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Alibaba’s consumer Qwen chat has quietly graduated from “research demo” to a transaction‑enabled assistant, and at the same moment the Wikimedia Foundation is re‑casting Wikipedia as a paid data partner for major AI labs — two linked developments that reveal how generative AI is evolving from conversational novelty into a commercial plumbing for search, shopping, productivity and training data. Background / Overview The past week produced two closely related stories: Alibaba rolled out a...

Microsoft has closed the final vendor‑backed update channel for the Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008 codebase: the last Premium Assurance entitlements expired on January 13, 2026, and with them went Microsoft’s final promised security updates for the NT 6.x (Vista/Longhorn) lineage. Background Windows Server 2008 traces its roots to the Windows Vista (NT 6.0) client architecture and first shipped to manufacturers in early 2008. Microsoft’s standard lifecycle — mainstream support followed by...

Microsoft drew a hard line on January 13, 2026: the last vendor-backed update pathway for the Windows Vista / Windows Server 2008 codebase has closed, leaving any remaining Server 2008 instances without official security patches from Microsoft. Background / Overview Windows Server 2008 — the server sibling of the Windows Vista (NT 6.0) family — arrived in 2008 and went on to power countless enterprise workloads for more than a decade. Microsoft supported the product through the standard...

Microsoft has reached a definitive end‑of‑service milestone for one of its longest‑running Windows families: the final vendor‑backed security update pathway for the Vista‑era Windows Server 2008 codebase expired on January 13, 2026, closing the Premium Assurance bridge and leaving Server 2008 and its Vista lineage without further Microsoft security fixes. Background Windows Server 2008 — the server sibling of Windows Vista and part of the NT 6.x family — shipped in 2008 and has survived a...

The modern inbox is quietly becoming a battleground for convenience, data, and trust — and Gmail’s newest Gemini-powered features are the latest front line in a wider AI scramble that touches Windows, Microsoft’s Copilot ambitions, developer consoles, and even the consoles you game on. Background Windows Weekly episode 966 framed this moment as more than product updates and release notes: it’s a snapshot of an industry shifting from “AI as novelty” to “AI as operating assumption,” and the...

Microsoft’s oft-repeated line that “Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows” is now a piece of historical context rather than a roadmap — a pivot point that helps explain how Microsoft’s strategy shifted from versioned releases to continuous service and then, unexpectedly, back to a new major release with Windows 11. The fallout from that shift — closing the Windows 10 Beta channel, the October 14, 2025 end-of-support deadline, new AI pushes like Copilot, ongoing subsystem...

Windows 11’s Auto HDR quietly rewired how older games look — and for a brief, chaotic window during the 24H2 rollout it also reminded everyone how fragile big-OS feature launches can be. What began as an elegant convenience — an automatic SDR→HDR treatment intended to give legacy DirectX games a visual refresh — turned into a high-profile compatibility snag when the 24H2 feature update interacted badly with certain display/driver combinations. Microsoft ultimately applied a compatibility...

Changing your desktop or lock‑screen wallpaper in Windows 11 should be one of the simplest customizations you do — but the split between desktop and lock screen, multiple wallpaper modes (Picture, Solid color, Slideshow, Windows Spotlight), and a handful of small system quirks can turn a one‑click job into a troubleshooting session. This guide compiles every built‑in and common third‑party method to change wallpapers on Windows 11, explains the options and best image sizes, and walks through...

Windows 11’s personalization and performance story this week reads like a small ecosystem update: a comprehensive how‑to on changing wallpapers, a quiet but substantive improvement to legacy game visuals, a podcast-sized debate about AI’s reach in consumer services, a targeted Windows 10 hotfix for broken PDFs, an upbeat third‑party app update that improves ARM64 and multi‑monitor support, and a viral “secret trick” claim that needs to be treated with skepticism. Together these items...

Microsoft has quietly rolled out a generous, time‑limited package for higher‑education students: 12 months free of Microsoft 365 Premium bundled with LinkedIn Premium Career, giving students a full year of Copilot‑enabled Office apps, advanced security and 1 TB of cloud storage alongside LinkedIn’s premium job‑search tools and learning resources. Background The offer is part of a broader Microsoft push into education and consumer AI that accelerated with the October 2025 launch of Microsoft...

