For those unfamiliar, Unraid is a NAS operating system that is designed to allow for flexible and easy storage expansion. It allows running applications and services in Docker containers and virtual machines, making it popular with the self-hosted crowd.

The team over at Unraid has been off to a busy start this year with a host of releases and updates for their popular NAS operating system. As of late last week, they announced that Unraid 7.3.0 is now stable and is available for existing users to update to. For Unraid users, this is a big deal.

Unraid has, since its first release, always required a USB stick as its primary and only way to boot the OS. As this is a NAS operating system with the primary goal of giving you the maximum value from your storage as possible, not needing to dedicate a drive for the OS could be seen as a plus.

Unfortunately, the downside to this is that USB sticks tend to be anything but reliable and certainly aren’t speedy, and have often ended up becoming a single point of failure.

Gallery: Unraid 7.3.0 Onboarding

 

 

 

 

 

With the release of Unraid 7.3.0, this has now been addressed, finally giving users the option to ditch their single USB boot stick and providing them with a more modern and resilient approach to system boot.

Now that internal booting is available, you’ll also have the option to take it a step further and set up a mirrored boot pool using a ZFS mirror, giving you greater resilience should a drive fail.

Along with this key update, Unraid 7.3.0 comes with several important critical security patches. Docker, too, has been upgraded, bringing some nice quality-of-life improvements and fixes. They added a friendly onboarding user interface for new and returning users.

ZFS sees improvements to the visibility of file issues directly from the pool status, and previously buried ZFS settings have been moved directly into the native Disk Settings.

The update also includes performance enhancements for File Manager and improved Virtualization, Networking, and the addition of a dedicated Tailscale stub page in settings. Head over to the Unraid blog and check the release notes for further details.

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Posted Thursday 21 May 2026 at 6:07 pm AEST (my time).

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LibreOffice developer, The Document Foundation (TDF), has historically had an ax to grind with Microsoft, which isn't at all surprising considering that the two offer competing products and champion different standards. LibreOffice leverages the open-source OpenDocument Format (ODF) for productivity documents, while Microsoft Office relies on the "open" OOXML format. TDF regularly calls out the Redmond tech giant for forcing customers to use Office formats, and now, it has bashed the company once again in a lengthy blog post.

TDF claims that ODF ensures digital sovereignty since it is an open-source format that cannot be controlled by a single vendor. Any document created in this format remains the sole property of the author since no vendor can independently change the format and inconvenience users. It emphasizes that this is very different from Microsoft's OOXML structure used in Office documents, which it says is only "open" on paper, but proprietary in practice.

LibreOffice's developer notes that OOXML was developed behind closed doors at Microsoft, and it is actually an insult to the community since it isn't transparent and discourages consultation, especially considering that its explainer document is over 7,500 pages long. TDF has highlighted that OOXML is not versioned and does not rely on independent standards. In fact, it alleges that Microsoft utilizes proprietary formats whenever possible.

The developer has also taken a dig at Microsoft's handling of dates with OOXML. It says that OOXML is so absurd in complexity that it cannot even handle the Gregorian calendar. Excel, in particular, gets dates wrong frequently, incorrectly identifies the year 1900 as a leap year, and when it "gets dates wrong, no other software does it worse."

TDF highlights that the only reason that so many people use Microsoft Office and OOXML today is that Microsoft employed a bait-and-switch strategy in a calculated and nefarious manner. It convinced the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), politicians, and, by extension, the world, that OOXML is a transitional format that will become strict, non-proprietary, and standard after 2010. That never happened, which brings us to where we are today, where Microsoft enjoys a monopoly on user-created documents. TDF claims that Microsoft lobbied with its partners like SAP to lock people into OOXML to the point that:

The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee was forced in 2020 to rename dozens of human genes – including SEPT1 and MARCH1 – because Excel kept silently converting their symbols to dates. Rather than going to Microsoft and demanding a bug fix, scientists preferred to throw years of established nomenclature down the drain to avoid upsetting Redmond. A revealing precedent.

The LibreOffice developer says that it's simply not enough for products to support ODF, they have to make it the native option, otherwise, digital sovereignity is "provisional at best". It has emphasized that it is actually OOXML that needs to be the interoperability format that should be used for document exchange with customers who continue to use the proprietary standard out of convenience or ignorance. The firm ends its detailed blog post by highlighting that any option other than the one described by it is false digital sovereignty.

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Posted Thursday 21 May 2026 at 6:06 pm AEST (my time).

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Yesterday we reported on a small but useful change Microsoft has introduced with the newest Windows 11 Patch Tuesday (May 2026) update, wherein the company now has a centralized folder for all the necessary Secure Boot update scripts. These updates are crucial for the proper and secure booting of all Windows PCs, as the older ones are set to expire very soon.

While that's great for those who are able to install new updates, Microsoft has confirmed that's not the case for everyone. The issue first started when users began noticing online that they were unable to download the March 2026 Patch KB50794373. As such, consecutive updates, including the emergency out-of-band updates, KB5086672 and KB5091157, also did not install, and neither did the April and May Patch Tuesday updates. Essentially, the Windows Update button inside the Settings app does not proceed with the update and ends up with a 0x80010002 error message.

Hence users who were encountering this problem have not had the latest security updates for a few months, plus they are missing the aforementioned critical security update for Secure Boot as well as updated certificates that are also being delivered via the Windows Update channel. Those who hate Windows though, will probably view it as a good thing, for humorous reasons.

At long last Microsoft has finally acknowledged the issue and has confirmed it is a bug on its end, not the user PCs' fault. Essentially the company has admitted that a recent change in download timeout requirements is what messed it up. It explained the following in a support service alert: "Affected devices might be able to download the February monthly Windows security update, but then become unable to use the Windows Update settings to download Windows updates released in March, April, or later months. This issue results from recent changes in download timeout requirements when starting download operations. It is not related to device integrity or the device's ability to install Windows updates, only to its ability to download updates from the internet via the Windows Update page under Settings."

Those who have access to the Admin center portal can view the message here on Microsoft's official site (spotted by Susan Bradley on AskWoody). A known issue rollback (KIR) could fix the issue.

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Posted Wednesday 20 May 2026 at 7:06 am AEST (my time).

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Later this month, Microsoft will release the May 2026 non-security updates containing new features and bug fixes for supported Windows 11 versions (24H2 and 25H2). A preview of these updates was released last week, and now, Microsoft is pushing newer builds with a few additional fixes.

If your PC is enrolled in the Release Preview Channel, you can download builds 26100.8521 (24H2) and 26200.8521 (25H2). These updates contain two important fixes for bugs with muted audio on certain devices and Windows Push Notification issues, causing apps to fail to launch or send any notifications.

Here is the changelog:

Updated: 19 May 2026 - Updated build numbers, fixing a few issues impacting Insiders in Release Preview after the previous flight, including:

 

• Fixed an issue resulting in the audio volume being unexpectedly muted on certain devices
• Fixed a Windows Push Notification service (WPN) hang, which could lead to some apps not launching and notifications not working.

The rest of the changelog is identical to the previous two builds, with features such as shared audio support, improved magnifier, better NPU tracking in Task Manager, wallpaper reliability improvements, and more. You can find the complete changelog in our dedicated post here.

