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Out of the box, Windows 11 ships with defaults that favour convenience, energy efficiency, and telemetry-driven features — but those same defaults can make a new PC feel noisy, slow, or invasive. This piece explains six specific settings that are worth turning off (or at least reconfiguring) on every new Windows machine, why each change helps, exactly how to do it, and the trade‑offs to consider before flipping the switch. Background / Overview Windows has evolved into an OS that ships as an...

Windows 7 arrived as a counterpunch: a carefully tuned, performance-minded release that salvaged the innovations of Windows Vista while shedding its worst excesses — a reboot of public perception that turned a tarnished chapter in Windows history into a rediscovered foothold for Microsoft’s desktop OS strategy. Background Windows Vista shipped as Microsoft’s post-XP vision, introducing major architectural changes: a new security model (User Account Control), a modernized graphics stack (the...

A single‑plaintiff lawsuit filed in San Diego has escalated what many expected to be a routine product‑lifecycle moment into a high‑stakes legal and public‑policy flashpoint: the planned October 14, 2025 end of mainstream support for Windows 10, and the question of whether Microsoft can — or should — be forced to continue providing free security updates beyond that date. Background / Overview Microsoft has publicly set October 14, 2025 as the end of mainstream support for consumer Windows 10...

I installed Windows 11 on my gaming PC, ran a battery of real‑world benchmarks, and found that — on the hardware I use — raw gaming averages stayed essentially unchanged from Windows 10, but percentile lows and stability showed notable variance that every serious gamer should understand before upgrading. Background / Overview Microsoft has set a firm deadline: Windows 10 reaches end of support on October 14, 2025, meaning security and feature updates will cease for mainstream Windows 10...

Windows 11 is a technically impressive and visually refined operating system, but it still carries inherited trade-offs—strict hardware gates, opaque telemetry, and a feature set that sometimes prioritizes new aesthetics over practical user control—that older operating systems solved more elegantly in different ways. The idea that Microsoft could learn from the past is not nostalgia; it’s practical product-design archaeology: six classic operating systems—Windows XP, Windows 7, macOS Snow...

Microsoft’s Xbox PC app is beginning to let Windows on Arm devices do something they’ve long been denied: download and run select PC games locally instead of being forced to stream everything from Xbox Cloud Gaming — a staged Insider preview that signals a practical shift in Microsoft’s approach to Arm PCs and may presage bigger hardware and ecosystem changes ahead. Background The Windows-on-Arm story has been a slow arc of capability versus expectation. Arm-based Windows machines — from...

Microsoft will stop providing security updates and technical support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, and that deadline forces a decision: upgrade, replace, pay to extend, or accept rising risk as the OS moves into unsupported territory. This article breaks down what “end of support” actually means, the realistic options for consumers and small businesses, the technical and financial trade‑offs for each path, and a practical migration checklist to get from a vulnerable Windows 10 PC to a...

A Southern California man’s last‑minute lawsuit asking a judge to stop Microsoft from turning off routine, free security updates for Windows 10 has turned a long‑scheduled product lifecycle event into a high‑stakes public debate about security, consumer rights, competition and electronic waste — and it landed squarely on Microsoft’s desk with only weeks to spare before the company’s announced October 14, 2025 end‑of‑support deadline. Background / Overview Less than three months before...

Microsoft’s Windows Insider program delivered a compact but meaningful set of user-facing improvements during the first half of August 2025, focused squarely on UI consolidation, cross-device convenience, and tightening the long-running migration of legacy Control Panel functionality into the Settings app. Background Since Surface-era Windows 11 releases and throughout the Insider cycles, Microsoft has used the Canary, Dev, and Beta Channels to iterate on features, test UX changes, and...

Microsoft’s August cumulative update for Windows 11 (KB5063878) is failing to install on a subset of systems—most notably enterprise devices serviced through WSUS and ConfigMgr—and administrators are being given a short list of containment options that trade speed for scope and safety. view The August cumulative update (published in the month’s Patch Tuesday cycle) was delivered as a combined Servicing Stack Update (SSU) plus Latest Cumulative Update (LCU) and included feature and quality...

