I was entering the miseries of seventh grade in the fall of 1980 when a friend dragged me into a dimly lit second-floor room. The school had recently installed a newfangled Commodore PET computer, a squat and angular box that glowed in the corner. “You gotta try this,” he told me, and handed over a piece of paper on which he’d handwritten a program.

I plunked it out on the PET’s chunky mechanical keyboard.

10 PRINT "CLIVE"

20 GOTO 10

I typed “RUN,” hit Enter, and watched as my name spilled down the screen in bright green-on-black text, over and over.

For a 12-year-old in the pre-internet era? This was electrifying. I had typed a couple of commands—ones that seemed easily understandable—and the machine had obeyed. I felt like I’d just stolen fire from Zeus himself.

I also realized, studying that tiny two-line program, that it was an infinite loop. The computer would run the code until the sun burned out, or someone unplugged it. There are not many ways, when you’re a preteen, to grasp the fabric of infinity. But I’d just done so, thanks to this strangely accessible computer language: BASIC.

The next day I and my nerdy friends raided the library. We found 101 Games in BASIC, a book with code for making versions of checkers, Battleship, and the like. It was our Necronomicon. We’d heard about computer programming, of course, but never suspected it was something kids could do.

But BASIC? Holy crap. It seemed practically self-explanatory—commands like IF and THEN let you make logical decisions, INPUT let you ask a user a question and work with their response. This was programming that achieved a neat midpoint between the mind of a human and that of the machine.

This is why I’ve long argued that BASIC is the most consequential language in the history of computing. It’s a language for noobs, sure, but back then most everyone was a noob. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, BASIC sent a shock wave through teenage tech culture. Kids who were lucky or privileged enough (or both) to gain access to computers that ran BASIC—the VIC-20, the Commodore 64, janky Sinclair boxes in the UK—immediately started writing games, text adventures, chatbots, databases. In the ’90s, they became the generation that built all the internet apps and code that made cyberspace mainstream. BASIC brought coding out of the ivory towers, and thereby tilted the world on its axis.

It’s hard to overstate how abstruse, before BASIC, most coding was. In the 1950s and ’60s you generally used machine language, which had commands like “sal 665” and “sal 667.” (Those tell the computer to move its accumulator, a crucial region of memory, right or left. Got it?)

A few early visionaries attempted to make languages for normies. In the 1950s, the pioneering computer scientist Grace Hopper designed a language called FLOW-MATIC (a name whose badassery has yet to be outdone) that used plain-English-like commands such as IF EQUAL TO and READ-ITEM. Hopper wanted everyday businessfolk to be able to write—or at least read—code. Her innovations were later folded into COBOL, the language of banking and backend systems.

But it was BASIC that really blew the lid off. It was created in 1964 by John George Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, two math professors at Dartmouth College who figured—in a stance that presaged the Learn to Code movement of the 2010s—that coding ought to be something any liberal arts student could learn.

For someone just getting into this weird craft, BASIC felt positively thaumaturgic. It was spellcasting: You uttered words that brought iron and silicon to life, and made them do things. (As the software engineer Erin Spiceland puts it, coding is “telling rocks what to think.”) If you were, as I was, marinated in Tolkien and other florid high-fantasy novels, there was a deep romance in the idea that everyday language could affect reality. Speak, friend, and enter.

BASIC also encouraged tinkering. Unusually for the time, it was an “interpreted” language. With many previous languages, you wrote the code, but before you could run it you had to “compile” it into a little package of 1s and 0s. This was a halting affair: Write, compile, then run it. With BASIC, in contrast, the machine responded instantly. You wrote a few lines, hit RUN, and boom—the machine interpreted it, right then and there.

This transformed coding into a conversation with the machine. Programming was like thinking out loud. I’d be working on a chatbot, for example, so I’d enter a few lines into the parser—then hit RUN to see how it performed. I’d add a few more lines, observe what worked and what didn’t, then run again. This back-and-forth dance with the machine made the whole process of coding less forbidding. It felt less like doing Very Important Design and more like just messing around. Many of the world’s most popular languages (like JavaScript and Python) are now also interpreted on the fly. But BASIC was among the first.

BASIC also created the world’s first mass open-source culture. People shared code freely: If a friend wrote a cool blackjack game, we’d all make a copy—by hand, like scribes in medieval monasteries—and run it ourselves. Each month, Compute magazine printed reams of BASIC mailed in by hobbyists. I spent one afternoon painstakingly typing hundreds of lines of Conway’s “Game of Life” that I’d found in an issue, then watched, mesmerized, as an artificial organism bloomed onscreen.

There’s a saying in the world of programmers that code is written primarily for other coders to read, and only secondarily for the machine to run. BASIC proved this at scale.

But as a practical language? For making shippable software?

BASIC wasn’t always great.

Graphics, for example, ran glacially. I tried to craft a space-shooter, and it was unplayably sluggish. This is part of why so many BASIC game makers focused instead on text adventures: Words, at least, rendered speedily. The Cambrian explosion of text-based dungeon crawlers in the late ’70s and ’80s was in part a product of BASIC’s built-in limitations.

BASIC also had a few truly ill-considered elements. Infamously, it included the benighted command GOTO (read as “go to”). This let you write code that hopscotched around: If the program got to line 120, you could tell the computer to suddenly GOTO line 25, for example.

For a newbie coder, this was an easy way to write things! But it encouraged complex “spaghetti” structure, where the logic bounded and zigzagged all over the place. If I wrote a longish program—going into the hundreds or thousands of lines—and used several dozen GOTO statements, my code would become a maze of mysteries, impenetrable even to myself. The computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra so loathed this style that he wrote an entire essay inveighing against it: “Go To Statement Considered Harmful.” Anyone who learned to program on BASIC would be, as he later wrote, “mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.”

Dijkstra was being hyperbolic. But he wasn’t entirely wrong: After its heyday, BASIC plummeted in popularity. Newer languages emerged that encouraged cleaner, more modern styles of writing and ran more speedily. BASIC still lives on these days—itself modernized, with GOTO (mostly) banished—in the world of Microsoft Visual Basic, which many non-coder officefolk have used to kludge together apps for internal use. But these days, only 4 percent of professional developers will admit to using BASIC. Me, when I started programming again in the 2010s—after a 25-year gap—I turned instead to newer languages like Python and JavaScript.

Every once in a while, though, I’ll hunt down an emulator for the Commodore PET. I’ll type in that ur-program I first wrote, more than 40 years ago, and hit RUN.

Still feels like magic.

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Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are sharing Hitler-related propaganda and trying to recruit new members on TikTok, according to a new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) shared exclusively with WIRED. The TikTok algorithm is also promoting this content to new users, researchers found, as extremist communities are leveraging the huge popularity of TikTok among younger audiences to spread their message.

