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Windows 11’s keyboard shortcuts are not just a convenience—they’re the backbone of a faster, less distracted daily workflow for power users and knowledge workers alike, and a recent roundup that distilled “73+” essential combinations crystallizes why learning a compact set of keystrokes pays real productivity dividends for designers, developers, analysts and IT pros. Background / Overview Windows has always rewarded keyboard fluency. Windows 11 builds on that heritage with an expanded...

Windows can be lean, but it rarely is by default — and the difference between a clean, responsive system and one bogged down by invisible cruft often comes down to a handful of targeted tweaks and a readiness to trade a few gigabytes for stability or convenience. The PCWorld checklist of “12 tweaks to make your Windows PC lean, mean, and fast” lays out a practical playbook — from built-in cleanup tools to advanced image builders like Tiny11 and compression utilities such as Compactor — that...

By 2025 the conversation in New Zealand finance teams has shifted: AI is no longer a distant possibility or a one‑off experiment — it’s a stack of practical tools that can shave months off close cycles, automate invoice flows, and turn spreadsheets into conversation‑ready narratives, and a recent Nucamp industry roundup highlights the ten platforms Kiwi finance professionals should know now. Background New Zealand’s AI moment is both policy‑driven and market‑led. The government launched its...

Google’s Gemini Live is rapidly moving from an experimental demo into a genuinely helpful, multimodal assistant you can point at the world — and that means users are already inventing clever, occasionally eyebrow-raising ways to put the feature to work, from helping at board games to packing a minivan and even identifying birds by sound. The practical uses are real, the limitations are visible, and the ethics and privacy trade-offs deserve careful attention as this capability becomes part of...

Microsoft’s Windows 11 Insider builds are now experimenting with a full‑screen “Second Chance Out‑of‑Box Experience” (SCOOBE) page that can surface a Microsoft 365 billing alert — a blocking renewal prompt shown when a subscription “needs attention” such as when a renewal payment failed — and that test has reignited debates over whether Windows is becoming a sales surface as much as an operating system. Background Windows has long used the Out‑of‑Box Experience (OOBE) to guide new users...

Flyoobe’s latest publicized build — the utility formerly known as Flyby11 — tightens the project’s shift from a single-purpose Windows 11 installer bypass into a compact, OOBE‑centric toolkit that promises both bypass mechanics (TPM, Secure Boot, CPU generation, RAM checks) and a cleaner, more configurable first‑run experience for Windows 11 installations. Background / Overview Flyby11 started as a narrowly focused, community‑driven tool to help upgrade otherwise capable Windows 10 PCs that...

The debate Kepler Cheuvreux set out in its note—“Is AI truly a boon for the entire IT industry, or could it also be a curse?”—captures a growing fault line across technology markets: enormous, record-breaking infrastructure and R&D spending is colliding with an unsettled monetization pathway and rising investor skepticism. The research house argues that AI has already triggered a sweeping re‑prioritisation of capital across the IT value chain, but that the financial payoff remains uneven and...

Cyble’s latest weekly vulnerability roundup paints a stark picture: this Patch Tuesday cycle produced a torrent of disclosures — 1,224 new vulnerabilities tracked in seven days — and a rapidly shrinking window for defenders as publicly shared proofs‑of‑concept (PoCs) proliferate. Background Patch Tuesday has long been the calendar moment when vendors consolidate and publish security fixes, but the cadence and volume of modern disclosures have turned the day into a pressure test for security...

Windows 11’s keyboard shortcuts are the single easiest way to turn everyday tasks into near‑instant actions — and learning them now matters more than ever as Windows 10 approaches its end of support and organizations and consumers prepare to migrate. Background Windows 11 ships with a broad set of keyboard shortcuts that range from the universal basics (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V) to Windows‑specific combinations (Win+Z for Snap layouts, Win+V for Clipboard history, Win+. for the emoji picker). A recent...

Microsoft has quietly lifted a major compatibility block that prevented a subset of Windows PCs from receiving the Windows 11, version 24H2 feature update after a months‑long hold tied to a Dirac Audio driver issue, and the company says a new driver delivered through Windows Update resolves the problem so eligible devices should now be offered 24H2 again. Background: what Microsoft’s safeguard holds are — and why they matter Microsoft uses safeguard holds (also called compatibility holds) to...