Microsoft has confirmed that the August 12, 2025 cumulative update for Windows 11 version 24H2 (KB5063878, OS Build 26100.4946) is failing to install on enterprise-managed devices when delivered via WSUS and SCCM, producing the Windows Update error code 0x80240069; Redmond is rolling a temporary Known Issue Rollback (KIR) and published guidance for IT administrators while engineers prepare a permanent servicing fix. Background Microsoft issued the August 12, 2025 cumulative security update...

PUBG’s console era is entering a clear-cut next chapter: PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS will stop running on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One after the studio’s scheduled maintenance on November 13, 2025, and will continue on consoles only as native builds for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S — a move Krafton says will enable higher, more stable frame rates, improved visuals, and a smoother update path for the live-service title. (krafton.com, gamespot.com) Background PUBG arrived on consoles years after...

Microsoft has confirmed it will standardize pricing for Online Services sold through its volume‑licensing channels, aligning list prices across Price Levels A–D with the prices shown on Microsoft.com — a change that takes effect for renewals and new purchases beginning November 1, 2025. Background Microsoft’s volume‑licensing ecosystem historically used a Price Level grid (A–D) to reflect different list prices and discount bands for customers based on geography, account type, and purchase...

Chromebooks don’t use a Windows key or a traditional Print Screen button, but capturing your screen is still fast and flexible — whether you prefer a single keypress, the on-screen Screen Capture tool, voice control, an external keyboard, or a browser extension. This guide consolidates every practical method, explains where screenshots land, flags model-specific quirks, and gives clear, copy‑ready shortcuts so you can capture, edit, and share from Chrome OS with confidence. Background /...

A California resident has filed suit seeking to stop Microsoft from cutting off free security updates for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, arguing the company’s end‑of‑support decision amounts to forced obsolescence that funnels users toward Windows 11 and Microsoft’s AI‑focused hardware ecosystem. Background Windows 10’s official end‑of‑support date is October 14, 2025. On that date Microsoft will stop providing routine security updates, feature updates and standard technical assistance for...

Windows users who want to stop updates — either briefly or forever — have more than one route to take, but each choice comes with trade‑offs that range from harmless convenience fixes to significant security exposure; this feature unpacks the practical methods for Windows 10 and Windows 11, verifies the exact steps you’ll need, highlights when each technique is appropriate, and explains the risks so you can choose a safe, sustainable approach. The short version: you can pause updates from...

Microsoft’s August 12, 2025 cumulative update for Windows 10 — KB5063709 — quietly did the heavy lifting many users needed: it expands the consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) enrollment experience to a broad audience and repairs the enrollment wizard that prevented some people from signing up for coverage through October 13, 2026. Background / Overview Windows 10’s official mainstream support ends on October 14, 2025, and Microsoft has provided a one‑year consumer bridge via the Windows...

Microsoft's October 14 deadline for Windows 10 support is real, and the clock is ticking: when mainstream updates stop you’ll lose free security patches, feature updates and official technical support — but you do have a set of clear, practical choices depending on your hardware, budget and risk tolerance. Background / Overview Microsoft has announced that Windows 10 will reach end of support on October 14, 2025. After that date Microsoft will no longer provide regular security updates...

I pulled a boxed Windows 11 tiny PC out of its packaging, installed Ubuntu Budgie, and in less than an afternoon turned a handsome, pocket-sized Geekom IT15 into a fast, dependable Linux workstation — a change that proved more than cosmetic: it materially improved daily responsiveness, fixed some Windows-only connectivity quirks, and highlighted the realistic limits of running local AI without a discrete GPU. Background / Overview The Geekom IT15 is one of the most compact high‑performance...

Microsoft has confirmed that the Windows 11 August 2025 cumulative update (KB5063878) is causing installation failures in certain enterprise scenarios and has pushed an emergency mitigation while engineers work on a permanent fix. The issue surfaces as error code 0x80240069 when updates are deployed through enterprise management channels such as WSUS and SCCM/MECM, leaving administrators with a choice: apply a Known Issue Rollback policy from Microsoft, deploy a registry/workaround across...