The end of the Windows Cortana app was revealed via a support note on Microsoft's website. The page did not offer a specific date in 2023 for when the app's support will shut down. The page did say that Cortana will continue as a digital assistant for Outlook on mobile apps. It will also be available on Microsoft Teams on mobile, on display, and in Teams rooms.

The support page makes it pretty clear that Microsoft is moving away from digital assistants like Cortana in favor of AI assistants like Bing Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and the recently announced Windows Copilot. It also mentioned the integrated voice access feature in Windows 11 as an alternative to Cortana.

Microsoft first launched the Cortana digital assistant in 2014 as a way to compete with Apple's iOS virtual assistant Siri. However, Cortana never really caught on, and in 2021, it killed support for the iOS and Android apps.

With Microsoft now going all in with AI, even its CEO Satya Nadella admitted back in March that virtual assistants like Cortana were a dead end. He even stated in an interview with the Financial Times, "They were all dumb as a rock." He added about Cortana, "We had a product that was supposed to be the new front-end to a lot of [information] that didn’t work.”

Nadella and the rest of Microsoft clearly believe that AI assistants like Bing Chat and its Copilot services will do the jobs that Cortana was supposed to do. Only time will tell if that prediction will be correct.

Microsoft will kill support for the Cortana Windows app in late 2023

In addition, the new Edge 114 stable version has some policy changes and a number of security updates. Here is the changelog:

Version 114.0.1823.37: June 2, 2023

Fixed various bugs and performance issues for Stable and Extended Stable release.

Stable channel security updates are listed here.

Feature update

Microsoft Edge Workspaces. Edge Workspaces provides a way for customers to organize their browsing tasks into dedicated windows. Edge Workspaces lets users share a set of browser tabs so working groups can view the same websites and latest working files in one place and stay on the same page. Each Edge Workspace contains its own set of tabs and favorites, all created and curated by the user and their collaborators. Edge Workspaces are automatically saved and kept up to date. For more information, see Microsoft Edge Workspaces.

Policy updates

New policies

• StandaloneHubsSidebarEnabled - Standalone Sidebar Enabled
• ShowDownloadsToolbarButton - Show Downloads button on the toolbar

Obsoleted policy

• MicrosoftRootStoreEnabled - Determines whether the Microsoft Root Store and built-in certificate verifier will be used to verify server certificates

Additional policy changes

• EnhanceSecurityMode - BasicMode is deprecated
• EdgeWorkspacesEnabled - If the policy isn't configured users are able to access the Microsoft Edge Workspaces feature

You can find out more about the new policies at Microsoft's site. You can also learn more about the new security updates to Edge 114 at the Microsoft security site, which includes info on two specific Edge security patches.

During Build 2023 last week, Microsoft announced some new features coming to Edge. They included a new mode called Edge for Business, and a redesign of the browser with the Mica material, rounded corners and more.

Microsoft Edge 114 launches in the stable channel with Workspaces and more

One of the indicators that let us know that a new Linux Mint ISO is coming in the next few days is the ISO Images page. You can see which ISOs are undergoing testing and whether they passed or failed the tests, and then the release arrives a few days after passing. At the time of writing, no beta images have undergone testing so we are still a little way away from the beta release but it shouldn’t be long now.

Lefebvre also announced that the Xfce edition of Mint would ship with Xfce 4.18 and that XDG Desktop Portal support was added in Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce editions bringing global dark mode options.

The XDG Desktop Portal has three options which affect applications: prefer light, prefer dark, and let the applications decide. Some apps that support it include Firefox, Xed, Thingy, Xreader, Xviewer, and Pix. It’s also supported by many Flatpaks and GNOME/LibAdwaita apps.

In addition to these changes, the Software Manager has been given a UI refresh, includes a better scoring and sorting algorithm, and has a more tuned package list for an overall better experience. As the second point release for Linux Mint 21, it will only get updates for as long as Linux Mint 21, so that’s until 2027.

As a point release, upgrading from other Linux Mint 21 versions should be relatively easy and you should not encounter any issues. Neowin will include upgrade instructions or a link to upgrade instructions in later coverage.

Linux Mint 21.2 development cycle closes, beta ISOs could land soon

The operating system assigns a particular task to a processor thread which is identified as "idle" by the OS. However, at the moment, the Linux kernel only identifies idle threads within the local LLC. However, with the latest proposed patch, this is set to change as "select_idle_sibling()" will now be able to consider external LLC as well. This means the OS will be able to schedule and queue tasks quicker in case there are idle threads on another CCX (CPU Complex) or CCD (Core Compute Die).

Linux kernel engineer Peter Zijlstra sent the following patch titled "sched/fair: Multi-LLC select_idle_sibling()" recently. It reads:

Tejun reported that when he targets workqueues towards a specific LLC on his Zen2 machine with 3 cores / LLC and 4 LLCs in total, he gets significant idle time.

This is, of course, because of how select_idle_sibling() will not consider anything outside of the local LLC, and since all these tasks are short running the periodic idle load balancer is ineffective.

And while it is good to keep work cache local, it is better to not have significant idle time. Therefore, have select_idle_sibling() try other LLCs inside the same node when the local one comes up empty.

The images below show AMD's Zen 2 CCX, CCD, and the cache hierarchy in the case of a single CCD (left) and dual CCDs (right):

The change talks about Zen 2 or Ryzen 3000 series CPUs in particular, but its predecessors like Zen+ and the original Zen architecture also used a similar approach where each CCX has its own L3 cache or LLC, and they inter-communicate via the Infinity Fabric.

The images below are the original Zen core architecture and its L1, L2, and L3 caches:

AMD continues to use this with Zen 3 (Ryzen 5000) and Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000) series CPUs as well. Hence, the upcoming optimizations will be applicable throughout the stack. This is actually something older Zen CPU users will appreciate as Microsoft has deemed the Zen-based Ryzen 1000 series chips unsupported for Windows 11.

The company moved to a 32MB Shared LLC (SLLC) L3 design on Zen 3 from a 16MB one on Zen 2:

While we are on the topic of LLC, AMD's main x86 rival Intel is also working on a new Level 4 (L4) cache for its 14th Gen Meteor Lake CPUs that could enable faster boot times.

Unlike Windows 11, older AMD Ryzen will be supported and get performance boost on Linux

The company announced recently that it won't release feature updates for Windows 10 anymore, which means that users of the operating system can't expect to receive lots of new features in the coming years, not that Microsoft did release many new features for the operating system in the past two years.

This series puts the focus on Windows 11 as a consequence going forward. Once, if, Windows 12 is released, it will be include it in the monthly overview.

New and improved Windows 11 features in May 2023

Photos app

Microsoft published a Photos app update in May 2023. The update added a new Slideshow feature, which allows users to sit back and relax while different photos are displayed on the screen.

Another new feature adds a timeline to the scrollbar which may help going through a large folder of photos. The Spot Fix tool, finally, allows users to remove unwanted portions on an image.

You can check out Ashwin's review of the new Photos app or head over to Microsoft's blog post instead.

Start Menu notification badges ads

Microsoft has accelerated the rollout of what it calls notification badges for Microsoft accounts on the Start Menu. These promote the company's OneDrive service for now, but may display different types of information in the future.

Microsoft notes that this can be adjusted via Settings > Personalization > Start..

Start Menu website recommendations re-introduced

Microsoft removed linking to websites in the recommended section of the Start Menu after a public outcry. The company has now re-introduced the feature in development builds and promised, that it has adjusted the feature.

One of the main changes is that Microsoft is now pulling recommendations from a user's browsing history instead of a general pool of popular sites.

It is unclear if links will be displayed if users do not use Microsoft Edge, or Google Chrome, if continuous import has been enabled. Microsoft notes that this can be adjusted via Settings > Personalization > Start.

The question why anyone would want to see website recommendations based on the personal browsing history in Start remains unanswered for now.

Microsoft is also trying out a new ranking for Recommended items that "considers when the file was last used, the file extension, and more".

Dev Drive

Dev Drive is a new storage volume designed specifically for development related tasks. It uses the Resilient File System (ReFS) and includes " file system optimizations and features that enable developers to better manage their performance and security profile" according to Microsoft.

Dev Drives can be set up under System > Storage > Advanced Storage Settings > Disks & Volumes. Requirements include a size of at least 50 gigabytes and systems with 8 gigabytes of RAM or higher.

Microsoft Defender Antivirus' performance mode was designed specifically for Dev Drive to "minimize impact on developer workloads".

