Windows Forum - Latest Windows News & Discussions
Stay updated with the latest Microsoft Windows news, discussions, and expert insights from the Windows Forum community.
Make Windows Feel Faster With 4 Built-in Productivity Tools
Windows already includes several small, well-designed features that don’t increase clock speed or benchmarks but make the whole experience feel faster by removing friction, cutting repeated actions, and letting you stay focused on work instead of fighting the UI. These four built‑in tools —...
LA AI Agents Ecosystem: Who's Building Production-Ready Agents
Los Angeles is no longer just a global media capital — it’s a fast-growing node in the AI agent economy, where startups, systems integrators and hyperscale platforms converge to build the autonomous assistants and decision systems that businesses now treat as core infrastructure. A recent industry...
Best Antivirus 2026 for Windows 11: Malwarebytes Leads a Competitive Field
Malwarebytes still leads the pack in 2026 for consumers who want a lean, effective antivirus that does the job without turning every click into a configuration exercise, but the landscape has shifted: built‑in Windows Security (Microsoft Defender) is now genuinely competitive for everyday users,...
Surface Go 3 Review: Ultra Portable Windows PC in a 10.5 Inch Tablet
Surface Go 3 is the smallest Surface that still insists it’s a “real Windows PC,” and that insistence is both its greatest strength and its clearest gamble. For anyone who’s ever felt that their laptop is overkill and their phone is underpowered, the Go 3 aims to live in that narrow, useful middle:...
AI at Work: Practical Upskilling to Stay Relevant in AI First Enterprises
The moment to stop treating artificial intelligence as a distant threat and start treating it as the environment you’ll do career work inside is now — not next quarter, not when your manager “gets around to” a reskilling program, but today. 125950Background AI’s arrival into everyday workflows is...
Why One Third of Consumers Don’t Want AI on Devices
One-third of consumers say they don’t want AI on their devices — and most of them aren’t saying “no” because they don’t understand it, but because they simply don’t need it. 125949Background The recent consumer research highlighted by technology press reveals a clear gap between the tech industry’s...
Connecticut AI Law 2026: Will CT Pass Meaningful Regulation?
Connecticut stands at a familiar crossroads: energized lawmakers pressing for guardrails around artificial intelligence, a governor’s office urging caution to avoid driving away businesses, and a business community warning that heavy-handed rules could stifle investment. As the 2026 legislative...
Five Hidden Linux Wins That Improve with Time
The first time you switch from Windows to Linux you notice the obvious things — different menu layouts, a new package manager, maybe a terminal sitting in your dock — but after a few weeks of daily use a quieter, more significant set of benefits becomes obvious. These are not marketing bullet...
KKR and Singtel Buy STT GDC to Create AI Ready Data Center Platform
The shockwaves from the AI boom just produced one of Asia’s largest digital‑infrastructure moves: a KKR‑led consortium, joined by Singtel, has agreed to buy the remaining 82% stake in ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) from ST Telemedia for S$6.6 billion — an acquisition that pegs STT GDC...
BazarLoader Attack via Windows App Installer: Stealthy AppX Delivery and Cookie C2
The BazarLoader “call me back” campaign weaponized a little-known Windows 10 installation pathway — the ms-appinstaller/AppInstaller.exe flow — to deliver AppX packages that silently installed BazarBackdoor, abused legitimate Windows tooling for execution, and relied on cookie-based...
Canva Brings Brand Safe Visuals into ChatGPT for On Brand Design
Canva’s design engine now rides shotgun inside ChatGPT, letting users turn a text prompt into a finished, on‑brand visual without leaving the chat — a change that promises to solve one of generative AI’s most durable headaches: neat, but off‑brand creative output. 125942Background Canva has...
CIO Playbook: Hyperscaler Capex Signals Redefining AI Infrastructure
The hyperscalers’ latest earnings season made one thing unmistakably clear: the cloud wars have moved from software and service differentiation into an industrial contest for physical capacity — racks, substations, and accelerators — and the numbers in capex and cloud revenue are the clearest...
