Windows 11 Archives - Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: How do I remove the Weather icon from the Taskbar in Windows 11?

Posted on March 22, 2023

Question from Rita: My laptop has Windows 11 on it and when I turned it on yesterday morning I noticed that it had installed an update.

Ever since the update there’s been a little Weather icon on the Taskbar right beside the Start button.

Every time I move my mouse towards either the Start button or the icon just to the right of the Weather icon a screen pops up showing the weather along with what appears to be about a thousand news reports.

This is irritating me to no end. Is there any way to remove that Weather icon from the Taskbar? [Read more…]

Why you should use a ‘Standard’ user account in Windows

Posted on March 14, 2023

Every modern version of Microsoft Windows allows you to create two types of local user accounts.

In my opinion every PC should have one account of each type installed even if only one person will be using the computer. [Read more…]

How to enable Live Captions on Windows 11

Posted on February 20, 2023

On September 20, 2022 Microsoft rolled out their first major update to Windows 11.

One of the major enhancements included in that update was the ability to display “Live Captions” at the top of the screen containing a real-time written transcript of whatever is being said in virtually any type of audio content. [Read more…]

Stop your PC from logging your activity and sending it to Microsoft

Posted on February 14, 2023

Did you know your Windows PC is logging every action you take and storing it in a database called “Activity History”?

Every website you visit, every app you use, every game you play, every file you open…all of that data is collected and stored on your PC, and then sent to Microsoft for them to use for various purposes.

If this collection, transmission and usage of your detailed computing activities makes you a bit squeamish, you’re certainly not alone. I’m right there with you. [Read more…]

How to avoid installing buggy Windows updates

Posted on February 11, 2023

As you probably know, Microsoft has released a lot of buggy Windows Updates in recent years.

In fact, numerous Windows 10 PCs were rendered either unstable or unable to boot up into Windows just by one recent buggy update.

I still recommend installing critical security updates as soon as possible in order to quickly patch “zero-day” security holes before hackers have a chance to exploit them to break into your system.

However, I no longer recommend installing non-critical updates until Microsoft has had time to squash any bugs that might be in the updates’ code. [Read more…]