News: Software News

Microsoft plans to revamp Recall in Windows 11 with these new features

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 21:14:44 +0000

Recall on Windows 11 is evolving, and soon it'll be getting a new Home, data export feature, and reset option.

On Windows 11, Microsoft has been proactively improving the Windows Recall feature, and this work is ongoing as the company continues to develop new features and changes.

For example, in recent preview builds, we've seen changes to the Recall app, including a redesigned Home page that simplifies interaction with your snapshots, the ability to export your data for sharing with third-party apps and websites, and a new option to fully reset the AI feature.

It's worth noting that these improvements are currently available through the Windows Insider Program for Copilot+ PCs, and it remains unclear when they will become available to everyone.

In this guide, I'll outline the most significant changes that Microsoft has been working on recently for Recall on Windows 11.

Windows Recall new features coming soon

Microsoft is planning to release at least three major changes for the AI feature, including a new Home page, a reset option, and an option to export your day.

Home page

In the Recall app, the company is preparing to update the interface with a new left navigation pane that aligns more closely with the design we're becoming accustomed to seeing in modern applications.

The pane allows you to switch between the timeline and the new home page. At the bottom, you can also access the settings menu.

Then, there's a new "Home" page, which reminds me a lot of the New Tab page design typically found in web browsers.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

At the top, the app will show you a greeting and date and, perhaps more importantly, a search box, which uses AI to help you find activities in your timeline.

On the rest of the page, the Home page groups your recent activities and top-used content to make it easier to find.

In the "Recent Snapshots" group, you'll find the most recent snapshots, and when you click this card, it'll take you to the "Timeline" page. However, if you click the icon for a specific snapshot, then the associated app will open.

You can also right-click a snapshot to copy or delete a specific or all the captures for a particular app. You will receive a preview, which you have to confirm to complete the deletion.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

After the deletion, you'll be prompted if you want to add the app to the exclude list in the Recall settings.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

The context menu for snapshots appears to only be available in the "Recent snapshots" group, not for the other groups.

In addition, the app will also group your top apps and websites on this page, and when you click each card, it'll take you to another page, where you will find all the screenshots for a particular application.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Finally, as part of this series of improvements, the app will also provide tips to help users become familiar with the interface.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Data export

Microsoft is also working on a feature to allow users in Europe to export their data out of Windows Recall to share with other websites and apps (as necessary). The company is doing this to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) of the European Economic Area (EEA).

When you first set up Windows Recall on your computer, you will receive a unique code to export your data from the new "Advanced settings" page available on the "Recall & snapshots" page.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Since Recall data is encrypted, the unique code serves as a key to unlock the snapshots stored on your device, making them available for other apps and websites. Microsoft notes that it doesn't store export code anywhere, so there's no way to retrieve it if you lose it.

If you want another export code, you will need to reset the feature and start from scratch, which will delete everything, including your snapshots, settings, and other data related to Windows Recall.

If you need to use this feature, open Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots > Advanced settings. It's also worth noting that this page is new.

The page offers two options, including "Export past snapshots" and "Export snapshots from now on."

(Image credit: Microsoft)

The first option is to export your data from last week, last month, or all your snapshots. On the other hand, the second option continues to export snapshots from the time you turn it on.

According to the company, the feature exports snapshots in an encrypted form, and you will need to provide the export code to decrypt the data and make it accessible from other apps or websites.

Furthermore, commercial customers can also manage the export features using the new "AllowRecallExport" policy. On managed devices, Microsoft is making data exporting disabled by default, and only the end users will be able to initiate the process.

Feature reset

Finally, Microsoft is adding an option to reset the Windows Recall feature completely, including snapshots and settings. Additionally, once you complete the reset, the system will turn off the feature until you set it up again.

To reset the feature to the factory settings, open Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots > Advanced settings, click the "Reset Recall" button, and confirm the reset.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

The option can come in handy for troubleshooting problems, or after trying out the feature, you may decide that it's not for you and prefer to turn it off.

Other changes

Alongside the new capabilities, Microsoft is also working on other smaller changes. For example, the default storage retention for snapshots has now been reduced to 90 days. In the past, the system was set to unlimited.

Additionally, the company continues to build AI actions for Click to Do, which are available both inside and outside the Recall app.

First, Click to Do is gaining the "Ask M365 Copilot" option that allows you to send selected text and images from a snapshot directly to the Copilot. This feature is for organizations with a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription for business.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Also, the company is working on two other actions to integrate Microsoft Teams further with Click to Do, including "Send a message with Teams" and "Schedule a meeting with Teams."

(Image credit: Microsoft)

What other changes would you like to see on Windows Recall? Let me know in the comments.

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Microsoft stopped injecting Edge ads on Chrome website

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 21:08:21 +0000

Over two years ago, Neowin noticed that Microsoft started injecting pretty audacious ads into the official Chrome website. When attempting to download the most popular browser in the world, Edge would place a massive banner at the top of the website, begging you to stay on Edge under the pretence of "running the same technology as Chrome." Now, however, it seems that Microsoft has finally removed those stupid ads, at least for some users.

Neowin's co-founder, Steven Parker, recently noticed that those ads and all the additional banners that terrorize you when you dare to download Chrome all but vanished. Now, when you search for Chrome using Bing, there are no more banners claiming you do not have to download another browser (please use Edge, pretty please). No pop-ups are asking you to stay, and that massive banner? Simply gone.

Here is what they look like:

The change is certainly welcome, but unfortunately, only some users can enjoy the refreshing breeze of frozen hell. It appears that Microsoft removed those banners only for users in the countries and regions where the Digital Markets Act applies. In other words, in some European countries. Outside the European Economic Area region, Microsoft still carpet-bombs users with ads when they use Edge to download Chrome.

The change is not really unexpected, though. A month ago, Microsoft announced several Windows updates and feature changes to comply with the Digital Markets Act. They included changes to how Windows handles default browsers, Windows Search, and even the ability to uninstall the Microsoft Store. While Microsoft never mentioned those pesky ads and other shady tactics (remember Microsoft asking you to fill out a questionnaire after downloading Chrome?), it makes sense for Microsoft to remove them in order to comply with the DMA. We asked Microsoft about it, and we will update the article when we have a word from the company.

What if you live in the United States or other parts of the world? The good news is that it is very easy to make your computer DMA-eligible. All you need is one of our favorite apps, Wintoys. Get it for free from the Microsoft Store, then go to the Tweaks tab, open the System section, flick the Digital Markets Act toggle, and restart your system (there is no need to change your system and the Microsoft Store region). Now, you can uninstall Edge and enjoy other freedoms in Windows 11, including fewer annoyances across the operating system.

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KB5001716: Microsoft stops stealthily upgrading Windows 11/10 PCs automatically

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 21:05:55 +0000

Earlier this week, we reported on the KB5001716 update that Microsoft periodically and stealthily pushes on Windows 10 and 11 PCs. As always, we noted one of the features of this update was to try to force-upgrade systems to a newer feature update when the current Windows version on a PC is approaching end-of-life status.

We speculated that the upcoming Windows 10 end of support in October was why KB5001716 was released this time. Although Microsoft has published ESU details for 10 with the release of new guidance even for unsupported PCs, many like the PIRG still feel it is too little as the latter blames Microsoft for not doing enough to save "400 million PCs" from turning into e-waste.

Following our report, Microsoft revised the release notes for the KB5001716 update as it has now confirmed that it no longer tries and force automatic feature update installs on user PCs. The company added a new changelog section to its support article to add this new bit of information. As such, the release notes also remove all mentions of the force-upgrade route Microsoft used to take earlier.

Here is what the new changelog says:

July 2, 2025

Removed the following bullet point from the "Notes about this update" section:

When this update is installed, Windows may attempt to download and install feature updates to your device if it is approaching or has reached the end of support for your currently installed Windows version. Feature updates offer new functionality and help keep your device secure.

Here are the updated release notes:

After this update is installed, Windows may periodically display a notification informing you of problems that may prevent Windows Update from keeping your device up-to-date and protected against current threats. For example, you may see a notification informing you that your device is currently running a version of Windows that has reached the end of its support lifecycle, or that your device does not meet the minimum hardware requirements for the currently installed version of Windows.

As such, while KB5001716 will no longer try downloading and installing feature updates quietly in the background, the notification banners or full-screen upgrade prompts will still be there, and reminders about unsupported hardware will be there too. You can find the support article here on Microsoft's website.

For those wondering where they can find the KB5001716 update on their system, if it is there, it should be visible under Apps & features inside the Settings app.

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KDE is fixing blurry screens by snapping almost-1x scale factors back to 1x on Wayland

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 21:03:08 +0000

A new issue of This Week in Plasma is out, and it contains a nice mix of bug fixes for the recently released Plasma 6.4, UI improvements for the upcoming Plasma 6.5, and more.

To start with the big news, Plasma 6.4.3, scheduled to land on the 15th of this month, is going to tackle an annoying problem with display scaling. Specifically, the automatic scale factor calculator on Wayland will no longer suggest values that are just a little over 100%.

The new logic will instead round the calculated default scale factor down to a crisp 100% if it would otherwise be just barely over, as developer Nate Graham notes:

Scale factors close to 1 but not exactly 1 produce substantial blurriness. 1x looks much better for these cases, even if the cost is that things are a bit smaller than ideal.

