The ordinary Windows user might wake up in the morning, fire up their sleek new laptop with its perfect, fingerprint-magnet screen, and expect the usual routine: check a few emails, maybe grudgingly acknowledge some pending updates, and absolutely, under no circumstances, see a blue screen of death before their first cup of coffee. Sadly, as this week’s seismic shakeup in the Microsoft world reveals, even the mightiest software monolith can trip itself up in the most hilariously avoidable ways.
Windows, for all its decades of dominance, still manages to keep things fresh—often at the expense of users armed with nothing but Google and a prayer. Take the infamous Windows Update error 0x80070643, which recently plagued Windows 10 users. Microsoft's sage advice, unexpectedly zen and reminiscent of that friend who tells you to “just walk it off”: Ignore it, and it will go away. Imagine applying that to real life—ignore your car making clunking noises, your inbox overflowing, or, say, that mysterious leak under the kitchen sink. If only, right?
Meanwhile, Windows 11 refused to be upstaged, delivering some classic panic with blue screens of death (BSOD) tied to error code 0x18B: “SECURE_KERNEL_ERROR.” This cryptic sequence, which sounds more like a futuristic video game title than a system meltdown, popped up after a routine update. But here, Microsoft flexed its behind-the-scenes muscle, rolling out their “Known Issue Rollback” feature: a digital ctrl+z, undoing the offending update before most could even locate safe mode.
Not to be outdone, a “latent code issue” confused Microsoft Intune, offering Windows 11 upgrades to machines that were set to stubbornly remain on Windows 10. Surprise! Some eager upgraders found themselves in the wrong OS lane. Microsoft’s fix? Roll back. Manually. Tech support lines everywhere groaned in anticipation.
Meanwhile, in Release Preview, Windows 11 build 26100.3902 tried to sneak in some changes but walked them back before anyone noticed. Build 22631.5261, on the other hand, brought Phone Link to the Start menu, new widget features, and an image editor for the Share UI, signaling Microsoft’s ongoing love affair with integrating everything everywhere, all at once.
Perhaps the most belated triumph? Users are, at last, able to toggle the taskbar calendar clock. Windows 10 never let anyone turn it off—now, Windows 11 lets you banish that ticking reminder or bring it back at will. It's a small feature, but considering how long users have been asking for it, the celebratory mood among the taskbar aficionados was palpable.
The real showstopper for Edge users, though, is Copilot Vision, now free for all. It lets Copilot, Microsoft’s ever-present AI assistant, watch your browsing and provide on-the-fly information, recommendations, and (probably) snarky commentary about your online shopping habits. In a related twist, Microsoft revealed they’re booting Edge's traditional PDF reader in favor of Adobe’s. This news was met with a mix of raised eyebrows and relieved sighs—Adobe's reader is, after all, the devil we know.
Mozilla’s Firefox 137.0.2 update looked like a laundry list of necessary fixes: preventing annoying restarts during updates, DRM snafus brought on by PlayReady, and HTML5 player woes that left some users clicking in vain. The browser wars roll on, with Opera Mini also dropping an update, including Aria AI—a pocket-sized assistant ready to summarize, research, and generally make light work of web tedium.
Elsewhere in the digital office, Microsoft clamped down harder on those wily ActiveX elements, notorious for smuggling malware past unwitting Office users. The company is changing the communication rules around ActiveX, hoping to keep the bad actors at bay and, as a bonus, forcing annoyed power users to find new workarounds.
For those still clinging to classic Outlook, there’s a fresh workaround out for high CPU usage. The unsung war between productivity and processor-induced misery continues.
Meanwhile, Microsoft flexed its merchandising muscle with new Xbox controllers, the Elite Series 2, and swanky Series X wraps—all sporting DOOM: The Dark Ages themes. The message is clear: if you want to prove your gaming cred (or just really like skulls), these limited editions belong on your shelf. Just move swiftly; collector’s FOMO is very much a real and present danger.
Mobile Xbox users finally get to join the big leagues: new updates bring the ability to purchase games, subscribe to Game Pass, and enjoy a host of other features that PC and console gamers have long taken for granted. Microsoft says these updates were very much at the top of wish lists, a rare moment when user feedback translates into actual features.
Over on the galaxy-spanning entertainment front, Electronic Arts unveiled Star Wars Zero Company—a tactical, XCOM-inspired jaunt through everyone’s favorite far, far away galaxy. The game, crafted by Bit Reactor and dropping in 2026, promises a blend of strategy and lore for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation devotees.
