@phantomofearth published an early look at the upcoming Run redesign. While the new experience is not quite ready for its prime time, the shared screenshot shows a clear view of what Microsoft aims to deliver in future updates:

The new Run dialog has a larger box for your commands, and all your recently entered commands will appear above it. Also, as Windows Central reports, the dialog will automatically show the app's icon upon finding the executable you want to run. The "Browse" button that opens a File Explorer and lets you find executables is no longer there, though.

Interestingly, it appears that Microsoft will have the new Run dialog available side-by-side with the old one. The company is reportedly planning to give users a toggle that switches between the two variants, which is somewhat similar to having two context menu styles. By default, Windows 11 will use the old one, but the "Advanced" section in the Settings app will let you turn on the new variant:

Microsoft has not announced anything about this, and these bits are hidden in the latest preview builds, so we will have to wait a little more to get an official word from the company. Meanwhile, you can try some of the third-party attempts to give Windows 11 users a modernized Run experience.

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Posted Friday 5 December 2025 at 12:15 pm AEST (my time).

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Thirty years ago today, Netscape Communications and Sun Microsystems issued a joint press release announcing JavaScript, an object scripting language designed for creating interactive web applications. The language emerged from a frantic 10-day sprint at pioneering browser company Netscape, where engineer Brendan Eich hacked together a working internal prototype during May 1995.

While the JavaScript language didn’t ship publicly until that September and didn’t reach a 1.0 release until March 1996, the descendants of Eich’s initial 10-day hack now run on approximately 98.9 percent of all websites with client-side code, making JavaScript the dominant programming language of the web. It’s wildly popular; beyond the browser, JavaScript powers server backends, mobile apps, desktop software, and even some embedded systems. According to several surveys, JavaScript consistently ranks among the most widely used programming languages in the world.

In crafting JavaScript, Netscape wanted a scripting language that could make webpages interactive, something lightweight that would appeal to web designers and non-professional programmers. Eich drew from several influences: The syntax looked like a trendy new programming language called Java to satisfy Netscape management, but its guts borrowed concepts from Scheme, a language Eich admired, and Self, which contributed JavaScript’s prototype-based object model.

The JavaScript partnership secured endorsements from 28 major tech companies, but amusingly, the December 1995 announcement now reads like a tech industry epitaph. The endorsing companies included Digital Equipment Corporation (absorbed by Compaq, then HP), Silicon Graphics (bankrupt), and Netscape itself (bought by AOL, dismantled). Sun Microsystems, co-creator of JavaScript and owner of Java, was acquired by Oracle in 2010. JavaScript outlived them all.

What’s in a name?

The 10-day creation story has become programming folklore, but even with that kernel of truth we mentioned, it tends to oversimplify the timeline. Eich’s sprint produced a working demo, not a finished language, and over the next year, Netscape continued tweaking the design. The rushed development left JavaScript with quirks and inconsistencies that developers still complain about today. So many changes were coming down the pipeline, in fact, that it began to annoy one of the industry’s most prominent figures at the time.

“Bill Gates was bitching about us changing JS all the time,” Eich later recalled of the fall of 1996. Microsoft created its own implementation called JScript for Internet Explorer, leading to years of browser incompatibility that plagued web developers.

Before finalizing on the title “JavaScript,” the language cycled through multiple names. Eich initially called his prototype “Mocha,” then Netscape renamed it LiveScript for the September 1995 beta release of Netscape 2.0. The JavaScript name arrived in December when Netscape and Sun finalized their partnership. “It was all within six months from May till December (1995) that it was Mocha and then LiveScript,” Eich explained in a 2008 interview with InfoWorld. “And then in early December, Netscape and Sun did a license agreement and it became JavaScript.”

That name has been a source of confusion for three decades. It was a marketing decision meant to capitalize on the buzz around Java at the time. The 1995 press release prominently positioned JavaScript as a complement to Java, with the former handling small client-side tasks while Java powered larger enterprise applications. Bill Joy, Sun’s co-founder and vice president of research, said at the time: “JavaScript will be the most effective method to connect HTML-based content to Java applets.”

Confusion about its relationship to Java continues: The two languages share a name, some syntax conventions, and virtually nothing else. Java was developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems using static typing and class-based objects. JavaScript uses dynamic typing and prototype-based inheritance. The distinction between the two languages, as one Stack Overflow user put it in 2010, is similar to the relationship between the words “car” and “carpet.”

From coffee name to industry standard

Industry standardization of JavaScript arrived in June 1997 through ECMA International as ECMAScript (with “ECMA” being short for “European Computer Manufacturers Association”). The language went through a rocky period in the early 2000s, when Internet Explorer dominated the browser market and innovation stalled somewhat, but the 2005 introduction of AJAX revitalized interest by enabling smoother web applications without full page reloads. Node.js arrived in 2009, letting developers run JavaScript on servers, and the language’s scope expanded far beyond the browser.

Today, JavaScript appears across virtually every corner of web development. The Stack Overflow Developer Survey for 2024 found that 62 percent of developers use JavaScript, making it the single most popular programming language (web or otherwise) for the twelfth year running. JetBrains’ State of Developer Ecosystem Report placed JavaScript at 61 percent usage among surveyed developers, with TypeScript, a JavaScript superset that adds static typing, growing from 12 percent adoption in 2017 to 35 percent in 2024.

The language now powers not just websites but mobile applications through frameworks like React Native, desktop software through Electron, and server infrastructure through Node.js. Somewhere around 2 million to 3 million packages exist on npm, the JavaScript package registry.

Today, people want to free the JavaScript trademark for public use. Oracle inherited the mark when it acquired Sun Microsystems, but the company has never built a product using the JavaScript name. An open letter signed by Eich, Node.js creator Ryan Dahl, and more than 28,000 members of the JavaScript community argues that Oracle has abandoned the trademark through non-use and that the term has become generic.

