Linux fans are a little upset that Microsoft's xCloud game streaming looks noticeable worse when running on Linux than Windows.

The Linux User-Agent has fuzzy edges and washed out colours. The dip in quality seems to go away if you enable "Clarity Boost", an Edge-exclusive feature that provides the optimal look and feel while playing Xbox games from the cloud.

That's great for Linux users who switched over to Microsoft Edge when it launched on Linux last November, but Linux users are more likely to use Firefox, Chrome, or other browsers which have a really bad streaming quality.

Of course, the thought is that Vole is doing this all deliberately and is reserving the best xCloud streaming performance for Windows machines in an attempt to attract more users to its own operating system. But that conspiracy goes tits up because using a Macintosh User-Agent string provides streaming performance similar to that on Windows.

Microsoft also hasn't published any kind of "best on Windows"-style marketing in promoting xCloud streaming, which would seemingly be a key component of trying to attract new Windows users. It is more likely that it is a cock-up.

One suggestion is that it is a bug caused by Microsoft's naive parsing of the User-Agent strings. That's because the User-Agent strings for Android browsers generally identify themselves as some version of Linux ("Linux; Android 11; HD1905," for example). Microsoft's xCloud code might simply see the "Linux" in that string, assume the user is running Android, then automatically throttle the streaming quality to account for the (presumably) reduced screen size of an Android phone or tablet.

Source

And it looks like Microsoft wasn't exaggerating much as the latest test data by system builder Puget Systems finds that Windows 11 is indeed faster now than it was previously, though it does not have a clear advantage over Windows 10 either as the two seem to be trading blows in terms of hardware performance.

Matt Bach, Senior Labs technician at Puget Systems writes:

The last time we compared Windows 11 to Windows 10 for video editing, rendering, and game development, we found that Windows 10 typically gave measurably higher performance than Windows 11. That was right after Windows 11 officially launched, however, and there have been a host of updates, and even entire new generations of CPUs launched, since then.

The good news is that we didn't see nearly as many performance issues with Windows 11 this time around, so many of the problems we saw at launch seem to have been worked out. On the other hand, Windows 11 also wasn't a clear winner over Windows 10 in most cases.

[..] Overall, there are only a few instances where there was a clear performance advantage to using one OS over the other:

• Premiere Pro - In every case, Windows 10 was a small, but measurable amount faster than Windows 11.

• V-Ray CUDA mode - Windows 11 was consistently about 20% faster than Windows 10.

• Unreal Engine - Likely a bug with Windows 10, but the Intel Core i9 12900K showed massive performance gain with Windows 11.

The bug in Unreal Engine 4.26 that Puget notes seems to be affecting Intel Alder Lake-S i9-12900K processor. It is possible that the Performance Hybrid architecture of the chip is not quite optimized for UE 4.26 on Windows10, which is why there is an enormous difference between the Windows 10 and 11 systems:

You can find the full test results on Puget Systems' website here.

Puget Systems finds Windows 11 can finally keep up with Windows 10

In May, Microsoft introduced a new 'Advanced Networking' feature to Windows 11 builds on the Dev channel, which made the Windows Subsystem for Android virtual machine and host share the same IP address.

By removing Network Address Translation and bridging the VM to the host's IP,  Android apps could now communicate with other devices on the same network, such as IP cameras, audio streaming devices, or play multiplayer LAN games.

"This setting allows Android apps to connect to other devices on the same network as your Windows PC. When this setting is turned on, you can play content wirelessly," reads the documentation on the WSA Advanced Networking feature.

"For example, you can play music on a speaker that's connected to the same network or set up hardware (like a security camera) with a compatible Android app."

Android apps can now use your VPN's IP

Today, Microsoft announced that Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) version 2205.40000.14.0 is now available on all Windows 11 Insider channels with additional features.

The feature that stands out is the ability for the WSA virtual machine to use the IP address of your desktop VPN connection.

With this new feature, users can connect to a VPN on the desktop and allow Android apps to bypass government censorship, access region-locked content, or simply increase privacy by remaining anonymous on the Internet.

For this feature to work, the Advanced Networking feature must be enabled within the WSA settings, as shown below.

Unfortunately, when BleepingComputer tested this feature, the Windows Subsystem for Android no longer worked when connecting to a NordVPN connection, indicating that you may run into issues using other VPN applications.

To use WSA properly again, we needed to disable the VPN connection and reset the Windows Subsystem for Android.

Other improvements announced today

In addition to VPN support, Microsoft also announced support for IPv6 networking, Advanced Networking for ARM, AV1 Codec support, Kernel patches, and more. 

• Enabled Advanced Networking functionality, including app access to local network devices for ARM
• VM IP address removed from Settings app. With Advanced Networking, now the IP address of the VM is the same as the host/computer IP.
• Fixes for non-resizable app content on maximize or resizing
• Fixes for scrolling with mouse and trackpad in apps
• Android May Kernel patches
• Android windows marked secure can no longer be screenshotted
• Improve web browser launching
• Enable doze and app standby while charging for improved power saving
• ADB debug prompts redirected to Windows for improved security
• Updated to Chromium WebView 101
• Fixes for graphics including app flickering and graphics corruption
• Fixes for video playback
• AV1 Codec support
• Increased the performance and reliability connecting to virtual WIFI in the container
• Video playback apps can now prevent the screen from turning off in Windows

You can read Microsoft's announcement for more information about these features.

Windows 11 Subsystem for Android can now use VPN-assigned IPs

In a blog post, Microsoft talks at length about the functionalities of the pane. As described by the software giant, the pane allows you to choose which types of notifications you wish to receive, including email and document @mentions, travel updates, deliveries, and more.

Items in the Notifications pane remain for 30 days, after which they expire. You can follow the below steps to access the pane.

How it works

1. Select the Notifications icon (Notifications pane icon in Outlook) at the top-right corner of your Outlook window to display a list of email and document notifications.

2. Click an email @mention notifications card in the Notifications pane; this opens the email related to that notification in a popped-out email window.

3. Select Customize in the top-left corner of the Notifications pane of notifications you want to see going forward.

It's worth noting that the new Notifications pane will initially be available for enterprise customers. Microsoft will open access to consumers in the near future. Microsoft will be rolling out the Notifications pane to Office Insiders running Windows Beta Channel Version 2208 (Build 15408.10000) or later.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft introduces new Notifications pane in Outlook for Windows

As spotted by Leopeva64-2, Edge Canary now allows editing a picture before saving it. Right-clicking an image reveals the option to invoke the built-in editor with several features pulled straight from the Windows Photos app. You can crop a picture, adjust various sliders (brightness, exposure, etc), apply filters, and annotate with different tools.

