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Microsoft’s surprisingly small but meaningful reversal — bringing a familiar Windows 10-style feature back into Windows 11 — is quietly rolling out to Insiders and it matters more than its nostalgia alone suggests. What began as a community leak has become a verified Insider experiment: Windows 11 now includes a native “video wallpaper” capability and a refreshed Settings “About” experience with PC spec cards, restoring convenience that many users missed after the Windows 10 → Windows 11...

Microsoft has quietly started testing a native “video wallpaper” feature in Windows 11 Insider preview builds — a modern revival of Vista’s DreamScene that lets you set common video files (MP4, MKV, MOV and others) as looping desktop backgrounds directly from Settings or File Explorer. Background Windows personalization has long been a battleground between built‑in features and vibrant third‑party ecosystems. Microsoft experimented with animated desktop backgrounds before, most notably with...

Microsoft has acknowledged multiple early regressions tied to the September servicing cycle even as Windows 11 version 25H2 begins rolling out, with two confirmed, actionable issues: a DRM/HDCP playback regression that can break Blu‑ray/DVD and some digital‑TV applications, and a separate WUSA (.msu) installation bug that can fail when installing updates from a network share containing multiple .msu files. Background / Overview Windows 11 version 25H2 is being distributed as an enablement...

If you’re still running Windows 10 on a personal PC or in a small business environment, a hard deadline is approaching: Microsoft will stop delivering free security patches, feature updates, and technical support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025 — and that change has immediate operational and security consequences that require planning now. Background: what "end of support" actually means Microsoft’s phrase “end of support” is precise: after October 14, 2025, standard editions of Windows...

My PC stopped being an attention circus when I deliberately redesigned the desktop to make distractions a choice, not the default. Background The problem is familiar: modern Windows desktops are feature-rich and noisy. Notifications, taskbar badges and app windows compete for attention the moment you sit down. XDA’s practical walkthrough of a distraction-proof Windows setup captures that tension and offers a concise toolkit — virtual desktops, automated Do Not Disturb, focused writing apps...

Microsoft began a staged global rollout of the Windows 11 2025 Update — Windows 11, version 25H2 — on September 30, 2025, delivering the release primarily as a small enablement package that flips on features already staged in the 24H2 servicing branch; rather than a flashy consumer reboot, this year’s update is a deliberate, enterprise-focused refresh that prioritizes memory-safety improvements, runtime vulnerability mitigations, streamlined servicing (hotpatching), and firmware-level...

Microsoft has set a firm calendar date: Windows 10 will reach end of support on October 14, 2025, forcing a hard choice for millions of users — upgrade to Windows 11 where possible, enroll in a short-term Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, or continue running an increasingly risky, unsupported operating system. Background Microsoft introduced Windows 10 in 2015 and supported it through a decade of monthly updates and feature servicing. That era now has a clear end point: routine OS...

Microsoft’s Copilot just moved from helper to hands‑on collaborator: Agent Mode now sits inside Word and Excel, and a chat‑first Office Agent can produce full Word documents and PowerPoint decks directly from the Copilot chat window. The features — rolled out first to Microsoft’s Frontier preview channel and to qualifying Microsoft 365 customers — let Copilot not only suggest text and formulas but operate inside your files, generate charts and layouts, and return auditable, multi‑step...

Microsoft has begun shipping a major shift in how Office handles creative and analytical work: an in‑canvas, multi‑step Agent Mode for Word and Excel and a complementary chat‑first Office Agent inside Microsoft 365 Copilot, together marketed under the umbrella of “vibe working.” These features move beyond one‑shot text generation and single‑step automation by decomposing user goals into executable plans, applying changes directly inside documents or workbooks, and surfacing intermediate...

The AI assistant market in 2025 is no longer a one‑horse race — a diverse set of specialist platforms now fills gaps where ChatGPT struggles, from citation‑first research tools to long‑context writing engines and enterprise agents that act inside your apps. The TechShout roundup exposed that exact landscape: Perplexity for research and RAG, Claude for long‑form writing, Gemini for deep Google Workspace integration, Microsoft Copilot for Office and Windows workflows, and Abacus.ai for...

