Microsoft is finally turning on the colorful battery icons and an on‑taskbar battery percentage in Windows 11 for more devices, delivering a small but long‑requested usability fix via the February 24, 2026 optional preview update (KB5077241).
Background
Windows 11 shipped with a minimalist...
Windows 11’s taskbar looks familiar, predictable, and—if you’re anything like many power users—frustratingly limited when it comes to modern media and status interactions; FluentFlyout fills that gap with a polished, Fluent 2–inspired suite of flyouts, lock-key indicators, and taskbar widgets...
I turned one tiny Windows 11 setting off the desktop—and it made my whole machine feel faster, quieter, and less cluttered.
Background
Windows has always been opinionated about its desktop real estate. The taskbar is one of the most visible pieces of that design: it gives quick access to apps...
Microsoft has quietly folded a one‑click internet speed test into recent Windows 11 Insider builds, surfacing a “Perform speed test” / “Test internet speed” control in the taskbar’s network menu and Wi‑Fi quick settings — and for now that control simply opens a browser-hosted Bing speed‑test...
Microsoft has pushed two small-but-meaningful Windows 11 Insider updates to the Dev and Beta Channels today, delivering visual polish and a set of targeted fixes that smooth everyday flows — notably tidier context menus, redesigned device/spec cards in Settings, improved taskbar animations, and...
Microsoft’s latest Insider experiments make one thing clear: the company is no longer treating generative AI as a separate app or a marketing banner — it’s designing AI to live where people actually do their work, starting with the taskbar and File Explorer.
Background
Microsoft introduced...
Microsoft has quietly made it easier to check your connection: recent Windows 11 preview builds add a built‑in internet speed test shortcut to the Taskbar that launches a browser‑based test from the network icon, letting you run a quick download/upload/latency check without hunting for a website...
Microsoft is quietly rolling a one‑click network speed test into Windows 11’s taskbar, but for now it’s a fast path to a browser‑based tool rather than a native diagnostic engine — a small convenience that reveals larger choices Microsoft is making about web‑first utilities, telemetry, and where...
After Windows 11’s October 5, 2021 debut, the Taskbar — the single most persistent and visible surface on the Windows desktop — was reshaped, simplified, and in doing so removed long‑standing controls users expected: the ability to move the bar to a different screen edge and to resize it. Nearly...
Microsoft is quietly putting a one‑click internet speed check where most Windows users already look for connectivity, adding a “Perform speed test” / “Test internet speed” control to the Taskbar network menu and Wi‑Fi quick settings in recent Windows 11 preview builds.
Background
Windows has...
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Microsoft is quietly prototyping a reversal of one of Windows 11’s most contested design choices: engineering teams are reported to be working to restore taskbar mobility—letting users move the Taskbar to the top, left or right edges and offering finer height controls—after years of user...
Microsoft appears to be rolling back one of Windows 11’s most controversial design choices: sources say the OS will soon let you move and resize the taskbar again, restoring the long‑lost ability to dock it to the left, right, or top of the screen and to change its thickness.
Background
Windows...
Microsoft is quietly putting a one‑click internet speed check where most Windows users already look for connectivity: the taskbar’s network menu. The change appears in the Release Preview builds of Windows 11 (KB5077241, builds 26100.7918 and 26200.7918) and surfaces a Perform speed test / Test...
Microsoft's latest moves feel like a two-act drama: on one stage, engineers are quietly rebuilding the Windows 11 Taskbar into something users actually asked for, and on the other, corporate strategy teams are recalibrating a multibillion-dollar relationship with OpenAI while accelerating plans...
When Microsoft rewrote Windows’s shell for Windows 11, it didn’t just shift icons to the center — it deliberately traded decades of user-facing flexibility for a tightly curated, symmetrical experience, and that trade-off explains why the taskbar in Windows 11 behaves so differently from the...
Microsoft appears to be quietly reversing one of the most controversial user‑facing choices of the Windows 11 era: insiders and multiple Windows‑focused outlets report that the company is prototyping the ability to move and resize the taskbar — including restoring left/right (vertical)...
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windows 11
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Nearly five years after Windows 11 shipped with a redesigned—and deliberately less customizable—taskbar, Microsoft appears to be reversing course: multiple industry reports say Windows 11 will soon let users move the taskbar off the bottom of the screen and adjust its size, restoring long-missed...
GovCIO’s Kearneysville hiring blitz for a Journeyman Windows System Administrator puts a familiar, high‑stakes mix of legacy Windows operations, enterprise virtualization, and DoD‑grade security squarely in the spotlight — a hybrid role that demands hands‑on Windows Server and VMware experience...
Microsoft appears to be quietly rewriting a stubborn chapter in its Windows migration story: Insider Preview builds are shipping an option to never combine taskbar buttons and to show labels, effectively restoring a core Windows 10 taskbar behavior that many users have long insisted was...
Microsoft is testing a new taskbar entry called Ask Copilot that replaces the familiar Windows Search pill with an AI-aware, multimodal input — but only if you choose to turn it on. The feature arrives in Windows Insider preview builds (Dev and Beta channels), appears as an opt‑in toggle under...