As for Windows 11 26H1 users, Microsoft also pushed a new Release Preview build (28000.2175), but there are no details on what exactly this build improves over the previously released build 28000.2173.

You can expect Microsoft to release the May 2026 non-security updates in the last week of May. These updates will be optional, as usual, and all the changes and improvements will arrive as part of the mandatory June 2026 Patch Tuesday updates on June 9, 2026.

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Posted Wednesday 20 May 2026 at 7:05 am AEST (my time).

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Following the release of a new graphics driver that adds official Forza Horizon 6 support, AMD pushed a new chipset driver for supported motherboards with Windows 11 and 10. Version 8.05.04.516 is now available for download, offering users bug fixes and new drivers for the recently announced Ryzen AI 400 processors.

Here is the changelog:

• Bug fixes included.
• New Program Support added.

And here is the list of all new drivers:

AMD adds that the driver has a few known issues, some of which could be fixed with workarounds:

• After installing the AMD Chipset Installer version “7.xx.xx.xx”, users cannot install version “6.xx.xx.xx” or earlier. Workaround:
  • Uninstall the latest version of the AMD Chipset installer (version 7.xx.xx.xx or later).
  • Delete the “Qt_Dependencies” folder located at "C:\Program Files (x86)\AMD\Chipset_Software\".
  • Install any older version of the AMD Chipset installer (version 6.xx.xx.xx or earlier).
• On a non-English OS, some driver names may appear in English. 
• Yellow bang on the AMS Mailbox driver on the AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ 9000 Series Processors [AMD WRX90] on Win10 OS.

You can download the latest AMD Ryzen chipset drivers for Windows 10 and 11 from the official support article. Full release notes are available on the same page. The driver is available on 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 systems with mobile and desktop Ryzen, Threadripper, and 7th-gen A-Series processors.

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Posted Wednesday 20 May 2026 at 7:04 am AEST (my time).

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Earlier today Teams faced a big outage as it experienced a notable slowdown in performance. Thankfully Microsoft says that's fixed now but the tech giant has acknowledged a major inconvenience users and admins alike have to face. The company says that there are "few support issues more frustrating" than a Teams meeting recording going missing.

In a new blog post about the issue, Microsoft has explained what's going on and how to fix it, and fortunately, it seems like the problem has a somewhat easy fix as long as you understand what's happening.

For those not familiar, Microsoft Teams recordings are an essential feature as they automatically capture meeting audio, video, and screen sharing so users can replay or share that information later for various purposes. Aside from that, transcriptions are available too and they work on a similar principle, by converting spoken dialogue into searchable written text, making discussions easier to review, reference, and share. Administrators can control the recording and transcription settings through Teams policies, including configurations for permissions, storage, expiration, and compliance.

Interestingly, the recordings and transcripts are actually not kept within the Teams app itself as they are typically stored in OneDrive or SharePoint and can support features like captions, intelligent recap, and Microsoft 365 Copilot integration. Here's what's kept:

• Automatically recorded meetings

• Delegate-created meetings

• Manually recorded meetings

• Meet now meetings

• Meetings scheduled in Outlook

• Meetings scheduled in the Teams client

• Recurring meetings

• Town halls

• Webinars

   

This was what actually causes the "issue" of Teams meetings going missing; as OneDrive and SharePoint monitor the expiration setting for recordings and transcripts and move them to the recycle bin when the expiration date is reached. Hence, the meeting recording is not actually deleted; it's still there and can be recovered or restored.

There is a policy setting inside the Teams admin center called " Recordings and transcripts automatically expire" which can be toggled either on or off. In case a meeting recording or transcript is sent to the Recycle Bin after it "expires", users get a 93-day window within which they can recover that data from the Bin.

You can check out the official blog post here on Microsoft's Tech Community website.

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Posted Tuesday 19 May 2026 at 5:04 pm AEST (my time).

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A few hours ago, we reported that Microsoft is backpedaling (somewhat) on its decision to have a dedicated physical Copilot key on Windows 11 PC keyboards. Basically, the company is planning an OS update that will give customers the option to revert the Copilot key's behavior to Right Ctrl or the context menu. However, instead of waiting for Microsoft to roll out this fix, customers frustrated with the Copilot key can try out another option instead.

As we noted several months ago, a third-party alternative exists in the form of NoCopilotKey. This is an extremely lightweight utility that restores the Right Ctrl functionality with minimal fuss. You can simply grab the software from the Releases page on the GitHub repository here, extract the file, and run NoCopilotKey Installer.exe.

Once you give permissions, you'll be asked to install the program as an admin or a regular user. The former overrides the key Copilot for all scenarios, while the latter only does so for non-admin scenarios. This is the only GUI for NoCopilotKey as once you install it, it will run constantly as a background process on your OS. This might be problematic in other scenarios, but in our usage, it just utilizes less than 1MB of RAM, and is otherwise invisible.

The background process persists across PC restarts, but customers do have the option to uninstall it using the Installer.exe file or get rid of it by manually ending the associated process in Task Manager.

NoCopilotKey is a useful utility because Microsoft says that it's upcoming update to restore Right Ctrl functionality might have a problem:

If you remap the Copilot key to Right Ctrl, some key combinations that utilize the physical Left Shift key together with the Right Control key might not work consistently on all Keyboards. If you run into issues, use the physical Right Shift key for those shortcuts.

In our testing on the GEEKOM X14 Pro, we did not run into this issue using the Right Ctrl + Left Shift + Tab combo to cycle between Chrome tabs, and NoCopilotKey continued to run as expected. The other benefit of the software is also that it's quite lightweight, doesn't seem to modify Windows Registry keys, and is invisible. The developer claims that they relied on a low-level keyboard hook and some coding wizardry to get the functionality working.

It'll be interesting to see how well Microsoft's Windows 11 update works, when it arrives, but until then, NoCopilotKey is a solid option for people annoyed by intrusive Copilot behavior.

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Posted Tuesday 19 May 2026 at 7:49 am AEST (my time).

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Back in 2024, Microsoft began encouraging PC vendors to replace the Right Ctrl button on new Windows 11 PCs with a dedicated Copilot key. This would act as a launcher for the Copilot experience in the OS, and also serve as a way to highlight Microsoft's branding of the feature. Fortunately, Microsoft did not make it a mandatory requirement for Windows certification, however, it did remove the option to remap it. As the company continues scaling back on its Copilot ambitions, it has now decided to pull back in this area too.

In a support document spotted by Windows Central, Microsoft has explicitly confirmed that it will be rolling out a Windows 11 update later this year that will once again allow impacted customers to remap the Copilot key back to Right Ctrl or the context menu.

The reasoning behind this change of heart is the fact that the dedicated Copilot key breaks workflows where the key is used in a shortcut combination. More importantly, it is also a hindrance for customers relying on assistive and accessibility technologies like screen readers.

Now that Windows 11 PCs with the dedicated Copilot key are already out, the solution to get rid of it is naturally software-based. The Windows 11 update that will enable remapping capabilities for the problematic key will place the option in Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Keyboard. That said, Microsoft has noted that:

If you remap the Copilot key to Right Ctrl, some key combinations that utilize the physical Left Shift key together with the Right Control key might not work consistently on all Keyboards. If you run into issues, use the physical Right Shift key for those shortcuts.

