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With the release of the new Microsoft Defender, available to Microsoft 365 Subscribers, yet another icon was added to the taskbar at the bottom right.

Remove Second Windows Defender Taskbar Icon

The old Windows Security (white shield icon) is no longer needed as the new Microsoft Defender (blue shield icon) will be taking over, eventually.

To remove the (to be replaced) Windows Security (white shield) icon from the Windows Taskbar simply open Windows Task Manager by right mouse clicking in a blank area on the Taskbar.

Select the “Startup” tab from the top or left side of the Task Manager window. Right click on “Windows Security notification icon” and select “Disable” from the drop down list.

Note that you can also “Disable” the new Microsoft Defender but I don’t recommend it as I am not sure if you will receive notifications should it discover a security threat.

If you wanted to uninstall and remove Microsoft Defender completely, then simply go to your Start menu. Locate the new Microsoft Defender app and right mouse click it to reveal a menu with the option to “Uninstall“.

 

Conclusion

I hope this article has helped you reduce the number of taskbar icons. I welcome your thoughts, questions or suggestions regarding this article.

You may support my work and future improvements by sending me a tip using your Brave browser or by sending me a one time donation using your credit card.

Let me know if you found any errors within my article or if I may further assist you by answering any additional questions you may have.

 

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Recently used my Microsoft Authenticator to access an email address on my mobile phone which I only needed temporary access to. After which I removed the email account from Outlook on my phone only to have it remain (greyed out) within Microsoft Authenticator.

To remove the greyed out account from Microsoft Authenticator I had to go to my phones’ “Settings” then “Accounts and backup” followed by “Manage accounts“. To my surprise, even though I deleted the email address from Outlook, the email account was still there. Once I removed the email address and reloaded Microsoft Authenticator the greyed out account was gone.

Conclusion

I hope sharing my experience on how I successfully removed an unwanted, greyed out account from Microsoft Authenticator has helped you.

You may support my work by sending me a tip using your Brave browser or by sending me a one time donation using your credit card.

Let me know if you found any errors within my article or if I may further assist you by answering any additional questions you may have.

 

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If you log into your Windows 11 PC using a local account and password you must first click or swipe on the lock screen to reveal the password input prompt. This extra step is not really necessary and can be removed using the following registry edit within this article.

This way, upon boot up, you may simply begin typing your password without first having to click or swipe away your lock screen.

 

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WARNING! The instructions herein are for my own personal use to jog my memory since I keep forgetting to take my memory pills. These instructions may be wrong and may cause you to lose all of your stored two factor authentication codes. This will obviously prevent you from accessing your two factor authentication enabled accounts. Do not attempt to synchronize your Microsoft Authenticator between devices using this article. Now back to jogging my memory.

 

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This article covers how to recover your Wi-Fi password via the Windows command prompt on a Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC.

 

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Occasionally I will have a drive that is on the verge of failure and is experiencing issues with being detected by Windows.

This article covers how to bypass the automatic mounting of disks or new volumes on Windows so that I can manually access the disk for attempted data recovery. If the instructions are vague that is because it is intended for my use only and serves simply as a mental refresher.

 

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Occasionally I will have a client who forgets their Windows 10 login password.

This article, which is strictly for my personal and educational use only, covers how to bypass the Windows 10 login screen so that I can, with their consent and permission, access client data for recovery or properly reset their Windows 10 login password.

 

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As of this writing, it is not apparent that one may setup a new Windows 11 PC without an initial active internet connection.

Being able to setup a PC with Windows 11 pre-installed without signing into a Microsoft Account is important for many reasons. In my case I setup many client computers. I usually do not have their Microsoft Account information handy and sometimes they don’t even recall if they have one. So being able to bypass this requirement is vital.

The client may choose to connect their Windows 11 PC to a Microsoft Account at a later date without issue.

In this article I cover five (5) different options for bypassing the Windows 11 Microsoft Account Sign in Requirement and one option for those with Windows 11 Home in S Mode.

 

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If you have switched your workplace or you just don’t want to use your PC for work purposes any more you can remove your PC from the Microsoft Azure Active Directory (from hereon called just Azure AD) on Windows 10.

Note you cannot simply create and switch to a local user administrator account or Microsoft Account. To do so, you must completely disconnect from the Azure AD account in order to do so.

This article is for my own personal use only and may be omitting or glancing over important steps which may result in the loss of your data if you do not know what you are doing. Should you need assistance with disconnecting your Windows 10 PC from an Azure AD I can remotely assist you at my normal remote work rate.

 

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VLC Media Player is a free, open-sourced, video media player and video toolkit available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It will play local video files as well as YouTube video streams.

VLC’s built-in plugins are utilized to stream YouTube videos. Simply drag and drop the video URL from your browser into the VLC Media Player window to start playing the video.

This article will show you how to play YouTube videos within the VLC Media Player on Windows and also how to download those videos as MP4 files. Note, you are only legally allowed to download your own videos and can do so right from the YouTube Studio interface without the need for VLC.

 

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