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Microsoft's future-of-Windows fantasy videos keep doing the heavy lifting for public expectation—AR 4789's latest concept, a polished "Windows 12.1" reel that shows installation while you game or browse, a taut minimalist shell, and a tidier File Explorer, has reignited debates about what Microsoft should fix (and what it should avoid) as Windows evolves. The clip is a reminder that the conversation around Windows's next chapter isn't just about feature lists; it's about design consistency...

Windows is at an inflection point: as free support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025, Microsoft’s roadmap and the community’s imagination are converging on an AI-first successor — popularly dubbed Windows 12 in rumors and concept art — that promises to be everything Windows 11 should have been and, for many, the OS the market deserves. Background Microsoft’s formal lifecycle calendars drew a line under Windows 10 in mid‑October 2025, when mainstream technical assistance, feature...

Zorin OS 18 has emerged as the best‑packaged Linux alternative for Windows holdouts, and its momentum is the clearest sign yet that a meaningful wave of Windows users are actively testing — and in many cases installing — Linux as Windows 10 reaches the end of its mainstream support window. Background and context Zorin OS 18 landed in the market precisely when calendar pressure on Windows users peaked: Microsoft’s mainstream support for Windows 10 ended on October 14, 2025. That deadline...

Microsoft has published the January 13, 2026 cumulative security update for Windows 11 (KB5074109), and it’s available now via Windows Update and the Microsoft Update Catalog as a set of MSU packages that must be installed in a specific order for offline deployments and image servicing. Background / Overview Microsoft’s January 2026 cumulative (KB5074109) updates both Windows 11 release branches covered by the package and are labeled for the OS builds 26200.7623 and 26100.7623. The package...

Windows 11 can—and by default does—know where your PC is. You can turn most of that tracking off, but doing so requires more than flipping a single toggle: understanding what Windows is using to determine location, how the operating system shares that data with apps and cloud services, and which defensive controls actually stop tracking (or simply shift it to a different layer). This feature-driven, step-by-step guide walks through how Windows 11 collects location information, the two...

No Exchange Server Security Updates for January 2026 — What on‑premise Exchange admins need to know and do now On January 13, 2026 Microsoft’s Exchange Team published a short but important bulletin: there are no security releases for any version of Exchange Server in January 2026. The post also reiterated that, because some customers purchased the Exchange 2016/2019 Extended Security Update (ESU) and because the ESU period runs through April 2026, the team will post an explicit update each...

Microsoft has begun rolling out the January 2026 Patch Tuesday for Windows 11 — KB5074109 — advancing 25H2 systems to Build 26200.7623 (and 24H2 to Build 26100.7623) with a package that is primarily a quality-and-stability cumulative but also carries staged feature activations for Copilot-era functionality. Background / Overview January’s monthly cumulative follows Microsoft’s 2025 pattern: ship security and reliability fixes while continuing a controlled feature rollout (CFR) that flips UI...

High performance computing (HPC) sits at the engine room of modern science and industry, and the current vendor landscape reflects a rapid re‑ordering driven by AI, exascale ambitions, and cloud-first delivery models. The industry is anchored by a handful of hardware and software leaders — AMD, HPE, IBM, Intel, Microsoft (Azure), Dell EMC, NEC, Sugon and Dassault Systèmes — and a broader ecosystem that includes accelerator vendors, interconnect and storage specialists, and software stack...

ZDNet's popular roundup of Windows keyboard shortcuts is more than a checklist — it's a practical pathway to reclaiming minutes every day by turning repetitive mouse hunts into reflex keystrokes. This feature expands that roundup into a consolidation, verification, and critique tailored for every Windows user type: from casual browser-scrollers to power users running multi‑monitor developer rigs. The piece verifies the most important technical claims behind the recommendations, highlights...

Microsoft is quietly testing a built‑in Copilot chat inside File Explorer, an invisible hover button and resource strings in Windows Insider preview builds hinting that the assistant will soon be able to summarize, analyze, and act on files without forcing you to open them — a move that folds conversational AI directly into the most-used productivity surface on Windows and raises immediate questions about privacy, governance, and user control. Background Microsoft's Copilot has already...

