However, after our report, Microsoft clarified that it no longer stealthily installs new feature updates any more, which is a nice gesture from the company, though the update still continues to do its other functions.

Regardless, - and despite it still being bug-prone with Microsoft being completely self aware of it - the fact remains that the support for Windows 10 is indeed ending soon, though the tech giant has now made it a bit easier to opt for the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program with new options that allow users to extend the life of their systems for another year by not paying the $30.

However, the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) recently criticized Microsoft stating that this was too little to save "as many as 400 million" systems worldwide that would not be able to upgrade to Windows 11, suggesting that an extra year of support, despite being sort of free, was not helpful.

Following that, Neowin noticed today that The Restart Project has also criticized Microsoft on the stringent hardware requirements for Windows 11 that make many relatively modern systems technically outdated. For those wondering, The Restart Project defines itself as a "people-powered social enterprise" and it advocates for the Right to Repair and against e-waste creation in order to help fight climate change.

The group has released a new "'End of Windows 10’ toolkit" to help guide community repair groups on ways to deal with this massive upcoming change. The toolkit goes through several ways and steps in which such a group can help users. They are:

• Adding 'End of 10' support to the usual community repair events

• Running dedicated 'End of 10' parties similar to a Linux 'Installfest'

• Working with other local organisations

   

For those contemplating how to proceed with the situation, if you indeed have an unsupported device, LibreOffice wants to convince you to switch to Linux, explaining the "real costs" of Windows 11.

Source: The Restart Project

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For those unaware, TPM is an abbreviation for Trusted Platform Module. It isn't something that was invented alongside Windows 11; in fact, it's first version dates back to 2003. TPM 2.0 is a security processor that is responsible for the secure storage of sensitive data like cryptographic keys and passwords, along with verification that a system hasn't been tampered with during the Secure Boot process, disk encryption through BitLocker keys, and security in Windows Hello. Most modern PCs have TPM 2.0 installed and enabled by default, but there are millions of older pieces of hardware out there that either have it disabled or don't host the security component at all.

In the past few years, Microsoft has been regularly convincing customers that TPM 2.0 is essential for them. This involves publishing blog posts about TPM 2.0 being the security forefront of its latest OS, its next-gen security protections, and how customers can utilize it to secure their PCs. In the past few months alone, the company has talked about TPM 2.0 being a non-negotiable requirement in Windows 11 and penned multiple guides explaining the benefits of the technology.

Of course, the reason it's doing all of this is to convince Windows 10 remainers to upgrade to Windows 11 before end of life (EoL) on October 14, 2025. But Microsoft doesn't seem to understand a major problem in this strategy: the average Windows user just doesn't care about TPM 2.0. These blog posts that are intended to educate customers that TPM 2.0, and by extension, Windows 11, are a must-have are falling on deaf ears.

When an average person purchased a Windows 10 PC years ago, they did not ask the retailer if the hardware also included TPM. The customer may care about Windows Hello in their potential purchase, they don't care about how it's more secure through TPM 2.0. This technology, while useful, doesn't matter to your regular home user. Most people don't utilize or even know about BitLocker encryption, in fact, they'd probably be more concerned about the performance hit that could result from disk encryption.

It's also important to understand that most Windows customers interact with their PC and installed software through a graphical user interface (GUI). TPM 2.0, on the other hand, offers a legacy UI through tpm.msc, which means that there's a steep learning curve for anyone who even discovers this interface. The lack of modernization and interactivity also results in no real-time insights for users about how their PC is being protected from external threats.

The common Windows 11 user assumes that the operating system's security is built-in, and as long as they have a secure password that allows them to login to their PC and use it, they should be fine.

The fact of the matter is that TPM 2.0 is a highly technical implementation that is fairly invisible and works in the background. This is completely fine and should be how security processes operate, so that they don't interrupt workflows until something critical happens. But this also means that only highly tech-savvy people, such as enterprise IT admins or government customers will really understand what TPM 2.0 brings to the table and make informed decisions about it. You can't expect the regular Windows 11 user to ever understand what TPM 2.0 truly does or how important it is for them, just by publishing blog posts on the topic.

Instead, I would argue that Microsoft's time would be better spent convincing users to upgrade to Windows 11 by boasting about actually tangible benefits. This includes snappier performance, compatibility with all their existing software, enhanced workflows, battery life improvements, prettier UIs, and more. The company has been pretty lackluster in this department, which is also why it hasn't been able to convince me to upgrade to Windows 11 as my sole daily driver, even though I think I am slightly more technical and informed than the regular Windows 10 user.

The problem with TPM 2.0 is that it has its benefits, but it's not the "killer feature" that Microsoft has been touting it to be for the past four years. The phrases "tamper-resistant" and "data encrypted at rest" are just fancy buzzwords to your average Windows customer rather than must-have capabilities. That doesn't mean that TPM 2.0 isn't useful, it's probably crucial in governments and critical enterprise environments, it's just not something that an average person would know about. Heck, even in the aforementioned environments, only IT admins and cybersecurity professionals would be aware of its utilization and benefits.

