Since its first release in 2004, Ubuntu has produced releases twice per year and while the 20th anniversary of Ubuntu is only two years away, the release cycle hasn’t changed. Of course, a 6 month release cycle was nothing new when Ubuntu burst onto the scene. Fedora has been doing it for longer, though not following nearly as strict of a schedule. But there was a black horse on the horizon that carved its own niche from the already miniscule Gentoo user base. That distribution was Arch Linux.

While there are many positive qualities that would draw a user into the world of Arch, its headlining feature would be the one that remains the most relevant in today’s world of continuous integration and delivery and that’s its rolling release strategy. While I don’t think Judd Vinet could have predicted the proliferation of DevOps or the massive shift to cloud computing, it must be interesting to see that the entire industry is following the Arch strategy in all sorts of different places. One could even argue that Microsoft Windows has become a rolling release.

While many of Arch’s contemporaries have joined the fray, one notable open-source giant has yet to make the leap. Rolling Rhino looks to change that by converting Ubuntu into a rolling release.

How is this achieved? According to the documentation, it’s mainly accomplished by tracking ‘devel’ repositories, which are repositories that have existed for every release but are not often used in production. You must start with a modified Ubuntu image which can be found here. Then, the distribution must be ‘initialized’ by follow steps in the documentation. Lastly, you need to use their custom tool called ‘rhino-update’ which extends the capabilities to apt that allow the distribution to update itself outside of the normal confines of a traditional Ubuntu release.

While Ubuntu continues to find success in the cloud with their server offerings, the desktop has lost a lot of its luster. Once lauded for its ease of use and installation for the layperson, other distributions like Fedora and Manjaro (a friendly installation of Arch) have caught up in a big way. Will Rolling Rhino shine a much needed light on Ubuntu in the consumer/hobbyist space, or will it increase Ubuntu's relevance in the container space? Only time will tell.

Source: Rolling Rhino Remix

Ubuntu becomes a rolling release with Rolling Rhino

PowerShell on Terminal with Windows 11 on background

Windows Terminal v1.12.1073 is here and the new version brings some significant changes as well as several notable bug fixes that were there in Terminal v1.12.

With this release, the Windows Terminal now comes in two flavors, one for Windows 11 only and the other one for Windows 10 and 11. As such the Windows 11-only package is much smaller, around half the size of the other. Just in case you install the Windows 10-11 version on Windows 11, it will automatically upgrade to the Windows 11 one on its own so you can opt for either in case you are on 11.

Moving on, here are the bug fixes in this release:

Usability

• Terminal can once again be configured as a startup application, and can be detected by tools like PowerToys (#12491)
• There was a puzzling "Element not found" error during settings loading; there is no longer such an error (#12687)
• Terminal will no longer mix up profiles when it is launched in response to a console application spawning (#12484)
• Formatted copy will now try harder to preserve Unicode charatcers in RTF (#12586) (thanks @ianjoneill!)
• We have replaced the word "Summon" with "Show/Hide" in the command palette for improved localization (#12603)
• Our confidence in the settings UI's Save button has led to us no longer backing up the settings JSON file (#12652)

Accessibility

• Terminal now announces newly-printed text to any attached screen reader (#12358)
• Command palette search now tries to announce the number of results to the screen reader (#12429)

Reliability

• We won't crash any longer if you give us a command line that is a directory (#12538) (thanks @ianjoneill!)
• A crash on launch related to multi-windowing and the default terminal setting has been quashed (subset of #12205)
• Fixed a crash setting the hotkey during teardown (#12580)
• Fixed a different pair of crashes, also likely related to default terminal handoff (#12666)
• ScrollConsoleScreenBuffer no longer takes the console upstate (#12669)
• Pressing Page Up or Page Down with an empty command palette, which seemed like a reasonable thing to do, was taught to not crash the Terminal (#12528)

Rendering

• Font axes/features once again work across a DPI change (#12492)

You can head over to GitHub and download Windows Terminal v1.12.1073 via this link.

Windows Terminal now has a Windows 11 only package, v1.12.1073 fixes PowerToys bug, and more

You can read the official changelog in more detail below.

Changelog

Microsoft recently added a plethora of fixes to the latest Office Build for Insiders(Current Channel) on Windows. The company also released a new Office version 16.60 (Build 22032100) for Mac users registered in the Office Beta Channel Insider program.

In other news, Microsoft recently released Windows Office Insider Preview Build 15028.20050, adding the ability to refresh your stock data in the background regularly, the ability to insert hyperlinks into Excel comments. The update also added the ability to let users apply labels whenever a document, worksheet, or presentation is either created or modified as against previous scenarios where default sensitivity labels are configured by your administrator.

Microsoft recently released Office Insider updates for Mac and iOS users too. Like Windows users, Office Insiders on Mac can also add hyperlinks to comments in Excel. The company added many new features alongside the ability to add hyperlinks to the latest Office Insider update for Mac.

To update to the latest Microsoft Office Insider Preview Build, open any Office program and go to File> Account> Update Options> Update Now.

Windows Office Version 2204 (Build 15121.20000) rolling out to Beta Channel Insiders

The full announcement says:

We are starting to roll out Cumulative Update Build 22581.100 (KB5013283). This update does not include anything new and is designed to test our servicing pipeline for builds in the Dev Channel.

Hence, all the bug fixes and improvements that were announced with the earlier released build 22581 to the Dev Channel as well as the Beta channel are carried over into this. The build has loads of new features as we are now moving into the next phase of Windows 11 in preparation for version 22H2.

Interestingly, while there are no new changes made in this build, servicing test builds like these before have been known to break some features. For example, Windows 10 Build 21292.1010 caused issues for x64 emulation on ARM PCs.

The original announcement can be found here.

Windows 11 build 22581.100 servicing update released to Beta and Dev Channels

However, while Microsoft did not explain why this happens, it said the recovery discs would work on systems where the problematic updates weren't installed.

As the company further noted, no other third-party backup or recovery applications are currently known to be impacted by this known issue.

"After installing the Windows updates released January 11, 2022 or later Windows versions on an affected version of Windows, recovery discs (CD or DVD) created by using the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) app in Control Panel might be unable to start," Microsoft said.

"Recovery discs that were created by using the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) app on devices which have installed Windows updates released before January 11, 2022 are not affected by this issue and should start as expected."

The list of Windows versions affected by the recovery disc start failures includes all editions of Windows 10 versions 1607 or later and all editions of Windows 11.

Redmond added that it's working on a fix to address this issue that will be delivered with an upcoming release.

According to StatCounter statistics, 11.99% of all Windows devices are still running Windows 7, with various versions of the Microsoft OS being used by 75.86% of desktop devices worldwide.

January updates behind a series of known issues

Microsoft has previously fixed multiple issues linked to the Windows January 2022 updates, including:

• Windows Server DNS resolution problems, 
• a Bluetooth issue causing Windows blue screens, 
• Windows domain controller restarts caused by LSASS crashes, 
• Windows Server Netlogon issues, 
• and a Windows Active Directory bug.

The company also addressed issues caused by the January 2022 Patch Tuesday updates by releasing out-of-band (OOB) emergency updates.

They fixed problems related to Windows Server Domain Controllers restarting, VPN connectivity, ReFS-formatted removable media mount failures, and Virtual Machines failing to start.

