Today, Microsoft has released PowerToys version 0.97.1, a patch update focused on fixing stability issues that surfaced in the previous build. The release comes just weeks after the aforementioned version 0.97.0; it introduced new features such as CursorWrap and expanded support for the Command Palette, but at the same time the update also triggered crashes and glitches throughout several of the utilities. The latest update is thus a corrective release meant to address many such problems.

Advanced Paste sees a fix for a crash in the Settings UI caused by incorrect null-check handling. Command Palette has received fixes to bugs that led to inconsistent behavior when switching between commands. Peek, the file preview tool, should see reduced random crashes, while PowerRename issues regarding bulk renaming operations should be resolved.

CursorWrap, one of the headline features of the last release, was refined to better handle multi-monitor setups, automatically adapting when users switch between laptop and desktop environments. The Runner tray icon also received fixes to improve right-click menu behavior and icon consistency.

The full changelog is given below:

Advanced Paste

• #44862: Fixed Settings UI advanced paste page crash by using correct settings repository for null checking.

   

Command Palette

• #44886: Fixed personalization section not appearing by using latest MSIX for installation.

• #44938: Fixed loading of icons from internet shortcuts.
• #45076: Fixed potential deadlock from lazy-loading AppListItem details.

Cursor Wrap

• #44936: Added improved multi-monitor support; Added laptop lid close detection for dynamic monitor topology updates.

• #44936: Added new settings dropdown to constrain wrapping to horizontal-only, vertical-only, or both directions.

Peek

• #44995: Fixed Space key triggering Peek during file rename, search, or address bar typing.

PowerRename

• #44944: Fixed regex $ not working, preventing users from adding text at the end of filenames.

Runner

• #44931: Monochrome tray icon now adapts to Windows system theme instead of app theme.
• #44982: Fixed right-click menu to dynamically update based on Quick Access enabled/disabled state.

GPO / Enterprise

• #45028: Added CursorWrap policy definition to ADMX templates.

   

You can download the new version from this page here on the official GitHub repo of PowerToys.

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Posted Thursday 29 January 2026 at 6:45 am AEST (my time).

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During the first month of the year, Excel for Windows and Mac gained Agent Mode. We talked about this yesterday when we detailed how customers can now use natural language, outcome-based prompts to have Copilot build complex solutions on your behalf.

Meanwhile, Excel for web received the ability to fully leverage Power Query to import and edit data. You can access this service using the Data > Get Data interface, from where you can pull from various sources after authentication. This feature may seem very familiar to Power BI Desktop customers and those who use it in Excel for Windows, but you do need an enterprise or business subscription in order to leverage the full experience on the web.

Next, Excel for Windows netted two features. The first is new Import functions that allow you to extract data from a .txt or .csv file without using Power Query at all. The other is more descriptive error cards, which should make debugging a lot easier. However, keep in mind that both these capabilities are available only to Insiders for now.

Finally, Excel received one more feature across Windows, Mac, and the web. It allows them to use Office Scripts to save a worksheet as a PDF and email it to either yourself or your team. Microsoft has tagged this as "#FIA" (Feedback in Action), indicating that this capability was heavily requested by Excel customers.

These past few weeks have been rather exciting for Excel users, with customers receiving a well-rounded set of features. It'll be interesting to see what's next in February 2026.

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Posted Thursday 29 January 2026 at 6:44 am AEST (my time).

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Starting with the greeter, the system now logs you in immediately after a successful fingerprint scan, eliminating the need to click a confirm button to actually log in. COSMIC Files no longer crashes when trying to copy large directories and is now significantly faster when copying files. Before this update, some reported that copying a tiny 14 MB directory with about a thousand files to an external drive took over 30 seconds.

Cosmic Edit now handles large files without eating all your system's memory. Before, opening a file with hundreds of thousands of lines could cause a crash because the editor attempted to load the entire document into memory at once.

Other changes include a fix for visual artifacts that could appear in the overview mode and corrected behavior when using super+click on a tiled window. The update also improves the logic for setting the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable, addressing a long-standing issue for NixOS users.

COSMIC, in case you are unaware, is now the official desktop environment for Pop!_OS. System76 has been developing it for the last few years, with the desktop officially launching as part of the Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS release last month.

Previous versions of Pop!_OS used GNOME as the base, but System76 added a lot of its own extensions and modifications on top. This became a maintenance nightmare, as GNOME updates would frequently break the extensions, forcing the dev team to patch and rewrite its work constantly.

Disagreements with GNOME's design philosophy and the unsustainable development cycle were a bad combination, leading the team to start working on a whole new desktop built from scratch in Rust. This includes a suite of its own core applications, like a file manager, terminal, and app store.

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Posted Thursday 29 January 2026 at 6:43 am AEST (my time).

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Users on Reddit report that they cannot run the ASUS Armory Crate, an important part of the console that lets you manage various parts of the system, tweak its settings, adjust performance profiles, etc. Windows Defender reportedly cannot verify the publisher of the app and prevents its launch. Frustrated users also claim that they cannot update or uninstall the Armory Crate app.

Smart App Control (not-so-smart in this case) is a security feature that blocks the execution of untrusted apps. If the system cannot verify that the program comes from a trusted source, it blocks all attempts to run it. The problem with Smart App Control is that it performs on a "zero trust" basis. In other words, once disabled, it cannot be enabled again, as the system becomes "compromised" and Microsoft cannot verify that it is "clean" and all the running software is up to security standards.

