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Microsoft has given Windows 10 users a narrow but real escape hatch: if you act before October 14, 2025 and meet a short checklist, you can enroll eligible PCs in a consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program that provides security-only patches for roughly one extra year — through October 13, 2026 — while you plan, budget, and test a permanent migration away from Windows 10. This bridge is time‑boxed, conditional, and deliberately limited: it supplies Critical and Important security...

Microsoft’s latest Insider build tucked a small, glossy shortcut into the Windows 11 taskbar — a floating “Share with Copilot” button that promises one‑click visual assistance but has prompted a wave of users to hide or disable Copilot entirely. Background Microsoft has been steadily folding Copilot into more parts of Windows 11: a taskbar icon, app ribbons, in‑app buttons, dedicated keyboard keys on some laptops, and now a taskbar window‑preview share affordance introduced in Windows 11...

Microsoft has begun rolling out Gaming Copilot (Beta) into the Windows 11 Game Bar, bringing a voice-first, screenshot-aware AI assistant to help players stay in the action — and Microsoft says the Xbox mobile app will gain Copilot voice and chat capabilities next month as a second-screen companion. Background Since early 2025 Microsoft has been iterating on a gaming-specific Copilot that blends the company’s broader Copilot strategy with in-game needs: rapid, contextual help without forcing...

Microsoft's Copilot button on the Windows 11 taskbar was designed to be a single, always-available gateway to AI assistance — but for a sizeable and vocal segment of Windows users, that convenience has become a nuisance, a privacy risk, and a reason to disable the feature entirely. Background Microsoft introduced Copilot as a system-level AI assistant in late 2023 as part of a broad strategy to weave generative AI into Windows, Microsoft 365, Edge, and Bing. The company positioned Copilot as...

Principled Technologies’ recent hands‑on evaluation argues that adopting a single‑cloud approach for AI — specifically running an end‑to‑end retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) application entirely on Microsoft Azure — can yield measurable gains in performance, cost predictability, and governance, while the study’s authors caution that the headline numbers are tightly tied to the exact test configuration and assumptions used. Background / Overview Principled Technologies (PT) built a simple...

Ottawa’s recent disclosure that federal departments have spent nearly $1.3 billion on cloud services from U.S. hyperscalers since 2021 — with more than a billion of that directed to Microsoft and the Department of National Defence (DND) confirming mission‑critical workloads running on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud — has forced a long‑running policy debate about capability, cost and sovereignty into the open. Background / Overview The figures at the center of the...

Flyoobe 1.21.411 lands as another pragmatic evolution of the Flyby11 project: a compact, portable toolkit that combines the original installer‑bypass mechanics for Windows 11 with a richer Out‑Of‑Box Experience (OOBE) customizer, debloat controls, and scriptable setup extensions aimed at enthusiasts, refurbishers, and IT technicians who need more control during first‑boot setup. Background / Overview Flyby11 began life as a tiny patcher whose single mission was straightforward: let willing...

Microsoft’s latest Insider experiments tuck yet another Copilot shortcut into Windows 11: a floating “Share with Copilot” button that appears in the taskbar window preview and lets Copilot Vision instantly scan and analyze the visible contents of a chosen app window. Background Microsoft’s Copilot strategy has evolved from a single sidebar assistant into a dense web of entry points across the OS — taskbar icons, app toolbars, dedicated keyboard keys, and contextual actions in selection...

Microsoft’s latest Insider drop adds yet another Copilot entry point to Windows 11: a floating “Share with Copilot” button that appears when you hover over an app on the taskbar and opens a one‑click Copilot Vision session scoped to that window, further tightening Microsoft’s push to make Copilot an ever‑present assistant across the desktop. Background / Overview Windows Insiders on the Dev Channel began seeing this change in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6690, where the taskbar’s...

Microsoft Edge Canary is showing a new, persistent banner that chases users across tabs and web pages, urging them to “use recommended browser default settings” — with Bing pre-selected as the recommended search engine — and the prompt remains until the user actively chooses “Set default” or “Dismiss.” Background Microsoft has long used in‑browser prompts and campaigns to promote its own services — notably Edge and Bing — to users who set other browser or search defaults. Those prompts range...

Microsoft has quietly widened the Windows 11, version 24H2 rollout again, removing a compatibility safeguard that had prevented a class of systems from receiving the feature update and making the upgrade available to more users — but the update remains peppered with cautionary notices and lingering issues that administrators and enthusiasts need to weigh before upgrading. Background Microsoft uses compatibility “safeguard holds” to block specific devices or configurations from receiving...

Microsoft’s Paint has stopped being merely a nostalgic utility and taken a measurable step toward becoming a practical, non-destructive image editor: the app now supports an editable project container (.paint) and a per‑tool opacity slider for its Pencil and Brush tools, both of which are currently rolling out to Windows 11 Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels as part of Paint app version 11.2508.361.0. Background Microsoft Paint has a long history as the simplest raster editor bundled...

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...