Smaller noteworthy Windows changes

• Third-party widget for Facebook is now available for testing. It displays notifications from the social networking site in the widget's interface. Widgets are also getting a new widget picker experience, that displays an image as a visual preview.
• Microsoft is rolling out animated icons for Widgets on the taskbar.
• The new volume mixer experience, which displays volume mixers for each individual app, is now available for testing in the Canary channel.
• File Explorer's Details pane, which Windows 11 users may activate with the shortcut Alt-Shift-P or via menus, has been "modernized". It displays additional information, including recent activity, related files and related conversations.
• Microsoft is testing two different Windows Spotlight implementations, and has added support for 4K portrait images and "the ability to learn more about each desktop image".
• The Narrator tool "provides a more succinct and efficient reading experience while working in Microsoft Excel". Microsoft has detailed the changes here.
• Live Captions support has been added for Danish, English (Ireland), French (Canada), Korean and Portuguese (Portugal).
• Windows Subsystem for Android on Windows 111 was updated. New features include package verification for apps on WSA, a preference to set assigned memory to Android, and Linux kernel was updated to 5.15.94.
• Support for vTPM in Hyper-V on Windows on Arm (Arm64) builds.
• Support for Microsoft Endpoint DLP on Windows on Arm (Arm64) builds
• Support for bridging adapters using netsh was added.
• Passpoint Wi-Fi networks will now support enhanced connection performance.
• Bluetooth Personal Area networks can now be joined under Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Devices.
• WPA3 support to Phone Link's instant hotspot feature was added.
• The Advanced network settings page of the Settings app now links to the adapter options directly.
• New way to view saved Wi-fi passwords under Settings > Network & internet > Wi-Fi and “Manage known networks”.
• Backup and restore now supports syncing and restoring installed Microsoft Store applications. Check out Ashwin's review of the updated Windows 11 backup tool.
• Text authoring experience in voice access.
  • You can say “correct [text]” or “correct that” to correct a specific piece of text or last dictated text. The correction window appears with a list of options labelled with numbers.
  • You can say “click [number]” to select any option from the list. If you choose an alternate word from the window , the selected text will be replaced by the word. You can also say “spell that” to dictate the correct spelling of the text.
  • Users can directly use the “spell that” or “spell out” command to dictate the right spelling of non-standard words such as usernames, topics, etc.
• Narrator natural voices in Chinese.
• New option to turn off toast notifications for certain apps.

Now You: anything that you find interesting or useful?

Windows 11 Development: overview of the May 2023 changes

The ad is not the first for Microsoft Teams in Windows 11. Back in late 2021, a Microsoft Teams advertisement was causing freezes on Windows 11 systems it was displayed on.

Get Help is a support application, designed to assist users in fixing issues that they experience on their Windows 11 devices. Windows 11 users may type the problem that they are facing, e.g., how to set up a scanner or can't install Office, and the Get Help app returns potential solutions for these issues.

Solutions may range from step-by-step instructions to running smaller tools to get things sorted out. Sometimes, Get Help may display suggestions right away, for instance, when the device's Internet connection is disrupted.

Get Help may not have the answers for all problems, but it does cover common issues that users face. It is a good starting point before the Internet is used to find out more about an issue and get advanced troubleshooting suggestions.

Get Help Advertisement

When Get Help is opened now, it may display an ad for Microsoft Teams at the very top of the application's interface. The ad is shown with a slight delay, likely because it needs to be retrieved from a Microsoft server.

It states: "Increase productivity and collaboration all while staying organized, using a new meeting solution designed for small businesses."

A learn more link is provided and an x-icon to hide the advertisement in the Get Help interface. Microsoft does not reveal the name of the app in the advertisement. It is unclear if all users, including Home users, get the ad that is aimed at small businesses, or if other variants are displayed.

Activation of the link in the advertisement opens the Microsoft Teams Essentials subscription website. This particular version of Microsoft Teams is available for $4 per user and month.

The webpage lists features and requirements as well, which help users better understand what it is used for.

A click on the close icon next to the advertisement hides it in the application. Problem is, the action hides it only for the session. If you close the Get Help application and restart it, you will see the advertisement for Microsoft Teams again.

Closing Words

Microsoft is again using built-in tools and features of the Windows 11 operating system to advertise some of its other services. The operating system has some controls to disable advertisement, but these are not found in a central location, but sprinkled across different locations.

The Microsoft Teams ad in the Get Help application is just the latest in a long list of changes designed to get Windows 11 users to subscribe to Microsoft services. Some of these have not made it beyond the development stage, while others are used in stable versions of Windows 11.

Only recently, Microsoft updated the official Weather app to show the MSN news feed and ads, but it decided to remove the feed and most ads again.

The new Home page of the Settings app may show ads for Microsoft 365 in the future, and the profile icon of the Start Menu may show an error bade and promotions for OneDrive.

The trend will continue for the foreseeable future, as it appears to be lucrative enough for Microsoft to do so. Windows 11 users can't really do much about it. While it is possible to disable certain ad-related settings, Microsoft has developed a habit of ignoring existing preferences sometimes.

Now You: what is your take on this trend? Will it ever reverse?

Windows 11's Get Help support app is showing ads as well now

In related news, Microsoft has now added support for installing ZIP files on its Windows Package Manager CLI or winget with the latest version. Aside from that, it has also received native PowerShell support, and many more changes and bugfixes. These two major features were requested back in 2020.

The full changelog is given below:

Features

• Support installing .zip files #140
• Add Native PowerShell Support #221
• Support --no-upgrade option for install flow #2655

Bugs

• Fix issue that only 1 dependency package is installed #2761
• Crash in list command #2273
• Add SYSTEM to explicit ACLs #2370

