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BGR’s latest Windows-versus-Linux comparison argues that Windows remains the safer default for ordinary PC users in 2026, while Linux is increasingly attractive for older hardware, Microsoft-weary users, and people willing to trade convenience for control. That framing is basically right, but it understates the deeper shift: this is no longer a fight about which kernel is more elegant. It is a fight over who gets to decide what your PC does next. Windows is still the mainstream answer, but...

Microsoft is testing a Windows 11 Search change in Experimental Preview Build 26300.8493 that makes apps and local files appear ahead of web suggestions when they are the stronger match, after years of complaints that Start and taskbar search too often favored Bing over the PC. The change is small in release-note language and large in user meaning. It suggests Microsoft has finally accepted that the fastest way to improve Windows Search is not to make it more ambitious, but to make it less...

NTT DATA announced on May 18, 2026, that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire WinWire, a Santa Clara-based Microsoft partner specializing in Azure AI, data engineering, cloud-native development, and agentic AI for enterprise customers. The deal is less a routine services roll-up than a signal flare for where Microsoft’s AI ecosystem is heading. Enterprises have spent the last two years testing copilots, chatbots, and proof-of-concept agents; NTT DATA is betting that the next phase...

Grid Dynamics announced on May 19, 2026, that it has launched an AI-native modernization service on Microsoft Azure, using its GAIN Platform for SDLC to target large enterprises running mission-critical legacy systems. The announcement is not just another partner badge in the Azure ecosystem. It is a sign that the modernization market is being recast around AI-assisted engineering, automated data migration, and the industrialization of software delivery. For WindowsForum readers, the...

Microsoft published fresh Windows 11 Insider ISO images in mid-May 2026 for its renamed preview channels, including Experimental Future Platforms build 29591.1000, Experimental build 26300.8493, and Beta build 26220.8474, giving testers a cleaner path to install, upgrade, or virtualize the newest Windows 11 preview code. The ISOs are not just a convenience download; they are a signal that Microsoft wants more people testing the operating system at the image level, not merely through Windows...

Microsoft’s May 12, 2026 security update KB5089549 is failing to complete on some Windows 11 version 24H2 and 25H2 PCs, with installs rolling back around 35–36 percent and showing error 0x800f0922 when the EFI System Partition has too little free space. The failure is narrow enough to avoid being a Windows-wide meltdown, but it lands in exactly the wrong part of the operating system: the boot plumbing most users never see and most administrators dislike touching. Microsoft has acknowledged...

Microsoft made Entra-Only identities for Azure Files SMB generally available on May 19, 2026, allowing organizations to grant identity-based SMB file-share access to cloud-only Microsoft Entra ID users without deploying Active Directory, hybrid sync, Entra Domain Services, or managed domain controllers. The announcement is less about a single Azure Files feature than about Microsoft’s broader attempt to make old Windows infrastructure assumptions optional. File shares are among the stickiest...

Microsoft confirmed in mid-May 2026 that Windows 11 cumulative update KB5089549 can fail during installation on version 24H2 and 25H2 PCs when the EFI System Partition has roughly 10 MB or less free space, producing error 0x800f0922 and rolling back the security update. The company has pushed a Known Issue Rollback for consumer and unmanaged business devices, with a restart often enough to let the fix take effect. For managed fleets, Microsoft is pointing administrators to Group Policy-based...

After Microsoft ended free Windows 10 support for most users on October 14, 2025, older PCs can still remain useful through four practical routes: installing ChromeOS Flex, adding a Samsung T7 portable SSD, upgrading Crucial DDR4 laptop memory, or replacing Windows with Linux Mint. The bigger story is not that aging hardware suddenly became obsolete. It is that Microsoft’s support deadline has forced households, schools, and small offices to separate software risk from hardware value. A...

Microsoft has begun phasing out SMS codes for authentication and account recovery on personal Microsoft accounts in May 2026, steering users toward passkeys, authenticator apps, and verified email instead of text-message verification. The company’s blunt explanation is that SMS-based authentication has become a leading source of fraud. That is not a surprising security judgment, but it is a consequential product decision. Microsoft is not merely improving sign-in; it is changing who gets to...

