Featured content

Microsoft has quietly removed the compatibility block that kept a slice of PCs from receiving Windows 11 version 24H2 after fixing a nearly year‑old camera/Windows Hello interaction that could freeze apps and block facial sign‑in. Background Windows 11 24H2 shipped in October 2024 with a set of under‑the‑hood changes to camera, media, and audio subsystems intended to support on‑device AI and modern media scenarios. Within weeks, Microsoft and partners began logging compatibility regressions...

Microsoft’s decision to end routine security updates for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025 has catalyzed a market response that is equal parts consumer-rights campaign, environmental argument, and opportunistic product offering — and Back Market’s new “Obsolete Computer” initiative is now at the center of that story. Back Market is publicly calling Microsoft’s move a form of "planned obsolescence," arguing that hundreds of millions of still‑serviceable machines will be pushed out of everyday...

Seleen UI's one-click makeover can transform a bland Windows 11 desktop into a polished, modern workspace in seconds, but the trade-offs — from memory usage to installer trust — matter as much as the aesthetic win. Background / Overview Seleen UI is a community-built, web‑first desktop environment that overlays or replaces key Windows shell surfaces with a unified interface built on WebView2 (Edge). Instead of tinkering with a single element — the Start menu, a taskbar patch, or a widget —...

Google and Qualcomm signalled at the Snapdragon Summit that a new class of ARM-based PCs running Android — not Windows 11 — is now actively in development, with Google describing plans for Android to bring its full AI stack, including Gemini, to desktop hardware powered by Snapdragon silicon. Background The idea of ARM processors in laptops and mini‑PCs is not new: Qualcomm’s push into the PC market has been visible since the Snapdragon X Elite first appeared as a contender for low‑power...

Microsoft’s latest Insider flights fold a surprising mix of practical productivity tweaks and aggressive Copilot surface changes into Windows 11 — Paint gains an editable project format and per‑tool opacity, Snipping Tool gets a pre‑capture Quick Markup workflow, Notepad is preparing AI writing tools with on‑device options for Copilot+ PCs, and Windows is experimenting with a one‑click “Share with Copilot” affordance in the taskbar that elevates privacy and usability questions for every...

Microsoft's direction is clear: there won't be a standalone "AI browser" from Redmond — instead, Copilot is being folded deeper into Microsoft Edge, turning the browser into an AI-first, agentic assistant that acts on context, orchestrates multi-step tasks, and tightly integrates with Microsoft 365 and the Windows ecosystem. Background The browser has historically been a window to the web; Microsoft now intends to make Edge the window plus the assistant that interprets, summarizes, and...

Microsoft’s push to make on-device AI a first-class citizen on Windows reached a major milestone this week: Windows ML is now generally available for developers, delivering a production-ready inference runtime, a managed execution-provider ecosystem, and a set of developer tools designed to make local AI deployment across diverse Windows 11 hardware practical and maintainable. The announcement frames Windows ML as the hardware-abstraction layer for on-device AI in Windows — one that leans on...

Microsoft's Microsoft 365 Copilot is no longer a single‑vendor show: starting today the company is adding Anthropic’s Claude family — notably Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4.1 — as selectable backends inside Copilot, giving organizations the ability to route specific Copilot workloads to Anthropic models while keeping OpenAI and Microsoft’s own models in the mix. Background / Overview Microsoft launched Microsoft 365 Copilot to bring large language model capabilities directly into Word...

Microsoft has quietly resurrected a long-requested personalization capability in Windows 11: native support for video wallpapers that lets ordinary video files act as looping desktop backgrounds—an elegant, modern echo of Vista’s DreamScene now visible in Windows Insider preview builds, but still experimental and gated behind internal flags. Background / Overview Windows has flirted with animated desktop backgrounds before. In 2007 Microsoft shipped Windows DreamScene as part of the Vista...

The U.S. Navy has quietly confirmed a procurement and architecture problem that will look painfully familiar to any enterprise IT leader who’s ever bet the farm on a single cloud vendor: NAVSEA’s custom-built NAVSEA Cloud is locked to Microsoft Azure in ways the command now admits it cannot unwind without rebuilding the entire environment from the ground up. The Naval Sea Systems Command’s sole‑source rationale makes clear that critical mission systems rely on Azure-native managed services —...