The group filed a petition for cancellation with the US Patent and Trademark Office in November 2024. Without risking a legal trademark challenge against Oracle, the letter notes, there can be no “JavaScript Conference” or “JavaScript Specification,” forcing community organizations to use awkward workarounds like “JSConf.” Eich himself wrote in 2006 that “ECMAScript,” the official name for the language standard, “was always an unwanted trade name that sounds like a skin disease.”

Skin disease or not, the underlying language stuck around far longer than anyone expected. Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that Java applets largely vanished from browsers years ago, but JavaScript dominates. The freaky sideshow became the main event. Happy birthday, JavaScript.

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Posted Friday 5 December 2025 at 12:14 pm AEST (my time).

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Here we go again: This month brings the first security patches to be released to Windows 10 during the Extended Security Update program.

Because last month, Microsoft released an additional update to all Windows 10 PCs to fix an underlying issue with the ESU deployment. As a result, even if you weren’t enrolled in the Windows 10 ESU program, you would see additional updates being offered.

KB5072653 is the Extended Security Updates Licensing Preparation Package that needs to be installed on all Windows 10 PCs participating in the ESU process.

It’s time to put a pause on updates, and I’m thus raising the MS-DEFCON level to 2.

Wait to install the December updates until they are fully tested and vetted by yours truly. Already we’ve seen issues documented in the preview update released on December 1 for Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2. As Microsoft notes about KB5070311:

After installing KB5070311, you might experience issues when opening File Explorer in dark mode. The window might briefly display a blank white screen before loading files and folders.

The note goes on to explain when this might happen.

Microsoft is working on a fix. Because many geeks love dark mode, I’m sure this will be a priority.

Consumers

For either Windows 10 or Windows 11, I urge you to once again defer updates until I go through my normal process of testing. Because of the need to use a browser during the holiday season, do not defer browser updates such as those for Firefox, Chrome, Brave, or DuckDuckGo. And remember to have several browsers installed and to set one browser as your “Shopping” browser — for which you crank up the security settings to high. If you cannot get into a certain retail website, note the name, use a different browser with looser security settings, and then find the feedback button on the site and urge them to support stricter settings.

Be just as vigilant in your use of browsers on Apple and Android devices. Many times with Apple, you must be more “click-happy” and click on links that get offered to you. During the holiday season, be extra vigilant with text messages and emails you receive. Microsoft noted on LinkedIn that it had recently blocked a high-volume phishing campaign from an attacker using parking tickets and medical tests as the lure. Attackers use holidays to target consumers. Don’t fall for their tricks.

Businesses

Businesses often allow nearly everyone out on vacation when the year comes to an end, causing normal maintenance and functions to be deferred. Microsoft, in particular, historically skips putting out a preview update at the end of December because many employees are taking time off for the holidays. Attackers, knowing this, target help desks and users in order to trick them into giving up information or clicking on lures. They try new ways to enter into systems that are less carefully monitored and have fewer support resources available. Ensure you are extra vigilant at this time of year, and provide the proper resources for those employees still working.

Take extra time to remind your holiday help-desk staff members of their often unsung role in keeping the bad guys at bay by not falling for ruses and social engineering tactics to gain access to systems. Make it harder for attackers to infiltrate your network. Start with the humans, which is often the hardest part of your network to patch and defend.

Resources

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Posted Friday 5 December 2025 at 3:55 am AEST (my time).

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Additionally, in a surprising move, Nvidia is bringing back 32-bit PhysX support in certain games. The RTX 50 series launched without PhysX support, which caused poor performance in old games, forcing some creative solutions, like buying an old Nvidia card just for old-school games. Now, however, Nvidia is bringing 32-bit PhysX support back into the following games:

• Alice: Madness Returns
• Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
• Batman: Arkham City
• Batman: Arkham Origins
• Borderlands 2
• Mafia II
• Metro 2033
• Metro: Last Light
• Mirror’s Edge

What is no longer getting any support is the GTX 900 and GTX 10 series. These graphics cards are no longer supported, and driver 591.44 no longer works on PCs with those GPUs.

As usual, the latest update contains several bug fixes:

• Battlefield 6: Gaming stability issues
• Counter-Strike 2: Text may appear slightly distorted when in-game resolution is lower than the native resolution of the display
• Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: Light flickering after driver update on some system configurations
• Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name: Corruption after driver update on some system configurations
• Black Myth: Wukong: Lower performance in driver branches newer than R570
• Monster Hunter World: Iceborne: Some particle effects may be missing on GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 3: Gameplay becomes dim over time
• Madden 26: Stability issues
• Users running R580 branch drivers (58x.xx) or newer may observe lower performance in some games after updating to Windows 11 October 2025 KB5066835
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Random corruption on main character's sword corruption
• Adobe Premiere Pro: Freeze During Export Using Hardware Encoding
• Sophos Home Antivirus: System stability issues
• Green line observed while viewing videos in Chromium browser on GeForce RTX 50
  Series GPUs

You can download the latest Nvidia driver from the official website or the Nvidia app. Full release notes are available here.

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Posted Friday 5 December 2025 at 3:55 am AEST (my time).

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If you are a home user and are also not so impressed by Windows 11's UI and wished it were better, there are unofficial third-party apps available which can be tried out. One of them is FluentFlyout, and as the app's name suggests, it brings fluent design-based flyout options on Windows 11.

If you are unfamiliar, Microsoft proudly touts Fluent as the design language and style that makes Windows 11 "effortless, familiar," and intuitive while being "complete and coherent," and with Fluent 2, which the FluentFlyout app is based on, Microsoft promises better performance.

The app author highlights the following features:

• Audio flyout: Displays Cover, Title, Artist and media controls

• "Up Next" flyout: shows what's next when a song ends

• Lock Keys flyout: displays the status of lock keys at a glance

• Taskbar widget: shows media info directly on the Windows taskbar

• Native Windows-like design

• Uses Fluent 2 components

• Utilises Windows Mica blur

• Supports Light and Dark mode

• Matches your device color theme

• Smooth animations

• Customizable flyout positions

• Includes Repeat All, Repeat One and Shuffle

• Sits unobtrusively in system tray

   

The headlining feature of the app is the Media Flyout Customization options, which include the ability to select between Background blur, a compact layout, flyout position, and more. The utility offers Mica blur by default, but there is also the option to opt for Acrylic using the "Acrylic Window" toggle. There is also a cool Next up Customization section under.

