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Windows 11’s so-called “God Mode” is not a magic key to the operating system’s internals — it’s a pragmatic, little-known shortcut that collects hundreds of Control Panel and administrative tasks into a single folder, and for many power users it has become a daily productivity tool that beats hunting through Settings, nested menus, and search results. Background or Overview The item commonly called God Mode is actually the Windows Master Control Panel shortcut — the “All Tasks” namespace...

Flyoobe 1.3 arrives as a practical — and controversial — answer to a simple problem: millions of otherwise serviceable PCs are blocked from a native Windows 11 upgrade by Microsoft’s hardware gates, and a growing set of community tools now lets users choose whether to accept those limits or work around them. Background / Overview Flyoobe (formerly Flyby11) began life as a focused, lightweight patcher whose only job was to remove the installer checks that block Windows 11 upgrades on machines...

Microsoft’s latest Insider update for Copilot on Windows shifts the app’s interface and search capabilities into a more integrated, AI-first direction — bringing semantic file search to capable machines and a redesigned Copilot home that folds recent apps, files, and conversations into a single hub for on-device assistance. (blogs.windows.com, theverge.com) Background Windows has been steadily folding generative and assistive AI into core desktop workflows, and the Copilot on Windows app is...

Microsoft is quietly testing a new Microsoft Edge feature called Journeys that promises to turn scattered tabs, search history, and browsing activity into tidy, context-aware summaries — and early reports suggest it may be gated behind Microsoft’s Copilot Pro subscription. Background Microsoft’s broader push to fold AI into everything from Windows to Office has accelerated the development of browser-level intelligence. Edge’s recent “Copilot Mode” reimagines the browser as an assistant that...

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Zed’s slow march to a fully supported Windows build has become a cautionary tale about the hidden complexity of cross‑platform development — and a reminder that choosing low‑level, GPU‑accelerated rendering for speed and resource efficiency comes with a higher integration bill on Windows than on macOS or Linux. Background Zed launched its first public beta in March 2023 as a macOS‑only preview, and a Linux build followed in mid‑2024. The team has been working on a Windows port throughout...

I had been ignoring Power Query for years, treating Excel like a calculator with a few handy formulas—until a messy, cross‑vendor CSV pile forced me to learn the tool everyone always brags about. What started as a tedious weekend of copy‑pasting and find‑and‑replace turned into a few well‑chosen Power Query steps that cleaned, standardized, and converted months of price‑tracking data into an instantly usable dataset. The difference was dramatic: a process that used to take hours became a few...

The August 2025 Patch Tuesday cumulative for Windows 11 (KB5063878) has introduced an unexpected and painful wrinkle for live broadcasters: NDI-based streaming through OBS and other production tools can stutter, lag, and drop frames — even on healthy networks — and Microsoft has acknowledged the issue while recommending an immediate, manual change to NDI’s transport mode as a workaround. Background NDI (Network Device Interface) is a widely used, high‑performance video-over-IP protocol...

Silicon Motion's early reassurance — that “so far, none of our controllers are affected” by the Windows 11 update that has been making some NVMe drives disappear under sustained writes — is an encouraging datapoint, but it is provisional and incomplete: the incident remains an active, cross‑stack investigation involving Microsoft, controller vendors (notably Phison), SSD manufacturers, and community test benches, and the safest posture for users and IT teams remains conservative risk...

Microsoft’s Copilot Labs has quietly added a striking new capability — Copilot 3D, a browser-based experiment that converts a single 2D photo into a downloadable, textured 3D model in GLB format — and with it Microsoft has reintroduced mainstream users to an age-old promise: make 3D creation as easy as uploading an image. Early hands‑on reports and Microsoft’s Labs guidance confirm the essentials of the preview: upload a JPG or PNG (roughly capped at ~10 MB), wait seconds to a minute while...

Microsoft’s Release Candidate 0 for SQL Server 2025 marks a decisive step toward a modern, AI‑first database platform — with official Ubuntu 24.04 support for development and testing, TLS 1.3 enabled by default, and a broad slate of performance and AI features that aim to reshape how enterprises build next‑generation applications. Overview The RC0 preview of SQL Server 2025 is explicitly targeted at development and validation workflows rather than immediate production migrations. Microsoft...