It's good that Microsoft has finally decided to reverse its stance in this area, especially since people had begun to resort to third-party alternatives like NoCopilotKey to solve the problem themselves. It's currently unknown when this update will land, but it'll surely please a lot of users annoyed by Copilot's intrusiveness. It may also be a sign that vendors will stop integrating the dedicated physical key in their hardware.

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Posted Tuesday 19 May 2026 at 7:49 am AEST (my time).

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Last week Microsoft released its newest Patch Tuesday updates (KB5087544 on Windows 10 and KB5089549 on Windows 11) as well as corresponding Recovery updates. The official Media Creation Tool has also been updated. Word of warning though, the Windows 11 update can have installation problems for which the company has issued workarounds; plus it remains vulnerable to "MiniPlasma," a security flaw we covered earlier today.

On the positive side though, Microsoft quietly made a useful improvement with the new Patch Tuesday update as it added a new Secure Boot folder to the system root directory, typically the C drive. Neowin noticed this change while browsing.

For some reason the company forgot to mention it in the initial release notes but later mended that by adding it in. It wrote: "Added Secure Boot release note: This update adds a new SecureBoot folder under C:\Windows on eligible devices." Hence with this update, Microsoft has compiled all the necessary resources into one place under the "ExampleRolloutScripts" folder. Essentially these scripts allows IT admins and system admins to automate the installations, via GPO (Group Policy Object) deployment, as well as monitor and keep track of the Secure Boot update status in their respective enterprise scenarios. They cover both Phase 1, for detection and status monitoring, and Phase 2, for the updated certificates rollout completion.

Thus the new Secure Boot folder houses the following sample PowerShell scripts:

• Detect-SecureBootCertUpdateStatus.ps1: Collects device status data.
• Aggregate-SecureBootData.ps1: Generates reports and dashboards
• Deploy-GPO-SecureBootCollection.ps1: Automates GPO creation for data collection
• Start-SecureBootRolloutOrchestrator.ps1: Fully automated, continuous orchestration with automated GPO deployment for certificate installation

• Deploy-OrchestratorTask.ps1: Deploys the orchestrator as a Windows Scheduled Task for automated rollout

• Get-SecureBootRolloutStatus.ps1: View Secure Boot Certificate Roll out status from any workstation

• Enable-SecureBootUpdateTask.ps1: Enables Secure Boot Update Task

   

For anyone who may not be aware, back in early 2024, Microsoft announced that it was updating Secure Boot keys as they were going to become 15 years old in 2026, which is also when they are set to expire. As such, the new 2023 certificates have been rolled out with the newest Windows 11 updates. Updated boot manager and Secure Boot certificates are crucial for protection against malware like bootkits. If you recall Microsoft had clarified that this was the reason for multiple restarts.

If you are a home user and are wondering whether you have the necessary updated certificates Microsoft added a useful marker inside the Windows Security app to help recognize that.

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Posted Tuesday 19 May 2026 at 7:48 am AEST (my time).

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It's been almost two months since Apple announced the official dates for WWDC 2026 (aka dub dub), the latest iteration of its annual developer event. We already know that WWDC 2026 will kick off on June 8 and run for five days through June 12.

Apple made a new announcement to reveal the official lineup for WWDC 2026. The official Apple Keynote on June 8 will be livestreamed at 10:00 am PT / 1:00 pm ET / 5:00 pm GMT / 10:30 pm IST / 3:00 am AET (June 9). You'll be able to catch the livestream on Apple.com, Apple TV app, and Apple YouTube channel.

Continuing its decade-old tradition, Apple is expected to talk about the new software updates coming to different platforms, including iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, tvOS 27, and visionOS 27. It's been years since Apple fans have been waiting for an upgraded Siri. Hopefully, Apple might share some positive news this time.

Interestingly, Apple entered a multi-year deal with Google to power an upcoming version of Siri and Apple Foundation Models. The company knocked on OpenAI's door in the past to fulfill its AI dream, but things didn't go as planned, and OpenAI is now planning to sue Apple.

Following the main keynote, Apple will stream the "Platforms State of the Union" to explore new features, APIs, and technologies in detail for developers. Starting at 1:00 pm PT, the Platforms State of the Union will be streamed on the Apple Developer app, website, YouTube channel, and bilibili account.

During the five-day event, developers and students can watch over 100 new video sessions and take part in Group Labs to interact with Apple engineers, among various activities. Apple said it will invite more than 1,000 developers, designers, and students to Apple Park for an in-person experience.

The company has invited 50 Distinguished Winners from this year's Swift Challenge for a special three-day experience during the WWDC week. Apple recently showcased some cool app ideas presented by student developers during the challenge.

Speaking of tech events, Google is about to kick off Google I/O 2026 on May 19. You can read our detailed piece to know about the livestream schedule for its official keynotes.

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Posted Tuesday 19 May 2026 at 7:47 am AEST (my time).

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Hardware is always great when you first buy it, but it can quickly come to feel sluggish when the tech giants start bloating their software with either badly written code or features you never asked for. Take Google, for instance, it has just started bundling an offline LLM with Chrome which takes up a hefty 4GB of space just to power unnecessary features such as “Help me write”.

It’s not just Google, we also see this with Microsoft cramming Copilot everywhere (though it is scaling this back now, thankfully). Windows 11 is also a very heavy operating system which runs slowly on older hardware and forces users to buy new hardware, once for the TPM 2.0 support, and again for some AI features if you want those.

I do not like buying new hardware very often so I look for ways to try and extend the life of the things I already have. I currently use what’s normally a horribly slow laptop from the 2010s and have tested a few different Linux operating systems on it with various levels of success. With things like Fedora Xfce it ran mostly OK, but I still encountered a tiny bit of lag.

In the last few months, I decided to scrub the laptop clean again to try a Linux operating system I had never used before (and I’ve been distro hopping since 2008!) It is called Q4OS, it has been around since 2014 and aims to be extremely fast when you go with the Trinity Desktop Environment (which I had never heard of before this). While some parts of this distribution are predictably bare bones, one nice thing is that it has a very good theme manager and a theme out of the box that makes Q4OS look like a mix of Windows XP and Windows 7, taking the best elements from each.

Q4OS is built on top of a Debian base, giving it wide package availability, a high level of stability and predictability, and long-term support. Powering the OS is Linux kernel 6.12 LTS, which isn’t too old and ensures modern hardware compatibility. While you won’t be thinking about these under-the-hood aspects of Q4OS too much, they do ensure that your system stays rock solid.

When I came to download Q4OS, I saw on the download page that I could get a Plasma version (KDE) or version called Trinity, which I had never heard of, but is actually a fork of the older KDE 3.5. According to the download page, the Plasma version required a 1GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, and 8GB of disk space - this is not bad, but I felt like it could lag a bit like other Linux distributions I’ve tried, so I went with Trinity, which requires a 500MHz CPU, 512MB RAM, and just 6GB of disk space.

I still haven’t tried the Plasma version, so I won’t talk about it here, everything I mention here pertains to the Trinity edition.

One potential downside of Q4OS, if you were thinking about putting it on extremely old hardware, is that the current Andromeda version is only available for 64-bit computers. If you are like me and just have a weaker laptop, but it came out in the 2010s, then you should be OK as your machine is probably 64-bit.