The app also offers Lock Key customizations and a very useful "Disable Flyouts" feature that can be toggled on to prevent DirectX games in exclusive full-screen mode from minimizing in case a flyout pops out.

The app is available for download on GitHub as well as on the Microsoft Store. If it is downloaded from GitHub, all features are free to use, including the Widgets customization. In the case of the Store version, the Taskbar Customization options remain under a paid "Premium" version.

The latest version of the app, 2.3.5, fixes performance issues related to when media keys are pressed rapidly. You can download it from its official GitHub repo or from the Microsoft Store.

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Posted Friday 5 December 2025 at 3:51 am AEST (my time).

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Today, Microsoft announced a substantial price increase for Microsoft 365 commercial customers. To help justify the change, Microsoft is adding new AI, security, and management features depending on the plan. To give customers ample time to prepare, the new pricing will take effect on July 1, 2026.

Here’s a quick summary of all the new capabilities:

Copilot Chat: Copilot Chat now works across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote with a unified, in-app chat experience. It now also includes inbox and calendar understanding plus Agent Mode to help create documents and presentations iteratively. IT admins also get integrated controls to secure, manage, and measure Copilot Chat usage.

Security: Microsoft is expanding Defender for Office P1 email security capabilities to Office 365 E3/Microsoft 365 E3, improving phishing, malware, and malicious link protection. URL checks are now included in E1, Business Basic, and Business Standard to block known malicious sites when users click links.

Management: Microsoft 365 E3/E5 now includes enhanced endpoint tools like Intune Remote Help, Advanced Analytics, and Intune Plan 2 for faster troubleshooting and proactive risk detection. E5 adds Endpoint Privilege Management, Enterprise App Management, and Cloud PKI to secure AI use and strengthen compliance.

Security Copilot: Security Copilot agents are now embedded directly in Defender, Entra, Intune, and Purview to streamline security operations. Over 70 built-in and partner agents help teams get started quickly, and Security Copilot is rolling out broadly to all Microsoft 365 E5 customers with a 30-day notice before activation.

Microsoft 365 price increase details:

Microsoft highlighted that it has delivered more than 1,100 features across Microsoft 365, Security, Copilot, and SharePoint in the last year alone, citing this additional value to justify the price increase.

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Posted Friday 5 December 2025 at 3:50 am AEST (my time).

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Microsoft has highlighted that some keyboard shortcuts have become hardwired into our muscle memory, but they behave differently in software like Visual Studio 2026 (VS 2026), which some customers may find annoying. For example, you can use Ctrl + W to close tabs in Chrome and Visual Studio Code, but in VS 2026, it selects the current word. If you actually intend to close the tab, you need the Ctrl + F4 shortcut. This is not a design flaw, it is very much intentional as programmers have told Microsoft that they have used this shortcut since the 2000s, so changing it could disrupt many workflows.

Fortunately, Microsoft does allow you to change key mappings in VS 2026, so if you really want to swap a shortcut, you can. In fact, the IDE goes a step beyond that by allowing you select a developer profile like C#, C++, and Web during setup, after which your coding experience is tailored to your profile. What this means is that shortcuts from other IDEs and code editors for specific languages carry over to VS 2026. Microsoft doesn't stop there either, and actually allows you to select keymaps like Visual Basic 6, Visual Studio Code, and ReSharper from a drop-down too.

Microsoft has further emphasized the difficulty behind changing shortcuts in VS 2026 by noting that telemetry isn't enough. While it captures your keystroke, it doesn't capture your intent. To work around this problem, the company has scoped shortcuts so the same keyboard shortcut can behave differently depending upon your "active" window through overriding capabilities.

But the problem gets even more tricky, because some shortcuts are sequenced. For example, in the text editor scope, the combination of Ctrl + E, Ctrl + W toggles word wrap, but if you change the mapping for Ctrl + E, this combination would be affected too. This is why changing a keyboard shortcut in VS 2026 is such a "high-stakes juggling act" according to Microsoft:

Every shortcut in Visual Studio connects to our coding habits – late-night bug hunts, team workflows we’ve refined for years. When we add or change a shortcut, we don’t just pick a new key. We examine the entire keyboard, identify what’s in use, and sometimes shuffle other shortcuts to make room. For instance, if we set Ctrl+W to close tabs to align with modern tools, we might need to reassign “Select Current Word” to avoid leaving anyone stranded. It’s a delicate balance to keep every developer’s flow intact, and that history of customization makes Visual Studio ours.

You can find out other details in Microsoft's interesting blog post here, and leave your feedback for the tech giant too.

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Posted Friday 5 December 2025 at 3:49 am AEST (my time).

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Windows 10, which reached end of life in October, managed to recover ground, rising from 42.7% in November to 44.29% in December. Windows 7 came in at 2.19% and the rest of Microsoft's operating systems made up insignificant percentages.

The data from Statcounter is quite a bit different from the gamers surveyed by Steam. According to the latest data, Windows 11 increased its market share to 65.59%, up 2.02 points. Windows 10, on the other hand, fell to 29.06%, down 2.08 points.

Zooming out to focus on all Windows versions against other desktop operating systems, we saw Windows decline in December from 69.37% to 66.67%. This is the continuation of a trend we have seen all this year. Back in December 2024, Windows was sitting at 73.38%, so it has fallen quite a long way. Many people say they will move to Linux following the end of Windows 10, but Linux only has 3.18% of the market share.

Another important detail to keep in mind about Windows 10 is that while mainline support has ended, the paid Extended Security Updates (ESU) are still being delivered. This will help to keep businesses holding onto older devices without having to move to Windows 11. It is less likely that many companies would jump to Linux, as Windows is probably required for their necessary apps.

No matter what is going on behind these stats, keep in mind that if you are on Windows 10 without ESU, your system is more and more vulnerable by the day. If your hardware supports Windows 11, you can upgrade to that, but if it doesn't, then Linux is an option.

