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Millions of Windows gamers woke up to worse frame rates and unexplained stutters after January’s cumulative, and the fastest way back to smooth play is methodical: confirm the cause, update or reinstall the GPU driver cleanly, and only use Windows rollback as a last‑resort temporary step while watching for a vendor fix. Background / Overview Microsoft’s January 13, 2026 cumulative update for Windows 11—published as KB5074109 and delivering OS builds 26200.7623 (25H2) and 26100.7623 (24H2)—is...

Windows 11’s split into Home and Pro still causes questions: two editions share the same modern UI, Copilot, Widgets, Snap Layouts and gaming enhancements, yet one costs more and unlocks a suite of management, encryption, and virtualization tools. This deep-dive compares Windows 11 Home vs. Windows 11 Pro, verifies the important technical specifics, flags real-world risks, and delivers concrete upgrade advice so you spend money only when the benefits outweigh the cost. Background Windows 11...

Windows 11’s edition choices and its latest 24H2 feature update have collided into a single, messy decision point for many PC owners: stick with Home, pay for Pro, or hold off on 24H2 because it’s causing broad instability for gamers and some workflows. The practical reality is simple but nuanced: Windows 11 Home continues to cover the vast majority of consumer needs, while Windows 11 Pro remains the right choice when you truly need enterprise-grade controls, BitLocker key management...

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If you’ve been searching for a cheap “Crystal Eye” webcam driver for Windows — whether to revive an old Acer laptop’s built‑in camera or to install a Crystal Eye USB module on a modern PC — this practical, step‑by‑step guide lays out what works today, what doesn’t, and the safest paths forward for Windows 7, Windows 10 (32/64‑bit) and Windows 11. It verifies driver availability, explains how to identify the exact camera hardware, and ranks options from the easiest (Windows in‑box UVC...

Microsoft’s January 13, 2026 cumulative updates finally put an end to the months‑long outbreak of noisy, misleading security alerts that flagged a core Windows library—WinSqlite3.dll—as vulnerable, restoring calm to SOC queues and IT help desks overwhelmed by false positives. Background For much of late 2025 security teams and everyday Windows users watched as their vulnerability scanners and antivirus tools repeatedly raised alarms about a system DLL that is, in reality, a legitimate part...

Microsoft has quietly pushed a server‑side correction that ends a short but alarming era of “ghost” end‑of‑support alerts in Windows — the false warning that told some users their PCs had reached end‑of‑life even when they remained eligible for updates. Background In mid‑October 2025 Microsoft shipped a routine cumulative update that, unintentionally, triggered an erroneous message in Settings → Windows Update on a subset of Windows installations: “Your version of Windows has reached the end...

Windows 11’s quietly released 25H2 enablement package does more than flip a version number — it also primes the operating system for a series of behind‑the‑scenes driver improvements that target modern Wi‑Fi and SoundWire audio hardware, plus a handful of kernel and storage driver enhancements aimed at OEMs and enterprise deployments. These changes are largely invisible to the average user until hardware vendors ship updated drivers, but they matter: when OEMs adopt the new driver interfaces...

Linux evangelists and the “just use Linux” crowd have a habit of boiling complex trade‑offs into neat absolutes — and the recent roundup of “5 Windows myths Linux users love to lecture you about” captures that tone well while also raising legitimate points worth discussing. The piece enumerates five common charges — that Windows is hopelessly insecure, unbearably bloated, unsuited to professionals, always slower than Linux, and destined to vanish — and treats each as a provocation rather...

Windows 11’s 25H2 enablement update has quietly unlocked a crucial compatibility loop for modern wireless hardware by way of vendor-validated driver packages—most notably from Intel—bringing formal support for Wi‑Fi 7 clients and refreshed Bluetooth audio stacks that together remove a common blocker for users and administrators planning to move to 25H2. Background / Overview Microsoft delivered Windows 11 version 25H2 primarily as an enablement package that flips on features already staged...

