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Microsoft has quietly given Windows 11 users a real way to make the intrusive “AI Actions” entry in File Explorer’s right‑click menu disappear: in Insider Preview Build 26220.7344 Microsoft changed File Explorer’s context‑menu logic so that if there are no available or enabled AI Actions, the entire AI Actions section is suppressed, and you can achieve that outcome by turning every App Action off in Settings → Apps → Actions. Background Windows 11 has been steadily folding small...

Someone took Windows 8’s Metro/Modern UI and rebuilt it as a Wayland desktop shell for Linux — and it is somehow weirder and more useful than it had any right to be. Background / Overview Microsoft's Windows 8 famously rewired the desktop in 2012, replacing the old Start menu with a full-screen, tile-based Start screen and pushing a touch-first design onto PCs that still mostly used keyboard and mouse. The move triggered a cascade of developer and OEM complaints about a locked-down...

One-hundred and fifty-seven installments into a long-running BetaNews series, this week’s roundup steers a steady course through the Microsoft Store’s mid-tier releases: a handful of small but useful utilities, several mobile-to-Windows game ports, and one or two lightweight clients that highlight the strengths — and the fragility — of the Windows Store ecosystem. The collection on offer mixes language tools, casual and puzzle games, and a modest torrent client; it rewards quick trials more...

A compact, community-built PowerShell project has given frustrated Windows 11 users a one-click way to strip much of the AI surface Microsoft has layered into the OS — but the convenience comes with real technical trade‑offs, update fragility risks, and support implications that every power user and IT admin should weigh carefully. Background / Overview Microsoft has been steadily repositioning Windows 11 as an “AI PC” platform, embedding features under names like Copilot, Recall, and a set...

Mozilla’s announcement that “Firefox will continue to support Windows 10 for the foreseeable future” changes the security calculus for millions of PCs — but it does not erase the risks introduced by Microsoft’s end of free OS servicing, and treating this as anything other than a stopgap would be a mistake. Background / Overview Microsoft formally ended mainstream, free support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, a hard milestone that stopped routine monthly cumulative security updates for...

SymphonyAI’s announcement of eight new industrial AI applications tailored specifically for CPG food and beverage manufacturers signals a deliberate pivot from generic “manufacturing AI” to domain-specific solutions built for high-velocity, thermally complex, and changeover-heavy production environments. These apps—packaged under the IRIS Foundry/IRIS Forge umbrella and architected on Microsoft Azure technologies—target cleaning-cycle optimization (CIP/SIP), filling and seaming analytics, 3D...

SymphonyAI’s new CINDE Merchandising Agents fold agentic AI directly into the weekly heartbeat of retail merchandising, promising to turn days‑long signal detection and manual analysis into near‑real‑time, role‑specific decisioning that aims to protect and grow margin at the store level. Background SymphonyAI has announced a next‑generation suite of CINDE Merchandising Agents—purpose‑built, role‑based AI agents that target four core retail merchandising workflows: weekly sales planning...

This week’s Best Windows apps roundup — issue number one‑hundred and twenty‑four in the series — highlights a compact but high‑quality slate of releases and updates, from a standout YouTube casting client to console‑style and mobile ports, plus a firmware update for older Surface hardware and a fresh Windows 10 SDK drop aimed squarely at developers. Background / Overview BetaNews’s weekly “Best Windows apps this week” column has long acted as a curated lens on Microsoft Store arrivals...

Microsoft’s Windows Store kept the bargains and new releases coming this week, with a high‑profile Black Friday–style promotion, a freshly rewritten Reddit client that earns “App of the Week” billing, and a slate of universal Windows 10 apps that underscore how developers were moving to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). The short version: Microsoft’s “10 days of $0.10” promotion drove attention and downloads, Baconit arrived in a ground‑up UWP rewrite that shows the power of adaptive UI...

This week’s Windows Store roundup highlights a familiar mix of polished ports, addictive mobile-to-PC conversions, and focused utilities — led by the Windows debut of Candy Crush Saga and rounded out with a surprising 2D fighter, a retro-styled shoot ’em up, and a clutch of small but useful productivity and network tools. The original weekly roundup that inspired this feature lists the week’s best picks and updates, including Candy Crush Saga as the Best App of the Week, BlazBlue: Calamity...