Microsoft: Windows 7 recovery app fails after January updates

Asahi Linux is reverse-engineering support for Apple Silicon, including M1 Ultra

While that is a news good to hear, no release dates , not even for beta, were shared as the project is still in the early stages of development. Butler writes:

Finally, we’re experimenting with an Electron.js desktop app to take ProtonMail beyond the browser for Mac, Linux, and Windows. We’re still in the early stages, and we don’t have a beta or general release timeline just yet. But we know that a desktop app is high on the wishlist for many of you, so we thought you’d like to know it’s on our radar.

Speaking of Proton apps on Windows, the blog post confirms that the Proton Drive is also getting a Windows app later this year, alongside for iOS and Android:

Later in 2022, we will release Drive applications on Windows, iOS, and Android. As usual, these will be available in beta first, followed by a general release.

The Proton Drive beta is also set to receive a Free plan in the next week. You may find more information in the official blog post.

Proton confirms a ProtonMail app for Windows is in the works but it's far from ready

The idea is not something new, and the Chrome Web Store has numerous extensions for the same purpose. Also, Microsoft has already implemented the idea, although currently only for PDF files. It appears that Google wants to make web notes native in Chrome.

You can add notes to PDF files in Microsoft Edge.

Unfortunately, we do not know much about the upcoming feature. Chromium Gerrit has no detailed descriptions or screenshots of how web notes might work in Chrome. Also, it is not available yet in Chrome Canary for early adopters to test. There is no guarantee that the feature will make it to the public testing phase (not to mention the stable release), so here we mainly speak about the idea Chrome developers consider implementing.

Here are excerpts from the patch on Chromium Gerrit revealing some details about web notes in Chrome. It describes how the browser may pull notes from its storage, determine where to place highlights with notes on a web page, and refers to a side panel with saved notes. The latter indicates that Chrome developers might introduce a dedicated "hub" for all your notes.

Finds the list of all WebContents currently open for the profile associated with the UserNoteService. The service will use this information to fetch the relevant notes from storage and add highlights to webpages.

Called when the note creation UX should be shown in the UI layer. |bounds| corresponds to the location in the webpage where the associated highlightis, and should be compared with existing notes in the UI to determine where the new note should be inserted.

Implement FocusNote, which will be called by UserNoteService to inform, inform the user note side panel to scroll the corresponding note into view in the side panel.

Considering the feature appears to be in its early development stages, it may take a while for Google to develop, test, and ship it to the public. If the idea sounds exciting, you may want to use third-party extensions, such as Beanote or Note Anywhere, while Google is busy coding the feature on the native level.

Source: Leopeva64-2 on Reddit.

Chrome may soon let you add notes to web pages

According to Microsoft, Outlook shows the following error when the user tries to preview a PDF attachment in an email:

This file cannot be preview because there is no previewer installed for it.

Microsoft says that two things trigger the error message: mismatch of bitness in Outlook and Adobe Acrobat, and the PDF preview module in the PowerToys app. You can fix the first problem by ensuring you use the 32 or 64-bit version of Microsoft Outlook and Adobe Acrobat Reader.

1. Launch Outlook and go to File > Office Account > About Outlook. Check whether it is 32 or 64-bit.

   

2. Open the Adobe Acrobat Reader app and go to Help > About Adobe Acrobat Reader. Again, check its architecture, which should match the one in Outlook. In other words, if you use a 32-bit Outlook, Acrobat Reader should also be 32-bit (and the same with 64-bit versions).

If the bitness matches or you do not use Adobe Acrobat, check your PowerToys settings. The document states that the PDF Previewer in PowerToys is the troublemaker.

1. Open the PowerToys app and go to the File Explorer add-ons section.
2. Find the Enable PDF preview module and toggle it off.

   

3. Return to Outlook and try to open a PDF file.

Microsoft says these two methods are workarounds so you can expect developers to release the needed fixes in the future. Earlier this month, Microsoft pushed a bugfix update for PowerToys with no new tools or features.

Microsoft warns PowerToys users about PDF issues in Outlook

Below are the driver highlights:

• Launch driver for 12th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors with Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics and Intel® UHD Graphics (Codename Alder Lake-P, Alder Lake-U).

This release includes only one fix:

• Intermittent crash or hang seen in Red Dead Redemption 2* (Vulkan) when running in borderless window mode on 10th Generation Intel® Core™ processors with Intel Iris Plus graphics.

As usual, there are many bugs that remain unresolved still:

• Intermittent crash or hang may be seen in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War* (DX12).
• Minor graphic anomalies may be observed in Diablo II: Resurrected* (DX12), Elden Ring* (DX12), Farming Simulator 22* (DX12), Grand Theft Auto V*(when changing camera position with MSAA on), Halo Infinite* (DX12), No Man’s Sky* (Vulkan).
• “Update driver” pop-up error may be seen while launching Battlefield 1* after upgrading from 30.0.100.9955 or older drivers due to the driver version roll-over.
• Error may be seen when launching Call of Duty Vanguard* (DX12).
• [12th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors]: Minor graphic anomalies may be seen in Call of Duty: Warzone* (DX12).
• [12th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors]: TDR may be seen in FIFA 22* (DX12) during gameplay and while running Doom Eternal* (Vulkan) with Steam Overlay enabled.
• [12th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors with Intel® Iris® Xe graphics]: Crash may be seen in Watch Dogs Legion* (DX12) on starting game.
• [11th and 12th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors]: Minor graphic anomalies may be seen in Dark Souls 3* (DX11), Gears 5* (DX12), Genshin Impact* (DX11), God of War* (DX11).
• [11th and 12th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors]: TDR may be seen in Halo Infinite* (DX12) during gameplay.
• [11th and 12th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors]: Crash or hang may be seen when launching Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy* (DX12), NBA 2K21* (DX12) (when switching resolution from 1920 x 1080 to 1600 x 900 and 1280 x 720) • [11th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors with Intel® Iris® Xe graphics]: Intermittent crash or hang may be seen in ANVIL* (DX12), Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade* (DX12), The Ascent *(DX11).
• [11th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors with Intel® Iris® Xe graphics]: Minor graphic anomalies may be seen in Arma 3* (DX11), Assassin’s Creed Valhalla* (DX12), Deus Ex Mankind Divided* (DX11), Euro Truck Simulator* (OpenGL) (in main menu on changing graphic preset), MechWarrior 5* (DX12), The Ascent* (DX11).
• [11th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors with Intel® Iris® Xe graphics]: Black screen and TDR seen after launching and during gameplay in Gears 5* (DX12).
• [Intel® Iris® Xe Discrete graphics]: Intermittent crash or hang may be seen in Conan Exiles* (Low End Laptop Mode” in game settings), Forza Motorsport 6* (DX12), Red Dead Redemption 2* (Vulkan) (MSAA enabled), Resident Evil 3* (DX12) (when exit the game), Spyro: Reignited Trilogy*(DX11).
• [Intel® Iris® Xe Discrete graphics]: Minor graphic anomalies may be observed in Call of the Duty: Vanguard* (DX12), Code Vein*(DX11), Escape from Tarkov* (DX11), Microsoft Flight Simulator*(DX11), Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy* (DX12), Red Dead Redemption 2* (Vulkan), Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus* (Vulkan).
• [10th Generation Intel® Core™ processors with Intel UHD Graphics]: Intermittent crash or hang may be seen in Battlefield V.
• [11th and 12thGeneration Intel® Core™ Processors]: Display is getting blanked out with 4K@60hz resolution connected via dock.
• Running DX11 games in Fullscreen with the Windows “Fullscreen Optimization” option disabled and changing the in-game settings to full screen may result in a black screen.