You can check out new image editing capabilities in Microsoft Edge by downloading the latest Canary release from the official website. Note that Microsoft rolls out fresh features in waves, so you might not get them immediately.

The new image editor will be one more option to sit in the ever-growing context menus in Microsoft Edge. Although the company has promised to do something about this problem, the first attempts to make context menus in Edge less confusing are yet to be seen.

Parts of Windows Photos app coming soon to Microsoft Edge

Here is the full changelog for Windows Terminal v1.14.186 Stable channel release:

• Terminal now has better support for xterm's "Alternate Screen Buffer"

• Console application windowing will now work more consistently within Terminal: when an application requests that it be hidden or minimized, we will minimize the associated terminal window.

• Terminal can now pass xterm focus events on to connected client applications

• We've added a new experimental setting,

  experimental.useBackgroundImageForWindow

  , that lets you use one image as the background for any number of panes (thanks @nico-abram!)

   

• You can now change the bell sound with the profile.bellSound setting

   

Here are the bug fixes:

• Keyboard selection now works better with copyOnSelect (#13360)
• Keyboard selection is now limited to the scrollable area (#13353) (#13372)
• "Open settings file" commands now explicitly mention "JSON" for easier searching (#13265)
• An accelerator key is now defined for the "Open in Terminal" shell extension (#13080) (thanks @ianjoneill!)
• We no longer crash when using the Default Terminal setting in the settings UI (#13160)
• The Default Terminal banner is now hidden if you opened a session via default terminal (#13344)
• [O is no longer output erroneously from focus events for clients of libuv like neovim (#13260)
• We no longer crash when a screen reader is reading from a CLI app using the alt buffer (#13250)
• Deleting the last profile in the settings UI no longer causes a crash (#13242)
• Opening Windows Terminal via the Win+X menu no longer occasionally crashes (#13212)
• The "Open in Terminal" shell extension is now hidden when accessing a non-filesystem path like "Quick Actions" (#13206) (thanks @leejy12!)
• Clearing the screen via cls or Clear-Host won't leave behind an erroneous line of text (#13324) (thanks @j4james!)
• Default Terminal sessions now properly pass focus events when opened (#13247)
• Terminal will now use Unicode 14.0 to determine the width of some Unicode characters (#13292)
• We will no longer try to launch wsl to ask it to tell us about distributions when it's obvious that you don't have any (#13436)
• We've fixed a minor race condition in default terminal handoff that impacted nobody (#13410)
• The tab's context menu now has "Find" as an option (#13055) (thanks @Predelnik!)
• SetConsoleWindowInfo can no longer crash a terminal tab (#13212)
• An occasional crash while opening the settings UI has been stomped out (#13160)

Moving over to the Preview side, Microsoft has released today Windows Terminal Preview v1.15.186. The new update brings full keyboard selection support as well as experimental support for scrollbar marks. Here is the very long list of changes in the latest Terminal Preview:

Features:

• Selecting text in the terminal just got better!

   

  • Use the "markMode" action to enter mark mode and create a selection at the cursor (#13053) (#13358)
    -This is bound to Ctrl+Shift+M by default. Be sure to try it out!

  • Selections made with the keyboard now display a selection marker UI (#10865)

  • Use the "switchSelectionEndpoint" action to switch which endpoint you are moving in a selection (#13370)

  • Use the "toggleBlockSelection" action to transform your existing selection into a block selection (#13219)

     

• [Experimental] We now support scrollbar marks! (#12948) (#13163) (#13291) (#13414)

   

  • Use the "addMark" action to add a scrollbar mark

  • The color optional parameter can be used to specify a color

  • Use the "scrollToMark" action with a specified direction parameter to scroll between the marks

  • Use the "clearMark" action to remove a selected mark

  • Use the "clearAllMarks" action to remove all scrollbar marks

  • The "experimental.autoMarkPrompts" global setting can be set to true to automatically mark each prompt
    - NOTE: This uses the FTCS_PROMPT sequence from FinalTerm, OSC 133 ; A, which we now support! (#13163)

  • The "experimental.showMarksOnScrollbar" global setting can also be set to true to display the marks on your scrollbar

     

• If you're new to Windows Terminal Preview, but already have Windows Terminal installed and customized, we now migrate your settings over (#12907) (thanks @huiyooumich!)

   

• The tab's context menu now has "Find" as an option (#13055) (thanks @Predelnik!)

   

Changes:

• "Open settings file" commands now explicitly mention "JSON" for easier searching (#13265)
• Color schemes now support "purple" and "magenta" interchangeably in the JSON (#13261) (thanks @matthewd673!)
• An accelerator key is now defined for the "Open in Terminal" shell extension (#13080) (thanks @ianjoneill!)
• The settings UI's "Save" pane now aligns with the "Open JSON file" footer (#13282) (thanks @HO-COOH!)
• The Default Terminal setting in settings UI now has a "Let Windows decide" option (#13160)
  • An occasional crash while opening the settings UI has been stomped out (same PR!)
• The "Save" and "Discard changes" buttons were reordered in the settings UI to more closely follow the Windows UI guidelines (#13237)
• @dansmor7 has refined how colored tabs look when they're out of focus or hovered (#13434) (thanks!)

More Escape Sequences and expanded VT support

Courtesy of @j4james:

• Applications can now use DECCTR to alter the terminal's color scheme (#13139) (#13227)
• The same applications can now use DECAC to assign a color to the default foreground and background colors, as well as change the tab background color (#13058)
• Other applications can now use DECPS to play a basic sequence of musical notes (#13208)
  - This feature is preview-only until we can make sure the MIDI sound font is available everywhere Stable ships.

Documentation

• building.md and mouseInput.cpp got cleaned up a bit (#13333) (thanks @ofek and @oferze!)
• We added a Gannt chart to the roadmap (#13234)

On the back end...