As such, affected users face a difficult choice: wait for Microsoft to fix its Silly Smart App Control or nuke it for good, with Windows reset being the only option to bring it back.

It is currently unknown how widespread the issue is, but if you decide to disable Smart App Control, head to Windows Security > App & Browser Control > Smart App Control Settings > Off. Unless you critically need to change something in the Armory Crete app, the best course of action could be waiting for Microsoft to bring its "smart" security back to its senses.

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Posted Thursday 29 January 2026 at 6:41 am AEST (my time).

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The newest Windows 11 Patch is the latest such example of that as the update led to shutdown / hibernation problems as well as boot-up issues (since been fixed with the second emergency update).

However, it is not always Microsoft or Windows that can lead to boot-related problems. From the latest Chrome canary build, it has been learned that Google is testing a new feature that will allow the browser to start up right at Windows boot.

The new feature is in the form a toggle inside the browser settings dubbed "Launch Chrome when my computer starts," something Google has been working on since around October or November last year as the Chromium dev team had added a new kForegroundLaunchOnLogin feature flag.

As you can probably make out from the feature flag title, Google has intended this to be a foreground process, which typically tend to have higher resource priorities than background tasks. Thankfully, there is also kLaunchOnStartup flag alongside it for gatekeeping, which is essentially for the toggle for enabling or disabling the feature.

Neowin forum member Leopeva64, who noticed the feature, notes that by default the toggle is currently set to off, which is a good thing. As noted above, this is a foreground process and hence, for systems that lack an SSD or are running a less powerful CPU, like say a quad-thread low clock model, may struggle initially, which will slow down the Windows boot speed.

Microsoft has an official guide on how to fix slow Windows 11/10 start up speeds. Hence users struggling with a laggy PC boot-up can also use that to limit such processes.

Via: Leopeva64 (X)

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Posted Wednesday 28 January 2026 at 7:09 pm AEST (my time).

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Microsoft is now hard at work on the next version of Windows 11, which is expected to ship this fall as Windows 11 version 26H2. This release will be made available as an update to all Windows 11 users on 25H2 and 24H2, and is based on the same platform release as those versions, codenamed Germanium.

That means the update will be a small enablement package style release, taking only a few minutes to download and install. This also means that 26H2 is expected to share the same featureset as 25H2 and 24H2, with the only differences being under the hood platform improvements.

Microsoft is now testing early 26H2 preview builds in the Insider Dev Channel under the 26300 series of builds. These builds already make references to version 26H2, which all but confirms these builds to be working towards this next release. With that in mind, here's what we know so far about Microsoft's next OS update.

Windows 11 version 26H1 is also expected to ship this spring, which is based on a newer version of the Windows platform, codenamed Bromine. This release is not intended for existing Windows 11 users, and will only be available on new PCs that ship with next-gen Arm chips.

Release date

Here is what is rolling out gradually:

Copilot+ PCs experiences

This section highlights updates and improvements unique to Copilot+ PCs, focusing on AI-powered features, performance enhancements, and user experience optimizations.

• [Agent in Settings] New! The Settings Agent now supports more languages, with expanded support for German, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Hindi, Italian, and Chinese (Simplified).

Windows 11 PC experiences

This section highlights new features and enhancements for Windows 11 PCs, including AI-powered capabilities, continuous innovation, and performance improvements.

[Cross Device Resume]

