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Google’s new experimental Windows overlay arrives as a compact, Spotlight-like search bar that runs above whatever you’re doing, pulls results from the web, Google Drive, installed apps and local files, and folds Google Lens and an AI Mode into a single quick-access experience — summoned by default with Alt + Space. (blog.google) Background Google announced the new Google app for Windows as an experiment inside Search Labs, positioning it as a lightweight desktop overlay that reduces context...

Windows telemetry that tracks desktop operating systems shows a surprising wrinkle as Windows 10 approaches its end-of-support deadline: web‑analytics snapshots and press reports suggest Windows 7’s measured presence has increased sharply in recent months, even as Windows 11 pulls ahead of Windows 10 on many trackers — a pattern that mixes real migration, measurement noise, and operational risk. The claim that Windows 7 “doubled” in two months has circulated widely, but a careful look at...

Microsoft will keep releasing security updates for Windows 10 for one extra year in the European Economic Area, but the relief is strictly regional—and the fine print matters more than the headlines. Background Microsoft has set October 14, 2025 as the official end-of-support date for Windows 10, after which mainstream security patches and quality updates cease for consumer editions. To give users extra time to transition to Windows 11, Microsoft created a consumer Extended Security Updates...

ChatGPT sits far ahead of its rivals by almost every public metric, but that lead is a snapshot — not a guarantee — and the next phase of the AI chatbot race will be decided by product integration, reliability, regulation, and who can translate model capability into daily, dependable value for users and enterprises. Background / Overview OpenAI's ChatGPT dominates conversational-AI traffic and engagement in 2025, repeatedly showing market-share figures in the 80% range on independent...

Raymond Chen’s short-answer to a decades-old Windows 95 installation mystery is deceptively simple: Microsoft used a trimmed-down Windows 3.1 as the installer bootstrap because it was already available, small enough to ship on floppies of the day, and minimized engineering and reboot costs compared with building a purpose-built miniature of the then-still-late Windows 95 codebase. Background / Overview Windows 95 famously reshaped the PC desktop, but its installer—what users experienced when...

A persistent OneDrive bug tied to FSLogix has left Windows Server 2019 session-host administrators frustrated: files and folders inside OneDrive that live in FSLogix-managed profiles could not be renamed, and the only reliable relief reported by multiple administrators has been upgrading FSLogix to the September 2025 maintenance build (25.09). The defect rendered simple file-management operations unusable in affected sessions, resisted conventional renaming via File Explorer and PowerShell...

Genpact’s new Insurance Policy Suite is a clear statement that the vendor and consulting arms of the insurance technology market are moving past proof‑of‑concepts and toward agentic automation: a four‑module, Microsoft‑backed product that promises to automate much of the pre‑bind underwriting workflow, shorten cycle times, and deliver measurable cost savings—if the industry can manage the attendant governance, data and operational risks. Background Genpact announced the Genpact Insurance...

Microsoft’s move to “cease and disable” a set of Azure cloud and Azure AI subscriptions used by a unit inside Israel’s Ministry of Defence has forced a public reckoning about how hyperscale cloud infrastructure and commodity AI tooling can be repurposed into instruments of mass surveillance—and what vendors, regulators, and civil society must do to prevent that outcome. Background / Overview In early August 2025 a coordinated investigative package led by The Guardian (with +972 Magazine and...

Microsoft’s new consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program gives many Windows 10 users a practical, time‑boxed lifeline — including a free route for eligible users in some regions — letting them keep receiving security‑only updates through October 13, 2026 while they plan upgrades or hardware refreshes. The announcement means Windows 10 will still reach its official end of support on October 14, 2025, but a narrowly scoped one‑year safety net is now available for qualifying consumer...

Microsoft appears to be testing a change that would finally let Windows 11’s taskbar search hand off web queries to whatever browser and search engine you have set as default—rather than forcing results into Microsoft Edge and Bing. The evidence comes from new experimental flags discovered in Microsoft Edge Canary that reference “WSB” and “DSE” behaviors and explicitly mention “NonEdgeDB” and “NonBingDSE,” which strongly imply Windows Search could soon open queries in a non‑Edge browser...

