According to Statcounter, Windows 10 currently holds 60.33% of all Windows devices. In January 2025, its share dropped 2.37% points. Year-over-year change is -6.14 points—in January 2024, Windows 10 had 66.47%.

After two consecutive months of minor market share decline, Windows 11 reclaimed some of the previously lost customers and climbed all the way to 36.65%. It jumped 2.53 points and reached a new all-time high. Year-over-year growth is 8.82 points (an increase from 27.83%).

Microsoft recently made Windows 11 version 24H2 broadly available to all users, including those on Windows 10. With the latter only several months away from the end of mainstream support, Microsoft is now offering Windows 10 users to jump-ship to Windows 11 version 24H2 to stay supported and benefit from some of its cool new features. However, the update remains optional even for those with eligible PCs.

While all the drama is happening between Windows 10 and 11, things with unsupported Windows versions are much quieter. Windows 7 has 2.24% (-0.17 points), Windows 8.1 has 0.3% (no change), and Windows XP has 0.27% (+0.03 points).

1. Windows 10 - 60.33% (-2.37 points)
2. Windows 11 - 36.65% (+2.53 points)
3. Windows 7 - 2.24% (-0.17 points)
4. Windows 8.1 - 0.3%
5. Windows XP - 0.27% (+0.03 points)

You can find more information about the desktop Windows version market share worldwide on the official Statcounter website. Keep in mind that the data may not be 100% correct (click here to learn how Statcounter prepares its monthly reports).

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ISSUE

 

Starting around January 16th, 2025, Outlook 2016 MSI stopped showing the sender in search results and the search results appear as unread.

 

For example, when you search your inbox with Outlook 2016, you find the sender is not appearing under the From column in the reading pane search results as shown below. The search results also appear as unread.

Microsoft notes that it is currently investigating the issue, and it is being tracked under ID MC976059 on the Microsoft 365 (M365) Service health dashboard. If you are an M365 administrator and the ID number seems familiar, that is because Microsoft had recently assigned the same ID for the case overlooking the deployment of New Outlook on Windows 10.

A workaround involving the Registry editor has been provided so that Exchange Server-assisted Search can be disabled.

STATUS: INVESTIGATING

 

This issue is also tracked in the M365 Service Health Dashboard as MC976059. The service team identified a recent code change that appears to be resulting in impact. They are in the process of reverting this change in the internal testing environment to validate this theory, at which point they will deploy the fix throughout the affected environment.

 

If you urgently need to work around the issue, you can temporarily disable service search.

 

WORKAROUND

 

Temporarily disable Server Assisted Search, which Outlook would fall back to the legacy Windows Desktop Search, with the following registry key:

 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\software\policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\outlook\search

 

DWORD: DisableServerAssistedSearch 

 

Value: 1

You can find the support article here on Microsoft's official website.

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The Message List in Outlook shows the sender, the subject, and a preview of the message by displaying a part of the first line of text.

Microsoft has explained the issue and the different scenarios when users may encounter the bug below:

ISSUE

 

In recent builds of Outlook, users have reported issues with the message list jumping to a different place when clicking an email or scrolling through emails. Some examples of what users have reported include:

 

• When selecting an unread email, Outlook will automatically scroll down in the Inbox to older emails even though the original message is still selected.

• The cursor jumps after deleting or changing an email to Mark as Read/Unread with the Inbox in single-line view.

• While viewing the Inbox list, selecting the trash can button on an email row, the list scrolls to a random item further down in the list.

• Outlook jumps down to old emails when you select an email at the top of the Inbox.

   

Reports of this issue started with Current Channel Version 2411, Build 16.0.18227.20082 in late December 2024.

The company says it is currently investigating the problem and has also provided a temporary workaround for it:

STATUS: INVESTIGATING

 

The Outlook Team is investigating this issue. We will update this topic as soon as a fix status is available.

 

WORKAROUND

 

To clear the bad state, switch to another folder in the message list and back. This should temporarily alleviate the issue.

You can find the issue in this support article here on Microsoft's official website.

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Chris Morrissey, Senior Director Communications, Windows + Devices, Microsoft, has penned a lengthy blog post on the official Microsoft Tech Community website explaining in detail why deprecation announcements are actually helpful for enterprises and users alike. He writes:

Did you know that deprecation is not the end point of the lifecycle? Lifecycle describes the length of time something lasts. Deprecation simply means that a Windows feature, functionality, or service is no longer in active development, and it will be retired and removed from a future release.

 

..

 

Although deprecation is often thought of as “the end,” it's not. A deprecation announcement is an advance notice or a “save the date” courtesy to signal that the product will be retired or removed in the future.

 

Deprecated products are supported until their retirement or removal date; however, they are no longer in active development and won't evolve. Sometimes years can go by between the deprecation announcement and the actual end of the lifecycle, which gives you time to prepare for change.

Thus Microsoft's point is sensible given that it offers users and organizations, and even Windows engineers for that matter, time to chart a course. Regardless, it can still ring alarm bells for some, especially for smaller companies that perhaps do not have a robust enough infrastructure to move on from one technology and embrace the next thing.

Undoubtedly, the biggest upcoming change users need to prepare for is the end of support for Windows 10 planned for later in the year. To encourage an update to Windows 11, Microsoft even advertised a "limited-time free upgrade" but backtracked soon.

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Here is the changelog:

Improvements and fixes:

 

• Reliability:
  • Enhances the stability of the device, reducing the occurrence of blue screen.
  • Prevents unexpected failures or disruptions of audio streams by improving the stability and reliability of the audio system to enable uninterrupted audio playback and recording.
  • Prevents the microphone from being disabled while the device's microphone is in use during the installation of an update.

Here is the list of new drivers:

Here is extra information about the release:

You can download the latest Surface Go 3 firmware by heading to Settings > Windows Update. Alternatively, you can get a manual installation package from the official Surface Support website (it weighs 708 MB). Before installing firmware updates, back up important data since Surface firmware is not uninstallable.

The Surface Go 3 has a six-year lifecycle, and it will reach the end of support on October 5, 2027.

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All your AI Paint tools under one roof.

Image: Microsoft

Windows Insiders will soon see a Copilot icon in one more place: Paint. Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels will see the new button thanks to an update rolling out now, putting AI tools in one location. Clicking the Copilot button in the task bar will reveal a dropdown menu with generative features like Cocreator, Image Creator, and Generative Erase. Microsoft has been on a mission to put a Copilot icon everywhere it can — from your keyboard to the taskbar — and Paint is just the latest place for it to pop up.

Microsoft has been adding AI image generation tools to Paint throughout the past year and change, bringing in the DALL-E-based Cocreator in late 2023 and generative fill options last fall. They’re all going in one place now, so if you’re looking to create some AI-generated clip art, you’ll just look for the Copilot logo. Honestly, a Copilot shortcut probably makes more sense in Paint than it does in Bing, anyway.

With today’s update, Windows 11 Insiders are also getting an update to the AI search opened up in preview earlier this month. Now, the “improved search” will allow you to find photos in the cloud with natural language; previously, AI search was limited to local files. When you perform a search, you’ll see the cloud files show up alongside the local images. This update is rolling out to Windows 11 Insiders in the Dev and Beta channels.

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The full changelog is given below:

Starting today, we are beginning to offer the same Dev Channel updates based on Windows 11, version 24H2 to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel. These updates will be optional at first, so if you are in the Beta Channel today, you can upgrade when you are ready to do so.