Microsoft’s weekly roundup of standout Windows releases this time highlights a mix of high-profile ports, polished indie titles and a handful of productivity utilities — led by a solid tower‑defense pick — while also noting Microsoft’s continued polishing of its core media apps and the Store ecosystem. The original BetaNews selection that inspired this feature lists Prime World Defenders as the week’s App of the Week, calls out ports such as DuckTales Remastered, and surfaces niche utilities...

BetaNews’ latest weekly roundup of new and updated Windows apps paints a restrained picture—post‑holiday store activity, a few notable arrivals, and a reminder that the Microsoft Store still surfaces both polished cross‑platform hits and small, single‑purpose tools worth a second look. The highlights this week include King’s Candy Crush Jelly Saga, a UWP Daily Mail Online client tailored for larger screens, the OCR‑powered Photron Image Translator, a team management entry called Monitae, and...

One-hundred and sixty-one in the series, this week’s BetaNews roundup delivers a compact but useful list of new Windows Store arrivals and updates, with Series Tracker crowned App of the Week and a cluster of games and utilities — from the meditative puzzle of Two Dots to the practical convenience of Dynamic Theme for automated wallpapers — that together illustrate the continuing variety of the Windows app ecosystem. Background The BetaNews “Best Windows apps this week” pieces are short-form...

Microsoft’s weekly app roundup landed with two converging headlines: a milestone platform update for Windows and a lively crop of Store apps that illustrate how the Windows app ecosystem still mixes serious utilities with quirky, play‑first experiments. The BetaNews selection for the week highlights AIDA64 as the “Application of the Week” and runs through several new arrivals and noteworthy updates, while the surrounding news — notably Microsoft’s first major Windows 10 update — reshaped...

This week’s Windows Store roundup landed squarely on two familiar signals: polished third‑party ports that bring mobile and indie games to Windows devices, and a handful of utility apps that aim to fill specific productivity gaps for desktop and tablet users — with Polarr Photo Editor taking the spotlight as app of the week in the original BetaNews selection. Background / Why this roundup matters The Microsoft Store has long been a mixed ecosystem: first‑party staples and major publishers...

Microsoft’s decision to make Baidu the default homepage and search engine for Microsoft Edge in China marked a deliberate — and pragmatic — concession to local market realities, one that reshaped how Windows 10 would be distributed and experienced in the world’s largest internet market. Background Microsoft announced the China-focused partnership on September 23, 2015, during a series of country-specific Windows 10 initiatives. The company said Baidu.com — then cited as having over 600...

Windows Central is asking readers to help shape its editorial future with a short audience survey that promises a quick feedback loop and a prize draw — an Amazon gift card worth $250 (or £200 for U.K. winners) — and the move highlights how major technology publishers are trying to realign coverage, product guidance, and community features around real reader needs. Background Windows Central has positioned itself as a leading destination for coverage of Microsoft, Windows, Xbox, and PC...

Microsoft’s quiet march to modernize Notepad has accelerated: a lightweight formatting layer that supports bold, italics, hyperlinks, lists, headings and rendered Markdown is now available in Insider builds, and follow‑on updates add native table editing and streaming AI responses — changes that reshape Notepad from a minimal plain‑text scratchpad into a Markdown‑aware, Copilot‑tethered writing surface. The formatting features arrive with a visible toolbar and a toggle to view raw Markdown...

WhatsApp’s desktop experience has been recast as a resource‑heavy web wrapper that forces Windows users onto a less capable client while the company continues to treat its mobile apps as the feature priority. Background WhatsApp’s desktop story has swung between web views, repackaged containers and a genuinely native Windows client; the most recent pivot replaces the native Windows app with a WebView2‑hosted build of WhatsApp Web distributed through the Microsoft Store. That change delivers...

Microsoft has quietly rolled back the annoying “white flash” in File Explorer’s dark mode: the Patch Tuesday cumulative update KB5072033 corrects a rendering regression introduced by the December preview KB5070311, and also bundles fixes and configuration changes that IT teams need to know about now. Background Microsoft shipped a preview package, KB5070311, on December 1, 2025 that aimed to make Windows 11’s dark theme more consistent across File Explorer and related UI surfaces. The...