Microsoft’s product calendar and corporate housekeeping are colliding with real-world IT and consumer decisions this winter: Windows 10 has passed its official end-of-support date and remains in a narrow, time-boxed safety net for enrolled devices; Microsoft is reorganizing employee learning resources and trimming subscriptions; students are being offered a generous, but limited, Microsoft 365 and LinkedIn package; and the company is pushing agentic AI into retail—each development tightens...

SAS has moved a major piece of the enterprise analytics market into the US public sector cloud by making SAS Viya available through SAS Managed Cloud Services on Microsoft Azure Government, a move that promises to simplify procurement, tighten data residency controls, and bring enterprise-grade, explainable AI to agencies handling sensitive public safety, justice and tax data. Background and overview SAS Viya is the vendor’s modern data and AI platform that blends traditional SAS analytics...

SAS Viya is now available as a managed, U.S.-sovereign analytics and AI platform inside Microsoft Azure Government, giving federal, state and local agencies — and their systems integrators — a turnkey path to deploy advanced analytics, ModelOps, and explainable AI inside physically isolated datacenters with FedRAMP, GovRAMP and StateRAMP coverage. Background / Overview SAS announced a new deployment option in mid-January 2026 that places the SAS Viya platform into Microsoft Azure Government...

Windows 10 is no longer in Microsoft’s free support lifecycle — the company stopped routine security, feature and technical updates for the mainstream Windows 10 servicing stream on October 14, 2025 — but the platform continues to run in 2026 with a narrow, time‑limited safety net for eligible devices. Overview Microsoft set a hard calendar cutoff: October 14, 2025 is the official end‑of‑support date for mainstream Windows 10 editions. That change means routine OS security patches, monthly...

Microsoft has finally closed the book on the Windows Vista code lineage: with Microsoft’s last paid lifecycle channel for Windows Server 2008 — Premium Assurance — expiring in mid‑January 2026, the Vista/Windows Server 2008 codebase no longer receives vendor‑issued security updates under any Microsoft program. Background / Overview Windows Server 2008 (the server sibling of Windows Vista) launched in 2008 and was built on the same NT 6.x kernel family as Vista. Over its long life it moved...

The Sony WH-1000XM3 can be an outstanding Bluetooth headset for Windows 10 users, but getting crystal‑clear audio and reliable microphone support often requires more than “pair and play.” This guide explains how Windows handles Bluetooth audio, how to pair and control the WH‑1000XM3 on a Windows 10 PC, and step‑by‑step troubleshooting for the most common problems (connected-but-no-sound, stereo collapse when the mic is used, dropouts, and driver/firmware gaps). Practical workarounds...

Microsoft has finally drawn a definite line under the Vista-era Windows codebase: with Microsoft’s Premium Assurance commitments expiring on January 13, 2026, the Windows Server 2008 / Windows Vista family has no remaining vendor-supplied security update pathway — and a January 2026 cumulative update also removed several long-deprecated modem drivers from supported images, creating immediate operational implications for a small but consequential subset of systems. Background / Overview...

Zorin OS 18 has quietly become one of the most consequential desktop Linux releases of recent years, crossing two million downloads in under three months while a large share of interest appears to have come directly from Windows users grappling with the end of free support for Windows 10. Background Microsoft’s official lifecycle calendar closed a decade-long chapter on October 14, 2025, when mainstream, free support for Windows 10 ended. After that date, consumer installations stopped...

Microsoft is quietly rolling out replacement Secure Boot certificates to Windows devices because several Microsoft-issued UEFI certificates from 2011 begin expiring in mid‑2026, and systems that still rely on those old certificates risk losing the ability to receive security updates for pre‑boot components or to trust newly signed boot components. This is not a theoretical maintenance note — it changes the foundation of how Windows and many third‑party boot components are trusted at startup...

Zorin OS 18’s surge to roughly two million downloads, a set of targeted Windows updates and Insider fixes, a looming Secure Boot certificate transition, and a smattering of browser- and gaming-related developments together paint a fast-moving opening quarter for the desktop ecosystem — one where migration, compatibility, and firmware-level trust are the headlines every Windows user and administrator should follow right now. Background / Overview The week’s coverage from a mix of distribution...