We plan to make these updates recommended later this year, which means you will eventually get upgraded to 24H2-based updates automatically if you are in the Beta Channel. Until that happens, the Beta Channel will continue to receive both updates based on Windows 11, version 24H2 AND Windows 11, version 23H2 (but sometimes not at the same time). Please note that if you choose to upgrade to receiving updates based on Windows 11, version 24H2 in the Beta Channel, you may lose some feature rollouts.

 

If you are an Insider in the Dev Channel, you now have a window to switch from the Dev Channel to the Beta Channel if you would like. This window will only be open for as long as we’re releasing the same 24H2-based updates across both the Dev and Beta Channels. By the end of February, the Dev Channel will jump ahead to receiving updates with higher build numbers and once this happens, the opportunity to switch between these channels will close. When the Dev Channel jumps ahead, things might not be as stable as the Dev Channel is today, so we highly encourage you to evaluate which channel you would like to be in during the time in which the window to switch is open.

New Copilot+ PC experiences

Find photos saved in the cloud with improved Windows Search

 

A few weeks ago, we began previewing improved Windows Search with Windows Insiders on Copilot+ PCs. In that first preview, we introduced semantic indexing along with traditional lexical indexing for finding files saved locally in indexed locations on Copilot+ PCs with 40+ TOPS NPU onboard.

 

Today, we are excited to announce support for also finding photos saved in the cloud with improved Windows Search. Just use your own words to find photos stored and saved in the cloud by describing what they are about like “European castles” or “summer picnics” in the search box at the top right corner of File Explorer. In addition to photos stored locally on your Copilot+ PC, photos from the cloud will now show up in the search results together. In addition to searching for photos, exact matches for your keywords within the text of your cloud files will show in the search results.

 

Finding photos saved in the cloud currently works when searching within File Explorer directly. This will also work directly from the Windows search box on the taskbar in a future flight.

 

You can try this experience out today with your personal OneDrive when signed in with your Microsoft account and connected to the internet. If you are signed into OneDrive with a work or school account (Entra ID), you will only see matches for keywords you are searching for within the text of your cloud files in the search results – not photos. Third-party cloud providers will be able to support this experience with their services as well with documentation coming soon.

 

We’re excited to introduce a new way to find your cloud content in Windows and will continue improving search results and capabilities over time. These improved Windows Search experiences continue to gradually roll out to Windows Insiders on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs, including finding photos saved in the cloud, so you may not see these experiences right away. Support for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs is coming soon. See here for more details.

 

You can learn more about semantic search on Copilot + PCs here.

 

FEEDBACK for File Explorer Search: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Files Folders and Online Storage > File Explorer Search.

Other changes that are included in this Dev and Beta Channel update

This update (Build 26120.3073) includes other changes and improvements available to Windows Insiders across all Windows 11 PCs in addition to the features noted above that are exclusive to Copilot+ PCs. These changes are documented below in two buckets:

 

• New features, improvements, and fixes that are being gradually rolled out for Insiders who have turned on the toggle to get the latest updates as they are available (via Settings > Windows Update*).
• New features, improvements, and fixes rolling out to everyone in the Dev Channel.

 

For more information, see the Reminders section at the bottom of this blog post.

Changes and Improvements gradually being rolled out to the Dev Channel with toggle on*

[Settings]

 

• We are starting to roll out the Settings homepage for commercial customers on PCs managed by an IT administrator. The feature will show some existing cards relevant to enterprise-managed PCs like “Recommended settings” and “Bluetooth devices” as well as two new enterprise-specific device info and accessibility preferences cards. For commercial customers who also use their Microsoft account on their managed PC, there will also be a new accounts card indicating the presence of both work and school and Microsoft account types. We are starting the rollout of this gradually with managed commercial PCs who have both work and school, and Microsoft accounts presently seeing this experience first.

Fixes gradually being rolled out to the Dev Channel with toggle on*

[Taskbar & System Tray]

 

• Fixed an issue which was causing the taskbar preview windows to not display sometimes when hovering over open apps in the taskbar.

 

[File Explorer]

 

• We did some work to help address an issue where File Explorer might hang when browsing a folder with lots of media in it.
• Fixed an issue where if you opened a File Explorer window and minimized it in, it might not be rendered correctly when you restored it.

 

[Improved Windows Search]

 

• Fixed the issue where in some rare cases, searching on Outlook while offline might result in some results not being found.

 

[Live Captions]

 

• Fixed an issue where live captions might show an icon in the taskbar, but the window wouldn’t display on the screen, after disconnecting a second monitor.

 

[Remote Desktop]

 

• Fixed an issue which was causing Remote Desktop to show significant display / rendering issues when connecting to certain other computers.

 

[Settings]

 

• Fixed an issue which was causing Settings to crash when interacting with the Bluetooth & Devices page sometimes.

 

[Other]

 

• Fixed an issue where when using GDI+ to shrink an image, the colors may be wrong afterwards..
• Fixed an issue which could cause shutdown to be noticeably slower on certain devices when a controller was connected.
• Fixed an underlying issue causing the Windows Security pop up when signing into certain Wi-Fi networks to not be interactable. This may have also impacted interacting with this pop up for certain other options in Settings.
• Fixed an issue where the description for virtual NICs wasn’t displayed correctly in ncpa.cpl, it showed garbled characters.

Fixes for everyone in the Dev Channel

[General]

 

• We fixed the issue causing a 0xc0e90001 error to occur when booting into Windows Recovery (WinRE) on Arm64 PCs.

 

[Other]

 

• [Memory leak] Fixed: Leaks occur when predictive input ideas show.
• [High dynamic range (HDR)] Fixed: The display of some games appears oversaturated. This occurs when you use Auto HDR.
• [Remote Desktop Gateway] Fixed: You get errors or cannot sign when you connect to Windows 11 workstations. This occurs when you enforce device redirection.
• [USB audio device drivers] Fixed: The code 10 error message, “This device cannot start” appears. This occurs when you connect to certain external audio management devices.

 

Known issues

 

[General]

 

• After you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Dev Channel updates which will resolve this issue.
• [NEW] We’re investigating an issue causing unexpectedly high DCOM CPU usage for some Insiders after opening the Performance section of Task Manager

 

[Recall]

 

The following known issues will be fixed in future updates to Windows Insiders:

 

• Recall can be enabled or disabled from “Turn Windows features on or off”. We are caching the Recall binaries on disk while we test add/remove. In a future update we will completely remove the binaries.
• Some users may see a message to “Make sure Recall is saving snapshots”, while the Settings page for Recall shows saving snapshots is enabled. Reboot your device to resolve this issue.
• Make sure you update Microsoft 365 apps to the latest version so you can jump back into specific documents.

 

[Click to Do]

 

The following known issues will be fixed in future updates to Windows Insiders:

 

• Sometimes additional context is given when using more intelligent text actions powered by Phi Silica.
• The intelligent text actions leverage the power of Microsoft’s secure cloud to improve your text results by ensuring prompts and responses are safe and appropriate. This data is automatically deleted. Local moderation to ensure the safety of prompts and responses will be added in the future, replacing this cloud endpoint.
• If any of your actions on image entities are no longer appearing, please ensure you have the latest updates for the Photos and Paint app from the Microsoft Store.

 

[Live captions & real-time translation]

 

The following known issues will be fixed in future updates to Windows Insiders:

 

• Some Insiders may see a crash on first launch of live captions. Restart live captions if you encounter this issue and you will not see it again.
• If audio is playing or the microphone is enabled, switching languages will crash live captions. Stop audio when changing languages to resume captions or translations.