• @lhecker rewrote how we handle coordinates across the project, paving the way for a longer scrollback history and removing a bunch of sources of assertion failures; if you see anything weird that seems like a coordinate system issue, please file it! (#13025)

Bug Fixes

• We no longer suppress black blackground or gray foreground for PowerShell (#13352)
  • We have chosen to remove this workaround as newer versions of PowerShell's PSReadline component contain a fix for the issue.
  • This was a compatibility band-aid that was impacting the capabilities of great projects such as Oh My Posh.
  • ❗ If you see unexpected black backgrounds appearing behind text while typing a command in PowerShell, make sure your PSReadline version is up to date. You can update your version of PSReadline by running the command, "Update-Module PSReadline".
• The Default Terminal banner is now hidden if you opened a session via default terminal (#13344)
  - AKA: We won't nag you to set Terminal as your default if it's demonstrably the default 😜
• [O is no longer output erroneously from focus events for clients of libuv like neovim (#13260)
• AtlasEngine no longer secretly increases the font size of HTML/RTF copies when the font changes (#13384)
• Keyboard selection is now limited to the scrollable area (#13318)
• The "Open in Terminal" shell extension is now hidden when accessing a non-filesystem path like "Quick Actions" (#13206) (thanks @leejy12!)
• Clearing the screen via cls or Clear-Host won't leave behind an erroneous line of text (#13324) (thanks @j4james!)
• Default Terminal sessions now properly pass focus events when opened (#13247)
• Terminal will now use Unicode 14.0 to determine the width of some Unicode characters (#13292)
• We will no longer try to launch wsl to ask it to tell us about distributions when it's obvious that you don't have any (#13436)
• We've fixed a minor race condition in default terminal handoff that impacted nobody (#13410)

Reliability

• We no longer crash when a screen reader is reading from a CLI app using the alt buffer (#13250) (#13244)
• Deleting the last profile in the settings UI no longer causes a crash (#13242)
• Opening Windows Terminal via the Win+X menu no longer occasionally crashes (#13212)
• SetConsoleWindowInfo can no longer crash a terminal tab (#13212)

Developers can find more details about the various features like Mark mode and Scroll bar marks in the official Microsoft blog post here.

Windows Terminal 1.14 and Terminal Preview 1.15 brings several crash fixes

The release date is July 6, and if you are reading this on the day, Firefox may not yet be available via the browser's integrated updating system. You may display the current version of the web browser and run a manual check for updates by selecting Menu > Help > About Firefox.

Here is the link to the release notes (which will be published later on July 6, 2022).

Firefox 102.0.1

Firefox 102.0.1 is a stability and bug fix release. It addresses several issues that users of Firefox 102 and earlier could run into.

Firefox users who have configured the browser to delete cookies and site data on exit started to notice that the browser was not remembering the setting anymore. Each time the browser restarted, Firefox would reset the preference so that it appeared unchecked and inactive.

Mozilla engineers who analyzed the issue noticed that the bug affected the checkmark of the preference only. In other words: cookies and site data were still deleted on exit by the browser, even though the preference itself was unchecked by it.

Mozilla introduced support for checking the spelling of multiple languages in Firefox simultaneously in Firefox 100, which it released in May 2022. The feature works fine for most language combinations, but a bug caused issues on pages with English and non-Latin words. Mozilla confirmed the issue with Russian, Hebrew and Greek languages, and the Firefox 102.0.1 release fixes it.

The next two issues fixed in Firefox 102.0.1 address bookmark related issue. The first fixes a bookmark shortcut creation bug on Windows that broke drag & drop functionality. Firefox supports dragging links or images to the desktop. The bug affected filenames with invalid characters only, but caused the drag & drop operation to fail.

The second bookmark related issue addresses a visual issue. Firefox users who opened the bookmarks sidebar in dark mode may have noticed that it flashed white while doing so. Firefox 102.0.1 addresses the issue.

The final issue that Mozilla addresses in the new Firefox Stable release fixes a bug in the Developer Tools. Firefox's developer console output would scroll to the bottom automatically when the last visible message was an evaluation result.

Mozilla lists "various stability fixes" without going into details as well in the release notes.

Now You: did you install the update already? Ran into any other issues?

Firefox 102.0.1 release information

Frontpaged:   Mozilla Firefox Browser 102.0.1

For many people—and certainly for many of the world's intelligence services—the quantum computer holds great promise. But online service providers that rely on secure data exchanges also see it as a threat. It is true that quantum computers are still being developed, and it is not yet foreseeable when the first powerful computers of this kind will come into service, but one thing is certain as Peter Schwabe, Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy and professor at the Radboud University Nijmegen explains: "As soon as the first quantum computers arrive, today's cryptographic protocols, which protect virtually all data traffic, will become obsolete because quantum computers will be able to solve the two mathematical problems on which today's cryptographic methods are based." For example, they will be able to break down any large number into prime factors in an instant. Conventional cryptography relies on prime number factorization because contemporary computers would need tens of thousands of years to do the necessary calculations and would also consume as much energy as the sun sends to the earth in the same period.

Four methods out of 69 were chosen, three with Max Planck participation

A total of 69 international teams from the cryptography community have submitted proposals for new cryptographic techniques to NIST to protect data traffic against quantum computer attacks in the future—they are calling it post-quantum cryptography. After several rounds, NIST has now decided to standardize four of these procedures because, as Eike Kiltz, professor at Ruhr University Bochum and spokesperson for the Bochum Cluster of Excellence Cyber Security in the Age of Large Scale Adversaries explains: "They will provide better protection for digital communications, because quantum computers would undermine current encryption methods and signature systems. These new algorithms show how important it is for researchers working in basic research to work together with their colleagues in the applied sciences to ensure that our data is securely encrypted in the future."

Two of the selected methods are used for authentication, namely the schemes Sphincs+ and Crystals-Dilithium, in whose development Peter Schwabe was involved: "For authentication, a signature in a so-called digital handshake ensures, for example, that a web browser is actually connected to the server it claims to be." Peter Schwabe was also part of the team that designed Crystals-Kyber and made this method fit for application. This procedure enables the secure exchange of cryptographical keys for the further communication. Amongst others, Schwabe cooperated closely with Eike Kiltz in the development of Crystals-Dilithium and Crystals-Kyber.

"Post-quantum cryptography is based on mathematical operations which, given our present state of knowledge, are almost as difficult for quantum computers as they are for conventional computers. For example, both key exchange and authentication procedures use hash functions, i.e., algorithms that derive a small number from a very large input number whereby it is not possible to determine the original number from the small number, which is often called a digital fingerprint." Such hash functions are a core building block for many primitives and it is possible to construct digital signatures only from hash functions.

The cryptography community is involved in the selection process

During the selection process, NIST verified that the respective methods are secure in principle, and also whether they could be implemented in a secure and efficient manner and will now go on to write standards for the selected processes. These standards will explain the cryptographic basics and how to implement them, and will also formulate guidelines so that, for example, online service providers will be able to integrate them into their applications with comparatively little effort and, more importantly, without opening up loopholes in existing security safeguards.