That's fine, TPM 2.0 is meant to be invisible. But that also means that Microsoft's efforts to convince regular users to update their hardware to be TPM 2.0- and Windows 11-compliant won't really yield significant results. This failure in getting almost half of the Windows user base to upgrade to Windows 11 even four years after the operating system's launch is proof of that, and probably why it has decided to decided to extend the life of its previous OS by a year for free (kind of).

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Dynamic updates bring improvements to the Windows Recovery in the form of Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) updates, also called Safe OS updates, as well as to the Setup binaries in the form of Setup updates.

These Dynamic Update packages are meant to be applied to existing Windows images prior to their deployment. These packages include fixes to Setup.exe binaries, SafeOS updates for Windows Recovery Environment, and more. 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.

Both setup and recovery updates were released. The changelogs are given below. First up we have the Setup updates:

KB5062785: Setup Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 24H2 and Windows Server 2025: July 8, 2025

 

Summary

 

This update makes improvements to Windows setup binaries or any files that setup uses for feature updates in Windows 11, version 24H2 and Windows Server 2025.

...

KB5062683: Setup Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 22H2 and 23H2: July 8, 2025

 

Summary

 

This update makes improvements to Windows setup binaries or any files that setup uses for feature updates in Windows 11, version 22H2 and Windows 11, version 23H2.

Up next, we have the Safe OS recovery updates and this time Microsoft does note a fix which is a rarity. The company says that it resolves a USB-C issue on 24H2 Arm64 systems:

KB5062688: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 24H2 and Windows Server 2025: July 8, 2025

 

Summary

 

This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment in Windows 11, version 24H2 and Windows Server 2025. Additionally, this update fixes an issue in which USB-C was not working correctly on Arm64-based devices because of a missing UCMUCSI device.

...

 

KB5062693: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 22H2 and 23H2: July 8, 2025

 

Summary

 

This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment in Windows 11, version 22H2 and Windows 11, version 23H2.

Microsoft notes that the Recovery updates as well as the Setup updates will be downloaded and installed automatically via the Windows Update channel. You can also avail them manually on Microsoft's Update Catalog website: KB5062785, KB5062683, KB5062688, and KB5062693.

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Microsoft closed the issue in April itself as it promised a better update that won't fail later. The tech giant at the time said that Windows "will not offer this update again" if you had already installed it.

However, with the monthly Dynamic updates (ones for Windows 11 also released) that are accompanying the July 2025 Patch Tuesday updates for Windows 10, Microsoft has released a new WinRE update again, this time under KB5063523. The company writes in its release notes:

KB5063523: Windows Recovery Environment update for Windows 10, version 21H2 and 22H2: July 8, 2025

 

Summary

 

This update automatically applies Safe OS Dynamic Update (KB5062691) to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) on a running PC. The update installs improvements to Windows recovery features.

Microsoft adds that the update fixed the previous issue although the error code "0x80070643" will still pop up:

The following is a summary of the "Known issue" that this update addresses when you install this update.

 

• [0x80070643 – ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE (Known issue)] Fixed: The ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE error message that was previously observed with the April 8, 2025 (KB5057589) installed before 2 PM PT on April 21, 2025 has been resolved with this update or a later update. We recommend you install the latest update for your device as it contains important improvements and issue resolutions.
  
  Note This update does not remove the incorrect error message which might still appear in the Windows Update History page.

As Microsoft points out, this is not the only dynamic update Microsoft released. Alongside, Windows recovery update, setup updates have also been released.

For those not familiar, these Dynamic Update packages are meant to be applied to existing Windows images prior to their deployment. These packages include fixes to Setup.exe binaries, SafeOS updates for Windows Recovery Environment, and more. 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.

First up, we have the setup updates:

KB5062682: Setup Dynamic Update for Windows 10, version 21H2 and 22H2: July 8, 2025

 

Summary

 

This update makes improvements to Windows setup binaries or any files that setup uses for feature updates in Windows 10, version 21H2 and Windows 10, version 22H2.

 

...

 

KB5062787: Setup Dynamic Update for Windows 10, version 1809 and Windows Server 2019: July 8, 2025

...

KB5062788: Setup Dynamic Update for Windows 10: July 8, 2025

Up next, we have the recovery updates:

KB5062691: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 10, version 21H2 and 22H2: July 8, 2025

 

Summary

 

This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE) in Windows 10, version 21H2 and Windows 10, version 22H2.

...

KB5062689: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 10, version 1607 and Windows Server 2016: July 8, 2025

 

...

KB5062692: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 10: July 8, 2025

The necessary updates will be downloaded and installed automatically from the Windows Update channel.

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Deja vu? Yes, this is not the first time Microsoft has shipped a Windows 11 preview update with a classic startup chime. A couple of weeks ago, the bug first appeared in a fresh pair of Dev and Beta builds, stirring some conspiracy theories among Windows Insiders about Microsoft restoring this bit of Windows Vista on the hype of the macOS 26 launch with its Liquid Glass redesign. Microsoft debunked those claims (it was just a funny bug after all), and later, the company attempted to fix the bug but failed. Only after that, a new preview update restored the modern Windows 11 startup tune from 2021.

