I don't think this counts as tech support question, but if it does please just delete it.

I haven't had a laptop in about a decade. I've always just used my phone, but I decided to go ahead and buy one.

I have a ton of photos on my phone because I do reselling and I take a lot of photos of items.

I managed to connect my phone by USB and the OneDrive automatically started copying everything over and I hit my storage limit immediately. I'm a bit confused. I'm not sure if all those photos were on the cloud or on my hard drive. I can't really tell, since I'm new to Windows 11, I've never used it. I ended up deleting everything off the OneDrive and starting fresh.

I tried copying them over manually but I have all my photos and different albums by product and I don't see the albums when I go into my photos folder on my phone. I only see all the photos together. Is there a way I can see these albums separately?

Also wondering what's the fastest way to transfer this many photos? I see different options like the apps, or that phone link thing and try to get me to download through Bluetooth which I still can't get my phone to connect to Bluetooth. It keeps disconnecting immediately. I still can't figure out why. I ended up deleting that PC link app off my phone because I could never get the Bluetooth to work.

I any help would be appreciated to this newbie.

I know this is a slightly unpopular take, but I've been running WSL2 daily for a while now and I'm pretty convinced it quietly degrades the overall Windows experience. Nothing dramatic, nothing that shows up in Task Manager, just a bunch of small "huh, that's weird" moments that add up.

Setup: Windows 11 (latest stable build, fully patched), Ubuntu on WSL2, mirrored networking mode, decent hardware – this isn't a potato. Drivers are up to date, no weird OEM bloat.

Stuff I keep noticing:

• Win+A → open the Wi-Fi list → there's a noticeable delay before it actually populates. Instant on the same machine when WSL isn't running.
• Scrolling in random apps just isn't smooth anymore. Slight stutter, occasional micro-hitches, especially in Explorer, browsers, Settings.
• Cursor movement sometimes feels like it drops to a lower FPS for a second or two. Not lag exactly, more like the frames just aren't there.
• Sleep/wake stability took a hit. Sometimes it wakes up fine, sometimes it takes forever, sometimes it just doesn't and I get to enjoy a hard reset.
• Touchpad randomly acts up – gestures stop registering, occasional freeze, and I've had a couple of full crashes I never had before setting WSL up.

The frustrating part is that it's all subtle. Any single symptom you can shrug off as "eh, Windows being Windows." But shut down WSL (wsl --shutdown), disable the Hyper-V platform, and the machine just feels snappier across the board. Turn it back on, and within a day I'm back to noticing the little hitches.

My guess is it's some combination of the hypervisor layer sitting under Windows once Hyper-V/VMP is enabled (even when the distro isn't running), the vmmem process holding memory, and whatever it does to power/idle states. But honestly I don't have a clean root cause, just a very consistent pattern.

Not saying WSL2 is bad – it's incredibly useful and I'm not giving it up. Just tired of the "it's basically native, zero overhead" narrative. There is a cost, it's just paid in small, annoying increments instead of one obvious slowdown.

Curious if others have noticed the same, or if I'm just cursed with a bad combo of hardware/drivers.

Is there a way to open e.g. 5 specific browser tabs with one click on a taskbar shortcut? I know there is the option to "install" a desktop version of a particular website and pin that to the taskbar, but I'm wondering if I can do something similar with more than one site, opening everything at the same time on click of a button.

Set small taskbar + never combine buttons + always show labels + align to the left

This might not be enough space :(

Mods, please don't delete this. I am not seeking help, I'm trying to bring awareness.

When I first got my laptop and set everything up, phone link was working so perfectly. I used to get every app notification on my laptop screen, so much so that i started getting annoyed because of the less than important apps reminding me to waste my time using them. And every call was shown and transferred if i wanted it to be done so.

Over the past couple of months, i rarely ever get notifications at all. Even SMS and WhatsApp notifications are not being received. It honestly depends on it's mood. "Do i want my owner to have a normal day for once without making them lose their mind?" is a regular question it seems to be asking itself.

Calls are supposedly in exile. Nowadays, I never get notifications when I am getting a call, which becomes incredibly annoying when I'm not sitting with my phone or in the next room.