 

[Improved Windows Search]

 

The following known issues will be fixed in future updates to Windows Insiders:

 

• [NEW] The AI sparkle and underline animation in the File Explorer search box is not present in this build even when improved Windows Search is in use on your Copilot+ PC. If your search results are powered by improved Windows Search, you will see a notice at the bottom of File Explorer stating, “Search uses AI to find results” and directing you to file feedback if something doesn’t look right.
• In this build, the search box on the taskbar does not yet have the same underline and sparkles icon UI that the File Explorer search box has. This is coming in a future flight.
• In some rare cases, improved Windows search experiences may not be available and may require a reboot to start working.
• In some rare cases, File explorer search might be unresponsive and may require a reboot to start working.
• The tip about the new search improvements appears whenever you set focus to the search box in File Explorer, rather than only once.

 

[File Explorer]

 

• We’re investigating an issue causing File Explorer to be very slow to close for some Insiders when closing using the X button. This may also have an impact on the other title bar buttons.

 

[Power and Battery]

 

• [NEW] The colors in the new battery icon aren’t displaying correctly when you have your mode in Personalization > Colors set to certain options with Custom.

 

[Settings]

 

• [NEW] The Home page of Settings may crash. If you are impacted by this, you should still be able to open specific Settings pages directly by searching for them from the taskbar.

Paint Update

We are rolling out an update for Paint (version 11.2412.271.0 and higher) to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels. In this update, we are introducing the Copilot menu to Paint where you can access all the intelligent features which help you complete your image generation and editing tasks faster. Clicking on the Copilot icon from the toolbar will expand into a drop-down menu where you can easily access the features Cocreator, Image Creator, Generative erase, and Remove background. Note that Cocreator is only available on Copilot+ PCs. Within the dropdown, each feature will also include a short description to help you choose the right tool.

 

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Apps > Paint.

You can find the official blog post here on Microsoft's website.

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End of support means that Microsoft won't create patches, security or otherwise, for the operating system anymore. Hold, that is not entirely correct. Customers who pay may extend support by a year if they use it at home, or by three years of they are a business.

For Microsoft, 2025 is the "year of the Windows 11 PC refresh". Microsoft's marketing department sees a clear path for all those Windows 10 customers: upgrade their devices to Windows 11 or, even better, purchase new PCs, ideally Copilot+ PC devices to fuel AI growth on Windows.

If Microsoft would have spent some time talking to its customers, it may have received different paths and answers.

• A few hundred million devices cannot be upgraded to Windows 11, because Microsoft changed the system requirements of Windows 11.
• An unknown number of users is perfectly happy with their Windows 10 PC. They see no reason to buy a new PC with Windows 11.

Microsoft can try to upgrade customer devices forcefully as much as it pleases, but it won't resolve the dilemma for a good chunk of loyal Windows 10 customers.

Where is Windows 12?

Back in 2022, Windows Central reported that Microsoft was switching to a three-year release cycle for Windows again. The source were people at Microsoft reportedly. That would have meant a Windows 12 release in late 2024, but that never happened.

What did happen was that Microsoft replaced Windows leadership in 2023. Panos Panay left for Amazon and Pavan Davuluri took over.

The specifics are muddy, but it is clear that there has been a strategic shift at Microsoft. The company tried to push AI and impress the world with an AI feature that would soon thereafter fall heavily on the company's feet.

Recall, a feature that takes screenshots of activity on Windows, process it with AI, and allow users to have chats with the AI about it, was dubbed a privacy and security nightmare.

Microsoft had to recall it, go back to the drawing board, and is just recovering from the blow. Recall is available again in test builds, in a version that is better but still seen as problematic by some. In all likelihood, Recall won't become a main selling point for Windows AI PCs.

Microsoft has another reason to avoid any mention of Windows 12. Any hint of a future version of Windows might give Windows 10 users the wrong idea about how to proceed. Once Windows 12 is mentioned, many might stay on Windows 10 until the next version of Windows is ready.

To avoid that, Windows 12, if it is in development, is a tightly kept secret at Microsoft.

Closing Words

Expect no mention of Windows 12 this year. Microsoft is focused on getting Windows 10 customers to upgrade to Windows 11 or buy new PCs with that version. The company could hint at the new operating system in 2026, likely near the end, but that is guesswork.

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As such, those looking to jump into Marvel's Spider-Man 2 or Kingdom Come: Deliverance II will want to install this driver for optimal performance.

Here are all the technology upgrades this driver brings along, which are mostly for 50 series cards:

• DLSS 4: New AI innovations further enhance image quality, and accelerate performance. And DLSS Multi Frame Generation, in conjunction with the suite of other DLSS technologies, multiplies frame rates by up to 8X on GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs
• DLSS 4 Overrides: Upgrade over 75 games and apps to DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation using a new NVIDIA app feature
• NVIDIA App: RTX Video Super Resolution optimizations and enhancements, new multiple display settings, Advanced Optimus support, and more are introduced in a new NVIDIA app update
• NVIDIA Broadcast: Update the popular app now to add two new AI-powered effects
• RTX Game Updates: Get Game Ready for DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, Ray Reconstruction, RTX Mega Geometry, RTX Hair, and Neural Radiance Cache, in new updates for Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle™, and Star Wars™ Outlaws
• NVIDIA Smooth Motion: A new driver-based AI model delivers smoother gameplay by inferring an additional frame between two rendered frames on GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs
• New G-SYNC Compatible Displays: Another 19 gaming displays are now supported

Here are the fixed issues of this driver:

Fixed Gaming Bugs

 

• Certain G-SYNC Compatible monitors may display flickering when game FPS drops below 60FPS [5003305]
• [G-SYNC] Indiana Jones and the Great Circle may display micro-stutters when Vertical Sync is disabled [5015165]
• Improved stability for Ubisoft games using the Snowdrop engine [4914325]

 

Fixed General Bugs

 

• [Evernote/QQ/Asus Armoury Crate] displays higher than normal CPU usage [4730911]
• Motion blur renders incorrectly in some more cases in Blender Cycles [4912221]
• [KeyShot2024] TDR on loading the scene Camera Keyframe Animation [4909719]

Lastly, the known issues are these:

• Changing state of "Display GPU Activity Icon in Notification Area" does not take effect until PC is rebooted [4995658]
• [VRay 6] Unexpected Low Performance on CUDA Vpath Tests for Blackwell GPUs [4915763]

The Nvidia 572.16 driver is now available for install via Nvidia app and GeForce Experience. Standalone links can be found here. Here are the official release notes (PDF).

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Those looking forward to jumping into Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 from Sony, Warhorse Studios' Kingdom Come: Deliverance II or Sid Meier’s Civilization VII from Firaxis Games will want to update to this driver for optimal performance and stability. Adding to that, the driver team has also managed to gain major performance boosts on F1 24 with this update.

Here are the primary changes:

Gaming Highlights:

 

• Intel® Game On Driver support on Intel® Arc™ B-series, A-series Graphics GPUs and Intel® Core™ Ultra with built-in Intel® Arc™ GPUs for:
  • Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
  • Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
  • Sid Meier’s Civilization VII

 

Game performance improvements on Intel® Arc™ B-series Graphics GPUs versus Intel® 32.0.101.6259 software driver for:

 

• F1® 24 (DX12)
  • Up to 15.1% average FPS uplift at 1080p with High settings
  • Up to 12.1% average FPS uplift at 1440p with High settings

 

Game performance improvements on Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 2 with built-in Intel® Arc™ GPUs versus Intel® 32.0.101.6460 software driver for:

 

• F1® 24 (DX12)
  • Up to 12.3% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
• Sid Meier's Civilization VII (DX12)
  • Up to 7.7% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings

A single issue has been fixed in this release:

• Intel® Graphics Software may incorrectly report number of Xe Cores for certain Intel® Arc™ B-Series Graphics Products.