One of the standout features in Q4OS is the Desktop Profiler which is within the Q4OS Welcome Screen program. After a clean install of Q4OS, you can use the Desktop Profiler to install a full desktop with a browser, office suite, and a full set of apps; the basic Q4OS with just common utilities, system tools, and libraries; or a minimalist setup where you configure the OS however you like.

The Desktop Profiler also lets you install additional desktop environments which remain completely separate from other environments you install. This lets you switch back and forth from the login screen, giving you greater freedom.

If you’re coming from Windows, there is also an interesting Windows installer which lets you install Q4OS from an exe file on Windows and it’ll be shown in your installed programs, allowing for easy removal, but you still use it by restarting the computer and booting into the operating system as a separate entity from Windows. I have not tried this myself as this system doesn’t handle Windows 11 very well, but it’s definitely a nice touch if you want to experiment with Linux for the first time.

The main issue I have had with this operating system was menu shadows in my browser, Google Chrome. Due to a compositor issue menus would appear with a black box around them rather than a shadow. I lumped this for a while, but found a very easy fix just a couple of days ago. I just had to install picom and then go to Control Panel > TDE Components > Autostart Manager. I then added the following command to my startup programs, it’s a bit finicky but not too hard to figure out how to get to the screenshot shown below:

Another slight issue, though not really, was the amount of swap space (amount of memory that can be shifted to disk) that Q4OS created out of the box. I think it was about 500MB, which is a lot less than the amount of RAM I have (4GB). I had a quick look at what I could do about this on Google Gemini and it recommended zram-tools, which I quickly installed and now the swap sits at 2.33GB. I’m not too sure why it picked that amount, but it is now enough for me, there is no hanging when I open lots and lots of tabs in Chrome.

My main issue with Q4OS, and probably the issue most readers would have with it, is the spartan appearance of some of the system tools and settings panes. This is, however, to be expected in a system attempting to be lightweight and they’re not really missing features, so it’s OK. In terms of the overall appearance, I quite like Q4OS, it reminds me of what I was using 20 years ago, the start menu looks like it has been lifted from Windows XP (except it has search functionality now) and the taskbar reminds me of Windows 7 Starter (do you remember it with the grey-blue theme color and no translucency?)

If you go to Control Panel > Appearance & Theme > Theme Manager, you can select from a bunch of themes. One interesting one is Debonaire, it has a start menu that looks like it was taken from Longhorn, when Microsoft was in a confused stage between Windows XP and Windows Vista UI elements that eventually got shelved.

Out of the box, Q4OS is very usable and will feel familiar to anyone coming from Windows. Of course, you also get the massive performance benefits this distribution brings, which is great if other operating systems are a bit too slow for your computer.

As I've mentioned several times throughout, this distro is based on Debian, so the massive library of apps available in the Debian repositories is available in Q4OS. If the repositories do not have a piece of software you're looking for then you can easily install deb packages, it even has an installer flow like exe installers on Windows, but you can't install Windows apps on Q4OS.

To make things a bit simpler for new users, you can go to the Start menu and press Install Applications, this will present you will a selection of very popular apps that run on Linux, but not everything is there. It has a button to open Synaptic for even more apps and if that still doesn't suit you then you can also grab flatpaks or deb files online.

One quirk with the Windows-like installer for deb files is that it doesn't seem to set up repositories properly or at all, so what I tend to do is open the terminal and use sudo dpkg -i this sets up the repositories properly so that I get future updates via the update manager.

On the topic of apps, if you are coming from Windows, life will be easier if you attempt to use native Linux alternative apps. You can try to force your Windows apps on with WINE, but it's a much less pleasant experience. If you want to find alternative apps on Linux then check this website.

For me, this is hands down the best Linux distribution I have tried, it offers a high-enough level of features and unmatched speed, even when compared to other Linux distributions. Thanks to the Debian base and relatively modern Linux kernel, most of your hardware should work out of the box and you shouldn’t run into any issues regarding stability. This week, there was news of a Linux vulnerability called Dirty Frag, but just a day after reading about it, Q4OS got a kernel update which patched the issue. So even though the system might look a bit ancient, the security is solid.

So, if you are someone with an older computer that doesn’t support Windows 11 or you just want something lighter, do consider Q4OS. I am certainly glad I gave it a chance as I now have a new favorite that I’m confident will run well on any computer I install it on. You can learn more here.

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Posted Tuesday 19 May 2026 at 7:44 am AEST (my time).

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Linus Torvalds has just released the fourth release candidate of Linux 7.1. It finally seems the use of AI tools is hitting a breaking point for Torvalds, who, this week, said AI is great, but only if it actually helps, after complaining about duplicate bug reports creating unnecessary work.

To be clear, Torvalds is not saying developers shouldn’t use AI tools when working on Linux development. He is saying, though, that if you have found a bug in Linux, using AI tools, then someone else probably found it too and forwarded to someone they think can fix it.

If a developer really wants to add value, Torvalds recommends reading relevant documentation, and following up with a patch to fix the issue identified. He said that he doesn't need drive-by contributors who just send a random report with no real understanding of the issue. So, in short, use AI tools, but submit an actual fix for the discovered problems.

Discussing these AI submissions, Torvalds said:

“Some of the documentation updates might be worth highlighting: the continued flood of AI reports has basically made the security list almost entirely unmanageable, with enormous duplication due to different people finding the same things with the same tools. People spend all their time just forwarding things to the right people or saying "that was already fixed a week/month ago" and pointing to the public discussion.”

Outside of these AI developments, Torvalds notes that this week looked fairly normal. Drivers made up about half the patch, with GPUs leading the way. The rest of the update is mostly networking, core kernel, filesystems, and arch updates.

It will be interesting to see how the whole AI-related bug fix reports will be handled in the future, because you can bet people will miss this request from Torvalds. Hopefully, it won’t cause a burden on people like Torvalds who have to manage all these reports coming in.

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Posted Monday 18 May 2026 at 2:00 pm AEST (my time).

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In 2022, when Windows 11 was in its infancy, the Feedback Hub was full of users complaining about the state of the Start menu and taskbar, particularly about changing where the taskbar appears. At some point, Microsoft openly said that moving the taskbar "was not important." Now, the company is busy fixing its operating system, trying to reassure everyone that it still cares what people think. As part of that effort, Microsoft is bringing some of the most-requested features, including the ability to move the taskbar around.

After years of asking, Windows 11 users can finally have a native movable taskbar. It is available as part of the latest preview build in the Experimental channel. Microsoft is not saying when we can expect the updated taskbar to arrive for all users, so before you enroll your device in the Insider program, here is our closer look at what Microsoft has prepared.

Movable taskbar

Windows 11's taskbar is no longer dead-bolted to the bottom edge of your screen. You can have it on the right, left, or at the top of the screen. However, selecting where the taskbar appears is a little less convenient than before. In Windows 10 and earlier, you could click and drag the taskbar to any edge of the screen. In Windows 11, the taskbar position is located in Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors.

When you have the taskbar in a "non-traditional" location, all the flyouts and menus adapt accordingly. Quick Settings, language bar, overflow menu, and other elements appear where they should. However, the current implementation still needs some work, as the calendar flyout and notifications are still tied to the bottom-right corner of the screen. Microsoft says fixes are on the way, so expect improvements in future builds.

Some things are currently broken, such as the touch-optimized taskbar, gestures, and auto-hide animation. Again, Microsoft plans to fix that in the upcoming updates.

