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Exclaimer has launched MSP Connect, a partner programme and management layer aimed at managed service providers that sell and administer email-signature services across Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace customer tenants. The practical change is less about a new signature editor than about the operating model around it: a central MSP portal, usage-based billing, and promised hooks into ConnectWise, Kaseya, and Microsoft Marketplace resale. IT Brief Asia reported the August 19 launch as a...

Mattel’s new 3,509-piece replica of the original Xbox turns Microsoft’s first console into a $329.99 display build, complete with a brick-built “Duke” controller that activates lights and game audio. The attraction is less the shell itself than what Mattel has placed inside it: removable dioramas for Halo: Combat Evolved, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and Psychonauts, plus 12 NanoWorld-scale figures. The announcement, republished by TechPowerUp from Mattel’s release, arrives nearly three...

The National Cybersecurity Alliance’s new guidance on social-media account takeovers gets the central distinction right: a stolen account and a cloned profile are different incidents, but both can turn a familiar name into a delivery system for fraud. For Windows users and IT administrators, the practical lesson is broader than social media: an attacker does not need to compromise a PC to exploit a trusted identity, yet a compromised PC can make an account recovery effort fail before it...

University of California San Diego and Oberlin College researchers have demonstrated a hardware implant that can seize the data path between key Boeing 737 flight-management components after roughly a minute of physical access on the ground. The important result is not a remote takeover of an airliner: it is evidence that a briefly accessible maintenance connection can turn a conventional physical-security lapse into a cyber-physical attack path. The peer-reviewed research, presented at the...

The White House is preparing to change how federal agencies report the maturity and risk posture of their cybersecurity supply-chain programs, a move that could turn scattered compliance attestations into a more consequential pre-award procurement control. Federal News Network reported August 18 that the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer is reviewing governmentwide alignment with NIST’s Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management guidance and expects a revamped data collection...

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26340.9212 is testing a configurable File Explorer context menu that lets users decide which commands and third-party extensions remain at the top level—a substantial reversal from Windows 11’s original, aggressively simplified right-click design. The change is part of an August 17 preview wave spanning five builds and several Insider tracks, according to Windows Central’s roundup of the August releases. For users, the headline is choice: “Send to,” Print...

Microsoft has put cross-legal-entity fulfillment optimization into preview for Dynamics 365 Commerce’s Distributed Order Management (DOM), allowing a retail order raised in one legal entity to be sourced and shipped from inventory owned by another. The practical change is not merely broader inventory lookup: when DOM selects another entity’s warehouse or store, it can automatically create and synchronize the intercompany documents required to carry the transaction through fulfillment...

Windows 11’s taskbar End task command is a useful shortcut for killing a frozen desktop application without opening Task Manager, but it is neither new nor universally “hidden.” Microsoft first exposed the feature to Windows Insiders in May 2023 and brought it to stable Windows 11 later that year. What has changed is where users are likely to find the switch: Microsoft now documents it under Settings > System > Advanced, a page previously called For developers. How-To Geek’s August 19 guide...

Microsoft says it fixed a Copilot Personal flaw on August 18 after Varonis Threat Labs showed that a malicious link could cause the assistant to run an attacker-supplied prompt inside a victim’s authenticated browser session. The practical risk was data theft from services a user had connected to Copilot, including personal email, cloud storage, and calendars; the victim’s only required interaction was opening the link. The research, dubbed CoSnitch by Varonis and reported by PC Gamer, has...

Windows Task Manager is gaining per-process visibility into NPU and GPU neural-engine activity, giving administrators and developers a built-in way to see whether local AI work is using dedicated accelerators or consuming ordinary CPU and GPU resources instead. Microsoft detailed the change in an August 19 Windows IT Pro Blog post, describing new Processes, Details, and Performance views on supported newer devices. The practical value is less about watching another graph and more about...

