Since Microsoft announced Windows Recall at Build it's been one of the hottest topics of discussion in this space. Not all for good reasons, either. To say Recall is controversial would be an understatement. 

Whether it's community members or prominent figures like Elon Musk weighing in, or security worries, or just straight up FUD, there's plenty of discontent around Microsoft's upcoming AI-powered feature. 

But amid all of this, the appearance of so much negativity and blowback, there sure is a rush to clone it. We know there's already a way to force Windows Recall onto officially unsupported machines, but after reading up on that on GitHub, I went browsing a little further. 

Recall has already inspired a number of projects designed to imitate its functionality, and not just on Windows 11, either. 

Well, as it turns out, that timeline came and went without Outlook adding those promised offline features to the new Windows app. Now that same Microsoft 365 Roadmap entry has been recently updated. It now says those offline features will be added to the new Outlook for Windows app sometime later in June 2024.

Here's a quick reminder of what was put into that roadmap entry:

Offline support for mail actions and compose

 

The first set of offline capabilities in the new Outlook for Windows. Mail, calendar events, and contacts will be stored on your device, so you can view them even when you're not connected to the internet. Additionally, you can perform key actions on your mail, including flag, move, and delete, and compose messages, to stay productive even when you're not connected to the internet.

There's been no word on why these Outlook offline features were pushed back by Microsoft for the better part of a year.

Ever since the new Outlook Windows app was made generally available in 2023, many users have been waiting for the app to reach, or get close to, feature parity with the "classic" Outlook Windows app.

Over the last few months, Microsoft has added features to the new Outlook app such as support for chatting in a Microsoft Teams meeting, In May, the app added a function that show thes full sender addresses for any email messages that are put into the Outlook Junk folder as one new way to help combat spam and malicious emails.

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Nvidia 475.06 is a non-WHQL driver because Microsoft no longer accepts driver submissions for WHQL certification for Windows 7 and 8/8.1. Also, the update does not contain any gaming or feature-related fixes, optimizations, and new features. Even if you have a supported Nvidia GPU, such as one from the GTX 10 Series, all the new stuff and improvements are now exclusive to Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Nvidia understands that some users cannot upgrade (Microsoft recently closed the upgrade door to Windows 10), so every now and then, it provides a security update to patch things up. According to Nvidia, critical security updates for its drivers on unsupported operating systems will be available through September 2024. After that, you are on your own.

For now, there is no information on what exactly the latest driver fixes. Most likely, Nvidia waits for more customers to update to 475.06 before disclosing the patched vulnerabilities. If you are curious about what was fixed in version 475.06, check out the official Nvidia Product Security page in a few days.

Compared to Windows 10 and 11, Windows 7 and its misfired successor have tiny market shares. Statcounter claims that Windows 7's global market share is at 2.86%. On the gaming side, Windows 7 has only 0.38%. While those numbers look small, you should keep in mind that there are over 1.5 billion Windows PCs, so even less than 3% is quite a lot of devices.

If you have a PC powered by Windows 7 or 8/8.1 and an Nvidia graphics card, we are not judging you, but at least update the remaining bits of supported software by downloading the latest Nvidia driver here. Full release notes for 475.06 are available here.

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Kali Linux is a distribution created for cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers to perform penetration testing, security audits, and research against networks.

As is typical for the year's first version, the Kali Team has released new visual elements, including wallpapers and updates to the boot menu and login display.

Eighteen new tools in Kali Linux 2024.2

What's a new Kali release without new tools toys to play with?

Kali 2024.2 doesn't disappoint, with eighteen new tools added in this release:

• autorecon - Multi-threaded network reconnaissance tool
• coercer - Automatically coerce a Windows server to authenticate on an arbitrary machine
• dploot - Python rewrite of SharpDPAPI
• getsploit - Command line utility for searching and downloading exploits
• gowitness - Web screenshot utility using Chrome Headless
• horst - Highly Optimized Radio Scanning Tool
• ligolo-ng - Advanced, yet simple, tunneling/pivoting tool that uses a TUN interface
• mitm6 - pwning IPv4 via IPv6
• netexec - Network service exploitation tool that helps automate assessing the security of large networks.
• pspy - Monitor Linux processes without root permissions
• pyinstaller - Converts (packages) Python programs into stand-alone executables.
• pyinstxtractor - PyInstalller Extractor
• sharpshooter - Payload Generation Framework
• sickle - Payload development tool
• snort - Flexible Network Intrusion Detection System
• sploitscan - Search for CVE information
• vopono - Run applications through VPN tunnels with temporary network namespaces
• waybackpy - Access Wayback Machine's API using Python

Kali says they did not have time to get Linux Kernel 6.8 included, which was released on March 10, but will be included in version 2024.3.

Year 2038 bug fixes

Similar to the Y2K bug, the 'year 2038 problem' (aka Y2038 and Y2K38) will cause the time to switch to 1901-12-13 20:45:52 after reaching 2038-01-19 03:14:08 UTC on Linux systems when UNIX timestamps are stored in a 32-bit time_t integer variable.

