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Microsoft confirmed on May 15, 2026, that the May 2026 Windows 11 security update KB5089549 can fail on some Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 devices when the EFI System Partition has roughly 10MB or less free space. The failure typically arrives during the reboot phase, around 35–36 percent, then retreats into the familiar “Something didn’t go as planned. Undoing changes.” message. The bug is not a blue-screen catastrophe, but it is the kind of low-level servicing failure that corrodes trust...

Microsoft says a Windows 11 update later in 2026 will let PCs with a dedicated Copilot key remap that key to either Right Ctrl or the Context menu key from Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Keyboard. The change is small in surface area and large in symbolism. After two years of treating the keyboard as prime real estate for its AI ambitions, Microsoft is quietly conceding that a hardware shortcut is not the same thing as user demand. The Copilot key is becoming what it arguably should have...

Microsoft began testing a movable and smaller Windows 11 taskbar on May 15, 2026, in Experimental Preview Build 26300.8493 for Windows Insiders, letting users place the taskbar on the bottom, top, left, or right edge and enable a compact taskbar size through Settings. That is the factual answer, but the more interesting story is why this small-looking change has taken nearly five years to reappear. Microsoft is not merely restoring a lost convenience; it is tacitly admitting that Windows...

Microsoft began testing new Windows 11 taskbar and Start menu customization controls on May 15, 2026, in Insider Experimental Build 26300.8493, including taskbar placement on any screen edge, a smaller taskbar option, and new Start menu toggles for visible sections. That sentence sounds almost comically mundane, but it lands on one of the longest-running irritants in Windows 11: Microsoft removed familiar desktop behaviors, then spent years explaining why the new model was cleaner. Now it is...

Microsoft says a Windows 11 update arriving later in 2026 will let users remap the dedicated Copilot key on newer PCs to behave as either Right Ctrl or the Context Menu key. Until that lands, a small third-party utility called NoCopilotKey is filling the gap for users who want the missing right-side Control key back now. The story is not just about one annoying keyboard button. It is about what happens when Microsoft’s AI ambitions collide with decades of muscle memory, accessibility...

Microsoft is preparing a Windows 11 update for later in 2026 that will let users remap the dedicated Copilot key on newer PCs so it behaves as either the Context Menu key or the Right Ctrl key. That sounds like a small keyboard setting, but it is really an admission that Microsoft turned a familiar piece of PC hardware into an AI billboard before it had earned the right to do so. The coming fix matters because it restores something users should never have lost: the ability to decide whether...

Microsoft said on May 18, 2026, that a future Windows 11 update will let owners of PCs with a dedicated Copilot key remap that key to Right Ctrl or the Context menu key through Settings later this year. The concession is small in software terms and large in symbolism. After two years of treating AI access as important enough to occupy physical keyboard real estate, Microsoft is now acknowledging that a branded shortcut can be less useful than the boring keys it displaced. That matters...

Microsoft and Meta are the two AI-heavy megacap stocks being pitched on May 18, 2026, as likely to show investor-visible returns from enormous data-center and model spending sooner than skeptics expect, thanks to Azure growth, Copilot adoption, advertising gains, and Meta AI rollout. That is the clean version of the bull case. The messier version is that Wall Street is being asked to value an infrastructure boom before the depreciation bill, power constraints, and product winners are fully...

Microsoft is rolling out a floating Copilot button in Excel for Microsoft 365 users in May 2026, placing the AI assistant inside the spreadsheet canvas where some users say it blocks cells, screenshots, and even scrollbar access. The controversy is not that Copilot exists in Excel; Microsoft has been building toward that for years. The problem is that the button has crossed a line from feature discovery into workspace occupation. For an application whose value rests on precision, density...

Microsoft will retire Together Mode in Microsoft Teams beginning in early June 2026, with the rollout expected to finish by late June, removing the shared-scene meeting layout, custom scenes, seat assignments, and the Together Mode option from the Teams meeting View menu. The Gallery view becomes the default answer to a question Microsoft once tried to solve with research, theatricality, and a little pandemic-era magic. This is not just the death of a quirky meeting feature. It is a sign...