The new 30.0.101.1631 Intel graphics driver is compatible with all Intel CPUs 6th gen and up. Iris Xe discrete graphics are also supported. In terms of OS compatibility, the driver supports Windows 10 version 1809 and newer. To download the driver, head over to Intel's official display driver page via this link.

You can check out the full announcement here, and the release notes PDF here.

New Intel 30.0.101.1631 driver adds support for 12th Gen Alder Lake P and U CPUs

Frontpaged:   Intel Graphics Driver 30.0.101.1631

Since my review of RSS Guard in January 2022, I have slowly but steadily moved away from QuiteRSS as my go-to application for feed reading and started to use RSS Guard more and more. Several updates were released since January. The two main releases, RSS Guard 4.1.0 and 4.2.0, added several new features and improvements to RSS Guard. The last version that has been released at the time of writing is RSS Guard 4.2.1; it is used in this article.

One of the main improvements in RSS Guard 4.2.0 is manual feed list sorting. Feed lists are sorted alphabetically per folder by default. While it is possible to move a feed item to another folder using drag & drop, it was not possible up until now to rearrange the listing of individual folders.

Starting in RSS Guard 4.2.0, users may select Feeds > Sort alphabetically to unlock the manual sorting option. All it takes then is to right-click on a feed and select one of the move options to move it. You may move feeds to the top or bottom, or up or down one place. Drag & drop sorting does not appear to be supported in this initial release.

An option to drag & drop feed items to a new position would certainly improve the ability to sort items manually.

Manual sorting is not the only new feature that the developer introduced in the latest versions of the application. Another change introduces support for displaying article titles with multiline layout. The option is found under Tools > Preferences > Feed & Articles > Articles list > Enable multilinie items.

Enabling the option may decrease the performance of article lists with a large number of articles according to the developer. It may be a good idea to test the functionality to see if performance is impacted negatively.

There are other new features in the application. Here is a short list of important ones:

• The Windows taskbar icon displays the progress of downloading feeds now.
• Date and time formats support new customization options, including displaying relative dates for recent items.
• If date and time can't be retrieved for a specific feed, RSS Guard will use the current date and time to make sure the sorting of articles is consistent.
• Feeds can be turned off to skip them during the feed downloading process.
• Gmail email syncing performance improved significantly.
• RSS Guard may now share cookies and user-agent with bundled WebEngine, which allows users to access cookie-protected resources in RSS Guard.
• Confirmation dialog is displayed when deleting article filters.
• New Nudus default skin.

You can check out the entire list of changes on the project's GitHub page. There you find downloads of the Windows, Linux and Mac OS versions of the application as well.

Closing Words

RSS Guard is a powerful cross-platform feed reader that evolves with every new release.

Now You: which feed reader do you use?

RSS Guard update introduces manual feed sorting and multiline title support

Key Takeaways

• Asahi Linux has released the alpha version of its distro designed for Apple’s M1 chip.
• Unlike typical hardware ports, the crowdfunded distro has received no official support from Apple.
• Even though the hardware support is still sketchy, testers feel the distro already performs better than macOS.

Apple's M1 processor has been turning heads since its launch in late 2020, and now there's a Linux distro designed exclusively for the chip that's already wowing people with its performance.

The effort is spearheaded by experienced Linux porter, Hector Martin, and his crowdfunded Asahi Linux project. The project began in January 2021 and has just released its first Alpha that can run on any M1, M1 Pro, or M1 Max machine running macOS 12.3 or later. Notably, the project reached this stage without any official help from Apple, instead discovering an inherent hardware flaw in the M1 chip. 

"My initial impression of Asahi Linux with its Arch Linux Arm desktop version was that it works better than anticipated, at least on a Mac mini," Michael Larabel, founder and principal author of computer hardware website, Phoronix, told Lifewire over email. "There [are] still areas where the performance is lacking, but [it's] already much faster than, say, a Raspberry Pi 4 or other low-end Arm single-board computers running Linux."

Well Begun

Larabel noted that Asahi’s installation process is a little different since it needs to be initiated from within macOS. In an email exchange with Lifewire, Bruno Santos, System and Network Administrator at ULS Castelo Branco, said that Asahi breezed through the installation on his M1 MacBook Air.

In addition to a full installation that anchors a ready-to-use KDE desktop, Asahi also offers a minimal installation option, which Santos used to manually install the various components needed for a working desktop without running into any issues.  

Don Chia, an iOS developer, did run into an issue while installing Asahi on his M1 MacBook Pro but told Lifewire via email that he was able to resolve the issue thanks to a little help from Martin.

Since it's still early days for the project, Asahi's hardware support isn't consistent across all M1-powered machines. For instance, HDMI output only works on the Mac mini. Meanwhile, Santos plugged in a Thunderbolt hub, and the attached Ethernet cable, SSD disk, and wireless mouse and keyboard worked flawlessly with his Air.

"The main issue for most Linux desktop users will be the lack of 3D/graphics acceleration right now. There is a kernel driver and Mesa driver being worked on for the Apple graphics, but it will likely take some time before being really buttoned up and usable," shared Larabel.

So while you can't yet play graphics-intensive games through Asahi, Jason Eckert, Dean of Technology at triOS College, isn't facing any issues with simple ones like SuperTuxKart, which works perfectly on his Mac mini. "Graphics are CPU generated, but you'd never know because it's lightning-fast," Eckert told Lifewire over email.

Asahi is based on the ARM build of the popular Arch Linux distro, and none of the testers we interacted with faced any issues installing the usual desktop software, such as web browsers and media players.

In the release notes, Martin points out that to maximize performance, Asahi's kernel is compiled with a particular feature that's not currently supported by some popular software, most notably the Chromium web browser and the Electron software framework. Martin hopes Asahi's release will encourage the developers of these apps to make them compliant with the M1.

Light Years Ahead

Eckert, too believed these are minor limitations that should iron themselves out soon. He has customized his Asahi installation to the hilt, and the performance has "blown his mind."

"GNOME [desktop environment] runs faster than I've ever seen [it] run, LibreOffice apps open instantaneously, Hugo [website generator] compiles my website in half the time it does on macOS on the same machine, [and] my development containers and Kubernetes setup also run much faster on Asahi," shared Eckert. "In general, the biggest impression I've had is that Asahi is much, much faster on the M1 than macOS."

"My initial impression of Asahi Linux with its Arch Linux Arm desktop version was that it works better than anticipated."

Compared to his experience running Linux inside a virtualized environment, Chia knew Asahi on "real hardware" would be faster, but he found it "was light years ahead."

"There still is work to do around power management for the CPU/SoC, but so far, the performance has been rather reasonable, all things considered, and not having the official support of Apple. In a few benchmarks, [Asahi even beats out] macOS on the same hardware!" shared Larabel, who recently posted his detailed benchmarks.