The report from ISD details how hundreds of extremist TikTok accounts are openly posting videos promoting Holocaust denial and the glorification of Hitler and Nazi-era Germany, and suggesting that Nazi ideology is a solution to modern-day issues such as the alleged migrant invasion of Western countries. The accounts also show support for white supremacist mass shooters and livestream-related footage or recreations of these massacres. Many of the accounts use Nazi symbols in their profile pictures or include white supremacist codes in their usernames.

Nathan Doctor, an ISD researcher who authored the report, says he began his investigation earlier this year when he came across one neo-Nazi account on TikTok while conducting research for another project.

He was quickly able to unmask a much broader network of accounts that appeared to be actively helping each other through liking, sharing, and commenting on each other’s accounts in order to increase their viewership and reach.

The groups promoting neo-Nazi narratives are typically siloed in more fringe platforms, like Telegram, the encrypted messaging app. But Telegram has become a place to discuss recruitment techniques for TikTok specifically: White supremacist groups there share videos, images, and audio tracks that members can use, explicitly telling other members to cross-post the content on TikTok.

“We posted stuff on our brand new tiktok account with 0 followers but had more views than you could ever have on bitchute or twitter,” one account in a Neo-Nazi group posted on Telegram about their outreach on TikTok. “It just reaches much more people.”

Others have followed suit. One prominent neo-Nazi has often asked his thousands of Telegram followers to “juice,” or algorithmically boost, his TikTok videos to increase their viral potential.

An extremist Telegram channel with 12,000 followers urged members to promote the neo-Nazi documentary Europa: The Last Battle by blanketing TikTok with reaction videos in an effort to make the film go viral. Researchers from ISD found dozens of videos on TikTok featuring clips from the film, some with over 100,000 views. “One account posting such snippets has received nearly 900k views on their videos, which include claims that the Rothschild family control the media and handpick presidents, as well as other false or antisemitic claims,” the researchers wrote.

This is far from the first time the role that TikTok’s algorithm plays in promoting extremist content has been exposed. Earlier this month, the Global Network on Extremism and Technology reported that TikTok’s algorithm was promoting the “adoration of minor fascist ideologues.” The same researchers found last year that it was boosting Eurocentric supremacist narratives in Southeast Asia. Earlier this month, WIRED reported how TikTok’s search suggestions were pushing young voters in Germany towards the far-right Alternative for Germany party ahead of last month’s EU elections.

“Hateful behavior, organizations and their ideologies have no place on TikTok, and we remove more than 98 percent of this content before it is reported to us,” Jamie Favazza, a TikTok spokesperson tells WIRED. “We work with experts to keep ahead of evolving trends and continually strengthen our safeguards against hateful ideologies and groups.”

Part of the reason platforms like TikTok have in the past been unable to effectively clamp down on extremist content is due to the use of code language, emojis, acronyms, and numbers by these groups. For example, many of the neo-Nazi accounts used a juice box emoji to refer to Jewish people.

“At present, self-identified Nazis are discussing TikTok as an amenable platform to spread their ideology, especially when employing a series of countermeasures to evade moderation and amplify content as a network,” the researchers write in the report.

But Doctor points out that even when viewing non-English-language content, spotting these patterns should be possible. “Despite seeing content in other languages, you can still pretty quickly recognize what it means,” says Doctor. “The coded nature of it isn't an excuse, because if it's pretty easily recognizable to someone in another language, it should be recognizable to TikTok as well.”

TikTok says it has more than “40,000 trust and safety professionals” working on moderation around the globe, and the company says its Trust and Safety Team has specialists in violent extremism who constantly monitor developments in these communities, including the use of new coded language.

While many of the identified accounts are based in the US, Doctor found that the network was also international.

“It's definitely global, it's not even just the English language,” Doctor tells WIRED. “We found stuff in French, Hungarian, German. Some of these are in countries where Naziism is illegal. Russian is a big one. But we even found things that were a bit surprising, like groups of Mexican Nazis, or across Latin America. So, yeah, definitely a global phenomenon.”

Doctor did not find any evidence that the international groups were actively coordinating with each other, but they were certainly aware of each others’ presence on TikTok: “These accounts are definitely engaging with each others' content. You can see, based on comment sections, European English-speaking pro-Nazi accounts reacting with praise toward Russian-language pro-Nazi content.”

The researchers also found that beyond individual accounts and groups promoting extremist content, some real-world fascist or far-right organizations were openly recruiting on the platform.

Accounts from these groups posted links in their TikTok videos to a website featuring antisemitic flyers and instructions on how to print and distribute them. They also boosted Telegram channels featuring more violent and explicitly extremist discourse.

In one example cited by ISD, an account whose username contains an antisemitic slur and whose bio calls for an armed revolution and the complete annihilation of Jewish people, has shared incomplete instructions to build improvised explosive devices, 3D-printed guns, and “napalm on a budget.”

To receive the complete instructions, the account holder urged followers to join a “secure groupchat” on encrypted messaging platforms Element and Tox. Doctor says that comments under the account holder’s videos indicate that a number of his followers had joined these chat groups.

ISD reported this account, along with 49 other accounts, in June for breaching TikTok’s policies on hate speech, encouragement of violence against protected groups, promoting hateful ideologies, celebrating violent extremists, and Holocaust denial. In all cases, TikTok found no violations, and all accounts were initially allowed to remain active.

A month later, 23 of the accounts had been banned by TikTok, indicating that the platform is at least removing some violative content and channels over time. Prior to being taken down, the 23 banned accounts had racked up at least 2 million views.

The researchers also created new TikTok accounts to understand how Nazi content is promoted to new users by TikTok’s powerful algorithm.

Using an account created at the end of May, researchers watched 10 videos from the network of pro-Nazi users, occasionally clicking on comment sections but stopping short of any form of real engagement such as liking, commenting, or bookmarking. The researchers also viewed 10 pro-Nazi accounts. When the researchers then flipped to the For You feed within the app, it took just three videos for the algorithm to suggest a video featuring a World War II-era Nazi soldier overlayed with a chart of US murder rates, with perpetrators broken down by race. Later, a video appeared of an AI-translated speech from Hitler overlaid with a recruitment poster for a white nationalist group.

Another account created by ISD researchers saw even more extremist content promoted in its main feed, with 70 percent of videos coming from self-identified Nazis or featuring Nazi propaganda. After the account followed a number of pro-Nazi accounts in order to access content on channels set to private, the TikTok algorithm also promoted other Nazi accounts to follow. All 10 of the first accounts recommended by TikTok to this account used Nazi symbology or keywords in their usernames or profile photos, or featured Nazi propaganda in their videos.