Meanwhile, the known issues are these:

Intel® Arc™ B-Series Graphics Products:

 

• F1 24 (DX12) with XeSS FG may exhibit applications crashes
  • Application may crash when dynamically changing XeSS FG settings during gameplay. Recommendation is to toggle XeSS FG settings in the game menu before starting a race.
  • “Alt + Enter” shortcut may change the display mode to fullscreen exclusive, which is not supported in XeSS 2 and may cause the game to crash.
• MLPerf may exhibit intermittent errors when running on multi-GPU system configurations. It is recommended to disable integrated GPU as a workaround.
• Topaz Labs Photo AI may exhibit corruptions with certain image enhancement operations.
• Magix Vegas Pro may exhibit corruptions when using style transfer feature.
• Dassault Systèmes CATIA may experience an application crash when using HQAO option.
• Cyberlink Power Director may experience tearing and lag in the preview window and exported video.
• Adobe Lightroom Classic may experience lower than expected performance. Workaround is to set recommended preferences in the application
  • Under Edit, Preferences, Performance options, choose Graphics Processor as “Custom”
  • Select “Use GPU for Display”, “Use GPU for Image Processing” and “Use GPU for Export” options.

 

Intel® Arc™ A-Series Graphics Products:

 

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (DX12) may exhibit darker than expected shadows in certain campaign scenarios.
• Topaz Gigapixel AI may experience intermittent crash while exporting images.
• Adobe After Effects may exhibit flickering in the preview window during playback.
• Cyberlink Power Director may experience tearing and lag in the preview window and exported video.

 

Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 1 with built-in Intel® Arc™ GPUs:

 

• PugetBench for Davinci Resolve Studio V19 may experience errors intermittently with benchmark preset set to Extended.
• Davinci Resolve Studio v19.0 may experience errors while rendering OpenVino test scenarios.
• Topaz Video AI may experience corruption when exporting videos after using some models for video enhancements.
• Adobe After Effects may exhibit flickering in the preview window during playback.
• Cyberlink Power Director may experience tearing and lag in the preview window and exported video.

 

Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 2 with built-in Intel® Arc™ GPUs:

 

• Adobe Premiere Pro may exhibit corruption in the output video after performing 8K AV1 Encode.
• PugetBench for Davinci Resolve Studio V19 may experience errors intermittently with benchmark preset set to Extended.
• Davinci Resolve Studio v19.0 may experience errors intermittently while rendering certain AI/ML scenarios.
• Topaz Video AI may experience corruption when exporting videos after using some models for video enhancements.
• Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered (DX12) may experience crash during gameplay with frame generation enabled.
• Call of duty Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered (DX11) may experience crash during gameplay.
• Adobe After Effects may exhibit flickering in the preview window during playback.
• Cyberlink Power Director may experience tearing and lag in the preview window and exported video on certain Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 2 Mobile Processors.

Intel 32.0.101.6557 Non-WHQL and 32.0.101.6262 Non-WHQL releases are now available for download on systems with 64-bit Windows 10 or Windows 11. Full release notes can be found here (PDF).

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Here are the changes that Microsoft is rolling out gradually:

• [Taskbar] New! This update improves the previews that show when your cursor hovers over apps on the taskbar. The update also improves their animations.
• [Windows Studio Effects] New! An icon will appear in the system tray when you use an app that supports Windows Studio Effects. This only occurs on a device that has a neural processing unit (NPU). Select the icon to open the Studio Effects page in Quick Settings. To view the app that is using the camera, hover over the icon for a tooltip.
• [Work across devices] New! You know that you can use an iOS or Android phone to access your Microsoft OneDrive files. If you do that when your PC is locked, you can now continue working on that file from where you left off on your PC. Just sign in to your PC within five minutes of using your phone. When Windows asks if you want to resume work on that file, select the file to open it. To use this feature, you must sign in to OneDrive and your PC using the same Microsoft account. Work and school accounts do not support this feature. This feature works for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and PDF files. For the best experience, sign in to OneDrive on your PC using your default browser. To manage this feature, go to Settings > Apps > Resume.
• [Fonts] New! This update adds Simsun-ExtG, a new simplified Chinese font. It includes the Biangbiang noodles character. Some apps might not be able to display these new extension characters yet. The font has 9,753 ideographs that support Unicode Extensions G, H, and I. See the list below.
  • Unicode range G 30000-3134A (4,939 chars)
  • Unicode range H 31350-323AF (4,192 chars)
  • Unicode range I 2EBF0-2EE5D (622 chars)
• [File Explorer]
  • New! When you right-click items in the left pane, the “New Folder” command appears on the context menu.
  • Fixed: After you do a search, that search might repeat when you don’t want it to.
  • Fixed: The date and time properties of a file might update after you copy it.
  • Fixed: Icons on the details pane might not update as you expect when you change a theme. This makes it hard to view the change when you switch between dark and light themes.
  • Fixed: The search box might lose input focus as you type.
• [Windows Share] New! You can now share directly to apps that support sharing in Windows. Just right-click local files in File Explorer or on the desktop.
• [Magnifier app]
  • New! This update adds a new keyboard shortcut: CTRL+ALT+Minus sign. Use it to quickly switch between the current zoom and 1X zoom.
  • New! This update adds buttons to reset zoom. You can reset zoom to fit to the screen and reset zoom to your last or preferred magnification.
• [Snipping Tool] Fixed: Snipping Tool screenshots might be distorted. This occurs when you use two or more monitors that have different display scaling.
• [Chinese Pinyin Input Method Editor (IME)] Fixed: When you switch app windows, the IME language might change from Chinese to English.

And here is what is rolling out in normal mode:

• [Exporting chart objects] Fixed: You can’t export a file to PDF and XLSX formats if the file has a chart object.
• [Chinese Pinyin IME] Bing will stop giving automatic suggestions in the search box for search engine sites, like Baidu. To get manual suggestions, use Ctrl+Tab or the chevron button (>).
• [Windows Backup] You will now have a standard Windows 11 taskbar after restoring from a backup via the Windows Setup experience (OOBE) on a new Windows PC. You can still find your apps in the Start menu and Search and pin apps you want to your taskbar.
• [Digital/Analog converter (DAC) (known issue)] Fixed: You might experience issues with USB audio devices. This is more likely when you use a DAC audio driver based on USB 1.0. USB audio devices might stop working, which stops playback.
• [USB audio device drivers] Fixed: The code 10 error message, “This device cannot start” appears. This occurs when you connect to certain external audio management devices.
• [USB cameras] Fixed: Your device does not recognize the camera is on. This issue occurs after you install the January 2025 security update.

Known issues in this update include bugs with OpenSSH and compatibility issues with Citrix software (both have workarounds).

You can download KB5050092 from Windows Update or the Microsoft Update Catalog. Since the update does not contain security updates, you can skip it and wait for next month's mandatory Patch Tuesday updates.

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One of the most notable changes in Files 3.9 is the new Cards View layout. It replaces the old Tiles View and lets you view more information about each file, such as image resolution, size, tags, media duration, and more.

There are also improvements for the Grid View, which now has an accented colored border when selecting items for better visibility and accessibility. Details View, List View, Columns View, and Cards View now have improved icons and thumbnails that sync with the selected layout size. They are also DPI-aware to ensure better clarity on different displays.

The Details Pane now displays drive information, such as total capacity, the amount of available space, file system, and more.

Upon creating shortcuts, the Files app now lets you set a custom name. Previously, the app would automatically create a shortcut and only then allow you to rename it.