Eckert noted that as a cloud/microservice developer, for Asahi to become his everyday OS, he'll need it to run Electron-based apps such as Visual Studio Code, along with improved support for hardware such as his Bluetooth mouse. 

"I've pretty much decided based on the speed that it's eventually going to be my daily driver," stressed Eckert.

Source

Luminous Productions' Forspoken, formerly called Project Athia, has gained the feature and the numbers are impressive. A couple of loading scenes were shown in the demo and the improvement using Microsoft's DirectStorage looks big, even when using SATA-based SSDs; and the gap is bigger with faster NVMe SSDs.

During the presentation, a chart was also provided showing the I/O (input-output) rates and the corresponding game load times when using the DirectStorage as compared to Windows Win32 Storage API.

The gain is especially impressive when you look at the NVMe figures as it shows nearly 70% improvement on DirectStorage (4,829 MB/s) when compared to Win32 (2,862 MB/s). In the actual load time, though, the difference isn't as big but it may potentially imply even faster loading speeds in certain future titles.

You can watch the Forspoken video showcasing the technology below:

As you may have noticed in the video above, aside from Microsoft's DirectStorage, Forspoken is also getting AMD's new FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 2.0, although support for the feature is currently still in development. However, implementing it probably won't be too difficult as the game already uses the FSR 1.0 feature.

Via: The Verge

Microsoft's DirectStorage makes NVMe SSDs nearly 70% faster compared to Win32

The first one was spotted inside the appraiserres DLL file within the latest Windows Server build 25075, released about a week ago. As you can see in the image below, there appears to be some clear references to Windows 11 23H2 being the Copper (CU) release, while the first line clearly shows the current release in the Windows Insider Dev channel as the Nickel (NI) 22H2 release.

Following this, the second reference came up when Microsoft was streaming its Windows Insider Program (WIP) webcast earlier today, a live show where the company demonstrates some of the newest Windows 11 features.

As you can see in the image below, there is a "SV3 Refined Investments Next Step" note present on the PowerPoint Live section on Teams' Share content menu.

You can view this part here but blink and you could miss it:

While SV3 could mean something other than Sun Valley 3, chances of that are pretty slim. Interestingly, a mention of SV2 was also made by Microsoft recently but the firm quickly removed it and updated the page.

Source and images: Xeno (Twitter) (1 , 2)

Windows 11 23H2 Copper and Sun Valley 3 (SV3) references are already surfacing

Microsoft has detailed how you can do that:

1. Open Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program.

    

2. Select Choose your Insider settings.

    

3. Select Beta Channel.

    

4. The next time you receive an update, it will be for your new channel.

    

The new Build 22581 also has many improvements and bug fixes that are given below. First up we have the changes and improvements:

[General]

• As described in our blog post here, Windows Insiders who use the Dev Channel may get to try out new ideas, longer lead features, and experiences that may never get released. In this build, a limited set of Insiders will see the first of these experimental features as we explore additional ways to help people discover and get quick access to content that they care about on the web with the Windows search box. If you see some of these concepts, be sure to let us know what you think via Feedback Hub (Win + F) and choose category Desktop Environment > Search.

[Taskbar]

• The tablet-optimized taskbar feature which began rolling out with Build 22563 is now available to all Windows Insiders in the Dev and Beta Channels. As a reminder, this feature only works on devices that can be used as tablets. It does not work on laptops or desktop PCs.

• Several fixes to taskbar such as the top border line now extending across the entire taskbar will be seen for everyone regardless of device type.
• Keyboard focus and mouse hover for Win32 system tray icons and the “Show hidden icons” flyout have been updated to match the rest of the visual style of the taskbar. You may also notice that drag-and-drop is no longer supported to pin/unpin these items — you can show/hide these icons using by right clicking on the taskbar and choosing “Taskbar settings”. We also introduced an optional setting to hide the “show hidden icons” button completely, supporting users who want a simpler taskbar.

[Settings]

• In Build 22557, we introduced new links in Settings to help customers give their PC a second life or recycle it. These links will disappear when upgrading to the latest builds (Build 22581 and higher) and will come back later.

The fixes in Windows 11 Build 22581 are given below:

[Taskbar]

• Made a fix for another issue causing taskbar previews to use the wrong fonts for the window title in languages other than English.
• Drag and drop to taskbar should now work with auto-hidden taskbars.
• When dragging something to pin to the taskbar, the message on the dragged item (for example, displaying an X if it’s not supported) will now have rounded corners.
• Mitigated an issue where swiping to collapse the tablet-optimized taskbar might unexpectedly invoke the widgets board.

[Start menu]

• Fixed an issue that was sometimes causing the search box in the top of Start to flicker.
• Mitigated an underlying issue where if you swiped to open the All apps list, sometimes it would think that you’d tapped one of the letter headers in the All apps list.
• Updated the context menu when right clicking a pinned app to say “Move to front” rather than “Move to top”, so it’s clearer what will happen.

[Focus]

• A Clock app update (version 11.2202.24.0 and higher) has rolled out that fixes the issue where the Clock app was unable to update the Windows Focus state when configuring focus sessions in the Clock app.

[File Explorer]

• Fixed a few cases where icons were missing next to entries in the context menu and command bar (for example, for the Next Desktop Background entry in the context menu if you right click the desktop while using a background slideshow).
• Made some small adjustments to some of the icons used in the context menu and command bar, including the copy icon.
• Folders whose only content is other folders will now show an icon with a slip of paper to indicate there is content inside the folder instead of an empty folder icon.
• Addressed an underlying issue that could cause File Explorer to crash when using the Group By option.

[Input]

• Fixed an issue where the conversion option in the Korean IME context menu wasn’t working.
• Addressed an issue where the IME toolbar wasn’t showing/hiding correctly if you’d chosen to use the previous version of the Japanese IME.
• Improved reliability of showing the touch keyboard on the login screen after tapping the PIN or password field after rebooting or upgrade.
• Fixed an issue where some of the text in the touch keyboard was difficult to read when using the “Black and White” text input theme.
• Made another fix for the “size and theme” link under Settings > Time & Language > Typing > Touch Keyboard not working.
• Mitigated an issue where the touch keyboard was still showing the previous text candidates when you switched to voice typing.
• The “Press Enter” and “Press Tab” commands should be working when using voice typing for Chinese (Traditional) now.
• Fixed an issue where the 3 or 4 finger touchpad gesture for adjusting your audio volume level wasn’t working with certain paired Bluetooth audio devices.

[Settings]

• Changes in Sounds to Program Events (for example, turning certain system sounds off) should persist on upgrade going forward.
• Improved visibility of the battery icon in the Bluetooth section of Quick Settings when a contrast mode was enabled.

[Windowing]

• If you set keyboard focus to Desktops in Task View, the border shown around the thumbnails will now have rounded corners.
• Fixed an issue where hovering over the Task View icon on secondary monitors wouldn’t bring up the Desktops flyout when using the Arabic or Hebrew display language.
• Fixed an issue where if you selected one of the Microsoft Edge tabs displayed in snap assist, the window would animate in from the wrong place.
• Snap layouts should now minimize properly if you drag a window through the corner of snap layouts.
• Fixed an issue where snap layouts would unexpectedly immediately display while dragging a window instead of just showing a hint for Insiders with an Arabic or Hebrew display language.
• Addressed an issue where rotating your tablet before the previous screen rotation animation had finished would cause the rotation animation to abruptly cut out.
• Mitigated an issue where using the 3-finger touch gesture to minimize all apps quickly could result in windows getting stuck in a shrunken state.
• Reduced the size of the area above a notification where clicks weren’t being passed through to the underlying window so it’s the same sized area as the side of the notification.
• Mitigated an issue leading to issues dragging the title bar of a maximized window with touch.
• Fixed an issue where if the Open or Save dialog was open in an app, and you used ALT + Tab to switch away from the app and then back, keyboard focus might get lost.

