Snipping Tool now has Text Extractor in the capture bar
Microsoft is adding a Text Extractor in the Snipping tool. This feature will soon show on the capture bar and will allow you to copy text to your clipboard without having to take a screenshot of your screen. This update is currently rolling out to Windows Insiders in all channels.
The new Text Extractor
In this update, we are adding text extractor in the Snipping Tool capture bar – designed to minimize the number of steps it takes to copy text to your clipboard without having to take a screenshot of your screen.
To get started, open Snipping Tool via Win + Shift + S or launch the app and click the new “Text Extractor” button in the toolbar.
Select the region you would like to scan for text (just as you would for standard rectangle snip), and you will be able to manually select the text to copy to clipboard, or you can click on the “Copy all text” button in the toolbar to quickly copy all text in the region. You can also explore the “More options” dropdown menu to “Remove line breaks” from copied text or simplify the experience entirely with the “Automatically copy text” selection, which will dismiss Snipping Tool earlier and automatically copy all text in your selection region directly to your clipboard.
Important: For some meetings, admin settings prevent unverified people from joining the meeting. Depending on the meeting, you may have to enter a one-time passcode sent to your email or create a Teams account.DesktopMobile
Join the meeting before it starts to test your setup from the pre-join screen. From there, you can enter the meeting up to 15 minutes before its start time to troubleshoot or see how Teams works. Meeting participants and organizers will be notified when you enter the meeting.
To join a Teams meeting without signing into an account:
Open the meeting invite and select the link next to Join or Click here to join the meeting.
When prompted, select Continue on this browser or Join on the Teams app. You don’t need to install the Teams app to join the meeting.
You can join Teams for web on Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome. You may be prompted to give Teams access to your mic and camera. When you select Allow, you can always turn off your mic and camera once you join the meeting.
Select Join now.
In meetings where admin settings prevent unverified people from joining, you’ll be prompted to enter your email address. Enter your email address and select Next. Enter your password if you already have a Microsoft account or select Send code and enter the one-time passcode sent to your email if you don’t have an account. Once verified, select Join now.
Note: People who are signed in will have access to more meeting features than those who aren’t signed in.
If you enter the meeting lobby, wait for someone in the meeting to admit you. If no one admits you within 30 minutes, you’ll be removed from the lobby. If that happens, you can try rejoining.
Depending on how you joined the meeting, other participants will see a label next to your name. If you joined:
without entering your email address, everyone will see Unverified next to your name.
using a one-time code sent to your email, everyone will see Email verified next to your name.
with your Microsoft account, everyone will see External next to your name.
Select Admit to let them right into the meeting, or View lobby to see a list of everyone in the lobby and admit or deny them.
Note: Anyone who doesn’t have a Teams account and joins the meeting without entering a one-time passcode sent to their email will be labeled Unverified. Anyone who doesn’t have a Teams account and joins the meeting after entering a one-time passcode sent to their email will be labeled Email verified. To learn more about people with guest access, see Work with external guests.
I can’t join a meeting in Microsoft Teams
If you can’t immediately join a Teams meeting, there are several possible reasons:
You’re waiting in the lobby: Some organizers might place attendees in a lobby before admitting them into the meeting. Wait for someone to admit you, or reach out to the organizer directly to be let in.
Your internet browser isn’t supported: Teams doesn’t currently support Safari for Mac. If you’re joining a Teams meeting from the web, try joining from Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or other supported browsers.
Your internet connectivity is low: If your internet connection is low, you may not be able to join a Teams meeting right away. Try waiting for your connection to improve, joining from your supported mobile device, or reaching out to your internet provider.
Security policies for the meeting are preventing you from joining: If a meeting organizer enables end-to-end encryption for a meeting, you might have limited access to join. Try reaching out to the organizer to be let in.
In Teams, you might receive a message about why you’re unable to enter a meeting. Here are the different messages you might encounter and how to resolve them.
“Sign in to join this meeting”
If you see this message, the meeting doesn’t allow people to join unless they’re signed in with a Teams work or school account. You might need to take extra steps to join:
If you’re joining from a meeting link or as an anonymous user, make sure you’re signed into your Teams work or school account.
If you’re the meeting organizer and want people to be able to join your meeting without signing in, contact your IT admin (learn more here). Changes from your IT admin may take up to 24 hours to take effect.
“Sign in with a different account to join this meeting”
If you see this message, the policies set by your or the meeting organizer’s org prevent you from accessing the meeting. You might need to take extra steps to join:
Make sure you’re signed into the account the invite was originally sent to.