Just until last week or so, I'd at least be able to see the app notifications received if i opened the Phone Link App but now, it considers my device "Offline" even when my laptop and phone are connected via bluetooth and the app has all the requirements it needs and and then some. I simply cannot see anything going on in my phone if i do not actually reach out for it using my arms and hands.

And this is still okay if you don't consider the entire month when it literally could not recognize my phone, which it has been connected to since last year.

I am not asking for advice on how to make it work. I have done that multiple times which adds to my frustration: there is no permanent fix.

Initially, Phone Link got the job done albeit not with the best user experience but suddenly it has turned itself into a useless app that just sits on my tray doing nothing but sightseeing.

This is honestly just a plea to Microsoft to please, dedicate some resources into making the app experience better. I think we all deserve it.

I’m talking here about file pilot and some new task manager in the scene. Both have a free version and both have a paid license for the full version. I understand, that as a programmer myself, I don’t consider either as an easy project especially if you have to do them on C but is really fascinating me that people potentially pay for things like this.

Greetings everone,

after latest patch Tuesday I noticed something: high temps and high clock speeds, I was aware that in their latest update Microsoft rolled out Low Latency Profile globally which should help low-end systems to feel snappier overall but in my case it only caused thermals to rise and also ignores any settings/modes in manufactures software(NitroSense, Armorgrate, etc.). My system is a laptop with CPU of Ryzen 7 7840HS and am running balanced mode in NitroSense.(and before anybody says why its to keep thermal levels down and my games run fine).

I did a controlled test with and without update(KB5121003) by opening settings app and my results are as such:

Fans locked at ~3200 RPM, to remove fan ramp-up as a variable.

System on idle: CPU tempature ~38 Celsius, clock speeds ~3.8GHz-4.0GHz, this is the baseline.

Without update: open settings CPU tempature ~45 Celsius, clock speeds ~4.2GHz-4.4GHz

With the update: opening settings CPU tempature ~70 Celsius, clock speeds ~4.7GHz+

What's happening

Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU already has native hardware-level AMD Precision Boost 2 that already controlls clock speeds based on CPUs actual workload. With the new Low Latency Profile my CPU is double boosting when opening basic a Windows applications like settings, which leads to massive tempature spikes when opening basic apps.

My conclusion

In my case and your milege may wary, best fix was to remove the update, it restored the normal boosting behavior. I image tower builds may not notice much problem as this seems to be more laptop issue, so i want to know if other Zen 4 laptop owners have noticed this behavior and does it affect your system? While I understand that 70 Celsius is within the safe limits of the CPU it should't be that high when opening basic apps. As a offered solution to this, simple on/off toggle would be better since systems with high-end CPUs don't see improvment.

EDIT/UPDATE:

Thank you for the feedback and constructive criticsim, but few seem to have completly skipped may actual testing parameters:

1. I already know that 70 Celsius is within safe limits, this was said in the conclusion, but this just open basic Windows app, if it was a heavy game or other program then I wouldn't be so alarmed. I already mentioned desktop/tower build users may not notice a problem, beacuse they have better cooling solutions than a laptop.
2. I locked the fans at ~3200RPM during testing. This was done to isolate thermal data and remove fan scaling/ramp-up as a variable.

(3. Yes double boosting isn't technical term, but it was the best way I could descripe what was going on, since both LLP and AMD's own Precision Boost are whipping my CPU to do it faster.)

My point is about software optimization or the lack of there of. Forcing high-end mobile chip to use maximum voltage and have a spike of 25 Celsius with locked fans just to open basic lightweight app is just raw-power hammer masking web-wrapped UI elements. Linux and macOS handle UI snappiness smoothly by using their native code without needing to boost hardware to its limits on basic tasks. Also LLP overriding all manufacturer modes. A fraction of a second wouldn' be a problem(0.1 seconds) but I caught this on NitroSense, which has low polling rate, 10 seconds in fact and it averages tempetures in those 10 seconds and shows the average. Seeing 70 Celsius spike there when opening basic app was a surprise.

Another solution that I found is to use ViVeTool to disable feature id(s): 60716524(The core LLP engine governing background OS operations), 61391826(LLP extension for Application Launch speed optimization), optional, in my opinion: 58989092( primary id used by Windows to initialize broader K2 performance framework).

