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Microsoft’s Windows 11 reveal marked a clear stylistic and strategic pivot: a softer, more mobile‑friendly desktop that folds touch, cloud, and cross‑platform access into the classic PC ecosystem, anchored by a redesigned, centered taskbar and an app store renewed with developer‑friendly economics. Background Microsoft announced Windows 11 as the next major Windows release in June 2021 and began rolling the free upgrade to eligible Windows 10 PCs on October 5, 2021, with a phased rollout...

The photograph and short caption that ran with the Bluefield Daily Telegraph’s “Ravens Cowboys Football” item compress a noisy preseason audition into a single, sharable moment — but the fuller story behind the image is about evaluation, risk management, and how local visuals steer national conversations about roster depth and injury status. Background Preseason football is an evidence‑gathering exercise, not a verdict. Coaches trade definitive outcomes for controlled experiments: simplified...

Microsoft has opened an “urgent” external review after investigative reporting alleged that Israel’s Unit 8200 used a bespoke environment on Microsoft Azure to ingest, store and analyse vast volumes of intercepted Palestinian communications — claims that raise immediate questions about cloud governance, human-rights risk and the operational visibility of major cloud providers. Overview The allegation, first published in a series of articles led by The Guardian and amplified across...

Google Earth failing to start is more than an annoyance — it breaks workflows, stalls research, and leaves casual users staring at a frozen icon or a black window. This issue commonly shows as a process appearing in Task Manager with no visible UI, a crash or freeze during the splash screen, or a black globe that never renders. The good news: most of these launch failures follow a small number of root causes and can be solved with a few systematic troubleshooting steps — from updating GPU...

Windows 10’s official support clock is ticking down, but for many users the practical choice isn’t a rush to upgrade — it’s a careful, measured decision to stay where stability, compatibility, and control still work best for them. The operating system will reach end of support on October 14, 2025, and Microsoft has offered a one‑year consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program to bridge the gap to October 13, 2026; yet the technical, privacy, and usability trade‑offs around Windows 11 —...

Microsoft's August cumulative update for Windows 11 (KB5063878, OS Build 26100.4946) has been linked in community reports to NVMe SSDs becoming inaccessible after sustained, heavy file writes — an issue that has reopened concerns about storage stability in the 24H2 branch and forced a cautious response from power users and administrators. Background / Overview Microsoft released KB5063878 on August 12, 2025 as a security-and-quality cumulative update for Windows 11 (24H2), packaged with a...

Microsoft’s August cumulative for Windows 11 (KB5063878) promised performance and security fixes, but within days it became the focal point of two separate reliability incidents: an enterprise deployment failure that blocked WSUS/SCCM installs and, more alarmingly, early community reports that the patch may trigger NVMe and HDD devices to “disappear” after sustained large writes—behavior that can leave SMART data unreadable and increase the risk of file corruption. Background / Overview...

After two decades on Windows and a few months of serious Linux testing, one thing stands out: desktop environments are the feature I wish Windows would borrow wholesale — a modular, swappable shell model that turns the platform into a true creative canvas rather than a single locked-in UI. rview Desktop environments (DEs) are the layer of software that defines how you interact with an operating system: taskbars, app launchers, window management, notifications, system settings, and the...

Microsoft’s early promise that “AI isn’t just for games” — articulated during the company’s 2016 Ignite and Build-era push — was never a marketing aside; it was a foundational strategy to weave machine intelligence into cloud infrastructure, productivity tools, and third‑party ecosystems. That vision drove the opening of Cortana APIs, deep investments in specialized silicon and FPGA acceleration, and heavy partner programs (from Adobe to Uber) designed to make AI a core platform capability...

The six Windows security myths that resurfaced in a recent roundup are more than clickbait—they reflect persistent misunderstandings about how modern Windows actually defends users, where its limits lie, and when spending money or changing workflows will genuinely improve safety. The original piece laid out six comfortable but misleading beliefs and urged readers to update their assumptions about antivirus subscriptions, Microsoft Defender, updates, file types, Windows 10 longevity, and who...