Hexagon Robotics’ new partnership with Microsoft is a clear signal that humanoid robots are moving from research labs toward production-ready industrial deployments, and that major cloud providers are positioning themselves as the connective tissue between robotics hardware and enterprise-scale automation. Announced at CES and detailed in Hexagon’s robotics disclosures, the collaboration pairs Hexagon’s AEON humanoid hardware and sensor-fusion stack with Microsoft’s cloud, data and edge...

Arknights: Endfield’s minimum and recommended hardware targets are finally public, and they paint a clear — if occasionally inconsistent across outlets — picture of what players need to run the game on PC and mobile when it launches on January 22, 2026. Background Arknights: Endfield is a 3D action-RPG spinoff from the Arknights universe developed by Hypergryph and published globally by GRYPHLINE. The title will launch on PC (Windows), Android, iOS and PlayStation 5, arriving with...

A recent community speed comparison that installed Windows XP through Windows 11 on identical Lenovo ThinkPad X220 laptops landed an attention-grabbing verdict: Windows 11 finished near the bottom in nearly every responsiveness and resource-efficiency test, while Windows 8.1 surprisingly emerged as the snappiest overall on that vintage hardware. The results were widely shared and debated across the tech press and forums after the original tester published a long-form video of the experiment...

Thanks to a recent Windows 11 update, you can now shrink image files directly from File Explorer’s Share window before sending them — no extra app, no manual re-save and no fiddly export dialog. The feature is quick, built into the Share workflow, and exposes a simple menu with Original / Low / Medium / High options that preview the resulting file size before you hand the image off to an email client, chat app, or other target. Overview This addition places straightforward image compression...

Microsoft has quietly handed IT teams a narrowly scoped but practically useful lever: a Group Policy that can uninstall the consumer Microsoft Copilot app for a targeted user — but only when very specific conditions are met, and only once. This capability ships in the Windows 11 Insider Preview package identified as Build 26220.7535 (KB5072046) and is exposed as a new administrative template setting named RemoveMicrosoftCopilotApp, giving administrators a supported, surgical cleanup option...

Windows 11 already gives most users a strong, zero‑cost baseline of antivirus protection through Microsoft Defender, and the message from Microsoft is simple: for everyday use, built‑in defenses plus a few smart habits are often sufficient. The guidance emphasizes real‑time scanning, cloud‑delivered intelligence, ransomware protection (Controlled Folder Access), and family safety features that activate automatically without extra subscriptions or complex setup. Background Windows has shipped...

Microsoft is quietly testing a built‑in Copilot chat surface inside File Explorer — a subtle, hover‑activated “Chat with Copilot” affordance and detachable pane discovered in Windows 11 Insider preview builds — a change that would fold conversational AI directly into the most frequently used file manager on the platform. Background File Explorer has long been the nerve center for Windows users: a lightweight, predictable place to open, move, and manage files. Over the last two years...

SAS’ cloud-native analytics platform Viya is now officially available to U.S. public sector organizations and the partner ecosystem through Microsoft Azure Government, opening a new on-ramp for agencies that need advanced analytics and AI inside a U.S.-sovereign, contractually isolated cloud environment. The arrangement—delivered as SAS Managed Cloud Services on Microsoft Azure Government—combines SAS’ Viya platform, SAS’ managed services and Microsoft’s Azure Government isolation and...

NVIDIA’s GeForce Game Ready Driver 536.40 is a WHQL‑certified driver package released to add support for new Ada‑generation hardware and to address targeted game and rendering bugs; it also appears in archived vendor lists as a valid install option for legacy Maxwell cards such as the GeForce GTX 745 on Windows 10 (64‑bit) and Windows 11, but users must balance that compatibility against known stability reports and OEM caveats. Background NVIDIA publishes two main consumer driver families...

Microsoft’s OneDrive folder‑backup behavior has quietly shifted in a way that will matter to almost every Windows 11 user: when OneDrive Backup (the Known Folder Move for Documents, Pictures and Desktop) is active, those folders are relocated under your OneDrive profile and sync to the cloud — and in recent Windows 11 builds Microsoft has made it easier to reverse that change by giving you a choice to move files back to local folders when you turn the backup off. This is a useful tweak that...