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Ottawa’s revelation that federal departments have spent nearly $1.3 billion on cloud services from U.S. hyperscalers since 2021 — with Microsoft receiving the lion’s share and the Department of National Defence (DND) confirming mission‑critical workloads running on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud — has shifted a long‑standing policy debate about cost, capability and national sovereignty into the open. Background / Overview In June 2025 Conservative MP Todd Doherty...

Microsoft’s latest Insider drop adds a conspicuous new “Share with Copilot” button to the Windows 11 taskbar — a small UI tweak with outsized implications for discoverability, privacy, and how aggressively Microsoft is knitting Copilot into everyday workflows. The change arrives in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6690 (Dev Channel) and places a one‑click path to Copilot Vision directly in the app preview that appears when you hover over a taskbar icon, effectively letting the...

Microsoft will stop delivering updates and technical support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025 — a firm, calendar-backed cutoff that changes what “secure” and “supported” mean for PCs still running Windows 10. From that date onward home users and companies must choose between upgrading to Windows 11 (if their hardware allows), buying Extended Security Updates (ESU) for a limited period, or accepting increasing security and compatibility risk while continuing to run an unsupported OS...

Microsoft has confirmed that the August and September 2025 servicing updates for Windows 11 introduced a regression that can block playback of DRM‑protected video in certain Blu‑ray, DVD and digital‑TV applications, and Microsoft is rolling a targeted fix through the Release Preview channel while advising affected customers to delay installation until the issue is resolved. Background / Overview The problem first surfaced after the August 29, 2025 servicing update (KB5064081) and was later...

Microsoft’s Paint has crossed a clear usability threshold: the classic inbox app now supports editable, layered project files, per‑tool opacity controls and a native project container (.paint) that preserves edit state — changes being flighted to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels that shift Paint from a single‑session doodle tool toward a lightweight Photoshop‑style editor. Background For decades, Microsoft Paint was the archetypal simple raster editor bundled with Windows —...

The countdown is real: on October 14, 2025, Microsoft will end routine security updates, feature and quality fixes, and standard technical support for mainstream editions of Windows 10 — a hard lifecycle milestone that turns any remaining Windows 10 device into a rising security, compliance, and business risk unless organisations act now. Background / Overview Microsoft announced the end-of-servicing date for Windows 10 (version 22H2 and related mainstream SKUs) as October 14, 2025. After...

Google’s experiment to bring Search out of the browser and onto the Windows desktop is more than a convenience tweak — it’s a calculated bid to reinsert Google Search directly into users’ workflows and to blunt Microsoft’s momentum with Copilot-style system-wide search. The company’s new “Google app for Windows,” available through Search Labs, surfaces local files, installed apps, Google Drive documents, and web results from a floating Alt + Spacebar prompt, and it embeds Google Lens and an...

Orange County’s IT shop has opened a formal conversation about moving major workloads off Microsoft Azure, issuing a Request for Information (RFI) that explicitly asks the market how to migrate applications, virtual machines, storage, databases and networking from Azure to another cloud — a move that, if pursued, would be a rare and consequential “cloud exit” for a large U.S. county. Background Orange County Information Technology (OCIT) published an RFI describing a comprehensive Cloud...

Principled Technologies’ recent hands‑on evaluation argues that a focused, single‑cloud strategy on Microsoft Azure can deliver measurable advantages for many AI workloads—faster time‑to‑value, lower end‑to‑end latency, more predictable three‑year TCO, and simplified governance—while repeatedly warning that the numbers it reports are configuration‑specific and must be validated against each organization’s actual workloads. Background Principled Technologies (PT) is a third‑party testing and...

As the October 14, 2025 deadline for Windows 10 support approaches, the Zorin Team has pushed a high‑profile bet on migration: the public Zorin OS 18 Beta is positioned explicitly as a familiar, low‑friction alternative for the millions of Windows 10 users who either can’t—or don’t want to—move to Windows 11. Background: the Windows 10 end‑of‑support moment and why it matters Microsoft’s lifecycle paperwork is definitive: Windows 10 mainstream support ends on October 14, 2025 — no more...

