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Users waking up to an apparently empty Documents or Desktop folder and believing Windows has “deleted” decades of photos, work documents, and purchased content are not imagining things — but they are often misreading the mechanics of a cloud-first system that quietly moves files out of the local profile and into OneDrive. Recent reports of account locks triggered by automated scans have compounded the alarm, producing a credibility crisis for OneDrive’s backup and sync model at exactly the...

Hertz’s early experiments with Microsoft Power Platform show how a global mobility operator can turn frontline friction into measurable automation and AI wins — a pragmatic, low‑code route from tactical fixes to strategic modernization that is already delivering faster support and clearer operational visibility. Background / Overview Hertz is a global mobility and vehicle‑rental operator with a large, distributed frontline workforce and a complex, high‑volume operational footprint: public...

Microsoft's emergency fixes for the Meltdown CPU vulnerability in early 2018 inadvertently introduced a far more dangerous weakness on 64‑bit installations of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 — a bug that made kernel page tables accessible to unprivileged code and allowed trivial, high‑speed reads and writes of system memory until Microsoft corrected the mistake in March. Background Microsoft shipped Meltdown and Spectre mitigations to Windows customers in January and February 2018 as...

Microsoft confirmed that the January 13, 2026 cumulative update KB5074109 introduced a regression that can break Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) connections on some Windows clients, producing immediate authentication failures; organizations seeing this behavior should pause deployment, apply Microsoft’s Known Issue Rollback (KIR) or use alternative connection paths while a permanent fix is developed. Background Microsoft shipped the January 13, 2026 Patch Tuesday cumulative update for Windows 11...

For years I treated Windows 11 like a polished but familiar toolbox — using the same shortcuts, same menus, and the same muscle memory — until I started actively hunting for little features that quietly save time and reduce friction; the six I ignored for too long — Nearby Sharing, Widgets, Virtual Desktops, Clipboard History, God Mode, and a clutch of taskbar shortcuts — now shape my daily workflow and reclaim minutes every hour. Background Windows 11 shipped with a visual refresh and a...

Microsoft has quietly shipped KB4052623 — an official platform update for Microsoft Defender Antivirus — that closes a widely reported scan‑skip bug while also adding a set of consequential platform changes administrators must understand before deploying it broadly. Background Shortly before KB4052623’s release users started seeing an unsettling Defender notification after scans: “Windows Defender skipped an item due to exclusions or network protection settings.” The message appeared on many...

GOG’s new owner delivered one of the bluntest public rebukes of Microsoft’s desktop operating system in years — calling Windows “such poor-quality software and product” and saying he “can’t believe it” — remarks that arrived the same week the DRM‑free storefront regained independence under co‑founder Michał Kiciński and that have already ignited debate about the future of PC gaming, platform diversity, and GOG’s strategic direction. Background The deal and the new era for GOG After more than...

Windows 2000, once the stable backbone of enterprise IT, has turned up in public again — not in a museum, but as the operating system behind a battered ticket terminal on Portugal’s coastline, where a user-mode memory error left the touchscreen frozen and card payments reportedly out of service. The image of a rusted kiosk with a Windows 2000 message is a small, melancholy emblem of a far larger, ongoing problem: critical public-facing systems still running long‑unsupported operating...

Microsoft quietly ended the publication of Windows 7 drivers to Windows Update on June 17, 2021, a move designed to avoid breaking unpatched systems after the expiration of legacy SHA‑1 signing infrastructure — but the decision has cascading implications for consumers, small businesses and managed estates that still run the decade‑old OS. Background Windows 7 reached its end of mainstream support on January 14, 2020, leaving only Extended Security Updates (ESU) options for organizations that...

Microsoft pushed a set of emergency, out‑of‑band patches in May 2022 after a security hardening in the May 10 cumulative updates changed how domain controllers map client certificates to machine accounts — a change that briefly broke certificate‑based authentication for services such as Network Policy Server (NPS), RADIUS, Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS), EAP and PEAP on affected domains. Background / Overview The May 10, 2022 Patch Tuesday set included security hardenings that...