Files 3.9 also adds improvements to the built-in update mechanism. The toolbar button for release notes now has a new icon and an action that allows viewing the latest changelog at any moment. You will also notice a redesigned icon that shows up when there is a pending update.

Another change is the updated Tags Widget. It now features a fresh design that matches the rest of the app's aesthetics, and it allows tags to be applied to files and folders by simply dragging them onto tags.

The rest of the changelog, which you can check out here, includes the ability to set JPEG-XR images as desktop background, various improvements to the Properties window, focus auto-switching when creating a new tab, new launch protocols for different Files app update channels (Dev, Preview, Stable), performance improvements, and more.

Also, here is the list of fixed bugs:

Actions

 

• Fixed a crash that would occur when using the ‘Storage Sense’ action.
• Resolved an issue with the ‘Run with PowerShell’ action not working for files with spaces in their names.

 

Address Bar

 

• Fixed keyboard navigation in the address path bar.
• Resolved an issue where the address bar flyouts sometimes displayed duplicate items.

 

Archives

 

• Fixed an issue where the size wasn’t displayed after creating a new archive.

 

Cloud Drives

 

• Addressed various issues with Google Drive support.

 

Columns View

 

• Fixed an issue that caused unexpected scrolling in the Columns Layout.
• Resolved a crash that would occur when opening the context menu in the Columns View.

 

Drag & Drop

 

• Resolved multiple issues with drag & drop support between Files and other applications.

 

Git Repos

 

• Fixed an issue where soft link details were misaligned in Git repositories.

 

Group By and Sort By

 

• Resolved an issue where changing the grouping and sorting preferences would only update the current tab.

 

Right Click Context Menu

 

• Fixed an issue where right-clicking a file would display the option to open in a new tab.

 

Startup

 

• Fixed a crash that would occur when starting Files from WSL directories.
• Resolved startup freeze caused by a heavily populated Recycle Bin.
• Fixed an issue where the previous session’s tabs were briefly displayed when the startup setting was set to ‘open new tab’.
• Fixed an issue where launching Files from Terminal didn’t use the correct path.

 

Tabs

 

• Resolved an issue where tabs weren’t placed in the correct order when dragged from other windows.

 

Tags

 

• Resolved an issue with displaying properties for tagged items.
• Fixed an issue where tags sometimes displayed with the wrong color.

 

Title Bar

 

• Fixed an issue where the title bar drag region was sometimes missing.

You can download Files 3.9 from the Microsoft Store or the official website.

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The safeguard is no longer applicable with the latest non-security preview update, a.k.a. C-release, under KB5050094 (build 26100.3037). Thus, affected users can now manually download the Windows 11 version 24H2 as an optional update.

Microsoft, on its Windows health dashboard website, writes:

Resolution: This issue was resolved by Windows updates released January 28, 2025 (KB5050094), and later. We recommend you install the latest update for your device as it contains important improvements and issue resolutions, including this one.

 

Note: If you are on Windows 11, 24H2, you can manually install this optional update by going to Settings > Windows Update and selecting Check for updates. If any updates are available for you, select Download & install. Your device will download and install the updates. If prompted to do so, restart your device to apply the updates.

 

The safeguard hold (ID 55382406) that prevented devices that could be affected by this issue to update to Windows 11, version 24H2 will be lifted in the coming weeks.

You can find the issue here on the Windows Health Dashboard official website. For those who do not want to manually install this optional update, they can wait till the next month, as the February 2025 Patch Tuesday will make it available to everyone.

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Here is what is new:

Shared Content in File Explorer Home

 

File Explorer will now provide you with quick access to files that have been shared with you. If you are signed into Windows with your Microsoft account, you will be able to view files that have been shared with your account, such as email, Teams chat, etc. If you are a commercial customer who is signed-in with your Microsoft Entra ID account, you will additionally be able to view files that they have shared with others. You can access this feature by launching File Explorer Home and clicking on the ‘Shared’ tab item.

 

You will also be able to view a broader set of file types in their Recent, Favorites, and Shared sections on the homepage. For example, if you’ve recently opened/edited files in Designer, Loop, Power BI, Forms, etc. these files will now be available in your Recent list.

 

Changes and Improvements

 

[General]

 

• This update includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running this build on their PCs.

 

[Magnifier]

 

• We’re adding a new keyboard shortcut CTRL + ALT + Minus for Magnifier users to quickly toggle between the current zoom and 1X zoom.
• In addition to the keyboard shortcut CTRL + ALT + Minus to quickly toggle between the current zoom and 1X zoom, we have also added buttons in Magnifier to reset zoom to fit to screen and reset zoom to your last/preferred magnification.

  

Fixes

 

[Taskbar & System Tray]

 

• Fixed an issue which was causing the taskbar preview windows to not display sometimes when hovering over open apps in the taskbar.

 

[Input]

 

• Fixed an issue for Pinyin IME users, where switching between windows (like with ALT + Tab) may unexpectedly switch the IME from Chinese to English.

 

[Windowing]

 

• Fixed an underlying issue which could lead to unexpected app window freezes for some people when using ALT + Tab between certain types of apps.

 

[Graphics]

 

• Fixed an issue causing Settings to crash when going to Settings > System > Display > Graphics for some people.

 

[Remote Desktop]

 

• Fixed an issue causing MTSC.exe for Remote Desktop to fail on the previous build with error 0x80080005.
• Fixed an issue which was causing Remote Desktop to show significant display / rendering issues when connecting to certain other computers.

 

[Other]

 

• Fixed an underlying issue which was causing an explorer.exe memory leak in recent Canary Channel builds, leading to performance issues over time.
• Fixed an issue where the shutdown /r/ /fw command wasn’t working sometimes.

Known bugs in build 27783 include the following:

[General]

 

• [IMPORTANT NOTE FOR COPILOT+ PCs] If you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel or retail, you will lose Windows Hello pin and biometrics to sign into your PC with error 0xd0000225 and error message “Something went wrong, and your PIN isn’t available”. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking “Set up my PIN”.
• We’re working on the fix for an issue where SFC /scannow is showing errors every time it’s run.

 

[File Explorer]

 

• If you open a File Explorer window and minimize it in this build, it may not render correctly when you restore it.

 

[Hyper-V]

 

• [NEW] We’re investigating reports that Hyper-V, and other features which rely on Hyper-V (such as WSL) don’t work properly after the last flight.

You can find the official announcement here.

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Phone Link Start menu integration is a special widget or companion that appears next to the Start menu when you connect your device. It displays general information about the smartphone, like the battery indicator, connection status, notifications, recent contacts, and more. There is also a button for sending files to your device. Until now, that pane has only been available to Android devices. Not anymore.

If you have an iPhone, you can now have the same Phone Link pane with information about your device, quick shortcuts to calls and messages, recent contacts, and even the ability to send files (aka AirDrop on Windows), which was introduced in December 2024.

The updated Phone Link pane for the Start menu with iPhone support is now rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Dev and Beta Channels. You need to be on a recent Windows 11 preview build from those channels and have the Phone Link app updated to version 1.24121.30.0 or higher. Also, your computer must support Bluetooth LE (a Microsoft Account is also a requirement). The rollout is gradual, so it might take some time to reach your device.

In addition to iPhone support, the updated Phone Link pane now appears by default when you open the Start menu, suggesting that you connect your Android or iPhone device and benefit from the integration. If you do not want to see it, click "Hide this pane."

You can find the announcement post on the official Windows Blogs website.