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Posted Friday 5 December 2025 at 3:47 am AEST (my time).

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Proton is a well-known privacy-focused company that offers a wide range of services, such as VPN, Mail, cloud storage, password manager, authenticator, AI chatbot, and more. Its latest addition caters to those who want to keep their spreadsheets more secure. Today, Proton announced Proton Sheets, an encrypted alternative to Excel and Google Sheets.

There is a running joke that all the modern infrastructure is held by some Excel spreadsheets, but the reality is not that far away. Multiple industries and businesses rely on table processors like Excel and Google Sheets, and Proton says that the world needs a secure alternative that ensures better security and measures against AI training, surveillance, and tracking. The company quotes Google's own support documents that warn against putting confidential data into Google Sheets because it might be used to train Gemini or accessed by reviewers.

According to Proton, Proton Sheets is an easy-to-use spreadsheet processor that supports collaborative work, formulas, analysis, charts, and other features present in well-established industry mastadons like Excel. All that is end-to-end encrypted by default, and Proton promises that only you can access your sheets and the stored data. Additionally, Proton Sheets supports XLS and CVS files, so you can bring your existing documents to the new service and encrypt them.

Like many other Proton services, Proton Sheets can be used for free. All you need is a Proton Drive account. With the release of Proton Sheets, Proton now offers a more complete set of alternative services for those who want to distance themselves from Big Tech companies like Microsoft and Google. Those include Proton Mail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and more.

You can learn more about Proton Sheets in the official announcement blog post.

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Posted Friday 5 December 2025 at 3:46 am AEST (my time).

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The Microsoft Store Awards honor outstanding applications that elevate user experiences, drive productivity and inspire creativity across the Windows ecosystem. We are proud to announce this year’s winners, each exemplifying technical excellence, user satisfaction and transformative potential.

Here are this year's categories and their corresponding winners (only the first AI Assistants category has a tie):

• AI Assistants category: Perplexity by Perplexity AI and ChatGPT by OpenAI
• Business category: Invoice Maker & Estimate Creator by Moon Technolabs
• Computer-Using Agents category: Manus by Manus AI
• Creativity category: n-Track Studio by n-Track S.r.l.
• Developer Tools category: ngrok by ngrok
• Education category: Scratch 3 by Scratch Foundation
• Game category: Castle Craft by Clever Apps Pte Ltd
• Music category: Moises Live by Moises Systems, Inc
• Productivity category: Notion by Notion Labs Inc

In addition to the worldwide awards, Microsoft held special awards in China. If you are curious to see what apps won the awards over there, head to Microsoft's official blog on WeChat.

Like in 2024, each winner of the Microsoft Store Awards received a special badge in the store, "signifying their contribution to the Windows community." You can click the badge in the store to read more about the award. However, unlike the previous year, no prize hardware is handed out this time. In 2024, Microsoft sent out a unique Surface Pro 11 to all Microsoft Store Award winners. You can check out the winners of the previous year's contest here.

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Posted Thursday 4 December 2025 at 12:24 pm AEST (my time).

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For starters, GitHub Cloud Agent is now in preview. This agentic AI workflow can handle delegated tasks in Visual Studio 2026, including code refactoring, UI cleanups, documentation, multi-file updates, and more. In the coming weeks and months, Microsoft plans to enhance this experience further so you can view pull request (PR) links inside the IDE and review the changes made by the agent before you push them, without breaking your development flow. You can enable GitHub Cloud Agent through by clicking the Copilot badge and then navigating to Settings & Options > Coding Agent (Preview). Do note that this requires restarting Visual Studio 2026, along with a solution that is connected to a GitHub repository.

In addition, it is now possible to interact with Copilot from the Visual Studio context menu. This UX surfaces options like Ask Copilot, and Copilot Actions (Explain, Optimize Selection, Generate Comments, Generate Tests, Add to Chat).

Finally, when you're utilizing All-In-One Search and Copilot detects a better semantic match than the top result, it will recommend that to you with a Did You Mean suggestion. This is very similar to a web search experience where you are suggested better results in case you make a typo in your prompt. The focus is on capturing the intent of the search item rather than performing a lexical match.

Although this round-up will likely be a monthly item moving forward for Visual Studio 2026 (just like it is for Excel and Teams), Microsoft has noted that it will be skipping the month of December due to the upcoming holiday break.

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Posted Thursday 4 December 2025 at 12:24 pm AEST (my time).

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The support article was published as guidance for IT admins and system admins to deal with such issues. The main problem was related to XAML, and earlier today, Microsoft added more details about the problems.

As a refresher, the company acknowledged that since the July 2025 Patch Tuesday update (KB5062553), the problems were occurring on provisioned Windows 11 24H2 PCs.

In our original article, we speculated that alongside Windows 11 24H2, version 25H2 is likely affected too, considering the two versions share the same codebase and the servicing branch. Today, Neowin noticed Microsoft has confirmed that it is indeed the case as the company added that the October 2025 Patch Tuesday for Windows 11 25H2 (KB5066835) had these problems too; they started with the September 2025 preview update (KB5065789). In effect this means the latest Windows 11 update KB5070311 is affected too.

Alongside that Microsoft has also clarified that these bugs are very unlikely to rear their heads on personal home PCs. The tech giant writes: "After provisioning a PC with a Windows 11, version 24H2 or a Windows 11, version 25H2 monthly cumulative update released on or after July 2025 (such as KB5062553 or KB5065789), XAML-dependent modern apps such as Explorer, the Start menu, SystemSettings, Taskbar and Windows Search might experience difficulties. This issue primarily affects a limited number of enterprise or managed environments and is very unlikely to occur on personal devices used by individuals."

Microsoft has also shared a table with all the detailed bugs and the symptoms which is now much easier to grasp than the company's last write-up:

The workaround for these issues remains the same. Microsoft says that restarting the Shell Infrastructure host (SIHost.exe) service will help restore the missing Immersive Shell packages. This can be done with the following commands:

Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode

 

Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS_8wekyb3d8bbwe\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode

 

Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode

Second, a PowerShell logon script has been shared that essentially blocks Explorer from launching prematurely until the required packages are fully provisioned. The batch script for that is given below:

@echo off
REM Register MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS

 

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode"

 

REM Register Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS

 

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS_8wekyb3d8bbwe\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode"

 

REM Register MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core

 

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode"

The support article is available here under KB5072911 on Microsoft's official website.