Microsoft has set a firm, non‑negotiable deadline: Windows 10 reaches end of support on October 14, 2025, and that change will materially alter security, compliance, and operational risk for every PC still running the decade‑old OS. Background / Overview Microsoft’s lifecycle announcement makes the proximate facts simple and stark: after October 14, 2025, routine security updates, quality fixes, feature updates, and standard technical support for mainstream Windows 10 editions will stop...

Microsoft has pushed a coordinated set of new Insider preview packages across the Dev, Beta and Canary channels — delivered under cumulative update KB5065786 — that surface the same key Copilot-driven UX experiments to Dev and Beta (builds 26220.6690 and 26120.6690 respectively) while Canary gets a smaller maintenance flight and a temporary rollback of the newer Advanced settings UI. Background / Overview Windows Insider releases now follow a dual‑delivery model: binaries are shipped broadly...

Principled Technologies’ recent press materials argue that adopting a single‑cloud approach for AI on Microsoft Azure can produce measurable gains in performance, manageability, and cost predictability — but those headline claims come with important caveats and require careful validation before any enterprise-wide decision is made. Background Principled Technologies (PT) published a hands‑on evaluation — circulated as a press release and widely syndicated — that compares single‑cloud Azure...

A recent Principled Technologies (PT) study — circulated via a press release and republished across PR channels — argues that adopting a single‑cloud approach for AI on Microsoft Azure can deliver measurable benefits in performance, manageability, and cost predictability for many enterprise AI projects, while acknowledging hybrid and on‑prem options where regulatory or latency constraints require them. Background Principled Technologies is an independent testing and benchmarking firm that...

Microsoft has issued its clearest countdown yet: mainstream support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025 — a hard servicing cut-off that removes routine security updates, quality fixes and standard technical support for the majority of Windows 10 editions and leaves millions of devices at rising risk unless owners act quickly. Background / Overview Windows 10 launched in July 2015 and became the dominant desktop operating system for a decade. Microsoft maintained a scheduled lifecycle for...

The first time you boot the Xbox full‑screen experience on a handheld Windows PC it feels, in practice, like someone surgically replaced the Windows desktop with a console‑style launcher — and the early hands‑on tests show that this is less about eye candy and more about real resource reclamation that can translate into measurable performance and battery gains on thermally constrained handheld hardware. Background The Xbox full‑screen experience (FSE) is a controller‑first, full‑screen shell...

Robed figures circle a Stonehenge-like ring under a cloudy sky in a colorful meadow.

Microsoft this week expanded Microsoft 365 Copilot from a personal productivity assistant into a suite of context‑aware team agents that live inside Teams channels, SharePoint sites, Viva Engage communities, and meetings — agents that can prepare agendas, take notes, manage projects, tag and surface content, answer community questions with citations, and even execute some tasks autonomously as part of coordinated team workflows. Background Microsoft has steadily folded generative AI into its...

Windows 11 Insiders are now seeing a new, unexpected entry in the parade of Copilot entry points: a floating “Share with Copilot” button that appears when you hover over an open app on the taskbar and use the window preview. The button launches Copilot Vision against the contents of that window — scanning, analyzing, and letting Copilot answer questions, provide context, or walk you through tasks — and it joins a growing roster of places Microsoft has placed Copilot across the OS. Background...

Microsoft’s latest Insider package, delivered as KB5065786, folds a fresh set of Copilot experiences into the Windows 11 shell — most notably a taskbar “Share with Copilot” affordance that lets Copilot Vision scan and analyze the content of a window you hover over on the taskbar, plus a Copilot-powered translation shortcut inside Click to Do. The changes arrive in Build 26220.6690 for the Dev Channel and Build 26120.6690 for the Beta Channel and are being distributed as staged, toggle-gated...