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Here are the update highlights:

• [Mail] New! You now have the new Outlook for Windows app. A new app icon appears in the Apps section on the Start menu, near classic Outlook. There are no changes to any settings or defaults. If you are an IT admin, learn how to manage this update at Control the installation and use of new Outlook.
• [Screen capture] Fixed: The Capture Service and Snipping Tool stop responding. This occurs when you press Windows logo key+Shift+S several times while Narrator is on.
• [Chinese Pinyin input method editor (IME)] Bing will stop giving automatic suggestions in the search box for search engine sites, like Baidu. To get manual suggestions, use Ctrl+Tab or the chevron button (>).
• [Digital/Analog converter (DAC) (known issue)] Fixed: You might experience issues with USB audio devices. This is more likely when you use a DAC audio driver based on USB 1.0. USB audio devices might stop working, which stops playback.
• [USB audio device drivers] Fixed: The code 10 error message, “This device cannot start” appears. This occurs when you connect to certain external audio management devices.
• [USB cameras] Fixed: Your device does not recognize the camera is on. This issue occurs after you install the January 2025 security update.

And here are other changes:

[GB18030-2022] This update adds support for this amendment.

 

[Virtual memory] Fixed: An issue depletes virtual memory, which might cause some apps to fail.

 

[Near Field Communication (NFC) readers] Fixed: At times, they fail to read card Universal Unique Identifiers (UUID). This occurs after many point-of-sale (POS) app scans.

 

[USB Print and IPP Over USB] Fixed: An installed printer fails when the spooler initializes.

 

[Windows Kernel Vulnerable Driver Blocklist file (DriverSiPolicy.p7b)] This update adds to the list of drivers that are at risk for Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) attacks.

The list of known bugs still has some standing issues like OpenSSH bugs, compatibility problems with certain software, and an innocent Event Log bug.

You can download Windows 10 KB5050081 by heading to Settings > Windows Update.

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Auto Dark Mode lets you automate theme switching based on custom hours or sunset/sunrise. You can also select separate wallpapers or entire themes for each mode, apply filters, and customize other features. Version 10.4.2.29, the latest Auto Dark Mode release, delivers a welcome change, especially for those with Copilot+ PCs: it is now fully ARM-native, which means better energy efficiency, faster performance, and a more responsive UI.

Another change in version 10.4.2.29 is the feature called "Try to fix the theme." It sits in the tray menu and allows you to resolve random theme-switching bugs, such as the wrong taskbar color. The developer says this new addition is a "press & pray" method.

There are also improvements to slideshows in shuffle mode, more image type support (JPEG XR for HDR wallpapers in Windows 11 version 24H2), better compatibility with color filters, and more. Here is the complete changelog:

Improvements

 

• If using slideshows in shuffle mode, Auto Dark Mode will now forward the first image, to ensure always a random picture will appear as desktop background. No more boredom caused by the same old image!
• ADM will now always apply the theme when it starts up, even when the system idle check module is enabled.
• Added support for more picture file types, ensuring you can make full use of your full wallpaper collection.
• Improved handling of the grayscale color filter, or as @Spiritreader stated in his commit "colorus filterus fixus". In this case, fewer bugs lead into fewer colors.
• The DLL files of Auto Dark Mode are now also signed. This is handy for the users of Windows Smart App Control.
• Upgraded to .NET 8.

 

Fixes

 

• The long awaited bug fix for wallpaper switch is here! Sometimes Auto Dark Mode reverted the wallpaper to the previous one right after some seconds. This shouldn't happen anymore.
• We also fixed a second wallpaper switch issue, where a solid color would be applied, although a picture is set.
• And even more little bug fixes, to improve the reliability with global theme switching in combination with slideshows and multi monitor wallpapers.
• Fixed an issue where the TimeSwitchModule was triggered right after the BatteryStatusChanged, which leaded into multiple execution of scripts.
• Fixed a rare case on which the startup task couldn't be set.
• Fixed an issue with time sync triggering a theme switch during the lock screen on Windows 10, blocking other events.
• Fixed an issue causing DWM refresh to occur erroneously twice during theme mode if forced refresh is enabled.
• Fixed battery event not being checked after enabling the respective setting.
• Fixed an issue, where if auto switch was disabled and an external switch was made, not all components would refresh properly on reactivation, because their enable-hooks are not called, even though they rely on system state.

You can download Windows Auto Dark Mode from the Microsoft Store or GitHub. It is one of our favorite Windows apps, which we covered in several "Top 10 apps" lists, like here, here, and here.

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Here is what Microsoft is rolling out gradually (these features might show up later on your system):

• [Taskbar] New! This update improves the previews that show when your cursor hovers over apps on the taskbar. The update also improves their animations.
• [Windows Studio Effects] New! An icon will appear in the system tray when you use an app that supports Windows Studio Effects. This only occurs on a device that has a neural processing unit (NPU). Select the icon to open the Studio Effects page in Quick Settings. To view the app that is using the camera, hover over the icon for a tooltip.
• [Fonts] New! This update adds Simsun-ExtG, a new simplified Chinese font. It includes the Biangbiang noodles character. Some apps might not be able to display these new extension characters yet. The font has 9,753 ideographs that support Unicode Extensions G, H, and I. See the list below.
  • Unicode range G 30000-3134A (4,939 chars)
  • Unicode range H 31350-323AF (4,192 chars)
  • Unicode range I 2EBF0-2EE5D (622 chars)
• [File Explorer]
  • New! When you right-click items in the left pane, the “New Folder” command appears on the context menu.
  • Fixed: After you do a search, that search might repeat when you don’t want it to.
  • Fixed: The date and time properties of a file might update after you copy it.
  • Fixed: Icons on the details pane might not update as you expect when you change a theme. This makes it hard to view the change when you switch between dark and light themes.
  • Fixed: The search box might lose input focus as you type.
• [Settings] New! You can change time zones in Settings > Time & Language > Date & Time. You don’t have to be an admin to make this change.
• [Mouse]
  • Fixed: The mouse cursor might disappear. This occurs when you hover over text fields in certain applications.
  • Fixed: If you turn on pointer trails, the mouse cursor becomes transparent, and a black box appears behind it.
  • Fixed: The mouse cursor might stutter when it moves across the screen. This occurs even when the system is not using a lot of resources.
• [Pinyin Input Method Editor (IME)] Fixed: When you switch app windows, the IME language might change from Chinese to English.
• [Snipping Tool] Fixed: Snipping Tool screenshots might be distorted. This occurs when you use two or more monitors that have different display scaling.
• [Microsoft Excel 2016] Fixed: When you open certain files, Excel opens, but the screen might remain on the loading screen.

And here are the changes available to all right here and right now. These include fixes for HDR issues, problems with USB audio devices, USB cameras, passkeys, and more:

• [High dynamic range (HDR)] Fixed: The display of some games appears oversaturated. This occurs when you use Auto HDR.
• [Digital/Analog converter (DAC) (known issue)] Fixed: You might experience issues with USB audio devices. This is more likely when you use a DAC audio driver based on USB 1.0. USB audio devices might stop working, which stops playback.
• [USB audio device drivers] Fixed: The code 10 error message, “This device cannot start” appears. This occurs when you connect to certain external audio management devices.
• [Chinese Pinyin input method editor (IME)] Bing will stop giving automatic suggestions in the search box for search engine sites, like Baidu. To get manual suggestions, use Ctrl+Tab or the chevron button (>).
• [USB cameras] Fixed: Your device does not recognize the camera is on. This issue occurs after you install the January 2025 security update.
• [Passkey] Fixed: This update removes the one-minute timeout when you use a passkey on a phone.