To fix this, compilers and libraries switched to the larger 64-bit time_t integers that properly store timestamps when we reach 2038. However, this requires applications and libraries using the previous 32-bit variables to be recompiled so as to not cause issues.

Kali says they have now finished its t64 transition, meaning that all Kali users should perform a full upgrade to receive the new updated packages.

New desktop changes

This release introduces Gnome 46, with all themes and extensions updated to support the new version.

The developers have also updated the Xfce desktop with new stability and performance fixes.

How to get Kali Linux 2024.2

To start using Kali Linux 2024.2, you can upgrade your existing installation, select a platform, or directly download ISO images for new installs and live distributions.

For those updating from a previous version, you can use the following commands to upgrade to the latest version.

echo "deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main contrib non-free non-free-firmware" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade

cp -vrbi /etc/skel/. ~/

[ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && sudo reboot -f

If you are running Kali on the Windows Subsystem for Linux, upgrade to WSL2 for a better experience, including the ability to use graphical apps.

You can check the WSL version used by Kali with the 'wsl -l -v' command in a Windows command prompt.

Once done upgrading, you can check if the upgrade was successful by using the following command:

grep VERSION /etc/os-release

You can view the complete changelog for Kali 2024.2 on Kali's website.

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With support for Windows 10 ending in just over a year, Microsoft is nudging users to update to Windows 11, as many still appear to be in no hurry to make the switch.

Windows 10 has more than 68% share among Windows users worldwide as of May 2024, according to Stat Counter. However, Microsoft has said it will no longer provide technical support or updates for Windows 10 after Oct. 14, 2025, a decade after its launch.

To encourage users to upgrade to Windows 11 — released back in October 2021 —the company is displaying a banner on users’ screens when they make updates to Windows 10 that urge them to take “a new journey with Windows.” Microsoft-focused news source Windows Latest posted a screenshot of the banner, which the article’s writer said appeared on a Windows device when he installed Microsoft’s May round of OS updates.

Migration complications

Migration to new versions of Windows among both enterprise and home users has often presented a challenge for Microsoft and users alike. Sometimes users or organizations skip an update because of a hardware compatibility issue on older PCs. If a new version Windows also requires hardware to be updated as well, it can get expensive, particularly for an enterprise.

Some versions of Windows have had a harder time catching on than others for other reasons, such not having new feature sets interesting enough to users to warrant an update, or just plain bad timing.

“Generally, people are resistant to change, and when there is no perceived additional benefit for migration, they are not always willing to migrate to the newer versions of software, noted Pareekh Jain, CEO of EIIRTrend & Pareekh Consulting.

Perfect storm creating update delay?

Windows 11’s lackluster adoption may be the result of a perfect storm of conditions that have made updating to it unattractive for many users. Though the update itself is free, for corporate customers especially, Ranjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner said there are always hidden costs that “lie in assessing application compatibility, migration, and support.”

The system requirements of Windows 11 were more demanding than Windows 10, and PCs sold even in the last several years before its release had trouble meeting them. This may have given many users pause when it came time to adopt the new OS.

Moreover, the transition is being further delayed by current budget constraints within IT departments, and market changes as “PC vendors are attempting to lure businesses towards higher-priced AI PCs,” Atwal noted. This latter scenario is “further risking the Microsoft Win10 support deadline,” he said.

With that support deadline looming, however, both corporate and personal users alike may finally have an incentive to migrate to Windows 11, given that “regular updates, including security updates, are essential for the trouble-free operation of computers,” Jain observed.

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Windows Recall is a new AI tool built-in to Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs that remembers everything you do on your computer. It enables the ability to semantically search for anything you've ever seen or done on your PC using natural language, and utilizes the neural processing unit (NPU) to process that information locally on device.

The feature works by taking snapshots of your screen every few seconds and storing them locally on your hard drive. The Windows Recall app consists of a search bar and timeline, which lets you scroll back through all the saved snapshots and can show you what was on your screen at any point.

If you don't want this feature, Microsoft has built-in a quick and easy way to disable it. Here's how to turn off Windows Recall and delete the data it has collected.

How to disable Windows Recall

1. Open Windows Settings (WIN+I)

2. Select "Privacy & Security" in the sidebar.

Windows Recall settings are stored in Windows' privacy area. (Image credit: Windows Central)

3. Select "Recall & Snapshots."

The "Recall & snapshots" area in Settings lets you configure Windows Recall. (Image credit: Windows Central)

4. Toggle "Save Snapshots" to off. 

Ensure the "save snapshots" toggle is switched to off.  (Image credit: Windows Central)

5. Select "Delete Snapshots."

Turning off Windows Recall does not automatically delete the data it has collected. (Image credit: Windows Central)

6. Select "Delete All."

You can delete all the data Windows Recall has collected here. (Image credit: Windows Central)

7. Close Windows Settings.

Does my PC have Windows Recall?

Most Windows PCs will not have access to Windows Recall right now, as the feature requires new hardware shipping under the Copilot+ PC umbrella. A Copilot+ PC is a device that features an NPU that can output at least 40 TOPS of power, along with 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD storage, and 8 logical processors.

