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Valve will stop shipping updates for the Steam desktop client on 32‑bit Windows systems starting January 1, 2026 — a move that affects a vanishingly small slice of users but closes a long-running chapter in the PC platform shift from 32‑bit to 64‑bit computing. Background Steam’s client lifecycle has been steadily trimmed over the last several years as upstream dependencies and platform vendors moved away from legacy OS builds and 32‑bit ABIs. The new cutoff targets the last 32‑bit Windows...

Microsoft’s new Xbox Full screen experience for Windows handhelds can already be forced onto existing devices — but early testers warn that getting it running is only the first step; making it stable, usable, and genuinely advantageous is another matter entirely. Background Microsoft and ASUS unveiled a coordinated push this year to make Windows handhelds behave more like dedicated consoles: a controller‑first, full‑screen Xbox shell layered on top of Windows 11, plus a Handheld...

Microsoft Paint has quietly gained a Photoshop‑style workflow: Windows Insiders can now save layered, editable projects as a single .paint file and reopen them later to continue exactly where they left off, while Pencil and Brush tools gain an opacity slider for semi‑transparent strokes—changes shipping in Paint app version 11.2508.361.0 to Canary and Dev channel testers. Background / Overview Microsoft’s approach to Paint over the last two years has been incremental and pragmatic: transform...

Microsoft and ASUS have accelerated the handheld-PC arms race by shipping the ROG Xbox Ally family with a purpose-built Xbox full‑screen experience layered on Windows 11 — and, crucially, that same console‑like launcher is already being enabled on many existing Windows handhelds via the Windows 11 25H2 Insider builds and community tweaks. Background The ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X are the first mainstream devices to ship with a controller‑first, full‑screen Xbox home set as the default...

Microsoft has quietly folded an AI coach into the Windows 11 Game Bar: Gaming Copilot (branded as Xbox Copilot in some builds) is rolling out to Xbox Insiders now, promising voice, screenshot and context-aware help without leaving the game — and the early beta exposes both a practical leap in accessibility and a raft of performance, privacy, and competitive questions that gamers and platform owners will need to weigh carefully. Background / Overview Microsoft’s Copilot branding has expanded...

Microsoft Copilot now speaks fashion: with a new integration powered by Curated for You, users can ask natural-language questions like “What should I wear to a beach wedding?” and receive context-aware, shoppable outfit recommendations inside the Copilot interface. Background Microsoft’s Copilot—positioned as the company’s everyday AI companion across Windows, Microsoft 365, and the broader Microsoft ecosystem—has steadily expanded from productivity assistance to consumer-facing services...

Microsoft Forms’ core promise is simple: collect answers quickly and reliably. When respondents hit a link and see “This form is no longer accepting responses” or the form simply won’t submit, that promise collapses—and organizers, IT admins and end users alike scramble for answers. This feature piece unpacks the most common reasons Microsoft Forms refuses responses, verifies the platform’s configuration rules, and delivers a step‑by‑step repair playbook for form owners and respondents. It...

The U.S. House of Representatives has quietly — but decisively — reversed last year’s prohibition on Microsoft’s Copilot AI for congressional staffers, launching a controlled pilot that will provide up to 6,000 licenses for Microsoft 365 Copilot and make a lighter-weight Copilot Chat available to every House office as part of a broader push to modernize workflows and embrace generative AI. Background From a security-driven ban to a staged pilot Less than two years after the House’s Office...

Kingston’s new DC3000ME Gen5 U.2 SSD arrives as one of the clearest statements yet that PCIe 5.0 enterprise flash is moving out of the OEM-only channel and into mainstream procurement — a high-capacity, 1‑DWPD data center drive with Gen5 performance, broad security and telemetry features, and wide availability through resellers and e‑tailers. Background / Overview The DC3000ME is Kingston’s first enterprise PCIe 5.0 U.2 offering aimed squarely at system integrators, cloud builders, and...

Valve’s Steam client will stop receiving updates for 32‑bit editions of Windows on January 1, 2026, a decision that closes the last active chapter of 32‑bit Windows support on Steam and forces a small but real group of users to plan migrations, backups, or hardware replacements. Background Steam has been steadily pruning legacy operating system support for several years. Microsoft’s own lifecycle schedule — which sets Windows 10’s end of support as October 14, 2025 — accelerated the...