Windows 11 Storage Page Now Requires Admin Rights via UAC
Microsoft has quietly moved the Storage pane in Windows 11 behind a User Account Control (UAC) gate — a small change in a release note that immediately changes who can see and act on system-level storage items, and how routine maintenance is performed on shared and managed devices. 125940Background...
Google Gemini Import AI Chats: Privacy and Cross Platform Migration
Google’s Gemini is quietly testing an “Import AI chats” capability that could let users bring entire conversation histories — including images and other attachments — from rival chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot and more into Gemini’s interface, a move that would make switching...
Tesla Austin Robotaxi Incidents Spotlight MPI and Safety Scrutiny
New federal incident filings and Tesla’s own disclosures paint a stark picture: between July and November 2025, Tesla’s experimental robotaxi fleet in Austin was listed in nine NHTSA reportable crashes across roughly 500,000 cumulative miles—an incident frequency that, on face value, is materially...
Mitchell Hamline AI Enhanced Legal Education: Practice Ready Lawyers
Mitchell Hamline School of Law is quietly rewriting the playbook for legal education by embedding artificial intelligence into the everyday work of students — from Socratic-style “study buddy” chatbots that simulate courtroom questioning to licensed access for contract-drafting assistants — while...
Microsoft Reorients Windows 11: AI Focused on Utility and Trust
Microsoft’s internal posture toward Windows 11 has quietly shifted: after a year of aggressive, visible AI rollouts — Copilot buttons stamped across the taskbar, context menus, Notepad, Paint and more — company teams are now publicly reported to be dialing back the “AI everywhere” approach and...
Brain Fog Revealed: Early Signals, Causes, and Practical Steps
A wave of surprising data — including a large Neurology analysis showing that self‑reported memory and thinking problems have risen sharply among younger adults — has forced a rethink: brain fog is not just an annoying side effect of busy lives; when persistent it is a biological signal that...
Skip LLM Markdown Mirrors: Clean HTML Wins for AI Search
Google and Bing have quietly but decisively told publishers: stop creating separate markdown or plain‑text pages specifically for large language models — it’s unnecessary, risky, and likely to backfire for sites that chase short-term AI visibility gains. Search teams at both companies say their...
Ruben Circelli: Practical AI Tools, Privacy, and Buyer Friendly Hardware Guides
Ruben Circelli has built a steady reputation as a versatile technology and gaming journalist who writes clear, practical reviews and serviceable explainers for mainstream audiences — and his recent writing on AI tools, consumer hardware, and gaming shows a consistent focus on usability, privacy...
Canva and ChatGPT now deliver editable Brand Kit designs inside chat
Canva’s design engine has quietly moved inside ChatGPT: users can now prompt an AI assistant and receive fully on‑brand, editable Canva projects that honor fonts, colours, logos and locked templates at generation time — not as an afterthought. This is not just image generation pasted into chat;...
Windows 11 2026 Update: Copilot in the Shell and a Two-Phase Rollout
Windows 11’s 2026 update cycle is shaping up to be one of the most consequential in years: Microsoft is rolling AI deeper into the shell, streamlining long‑standing usability pain points, and splitting platform work across a targeted 26H1 release and a broader 26H2 feature wave later in the year....
PowerToys Dock for Windows 11: Live Widgets and Quick Actions Bar
Microsoft’s PowerToys team is testing an optional, taskbar-like “Dock” for Windows 11 that can sit on the top (or any edge) of your screen and surface live widgets — think CPU, GPU, RAM and temperature readouts — alongside media playback controls, quick access tools, and pinned extensions from the...
HD 6370M on Windows 10 x64: Safe Driver Guide
For Windows 10 users still running older laptops, the question “Which driver should I use for an AMD Radeon HD 6370M on Windows 10 x64?” keeps coming up — and the short, practical answer is: use the safest signed driver you can get (Microsoft or your OEM first), prefer AMD’s archived/legacy...
Bitdefender GravityZone 6.70: Proactive Breach Path and Unified Remediation
Bitdefender’s February 2026 GravityZone release (v6.70) is a dense, operationally focused update that layers new detection, investigation, and attack-surface reduction capabilities on top of an already broad XDR and risk-management platform. The release introduces a proactive Breach Path...