Compact taskbar

Personally, I never missed the movable taskbar, as I am perfectly fine with the default behavior. However, I totally missed the compact taskbar, so I was very excited to see Microsoft bringing it back. Now you can switch from the standard taskbar to a compact one, which takes less vertical space and has smaller app icons (the date is also hidden on the system clock). Alternatively, you can let Windows switch to compact taskbar when it becomes full of apps, which is handy on smaller screens.

Here is a quick comparison between two sizes:

Before

After

In the current build, the compact taskbar works as expected. However, the Win + X / Start menu right click is broken, which is a bummer, as I am very used to this menu for quick access to various areas of the operating system and the power menu. Hopefully, Microsoft will fix that in no time.

The compact taskbar also works when "side-mounted," and you can enable app labels if necessary (also works in alternative locations for both sizes). In this regard, the updated taskbar is nearly identical to Windows 10's. It is also worth adding that when you switch to the compact taskbar, app badges switch from counters to small dots indicating missed notifications.

Overall, I am glad that Microsoft finally gave in and let users customize their taskbars, even if very few people use it in the grand scheme of things. These two features do not magically solve Windows 11, and Microsoft still has a lot of things to do to regain consumer trust, but I believe they are a nice gesture of goodwill and a sign that the company can listen when it wants to.

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Posted Monday 18 May 2026 at 7:48 am AEST (my time).

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Earlier this week Microsoft released its newest Patch Tuesday updates (KB5087544 on Windows 10 and KB5089549 on Windows 11). The official Media Creation Tool has also been updated. Word of warning though, the Windows 11 update has been confirmed to be causing installation problems for certain users. Microsoft has issued workarounds.

Alongside those, Microsoft also released new dynamic updates. These Dynamic Update packages are meant to be applied to existing Windows images prior to their deployment. Dynamic Updates also help preserve Language Pack (LP) and Features on Demand (FODs) content during the upgrade process. VBScript, for example, is currently an FOD on Windows 11 24H2.

This time both recovery and setup updates were released for Windows 11 as well as Windows 10. The company writes:

"KB5089591: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 26H1: May 12, 2026

This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.28000.2110.

KB5089593: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 11, versions 24H2 and 25H2: May 12, 2026

This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.26100.8455

KB5087594: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 23H2: May 12, 2026

This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.22621.7077

KB5087593: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 10, versions 21H2 and 22H2: May 12, 2026

This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.19041.7290.

KB5087592: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 10, version 1809 and Windows Server 2019: May 12, 2026

This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.17763.8751.

KB5087590: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 10, version 1607 and Windows Server 2016: May 12, 2026

This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.14393.9138."

Microsoft notes that both the Recovery and Setup updates will be downloaded and installed automatically via the Windows Update channel.

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Posted Sunday 17 May 2026 at 7:40 am AEST (my time).

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Microsoft Edge may not be the most popular browser out there, but it definitely has its dedicated fanbase. What this means is that each time a good, or even an undesirable, change is made to the browser, there is a massive uproar from its users. Now, Edge customers are requesting Microsoft to reconsider its decision to get rid of two features.

The first in question is Edge Collections. We reported in January that Microsoft is getting rid of this particular capability, and the company confirmed this staggered retirement via updated documentation in February. This was a very nifty feature for some, as it allowed them to categorize their thoughts and ideas in one place, directly inside Edge, making it a very productive web browsing experience.

As such, customers really aren't happy that Microsoft decided to kill it. Interestingly, a lot of neurodivergent people have emphasized how important Edge Collections are to them, as it helps keep them focused. The problem was also exacerbated by the fact that Redmond did not offer proper alternatives. Feedback from its dedicated portal paints a rather dismal picture:

• Microsoft Edge collections is a genuinely useful feature which for some inexplicable reason, Microsoft have decided to get rid of. "Moving" this to favourites is nothing like a replacement option, particularly given that if you put these into Favourites, they would simply become another hard to find page as opposed to something which automatically loads and authenticates in the correct profile. Seriously, why would you remove something so useful ? This only goes to reinforce the opinion of most people that Microsoft changes are based on their own expediency, and not on what its audience actually want. KEEP THIS FUNCTIONALITY PLEASE !!!
• We are always told that people learn and work in different ways, people understand and process information differently, some people are visual learners/workers, Yes we could use favourites instead, but shouldn't we have a choice.?! I find the thumbnails/visual much eaiser, quicker and suitable for my type of brain.
• Please do not remove Collections as I am autistic and find it so much easier to navigate than favourites, due to the thumbnails to see at a glance what's what. It would take me a long time to work out a new system for favourites that is even remotely workable and would therefore slow me down even further with finding links that I need accessible quickly when I have claimants in front of me for appointments etc.!

The other feature, recently revealed to be getting the axe, is the sidebar app list. A few days ago, Microsoft updated the associated documentation to indicate that this capability is being retired, too. The reason behind this decision is apparently to simplify Edge, but perhaps, ironically, the Redmond firm has assured users that Copilot is unaffected. New apps can no longer be added to the sidebar, though, and existing apps eventually will be removed, too.

Many people have found it infuriating that an arguably useful feature is being sunset while controversial capabilities like Copilot are being retained in Edge. Many also noted how it's a differentiator against other browsers and keeps them using Edge. Subsequently, the feedback from customers regarding this move isn't pretty either:

• Adding the sidebar is probably the best choice and give Microsoft Edge an advantage from other browsers. Maybe adding it and supporting it back is the best possible choice.
• I’m writing to strongly oppose the removal of the Sidebar app list and quick access feature in Microsoft Edge. This is not a minor UI element—it is a core productivity tool that I rely on every single day. The Sidebar allows me to quickly access frequently used apps without breaking my workflow or opening multiple tabs. Removing it will significantly reduce efficiency and negatively impact my daily usage of Edge. What makes this especially frustrating is that this feature already works well. Removing a useful, stable feature in the name of simplification does not improve the user experience—it limits it. I respectfully request that you do not remove the Sidebar app list. If simplification is necessary, please consider keeping it as an optional feature that users can enable or disable based on their preference. Edge stands out because of features like this. Removing them risks pushing loyal users to alternative browsers. Please reconsider this decision or provide a way to retain the Sidebar functionality.

To Microsoft's credit, it seemingly tried its best to stagger these retirements to reduce the impact of these features. However, the backlash emphasizes how these capabilities are perfectly usable and useful, and don't need to be retired in the first place. Considering that the phased retirement kicked off quite a while ago, it's unlikely that Microsoft will be very responsive to this feedback.

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Posted Sunday 17 May 2026 at 7:40 am AEST (my time).

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This week, Microsoft released a new Windows 11 preview build, which introduced two long-requested features: a movable taskbar and the ability to make it smaller. Users had been asking Microsoft for these features for literally half a decade, and while it is great that the proper taskbar customization is back, Microsoft still has some work to do.

