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Microsoft’s latest Dev Channel flight, Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 21359, is a maintenance- and polish-focused release that delivers a handful of small UI tweaks, accessibility and font updates, and an extensive set of fixes — while also quietly deprecating one of Timeline’s cross-device syncing capabilities. The build doesn’t add headline features, but it’s important for Insiders and IT pros because it both mitigates several stability and graphics issues (notably around HDR/Auto HDR...

Microsoft’s April 13, 2021 cumulative updates for Windows 10 — shipped as KB5001330 (for Windows 10 versions 2004 and 20H2) and KB5001337 (for Windows 10 version 1909) — completed a long‑running migration by removing the Microsoft Edge Legacy (EdgeHTML) desktop application and replacing it with the newer Chromium‑based Microsoft Edge, and they did so in a way that caught many users and administrators off guard. Background and overview Microsoft announced its intention to rebuild Edge on the...

Microsoft quietly moved Windows 10, version 22H2 into "broad deployment" in November 2022, meaning the Windows 10 2022 Update is now being offered to a much larger pool of eligible devices and can be installed by checking Windows Update on qualifying PCs. Background Windows 10 22H2 — the modestly named "Windows 10 2022 Update" — was released to the public in October 2022 and, unlike many previous Windows feature updates, contained a relatively small set of user-facing changes. Microsoft’s...

This week’s BetaNews roundups deliver the familiar mix of small, focused utilities, indie and mobile-to-Windows ports, and a handful of platform-level items that matter to power users and IT professionals alike; the two installments under review curate hits such as Tubecast Pro, Polarr Photo Editor and AIDA64 while flagging practical utilities like Grid Maker for Instagram, Norton’s Safe Web extension, WinDynamicDesktop and a Surface Pro 3 UEFI security update. Background / Overview...

Five-hundred-and-fifty-nine in the series, this week’s BetaNews roundup delivered a compact but consequential set of updates for Windows users: Microsoft formally marked the long-lived WordPad as deprecated and scheduled its removal, a tidy open‑source audiobook player called Audibly grabbed attention for improving desktop listening workflows, and a small but indispensable NirSoft utility, QuickSetDNS, received quality‑of‑life updates aimed at high‑DPI systems and easier DNS switching. These...

Construction backlog in December inched higher — but the gains were starkly uneven, concentrated in data center work that is increasingly the preserve of the largest contractors while smaller firms watch their pipelines shrink. The Associated Builders and Contractors’ Construction Backlog Indicator rose to 8.2 months in December (a 0.1‑month increase from November), yet that headline masks a widening split: contractors with annual revenue above $100 million posted their highest backlogs...

Minisforum’s compact DeskMini UM340 breaks from the crowd by bringing an AMD Ryzen mobile APU into a very small, highly upgradeable Windows 10 mini‑PC chassis — a tempting mix of portability, connectivity and user‑expandability for home offices, media centers and light creative work. Background Minisforum’s DeskMini series has carved a niche by delivering laptop‑class APUs in compact, VESA‑mountable boxes that prioritize real upgrade paths: SO‑DIMM memory slots, M.2 NVMe storage and a...

A sudden, quietly distributed driver pushed through Windows Update last week left a small but vocal group of users unable to mount or browse their phones, cameras and other portable devices — the offending package was listed as Microsoft – WPD – 2/22/2016 12:00:00 AM – 5.2.5326.4762 and, for some systems, it broke Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) and other Windows Portable Devices functionality until Microsoft removed the package and issued corrective updates. Background / Overview Microsoft’s...

NVIDIA’s blunt advice — uninstall the April 2021 Windows 10 update (KB5001330 / KB5000842) if you see lower gaming performance — put a spotlight on a recurring tension in the modern PC ecosystem: when a security or quality update destabilizes real‑world workloads, what do vendors tell users to do first — roll back the OS patch or adjust drivers and settings? Background Windows 10 updates KB5000842 (a March 2021 non‑security preview) and KB5001330 (the April 2021 cumulative) were linked by...

Canonical’s new Ubuntu on Windows Community Preview places a sandboxed, fast-moving Ubuntu build into the hands of WSL users so the community can test onboarding, Windows Terminal theming, and a new configuration tool before those features reach the store’s stable LTS images. Background Over the past several years Microsoft and the Linux ecosystem have steadily tightened their integration, with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL, now widely used in its WSL 2 form) becoming a mainstream...