Now, with Canary Channel having a new build to try, the Windows Vista startup sound is back, raising questions among users about how that is even possible. To that, Brandon LeBlanc has the following to say in his X:

Therefore, if you use Windows 11 Canary builds on your system, enjoy the classic chime while it is still there. Sadly or fortunately, depending on your stance on Windows Vista, that startup sound is not going to stay in Windows 11, and the next update, whenever it comes, will most likely fix it.

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Starting with Plasma 6.5, scheduled to drop sometime in October, digital artists will gain the ability to configure what rotatable dials on their drawing tablets do. Another feature is that when you share the current Wi-Fi network, its password will now be shown, so the person you are sharing it with can connect without hassle.

On the UI side, the day/night wallpaper feature that was introduced in Plasma 6.4 is getting a logical update in 6.5.0. Since more than one feature now uses the day/night cycle, the location configuration is being moved from the Night Light page to its own dedicated page in System Settings.

This single setting will control the timings for both Night Light and automatic wallpaper switching. Screencasts of specific windows will now also properly include their titlebars, borders, and shadows.

Several bug fixes will land with 6.5, like one for an issue that made it impossible to change the SDDM login screen background to a new image if it had the same filename as the old one. There is also a fix for authentication prompts that would reject already entered text if the underlying PAM system was taking a long time to respond.

On the performance side, developers can now use the kioclient mkdir command to create a directory through the KIO system in 6.5.0. For regular users, an update to Frameworks 6.17 will slightly improve performance for all QtQuick-based KDE apps, including System Settings and Discover.

Now, unto 6.4.3, this minor release landing next Tuesday, addresses bugs like KWin crashing when you Alt+Tab out of certain games, a separate crash involving a drawing tablet pen, a memory leak in KWin, as well as a strange issue where apps launched from Spectacle would be completely broken. Here's the full list:

• Fixed a crash in KWin when Alt+Tabbing out of some games.
• Fixed a KWin crash when using a drawing tablet pen.
• Fixed a regression that caused the wrong window focus after switching activities.
• Fixed apps launched from Spectacle being broken.
• Fixed an issue where Plasma pop-ups were not focusable if a GTK 4 pop-up was open.
• The "Activate and Raise" click setting on Wayland no longer eats clicks when a tooltip is visible.
• Fixed chaotic-looking window resizing with fractional scaling.
• Fixed an issue with the Orca screen reader and repeated navigation key presses.
• The Minimize All Windows widget works on X11 again.
• The "Dim Inactive" KWin effect no longer dims Alt+Tab switchers.
• Adapted to a Qt change that caused the lock screen to sometimes show the password prompt immediately.

There are also UI improvements like enhanced accessibility for the Welcome Center application. KWin's Magnifier effect now has a maximum magnification level to avoid duplicating the Zoom effect, and the display of raw bytes in file transfer notifications has been improved for better clarity.

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Looking back a few pages in the tech history book, Google Drive for desktop was introduced in 2021 for Windows and Mac users. The goal was to merge Google's previous desktop client Backup & Sync and its business client Drive File Stream into a single app.

While many prefer to use Google Drive in their browsers, some might need to access their files directly on their desktop. Among various tasks, the app can mirror Drive files on desktop, sync external storage devices to the cloud, and sync locally stored photos and videos to Google Photos or Google Drive.

The latest update to the desktop sync client lets you see important stuff, such as notifications, sync activity, shared files, and more in a single view, Google said in a blog post. However, still lacks some features you'll typically find on a desktop app, like a full-screen mode.

It has started rolling out to all Workspace customers and users with personal accounts. You can download the official Google Drive for Desktop app from the company's support page.

Speaking of other updates, the Gemini summary cards in Gmail introduced earlier this year on Android and iOS are now rolling out to the web version. They will be visible at the top of eligible emails, such as longer email threads or messages with several replies.

Summary cards are available for Google Workspace Business Starter/Standard/Plus, Enterprise Starter/Standard/Plus, and users who purchased different Gemini add-ons.

The search giant is also bringing Google Calendar sharing support to Android devices. Already available on the web, you can share any calendar with individuals, groups, a domain, or everyone if you are the owner of that calendar or have permissions to share it. It's rolling out to all Workspace users and people with personal accounts.

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On Windows 11, Microsoft is improving the Settings app with AI integration through a new agent designed to help you find and configure system settings more quickly.

Currently, using Settings effectively means knowing exactly what you're looking for and where it can be found. While the search tool can help, it still relies on you having a general idea of the setting's name or feature.

If you're an experienced user, navigating the interface comes almost naturally. However, for most people, it's a challenge. To simplify this process (and continue integrating AI deeper into the operating system), Microsoft is introducing an AI assistant within the Settings app that can guide you through system configuration more easily.

Defining the AI agent in Windows 11’s Settings app

The AI agent coming to Windows 11 isn't a chatbot like Copilot. Instead, it's built directly into the Settings app's search box, allowing you to find configuration options by simply describing the issue or change you want to make.