[Voice access]

• Fixed an issue that was causing voice access to crash when using commands to capitalize text in Office apps.

[Narrator]

• Narrator will now correctly tell you if there is an image in table cells in Office apps.
• When Narrator is reading with scan mode in Microsoft Edge, it will no longer stop reading when getting to some embedded links and buttons in the middle of text, like on nytimes.com.

[Task Manager]

• Fixed an issue where tooltips did not accurately display the preferred visual setting when Task Manager is configured for dark mode.
• Fixed an issue where Task Manager wasn’t populating the details of the Status column in the Startup Apps page.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue that was causing the volume flyout that appears from using your hardware keys to be stuck on screen.
• Mitigated an issue that could result in explorer.exe getting stuck and not fully initializing during first login.
• Fixed a few more issues impacting explorer.exe reliability.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th, 2021.

Finally, the known issues in Windows 11 Build 22581 are:

[General]

• [BETA CHANNEL] We will not be offering new builds to Windows Insiders in China on Lenovo PCs in the Beta Channel for the time being.
• Windows Insiders running Windows 10 who join the Dev or Beta Channels to get the latest builds may encounter a download error code 0xc8000402 while trying to download the latest build. As a workaround, please join the Release Preview Channel first, install Windows 11 from there (Build 22000.xxxx), and then switch to the Dev or Beta Channel to receive the latest Insider Preview build. This issue is understood and will be fixed in an upcoming build.

[Taskbar]

• The taskbar doesn’t always automatically collapse after launching an app or tapping outside of the expanded taskbar on 2-in-1 devices.
• Some areas of the OS are not yet tracking the height of the expanded taskbar on 2-in-1 devices so you may see overlapping components, such as Widgets overlapping with the taskbar.

[File Explorer]

• Opening suggested results shown while entering search terms in File Explorer’s search box may not work.
• We’re working fixing issues regarding icon sizing, visual bugs, and text clipping in the flyout showing OneDrive storage.

[Widgets]

• Sometimes when pinning from the Feed, the pinned widget is placed at the top instead of below other pinned widgets. If this happens this will autocorrect within 30 minutes, moving the recently pinned widget to the expected default location. Or you can sign out of your Widgets board and immediately signing back in should correct the problem.
• After rearranging widgets in the widgets board, some users experience problems with widgets in the pinned section rendering incorrectly. If this happens, signing out of your widgets board and immediately signing back in should correct the problem.
• The Widgets panel may not load as expected when using the swipe from left edge of screen touch motion. You may launch by clicking the Widgets icon or using the Win + W key combination.

[Narrator]

• Natural voices are breaking up sporadically in the latest build. Restart Narrator to resolve the issue.

[Live captions]

• Certain apps in full screen (e.g., video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
• Certain apps positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions is run will re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at top. Use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) while the app has focus to move the app’s window further down.
• The very top of maximized apps (e.g., title bar window management buttons) can’t be reached with touch while live captions is positioned at the top.

You can find the original press release here.

Microsoft brings the latest Windows 11 build 22581 to both Dev and Beta channels

Here's how Microsoft describes the issue:

After installing KB5009596 or later updates, some organizations which have Windows devices paired to Bluetooth devices might receive an error message "Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart." with a blue screen and "Stop code: IRQ NOT LESS OR EQUAL". The error logged on affected devices will be in the System log in Event Viewer and will be logged as "Microsoft-Windows-WER-SystemErrorRe event 1001" with text "The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000000a ". This issue is observed when certain Configuration service provider (CSP) policies are in place which affect the Bluetooth A2dp profile. It can be observed from one of two scenarios:

• During the restart at the end of the update installation process, if the Windows client device was previously paired with mobile phones or with other audio devices via Bluetooth.

• After updates are installed, at the moment users pair their updated Windows client device with a new mobile phone or audio device via Bluetooth.

Since CSPs are generally associated with enterprise environments, home users are likely to be unaffected by this.

A workaround for IT administrators has also been provided by Microsoft:

To mitigate this issue, IT administrators using Intune or other tools can modify the Windows registry before installing this update following the steps below:

1. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\Bluetooth\

2. Add the following registry entry: {0000110a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb} and {0000110b-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb} to the ServicesAllowedList value

You may find more details on the official Microsoft page.

Latest Windows 10 builds (KB5011543) fix critical BSOD bug arising from Bluetooth

Once released, Firefox installations should receive the update automatically thanks to the built-in updating functionality of the browser. Selecting Menu > Help > About Firefox displays the version that is installed currently and runs a check for updates. The manual check will pick up the new version provided that Mozilla gave the go for release already.

The official release notes will become later today on this page.

Firefox 98.0.2

Firefox 98.0.2 fixes four issues in the web browser. The first issue, filed under bug 1757618 on Mozilla's bug tracking website Bugzilla, fixes a browser crash on Windows machines. The investigation discovered that 32-bit builds of Firefox were affected predominantly, and that Firefox would crash because of an out-of-memory event.

Mozilla fixed the issue by reducing the allocation size on all installations except on Mac OS with aarch64 CPUs.

The second issue is specific to certain add-ons that users have installed in Firefox. It is related to using add-ons to sign-in to eGovernment sites that use pkcs11 modules. According to the reporter on Bugzilla, add-ons affected by the issue would not provide the functionality they were designed to provide. The update to Firefox 98.0.2 resolves the issue.

The third fixed issue affects Firefox on Mac OS systems that prevent users from typing in the browser's address bar under certain circumstances.

The bug reporter listed the following steps to reproduce the issue:

1. Open a new tab in the browser and select the address bar.
2. Use Cmd-Enter.
3. The attempt to type anything in the address bar fails.

The shortcut Cmd-Enter, the Windows equivalent is Ctrl-Enter, appends .com to the address automatically.

Bug 1758664 lists the fourth and final issue on Bugzilla. The starting page of an internal time tracking website, powered by Bosch ATOSS, returned a blank page in Firefox 98.0. The page worked fine in previous versions. Mozilla analyzed the issue and changed the behavior regarding the loading of iframes from session history.

Mozilla plans to release the new version of Firefox later today on March 23, 2022. Firefox 99 will be released on April 5, 2022 according to the release schedule.

Now You: did you run into any of these issues?

Firefox 98.0.2 fixes a crash on Windows, an add-ons issue, and more

Frontpaged:   Mozilla Firefox Browser 98.0.2

A significant rewrite of the Linux kernel's random-number generator is underway, ensuring Linux-based cryptography is a bit more secure, particularly in virtual machines, and some software a bit smoother to run.

As outlined by the author of the changes, Jason A Donenfeld, the newly released kernel 5.17 contains the first stage of the big rewrite, but more will follow in 5.18. Among other changes, the /dev/random and /dev/urandom devices now do exactly the same. This brings the Linux kernel in line with FreeBSD and macOS.