What's Changed

• Add refreshed Store source certs by @yao-msft in #3149
• Block msix provisioning api calls where known OS bugs exist by @yao-msft in #2855
• Add rest interface 1.4 to supported list by @yao-msft in #2853
• Return localization independent string for help links by @AmelBawa-msft in #2786
• Don't treat the COM subcommands as distinct for telemetry by @JohnMcPMS in #2792
• Update PowerShell Module Dependency Docs by @ryfu-msft in #2797
• Adjust spacing and punctuation for manifest validation messages by @Trenly in #2805
• Apply latest localized strings patch by @ryfu-msft in #2816
• UpdateBinVer script support for updating build version only by @yao-msft in #2818
• Stop using m_summary in the global globals for telemetry by @florelis in #2820
• Enable long aliases by @Trenly in #2107
• Check symlink target before removal by @ryfu-msft in #2242
• Bump version to 1.4 by @ryfu-msft in #2263
• Apply latest localization patch by @ryfu-msft in #2264
• Feat: Show package tags by @Trenly in #2235
• Add support for UnsupportedArguments by @ryfu-msft in #2216
• Validate manifest installers (MSIX) by @AmelBawa-msft in #2215
• Improve index dependency consistency check by @yao-msft in #2247
• Fix spacing in 1.2 singleton schema by @ryfu-msft in #2276
• Fix unsupported args unit tests by @ryfu-msft in #2277
• Mitigate crash that can occur when installed version is null by @JohnMcPMS in #2278
• Create WinGetUtil functionality for running installed package correlation by @JohnMcPMS in #2221
• Addition of Initial 1.3 Schema by @ryfu-msft in #2189
• Add extra compilation flags for debug info by @florelis in #2281
• Migrate FabricBot Tasks to Config-as-Code by @msftbot in #2285
• Update fabricbot.json by @vedantmgoyal2009 in #2293
• Fix WinGetUtil WinGetCreateManifest result by @yao-msft in #2296
• Add alternate name to Usage String by @Trenly in #2268
• Prevent null characters from getting into SQLite by @JohnMcPMS in #2289
• Schema additions for Zip support by @ryfu-msft in #2288
• Feat: Wait upon command completion by @Trenly in #2236
• Move Release Notes to new line and indent by @Trenly in #2312
• Remove /Zi compilation flag by @florelis in #2325
• Update VCLibs file hash in correlation test script by @florelis in #2326
• Add UndockedRegFreeWinRT by @jontab in #2333
• Implementation for Zip Install (Non-Portable) by @ryfu-msft in #2320
• Don't fail fast by @JohnMcPMS in #2335
• Fix WinGetUtil index operations for manifest dependencies without min version by @yao-msft in #2337
• Explicit ACLs by @JohnMcPMS in #2324
• Prevent access to parent directories from relativeFilePath for archive install by @ryfu-msft in #2342
• Make zip install an experimental feature by @ryfu-msft in #2351
• Add InstallationMetadata to manifests for future deep installation detection by @yao-msft in #2350
• Expand WinMD discovery by @jontab in #2348
• Move to using sqlite3_errmsg to extract a contextual error for SQLite failures by @JohnMcPMS in #2352
• Add in-process and out-of-process E2E tests by @AmelBawa-msft in #2315
• Implement FolderFileWatcher by @msftrubengu in #2336
• Update CsWinRTWindowsMetadata value by @AmelBawa-msft in #2357
• Remove correlation blocker for remote->local in some cases by @JohnMcPMS in #2362
• Update documentation with 1.3 settings by @ryfu-msft in #2363
• Add Microsoft.WinGet.Client PowerShell Module files by @jontab in #2314
• Fix file overwrite warning displayed on clean first install by @ryfu-msft in #2375
• Logging improvements by @JohnMcPMS in #2378
• Add SYSTEM to explicit ACLs by @JohnMcPMS in #2370
• Remove tests that no longer serve a purpose by @JohnMcPMS in #2379
• Check for symlink creation privilege for portable install by @ryfu-msft in #2369
• Server certificate pinning for Store source by @JohnMcPMS in #2347
• Remove scope filter from being applied to portables by @ryfu-msft in #2383
• Validate SignatureSha256 for MSIX packages during the manifest validation by @AmelBawa-msft in #2384
• Enable MSI testing in CI/CD pipeline by @JohnMcPMS in #2386
• Standardize 'Show' labels to manifest fields by @Trenly in #2311
• fix ms-windows-store link not rendered in md by @iamCristYe in #2403
• Add command aliases by @Trenly in #2390
• Add support for RequireExplicitUpgrade manifest element by @florelis in #1795
• Add the ability to specify "scope or unknown" via COM by @JohnMcPMS in #2402
• Collect scope in installer metadata by @JohnMcPMS in #2415
• Copy winget unpackaged logs in E2E tests by @florelis in #2441
• Ensure default values are passed to nested installers within zip by @ryfu-msft in #2413
• Add prompts when installer aborts terminal or needs install location by @florelis in #1814
• Update Labels from Hash Command by @Trenly in #2431
• Add DisplayName to InstallationMetadata installed files by @yao-msft in #2442
• Use UpgradeCode for matching MSI apps by @florelis in #2418
• Add support for installing portables without developer mode and running as admin by @ryfu-msft in #2401
• Increase manifest schema version to 1.4 by @yao-msft in #2451
• Update Documentation for schema 1.2 by @Trenly in #2429
• Increase PackageIdentifier segments to max 8 by @yao-msft in #2461
• Use check-spelling/check-spelling@v0.0.20 by @jsoref in #2467
• ZIP support spec by @ryfu-msft in #2270
• Show PurchaseUrl if present in manifest by @Trenly in #2416
• Add PortableIndex for tracking portable files by @ryfu-msft in #2459
• Add $schema to cgmanifest.json by @JamieMagee in #2487
• Update README link to VS Installer Project extension by @bsivanov in #2488
• Removed en-US in links by @ImJoakim in #2494
• Add logo to README.md by @vedantmgoyal2009 in #2507
• Return error codes for dependencies failure by @hackean-msft in #2410
• Add ExpectedReturnCode::ReturnResponse for PackageInUseByApplication by @Trenly in #2492
• Suppress reboot by default on msiexec based installers by @gerardog in #2499
• Fix installer metadata collection by @yao-msft in #2517
• Add Aliases to allow for quick upgrade of all and unknown by @Trenly in #2518
• Expose deeper installation detection through Com by @yao-msft in #2420
• Add PureLib subtree by @ryfu-msft in #2511
• Suppress reboot by default on Inno Setup based installers by @SpecterShell in #2536
• Add client support for parsing rest schema v1.4 by @yao-msft in #2473
• Add experimental argument to open logs folder by @Trenly in #2510
• Add support for installing portables from a zip by @ryfu-msft in #2500
• Map operation return code for msstore type installation failure as well by @yao-msft in #2540
• Fix installer renaming failure from encoded url by @yao-msft in #2555
• Add Pure to component governance manifest by @ryfu-msft in #2556
• Added WinGetUtil E2E tests by @AmelBawa-msft in #2542
• Add space before path when files remain on uninstall by @Trenly in #2560
• Additional logging when validating portable file fails by @Trenly in #2562
• Make Symlink Target Canonical by @Trenly in #2563
• Implement archive malware scan for local manifests by @ryfu-msft in #2566
• Improve installer selection during upgrade by @yao-msft in #2570
• Add zip installation to experimental features section of Settings.md by @infinitepower18 in #2584
• Make Install flow aware of package installed status by @yao-msft in #2539
• Enable mechanism for some control over correlation by @JohnMcPMS in #2577
• Mini spec on upcoming install and upgrade flow improvements by @yao-msft in #2535
• Download MSIX installer during manifest validation (if necessary) by @AmelBawa-msft in #2587
• Always fall back on msix streaming failure by @yao-msft in #2590
• Remove MSIX installers after validation is done by @AmelBawa-msft in #2591
• Fix error when everything fails by @JohnMcPMS in #2593
• Fix PowerShell module for release configuration by @ryfu-msft in #2599
• Treat little numbers as big numbers by @JohnMcPMS in #2606
• Fix compliance issues by setting Newtonsoft.Json to recommended version by @yao-msft in #2609
• Fix internal build by @yao-msft in #2610
• Added info about reinstalling App Installer to troubleshooting README.md by @AdmiralSnyder in #2616
• Update protocols max items to 64 by @ryfu-msft in #2620
• Print command aliases added on portable install by @Trenly in #2621
• Add Expected Return Code for InvalidParameter by @Trenly in #2635
• Add an issue option to guide users to winget-pkgs for package issues by @SpecterShell in #2658
• Get arguments when using archive type package by @Trenly in #2660
• Revert "Get arguments when using archive type package" by @Trenly in #2663
• Disable toast notification for silent mode for MSStore type installation by @yao-msft in #2652
• Support --no-upgrade option for install flow by @yao-msft in #2655
• Group policy control for BypassCertificatePinningForMicrosoftStore by @AmelBawa-msft in #2637
• Update localized strings by @ryfu-msft in #2684
• Manifest (Msix) installer validation - Try parsing package version by @AmelBawa-msft in #2692
• Update NuGet Packages by @Trenly in #2690
• Don't enable/disable admin settings if group policy prevents it by @AmelBawa-msft in #2683
• Add spectre configuration for PureLib by @ryfu-msft in #2704
• Fix renaming issue with invalid file character url by @yao-msft in #2708
• Remove and Add UndockedRegFreeWinRT library by @ryfu-msft in #2713
• Clean build from winget-cli by @msftrubengu in #2698
• Upgrade check-spelling to v0.0.21 by @jsoref in #2728
• Add source ls alias for source list by @florelis in #2736
• Standardize how arguments are used in resource strings by @florelis in #2737
• Support for PowerShell cmdlets in admin mode by @ryfu-msft in #2642
• Add PowerShell cmdlet help text and examples by @ryfu-msft in #2732
• Miscellaneous project cleanup by @yao-msft in #2738
• spelling: installation by @jsoref in #2739
• Update powershell module target framework to 4.8 by @ryfu-msft in #2741
• Allow upgrade for unknown version packages by @ryfu-msft in #2747
• Add ARM and ARM64 build configuration for powershell module by @ryfu-msft in #2744
• Bump Newtonsoft.Json from 13.0.1 to 13.0.2 in /src/AppInstallerCLIE2ETests by @dependabot in #2754
• Bump Newtonsoft.Json from 13.0.1 to 13.0.2 in /src/WinGetUtilInterop.UnitTests by @dependabot in #2753
• Infra changes for Microsoft.WinGet.Client and AppInstallerCLIE2ETests by @msftrubengu in #2746
• Remove nuget config file by @ryfu-msft in #2756
• Add empty pin command by @florelis in #2733
• Update DesktopAppInstaller.adml by @AmelBawa-msft in #2759
• Fix issue that only 1 dependency package is installed by @yao-msft in #2761
• Export command for winget settings. by @msftrubengu in #2719
• Suppress warnings for CA1416 in PowerShell module by @ryfu-msft in #2762
• Restore nuget.config file for public dependencies by @ryfu-msft in #2763
• Separate Archive Scan argument related to security from --force by @Trenly in #2622
• Fix winget after a call to winget settings export by @msftrubengu in #2767
• Add additional admin setting to match security related group policies by @yao-msft in #2772
• Prepare PowerShell Module for Release Build by @ryfu-msft in #2768
• More localization friendly source strings and context commenting by @AmelBawa-msft in #2454
• Make zip feature stable by @ryfu-msft in #2774
• Add scope support to more commands and add provisioning support for msix and msstore types by @yao-msft in #2766
• Split tests in Workflow.cpp into multiple files by @florelis in #2773
• Update localized strings by @ryfu-msft in #2783
• Suppress CA1416 warning #2 by @ryfu-msft in #2784

You can head over to GitHub to download the latest Winget version 1.4.11071.

