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Microsoft has pushed the first public preview builds for Windows 11’s early 2026 development to Insiders, and the headlines are practical: targeted File Explorer fixes — including an optional background preloading toggle and a reworked right‑click menu — accompanied by additional shell and platform quality improvements designed to quiet high‑frequency user pain points. Background / Overview File Explorer remains one of the most visible and repeatedly used surfaces in Windows, and performance...

Concentric AI’s Semantic Intelligence platform can now run its heavy-duty data scanning and classification entirely inside a customer‑controlled Microsoft Azure tenancy, bringing a new on‑tenant deployment option — Private Scan Manager for Azure — to organisations that must keep raw content inside tightly controlled cloud or sovereign environments. Background Concentric AI has built its product strategy around semantic, context‑aware classification and remediation, positioning Semantic...

CES 2026 made one thing unmistakably clear: AI stopped being an optional spec line and became the operating layer across PCs, displays, and peripherals — and the devices that impressed most were the ones that treated on‑device intelligence as a first‑class design constraint rather than a sticker on the box. Background The 2026 Consumer Electronics Show felt less like a parade of incremental refreshes and more like a platform pivot. Chipmakers shipped NPUs into every device class; OEMs...

A wave of low-cost, bootable USB sticks and third‑party “password reset” kits has reappeared on marketplaces in 2025, and one listing that sums up the sales pitch is a shrink‑wrapped “2025 Windows Password Reset USB — Reset In 3 Min.” that claims broad compatibility (Windows Server through Windows XP), unlimited device use, and an instant fix for locked Windows accounts. The listing blends two separate realities: legitimate, built‑in Windows recovery options that must be prepared in advance...

Microsoft’s latest Insider preview, delivered as Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7535 (KB5072046), brings a pragmatic but important management control: a new policy that lets administrators uninstall the consumer Microsoft Copilot app on managed devices when specific conditions are met — a one‑time, targeted uninstall intended for enterprise, Pro, and Education SKUs. Background Microsoft’s ongoing campaign to fold Copilot into Windows has been accompanied by two competing pressures...

When Microsoft added a native sudo command to Windows 11, it closed a long-standing usability gap for developers—but the company’s minimalist, security-first implementation leaves gaps that the open‑source tool gsudo still fills, so many power users will be better served by keeping the community tool in their toolkit. Background Microsoft is borrowing a small but meaningful piece of Unix ergonomics The new Sudo for Windows is bundled with Windows 11 version 24H2 and higher, and brings a...

Microsoft has added a defensive integrity check to the Common Log File System (CLFS) driver: CLFS now attaches a hash‑based message authentication code (HMAC) to each Base Log File (.blf) and its containers, validates that HMAC before parsing, and will refuse to open any logfile whose authentication code is missing or invalid. This change hardens logfile parsing against forged or tampered files but also changes operational assumptions about logfile portability and lifecycle — administrators...

Microsoft’s Copilot now surfaces a native checkout flow so U.S. users can buy from merchants like Etsy sellers, Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie without leaving the chat—an experience powered in part by Stripe’s payment infrastructure and anchored on the Agentic Commerce Protocol and tokenized payment primitives. Background The move to embed payments directly into conversational agents—often called agentic commerce or conversational commerce—is no longer experimental. Over the past 12–18...

Microsoft has quietly moved Copilot from advice to action: Copilot Checkout lets U.S. users discover products and complete purchases without leaving the Copilot conversation, using partner payment rails and merchant catalog integrations to render an in‑chat checkout that claims faster conversion and lower friction. Background Microsoft introduced Copilot Checkout as part of a broader retail and “agentic commerce” push that collapses discovery, comparison, and payment into a single...

October 14, 2025 changed the desktop computing equation: Microsoft’s support for Windows 10 ended on that date, leaving millions of otherwise serviceable PCs without free security updates and forcing a stark choice — upgrade to Windows 11 (if your hardware passes Microsoft’s checks), buy extended security coverage for a limited time, replace the machine, or move to an alternative operating system. Background The calendar-based end-of-support for Windows 10 was exactly that — a calendar event...