Now, moving on to Plasma 6.5, which is planned for later this year, there are some useful quality-of-life changes. For instance, the popup preview for an empty folder on the desktop now shows a placeholder message so it is more obvious what you are looking at instead of just being a weird empty box.

The update also makes screencasts of a specific window include any popups that the window creates.

As for system audio, in Plasma 6.5, when you unmute the volume, it will now unmute all playback devices, not just the active one.

Plasma 6.5 is also getting a new virtual keyboard. The KDE team has been working on its own on-screen keyboard for a while now, aiming to eventually replace the current standard, Maliit. This is what the keyboard looks like at the moment:

For now, there are still issues like no input in Electron apps and other little quirks, which the KDE team hopes to fix in the future.

What is a "This Week in KDE" update without bug fixes? In Plasma 6.3.6, a fix landed landed to stop screen flicker when playing full-screen games after you have switched focus away from them.

Plasma 6.4.2, which we covered this week, brought a handful of its own fixes, like stopping KWin from crashing if you messed with Task Switcher shortcuts and restoring functionality for the Global Menu widget’s "Single button" mode.

And the upcoming 6.4.3 will be getting fixes for the Orca screen reader in Learn mode, a crash in the built-in RDP server when handling bad connections, and a fix for some issues where the screen would turn itself back on after being turned off.

And finally, Plasma 6.5 will bring a fix for a bug where hitting the escape key in the Wireguard VPN properties dialog could break it.

Other little improvements are landing in Frameworks 6.16 too, such as better sorting in open and save dialogs and improved detection of powerful GPUs for systems with more than one.

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Microsoft's extra year of Windows 10 security updates isn't a "viable solution" for the 400 million PCs that can't upgrade to Windows 11 — "It's obvious users are frustrated and feel yanked around."

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 17:56:13 +0000

Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) wants Microsoft to provide longer support for Windows 10.

Windows 10 users are stuck in a pickle (to put it mildly) as Microsoft's end-of-life deadline for the operating system edges closer, due on October 14, 2025.

The move has received backlash from users, prompting a Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) to petition the decision, asking Microsoft to reconsider cutting support for Windows 10 as it would hurt its sustainability goals. The group indicated that Windows 10's death will lead to "the single biggest jump in junked computers ever."

The software giant seemingly listened to the woes of Windows 10 users and recently extended the operating system's lifeline beyond the cutoff date. Windows 10 will continue receiving security updates from Microsoft for free beyond October 14, 2025, but there's a catch.

Users leveraging the extended lifeline must sync their PC settings data with the cloud via a Microsoft Account. Still, one reason preventing most Windows 10 users from upgrading to Windows 11 is Microsoft's stringent system requirements.

Microsoft is already committed to developing and deploying security updates for Windows 10 for at least three years through their ESU program. The decision to restrict those security updates behind a paywall is a business decision, not a technical one.

Lucas Rockett Gutterman, Campaign lead for Designed to Last at the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG)

While Microsoft's new extended lifeline for Windows 10 will grant users access to free security updates for an entire year, PIRG says this isn't enough still. While speaking to The Register, Lucas Rockett Gutterman, who leads the "Designed to Last" campaign for the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) (via TechRadar😞

"Microsoft's new options don't go far enough and likely won't make a dent in the up to 400 million Windows 10 PCs that can't upgrade to Windows 11."

Aside from syncing your PC settings to the cloud via Microsoft's Azure service, Windows 10 users can either redeem 1,000 Microsoft Reward points or pay $30 for extended security updates (ESU).

According to Gutterman:

"Microsoft has already made some concessions after public pushback: providing ESU for individuals for the first time, affordable pricing for schools, and now their new OneDrive option. What they haven't done is commit to automatically providing longer support for Windows 10 or loosening the hardware requirements for Windows 11."

"It's obvious that users are frustrated," added Gutterman. "They feel yanked around and don't think this [latest] announcement provides a viable solution."

Windows 11 is becoming synonymous with Copilot+ PCs, while Linux is now a real threat

(Image credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

It's been a hot minute since Windows 11 first shipped, but it has struggled to gain broad adoption, again, predominantly due to its stringent system requirements, flawed system elements, and more.

However, as Windows 10's imminent death edges closer, Windows 11 is seemingly gaining some traction, with a 47.73% of the global Windows market share in June compared to Windows 10's 48.92%. This means that it is only a matter of time before Windows 11 dominates the category.

However, Microsoft clearly prefers users upgrading to Windows 11 to settling for available options that will allow them to continue receiving important security updates on Windows 10. The tech giant is even using Windows 10's imminent death to push Copilot+ PC sales, touting their AI-enhanced capabilities and features, including Windows Recall, Click To Do, and improved Windows Search.

The tech giant has even made bold claims that "Windows 11 PCs are up to 2.3x faster than Windows 10 PCs," but that is a bit of a stretch because it compares dated processors with modern hardware that ships with sophisticated technology.

Interestingly, a group called End of 10 has been pushing for users to transition to Linux as Windows 10's end-of-life approaches. Its campaign encourages Windows 10 users to ditch the Windows ecosystem entirely and switch to Linux with their outdated devices. The small group is using a lack of ads and telemetry tracking as the key selling points to get users to make the transition.

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Windows 11 lock screen is finally getting a long-requested indicator

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 17:54:41 +0000

Several months ago, Microsoft started testing a redesigned battery indicator for Windows 11, finally fixing a long-time complaint about the indicator's poor readability and missing features. With the new version, the battery indicator is much bigger, it uses colors for different states, and lets you toggle on or off battery percentage. However, the Lock Screen remains unfixed, and its battery indicator is still borderline unreadable. Fortunately, Microsoft is finally addressing that.

The company has not officially confirmed it, but recent Windows 11 preview builds finally have the redesigned lock screen battery indicator. It has all the same features as its taskbar counterpart: bigger size, colors (yellow for battery saver, red for critical levels, and green for charging), and percentage. Its location remains unchanged in the bottom-right corner of the screen, but it is now much easier to read and understand at a quick glance.

If your tablet or laptop runs one of the recent Windows 11 preview builds, you can try enabling the new indicator to try it out. Just keep in mind that Microsoft is not shipping it yet. Brandon LeBlanc from the Windows Insider team posted on X and said that there are reasons why the new indicator is not publicly available. Upon turning the new indicator on, you will discover why it is not available to all users. There is no way to turn off battery percentage, colors are sometimes incorrect, and the indicator itself sometimes resets to the previous one.

If those do not sound serious enough to stay away and wait for a more polished version, here is how to enable the new lock screen battery indicator in Windows 11:

Download ViVeTool from GitHub and unpack the files in a convenient and easy-to-find folder.
Run Command Prompt as Administrator and navigate to the folder with the ViVeTool files using the CD command. For example, if you have placed ViVeTool in C:\Vive, type CD C:\Vive.
Type vivetool /enable /id:56328729,55467432,55648925 and press Enter.
Restart your computer.

Source: @phantomofearth on X

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How to fix inconsistent scrollbars in Microsoft Edge

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 17:51:32 +0000

The browser user interface is a thing most users probably do not care about as long as it is not distracting. While Microsoft Edge looks alright (minus the killed Mica material, which is sort of still accessible), there is one thing that keeps nagging me and a lot of other customers: scrollbars. In Microsoft Edge, scrollbars are often inconsistent in their looks, size, theme, and more, which creates unnecessary distraction, especially in dark mode, and ruins the overall look. Fortunately, there is a way to fix that.

Part of the problem is that many websites use custom scrollbars for whatever reason. Some time ago, Microsoft added a new accessibility feature that lets you turn off custom scrollbars in Edge and have a single, simple, and consistent scrollbar on every website. Here is how to enable it:

Open Microsoft Edge and go to Settings > Appearance > Browser behavior and features.
Toggle on the "Turn off custom scrollbars" feature. After this, Edge will switch to the standard always-on scrollbars. They will look the same on all websites, but the problem is that they are quite large and distracting. Plus, they are light when you use dark mode and dark when you use light mode. That behavior is intentional for accessibility reasons; it is not a bug. However, if you do not need contrast-y scroll bars, you can make them look much better.

This does not look right
Now, open edge://flags and find the "Fluent overlay scrollbars."
Set the flag to "Enabled" and restart the browser.
Go to Settings > Appearance > Browser behavior and features and turn off the "Always show scrollbars" feature.
Much better!

Now, Microsoft Edge will use simple, minimalistic "fluent" scrollbars that only appear on the screen when you scroll a page. Also, you can hover the cursor over the scrollbar to make it larger and scroll a page the old-school way by dragging the bar up or down.

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Microsoft removed Mica from Edge, but you can still enable it

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 17:50:03 +0000

The recently released Microsoft Edge 138 brought bad news for Windows 11 users who like the Mica material. The browser no longer lets you enable Windows 11 materials across various surfaces, such as the tab strip, context menus, and more. Frankly, Edge looks pretty dull right now, and some even argue that it looks ugly. However, at this point, not all hope is lost, and you can still sort of enable Mica in Microsoft Edge.