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Posted Thursday 4 December 2025 at 5:01 am AEST (my time).

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The updated support document no longer lists each supported Intel processor, like Core i7-8700K or Core i9-9900K. Instead, it offers a list of supportd series with links to the Intel Arc website. For example, Intel Core i7 (14th generation) or Intel Core 7000X Series. The problem with this approach is that it leaves out certain supported processors and makes chips that cannot officially run Windows 11 appear to be supported.

Here is an example: the Intel Core i7-7820HQ, which powers the Surface Studio 2, is the only officially supported by Windows 11 Kaby Lake processor. It is no longer in the list of supported chips, even though the Surface Studio 2 fully supports Windows 11. Also, the document states that the Intel Celeron 3000 Series is officially supported, even though the lineup has chips dating all the way back to 2015. In reality, out of 10 Celeron 3000 chips, only one officially supports Windows 11—the Celeron 3867U.

Only the list of Intel processors has received this odd revamp so far. AMD and Qualcomm docs still name each supported chip, even though it has been quite a while since Microsoft updated those lists. The Snapdragon X Elite series is nowhere to be found, just like AMD's 9th-generation Ryzen processors, the latest Threadripper chips, etc. To this, Microsoft has the following to say:

Subsequently released and future generations of processors which meet the same principles will be considered as supported, even if not explicitly listed. It is expected that the processor list will not reflect the most current offerings from processor manufacturers between updates. Updates to the processor lists will occur at each subsequent general availability of Windows.

Therefore, not having the latest Ryzen processor in the list of supported CPUs is not a big issue (you would assume that the newest processor can run Windows 11 without issues), but the newly updated list of Intel processors can certain confuse less experienced users with older hardware and the now-unsupported Windows 10.

If you are curious to take a look, head to this page to see the list of supported Intel processors. The one for AMD is available here, and one for Qualcomm here.

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Posted Thursday 4 December 2025 at 5:00 am AEST (my time).

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If you use Excel for Windows actively, you may have come across errors like #VALUE! and #SPILL! in cells. If you hovered over this error, you'd get a very brief error message that prompted a web search to try and figure out a fix. This wasn't a very convenient way and resulted in lost productivity. Here is what it currently looks like in the stable Excel release for Windows:

Six years ago, Microsoft fixed this issue for Excel for the web by introducing descriptive error cards that explained more details about the error you're encountering. Now, Microsoft is finally bringing this feature to Excel on Windows too. Here is what it now looks like in the Microsoft 365 Insider version of Excel for Windows:

If you're on the Beta Channel running Version 2512 (Build 19502.20000) or later of Excel for Windows, you can give this updated error card a go by opening the application, navigating to a cell, and then intentionally putting in an error value like =SQRT(-1). This will trigger a #NUM! warning, after which you can click the Show Calculation Steps option to debug the problem.

There is no word yet on when this enhancement will be rolled out to the Current Channel, but it should be fairly soon, considering it's been on the web for a while and is quite useful. In the meantime, Microsoft has recommended filing feedback about this feature and Excel in general through the Help > Feedback menu inside the application.

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Posted Thursday 4 December 2025 at 4:59 am AEST (my time).

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Windows and Linux have a long-standing rivalry as operating systems. And while the former holds a competitive advantage over the latter due to its massive market share and broad app compatibility, Linux is starting to gain some traction, especially after Microsoft ended Windows 10 support on October 14, 2025.

For instance, Zorin OS, a Linux distro, gained approximately 780,000 users from Windows, a little over a month after Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows 10. While this might be coincidental, the timing is impeccable and hard to ignore, potentially suggesting that the operating system's death fueled the transition.

Similarly, Bazzite recently delivered a petabyte of ISOs in a single month as Windows 10 users continue to seek for alternatives beyond Microsoft's Windows 11 forced updates.

BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) errors are synonymous with Microsoft's Windows operating system, designed to alert users of a critical system failure related to a specific operation, with the potential to cause a device crash and forced reboot.

Microsoft has been trolled by users due to frequent BSoD errors, which seem to be becoming a common occurrence when interacting with the Windows operating system.

But perhaps more interestingly, Linux developer Linus Torvalds recently defended Microsoft's BSoD errors in Windows while building a PC with Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips (via IT'S FOSS).

Torvalds reiterated the importance of having the ECC on your PC, which essentially makes it more reliable. He warned that the absence of the ECC on your device could lead to critical memory issues.

According to Valve, as of early December 2025, Windows 11 has a 65.59% market share. In one month, it increased by 2.02 points. Windows 10 is at 29.06%, and its share decreased by 2.08 points. Windows 7, the final Windows version to appear on Valve's stat gauges, has a puny 0.08% market share (-0.01 points). Overall, 94.79% of all survey participants reported using Windows (-0.05 points).

Not everyone was willing to leave Windows 10 for Windows 11, though. The end of Windows 10 support encouraged many users to try Linux and its gaming-focused flavors, which is noticeable in Valve's stats, where Linux has reached a new all-time high of 3.2% (+0.15 points). Finally, macOS is third with 2.02% (-0.09 points).

When it comes to hardware, the Nvidia RTX 4060 Laptop took the crown of the most popular GPU among participants. It has 4.22% (+0.12 points), the desktop Nvidia RTX 3060 is second with a 4.16% share (-0.14 points). The RTX 3050 remains the third most popular graphics card with a 2.96% market share. In total, 73.83% of systems run an Nvidia graphics card, 18.05% an AMD graphics card, and 7.74% a GPU from Intel.

Other hardware picks remain mostly unchanged. The dominant specs include 16GB of RAM (40.94%), a 6-core processor (28.44%), 8 GB of video memory (33.36%), and a 1080p display (52.83%).

You can find more information on the official Steam website.