You can download KB5050094 by heading to Settings > Windows Update and clicking "Download and install" under "2025-01 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 11 version 24H2."

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The new utility in PowerToys 0.88 is ZoomIt (first spotted coming to PowerToys in September 2024). It can help you zoom, annotate, and record the screen for presentations. Many users know ZoomIt as part of the Sysinternals suite, and it is now a part of PowerToys. However, it will continue evolving separately from PowerToys.

As for the removed feature, Video Conference Mute is now gone from PowerToys.

Here are the update highlights:

• New utility: ZoomIt - a screen zoom, annotation, and recording tool for technical presentations and demos. This utility from Sysinternals has had its source code released and included in PowerToys. ZoomIt will still continue to be updated and shipped by Sysinternals for users who prefer to have it as a standalone utility outside of PowerToys.
• Video Conference Mute has been deprecated and was removed from PowerToys.
• .Net 9.0.1 fixed many issue in WPF, improving stability for PowerToys Run.

And here is the complete changelog:

General

 

• Applied a workaround for the Windows App SDK applications title bar override that was causing accent color to not be shown on the top bar of applications on Windows 10.
• Improved the "admin application running" notification checking logic to be less demanding on resources.
• Fixed an issue causing many utilities to crash when the GPO to disable data diagnostics was applied.

 

Advanced Paste

 

• Fixed a crash when the application was exiting. (This was a hotfix for 0.87)
• Added a Json format validation step to verify if a conversion to Json should be applied.
• Fixed accessibility issues when using a screen reader.
• Added support for all BitmapDecoder supported image file types to the Image to Text functionality.
• Fixed an issue causing Advanced Paste initialization errors to hang the PowerToys main process.

 

FancyZones

 

• Removed Workspaces Editor from the exclusions list so it can be snapped by FancyZones.

 

Keyboard Manager

 

• Added an option to make a shortcut remapping only trigger with exact modifiers.

 

Monaco Preview

 

• Added support for .resx and .resw files in Peek and File Explorer add-ons.
• Added a setting to make the code minimap toggle-able in Peek and File Explorer add-ons.
• Fixed an issue causing Json format preview setting to not be applied correctly.
• Fixed an issue causing the wrong Monaco assets to be used at runtime.

 

Mouse Without Borders

 

• Fixed an issue causing clipboard to stop working after going through a UAC screen when using the Service mode.

 

New+

 

• Fixed an issue causing New+ to override the New file or folder creation from the File Explorer Ribbon buttons or keyboard shortcuts on Windows 10.
• When creating file or folders through a template, they should now have the current time as the last modified date.

 

Peek

 

• Fixed an issue causing Peek to not appear if it was previously minimized.

 

PowerToys Run

 

• Fixed a transparent border issue on Windows 10.
• Fixed a crash in the OneNote plugin after the .Net 9 update.
• Fixed an issue causing the Calculator plugin to return division by zero errors when dividing by hexadecimal numbers.
• Updated the Calculator plugin Mages library to 3.0.0 and added support for the random integer function.
• Improved handling of non-base 10 numbers to add support for binary and octal numbers in the Calculator plugin.
• Added a setting to enable selection of which units to use for trigonometric functions.
• Fixed a .NET 9 regression causing the PowerToys Run dialog to not be draggable.
• Added context menu buttons for the VS Code Workspaces plugin, for copying the path, opening in File Explorer or in Console.
• Added some telemetry to gather data on which hotkey is used to trigger PowerToys Run.
• Removed the workarounds that were in place to fix some WPF issues that were fixed in .NET 9.0.1.
• Fixed a typo in the Value Generator plugin messages.

 

Quick Accent

 

• Added the ć character to the Slovenian character set.
• Added the Proto-Indo-European character set.

 

Registry Preview

 

• Fixed an issue causing line breaks to not be parsed correctly for REG_MULTI_SZ values.
• Added a tooltip to values to show multiple lines of data.
• Added a context menu to enable copying type, value and key paths.

 

Settings

 

• Made the Advanced Paste paste OpenAI configuration modal scrollable.
• Fixed the text on the Quick Accent page to refer to "character sets" instead of "character set".
• Added the plugin's dll file version and website to the PowerToys Run plugin settings.
• Added the Workspaces file to the list of files that gets backed up by the Back up / Restore functionality.
• Fixed an issue causing some of the selected character sets to be unselected when opening the character set expander in the Quick Accent page.
• Improved GPO logic, icons, info bar layout and enabled state of all modules settings pages.
• Fixed some accessibility issues and refactored and improved quality of the code related to image sizes in the Image Resizer page.
• Fixed mentions of "Backup" to "Back up" when it should be used as a verb.
• Added a "New" label to Settings to better highlight new utilities that get released.

 

Text Extractor

 

• Fixed many accessibility and UI issues on the overlay UI. Thanks @davidegiacometti!

 

Workspaces

 

• Fixed an issue causing the Workspaces Editor to start outside of visible desktop area.
• Fixed an issue to maintain command line arguments for applications when trying using the "Launch and Edit" feature.

 

Video Conference Mute

 

• The module has been deprecated in 0.88.0, being removed from PowerToys.

 

ZoomIt

 

• New utility: Zoom It - a screen zoom, annotation, and recording tool for technical presentations and demos. This utility from Sysinternals has had its source code released and included in PowerToys. ZoomIt will still continue to be updated and shipped by Sysinternals for users who prefer to have it as a standalone utility outside of PowerToys.

You can download PowerToys 0.88 from the Microsoft Store or GitHub.

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Last week, Microsoft announced that Windows 11 24H2 is now “broadly available.”

This notice was contained in the Microsoft Learn post Windows 11, version 24H2 known issues and notifications.

Except for my continuing recommendation not to install 24H2, I’m lowering the MS-DEFCON level to 4. There are some problems, but they are manageable. Go ahead and patch.

Microsoft’s language in the Learn post was more direct than usual and included Windows 10 in the mix:

Starting this week, we are expanding this latest Windows version’s phased rollout. We are gradually offering this update also to eligible devices running Windows 10, version 22H2.

Microsoft is focusing its announcement on PCs running Windows 11 23H2 and Windows 10 22H2. To be fair, Redmond isn’t exactly pushing the update without your permission. It’s just that it makes the “No thanks, I’ll pass” button very small and locates it at the bottom of the dialog offering the update.

For Windows 10 — and as usual — the update will be offered only to PCs meeting Windows 11’s hardware requirements. There are a lot of posts and videos out there claiming that Microsoft relaxed those requirements, even going so far as to suggest that Windows 11 can be installed on any PC. The truth? Nothing has changed. Windows 11 still has the same hardware requirements. Anyone telling you otherwise is probably reacting to clickbait.

Let me repeat that I approve of patches for Windows 10 22H2 and Windows 11 23H2, but I do not yet recommend installing Windows 11 24H2. I realize that many of you have recently purchased new PCs that were delivered with Windows 11 24H2. So let me also make clear that I do not recommend the painful process of attempting to retreat to 23H2. That would require a messy clean install. As I’ve said before, if you’re already running 24H2, stay there.

However, be aware of a few issues.

For one, the installation of Windows 11 24H2 will cause computers to no longer have access to the Internet, as noted in the forum post . No amount of removing the driver or re-adding the driver will fix the issue. The only identified workaround is to use several commands, as noted in the forum post Networking breaks after install of 24H2 relating to WinHTTPAutoProxySvc. Microsoft has not yet acknowledged this problem, and it seems to be isolated to PCs in business settings.

Another unacknowledged bug associated with the above networking problem is that it does not send the DHCP option 77. However, Microsoft has acknowledged this in a private support incident.