With today's update, Word for the web lets you edit document headers and footers directly on the canvas. The app also received a new contextual ribbon tab and a few extra capabilities, such as the ability to remove headers and footers separately, set different headers and footers for the first page or odd and even pages, and customize page numbers.

Microsoft says the update is part of its ongoing effort to provide a more consistent experience in Word across Windows, Mac, and the web. Now, editing headers and footers is more intuitive and familiar—just double-click the header or footer area and start editing content in-place without any overlays. The updated experience also makes it easier to see what part of the document you are editing, with parts of the document that are not being edited appearing slightly faded away.

Finally, the new "Header & Footer" tab now provides additional features, such as the ability to add page numbers and page count (you can also change the position of the counter), header position and cadence, footer text, and other options. Note that this tab is contextual and it only appears when you start editing the header or footer.

The updated header and footer experience is now available in Word for the web to all users. You can try it out by heading to word.cloud.microsoft. The announcement post is available here.

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The biggest change in build 27898 is the ability to set small taskbar icons. This long-requested feature has finally made its way to the Canary Channel, allowing Windows 11 users to have more space for apps. You can have smaller icons always, when the taskbar is full, or never (adjustable in Settings).

The next is Quick Machine Recovery, a feature that was announced at Ignite 2025. It allows applying critical fixes and patches within Windows Recovery to restore systems that cannot boot. Quick Machine Recovery is now available in the Canary Channel, and you can configure the feature in Settings > System > Recovery.

Build 27898 also packs some accessibility improvements. You can now teach Windows 11's Voice Access hard-to-pronounce words to increase the probability of the system recognizing them. This feature is currently available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Chinese. Those who use Narrator can also benefit from the Screen Curtain feature, which blacks out the screen to prevent others from looking at it. You can turn Screen Curtain on with Caps + Ctrl + C when Narrator is running. Finally, the accessibility flyout in the tray area now has descriptions for each assistive technology.

Other changes in Windows 11 build 27898 include a small update for the context menus, which now have dividers for common file actions, improved privacy dialogs for app permissions (they now dim the app when appearing on the screen), link preview in the Share experience, some updates for the default browser settings, and a new adaptive power saver. The latter automatically enables or disables energy saver, without changing screen brightness, based on the power state of the device and the current system load.

Here is what else was fixed in build 27898:

• [File Explorer]
  • We’ve done some more work to improve the performance of extracting archive files – this will particularly help in the case of copy-pasting large numbers of files out of large 7z or .rar archives.
• [Input]
  • Fixed an issue where typing Japanese with the touch keyboard might stop working after switching to typing with an English keyboard and back.
• [Settings]
  • Fixed an issue that could cause Settings to crash when changing the mouse cursor.
  • Fixed an underlying issue that could lead to the Settings window hanging and no longer responding to input or resizing unless you closed and reopened it.
• [Other]
  • Fixed an underlying issue in the previous flight, which could lead to Math.Pow() not outputting the correct result, which could lead to unexpected behavior in apps and games.
  • Adjusted the error text if a Windows Update fails due to the system reserved partition not having enough free space, to make it clearer that that’s the issue.

Here is the list of known issues:

• [General]
  • [IMPORTANT NOTE FOR COPILOT+ PCs] If you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Beta Channel, Release Preview Channel or retail, you will lose Windows Hello pin and biometrics to sign into your PC with error 0xd0000225 and error message “Something went wrong, and your PIN isn’t available”. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking “Set up my PIN”.
• [File Explorer]
  • [NEW] There’s an issue in this build where File Explorer may fail to persist any view changes. This also impacts desktop icons, which may unexpectedly move or change size back to the default.
• [Settings]
  • We’re investigating an issue in this build that could cause Settings to crash when interacting with the options under Settings > System > Power & Battery.
• [Remote Desktop]
  • You may see extreme graphical distortion and rendering issues using remote desktop on Arm64 PCs in this build.

You can find full release notes here.

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Now, another GSoC project is on the way that aims to port the KDE ISO Image Writer's UI to Kirigami, add the ability to download operating system images directly, and address a bunch of other issues. The project is led by Akki (@Holychicken), who has been working on it for a while now as part of Google Summer of Code 2025.

The existing ISO Image Writer gets the job done, but it is not without its faults. As Akki notes, the current application is plagued with UI inconsistencies, especially when compared to newer KDE applications.

There are also other issues. For example, broken drag and drop functionality and poor cross-platform progress indication. On Windows, downloads from a URL have no progress bar, and the feature is simply broken on Linux.

They hope to fix these problems and introduce some much-needed updates as outlined below:

The work is already showing promising results. In Akki's latest update, they managed to successfully port the initial ISO selection window to QML, a significant first step. The developer mentioned that moving to QML was not a simple copy-paste operation, as it required a deep dive into KDE's own design guidelines to ensure the new interface actually felt native to the ecosystem.

The new UI (image below) deliberately avoids a radical redesign, instead iterating on the old one to feel familiar while adopting modern Kirigami components and dropping outdated elements like gradients.

As major part of this project involves creating a new page for downloading ISO images directly within the application, a feature reminiscent of what you might find in the Fedora Media Writer.