If you like choice, Game Pass delivered a payload of fresh entertainment: GTA V (yes, again), EA Sports HNL 25, Neon White, Tempopo, Far Cry 4, Anno 1800, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Dredge, and more. It's hard to justify ever going outside.
If you’re hungry for more discounts, the usual Weekend PC Game Deals series is the perfect rabbit hole—one that delivers bargain-priced delight and a parade of games to pad your backlog.
Meanwhile, the browser wars rumble on with Edge, Firefox, and Opera Mini all vying for your attention with AI assistants, security updates, and tiny conveniences. For those tied to Office and the classic Outlook, the grinding gears of security reform and performance tweaks offer cold comfort. Word for iOS, by contrast, straddles the future: speak your thoughts, let Copilot do the rest, and hope the algorithms can decipher your accent.
Yet, with every shiny new feature comes a wave of bugs, workarounds, and the sometimes slapstick spectacle of an OS tripping over its own digital shoelaces. Maybe that, more than any planned feature or patch, is what truly endears Windows to its billions of users. It’s an ecosystem in perpetual motion—sometimes chaotic, often annoyed, but always striving for that impossible ideal: a computing experience so smooth you almost forget it’s there.
Until, of course, you get a blue screen first thing in the morning.
Whether you’re a battle-worn IT admin, a casual user dodging pop-ups, or a diehard Insider living on the edge of tomorrow’s code, this week had it all: bugs, solutions that sound suspiciously like shrugs, long-awaited features, honest-to-goodness improvements, and just enough drama to keep things interesting.
So here’s to Windows—still imperfect, still impossible to ignore, and still, for better or worse, the backbone of the modern digital world. Just don’t forget to ignore those error messages—they might just resolve themselves.
Source: Neowin Microsoft Weekly: a lot of Windows bugs, useful taskbar upgrades, and more
Bugapalooza: Error Codes, Blue Screens, and the “Just Ignore It” Approach
Windows, for all its decades of dominance, still manages to keep things fresh—often at the expense of users armed with nothing but Google and a prayer. Take the infamous Windows Update error 0x80070643, which recently plagued Windows 10 users. Microsoft's sage advice, unexpectedly zen and reminiscent of that friend who tells you to “just walk it off”: Ignore it, and it will go away. Imagine applying that to real life—ignore your car making clunking noises, your inbox overflowing, or, say, that mysterious leak under the kitchen sink. If only, right?Meanwhile, Windows 11 refused to be upstaged, delivering some classic panic with blue screens of death (BSOD) tied to error code 0x18B: “SECURE_KERNEL_ERROR.” This cryptic sequence, which sounds more like a futuristic video game title than a system meltdown, popped up after a routine update. But here, Microsoft flexed its behind-the-scenes muscle, rolling out their “Known Issue Rollback” feature: a digital ctrl+z, undoing the offending update before most could even locate safe mode.
Not to be outdone, a “latent code issue” confused Microsoft Intune, offering Windows 11 upgrades to machines that were set to stubbornly remain on Windows 10. Surprise! Some eager upgraders found themselves in the wrong OS lane. Microsoft’s fix? Roll back. Manually. Tech support lines everywhere groaned in anticipation.
Whither Windows Hello? Face the Music (and PINs)
With the resurgence in remote work came an uptick in attempts to swipe and tap into our machines with faces and PINs—biometric fantasy becoming our everyday login ritual. But not so fast. After recent resets (with the “keep my files” option), Windows Hello sometimes simply forgets who you are. The fix, thankfully, is straightforward: set it up again. Still, one wonders, with AI rewriting essays, generating art, and plotting to conquer humanity, couldn’t our login hardware remember a nose or two?Feature Deprecated: The Circle of Windows Life
No Microsoft roundup would be complete without a nostalgic nod to something quietly shuffled off this digital coil. This week, VBS enclaves got the axe in Windows 11 versions up to 23H2, while finding new life in Windows 24H2 and on Server 2025. Progress marches on, discarding yesterday’s marvels like last year’s avocado toast. In another corner, WinRE—those mystical Windows recovery tools you never wanted to actually need—also received an update, keeping the recovery dreams alive for both Windows 10 stalwarts and the cautious.The Insider’s Edge: Beta Builds, Fixes, and Taskbar Happiness
Over in the world of Windows Insiders—where users sign up to live life on the edge with preview builds—things were simultaneously lively and weirdly quiet. Both the Canary and Dev channels took a nap this week, while the Beta channel rolled out builds 22635.5235 and 22635.5240. These builds promised stringy improvements, focused largely on fixing File Explorer blips and the occasional moody Settings app that would hang at the mere mention of adjusting sign-in options.Meanwhile, in Release Preview, Windows 11 build 26100.3902 tried to sneak in some changes but walked them back before anyone noticed. Build 22631.5261, on the other hand, brought Phone Link to the Start menu, new widget features, and an image editor for the Share UI, signaling Microsoft’s ongoing love affair with integrating everything everywhere, all at once.
