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TierPoint’s announcement that it has earned the Microsoft Solutions Partner designation for Private Cloud marks a notable step in the ongoing normalization of Azure-consistent private cloud offerings—and signals that major service providers are now formally recognized for running cloud-native Microsoft services inside customer premises or partner-operated data centers. The designation, which sits inside Microsoft’s AI Cloud Partner Program framework, highlights TierPoint’s positioning around...

Microsoft is preparing to push its Copilot AI deeper into the Windows ecosystem by automatically installing the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on many Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices starting this fall, a move that aims to make AI companions a default part of everyday computing — but one that also raises pragmatic, privacy, and regulatory questions for IT teams and end users alike. The company’s own deployment guidance confirms a background installation to devices with Microsoft 365 desktop...

For a surprising number of Windows systems, the guilty party behind intermittent stutters, dropped frames, and mysteriously sluggish behaviour isn’t a CPU pegged at 100% or a full SSD — it’s the tiny, sub-millisecond interruptions inside the kernel that LatencyMon can expose and quantify in concrete terms. Background / Overview Windows assigns tiny, high-priority tasks to service hardware and low-level events; when those tasks take too long they delay everything else. LatencyMon, a free...

NTDEV’s latest builder shrinks a full Windows 11 ISO down to a reported 2.29 GB by surgically removing nearly everything most users expect from a modern desktop OS — from Xbox and Solitaire to Windows Update and Windows Defender — producing an extremely compact, intentionally unserviceable image aimed at VMs, testbeds, and legacy-hardware experiments. Background / Overview Windows 11’s on-disk footprint and bundled services have long frustrated enthusiasts who want leaner installations for...

Microsoft is quietly remapping the Xbox controller’s central Guide/Xbox button on Windows 11 so a short press still opens the Game Bar, a long press opens Task View, and a sustained press continues to power the controller off—an apparently small change that has outsized implications for controller-first workflows, handheld Windows devices, and how Microsoft thinks about controller-to-desktop parity. Background Microsoft shipped the behavioral change to Windows Insiders as part of the...

Windows 11 hides a surprising number of high-impact productivity tools beneath its clean new interface — features that can shave minutes off repetitive tasks, reduce interruptions, and make multi-app workflows feel effortless once you know where to look. This piece walks through the most useful “hidden” features in Windows 11, explains how to use them, verifies key technical details, flags important privacy and hardware caveats, and lays out practical workflows so you can start using these...

Pennsylvania’s decision to expand access to enterprise-grade generative AI for qualified state employees — pairing ChatGPT Enterprise with Microsoft Copilot Chat and a governance framework — marks one of the most ambitious state-level AI rollouts in the United States and moves the commonwealth from pilot experimentation toward enterprise operationalization. Background Pennsylvania’s announcement at the AI Horizons Summit in Pittsburgh builds on a year-long pilot of ChatGPT Enterprise run by...

Microsoft will begin automatically installing the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on many Windows devices this fall, but the rollout is neither universal nor unstoppable — administrators and privacy-conscious users have documented methods to block installation and disable the feature, and Microsoft explicitly excludes devices in the European Economic Area from the automatic deployment. Background Microsoft’s Copilot strategy has evolved from a baked-in Windows assistant into a modular suite of...

LSEG’s new Digital Markets Infrastructure (DMI), built in partnership with Microsoft and running on Microsoft Azure, has officially launched for private funds — and the platform has already facilitated its first tokenised fundraise, marking a major step toward mainstreaming tokenization across private markets. Background LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) and Microsoft announced a strategic partnership in December 2022 that committed LSEG’s data and infrastructure onto Microsoft Azure and...

Microsoft is giving a time‑boxed lifeline: if you need to keep a Windows 10 PC protected after October 14, 2025, you can enroll eligible machines in the consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program to receive security‑only patches through October 13, 2026 — but enrollment has strict technical and account requirements, a phased rollout, and important privacy and compatibility trade‑offs to weigh. Background / Overview Windows 10 reaches its official end of support on October 14, 2025...

Windows 10 will stop receiving free security fixes on October 14, 2025 — and if your PC can’t take the free Windows 11 upgrade, you have five realistic paths forward: enroll in Extended Security Updates (ESU), buy or rent a new Windows 11 PC (including cloud PCs), perform an unsupported upgrade to Windows 11, replace Windows with Linux or ChromeOS Flex, or accept the risk of running an unsupported OS. Act now: the calendar is fixed, the options have costs and caveats, and each choice...

Microsoft's quiet remapping of the Xbox button in recent Windows 11 Insider builds turns a single longstanding controller gesture into a small but meaningful productivity shortcut, letting a long press open Task View so players can switch apps without reaching for keyboard or mouse. Background / Overview Microsoft has been steadily refining controller support in Windows 11 for the last two years, driven by the rise of Windows-based handheld gaming hardware and the company's stated goal of...

Microsoft has quietly added a one‑click internet speed test to recent Windows 11 Insider builds — a seemingly helpful convenience that, upon inspection, is not a native diagnostic at all but a launcher that opens Bing’s web‑based speed‑test widget in the default browser. Background Windows has long left quick throughput checks to third‑party utilities and websites: Speedtest, Fast.com, and lightweight taskbar monitors filled a gap for users who wanted instant visibility into download...

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The UK government’s recent trial of AI coding assistants has delivered striking headline figures — developers reporting almost an hour saved per working day, equivalent to roughly 28 working days a year — but the programme also exposes the tough trade‑offs that come with rapid AI adoption in high‑security, high‑impact codebases. Over a three‑month experiment across more than 50 departments, Government Digital Service (GDS) deployed mainstream tools including GitHub Copilot and Google’s...

Satya Nadella’s terse admission — “we can do better” — landed like a seismic aftershock inside Microsoft, crystallizing months of tension as one of the world’s largest tech companies simultaneously cut thousands of roles, tightened internal communications, and rolled out a phased requirement for employees near offices to be onsite at least three days a week; the CEO’s pledge to “rebuild trust” is real, but rebuilding will require measurable governance changes, clear KPIs, and visible...

Microsoft and OpenAI have signed a non‑binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) that frames the “next phase” of one of the technology sector’s most consequential partnerships — preserving deep commercial ties while opening the door to multicloud compute, a governance restructure at OpenAI, and a set of unresolved legal and product‑level details that will determine how the relationship shapes enterprise AI over the rest of the decade. Background Microsoft and OpenAI’s relationship began as...

Microsoft’s lifecycle clock is now glaringly visible for many organizations: support for several Windows releases will stop within months, and the window for action is short enough that CIOs, IT managers, and school IT directors must move from planning to execution now. A recent lifecycle reminder — echoed across vendor newsletters and community outlets — confirms that Windows 11 version 22H2 (Enterprise, Education, IoT Enterprise) reaches end of servicing on October 14, 2025, and that...

Microsoft is quietly adding a one‑click internet speed test to Windows 11’s network flyout — but for now the shortcut simply opens Bing’s web-based speed test in your default browser rather than running a fully local diagnostic. Background Microsoft published Insider Preview builds 26220.6682 (Dev Channel) and 26120.6682 (Beta/Release Preview lineage) as part of the KB5065782 checkpoint, and community researchers discovered a new UI affordance that places a Perform speed test control in the...

Microsoft has begun testing a change that remaps the Xbox button on controllers in Windows 11 so a long press opens Task View, while a short press still opens the Game Bar and a sustained hold still powers the controller off. Background Microsoft has steadily worked to make Windows 11 friendlier to controller-driven experiences. Over the last couple of years the company added controller-first features such as a gamepad-focused on‑screen keyboard, a compact Xbox app mode for small screens...