BetaNews’ latest weekly roundups distilled a familiar but useful pattern for Windows users: a single standout “App of the Week,” a handful of focused utilities and game ports, and a pair of platform-level updates that matter to power users and IT teams alike. Background / Overview BetaNews’ recurring “Best Windows apps this week” and “Best Windows 10 apps this week” columns act as a fast discovery feed for the Microsoft Store, flagging new arrivals, notable updates and promotions that might...

Deepin V23 RC2 lands as a purposeful, design-first Linux release that tightens the distribution’s core stack, polishes the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE) and adds practical controls—features pitched explicitly at users unhappy with Windows 11’s direction. Background Deepin has long pitched itself as a visually polished, newcomer‑friendly Linux desktop built by a team in China. The project’s appeal rests on two pillars: a distinctive, modern UI (the Deepin Desktop Environment) and tightly...

Microsoft’s latest optional preview for Windows 11, KB5034204, landed with promises to fix search, Bluetooth and ZIP handling — and promptly produced a fresh wave of user-reported breakages that range from stubborn install failures to a crippled shell (taskbar, File Explorer and desktop components). The patch, published as a preview build on January 23, 2024 for Windows 11 versions 22H2 and 23H2 (OS Builds 22621.3085 and 22631.3085), was intended to be a low-risk optional release but has...

Microsoft has formally moved NTLM (NT LAN Manager) to the deprecation pile and is pressing organizations to adopt Kerberos via the Negotiate stack as the secure default for Windows authentication, while also shipping new auditing, telemetry, and migration tooling to help IT teams find and remediate legacy NTLM usage. Background / Overview NTLM arrived with early Windows networking and persisted for decades as a simple challenge–response authentication mechanism that worked in many edge cases...

AI tools are now a mainstream option for everyday money tasks, but choosing between ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Anthropic Claude comes down less to model hype and more to where your financial data lives, what governance you require, and how you plan to verify outputs. Background / Overview AI personal‑finance assistants perform three broad functions that matter for consumers: explain concepts in plain English, summarize and extract information from documents, and automate...

SymphonyAI’s new CINDE Merchandising Agents fold agentic AI directly into the heartbeat of retail merchandising, promising to move decisions that historically lag by days into the same weekly — or even intra-week — operational rhythm that determines store-level margin. Background SymphonyAI, a vendor positioned as a leader in verticalized enterprise AI, announced the next generation of CINDE Merchandising Agents in a rollout that explicitly ties the offering to Microsoft Foundry and Azure...

Unless you’ve actively blocked them, Windows 10 is very likely installing updates automatically — and if you like to know exactly what changed and when, there are several built‑in ways to inspect the update history, along with more powerful administrator tools for deep forensic checks and exportable audit records. Background / Overview For most users the quickest route to see what Windows 10 has installed is the Settings UI: open Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update → View update...

Microsoft’s weekly roundup of noteworthy Windows apps and platform moves landed with two headline items this week: Microsoft reopened the Windows 10 Beta Channel for Insiders and the “new Outlook for Windows” gained offline mail and compose support — while NVIDIA pushed a major update to its desktop software that adds AV1 recording and one‑click GPU tuning. These developments matter for two distinct but overlapping audiences: everyday Windows users who will notice improved offline...

Microsoft’s latest preview for Windows 11 — delivered as KB5015882 — brings a mix of user-facing options, stability fixes and enterprise-focused adjustments that are worth attention despite the update being labeled “non-security.” What began life as a Release Preview-channel build (22000.829 / build 22000.832 in rolling channels) introduces an out-of-box experience (OOBE) upgrade prompt, grants new control over urgent notifications while Focus Assist is active, and patches a number of File...

The PC industry's boldest marketing bet of the last 18 months—the idea that “AI PCs” would ignite a fresh upgrade cycle—has run into a stark reality check: the silicon is arriving faster than the clear, everyday use cases that would make consumers and IT buyers actually pay a premium for it. Background: the promise, the spec sheet, and the pivot When Microsoft and OEM partners introduced the Copilot+ and AI PC narrative, they anchored the story to a concrete-sounding hardware bar: a...