Microsoft Is Finally Making It Easier To Force Quit Windows Apps

While AI might be all the rage at Microsoft's Build conference (and around the tech world in general), one small change to Windows 11 might be the show-stopping announcement of the week. You can soon force quit an app without jumping into the task manager.

After the change, you can right-click an app's icon in the taskbar and select a new "force quit" option, effectively obsoleting the need to frustratingly stroke Ctrl + Alt + Delete on your keyboard. Most Windows power users possess strong muscle memory to do this in just a few seconds, but placing this crucial function in the app's context menu offers logical recourse for those who aren't technically inclined.

Advanced Windows users will welcome this as a lazy aid for remedying software lockups, but it represents so much more. There are edge cases where apps leak memory so hard that it prevents the task manager from launching altogether, so having another option baked into Windows' explorer framework offers helpful redundancy.

This week, Microsoft also announced you'll no longer need third-party software to open common compressed file formats, including RAR, Tar, 7-Zip, and gz, and we learned more about the new Copilot AI assistant that's long been teased. The Copilot will live as a sidebar, summonable by clicking a dedicated icon. It'll offer much of the same generative AI capabilities you've probably played with in Bing Chat, infused with app and system-level integrations.

Microsoft outlined other incoming changes, including a new Windows Backup app that makes transferring all your files and settings to a new system easier. The app will allow you to restore your pinned apps, files, settings, and credentials.

If you rely on voice dictation for writing, it'll soon be easier to offer real-time corrections using your voice. Saying "correct" followed by the text you want corrected (or simply saying "correct that" to work on the last word) brings up a context menu where you can use your voice to choose between preset fixes or specify exact corrections.

There are tons of other small changes incoming, such as algorithm tweaks to make the Start menu's "Recommended apps" section more useful. Users will also get the option to decouple taskbar icons for individual windows belonging to the same app, visual tweaks for several emoji, improved network security options, and a smorgasbord of bug fixes.

Microsoft is previewing these changes as part of the opt-in Windows 11 Insider program. It's available as Preview Build 23466, and you can try it right now by downloading the ISO file here if you're a member of the program. Pending successful tests, all users will have these updates in a future build.