The code is contained in a module called random.c, originally written by Ted T'so for kernel 1.3 in 1994. It implements a Unix-style special character device called /dev/random which gives a stream of pseudorandom data. Building this into the kernel was a big deal, and the /dev/random device was adopted into DEC/Compaq Tru64, FreeBSD, HP-UX, IBM AIX, NetBSD, macOS, SGI IRIX, and Sun Solaris. This might make it one of the single most widely influential new features from Linux onto the broader Unix world.

Generating truly random numbers in pure software is non-trivial. If you run the same code repeatedly with the same inputs, it should produce the same results. Thus if you write a program to output random numbers, it'll produce a predictable, pseudorandom stream of values. If you can predict the output, you can figure out how software using it is going to work and, for instance, break encryption based on it. Researchers managed this for Windows 2000, for instance.

One way round this is to seed the random-number generator (RNG) with some truly random data – something like mouse movements, keyboard activity, and the timing of network packets and disk activity. In computer science terms, this is called entropy, and the Linux kernel maintains a pool of it to seed its RNGs.

When this entropy has all been used up, the RNGs will start to give random numbers that could be predictable, so programmers had to make a choice: go ahead with not-really-random-but-always-available numbers produced by /dev/urandom, or wait until some unpredictable ones were available from /dev/random. So, either block on /dev/random but be happy with the results, or don't block on /dev/urandom but don't use the numbers for anything sensitive. Blocking on entropy can introduce latency and delays in processing.

Another way is to use a hardware random-number generator (HWRNG), but there are problems with these, too. Sometimes they don't work right, for instance AMD's one in the Ryzen 3000 at launch. Sometimes they are merely suspect, as with Intel's after the Snowden revelations – which led FreeBSD to stop trusting them at all.

Linux eventually let you choose which HWRNGs to trust.

There have been previous big improvements in the kernel RNG. In kernel 4.8, /dev/urandom became cryptographically secure: a new algorithm, ChaCha20, made it resistant to analysis and prediction of forthcoming values. Kernel 5.6 made random and urandom devices similar. In 2020, /dev/random was tweaked to only block while waiting to be initialized. And now, both devices behave the same so you can use either without worry of processes stalling on an entropy drought nor worries about predictable randomness.

The changes in 5.17 eliminate use of the SHA-1 algorithm, which was cracked in 2005 and was being gradually replaced for years.

Now it's gone, replaced by BLAKE2, a descendant of ChaCha20.

An important change is that the kernel can detect if it's running in a virtual machine that has been copied. A duplicate VM would contain an identical entropy pool as its parent, meaning that their RNGs would generate identical output.

Now, the kernel checks a new VM ID called vmgenid using ACPI. If the ID changes, the kernel mixes the ID into the entropy pool, changing it and thus making it unique. This may in time be exposed to programs via a new entry in /proc/sys. ®

Source

Last year was a big year for Linux, as the operating system (OS) played a critical role in a major achievement: the first-ever powered flight on another planet. On 19 April last year, the Ingenuity drone – or “Mars Helicopter”, as NASA calls it – took to the skies of Mars. Under the hood, the on-board computer was running Linux.

Last year, we spoke with Tim Canham, the software and operations lead on the project, who shared with us details of how the helicopter works. Now, a staggering 17 successful flights later, we thought it was time to check in on the helicopter’s progress. 

“The helicopter has exceeded our expectations,” says Canham. “It's lived far longer, it's been able to outperform what we thought it could and it has stayed healthy. And we're still continuing to plan these flights well into the future.”

He’s particularly pleased with the thermal performance, as the Martian atmosphere makes it harder to dissipate heat. The helicopter, though, has proven itself more resilient than expected. “The first 30 Sols [Martian days] were ‘can it actually fly under control and survive?’,” he said. “After that, [NASA’s Mars rover team] said, ‘Well, why don't you try acting like a scout for us and go ahead of us and take pictures?’.”

The helicopter is now working in tandem with NASA’s surface rover, Perseverance, to explore the Martian landscape. That’s enabling scientists to study challenging terrain in a region of the red planet called Séítah, which would be tricky for Perseverance to navigate alone.

“We did this gonzo flight,” says Canham, “It was like 700 metres or something like that. It was a three-minute flight.” This is much further and far longer than had been expected, as the team had previously estimated the helicopter might only be capable of 90 seconds of flying time at most.

Linux’s flying colours

In terms of the software, Canham is very pleased with how Linux has been performing. The only blip was last May, when the navigation software experienced an error that sent the helicopter off course, but Canham’s team were able to diagnose the problem and upload a patch.

The team has also been able to improve communications with the rover, which takes the helicopter’s data and sends it back to Earth, by using standard Linux tools. “What we've been doing is learning to take advantage of some of the Linux features,” said Canham.

“One of the things that has enabled this extended mission is that modest little utility Bzip. It's a compression utility that's part of Linux and it's on the helicopter as part of the standard set of tools that we put on there.”

“After flights, we have these large engineering logs of the flight data and normally, if we just took them uncompressed and sent them over the radio to the rover, it would take a long time. And so what we've been doing… is after we generate those files, we actually just run Bzip compression on the command line and compress those files down to about half their size, and then ship them over to the rover. And that saves us a lot of time and energy that we otherwise would spend talking on the radio.”

Is this proof that Linux is ready for bigger, future missions? Could future Mars rovers and rockets use Linux too? “I don't think it's there yet,” said Canham. “JPL and NASA classify their missions and in terms of how much risk they're willing to accept, and helicopter is what they call a Class D technology demonstration, in which they're willing to accept a lot more risk. That's why they even let us in the door.”

“It's difficult to make that leap, because there's so much at stake during something like entry, descent, landing, where you're trying to land a $2 billion spacecraft.”

Canham does, however, think helicopter’s success is good news for the future of Linux in space. “I think it's definitely increased its prestige, because of the visibility of the helicopter. And the fact that it's doing as well as it has, it's definitely gotten the attention and notice of people at NASA, [so] there's a real path forward for Linux.”

Source

Microsoft is replacing at least some of its natural-language processing systems with a more efficient class of AI model.

These transformer-based architectures have been named "Z-code Mixture of Experts." Only parts of these models are activated when they're run since different parts of the model learn different tasks, unlike traditional machine learning systems that require the whole system to perform computations. As neural networks continue to grow, the Z-code model approach should prevent them from becoming too power hungry and expensive to run.

Microsoft said it has deployed these types of models for its text summarization, custom text classification, and key-phrase extraction services that are available from Azure.

Now, it's turning its attention to Translator, its online machine translation service. Translator previously required 20 models to translate between ten human languages. The same job can be performed with just a single Z-code system, running in Microsoft's cloud, we're told.

In a series of tests commissioned by Microsoft, humans judged the quality of the language translations between the old and new Translator models. Data showed the Z-code version was on average four percent better. It improved English to French translations by 3.2 percent, English to Turkish by 5.8 percent, Japanese to English by 7.6 percent, English to Arabic by 9.3 percent, and English to Slovenian by 15 percent, we're told.

Instead of explicitly training on pairs of languages, the Z-code Translator model learned how to translate between multiple languages using transfer learning, Xuedong Huang, Microsoft technical fellow and Azure AI chief technology officer, explained.

