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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...

Windows Weekly’s latest episode arrives like a two‑ton reminder that tech transitions rarely happen on a polite schedule: “Coding Makes Me Cry” (Episode 950) drills into the real-world fallout of Windows 10’s imminent end-of‑support, Microsoft’s evolving recovery and Copilot features, and the ripple effects across hardware, developers, and everyday users. Background / Overview Windows Weekly has long been the weekly thermometer for Microsoft’s direction — a mix of insider nuance, practical...

Microsoft’s latest Insider update, delivered under KB5065786, pushes Copilot deeper into everyday workflows by adding Copilot-powered translation to the Click to Do selection surface and experimenting with quick taskbar integrations that let you share app windows directly with Copilot for visual analysis. This change, included in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6690 (Dev, 25H2) and Build 26120.6690 (Beta, 24H2), is a concrete example of Microsoft’s strategy to turn Copilot from a...

Microsoft’s latest Insider update, shipped under KB5065786, quietly tightens the integration between personalization and AI across Windows 11 by adding new Desktop Spotlight context-menu entries, a unified account hub in Settings, and deeper Copilot features in Click to Do and the taskbar — changes that matter for everyday users and administrators alike. Background Windows Spotlight arrived as a lock-screen feature and later expanded to the desktop, bringing Bing-powered daily images and...

Microsoft is quietly testing a Copilot Labs experiment called Portraits that would let users pick from 40 animated, non‑photorealistic 3D avatars — powered by Microsoft Research’s VASA‑1 — and speak to them in voice mode, according to an internal description surfaced by testers; the rollout appears limited to the United States, United Kingdom and Canada and includes strict usage guardrails that suggest Microsoft is treating the feature as a cautious, resource‑intensive experiment. Background...

A new Principled Technologies (PT) study — circulated as a press release and picked up by partner outlets — argues that adopting a single‑cloud approach for AI on Microsoft Azure can produce concrete benefits in performance, manageability, and cost predictability, while also leaving room for hybrid options where data residency or latency demands it. Background / Overview Principled Technologies is a third‑party benchmarking and testing firm known for hands‑on comparisons of cloud and...

Valve has set a firm deadline: beginning January 1, 2026, the Steam desktop client will no longer be supported on 32‑bit versions of Windows — a move that freezes the client on any remaining Windows 10 32‑bit installations and pushes the platform fully onto a 64‑bit baseline. Background The Steam desktop client has been trimming legacy platform support for years as the PC ecosystem consolidated around 64‑bit architectures and modern runtime stacks. Steam previously ended support for older...