Featured content

Windows 10’s retirement received an unexpected glitch: a post–October cumulative update caused some machines that are still eligible for extended support to display alarming “end of support” banners in Settings, prompting confusion for home users and alarm at scale for administrators. Background / Overview Microsoft formally ended mainstream support for the last serviced branch of Windows 10 on October 14, 2025. For most consumers that date marks the cessation of free, routine OS security...

Microsoft’s recent admission that some Windows 10 machines are showing an “end of support” banner even after customers enrolled in Extended Security Updates (ESU) has caused a predictable spike of alarm — but the root cause is a display bug, not a sudden loss of security patches, and Microsoft has pushed an automated server-side correction while preparing a longer-term fix. Background: what changed and why people noticed it Windows 10 reached its planned end of mainstream servicing in...

Windows 11’s 25H2 maintenance release arrives as a familiar-but-refined shell over last year’s 24H2 codebase, and with it comes the same friction many users have come to expect: taskbar clutter, persistent tips and recommendations, Web‑driven Copilot hooks, widget feeds, and a raft of preinstalled apps and prompts that make a “fresh” install feel busy instead of calm. This feature‑forward posture is optional to an extent — Microsoft exposes supported toggles to turn most of these behaviors...

Microsoft’s October servicing wave left a fresh scar on enterprise admins and cautious home users alike: several Windows 11 systems booted into the BitLocker recovery screen after installing October cumulative updates, and in a related regression USB keyboards and mice stopped responding inside the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). What began as isolated field reports escalated into an official Microsoft advisory and an out-of-band emergency patch — but the incident underscores both the...

Microsoft has quietly closed a frustrating chapter in Windows reliability by shipping a servicing fix that, for many users, finally makes the “Update and shut down” command do exactly what it promises: install updates and power the PC off instead of unexpectedly restarting or returning to the sign‑in screen. The change first appeared in an optional October 28, 2025 preview cumulative update (KB5067036) for Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 24H2, and Microsoft has staged it for broader...

Microsoft has quietly added a small but consequential convenience to the Microsoft Store: a web‑created, multi‑app install workflow that lets you pick a curated set of apps, download a single tiny launcher, and have the Store download and install everything for you in one go. Background Setting up Windows has long involved a mundane ritual: visit vendor sites, download installers, answer permission prompts, and repeat that cycle a half dozen to a dozen times. Power users solved this with...

Microsoft is quietly testing a native Windows 11 feature that can stream the same Bluetooth audio to two headsets, earbuds, speakers or hearing aids at once — surfaced to Windows Insiders as a Quick Settings tile called Shared audio (preview) and built on the new Bluetooth LE Audio stack that includes the LC3 codec and Auracast-style broadcast primitives. Background / Overview Bluetooth audio on PCs has long been hamstrung by legacy design choices: high-fidelity one-way playback via A2DP or...

Artificial intelligence is not just another productivity tool — early research suggests it may be reshaping how we think, learn, and even speak, with consequences that range from practical classroom challenges to deeper cognitive shifts in memory, attention, and problem solving. New empirical work and a growing body of cognitive-science literature point to a complex picture: AI can be a powerful amplifier of human capability, but habitual reliance on generative systems appears to encourage...

Microsoft’s latest sovereignty push is a clear course correction: the company is packaging operational guarantees, localized compute capacity and partner-run national clouds into a single play designed to make Microsoft 365 Copilot and Azure AI services acceptable to governments and regulated industries that insist data—and the AI work performed on it—stay inside national borders. Background / Overview Microsoft’s announcements over the past weeks extend existing data-residency work (the EU...

Nebius’s new Nebius Token Factory, unveiled on November 5, 2025, is a full-stack production inference platform that explicitly targets enterprises tired of closed, proprietary AI stacks and hyperscaler lock‑in — promising support for more than 60 open‑source models, sub‑second inference latency, autoscaling throughput and a 99.9% uptime SLA while running on Nebius’s growing global AI cloud. Background / Overview Nebius began life as the non‑Russian remnant of Yandex and completed its...