While the "Show Windows 11 visual effects in title bar and toolbar" flag is still available in edge://flags, toggling it on does not do anything. As such, turning on Mica in Edge requires taking another route and modifying the browser's shortcut with a special command. Here is how to do it:

Go to Settings > System and Performance > System and turn off Startup Boost if enabled.
Close Microsoft Edge.
Right-click your Microsoft Edge shortcut and select Properties.
Click the Path box, place one space and add the following command: --enable-features=Windows11MicaTitlebar.
Click Ok to save changes and start the browser.

It is worth noting that this implementation is not the best, and it only applies to the tab strip (partially). That is because the command uses the basic Mica implementation from Chromium, which was added to the project quite a while ago. Google experimented with Mica in Chrome, but it remains turned off by default for all users. If you miss this material, you can bring it back using this method. It is far from perfect, of course, but unfortunately, that is all we have at this point.

Another thing worth mentioning is that this trick is a no-go for users with vertical tabs. Combining "Windows11MicaTitlebar" with vertical tabs turns the user interface into a complete mess if the title bar is turned off.

Source: Reddit

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You can now make text bold or italic in Notepad — hell has frozen over

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 02:56:31 +0000

Notepad now supports lightweight formatting and Markdown.

Notepad just received an update that adds new features to the classic app. Notepad has been around since 1983, holding strong as a basic text editor with a clean interface and minimal features. Microsoft took a bold step with its most recent update to Notepad by adding lightweight formatting features.

I say the additions are bold somewhat in jest, though any change to Notepad is noteworthy to some extent. Those who still use the app in 2025 often choose it for its basic design. Quite a few people were upset when Microsoft added Copilot to Notepad.

When Copilot was first announced for Notepad, many complained about bloat creeping into one of Microsoft's oldest apps.

"Okay but who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to kill the soul of such a simple utility and then do what everyone is doing to it?" asked Reddit user lars2k1 at the time.

Text formatting feels more in line with the aim of Notepad than an AI-powered text summarization tool.

One of my colleagues noticed new options the other day and joked, "What happened to my Notepad?" He was referring to the formatting toolbar that now lives at the top of the app. Within that bar sit options to apply formatting to text, such as bold and italic styling.

Notepad's menu also includes the option to clear all formatting to view plain text — also known as the right way to use Notepad.

Markdown and Markdown syntax views are also available in Notepad following a recent update. Considering some of the most popular text editors are essentially Notepad plus Markdown support, those additions will likely be welcomed by longtime users.

Microsoft announced the new capabilities for Notepad in May and began testing them among Windows Insiders at the same time. Now, the features appear to be available to non-Insiders.

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Excel, Word, and PowerPoint on the web grab welcome new feature

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 02:55:14 +0000

The Microsoft 365 suite of software is a vital part of any organization that has decided to go with Microsoft's tech stack to meet its needs. As such, it's critical for the Redmond firm to continue upgrading the capabilities of its tools to retain its existing customers and attract new ones. And now, Microsoft has done just that by adding a very welcome new feature to some of its applications.

Microsoft has announced that viewers of an Excel, PowerPoint, or Word file on the web can now directly request edit access to it. Previously, customers were forced to resort to workarounds to achieve the same purpose. One of these was to download a view-only file and make edits in a copy and reshare, while the other was to manually reach out to the owner of the file and ask them to give you edit access. Microsoft rightly acknowledged that these methods are too cumbersome and slow, so now it has integrated the option to directly request edit access in its web applications.

In order to leverage this capability, customers need to do the following:

Open the Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file on the web
Click on the Viewing icon on the top-right
Select Request more access
Select the Ask to edit or Ask to review option, depending upon what you need
You can optionally write a note to the file owner too; this can be used to provide more context about why you need additional rights
Click send

File owners will then receive an email with the request change in access along with the optional note, and they will be able to accept or deny the request directly from within the email. If they do the former, the requestor can refresh the file in order to get take advantage of increased access.

That said, Microsoft has cautioned that the propagation of access elevation may take some time to reflect in large or complex documents, or those with many co-authors. Additionally, the capability is not supported in Classic View in Word for the web. However, it is available to all enterprise customers with Microsoft 365 and a stable internet connection as long as the file they are requesting elevated privilege for is available on OneDrive or SharePoint.

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Latest Microsoft Edge update breaks design visuals on Windows 11 — once you see it, you'll hate it

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 18:04:36 +0000

Microsoft Edge version 138 started rolling out last week, and users quickly noticed it's missing an important visual design that was originally introduced specifically for Windows 11.

If you're a fan of Microsoft Edge because of its simplistic design that adheres to Microsoft's own design guidelines, the latest release is going to disappoint you. As of Microsoft Edge version 138, the "enable Windows 11 visuals" setting is no longer functional, meaning all of the blur effects that were introduced specifically for Windows 11 are no longer present.

This makes the browser much uglier than it was before, and it looks broken as a result. The rest of the Windows 11 interface still support translucent blur effects, including first-party apps like the File Explorer, Notepad, and the general OS interface. Microsoft Edge is now missing out on this crucial design aesthetic, making it stick out like a sore thumb and appear unfinished.

The acrylic and mica blur effects used to be present in the Microsoft Edge title bar and context menus. It was a subtle but very important design addition that helped aligned the app with the rest of the Windows 11 interface, and generally made it look a lot nicer. But with the blur effects seemingly broken with version 138, the whole browser just looks worse as a result.

Now, if you don't have an eye for app design, you'll likely never even notice this change. But if you do have a keen eye for consistent design and eye candy, you will immediately notice the missing blur effects across the app.

Microsoft Edge version 137 with working blur effects

(Image credit: Windows Central)

Microsoft Edge version 138 with broken blur effects

(Image credit: Windows Central)

It's unclear how the breaking such an important design cue wasn't addressed and fixed before version 138 rolled out. Hopefully it is just broken, and this isn't one of those situations where Microsoft has decided to remove one of Edge's standout design features that differentiates it from the rest of the competition. Very few other browsers are doing anything to align with Windows 11's design language, hopefully Edge doesn't follow suit.

Microsoft has actually backpaddled on a number of bold and innovative Edge UI changes in the past year. The company had originally planned to roll out a radical new design for Edge, which featured floating tabs and more translucency across the interface. However, the company later canceled this plan for unknown reasons, keeping Edge as an almost one to one copy of Chrome instead.

This was a huge shame to me, as I do daily drive Edge and really did love how the company wanted to give it its own identity. Instead, Edge still looks like Chrome, and now with the missing blur effects, it looks dull and out of place on Windows 11. Frustratingly, Microsoft doesn't mention whether the removal of blur effects in the browser is a bug or deliberate change in the changelog for version 138.

It's also likely that the blur effects are broken on Windows 10 devices too, though we were unable to check this.

In recent months, Microsoft Edge has come under fire for the amount of bloat Microsoft has added to it. Everything from Copilot integration to AI generated themes and shopping assistants have bogged down the Edge experience, to the point that users have created scripts to debloat the experience. For many, Microsoft Edge's Windows 11-inspired design was one of its standout features.

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be a fix or workaround to restore the blur effects on the latest version of the web browser. Your only choice is to downgrade back to Edge 137, or make do with the much uglier interface until a fix comes along.

In the meantime, do you use Microsoft Edge as your daily browser on Windows 11? Let us know in the comments.

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Microsoft removes PowerShell 2.0 from Windows 11 in build 27891

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 18:02:06 +0000

Microsoft has released a new Windows 11 preview build from the Canary Channel. Build 27891 is out with several improvements and fixes, a new feature for the Microsoft Store, and the removal of PowerShell 2.0, which is now deprecated.

Microsoft deprecated PowerShell 2.0 all the way back in Windows 10 version 1709. Last month, it issued a reminder about it, and now, PowerShell 2.0 is gone from the latest Windows 11 Canary builds. Microsoft says it will publish more information about PowerShell 2.0 removal in the upcoming update for Windows 11.

Also, Microsoft is rolling out a new update for the Microsoft Store. Version 22406 is rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels, offering the ability to install a product right from the Store's home page, as seen in the screenshot below:

Here is what was fixed:

[General]

We fixed the issue causing the “Reset this PC” option under Settings > System > Recovery to not work after upgrading the last few Canary Channel builds.
Fixed the underlying issue which was causing the taskbar to unexpectedly not showing acrylic material after upgrading to the latest Canary builds. This also impacted a few other scenarios, leading to unexpected black or white in some UI.
Fixed an underlying issue believed to be the cause of some Insiders seeing Windows update downloads to get stuck at 2% recently.
Fixed a few more languages including Vietnamese and Arabic that were still having issues with certain characters not rendering correctly for Insiders after the latest builds, causing nonsense to display in places like Task Manager and more. This impacted characters outside of A-Z.

[File Explorer]

Fixed an issue where if you opened the “…” menu in the File Explorer address bar to show the full list of folders for the current path, the dropdown might be cut off and the bottom of it inaccessible.

[Settings]

Fixed an issue in the previous build which could cause Settings to crash when opening microphone properties under Settings > System > Sound.
Fixed an underlying issue related to Bluetooth which could cause Settings or Quick Settings to crash on launch for some people.

[Windowing]

Fixed an issue which was causing the window minimizing animation to not display correctly in the previous flight.