Some people have reservations about NIST's work, fearing that the agency could standardize encryption methods at the behest of the NSA, leaving backdoors open for the American intelligence service. As Schwabe admits: "We know for sure that this has happened in one case in the past." But, he adds, at the time NIST presumably did not do so knowingly and has since admitted that they made a big mistake in doing so. "Unlike the current processes," says Schwabe, "the process with the backdoor loophole wasn't submitted in an open process by academics, and the crypto community is now more involved in the selection process. So now it is not only NIST that checks the potential security vulnerabilities of the available methods, but also more or less the entire global cryptography community." And, he continues, "NIST has already twice set up a similar selection process for new cryptography standards twice as they do now for post-quantum cryptography. And the methods that were standardized in these earlier efforts have proven to be very secure and are now used all around the world."

European authorities are likely to adopt the standards selected by NIST

So it is to be expected that the decision taken by NIST will set the standards, at least for the U.S. and Europe. As Eike Kiltz says: "The new NIST standard will certainly become one of the most influential documents in IT security." While the European authorities are still examining the procedures selected by NIST, as Schwabe explains, experience has shown that, provided they do not find any security gaps, they will agree with the assessment of their U.S. American colleagues, not least to enable encrypted data exchanges between services and computer programs located in the U.S. and EU respectively. For Google, Amazon, Apple, and virtually every other company that provides online services, the need to communicate with each other is an incentive to rely on the encryption methods standardized by NIST. "And, if security vulnerabilities do occur, they can then blame NIST," says Schwabe, who thinks that the standardization process could be completed by the end of 2023.

But some companies, such as Google and Infineon, are already trialing post-quantum cryptography alongside current standards, which are vulnerable to quantum computer attacks and car manufacturers too are already exploring post-quantum cryptography to ensure that they will still be able to reliably update the software in their current vehicles in 15 or 20 years' time without too much effort. "Our assumption," says Schwabe, "is that more and more services will use the new procedures once they have been standardized." The hope is that the encryption processes that Schwabe and his colleagues have helped to develop will then be able to make web surfing, email traffic, and banking transactions even more secure even before the first quantum computers are available.

Source

Microsoft has split up its band of unpaid testers, the Windows Insiders, into two groups with the latest updates to the company's Beta Channel.

Although Microsoft still hasn't confirmed the final release date of Windows 11's next major update (22H2) it has tinkered with the Beta Channel in a similar way to what it did in 2019, when Windows Insiders in the beta channel were split into two.

As before, the number of the build will be artificially incremented for some, but not for others. Groups receiving build 22622.xxx will get new features (either rolled out or turned on via a Windows 10-alike enablement package) while those placed in the build 22621.xxx group will have the new toys turned off by default.

Microsoft's justification for this is to check out its ability to release updates with features turned off by default (and therefore update things at a point in the future by simply flicking a switch in the code.) It also expects to "have greater insight into the impact of enabling new features."

"By comparing feedback and usage data between Insiders in these two groups, we will get to see if a feature is causing issues with reliability, for example."

The company will then be able to make a call on rolling out a feature to a wider audience or hurriedly disabling it and hoping nobody noticed.

The majority of Insiders will apparently be popped into the build 22622.xxx group, although not all features will be immediately turned on. The rest will land in the build 22621.xxx group, where new features are off by default.

Previous features may 'disappear'

For Insiders tired of Microsoft's habit of flipping a virtual coin to decide if they get new toys to play with or not, those in the build 22621.xxx group can check for updates and shift themselves onto build 22622.xxx. "Some Insiders who had previous features rolled out to them may see them disappear," admitted Microsoft, before suggesting an install of the enablement package should bring things back "shortly."

"We realize this isn't ideal," the company conceded.

For those lucky enough to be in the build 22622.xxx group, build 22622.290 released last night introduces suggest actions (where Windows 11 will suggest making a call or creating a calendar event when copying a number or call respectively – although this only applies to users in the US, Canada and Mexico.)

Other changes include the arrival of OneDrive storage alerts and subscription management in the Windows 11 Settings app. Doubtless Microsoft will offer rival cloud storage services similar access (we asked and will update should the company respond.)

Old habits die hard, and the new features won't hit all Insiders immediately as Microsoft rolls them out.

Fixes for the tabbed File Explorer also feature in build 22622.290 while a raft of other changes include tweaks around SMB and TLS 1.3.
As for known issues, Microsoft issued a PowerShell fix for the cyclical crashes experienced by some users. ®

Source

Starting today, we are releasing updates to the Beta Channel that put Windows Insiders into one of two groups similar to what we did back in 2019:

• A group of Insiders in the Beta Channel will receive Build 22622.xxx updates that will have new features getting rolled out or turned on via an enablement package like how we release updates for Windows 10 today.

• A group of Insiders in the Beta Channel will receive Build 22621.xxx updates that will have new features turned off by default.

Furthermore Microsoft made a lengthy blog post explaining the reasoining for split builds in the Beta channel:

This approach will help us validate our ability to release updates with features turned off by default. It will also allow us to have greater insight into the impact of enabling new features. By comparing feedback and usage data between Insiders in these two groups, we will get to see if a feature is causing issues with reliability, for example. Based on this insight, it will help us make decisions on whether to make new features available for more Insiders by increasing their rollout or, in some cases, disable a feature to address bugs. The goal is to use the comparison data to ensure the best possible experience as we try out new features and experience with Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel.

The majority of Insiders in the Beta Channel will automatically get the update (Build 22622.xxx). It is important to note that not all features will be immediately turned on with this update as we plan to roll them out and monitor feedback and see how they land before pushing them out to more Insiders.

We realize that Insiders in the Beta Channel will want to choose which update they get. Insiders who land 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 22622.xxx).

As part of this transition to using the enablement package, some Insiders who had previous features rolled out to them may see them disappear. If this happens to you, please install the enablement package and they should return shortly. We realize this isn’t ideal, and we are learning how to best adjust our rollouts going forward to minimize disruption in previewing experiences.

This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts. 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 . As a reminder, features we try out with Windows Insiders will ship when they are ready and not every feature that we try out in the Beta Channel will ship to general customers.

As such Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.290 and Build 22622.290 (KB5014959) have been released to the Beta Channel today.

• Build 22622.290 = New features rolling out.
• Build 22621.290 = New features off by default.

What’s new in Build 22622.290

Suggested Actions

Windows Insiders can try out a new feature in this build for making everyday tasks quicker in Windows 11 through inline suggested actions. When you copy a date, time, or phone number, Windows will suggest actions relevant to you such as creating calendar events or making phone calls with your favorite apps. This feature is currently only available to Windows Insiders in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

• On copying a phone number, Windows will pop up an inline light dismissible UI that suggests ways to call the phone number using Teams or other installed apps that offer click-to-dial call functions.