Some inspiration for what not to do came early, as the initial plan to list over one hundred distributions available from Quickemu was scaled back.

After feedback from KDE developer Nate Graham, who suggested a massive list could overwhelm users, the plan is now to present a curated list of popular distributions. On the technical side, getting the existing CMake build system to correctly process the new QML files required some effort, but that has since been sorted out.

There are still some rough edges that need to be ironed out, particularly with integrating the application's C++ backend logic with the new QML-based frontend. That connection is exactly what Akki plans to work on next.

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If you use Windows 11 for gaming, there are several settings you can change and features you can turn on or off to get better performance. However, if I were asked to pick just five of the most effective changes, here's what I'd recommend.

First, I recommend turning off Memory Integrity and Virtualization Platform features, as Microsoft has noted, even though they are designed to improve security, they can slow down gaming performance.

We often install many apps, and some of them run in the background every time the computer starts, wasting valuable system resources. If you turn off these apps, you can free up memory and processor, giving your games more breathing room.

If your device supports it, turning on Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) helps reduce screen tearing and stuttering. It makes your gameplay look and feel smoother, especially in fast-paced titles.

Finally, updated drivers often include performance optimizations and bug fixes for new games. Whether you're using NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel graphics, always make sure you have the latest version installed. (However, before updating, it's best to research the new version to make sure other users are not having issues to avoid a negative impact on your gaming experience.)

In this how-to guide, I'll share my favorite tips to improve the gaming experience on Windows 11.

Best tweaks to improve the gaming experience on Windows 11

The following tweaks are listed in no particular order. These are my personal recommendations, though I understand others may have different preferences.

1. Disable Memory Integrity

According to Microsoft, if you're noticing performance issues while playing games on Windows 11, this can be due to two specific security features, including Hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI), also known as "Memory Integrity" in the Windows Security app, and the Virtual Machine Platform security features.

If you want to prioritize gaming performance, you should turn off these security features during gameplay. However, after you're done playing, you should turn them on again.

To disable Memory Integrity on Windows 11, use these steps:

1. Open Windows Security.
2. Click on Device Security.
3. Click the "Core isolation details" option on the right.

If you're still using Google as your search engine of choice, the company is now experimenting with a new feature known as "Preferred sources," which allows you to choose the news sources you want to see more in the "Top Stories" results. In this guide, I'll outline the steps to configure it to improve your search experience.

Since Google started making changes to its search engine by implementing AI, search results have been changing significantly, and not always for the better. If you're noticing that the sources you care about are not appearing as often on your results, Google is adding a new feature to its search engine to select your preferred sources you would like to see more in the "Top Stories" section.

This feature works virtually on any platform, including Windows 11, Windows 10, macOS, mobile devices, and others, and on any browser, such as Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or any other modern browser.

In this how-to guide, I'll outline the easy steps to enable and configure "Preferred sources" on Google Search.

How to choose the websites you want to see more of in Google Search

To select the preferred websites that should appear in your Google search results, use these steps:

1. Open the Search Labs page on your browser.

• Quick note: You can use this feature on your PC, Mac, or mobile device, and on virtually any browser. However, the option may or may not be available on your account as it's an experimental feature.

2. Sign in with your Google account (if applicable).
3. Switch on the "Turn on pick your sources" toggle.

Microsoft is now starting to change its Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) to a newly designed black version. It’s the first major change to the BSOD since Microsoft added a sad face to the screen in Windows 8, and Microsoft is now removing that frowning face and QR code in favor of a more simplified black screen.

The new BSOD is rolling out to Windows 11 Release Preview users today, meaning it should appear for all Windows 11 users in a matter of weeks. The simplified BSOD looks a lot like the black screen you normally see during a Windows update.

The new Black Screen of Death in Windows 11.

Image: Microsoft

It will list the stop code and faulty system driver, making it easier for Windows users and IT admins to see what’s causing a BSOD on a PC. “This is really an attempt on clarity and providing better information and allowing us and customers to really get to what the core of the issue is so we can fix it faster,” said David Weston, vice president of enterprise and OS security at Microsoft, in an interview with The Verge in June.

Microsoft did briefly turn the BSOD to a black screen in test builds of Windows 11 in 2021 , but this time it’s making the change permanent. The change to the BSOD arrives as part of an update to Windows 11 that also includes Microsoft’s new Quick Machine Recovery (QMR) feature, which is designed to quickly restore machines that can’t boot properly. QMR is part of larger effort by Microsoft to improve the resiliency of Windows in the wake of last year’s CrowdStrike incident.

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Microsoft is calling this a "Normall Rollout" likely because it does not contain any new features, but also because this build's fixes are immediately available to everyone = No stupid gradual, or staggered rollout!

This update includes the following features and improvements that are rolling out as part of this update. Text bolded in brackets indicates the area of the change being documented.