[Task Manager]

Fixed an issue where the CPU graphs in the Performance page were still using the old CPU utility calculations.
Fixed an issue where after adding the new CPU Utility column, you might notice that System Idle Process always showed as 0.

[Audio]

Fixed an issue which could cause all system sounds to stop working (for example notification alert sound and the sound that plays when clicking the volume slider in quick settings), although audio in general was working on your PC.

[Other]

Fixed an underlying issue which was causing fonts in certain app menu items to unexpectedly appear corrupted or overlapped for some people. This also impacted typing in Word – where when using Hebrew a period may unexpectedly show as a 3, and in Thai typing space may show a 2.
Fixed an underlying issue which could cause the playback controls in Media Player to become distorted in the latest Canary flights.
Fixed an underlying issue believed to be the cause of LDAP queries from apps to take an unexpectedly long time in the previous flight.
Fixed an issue which could cause print previews to appear slightly blurry in recent Canary flights.

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, 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”.

[Settings]

[NEW] We’re investigating an issue in this build which could cause Settings to crash when interacting with the options under Settings > System > Power & Battery.

[Remote Desktop]

[NEW] You may see extreme graphical distortion and rendering issues using remote desktop on Arm64 PCs in this build.

You can find full release notes for build 27891 in a post on the official Windows Blogs website.

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Windows 11 reaches a new all-time high share among gamers

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 17:59:14 +0000

The results of the June 2025 Steam Hardware & Software Survey are now available on the official website, showing Windows 11's continuous growth among gamers and the steady decline of Windows 10 ahead of the end of support.

Valve reports that in June 2025, the almost-four-year-old Windows 11 holds nearly 60% of all PC users on Steam. It currently has a market share of 59.84%, which is a 1.54-point increase over the May 2025 results. Windows 10 has 35.69% (-1.31 point), and 64-bit Windows 7 nearly went extinct—only 0.09% of all Steam users who participated in the survey reported using the operating system that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago (the latest Steam client also no longer works in Windows 7).

With Microsoft offering Windows 10 users free security updates for one more year, the outgoing OS is expected to stick around for a while longer on the gaming market and among regular users as well. Worldwide, Windows 11 has nearly caught up to Windows 10, as StatCounter reported earlier.

Overall, 95.67% of the survey participants use Windows on their gaming machines (+0.22 points). Linux is second with 2.57% (-0.12 points), and macOS is third with 1.76% (-0.09 points).

On the hardware side, the most popular PC configuration has 16GB of RAM (43.05%), a 6-core CPU (29.50%), an Nvidia RTX 4060 Laptop graphics card (4.79%), 8GB of VRAM (33.92%), and a 1080p monitor (55.54%). In June, the laptop variant of the RTX 4060 became the most popular GPU on Steam, taking over the desktop RTX 3060 with its 4.42% market share.

Speaking of GPUs, Nvidia holds an overwhelming 74.07% share, while AMD has 17.68%, and Intel is third with 7.88%. Intel remains the most popular CPU vendor with a 59.29% share, while AMD has 40.71%.

You can find more stats on the official Steam Hardware and Software Survey here.

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Vivaldi 7.5 is out with colorful tab stacks, improved tab menu, and more

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 17:57:32 +0000

Vivaldi Technologies has released a new feature update for the Vivaldi browser. Version 7.5 is now available with some much-requested features by the community, privacy improvements, bug fixes, and other changes. The release is not the biggest one, but it still packs useful changes, such as colorful tab stacks, a reworked tab context menu, and multiple improvements under the hood:

This update brings both refinement and power. It’s a release shaped by your feedback and driven by our commitment to putting you in full control of your browser. With long-requested colored Tab Stacks, enhanced privacy through DNS over HTTPS, and a host of meaningful improvements across the board, it’s about delivering the thoughtful upgrades that make a real difference in how you browse every day.

Vivaldi now supports colorful Tab Stacks. This feature groups related tabs and helps you keep everything well-organized. Now, besides giving your stacks names, you can assign colors, which makes it easier to find the stack you need. Developers also added a new dialog: right-click a stack, click "Edit Stack," and give it a new name or choose a color.

The browser also received a cleaner and better-organized tab context menu. Vivaldi says the new version is more intuitive and easier to use. Another important change is the ability to define a custom DNS provider with support for DNS over HTTPS.

Finally, here are some of the under-the-hood improvements in Vivaldi 7.5:

Address Bar: Fixed focus weirdness, suggestion hiccups, and dropdown quirks
Ad Blocker: Now supports badfilter, strict3p, and strict1p rules
Bookmarks & Notes: Better drag-and-drop, with clearer visual feedback
Mail & Calendar: Smarter threading, invite handling, and polish throughout
Dashboard & Widgets: Layout tweaks, transparency improvements, drag-and-drop goodness
Quick Commands: Now shows synced tabs and handles errors more gracefully
Settings: UI improvements across the board, from DNS input to workspace rules visibility

You can find the complete changelog for Vivaldi 7.5 in a blog post on the official website. If you want to try this highly customizable browser, download it using this link.

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openSUSE Tumbleweed's June update brings KDE Plasma 6.4 and critical security fixes

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 17:56:03 +0000

The openSUSE Project has just provided an overview of everything that was added to its rolling release, openSUSE Tumbleweed, in June. If you’ve been wanting to try out the KDE Plasma 6.4 desktop, which came out in mid-June, you could install openSUSE Tumbleweed and have it right there to start using. The new update gives you a smoother, more customizable desktop with flexible tiling and improved window management.

Included in the new desktop is a redesigned version of Spectacle, the screenshot and annotation tool; accessibility enhancements for keyboard navigation and Wayland; UI changes that improve contrast and readability, especially in dark mode; updates to notifications so that they support direct update installs, full-screen “Do Not Disturb”, and mic-mute alerts; KRunner visualizes color codes; and System Monitor adds GPU tracking.

For those unfamiliar with Tumbleweed, it’s openSUSE’s rolling release; this means that rather than getting a big update, say like Windows 11 and Windows 10, it receives a steady stream of updates, removing the need to do big upgrades.

It wasn’t only KDE Plasma that got updated in June; the Linux kernel has been upgraded to version 6.15 and then 6.15.3 with PCIe hotplug fixes, improved I/O scheduling, and improved Wi-Fi driver compatibility. This is the latest stable kernel, so if you try out this distribution, it should work with the newest hardware.

Other bits of important software included from June are GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 15 which includes new language support for Modula-2 and Cobol plus performance gains; Mesa 25.1.3 which comes with rendering fixes for games including DOOM: The Dark Ages and driver improvements; PipeWire 1.4.6 with fixes for ALSA plugin crashes and improved latency reporting; and Python 3.13.5 and 3.11 which include stability and security fixes, while Python 2.7 support has been deprecated.

Aside from major updates, openSUSE Tumbleweed saw a significant number of CVEs addressed across included packages, including Mozilla Firefox, Python, libssh, ClamAV, gdm, and more. This should make the system a bit safer.

So, if you’re in the US with a day off on Friday for Independence Day, and have been waiting for a chance to try the latest KDE 6.4, then you could download openSUSE Tumbleweed as the distribution to give it a go. You can learn more about it and download it over on the openSUSE website.

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KB5060829: Microsoft confirms new upcoming Windows 11 24H2 feature is triggering Firewall

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 07:18:20 +0000

At the end of June, Microsoft released Windows 11 setup and recovery updates (KB5062233/ KB5060843/ KB5062197/ KB5061090) following the month's non-security previews for 24H2 (KB5060829) and 23H2/22H2 (KB5060826).

Today, the company has confirmed that KB5060829 is causing some troubles for systems in regards to Firewall. Microsoft says that IT admins and system admins may notice a recurring error entry in the Security event log related to Windows Firewall With Advanced Security wherein the Event Viewer records event ID 2042, labeled “Config Read Failed” with the message “More data is available” each time the device restarts.

Although logged as an error, the tech giant notes that this entry does not indicate a malfunction of the Windows Firewall and as such it can be "safely ignored and disregarded," and that Windows Firewall continues to enforce rules and filter network traffic normally as intended. Microsoft assures that "there is no impact to Windows processes associated to this event."

IT support teams and even general users often rely on error-level event entries to detect misconfiguration and other issues (Microsoft itself recommends you do so), so unexpected log noise can trigger unnecessary alerts like these.

Interestingly, in this case, the logged event stems from an upcoming feature as Microsoft notes that the "event is related to a feature that is currently under development and not fully implemented." No additional information regarding this new feature has been provided at this time.

For those who prefer a cleaner log, administrators can filter out event 2042 in Event Viewer or via PowerShell. In Event Viewer, create a custom view filtering out ID 2042 under the Security log and in PowerShell, use the Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable parameter.

Microsoft says that the team is currently working on a fix and an update will be released later. However, no ETA has been shared today. You can find the issue entry here on Microsoft's official Windows Health dashboard website.

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One of the best PowerToys features just got even better — and it puts Windows Search to shame

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 20:49:24 +0000

Command Palette now performs better and has several improved extensions.

PowerToys, one of the best Windows apps, just got another update. The free app includes several utilities aimed at power users, but it also has quite a few features I would recommend to everyday, casual PC users.