If you’re the meeting organizer and you want to allow people from other orgs to join your meeting, contact your IT admin (learn more here). Changes from your IT admin may take up to 24 hours to take effect.
“This meeting is locked.”
After a meeting starts, organizers can lock the meeting to prevent new participants from entering.
Reach out to the meeting organizer to let them know you’re having trouble joining. If they unlock it, you can try joining again.
“Your organizational policy does not allow you to join this meeting”
You can’t join because the organizer has enabled end-to-end encryption for their meeting. Contact the organizer to let them know you’re having trouble joining.
“The meeting lobby is full right now.”
If the lobby is full, wait a few minutes before trying to join again. You may be able to enter if other attendees join the meeting or leave the lobby. For more on lobby settings, see Using the lobby in Teams meetings.
“Sorry, no one has responded to your request to join.”
If you get this message after 30 minutes of waiting, your request has timed out.
Check to make sure you’re joining from the correct meeting link and try again.
Reach out to the meeting organizer to make sure your request is seen.
Using the lobby in Microsoft Teams meetings
Use the meeting lobby in Teams meetings to keep people from directly entering a meeting when they join. Organizers, co-organizers, and presenters will be notified when people enter the lobby and can let them into the meeting.
Each meeting defaults to the lobby settings set by your IT admin but you can change them before or during the meeting. You might not be able to change some settings if your meeting uses a template or sensitivity label.
Choose who can bypass the lobby
As the meeting organizer, you get to decide who gets into your meetings directly, and who should wait for someone to let them in.
If you choose to have people wait, you (and anyone else allowed to admit people) will see a list of people in the lobby. From there you can choose whether to admit or deny them.
Who can bypass the lobby?
What happens
Recommended when…
Only organizers and co-organizers
As the meeting organizer, you and any co-organizers can get into the meeting directly. Everyone else will wait in the lobby.
You want everyone else to wait in the lobby until you’re ready to admit them.
People who were invited*
Anyone who receives the invitation, including those to whom it is forwarded, will join the meeting directly.People without a Teams account won’t bypass the lobby. Additionally, distribution lists up to 10,000 users are supported. If you don’t want people to forward the invite to others, turn off Allow Forwarding in the invitation.
You want a specific, limited group of people who were invited via their Teams accounts to join the meeting directly, and everyone else to wait in the lobby.
People in my org
Only people within your org can get into your meeting directly. Everyone else will wait in the lobby.
You want all guests and external people to wait in the lobby so you can approve them one by one.
People in my org and guests
People in your org and people with guest access can get into your meeting directly.
You want all external people (anyone outside your org, except guests) to wait in the lobby so you can approve them one by one.
People in my org, trusted orgs, and guests
Anyone from your organization and organizations with which your IT admin has set up a connection, or anyone joining as a guest, will be able to bypass the lobby.
You want some external people (e.g., people joining without a Teams account and people from organizations with which your IT admin did not set up a connection) to wait in the lobby so you can approve them one by one.
Everyone
Anyone who has access to the meeting link gets into the meeting directly, including people who call in.Depending on the meeting policy set up by your IT admin, people joining without a Teams account,people from untrusted organizations, and people dialing in may be placed in the lobby until someone from your organization or a trusted organization joins the meeting, even if the Everyone option is selected.
You don’t want anyone to wait in the lobby. You want everyone to be able to join your meetings without specific approval.
* For channel meetings, only those channel members who are directly invited can bypass the lobby.
Change lobby settings
You can change lobby settings before, during, or after a meeting (in the case of a meeting series). The changes will only apply to the meeting you change them in unless the meeting is part of a series. Then, changes will be applied to all future meetings in that series. To change default lobby settings, contact your IT admin.
Before a meeting
Before a meeting
New calendar
To change lobby settings before a meeting:
Select Calendar in Teams.
Double-click an event.
Select Edit.
If you double-clicked an instance of a meeting series, select whether you want to edit This event, This and all following events, or All events in the series.
Select Meeting options.
In Meeting access:
Choose an option from the Who can bypass the lobby? dropdown menu.
Turn the People dialing in can bypass the lobby toggle on or off.
Choose who can let people into the meeting from the Who can admit from the lobby dropdown menu.
If you change lobby settings during a meeting, people waiting in the lobby will still be there.
Select Save.
Select More actions > Settings > Meeting options in your meeting controls.
In Security:
Choose an option from the Who can bypass the lobby? dropdown menu.
Turn the People dialing in can bypass the lobby toggle on or off, if available.
Choose who can let people into the meeting from the Who can admit from the lobby dropdown menu.