Windows 10 22H2 isn’t quite error free for the month of January. KB5049981 notes that event 7023 is found in the event logs on Windows 10 22H2 and Server 2022. This is a cosmetic bug — it won’t hurt your machine. If you see it in your event viewer, you can safely ignore it. I can live with cosmetic bugs. I can’t live with feature releases that break networking.

Consumers

If you are in a home environment and use a mixture of Windows 10, Windows 11, and network-attached storage (NAS), be aware of another side effect that may impact you — SMB signing. If you have set up your network with guest authentication, you may find yourself unable to see other network locations as a result of upgrading to 24H2. As Microsoft points out:

SMB signing is required by default for Windows 11, version 24H2, Windows Server 2025, and later builds which results in compatibility issues with guest authentication if signing doesn’t succeed.

To resolve this on a Windows 11 24H2 Pro machine, run the local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc). In the left pane, navigate to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Network\Lanman Workstation. In the right pane, double-click Enable insecure guest logons, select Enabled, then select OK.

I do not recommend this for a small business network — only for a home network where you  trust everyone. For a peer-to-peer network at the office, it is much better to set up appropriate usernames and permissions on the shared peer computer systems.

It’s expected that Apple’s 18.3 release will be out this week. Whenever there is a new “big” release from Apple, I always hold back a bit and wait for the “plus 1.” If you recall, 18.3 will bring Visual Intelligence upgrades to iPhone 16 models. You can add an event to the Calendar app from a poster or flyer. Visual intelligence is available only on iPhone 16.

Businesses

Another of the undocumented issues in the January releases is KB5049235 for SQL 2019. The update fails to install non-interactively because it requires a EULA acceptance. You can work around the issue by manually installing the update. As noted:

Microsoft confirmed the SQL update did not have Auto-Accept EULA on. Manually install your SQL CU and use your existing process to re-run the deployment.

I’ve also seen that on a couple of my systems, which did not receive the .NET security updates until after I rebooted for the main January security update. Whenever a system is misbehaving and you’ve recently installed updates, make sure to either force a second reboot or urge those using the misbehaving machines to do a second reboot. From systems that accidentally logged in to temporary profiles, to updates that finally clear out on the second reboot, it’s amazing how just rebooting again will make a system behave.

Microsoft’s Office 365 patches triggered issues on Server 2016 servers. Microsoft has since fixed the issue — but at the time, the only “fix” was to roll back to the December build of Microsoft 365. Don’t forget that with Microsoft 365 you can’t just uninstall patches — it’s a redeploy back to the prior month.

If you have Fortinet firewalls in your network, make sure you review the company’s recent advisories. Fifteen vulnerabilities are being fixed, some of which are being used in zero-day attacks. We’ve even seen attackers grab entire configurations and post their content on the Web.

Resources

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Microsoft has not made any announcements yet, but users discovered a discontinuation message inside the app's code. It says, "Dev Home will be going away in May 2025 and a subset of its features will be moved to new places." Microsoft promises to release more information about the end of Dev Home in the coming months.

While Dev Home has some interesting features, like the ability to connect to GitHub repositories and monitor your system's resources with special widgets (Dev Home lets you pin CPU/RAM/network usage to Windows widgets), it mostly worked as a shortcut to various developer-related Windows settings. However, at some point, Microsoft wanted to implement "Advanced Windows settings" in Dev Home to allow users and developers to easily tweak settings that usually require adjusting the system registry or other not-so-accessible settings. Sadly, those plans never materialized.

The idea of having a single power app for developers sounds good, but Microsoft failed to make Dev Home truly useful. Developers on Reddit and other social media generally agree that Dev Home provides little to no benefit to their workflows, and its demise is unlikely to make any of them very sad. However, some are probably going to miss resource consumption widgets—they were pretty useful.

What do you think about the end of the Dev Home app?

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The now-updated support document details the newly discovered issue. According to Microsoft, it affects customers with USB 1.0 audio driver-based DACs. In addition to non-working audio, Windows Device Manager displays the "This device cannot start" error code.

After installing this security update, you might experience issues with USB audio devices. You are more likely to experience this issue if you are using a USB 1.0 audio driver based DAC (Digital to Analog converter) in your audio setup. This issue might cause USB audio devices to stop working, preventing audio playback.

 

DACs (Digital-to-Analog Converters) are commonly used in scenarios where users need to improve the quality of their audio systems. A few scenarios where they are used are home audio systems, professional music studios and portable music players.

 

Resulting from this issue, the Device Manager might display the error ‘This device cannot start. (Code 10) Insufficient system resources exist to complete the API’.

As of right now, there are no apparent ways to mitigate or bypass the problem. Microsoft says the only solution is not to use USB DACs. Instead, you should connect your audio devices directly to your motherboards. A future update should resolve this problem.

Users can avoid this issue by avoiding the use of an external DAC in the connection process and directly plugging your audio device to your PC.

 

We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.

This is not the only audio-related issue in the recent Windows updates. A few weeks ago, Microsoft confirmed a Windows bug causing the audio to blast at 100% volume out of your speakers in certain scenarios on systems running Windows 11 version 24H2. You can learn more about it here.

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With regards to the Nvidia graphics support, the Solus team says that more graphics cards from Nvidia are supported, including the 4000 series cards which previously had black screen issues when trying to install Solus. It said that the bug has now been sorted.

Solus 4.7 is available with several desktop environments, including its home-grown Budgie, GNOME, Plasma, and Xfce. Out of these, the Xfce release sees the biggest changes because of its inclusion of Xfce 4.20. One of the big, albeit experimental, features in Xfce 4.20 is initial support for Wayland.

The desktop environment versions include Budgie 10.9.2, GNOME 47, Plasma 6.2.5, and, as mentioned, Xfce 4.20. If you have a good computer, then opt for the Budgie, GNOME, or Plasma editions, otherwise go with Xfce as it's easier on system resources.

If you want to try out Solus, you can get it now from the Solus Downloads page as a direct download or as a torrent. Be sure to verify the files too with the provided SHA256SUMs to ensure they're legitimate and haven't been altered by attackers. Each of the files is around 3 GB to download, so they shouldn't take long on a good internet connection.

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Windows 11 will soon feature an improved battery icon designed to give you information at a glance. The new icon will change color depending on how much charge is left on your PC and have the option to show a battery percentage. Simplified overlays for the icon are placed in a way that does not block the progress bar, which is a welcome change as well.

The improved battery icon brings Windows 11 more in line with Android, iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, all of which already have the option to show battery percentage. We first covered the improved battery icon when it was a hidden feature within Windows 11 that had to be enabled through a third-party tool called ViveTool. Now, Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel can use the new icon without having to use a third-party tool.

On Windows 11, Microsoft Edge Game Assist is an in-game browser overlay designed to enhance your gaming experience by integrating a mini version of the Microsoft Edge browser directly into your gameplay through the Game Bar.

This widget detects the game you're playing and suggests relevant tips and guides. Since it uses Microsoft Edge technology, it functions as a regular browser, allowing you to access guides and videos about your current game without leaving the gameplay.

Although this feature is now available in the stable version of the browser, it's still under development, and it requires Microsoft Edge version 132, and you have to make the browser the default on your computer.

In this how-to guide, I will explain the steps to set up and get started with the Game Assist feature from Microsoft Edge on Windows 11.

How to configure Game Assist on Windows 11

To access the Edge Game Assist feature on Windows 11, use these steps:

1. Open Microsoft Edge.
2. Click the "Settings and more" button from the top right.
3. Choose the Settings option.
4. Click on About Microsoft Edge.