• On copying a future date and/or time, Windows will pop up an inline light dismissible UI that suggests creating the event using supported calendar apps. Upon user selection of preference, the app is launched with its corresponding calendar event creation page with auto filled date and/or time.

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Suggested actions on copy.

Bringing OneDrive storage alert and subscription management in Settings

In March, we enhanced the Microsoft 365 subscription management experience in Windows 11 Settings and added the ability to view your payment method on your Microsoft 365 subscription in Accounts within Settings.

The OneDrive Standalone 100GB subscription management experience is live on Accounts page in Settings.

Starting with today’s build, we have begun enabling OneDrive Standalone 100GB subscriptions in the Accounts page within Settings, similar to the Microsoft 365 subscriptions. This will allow you to view your recurring billing, payment method, and OneDrive storage usage within Windows 11. Additionally, if you are close to or above your OneDrive storage limit, you will be informed on the same page.

Banner shown on Account settings page alerting you about your storage usage.

[We are beginning to roll those features out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]

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

Fixes in Build 22622.290

[File Explorer]

• Middle clicking a folder in the body of File Explorer will now open it in a new tab.
• The row of tabs should now be included in the keyboard focus cycle when pressing Tab or F6. Once focus is in the tab row, you can use left or right arrow keys to navigate through them.
• Fixed an issue where the tab order when using CTRL + Tab would be wrong if you’d rearranged the tabs in File Explorer.
• Made some adjustments for when “Display the full path in title bar” is enabled, to ensure that the folder name is always visible.
• Fixed a scaling issue which could result in the tabs being unexpectedly large.
• Right clicking a tab and then clicking somewhere else in File Explorer should dismiss the context menu more reliably now.

Below are the fixes included for BOTH Build 22621.290 & Build 22622.290

This update includes the following improvements:

• New! We added Server Message Block (SMB) redirector (RDR) specific public File System Control (FSCTL) code FSCTL_LMR_QUERY_INFO.
• New! We added support for Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 in Windows client and server Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) implementations.
• We updated the Remove-Item cmdlet to properly interact with Microsoft OneDrive folders
• We enabled the InternetExplorerModeEnableSavePageAs Group Policy. For more information, see Microsoft Edge Browser Policy Documentation.
• We fixed an issue that causes the Take Photo button to disappear when you use a common file dialog to open the camera.
• We fixed an issue that prevents devices from receiving an offer from Windows Update for the same extension driver when that extension driver is already installed without the base driver.
• We fixed an issue that causes install from media (IFM) creation for Active Directory to fail with the error, “2101 JET_errCallbackFailed”.
• We fixed an issue that occurs when the Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service (LDS) resets the password for userProxy objects. The password reset fails with an error such as, “00000005: SvcErr: DSID-03380C23, problem 5003 (WILL_NOT_PERFORM), data 0”.
• We enabled the InternetExplorerModeEnableSavePageAs Group Policy. For more information, see Microsoft Edge Browser Policy Documentation.
• We fixed an issue that occurs when the Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service (AD LDS) resets the password for userProxy objects. When you try to reset someone else’s password and you are authenticated using a simple bind, the password reset fails. The error is like, “00000005: SvcErr: DSID-03380C23, problem 5003 (WILL_NOT_PERFORM), data 0”.
• We fixed an issue that prevents Microsoft Edge from being available in Windows Sandbox.

And below are the known issues for both builds.

Known issues

[General]

• We’re working on the fix for an issue resulting in a small number of Insiders in the Beta Channel experiencing cyclical crashes in Windows UI components (like explorer.exe), making it appear that the screen is flashing. If you are impacted, running the following command from an elevated PowerShell window should resolve it: Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS_8wekyb3d8bbwe\AppxManifest.xml -DisableDevelopmentMode -ForceApplicationShutdown

[File Explorer]

• The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.

Most Insiders will get the 22622.290 build offered, like we did in the above screenshot.

You can find the official blog post here.

Microsoft releases two Windows 11 builds (22621.290 and 22622.290) to Beta Channel

We fixed an issue that might cause an upgrade to Windows 11 (original release) to fail.

The build also brought in several other fixes like a DirectX 12 fix, as well as new features like Search Highlights. Later, the build was also released as an optional cumulative update for general users too and it also resolved the OS upgrade fail issue.

However, quite ironically, it looks like the KB5014668 update itself is actually failing to install on quite few PCs as user reports are pouring in throughout the internet, indicating that there is likely an issue related to the servicing of this build.

Here is an image of the Feedback Hub which shows several people are quite unhappy with this release as it is facing installation issues:

Many users are also complaining about the problem on Microsoft's forum and it looks like one of them, CamiAraceli, was able to fix the problem.

The person was apparently able to get in touch with Microsoft support which suggested doing an in-place upgrade. After several reboots, the user says they were finally successfully able to install the KB5014668 update. So in case you are having trouble installing this update, you can try out this method.

The KB5014668 update is also supposed to fix the Wi-Fi hotspot bug but you may be out of luck for a while now in case your system is refusing to take this update.

Are you also facing issues trying to install the KB5014668 update? Were you able to find another workaround or has the in-place upgrade fix it for you? Let us know in the comments below!

KB5014668: Fix for Windows 11 OS upgrade fail is ironically itself failing to install

Every bit of information I provide for people, I do so with the lowest common denominator in mind. It's a common misconception that everyone who joins or browses a tech site is a techie. Some people are just looking for guidance. That is why for some, these tech tips may seem a bit too simplistic but they are educational for others.

Built into Windows 10 and 11 is a web browser called “Microsoft Edge” (The program you open up to go to a web page).

The browser is made by Microsoft, so the home page (The first page that loads when you open a web browser) is the Microsoft start page, but it doesn’t have to be. You can change the home page to whatever you want (for Example Google or Yahoo).

Here is how you can set your own home page in Microsoft Edge.

1. Open Microsoft Edge (looks like a blue rolling wave on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen)
2. Click the 3 horizontal dots in the top right of Edge
3. Click settings
4. On the left-hand side click “Start, home, and new tabs”
5. On the right put a dot in “Open these pages”
6. Click “Add a new page”

Now type the website you wish to use, for example, if you want yahoo.com you would type www.yahoo.com

Now close Edge by clicking the X in the top right. The next time you open Microsoft Edge it should load the page you set as your home page.

Happy Computing!

If you learned something today, great! If not, maybe share your own tech tip in the comments below!

Warwagon's Tech Tip Tuesday : How to change the Microsoft Edge homepage.

To try macOS-like tabs in File Explorer in Windows 11, you need to run the latest build from the Dev channel and have access to the default tabs in File Explorer. After that, install Start is All Back 3.4.9a and enable the Win10 Ribbon UI or Win7 Command Bar option on the Explorer tab.