Microsoft released an out‑of‑band (OOB) cumulative update for Windows 11, version 23H2 — KB5077797 (OS Build 22631.6494) — on January 17, 2026 to address two high‑impact regressions introduced by the January 13, 2026 cumulative update (KB5073455): Remote Desktop sign‑in failures and a Secure Launch–related shutdown/hibernation regression that caused affected systems to restart instead of powering off. rosoft. Background The January 13, 2026 Patch Tuesday rollup consolidated a large set of...

Apple has replaced the longtime, standalone 90‑day trials for Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro with a subscription-centric trial path framed around the new Apple Creator Studio bundle, shifting the way creators can evaluate Apple’s pro apps and narrowing the free runway that freelancers, students, and evaluators relied on. Background / Overview For years Apple offered unusually generous evaluation periods for its pro creative tools: Final Cut Pro historically shipped with an extended trial and...

Microsoft has begun shipping Copilot Actions to Windows users as part of the broader Copilot rollout, bringing experimental agentic automation—agents that can click, type, open files and chain multi‑step workflows—to Windows in a permissioned, visible Agent Workspace designed for auditability and user control. Background Microsoft’s Copilot initiative has evolved rapidly from a chat window to a system‑level assistant for Windows, organized around three interlocking pillars: Copilot Voice...

Microsoft’s newly visible Windows 11 build labeled 26H1 has quietly begun to appear in the Insider Canary channel — but despite headlines, it is not the next consumer-facing feature drop and will largely be invisible to most users for the foreseeable future. Background Microsoft’s Windows release cadence has settled into a familiar pattern: a major feature-bearing update in the second half of the year (H2), supplemented by servicing and fixes throughout the year. The recent emergence of...

The Odisha Staff Selection Commission’s (OSSC) Combined Graduate Level (CGL) syllabus and exam pattern for the 2026 recruitment cycle have been clarified in a series of official and widely reported updates — the most consequential being the Commission’s Regulation 3 of 2025 that revises Paper‑I of the Mains and a confirmed two‑stage selection structure (Preliminary + Mains) for Group B and Group C posts; candidates should download the official notification and syllabus PDF from the OSSC...

Microsoft’s decision to stop framing Windows adoption as a race to “one billion devices” and instead emphasize user‑centric metrics such as monthly active users marks a long‑running shift in both messaging and measurement — a change that resolves some historical counting problems but raises fresh questions about transparency, comparability, and the operational consequences for IT teams still wrestling with a massive Windows 10 installed base. Background: the billion‑device ambition and why...

The NVIDIA SHIELD Wireless Controller remains a pragmatic, well‑made accessory for SHIELD owners — comfortable and feature‑rich for TV and streaming box use, but a mixed, sometimes confusing choice for PC gamers and general Android users seeking a plug‑and‑play Windows 10 gamepad. Background / Overview The SHIELD Wireless Controller was designed as a companion accessory for NVIDIA’s SHIELD line (SHIELD TV, SHIELD Tablet and SHIELD Portable) and emphasizes TV‑centric features: a capacitive...

Windows 11 now lets you browse and manage an Android phone’s internal storage from File Explorer — wirelessly, without plugging in a USB cable — but getting the most from the feature requires knowing the exact requirements, configuration steps, performance trade-offs, and security implications. Background Microsoft began testing a native File Explorer integration that exposes an Android phone as a browsable device in Windows 11 during the Windows Insider program rollout in mid‑2024. The...

Microsoft released an out‑of‑band update on January 17, 2026 that targets a baffling but low‑level sign‑in regression: the password icon can become invisible on the lock‑screen sign‑in options after installing the August 2025 preview (KB5064081) or subsequent updates, and KB5077744 (OS Builds 26200.7627 and 26100.7627) is Microsoft’s immediate response for affected managed fleets. The update itself is focused, but its presence highlights how even small UI regressions can ripple through...

The era of “free AI certificates” has matured from headline bait into a practical scaffold students can use to build real skills—if they know which offers are genuinely useful, which are temporary promotions, and how to turn course completion into demonstrable work that employers value. Background / Overview Over the last two years, major cloud vendors, university platforms, and specialist providers have expanded low‑ or no‑cost entry points into generative AI and prompt engineering. The...