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Ed Bott, Senior Contributing Editor
Ed Bott
Senior Contributing Editor
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades’ experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications.
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Posted in The Ed Bott Report
on January 13, 2022
| Topic: Windows 11
Windows 11: Everything you need to know
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And, of course, if you have a Microsoft 365 Family or Personal subscription, you get access to Office apps and a terabyte of cloud storage.
You’re not required to use the Microsoft-supplied email address for anything but this single purpose. And if you create a new Microsoft account as part of the Windows 11 setup, it’s not linked to any existing phone number or email address, which means there’s no tracking.
You can create a new Microsoft account during Windows 11 setup
For more details on the differences between each account type, see “Windows 11 setup: Which user account type should you choose?” For step-by-step instructions on securing your Microsoft account, see “How to lock down your Microsoft account and keep it safe from outside attackers.”
Clean up the crapware
As was the case with its predecessor, Windows 11 makes money for Microsoft thanks to shortcuts sprinkled across the Start menu on every new install, presumably in exchange for bounties paid by the owners of those third-party apps and services. Candy Crush and its ilk are gone on my recent test systems, replaced by streaming media options (Spotify, Disney+, Prime Video) and social media (TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook).
The good news is that these shortcuts are exactly that. They’re not installed by default; they take up minuscule amounts of disk space, and each one can be removed with two clicks directly from the Start menu.
It takes two clicks to uninstall an unwanted app directly from Start
Right-click on the unwanted icon, click Uninstall. Confirm your choice in a dialog box. Repeat as needed.
Turn on the Windows Sandbox
If you want any of those things, more power to you. But the rest of us can make all four shortcuts disappear with a quick trip to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar. Slide all four of these switches to the left and restore the taskbar to its original purpose.
Get rid of taskbar clutter by sliding those top four witches to the Off position
There’s some good stuff at the bottom of that Settings page, too. Expand the Taskbar Corner Overflow section to control which icons appear on the right side of the taskbar by default. And if you have multiple displays, be sure to click Taskbar Behaviors to go through the options for how the taskbar works on a second monitor.
Configure OneDrive backup
You get at least 5GB of free cloud storage in Microsoft’s OneDrive service when you sign in with a Microsoft account. That feature includes a setting that can be confusing if you aren’t paying attention.
If you click through the default options, Microsoft will redirect your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folder to OneDrive, which effectively backs up everything you put in any of those folders. If you already have a solid backup strategy, you might want to turn that feature off. If you like the idea of having a cloud-based backup, you might want to check its settings.
To do that, open File Explorer, right-click the OneDrive shortcut in the folder pane on the left and then click OneDrive > Manage OneDrive Backup. That takes you to the dialog box shown here. (Note that the options will be disabled if you’re using a system that’s managed by your business using a domain or Azure AD account.)
When folder backup is enabled, these three folders are automatically relocated to OneDrive
You can turn off backup for each of the three folders with a single click. (The blue checkmark in the top right corner means the folder is backed up and synced.)
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