It is important to note that the alternative tabs for File Explorer in Windows 11 are a prototype feature, so you may encounter bugs or instabilities. Besides, the tabbed File Explorer itself is a one buggy thing that is not available for all users. If you want to try it, learn how to enable tabs in File Explorer in Windows 11 here.

Which variant of File Explorer do you like more? The one from Microsoft or the macOS-inspired alternative?

You can enable macOS-like tabs in File Explorer in Windows 11

The Recycle Bin icon is displayed on the desktop, giving users access to its functionality. You may also see other icons on the desktop, such as This PC.  Windows 10 and 11 include functionality to place other system icons on the desktop, but the functionality is a bit hidden and a leftover from older versions of the operating system. There is a chance that Microsoft is going to remove the Desktop Icon Settings preference window in future versions of the Windows operating system.

In short: you may use a system menu to add icons for "Computer", the user directory, the Control Panel and Network to the desktop.

The options may be handy in some cases, for instance, when the Recycle Bin icon is suddenly not displayed anymore, or when you'd like access to the user folder, the classic Control Panel, or the network management app from the desktop.

Here is how that is done on Windows 10 and 11

1. Select Start and then Settings, or use the keyboard shortcut Windows-I.
2. Go to Personalization > Themes.
   1. Windows 10: Activate "Desktop icon settings" on the right sidebar under "Related Settings.
   2. Windows 11: Activate "Desktop icon settings" on the page under "Related Settings".

The window that pops up displays options to add ore remove icons from the desktop. It has identical options on Windows 10 and 11.

You may also change the icon style with a click on the "change icon" option. An option to restore the defaults and to block themes from changing the desktop icons is provided as well.

Some of the icon links are accessible elsewhere. Network and This PC, for example, are found in File Explorer's sidebar.

Closing Words

Placing or restoring these on the desktop is another option that Windows users have. Some prefer to have a clean desktop with no icons at all or only a handful, others place icons on the desktop until they run out of space.

Now You: how many icons are on your desktop? (via WinFuture)

Quick Tip: restore system desktop icons on Windows 10 and 11 PCs

The new Gmail. It's blue and has a big sidebar, but there are options for both of these big changes.

To turn off the blue color scheme, pick from any of the theme options here.

New Gmail rolls out to everyone, and you can hide that big sidebar now

Here is what is new in Files 2.3:

New Features:

• Compact sizing allows users to view more items on the screen.

  

• The tab control was redesigned to connect with the tab content.

• We added an option to display tags on the sidebar.

• Added support for applying bulk actions in the conflicts dialog.

Other changes:

• Improved the reliability and speed of drag and drop.
• Added a pull to refresh gesture.
• Removed the minimize and maximize buttons from the properties window.
• Added an animation when clicking on the setting and search buttons.
• Added an option to always show icons instead of thumbnails.
• Improved the spacing in the pathbar.
• Added a chevron to the pathbar to better indicate that there is a flyout menu.
• Reduced the spacing between widgets on the home page.
• Double clicking the grid splitter will now reset panes in the dual pane layout to the default width.
• More file types are now displayed in the “new” item context menu.
• Double clicking in a blank space will now go up one directory in the file tree.
• Adding a tag to a file no longer changes the date modified property.
• Added a shortcut to open folders in the default terminal ctrl + shift + '.
• Added a shortcut to play and pause media in the preview pane ctrl + space.
• Reduced the height of items in the sidebar to allow more items to be displayed at once
• Invalid favorites and network shares are no longer removed the sidebar.
• Added a context menu to hide sections when right clicking on the sidebar.
• Added support for renaming items in the conflicts dialog.
• Network shares will automatically refresh when their content changes.
• Auto select first item in user list for permissions.
• Auto select the primary button in the empty recycle bin dialog.
• Deleting an item will automatically move the focus to the next item in the list.
• Resizing the window no longer changes the width of columns in the details layout.
• Added examples to the date format setting.
• Improved behavior when trying to name an item with invalid characters.
• Added a notification when copying or moving an item fails.
• Added the archive name to the extract archive dialog.
• Added support for adding tags to items in the search results page.
• Show which process is locking a file.

As mentioned in the beginning, version 2.3 introduces numerous invisible changes that will help developers modernize the app and offer platform-specific benefits. In addition, they will allow an accelerated transition to the Windows App SDK, which, in turn, will remove some of the longstanding limitations and allow more performance and reliability improvements.

You can download the Files app from the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 and 11. Developers can also check out the project's repository on GitHub.

Files, a popular third-party file manager, gets big update with new features

For the past three months, an elusive bug in Google's open-source Chromium project has been causing a small percentage of Chrome extensions to silently fail.

The bug affects about three to five percent of users of several popular Chrome browser extensions, according to Jói Sigurdsson, founder and CEO of CrankWheel, maker of a screen-sharing extension for sales teams.

As described in the Chromium bug report, event handlers registered via chrome.browserAction.onClicked.addListener sometimes will fail to get dispatched when the associated button or icon is clicked by the user. For an individual using an affected extension, the result would be that the extension's button just stops responding to click events.

"Around April 10th, we started getting reports from several users that clicking the CrankWheel button in their browser was not causing anything to happen," explained Sigurdsson in a blog post published last month. "Our initial suggestion to users was to disable and re-enable our extension, and that seemed to do the trick."

"Five days later, the issue randomly reproduced on my machine, and I was able to confirm that it is a Google Chrome / Chromium problem, not a problem with our extension, and I registered an issue on the Chromium issue tracker, along with screen recordings that confirm the reproduction and provide some extra detail."

Beyond CrankWheek, Sigurdsson believes several popular extensions that use the same browserAction API for event handling are likely to be affected, including LastPass, Screencastify, Norton Password Manager, Mendeley Web Importer, Picture in Picture Extension (by Google), Crx Mouse Chrome Gestures, Save to Pocket, Google Mail Checker (by Google), and Mute Tab.

Efforts to confirm this have come to naught. In a message to the Chromium Extensions developer forum on Monday, Sigurdsson said he had not heard back from the developers of those extensions. However, there is an independent report that the issue has been reproduced with Google Mail Checker and Mute Tab.

Since about a week ago, there have been several reports of similar problems from users of Microsoft Edge, which is based on Chromium.

Initially, the problems started occurring in Chrome 100 and Sigurdsson believed they might be limited to extensions built to the deprecated Manifest v2 specification. But the issue has also been reported for Chrome extensions built using Manifest v3 and a supposed fix in Chrome 102 evidently failed to make things right.