“In no way is this particularly surprising,” says Abbie Richards, a disinformation researcher specializing in TikTok. "These are things that we found time and time again. I have certainly found them in my research."

Richards wrote about white supremacist and militant accelerationist content on the platform in 2022, including the case of neo-Nazi Paul Miller, who, while serving a 41-month sentence for firearm charges, featured in a TikTok video that racked up more than 5 million views and 700,000 likes during the three months it was on the platform before being removed.

Marcus Bösch, a researcher based in Hamburg University who monitors TikTok, tells WIRED that the report’s findings “do not come as a big surprise,” and he’s not hopeful there is anything TikTok can do to fix the problem.

“I’m not sure exactly where the problem is,” Bösch says. “TikTok says it has around 40,000 content moderators, and it should be easy to understand such obvious policy violations. Yet due to the sheer volume [of content], and the ability by bad actors to quickly adapt, I am convinced that the entire disinformation problem cannot be finally solved, neither with AI nor with more moderators.”

TikTok says it has completed a mentorship program with Tech Against Terrorism, a group that seeks to disrupt terrorists’ online activity and helps TikTok identify online threats.

“Despite proactive steps taken, TikTok remains a target for exploitation by extremist groups as its popularity grows,” Adam Hadley, executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, tells WIRED. “The ISD study shows that a small number of violent extremists can wreak havoc on large platforms due to adversarial asymmetry. This report therefore underscores the need for cross-platform threat intelligence supported by improved AI-powered content moderation. The report also reminds us that Telegram should also be held accountable for its role in the online extremist ecosystem.”

As Hadley outlines, the report’s findings show that there are significant loopholes in the company’s current policies.

“I've always described TikTok, when it comes to far-right usage, as a messaging platform,” Richards said. “More than anything, it's just about repetition. It's about being exposed to the same hateful narrative over and over and over again, because at a certain point you start to believe things after you just see them enough, and they start to really influence your worldview.”

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ExplainingComputers (1.03M subscribers)

July 28, 2024

Video length: 23m 35s

00:54 Getting Linux Mint

03:10 Installation

06:11 NVIDIA GPU driver

07:16 What’s New?

11:11 Applications

14:43 Updates & Snapshots (Timeshift)

18:06 Fixing the Font! (Ubuntu Classic)

20:29: Xfce & MATE Editions

22:43 Wrap

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Microsoft has updated the official documentation for KB5040437. In the revised document, the company mentions intermittent issues in organizations that use legacy protocol in Remote Desktop Gateway (Remote Procedure Call over HTTP). As a result, systems drop the connection, forcing users to reconnect to the server.

Fortunately, there is a workaround for the problem. While Microsoft is working on a patch, IT admins can track the issues by locating terminations of the TSGateway service with the exception code 0xc0000005. Also, they can mitigate the problem with two options:

Option 1: Disallow connections over pipe, and port \pipe\RpcProxy\3388 through the Remote Desktop Gateway.

 

This process will require the use of connection applications, such as firewall software. Consult the documentation for your connection and firewall software for guidance on disallowing and porting connections.

 

Option 2: Edit the registry of client devices, by removing a key related to RDGClientTransport

 

Open the Windows Registry Editor and navigate to the following registry location:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\RDGClientTransport

 

Find the registry key titled ‘DWORD’ and set the ‘Value Data’ field to ‘0x0’.

It is also worth noting that the problem affects not only Windows Server 2022 but older versions as well. The same behavior may be observed on Windows Server 2019, 2016, 2012, and 2012 R2. Server editions are also susceptible to another recently confirmed bug that causes Windows systems to boot into BitLocker recovery after installing July 2024 Patch Tuesday updates.

You can find more information about confirmed issues in KB5040437 here (via WinFuture).

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In September, users for Teams on the desktop will get some new camera features:

Users will be able to toggle certain camera capabilities provided by the camera OEMs natively on Teams Rooms on Windows. Capabilities covered with this feature includes group framing, active speaker framing, and edge composed IntelliFrame.

If you work with Teams as an IT admin for education organizations, you will also get some new features in September for all platforms.

Education IT admins can now create team templates from Microsoft Teams admin center. As an admin, you can use templates to easily deploy consistent teams across your organization. With templates, your users can quickly create rich collaboration spaces with predefined settings, channels, and apps.

The desktop and Mac versions of Teams will get some new webinar and town hall features in September:

This feature will now allow event organizers to set sensitivity labels for town halls and webinars. These labels are visible to organizers when creating an event instance once selected, and notify organizers if the details of the event being created are not valid for the selected sensitivity.

If you use Teams on iOS and Android, you will be able to be invited to join a presentation with the external presenter feature in September. Also, desktop and Mac users for Teams will be able to receive a notification in their Activity feed when an intelligent meeting recap is ready in September as well.

That's our look at the new Teams features that were added to the Microsoft 365 roadmap site this past week. We will be back for another check on the site next Sunday. See you then.

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With Explorer Patcher 22621.3880.66.3, Windows 11 users can try a new Windows 10 taskbar implementation. It uses code bits from Windows 11 version 22H2, which makes it possible to use the app on Windows 11 24H2 and newer.

As for features, with the new "Windows 10 (ExplorerPatcher" variant, you get the following:

• Snap Group support
• Virtual Desktop Switcher support (hover the cursor over the Task View button)
• Animated Start, Search, and Task View icons
• End Task support

It is also worth noting that the app is still having problems with the default antivirus, so if you want to try the latest Explorer Patcher update, add it to the exception list. In addition, you will have to manually download the new taskbar variant in the form of a DLL file from GitHub. Here is how to do it Properly:

If you want to use the new taskbar implementation, you can download the appropriate DLL for your system from the Releases page of its releases repository, and then manually putting it in C:\Program Files\ExplorerPatcher without the architecture specifier.

 

For example, for 226xx builds on x64-based systems, download ep_taskbar.2.amd64.dll, rename to ep_taskbar.2.dll, and lastly put it in C:\Program Files\ExplorerPatcher.

Sounds tedious and messy? It is. But that is the nature of tinkering and using third-party tweaks, so it is strongly recommended not to use pre-release versions on a mission-critical machine.

Here is the rest of the changelog:

• Introduced support for ARM64 devices:
  • These builds are only tested on and made to work with 24H2 ARM64 builds. Older ARM64 Windows versions than 24H2 may not work as expected.
  • An ARM64 device to support the making and testing of ARM64 builds is not cheap, so please consider donating @Amrsatrio via Ko-fi to recoup the costs.
• Added an "Update now" button into update notifications for easier updating.
• Revised how files are packed in ep_setup for smaller size and easier maintenance.
• EP's taskbar implementation for 24H2 is now available in its releases repository, as ep_taskbar.5.dll. If you want to try this out, follow the steps explained above.