A routine security update intended to tighten Windows kernel defenses has instead opened a new attack vector: a reliably exploitable information‑disclosure bug tracked as CVE‑2025‑53136 that leaks kernel addresses on Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 24H2 builds. The vulnerability—rooted in changes to the kernel function RtlSidHashInitialize applied while fixing an earlier October 2024 issue—temporarily writes a sensitive kernel pointer into a userland buffer, creating a timing window...

Mozilla has added a way to turn off its new AI features — but only for IT administrators, not ordinary users, leaving privacy‑minded consumers stuck with an awkward manual workaround or buried about:config toggles to fully opt out. Background Firefox has been steadily adding on‑device and cloud‑backed AI features across recent releases: chatbots in the sidebar (including third‑party providers such as Microsoft Copilot), link previews generated by a local language model, smart tab grouping...

Windows 11’s ongoing preview updates are delivering modest but meaningful changes this month: Microsoft has quietly applied reliability fixes to the taskbar’s auto‑hide behavior and is experimenting with surfacing Copilot suggestions inside the Start menu’s Recommended area. These two items — one focused squarely on polish and the other squarely on discoverability and monetization — together crystallize the dual, and sometimes competing, priorities of Windows engineering: reduce friction for...

Microsoft’s Windows 11 25H2 arrives as a compact, operationally focused update: an enablement package that flips on capabilities already seeded into the platform, adds a handful of practical conveniences (notably a native sudo command, archive handling in File Explorer, and groundwork for Wi‑Fi 7), expands on AI-powered audio/video improvements, and—crucially—leaves several headline Copilot+ features behind hardware gates. The result is a low‑friction maintenance release that improves...

Artificial intelligence has moved from boardroom buzzword to an operational imperative, yet many organisations remain stalled at the starting line — frozen by cost fears, data readiness questions and governance uncertainty — a gap that demands a practical, measurable path from enthusiasm to execution. Background: why the narrative matters now The conversation about enterprise AI in 2025 is no longer theoretical. Senior leaders routinely describe AI and analytics as central to strategy, and...

Windows 10 and Windows 11 now let you open and work with your Linux files from the Windows desktop with two simple tricks: enter \wsl$ in File Explorer to browse all installed distributions, or run explorer.exe . from inside a WSL shell to open the current Linux directory in Windows File Explorer. Background / Overview Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has evolved from a niche developer convenience into a mainstream productivity tool. Microsoft formalized safe, supported bi‑directional file...

Microsoft has quietly repurposed the Xbox button on gamepads when used with Windows 11 Insiders: a long press now opens Task View while a short press still launches the Game Bar, and a press-and-hold continues to power down the controller — a small but practical tweak rolling out to Dev and Beta Channel builds. Background Microsoft has been steadily refining Windows 11’s controller and handheld support throughout 2024–2025, adding features such as a gamepad keyboard for text entry and...

Windows 11’s next wave of preview builds quietly delivers two of the most requested quality-of-life fixes for everyday users — smoother, more reliable taskbar auto-hide behavior and a pair of bug fixes that restore clickable space above the taskbar — while also ramping up Copilot’s visibility by surfacing sample prompts inside the Start menu’s Recommended area. Background Windows 11’s taskbar and Start menu have been contentious since the OS launched: both are extremely visible parts of the...

IFA 2025 delivered a clear message: Copilot+ PCs and Windows 11 are moving from concept to volume devices, and OEMs used Berlin’s stage to show how new silicon, on‑device AI acceleration, and platform-level security are reshaping what a modern laptop and desktop can do. Overview The biggest theme at IFA 2025 was integration — not just faster processors and brighter screens, but hardware tuned to accelerate on‑device AI workloads, paired with Windows 11 features and partner services. Major...

Satya Nadella’s blunt acknowledgement — “I think we can do better, and we will do better” — landed during an unusually tense internal town hall and has become the most visible signal yet that Microsoft’s leadership recognizes a widening credibility gap with its workforce. The admission followed months of large-scale workforce reductions, a newly tightened return‑to‑office policy and high‑profile employee protests over the company’s cloud relationships, and it crystallizes a central challenge...