Following Windows 11 RAR support, Microsoft Winget gets ZIP install, native PowerShell

Today, the long wait is over, at least if you are a member of the Windows Insider program. Microsoft revealed today that Insiders in the Dev and Canary channels can download the new version (11.2304.17.0) of the Paint app. Yes, it does finally include a dark mode.

Microsoft stated:

With this update, we are introducing support for dark mode in Paint. By default, Paint will adapt to your system theme preferences, but you can change this option yourself on the brand-new settings page.

In addition to the new dark mode, the new Paint app for Dev and Canary Insiders includes some new features and improvements for its zoom mode:

The classic presets are still available, but you can now also zoom in and out with finer granularity increments on the zoom slider or set a custom zoom value for even greater precision. We are also introducing a new fit to screen option to quickly optimize zoom to match your window size.

Microsoft has also made changes to the Paint App's Image Properties dialogs:

They now match the style of the new Windows 11 design and fit in with the new Paint app backdrop as well as many accessibility and usability improvements to dialogs throughout the app. We have also improved access key and keyboard shortcut support throughout the app for improved accessibility and productivity with keyboard.

There's no word yet on when these features will be available for all Windows 11 users. Hopefully the rest of us won't have to wait too much longer to get the dark mode in the Paint app.

The Windows 11 Paint app gets dark mode and more in a new Dev and Canary Insider update

This is a patch release to fix issues in v70.0 to fix some bugs we deemed important for stability based on incoming rates. See v0.70.0 for full release notes.

Microsoft also added a warning about Mouse Without Borders potentially disabling service mode after upgrading to 0.70.1, the note is as follows:

Warning: Service mode in Mouse Without Borders might be disabled after upgrading and will need to be activated again.

Changelog:

• #26142, #26439 and #26525 - UX improvements in the Peek and Mouse Without Borders settings pages.
• #26152 - The new PowerToys Run plugin for opening other PowerToys was missing some files in the installer and should work properly now.
• #26235 - Peek and Mouse Without Borders process crashes in event viewer should now be reported correctly on Bug Reports.
• #26150 - The Peek shortcut is now only captured if the active window is the Desktop, Explorer or Peek.
• #26192 - Users can now use the Settings to specify host name and IP correlation in Mouse Without Borders, to account for VPN scenarios.
• #24047 - Fixed a cause for possible leaks and/or infinite cycles in C# utilities that use events.
• #26137 - The Peek windows can be closed using the Escape key.
• #26181 - Created a setting for Peek to always run not elevated, so that it handles files in network shares correctly.
• #26318, #26373 and #26431 - Peek and dev file preview now support showing Visual Studio project common files and .ini compatible files.
• #26419 - Fixed a blinking issue when loading code files in Peek.
• #26160 - Fixed a playback notification that would stick when using Peek on video files.
• #26243 - Peek now tries to appear on the same monitor as the File Explorer window that triggers it.
• #26133 - Fixed small Peek UI on high DPIs.
• #26361, #26162 and #26478 - Reduced Peek memory usage and possible leaks.
• #26246 - Fixed Mouse Without Borders layout always resetting to one row after some time.
• #26366 - Added a setting to close the Peek window after it loses focus.
• #26338 - Fixed the mouse activating thumbnails on top of the screen when switching to another machine in Mouse Without Borders.
• #26470 - Fixed a silent Peek crash when trying to open it from File Explorer with no files selected.
• #26261 - Fixed an issue causing Mouse Without Borders to prevent other connected machines from going to sleep.
• #26454 - Disabled a deprecated shortcut in Mouse Without Borders that was interfering with other software.
• #26517 - Don't remove the Mouse Without Borders service on upgrade. This issue will still affect users upgrading from 0.70.0 to a newer version, but it's fixed going forward.
• #26521 - When Mouse Without Borders detects the service doesn't exist, it will still try to operate in the "no service" mode.
• #26524 - Fixed a bug causing Mouse Without Borders to click a window on the current machine when switching to another machine.
• #26259 - Added a winget-cli configuration file for PowerToys.

You can download PowerToys 0.70.1 from the Microsoft Store using this link, winget (Command Prompt as Administrator and enter the command: winget install --id Microsoft.PowerToys, or the official repository on GitHub.

If you already have PowerToys installed on your computer, the app will notify you about available updates, or you can manually update from the settings. As noted above, you can also learn about changes in the previous 0.70 release.

Microsoft PowerToys 0.70.1 fixes Peek network shares, Mouse Without Borders bugs, and more

Microsoft Edge finally has mouse gesture support available for testing in its preview versions. According to Neowin, enabling support requires adding a command to Edge’s shortcut as Microsoft hasn’t officially announced the launch of this tool. It’s still available for anyone to use, though, unlike other preview features and changes that the tech giant pushed down in the past.

Mouse gestures work by letting you perform a variety of actions when you move the mouse while holding the right-click button. The browser then highlights those mouse tracks while showing a hint of what action your gesture will trigger. Though you can customize gestures by navigating through the Settings menu, then Appearances and Mouse Gestures, you can’t customize shortcuts just yet. Hopefully, Microsoft will fix that in a future update.

At present, mouse gestures are only available in Microsoft Edge 114 and later for Edge Beta, Dev, and Canary, though it should be coming to the Stable Channel soon. Deskmodder has instructions on how to enable mouse gestures for Edge right now, until Microsoft launches it officially:

1. Go to edge://settings/help and ensure you have Edge 114 or newer.
2. Right-click your Microsoft Edge shortcut and select Properties. You can also right-click Microsoft Edge on the taskbar, then right-click Microsoft Edge in the jump list, and then press Properties.
3. Click the Target field in the Properties window and place one space after the path, then paste the following command: --enable-features=msEdgeMouseGestureDefaultEnabled,msEdgeMouseGestureSupported
4. Click Ok to save the changes.
5. Launch Microsoft Edge using the modified shortcut.

Microsoft is the champion of accessibility 

Microsoft has a proven track record for incorporating convenience and accessibility features into its products and services. For instance, its Edge Collections system allows you to build folders of bookmarks to keep them organized, while Microsoft Edge for Business improves cyber security for workers by automatically separating work and personal browsing into dedicated browser windows. And it also has the tools selection, which has web capture, read-aloud accessibility features, and more built right into the browser.

There’s also the excellent Microsoft Adaptive Accessories that give those with disabilities a set of 3D-printed and customization mice to perform a wide range of tasks in an equally wide range of designs that work for all sorts of conditions. And these mice would be a perfect complement to the mouse gestures feature.

Now if only Microsoft could actually convince users to switch to its Edge browser without being so overbearing. A better method would be to instead showcase all the incredible features Edge has to offer.

Source

Google is very publicly adding to the chorus of complaints about Microsoft's alleged restrictive cloud software licensing policies, claiming that unless the European Union formally tackles it, the industry and customers will suffer lasting damage.

Amit Zavery, vice president, general manager, and head of platform at Google Cloud, says antitrust regulators are "starting to understand the situation" and are asking questions.

"Any enterprise company will be impacted negatively if things are not resolved properly," he told The Register. "I think there should be appetite [from the regulators] and I think there should be movement in that area to really put some kind of checks and balances on Microsoft's policies."

Speaking out ... Google Cloud's Amit Zavery

One bone of contention for Google, the third-largest public cloud provider globally and in Europe, is that it simply costs more to run Microsoft software on third-party providers' clouds. This is due to extra licensing costs levied by Microsoft when you run its applications on non-Microsoft clouds, we're told.

"Microsoft publicly touts that if you run their software on Azure versus other vendors like AWS and GCP, it's five times cheaper or it's more expensive to run on us, basically because of the tax customers have to pay to Microsoft," Zavery told us.

"The price of the products are the same in terms of infrastructure and everything else, so the licensing cost is more expensive because of using providers other than Azure," he added.

"On premises, they could run it on any hardware, there was no restriction really. But now if you want to run it on any other cloud provider, you have to pay a tax and penalty to Microsoft if it's not running on Azure, or in the preferred providers of their choice.