"With Z-code we are really making amazing progress because we are leveraging both transfer learning and multitask learning from monolingual and multilingual data to create a state-of-the-art language model that we believe has the best combination of quality, performance and efficiency that we can provide to our customers."

Engineers at Microsoft used GPUs to train the Z-code Translator model. "For our production model deployment, we opted for training a set of five billion parameter models, which are 80 times larger than our currently deployed models," according to Redmond's Hany Awadalla, principal research manager, Krishna Mohan, principal product manager, and Vishal Chowdhary, partner development manager.

The new model is now in production, and is powered by Nvidia's GPUs and its Triton Inference Server software, achieving up to a 27x speedup over non-optimized GPU configurations, apparently. It is currently only available for select customers who have to be approved by Microsoft first. They will be able to use the machine translation to translate text in Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and PDF documents. ®

Source

Last week Microsoft announced the release of Windows 10 21H2 Build 19044.1618 (KB5011543) to the Release Preview Channel for Insiders on Windows 10, and now that is arriving as an optional "C" update for all supported versions of Windows 10, including the Enterprise edition.

This update contains the same features announced last week for the Release Preview, but it bumps the supported Windows 10 build number slightly to 19044.1620 (21H2), 19043.1620 (21H1), and 19042.1620 (20H2).

In this release, search highlights have been added to Windows 10. This feature will allow the taskbar search box and search home to periodically update with content that will allow you to "discover more, be connected, and stay productive" and will include illustrations as well.

The latest update includes the following improvements and fixes across all builds:

• New! We provided the ability to change the color of toast buttons to identify success and critical scenarios more easily for apps that send notifications using Windows notifications in the OS. This feature also makes notifications more visually compact.
• New! We added a new policy that expands an app’s top three notifications by default in the Action Center for apps that send notifications using Windows notifications in the OS. This feature displays multiple notifications that you can interact with simultaneously.
• We fixed an issue that causes searchindexer.exe to stop responding during a dismount operation in the Remote Desktop setup environment.
• We fixed an issue that affects searchindexer.exe and prevents Microsoft Outlook’s offline search from returning recent emails.
• We fixed an issue that might deactivate Windows when you change the National Language Support (NLS) version from 6.3 to 6.2.
• We fixed an issue in which modern browsers fail to correctly render HTML that is generated by gpresult/h.
• We fixed an issue that causes an “Access denied” exception for a file during a PowerShell test for AppLocker.
• We fixed an issue that might cause the Group Policy Service to stop processing telemetry information for Group Policy Registry Preferences.
• We fixed an issue that might prevent a DNS Server query resolution policy from working as expected when you specify a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) and subnet conditions.
• We fixed a heap leak in PacRequestorEnforcement that degrades the performance of a domain controller.
• We fixed an issue that affects the Key Distribution Center (KDC) Proxy. The KDC Proxy cannot properly obtain Kerberos tickets for signing in to Key Trust Windows Hello for Business.
• We added support for Microsoft Account (MSA) Pass-through scenarios in Azure Active Directory (AAD) Web Account Manager (WAM).
• We fixed an issue that logs Event ID 37 during certain password change scenarios, including failover cluster name object (CNO) or virtual computer object (VCO) password changes.
• We fixed an issue that might unintentionally add a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) protector when you use the Silent BitLocker enablement policy.
• We fixed an issue that prevents the User Account Control (UAC) dialog from correctly showing the application that is requesting elevated privileges.
• We fixed an issue that causes the Move-ADObject command to fail when you move computer accounts across domains. The error message is, “Multiple values were specified for an attribute that can have only one value”.
• We fixed an issue that prevents Event 4739 from displaying the new values of certain attributes after a policy change.
• We fixed an issue that prevents Android device users from signing in to some Microsoft applications, such as Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Teams. This issue occurs after rolling over token signing and decrypting certificates, resetting a user’s password, or when an administrator has revoked refresh tokens.
• We fixed an issue that might cause domain joining to fail in environments that use disjoint DNS hostnames.
• We fixed an issue that prevents the Back button of the credentials window, where you sign in, from being visible in high contrast black mode.
• We fixed an issue that prevents you from accessing Server Message Block (SMB) shares using an IP Address when SMB hardening is enabled.
• We fixed an issue that occurs when the Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) values for SMB have not been updated for more recent platforms.
• We fixed an issue that causes stop error 0x1E in the SMB Server (srv2.sys).
• We fixed an issue that causes a mismatch between NetBIOS and DNS Active Directory domain names when you create a cluster.
• We fixed an issue that causes the Network File System (NFS) redirector to stop working (error 0x50) when you convert a text file to a PDF.

There's also a new servicing stack update included:

Windows 10 servicing stack update - 19042.1613, 19043.1613, and 19044.1613

• This update makes quality improvements to the servicing stack, which is the component that installs Windows updates. Servicing stack updates (SSU) ensure that you have a robust and reliable servicing stack so that your devices can receive and install Microsoft updates.

There's a few known issues to be aware of:

• Devices with Windows installations created from custom offline media or custom ISO image might have Microsoft Edge Legacy removed by this update, but not automatically replaced by the new Microsoft Edge. This issue is only encountered when custom offline media or ISO images are created by slipstreaming this update into the image without having first installed the standalone servicing stack update (SSU) released March 29, 2021 or later.
• After installing the June 21, 2021 (KB5003690) update, some devices cannot install new updates, such as the July 6, 2021 (KB5004945) or later updates. You will receive the error message, "PSFX_E_MATCHING_BINARY_MISSING".
• After installing this update, when connecting to devices in an untrusted domain using Remote Desktop, connections might fail to authenticate when using smart card authentication. You might receive the prompt, "Your credentials did not work. The credentials that were used to connect to [device name] did not work. Please enter new credentials." and "The login attempt failed" in red.

If any of the above issues affect you, Microsoft has also documented some workarounds that might work for you on the support page.

Finally, Microsoft also reminds us that Windows 10 20H2 will reach end of service on May 10, 2022 for devices running the Home, Pro, Pro Education, and Pro for Workstations editions. After that date, these devices will no longer receive monthly security and quality updates. It is recommended to update to a later version of Windows 10 or 11.

You can grab this optional update by heading to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and if not already available, Check for updates. In the Optional updates available area, you’ll find the link to download and install the update. Or you can manually download the update for your edition through this Microsoft Catalog link.

To view the full support article for KB5011543, head over to the dedicated webpage here.

Search highlights available as optional update (KB5011543) on supported Windows 10 builds

The Bethesda Softworks-published Ghostwire: Tokyo is landing on March 25, and this driver is what's recommended for anyone jumping in. The title touts ray-traced reflections and shadows, as well as DLSS support for better performance. The Borderlands spin-off by Gearbox, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, is landing on the same date. Though Nvidia did not detail any specific improvements for the game, this driver is still a recommended install before playing.

Meanwhile Chorus, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and No Man’s Sky all now have support for Nvidia's Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing (DLAA) AI-based tech, for those who want improved image quality over frames. The G-Sync compatible gaming monitors list has been expanded by 11 with this driver too. Find the complete list of tested and validated monitors here.