Google engineers have discussed the issue in several posts but they aren't inclined to try to come up with a repair plan in the absence of a reliable way to reproduce the error.

Efforts to diagnose the problem have led to plenty of speculation but no definitive fix. The situation has proven troubling enough that CrankWheel is offering a $4,000 bounty to consistently reproduce the bug and a separate $4,000 bounty to fix it.

Last week, the company posted a job through freelancing site Upwork in the hope someone can hunt down the vexing bug.
"What we need is a Chromium C++ expert to dig into the bug and hopefully solve it," the posting reads.

"We would like to start with up to two full days of work at your hourly rate if you are selected, plus we are offering two $4k bounties, one for a consistent and reasonably quick repro scenario, and one for an actual fix.

"Although we would be paying your hourly rate, you would still also be eligible for either or both bounties, which we would pay through the Upwork platform, until the total value of your work for us based on your hourly rate exceeds $5k. After work worth $5k for your time, you would become ineligible for the bounties unless we make a separate agreement."

In his forum message, Sigurdsson said he has already hired one C++ developer to dig through the Chromium code in search of an answer, though he said he is open to hiring a second if the individual has the right skillset. ®

Source

Microsoft is testing an update for PowerPoint that will allow people to incorporate a new level of customization into their presentations.

The headline feature, dubbed Cameo, sits within PowerPoint’s Recording Studio and will allow you to use a webcam feed to make the video recording of your presentation “even more personal and create an immersive storytelling experience”, according to Microsoft.

Perfectionists will be fully catered to by the latest update, as it will apparently allow you to “customize your camera feed’s appearance before you record” as well as “apply your favorite camera styles, shapes, and sizes to cameo, and choose the place on the slide for your camera feed that best suits your presentation”.

The new feature is currently available for Office Insiders running Beta Channel Version 2207 (Build 15425.20000) or later.

What else is new?

Aside from the video-related updates, Microsoft is also testing new capabilities within PowerPoint to make changes within line spacing and to modify slide backgrounds with images.

All of these new features are currently available for Office Insiders running Beta Channel Version 2207 (Build 15425.20000) or later.

Not a Microsoft Insider? Not to worry, all the above updates will be rolled out to the general public in future, though Microsoft hasn't said exactly when.

Neither are these the only new features the tech giant has been integrating into the classic piece of office software, amid competition from rival products such as Prezi and Google Slides.

For example, PowerPoint users recently gained the ability to add their own custom fonts to presentations, and new integrations with Microsoft Teams have made virtual presentations much less of a chore.

Source

The changes will link the National Security Bill with the Online Safety Bill. According to the government, the Online Safety Bill aims to make “the UK the safest place in the world to go online”. The latest change to the bill, however, shows that the law can be extended at the whim of the government which could potentially become a serious issue. The Online Safety Bill was previously criticised by Open Rights Group for various reasons too.

Commenting on the new changes, Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries, said:

 “The invasion of Ukraine has yet again shown how readily Russia can and will weaponise social media to spread disinformation and lies about its barbaric actions, often targeting the very victims of its aggression. We cannot allow foreign states or their puppets to use the internet to conduct hostile online warfare unimpeded.

 That’s why we are strengthening our new internet safety protections to make sure social media firms identify and root out state-backed disinformation.”

It will not only be social media platforms that are made to remove disinformation; search engines, apps, and all other websites that allow people to post content will have to take action to remove this type of content. The changes also apply to fake accounts that have been created on behalf of states to influence democratic or legal processes like elections or court proceedings.

Source

Standard virtual machines with Windows 11 require activation with a genuine key like a typical local Windows installation. Microsoft's official Windows 11 VMs do not require activation immediately, but you can use them only for a limited time. The official website says the new virtual machines are valid until September 11, 2022 (the previous version will expire on July 10).

Besides offering access to the full capabilities of Windows 11 (Enterprise SKU), the virtual machines from Microsoft include a set of ready-for-use developer tools, such as Visual Studio 2022 (with the UWP, .NET Desktop, Azure, and Windows App SDK for C# workloads), Windows Subsystem for Linux with Ubuntu, Developer mode, and Windows Terminal. These utilities allow developers to jump into development right after installing the virtual machine.

You can download Microsoft's Windows 11 virtual machines from the official website. Available options include variants for VMWare, Hyper-V, VirtualBox, and Parallels. Note that your computer should be compatible with Windows 11 to run the official VMs, plus you need a minimum of 20 GB of free space.

Microsoft updates free Windows 11 virtual machines

Besides the new controls, new navigation, and overhauled visuals, the leaked app does not offer any new features. It lets you personalize sync settings, change notification options, add another account, see your storage quota, etc.

Microsoft has not announced the new app yet, so the public preview version might look different compared to the leaked. You can try installing it at your own risk using this link (via @flobo09). It is also worth noting that running the leaked version does not guarantee you will get the new design. We tried installing the app on several machines (Dev and Stable channels), with none receiving the eye candy.

In case you missed it, Microsoft recently announced stories coming soon to OneDrive, offering users a new way to share their photos.

What do you think about the redesigned OneDrive app for Windows?

Leaked OneDrive client reveals Windows 11-like redesign

New features based on user requests and quality of life improvements are continuously added to WhatsApp. We recently saw the arrival of reactions in the social messaging app, which allows people to quickly engage with messages without having to type something out. Now, it seems that Meta is adding a very useful configuration to WhatsApp, enabling people to hide their online status.

Although WhatsApp allows you to hide your "Last seen" status already, this is not a perfect implementation as someone can still open a chat window with you and monitor when you come online. This is particularly problematic if someone is stalking you or even if you just want to avoid interactions with anyone while still being able to see your messages.

According to reliable outlet WABetaInfo, Meta is remedying this issue by introducing a configuration that will allow you to decide how visible you want your online status to be. Here's how the outlet describes the options it discovered, which can also be seen in the screenshot at the top of the article:

It will be possible to configure who can see when we are online right within our last seen settings thanks to two new options: "Everyone" and "Same as Last Seen". For example, if you choose "My contacts" for "Last Seen" and “Same as Last Seen" for "online", it means non-contacts won’t be able to see when you’re online.

While the options in the current implementation are quite limited, it's possible that Meta may expand them to cover more use-cases before, and if, the feature becomes generally available.

Although the screenshot procured by WABetaInfo is from the iOS app, it's natural to assume that the capability will also arrive on Android, web, and desktop at some point. That said, there is no word on availability yet as the feature has not even been seeded to the WhatsApp Beta app.