If your PC was purchased before June 18, 2024, it does not have Windows Recall. If your PC was purchased after June 18, 2024, it might have Windows Recall depending on if you purchased a Copilot+ PC. 

To check, just type "Recall" into the Windows Start Menu. If you see the Recall app, then your PC does have Recall installed and it can be disabled in Windows Settings by following the guide above.

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For instance, users can get email notifications when the task status or owner has changed in a project tracker, a number drops below a certain value in a forecast analysis, or some items in an inventory tracker reach a certain number of stocks.

Explaining conditional notifications in a blog post, Google said:

When a specific change is made, such as a column value change or a specific range of cell changes, you will receive an email notification with alerts of what occurred in the spreadsheet and who made the update. You also have the option to configure the notifications for others by inputting their email addresses during the notification setup.

Users who are owners or have edit access to a spreadsheet can set up these email alerts by going to Tools > Conditional notifications > Add rule. Here, they can choose what rules to include and add up to 10 email recipients. Google sends email notifications on behalf of the user who created the rule or was the last person to edit it.

Users can also access the feature by right-clicking on any cell and choosing Conditional notifications. Google notes in a support document that conditional notifications may not trigger in some cases such as when the data that comes from Connected Sheets (or other external sources) changes or the value format of the content changes, including changes to decimal points.

The feature has started rolling out to select Google Workspace tiers, including Business (Standard, Plus), Enterprise (Starter, Standard, Plus), Education Plus, and Enterprise Plus. Conditional notifications are not available to users with personal Google accounts.

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Meanwhile, Team Red announced its Zen 5 architecture alongside the desktop and laptop CPU lineups that would be powered by it. On the one hand, it released new Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors and on the other hand, it also unveiled its new Ryzen AI 300 series dubbed Strix Point for mobile use cases.

While AMD, as does any other company, was boastful about its product touting the 16% IPC boost on Zen 5 and the big AI performance leap delivering up to 50 TOPS on the NPU side, an interesting drawback of the Ryzen AI 300 series that has managed to avoid getting media attention is the lack of support for Windows 10.

While this was just an unconfirmed rumour last month even though it was suggested by a supposed Lenovo China manager, we have now got confirmation from AMD itself that the report, that Strix point and newer CPUs and APUs will not support Windows 10 is true.

The official specifications of the two Ryzen AI 300 SKUs, the HX 370 and 365, do not have Windows 10 listed in the supported OS list:

OS Support

 

Windows 11 - 64-Bit Edition , RHEL x86 64-Bit , Ubuntu x86 64-Bit

Meanwhile, this is not the case with the Ryzen 9000 series desktop parts as the spec sheet of that says:

OS Support

 

Windows 11 - 64-Bit Edition , Windows 10 - 64-Bit Edition , RHEL x86 64-Bit , Ubuntu x86 64-Bit

This essentially means that AMD's Windows 10 chipset drivers will not work on these new Ryzen AI 300 series mobile APUs, though Ryzen 9000 should have no issues on either.

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Microsoft has also added that those on systems that are eligible for Windows 11 will be offered the upgrade. The company writes:

At the end of last year, we announced a change in approach for Windows 10 to make sure everyone can get the maximum value from their current Windows PC. To bring new features and more improvements to Windows 10 as needed, we need a place to do active feature development with Windows Insiders. So today, we are opening the Beta Channel for Windows Insiders who are currently on Windows 10. This will allow us to try out new features for Windows 10, version 22H2, with Insiders before releasing them to all Windows 10 customers.

 

If you are an Insider on Windows 10 today and want to try out new features for Windows 10 when we have them, we recommend that you join or switch to the Beta Channel. You can do this by going to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Insider Program, clicking on the current Insider Channel selection to expand and see the full list of Insider Channels, and choosing Beta Channel.

 

Windows Insider Program settings page showing all 4 Insider Channels with the Beta Channel highlighted in a red square.

 

For Insiders on a Windows 10 PC that meet the minimum system requirements for Windows 11:

 

• We will not automatically upgrade you to Windows 11 when you join the Beta Channel. The Windows 11 upgrade will be available as optional, where you can choose to upgrade when you are ready.
• You will be able to switch to the Canary or Dev Channels but in doing so it will upgrade your PC to the latest Windows 11 build for those channels.
• If you switch to the Canary or Dev Channels, you will have a small window to roll back to Windows 10 but once this window closes, the only way to go back to the Beta Channel and/or Windows 10 will be to do a clean install of Windows.

 

For Insiders on a Windows 10 PC that DO NOT meet the minimum system requirements for Windows 11:

 

• You will not see the options to switch to the Canary or Dev Channels as these channels are only for Windows 11 Insider Preview builds.
• The Windows 10 end of support date of October 14, 2025, is unchanged. Joining the Beta Channel on your Windows 10 PC does not change that. For more information on the Extended Security Update program for Windows 10, see this blog post here.

 

Many features in the Beta Channel will be rolled out using Control Feature Rollout technology, starting with a subset of Insiders and ramping up over time as we monitor feedback to see how they land before pushing them out to everyone in this channel. Insiders in the Beta Channel on Windows 10 who want to be the first to get features gradually rolled out to them can turn ON the toggle to get the latest updates as they are available via Settings > Windows Update.