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Posted Thursday 4 December 2025 at 4:56 am AEST (my time).

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In the release notes, Microsoft warned users that those installing KB5070311 will encounter white display flashes when using File Explorer in dark mode, stating the following:

After installing KB5070311, you might experience issues when opening File Explorer in dark mode. The window might briefly display a blank white screen before loading files and folders.

White display flashes occur when you navigate to or from Home or Gallery, create a new tab, turn the Details pane on or off, or select "More details" when copying files.

This annoying bug is not an entirely new thing in Windows 11. Its dark mode is well-known for flashing a white screen when working with File Explorer or opening apps like Settings. While there are temporary workarounds with third-party tweaks, so far, we have not received an official fix from Microsoft. The company says it is working on a fix in a future update.

On the bright side (get it?), KB5070311 brought some much-needed improvements to dark mode, showing that Microsoft is finally taking dark mode support more seriously. More classic UI elements now support dark theme, including copy/move progress dialogs, Folder Properties, Run, and more.

In addition to shipping File Explorer with stun grenades, Microsoft confirmed that the latest update has a lock screen bug where the password button is not visible in the sign-in options. Again, the company is working on a permanent fix that will be available in a future update.

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Posted Wednesday 3 December 2025 at 5:03 am AEST (my time).

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When upgrading, one of the most important steps is, of course, backing up the data, and just like on your system, browser data backup is quite crucial too. In this day and age, when much of the world is online, every password and bookmark you save is probably hugely significant.

To help users in this regard, Mozilla is working on a dedicated backup tool for when people upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11. While there is no specific name for the feature, it has been referred to simply as "Firefox Backup" on Bugzilla under ID 1995365 (spotted by Windows Report).

Mozilla has also made the interface quite simple so that even non-tech-savvy users should be able to go through with the backup process. First, on a Windows 10 PC, two options are offered: "Sync with Firefox" and "Back up to PC".

After that, the utility offers a simpler "Easy setup" option as well as an "All Data" option, which will include sensitive information, too, like passwords. If the latter is selected, the backed-up data can be encrypted with a password to keep it safer.

Once you have selected the option for backup and the 'save' location for the backed-up data, the backup process gets 'scheduled' for daily activity. In case the "Easy setup" option was taken, the tool also lets users know that sensitive information like passwords and payment-related details is not included.

Finally, after the upgrade to Windows 11 is complete, a Firefox pop-up will greet the user once their backup data gets restored.

If the "All data" option was selected, which includes sensitive information, the user will have to decrypt the backup files using the password they saved. So, do keep that handy.

What do you think of this new Firefox feature? Is it as helpful as Mozilla wants it to be, or could it have been better? Let us know in the comments below.

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Posted Wednesday 3 December 2025 at 5:01 am AEST (my time).

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Since these are newer still-supported versions of Windows, Microsoft typically releases long lists of features when these updates drop, and today is no exception either. The full changelog is given below:

First up we have the changes rolling out to Copilot+ PCs:

• [Agent in Settings]

   

  • New! The search results menu displays more available results, making it easier to quickly find and modify your settings. A scroll bar lets you view all search results.

  • New! Recommended settings now makes changes faster by showing an inline agent option for recently modified settings.

  • New! A dialog now appears when settings can’t be adjusted further. It explains why and provides an option to modify the settings as needed.

     

• [Click to Do]

   

  • New! 1 The Click to Do context menu now has a streamlined design that makes it easier to access frequently used actions such as Copy, Save, Share, and Open. You can quickly find what you need.

  • New! Whenever a large image or table appears on your screen, the context menu automatically opens so you can quickly access actions and view results.

     

• [Camera] New! You can use Windows Studio Effects, which provides AI-powered camera enhancements, on an additional camera such as a USB webcam or your laptop’s built-in rear camera. To get started, go to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Cameras, and select your preferred camera from the connected cameras list. Then, open Advanced camera options and turn on Use Windows Studio Effects. After you turn it on, you can adjust Studio Effects from the camera settings page or the quick settings menu in the taskbar.

   

• [File Explorer]

   

  • New! The File Explorer Search Box placeholder text has been updated to highlight the enhanced Windows Search experiences.

  • New! File ExplorerHome on-hover actions for faster file management (previously released in KB5067036) is now available for enterprise customers.

     

• [Windows Search] New! You can now find your AI-categorized photos from the Microsoft Photos app using Windows Search with semantic search.

   

Up next we have the release notes for traditional Windows 11 PCs:

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Posted Tuesday 2 December 2025 at 5:07 pm AEST (my time).

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Performance is of course one of the most important aspects of any application such that its user interface (UI) and overall user experience (UX) also remain simple, intuitive, and yet fluid.

Microsoft is making improvements in this regard in the case of Windows 11 as well and while many may not agree, Neowin's own performance review for Windows 11 24H2 vs Windows 10 22H2 showed significant upgrades in some areas.

However, there are problems of course and the company also recently acknowledged many major issues in the entire Windows Shell, which include key OS features like the Taskbar, Explorer, and more, for certain enterprise systems, and issues are related one way or other to XAML which essentially makes up the vast majority of Windows UI elements built on UWP, WPF, WinUI.

As you may already know, Windows 10 recently reached the end of servicing and many Windows 10 PCs may not meet the system requirements.

One of the most useful third-party apps out there which allows bypassing the requirements is Flyoobe and the author of the app released the latest software update for it this week. The update includes a performance boost and it is promising lower memory usage than before. While mentioning this the developer also expresses their disappointment with the overall state of Windows as they write:

"Further sped up app startup and trimmed memory usage, not that it was ever a bloated XAML/WinUI monster like the Windows 11 Start menu or Explorer… but hey, every millisecond counts (yes, Im currently at war with Microsoft's performance choices.

Maybe one day they'll fix real performance issues instead of adding another glowing Copilot button. And honestly, it hurts watching an OS you once loved slowly being run into the ground by the wrong priorities and decisions; lets see how long it takes until they manage to chase me away to another shore as well)"

As we mentioned above, our own testing showed definitive improvement on the latest versions of Windows 11 but that was in benchmarks and indeed many Neowin readers often do comment about how they feel the OS just does not feel snappy, quick and reactive enough and hence the app author may not be alone in that regard.