If you want to run it on any other cloud provider, you have to pay a tax and penalty to Microsoft ... That is a big issue because all enterprises have a large footprint of Microsoft products like Office and Windows, SQL Server and others

"So that, I think, is a big issue because, of course, all enterprises have a large footprint of Microsoft products like Office and Windows, SQL Server and others as well, and if you don't allow that for products which have been paid for already by customers to be run anywhere, without paying a penalty to Microsoft, you're just getting getting beholden to Microsoft.

"That's the big, big problem for many enterprises today where they can't bring their licenses wherever they choose to. There is nothing technically preventing that from happening either. It's running on standard compute, which of course Microsoft allows for some cloud providers to use and run their products on, but not AWS, or GCP."

Office space

Microsoft is the only one of the big three cloud providers that has a huge installed base of customers that have been using its wares and services for decades before the cloud showed up. Microsoft's meteoric growth recorded with Azure was due to its "policies," the Google exec said.

"It shows you how much pull they have, that is the cost to customers, because they don't have a choice," he told The Reg.

Investigation

We spent some time in recent weeks collecting the thoughts of various sources across the industry on Microsoft's tactics, and many wanted to remain anonymous for fear of upsetting the IT giant. Some feared soft tactics being wielded against them by the Windows maker, such as discounts evaporating or the compliance team calling, if they spoke out.

The extent of Microsoft's ruthlessness to keep its base of legacy software customers locked within its empire – either on-prem or in Azure, or both – became all the more obvious following licensing agreement changes introduced in 2019, said one source, who also drew attention to Microsoft's marketing claims of Azure being five times cheaper to run SQL Server than, say, on a rival's racks.

"At least with SQL Server, customers have that choice, maybe it's a cost issue, but with SQL Server they have a choice. With other applications like Windows Server, Microsoft outright prohibited it back in 2019.

"Very rarely are customers going to break up their license portfolios because of this patchwork of rules."

Microsoft's customers could run its wares on any cloud, but if they wanted to run it on shared infrastructure they needed to buy something called License Mobility that came via a Software Assurance license. Those with dedicated infrastructure did not. That changed in 2019.

"That was a double whammy for a lot of customers," our source claimed. "Dedicated infrastructure already costs more because you're having to buy out the entire server, whereas shared infrastructure, you only pay for what you need when you need it."

Added to this, Microsoft also created a targeted list of providers that the changes applied to, added a source.

"Microsoft basically targeted its three largest competitors. Listed providers in 2019 were designated as Google, AWS, Alibaba. Then Microsoft in a thinly veiled attempt to proclaim that this change was non-discriminatory, included itself in that list of listed providers."

Customers with perpetual Microsoft licenses could no longer bring their applications to their cloud provider of choice – assuming they wanted to use AWS, GCP, or Alibaba. Instead, Microsoft created the exclusive Azure Hybrid Benefits program, meaning that while customers "technically" couldn't bring those licenses to Azure, they could exchange them for SaaS-based licenses for Azure.

"This was too cute by half with Microsoft now saying, 'Look, we're technically complying with the letter of this prohibition by not allowing these perpetual licenses to be brought to Azure.' But in reality, they were totally undermining the spirit of it by letting customers exchange those licenses for SaaS subscription of those applications."

This meant customers had to fork out to buy fresh licenses if they didn't want to run on Azure or tie themselves into a Microsoft subscription.

"Customers who have made considerable expenditures both from a capital, time, and IT resource perspective on these licenses want to deploy these licenses in the cloud, and Microsoft was saying, 'If you want to use these main competitors of ours, you no longer can, even though previously we had allowed it. If you want to use Microsoft's products on these platforms, you either need to pay some for Software Assurance, or rebuy."

Don't forget Amazon

AWS, via its membership of the Cloud Infrastructure Service Provider of Europe (CISPE) trade association, is also taking its gripes about Microsoft to the EU. CISPE filed a complaint in November, and this week rejected Microsoft's effort to settle the case, describing the offer as "pretty paltry" and saying it has an unspecified "minimum requirement" before it agrees to gather round the negotiating table.

Microsoft settled in March a joint complaint brought by OVHcloud, Aruba S.p.a., and the Danish Cloud Community. The contents of that settlement are confidential and CISPE told us at the time they were "bilateral and secret" and it expected "something to be offered to everyone across the market."

Redmond-based Microsoft is also making conciliatory noises in other complaints raised, such as the one by Slack over the bundling of products.

Specifically, Slack wasn't happy that Microsoft's rival chat app Teams is included in the market-dominant Office suite. Microsoft is, as a result, offering to charge different prices for Office 365 with or without Teams or to potentially pull the bundle entirely.

The Office E4 license, as an example of Microsoft's bundling of applications, contains around 30 products ranging from automation, security, and storage tools to analytics offerings and more, said Google's Zavery.

Bundling "creates damage to the other vendors… in that space [who] probably have technically better products in some cases as well, and they are not able to compete," he told us.

It may well be that a security vendor or identity and access management provider decides to file similar complaints to Slack and Nextcloud, which complained to the EU about Microsoft bundling OneDrive with Office 365.

We have asked Microsoft to put forward an executive to interview. ®

Source

Recently, I switched from Pop!_OS to Ubuntu Budgie as my primary operating system. For the most part, the transition went fairly smoothly. There was, however, something interesting happening with my System76 Thelio desktop that I'd never before experienced. Once on a different OS, the fans ran constantly. This led me down a few rabbit holes before I could fix the problem. Ultimately, the issue was resolved by installing the System76 firmware that is required to properly control the fans. However, the process reminded me of a tool that can give Linux a boost with your hardware.

You see, every motherboard contains various sensors that monitor things like temperature -- and the temperature of your PC is pretty important. Those CPUs can run very hot. If they overheat, your computer can crash (or worse). Because every PC manufacturer does things differently, and because PC internals vary from iteration to iteration, it's not always 100% certain that an operating system you install will pick up on every one of your motherboard's sensors. Most often, the OS installation does a good job but you might find (as I did) that your fans are running constantly, even when you're not using the machine.

Should that happen, you need to use the sensors-detect command. Let me show you how it's done on Ubuntu-based Linux distributions.

How to install and use sensors-detect

What you'll need: The only things you'll need for this are a Ubuntu-based Linux distribution and a user with sudo privileges.

1. Open a terminal window

As many Linux distributions do not ship with the necessary software installed, you'll need to add it manually. Open your desktop menu and select the terminal application.

2. Install lm-sensors on Ubuntu-based distributions

From the terminal window, issue the following command on a Ubuntu-based distribution:

sudo apt-get install lm-sensors -y

Once lm-sensors is installed, you're ready to use the sensors-detect command.

3. Running sensors-detect

At the terminal window, issue the command:

sudo sensors-detect

4. Answer the questions

After running the sensors-detect command, you'll be asked a number of questions, which include:

• Some south bridges, CPUs or memory controllers contain embedded sensors. Do you want to scan for them? This is totally safe. (YES/no):
• Some Super I/O chips contain embedded sensors. We have to write to standard I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe. Do you want to scan for Super I/O sensors? (YES/no):
• Some systems (mainly servers) implement IPMI, a set of common interfaces through which system health data may be retrieved, amongst other things. We first try to get the information from SMBIOS. If we don't find it there, we have to read from arbitrary I/O ports to probe for such interfaces. This is normally safe. Do you want to scan for IPMI interfaces? (YES/no):
• Some hardware monitoring chips are accessible through the ISA I/O ports. We have to write to arbitrary I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe though. Yes, you do have ISA I/O ports even if you do not have any ISA slots! Do you want to scan the ISA I/O ports? (yes/NO):
• Do you want to probe the I2C/SMBus adapters now? (YES/no):

Answer Yes to all questions. When all questions are answered, it will ask if you want it to present a summary. Press Enter on your keyboard to display the results. Once the results are displayed, sensors-detect will then ask if you want it to automatically add the necessary items to /etc/modules. For mine, it lists coretemp as a module that I should add. Type Yes and those modules will be added. Do note, if sensors-detect lists a large number of modules, you should do a bit of research before allowing the tool to add them all. You might wind up adding modules that are already built into your installed kernel.

5. Reboot your machine

If sensors-detect added modules to /etc/module, you can go ahead and reboot so those modules will take effect.

And that's it! Hopefully, your operating system will now have better control over your hardware to improve the Linux experience.

Source

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1830 and Build 22631.1830 (KB5026443) to the Beta Channel.

• Build 22631.1830 = New features rolling out.
• Build 22621.1830 = New features off by default.

There's just one new feature in this release. It adds WPA3 support to the Phone Link instant hotspot feature:

Changes and Improvements in Build 22631.1830

[Networking]

We added WPA3 support to the Phone Link instant hotspot feature for more secure connections to a phone’s hotspot. Also made fixes to respect metered connection settings, reduce duplicate profiles, and show the phone’s display name in the network list.