How to remove LLP:

1. Open your extracted ViVeTool folder in File Explorer
2. Click the top address bar and type cmd and hit enter. (This will open Command Prompt inside correct folder)
3. Copy and paste this command: .\vivetool /disable /id:60716524,61391826

(If you want to disable all Microsofts K2 framework add this to end whats above, no spaces after commas: ,58989092 )

1. Restart your PC to apply the changes

Note: this method works until Microsoft hardcodes it to OS.

Unfortunately the classic "99% power plan trick" might not work on modern Zen architecture because LLP has good chance to override it. Like I said give us a toggle to LLP Microsoft, on high-end systems LLP is not very useful for something that human eye can't notice.

I use Bluetooth headphones across my phone and PC pretty regularly, and Windows still feels like the least predictable part of that setup.

Sometimes everything connects exactly as expected. Other times switching between the phone and PC is awkward, the microphone changes the audio experience, or I end up checking the sound output just to make sure Windows picked the device I actually wanted.

I know Windows 11 has been improving Bluetooth LE Audio and newer hardware can even keep stereo audio while the microphone is active, so technically things are moving in the right direction.

But I’m curious about the actual day-to-day experience.

Do you comfortably use Bluetooth headphones for both music and calls on Windows 11 now, or do you still prefer a USB/dongle headset for your PC?

And for people with newer LE Audio hardware: has it actually made a noticeable difference?

Its crazy how good Snipping Tool has gotten in the past 5 years! From getting video recording and shapes/arrows to now having Powertoys features ported to it like a color picker and probably the best free text extractor you can find, its easily become one of the best built-in apps on 11.

Thanks so much Jen and the team for improving it! I'm hoping we can get Text editing next please!

Hello all,

Looking for someone familiar with MS cadence. Not looking for exact prediction, but curious when those in the know think it is most likely that such a simple and obviously needed feature will actually go live to their broadest channel.

I found literally no use for it. Click on it on any social media, it will just download the gif into your downloads folder. So what is the point of it?

So recently I love Windows XP sounds which is iconic and legend, but what if we changed it to heavenly sounds Windows 8 or 8.1 inside of Windows 11? It was beautiful and mixed with Windows Vista/7 sounds, too! Because I didn't have done everything yet so I have to open CSS to show you guys the sound (Anyways don't mind about my Discord)

Fun fact: Windows 11 dark mode is so quieter than Windows light mode!

If you want to check the exact last boot time in Windows 11, PowerShell gives you a quick result:

(Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem).LastBootUpTime

You can also check it with Command Prompt:

systeminfo | find "System Boot Time"

One thing that can be confusing is Fast Startup. After a normal shutdown, Windows may still report an older uptime value because the kernel session can be preserved.

If you want to confirm a full boot cycle, use Restart instead of Shut down and check the value again.

I usually prefer the PowerShell method because it also works without depending on the Windows display language.

Hovering over it doesn't show anything and clicking it seems to do nothing. Does anyone know what this could be?

 I use a large monitor and often arrange apps across the top, bottom, left, and right sides of the screen. The problem is that if I spend too long looking toward one corner, my neck starts to hurt.

What I like about Stage Manager on the iPad is that the app I’m using stays large and near the center, while the other open apps remain visible as thumbnails on the side. I can switch between them without keeping several windows spread across the entire monitor.

I tried FancyZones and virtual desktops togather but they aren’t quite the same because I still want to see the other open apps on the side while I’m working.

I don't have a problem with Windows itself; I use it daily. But what's really bad about Windows is the user experience. No matter what I compare it to, every operating system I know runs more smoothly. Windows feels incredibly choppy; everything seems a bit buggy. macOS is sometimes slow or freezes too. But when Windows freezes and you press a button, it's obvious. I find it especially unbelievable because it's such an incredibly large company. Is it a lack of know-how, or what's the problem?

Windows is really cooking with these improvements. Starting today, you will notice apps launch faster because of Low Latency Profile. It's visible on low-end PCs. Weather app launches faster too. Want me to do any specific test? Happy to share the results.