hello all and thanks for any help you may be able to provide.
I am returning to Windows after a long break and have a new HP OmniBook 7 arriving on January 7. I plan to use both JAWS and NVDA, but I want to make sure I set this machine up cleanly from the start.
I’m looking for your Golden Path or best practices for a fresh Windows 11 setup.
I have three specific questions for the Windows users on here.
1. The Silent Gap, Does anyone have experience with recent HP laptops? Does Ctrl + Win + Enter reliably start Narrator at the initial OOBE (Out of Box Experience) screen, or should I have sighted assistance on standby for BIOS/Driver checks?
2. removing HP Software, HP installs a lot of utilities. Which ones are critical to keep for driver updates (e.g., HP Support Assistant), and which ones are safe to uninstall to free up resources for JAWS/NVDA?
3. Audio Drivers, Has anyone faced issues with audio drivers dropping out when installing screen readers on the new Windows 11 builds?
Any tips for the first 24 hours of setup would be greatly appreciated. I want to get this machine running as efficiently as possible. I have not done this in like 5 years.
By Diego Garibay, 1 January, 2026
Forum
Windows
Comments
Re: HP
Hi,
I currently use a 2023 HP laptop, running Windows 11 build 26H2. First, control plus Windows key plus enter does indeed toggle Narrator. Second, you should not have any issues with audio out of the box, provided that you are installing/updating the preinstalled build of Windows 11 on your machine. If you decide to install a stock build of windows, typically downloaded from Microsoft, then your mileage may vary. However, it takes no effort to plug in a pair of headphones/earbuds into a laptop these days.
Next, you can pretty much get away with uninstalling all of the HP bloatware, but I would personally recommend keeping a few items:
• HP system event utility. On certain models, this controls things like the Function (FN) Lock capability.
• HP audio manager. I may have butchered the name of this utility, but nevertheless it is useful for managing your audio output. Especially if you use external sound, which I do on my laptop. It controls things like an audio equalizer, which I find extremely useful, when switching between laptop speakers and desktop speakers. Think 'hardware-based audio profiles'.
• HP system tray utility. This little utility is essential if you do a lot of things with Microsoft Teams and/or Zoom. It gives you universal controls for your microphone and camera while interacting with these types of applications, regardless of whether or not the application is focused on screen at the time. I relied on this utility a lot, back in 2024, while I was studying networking through Cisco's networking Academy. Cisco has their own version of Zoom, and being able to mute my microphone on the fly was extremely useful.
Optionally, I would recommend you look over the following GitHub link. It has some really powerful scripts for removing bloatware off of your windows machine.
https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat
Final note, I have personally never had experience with losing sound and/or audio driver corruption while installing any screen reader on Windows.
Hope this answers some of your questions.
Edited for typos
That was some great information thanks.
Can I get a list of key strokes for that utility, I never noticed it was there and never used it.
Sure
Just tell me which utility you are referring to. Lol
The utility that allow you to mute your microphone
I could Use that myself sometimes.
Muting the microphone
For some reason I am having a hard time looking up the hot keys for the HP utilities. However, I do know that there is a windows hot key (Alt plus Windows key plus K) that will mute the microphone in things like Teams and Zoom meetings.
Ironically I did not even know that was a built-in Windows function, so perhaps you can disregard my original post, and not worry about using an HP utility for that particular function.
Microsoft authenticator on Windows is inaccessible
I literally could not get narrator to read the number that I have to click on my iPhone. I had to have my parents look at it. I couldn’t get it to work at all. This is a narrator fail, the iPhone app is still good.
Your experience
Hope you by now you received your new laptop and you're enjoying your time with it.
Re: Authenticator for Windows
Authenticator for iOS is wonderful. I've been using it for years. Haven't ever really used it on Windows, so I can't really say how well it works for NVDA, however, no real surprise if you're having difficulties with Narrator And non-default applications. Narrator, in my opinion, is really great for Navigating the Windows UI itself, but not for much else. That's the beauty of having access to third-party screen readers, for the more interactive things, like third-party applications, and navigating the Internet.
And yes, I know Authenticator is a Microsoft product, I also know that Narrator has not been optimized for it.
You don’t get a choice when you’re setting up.
Yeah, I know, that’s the problem, when you’re connecting your Microsoft account at first, you have to use narrator. I just wanted to make sure everyone knows. This was when I set up my new laptop within windows, great experience everywhere else by the way.
Fair enough
I'm guessing this is either machine specific, or build specific. For example, I did not have to deal with Activator for Windows when I set up my machine. Then again, my machine is a 2023 HP model. Take from that, what you will. 🫡
About Microsoft Authenticator If On Windows
You can have Narrator read a specific screen area by pressing Narrator+CTRL+D, then Narrator+CTRL+X to copy what it said to the clipboard. You might need to toggle scan mode on as well (Narrator+Space), which is turned off by default. This message was written using Narrator on a Windows device that isn’t HP-related—specifically, an Ideapad 3 Slim.
This is what I needed to know thanks.
I figure there must’ve been a command like that, I just couldn’t remember it at the time. Thanks for putting it on here.
@Diego
No problem, glad to be of service!
Re: Narrator
Narrator for Windows has recently received some TLC, including a Screen Curtain, the ability to paste the last spoken phrase, and the ability to pull up a virtual window with the last, I believe, 500 phrases spoken, which you can copy/paste as needed.