In a newly published post on the official Windows Blogs website, Microsoft confirmed that it is not done with fixing the taskbar and Start menu. The company said that additional Start menu customization is on the way, and users will soon be able to do the following:

• Section-level toggles: the Start menu is becoming more modular, allowing you to disable specific parts, such as Pinned apps, recommendations, and the list of all apps.
• Better controls over recommendations: the current Start menu implementation lets you turn off recommendations properly, but it also, for some reason, disables jump lists and recent files in File Explorer. Microsoft is fixing that, and soon, you will be able to remove recommendations without affecting jump lists and recent files.
• Resizable Start menu: the Start menu size currently depends on your screen size and DPI, which is not very convenient. Microsoft will let you switch between small and large layouts for more convenience.
• Hide account details: There will be an option to remove your username and profile picture from the Start menu, which could be useful for privacy reasons when sharing screen, streaming, and more.

Here is a quick look at the upcoming Start menu settings:

Finally, Microsoft promises better file recommendations so that the Start menu suggests more relevant and useful files. Plus, the company is renaming "Recommended" to "Recent" to better reflect what the section primarily shows.

Microsoft says that all these features will be available for testing in the next few weeks with the upcoming Windows 11 preview builds.

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Posted Sunday 17 May 2026 at 7:39 am AEST (my time).

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A couple of weeks ago, we discussed how the general public is angry that Microsoft has embedded an "Unlock Premium" button in its Teams app and set it to be always visible when the app is open in a full window. With Microsoft still reeling from this negative feedback, it seems like the company has made yet another mistake, this time drawing the ire of its Excel user base.

Over on its dedicated Excel feedback portal, several threads have been initiated by Excel customers who are furious that Microsoft has decided to insert a floating Copilot button directly into their sheets. This button appears at the bottom-right corner of the sheet, and there is no way to hide it completely. Users can right-click it and select Dock, but that only slides the button to the side of the screen with a caret-like behavior that launches the Copilot side panel and returns the floating button if you click on it. You can check it out below:

If you hover on the Copilot button, it shows you options to research with Copilot, create a table, and "teach me something with Excel". Clicking the Copilot icon itself or the options that hover over it will all launch the Copilot side panel.

People are understandably not happy with this new positioning of the Copilot button and have been requesting that Microsoft either hide it or return it to its original position in the toolbar at the top. Some have highlighted the new placement to be "visually disruptive", while others have talked about how it obscures the data beneath the button, a nuisance while taking screenshots.

Some feedback from trending threads is listed below:

• With the change in Excel functionality due to MC1282571, the Copilot icon is currently being rolled out to appear in the bottom right. We would like the addition of a feature to hide the Copilot icon or to change the settings so that it appears on the ribbon, as it did previously.
• The icon is visually disruptive and gets in the way for those that do NOT want to use Copilot - and lots of people don't. And of course, speaking of which, even uninstalling it does not work, because it just gets reinstalled in the next update. What gives? Please stop trying to force people to use your apps when they do not want to. Only thing that it does is to make them look at alternatives. I know I certainly am.
• Please get rid of the floating copilot icon at the bottom right of my Excel screen, or give me a way to turn it off. I do not want, nor need Copilot in any capacity. It's presence is infuriating.
• This is atrocious implementation. I capture screenshots for validation, and this is inserting itself over the data, which already has limited space on my screen. The button also blocks clicking the scroll bar at the point it overlaps (docked and undocked), at least on MacOS 26.4.1 (25E253). Putting a button over the working content was not a good move by Microsoft. There needs to be a toggle or something to move it back to the ribbon (without requiring the admin to do it for our work 365 accounts). Or just undo this change, it was completely unecessary.
• This is a horrible 'upgrade'. Please provide a way to turn it off.
• Not being able to turn this feature off is terrible. The icon appears in valuable spreadsheet space.

As can be surmised, Excel customers are not happy that their usable space is being stolen by an intrusive Copilot icon. However, it remains to be seen how, and if, Microsoft will respond to this feedback.

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Posted Sunday 17 May 2026 at 7:38 am AEST (my time).

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Regular readers may have noticed that I frequently write about Microsoft Teams here at Neowin. This is not because I adore the software, but because I use it heavily at my day job, so I feel qualified to write about it authoritatively, especially when presenting opinions. I've talked in the past about how I have a love-hate relationship with Microsoft's flagship online communication and collaboration platform, but now, I think it's time to focus on one side of this coin. So, here are five things I hate about Microsoft Teams, in no particular order:

1 - Performance

Although Teams is used by millions of people around the globe, it's extremely unfortunate that performance seemingly continues to remain a low priority for Microsoft. If you have used Teams, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. Booting up Teams takes several seconds, and navigating across the tons of interfaces feels extremely sluggish.

This isn't even just limited to specific configurations. I've seen Teams struggling across all sorts of hardware, ranging from PCs to phones and even the web. It's honestly infuriating at times when you're trying to navigate to the Shared tab of a channel and the UI becomes extremely slow and unresponsive. Or when you open a chat in a dedicated window, and it takes a few seconds to show up. It can become infuriating, as it enforces a major hit on individual productivity.

2 - Lack of stable voice message functionality

I do not like sending voice messages at all. However, I do think they make sense in certain work scenarios where you have to communicate something with a colleague, and you're faced with several undesirable scenarios. Scheduling a formal meeting would seem overkill, calling ad hoc isn't possible because they are in another meeting and you'll be busy afterwards, and a chat message would simply be too long. In cases like these, I typically resort to a voice message that the recipient can check out at their own convenience.

The problem is that voice messages are presumably seen only as an "on-the-go" functionality by Microsoft, which means that it's not available on desktop and web variants at all. This is ludicrous, because I do feel that it can be very useful in desktop environments too, as explained above. Even beyond that, voice messages are extremely unreliable. I think that this has something to do with Microsoft's technical implementation, considering they work perfectly in other messaging apps like WhatsApp, but you'll regularly be greeted with errors about unsent messages when you deal with Teams. In fact, the app won't even let you know until you manually open the associated chat again and notice the error message next to your voice note. Really, Microsoft?

3 - "Away" status

Teams has this feature where it automatically shows your online status based on several factors. These include Available, Busy, Do not Disturb, Be right back, Appear away, and Appear offline. You can manually set these statuses as well.

However, a major problem that many of us working in remote environments encounter is that Teams decides to arbitrarily set our status as "Away", even after a short period of inactivity. You could have been looking at lots of data open in an Excel sheet, and Teams would decide that just because your mouse isn't moving, you must be away, and it'll automatically set your status to "Away". To the outsider, it would seem like you take frequent breaks, which wouldn't do you any favor in environments where there is micro-management. Great job, Microsoft!

4 - Constant shuffling of UX

Teams offers a ton of functionality and integrations, for better or for worse. This includes chats, calendar, bots, apps, channels, and so much more. It can honestly feel overwhelming at times, and it seems like Microsoft thinks the same way, too.

The only problem with this is that after you've spent a lot of time getting accustomed to the UI, Microsoft will decide that it is time yet again to revamp the interface and "simplify" it, which means that all your muscle memory basically goes out the window. Now, you have another learning curve to face as your frequently used menus are now in completely new locations. Trying to find the Files tab in a channel? Oh, it's now called Shared. Not at all confusing, right?

5 - Search functionality is abysmal

In an era where AI has infiltrated basically all aspects of our lives, and Microsoft itself continues to champion Copilot, I find it surprising that Teams search does not use semantic analysis when it comes to search queries.

If I search for "strategy call agenda", I do not want search results and files that simply contain these words, I want Teams to contextualize this information and present me the agenda for a recent strategy call. This would make the search functionality so much more powerful, but all we have right now is a lexical analysis system that will surface thousands of search results, just because they contain these words. Do better, Microsoft.

