automation

Windows 11 hides a surprisingly practical productivity trick behind a single folder name: the so‑called God Mode folder — a Master Control Panel view that gathers hundreds of system settings and administrative tools into one browsable container and can dramatically speed up troubleshooting and...

Microsoft has pushed the refreshed Message Trace for Exchange Online out of preview and into general availability for worldwide (WW) tenants, triggering a hard look at automation, reporting integrations, and long-running scripts that rely on the legacy message-tracing stack; admins must plan now...

The new Message Trace experience for Exchange Online has reached general availability and Microsoft is beginning a global rollout, but the change comes with important operational limits, a firm deprecation timeline for legacy tooling, and migration steps that every Exchange administrator should...

Microsoft has moved the revamped Message Trace experience in Exchange Online out of preview and into general availability, bringing a faster UI, new PowerShell cmdlets, extended query windows, and new operational constraints that will change how administrators automate and extract trace data...

Microsoft’s PowerToys 0.93 delivered a much-needed Settings dashboard overhaul and major Command Palette performance wins, but the suite still lacks a unified Settings search—and community work tracked on GitHub plus Microsoft’s own roadmap notes indicate a settings search bar is targeted for...

ChatGPT Enterprise has emerged as the de facto leader among business-focused chatbots in 2025, distinguished by enterprise-grade security, scalable deployment tools, and deep customization that supports automation, customer support, and advanced data analysis—claims reflected in industry...

CISA has published a draft update to the Minimum Elements for a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) and opened a public comment period running from August 22, 2025, through October 3, 2025, inviting feedback that will shape an updated, practice-oriented baseline for how software components are...

Flyoobe, the unofficial successor to the Flyby11 patcher, has quietly added a notable new convenience to its Out‑Of‑Box Experience (OOBE) toolkit: the ability to set a default browser immediately after installation and even fetch and install a third‑party browser during first run. This addition...

I had been ignoring Power Query for years, treating Excel like a calculator with a few handy formulas—until a messy, cross‑vendor CSV pile forced me to learn the tool everyone always brags about. What started as a tedious weekend of copy‑pasting and find‑and‑replace turned into a few well‑chosen...

Microsoft's incremental dismantling of the classic Control Panel continued this week with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27928, as Microsoft moves several legacy time, language and regional controls into the modern Settings app — a small but meaningful step in a migration that has quietly...

ZDNET’s compact “five apps I always install first” playbook is an efficient, pragmatic shortcut for getting a fresh Windows PC productive in minutes: install Everything for instant local search, Google Chrome for cross‑device browsing and extensions, VLC Media Player for near‑universal media...

After nearly a decade of half-finished theming work, Windows 11’s Dark Mode finally begins to behave like a coherent system feature: preview builds now render many of the long‑standing white “flashbang” file‑operation dialogs in dark chrome, while Microsoft simultaneously adjusts the platform’s...

Updating Chrome from the command line with Winget on Windows 11 turns a repetitive, GUI-driven maintenance task into a single, scriptable operation—saving time for power users and administrators while giving clear, auditable control over browser updates. The how-to that follows summarizes the...

Microsoft’s latest Insider preview activity delivers the first tangible repair to a long-running visual grievance: several legacy file-operation dialogs in Windows 11 are now respecting the system Dark theme in test builds, reducing the jarring white “flash” users have endured for years while...

Open-source software quietly underpins a huge amount of the modern Windows experience, and ZDNET’s recent roundup of “10 open-source apps I recommend every Windows user download — for free” lays out a practical, privacy-conscious toolkit any Windows user can assemble without spending a penny...

Senior business leaders in Gloucestershire looking to improve efficiency, create tech‑powered strategies and learn how AI can benefit day‑to‑day operations are invited to a free, one‑off breakfast workshop this September that promises hands‑on insight into Microsoft Copilot, data‑driven decision...

Microsoft has quietly moved one of the most game‑changing ideas in AI — a conversational, generative assistant — from a sidebar into the heart of a spreadsheet, by introducing a native =COPILOT() formula that runs Copilot prompts directly inside Excel cells and returns live, spillable outputs...

Microsoft has quietly begun repairing one of Windows 11’s most persistent annoyances: several long‑neglected file‑operation and system dialogs are now respecting the system Dark theme in recent Insider and Release Preview builds, marking the first visible progress toward a genuinely system‑wide...

Microsoft appears to be closing one of Windows’ longest-running cosmetic grievances: preview builds released in August 2025 show legacy file‑operation dialogs and several system prompts finally obeying the system Dark theme, reducing the jarring white “flash” that has plagued Dark Mode since the...

Microsoft has put a generative AI assistant where most knowledge workers spend the bulk of their time: directly into Excel’s grid with a new COPILOT function that lets Microsoft 365 Copilot run natural-language prompts inside individual cells and return multi-cell arrays, categories, summaries...