Microsoft has confirmed that several long-lived Windows Secure Boot certificates issued in 2011 will expire in 2026, and devices that do not receive the replacement 2023 certificates before those expiry dates risk losing the ability to install security fixes for pre‑boot components and the Windows boot loader — a change that directly affects Windows 10 systems and any device that relies on the legacy 2011 certificate chain. Background: what is expiring and why it matters Secure Boot is a...

The NVIDIA GeForce 7025 — an integrated GPU found on many older nForce motherboards — can often be made to run under Windows 10, but success is patchy: installer packaging, INF/device‑ID matching, OEM signing and Windows driver‑model differences are the real obstacles, not the raw silicon. This feature brings together verified technical facts, practical step‑by‑step recovery methods, and risk‑aware guidance so owners of 7025‑class systems can make a safe, informed decision about upgrading to...

Microsoft’s first Patch Tuesday of 2026 delivers a substantive Windows 11 cumulative update — KB5074109 — that fixes power-draining behavior on NPU-equipped machines, removes legacy modem drivers, tightens Secure Boot certificate deployment, and patches more than a hundred vulnerabilities across the platform, including at least one actively exploited flaw in Desktop Window Manager. Background Windows 11 users on versions 24H2 and 25H2 began receiving the January 13, 2026 cumulative update...

Microsoft's ongoing push to fold Copilot into the Windows 11 desktop took another visible step in recent Insider preview builds: testers have discovered a hidden, inactive Copilot button inside File Explorer that suggests Microsoft may be preparing to move conversational AI interactions directly into the file management UI rather than forcing users to open a separate Copilot window. Background The Copilot feature set has been progressively woven into Windows 11 since its launch: a standalone...

Microsoft used BUILD 2012 to drive a single message home: the company is reshaping Windows — from kernel to store to devices — and it will pay developers to come along for the ride. Background / Overview Microsoft staged BUILD 2012 on its Redmond campus in late October 2012 as the company’s big developer push around a wave of product launches: Windows 8 had reached consumers, Office 2013 was moving to release-to-manufacturing, and Windows Phone 8 was being introduced as the mobile sibling to...

Microsoft has confirmed that installing the October 18, 2022 out‑of‑band update KB5019509 — and certain cumulative updates that followed — can leave enterprise endpoints unable to reconnect to DirectAccess after a temporary network interruption or when switching Wi‑Fi networks, and the company has responded with a Known Issue Rollback (KIR), Group Policy remediation guidance, and later cumulative updates to permanently resolve the problem. Background DirectAccess is a legacy...

Microsoft’s announcement that an Azure blueprint tailored for UK public-sector requirements can shrink the time to deploy secure cloud workloads from “weeks to hours” is more than a marketing line: it bundles policy-as-code, compliance mappings and deployment templates that codify the UK government’s cloud security expectations and make repeatable, auditable Azure environments easier to create. The move ties Azure Blueprints to the UK OFFICIAL and NHS control mappings and ships a GitHub...

Microsoft’s first security update for Windows 10 in 2026, KB5073724, is a compact but consequential patch: it’s a security-only cumulative for Extended Security Update (ESU) and LTSC devices that removes legacy modem drivers, prepares devices for Microsoft’s replacement Secure Boot certificates, and updates a bundled SQLite component — and Windows 10 systems enrolled in ESU should install it now. Background Windows 10 left mainstream support in late 2025; Microsoft is now delivering only...

Windows PCs have been at the center of consumer photography workflows for more than two decades, and the story of how Windows handled cameras — from the quirks of Windows XP Beta 2 through the modern Camera app and metadata debates — is richer and more complicated than most retrospectives suggest. This feature traces that arc: why early Windows camera handling mattered to camera makers and photographers, how Microsoft’s design choices sparked industry pushback, how users and third‑party...

If you found an empty C:\inetpub folder in the root of your Windows 11 install after applying recent cumulative updates, don’t panic — Microsoft put it there on purpose as a protective measure tied to a security patch, and deleting it can weaken your system’s defenses or even break future updates if misused. Background / Overview Windows users started reporting a mysterious, empty folder named inetpub appearing on the system drive after installing April 2025 cumulative updates (packages such...