I'm sure there are other things that I hate about Microsoft Teams. But these are the top five that came to mind when I started to write this piece. It's important to clarify that I don't hate Microsoft Teams, I use it actively, and I do think that its benefits far outweigh its quirks. However, I do believe that the company should be held accountable for at least some of the reasons that I have discussed above.

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Posted Sunday 17 May 2026 at 7:36 am AEST (my time).

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Last month, Windows Central reported on an issue with the April 2026 Security Update (KB5083769) for Windows 11. The update shipped with a faulty BitLocker-related issue, causing affected devices to boot directly into the BitLocker recovery screen — consequently locking users out of their Windows PCs.

My colleague Mauro Huculak published a comprehensive guide to fix the issue by undoing the Group Policy configuration or entering the recovery key when prompted.

While Microsoft confirmed that the issue wasn't widespread and only affects a small number of Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server devices with a specific configuration involving BitLocker, PCR7, and Secure Boot settings, it has now shipped a fix for the issue (via Bleeping Computer).

Before I dive into the nitty-gritty, BitLocker is a Windows 11 security feature that protects your data by encrypting drives, keeping sensitive information safe from unauthorized access. It’s especially essential if your device is lost or stolen, since no one can access your files without the recovery key.

Microsoft today has released new builds for Windows 11 Insiders flighting the Experimental channels. The new builds have been released under 28020.2134 (Windows 11 26H1) and 29591.1000 (Windows 11 26H2).

They share a common changelog wherein there are improvements related to Windows Update and more. There are known issues too. Check it out in full below:

Changes and improvements gradually being rolled out*:

[Windows Update]

We’re introducing new capabilities to enhance security and improve user control over the Windows update experience. This includes:

• Ability to skip updates immediately during the out of box experience (OOBE)
• Extend update pauses as many times as you need
• Always available options to shutdown and restart with updating
• More insight on available updates to make more informed installation decisions

[Shared audio]

Shared audio enables two people to listen to the same audio from a single Windows 11 PC at the same time. It uses Bluetooth® LE Audio broadcast technology to make sharing easy. For example, you can watch a movie while traveling or listen to music while studying together. To start sharing audio, open Quick settings from the taskbar, select Shared audio, choose two supported, paired, and connected devices, and then select Start sharing. To learn more about Shared audio, see Extending Bluetooth® LE Audio on Windows 11 with shared audio.

[Storage]

• Updated Settings > System > Storage, so rather than seeing a UAC prompt immediately when you go to the page, you’ll only see it when going to view temporary files.

   

[Other]

• This update improves the reliability of Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) notifications to help prevent the service from becoming unresponsive.

   

Known Issues are:

[Reset PC]

• Resetting your PC may get stuck when using “Reset this PC.” To complete the reset successfully, choose the cloud download option (Cloud PBR) instead of local.

   

The official support articles are linked here on Microsoft's official website.

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Posted Saturday 16 May 2026 at 7:57 am AEST (my time).

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Friday Windows 11 preview builds are here, and today, Microsoft is shipping some long-requested features for the operating system's taskbar. In the Experimental Channel (formerly Dev), Microsoft released build 26300.8493, while Beta Insiders received build 26220.8474. Some of the most notable changes include vertical taskbar support, widget improvements, and more.

Here is what is new in the Experimental build:

[Taskbar]

Alternate Taskbar Position

You can now change the position of taskbar on your screen. In Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar Behaviors, you can select the side of the screen you want your taskbar on: bottom, top, left, or right. In these other positions, tooltips, flyouts, and animations will still come from the taskbar, and most customization settings like small taskbar and never combine taskbar icons will work with all locations.

Support for touch gestures, Search box, and Ask Copilot in alternate locations is in progress. Auto-hidden taskbar and touch optimized taskbar are not yet supported.

Smaller Taskbar

We’re introducing a smaller taskbar for users who want to maximize screen space, especially on smaller devices. While the default taskbar remains unchanged, this setting provides a more compact experience with smaller icons and a reduced taskbar height, giving you more room for your apps. Core elements like Start, Search, and the system tray scale appropriately to stay aligned and consistent. 

To change your taskbar size, go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors > Show smaller taskbar buttons. When set to Always, both the icons and the taskbar height become smaller.

Side-by-side comparison of the standard and smaller taskbar heights on the same device and resolution, showing the additional screen space gained.

We’re also working on improving taskbar settings to make resizing easier, these enhancements are currently in progress.

[Widgets]

As we continue to make Widgets feel less distracting, we’ve made a small but meaningful visual update to taskbar badging. For those that have taskbar badging on, the badge color will now match your Windows accent color instead of always appearing red, reducing the sense of urgency that something needs your immediate attention.

We’re also testing out quieting down a user’s experience based on their level of engagement. For example, a user who highly engages with Widgets likely has their settings set to a state that works best for them, as compared to a user who barely engages with it and would benefit from having the experience quieted down with taskbar badging turned off as it is for new users who experience it as quiet by default.

[Windows Search Box]

We've started making changes to make Windows Search Box more relevant, starting with making it easier to find your files and apps:

• Files and apps more reliably appear ahead of web suggestions when your content is a stronger match

You can expect to see additional relevance improvements in upcoming releases.

[Voice access and Voice typing]

Fluid Dictation is now available in Spanish & French for Windows Insiders! It makes voice-based dictation smoother and smarter by automatically correcting grammar, punctuation, and filler words as you speak, reducing the need for manual editing. This experience is powered by on-device small language models (SLMs) to ensure fast and private processing. You can try out fluid dictation from Windows voice access or Voice typing (Win +H).

[Windows design]

We are introducing consistent solid (donut) spinners across key Windows scenarios including Boot, Logon, Restart, Shutdown, and Update. This update replaces legacy spinner visuals to deliver a more cohesive and modern experience aligned with Windows design standards. Users will now see a unified spinner behavior with corresponding status text (e.g., "Restarting", "Working on updates", "Welcome") across these flows, improving perceived reliability and visual consistency.

[File Explorer]

Fixed an issue in the previous flight where Properties wasn’t invoking correctly for the Recycle bin and some other scenarios.

[Run]

Fixed an issue where the refreshed Run dialog didn’t navigate through your history if you pressed the up / down arrow keys on first launch.

[Other]

• This flight contains the first of a set of optimizations to improve logon performance that we expect to flight in the Windows Insider Program over the next few months. Note that this is part of an ongoing effort – we plan to flight additional logon optimizations to WIP, measure real impact, and use that data to drive the next round of improvements.
• Improved reliability when switching between multiple desktops.
• This update improves the reliability of Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) notifications to help prevent the service from becoming unresponsive.
• Improved reliability of running dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth command.
• Improved reliability of PC remaining asleep if it had been asleep prior to an update

And here is what is new in Beta build 26220.8474:

[Windows Insider channel movement]

• As announced in the Windows Insider Blog, we will begin moving users in the Beta Channel to the new Beta experience.

[Voice access and Voice typing]

Fluid Dictation is now available in Spanish & French for Windows Insiders! It makes voice-based dictation smoother and smarter by automatically correcting grammar, punctuation, and filler words as you speak, reducing the need for manual editing. This experience is powered by on-device small language models (SLMs) to ensure fast and private processing. You can try out fluid dictation from Windows voice access or Voice typing (Win +H).

