Microsoft’s Chinese website shows a free PC manager utility • The registry

An interesting thing has emerged in the Chinese language. Corner Microsoft website: A tool called PC Manager is a tool that provides easy access to utilities that resides somewhere in the Windows Settings menu.

While the site is in Chinese, the device is not – so we took it for a spin.

On boot you will see the following screen:

The tool has two tabs, one of which is named Cleaner. When you click the upgrade button, it will clear the device’s tim files. The memory usage metric dropped a pleasing 15 percent after that single click.

The Health Check button brings up a screen that gives you the option to clear temporary files and objects in your browser’s cache.

Filed under “Potential issues” is one item: “Reset default browser to Edge”.

Yes, nagware has evolved as a PC health check. Remember this, dear reader, the next time Microsoft talks about how respect is one of its values. Endless reminders to stop using competitors’ browsers clearly show that the company does not respect users’ choices and time.

Repository management option allows users to view and delete old and unusable fonts. This apparently includes three kilobytes of cache from Internet Explorer on your reporter’s test machine – which Microsoft has blocked for Edge (which was never installed on the PC I’m using to write this article).

The Manage Apps option opens a list of installed apps and offers to remove them. Storage Sense only deals with the option to manage when Windows deletes temporary files or unused documents – that’s already there in the Settings menu.

The Process Management button is really useful as it produces a simplified version of the following task manager. I don’t need those bottom three procedures, and this tool makes them easy to remove. The Startup Apps menu also updates Windows 11’s default Control Panel to show the software that boots up with the PC — but it can’t add Startup apps.

The “Security” tab contains a large “Scan” button that runs Windows Defender and took a few minutes to scan 84,000 files.

Another button provides an opportunity to view and apply Windows updates.

The Security tab ends with a Browser Protection menu that gives you the option to reset your default browser to Edge, as well as a control to turn on “Block changes by malicious apps” features.

At this point, dear reader, Windows feels like that pesky app, so I urge you to keep using Edge more often.

Microsoft has not officially said anything about the device, but otherwise Page Version 1.1, released in March 2022, details the story. Version 2.0 arrived in mid-June, followed by version 2.1 a month later. The current version, 2.2, was launched in mid-August. That monthly skill didn’t last, here we are in October two months later with no update.

The device runs on Windows 10 (1809) or later versions of Microsoft’s flagship operating system. We’ve asked the company for more information on the device and will update this story if we receive concrete information. ®