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The long-lived ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT — a midrange 2007–2008 GPU that shipped in dozens of retail and OEM boards and even as an Apple‑blessed option for early Mac Pro systems — can still be made to work on modern Windows systems, but the path is now one of compromise: you can expect a stable desktop experience using Microsoft’s signed legacy driver (or a vendor/OEM package where available), while restoring fuller Catalyst features requires manual, advanced steps and acceptance of security and...

Microsoft’s recent reshuffle of Windows 10’s admin and system shortcuts into a consolidated Windows Tools panel is a quiet but practical change that brings together pieces of the Control Panel, Administrative Tools, PowerShell, Accessories and System shortcuts into one searchable, File‑Explorer‑backed view — a true one‑stop toolbox for tweakers, technicians and system administrators. The reorganization (announced in Insider builds 21343 and continued in 21354) doesn’t add new utilities so...

Microsoft’s announcement that Windows 10 has passed the 800 million device mark was the kind of milestone that reads as both celebration and checkpoint — a clear sign that the platform’s multi-year push from legacy desktops to a continuously updated, cross-device operating system is working, even if Microsoft missed its original timetable for the “billion devices” ambition. The number, called out publicly by Microsoft executive Yusuf Mehdi and highlighted on Microsoft’s Story Labs channels...

Extended GodMode arrives as a compact, portable utility that expands the decades‑old “God Mode” trick in Windows into a searchable, bookmarkable admin console — putting Control Panel links, Admin Tools, and saved searches into a single, lightweight interface for technicians and power users. Background The original “God Mode” (officially the Windows All Tasks or Master Control Panel shortcut) is a shell namespace trick: create an empty folder and rename it with the special GUID pattern and...

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...