The fixed issues in this release are these:

• [Advanced Optimus]: Brightness levels do not change properly when display set to NVIDIA GPU only mode with HDR set to off. [3497181]
• Increased registry reads by DWM.exe when GPU is connected to G-SYNC/G-SYNC Compatible display [3535493]
• [NVIDIA Advanced Optimus][Ampere] Putting notebook to sleep by closing the lid and then waking up the notebook may cause Windows to reboot when in dGPU mode. [3444252]
• The native resolution for a DVI or HDMI display may not be available from the display settings if the display contains an invalid EDID. [3502752]
• [Adobe Substance Sampler/Stager]: Fixed Optimus profile to run on dGPU by default. [3557257]
• [Enscape]: Shadow rendering is incorrect. [3530584]
• [Solidworks Visualize Boost]: When the application process is running in the background, the GPU memory clock may operate at lower clock speeds. [3417407]
• [Adobe Premiere Pro]: Adobe Media Encoder could crash due to out of memory error when encoding multiple R3D 8k files. [3532477]
• [Foundry Nuke]: CUDA and OpenCL kernel return incorrect result. [3497442]

The company is still working on resolving these problems:

• Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed may crash on courses where players drive through water. [3338967]
• [NVIDIA Ampere GPU]: With the GPU connected to an HDMI 2.1 audio/video receiver, audio may drop out when playing back Dolby Atmos. [3345965]
• Club 3D CAC-1085 dongle limited to maximum resolution of 4K at 60Hz. [3542678]

The 512.15 WHQL Game Ready driver is available for download via the GeForce Experience app. Standalone direct links to download the Game Ready as well as Studio drivers can be found below. The official release notes are here.

Desktop GPUs:

• GeForce Game Ready Driver Download: Windows 11, 10 – DCH

• Studio Driver Download: Windows 11, 10 – DCH

Notebook GPUs:

• GeForce Game Ready Driver Download: Windows 11, 10 – DCH

• Studio Driver Download: Windows 11, 10 – DCH

Nvidia 512.15 WHQL driver optimizes Ghostwire: Tokyo and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Zoom will let you show up to your next meeting as a rabbit, fox, dog, or another type of animal, using its new Avatars feature that replaces you with a virtual character that copies your expressions, Memoji-style. The company says this feature, which is included in the Zoom 5.10 update, will only let you become an animal at launch, but that new avatar options will be added in the future.

Zoom sees this feature as useful for a lot of different scenarios — in its press release, it mentions showing up with an avatar filter on could “bring some fun to your team-building meetings” or help pediatricians seem less intimidating to young children. There’s also the idea that it could help alleviate Zoom fatigue. At least one study has indicated that constantly looking at yourself to make sure you’re presentable and reacting appropriately is part of what makes being in video calls all day so tiring. If your Zoom box is showing a giraffe that’s mirroring your facial expressions, that’s a lot harder to scrutinize than your actual face.

To turn on Avatars, Zoom instructs users to click the ^ button next to the Start / Stop Video button, then click Choose Video Filter. Then, pick the animal you want to show up as from the Avatars tab — apparently, you can even decide whether your avatar will be wearing a hoodie or T-shirt (it’d just be immersion-breaking if you showed up as a fox not appropriately dressed for the weather). You can also optionally choose to always apply the filter whenever you enter a meeting — if you want.

The video conferencing app already has a variety of Snapchat-like filters and effects that you can use to change your appearance — you could already add bunny ears or a mustache to your face or use Snap’s camera app to give yourself a cartoonish appearance. Avatars take it one step further by completely replacing you. Zoom does say that it won’t “store any data regarding your face or facial features” if you use Avatars.

It’s hard to tell how useful Zoom Avatars will be in reducing meeting anxiety or fatigue — not because they’re not fun, but because of other people’s tolerance for Zoom playfulness. Personally, my co-workers are never going to see my face again if this feature ends up working well, but there are definitely places where you’d get told off for showing up as an animal (either by the judge for your court case saying it’s not appropriate to have a filter on or by a co-worker teasing you by saying you look like a furry). Hopefully, though, if video calls stay a part of our lives, we all get some time to be a little less serious — something that Avatars could certainly help with.

Zoom’s new virtual avatars let you show up to your next meeting as a dog

The full announcement says:

We are starting to roll out Cumulative Update Build 22579.100 (KB5013192). This update does not include anything new and is designed to test our servicing pipeline for builds in the Dev Channel.

Hence, all the bug fixes and improvements that were announced with the earlier released build 22579 to the Dev Channel are carried over into this. The build has loads of new features as we are now moving into the next phase of Windows 11 in preparation for version 22H2.

Interestingly, while there are no new changes made in this build, servicing test builds like these before have been known to break some features. For example, Windows 10 Build 21292.1010 caused issues for x64 emulation on ARM PCs.

The original announcement can be found here.

Microsoft releases yet another servicing update with Dev build 22579.100 (KB5013192)

My previous article covers most of the changes in this build, so I'll highlight the most important ones here, along with a few features have been added since the beta release.

What's new in the KeePassXC 2.7.0 update

Quick Unlock with Windows Hello and macOS Touch ID

KeePassXC now supports Windows Hello and macOS Touch ID, which you can use to unlock your database quickly with your PIN or fingerprint scanner, or your Apple Watch. The option only works when the vault has been unlocked with a master password once and locked, i.e., you cannot use it to unlock the vault directly after running the program. Still, it's a time saver, as you don't have to enter the master password again until you reboot the computer or close the application.

The password manager prevents screen capture, if you'd like to take screenshots of its interface, you can follow the instructions in the previous article. The cryptography library has been migrated from libgcrypt to Botan. The program now supports KDBX 4.1 databases.

Improvements to the Browser Extension

Users of the KeePassXC's browser extension can trigger auto-type directly.

The add-on can also be used to generate secure passwords, manage group settings, etc. Folks who are running the Linux version of the utility, can now install the KeePassXC extension in Microsoft Edge browser.

Favicons can be downloaded using the extension, and saved to the database. The Database reports section in the tool, has a Browser Statistics tab, that can be handy if you want to see the URLs and custom settings that are assigned to a login, and make changes to the entries as necessary.

Auto-Type

Auto-Type has been overhauled in KeePassXC 2.7.0, it now has a new dialog with multiple options to choose from. You can decide whether to send the password or username, or both to the login field via Auto-Type, and set hotkeys for it.  In addition to this, the program now lets you search for entries in all open databases from the Auto-Type window, just like you can in the main window of the program. It supports TOTPs too.

Password Entry - Tags, View Entry History, Password Rating and more

Entries in the vault can now be tagged, these tags can be used to find the logins quickly, and also to organize your passwords with categories. The update tags some entries by default, to highlight logins with weak passwords or expired credentials. The history tab (in the Edit Entry window) lists the changes that you made to the entry. You can use to see what changes you made to it, such as which field was edited and when.

KeePassXC allows you to import custom passphrase word lists, and the password generator displays a rating for the logins, so you get an idea how strong the passwords are.

Database management

You can now set the automatic backup for the database to any location of your choice, including a cloud storage drive. Groups can now be cloned along with their settings. There are some improvements to the command-line options, you can find them in the release notes on the open-source project's GitHub page.

Download KeePassXC 2.7.0 for Windows, macOS and Linux from the official website. It includes portable versions of the software.

KeePassXC 2.7.0 update with improved Auto-Type, Tags for entries launches out of beta

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