Microsoft has begun testing a new “My apps” tab inside the Xbox PC app for Windows 11 that lets players locate, download, and launch third‑party applications — from browsers and gaming utilities to rival storefronts — without leaving the Xbox experience, a move aimed squarely at improving usability on handheld Windows gaming PCs. (news.xbox.com, theverge.com) Background Microsoft’s long‑running effort to make the Xbox app the central hub for PC gaming has accelerated over the past year. The...

Microsoft's incremental dismantling of the classic Control Panel continued this week with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27928, as Microsoft moves several legacy time, language and regional controls into the modern Settings app — a small but meaningful step in a migration that has quietly stretched over more than a decade. Background: the long arc from Control Panel to Settings The idea of replacing the traditional Control Panel with a modern Settings app is not new. Microsoft introduced...

If your HP USB-C Dock 5G isn’t behaving—no video, intermittent Ethernet, or peripherals that disconnect randomly—the most likely culprit is a driver or firmware mismatch; getting the right drivers installed and the dock’s firmware updated are the fastest, highest‑leverage fixes. The short, practical guidance many readers rely on—download the official HP dock package, run Windows Update, use Device Manager to refresh or reinstall drivers, and if necessary uninstall/reinstall the dock in...

Microsoft’s AI leadership has sounded a public alarm about a new, unsettling pattern: as chatbots become more fluent, personable and persistent, a small but growing number of users are forming delusional beliefs about those systems — believing they are sentient, infallible, or even conferring special powers — a phenomenon increasingly labeled “AI psychosis.” This is more than a rhetorical warning: Microsoft’s head of AI, Mustafa Suleyman, has urged the industry to treat the risk seriously...

The NFL and Microsoft have quietly but decisively moved a decade‑long sideline relationship into an explicit “AI‑first” operational phase, rolling Microsoft Copilot and Azure AI into the league’s Sideline Viewing System (SVS), scouting workflows, and club operations in a multiyear extension that promises faster in‑game insights and broader enterprise automation across all 32 teams. Background / Overview For more than a decade Microsoft Surface devices have been a visible part of NFL game...

Microsoft is urging users to prepare for a hard deadline—Windows 10 reaches end of support this October, and a flood of promotional offers has followed, including a widely shared deal that advertises Windows 11 Pro for as little as $14.97 as users scramble to move off an unsupported OS. Background / Overview Microsoft has set a firm end-of-support date for Windows 10: October 14, 2025. After that date Microsoft will no longer provide security updates, quality fixes, or technical support for...

Windows 11’s August cumulative update (KB5063878) has been linked to a reproducible storage regression that can make certain SSDs and HDDs disappear under sustained large writes, and Silicon Motion — according to community‑sourced forum responses — reports none of its controllers have shown the problem so far, a claim that is useful but provisional until confirmed by a formal vendor advisory or SKU‑level testing. Background / Overview Microsoft shipped the Windows 11 24H2 cumulative update...

Phison has publicly disowned a circulated advisory that claimed Windows 11’s August cumulative update was uniquely “killing” Phison‑based SSDs, while the vendor — and several independent labs — simultaneously confirm an industry‑wide storage regression tied to the August 12, 2025 cumulative (KB5063878) that can make some NVMe drives disappear under sustained, large writes. Background / Overview Microsoft released the August 12, 2025 Windows 11 cumulative update (KB5063878, OS Build...

This week’s Cisco Talos briefing reads like a travelogue-turned-threat-advisory: after a short, evocative opening about cherry pie and Douglas firs, the post pivots sharply to an urgent security alert — a Russian state‑backed cluster Talos calls Static Tundra is actively exploiting a seven-year-old Cisco Smart Install vulnerability (CVE‑2018‑0171) to compromise unpatched and end‑of‑life network devices, exfiltrate configuration data and maintain long‑term, stealthy access inside targeted...