• New! This update expands the functionality of Cross‑Device Resume, which Microsoft first introduced in the May 2025 Windows non-security update (KB5058499). You can continue activities from your Android phone on your PC based on the apps and services you use, including resuming Spotify playback, working in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, or continuing a browsing session.
• Vivo Android phone users can continue browsing from Vivo Browser on their PC.
• If you use an Android phone from HONOR, OPPO, Samsung, Vivo, or Xiaomi, you can resume online files that you opened in the Microsoft Copilot app on your phone and continue working on them on your PC. Files open in the corresponding Microsoft 365 app on your PC if it is installed. If the app is not installed, the files open in your default web browser. This feature does not support offline files stored only on your phone.
• New! This update improves MIDI on Windows with enhanced support for MIDI 0 and MIDI 2.0, including full WinMM and WinRT MIDI 1.0 support with built‑in translation, shared MIDI ports across apps, custom port names, loopback and app‑to‑app MIDI, plus performance improvements and bug fixes—delivering a better experience for musicians.
• The App SDK and Tools package is a separate download that enables in‑box MIDI 0 features and includes tools like MIDI Console and the MIDI Settings app. Releases are available on the Windows MIDI Services landing page and GitHub and are currently unsigned, which might display a security warning during download or installation.
• [Narrator] New! Narrator now gives you more control over how it announces on‑screen controls. You can choose which details are spoken and adjust their order to match how you navigate apps. These settings apply throughout the app to help reduce extra speech and make Narrator easier to follow.
• [Settings] New!1 You can view the Device card on the Settings home page. It shows key specifications and usage details for your PC. From the card, you can go directly to Settings > System > About for more detailed information about your device. This card appears when you sign in with your Microsoft account. This feature rollout has resumed after being paused during the August 2025 release.
• [Smart App Control] New! You can turn Smart App Control (SAC) on or off without any clean install requirement. To make changes, go to Windows Security > App & Browser Control > Smart App Control When turned on, SAC helps block untrusted or potentially harmful apps. To learn more, see App & Browser Control in the Windows Security App – Microsoft Support.
• [Voice Access] New! A streamlined setup flow makes it easier to get started with Voice Access. The redesigned experience helps you download a speech model for your chosen language, select your preferred input microphone, and learn what Voice Access can help you do on your Windows PC.
• [Voice Typing] New! The Wait time before acting setting in Voice Typing enables you to adjust the delay before a voice command runs. This setting gives you flexibility for different speech patterns and improves recognition accuracy whether you speak slowly or quickly.
• [Windows Hello] New! Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) now supports peripheral fingerprint sensors. This update extends this more secure sign-in option beyond devices with built in fingerprint sensors to include desktops and other Windows 11 PCs, including Copilot+ PCs. To get started, plug in a supported ESS fingerprint reader, go to Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options, and follow the prompts to enroll.
• [Start Menu]
  • Fixed: The warning message displayed when shutting down your computer if other users are logged in may be truncated by the edge of the Start menu.
  • Fixed: Start menu may open on the wrong side of the screen when using Arabic or Hebrew display language and the taskbar icons aren’t centered.
• [Kiosk mode] Changed: Removed an error message that might show after logging in for multi-app kiosk mode, saying “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer”.
• [Windows Update] Fixed: Trying to join the Windows Insider Program from Settings > Windows Update might get stuck.
• [Lock screen] Improved: Made some underlying changes to help address cases where the lock screen could become unresponsive.
• [File Explorer] Improved: Made some underlying changes to help improve responsiveness of File Explorer when navigating in network locations.
• [Logging into your PC] Fixed: Explorer.exe may hang when first logging into your PC, if certain apps were configured as startup apps. This could make the taskbar not appear.
• [Activation] Fixed: In some cases valid Windows license migration might fail when upgrading because the device couldn’t register with the Windows Activation server for its CLIP / online entitlement, requiring using the troubleshooter to fix.
• [Desktop icons] Fixed: You may see desktop icons unexpectedly move when interacting with files, such as opening or renaming them.
• [Input]: Fixed: The keyboard character repeat delay labels in Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Keyboard are reversed.
• [UAC] Fixed: Your PC might freeze where attempting to run Windows Terminal elevated from a non-admin account.

And here is the rest of the changelog:

• [Secure Boot] This release for Windows 11, version 24H2 will execute updates in the Boot Manager on devices that already have the Windows UEFI CA 2023 certificate in their Secure Boot Signature Database (DB). It replaces the 2011 signed bootmgfw.efi with the 2023 signed bootmgfw.efi. Be advised of the consequences of resetting the DB or turn on Secure Boot, as this can cause a “Secure Boot violation” issue. In those rare cases, the solution is to create the Secure Boot recovery media.
• [Security] New! This update adds a feature for Data Protection Application Programming Interface (DPAPI) domain backup key management. Administrators can now set how often keys rotate automatically. This strengthens cryptographic security and reduces reliance on older encryption algorithms
• [Start Menu] Fixed: For some users, clicking the “hide this pane” button in the mobile device side panel may not lead to the setting to hide it.
• [Display and Graphics] Fixed: Black screen issues in isolated multiuser environments, typically after a Windows upgrade.
• [Narrator] Fixed: An issue where Narrator might not start during Windows installation from an ISO file.
• [Other] Fixed: Addresses an issue that could cause a system crash during startup when Windows Boot Manager debugging is enabled. This occurs due to kdstub.dll and kdnet.dll components.
• [Other] Fixed: An issue that may cause iSCSI boot to fail with an “Inaccessible Boot Device” error.
• [Other] Fixed: An issue that affects the C Runtime (CRT) libraries in the Windows Software Development Kit. BinSkim flags these libraries as non-compliant with the Microsoft SDL.

You can find the announcement blog post here.

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Posted Wednesday 28 January 2026 at 1:52 pm AEST (my time).

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This week's Dev build 26300.7674 does not contain new features, but there are various fixes for File Explorer, Start menu, Search, Settings, and more. Here is what is rolling out gradually:

• [File Explorer]
  • Fixed an issue where the “Extract All” option would not appear in the command bar while browsing non-ZIP archive folders.
• [Start menu]
  • Fixed an issue for some Insiders where clicking the “hide this pane” button in the mobile device side panel might not lead to the setting to hide it.
• [Search]
  • Fixed an issue where the Search process was showing an icon with an X instead of a magnifying glass.
• [Settings]
  • We’ve made some underlying changes to help address cases where the Settings Home page might be very slow to load.
• [Display & Graphics]
  • Fixed an issue causing secondary monitors to not display correctly and show black screens after the latest updates for a small number of Insiders.
• [Other]
  • Fixed an underlying issue in the previous flight that could cause unexpected sign-in failures when using Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365.
  • Fixed an issue causing some Insiders to see a bug check with error SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION after the last few flights.

And here is the list of known bugs:

• [Start menu]
  • [NEW] We’re working on the fix for an issue where, when using the Start menu in Categories view, clicking the entry to show more apps in the category might not work.
• [File Explorer]
  • [NEW] We’re working on the fix for an underlying issue causing all open File Explorer windows and tabs to unexpectedly jump to Desktop or Home sometimes.
• [Xbox full-screen experience for PC]
  • Some apps may behave unexpectedly when using FSE, particularly those that expect to be locked to a given size or launch additional windows.
• [Taskbar & System Tray]
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue where, for some Insiders, apps aren’t showing in the system tray when they should be.
• [Click to Do]
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue where the Microsoft 365 Copilot prompt box on selected images does not function if the Microsoft 365 Copilot app is not running.

