still a (somewhat) safer option than physically powering off your PC when it has locked up (by pressing the reset button, if your computer has one, or holding down the power button – or simply yanking out the plug, which is the real last resort).

So, if you can’t reboot any other way, this is a useful last-ditch method to know about. Of course, if your PC has frozen to the extent that even CTRL+ALT+DELETE doesn’t do anything, then you’ll have no choice but to turn to the power switch (or plug).

While we’re on the subject of cool Windows 11 shortcuts you might not know about, here’s another one we were reminded of on Twitter this morning. As Jen Gentlemen, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, points out, any time you want live captions to appear in a game or when watching a video (if the source content doesn’t have its own captions), just press the Windows key + CTRL + L together to swiftly turn them on.

Via PC Gamer, PC World

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Elon Musk owning Twitter is a terrible idea – and he probably knows it
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Why does Elon Musk want to buy Twitter?

It's the question everyone is asking Thursday morning after the billionaire entrepreneur, Tesla CEO, and serial pot-stirrer made a $ 43 billion take it or leave it offer to the Twitter board.

“If it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” Musk said, according to the Wall Street Journal. That's tantamount to, Let me play as captain or I take my ball and go home.

In typical cheeky fashion, Musk tweeted about the potential deal with echos of The Godfather: “I made an offer”

But why is he doing this?

To understand, we need to rewind a bit. A few weeks ago, Musk started complaining about Twitter as not being a bastion of free speech and ran a poll.

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Musk was airing a common frustration among some Twitter users who complain they're shadow-banned for speaking their minds on the platform. While 70% of his respondents said, “No,” I saw the poll as a flawed exercise in self-selection. Musk's 84 million Twitter followers are often devotees to his particular brand of libertarian maverickism.

Twitter, which is not a government body but in fact a private company, has no compunction to follow the rules of free or balanced speech. Instead, as a private company, it has to protect its users from harm to both themselves and others. It has, as a private company, the right to remove people and their posts as they see fit (if they go outside the platform's published terms of use).

This is somewhat beside the point because I think Musk knows this but just lives to stir the pot and get people thinking – or maybe thinking like him.

He later pressed the point and insisted that Twitter's role as a public town square meant it had to adhere to free speech principles, lest it undermines democracy. 

Again, Twitter is not just a US platform. It operates around the world, even in places that do not support democracy. Musk knows this, but he has pressed on.

Eventually, Musk bought 9.4% of Twitter's shares, joined the board, and then unjoined it before he could, but basically won the right to have outsized influence and hinted he might go further.

Now we know his true intentions. Musk seeks to own and control Twitter outright.

But for what purpose?

What's next?

If Twitter's board accepts this Faustian bargain, it will see a significant portion of Twitter's workforce leave. Musk must know this, as well. Does he hope to replace a depleted knowledge workforce with like-minded Muskians?

Let's say he gets his way and takes ownership. How quickly will Musk acknowledge that Twitter is not in fact just a US-based town square and that using the Constitution as a template for a TOS cannot work for a private, globalized company?

Elon Musk runs Telsa around the world. He sells electric cars to people around the world. A huge chunk of his Twitter followers probably live outside the United States and may dream of living in a democracy where private companies are not beholden to state interests as they are in China.

What is Musk's game here?

I know what he's said in public, but Elon Musk is no dummy and he must know how this plays out. It does not end well for Twitter, but perhaps that's the point. This is just another feint in the game where Musk treats his billions like Monopoly money, sliding orange $ 500 notes from out under the board, throwing them on the table, and demanding Park Place when he really wants Boardwalk. Or maybe he does want them both… then what?

By the time you read this, Twitter may have already rejected Musks' offer, and Musk, as he is wont to do, may have sold off his shares and walked away.

Will he also walk away from Twitter? Probably, but expect him back in six months.

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Gmail is getting a new ‘inbox zero’ icon – but you’ll probably never see it
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For those of us who really dominate the email game, a new Gmail update has promised a reward in the form of an all-new congratulatory “inbox zero” icon.

The refreshed Gmail graphic, spotted by Android Police, replaces the previous image, which, under the congratulatory message “You've finished! Nothing in Primary”, showed an abstract cartoon of a smiling woman, lying on her front without a care in the (working) world, reading a book in the countryside under a happy sun, suggesting an air of calm and peace for those lucky enough to clear their inboxes.

Clearly, this is not a Covid-friendly view of the new hybrid working world for Google, which has now refreshed the image with something a bit less outside-y.

Gmail inbox zero

(Image credit: Android Police)

As seen above, shown in dark mode on a mobile device, our carefree pal has been replaced with a selection of empty colorful boxes (inboxes?) stacked on each other, topped by a flag not unlike a castle banner (much like that seen at the end of every Super Mario Bros level). 

The congratulatory message still remains, but it's a much colder, more sterile feeling to achieving the goal of clearing all your work tasks for the day.

Gmail inbox zero

Inbox zero may just be a pipe dream for many of us, especially with a work account, but Google clearly sees it as something worth celebrating.

Recent research carried out by TechRadar Pro and OnePulse found that over three-quarters of email users (75.6%) have between one and 10,000 emails in their inbox, followed by 16.75% with between 10,001 and 100,000, with just 7.59% having over 100,001 or more. Over half of users (50.2%) either said they don't know or don't care how full their inbox is. The rest have up to 5GB filled (32.8%) or over 5GB (17%). 

Gmail was found to be the most popular email platform around, a conclusion backed up by recent figures from Google itself, which claimed in January 2022 that Gmail for Android has now surpassed 10 billion installs on the Google Play Store.

Via Android Police

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This AMD Ryzen notebook deal is probably the best we’ve ever seen
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We reviewers are used to obsessing over incremental technology changes, but every now and then a supernova appears on our radar – something that can single handedly change the status quo.

The AMD Ryzen 4000 family is one such supernova and promises to bring some of the best processing performance ever to laptops, at a price that defies logic.

When we first laid eyes on the Ideapad 5 15, it was immediately clear Lenovo is going for the jugular.

Available for as as little as £475 (roughly $ 590/AU$ 920), the IdeaPad is considered an entry level model, so we were delighted to see the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U making an emphatic appearance.

The laptop comes with 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD (M.2 2242, PCIe-NVMe, TLC) and, most importantly, you can swap out Windows 10 for FreeDOS (an MS-DOS equivalent).

You can also add a dummy hard disk drive for free, which means you can integrate a secondary 2.5-inch SSD at a later date.

It also features a 15.6-inch full HD TN display, which you can swap for a touch/non-touch superior IPS model for a small additional fee. 

Likewise, if your budget will allow, you can add a fingerprint reader, replace the 45Whr battery with a 57Whr model and exchange the Wireless 2×2 AC for a more advanced Wi-Fi 6 2×2 AX.

Note, the machine is not yet available in Australia or the US, but we've contacted Lenovo to find out when it will appear in non-European regions.

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