Amazon Web Services has added license asset groups to AWS License Manager so organizations can automatically discover, group, monitor, and report Microsoft SQL Server license usage across AWS accounts and regions, including bring-your-own-license and license-included EC2 deployments measured by vCPU consumption. The practical story is not that AWS invented license management; it is that AWS is admitting the old way was too brittle for the cloud era. SQL Server licensing has always been...

Microsoft began rolling out movable and smaller Windows 11 taskbar options to Windows Insiders in the Experimental channel on May 15, 2026, letting testers place the taskbar on the top, bottom, left, or right edge of the screen through Settings. The change restores one of the most conspicuous pieces of customization removed when Windows 11 arrived in October 2021. It is not merely a nostalgia feature; it is Microsoft conceding that a modernized shell still has to respect the way people...

Microsoft updated the Windows 11 Release Preview builds for versions 24H2 and 25H2 on May 19, 2026, moving KB5089573 to builds 26100.8521 and 26200.8521 with fixes for unexpectedly muted audio and a Windows Push Notification service hang that could stop apps and notifications from working. The timing matters because this is the last public proving ground before the same payload is expected to ride into the optional May non-security update and then the June Patch Tuesday cumulative update. In...

Scope, the UK disability equality charity, said on May 19, 2026, that it has rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot to all staff, alongside Microsoft 365, Entra, Defender, and Sentinel, after working with Microsoft and Phoenix to simplify its fragmented internal technology environment. The story is not just another customer win in Microsoft’s long Copilot roadshow. It is a sharper test of whether enterprise AI can do something more useful than decorate Office with a chatbot: remove practical...

AMD released Ryzen Chipset Driver 8.02.18.557 on May 19, 2026, for supported 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 11 PCs, adding new program support, bug fixes, and updated platform components for Ryzen, Threadripper, Ryzen AI, and older AMD processor families. The driver is not a glamorous download, and AMD’s release notes do not pretend otherwise. But the update matters because chipset packages are where Windows learns how to treat AMD hardware as a platform rather than a pile of parts. This is...

AMD released Ryzen chipset driver 8.05.04.516 on May 18, 2026, for 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems, adding support for Ryzen AI 400 platform components while rolling in bug fixes across power, GPIO, PSP, provisioning, PMF, and HSMP drivers. The headline is not a glamorous one, but the timing matters: AMD is preparing Windows PCs for another wave of AI-branded silicon, and the plumbing has to arrive before the machines do. For most desktop users, this is a maintenance update. For...

Nework is using World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2026 to pitch its NewBoard P Series, a smart collaboration display that pairs Android 14 with an optional Windows 11 Pro OPS module for hybrid meetings, enterprise apps, classroom work, and AI-era workplace workflows. The announcement is less about one interactive panel than about a larger fight over where the modern office computer actually lives. Nework’s answer is that the conference-room wall, not the laptop dock, is...

Microsoft has updated the Secure Boot status report in Windows Autopatch to give Intune administrators device-level visibility into certificate status, trust configuration, rollout confidence, alerts, and restart-dependent readiness as organizations prepare for Secure Boot certificate updates tied to expiring legacy certificates in 2026. The change is not just another dashboard refresh; it is Microsoft admitting that policy deployment and actual boot-chain readiness are very different...

Microsoft Build 2026 is scheduled for June 2–3 at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, moving Microsoft’s flagship developer conference away from its recent Seattle pattern and into a smaller, AI-focused format aimed at roughly 2,500 in-person attendees plus a free online audience. That venue change is not cosmetic. It says Microsoft now sees Build less as a Windows state-of-the-union and more as a deal room, lab bench, and recruiting ground for the AI developer economy. Sixteen years after...

Verint announced on May 19, 2026, in Melville, New York, that its Calabrio Workforce Management platform has earned Microsoft’s Solutions Partner with certified software designation for Healthcare AI and Financial Services AI, positioning the contact-center workforce tool more tightly inside Microsoft’s cloud ecosystem. The news is less about another partner badge than about where enterprise AI buying is headed. In regulated industries, the winning pitch is no longer “our model is smart”; it...