Windows Insiders

Configuring search on Windows 11 taskbar

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This week a short blog post about a small new setting that became available within Windows 11. That setting is the ability to configure search on the taskbar. With the latest version of Windows 11, Microsoft added a search box to the taskbar that enables users to easily find almost anything. It searches across Windows, OneDrive, SharePoint, and more. And it can find apps, files, settings, help, people ,and more. That makes it a very versatile search option for daily Windows users. Very powerful. The new setting enables users to configure the availability of search on the Windows 11 taskbar. From hidden till icon and label. That new setting can also be configured by the administrator, to enforce specific behavior. It could, for example, be …

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Excluding removable USB-drives from automatic encryption

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This week a short blog post to address a scenario that’s been challenging for a while. That scenario is around removable USB-drives and automatic encryption. When organizations have configured that removable drives require encryption, that introduces challenges with storage built into specialized devices like video cameras, voice recorders, conferencing systems, medical devices and many more. That would also require that type of storage to be required, when read access wasn’t sufficient. That, however, would often cause more problems than solutions. To address that challenge, Microsoft has introduced a new policy. That policy can be used to create an exclusion list of devices for which the user will not be prompted for encryption. Even when encryption of removable drives is required. This post will introduce that …

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Opting out of safeguard holds

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This week is all about safeguard holds. More specifically, the ability of opting out of safeguard holds. Safeguard holds prevents devices with a known compatibility issue from being offered a new Windows 10 feature update by using Windows Update. That protects the device and user from a failed or poor experience with the Windows 10 feature update. Starting with the October 2020 security update, devices running Windows 10, version 1809 and above, receive a new setting that can be used for opting out of safeguard holds. In this post I’ll start with an introduction to safeguard holds, followed with the steps of creating a device configuration profile for opting out of safeguard holds. Important: Opting out of a safeguard hold can put devices at risk …

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