You can find the announcement blog post here.

Update: The same changelog is in build 26220.7670, which is rolling out in the Beta Channel.

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Posted Wednesday 28 January 2026 at 1:50 pm AEST (my time).

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Windows 11 passed Windows 10 in global desktop market share. Now, the newer operating system is on pace to lose its top spot to its predecessor.

Whether it gets that bad for Windows 11's market share is yet to be seen, since the OS has only dropped two months in a row. But those drops have been significant.

According to Statcounter, Windows 11 held a 55.18% market share in October 2025. That share dropped to 53.7% in November and dropped again in December. Now, Windows 11 holds a 50.73% market share.

That's a dip of more than 5 percentage points in just two months. Even leaving room for a margin of error and the fact that these are not official numbers from Microsoft, that's a big deal.

In that same time, Windows 10's market share went from 41.71% in October to 42.7% in November and then 44.68% in December. Even after the increase, Windows 10 has a smaller market share now than it did midway through last year.

Perhaps most surprising is a noticeable rise in the market share of Windows 7, which increased from 2.52% in October to 3.83% in December.

Why is Windows 11 losing market share?

The January updates present no issues for some, but lots of issues for others.

I’m always hopeful of giving everyone some time every month to apply updates after we’ve vetted them. This month, I can lower the MS-DEFCON level to only 2.5. Unfortunately, we don’t have that, so I’m forced to resort to level 3.

Once upon a time, out-of-band updates meant one thing, and one thing only — that there was an active attack on Microsoft products that needed to be evaluated, tested, and quickly patched in order to protect your computer and your network from the attackers. Now when I see an out-of-band patch, I think one thing only: What did Microsoft break in its last update that now needs a fix, one that can’t wait until next month’s release?

The term “out-of-band” refers to an update that isn’t released on Patch Tuesday (the second Tuesday of the month, the normal release tempo). Nor is it released at the end of the month, when optional preview updates become available ahead of the normal tempo. (The second week of the month is also called the “B” week, and the end-of-the-month preview updates are called the “D” week.)

Lately, out-of-band updates have been 100 percent related to a bug introduced by a regular patch that impacts Microsoft’s paying customer base. The good news — if you can call it that — is that the vast majority of these introduced bugs are not seen on consumer machines. There are a few notable exceptions that I will get to below.

I’m not ready to tell my family members that it’s time to move to a Linux distro on their daily drivers. But these sorts of problems are concerning. I hope Mr. Nadella starts getting as concerned about these pervasive problems as he is on making sure we embrace AI.

Consumers

The biggest side effect of the January updates is the interaction of the January updates with classic Outlook: whether you use a PST file and where the PST is stored. Microsoft has acknowledged these issues. Office has several issues emanating from the January updates (as documented by Microsoft), but the main one has to do with POP email and storing of PST files.

Outlook crashes if you use POP and your PST file is stored on OneDrive. The only workaround Microsoft recommends is to use Outlook on the Web. An alternative is to move the PST file to a location other than OneDrive. If you don’t use PST files and don’t use OneDrive, you probably won’t have issues installing the January updates. But if you use POP to pull in your email, the January updates for any model of PC running Windows should block/pause and/or uninstall the January updates. This applies to Windows 11 25H2, Windows 11 24H2 (KB5074109), Windows 11 23H2 (KB5073455), and Windows 10 22H2 (KB5073724).

Businesses

The January updates caused two major issues for businesses. The first impacted only Windows 11 23H2 and machines with Secure Launch enabled. Microsoft released an out-of-band update (KB5077797) to fix an issue where machines were unable to shut down after installing KB5073455. As Microsoft noted:

[Power & Battery] Fixed: Some devices with Secure Launch enabled restart instead of shutting down or entering hibernation.

However, credible reports indicate that this isn’t fixed for some models of computers, including Latitude 7450, Latitude 5450, Dell Pro 14 PC14250, and Dell Pro 13 Plus PB13250.

The second bug introduced in the January updates related to Remote Desktop:

[Remote Desktop] Fixed: Some users experienced sign-in failures during Remote Desktop connections. This issue affected authentication steps for different Remote Desktop applications on Windows such as the Windows App.

So for Windows 11 24H2 and 23H2, KB5077744 is recommended instead of KB5074109. For Windows 11 23H2, manually install KB5077797 instead of KB5073455. For Windows 10 22H2, install KB5077796 instead of the offered KB5073724. None of these out-of-band updates will be offered up via Windows update. You will need to manually install or script them onto impacted systems.

For those systems still unable to shut down after the out-of-band update, you may want to investigate options in the BIOS. I’ve seen reports that disabling the “Enhanced Sign-In Security” option in the HP BIOS solved the problem.

Bottom line: This is a bumpy release. Prepare yourself for extra steps to find ways to deploy these out-of-bands — neither WSUS, Windows Update, nor Windows Update for business will help you install these. You are on your own.

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Posted Wednesday 28 January 2026 at 7:20 am AEST (my time).