 

Features and experiences included in the Windows 10 builds we flight to the Beta Channel might not ever get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. Features may change over time, be removed, or replaced and never get released beyond Windows Insiders. Some of these features and experiences could show up in updates to Windows 10 for everyone when they’re ready.

 

Insiders in the Beta Channel who want to be the first to get features gradually rolled out to you can turn ON the toggle to get the latest updates as they are available via Settings > Updated & Security > Windows Update. Over time, we will increase the rollouts of features to everyone with the toggle turned on. Should you keep this toggle off, new features will gradually be rolled out to your device over time once they are ready.

Finally, Microsoft has said that the first Windows 10 Beta channel build will be available in the "coming weeks." You can read the official blog post here on Microsoft's website.

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Here are the vulnerabilities Microsoft patched in Edge 125.0.2535.85:

• CVE-2024-5493: Heap buffer overflow in WebRTC in Google Chrome prior to 125.0.6422.141 allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)

• CVE-2024-5494: Use after free in Dawn in Google Chrome prior to 125.0.6422.141 allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)

• CVE-2024-5495: Use after free in Dawn in Google Chrome prior to 125.0.6422.141 allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)

• CVE-2024-5496: Use after free in Media Session in Google Chrome prior to 125.0.6422.141 allowed a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code inside a sandbox via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)

• CVE-2024-5497: Out-of-bounds memory access in Keyboard Inputs in Google Chrome prior to 125.0.6422.141 allowed a remote attacker who convinced a user to engage in specific UI gestures to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)

• CVE-2024-5498: Use after free in Presentation API in Google Chrome prior to 125.0.6422.141 allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)

• CVE-2024-5499: Out of bounds write in Streams API in Google Chrome prior to 125.0.6422.141 allowed a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code inside a sandbox via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)

   

To force-install the latest Microsoft Edge update, head to Menu > Help and Feedback > About Microsoft Edge. Alternatively, go to edge://settings/help. Release notes for the initial Edge 125 feature update are available here.

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Like other image generators, Microsoft Designer Sticker Creator uses AI to generate stickers based on a specific description. This allows people without art skills to get the desired result for documents, invitations, posters, presentations, social media, messaging apps, etc. The service uses DALL-E to process your prompts and turn them into images.

Everyone with a Microsoft account can try Sticker Creator in Microsoft Designer. To do so, head to designer.microsoft.com/sticker-creator, sign in with your Microsoft account, enter a prompt, and click generate.

For example, let’s say you want to create a cute cactus sticker to use for a digital party invite. Enter a sticker description (“a portrait of a cactus with a happy face and a square badge beneath reading ‘Yay!’”) and click Generate. Check out the results!

All your stickers will be saved in the "My stickers" tab, plus you get to explore various prompts for extra inspiration. Just keep in mind that Sticker Creator currently does not support languages other than English.

To help better understand how things work and get the best result possible, Microsoft shared a few tips:

• Experiment with your prompts! There are many sample prompts included with Designer that use a fill-in-the-blank format, so you can use these to play around with Sticker Creator and see what the tool can do.
• Occasionally, you’ll see misspelled words within your sticker images due to limitations with DALL-E. Always double-check the spelling in your sticker (if they include text) and recreate it to fix any errors.
• If you’re ready to take your creation skills even further, check out these expert tips on using Sticker Creator and Microsoft Designer.

You can learn more about Microsoft Designer Sticker Creator in a blog post on the Microsoft 365 Insider website.

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This new Game Ready Driver provides the best gaming experience for the latest new games supporting DLSS 3 technology including Pax Dei and Still Wakes the Deep. Further support for new titles includes the launch of the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree expansion.

In addition, the Nvidia app now features optimal settings for Abiotic Factor, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, and XDefiant. With the latest additions, over 1,200 titles support one-click optimal settings in the Nvidia app, allowing you to quickly tune the game for the optimal experience on your hardware.

Fixed bugs in the Nvidia 555.99 driver include the following:

Fixed gaming bugs:

 

• [GeForce Experience] Flickering or black screen if Instant Replay is enabled.
• [NVIDIA app] FPS overlay showing NA in multiple games.

 

Fixed general bugs:

 

• CUDA 12.5 does not work with CUDA enabled Docker images.
• [Microsoft New Teams/Outlook] Visual artifacts when MFAA is enabled from the NVIDIA Control Panel.
• LG OLED48C4 TV is not detected as G-SYNC Compatible.
• LG 32GS95UE is not detected as G-SYNC Compatible.

There are also eight new G-SYNC Compatible displays from ASUS, Lenovo, LG, and Philips:

You can download Nvidia 555.99 WHQL on 64-bit Windows 10 and 11-based systems with the following graphic cards:

Note that there is a known bug where the GeForce Experience would not detect a new driver until you reboot your computer. This open issue still awaits its fix. Full release notes for driver 555.99 WHQL are available here (PDF).