Microsoft also has a reminder for Beta Insider users:

REMINDER: Insiders who were previously on Build 22624 will automatically get moved to Build 22631 via an enablement package. The enablement package artificially increments the build number for the update with new features getting rolled out and turned on to make it easier to differentiate from devices with the update with features off by default. This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts.

Insiders who landed in the group with new features turned off by default (Build 22621.xxxx) can check for updates and choose to install the update that will have features rolling out (Build 22631.xxxx).

Here's some more info for Insiders:

Important Insider Links

Want to learn how we made Windows 11? Check out our Inside Windows 11 website to hear and meet our makers from Engineering, Design and Research to share their insights and unique perspectives throughout this journey.

You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.

Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

You can check out the full blog post here.

Windows 11 Beta Channel (KB5026443) adds WPA3 support to Phone Link instant hotspot

What’s new in Build 23471

Add Phone Photos in File Explorer Gallery

Accessing your phone’s camera roll from your PC is an important everyday task that is now easier with File Explorer Gallery. There is a new button in the Command Bar titled “Add Phone Photos” that will help with setting up your PC to be ready to show these photos in Gallery. Clicking this button today will open a URL with a QR code that you can scan with your phone to get started.

NOTE: Users may need to opt into OneDrive’s Insider Program to get a version of the OneDrive sync client that handles the protocol invoked when clicking this button. To join the OneDrive Insider Program, open OneDrive settings by bringing up the OneDrive flyout from the system tray; from there, navigate to the About page and turn on the toggle for the OneDrive Insider Program.

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

Narrator natural voices in Spanish (Spain and Mexico)

We are introducing new natural voices in Spanish (Spain and Mexico) that allow Narrator users to comfortably browse the web, read, and write mail, and do more. Natural Narrator voices use modern, on-device text to speech and once downloaded are supported without an internet connection.

To use one of the natural voices, add it to your PC by following these steps:

1. Open Narrator Settings by pressing the WIN + Ctrl + N hotkey.
2. Under Narrator’s voice, select the Add button next to Add natural voices.
3. Select the voice you want to install. You can install all voices, but you must install them separately.

• The new Spanish (Spain) voices are Microsoft Alvaro and Microsoft Elvira.
• The new Spanish (Mexico) voices are Microsoft Jorge and Microsoft Dalia.

1. To start the download of the selected voice, select Install. The new voice will download and be ready for use in a few minutes, depending on your internet download speed.
2. When the new voice has downloaded, in Narrator settings select your preferred voice from the drop-down menu in Narrator’s voice > Choose a voice.

Note: If your display language is not set to Spanish , then in step 3 you will first need to select “Choose a different language” and then select the appropriate language followed by the specific voice.

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (Win + F) under Accessibility > Narrator.

Changes and Improvements

[Lock screen]

• We have updated the network flyout on the Lock screen to align with Windows 11 design principles.

[File Explorer]

• We are beginning to roll out the ability to tear out and merge tabs in File Explorer. This feature is beginning to roll out, so not all Insiders in the Dev Channel will see it right away.
• Gallery in File Explorer, which began rolling out with Build 23435, is now available for all Insiders in the Dev Channel.

[Settings]

• It is easier to control whether to use cellular when Wi-Fi is available but poor, using a new toggle which has been added to Settings > Network & Internet > Cellular.

Fixes

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an issue where pressing Shift + F10 wasn’t opening the context menu in File Explorer.
• Fixed an issue where access keys appeared inconsistently if no button was pressed.

We fixed the following issues for Insiders previewing the Windows App SDK version of File Explorer

• Fixed an issue that was causing explorer.exe to crash when opening the context menu for some Insiders. This same issue is believed to be the cause of some Insiders seeing an older design instead of the updated one.

We fixed the following issues for Insiders with Gallery in File Explorer:

• Fixed an explorer.exe crash in the last flight related to loading/interacting with the scrollbar in Gallery.
• Fixed an issue where Gallery may require clicking twice on the node in the navigation pane for initial load.
• Fixed an issue where minimizing and reopening File Explorer would lose your scroll position in Gallery.
• Hovering your mouse over pictures in Gallery should now show a tooltip with information about the picture.
• Live updates (including filtering) are now enabled and no longer require using the Refresh button manually.
• Fixed an issue where some file types (e.g., .heic) were not rendered correctly or performantly.

We fixed the following issues for Insiders with the modernized details pane in File Explorer:

• Made the background for thumbnails a little lighter in light mode so it doesn’t stand out as much.
• If you have Narrator running when you open the details pane, it should now announce the file name.
• If the setting to show file name extensions has been enabled, that will now be reflected in the details pane too.

[Taskbar]

• Fixed an issue that was causing the taskbar to get cut off when switching to and from the tablet-optimized taskbar.

[Search on the Taskbar]

• We have fixed the issue causing Insiders to see an empty tooltip displayed momentarily in certain cases including while the gleam is hovered if the new hover behavior for the search box and search highlight gleam is enabled.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue where Narrator with Braille support wasn’t reading numbered lists correctly in Microsoft 365 apps.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Known issues

[Dev Drive]

• On a reboot, additional filters beyond AV might be attached to your Dev Drive. To check what filters are attached, please run ‘fsutil devdrv query :’ in Windows PowerShell. If you are seeing more than your AV filters, you can run ‘fsutil volume dismount :’ and then ‘fsutil devdrv query :’. After those steps, you should only see your AV filters.
• There might be variable performance on different hardware. If you notice slower performance on your machine, please file feedback!

[Search on the Taskbar]

• [NEW] Navigating the search flyout on the taskbar with the keyboard arrow keys will not work as expected.
• Narrator customers may not be able to navigate down the left side panel of the search flyout.
• Text scaling may not work in the search flyout.

[File Explorer]

• Insiders may experience a File Explorer crash when dragging the scroll bar or attempting to close the window during an extended file-loading process.

Insiders who have Gallery in File Explorer will see the following issues:

• Thumbnail loading performance for dehydrated cloud files and memory usage in large collections are known issues we are focused on improving. Please capture Performance traces in Feedback Hub for any performance-related issues. Rebuilding your Indexer can help if thumbnails are missing for cloud files; Search for “Indexing Options” and look in Advanced settings to find the rebuild tool.

Insiders will have issues with the following commands on recommended files in File Explorer:

• Clicking on the Share command will currently bring up the Windows share sheet (non-OneDrive).

[Taskbar & System Tray]

• The taskbar may not show the correct apps if you’re using multiple desktops.

[Notifications]

• The copy button for quickly copying two-factor authentication (2FA) codes in notification toasts (first introduced in Build 23403) is currently not working in this build. A fix is coming in a future flight.

[Backup and Restore]

• Backups of a PC that was set up using a restore may not show up in subsequent restores.
• Restore of solid colour desktop backgrounds are not yet supported.

You can find the official blog post here.

Windows 11 build 23471 gets File Explorer tab merging, a redesigned network lock, and more

Microsoft has not announced mouse gestures yet, and enabling them requires adding a command to the browser's shortcut. However, the feature is available for everyone to try, unlike the other changes Microsoft frequently rolls out in waves (controlled feature rollout). Note that mouse gestures are available in Microsoft Edge 114 (and newer), which is coming to the Stable Channel this week. For now, mouse gestures are only available in Edge Beta, Dev, and Canary. Here is how to enable them (via Deskmodder).

Enable mouse gestures in Microsoft Edge

1. Go to edge://settings/help and ensure you have Edge 114 or newer.
2. Right-click your Microsoft Edge shortcut and select Properties. You can also right-click Microsoft Edge on the taskbar, then right-click Microsoft Edge in the jump list, and then press Properties.
3. Click the Target field in the Properties window and place one space after the path, then paste the following command: --enable-features=msEdgeMouseGestureDefaultEnabled,msEdgeMouseGestureSupported
4. Click Ok to save the changes.
5. Launch Microsoft Edge using the modified shortcut.

Now you can use mouse gestures to perform various actions by moving the mouse while holding the right-click button. Microsoft Edge will highlight your mouse track and show a hint indicating what action the gesture will trigger.

You can customize gestures by navigating to edge://settings/mouseGesture or Menu > Settings > Appearance > Mouse Gesture. Unfortunately, the feature does not support custom shortcuts, so there is room for improvement. Still, it is great to see Microsoft implementing a much-requested feature, especially after rejecting it for many months.

Mouse gestures are now available for testing in Microsoft Edge

What is new in Microsoft Edge Dev 115.0.1880.1?