Changelog

• [Country and Operator Settings Asset (COSA)] Fixed: This update brings profiles up to date for certain mobile operators.
• [File systems]
  • Fixed: This update addresses an issue in the Resilient File System (ReFS) where using backup applications on large files could occasionally result in system memory becoming fully exhausted.
  • Fixed: An issue where searching for PDF files in a shared folder could return incorrect error messages, such as “No More Files” or “STATUS_NO_MORE_FILES.” These errors disrupted output to the virtual PDF printer and interfered with backup processes.
• [Networking] Fixed: An issue where peripheral devices could take longer to work after resuming from hibernation on some devices with active cellular connections.
• [Printer] Improved: Printer names now appear more clearly when using IPP Directed Discovery, making it easier to identify printers during setup.
• [Stability issue] Fixed: This update addresses a problem observed in rare cases after installing the May 2025 security update and subsequent updates, causing devices to experience stability issues. Some devices became unresponsive and stopped responding in specific scenarios.

As you can see, this is truly a bug fix build, but as always, Microsoft appreciates any feedback given through the Feedback Hub for any of these features not being quite up to spec, and other areas of the OS that need more work.

You can find the complete changelog for the Beta build here.

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Here is what is new in Windows 11 build 22631.5696:

• [Country and Operator Settings Asset (COSA)] Fixed: This update brings profiles up to date for certain mobile operators.
• [File systems]
  • Fixed: This update addresses an issue in the Resilient File System (ReFS) where using backup applications on large files could occasionally result in system memory becoming fully exhausted.
  • Fixed: An issue where searching for PDF files in a shared folder could return incorrect error messages, such as “No More Files” or “STATUS_NO_MORE_FILES.” These errors disrupted output to the virtual PDF printer and interfered with backup processes.
• [Networking] Fixed: An issue where peripheral devices could take longer to work after resuming from hibernation on some devices with active cellular connections.
• [Printer] Improved: Printer names now appear more clearly when using IPP Directed Discovery, making it easier to identify printers during setup.
• [Stability issue] Fixed: This update addresses an issue observed in rare cases after installing the May 2025 security update and subsequent updates, causing devices to experience stability issues. Some devices became unresponsive and stopped responding in specific scenarios.

As a reminder, Microsoft recently announced Windows 11 version 25H2, which is now in testing in the Dev Channel. The Beta Channel is still version 24H2, and the Release Preview is on both versions 23H2 and 24H2.

You can find the complete changelog in a post on the official Windows Insider Blog.

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Asided from that, the build also adds improvements related to Secure Boot. Microsoft is also promising "stability fixes" after the latest July 2025 Patch Tuesday.

The full changelog is given below:

• Update resolves an issue impacting the Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) enrollment wizard. Some users experienced a problem where clicking “Enroll now” caused the wizard window to open, begin loading, and then close unexpectedly. This occurred due to incomplete app registration, which prevented the wizard from loading correctly. This update addresses that issue to ensure a smoother enrollment experience.

• [Mobile Operator Profiles] Updated: Country and Operator Settings Asset (COSA) profiles.
• [Secure Boot] New! Adds the ability to deploy SKUSiPolicy VBS Anti-rollback protections through the Secure Boot AvailableUpdates registry key.
• [Stability issue] Fixed: This update addresses an issue observed in rare cases after installing the May 2025 security update and subsequent updates causing devices to experience stability issues. Some devices became unresponsive and stopped responding in specific scenarios.

You can view the announcement blog post here on Microsoft's official website.

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Windows Server Update Services Synchronization enables centralized management of Microsoft updates. It gives system administrators control over update deployment to Windows devices. In other words, it is an essential tool for keeping Windows devices up to date and installing the latest security updates on them.

The default configuration has WSUS sync with the Microsoft Update server once a day. It downloads metadata from the server so that the latest available updates and changes are reflected on the administrator's side.

The error log may show errors such as "A connection attempt failed" or "The operation has timed out" on affected systems. On sites like Reddit, administrators are asking questions like "Is anyone having synchronization issues with their WSUS server?".

Microsoft has not publicly acknowledged the issue at this point, but users who openened a ticket with Microsoft received responses like the following one:

We would like to inform you that we are currently investigating a synchronization issue affecting WSUS. Our internal teams have observed similar behavior across multiple environments, and we are actively working to find a resolution.

 

While the exact cause is still under investigation, we are collaborating closely with our engineering teams to determine a resolution path.

It claims that Microsoft is investigating the issue and working on an update that should resolve it. According to the same message, administrators may restore the functionality in the meantime by unchecking the "Updates" classification. The issue seems to be related to .NET Framework 3.5 related updates that were published this month with the "Updates" classification.

Shortly thereafter, Microsoft confirmed that it resolved the issue. System administrators may access the information on the Microsoft Release Health website.

Microsoft confirms that defective metadata caused WSUS servers to run a full synchronization all over the world, which put the servers under a lot of stress. This caused the servers to become unresponsive, which explains the timeout errors that some users received.

Microsoft fixed the issue by expiring the update that caused the issue. Synchronization should be back to normal now.

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As was dicovered by a user on Reddit, the latest Edge Canary updates now let you once again enable the Mica material. It still requires enabling a flag, but now, it works as it should, unlike the Stable release, where enabling it does nothing. Once enabled, you will get a translucent tab strip and context menus, which look much better and are in line with the rest of Windows 11's design.