Best US Cloud Providers 2026: AI First, Hybrid, and Edge Compute
125923 The cloud market in 2026 is no longer just about raw compute and storage — it’s the foundation for AI-first businesses, resilient global operations, and regulated workloads. From hyperscalers that own the data-center stack to specialist GPU clouds and edge-first platforms, the providers that...
Orbitiny Portable Desktop: Run a Complete UI from USB on Linux
Orbitiny arrives as one of those rare Linux projects that reads like a thought experiment made real: a full desktop environment you can run like an ordinary application on top of whatever desktop you already have, carry on a USB stick, and (for now) tinker with until it either becomes indispensable...
Alexa+ expands to cross surface agentic AI for Prime members
Amazon quietly rewrote the rules for its voice assistant: Alexa+ (branded Alexa Plus) is now a cross‑surface, generative‑AI assistant available to Prime members at no extra cost and to non‑Prime users for $19.99 per month, and Amazon says the upgrade will reach a very broad set of existing Echo...
NVIDIA Probes Windows 11 KB5074109 Gaming Issues and Uninstall Workarounds
NVIDIA has opened an engineering investigation after a wave of reports tied to Microsoft’s January 13, 2026 cumulative for Windows 11 (KB5074109) described sudden frame‑rate drops, visual artifacts and intermittent black‑screen events during gameplay — and community reproductions show that...
Bing Deindexes 1.5 Million Neocities Sites and Silences Indie Web
Microsoft’s Bing removed roughly 1.5 million independent websites hosted on Neocities from its search index in January 2026, a sweeping de‑indexing that left thousands of personal and creative sites invisible to Bing users and to other services that rely on Microsoft’s index. The block was first...
Cloud AI Capex Repricing Sparks Tech Market Volatility
The U.S. equity market’s recent tremor widened into a sovereign-looking sell-off across major averages as investors recalibrated the future growth math for cloud computing and the AI infrastructure race — a realignment that knocked the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq lower while rippling into riskier...
Linux Mint as a Windows Replacement: A Practical Migration Guide
I swapped Windows for Linux Mint on a daily‑driver machine, hit the predictable compatibility walls, and — after several months of living with Cinnamon — found a practical, usable alternative that is not a drop‑in replacement but is a credible, often superior desktop for many everyday users. view...
Windows Fast Startup: Should You Disable the Hybrid Shutdown?
Fast Startup—Windows’ hybrid shutdown that feels like a modern convenience—still quietly shapes how many PCs boot today, and on modern machines it often trades reliability and predictability for a marginal few seconds of saved time. 125914Background Fast Startup was introduced to solve a real...
Cheshire College Crewe Senior Network and Systems Engineer Role Guide
Cheshire College’s advertised Senior Network and Systems Engineer role in Crewe offers a clear opportunity for an experienced practitioner to own and evolve a mixed on-premises and cloud infrastructure supporting three campuses — but candidates should read the fine print on on‑call expectations,...
UAE MoHESR and Microsoft Launch Agentic AI for Higher Education
The UAE’s Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR) has launched a formal R&D collaboration with Microsoft to design and prototype agentic AI systems for higher education — a coordinated effort to build four specialized AI agents that target career navigation, faculty course...
Linux Desktop in the Enterprise: Escape Hatch from the Windows Refresh
Browser-first workflows have flattened the visible differences between Windows, macOS, and Linux for many knowledge workers — but the emerging enterprise conversation shows the OS under the hood is very much still consequential, and in 2026 that reality is nudging some IT teams to seriously...
GPT-5.3 Codex and Claude Opus 4.6 sharpen AI wars as Microsoft balances rivals
OpenAI and Anthropic launched dueling model updates on the same day, and the result is a sharpened frontline in the AI wars — one where Microsoft, long enmeshed with OpenAI, now finds itself awkwardly wedged between rival architectures, competing commercial strategies, and a rapidly changing...
Microsoft valuation paradox: cheap earnings but expensive revenue premium
Microsoft looks undervalued on earnings and book value while the market simultaneously prices its revenue at a premium — a contradiction rooted less in mystery than in methodology, peer selection, and a single, crucial question: are those headline numbers quarterly snapshots or annual totals?...
