Microsoft Releases Lightweight Office Taskbar Apps for Windows 11 (theverge.com)
- Reference: 0178656268
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/08/12/1754254/microsoft-releases-lightweight-office-taskbar-apps-for-windows-11
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/news/757935/microsoft-365-companion-apps-windows-11-release
> Microsoft is starting to [1]roll out lightweight taskbar apps for Microsoft 365 users on Windows 11. These taskbar apps will automatically launch at startup and provide quick access to contacts, file search, and calendar straight from the Windows taskbar.
>
> The Microsoft 365 companion apps, as Microsoft calls them, are starting to roll out to business users of Microsoft 365 this month. The People companion provides a browsable org chart, as well as the ability to look up anyone in your company. You can also quickly start a Teams message or call with a contact, or email them directly.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/news/757935/microsoft-365-companion-apps-windows-11-release
Re:How do I turn it off? (Score:5, Funny)
Resistance is futile.
Re:How do I turn it off? (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 11 currently has a customizable search on the taskbar, task view can be toggled on or off, widgets can be toggled on or off, then you have other system tray icons and taskbar behavior. You can also select what programs will automatically start when you load Windows in the task manager. I am thinking the option to turn it off will be in there.
Re: (Score:2)
> I am thinking the option to turn it off will be in there.
You think too much. It will be there, until MSFT says it's not there anymore.
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"Use Microsoft Recommended Settings" will face-plant you every update until you accept these launching on startup. It gets tiring playing whack-a-mole with their bloated creep.
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Disabling auto-start stuff using task manager isn't 100%.
I use HiJackThis and Spybot for stuff like that.
Re: How do I turn it off? (Score:2)
You know what is not there any more? The option to show all taskbar icons all the time. Now Win11 will force-hide icons into that stupid submenu all the time. And anytime something updates it manages to get shoved back into that submenu. Incredibly annoying. My belief is this is because it conflicts with their center-the-taskbar-to-look-like-Mac-dock design. Same reason window icons are forcibly collapsed into a single icon with dot underneath (hmm where have i seen this before...)
Re: (Score:2)
> How do I turn it off without installing Linux?
Turn it off and... ... buy a Mac? ... install *BSD? ... live a pre-internet lifestyle?
OK, that last one doesn't apply to you if you are reading this on /., but the other two may be viable choices.
The obvious first question (Score:4, Insightful)
how do we disable this garbage?
Re: (Score:2)
install linux?
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You don't need to, there is now bash.exe if you want Linux ;-)
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if you think that bash.exe is linux you should continue to run windows...linux is too advanced for you
Re: (Score:2)
No. Sarcasm is too advanced for you, obviously. I can tell simply by the fact that my UID is more than 3M users older than yours. You ole_timer are a young_timer.
Re: (Score:2)
that makes you pretty old then
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It's rolled out to business users. Before you install Linux you will need to convince your CTO why this is a good idea for the entire company to do so. For that I can just wish you all the best of luck, but it won't be enough.
Lightweight Heavyweight (Score:2)
What's the over/under (in months) for the "lightweight" taskbar app bloating to full heavyweight?
It'll never happen ... Re:Lightweight Heavyweight (Score:2)
... because what we now think of as "full heavyweight" will become bloated beyond what we can imagine and it will become the "new full heavyweight" and the current "lightweight" will bloat to something approximating the current "full heavyweight" but since it's lightweight by comparison, it will retain the monikor "lightweight."
In short: bloat creep. Or creepy bloat. Or both.
How many windows updates (Score:2)
It would be interesting to have a statistic on how many major feature updates out of all major feature updates for windows 11 have been in the category of "I'm a power user, there's some new garbage that just automatically starts in the background invisibly in the update, how do I turn it off?"
My guess is that this is going to be a significant percentage, if not outright majority.
Didn't they already have something like this? (Score:2)
Didn't they already have something like this in the past that "preloaded" significant parts of office into memory at startup so when you wen't to actually open a word doc or spread sheet the bloated beast would launch almost instantly rather than waiting minutes for it to load? I remember that not going over so well since it ate up significant amount's of memory for shit that wasn't actually in use at the time. This sounds like the same thing but masquerading as stupid taskbar widgets.