You can download the latest Explorer Patcher from GitHub (via Deskmodder).

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How It Works

When the "End Task" feature is enabled, you can right-click on an app icon in the taskbar and see an "End Task" option.

When you select this option, it uses the Task Manager's existing end task future for that specific app. This allows you to close that specific app without opening the Task Manager.

This feature is useful when a program becomes unresponsive, allowing you to quickly end the task.

Microsoft has also modified the taskbar's end task logic to allow the feature to work smoothly even when an app is broken with a "not responding" dialog.

Steps to Enable "End Task" on the Taskbar

The "End Task" feature has been available for a while now, but some of you may not be aware of it. To turn it on or off, try these steps:

1. Open the Settings app on your Windows 11 device.
2. Navigate to System and then For developers.

   

    

3. Find the End Task option and toggle it to On.

Once this setting is enabled, you can easily end tasks by right-clicking on the app icon in the taskbar and selecting "End Task."

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Here are the official release notes with highlights and known issues:

Release Highlights

 

• New program support added.
• Bug fixes.

 

Known Issues

 

• Some driver names on a non-English OS may appear in English.
• The uninstall summary may incorrectly display the uninstall status as Failed. 
• Occasionally, Ryzen PPKG may not install/upgrade. 

Here is a more detailed list of new drivers in the package, including the AMD Power Management Framework (PMF) driver for the new Ryzen AI 300 processor series:

AMD Chipset Software driver 6.07.22.037 is available for the following platforms:

Supported operating systems include only 64-bit Windows 10 and 11. You can download the latest AMD Chipset Driver from the official website. Detailed release notes and the list of supported processors are available on the same page.

In case you missed it, AMD recently released its first drivers for the upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2 release. They include the previous chipset driver and a recent Radeon Software graphics driver.

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Here is the change log:

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

 

[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.

 

[Taskbar & System Tray]

 

We’re beginning to try out showing jump lists when you hover your mouse cursor over apps on the taskbar that have jump lists and are inactive. Should you see this experience, let us know what you think via Feedback Hub.

 

[Voice Access]

 

We are making improvements for the spelling and corrections experience in voice access. You will now be able to use the experience for the entirety of voice access session. The spelling experience will now enable you to dictate the characters at a faster speed and offer more editing flexibility inside the experience with dictation commands, namely selection, deletion and text navigation commands.

 

[Widgets]

 

We are rolling out an update to the Widgets Board to improve security and the APIs for creating widgets and feeds for users in EEA regions. As part of this update, the Microsoft Start Experiences app will power the Microsoft Start widget and feed experiences. Also, as part of this update, some existing widgets will be removed and others will be modified, temporarily affecting their functionality. This update sets the foundation for new widgets and other features in development, set to roll out soon.

 

Fixes gradually being rolled out to the Beta Channel with toggle on

 

[General]

 

Fix and underlying issue causing the Notification Center to get stuck and not open sometimes for some Insiders with the latest builds. This is also believed to be the same underlying cause as some Insiders finding that the Add a Device dialog didn’t appear when trying to add Bluetooth devices in Settings.

 

Changes and Improvements gradually being rolled out to everyone in the Beta Channel

 

[File Explorer]

 

• Fixed some issues causing Narrator to not work as expected when navigating through the Recent, Favorites, and Shared tab items for Insiders with the recent updates to Home in File Explorer.
• Fixed an issue causing the context menu in Home or Gallery to open in the wrong position when using Arabic or Hebrew display languages.

 

Known issues

 

[General]

 

We’re investigating a couple of issues causing an increase in explorer.exe crashes for some Insiders with the latest builds.

 

[File Explorer]

 

• Insiders in the Beta Channel with the updated Recent, Favorites, and Shared sections on the File Explorer homepage may see the following known issues:
• Files shared with you may not appear if there has been no interaction with that file.
• Keyboard focus may be lost on selection of an unselected tab item.

 

[Input]

 

We are working on the fix for an issue causing the emoji panel to close when trying to switch to the kaomoji and symbols sections, or after selecting an emoji.

You can check out the full blog post here.

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Here is the changelog:

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

 

[File Explorer]

 

We’re rolling out the ability to duplicate a tab by right-clicking on a tab in File Explorer.

 

[Narrator]

 

We have made several changes to improve the performance of Narrator scan mode. This is expected to make scan mode responses much quicker, especially while using Microsoft Edge, and reading through large documents. To try out scan mode, turn on Narrator first (Win key + Ctrl + Enter), and then turn scan mode ON by pressing Caps Lock + Spacebar during a Narrator session.

 

[Settings]

 

We’re beginning to roll out improvements to Settings > System > Power & battery including the ability to set your Power Mode for both when your PC is plugged in when it’s on battery along with a few other UI improvements to the page.

 

[For Developers]

 

Updated the logic for the “End Task” option in the taskbar so that it no longer shows a Not Responding dialog to give confirmation before ending the task.

 

[Other]

 

Updated System Info (msinfo32) to now follow your text size preference under Settings > Accessibility > Text Size.

 

Fixes for everyone in the Dev Channel

 

[Settings]

 

Fixed an issue where the Windows Update page in Settings was not displaying correctly for Insiders using certain languages (no text showed). If you are impacted by this on Build 26120.1252, updating to this flight should still happen on its own, however you may need to wait a little bit.

 

Known issues

 

[General]

 

[IMPORTANT] Windows Insiders joining the Dev Channel on PCs running Windows 11, version 24H2 Build 26100.xxxx will see “(repair version)” noted next to the latest Dev Channel build from Windows Update. This is nothing to worry about as all it means is that an in-place upgrade will happen to update your PC to the latest build in the Dev Channel.

 

• [NEW] The BitLocker Recovery screen issue documented here may also impact Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.
• Adding additional languages or optional features may fail with error 0x800f081f.

 

[Windows Sandbox]

 

Windows Sandbox will fail to launch with error 0x80370106.

 

[Task Manager]

 

Navigating between different pages in Task Manager may crash Task Manager.

 

[NEW] We’re investigating an issue causing graphs on the Performance page in Task Manager to not show the correct colors when using dark mode again.

 

[Input]

 

[NEW] We’re working on the fix for an issue causing text suggestions for the hardware keyboard to not work properly (selecting one unexpectedly concatenates).

You can find the full blog post here.

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While most users will most likely not bother downloading KB5040527, some may actually want to get the July 2024 non-security update for Windows 11, primarily because of File Explorer.

In KB5040527, Microsoft introduced several much-needed changes and fixes. For starters, you can now duplicate tabs—right-click any tab and select the "Duplicate tab" option to create a copy. The same feature is currently being tested in the Windows Insider Program.