The latest update brings PowerToys to version 0.92. It improves the performance of Command Palette, adds new customization options to Color Picker, and improves the rendering of File Explorer add-ons.

The GitHub page for PowerToys lists the highlights of the latest update:

PowerToys settings now has a toggle for the system tray icon, giving users control over its visibility based on personal preference. Thanks @BLM16!
Command Palette now has Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compatibility for all first-party extensions, improved extensibility, and core UX fixes, resulting in better performance and stability across commands.
Color Picker now has customizable mouse button actions, enabling more personalized workflows by assigning functions to left, right, and middle clicks. Thanks @PesBandi!
Bug Report Tool now has a faster and clearer reporting process, with progress indicators, improved compression, auto-cleanup of old trace logs, and inclusion of MSIX installer logs for more efficient diagnostics.
File Explorer add-ons now have improved rendering stability, resolving issues with PDF previews, blank thumbnails, and text file crashes during file browsing.

PowerToys is a versatile app used by many members of the Windows Central team. It has dozens of utilities you can enable or disable through the app's dashboard.

I'm more of a casual PC user, but I still use PowerToys for Image Resizer and PowerRename regularly.

One of the many great things about PowerToys is that you can use just a single utility within the app or go full power user and use a bunch of them. Our Mauro Huculak has a guide on 3 secret PowerToys you may not know about, and I recommend that piece as a starting point for new PowerToys users.

PowerToys version 0.92 includes several improvements to Command Palette. That utility was built as an evolution to PowerToys Run. Command Palette supports searching for installed apps, shell commands, and files. It can also be used for WinGet package installation.

Command Palette should perform better and be more stable following the latest update. The development team of PowerToys shared the full change log for PowerToys version 0.92.

PowerToys 0.92: New features

Color Picker

Added mouse button actions so you can choose what left, right, or middle click does. Thanks @PesBandi!

Crop & Lock

Aligned window styling with current Windows theme for a cleaner look. Thanks @sadirano!

Command Palette

Enhanced performance by resolving a regression in page loading.
Applied consistent hotkey handling across all Command Palette commands for a smoother user experience.
Improved graceful closing of Command Palette. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
Fixed consistency issue for extensions' alias with "Direct" setting and enabled localization for "Direct" and "Indirect" for better user understanding. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
Improved visual clarity by styling critical context items correctly.
Automatically focused the field when only one is present on the content page.
Improved stability and efficiency when loading file icons in SDK ThumbnailHelper.cs by removing unnecessary operations. Thanks @OldUser101!
Enhanced details view with commands implementation. (See Extension sample)

Command Palette extensions

Added "Copy Path" command to App search results for convenience. Thanks @PesBandi!
Improved Calculator input experience by ignoring leading equal signs. Thanks @PesBandi!
Corrected input handling in the Calculator extension to avoid showing errors for input with only leading whitespace.
Improved New Extension wizard by validating names to prevent namespace errors.
Ensured consistent context items display for the Run extension between fallback and top-level results.
Fixed missing Time & Date commands in fallback results. Thanks @htcfreek!
Fixed outdated results in the Time & Date extension. Thanks @htcfreek!
Fixed an issue where Web Search always opened Microsoft Edge instead of the user's default browser on Windows 11 24H2 and later. Thanks @RuggMatt!
Improved ordering of Windows Settings extension search results from alphabetical to relevance-based for quicker access.
Added "Restart Windows Explorer" command to the Windows System Commands provider for gracefully terminate and relaunch explorer.exe. Thanks @jiripolasek!

Command Palette Ahead-of-Time (AOT) readiness

We’ve made foundational changes to prepare the Command Palette for future Ahead-of-Time (AOT) publishing. This includes replacing the calculator library with ExprTk, improving COM object handling, refining Win32 interop, and correcting trimming behavior—all to ensure compatibility, performance, and reliability under AOT constraints. All first-party extensions are now AOT-compatible. These improvements lay the groundwork for publishing Command Palette as an AOT application in the next release.
Special thanks to @Sergio0694 for guidance on making COM APIs AOT-compatible, @jtschuster for fixing COM object handling, @ArashPartow from ExprTk for integration suggestions, and @tian-lt from the Windows Calculator team for valuable suggestion throughout the migration journey and review.
As part of the upcoming release, we’re also enabling AOT compatibility for key dependencies, including markdown rendering, Adaptive Cards, internal logging and telemetry library, and the core Command Palette UX.

FancyZones

Fixed DPI-scaling issues to ensure FancyZones Editor displays crisply on high-resolution monitors. Thanks @HO-COOH! This inspired us a broader review across other PowerToys modules, leading to DPI display optimizations in Awake, Color Picker, PowerAccent, and more.

File Explorer add-ons

Fixed potential failures in PDF previewer and thumbnail generation, improving reliability when browsing PDF files. Thanks @mohiuddin-khan-shiam!
Prevented Monaco Preview Handler crash when opening UTF-8-BOM text files.

Hosts File Editor

Added an in-app “Learn more” link to warning dialogs for quick guidance. Thanks @PesBandi!

Mouse Without Borders

Fixed firewall rule so MWB now accepts connections from IPs outside your local subnet.
Cleaned legacy logs to reduce disk usage and noise.

Peek

Updated QOI reader so 3-channel QOI images preview correctly in Peek and File Explorer. Thanks @mbartlett21!
Added codec detection with a clear warning when a video can’t be previewed, along with a link to the Microsoft Store to download the required codec.

PowerRename

Added support for $YY-$MM-$DD in ModificationTime and AccessTime to enable flexible date-based renaming.

PowerToys Run

Suppressed error UI for known WPF-related crashes to reduce user confusion, while retaining diagnostic logging for analysis. This targets COMException 0xD0000701 and 0x80263001 caused by temporary DWM unavailability.

Registry Preview

Added "Extended data preview" via magnifier icon and context menu in the Data Grid, enabled easier inspection of complex registry types like REG_BINARY, REG_EXPAND_SZ, and REG_MULTI_SZ, etc. Thanks @htcfreek!
Improved file-saving experience in Registry Preview by aligning with Notepad-like behavior, enhancing user prompts, error handling, and preventing crashes during unsaved or interrupted actions. Thanks @htcfreek!

Settings

Added an option to hide or show the PowerToys system tray icon. Thanks @BLM16!
Improved settings to show progress while a bug report package is being generated.

Workspaces

Stored Workspaces icons in user AppData to ensure profile portability and prevent loss during temporary folder cleanup.
Enabled capture and launch of PWAs on non-default Edge or Chrome profiles, ensuring consistent behavior during creation and execution.

Documentation

Added SpeedTest and Dictionary Definition to the third-party plugins documentation for PowerToys Run. Thanks @ruslanlap!
Corrected sample links and typo in Command Palette documentation. Thanks @daverayment and @roycewilliams!

Development

Updated .NET libraries to 9.0.6 for performance and security. Thanks @snickler!
Updated WinAppSDK to 1.7.2 for better stability and Windows support.
Introduced a one-step local build script that generates a signed installer, enhancing developer productivity.
Generated portable PDBs so cross-platform debuggers can read symbol files, improving debugging experience in VSCode and other tools.
Simplified WinGet configuration files by using the Microsoft.Windows.Settings module to enable Developer Mode. Thanks @mdanish-kh!
Adjusted build scripts for the latest Az.Accounts module to keep CI green.
Streamlined release pipeline by removing hard-coded telemetry version numbers, and unified Command Palette versioning with Windows Terminal's versioning method for consistent updates.
Enhanced the build validation step to show detailed differences between NOTICE.md and actual package dependencies and versions.
Improved spell-checking accuracy across the repo. Thanks @rovercoder!
Upgraded CI to TouchdownBuild v5 for faster pipelines.
Added context comments to Resources.resw to help translators.
Expanded fuzz testing coverage to include FancyZones.
Integrated all unit tests into the CI pipeline, increasing from ~3,000 to ~5,000 tests.
Enabled daily UI test automation on the main branch, now covering over 370 UI tests for end-to-end validation.
Newly added unit tests for WorkspacesLib to improve reliability and maintainability.

General

Updated bug report compression library (cziplib 0.3.3) for faster and more reliable package creation. Thanks @Chubercik!
Included App Installer (“AppX Deployment Server”) event logs in bug reports for more thorough diagnostics.

How to download PowerToys

PowerToys is a free app that you can download through either the Microsoft Store or the app's release page on GitHub.

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I made 21 tweaks in Windows 11 to increase gaming performance — and they worked

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 20:46:09 +0000

Increase PC gaming performance on Windows 11 with these system tweaks and optimization features.

Although you can play games out of the box on Windows 11, there are still many tweaks you can apply to further improve your computer's gaming performance.

You can, for example, turn on and off system features to increase the frame rates and experience smoother gameplay, such as Game Mode, GPU scheduling, VRR, Memory Integrity, and virtualization.

It's possible to enhance visuals with Auto HDR and Super Resolution features if your hardware supports them.

Additionally, you can perform some maintenance tasks, such as freeing up storage space, debloating the system, installing system and driver updates, changing power settings, and making other tweaks to ensure the computer is in optimal condition for gaming.

