Microsoft's official Windows performance boost app feels your PC is broken if you snub Bing

Back in the day, CCleaner used to be a very popular app among the general Windows user base as it would "clean" your PC to get rid of 'unwanted' stuff that could potentially slow down system performance. However, from mid-2020 onwards, CCleaner began to be flagged by Windows Defender as a potentially unwanted application (PUA), though in an interesting turn of events, CCleaner later managed to make its way to the Store.

Meanwhile, Microsoft saw this and released its own "Microsoft PC Manager" later. The app recently landed as an offline installer after it made its way to the Microsoft Store.

Similar to CCleaner, Microsoft also aims to boost PC performance with this, though it also adds that it will serve to clean up storage as well as protect changes to default settings from "unauthorized changes." Here's what the PC Manager description on the Microsoft Store reads:

Microsoft PC Manager is a utility app for your PC. It offers features such as one-click boost, storage clean-up, file management, and protection of your default settings from unauthorized changes.

Microsoft may be taking a bit of liberty with that last bit. It looks like the PC Manager feels your PC is broken and needs repair if you changed your default search engine from Bing.

As you can see in the image above, posted by a Reddit user FamousPotatoFarmer, the tip appears in PC Manager's "Repair tips" section, which is present in the app's sidebar panel, with the option to revert the change using the one-click "Reset" option.

The "Repair tip" reads:

The following default settings have been changed Reset all

 

Recommend restoring 1 items

 

Edge initial settings have been changed

 

Reset start page to new tab page and search engine to Bing Reset

This kind of action is hardly surprising, though. Microsoft does not want people not to use Bing or Edge. PC Manager itself, almost since its advent, has had this behaviour, and it looks like not much has changed.

In related news, recently, the company was found quietly adding a "UCPD driver" that blocks off Registry hacks for default app switching like for browsers.

Source