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Here is what Microsoft removed from Windows Server 2025:

Here are the features Microsoft is no longer developing. They are still present in the operating system but do not expect new features or further developments. Microsoft will remove deprecated features from Windows Server at some point in the future (you can click each feature to learn more about its capabilities and deprecation):

More info about Windows Server 2025 and its features is available in the official documentation.

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If you recall, Intel introduced its Performance Hybrid or Big-Bigger architecture with 12th Gen Alder Lake processors wherein "Bigger" Performance cores or P-cores were combined with "Big" Efficiency cores or E-cores such that heavier tasks would be handled by the P-cores and lighter workloads would be dealt by E-cores.

However, and despite the introduction of Thread Director, Intel noticed that there was opportunity for improvements as the OS scheduler would generally send a task to the hyper-thread last since a physical core is always prioritized.

With Lunar Lake mobile CPUs, Intel claims it is seeing significant improvements in single-threaded performance and efficiency with its new optimized P-core with no HT. Intel says hyper-threading is better reserved for scenarios where multi-threading performance matters more.

The slides below detail the kind of performance and power efficiency improvements Intel observed with Lunar Lake's P-core by disabling the HT:

Intel adds that this is part of its broader effort to streamline the Lunar Lake architecture such that anything that does not contribute to the desired performance or power efficiency is cut out. The company explained what it set out to achieve with these architectures in the slides below. If you are wondering, Lion Cove is the Lunar Lake P-core architecture while Skymont is the one for E-cores.

Another change Lunar Lake has is the introduction of a new L0 D cache (level 0 data cache). Lunar Lake P-cores (Lion Cove) have 2.5MB of L2 cache per core and up to 12MB of shared L3 cache. Meanwhile, the E-cores (Skymont) has 4MB of shared L2 cache.

They form clusters of four P-cores and four E-cores and this 8-core hybrid design constitutes a Lunar Lake compute tile. It also has up to 32GB of on package memory that helps in faster data access and latency reduction.

Intel has also made changes to the Intel Thread Director (ITD). Unlike previous generations, ITD now schedules tasks to the E-cores first provided that the workload can be handled by it. Multi-threaded workloads too are handled this way first and according to the company, with this approach, Microsoft Teams sees a 35% reduction in power consumption.

Microsoft's Tapan Ansel, Senior Software Engineer, Windows Core OS, and Bret Barkelew, Principal Software Engineering Lead (Energy Efficiency), Windows Core OS, say:

With Intel Thread Director technology, which identifies the most power efficient CPUs on Lunar Lake platforms, the Windows OS is able to create a ‘containment zone’ to constrain work to only those CPUs and keep the other performant CPUs parked/idle for use only when needed. This is delivering significant power savings for Teams Video Conferencing scenarios that fit well within the containment zone on Lunar Lake.

All these enhancements and more lead to a 14% IPC improvement (AMD claims 16% with its new Zen 5) for Lunar Lake P-cores (Lion Cove) compared to Meteor Lake P-cores (Redwood Cove):

And on the E-core side, Intel claims Lunar Lake's Skymont is even faster than the P-cores on Raptor Lake (13th Gen); and compared to Meteor Lake's LP E-cores, Skymont is 68% faster with bigger gains seen in floating point (FP) throughput compared to integer.

Finally, we have the NPU or Neural Processing Unit. The company claims huge improvements with its new NPU 4 design. We already knew Intel managed to meet the 40 TOPS necessary for Copilot+ PCs since an earlier announcement.

As you can see in the image above, at 48 peak TOPS (pTOPS), it is 20% ahead of the 40 TOPS necessary and is slightly behind AMD's 50 TOPS on the new Ryzen AI 300 series announced yesterday. However, Intel claims a total platform performance (CPU + GPU + NPU) of 120 TOPS. AMD on the other hand claims a "Total Processor Performance" of 80 TOPS.

Thanks to the huge bump in AI processing on Lunar Lake compared to Meteor Lake, Intel says Stable Diffusion sees a massive improvement in power efficiency on the former.

We have covered the integrated graphics powered by the new Xe2 architecture separately here. Other key features include support for Bluetooth version 5.4, Wi-Fi 7, and more.

You can read about the rest of our Computex 2024 coverage in these articles here.

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Launching the classic File Explorer in Windows 11 is very easy. All you have to do is press Win + R, type "control," and then click the arrow up button next to the address bar. Voila, you have the old File Explorer without its fancy tabs or the WinUI redesign.

Alternatively, you can open the Start menu and launch Windows Tools (just do not go in there when in dark mode—it looks whack). Next, click anywhere in the navigation pane or use the address bar to navigate to another folder (via XDA).

It is also worth noting that you can have two different File Explorer generations side-by-side for some extra productivity and experimentation. Moreover, launching the old File Explorer in Windows 11 will get you back to the classic context menus, albeit only in the current window.

Although Microsoft has already improved and keeps on improving the redesigned File Explorer in Windows 11, many users still object to it due to various bugs, slowdowns, and other things. The one in Windows 10, on the other hand, still works great. It is snappy, responsive, and much more stable. Therefore, in light of Windows 10 running out of support in about a year, you can safely upgrade to Windows 11 right now if the new File Explorer is the only thing holding you back.