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an issue in the previous flight where Properties wasn’t invoking correctly for the Recycle bin and some other scenarios.

[Other]

• This update improves the reliability of Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) notifications to help prevent the service from becoming unresponsive.
• Improved reliability of running dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth command.

Known bugs in the Experimental and Beta builds include the following:

[Reset PC]

• Resetting your PC may get stuck when using “Reset this PC.” To complete the reset successfully, choose the cloud download option (Cloud PBR) instead of local.

You can find the release notes for build 26300.8493 here, and for build 26220.8474 here.

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Posted Saturday 16 May 2026 at 7:55 am AEST (my time).

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Earlier this week Microsoft released its newest Patch Tuesday updates (KB5087544 on Windows 10 and KB5089549 on Windows 11). While it seems like smooth sailing for most users, Windows 11 KB5089549 could have installation and network issues, as reported by some.

Since these are not widely reported, you may choose to download and install the update via Windows Update in the settings. If you are wondering why you should choose to upgrade, aside from security fixes, there can be some benefits regarding performance gains too (more are planned for an upcoming release).

Besides in-place updating, if you want to run a clean install using a USB flash drive or other such bootable media, then the Media Creation Tool (MCT) is now offering the Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2 May 2026 Patch Tuesday updates (download link towards the end of the article).

Most of you probably already are very familiar with what it is and how it helps, but for those who may not, it is essentially Microsoft's official bootable ISO media creation utility. It downloads Windows 11/10, and currently the company's Windows Update servers are delivering the latest available KB5089549 (build 26200.8457 on 25H2).

Interestingly, Microsoft has not updated the MCT version as it remains at 10.0.26100.7019 (spotted by Deskmodder). After the Windows 11 25H2 feature update release, the MCT got quite a bit buggy as both Windows 11 and 10 were experiencing bugs and issues. The timing of that was a bit ironic on Windows 10 considering the OS just ran out of support and Microsoft was encouraging users to update to Windows 11, and the Media Creation Tool was probably one of the first things people were trying to use.

If you are worried about those, you need not be. That is because the new version of the MCT app contains fixes for Windows 11, and though the latest ESU Windows 10 patch is not available via it, the issues there have been fixed too.

To download it, head to Microsoft's official website at the following links: Windows 11 | Windows 10, and navigate down the page to the "Create Windows 11/Windows 10 Installation Media" section. It should be bundled with the latest available Windows Defender update at the time of writing.

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Posted Saturday 16 May 2026 at 7:54 am AEST (my time).

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A few days ago, we highlighted how an ancient piece of software still exists in Windows 11, even though it doesn't really serve the mass market. That was Character Map, originally released over 30 years ago. However, if you look closer, you'll unearth other fossils in Windows 11's code too, that seemingly just exist for backward compatibility reasons.

The legacy utility this time around is Phone Dialer, which does exactly what it says on the tin. Or at least it did, when it launched. It was initially made available through Windows 95, and it essentially allowed users to call others through an installed modem connected to a telephone line. Ancient dark arts, I know.

Although it received a few updates in subsequent versions of Windows, it has remained fairly stagnant for the past several years, which isn't surprising as landline usage has significantly declined. If you launch the app (type dialer in Windows Run or Windows Search), you'll be greeted with an error message explaining that you don't have the required hardware needed to make a phone call.

The UI of the software itself is pretty intuitive. It shows you a number pad that you can use via your mouse, but you can also directly add contact numbers through your keyboard. There are also eight buttons on the side which act as a speed dial, allowing you to save the names and contact numbers of personnel.

It's also very interesting to note that there seems to be no official word on Phone Dialer's deprecation. In theory, you could still use it, and there are some jokes around the internet that the only reason for its continued existence is that some customers depends on it for UI automation.

In reality, there are likely very few customers, if any, who continue to use Phone Dialer. Microsoft has relatively modern alternatives that integrate with your smartphone, like Phone Link, but it's still fascinating to see such an old piece of history still present in Windows 11 as remnants of a time long gone.

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Posted Saturday 16 May 2026 at 7:53 am AEST (my time).

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Yesterday, we reported that Broadcom has released VMware Workstation Pro version 26H1 for the masses, bringing 64-bit binaries and components for Windows hosts, and more. Many Windows/Linux customers may not be aware, but VMware Workstation Pro does not work on macOS, and Broadcom actually has a separate flavor for macOS, called VMware Fusion Pro. This dedicated macOS virtualization software also received version 26H1 recently.

Although some changes between VMware Workstation Pro and VMware Fusion Pro are shared, the change log for the latter is a bit brief. Similar to VMware Workstation Pro 26H1, the latest release of VMware Fusion Pro also brings recording and reporting timestamps, making it easier for customers to identify and differentiate virtual machines. Support for remote connections to ARM-based ESX hosts has been added as well, and just like its Windows counterpart, Fusion Pro now supports the following guests operating systems:

• Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
• Fedora 43
• Fedora 44
• SUSE Linux Enterprise 16
• openSUSE 16.0
• FreeBSD 15.0

However, unlike Workstation Pro, Fusion Pro includes a fix for a high severity security bug. This is tagged as VMSA-2026-0003 and is a privilege escalation issue impacting Fusion Pro version 25H2. The only way to fix it is to update to version 26H1.

Broadcom describes VMware Fusion Pro as the "easiest, fastest, and most reliable way to run Windows and other x86/ARM based operating systems on a Mac without rebooting." However, it's rather annoying that the company expects customers to log in to its Broadcom support portal to grab the latest available version. Speaking of which, customers with both Intel- and Apple Silicon-based Macs can navigate here to download VMware Fusion Pro version 26H1. If you have an old Mac and you're unsure if it's capable of running VMware Fusion Pro in a decent state, make sure to check out the system requirements here.

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Posted Saturday 16 May 2026 at 7:51 am AEST (my time).

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Ubuntu 26.04 LTS was released last month for those looking to do a clean install, but the upgrade paths are only now beginning to open up. Ubuntu 25.10 users can now jump to the new version before it reaches end of life in July and stops receiving security updates.

Until now, there has been a way to upgrade, but it’s unofficial and there was no guarantee it would work. You used to have to open the terminal and type do-release-upgrade -d. From today, however, graphical upgrades are available. All you need to do now is open up the Software Updater, then press the Upgrade button and select ‘Yes, Upgrade Now’. Before upgrading, you’ll want to ensure you’ve applied any outstanding updates first.

The reason that Canonical has held off until now to let 25.10 users upgrade is because following the release of 26.04, there were a handful of bugs that saw some important packages get uninstalled on some systems, creating issues.

Now, while 26.04 may be stable enough for people coming from 25.10, Canonical is not opening the upgrade path for people on the old LTS, version 24.04 until August, after it has released 26.04.1. People running 24.04 LTS will be expecting the highest level of stability, so it is waiting for the new version to mature a bit more before allowing upgrades.

If you’re on Ubuntu 25.10, you can expect a whole bunch of new features including the latest version of GNOME and the Linux kernel. Furthermore, you need to update anyway before July unless you want to be left high and dry, which won’t be a good position to be in.

Source: OMG! Ubuntu

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Posted Saturday 16 May 2026 at 7:50 am AEST (my time).

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