NET Framework 3.5 Goes Standalone on Windows 11 Build 27965
Microsoft has begun decoupling one of its longest‑lived runtimes from the Windows image: starting with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27965, .NET Framework 3.5 will no longer be delivered as a built‑in “Optional Feature” (Feature on Demand) and must be obtained via a standalone/offline installer,...
Windows 11 Start Menu Redesign Expands with Single Canvas and Phone Link
Microsoft has begun widening the rollout of the biggest Start menu overhaul Windows 11 has seen since the OS launched, delivering a single‑page, mobile‑inspired launcher, a denser app grid for large monitors, an automatically generated “Category” app view, and an integrated Phone Link sidebar — all...
Native Sysmon in Windows 11: What IT and SecOps Must Know
Microsoft’s decision to fold System Monitor — Sysmon from the Sysinternals suite — into Windows 11 as an optional, inbox feature marks one of the most consequential changes to desktop monitoring in years. The functionality has begun appearing in Windows 11 Insider Preview builds (notably the Dev...
Microsoft Free Cash Flow Resilience in AI Capex Surge, BNP Paribas Says
Microsoft’s cash-generation engine looks like the safest seat in a very expensive stadium: BNP Paribas told clients this week that Microsoft’s free cash flow (FCF) is the most resilient among the major hyperscalers, a conclusion that landed across finance and tech wires and re-ignited a practical...
AI in the Classroom: Balancing Pedagogy, Risk, and Governance
Classrooms across the globe are quickly filling with AI tools — and many educators now warn that the technology itself may be part of the problem it was meant to solve. 125902Background / Overview The arrival of generative AI and large language models into day‑to‑day education has been remarkably...
Hyperscalers Ramp Up AI Capex: AWS Google Microsoft Lead the Buildout
The hyperscalers are no longer hedging their bets: they are front‑loading an industrial‑scale build‑out of data centers, power infrastructure, and GPU fleets that will define where AI runs, who pays for it, and how enterprises consume it for the next decade. Amazon’s recent pledge to invest roughly...
Windows 11 Ends Legacy V3 V4 Printer Drivers IPP Inbox Class Driver
Microsoft has quietly begun enforcing a long‑announced cleanup of Windows’ printing stack: starting with January 2026 updates, Windows 11 will stop servicing legacy V3 and V4 printer drivers through Windows Update and will prefer Microsoft's modern IPP inbox class driver and Print Support Apps...
Windows 11 Surges on Steam While Windows 10 Holds Ground
125898 Valve’s monthly Steam Hardware & Software Survey has quietly become one of the clearest early indicators of how the PC ecosystem is shifting—and the most recent snapshots show Windows 11 firmly in the lead on Steam while Windows 10 still keeps a meaningful foothold among active gamers. )...
Windows 11 Shared Audio Preview: Sync Two Bluetooth LE Sinks
Windows 11’s long-standing one‑output‑only Bluetooth audio world has finally been challenged — but the new Shared audio (preview) is a pragmatic first step, not a cure‑all. Microsoft’s Insider Preview build 26220.7051 surfaces a Quick Settings tile that can stream a single audio feed to two...
Microsoft korrigiert Windows KI Integration: Copilot Sichtbarkeit reduziert
125894 Microsofts plötzliche Kurskorrektur bei der Integration von KI‑Funktionen in Windows hat in den letzten Wochen für Aufruhr gesorgt: nach massivem Nutzer- und Admin‑Widerstand zieht das Unternehmen einige der sichtbarsten Copilot‑ und Kontexthilfen zurück oder verschiebt ihre Einführung,...
ESRS Simplification: Fewer ESG datapoints, stronger auditable evidence
The past two weeks have cemented a clear regulatory pivot: policy‑makers are trimming the volume of mandatory ESG datapoints while simultaneously demanding stronger, auditable evidence for the datapoints that remain — and supervisors are building operational tooling to make climate risk a routine...
OneDrive Agents Reach GA: Copilot Powered Cross-Document Reasoning
Microsoft’s OneDrive has quietly flipped a switch on how teams find and act on the documents that drive everyday decisions: as of February 3, 2026, Agents in OneDrive are generally available for commercial customers, enabling Copilot-powered assistants that can reason across a bounded set of files,...