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When two seasoned SOC builders set out to fix what they saw as an industry design flaw, the result was not another point product — it was a platform that reframes how managed service providers (MSPs) deliver Microsoft-native security at scale. ContraForce, founded in 2021 by veterans from Intel and McAfee, has packaged Microsoft Sentinel, Defender XDR, Entra ID, and Microsoft Foundry into a multi-tenant Security Delivery Platform that claims to let a single analyst manage an order of...

Installing Windows 11 from a USB gives you speed, control, and a clear path to a clean system image — but it also exposes you to firmware, compatibility, and activation pitfalls that every HP owner should understand before they press Install. This guide walks HP users through the full process: from checking hardware and creating a bootable USB, to advanced options (Rufus, TPM/UEFI workarounds), post‑install housekeeping, and enterprise rollout considerations — with concrete steps, safety...

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Microsoft's long-awaited disclosure about how many customers actually pay for Copilot landed like a splash of cold water: the company said it now has 15 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats — an impressive-growth headline on the surface, but one that raises as many questions as it answers about adoption, monetization, and the return on Microsoft’s enormous AI bet. Background Microsoft built Copilot to be the AI anchor for its productivity stack: a conversational, context-aware assistant...

Microsoft’s stock was hit with a fresh vote of caution on Monday as Melius Research lowered its rating to Hold, marking the second high‑profile downgrade in less than a week after Stifel’s similar call. The message from the street is blunt: Microsoft’s rapid pivot into generative AI has created material strategic opportunities, but it has also introduced new operational trade‑offs, concentration risks and capital demands that could weigh on revenue growth, margins and free cash flow in the...

Microsoft’s latest investor and product disclosures finally put hard numbers around the Copilot story — and those numbers tell two different, sometimes contradictory stories: sizable paid traction at the seat-and-subscription level, and a deliberately aggregated, opaque view of consumer reach that makes it hard to judge long-term user depth. Background / Overview Microsoft has spent 2024–2026 aggressively wiring generative AI into its operating system, productivity suite, developer tools...

Windows 11’s ambitious AI push has shifted from curiosity to controversy: a cluster of features — most notably Recall and the new “agentic” capabilities that let Copilot-style agents act on users’ behalf — have prompted security researchers, privacy-focused developers, and some journalists to warn that Windows 11 currently widens the desktop threat model in ways Windows 10 did not. Background / Overview Microsoft set out to make Windows 11 an AI-first platform: Copilot was integrated across...

For millions of home users and dozens of industries that still run legacy printing fleets, January 15, 2026 will be remembered as the date Microsoft slammed the brakes on the distribution of legacy V3 and V4 printer drivers through Windows Update — a staged, multi‑year shift that puts older printers on borrowed time and forces IT teams and consumers to confront a simple truth: the Windows printing ecosystem is being modernized, and vendor‑specific drivers are no longer the default path...

Microsoft has begun rolling Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7755 (KB5077201) into the Beta Channel, delivering a compact set of usability fixes and a couple of small but noticeable user-facing rollouts — most prominently the reintroduction of Emoji 16.0 into the Emoji Panel for Insiders and new pan/tilt camera controls exposed in Settings — while continuing to rely on the enablement‑package + Controlled Feature Rollout model that has defined the 25H2 preview stream...

Microsoft’s latest security push for Windows tries to square two long-standing demands from the ecosystem: make the platform secure by default while preserving its openness and flexibility — and do it with a “consent-first” model that gives users and IT administrators clearer control and visibility over what apps and AI agents actually do on their PCs. Background Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative (SFI) and the Windows Resiliency Initiative (WRI) have been the company’s public commitments...

Windows hides a simple, reliable shortcut that flattens hundreds of scattered Control Panel applets, legacy dialogs, and administrative tools into a single, searchable view — the so‑called “God Mode” (officially the All Tasks or Windows Master Control Panel view). This is not a secret privilege escalation or a hidden API; it’s a shell namespace trick that gives you a single index of what Windows already exposes across Settings, Control Panel, and administrative consoles, and it can save...