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Prefetch/superfetch. Mostly people disabled it after the jump from spinning platters to solid state drives. But apparently bloat has overtaken technology and Microsoft has to bring it back.
Enshittification (Score:2)
Yet more crap no one wants, no one asked for, yet will be thrust up people.
I'm looking forward to retirement where I'll be able to say sayonara to Windoze forever.
Disable = more important than doing it (Score:2)
Amazing how many people think it is totally OK to steal your screen real estate.
Totally fine if you can make it removable, but so few people actually do this.
My taskbar has (Things I do not want):
PC Manufaturer 'help' button I never push
Update alert for NVDA game drivers I neither use nor know how to load.
Intel Rapid Storage Technology Enterprise (No idea what this is)
One Note saying I am not logged in (Do not want to)
Re: (Score:2)
> Totally fine if you can make it removable, but so few people actually do this.
You've slid down the slippery slope :-)
It's totally fine if it's opt-in. The update could even display a tray notification with info on the new feature and how to easily enable it via a click, but, IMO, that should not be the default.
Where is the profit? (Score:2)
While I can see it might be useful to users I can't see how M$ makes more profit from this new feature? I realise some people still think the purpose of Windows is make a PC easier to use, not the true reason, to return a profit to share holders. In that sense most recent changes are easy to understand, more income for M$, but this change sounds like something that might actually be useful for some users while driving no extra income to M$. So I am surprised to see it added to Windows.
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The whole point of this is to make office appear to be faster. In order for stupid always on widgets like these to work core libraries/APIs for office are going to need to be loaded in memory already and won't have to be loaded when you open a document. They already tried something similar about a decade or more ago with "prefetch" Perhaps they hope users won't balk at it this time because it appears to provide functionality instead of just being a memory hog.
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The profit comes in the form of reminding companies that there's continuous "improvement" and it's worth continuing to invest hundreds of thousands every month maintaining Office 365 Business licenses.
What? Me bloated? (Score:2)
Just what slowdoze 11 needs - more fucking Microsoft processes sucking up ram smd eating cpu cycles.
Fuck you, Microsoft. Even a brand-fucking-new speedy laptop with 32mb runs like shit with a few word documents open.
Re: (Score:2)
Just move to linux already.since nearly everything is cloud / web based these days you can do pretty much everything in a web browser on linux too.
Re: (Score:2)
Until you need to do something that only has a Windows program... sure, you can run it in a virtual machine... then, what's the point of installing *Nix.
Finally (Score:2)
Thank god, I've been waiting for years for this. Ever since Windows 7 I've been wondering why there can't be more lightweight apps running in my taskbar.
Maybe they'll finally bring XEyes, and maybe XBiff to Windows!
Re:Launch at startup? (Score:5, Informative)
Haha, is it a bad sign that whenever this company releases a new feature, the first thing asked is almost always
how do disable it?
is it mandatory?
why are they doing this to me?
is it time to switch to linux?
And yet, MSFT is booming .. odd of course considering the 15,000 layoffs they just did -- Perhaps they let the wrong people go?
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MSFT is only booming because of Azure and government contracts. Their OS is now a deadweight trailing behind, so enshittified that everyone is wondering how to disable all the new features announced.
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And, more reason to not upgrade.
Any time I do a Windows install, once I'm at desktop, I use my "tools of choice" to remove or disable or uninstall what I don't want to be there.
It's my computer, and the operating system I chose... I chose to install the browser, and set it up the way I like... no company has any right to dictate how I use their product (I'll use my frying pan as a deep fryer if I so choose, I'll use Word 2016 however I want). If I bought it, it's mine... not theirs. If it's still theirs,
Re: (Score:2)
This is for business users so the answer to all these questions is:
- Not your decision
- Not your decision
- Because you work in a business and you use the systems IT gives you.
- Not unless you can convince your CIO.
Re: (Score:2)
>> how do disable it?
Probably can't
>> is it mandatory?
yes, or it will be soon
>> why are they doing this to me?
Because they can and you let them.
>> is it time to switch to linux?
Yes.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure you can, if you are paying for the Enterprise version of Windows 11