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Microsoft has issued a preview (non‑security “C” release) cumulative update — KB5014668 — for Windows 11 (original release), a targeted package that patches a range of reliability and compatibility problems including a race condition that could block upgrades and a pair of game‑affecting bugs tied to audio and DirectX playback. Background What is a "C" preview update and why it matters Preview or “C” updates are optional, non‑security quality releases Microsoft issues in the third or fourth...

A stray Insider build and an accidental release of internal configuration files have pulled back the curtain on what looks like a deliberate push by Microsoft to productize a set of higher‑end Windows SKUs aimed at power users, workstations and advanced enterprise scenarios. The leak — discovered in Build 16212’s pkeyconfig strings and echoed by a separate internal slide — points to three new SKUs: Windows 10 Pro for Advanced PCs, Windows 10 Pro N for Advanced PCs, and an unexpected server...

Microsoft’s move to resell Box as a first‑class option on Azure — and to fold Box’s content platform into Azure’s machine learning and cognitive services — signals a pragmatic pivot in the enterprise cloud market: strategic partnerships between platform providers and independent content platforms are now a primary battleground for winning enterprise workloads and developer mindshare. Background Box and Microsoft announced an expanded partnership in mid‑2017 that formalized “Box on Azure” as...

FluentFlyout’s latest release finally brings native ARM64 support, meaning the polished flyouts that many Windows 11 users now rely on will run natively on Qualcomm Snapdragon X family devices and other ARM64 Windows PCs without emulation. Background FluentFlyout is an open-source utility that replaces and extends Windows 11’s built-in media and lock-key flyouts with a modern, highly customizable set of popups and a taskbar widget that feels native to Windows 11. The project is published on...

If you’re choosing a new Windows PC or deciding whether to spend extra for Windows 11 Pro, the practical answer is short: Windows 11 Home covers the needs of most individual users, while Windows 11 Pro is aimed at businesses, IT pros, and power users who need encryption, management, virtualization, or remote access. This article breaks down exactly what you gain by upgrading — and what you don’t — with a clear, actionable checklist to help decide whether the extra cost is worth it...

A new, community-built PowerShell project promises a blunt but effective way to strip much of Windows 11’s recently added AI surface — Copilot, Recall, AI features inside Paint and Notepad, plus a raft of Appx/MSIX packages — and the resulting debate is as much about system stewardship and update safety as it is about privacy and control. The repository, published under the GitHub handle zoicware and distributed with a GUI front-end and command-line options, automates registry tweaks, Appx...

The West Midlands Police decision to advise Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG) to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from attending a Europa League fixture at Villa Park has landed as a defining embarrassment for modern policing: a public-safety judgement built on weak, poorly documented intelligence and then amplified by a demonstrable artificial‑intelligence error. The Home Secretary has told Parliament she no longer has confidence in Chief Constable Craig Guildford after an...

Mapping a network drive is one of those deceptively simple Windows tasks that keeps end users productive and systems administrators awake at night — done right it’s smooth and reliable, done wrong it’s a recurring help‑desk ticket that cost an hour of productivity and a box of coffee. Background A mapped network drive gives a Windows PC a persistent, drive‑letter shortcut (for example Z:) that points to a shared folder on another computer, server, or NAS on the network. The mapping makes a...

Microsoft has quietly drawn a line under one of the longest‑lived branches of Windows: the Vista‑derived codebase that powered Windows Server 2008 has reached the absolute end of vendor‑supplied security updates, with the final paid lifecycle option (Premium Assurance) closing on January 13, 2026. Background / Overview Windows Server 2008 — codenamed Longhorn Server and built on the Windows Vista kernel family — shipped to manufacturers in early 2008 and saw broad enterprise deployment...

SAS Viya is now offered as a managed, U.S.-sovereign analytics 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 in mid-January 2026 that SAS Viya can be deployed to U.S. public-sector customers and their partners via SAS Managed Cloud...