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Here is the changelog:

• Resolved various issues with missing or impaired browser functionality when using XDG Base Directories on Linux. (Bug 2011300)
• Fixed an issue causing excess passkey prompts to appear when logging into some sites. (Bug 2010919)
• Fixed an issue that could lead to sites being incorrectly flagged as malicious by SafeBrowsing. (Bug 2010956)

As for security fixes, Firefox 147.0.2 includes unknown (currently) patches that you will later be able to check on Mozilla's official website here.

In addition to fixes and security updates, Mozilla reminded everyone that with Firefox 147, users can now customize keyboard shortcuts to their liking, which is a big accessibility and usability improvement, especially for users who struggle with default Firefox shortcuts or just those who like customizing their experience a little more:

Firefox now allows you to customize your keyboard shortcuts to replace hard-to-type or hard-to-remember hotkeys, eliminate conflicts with other software, and create your preferred set. Access this experimental new feature by typing about:keyboard in the address bar.

For reference, you can check out the release notes for Firefox 147.0 here and Firefox 147.0.1 (a minor bug-fixing update) here. The official changelog for Firefox 147.0.2 is available on the official website.

If you want to download the Firefox browser, you can get it from the official website, the Microsoft Store (on Windows 10 and Windows 11), or Neowin's Software page.

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Posted Wednesday 28 January 2026 at 7:20 am AEST (my time).

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NVIDIA has a new graphics driver for users with supported GeForce graphics cards. Version 591.86 is now available for download with optimizations and DLSS 4 support for ARC Raiders: Headwind update and Arknights: Endfield. It also includes Game Ready and DLSS Super Resolution support for Highguard.

This new Game Ready Driver provides the best gaming experience for the latest new games supporting DLSS 4 technology including ARC Raiders: Headwind Update and Arknights: Endfield. In addition, there is Game Ready support for Highguard which features DLSS Super Resolution.

There are not that many gaming bugs fixed in driver 591.86. In fact, there is only one affecting Total War: Three Kingdoms:

• Total War: Three Kingdoms: Artifacts may be observed during gameplay when Screen Space Reflections is enabled [5745647]

And here are the general bugs that have been fixed:

• Color banding observed with SDR content when Windows Automatic Color Management is enabled [5754551]
• Asus G14 may freeze on startup when Asus Ultimate Mode is enabled [5754849]

Known issues include a single bug in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Image corruption after driver update [5733427]

As a reminder, NVIDIA recently stopped supporting the GTX 10 Series. Now, the GeForce GTX 16 Series and MX 400 Series are the oldest NVIDIA graphics cards that still receive bug fixes, new features, and optimizations. Despite the end of mainstream support, Windows 10 is still supported, and NVIDIA's latest drivers remain available on the outgoing operating system.

You can download the NVIDIA 591.86 WHQL driver from the official website, via the GeForce Experience app, or the NVIDIA app on 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 PCs. Full release notes are available here.

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Posted Wednesday 28 January 2026 at 7:17 am AEST (my time).

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This is not simply an expansion in platforms for Agent Mode, Microsoft is also making it a lot better. Agent Mode integrates directly with Copilot in Excel, but customers have the option to choose which model they to use through a new model selector. It currently offers GPT-5.2 from OpenAI and the latest Claude variant, Claude Opus 4.5, from Anthropic.

The Redmond tech giant says that this enhancement is in response to customer feedback which suggested that some models work better for fast, structured problem-solving, while others are more suited to detailed task-based exploration. Agent Mode in Excel will default to the "Auto" mode so you don't have to worry about choosing the best model, if that is not your forte.

Apart from this, Agent Mode can pull real-time data from the web when required, and it is also much faster and reliable across "core" Excel scenarios, which includes the generation of visualizations, creation of workbooks, and repairing of formulas.

In order to check out Agent Mode in Excel for Windows, click on the Copilot button and select Agent Mode from the Tools menu. After that, provide an outcome-based prompt like "Build a loan calculator that computes monthly payments based on user inputs for loan amount, annual interest rate, and term in years. Generate a schedule showing month, payment, principal, interest, and remaining balance. Present the results in a clear, formatted table", and then sit back and relax; you should still validate your output though.

Agent Mode is now available in Excel for Windows and web. It should be landing for Mac customers shortly as well. You do require a commercial Microsoft 365 Copilot license or be a member of Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, or Premium plans. However, Agent Mode is not available for users in the European Union and the UK.

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Posted Wednesday 28 January 2026 at 7:13 am AEST (my time).

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If your modem (yes, some people still use these things) stopped working after installing the January 2026 Security Update for Windows 11, you are not alone. A growing number of users have reported that installing update KB5074109 rendered their modems unusable. At first glance, it looks like yet another bug added to what has already been a rough Patch Tuesday for .

The KB5074109 update has already been linked to NVIDIA GPU issues, causing black screens and performance drops, app crashes, boot failures, and even errors when attempting to uninstall the update. With everything going on, the modem issue just became part of the larger story of releasing yet another buggy update.

However, in this specific case, it's not the result of a bug.

To import data into Excel using Power Query, you first navigate to the Data tab and select Get Data. This opens a dialog box that presents a variety of data sources. You can pull from an Excel workbook, a Text or CSV file, XML, JSON, a SQL Server database, or even a SharePoint Online list.

After you pick your source, you have to connect to it. The system will suggest an authentication kind based on the source you selected, but you have the freedom to change it if needed. Once that's sorted, you select Next and choose the specific table you want to work with from the data source.