Source and original image: WABetaInfo

WhatsApp may finally allow you to hide your online status soon

Russia has intensified its restrictions on independent media since attacking its neighbor in February, with journalists under threat of prosecution for criticizing the invasion or for even referring to it as a war.

The US government-backed Open Technology Fund is paying out money to a handful of American firms providing virtual private networks (VPNs) free of charge to millions of Russians, who can then use them to visit websites blocked by censors.

Traditional VPN software creates what is effectively a private tunnel on the internet for data, typically encrypted, to flow safeguarded from snooping—and their use has boomed in Russia since the invasion.

"Our tool is primarily used by people trying to access independent media, so that funding by the OTF has been absolutely critical," said a spokesman for Lantern, one of the involved companies.

Tech firms Psiphon and nthLink have also been providing sophisticated anti-censorship applications to people in Russia, with OTF estimating that some four million users in Russia have received VPNs from the firms.

Psiphon saw a massive surge in Russian users, with the number soaring from about 48,000 a day prior to the February 24 invasion to more than a million a day by mid-March, said a company senior advisor Dirk Rodenburg.

The firm's tools in Russian now average nearly 1.5 million users daily, he added.

While some, like Ukraine's leadership, have called for Russia to be cut off from the internet, others have noted access is key for opposition groups.

"It's so very important for Russians to be connected to the whole world wide web, to keep resistance going," said Natalia Krapiva, tech legal counsel at rights group Access Now, which is not involved in the OTF effort.

"All kinds of initiatives are happening and to keep them alive you need the internet because you can't gather in person, or because activists are scattered around the world," she added.

Keeping VPNs running and accessible was relatively straightforward in the early days of the war, said Lucas, the spokesman for Lantern, who spoke on condition that only his first name be used.

"They weren't ready to block anything," Lucas said. "Over time, Russia learned how to block the easy stuff but Lantern and Psiphon are still up and running."

A trio of US tech firms making virtual private network software say they have been able to thwart efforts by Russia to stop citizens

from getting indepedent news about the invasion of Ukraine.

Lesson from China, Myanmar

Censors try to cut VPN software off from servers they rely on to function or stop people from getting to websites where the tools can be downloaded.

As a result, crackdowns on internet freedom typically result in people sharing VPNs through guerrilla tactics such as word-of-mouth.

However, groups like Lantern have adopted methods like hiding VPN installers in online platforms too vital for the government to block, and building a network so users can share the technology with others, Lucas said.

"Lantern and Psiphon are different in that we do all sorts of much more sophisticated stuff to hide our traffic and get around our servers being detected," he said.

People in Russia are benefitting from the VPN makers honing their tools while battling censorship in countries such as China and Myanmar.

"There was a moment about two years ago when China really upped the level of their game, when it came to the lengths they were going to block stuff," Lucas said.

"We raised the level of our game a whole lot," he added.

US government funding provided through OTF has been important to the operations since costs jumped and revenue vanished for VPN makers in Russia, as sanctions kicked in and companies pulled out of the country.

OTF said it typically spends $3-4 million annually funding VPNs, but that figure was ramped up due to censorship in Russia.

Psiphon has been receiving US government funding for more than 14 years, with the money generally going to improve tools to counter new tactics used by authoritarian regimes, the company told AFP.

Despite the efforts to get VPN technology to those who want it, many people still don't have access.

"The use of virtual private networks and other methods have increased significantly in Russia, but it still only represents a small percentage of the population," Krapiva, from Access Now, told AFP.

Source

Interestingly, the systemd-oom package that kills tasks in low memory environments, will not be included in Linux Mint 21 after the team got negative feedback.

Some other things that were highlighted about the upcoming release were that home direction encryption will remain available in the installer, the os-prober package will be enabled by default to better detect dual-boot systems, webp support has been added to xviewer and thumbnails, and Blueman 2.3 is replacing Blueberry (Bluetooth package).

Linux Mint 21 will be based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS which came out in April this year. It will get updates for five years just like Ubuntu, meaning you can run it on your systems until 2027 before you need to upgrade again – this is great for people with production machines with lots of data because it means you won’t have to install a new operating system for years.

At the time of writing, the Linux Mint Community website shows that testing of the Linux Mint 21 ISOs has begun, ready for a beta release next week.

Source

China’s efforts to end its reliance on Microsoft Windows got a boost with the launch of the openKylin project.

The initiative aims to accelerate development of the country’s home-grown Kylin Linux distro by opening the project up to a broader community of developers, colleges, and universities to contribute code.

Launched in 2001, Kylin was based on a FreeBSD kernel and was intended for use in government and military offices, where Chinese authorities have repeatedly attempted to eliminate foreign operating systems.

In 2010, the operating system made the switch to the Linux kernel, and in 2014 an Ubuntu-based version of the OS was introduced after Canonical reached an agreement with Chinese authorities to develop the software.

The openKylin project appears to be the latest phase of that project, and is focused on version planning, platform development, and establishing a community charter. To date, the project has garnered support from nearly two dozen Chinese firms and institutions, including China’s Advanced Operating System Innovation Center.

These industry partners will contribute to several special interest groups to improve various aspects of the operating system over time. Examples include optimizations for the latest generation of Intel and AMD processors, where available; support for emerging RISC-V CPUs; development of an x86-to-RISC-V translation layer; and improvements to the Ubuntu Kylin User Interface (UKUI) window manager for tablet and convertible devices.

China’s love-hate relationship with Microsoft

China’s efforts to rid itself of Redmond are by no means new. As far back as 2000, Chinese authorities ordered government offices to remove Windows in favor of Red Flag Linux.

However, in the case of Red Flag Linux, those efforts ultimately went nowhere after the project failed to catch on. The org was ultimately dissolved, and the team terminated in 2014. Despite its collapse, the project appears to have been rebooted, with a release slated to launch later this year.

This is a story that would repeat on a regular cadence, fueled by periodic spats between Uncle Sam and software vendors.

It’s safe to say the Chinese government has something of a love-hate relationship with Redmond. In 2013, Chinese authorities urged Microsoft to extend support for Windows XP, on which the country still relied heavily.

However, a year later, the Chinese government banned Windows 8 in much of the public sector, just months after Microsoft ended support for Windows XP.

Today, Microsoft controls roughly 85 percent of the desktop operating system market as of June 2022, according to Statcounter.

Some of this can be attributed to the launch of Windows 10 China Government Edition in 2017, which was developed in collaboration with the China Electronics Technology Group.

It doesn't appear those efforts bought Microsoft's American partners much in terms of goodwill, with Chinese authorities directing government agencies to throw out all foreign-made personal computers this spring. ®

Source