Microsoft’s Microsoft Store app has quietly changed how it handles automatic app updates: the long‑standing user control to permanently switch automatic updates off in the Store UI is being removed for many consumer devices, and users can now only pause updates for a limited interval — typically one to five weeks — after which the Store will automatically resume updating installed apps. Background For years the Microsoft Store included a simple user toggle — Update apps automatically — that...

Microsoft’s latest quarterly report confirms what investors and enterprise customers have been sensing for months: cloud and AI are not just growth drivers — they are the engine reshaping Microsoft’s business and the broader enterprise landscape. In the fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30, 2025, Microsoft reported total revenue of $76.4 billion, an 18% year‑over‑year increase, while Microsoft Cloud revenue reached $46.7 billion for the quarter (up 27%) and the company disclosed that Azure’s...

Microsoft has started a formal 60‑day countdown to the end of free support for Windows 10, reminding users that October 14, 2025 will be the last date Microsoft issues routine security and feature updates for most Windows 10 installations — and that the October 2025 updates will be the final monthly roll-up most users receive unless they enroll in an Extended Security Updates (ESU) plan or move to a supported OS. Background Microsoft first set an official end‑of‑support date for Windows 10...

After more than half a decade of sudden, retina‑searing white popups in an otherwise dark desktop, Windows 11 is finally showing measurable progress toward a coherent system‑wide dark theme — and that progress is arriving in preview builds right now. Background: why this finally matters For many users, dark mode is more than an aesthetic preference — it's a comfort and accessibility feature. When everything follows the same low‑contrast palette, late‑night work stays gentle on the eyes, OLED...

Microsoft's August cumulative for Windows 11 version 24H2 (KB5063878, OS Build 26100.4946) has sparked a new round of alarm in the storage community: multiple reports say the patch is associated with drives disappearing, SMART information becoming unreadable, and — in at least some cases reported by end users and a small number of enthusiasts — file system corruption after sustained write activity. The situation has reopened long‑running wounds from the original 24H2 rollout, which caused...

Workflow automation is shifting from static scripts and scheduled jobs to adaptive, learning systems that augment human teams and drive measurable business outcomes right across the enterprise. Background / Overview Over the past five years automation has evolved from isolated macros, RPA bots, and scripted integrations into an integrated ecosystem of AI, process intelligence, and low-code tooling. Vendors now advertise agentic automations capable of reasoning, multi‑step orchestration, and...

Microsoft’s Start menu design debate has taken a new turn: a growing chorus of users are asking the company to bring the new, reimagined Start menu interface—the one shipping with recent Windows 11 updates—back to the “regular” Windows 10 experience, and that request exposes tensions between design consistency, backward compatibility, and Windows’ vast installed base. obeen a lightning rod of controversy and affection for more than a decade. The transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11...

Microsoft’s recent policy updates around Office distribution have been widely misunderstood: the company is not locking Office into the Windows Store — it is effectively retiring the Microsoft Store installation type for Microsoft 365 (Office) apps and steering users toward Click-to-Run delivery instead, with a clear timetable for when feature and security updates to Store-installed Office will stop. Background / Overview For more than a decade Microsoft has supported multiple ways to...

Microsoft is rolling out a Windows 11 Insider build that rethinks how users find apps and share files, with a refreshed “All apps” Start menu that groups apps into grid and category views and a new drag-to-share tray that surfaces sharing targets at the top of the screen. Overview The changes arrive in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4950 (KB5052078) and are being rolled out gradually to Beta Channel Insiders. The update introduces two distinct ways to view the “All” page in Start —...

Microsoft’s week in software was quieter on the surface but consequential under the hood: PowerToys received another maturation-focused release that tightens performance and discoverability, the Microsoft Store tightened rules that affect how developers list and bundle titles, and August’s Patch Tuesday re-emphasized why fast, disciplined patching remains non‑negotiable for admins. These items—highlighted in this week’s Neowin roundup—are meaningful not because they’re splashy, but because...