New features:

• History now has the option to display thumbnail images.
• iOS:
  • Added Exit InPrivate mode button.
• Android:
  • Added Save to album option to … menu in Drop.

Reliability improvements:

• Fixed browser crash when allowing permission to Microphone access.
• Fixed browser crash when clicking on Send feedback button on Sidebar.
• macOS:
  • Fixed browser crash when playing video in full screen.

Other changes:

• Re-added shortcut Ctrl + Shift + X for Web select.
• Fixed PDF keeps opening last page even when PDF view settings for last viewed location is disabled.
• Fixed certain websites not rendering correctly.
  • Android:
• Fixed certain websites displaying something went wrong error message.
  • WebView2:
• Fixed initializing the CoreWebView2Environment throws SystemArgumentException: The path is not of a legal form when using assembly merging (#3428)
• Fixed CoreWebView2WebMessageReceivedEventArgs.AdditionalObjects throws a Microsoft.CSharp.RuntimeBinder.RuntimeBinderException exception (#3474)
  • Enterprise:
• Fixed sharing PDF file not working after it is downloaded from SharePoint on iOS.
• VisualSearchEnabled policy is now available for all platforms.

You can download Microsoft Edge Dev from the official Edge Insider website. If you already use the Dev Channel, head to edge://settings/help to install the latest release. However, it is worth noting that many users report hangs and crashes after updating to version 115.0.1880.1, so it is better not to use Edge Dev or Canary as your primary browser.

Microsoft plans to release Edge 115 to all users in the Stable Channel on the week of July 20, 2023. Insiders in the Beta Channel will get it next week.

Microsoft Edge Dev 115.0.1880.1 brings redesigned history, InPrivate improvements, more

Users with a hearing impairment also benefit from this feature, as they can now follow what is being said in the audio by reading real-time captions. It also works for PC games without built-in subtitles, perfect for gamers with hearing impairments.

It should also be noted that this feature is available in Windows 11 version 22H2 and later. Therefore, accessing it if your Windows PC runs on older versions is out of the question. In this Windows 11 guide, I will walk you through enabling and disabling Live Captions. 

Enable or disable Live Captions with Settings app

1. Left-click the Start button on your Taskbar to launch the Settings app.
2. Click Accessibility on the left pane and select Captions under the Hearing section.
3. Enable or disable the Live Captions feature by clicking on the toggle button.

From this point, you can close the Settings app and play a video to check whether the feature is active.

Enable or disable Live Captions with Quick Settings

1. Press the Windows + A keys to launch the Quick Settings menu.
2. Next, click on the Accessibility option.
3. Finally, click the Live Captions toggle to enable or disable the feature.

You can now close the Quick Settings menu to play a video on your Windows 11 PC and check whether the feature has been enabled. 

Disable Live Captions with Task Manager

1. Left-click the Start button and type Task Manager in the search box.
2. Click on Open and select the Processes or Details tab.
3. Next, choose Live Captions or Livecaptions.exe and click on End task at the top of the Window.

It should be noted that you can only use this method when you want to disable the Live Captions feature in Windows 11.

And finally, Microsoft has a dedicated Windows + Ctrl + L keyboard shortcut that you can use to enable the feature.

Hopefully, the methods above were able to help you enable or disable the Live Captions feature in Windows 11. It’s also worth noting that Microsoft recently expanded the feature’s support to more languages, which you can check on the official website. It was previously limited to the English (US) language.

How to enable and disable Live Captions in Windows 11

Click here to learn more about Statcounter's methodology. Remember that data from third parties is never 100% accurate.

According to the May 2023 report from Statcounter, Windows 10 remains the dominant operating system among Windows users. Approximately 71.9% (+0.54 points) of all customers continue using it for their daily computing needs.

Windows 11, which soon turns two, slowed down a bit: 22.95%, with a slight dip compared with the previous month (-0.16 points). It will be interesting to see how the just-released "Moment 3" update will affect Windows 11's market share and if the announced at the Build conference features are tempting enough for Windows 10 customers to pull the trigger and update.

Together, Windows 10 and 11 hold 94.85% of the entire market.

As expected, Windows 7 took a significant nosedive when Microsoft ended the Extended Security Update program in January 2023. Still, a considerable number of users continue operating Windows 7 for all sorts of tasks. Statcounter claims the OS has a 3.61% market share (-0.17 points).

Those not planning to upgrade from Windows 7 soon will be glad to learn that Mozilla is ready to continue supporting the now-dead OS for more than one extra year. Even though Windows 7 no longer receives updates, it still has a mainstream browser with regular patches and security fixes.

1. Windows 10: 71.9% (+0.54 points)
2. Windows 11: 22.95% (-0.16 points)
3. Windows 7: 3.61% (-0.17 points)
4. Windows 8.1: 0.72% (-0.13 points)
5. Windows 8: 0.37% (-0.06 points)

The honorable mention goes to Windows XP, which will soon mark ten years since the end of its extended support. Per Statcounter's findings, about 0.32% of Windows users are still rocking XP and using it to access the internet. A decade in no-update mode is nothing for a true fan!

You can find more information about the Statcounter May 2023 report on the official website. A similar report covering the latest browser stats is available here.

Statcounter: Windows 11's climb slowed down in May 2023

Diablo IV is officially releasing on June 5, but Digital Deluxe and Ultimate Edition owners can jump in later today to begin their action-RPG adventure. This driver is a recommended install for anyone playing the game on Radeon hardware, although AMD hasn't detailed any specific improvements to look out for this time.

The driver also touts major improvements to Microsoft's Olive DirectML pipeline for Stable Diffusion 1.5. In its testing on a Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card for acceleration, AMD has seen double the performance when using Stable Diffusion 1.5's "text-to-image diffusion generating 512 x 512 images."

There are no fixed issues in this release unfortunately, but there are known issues to look out for:

• High idle power has situationally been observed when using select high-resolution and high refresh rate displays on Radeon™ RX 7000 series GPUs.
• Certain virtual reality games or applications may encounter suboptimal performance or occasional stuttering on Radeon™ RX 7000 series GPUs.
• Application crash may be intermittently observed while playing RuneScape™ on some AMD Graphics Products, such as the Radeon™ RX 5700 XT.
• Application crash or driver timeout may be observed during playback of AV1 video content using DaVinci Resolve™ Studio.
• Intermittent corruption may be observed after switching windows while play Nioh 2™ on some AMD Graphics Products, such as the Radeon™ RX 6800 XT.

The WHQL-certified AMD Adrenalin Edition 23.5.1 23.5.2 driver can now be upgraded via the Radeon Settings app on Windows. Anyone looking for a standalone download link to install it directly can find the driver link on its release notes page here.

AMD Adrenalin 23.5.2 driver delivers Diablo IV support and Microsoft Olive optimizations

Click here to learn how Statcounter gathers its data.

To no one's surprise, Google Chrome is still the number one go-to browser on most platforms. Its desktop variant holds a 66.02% share with minor fluctuations from month to month. In May 2023, Chrome lost 0.2 points.

Apple's Safari, the only non-cross-platform desktop browser, is cementing its new place after taking over Microsoft Edge in April 2023. Safari's customer base increased from 11.89% to 12.79%, further gapping Microsoft Edge. The latter once again dipped below the 10% mark and reached a 9.91% share (-0.98 points).

According to Statcounter, Edge is not the only browser having problems with increasing its market share. Firefox continues bleeding customers, and in May 2023, its share decreased from 5.59% to 5.28%. For reference, in July 2022, its market share was at 8%.

Opera is the fifth most popular desktop browser, with a market share of 4.02% (+0.9 points). Finally, the honorable mention goes to Internet Explorer and its 0.45% share.

1. Google Chrome - 66.02% (-0.2 points)
2. Apple Safari - 12.79% (+0.9 points)
3. Microsoft Edge - 9.91% (-0.98 points)
4. Mozilla Firefox - 5.59% (-0.31 points)
5. Opera - 4.02% (+0.9 points)

And here is the mobile side of the market, where Google, Apple, and Samsung hold over 93% of users. Interestingly, Google Chrome lost a notable chunk of customers during the last three months. Safari, on the other hand, is experiencing a continuous spike.

1. Google Chrome - 61.09% (-0.67 points)
2. Apple Safari - 27.81% (+0.81 points)
3. Samsung Internet - 4.97% (+0.14 points)
4. Opera - 1.8% (-0.09 points)
5. UC Browser - 1.54% (-0.17 points)

You can find more information on the official Statcounter website.