Microsoft has fixed several Copilot prompt-injection paths that could have exposed private data, but the August 19 report combines three separate vulnerabilities with different products, attack requirements and remediation dates. The most consequential correction for administrators is that the email-borne EchoLeak flaw was remediated in 2025, while the one-click Reprompt flaw in consumer Copilot was patched in January 2026. A later enterprise issue, SearchLeak, received its own CVE and fix...

Software teams using Meta’s new Muse Code or any similar coding agent should separate one question that is settled from several that are not: code generated entirely by AI is not eligible for U.S. copyright protection, but that does not mean the AI “owns” it or that the company has no way to protect a valuable codebase. Softonic’s report on AI-generated code identifies a genuine risk as coding agents move beyond autocomplete. Meta introduced Muse Code in beta on August 5, 2026, saying its...

Microsoft MVP Loryan Strant has launched the Microsoft Rebrand Registry, an independent database that tracks the former names of Microsoft products still on the market. The site’s value is less the joke about Redmond’s branding habits than the record it preserves: old product names often remain embedded in scripts, portal labels, support articles, licenses, event logs, and internal runbooks long after Microsoft’s marketing has moved on. As reported by The Register and highlighted this week...

Visual Studio Code 1.134 adds a grid layout for agent chats, a prompt-by-prompt navigation rail, full-text search inside chat transcripts, and an option to open HTML files in VS Code’s integrated browser by default. The immediate payoff is less time lost reconstructing what an agent was asked to do and more room to review concurrent work without leaving the editor. Neowin first reported the four changes on August 19, describing 1.134 as Microsoft’s latest weekly VS Code release. Microsoft’s...

Windows 11 users reporting “Turn on virus protection” notifications should verify Microsoft Defender’s actual status before treating the alert as evidence that their PCs are exposed. The warning appears to be a Windows Security reporting problem on at least some systems, but the available evidence does not support tying it conclusively to one Windows update—or assuming that every instance is a harmless false alarm. MakeUseOf reported the issue after users on Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2...

VAN 57 means Riot Vanguard is not running when VALORANT or League of Legends tries to start, and the first fixes should stay focused on that failed startup rather than on BIOS settings, graphics drivers, or a full game reinstall. Riot’s Vanguard error-code guidance identifies VAN 57 as a “Vanguard not running” problem and tells players to restart the PC and Riot Client before escalating to reinstallation. The useful distinction is that Vanguard has two Windows-facing pieces: the vgc service...

Microsoft Teams is slated to add a one-action notification pause in September 2026, while Microsoft 365 is also preparing a user-facing way to transfer meeting organizers. The second change is the one administrators should watch most closely: Microsoft’s existing Exchange Online transfer tool explicitly warns that moving the calendar organizer does not automatically move ownership of the associated Teams online meeting. Neowin first reported the upcoming Teams roadmap entries, including...

Microsoft may have raised the Windows OEM license fees it charges PC makers by 7% to 10% beginning in July, but the evidence does not support treating that reported increase as the reason a new PC will suddenly cost dramatically more. The claim originates with Taiwan’s United Daily News, which cited an unnamed PC-brand executive; PCMag, Windows Central, PC Gamer, and others have since reported the same account, but those are follow-on reports rather than independent confirmation of...

PCMag is right to flag a new pressure on Windows PC pricing, but its suggestion that Microsoft is secretly responsible needs a sharper reading: Microsoft has not publicly confirmed a Windows OEM licensing increase, and the reported 7% to 10% figure applies to what manufacturers pay for Windows licenses, not a 7% to 10% jump in the sticker price of every laptop or desktop. The underlying report originated with Taiwan’s United Daily News, which cited an unnamed PC-industry executive who said...

Netwrix is expanding its Microsoft identity-security tooling with PingCastle 4.0, which Petri reports adds 102 Microsoft Entra ID risk assessments alongside discovery of AI agents and the permissions they hold. The release also brings Azure Files monitoring to Netwrix Threat Manager, including ransomware-oriented behavioral detection and alerts for risky file-sharing configuration changes. For Windows and Microsoft 365 administrators, the practical change is less about another AI security...