Microsoft's New PC Manager App May Leave Some Windows Users On Edge
PC Manager is a lightweight app for Windows 10 and Windows 11. It requires at least Windows 10 version 1809 to install. After installation, you're presented with a small window equivalent to one-third of the image above. The app presents options to "Boost your PC's performance," which mostly involves clearing out temporary files on disk and cached data from RAM.
Other options presented by the app include the ability to manage running processes, uninstall apps to free space, and control the apps that launch on system startup—although Microsoft apps are notably not included on this list. That means you won't be able to stop Edge "pre-launching" at startup, or disable Microsoft OneDrive from this tool.
The app is a little strange—it's a beta, and it's currently only available from a Chinese-language site on Microsoft's domain. Microsoft hasn't made any announcement of the app, so just to be on the safe side—after all, it's not like someone couldn't compromise Microsoft's systems—we ran it through VirusTotal. The scan came back clean aside from one result marking the app as "grayware," or applications that blur the line between legitimate software and malware.
The only objectionable behavior we observed in Microsoft's PC Manager application is that it presents the use of a non-Microsoft browser as default as a "Potential issue." However, it doesn't mess with your browser settings on the use of the "boost" function, and the "Reset default browser to Edge" option isn't even checked by default, so we don't find it particularly bothersome.