Legacy Update’s latest stable release, version 1.12, quietly rewrites a last‑man‑standing lifeline for unsupported Windows installs—and arrives at an awkwardly strategic moment as Windows 10’s official support window closes next month. The project, a community‑run, open‑source restore of the old Windows Update web app, now ships a rebuilt ActiveX control compiled with MinGW, shrinking the installer, speeding runtime behaviour, and removing a fragile dependency on legacy Visual Studio...

Microsoft’s move to outsource hollow‑core fiber (HCF) production to established glass and fiber manufacturers marks a key inflection point for a technology that has long promised dramatic gains in latency, bandwidth and energy efficiency for cloud and AI workloads. Over the last week Microsoft publicly announced strategic manufacturing collaborations with Corning and Heraeus to scale its HCF output, building on the company’s 2022 acquisition of Lumenisity and a string of laboratory...

Multiple subsea fibre‑optic cable faults in the Red Sea produced a measurable slowdown for Internet users across Pakistan, forcing carriers and cloud operators to reroute traffic, warn customers of higher latency, and expose the fragile link between cloud performance and the physical seabed infrastructure that carries most international data. Background The global internet runs on a physical spine of submarine (subsea) fibre‑optic cables that carry the vast majority of cross‑border data. A...

October 14, 2025 is shaping up to be more than a corporate calendar milestone — it’s a practical deadline that will force many Monster Hunter players to make a clear choice about how they keep playing: upgrade the operating system, accept an unsupported experience, or invest in new hardware. Background / Overview Microsoft has set a hard end‑of‑support date for Windows 10: after October 14, 2025 Microsoft will stop issuing routine security updates, feature updates, and standard technical...

A stubborn little triumph unfolded on the internet this week: an enterprising tinkerer managed to resurrect Windows 7, coerce the Steam client into running on it, and — after a series of creative workarounds — boot Hollow Knight: Silksong on that ancient platform, delivering a textbook example of why the PC modding community will never let legacy systems die quietly. Background: why this matters (and why it’s messy) For most PC users, Windows 7 has been a relic for half a decade. Microsoft...

A stubborn late‑model PC and a patient tinkerer have done what many considered impossible: coaxing modern Steam and Team Cherry’s hotly anticipated Silksong to run on a machine still sitting on Windows 7. The spectacle is less about raw performance than it is a reminder that the PC ecosystem—its games, platform clients, drivers and energetic communities—can be bent, bridged, and sometimes bullied into cooperation. The episode touches on bigger issues: platform support lifecycles, the...

If you want to power down an Xbox controller quickly and reliably—whether to save battery, reset a stuck connection, or prepare for storage—you can do it in a handful of simple ways that work across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Windows PCs. This guide walks through four practical methods, verifies the technical details against official and independent sources, explains common edge cases (USB behavior, auto-sleep, firmware quirks), and provides battery-care and troubleshooting advice so...

Microsoft is adding a long-requested quality-of-life feature to Windows 11 via PowerToys: an automatic, schedule-driven switch between Light and Dark themes — a small addition on the surface that closes a glaring usability gap and gives advanced users precise control over how and when the OS and apps change appearance. Background Windows has supported light and dark modes for several years, but the operating system still lacks a built‑in, user‑friendly scheduler that flips themes...

Capcom has quietly moved a new compatibility line into the post‑launch roadmap for its Monster Hunter trilogy on PC: starting October 14, 2025, the publisher will no longer guarantee that Monster Hunter Wilds, Monster Hunter World, and Monster Hunter Rise will run on Windows 10. The change — announced on Steam and reported across gaming outlets — coincides with Microsoft's official end‑of‑support date for Windows 10, and it forces PC players and administrators to reckon with two simultaneous...

Every year I perform a ritual of hardware and software maintenance that restores older Windows laptops to the kind of snappy, reliable performance you expect from a new machine — not with magical upgrades, but with disciplined cleaning, targeted software housekeeping, and a few careful repairs that remove the friction that builds up over time. Background Windows laptops collect two kinds of slowdowns: physical and digital. Physically, dust and grime clog vents and fans, causing higher...