Unfortunately, as of right now, Mica is only available in Edge Canary. Dev, Beta, and Stable still lack the material, even with the flag enabled. If you have Edge Canary installed on your system and want to get Mica back, here is what to do:

1. Update Microsoft Edge to the latest version by heading to edge://settings/help.
2. Go to edge://flags and find the "Show Windows 11 visual effects in browser" flag.
3. Set the flag to "Enabled."
4. Restart the browser.

Edge will apply Mica to multiple surfaces automatically, but you can now also toggle it off or on in settings, which were recently updated to WebUI 2.0 for much faster performance. Go to Settings > Appearance > "Show Windows 11 visual effects in browser." Note that changing this option requires a browser restart.

Microsoft is not communicating this change, so at this point, there is no guarantee that Mica will make its way back to more stable channels. For now, though, you can enjoy this material in the Canary Channel, just keep in mind that it is the least stable and can be prone to bugs and instabilities.

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OpenAI is planning to launch an AI web browser in the “coming weeks,” according to a report from Reuters. Sources tell the outlet that OpenAI could build its Operator AI agent into the browser, allowing it to book reservations, fill out forms, and complete other tasks on a user’s behalf as it moves toward an “agentic” future.

As noted by Reuters, the browser will feature a “native” ChatGPT interface, potentially allowing users to interact with the chatbot directly through the browser rather than navigating to OpenAI’s website. OpenAI also reportedly plans to power its browser with Google’s open-source engine, Chromium, which is used by major browsers like Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera.

This week, the AI startup Perplexity also launched a Chromium-based web browser, called Comet, for its $200 per month subscribers. The browser uses Perplexity’s AI search engine by default and comes with a built-in AI assistant. OpenAI’s upcoming browser could pose yet another threat to Google, which could be forced to sell Chrome as part of a federal antitrust ruling. Both Perplexity and OpenAI have said they would consider buying the browser.

This isn’t the first time we’re hearing about a potential browser from OpenAI. Last year, The Information reported that OpenAI had been exploring the possibility of launching a browser, and even hired two people who were “instrumental” in launching Google Chrome. OpenAI began weaving its search engine within ChatGPT last year, and building this capability into its browser seems like a logical expansion.

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However, that was not the end of Microsoft 365 issues, unfortunately. Following the smaller Teams outage, Microsoft later confirmed that Outlook was not accessible across the web, the desktop and mobile clients. Thus, it is broken everywhere no matter how you try to access it.

The Microsoft Service Health page described the issue initially as:

Title: Users may be unable to access their mailbox using any connection methods

 

User impact: Users may be unable to access their mailbox using any connection methods.

 

More info: Impacted connection methods include, but may not be limited to:

 

• Outlook.com
• Outlook Mobile
• Outlook desktop client

 

Current status: We've identified that users may be unable to access their mailboxes using any connection method. We've determined that a portion of mailbox infrastructure isn't performing as efficiently as expected, resulting in impact. We're investigating this further to better understand the issue and help inform our next troubleshooting steps.

Unlike the Teams issue, which was resolved quickly, Microsoft struggled to deal with this one for a while; though about an hour earlier, the company seems to have finally deployed the most apt fix. The two most recent current status updates confirm this:

We've determined the cause of the issue and have started deployment of a fix. We expect the fix to take an extended period following our safe change management process.

 

.....

Our deployment of the fix is progressing quicker than anticipated and we expect impact to gradually mitigate as it progresses. We believe the issue will be resolved by our next update time.

We will update the post once Microsoft confirms the issue is completely resolved.

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Academic and Reasoning Benchmarks:

• Humanity’s Last Exam (HLE): Grok 4 (no tools) achieved 25.4%, outperforming Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro (21.6%) and OpenAI’s o3-high (21%). Grok 4 Heavy (multi-agent + tools) reached 44.4%, compared to Gemini 2.5 Pro with tools at 26.9%.
• ARC-AGI-2: Grok 4 scored 16.2%, nearly double the next-highest model (Claude Opus 4).
• MMLU-style evaluations: Achieved a 0.866 score (86.6%) on MMLU with an overall Intelligence Index of 73, leading the industry.

STEM & Coding Benchmarks:

• GPQA: Grok 4 scored 87.5%, while the more powerful Grok 4 Heavy variant reached 88.9%.
• AIME: Grok 4 Heavy achieved a perfect 100% score, while Grok 4 achieved 98.8%.
• SWE-Bench: A specialized variant, Grok 4 Code, which will be released in August 2025, has achieved a 72-75% score on the SWE-bench.

According to Artificial Analysis, Grok 4 has achieved an Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index of 73, which is ahead of OpenAI o3 at 70 and Google Gemini 2.5 Pro at 70.

Grok 4 is at the point where it essentially never gets math/physics exam questions wrong, unless they are skillfully adversarial.

It can identify errors or ambiguities in questions, then fix the error in the question or answer each variant of an ambiguous question. https://t.co/vB6NUOZTOX

 

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 10, 2025

Grok 4's API pricing is the same as that of Grok 3; it costs $3/$15 per 1M input/output tokens ($0.75 per 1M cached input tokens).