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The revised changelog for Windows 11 build 26100.712 says the following:

After updating to Windows 11, version 24H2 (Build 26100.712), you may see an Pcasvc.dll error dialog pop-up with the message “Missing entry: PcaWallpaperAppDetect”.

If your system is giving you the same problem, you can mitigate it by doing these steps:

1. Type “Task Scheduler” in the search box on the taskbar to find and open Task Scheduler.
2. On the left tree view of Task Scheduler, click on the “Task Scheduler Library” to expand the node.
3. Keep expanding the nodes by clicking on the tree view in the following order: Microsoft -> Windows -> Application Experience.
4. After clicking on the “Application Experience” node, find the task named “PcaWallpaperAppDetect” from the list view in the middle of Task Scheduler.
5. Right-click on that task, click “Delete” in the pop-up menu. Then click “Yes” on the confirmation dialog box asking, “Do you want to delete this task?”.

Note that Microsoft is gradually rolling out Windows 11 version 24H2 to Windows Insiders, which means not everyone can get right here and right now. If your computer cannot find the update, check out this article to learn how to force-update Windows 11 to the latest feature update. However, as you can see, oftentimes it is better to wait for the public release or even longer to avoid bugs and instabilities.

Full release notes for Windows 11 build 26100.712 are available here.

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In a recent post on Mozilla Hacks, Tarek ZIade explained how Firefox will use artificial intelligence to improve accessibility, namely by offering AI-generated image captions for people who rely on assistive technologies, such as screen readers.

Image captions or "alt text" provide the necessary context to readers, but sadly, many writers ignore alt text, resulting in nearly half of all the images missing proper descriptions. With the latest AI advancements, it is now possible to run a local machine-learning model to auto-generate captions without sending potentially sensitive info to servers.

Firefox 130 will ship in the Nightly Channel with a new feature for the PDF editor that will generate alt text using small open-source Transformer-based machine-learning models. Mozilla claims they are good at describing images without a heavy resource tax. Therefore, Firefox users should get image descriptions (first in PDFs) even on less powerful devices.

According to the blog post, small models can generate alt text with over 200 million parameters while taking less than 200MB of disk space and providing output in a matter of seconds. They are less detailed and accurate compared to mastodons of modern LLMs, like the latest GPT-4o, but developers do not want to overwhelm users with too much information. Therefore, Firefox will focus on producing a one-sentence description, such as this:

A group of people in an office celebrates with a lit birthday cake in the foreground and a smiling woman in the background.

There are several benefits of using a local model. Besides improved privacy (images do not go anywhere for processing), users get better resource efficiency, more transparency, less CO2 emissions (training large models generates a lot of carbon emissions), and frequent updates with regular enhancements.

You can find more technical information in the official post.

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According to the blog post, the Software Manager will appear instantly when pressed, and the window will be populated more quickly than before. On the security front, you now have an option in the settings to show unverified Flatpak packages, this is off by default and it’s not recommended to enable it either.

For those not familiar, Flatpaks are a relatively new Linux packages that come with all their dependencies bundled so that you don’t have errors installing them, they’re also sandboxed for more security.

Aside from letting users know that allowing unverified Flatpaks is not recommended, the team has also included a more in-depth warning that lets users know the Flatpak in question hasn’t been approved by the developers and could be maintained by anyone. It goes on to say an unverified Flatpak could be malware, and therefore, you should not enable support for these packages.

If you do enable unverified Flatpaks, you will see a red warning for these apps on their product pages that reads “Unverified Flatpak.” This can help ensure you don’t accidentally install an unofficial Flatpak that could be loaded with malware.

Presumably, these improvements to the Software Manager will ship with Linux Mint 22, which is based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. Strangely, we normally get a new Linux Mint version just a month after the Ubuntu release, but so far, there is still no news of a release date, and not even the beta ISOs are being tested yet.

Usually, we get a beta ISO released for about two weeks so that bugs can be fixed, and then we get the final version.

Source: Linux Mint

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In case you have not been keeping up, Microsoft last month introduced its new Copilot+ PC which are essentially AI PCs that meet a certain performance threshold such that AI-based Windows features can run on it. One such cool new feature is Recall which essentially remembers user activity.

However, several people raised their concerns over this which prompted Microsoft to share additional details so as to address data privacy concerns. This is now a hot topic of discussion in the tech sphere including at Neowin as the opinions on the usefulness and the dangers of Recall are divided.

Recently a cybersecurity researcher also published their own report on Recall exposing the potential danger the stored user data faces from stealer malware.

While Recall can be disabled inside Settings, the feature is enabled by default in the OOBE (Out of Box Experience) when a Windows 11 Copilot+ PC is set up. Currently, it only tells the user what the feature is good for with no option to opt-out.

However, this may be set to change according to Zac Bowden of Windows Central who says Microsoft is internally discussing the idea of not enabling Recall by default during the OOBE setup.

While this is unconfirmed news, if true, it certainly will seem like a step in the right direction. If you recall, this is not the only feature Microsoft wants to default-enable as the company is also testing BitLocker encryption at the moment.