Perhaps the most belated triumph? Users are, at last, able to toggle the taskbar calendar clock. Windows 10 never let anyone turn it off—now, Windows 11 lets you banish that ticking reminder or bring it back at will. It's a small feature, but considering how long users have been asking for it, the celebratory mood among the taskbar aficionados was palpable.
Snipping Tool Evolves: Now With Text Extraction
If you missed it in the cacophony, Snipping Tool (version 11.2503.27.0) now lets Insiders easily extract text from screenshots. For years, users resorted to clunky OCR apps or, worse, copying text character by character from grainy captures of error dialogs. This new feature will save countless hours and, perhaps, a few stubborn strands of hair.Browser Battles: Edge, Firefox, and Opera Mini Updates
Away from the OS itself, Microsoft Edge received a pair of patches this week. Edge 135 in the Stable Channel squashed two security bugs, cleaned up some Copilot button quirks, and smoothed the initial setup. Dev Channel users saw Edge 137, which sharpened the WebUI and delivered other mystery fixes.The real showstopper for Edge users, though, is Copilot Vision, now free for all. It lets Copilot, Microsoft’s ever-present AI assistant, watch your browsing and provide on-the-fly information, recommendations, and (probably) snarky commentary about your online shopping habits. In a related twist, Microsoft revealed they’re booting Edge's traditional PDF reader in favor of Adobe’s. This news was met with a mix of raised eyebrows and relieved sighs—Adobe's reader is, after all, the devil we know.
Mozilla’s Firefox 137.0.2 update looked like a laundry list of necessary fixes: preventing annoying restarts during updates, DRM snafus brought on by PlayReady, and HTML5 player woes that left some users clicking in vain. The browser wars roll on, with Opera Mini also dropping an update, including Aria AI—a pocket-sized assistant ready to summarize, research, and generally make light work of web tedium.
Word on the Move: Voice Transcription Gets Copilot Superpowers
Microsoft Word for iOS traded in its old-school charm for some bleeding-edge smarts, courtesy of Copilot. Now, with the right license (Copilot Pro or a Microsoft 365 plan), you can transcribe voice notes and have them formatted as emails, memos, or even your next great American novel—just don’t expect Copilot to untangle your mumbling.Elsewhere in the digital office, Microsoft clamped down harder on those wily ActiveX elements, notorious for smuggling malware past unwitting Office users. The company is changing the communication rules around ActiveX, hoping to keep the bad actors at bay and, as a bonus, forcing annoyed power users to find new workarounds.
For those still clinging to classic Outlook, there’s a fresh workaround out for high CPU usage. The unsung war between productivity and processor-induced misery continues.
Hardware Review: GEEKOM IT13 – Big Power, Tiny Footprint
This week saw a particularly beefy hardware review: the GEEKOM IT13, refreshed for 2025 and roaring to life with a Core i9. This mighty mini-PC can juggle four monitors with ease and serves up premium build quality. Absent, however, are HDMI 2.1, DDR5 memory, and front-facing USB-C—quirks that might irk the crowd who believe all ports should greet you at the front like a properly mannered butler. Still, the IT13 stands out as a portable powerhouse.Games, Games, Games: Console Wars, Limited Editions, and the Game Pass Tsunami
Nintendo fans, hold your wallets: the Switch 2 is coming for preorder in the U.S. on April 24. Nintendo managed to keep the console’s price point steady (a rare win), though accessories will pinch your pocket a bit more—a casualty of ongoing trade disputes.Meanwhile, Microsoft flexed its merchandising muscle with new Xbox controllers, the Elite Series 2, and swanky Series X wraps—all sporting DOOM: The Dark Ages themes. The message is clear: if you want to prove your gaming cred (or just really like skulls), these limited editions belong on your shelf. Just move swiftly; collector’s FOMO is very much a real and present danger.