Windows 11’s Widgets board is an underused but powerful way to surface the information you need without opening full apps — and adding, customizing, or removing widgets is straightforward once you know where to look and what to expect. This guide distills the practical steps for adding and personalizing widgets, highlights the most useful widgets for productivity, flags recent changes and preview features that advanced users should handle with care, and explains the privacy and performance...

Microsoft has quietly given Paint a workflow upgrade that moves the app from a quick doodle tool toward a genuinely useful, session-aware image editor: Paint can now save editable project files (.paint) and offers an opacity slider for Pencil and Brush strokes — features rolling out to Windows 11 Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels as part of Paint version 11.2508.361.0. Background / Overview Microsoft’s decades-old Paint has been steadily rebuilt into a modern, AI-aware creative app...

Valve will stop supporting 32‑bit versions of Windows for the Steam client on January 1, 2026, a move the company says affects only a vanishing fraction of users but which nevertheless closes a long-running chapter in the 32‑bit to 64‑bit transition for PC gaming. Background / Overview Steam’s desktop client has been steadily pruning legacy OS support for several years. The new announcement — framed as an end to Steam support for 32‑bit Windows starting January 1, 2026 — targets the last...

Windows 10 will reach its official end-of-support on October 14, 2025 — but Microsoft has built a narrowly scoped, one-year Extended Security Updates (ESU) escape hatch that lets many consumers continue receiving security-only patches through October 13, 2026 if they enroll before the deadline. The pathway is straightforward but strict: eligible devices must be on Windows 10, version 22H2, fully updated (including the August 12, 2025 cumulative that contains KB5063709), and enrolled using a...

Microsoft’s latest in‑app prompt — a subtle “Try experimental AI features” banner inside Microsoft Paint — is the first public sign of a broader program internally referred to as Windows AI Labs, an opt‑in testbed Microsoft appears to be rolling out to let users preview and evaluate pre‑release AI experiences across Windows 11 apps. The invite is being surfaced to a small subset of Insiders and retail users, but the backend services that would actually enable the experiments are still being...

Microsoft’s Windows 365 is taking a pragmatic step toward wider frontline and shift-worker adoption by launching Windows 365 Cloud Apps in public preview — a feature that streams individual Windows applications from a shared Cloud PC so organizations can deliver Outlook, Word, OneDrive and line‑of‑business apps without provisioning a full Cloud PC for every user. Background / Overview Windows 365 launched as Microsoft’s managed Cloud PC service: a per‑user Windows instance hosted in Azure...

Microsoft’s free Windows 10 upgrade became a vehicle for a crop of convincing phishing emails that delivered file‑encrypting ransomware disguised as a legitimate installer, according to security researchers — a reminder that major platform announcements instantly become social‑engineering boons for attackers. Background Microsoft announced the Windows 10 free upgrade to eligible Windows 7 and Windows 8 users in late July 2015, and the rollout instantly became headline news and high‑interest...

Flyoobe’s latest release, version 1.20 (tagged 1.20.400), ships a visible, Windows 11–style redesign and continues to position the project as a compact, portable toolkit for bypassing Windows 11 installation gates and customizing the Out‑Of‑Box Experience (OOBE). Background Flyoobe began life as Flyby11 — a focused, lightweight patcher whose stated purpose was to remove the installer checks Microsoft enforces for Windows 11 (TPM, Secure Boot, CPU family lists, and certain RAM thresholds) so...

Microsoft is rolling meaningful updates to three of Windows 11’s most-used inbox apps — Paint, Snipping Tool, and Notepad — delivering editable project files, faster in-capture markup, and local AI capabilities on Copilot+ hardware that together nudge these utilities from “basic” toward genuinely useful creative and productivity tools. Background Windows’ built‑in apps have been quietly evolving into testbeds for Microsoft’s broader Copilot and hybrid AI strategy. For years these utilities...

Zoom’s AI push at Zoomtopia 2025 marks a pivot from helper tools to agentic assistants and lifelike synthetic presence — the company unveiled AI Companion 3.0, cross-platform note-taking and search, and photorealistic meeting avatars alongside a raft of video-performance upgrades intended to change how enterprises run meetings and asynchronous video workflows. The announcements promise new productivity plumbing (cross-application notetaking, “free up my time” scheduling), a paid low‑code...