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According to Statcounter and its latest findings, Windows 11 is currently at 27.76%, which is a 1.33 point increase over April 2024. Year-over-year growth is 4.81 points (22.95% in May 2023). Windows 10, as expected, is going down again. After clinging back to over 70% in April 2024, it lost a chunk of users and reached a 68.34% mark.

1. Windows 10 - 68.34% (-1.69 point)
2. Windows 11 - 27.76% (+1.33 point)
3. Windows 7 - 2.86% (+0.05 point)
4. Windows 8.1 - 0.43%
5. Windows XP - 0.37% (+0.04 point)

It is certainly odd to see Windows XP registering on Statcounter's gauges, considering the platform uses systems with access to the modern internet to generate its monthly reports, and Windows XP has now been out of support for over a decade. A recent experiment showed how insanely dangerous it is to use Windows XP in modern days, not to mention keeping it connected to the internet.

Windows 10 will soon join the ranks of unsupported releases. Microsoft plans to end Windows 10 support in October 2025, and it has already published a new support page where users can find all the info about Windows 10's inevitable demise. To convince users to switch, Microsoft made a list of new features in Windows 11, some of which, like celebrity gossip on the taskbar, are pretty hilarious.

You can find more information about the Windows side of the PC market on the official Statcounter website. Click here to learn how the platform gathers information for its monthly stats.

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Although there is no reason to believe we will have a new most popular browser in the world any time soon, Chrome lost quite a chunk of users in May 2024. Statcounter says its market share went down from 65.65% to 64.87%.

Apple's Safari browser is third, with a respectable 8.79% market share. Firefox is fourth with 6.64%, and Opera closes the list of top 5 desktop browsers with a 3.23% share.

1. Google Chrome - 64.87% (-0.78 points)
2. Microsoft Edge - 13.14% (+0.32 points)
3. Apple Safari - 8.79% (+0.35 points)
4. Mozilla Firefox - 6.64% (-0.09 points)
5. Opera - 3.23% (+0.22 points)

The mobile desktop market is dominated by two main players: Google and Apple. Chrome holds 65.94%, while Apple's Safari has 23.47%. Microsoft also has a mobile version of Edge, but its market share is nowhere near even the Samsung Internet with its 4.43% market share. Statcounter claims that Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android has roughly 0.34%.

Disrupting a well-established market is a very hard task, but Microsoft is working on some features that could help Edge gain more users. Extensions, for one, may bring more attention to Microsoft Edge on mobile platforms, but the company has yet to bring extension support from preview channels to all users.

1. Google Chrome - 65.94% (+0.19 points)
2. Apple Safari - 23.47% (-0.30 points)
3. Samsung Internet - 4.43% (+0.06 points)
4. Opera - 2.16% (-0.02 points)
5. UC Browser - 1.48% (+0.03 points)

You can find more information on the official Statcounter website.

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New beta version of its Nvidia app with 120 FPS AV1 recording and more

You may remember that in February, Nvidia launched the first public beta of a new PC app that was created to take over from the Nvidia Control Panel, GeForce Experience, and RTX Experience apps. Today, the company revealed it will update the app on June 4 with some new features.

In a blog post, the company said the Nvidia app beta update will now support recording of gameplay in both AV1 SDR and HDR formats. It stated:

New with this release, the NVIDIA app now gives gamers the option of recording at 120 frames per second, for smoother, more immersive playback. While this option is available for all codecs, GeForce RTX 40 Series gamers can record even higher quality captures with AV1 at the same bit rates when compared to H.264.

The update will also return the Performance Panel which includes one-click automatic GPU tuning for gamers who don't want to take a lot of time fine-tuning the performance of their games on their PC. The In-Game Overlay will also be improved with the update including a better way to put in filters in its Photo Mode.

Star Wars Outlaws will support Nvidia DLSS 3.5 for its launch

The PC version of Ubisoft's upcoming open world game Star Wars Outlaws will support Nvidia's DLSS 3.5 graphics technology when it launches in late August. In a blog post, Nvidia stated:

As part of our collaboration with Massive Entertainment and LucasFilm Games on Star Wars Outlaws, the game’s PC version is also being enhanced with NVIDIA RTX Direct Illumination (RTXDI), plus ray-traced reflections, ray-traced shadows, and ray-traced global illumination, taking visuals to the next level.

The blog post also announced that the PC version of Marvel Rivals, the upcoming superhero team shooter from NetEase Games, will support DLSS 3.0 at launch

Sign up for GeForce Rewards and get three free months of Microsoft PC Game Pass

Finally, people who sign up for GeForce Rewards will be able to claim three free months of Microsoft's PC Game Pass starting on June 4, which normally costs $9.99 per month. You can check out Nvidia's blog post to find out how to sign up for Nvidia Rewards and claim your three free months of PC Game Pass, which will give you access to play over 100 PC games. The offer ends on July 5 and you have to redeem your three free months by August 30.

