Microsoft’s Insane PC Manager App Comes to the Microsoft Store

Almost 18 months after it quietly first appeared, Microsoft’s PC Manager app is out of beta and available in the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 and 11. And it’s as weird as ever.

Note: The arrival of this app out of beta was first reported by WindowsLatest.

“Microsoft PC Manager is an officially launched desktop security tool aimed at global users,” the Store listing awkwardly explains. “It integrates Windows antivirus engine, comprehensively building a computer protection system. Microsoft PC Manager adheres to the four product concepts of simplicity, fluency, close to native, efficient and secure, and pure without disturbance. [Depending on how you count, those are five or six concepts. –Paul] Based on user pain points, it provides a one-stop computer problem-solving solution, addressing issues such as malicious system tampering, insufficient computer space, system lag, and excessive pop-up ads, creating a native Windows system experience for users.”

Yikes.

I assume this is a Chinese language app that was translated into other languages, but I’m surprised that Microsoft would allow something this shoddily written to appear in public. But then I remembered the Windows Insider Blog and that we live in a new age.

Anyhoo, this app provides the following features:

Smart Boost. PC Manager will automatically “boost your PC” when RAM usage is too high or the temporary files folder gets to be bigger than 1 GB.

Health Check. PC Manager can scan your PC looking for items to clean up, like Windows cache, browser cache, temporary files, system logs, and the recent file list. But it can also reset the Taskbar to its default appearance and disable apps from running at startup because we need yet another way to do that.

Process management. Like Task Manager, PC Manager can list running processes, sorted by memory usage, and lets you “end unused processes to make your system run faster.”

Deep cleanup. If the cleanup functionality in Health Check isn’t enough, this feature scans your PC looking for even more problems, which appear to be mostly related to system and app caches and other disk space-based concerns (none of which are in any way concerning).

Startup apps. This interface provides yet another way to manage the apps that run when the PC starts up. So that’s two for this app alone, in addition to Task Manager and Startup in Apps settings in the Windows Settings app.

System protection. PC Manager provides a front-end to the Windows Security threat scan feature, Windows Update, default browser settings, Taskbar repair (again), Restore default apps (resets them to the defaults), and Pop-up management, which the app describes as “blocking pop-up windows in apps.”

Storage Management. This interface provides a second entry point to the Deep cleanup feature noted above and to the Windows Storage Sense feature (which this app identifies as Storage sense). But there is one unique feature here, too, Manage large files, which lets you scan the C: drive and find files over certain size thresholds, presumably so you can delete them.

App management. This interface provides a second entry point to the Process management feature noted above, a third entry point to the Startup apps feature noted repeatedly above, a link to the Installed apps page in Window Settings, and a shortcut to the Microsoft Store app. For some reason.

Toolbox. This is in many ways the most incredible part of this crazy app. Here, you will find links to a ragtag collection of “tools” that include a shortcut to Snipping Tool (identified as “Screenshot”), a shortcut to the Screenshots folder in your Pictures folder, a shortcut to the Sound Recorder app, a shortcut to Live Captions, a shortcut to Notepad, a shortcut to Calculator, an Edge Quick Links entry that lets you open recent locations in Microsoft’s web browser, Bing Translator (on the web, opens in Edge), and Currency converter (a Bing site on the web, opens in Edge), plus a Custom links section you can add to that is prepopulated with a link to the MSN website (which, yes, opens in Edge). The best part? You can also enable an always-on floating Toolbox window if you think these tools are that indispensable.

You’ll note that some of the items in the above list are all caps and some are mixed case. That is exactly how they appear in this shoddy quality app. Also, you can configure this app to run at startup, ironically, and “join the Microsoft PC Manager Pop-up Plan” and help Microsoft optimize this app’s pop-up management feature.

I strongly recommend ignoring this app, but you can download it from the Microsoft Store now for free if you’re morbidly curious. You can also learn more at the PC Manager website. And don’t miss its carbon emission claims. Brilliant.