Microsoft has expanded Azure Migrate to support moving VMware virtual machines directly into Azure Local, giving IT teams a cloud‑managed, on‑premises migration path that preserves data residency, reduces pre‑migration setup, and introduces automation and IP retention features designed to minimize downtime and operational friction. This update — now documented as supported for Azure Local 2311.2+ and promoted from preview into broader availability — brings agentless discovery/replication...

Apple appears to be preparing a deliberate, pragmatic entry into the budget‑laptop market: a lightweight Mac codenamed J700, aimed at students, businesses and casual users, priced well under $1,000 and built around an iPhone-class system-on-chip rather than Apple’s M-series silicon. Background Apple’s rumored low‑cost Mac has circulated in rumor channels since mid‑2025, driven by analyst notes from Ming‑Chi Kuo and follow‑ups from supply‑chain reporters and tech press. The narrow narrative...

A sudden, alarming banner in Settings telling some Windows 10 PCs that they have “reached the end of support” was a cosmetic UI error — not a revocation of security updates — and Microsoft has pushed a cloud configuration correction plus an enterprise Known Issue Rollback (KIR) to clear the message for affected machines. Overview Shortly after Microsoft’s October servicing wave, a subset of Windows 10 devices began showing a red banner in Settings → Windows Update reading “Your version of...

Microsoft has quietly widened the Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE) beyond the ROG Xbox Ally family, rolling the console‑style, controller‑first shell out to additional Windows 11 handhelds via the Windows Insider Preview — most notably the MSI Claw — and exposing the path that will let more OEMs ship a handheld experience that looks and behaves more like a console than a traditional Windows desktop. Background Microsoft built the Xbox Full Screen Experience as a session posture layered on...

YIFY’s heyday—small, neatly encoded movie files that spread across torrent swarms—left many users believing there was a free, fast, and simple substitute for paid streaming. That convenience came at a cost: legal risk, shutdowns, and malware exposure. Today there are legitimate, safer ways to get the same basic outcomes—free or low-cost access to a large library of movies, good device support (including Windows), and reasonable streaming quality—without the dangers of piracy. This feature...

If Windows 11 feels sluggish on your PC, the issue is often systemic rather than purely hardware — and two default behaviors deserve immediate attention: OneDrive's automatic syncing and Windows 11's modern visual effects. Disabling or tuning these can deliver noticeable gains on older or low‑spec machines without spending a dime. Background / Overview Windows 11 ships with cloud integration and a polished interface turned on by default. Those conveniences are excellent for many users, but...

Microsoft has quietly expanded Copilot’s Vision capability on Windows so that Insiders can now type queries about what the assistant sees — and receive text replies in the same chat pane — turning a previously voice‑centric experience into a fully multimodal, text‑in/text‑out interaction that Microsoft is distributing as a staged Copilot app update (package 1.25103.107 and later) through the Microsoft Store. Background Microsoft’s Copilot strategy for Windows has been a rapid push to make...

Microsoft’s unveiling of Southeast Asia 3 — an Azure cloud region slated for Johor Bahru — marks a deliberate escalation of its Malaysia footprint and a clear signal that hyperscale cloud providers see Southeast Asia as a critical theatre for AI‑ready infrastructure and regional resiliency. Background / Overview Microsoft’s broader Malaysia commitment began with a US$2.2 billion multi‑year investment announced in May 2024 and has already produced one in‑country region, Malaysia West, which...

Pantone and Microsoft have quietly moved a decades‑old craft into the age of conversational AI: the Pantone Palette Generator, an AI‑powered, chat‑driven palette assistant built on Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI and integrated directly into Pantone Connect, is now available in open beta and promises to compress hours of color research and trend analysis into seconds for designers and creative teams. Background Pantone’s Color Institute has been the shorthand for color standards, trend forecasting...

Microsoft’s Microsoft Store has quietly added a smartphone‑style convenience that could change how many people set up Windows PCs: a Multi‑app install feature that lets you assemble a curated bundle of apps in a browser, download a tiny launcher, and have the Store download and install all selected titles automatically — no per‑app web‑hopping, no repeated prompts, and no manual juggling of installer windows. Background The Microsoft Store has long been a secondary route for Windows software...