Finally, I realized I said no hardware upgrade is required. However, if you have an NVMe SSD, Windows 11 will automatically use the "DirectStorage" feature, which can dramatically cut asset-loading delays, making world loads feel nearly instantaneous on supported games.

In this how-to guide, I'll outline the top tweaks you can implement on your Windows 11 computer to enhance gaming performance.

Tweaks to boost gaming performance on Windows 11

The tips outlined in this guide are not listed in a particular order, and some of them may require specific hardware, meaning they will only apply to certain devices.

1. Enable Game Mode

Game Mode is a built-in feature that Microsoft has designed specifically to optimize your computer for gaming by prioritizing game processes and minimizing background interruptions.

The feature is often enabled by default on Windows 11. However, you can easily check its state and toggle it on or off with these instructions:

Open Settings.
Click on Gaming.
Click the Game Mode page on the right side.
Turn on the Game Mode toggle switch.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Once you complete the steps, the impact can vary depending on your system's hardware and the specific game you are playing. However, this feature can lead to improved performance, especially on computers that might otherwise struggle with background tasks.

2. Disable Memory Integrity

According to Microsoft, if you're noticing performance issues while playing games on Windows 11, this can be due to the Memory Integrity and Virtual Machine Platform security features.

When optimizing your computer for gaming performance, it's recommended to turn off this feature and then turn it back on after completing your gaming session.

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

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

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

(Option 1) Turn off the Memory Integrity toggle switch to disable the feature

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

(Option 2) Turn on the Memory Integrity toggle switch to enable the feature.
Restart the computer.

Once you're done playing games, Microsoft recommends re-enabling the feature.

3. Disable Virtual Machine Platform

To turn off virtualization on Windows 11, use these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Optional features page on the right side.
Click the "More Windows features" setting.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

(Option 1) Clear the "Virtual Machine Platform" option to disable the feature.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

(Option 2) Check the "Virtual Machine Platform" option to enable the feature.
Click the OK button.
Restart the computer.

After you're done playing games, Microsoft recommends re-enabling the feature.

4. Change power mode

On Windows 11, setting the power mode to "High Performance" is often recommended because it aims to maximize your system's resources to deliver the best possible gaming experience.

Of course, if you're using a laptop, you will achieve better performance by gaming with the device plugged into a power source.

To change the power mode on Windows 11, use these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the "Power & battery" (or Power) page on the right side.
Click the Power Mode setting.
Choose the Best Performance option for the "Plugged in" and "On battery" settings.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Once you complete the steps, the processor, graphics cards, and other components will have access to more power to improve your gaming performance.

5. Enable Auto HDR

Auto HDR is a feature that enhances Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) games with improved color and contrast for HDR-capable displays, providing a more immersive visual experience without impacting performance or requiring developer updates.

To enable Auto HDR on Windows 11, use these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Display page on the right side.
Turn on the HDR toggle switch.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Click the Graphics setting at the bottom of the page.
Turn on the Auto HDR toggle switch.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Auto HDR relies on the system's "HDR" capabilities, which also have to be turned on, and the "Optimization for the windowed games" feature.

6. Enable Automatic Super Resolution

Automatic Super Resolution (Auto SR) is a Windows 11 feature that uses AI to upscale games to improve frame rates and image quality.

The feature delivers a smoother and more immersive gaming experience. The only caveat is that Auto SR is only available for Copilot+ PCs and is compatible with specific games.

To enable Auto SR on Windows 11, use these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Graphics page on the right side.
Turn on the "Automatic super resolution" toggle switch.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

If the feature is causing issues for a specific game, but you want to continue using it for other games, you can turn off the Super Resolution feature from the game settings under the "Custom settings for applications" section.

7. Change game default GPU

Although I recommend letting the operating system use a specific graphics card, you can change the default GPU on a per-game basis.

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Graphics page on the right side.
Select the game from the list.
Choose the High Performance option in the "GPU preference" setting.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Although you can choose the graphics card for a specific game, the system can ignore the request and use another card as necessary.

8. Install games on secondary drive

If you have a secondary drive, it's a good idea to offload the games from your computer to improve gaming performance on Windows 11, although the impact depends on the type of drive you have.

The issue is that the main drive (where Windows 11 is installed) is constantly being accessed by the operating system. If you also have your games on the same drive, they may take longer to load levels and assets.

By installing games on a separate drive, particularly a faster one (such as an SSD), you effectively dedicate the drive's resources primarily to the game, reducing friction with the operating system.

Microsoft Store

To install new games directly into a secondary drive from the Microsoft Store, use these steps:

Open Microsoft Store.
Open the game page.
Click the Get (or Install) button.
Choose the secondary drive to download the game.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Click the Install button.

You should also be able to change the default location for installing games from the Microsoft Store Settings page, but in my installation, the option was missing. It wasn't until I clicked the "Change defaults in settings" option from the game page that the option appeared on the Settings page.

Xbox app

To install new games directly into a secondary drive from the Xbox app, use these steps:

Open Xbox.
Click the profile menu and choose the Settings option.
Click on Install options.
Select the secondary drive in the "Change where this app installs games by default" setting.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Once you complete the steps, the next time you install a game, the app will download the title to the drive you specified.

Transfer existing games

If you have games already installed on the main hard drive, you may be able to offload them to a secondary drive from the Settings app. Here's how:

Open Settings.
Click on Apps.
Click the Installed apps page on the right side.
Select the game from the list and click the menu (three dots) on the right.
Choose the Move option.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Select the drive to offload the game.
Click the Move option.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

You may have to repeat the steps to transfer any other remaining game.

9. Optimization for windowed games

Windows 11 includes a feature known as "Optimizations for windowed games" that can improve the performance of games running in windowed or borderless windowed mode. Traditionally, these modes have had higher input latency and lower performance compared to exclusive full-screen mode.

This optimization transitions games using older presentation models (such as DirectX 10 and 11's "blt-model") to a more modern "flip-model" presentation, allowing games to bypass the Desktop Window Manager (DWM) for direct display output, similar to how exclusive fullscreen works.

To use optimizations for windowed games in the operating system, use these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Graphics page on the right side.
Turn on the "Optimizations for windowed games" toggle switch.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Once you complete the steps, you will experience higher performance on games that are not running in full-screen mode.

10. Change refresh rate

Adjusting the refresh rate on your monitor is one of the most significant ways to enhance your gaming experience on Windows 11. That's, of course, if you have a monitor capable of higher refresh rates and a graphics card powerful enough to render frames at those rates.

The refresh rate, measured in Hertz (Hz), indicates how many times per second your monitor can render the image on the screen. For example, a 60Hz monitor refreshes 60 times per second, a 144Hz monitor refreshes 144 times per second, and so on.

If your monitor refreshes more frequently, it displays new frames more often, resulting in significantly smoother motion, especially in fast-paced games. It also reduces input latency, and you will see less screen tearing.

To set your system to the highest refresh rate, use these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Display page on the right side.
Click the Advanced display setting at the bottom of the page.
Select the highest rate using the "Choose a refresh rate" setting.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

(Optional) Turn off the "Dynamic refresh rate" toggle switch.

After you complete the steps, games should play at higher refresh rates.

It's worth noting that setting your monitor to its highest refresh rate doesn't automatically guarantee that your games will play at that rate. This is because the monitor can only display the frames that your computer sends to it. If your computer can't produce frames as fast as your monitor can refresh, then the monitor will only be able to render the number of frames that were sent.

11. Disable apps at startup

If you have many different apps launching during startup, the computer will take longer to start, and the background services for those applications will consume more system resources, which can negatively affect gaming performance.

If you want to improve your computer's performance for gaming and other tasks, it's always recommended to keep apps at startup to a minimum, and here's how:

Open Settings.
Click on Apps.
Click the Startup page on the right side.
Choose the Startup impact option in the "Sort by" menu.
Turn off the most impactful apps running on your system.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Quick note: Although you can turn off any application, be careful with the app. For instance, do not turn off things like the Windows Security notification icon, Microsoft Defender, and other system services, as they can affect performance.

Once you complete the steps, depending on the app you had previously configured during startup, you'll notice a boost in gaming performance.

12. Free up storage space

It's never a good idea to run your computer when it's low on storage because this will negatively affect system performance. Usually, you never want to use a device with drive fill above 70 percent.

To increase the overall system speed and gaming performance, free up as much space as possible on the main system drive. You can also transfer already installed games to a secondary drive, as I mentioned earlier.

To free up space on Windows 11, use these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Storage page on the right side.
Click on Clean recommendations.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Click the Temporary files setting.
Select the items to clear.

Quick tip: You can also click the "See advanced options" button to access the Temporary Files settings and delete additional junk files.

Click the "Clean up" button.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Click the "Large or unused files" setting.
Select the files to clear from the hard drive.
Click the "Clean up" button.
Click the "Files synced to the cloud" setting.
Select the files already synced to the cloud.
Click the "Clean up" button.
Click the Unused apps setting.
Select and remove the apps you rarely use to free up more space.

After completing the steps, you may notice an improvement in overall performance on Windows 11, including while playing games.

On Windows 11, you have more than one way to free up space on your computer. You can refer to my previous guide for additional tips.

13. Install system updates

Although it's recommended to keep your computer updated for optimal performance, it's also a known fact that sometimes quality, as well as feature updates, can cause compatibility and other types of issues that can affect performance. As a result, it's important to research the update before updating the system if you're looking to improve gaming performance.