As for fixes, the update resolves memory leaks when working with archives, broken search results, sudden dropdown popups, blank areas at the top of the app, broken navigation buttons, image flashes in the Gallery section and more.

Here is the full list of File Explorer changes you get with KB5040527:

• New! When you right-click a tab, you have the choice to duplicate it.
• A memory leak occurs when you interact with archive folders.
• File Explorer stops responding when you browse within it.
• When you search from Home for the first time, you might not get any results.
• The address bar dropdown menu might appear when you do not expect it.
• When you use the Save dialog to save a file to Gallery, an error occurs. Because of this update, your file saves to the Pictures library instead.
• The search box does not show the correct folder name when you are in Gallery.
• A blank area shows at the top of File Explorer.
• The back and forward mouse buttons do not work when you hover over the Recommended Files section of Home.
• Images flash when you view them in the Gallery.

If you want to download KB5040527, head to Settings > Windows Update and click "Download and Install" under "2024-07 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 11 Version 23H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5040527) is available." Keep in mind that the update is in preview, so it is better to back up important data before proceeding. If you do not want to risk it, the changes listed above will arrive in future mandatory updates (Patch Tuesday).

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For those unfamiliar, OOBE stands for out-of-box experience. It is Windows' onboarding process, during which you set up basic settings, login with your Microsoft account, restore from a backup, customize your computer, and reject a metric ton of ads, such as Microsoft 365, Game Pass, Edge, and more.

Every now and then, Microsoft releases new OOBE updates, which arrive on end systems whenever customers connect to the internet during the initial setup. For example, you bought a new computer, powered it on, connected to the internet, and started setting it up. That is when your system gets the latest OOBE update.

You can always skip this part by setting up your computer offline and using the oobe\bypassnro command. Not only does this let you create an offline account, but it also bypasses several annoyances, such as ads and OneDrive's annoying Known Folder Backup feature.

Microsoft rarely explains what is new in the latest OOBE update for Windows 11. KB5041655 has only the following in its description:

This update improves the Windows 11, version 22H2 and Windows 11, version 23H2 out-of-box experience (OOBE). This update applies only to the Windows 11 OOBE process and is available only when OOBE updates are installed.

You can check out the complete list of new files included in KB5041655 on the official support page. However, you will not find anything useful or informative among them.

Speaking of more useful updates, Microsoft recently released the latest non-security updates for Windows 10 and 11. Windows 10 received KB5040525, and Windows 11 users received KB5040527. Both updates contain fixes, feature changes, and other improvements. Note that those updates do not contain security patches, and they are optional to install. The June 2024 non-security updates caused quite a lot of trouble, which is why many users only download mandatory monthly updates.

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Here are the official release notes for Mozilla Firefox 128.0.3

• Fixed an issue causing some sites to not load when connecting via HTTP/2. (Bug 1908161, Bug 1909666)
• Fixed collapsed table rows not appearing when expected in some situations. (Bug 1907789)
• Fixed the Windows on-screen keyboard potentially concealing the web page when displayed. (Bug 1907766)

Firefox 128.0.3 is now available for download from the official Mozilla website or through the browser. You can either wait for Firefox to update itself automatically in the background or head to Menu > Help > About Firefox. Those using Firefox on Windows can also get the browser from the Microsoft Store.

Full release notes for Mozilla Firefox 128.0.3 are available on the official website.

In case you missed it, Mozilla released Firefox 128 earlier this month. It was a big update with plenty of new features, such as the ability to translate portions of web pages, a reworked UI for cleaning the browsing data, DRM-protected content support in Private Browsing mode, a new API that offers an alternative for ad tracking, new localization, and plenty of various fixes.

Firefox 128 is available in the regular Release channel and Extended Support Release. However, Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 users are still getting support and updates for Firefox 115 ESR, which should remain supported "past the currently planned date." For now, there is no information on when exactly Mozilla plans to pull the plug on now-deceased Windows versions.

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VirtualBox 7.1 Beta 1 includes multiple changes and new features, such as a "modernized look and feel" with the ability to switch between basic and advanced settings, a new performance dashboard for local VMs performance usage, instances cloning and reset, ARM virtualization for Linux, IPv6 support for NAT, and more. In addition, users can try improved screen recording performance, better accessibility, and more.

Here is the official changelog published on VirtualBox forums:

This is a major update. The following major new features were added:

 

• GUI: Modernized look and feel, offering a selection between Basic and Experienced user level with reduced or full UI functionality
• OCI: Performance dashboard shows resource usage like for local VMs
• OCI: Function to clone compute instances
• OCI: Function to reset compute instances
• Oracle VirtualBox Extension Pack: Ajustment to the PUEL license, removing the duplicated evaluation option, for limited time evaluation use please download it from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud
• VRDE: If user does not set up TLS with custom certificates, enable it with self-signed certificate, including issuing a new one before the old one expires
• NAT: new engine with IPv6 support
• macOS/ARM host: ARM virtualization for Linux and BSD VMs
• Linux host and guest: Added Wayland support for Clipboard sharing (bug #20808)

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• Screen recording: improve performance
• EFI: Add new Microsoft DB/KEX certificates to newly created VMs
• GUI: Improved overall accessibility
• GUI: Migration to recent Qt version.

You can give VirtualBox 7.1 Beta 1 a try by heading to the official forum. If you prefer stable releases, check out the recently released update under version 7.0.20.

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Microsoft Edge 127 contains all the fixes and small improvements from the three updates the browser previously received in the Dev Channel. You can find them here:

• Microsoft Edge 127.0.2610.3
• Microsoft Edge 127.0.2638.2
• Microsoft Edge 127.0.2651.8

In addition, Edge 127 brings security patches for 18 different vulnerabilities (two Edge-specific and 16 originating from Chromium).

Improved reliability

 

• Fixed a browser crash that happened when using the Microsoft Edge Password Generator.

 

Fixes

 

• Updated HttpAllowlist policy. Automatic HTTPS should now respect the HttpAllowlist policy, which provides a list of hostnames that HTTP should be permitted on.
• Resolved issue. Fixed an issue that prevented the Translate icon in the omnibox from being clickable.

 

Announcement

 

• SSE3 Requirement. Microsoft Edge will stop supporting CPUs that lack SSE3 in Microsoft Edge 128. Devices with such CPUs won't receive any more updates. For more information, see Microsoft Edge Supported Operating Systems.
• Token Binding. Token Binding uses cryptographic certificates on both ends of the TLS connection in an attempt to close the security gap of bearer tokens, which might be lost or stolen. We're planning to deprecate Token Binding in Microsoft Edge version 130. The AllowTokenBindingForUrls policy is deprecated and will be obsolete in Microsoft Edge version 130.