To transform that data, select the Transform data button. This action launches the Power Query Editor, which is where you can clean, shape, and reorganize the data before it ever hits your spreadsheet. You can perform many different operations here to get the data exactly how you want it. You can also open the editor anytime by using Data > Get Data > Launch Power Query Editor.

Once your data looks right, you load it into the grid by selecting Close & Load. There is also a "Close & Load to…" option, which gives you the choice to either load the data into a table or just create a connection-only query. The new query then shows up in the Queries & Connections pane for you to manage.

Microsoft said that refreshing queries, a feature it introduced last July, is available to all Microsoft 365 Subscribers. The "full Power Query experience" of importing and editing, however, is reserved for subscribers with Business or Enterprise plans.

The company noted that your browser needs third-party cookies enabled to support certain Power Query functionalities, so keep that in mind if you use private browsing sessions. Looking ahead, it plans to add more data sources and introduce more advanced features to the web version in the future.

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Posted Tuesday 27 January 2026 at 1:45 pm AEST (my time).

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Since its release, there has hardly been a day where people in online spheres haven't complained about a new issue that popped up. A day after release, we found out that Remote Desktop connectivity is broken on both supported versions of Windows 11, along with various SKUs of Windows Server. We noted at that time that this bug primarily impacted enterprise environments, which is basically Redmond's main cash-cow.

Shortly after, we learned that there is yet another bug in Patch Tuesday that does not allows PCs with Secure Launch enabled to shut down or hibernate, which is a pretty major nuisance. Although Microsoft did roll out emergency OOB updates to fix both of the aforementioned problems, it was clear at this point that this was not a well-tested update.

Next, we found out that the latest release is breaking a ton of apps too. This includes Outlook becoming "completely unusable", payroll and graphics applications not responding to user input, apps that interact with cloud storage services freezing, Notepad and Snipping Tool not launching, and more. January's Patch Tuesday had become a nightmare for IT admins and consumers at this stage.

Again, Microsoft was forced to release OOB updates to work around these problems, but the latest nail in the coffin of this month's update appears to be PCs not being able to boot at all. Wowzers.

There are multiple factors for consideration in this entire ongoing ordeal for everyone. For starters, while it has been taken to a new extreme this time, Patch Tuesday causing issues is nothing new - we write about them regularly. Second, a lot of the problems highlighted above are not related to niche use-cases that are difficult to test; in fact, most of them impact all supported versions of Windows in mainstream workflows. Finally, the latest rollout, along with the constant stream of half-baked OOB patches exposes major gaps in Microsoft's quality assurance (QA) process for Windows.

Although Microsoft has never made a concrete announcement in this regard, there have been reports over the past decade or so that the company has scaled back on its testing and validation processes for Windows in a major way. This includes "restructuring" and laying off members dedicated to Windows QA, and generally just relying on Insiders to do the testing for the operating system.

Of course, anyone who has been involved with the IT sector in any capacity knows that while end-users can act as an excellent source of feedback for pre-release software, they cannot be a drop-in replacement for dedicated QA teams which are tasked and paid to find bugs in the system and try and "break" software. Insiders don't have visibility over the backend code, they can't write automated tests to check edge-cases, and they definitely don't document or reproduce every bug they encounter. They shouldn't be expected to do that either.

While it's understandable that Windows is used in hundreds of millions of devices around the globe and it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to validate the behavior of every configuration, the bugs present in recent Patch Tuesday updates impacting mainstream audiences (IT admins, enterprise customers, and general consumers) have exposed glaring holes in Redmond's QA process for its flagship OS.

Perhaps it is time for Microsoft to go back to the drawing board and figure out how it can make Windows more reliable, because the latest episode has proven that just sending pre-release software to a handful of end-users is not enough. There needs to be a dedicated QA team that is responsible for testing compatibility with associated software and hardware after each change, and there definitely needs to be some accountability regarding the state of Windows in general.

Of course, this is easier said than done. But from an external person's perspective, maybe it is time to put a little less focus on integrating Copilot with everything, and more on software that is used by almost a billion people around the world. The next Patch Tuesday update will land on February 10, but it remains to be seen what new headaches await us when that rolls out.

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Posted Tuesday 27 January 2026 at 4:39 am AEST (my time).

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And yet, frustration around Windows has rarely felt higher.

Spend a few minutes in any Windows-focused forum, subreddit, or comment section and the pattern is clear. Complaints aren’t centered on performance or stability. They’re about surprise changes, forced decisions, broken updates, and a growing sense that Microsoft is no longer building Windows with its users.

That disconnect is the real issue Microsoft needs to confront.

Windows doesn’t have a feature problem

Microsoft ships new Windows features at a steady pace. Copilot integrations, UI refreshes, AI-powered tools, and ongoing app updates arrive regularly. On paper, this should be a good thing.

Instead, many of these additions land poorly. Not because they are useless, but because they arrive without clear consent, explanation, or an easy way to opt out. Features appear in the taskbar. Ads show up in places users consider core system UI. Defaults change after updates. Privacy and telemetry settings feel fragmented and hard to reason about.

Each decision on its own might be defensible. Together, they create fatigue.

Users increasingly feel like Windows is something that happens to them after Patch Tuesday, not something they actively control.

Patch Tuesday keeps making things worse

Recent Patch Tuesday incidents have amplified this sentiment. Emergency out-of-band updates, broken shutdown behavior, cloud app failures, and encryption key controversies all feed the same narrative: Microsoft is moving fast, but not carefully enough.