Microsoft’s latest Insider flights continue to nudge Windows 11 toward a more modern, media-friendly desktop: this week’s Dev and Beta Channel builds introduce native webcam controls that finally give users granular access to camera behavior, and they also expand emoji support with a staged rollout of Emoji 16.0—but both changes arrive under Microsoft’s careful enablement-and-gating model, so what you see will depend on which build you installed and whether the server-side flags have been...

Microsoft’s long-running secrecy about Copilot adoption ended this quarter, and the number it chose to reveal — 15 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats — landed like a headline and a challenge at the same time. The figure confirms that organizations are buying Copilot at scale in pockets, yet it also exposes a striking reality: when measured against Microsoft’s reported commercial Microsoft 365 base of more than 450 million seats, paid Copilot penetration sits at roughly 3.3% and leaves...

Microsoft’s multi-year clean‑up of the Windows print stack has moved from planning to practice, and its consequences are now material for home users, IT teams, and printer manufacturers: Windows Update has stopped accepting routine V3/V4 printer driver submissions for Windows 11 and Windows Server 2025, Windows will prefer the Microsoft IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) Inbox Class Driver by default in many install flows, and by mid‑2027 the Windows Update channel will be limited to...

Hytale’s launch comes with one of the clearest and most pragmatic hardware briefings we've seen in recent years: the developer published a tiered set of targets—Minimum, Recommended, and Recording/Streamer—that map to realistic framerate and quality goals (1080p/30, 1080p/60, and 1440p/60 capture, respectively), and they explain why CPU, RAM, storage, and view distance matter as much as raw GPU horsepower. Background / Overview Hypixel Studios has framed Hytale’s hardware guidance around...

Microsoft has pushed Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7760 (KB5077202) to the Dev Channel today, a small but strategically meaningful update that continues Microsoft’s pattern of shipping feature-ready binaries via enablement packages while using server-side gating to control who actually sees which features when. Background / Overview Microsoft’s Insider releases now follow a two-part delivery model: the on-disk binaries arrive in regular cumulative updates and tiny enablement...

Intel’s new Panther Lake silicon has landed into OEM designs and press rooms, and the early messaging is both familiar and consequential: on identical hardware, Linux is once again outperforming Windows in a wide swath of real-world workloads. That claim—sparked by coverage that points to a Phoronix benchmarking sweep comparing Windows 11 and Ubuntu 25.04 on a Core Ultra (Panther Lake) reference platform—deserves careful unpacking. The chip is a genuine technical leap for Intel, but the...

Microsoft has confirmed a staged end to servicing for legacy v3 and v4 printer drivers on Windows, and beginning January 15, 2026 Windows Update will no longer publish new third‑party v3/v4 drivers for Windows 11 and Windows Server 2025+. This is not an overnight “kill switch” for older printers, but it is a decisive shift toward a modern, inbox, driver‑less printing model based on IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) and Mopria standards — and it carries real operational consequences for home...

Microsoft has quietly accelerated a long‑planned pivot: as of mid‑January 2026 Windows Update will no longer be the default delivery channel for new third‑party V3 and V4 printer drivers on Windows 11 and Windows Server 2025, and the platform will progressively prefer Microsoft’s IPP inbox class driver before third‑party drivers are effectively restricted to security fixes only in 2027. Background: why Microsoft is rewriting the Windows printing playbook For decades Windows printing relied...

Installing Windows 11 from a USB stick remains one of the fastest, most reliable ways to control an upgrade or perform a clean install — and with careful preparation you can avoid the pitfalls that derail many DIY installs. This guide expands on HP’s step‑by‑step approach and adds practical troubleshooting, enterprise rollout notes, and advanced options for power users, drawing on multiple independent community and vendor guides to verify key steps and warnings. Background Windows 11 changed...