 

Feature updates

 

• Removal of mutation events. Support for mutation events was removed. The MutationObserver API can be used instead. Administrators can use the MutationEventsEnabled policy as a temporary workaround. Enterprises should still work to remove their dependencies on these mutation events. For more information, see Intent to Ship: Deprecate Mutation Events (google.com).
• Gift Card Redemption History in the Hub. Users with an MSA or Microsoft Entra ID Linked Account can view and utilize information from gift card redemptions through Pay with Rewards or the Rewards Dashboard. Once a user successfully redeems a gift card with Pay with Rewards, information relating to their gift card (date, card number/pin, redemption status) redemption is added to a Redemption History. This information is located in the Wallet hub. Admins can control availability of this feature using the EdgeWalletCheckoutEnabled policy. Note: This feature is a controlled feature rollout. If you don't see this feature, check back as we continue our rollout.
• Password Monitor policy update. When the PasswordMonitorAllowed policy is enabled as mandatory, users won't see the consent screen to turn on the feature. Also, when set to Mandatory enabled, the UI in Settings will be disabled but remain in the 'On' state, and a briefcase icon is made visible next to it with this description displayed on hover - "This setting is managed by your organization." For more information, see Password Monitor auto-enabled for users.

To update Microsoft Edge to version 127, head to Menu > Help and Feedback > About Microsoft Edge or edge://settings/help.

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Microsoft has already released new Windows 11 Insider builds this week for the Beta, Canary, and Release Preview channels. However, the Insider team is not quite done yet. It has just announced a new release for all members of the Windows Insider program who also own an Android smartphone and who are using Windows 11.

In a blog post, the company says this update will allow them to access the files on their Android phone remotely on their Windows PC. It states:

With this new experience, you will be able to wirelessly browse through all your folders and files, including media that is on your Android phone. You can open them, copy them to your PC, copy PC files to your phone, rename files, move them, and delete them.

There are some requirements for this new feature besides having a Windows 11 PC and being a member of the Windows Insider program. One is that the mobile device must have Android 11 or higher installed. The other is that you have to have the beta version of the Link to Windows app installed on your Android phone, with version 1.24071 or higher.

The blog post added:

To enable this experience, go to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Mobile Devices and choose “Manage devices” and allow your PC to access your Android phone. You’ll then be able to see a toggle to show your phone in File Explorer. If you do not see this toggle, that means the experience hasn’t yet rolled out to you yet.

As you might expect, there are some known issues with this feature.

• When you delete phone files on your PC, they are moved to a new Recycle Bin folder on your phone. Currently, these deleted files remain in the Recycle Bin for 5 days, even though the dialog indicates 30 days. An update is being made to ensure automatic deletion after 30 days.
• Occasionally, deleted files in the new Recycle Bin folder on your phone may not appear in File Explorer on your PC. This issue will be resolved in a future update.
• Sometimes, operations performed on phone files from your PC may not sync back to the phone. As a workaround, you can log out of your Windows account on your PC and log back in.

Member of the Windows Insider program can send their own feedback on the Android remote file access feature by going into the Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Devices and Drivers > Linked devices.

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Today, Microsoft posted a new article on its Windows IT Pro blog that talked about how the company has tried to help bring back the shutdown PCs. That includes having over 5,000 of its support engineers working constantly to restore those systems. It also released guides of how users could bring back the CrowdStrike affected PCs, including a recovery tool.

The blog post added:

This incident shows clearly that Windows must prioritize change and innovation in the area of end-to-end resilience. These improvements must go hand in hand with ongoing improvements in security and be in close cooperation with our many partners, who also care deeply about the security of the Windows ecosystem.

While it did not offer any specifics on any future plans to improve Windows resilience, the blog post did mention a couple of recent company efforts, including VBS enclaves, and the Microsoft Azure Attestation service. It stated:

These examples use modern Zero Trust approaches and show what can be done to encourage development practices that do not rely on kernel access. We will continue to develop these capabilities, harden our platform, and do even more to improve the resiliency of the Windows ecosystem, working openly and collaboratively with the broad security community.

The blog post ended with Microsoft stating that it will share what it has learned from this incident, as well as discuss "changes designed to strengthen the broader ecosystem moving forward." It also mentions a list of things businesses can do to make sure they can recover quickly from a similar issue. That includes common sense solutions such as backing up data often and security, and creating a way to restore Windows PCs quickly.

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What you need to know

• The latest Windows 11 preview build includes a new setting to switch the scrolling direction on mice.
• Up until now, it's not been possible to do this without editing the Windows Registry or downloading a third-party app.
• Users have been able to configure this behavior on touchpads for many years.

Microsoft is finally adding an option to flip the behavior of your mouse's scroll wheel to the Windows 11 Settings app, letting users change the direction of scrolling with just a few clicks. Up until now, switching the scroll direction on a mouse required editing the Windows Registry, but that will no longer be the case soon.

Spotted in the latest Windows 11 preview build, the ability to change the scrolling direction on mice is being added to the mouse settings page in the Windows Settings app. By default, it's set to "down motion scrolls down," as that's what most people are likely used to. However, some people prefer the opposite, where a down motion actually scrolls up.

Here is the changelog:

Gradual rollout

 

These might not be available to all users because they will roll out gradually.

 

[Lock screen]

 

New! Sports, traffic, and finance content will appear along with weather. To turn on this feature, go to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen.

 

[Start menu]

 

• New! The new account manager is on the Start menu. When you use a Microsoft account to sign in to Windows, you will get a glance at your account benefits. This feature also makes it easy to manage your account settings.
• New! You can now also pin apps from the Start menu to the taskbar by dragging and dropping items directly to taskbar from the pinned section in the Start menu.

 

[File Explorer]

 

New! You can now use your mouse to drag files between breadcrumbs in the File Explorer address bar. A breadcrumb shows the path to your current file location in the address bar. For example, there are three breadcrumbs in the path This PC > Windows (C:) > Program Files.

 

[Emoji]

 

New! This update adds support for Emoji 15.1. Windows supports Unicode symbol-like shapes for family groupings. But Windows will keep using people for them. Also, you can choose the right or left facing direction for some people emoji. The new emoji are:

 

• Horizontal and vertical head shake
• Phoenix
• Lime
• Brown mushroom
• Broken chain

 

[Windows Share]

 

• New! This update adds a feature that stops you from accidentally closing the Windows share window. Clicking outside of the window will no longer close it. To close it, select the close button at the upper-right corner.
• New! You can directly share to specific Microsoft Teams channels and group chats in the Windows share window. To do so, you must sign in using a Microsoft Entra ID.
• New! You can now create quick response (QR) codes for webpage URLs and cloud files from the Windows share window. Select the share button in the Microsoft Edge toolbar and choose “Windows share options.” Then, you can share the URLs and files across your devices.
• New! You can now send email to yourself from the Windows share window. You will receive the email at the email address that is in your Microsoft account.
• New! You can now copy files from the Windows Share window. Just click the new Copy

 

[Windows Backup]

 

New! Windows will now back up many of your sound settings (this includes your sound scheme). This only occurs if you turn on Remember my preferences and select the checkboxes for Personalization and Other Windows settings. To find these, go to Settings > Accounts > Windows backup. Then, you can use the Windows Backup app to restore those settings on a new device.