When updates introduce new problems — or fix one issue while breaking another — trust erodes quickly. Even users who understand the complexity of Windows development grow wary when reliability feels inconsistent.

At that point, even positive changes are viewed with suspicion.

Control matters more than novelty

Most Windows users are not anti-change. They are anti-surprise.

They want to know what is changing, why it is changing, and how it affects their setup. They want system-level features to be optional, not mandatory. They want ads out of the operating system they paid for. They want privacy controls that are centralized, understandable, and respected.

Above all, they want agency.

When users feel that Microsoft’s priorities — AI promotion, service integration, data collection — consistently override user choice, confidence fades. Once trust is gone, no amount of polish can compensate.

The missing piece is a clearer contract with users

Microsoft does not need to redesign the Start menu again. It does not need more experimental UI changes. What it needs is a clearer, more consistent relationship with its users.

That starts with predictable behavior:

• No ads in core system interfaces
• No forced features without clear opt-in
• Transparent communication about updates and roadmaps
• Centralized, meaningful privacy controls
• Feedback programs that visibly influence decisions

None of this is radical. It is basic respect for the people who rely on Windows every day.

Windows itself is not in crisis. But the relationship between Microsoft and its users is strained, and strained relationships do not improve through surprise updates or silent policy shifts.

They improve through clarity, consistency, and trust — rebuilt one decision at a time.

Where do you think Windows is heading?

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Posted Tuesday 27 January 2026 at 4:38 am AEST (my time).

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On Windows 11, Microsoft has confirmed that the January 2026 Security Update (KB5074109, build 26200.7623) is triggering additional issues that can prevent some devices from booting properly.

Although the company has already released two out-of-band updates to address earlier problems, Microsoft now acknowledges that this particular failure remains unresolved, and neither emergency patch (KB5077744 and KB5078127) corrects the boot issue.

Reports indicate that affected systems crash during startup with an "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" stop error, displaying a Black Screen of Death message stating: "Your device ran into a problem and needs a restart."

Microsoft says the issue affects at least Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 24H2 and confirms it is actively working on fixes and potential workarounds. In the meantime, impacted users must manually uninstall KB5074109 from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), as you won't be able to reach the desktop to complete the process normally.

In this how-to guide, I'll outline two ways to uninstall the KB5074109 update from your computer.

How to uninstall the buggy January 2026 update from WinRE on Windows 11

If you must uninstall a quality update from the recovery environment, you can complete this task in at least two ways.

Option 1

To uninstall the latest buggy update using Automatic Repair to enter WinRE, use these steps:

The problem is as terrible as it sounds, and Microsoft has already confirmed it. In the Admin Center, the company issued a notification that it had received "a limited number of reports" where computers cannot boot and show a dreadful "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" error after applying KB5074109 from January 13 and later (including the latest out-of-band update).

Here is how Microsoft describes it:

Microsoft has received a limited number of reports of an issue in which devices are failing to boot with stop code “UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME”, after installing the January 2026 Windows security update (the Originating KBs listed above), released January 13, 2026, and later updates. Affected devices show a black screen with the message “Your device ran into a problem and needs a restart. You can restart.” At this stage, the device cannot complete startup and requires manual recovery steps.

At this point, affected customers should apply "manual recovery steps" to bring their PCs back to life, although no specific steps were provided by Microsoft. The company only says that the problem affects local machines with client versions of Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2. The company is investigating the problem and will share more information once it has it.

Interestingly, Microsoft came up with a technical solution for scenarios like this. In 2024, Microsoft announced Quick Machine Recovery (and even redesigned the legendary Blue Screen of Death), a mechanism that allows applying remedies for outages and critical bugs within the Windows Recovery Environment or WinRE. At this point, it does not seem to be much of help, as Microsoft is still investigating the root cause of the problem.

Via AskWoody

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Posted Monday 26 January 2026 at 5:07 am AEST (my time).

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The new OOB updates have been released under KB5078127 on Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2, KB5078132 on Windows 11 23H2, and KB5078129 and KB5078131 on Windows 11 22H2 and other earlier Windows 10 versions. The changelog is given below:

• [File System] Fixed: After installing the Windows update released on and after January 13, 2026, some applications became unresponsive or encountered unexpected errors when opening files from or saving files to cloud-based storage, such as OneDrive or Dropbox. In certain Outlook configurations that store PST files on OneDrive, Outlook may hang and fail to reopen unless the process is terminated or the system is restarted. Users may also see missing sent Items or previously downloaded emails being re‑downloaded.

   

In terms of known issues, Microsoft says it is currently not aware of any known issues on Windows 10, but on Windows 11 the tech giant has confirmed a single known issue wherein the password icon can be invisible or be entirely missing on the lock screen. It can be mitigated by a known issue rollback (KIR). Microsoft writes:

"After installing the August 2025 non-security preview update (KB5064081) or later updates, you might notice that the password icon is not visible in the sign-in options on the lock screen. If you hover over the space where the icon should appear, you’ll see that the password button is still available. Select this placeholder to open the password text box and enter your password. After entering your password, you can sign in normally.

Individuals using Windows Home or Pro editions on personal devices are very unlikely to experience this issue. This issue primarily affects enterprise or managed IT environments.