NTT DATA said on May 18, 2026, that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Santa Clara-based WinWire, a Microsoft partner focused on Azure, data engineering, cloud-native development, and agentic AI, adding more than 1,000 Azure engineers and AI specialists after closing. The deal is not just another services roll-up with AI branding pasted on top. It is a bet that the next phase of enterprise AI will be won less by model demos than by integrators that can rewire data estates...

Microsoft began testing Windows 11 Insider Experimental build 26300.8493 on May 15, 2026, adding taskbar repositioning while separate reporting says Start menu size controls and section toggles are entering the same preview pipeline for Insiders. The change is small in the way UI toggles are always small: a few settings, a few menu states, a few more ways to say no. But it matters because Windows 11’s central design problem has never been that Microsoft lacks taste. It is that Microsoft too...

Microsoft will retire Together Mode in Microsoft Teams meetings worldwide during June 2026, removing the shared-scene meeting layout, custom Together Mode scenes, and seat assignments while leaving gallery view as the primary multi-participant meeting experience. The cutoff is not a crisis for most tenants, but it is a useful marker of where Teams is going. Microsoft is pruning a memorable pandemic-era feature in favor of a simpler meeting surface, more predictable client behavior, and...

On May 17, 2026, AWS said ExxonMobil reduced cloud infrastructure costs by using an AWS Optimization and Licensing Assessment to analyze underused compute resources, software licenses, storage patterns, and Oracle database modernization across a hybrid estate spanning on-premises systems and AWS workloads. The interesting part is not that a large enterprise found waste in the cloud; that is practically the default state of mature cloud adoption. The interesting part is that the biggest...

NTT DATA signed a definitive agreement in May 2026 to acquire Santa Clara-based WinWire, a Microsoft-focused AI and Azure services partner, adding more than 1,000 Azure engineers and AI specialists to expand enterprise AI, agentic AI, data engineering, and cloud-native transformation work. The deal is not just another services roll-up dressed in AI language. It is a bet that the next phase of enterprise AI will be won less by model demos than by the unglamorous capacity to wire data...

Microsoft acknowledged on May 15, 2026 that Windows 11 security update KB5089549, released for versions 24H2 and 25H2, can fail during installation with error 0x800f0922 on devices whose EFI System Partition has very little free space. That detail matters because this is not just another vague Windows Update failure. The update sits at the intersection of Patch Tuesday security fixes, Secure Boot certificate preparation, boot-manager servicing, and BitLocker recovery behavior. In other...

Windows 11 still ships with a cluster of default settings that promote Microsoft services, feed personalized content, collect optional diagnostic signals, and blur local PC workflows with cloud and web features, and users can disable many of them through Settings, policy, or registry changes. The MakeUseOf piece lands because it says the quiet part out loud: the irritation is not one toggle, one ad, or one panel. It is the accumulated feeling that a fresh Windows install now arrives with an...

On May 15, 2026, Microsoft began rolling out Windows 11 preview changes that let Experimental-channel Insiders move the taskbar to the top, bottom, left, or right edge and customize Start menu sections, sizing, and profile visibility. That is the factual headline; the real story is more embarrassing and more important. Microsoft is not inventing a new Windows interface so much as negotiating its way back to old Windows virtues. After years of telling users that Windows 11’s cleaner design...

Malta launched a national AI literacy programme on May 16, 2026, offering residents aged 14 and over a free two-hour online course and, on completion, a one-year subscription to either ChatGPT Plus or Microsoft 365 Personal Copilot. The move is small in geography but large in symbolism: a government is treating consumer AI access not as a perk, but as civic infrastructure. For Microsoft and OpenAI, Malta becomes a neatly bounded national test case. For everyone else, it is a preview of the...

Microsoft’s May 12, 2026 Windows 11 cumulative update KB5089549 adds a new C:\Windows\SecureBoot folder on eligible PCs, packaging sample PowerShell automation for the Secure Boot certificate migration that organizations must complete before older 2011-era trust certificates begin expiring in June. The folder is not a random artifact, and it is not a cleanup mistake. It is Microsoft putting a late-stage operational toolkit directly onto Windows machines because the next phase of Secure Boot...