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If you use PowerPoint a lot but want an easier way to convert your presentation to another format, the Microsoft 365 Roadmap added a new entry this week that might be of interest. Due out later in June, the web and desktop versions of PowerPoint will add a new Copilot-based feature:

Copilot in PowerPoint will now be able to support automatically generating a presentation based on a PDF file. This is in addition to the existing support for automatically generating a presentation based on a Word document.

In July, Microsoft Teams will get a number of new features. One of them that's coming to the desktop, Mac, and web versions will automatically hide inactive Teams channels;

Easily keep your channels list relevant. Teams will automatically detect inactive channels you haven’t interacted with in a while, and automatically hide them for you. You have the option to review the list of channels and unhide some or all of them, opt out of automatic hiding from settings, or initiate this process on demand.

The desktop version of Teams will also add new sound notification options in July.

You can change the sound of your notifications to help you stay focused, prioritize quickly and avoid distractions. You can as well make urgent notifications and priority contact notifications more prominent. You can also mute notification sounds when you are busy or in a meeting.

All versions of Teams will get a new Copilot feature in July:

You can now ask Copilot in chat and channels to respond to questions regarding a conversation in a specific time period, for example: last month.

Finally, users of the new Outlook for Windows app, and the web version of Outlook, are getting a Copilot-based rewriting feature in July:

Similar to Microsoft Word, highlight and rewrite capabilities will allow users to select specific sentences in their email draft and have them rewritten by Copilot. Using highlight and rewrite when drafting with Copilot in Outlook, users will be able to give detailed instructions on how to rewrite and be able to modify tone and length.

That is our look back at the last seven days on the Microsoft 366 roadmap. Come back again in a week as we do this again and check out what's new on the site.

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Here is the changelog:

Changes and Improvements gradually being rolled out to the Dev 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.

 

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

 

[Copilot in Windows]

 

As part of this update, we’re also evolving the Copilot experience on Windows as an app that will be pinned to the taskbar. This enables users to get the benefits of a traditional app experience, including the ability to resize, move, and snap the window – feedback we’ve heard from users throughout the preview of Copilot in Windows. This model also allows Microsoft to more agilely develop and optimize the experience based on user feedback.

 

As part of the Copilot experience’s evolution on Windows to become an app that is pinned to the taskbar, we are retiring the WIN + C keyboard shortcut. For new devices that ship with a Copilot key, this key will open Copilot. For existing devices without that key, using the WIN + (number position for Copilot pinned to your taskbar) is a great way to open Copilot.

 

[Settings]

 

We are beginning to roll out a new Linked devices page under Settings > Accounts that allows you to manage PCs and Xbox consoles that you are signed in to with your Microsoft account. This settings page will only show on the Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 and if you’re signed into Windows with your Microsoft account.

 

 

New linked devices page under Accounts settings highlighted in a red box.

 

Fixes for everyone in the Dev Channel

 

[Widgets]

 

• Fixed the issue causing the WIN + W keyboard shortcut to not work correctly and open the Widgets board.

 

[Other]

 

• This update brings Country and Operator Settings Asset (COSA) profiles up to date for certain mobile operators.
• This update addresses an issue that affects the installation of a Windows update. It fails to complete. This occurs when you have to restart your device more than once.
• This update addresses an issue that affects a device that uses an enablement KB (EKB). It might stop you from installing a new Windows update.

You can check out the full blog post here. It looks like Microsoft is giving members of the Windows Insider Program in the Beta Channel a break this week with no new update for those users.

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When the updates dropped, Microsoft's changelog stated, "Microsoft is not currently aware of any issues with this update." However, since then some people who have installed the updates have reported issues with using the taskbar, including reports of it disappearing.

Microsoft has since updated the changelog noting the problems. It states:

After installing this update, you might face issues using the taskbar. You might notice the taskbar temporarily glitching, not responding, disappearing, and reappearing automatically. Additionally, this issue might be reflected in the Event Viewer with Application Error ‘Event ID 1000’ under Windows Logs, listing 'Explorer.EXE' as the 'Faulting application name' and 'Taskbar.View.dll' as the 'Faulting module name'.

The changelog has offered a workaround for this problem as well:

This issue is resolved using Known Issue Rollback (KIR). Please note that it might take up to 24 hours for the resolution to propagate automatically to Home and Pro devices and non-managed business devices. If you have a Windows Home or Pro edition device or a device not managed by an organization’s IT department, you must restart your device to receive the resolution.

 

IT administrators can resolve this issue by installing and configuring the special Group Policy listed below. The special Group Policy can be found in Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > .

 

For information on deploying and configuring these special Group Policy, please see How to use Group Policy to deploy a Known Issue Rollback.

 

Group Policy downloads with Group Policy name:

 

• Download for Windows 11, version 23H2 and 22H2 -Windows 11 22H2 KB5037853 240505_142035 Known Issue Rollback

 

Important: You will need to install and configure the Group Policy for your version of Wi7ndows[sic] to resolve this issue. You will also need to restart your device(s) to apply the group policy setting. Note that the Group Policy will temporarily disable the change causing the taskbar issue.

Microsoft also released a new non-security preview version of Windows 10 22H2 this week, which does have a number of known issues.

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