Windows search finally behaves the way many of us expected it to: queries now open in your chosen browser and search engine instead of being funneled to Microsoft Edge and Bing — but this fix didn’t come from Microsoft. It arrived as a compact, open‑source utility called MSEdgeRedirect, a roughly 1‑megabyte tool that intercepts the OS’s Edge-specific handoffs and forwards them to your default browser and preferred search engine, restoring predictable, user‑controlled behavior. Background...

October 14, 2025 marked a hard line: Microsoft officially ended mainstream support for Windows 10, and the consequences—security, compatibility, and a renewed conversation about ownership of the personal computer—are already reshaping user choices and vendor behavior. Background / Overview Microsoft’s lifecycle calendar is explicit: Windows 10 mainstream support ended on October 14, 2025, meaning retail Home and Pro systems no longer receive routine security patches, feature updates, or...

Microsoft opened 2026’s Windows 11 Insider cycle with a focused preview drop that expands Copilot’s role in accessibility, gives IT admins more control over the consumer Copilot app, and offers developers an alternate, notification-based path for resuming Android app activity on Windows — all shipped as Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7535 rolling to Dev and Beta Insiders. Background / Overview Microsoft’s 25H2-era Insider deliveries continue the pattern used in late 2025: a single...

Windows 11 feels familiar the instant you log in, but a handful of free, first‑party Microsoft apps quietly amplify that experience in ways most new users never discover — PowerToys, Diagnostic Data Viewer, Windows File Recovery, Windows HDR Calibration, and Windows Scan are five such tools worth installing during a fresh setup. Background Windows has long shipped with a mixture of core system components and optional utilities. In recent years Microsoft has shifted many focused tools into...

Microsoft has pushed the first public preview build of Windows 11 for 2026 into the Insider channels, and at its centre is a focused set of fixes and experiments for File Explorer — including an optional background preload and a reorganized right‑click menu — alongside a handful of other quality and usability tweaks that signal Microsoft is reprioritizing everyday performance and polish. Background Windows’ File Explorer is one of the operating system’s most visible and frequently used...

Google is rolling Gemini into Gmail with a slate of features that promise to read, summarize, and even answer questions about the contents of your inbox — and the result is a dramatic convenience-versus-privacy trade-off that every user and IT admin should understand before enabling the newest smart features. Background / Overview Google announced a major Gmail update on January 8, 2026, positioning the app “in the Gemini era” and introducing three headline capabilities: AI Overviews (thread...

Microsoft’s first Windows 11 preview build of 2026 opens with a practical accessibility win: Narrator can now call on Copilot to describe images for all Windows 11 users — not just those with Copilot+ hardware — while IT administrators gain a new policy to remove the consumer Copilot app from managed devices and developers get an expanded path for cross‑device Resume via the Windows Notification System. Background When Microsoft introduced Copilot and the Copilot+ hardware tier, many of the...

Microsoft’s Copilot moving into in‑chat purchases, Google’s Gemini seeding deeper into Gmail, Elon Musk’s Grok under regulatory scrutiny for image misuse, OPPO shipping a camera‑forward Reno 15 Pro, and RayNeo touting compact, bright AR optics — together these developments mark a decisive shift from AI as a conversational advisor toward AI as an agentic actor in commerce, communication, content creation and mixed reality. Background / Overview The past week crystallized two parallel trends...

The AI showdown that matters for millions of knowledge workers has settled into a pragmatic split: in 2025, Microsoft Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT no longer compete on novelty alone — they compete on where and how they fit into real work. Microsoft sells baked‑in Office automation, tenant governance, and agent tooling; OpenAI sells model flexibility, extensibility, and a developer ecosystem. The top‑line: Copilot wins when your work lives inside Microsoft 365; ChatGPT wins when you need...

Microsoft’s Copilot is no longer just a helper for writing emails and summarizing web pages — it’s being shaped into a full shopping platform that can compare prices, track deals, surface cashback, and even complete purchases inside the Copilot interface, folding browser-era shopping tools into an AI-first, conversational commerce experience. The shift consolidates Edge’s legacy shopping features into Copilot in Edge and extends them with native in‑chat checkout and merchant-facing “Brand...