This issue is mitigated using Known Issue Rollback (KIR). For enterprise-managed devices managed by IT departments that have installed the affected update and encountered this issue, IT administrators can resolve it by installing and configuring the Group policy listed below. The special Group Policy can be found in Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates >.

Group Policy downloads with Group Policy name:

• Download for Windows 11 version 24H2, Windows 11 version 25H2: Windows 11 24H2, Windows 11 25H2 and Windows Server 2025 KB5072033 251202_18051 Known Issue Rollback

Microsoft notes that the updates will be automatically installed. You can also manually download it on the Microsoft Update Catalog: KB5078127, KB5078132, KB5078129, KB5078131.

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Posted Monday 26 January 2026 at 5:02 am AEST (my time).

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Here is what is new in Windows Terminal Preview 1.24.10212.0:

• The extraneous TerminalAzBridge executable has been removed from the Terminal package (#19528)
• The caption buttons will (finally!) dim when the window is out of focus (#19668) (thanks @Aliremu!)
• Compatibility with some popular Chinese and Japanese IMEs has been restored (#19738)
• Many of our cross-thread UI operations have been hardened against use-after-free (#19752)
• Terminal should no longer display an error dialog about "threading" when loading settings (#19755)
• Terminal should no longer hang if you have the large paste warning dialog enabled and paste a lot of text (#19721)
• The top-level WindowsTerminal process will now exit properly when the last window fails to tear down (#19743)
• We've checked in a speculative fix for an XAML focus crash (#19753)
• Themes setting a tab row background color will no longer have that color overridden by the acrylic material (#19622) (thanks @EclipseAditya!)

In addition to the changes above, the stable version of Windows Terminal received three more changes in version 1.23.20211.0:

• We have backported support for DECSET 2026 Synchronized Output from the Preview channel (#18826) (#18833)

• Terminal (Portable, Unpackaged) will no longer crash if you have a stray copy of Microsoft.UI.Xaml.dll on your %PATH% (#19268)

• The Cut/Copy/Paste menu in the settings UI is now properly localized (#18908) (thanks @consvc!)

   

You can download the latest Windows Terminal releases from the app's official GitHub repository. It is also available in the Microsoft Store, and it will update itself automatically in the background.

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Posted Monday 26 January 2026 at 4:55 am AEST (my time).

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ExplainingComputers (1.16m subscribers)

January 26, 2026

Video length: 23m 15s

How to turn an existing, physical Windows installation into a VirtualBox virtual machine. This video builds on my 2025 video “Running Windows in Linux: A VirtualBox Guide” --    • Running Windows in Linux: A VirtualBox Guide   

00:00 Titles & Intro

00:44 VirtualBox

02:35 Disk2vhd

06:44 VDI Conversion

13:05 Virtual Machine Creation

16:28 Guest Additions

18:35 Activation & Configuration

22:20 Wrap

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Posted Monday 26 January 2026 at 4:52 am AEST (my time).

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Some Gmail users have noticed that promotional emails that normally go to their own siloed tab have started flooding their inbox. Reports have been hitting the Google forums and Reddit that messages are bypassing the Updates and Promotional filters and going straight to Gmail inboxes. Some are also reporting seeing a banner at the top of some messages warning them to “be careful with this message,” explaining that it hasn’t been fully scanned for spam or malware.

Google acknowledged the issue, posting on the Workspace Status Dashboard:

Gmail users might see banners indicating missing spam checks.We are experiencing an issue with Gmail beginning on Saturday, 2026-01-24 05:02 US/Pacific. Users might experience the following banner: “Be careful with this message. Gmail hasn’t scanned this message for spam, unverified senders, or harmful software.”We advise the users to be extra diligent in lieu of missing spam checks. Our engineering team is investigating the issue. We will provide an update by Saturday, 2026-01-24 09:30 with current details.

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Posted Sunday 25 January 2026 at 4:20 am AEST (my time).

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Microsoft recently changed the release notes to clarify that two widget-related features are not available in KB5070311 and will arrive in later updates. Those include the following:

• [Widgets] You can choose a default dashboard in Widget Board settings. When live weather is showing, the Widget Board opens the first dashboard in your navigation bar instead of the most recently used one, making the experience consistent. To set your default dashboard, open the full-page Widgets Settings by selecting Settings in the navigation bar, then move your preferred dashboard to the top.
• [Widgets] Dashboard icons in the Widget navigation bar now show numbers that correspond to the number of alerts from that dashboard. Navigation bar badges clear automatically when you leave a dashboard, making it easy to track what’s new.

Interestingly, this is not the first time Microsoft has updated the changelog for KB5070311. In December, the company said that taskbar animations were no longer available (no explanation provided), and the ability to AI-categorized photos in the Microsoft Photos app using semantic search was removed as well (again, without explanations).

At the same time, Microsoft added a word about the Recommended section in File Explorer for your frequently used files and the AltGr layer for the Arabic 101 keyboard layout.

While it is nice to see proper communication from Microsoft, the company has recently been struggling with putting out consistent changelogs. Enthusiasts have been tracking all sorts of mistakes and mentions of non-existing features in Windows 11 preview builds and cumulative updates. Add to that the fact that not a single month goes by without a major Windows bug (some of which are quite hilarious) introduced by the latest Patch Tuesday updates, and you get quite a grim picture of the current state of Windows affairs.

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Posted Saturday 24 January 2026 at 6:27 pm AEST (my time).

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