Aside from the performance gains, the new Flyoobe update also contains UI and UX improvements. The remaining changelog is given below:

• Polished the action buttons with a modern compact mode: show icon + label by default, then switch to a sleek icon-only look while active (just like native Windows 11 apps)

• Flyby11 is back in its classic outfit inside FlyOOBE: the UpgradeOOBE (Flyby11) UI has been simplified and brought closer to the original look, while the built-in Autopilot has been upgraded to guide you more autonomously through the Windows 11 installation

   

You can download the latest version of the app, 2.2, from this page on its official GitHub repo.

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Posted Tuesday 2 December 2025 at 4:22 am AEST (my time).

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We say the change is significant as it targets what Microsoft says is one of the most resource-intensive aspects of Teams, and that is call handling. Thus by offloading this workload into a dedicated process, Microsoft aims to improve startup times and optimize system resource usage, and this should technically enhance the meeting experiences for end users.

This also appears to be a better alternative than simply preloading apps like the company now does with "Office Startup Boost".

If you are wondering how it is being done, Microsoft says that beginning in early January 2026, a separate Windows process named ms-teams_modulehost.exe will run alongside the main Teams executable file (ms-teams.exe), thus separating the calling stack from the core Teams application.

It writes: "We’re improving the performance and startup time of calling features in the Microsoft Teams Desktop Client for Windows. To achieve this, we’re introducing a new child process named ms-teams_modulehost.exe that will handle the calling stack separately from the main application process (ms-teams.exe). This change optimizes resource usage and enhances meeting experiences."

For IT admins and system administrators, Microsoft notes that the new process will appear in Task Manager under the main Teams entry. While the addition is designed to be seamless, endpoint management and security software must be updated to allowlist ms-teams_modulehost.exe alongside ms-teams.exe; failure to do so could result in unnecessary alerts or blocked functionality as after all, false alerts are fairly common.

The company has also recommended that admins should NOT remove QoS (Quality of Service) settings for ms-teams.exe and that they should only add new QoS settings for ms-teams_modulehost.exe.

Besides a performance boost though, Microsoft has added that no changes to user workflows or user interface (UI) should be expected. Those who have access to Microsoft 365 Admin Center portal can view it under ID MC1189656.

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Posted Tuesday 2 December 2025 at 4:20 am AEST (my time).

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According to a service alert (EX1189359) seen by BleepingComputer, the bug has been impacting Exchange Online customers since at least November 23rd.

Microsoft says it has already deployed a fix to address the bug and added that the root cause is an encoding error in Excel file names, which triggers a "Try opening the file again later." error for affected users.

While Microsoft also noted that this issue may affect any user who attempts to open attachments with non-ASCII characters in the name, it has not yet provided more details on the extent of the problem.

However, this incident has already been tagged as an advisory, a label commonly used to describe service issues typically involving limited scope or impact.

"Any user may be unable to open Excel files attached to email messages in the new Outlook client if the attachment contains non-ASCII characters," it said when it acknowledged the bug.

"We've developed a fix to address the missing encoding in the requests used to open files. We're validating this deployment while we work to understand why this encoding error is occurring," Microsoft added in a Monday update.

The fix has yet to reach all affected customers, and Microsoft advised those experiencing issues opening Excel email attachments to use Outlook on the web or download the file to open the documents on their own systems.

In recent months, Microsoft fixed a major bug that prevented Microsoft 365 users from launching the classic Outlook client on Windows systems and addressed a known issue causing the classic Outlook email client to crash upon launch.

In March, Microsoft addressed a known issue that caused the new Outlook email client to crash when users clicked a button meant to help them switch back to classic Outlook.

Microsoft also announced in January that it would force install the new Outlook on Windows 10 systems starting with the February 2025 security update.

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Posted Tuesday 2 December 2025 at 4:20 am AEST (my time).

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Starting with version 9.0, Samsung increased the minimum system requirement for the Magician app. While Windows 10 is still supported, Mac users have to update to macOS Catalina or newer to run the latest release. Windows 10 will eventually be left out, but it is too early to leave the operating system out, especially given that Windows 11's adoption is slower than expected.

Next, Samsung redesigned the app with a new user interface. The overall look remains similar to version 8, but it is now more modern, and the iconic blue color has been swapped for a simpler dark gray background. Another welcome addition is that banner ads have been removed from the home screen. While ads are still there (you can find them in the side menu and deep inside the app), the home screen is now cleaner and less distracting.

Another big change is that you can now customize what widgets appear on the home screen. You can move widgets around, remove ones that you do not need, and add extra widgets to create a dashboard that suits your needs best.

As for compatibility, there are no new devices added. The app remains compatible with most of Samsung's latest and older solid-state drives and memory cards. You can find the complete list of supported devices in the official documentation.

Samsung Magician is available for download from the official website. The app works on macOS 10.15 Catalina (and newer) and Windows 10 (and newer). Linux is not supported.

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Posted Tuesday 2 December 2025 at 4:08 am AEST (my time).

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My little theory is that the concept of “imprinting” in psychology can just as easily be applied to programming: Much as a baby goose decides that the first moving life-form it encounters is its parent, embryonic programmers form ineradicable attachments to the patterns and quiddities of their first formative language.

For many people, that language is Ruby. It’s often credited with making programming “click”; imprintees speak of it with a certain indebtedness and affection. I get that. I wrote my first “Hello world” in an awful thing called Java, but programming only began to feel intuitive when I learned JavaScript (I know, I know) and OCaml—both of which fundamentally shaped my tastes.

I arrived somewhat late to Ruby. It wasn’t until my fourth job that I found myself on a team that mainly used it. By then, I’d heard enough paeans to its elegance that I was full of anticipation, ready to be charmed, to experience the kind of professional satori its adherents described. My dislike for it was immediate.