Mobile Xbox users finally get to join the big leagues: new updates bring the ability to purchase games, subscribe to Game Pass, and enjoy a host of other features that PC and console gamers have long taken for granted. Microsoft says these updates were very much at the top of wish lists, a rare moment when user feedback translates into actual features.
Over on the galaxy-spanning entertainment front, Electronic Arts unveiled Star Wars Zero Company—a tactical, XCOM-inspired jaunt through everyone’s favorite far, far away galaxy. The game, crafted by Bit Reactor and dropping in 2026, promises a blend of strategy and lore for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation devotees.
If you like choice, Game Pass delivered a payload of fresh entertainment: GTA V (yes, again), EA Sports HNL 25, Neon White, Tempopo, Far Cry 4, Anno 1800, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Dredge, and more. It's hard to justify ever going outside.
Freebies and Deals: Indie Charm, Epic Giveaways, and Bargain Hunts
The weekly Epic Games Store giveaway includes Botanicula, a 2012 charmer by Amanita Design. Expect point-and-click adventure vibes inside a vividly detailed tree, following a quintet of quirky heroes—Mr. Lantern, Mr. Twig, Mr. Poppy Head, Mr. Feather, and Mrs. Mushroom. Their simple mission? Rescue the last seed from parasitic doom. Fairy-tale whimsy meets indie flair—and costs nothing, unless you count the hours of your life you’ll pour into it.If you’re hungry for more discounts, the usual Weekend PC Game Deals series is the perfect rabbit hole—one that delivers bargain-priced delight and a parade of games to pad your backlog.
Edge Cases: Oddities, Workarounds, and the March of the Widgets
This week’s flurry of updates and changes underscores a simple truth: Microsoft’s ecosystem is a living, breathing, slightly temperamental beast. Bugs pop up at random, only to be smoothed away by clever rollbacks and patches that happen so stealthily the average user might think they were imagining things. Preview builds for Insiders promise incremental improvements—a smoother File Explorer here, a widget tweak there. The new ability to extract text from screenshots in Snipping Tool and toggle the system calendar clock may not make headlines, but for the digitally meticulous, they’re game-changers.Meanwhile, the browser wars rumble on with Edge, Firefox, and Opera Mini all vying for your attention with AI assistants, security updates, and tiny conveniences. For those tied to Office and the classic Outlook, the grinding gears of security reform and performance tweaks offer cold comfort. Word for iOS, by contrast, straddles the future: speak your thoughts, let Copilot do the rest, and hope the algorithms can decipher your accent.
The Future: Copilot, AI, and the Next Chapter of Windows
No discussion of Microsoft’s evolution would be complete without acknowledging the quiet, persistent rise of Copilot—the AI assistant inching into every corner of the company’s software universe. From Edge to Word on iOS, Copilot is attempting to gently (or not-so-gently) nudge you into productivity, clarity, and, perhaps, a future where your operating system simply knows what you’re about to type, click, or forget to save.Yet, with every shiny new feature comes a wave of bugs, workarounds, and the sometimes slapstick spectacle of an OS tripping over its own digital shoelaces. Maybe that, more than any planned feature or patch, is what truly endears Windows to its billions of users. It’s an ecosystem in perpetual motion—sometimes chaotic, often annoyed, but always striving for that impossible ideal: a computing experience so smooth you almost forget it’s there.
Until, of course, you get a blue screen first thing in the morning.
The Bottom Line
As this week’s wild ride demonstrates, using Windows in 2024 is equal parts adventure and endurance. Underneath the shiny new Edge features, PowerShell tweaks, and Copilot bells and whistles, one core truth remains unchanged: Microsoft’s world is vast, interconnected, and forever on the cusp of breaking, just a little, before being rapidly, if not always perfectly, put back together.Whether you’re a battle-worn IT admin, a casual user dodging pop-ups, or a diehard Insider living on the edge of tomorrow’s code, this week had it all: bugs, solutions that sound suspiciously like shrugs, long-awaited features, honest-to-goodness improvements, and just enough drama to keep things interesting.
So here’s to Windows—still imperfect, still impossible to ignore, and still, for better or worse, the backbone of the modern digital world. Just don’t forget to ignore those error messages—they might just resolve themselves.
Source: Neowin Microsoft Weekly: a lot of Windows bugs, useful taskbar upgrades, and more