The latest Security Weekly News episode (SWN #546) reads like a concentrated briefing for IT and Windows administrators: from the operational fragility of cloud AI assistants to the rise of “quishing” attacks, from state-sponsored credential harvesting to a viral Chinese safety app that spotlights social isolation — each story in the show notes has immediate operational relevance for anyone responsible for Windows endpoints, identity and productivity stacks. The episode’s blend of breaking...

Microsoft has quietly begun rolling out replacement Secure Boot certificates to Windows PCs to prevent a calendar-driven failure when long‑running Microsoft UEFI certificates issued in 2011 begin to expire this June; the changes are being delivered through January 2026 cumulative updates (including KB5074109) and coordinated OEM firmware updates so systems keep trusting boot components and anti‑cheat systems that rely on Secure Boot. Background / Overview Secure Boot is a firmware‑level...

Salesforce’s revamped Slackbot has arrived as a purpose-built, agentic AI assistant for Slack workspaces, and for IT teams and power users the announcement marks a turning point in how enterprise chat platforms embed intelligence — not just as a search box or a drafting aid, but as an agent that can read context, surface answers, and orchestrate workplace actions across systems. Background Slack’s core assistant, historically a lightweight in-app helper, was reimagined under Salesforce’s...

Microsoft’s quiet pivot is now plain to see: the future of Office — from AI helpers to UI and performance improvements — is being designed around Windows 11, and that matters more than a cosmetic change of wallpaper. The company’s lifecycle and product signals make one thing clear: if you want the newest Microsoft 365 features, the deepest Copilot integrations, and the best Office performance, moving to Windows 11 is no longer optional for many users. Background / Overview Microsoft set a...

The Regional District of Okanagan‑Similkameen (RDOS) has moved from pilot to policy, proposing a tightly scoped AI use framework that would permit only a tenant‑bound Microsoft Copilot for staff, limit use to low‑risk drafting and summarization tasks, require disclosure and managerial review of AI‑assisted outputs, and tout a headline annual saving of roughly $91,000 — a figure that public reporting so far does not fully substantiate. Background Municipalities and regional districts across...

Microsoft’s Fall Creators Update for Windows 10 delivered a clear two‑sided message: a slate of consumer‑facing improvements and creative tools on one hand, and a deliberate cleanup of legacy code and low‑usage utilities on the other. The company published a formal list of features that would be removed or formally deprecated in the Fall Creators Update (Windows 10, version 1709), and the list is notable both for what it eliminates (Syskey, EMET, the Reader app and others) and for what it...

Microsoft’s new PC Manager arrives as a tidy, free utility that promises to “speed up your PC with just one click” — and in hands‑on testing it does deliver measurable cleanup and small performance gains, but with important caveats about scope, regional availability, and what it actually changes under the hood. Background Microsoft PC Manager is a Microsoft‑published, Store‑distributed utility that bundles cleanup, startup/process control, storage analysis, and a handful of helper utilities...

Microsoft’s January cumulative for Windows 11, delivered as KB5074109, patches a broad set of security issues while correcting a surprisingly practical battery‑life regression on NPU‑equipped devices and preparing the platform for a phased Secure Boot certificate rotation — but it also introduces operational trade‑offs and a handful of early regressions that make careful piloting essential. Background / Overview KB5074109 was released on January 13, 2026 as the January baseline cumulative...

Microsoft’s strategic bet on consumer-facing AI has a new public face: Mustafa Suleyman, the DeepMind co‑founder turned Inflection AI CEO who joined Microsoft in March 2024 to run a newly created Microsoft AI division that consolidates Copilot, consumer research, and product development under one roof. Background Microsoft created the Microsoft AI division as a one‑stop organization to accelerate innovation across its consumer products, integrate AI more deeply into Windows, Bing, Edge and...

Microsoft has quietly shipped a set of emergency, out‑of‑band updates to repair a Kerberos authentication regression that broke sign‑ins and remote access on domain controllers after the November 8, 2022 Patch Tuesday rollup — and administrators must install the fixes manually on every Domain Controller in their environment to fully remediate the problem. Background Kerberos is the authentication backbone for Active Directory environments: domain clients request tickets from the Key...