To install system updates manually, use these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on Windows Update.
Turn on the "Get the latest updates as soon as they're available" toggle switch.
Click the Check for updates button.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Once you complete the steps, you may notice an increase in gaming performance if the update was designed to address specific issues on games.

Additionally, it's a good idea to keep games up to date, as they can also offer improved performance and bug fixes.

14. Update graphic drivers

If you're using the drivers provided by the manufacturer, you may already have a Control Panel that allows you to check and download updates for your graphics card.

Update drivers from GPU app

To check for graphic driver updates on Windows 11, for example, using the Nvidia app, use these steps:

Open the Nvidia app.
Click on Drivers from the left pane.
Click the Download button.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Continue with the on-screen directions.

Once you complete the steps, you may have to restart your computer to apply the changes.

If you have an AMD system, the steps are obviously different using the Adrenalin Edition app, but the concept is the same.

Reinstall GPU drivers

If you're using the graphic drivers from Windows Update, you may not be running the most up-to-date version. In this case, you should uninstall the current drivers and then install the newer version provided by the manufacturer.

However, since there may be issues uninstalling and reinstalling the graphics card drivers, I recommend using the Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to perform a clean uninstallation of the current drivers and then a clean installation of the new version.

The DDU tool also comes in handy when changing the graphics card on your computer and when dealing with corrupted drivers.

In this example, I'll outline the steps to install the NVIDIA drivers:

Open the Guru3d website.
Click the Download button nearest to your region.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Right-click the Zip file and choose the Extract All option.
Click the Extract button.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Right-click the DDU ".exe" file and choose the Open option.
Click the Extract button.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Close running applications and save your work.
Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Recovery page on the right side.
Click the Restart now button for the "Advanced startup" feature.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Click the Restart now button one more time.
Click on Troubleshoot.
Click on Advanced options.
Click on Startup Settings.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Click the Restart button.
Select the "Enable Safe Mode" option using the "F4" key.
Open the Display Driver Uninstaller extraction folder.
Right-click the "Display Driver Uninstaller.exe" file and choose the Open option.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Select the settings to use for uninstalling Nvidia or AMD drivers.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Quick tip: If you don't understand the settings, the default configuration should work in most cases.

Click the Close button.
Select the GPU option.
Select the Nvidia or AMD graphics card using the setting on the right.
Click the "Clean and restart" button.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

After you complete the steps, you can proceed to install the latest version of the graphics card drivers.

If you're replacing the card, power off the computer and install the new GPU. Finally, power on the device and proceed with the driver installation.

Install GPU driver

To install the graphics card's latest drivers for optimal gaming performance, use these steps:

Open the Nvidia website.
Click the Download Now button and save the file to your computer.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Right-click the Nvidia App installer and choose the Open option.
Continue with the screen to complete the installation.

If you have an AMD GPU, use these steps:

Open the AMD website.
Click the Download Software button and save the file to your computer.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Right-click the Adrenalin Edition installer and choose the Open option.
Continue with the screen to complete the installation.

It's always recommended that you follow the instructions from the manufacturer.

16. Debloat setup

If you want your games to perform at their best, it's important to minimize the number of unnecessary applications installed on your computer.

First, software can create conflicts with your system configuration, potentially impacting performance. Additionally, many apps run background processes that compete with your games for CPU and GPU resources, potentially lowering frame rates.

When your system is busy with background tasks, it can cause input lag (delays between your actions and what appears on screen), making the gaming experience feel less responsive.

Unused apps and services also consume memory, leaving less available for your games. This can cause the system to use slower storage (paging or swapping), which may result in stuttering during gameplay.

Furthermore, more programs set to launch at startup increase boot times and can generate additional disk I/O in the background. On systems with traditional hard drives, this can significantly affect game loading times and the streaming of in-game assets.

To uninstall unused apps from Windows 11, use these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on Apps.
Click the "Installed apps" page on the right side.
Select the app, click the menu (three dots) button, and choose the Uninstall option.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Click the Uninstall button again to confirm.
Continue with the on-screen directions (if applicable).

After completing the steps, you may need to repeat them to remove any additional applications.

Additionally, it's recommended to avoid using third-party scripting or tools, as they can sometimes harm your computer more than they can help.

17. Enable GPU scheduling

On Windows 11, Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling is a feature designed to improve performance and reduce latency by offloading specific graphics card scheduling tasks from the CPU to the GPU itself.

Usually, the feature comes enabled by default, but you can always check and enable it as necessary with these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Display page on the right side.
Click the Graphics setting.
Click on Advanced graphics settings at the bottom of the page.
Turn on the "Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling" toggle switch.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Once you complete the steps, the system should offload graphics tasks from the processor to the graphics processor.

18. Use DirectStorage

DirectStorage is a feature developed by Microsoft, initially for its Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles, but now it's also available on Windows 11. The primary purpose is to reduce game asset loading times while supporting more expansive, detailed game worlds.

Traditional game loading is slow because the processor acts as a bottleneck, limiting the game's performance. Even with fast SSDs, the processor has to read compressed game data, then decompress it, and finally copy it to the GPU. This entire process limits how quickly games can load assets, especially as modern NVMe drives can deliver data much faster than the CPU can handle it in this traditional method.

DirectStorage enables games to retrieve data directly from an NVMe SSD to the GPU, resulting in less time the processor has to be involved in the asset loading process.

The feature works automatically, meaning you don't have to manually configure anything, but it requires having an NVMe SSD installed on the computer.

Also, there's one caveat. DirectStorage doesn't work for all games, only for a select number of titles. You will need to check your game's support website to determine if the feature is supported.

19. Enable Variable Refresh Rate

Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) is a feature that enables compatible displays to automatically adjust their refresh rate based on the frames generated by the graphics card, thereby increasing frame rates while reducing screen tearing.

If the feature is available on your Nvidia G-SYNC, AMD FreeSync, or VESA DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync monitor, you can check and enable the feature using these instructions:

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Display page on the right side.
Click on Graphics.
Click on Advanced graphics settings at the bottom of the page.
Turn on the "Variable Refresh Rate" toggle switch.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

If you don't see the option, you can confirm whether your monitor supports it by going to Settings > System > Display > Advanced display, and the display information section should indicate whether VRR is supported. If it's not supported, check the graphics control panel application and enable Nvidia G-SYNC, AMD FreeSync, or VESA DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync on the monitor.

20. Change settings in games

Another way to improve your gaming experience on Windows 11 includes adjusting the settings directly in the graphics card and game.

However, I must note that you should be aware of the potential consequences, as making these types of changes can significantly impact performance.

For instance, if you have the Nvidia app, inside the "System" section, you'll find the "Performance" tab, which allows you to adjust settings such as voltage and power limits for the GPU. If these settings are not adjusted correctly, it can cause various types of problems.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

If you don't understand a setting, you can always use our forums or search using your preferred search engine, such as Bing, to find more information.

Inside the game, you can always control features like resolution, window mode, vertical sync, anti-aliasing, and many more that will be available in the pre-game experience.

Also, setting your game options to the highest level does not always mean high performance. Typically, you want to test various settings until you find the optimal balance with your hardware configuration.

21. Reset your computer

As a last resort, if you have had the same setup for a long time and your gaming experience feels sluggish, it may be time to reinstall the operating system to improve performance issues and resolve other system problems.

You can do this in different ways, including performing a clean installation of Windows 11, but the easiest method is to use the recovery settings with these instructions:

Open Settings.
Click on System.
Click the Recovery page on the right side.
Click the "Reset this PC" button for the "Reset this PC" feature under the "Recovery options" section.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Click the "Keep my files" option.

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Select the reset method:

Cloud download: Downloads a fresh copy of the installation from the Microsoft servers and reinstalls Windows 11. However, this option will not restore the tools, apps, custom drivers, and configuration that came with the original image provided by the manufacturer.
Local reinstall: Uses the files already available to reset the computer. This process will restore the factory drivers, settings, and tools if the device is branded (for example, Dell, ASUS, Lenovo).

(Image credit: Mauro Huculak)

Review the apps to reinstall after the reset to factory settings.
Click the Next button.
Click the Reset button.

Once you complete the steps, the computer will reset to the default factory settings, preserving your files. However, after this process, you will need to reapply your settings and reinstall your applications and games.

You can also review the complete process, as well as the Windows 11 post-installation steps, in this comprehensive guide.

If you suspect your computer is sluggish, it could be infected with malware. If this is the case, running a full virus scan may help.

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Microsoft fixes ‘Print to PDF’ feature broken by Windows update

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 20:42:08 +0000

Microsoft has fixed a known bug that breaks the 'Print to PDF' feature on Windows 11 24H2 systems after installing the April 2025 preview update.

"Specifically, the Microsoft Print to PDF printer might no longer appear under Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners," the company explains in updates added to support documents for Windows updates released since April.

"You might also notice that enabling the Printing-PrintToPDFServices-Feature returns error code 0x800f0922, which prevents the installation of the Microsoft Print to PDF printer driver located in C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository."

The company says that the issue has been resolved in the KB5060829 preview cumulative update for Windows 11 24H2, released on Friday, with the fix to be made generally available to all users who will install the July Patch Tuesday updates later this month.