NTT DATA’s creation of a dedicated Global Business Unit for Microsoft Cloud marks a decisive shift in how large systems integrators package cloud, AI and sovereignty capabilities for regulated enterprises — and it signals a coming wave of sovereign cloud demand across APAC that technology and risk teams must prepare for now. Background / Overview NTT DATA announced on August 7, 2025 that it has launched a Global Business Unit focused exclusively on Microsoft Cloud. The move bundles the...

Microsoft’s latest push to fold agentic AI into migration and modernization workflows is no minor update — it’s a coordinated product and services play that blends GitHub Copilot’s new application-modernization capabilities with expanded Azure Migrate tooling and a commercial program, Azure Accelerate, intended to underwrite and fast-track cloud projects. The net effect: Microsoft is positioning AI as an execution engine that can not only recommend migration steps but also act on them...

Orange County Information Technology (OCIT) has formally asked the market how to move its data, applications and cloud services off Microsoft Azure — a move framed as a comprehensive “Cloud Services Migration” RFI that would, if executed, amount to a rare large-scale government cloud exit and a consequential technology and procurement undertaking. The notice asks vendors for approaches, tools, timelines, and cost estimates to relocate application services, networking configurations, storage...

ProsperOps’ recognition at CloudX 2025 marks a concrete milestone for autonomous FinOps: the company was named a winner of the 2025 CloudX Award in the Cloud Management category for its work automating commitment management and synchronizing workload scheduling with rate optimization. Background and overview Founded in 2018, ProsperOps has built a business around reducing the friction and risk of long-term cloud commitments by applying continuous algorithmic decisioning to reservation and...

Lenovo’s latest SMB-focused infrastructure bundles promise to simplify on-premises modernization while making AI-ready infrastructure for SMBs more accessible — but the reality for small teams depends on careful trade-offs between convenience, cost, and long-term flexibility. Overview Lenovo today announced a set of pre‑tested, validated IT bundles designed for small and medium businesses that need to modernize quickly and prepare for AI-driven workloads. The offering combines Lenovo...

VoiceGate and the “Make in Vietnam” moment: how a Vietnamese voice‑AI stack is reshaping insurance compliance — and why cloud choice matters By WindowsForum editorial team — 24 September 2025 TL;DR — Vietnam’s NamiTech (aka Nami Technology) has built VoiceGate, a voice‑biometrics + conversation‑intelligence platform that insurers are using to authenticate customers, transcribe and audit sales consultations, and accelerate compliance checks. Microsoft’s Source Asia profile (published 24 Sep...

Microsoft shipped an unscheduled, out‑of‑band cumulative update for Windows 11 (KB5068221) to repair a high‑impact compatibility regression that caused Microsoft Office to fail when delivered via Microsoft Application Virtualization (App‑V), while also carrying forward September’s security fixes and a servicing‑stack update—an emergency fix that restores App‑V Office stability but re‑emphasizes a separate SMBv1/NetBIOS connectivity caveat administrators must address before broad rollout...

Microsoft's revelation of an in-chip microfluidic cooling prototype marks one of the most ambitious attempts yet to wrestle the thermal limits of modern AI hardware — and it does so by breaking one of datacenter orthodoxy's oldest rules: don't wet the silicon. The company says tiny, hair-width channels etched into the back of a chip can route liquid coolant directly to hotspots, delivering up to three times the heat removal of conventional cold plates in lab-scale tests and cutting the...

Bitdefender’s new Ultimate Small Business Security suite has landed in the United Kingdom, arriving as a single, turnkey cybersecurity package aimed squarely at small firms with up to 25 employees that lack dedicated IT teams and need easy-to-manage, multi-device protection against ransomware, phishing, account takeovers, and AI-driven scams. Background Small businesses have rapidly become high-value targets for cybercriminals as hybrid and remote work patterns persist, and many proprietors...

Space42’s announcement that it has partnered with Microsoft and Core42 to build what it calls the UAE’s first Sovereign Mobility Cloud marks a pivotal moment in how the Emirates plans to host, govern and accelerate mobility and autonomous systems at scale. The joint offering positions itself as a regulated, high-assurance cloud environment purpose-built for HD mapping, telematics, fleet operations, traffic management and digital twins — bringing hyperscaler innovation into an environment...