Fortude’s announcement that it has earned the Analytics on Microsoft Azure specialization marks a meaningful step in the company’s Microsoft partnership journey and signals verified capability to plan, deliver and operate enterprise analytics workloads on Azure. The GlobeNewswire release states Fortude cleared Microsoft’s audit and validation process and positions the specialization as a lever to scale its Cloud & AI platforms business — a milestone the firm says will accelerate sales and...

Microsoft’s quietly updated Media Creation Tool now delivers a notably fresher Windows 11 24H2 image — a small but practical change that reduces post‑install updates for clean installs just as Microsoft’s 25H2 images circulate — but admins and enthusiasts should validate the media and keep fallback plans ready because the change is rolling out unevenly and has already produced compatibility headaches on older hosts. Background / Overview Microsoft’s update cadence for Windows 11 since the...

Microsoft will stop supporting Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, ending routine security patches, feature updates, and direct technical assistance for a platform that has powered millions of PCs worldwide — but Microsoft is offering a set of stopgap options, incentives and cloud pathways designed to smooth the transition for both consumers and organizations. Background Windows 10 launched in July 2015 and has been a dominant desktop operating system for nearly a decade. Microsoft announced a...

Microsoft has begun the controlled rollout of Windows 11 version 25H2 — a lightweight, enablement-package update that formally advances the Windows 11 servicing baseline while focusing on manageability, stability, and incremental polish rather than sweeping consumer-facing changes. Background Microsoft placed Windows 11, version 25H2, into the Windows Insider Release Preview channel as the final validation step before general availability, confirming the update will be delivered primarily as...

Microsoft confirmed that a change introduced in updates released on May 28, 2025 (starting with KB5058499) can cause the Windows Update Standalone Installer (WUSA) to fail with ERROR_BAD_PATHNAME when installing .msu packages from a network share containing multiple .msu files — and that Microsoft is mitigating the problem using Known Issue Rollback (KIR) while providing a Group Policy-based workaround for managed environments. Background Windows servicing in 2024–2025 continued Microsoft’s...

Microsoft’s latest push to make Office production feel like “tell it once, get a board‑ready deliverable” just cleared a major milestone: Agent Mode — an in‑canvas, multi‑step AI worker for Excel and Word — and a complementary Office Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot that can assemble polished PowerPoint decks and Word reports from a single chat prompt are now rolling out via Microsoft’s Frontier preview and select consumer channels. These features promise vibe working: the ability to give a...

Microsoft is putting a face — deliberately stylized, tightly guarded, and experiment-first — on Copilot by rolling out a new Copilot Labs feature called Portraits, a real‑time animated portrait system that lip‑syncs, nods, and emotes during voice conversations and is currently available only to a limited group of Copilot Pro testers in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. Background Microsoft has spent the last two years moving Copilot from a sidebar helper into a multimodal...

Microsoft has quietly reversed a six‑year split in its Windows engineering organization, bringing core platform, client, security, and data teams back under a single leadership umbrella as the company pivots to an AI‑first vision for the operating system. Background Microsoft’s Windows engineering has been through multiple structural iterations over the last decade. Following the departure of longstanding leaders and a broader push to optimize cloud scale, many low‑level platform teams were...

When you unbox a new Windows PC the label that matters most is often the one you don’t read: the edition. At first glance Windows 11 Home and Windows 11 Pro look identical — same centered Start menu, Snap Layouts, Widgets and gaming features — but the two editions diverge sharply once you peel back the settings: Pro unlocks advanced security, management, virtualization, and update control designed for businesses and power users, while Home keeps the experience lighter and simpler for...

Microsoft’s Insider channels closed out September with a quiet but consequential set of previews: seven focused Windows 11 improvements that refine AI experiences, accessibility, and everyday system diagnostics for Insiders — and set clearer expectations for how Copilot features will be baked into the desktop going forward. These changes, delivered across Canary, Dev and Beta flights (notably builds in the 26120/26220 series and a handful of Canary builds), introduce tighter Copilot...