Manage the lobby
During a meeting, people you designated to manage the lobby can admit or deny entrance to the meeting.
Who can manage the lobby
The meeting organizer, co-organizer(s), and presenter(s) can manage the lobby. If you’re the organizer, choose which of those roles can manage the lobby during that specific meeting. You can also make someone a co-organizer or presenter by changing their meeting role.
To change who can manage the lobby:
Select Calendar in Teams.
Double-click an event.
Select Edit.
If you double-clicked an instance of a meeting series, select whether you want to edit This event, This and all following events, or All events in the series.
Select Meeting options.
In Meeting access, choose who can let people into the meeting from the Who can admit from the lobby dropdown menu.
Select Save.
To learn more about the new Teams calendar, see Get started with the new calendar in Microsoft Teams.
Admit or deny participants
During the meeting, people managing the lobby can see a list of participants waiting to get into the meeting and choose whether to admit or deny them.
To admit or deny participants:
Select People in your meeting window.
Under Waiting in the lobby:
Select the check mark next to someone’s name to admit them.
Select the X next to someone’s name to deny them.
Select Admit all to let everyone in from the lobby.
People managing the lobby will receive notifications that people are waiting in the lobby. In the notifications, select View lobby to go right to the lobby or Mute these notifications to turn the notifications off.
Select Undo to turn the notifications back on.
Turn off the lobby for a meeting
If you want everyone to join your meeting directly, set Who can bypass the lobby? to Everyone. This change will apply to that meeting and future meetings if it’s part of a meeting series. Contact your IT admin if you want to change this setting for all the future meetings you organize.
Note: If anonymous participants join first, they’ll wait in the lobby. They’ll be let into the meeting automatically after someone from your org, a trusted org, or a guest user joins. Contact your IT admin to allow anonymous participants to start meetings.
You can also remove people or lock your meeting.
To remove people from the meeting:
Select People in your meeting window.
Hover over the name of the person you want to remove.
Select More options > Remove from meeting.
Applies To
Try it!
Guests have similar capabilities to team members and can participate in meetings, chats, and work on documents.
In a team, select More options>Add member.
Enter the guest’s email. You can add as many guests as you need.
If needed, it’s best to change their display name now.
When ready, select Add and guests will be sent an email invitation they need to accept to begin.
A guest will have the label “Guest” attached to their name in Microsoft Teams. You can also check the top of any channel to see how many guests are in it.
To share files, use the Files tab and folders since document links may not work with guests.
Note: Before guests can join a team, an admin must enable guest access in Teams. If you can’t add a guest, check with your admin.
Microsoft issued 71 patches for December Patch Tuesday to address vulnerabilities including a zero-day bug in the Windows Common Log File System, which is under active exploit and could enable system-level privileges. Other critical vulnerabilities include a remote code execution flaw in Windows Lightweight Directory Access Protocol and one in Hyper-V that could allow code execution on the host operating system.
Microsoft on final phase of Windows 11 24H2 rollout
Microsoft has announced the full rollout of the Windows 11 24H2 update to all compatible PCs, except those with safeguard holds. The update, known as the Windows 11 2024 Update, includes features such as AI capabilities, Wi-Fi 7 support and enhanced audio features.
A job loss can take a toll on identity, says Jeffrey Anvari-Clark, a professor of social work at the University of North Dakota, noting that processing this grief is crucial for moving forward. Michelle, a federal worker affected by layoffs, is navigating this identity loss by considering new career paths aligned with her values, illustrating the importance of constructing a new identity post-job loss.
Offboarding remote workers is not as easy as it seems, so here is an article from Forbes for some things to consider when offboarding remote workers
Companies often overlook offboarding of remote employees, leading to data breaches and potential legal issues, writes Brandon Batchelor of ReadyCloud, an ecommerce CRM. Common mistakes include failing to recover equipment, not rescinding software access, poor internal communication and ignoring the emotional aspects of offboarding.
Considering some of the above issues involved, one really has to wonder if the correct analysis of the risks of remote workers has been done and are worth the initial savings involved.
The question’s are who are they, who and where do they live, who are their partners, what additional software is installed on their devices, what AI features are they using that could compromise your security and credibility.
Many cases of remote worker fraud have been recorded.
We’ve simplified complex commands into clear, actionable insights, ensuring you can apply them immediately. Each operator includes:
What it does: A concise explanation.
Working status: Is the operator still functional?
Example: Ready-to-use search strings for real-world tasks.