To arrive at a language late is to see it without the forgiving haze of sentimentality that comes with imprinting—the fond willingness to overlook a flaw as a quirk. What I saw wasn’t a bejeweled tool but a poor little thing that hadn’t quite gotten the news that the world of programming had moved on.

Ruby was created in 1995 by the Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto, affectionately called “Matz.” Aside from creating the only major programming language to have originated outside the West, this Osaka-born practicing Mormon is also known for being exceptionally nice, so much so that the Ruby community adopted the motto MINASWAN, for “Matz Is Nice And So We Are Nice.”

Befitting this, as well as its pretty name, Ruby is easy on the eyes. Its syntax is simple, free of semicolons or brackets. More so even than Python—a language known for its readability—Ruby reads almost like plain English.

Programming languages are generally divided into two camps: statically typed and dynamically typed. A static-type system resembles a set of Legos in which pieces interlock only with others of the right shape and size, making certain mistakes physically impossible. With dynamic typing, you can jam pieces together however you want. While this is theoretically more flexible on a small scale, that freedom backfires when you’re building large structures—certain types of errors are caught only when the program is running. The moment you put weight on your Lego footbridge, in other words, it slumps into a useless heap.

Ruby, you might’ve guessed, is dynamically typed. Python and JavaScript are too, but over the years, those communities have developed sophisticated tools to make them behave more responsibly. None of Ruby’s current solutions are on par with those. It’s far too conducive to what programmers call “footguns,” features that make it all too easy to shoot yourself in the foot.

Critically, Ruby’s performance profile consistently ranks near the bottom (read: slowest) among major languages. You may remember Twitter’s infamous “fail whale,” the error screen with a whale lifted by birds that appeared whenever the service went down. You could say that Ruby was largely to blame. Twitter’s collapse during the 2010 World Cup served as a wake-up call, and the company resolved to migrate its backend to Scala, a more robust language.

The move paid off: By the 2014 World Cup, Twitter handled a record 32 million tweets during the final match without an outage. Its new Scala-based backend could process up to 100 times faster than Ruby. In the 2010s, a wave of companies replaced much of their Ruby infrastructure, and when legacy Ruby code remained, new services were written in higher-performance languages.

What’s more, everything Ruby does, another language now does better, leaving it without a distinct niche. For quick scripting and automation, Python, JavaScript, and Perl were strong competitors. Python, though also a slow language, carved out a dominant niche in scientific computing and became the de facto language of AI. JavaScript came to dominate the web. And Perl, well, is dying—which I’m not sorry to see. Ruby now finds itself in an awkward middle ground.

You may wonder why people are still using Ruby in 2025. It survives because of its parasitic relationship with Ruby on Rails, the web framework that enabled Ruby’s widespread adoption and continues to anchor its relevance.

When Danish developer David Heinemeier Hansson, aka DHH, released Rails in 2004, Ruby ceased to be the province of nice Japanese programmers. DHH is a kind of photographic negative of Matz, a handsome firebrand with equal parts charisma and dogma—so much for MINASWAN—who likes to win public Twitter feuds and race car championships in his spare time.

In that prelapsarian era between the rise of Web 2.0 and the Facebook IPO—when Silicon Valley was awash in the jubilation of TechCrunch Disrupt and blissfully unaware of the impending techlash—Rails was the framework of choice for a new generation of startups. The main code bases of Airbnb, GitHub, Twitter, Shopify, and Stripe were built on it.

In the early 2000s, when building web applications was cumbersome, Rails offered a one-stop shop for developers. Instead of manually wiring together a database, a frontend, and a backend, Rails provided a packaged solution that simply worked. It was one of total integration—like a compact Usonian house by Frank Lloyd Wright where every detail is designed to fit into a single, unified vision.

Yet this was also an era that underestimated just how enormous the web would become. Try to remodel the kitchen or add a second story to a Usonian house and the unity becomes a liability. The house, initially designed to host a few well-behaved dinner guests, was now expected to function more like a convention center accommodating millions of unruly visitors.

I’m not the only person who’s bearish on Ruby. On Stack Overflow’s annual developer survey, it’s been slipping in popularity for years, going from a top-10 technology in 2013 to 18th this year—behind even Assembly. Among newer developers, Python and JavaScript rank much higher. Ruby persists, for now, as a kind of professional comfort object, sustained by the inertia of legacy code bases and the loyalty of those who first imprinted upon it. But nostalgia and a pretty name won’t cut it.

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Posted Tuesday 2 December 2025 at 4:07 am AEST (my time).

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Last week I reported on Dell’s surprising message, when the leading PC maker told investors and analysts that one billion PCs are still running Windows 10. That’s twice the number we thought. 500 million of those are older devices that are not eligible for the upgrade. But another 500 million can run Windows 11 — but users have said no.

Before the Windows stats from Dell’s earnings call started making headlines, we assumed around 250 million PCs were aged and needed to be replaced. The fact that number has now doubled is more of an issue than just those needing to hit the shops.

As XDA-Developers says, if Dell got its numbers right, “and I don’t see why it shouldn’t, not only does one third of the Windows user base not have a PC compatible with Windows 10, but a further third can upgrade to Windows 11 but have chosen not to.”

That “second part,” XDA-Developers’ Simon Batt says “is what stuns me the most, as it shows that people just don’t see upgrading as worth the hassle, even when the option to do so is sitting right in front of them.” We knew that was an issue — but not this scale.

Microsoft surprised its Windows 10 user base with a sudden u-turn on ongoing security updates, essentially offering them to all home users for free until October 2026. I said at the time that this was a mistake. The extended security updates (ESU) should have been limited to users with older PCs, others should have been mandated to upgrade.

Absent that, we now have a messy landscape, with no public data on how many PCs running Windows 10 — home or enterprise — are enrolled for ongoing updates and how many are already at risk from cyber attacks. The cost for businesses, unlike home users, could be huge with large estates of aged Windows 10 PCs. have they skipped updates?

And so as we head into 2026, we know there’s a potential 500 million PC landfill crisis. Further advice for users to switch machines to Linux or even ChromeOS, and tracking of whether we’ll still have most of the billion affected PCs in play next fall.

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