 

[Settings]

 

• New! This update adds a new Game Pass recommendation card on the Settings home page. This home page shows on Home and Pro editions when you sign in to Windows using your Microsoft account. The card appears if you actively play games on your PC.
• New! This update adds a page to Settings > Accounts called Linked devices. On it, you can manage your PCs and Xbox consoles. This page only shows on Home and Pro editions when you sign in to Windows using your Microsoft account (MSA).
• New! This update puts the “Add now” button in Settings > Account. When you select it, you can add a recovery email address if you have not added one for your Microsoft account yet. The button only shows if you sign in to your Microsoft account.
• New! This update includes updated visuals for the “Rename your PC” and “Change date and time” dialogs to match the Windows 11 visuals.

 

[Task Manager]

 

• This update changes the units for DDR speed from MHz to MT/s.
• This update addresses an issue that affects USB devices. Ejecting them using the Safely Remove Hardware option fails. This occurs when Task Manager is open.
• This update affects process handles. Task Manager releases them more quickly when it stops a process.
• This update makes Task Manager more reliable.
• This update affects the sort order of processes in Task Manager. Performance is better when you change the order.
• This update makes Task Manager more accessible by improving: Keyboard focus, Tab key navigation, Text scaling, The readout of item names by screen readers, High contrast heatmaps and more.
• This update makes resizing the Task Manager window easier when you grab the top of its window.

 

Normal rollout

 

This update includes the following features and improvements that are rolling out as part of this update. bolded in brackets indicate the area of the change being documented.

 

[PC Manager]

 

New! This update adds PC Manager to devices in China.

 

[Widgets]

 

New! The Widgets icons on the taskbar are no longer pixelated or fuzzy. This update also gives you a larger set of animated icons.

 

[Azure Virtual Desktop]

 

New! You can now use OneDrive as a RemoteApp in Azure Virtual Desktop.

 

[Virtual Filtering Platform (VFP)]

 

New! In Windows nodes, VFP has more support for packet drop collection. This will make it easier to troubleshoot issues.

 

[Windows Server vNext]

 

In the latest build, the cache size display behavior is not what you expect.

 

[Group Policy Preferences Item Level Targeting (ILT) and Local Users and Groups]

 

You cannot choose a group from the target domain for ILT. Also, you cannot choose an account from Local Users and Groups. The forest does not appear. This issue occurs when you deploy multiple forests, and the target domain has a one-way trust with the domain of the admin. This issue affects Enhanced Security Admin Environment (ESAE), Hardened Forests (HF), or Privileged Access Management (PAM) deployments.

 

[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.

 

[Share button]

 

On USB controllers, the button might not work with Game Bar.

 

[Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS)]

 

It fails at times when you set Field Engineering logging to 5.

 

[NetAdapterCx module]

 

Devices that use certain WLAN cards stop responding.

You can check out the full blog post here.

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The full changelog is given below:

Highlights

Note: Below is a summary of the key issues that this update addresses when you install this KB. If there are new features, it lists them as well. The bold text within the brackets indicates the item or area of the change we are documenting.

Gradual rollout

• [Notification for Windows Share in China] New! For nearby sharing to work, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth must be on. If they are off when you turn on nearby sharing, Windows will ask you to allow them to be turned on.

• [Start menu] New! You can drag apps from the Pinned section of the menu and pin them to the taskbar.

   

• [Taskbar]

   

  • New! When the taskbar has keyboard focus (WIN + T), you can press a letter, and you will go to the app whose name starts with that letter. When you press a letter more than once, you will go to the next app whose name starts with that letter. Pressing a letter more than once only works if there are multiple pinned or open apps whose name starts with that letter. If you are using an uncombined taskbar, when you press a letter, you go to the window whose name starts with that letter. Also, when you press Home and End, the keyboard focus changes to the first and last items in the taskbar.

  • The End task option no longer shows a not responding dialog before it stops a task. This option is only available when you turn on End task in Settings > System > For Developers.

     

• [File Explorer]

   

  • New! When you right-click a tab, you have the choice to duplicate it.

  • A memory leak occurs when you interact with archive folders.

  • File Explorer stops responding when you browse within it.

  • When you search from Home for the first time, you might not get any results.

  • The address bar dropdown menu might appear when you do not expect it.

  • When you use the Save dialog to save a file to Gallery, an error occurs. Because of this update, your file saves to the Pictures library instead.

  • The search box does not show the correct folder name when you are in Gallery.

  • A blank area shows at the top of File Explorer.

  • The back and forward mouse buttons do not work when you hover over the Recommended Files section of Home.

  • Images flash when you view them in the Gallery.

     

• [Desktop icons] Spacing between them might become very wide.

You may find more details about the update here on Microsoft's official website.

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The headline feature in the release notes is better language support. When you install Linux Mint 22 now, only the languages you chose, and English, will remain at the end of the installation, saving you a significant amount of space. You may not have realized it, but this was not optimized in older versions.

While we are on the topic of languages, the installation media now includes English, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian for offline installations. Other languages will require that you have an internet connection.

In terms of new technology, here's what's relevant to this version:

• Linux Mint 22 ships with modern components and the new Ubuntu 24.04 package base.
• To guarantee better compatibility with modern hardware, the kernel is version 6.8 and Linux Mint 22.x point releases will follow the HWE series.
• The default sound server switched to Pipewire.
• The Software Sources received support for the new Debian DEB822 format.
• Themes were updated to support GTK4.
• JXL support was added to Pix and a new thumbnailer was implemented for it.
• All software using libsoup2 was migrated to libsoup3.
• HiDPI support improvements were made in the boot sequence, in Plymouth and Slick-Greeter.

Another nice improvement in Linux Mint 22 is the work that has gone into the mintinstall Software Manager. It now loads faster than before with the main window appearing instantly. It also includes improved multi-threading, a new preferences page, and a banner slideshow.

We've spoken about it previously but the new Software Manager now disables unverified Flatpaks by default to improve the security of your system and verified Flatpaks now show their maintainer name for added trust. If you enable unverified Flatpaks, they will be clearly marked.