List of working Google search operators
You can find all of the major organic search operators below, broken up into three categories: “Basic”, “Advanced”, and “Unreliable”. Basic search operators are operators that modify standard textsearches.
Get the most out of OneNote with these little-known features
Hi, Microsoft 365 Insiders! I’m Gokul Subramaniam, and I’m a Product Manager on the OneNote team. If you’re a OneNote fan, you’re aware of the many ways it can streamline and boost note-taking and content generation. But even the most experienced OneNote users among us might not be benefitting from all it has to offer, which is why we’ve singled out some of our favorite features that you may not be aware of – or wish existed but didn’t know they already did. Check them out, supercharge your productivity, and let us know what you think!
Clip web content with Web Clipper
With OneNote Web Clipper, you can easily capture and save online materials directly into your OneNote notebooks, saving you time manually copying information and allowing you to preserve the content in its original form. By simply adding the OneNote Web Clipper extension to your preferred browser, you can instantly begin clipping articles, recipes, YouTube videos, or other types of web pages, and neatly organize them into your notes for reference later.
Save and showcase files with print to OneNote
The print to OneNote feature enables you to send any type of file, including documents, spreadsheets, emails, drawings or diagrams, web pages, and PDFs, directly to a OneNote notebook as a printout. This can be particularly useful for students saving lecture notes, professionals archiving important reports or correspondences, and anyone else wanting to keep a digital copy of physical documents for easy access and annotation. Simply select Print on the file, and then choose OneNote (Desktop) or OneNote (Desktop) – Protected in the Printer list to add it as an image in your chosen notebook or page.
Availability: This feature is only available to OneNote on Windows users.
Recover lost or important edits with version history
Made a mistake or written over crucial content in OneNote? You can restore previous versions of your notes, ensuring that all important information is not lost for good. Perhaps most crucially, this feature gives you peace of mind that should someone else have access to your notebook and make edits, you can still go back to earlier versions if you don’t like what they’ve added. Try it out the next time you want to track progress on a school essay, or revisit old versions of a work project, or revert back to an earlier draft. Under History, you can locate a version of your notebook based on timeframe or author, view all previous page versions, and delete certain versions you no longer need.
Availability: This feature is only available to OneNote on Windows, OneNote for Mac, and OneNote for the web users.
Store and revert deleted information with Recycle Bin
The Recycle Bin in OneNote is a feature that temporarily stores deleted notes and sections, allowing users to recover content that’s valuable or has been accidentally removed. Items in the Recycle Bin can be restored to a specific location in your notebook or permanently deleted, providing an additional layer of security against unintentional data loss. For instance, you can bring back mistakenly deleted project plans, or pull out discarded meeting notes, from the last 60 days.
Availability: This feature is only available to OneNote on Windows, OneNote for Mac, and OneNote for the web users.
New features gradually being rolled out to the Beta Channel with toggle on*
Introducing quick machine recovery
Quick machine recovery (QMR), part of the Windows Resiliency Initiative announced at Ignite 2024 is now available in the latest Windows Insider Preview build. This feature, when enabled, addresses widespread boot issues on Windows 11 devices by automatically detecting and applying fixes directly from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) thereby reducing the system downtime and manual intervention. When a critical boot failure occurs, the device enters WinRE, connects to the network, and sends diagnostic data to Microsoft, which can then deploy targeted remediations via Windows Update. IT admins are encouraged to enable, customize, or test this feature, which is enabled by default for home users. Windows Insiders can start testing it today and provide feedback via Feedback Hub to refine the feature further. In the Feedback Hub app on your Windows device, select Recovery and Uninstall > Quick Machine Recovery. Keep an eye out for a test remediation package coming your way in the next few days, allowing you to experience the quick machine recovery in action.
On the “Home” Tab in the “Editing” section, click the down arrow and select either Find or Replace.
The Find or Replace Navigation will open in the left section of the document.
Type the required content to find in the search box and the results will show
If you selected Replace: The Find and Replace search box will display in a window. Fill in the Find What text in the firsts box and what you want to replace it with in the “Replace with:” dialogue box. Select either “Replace” aor “Replace All“. You will see that the R in Replace and the A in “Repalace All” is under lined so you can use those characters on the keyboard, without having to click on the buttons. If you choose “Replace” you can then click “F” to find the next instance without replacing the instance to skip some choices.
To open the “Find” or “Replace” sections use the keyboard shortcut sequence: CTL F to Find and CTL H to Replace or type “Find” or “Replace” in the Tell me what you want to do Search feature in Ribbon.
in Teams.
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in your meeting controls.
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in your meeting window.
to turn the notifications off.