Statcounter: Edge falls below 10%, Safari continues climbing

In a blog post, Microsoft stated that one new feature is adding direct support for the public preview version of Microsoft Designer into the free version of Teams. Designer allows users to create things like blog posts, websites, digital postcards, and more with just a few text prompts and generative AI.

Microsoft is also expanding its support for its Discord-like communities feature in Teams, which launched in December 2022. With this new update, communities are coming to Windows 11 devices in addition to the Teams mobile apps. The plan is to add support for Mac, Windows 10, and the web versions as well. Microsoft also stated:

Rolling out in the coming days, and beginning on Windows 11, iOS, and Android, you can join communities focused on topics like parenting, gaming, gardening, technology, remote work, and more. Community owners will be able to set their community to be visible, starting on iOS and Android, enabling it to be discovered on Teams.

 

Other new Teams community features include the ability for users to launch polls. Also posts in the communities features can be shared via emails, and owners of communities can either approve or reject people to join their group.

The Teams mobile apps will now allow users to record videos as well. The iOS app will now let users scan a document with any emails or phone numbers and invite people with that info into the Teams communities. Microsoft has also updated the GroupMe app so it can now create Microsoft Teams calls from within the app.

Source

Here are the release notes for Rufus 4.1:

• Add timeouts on enumeration queries that may stall on some systems

• Restore MS-DOS drive creation through the download of binaries from Microsoft

• Update the log button icon

• Fix UEFI:NTFS incompatibility with Windows Dev Kit 2023 platform (pbatard/uefi-ntfs#37)

• Fix more GRUB out of range pointer errors with Ubuntu/Fedora when booting in BIOS mode

You can download Rufus 4.1 from Neowin, the official website, GitHub, or the Microsoft Store. Rufus is fully open-source, so enthusiasts with the necessary skills can contribute to the project's development on GitHub.

For those unfamiliar, Rufus is a small app that lets you create bootable USB drives with Windows, Linux, and other operating systems. In addition to its primary feature, the program allows downloading ISO files directly from Microsoft, which makes Rufus your all-in-one program for clean-installing and servicing operating systems on various PCs.

It also has a few extra aces up its sleeve, such as removing system requirements for Windows 11 (TPM, SecureBoot, UEFI, 4GB of RAM, etc.), creating a local account, disabling BitLocker, flashing BIOS or other firmware from DOS, and more.

You can use Rufus on any PC running Windows 8 and newer (installable, portable, x86, x64, and ARM64). Windows 7, unfortunately, is no longer supported—the OS was dropped in version 4.0, released in late April 2023. However, Rufus can still make Windows 7-based bootable USB drives, assuming the app runs on a more modern Windows version. Check out our guide showing how to create bootable USB drives using Rufus.

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Microsoft Excel is one of the most used spreadsheet software, not only by novice consumers but also in enterprise environments, because of its diverse capabilities and rich features. Microsoft regularly adds new features to Excel throughout the month in order to retain its existing customers as well as entice new ones. Now, it has detailed all the improvements it made to its software during the month of May 2023.

Starting with Excel for the web, a nifty enhancement is the ability to generate and share a link to a specific table in order to draw attention to it and make it easier to navigate directly to it. Similarly, the date format is now "properly" supported in Power BI PivotTables as date-and-time data types; they were treated as strings previously. This should enable time-intelligent filtering and sorting, but it is important to note that it's still not supported in formulas for Power BI PivotTables yet.

In the same vein, implicit measures such as aggregations are supported in PivotTables powered by Power BI; you do not need to pre-define them. Lastly, a very useful capability is Immersive Reader, which should enhance reading comprehension. You can leverage it by selecting a cell, right-clicking it, and selecting the "Immersive Reader" option. Most of these features were explicitly requested by customers, so Microsoft has tagged them as "Feedback in Action (FIA)."

Switching over to Excel for Windows, we have the same Power BI PivotTable enhancements in the Current Channel. However, there is another improvement for Insiders, which has the Narrator offering a more brief and efficient reading experience. The narration experience can also be customized using keyboard shortcuts.

Surprisingly, Microsoft has not included a dedicated section for updates to Excel for Mac this month, which indicates that the platform was not a priority these past few weeks. If you have feedback for the Redmond tech giant about existing features in Excel or want to request new ones, make sure to let the company know here.

Source

Vertical tabs allow users of the browser to move the horizontal tab bar to the left side of it. Vertical tabs "help eliminate overcrowding" according to Brave Software's announcement of the feature.

Vertical tabs offer offer some advantages over horizontal tabs, including that they usually display more tabs at the same time and that the visibility of titles is improved. They work well when widescreen monitors are used and not so well if there is limited space available.

Brave Browser's implementation of vertical tabs is disabled by default. Brave users may enable it by loading brave://settings/appearance in the browser's address bar and setting the "use vertical tabs" option to enabled.

All common tab-related tasks and options remain available. You can still use Ctrl-T to open a new tab, or use buttons to do so, and close tabs using the x-icon when hovering over a tab. Pinned tabs are displayed at the top before all tabs that are not pinned, and the right-click context menu displays the same options, including one to toggle the vertical tabs feature.

Two additional options become available when the vertical tabs feature is enabled:

• Show title bar -- determines whether the title bar is displayed or hidden.
• Expand vertical tabs panel on mouseover or when collapsed -- Brave includes the ability to shrink the vertical tabs sidebar to a smaller icon-based sidebar. This feature expands tabs automatically when the mouse is hovered over the area.

The collapsed vertical tab interface looks like this:

Vertical tabs in Brave Browser support groups. Group titles are displayed on top of groups open in the particular browser window.

Tabs can be moved around by using drag & drop operations. One thing that is missing is a hierarchy, similarly to what the Firefox extension Tree Style Tab and others supported for many years. This would display the relationship between tabs in the sidebar.

Brave Browser remembers the user's selection and will start the browser in the selected tab display mode.

Brave 1.52 other changes

Brave Browser version 1.52 includes other changes. While several of them are related to Web3 functionality, mostly associated with crypto-functionality, others improve the browser in other ways.

Brave engineers have restored the option to manage cookies per website. This allows users of the browser to display all cookies set by a particular website and to delete them individually.

Users may load brave://settings/content/all in the address bar to get to the list of sites and their stored cookies directly.

A new feature is the ability to copy text from images on Windows devices. A right-click on an image displays text that Brave identified in a small popup on the screen.

Brave Browser's handling of localhost resources has changed. The browser blocked these outright up until now, unless they were included in a allow-list. The new Localhost connections permission gives users control over these request, so that they may be allowed or blocked individually.

Localhost access is sometimes required for legitimate purposes. The option works for URLs only currently, but Brave plans to add support for resolved IP addresses in a future update.

Brave's download manager has received two changes. The first adds a new "remove from list" option to the context menu of downloaded items, the second displays a new alert icon when downloads use insecure connections.

The entire release notes are available here. Brave Browser updates itself automatically. You can check the installed version on the browser's about page, which you may load brave://settings/help directly.

Brave Software unveiled the browser's Off the Record feature recently, which will launch later this year.

Source

Like tiny10 2303 x86, version 23H1 is based on the same Windows 10 LTSC 21H2 (build number 19044.3031). Its main highlight is the component store support that ensures you can download monthly updates while retaining the installation's low profile and small disk footprint (Remote Desktop is also there). According to the project's developer, tiny10 23H1 is for those wanting the core Windows experience with the necessary features and security measures.

Another noteworthy aspect of the new tiny10 version is the ability to perform an in-place upgrade. In other words, you can update to tiny10 23H1 from older tiny10 releases with no need for a clean install.

It is worth noting that "23H1" is just a "naming convention" that indicates a release from the first half of 2023. Microsoft's official Windows 10 release is version 22H2, and the company has made it clear that users should not expect a newer release or any significant feature updates. 22H2 should be the last Windows 10 version, with the end of support scheduled for October 2025.

You can download tiny10 23H2 from the Internet Archive. As usual, remember that fan-made projects like this still require activation with a genuine Windows key (7, 8, 8.1, and 10 should work) from the matching SKU.

You can try using it without a license, but the installation will eventually start nagging you with activation prompts, dark desktop backgrounds, and other inconveniences. In other words, all the good stuff from the stock Windows 10. At least it no longer requires more than 20GB of space on your drive and a minimum of 2GB of RAM.

If you want a more modern lightweight Windows release, check out tiny11, which offers the best of Windows 11 without unnecessary components or bloat. If you do not trust third-party Windows modifications, see this guide showing how to DIY a debloated Windows ISO for your personal needs and preferences.

Tiny10 x64 23H1 is here for those needing a debloated and lightweight Windows 10