Finally, Linux Mint 22 comes with the Cinnamon 6.2 desktop. Here's what's new:

• Less printer added notifications (silenced for 2 hours)
• Wayland support: Clutter polkit agent
• Spices: keybindings support
• Better avatar support in polkit agent and user applet
• Workspace switcher: middle click removes the workspace being hovered
• Keybindings: ability to search by binding
• Cornerbar applet: shift+click action added
• Applets: improved precision in reporting VPN and battery states

If you are running the Linux Mint 22 Beta, you don't need to do an upgrade to jump to Stable, just open the Update Manager and apply available updates. If you're on Linux Mint 21.3, upgrade instructions will be issued in the coming days, though, if it's anything like previous releases you'll get an update to the Update Manager and then an upgrade option will be available from within the Update Manager's menus.

If you want to install Linux Mint 22 as a clean install then you just need to grab your favorite edition from the downloads page. You can choose between Cinnamon, Xfce, and Mate.

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In a post on the Microsoft 365 Insider blog, the company stated:

Now you can effortlessly insert a row or column into a table right where you need it with a single click, without having to right-click or access the ribbon to make your changes. You can also move an existing row or column to a new location in the table quickly and easily (no cutting or pasting necessary).

Word on the web users who want to add a new row or column to an existing table in the file can do so now by moving the cursor to the location for the additional row or column. Then the + icon should show up next to the location for the new row or column. You can then select it to add that new addition to the table.

In order to move an existing row or column to a new location in the table in Word on the web, you first take your cursor to the row or column you want to move. You should then see four dots at the top of the column or the start of the row. You can then click on the four dots and you should see a blue line show up to help guide you. You can then move the selected row or column with your cursor where you want it to be placed in the table.

Right now, the new table editing features in Word on the web are available for Targeted Release users. They won't be generally available for all Word web users until sometime in September 2024.

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Microsoft has released the latest Windows 11 build for members of the Windows Insider program in the Canary Channel. The new build number is 26257. It includes a way to duplicate a tab in File Explorer and more.

Here is the change log:

Changes and Improvements

 

[File Explorer]

 

We’re rolling out the ability to duplicate a tab by right-clicking on a tab in File Explorer.

[Input]

 

[ADDED] We have updated Settings > Bluetooth & Device > Mouse to now include the option to turn off enhanced mouse pointer precision for those that would prefer to not use it and have added a new option for changing mouse scrolling direction.

 

[Networking]

 

If you use the netsh wlan show networks command, you should be able to read SSIDs that are UTF-8 encoded. This means that Wi-Fi SSIDs with Unicode characters (like emojis) should be properly displayed in netsh output. This change is beginning to roll out so not all Insiders in the Canary Channel will see it right away.

 

[For Developers]

 

Updated the logic for the “End Task” option in the taskbar so that it no longer shows a Not Responding dialog to give confirmation before ending the task.

 

[Other]

 

Updated System Info (msinfo32) to now follow your text size preference under Settings > Accessibility > Text Size.

 

Fixes

 

[General]

 

Fixed an underlying issue causing some Insiders to see bugchecks in recent builds citing KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE.

 

[File Explorer]

 

Did some work to help address an issue where the address bar dropdown might appear unexpectedly while you were using File Explorer.

 

[Settings]

 

Fixed an underlying issue leading to some of the pop-up windows in Settings unexpectedly appearing left aligned, for example, the window for selecting a custom color for Dynamic Lighting.

 

Known issues

 

[General]

 

[IMPORTANT NOTE] We are investigating reports that some Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels are stuck on Build 26040 or Build 23620. The investigation is ongoing, however if you are impacted by this and really want to get onto the latest build in the Canary or Dev Channel today – you can download the latest ISO here and do a clean install and opt your device back into flighting in the Canary or Dev Channels.

 

[Windows Sandbox]

 

[NEW] Windows Sandbox will fail to launch with error 0x80370106.

 

[Input]

 

[NEW] We are working on the fix for an issue causing the emoji panel to close when trying to switch to the kaomoji and symbols sections, or after selecting an emoji.

 

[Task Manager]

 

[ADDED] We’re investigating an issue causing graphs on the Performance page in Task Manager to not show the correct colors when using dark mode again

You can check out the full blog post here.

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Here are the official release notes:

Added Features:

 

• Included an icon in the footer elements for autofill suggestions.

 

Improved Reliability:

 

• Resolved an issue when signing into an AAD account would cause a crash on Android.
• Resolved an issue where the browser crashes when playing YouTube videos after a restart.

 

Changed Behavior:

 

• Resolved an issue where the UI overlapped during AAD login and after a successful sync under favorites.
• Resolved an issue where the search button icon lacked sufficient contrast in high contrast mode.
• Resolved an issue where, upon opening the same group in browser, all tabs initially load, but a few tabs subsequently disappear.
• Fixed an issue where the buttons overlapped on screens with smaller resolutions, even when the browser was maximized.
• Mac: Resolved an issue where the FRE page was skipped, and the browser was unresponsive on Mac and Mac Arm platforms upon launch.

 

Android:

 

• Resolved an issue where the Sign-In page’s layout and color scheme were not consistent with other pages on android.
• Resolved an issue where the Immersive Translate panel was displayed in the middle of the screen on android.

 

iOS:

 

• Fixed an issue where the ‘Continue’ button was displayed in a lower position on the implicit sign-in page on iOS.
• Fixed an issue where users were unable to rearrange or drag items using single-point mode on the All-menu page in iOS.
• Resolved an issue where clicking ‘sync settings’ on the implicit sign-in page caused the account information to appear blank.

You can download Microsoft Edge Dev from the official Edge Insider website. It supports Windows 10 and 11, macOS, Linux, and Android (get it from the Google Play Store). Microsoft plans to release Edge 128 in the Stable Channel on the week of August 22, 2024.

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Apple Maps is finally available on the web. Through a beta that launched Wednesday afternoon, you can now get driving and walking directions, as well as view ratings and reviews from the web version of Apple Maps in a desktop or mobile browser.

Apple Maps is available through the beta.maps.apple.com site. You can do most of what you can in the iOS version of the app, including view guides, order food directly from Maps, explore cities, and get information about businesses. Apple says it’s going to launch additional features, like Look Around, in the coming months.

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The web-based version of Apple Maps is only available in English for now, and is compatible with Safari and Chrome on Mac and iPad, along with Chrome and Edge on Windows PCs. Apple plans on rolling out support for other languages, browsers, and platforms in the future. Apple notes that all developers using its MapKit JS tool can link out to Maps on the web.

Users have long requested Apple Maps on the web since the app’s launch on iPhone in 2012. Now that it’s finally here, Apple Maps will be able to directly compete with Google, which has long been available on the web. Apple has been gradually adding new features to its mapping service, including detailed city maps, multi-stop routing, cycling directions, EV routing, offline navigation, and more.

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