For consumers, xAI has new subscription tiers. The basic free tier will only have limited access to Grok 3. The SuperGrok plan costs $30/month and will give you increased access to the Grok 4 and Grok 3 models. The $300/month SuperGrok Heavy plan will offer access to Grok 4 Heavy, Grok 4, and Grok 3.

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Many new devices are launching with neural processing units now making it possible to run AI locally in an effective manner so developments like this from Microsoft get more and more relevant every day.

This new Phi model from Microsoft uses a new architecture called SambaY and this is the core innovation included with this model. Within SambaY, there’s something called a Gated Memory Unit (GMU) which efficiently shares information between the internal parts of the model to make it more efficient.

With these advancements, this model can generate answers and complete tasks much faster, even with very long inputs. This Phi model is also able to handle large amounts of data and understand very long pieces of text or conversations.

The main attraction with this model is that it has up to 10 times higher throughput than other Phi models. This means that this model can do much more work in any given amount of time. Essentially, it can process 10 times more requests or generate 10 times as much text in the same amount of time which is a huge improvement for real-world applications. The latency has also been reduced by two to three times.

With the improvements to Phi-4-mini-flash-reasoning’s speed and efficiency, it lowers the barriers to running AI locally on more modest hardware. Microsoft said that this model will be useful for adaptive learning where real-time feedback loops are needed; as on-device reasoning agents such as mobile study aids; and interactive tutoring systems that dynamically adjust content difficulty based on learner performance.

Microsoft this model is particularly strong in math and structured reasoning. This makes it valuable for education technology, lightweight simulations, and automated assessment tools that require reliable logic inference and fast response times.

The new Phi-4-mini-flash-reasoning is available on Azure AI Foundry, NVIDIA API Catalog, and Hugging Face.

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A few weeks into the official coding period, Lin, the major contributor to the project, has published an update, showing how the project's coming along, as we near a possible stable release.

The first thing you should know is that the virtual machine installer we mentioned last time has been merged into the main branch. This change gets rid of the dependency on virt-install entirely. Instead, Karton now uses libosinfo to identify the operating system from a disk image and generates the necessary libvirt XML configuration on its own.

As part of this, Lin also updated QML modules, which are KDE's building blocks for creating user interfaces. These are now used for a more standard way of handling application components.

Most of the recent work, however, has focused on building a SPICE client from scratch. SPICE, if you're unaware, is a remote desktop protocol that handles rendering the guest's display, audio, and inputs. Lin said he spent a lot of time just getting the virtual machine's display to show up properly inside a native KDE window.

The process of taking the raw display data from SPICE and drawing it on screen was tricky. At first, the image was full of weird colors and transparency glitches.

After trying different ways to handle the image data, he discovered the root cause was a timing problem: his code was trying to read the display data at the same moment SPICE was trying to write it, causing a garbled mess. The fix was simple enough: he just made a quick copy of the data before displaying it, and it ended up looking much better:

With the display rendering, user inputs like mouse clicks and keyboard presses are now forwarded to the virtual machine. A small headache is that Qt key events use evdev scancodes while SPICE expects the older PC XT format, forcing a manual mapping for now.

After months of hard work, here's a screen recording of Karton running a Fedora virtual machine:

From the video, things are quite laggy when you scroll, but this should be addressed in a future update.

As for what's next, Lin acknowledges the current rendering method is inefficient and causes tearing. He hopes to investigate SPICE's gl-scanout property for more optimized performance.

He also plans to implement audio forwarding and proper mouse drag events, as well as rework the UI to include a sidebar, like you have in UTM, the virtual machine manager designed for Apple platforms like macOS.

If you're interested in the project, you can check out its GitLab page and read Lin's full update on the KDE Blogs.

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Basically, WSUS synchronizes with Microsoft Update servers at least once a day by default, with the option to increase the sync frequency available to admins. However, since the last day or so, customers have been reporting issues in the sync process. Event logs show that the connection timed out when admins attempt a WSUS sync with Microsoft Update. A recent forum thread on Reddit has many people complaining about the problem, although some have reported that their synchronization attempts have intermittently succeeded too.

In a statement to Bleeping Computer, Microsoft acknowledged the problem and noted that it is working on a fix. The Redmond tech firm has explained that the issue has arisen from a "problematic update revision in the storage layer", which it is in the process of resolving. It admitted that the bug has resulted in customers not being able to deploy Windows updates via WSUS and Configuration Manager. Although manual updates are still possible, this is not really a workaround since many enterprise environments are quite complex and have a high volume of devices.

For those unaware, WSUS enables IT admins to efficiently distribute updates for Windows and Office software within their network. Admins have granular control over the rollout of updates to specific computers based on policy configurations. WSUS optimizes bandwidth utilization and receives regular security patches, which is critical considering that it is the centralized hub for update delivery in many organizations.

Back in September 2024, Microsoft confirmed that it will no longer add new capabilities to WSUS, which is a sign that the product is scheduled to be axed in the near future. The company has recommended migrations to more modern tools like Intune, Azure Update Manager, and Windows Autopatch.

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