Those who don't want to install the June optional update to address this issue are advised to enable the Printing-PrintToPDFServices-Feature feature manually.

To do that, you can enable 'Microsoft Print to PDF' from the Windows Features dialog by hitting the Windows + R keyboard shortcut and typing optional features.

Windows admins can also use PowerShell to enable it by opening Windows PowerShell as an Administrator by running the following commands:

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Printing-PrintToPDFServices-Features
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Printing-PrintToPDFServices-Features

However, Redmond warned that using PowerShell to toggle on Printing-PrintToPDFServices-Feature may trigger an error with the 0x800f0922 code.

In March, Microsoft fixed another set of printing issues that were causing some USB printers to print random text after installing Windows updates released since late January.

Last month, the company also warned that the June 2025 Windows security updates might be delayed due to an incorrect metadata timestamp and rolled out a configuration update to address a known issue causing Windows Update failures on some Windows 11 systems.

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Opera 120 arrives with a built-in translator and enhanced split screen

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 20:40:46 +0000

Opera has just announced the latest stable version of its desktop browser, Opera 120. The new update comes with several big features including a built-in translator that supports 40+ languages, and split screen enhancements. This version is built on top of Chromium version 135.0.7049.115.

The inclusion of a translator is a pretty big deal for Opera as it means users don’t have to install a third-party extension. It also means that Opera users can read foreign-language websites a bit easier. As for the split screen enhancements, the changelog show lots of fixes in this version which should make the feature feel more stable to use.

The translation feature is powered by Lingvanex and is powered by servers in Europe. Opera says that the information you translate is not being sent to any third party and is subject to the strictest of privacy regulations.

While an in-built translator is nice, Opera is playing catch-up at this point. Chrome, Edge, Safari, and even Firefox have in-built translation tools. It’s here now, though, and that’s the main thing. Aside from the translation feature, which is the headline of Opera 120, there are refinements for Password Management, Tab Islands, Miniplayer, and VPN.

As a bit of background for those who don’t use Opera, Tab Islands is a unique feature that helps to automatically sort tabs into groups called Tab Islands. Each island is marked with a color which you can tap to shrink or expand the island to save space. This feature helps to keep your tabs in context and your browser free of clutter.

One of the new split screen options is the ability to open them as part of a Tab Island. Also, you can now move two tabs in split screen mode from one Tab Island to another, as well as out of the island. Split screen mode will be opened inside a Tab Island whenever you join two tabs that are within an island.

Another improvement to split screen is that toolbar icons will remain present, Opera explains how things work now:

The right tab will show the following toolbar icons: Account, Easy Setup, Download, Extensions, and pinned player in toolbar.

And, when you hover over the right or left tab, you’ll see the following icons: Pinboards, Snapshot, Privacy Protections, Flow, and Add to bookmarks – which is how it normally works outside of Split Screen mode.

While these smaller updates aren’t that exciting, in a way, they’re the most important type of updates. Think about it, who is going to stick around using a browser that’s riddled with bugs? By spending time to focus on bugs, Opera can retain existing users while trying to attract new ones.

Opera 120 is now available for download on Windows, macOS, and Linux (deb, RPM, snap). If you already have it installed, it should update automatically on Windows and macOS or be available through the update manager on Linux.

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Windows 11's market share makes a big jump, finally catches up to Windows 10

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 22:11:57 +0000

Four years after its initial release, Windows 11 has finally caught up to the outgoing Windows 10. According to the latest data from StatCounter, Windows 11's market share is now nearly identical to Windows 10's worldwide.

In June 2025, Windows 11 made one of the biggest jumps in its history, going from 43.22% to 47.98% (+4.76 points). Such a big increase in one month was only observed a couple of months after the initial launch. In January 2022, Windows 11 went from 2.6% to 7.89% (+5.29 points). Year-over-year growth is +18.23 points.

Source: StatCounter

Windows 10 is the only contributor to Windows 11's market share increase. As Windows 11 grows, Windows 10 shrinks. During the last month, Windows 10 lost 4.43 points, going from 53.19% to 48.76%. While Windows 10 is still more popular than Windows 11, the difference is now less than 1% worldwide. However, in certain countries, Windows 11 is already the most popular Windows release. For example, in the US, it has 54.72%, in the UK, 59.01%, and in Canada, 51.58%.

Windows 10 is only three months away from the end of support, and Microsoft is letting users get one more year of security updates for free. As such, do not expect Windows 10 to descend to the Windows 7 level with its 2.19%. Enterprise users can continue receiving extended security updates for three more years (only one year for regular customers). Also, considering that Microsoft is not willing to lower Windows 11's hardware requirements, a lot of computers will remain stuck on Windows 10 for years to come. After all, someone out there is still using Windows XP, judging by its 0.43% market share as reported by StatCounter. With over 1.4 billion Windows users, even half a percent is quite a lot of PCs.

You can find more information about StatCounter's findings on the official website.

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Microsoft: No, we haven't lost 400 million Windows customers

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 22:08:18 +0000

Windows 10 is reaching its end-of-life phase in a few months, and Microsoft ideally wants as many people on Windows 11 as possible. That said, the company seemingly understands the popularity of its previous operating system and is giving its customers options to stick with the OS, at a cost (financial and otherwise).

However, there was some turbulence in the Windows journalism media space recently when ZDNet noticed a rather interesting detail in a Microsoft blog post. In that piece, the Redmond tech firm made a throwaway remark in the opening paragraph, saying "Windows is the most widely used operating system, powering over a billion monthly active devices". While this sounds great on paper, eagle-eyed readers of the blog post were quick to spot that this figure is significantly down compared to the 1.4 billion active customers that Microsoft boasted in 2022 and the 1.3 billion that it touted in the year before that.

This would either imply a rounding error or that Microsoft has lost at least 400 million active monthly users in the past three years, and the latter possibility is the headline that most outlets ran with, to no fault of their own. The fact that Redmond was not boasting about the 1.4 billion figure anymore gave credence to the possibility that the number is now much lower.

However, Microsoft has now put an end to these rumors in its own mysterious way. The firm has quietly updated its blog post and changed the problematic "over a billion" text to "over 1.4 billion." An editor's note towards the end of the blog acknowledges the modification.

This confirms that Windows has not lost hundreds of millions of active customers in the years following the debut of Windows 11, but it also highlights the fact that this number has been fairly stagnant for a long period of time. There could be many reasons for this, including the lukewarm reception to Copilot and Windows 11 in general.

It's rather unfortunate that there is no vetted way to quickly know statistics like these. Back in the day, Microsoft used to share interesting statistics and facts about the company and its products on a regular basis on its "Microsoft by the Numbers" website. However, that portal is now defunct and redirects to the Microsoft News page. This means that media outlets like ours and consumers have to rely on the company's obscure blog posts and shareholder letters in order to figure out the current state of Windows and other products.

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Microsoft quietly installs KB5001716 on your Windows 11 and 10 PCs

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 22:02:20 +0000

Following the non-security preview updates for Windows 11 last month, Microsoft also released Windows 11 dynamic updates (KB5062233/ KB5060843/ KB5062197/ KB5061090) for Setup and Recovery.

Alongside that, Neowin noticed that Microsoft also quietly downloaded and installed the KB5001716 update on Windows 10 and 11 PCs. For those not familiar, the tech giant pushes this update out whenever it wishes to force-install a new feature update onto PCs. However, Microsoft tends to do it quietly as it says that "the notification will respect full-screen, game, quiet time, and focus assist modes."

With the upcoming end of support for Windows 10 this October, Microsoft is trying to convince users to make the switch; meanwhile, Microsoft's partners as well as some governments are beginning to sound the alarm.

Recently the Redmond giant released a detailed Windows 10 vs 11 performance comparison showing how the user experience on a Windows 11 PC will be better. While it was not an apples-to-apples comparison between the two OS, it was certainly somewhat insightful and much better than unsubstantiated claims out of thin air.

Microsoft had last released KB5001716 back in November 2024, and in terms of changes since, the update is no longer being pushed to unsupported Windows 10 versions like 2004, 20H2, and 21H1. The Windows 11 version receiving this is 21H2, while Windows 10 versions are 22H2 and 21H2.

The release note for the update explains how KB5001716 works:

When this update is installed, Windows may attempt to download and install feature updates to your device if it is approaching or has reached the end of support for your currently installed Windows version.

After this update is installed, Windows may periodically display a notification informing you of problems that may prevent Windows Update from keeping your device up-to-date and protected against current threats. For example, you may see a notification informing you that your device is currently running a version of Windows that has reached the end of its support lifecycle, or that your device does not meet the minimum hardware requirements for the currently installed version of Windows.

You can find the support article here on Microsoft's website.

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A Microsoft engineer made a Linux distro that's like a comfort blanket to ex-Windows users — I finally tried it, and I'm surprised how good it is

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 22:01:05 +0000

AnduinOS is the brainchild of Anduin Xue, a software engineer at the company famous for not building Linux distros. It's not Windows, but it has that familiarity.

There's been an increase in talk of Linux in recent times. Be that the expansion of SteamOS beyond the Steam Deck, or, more contentiously, in relation to the end of life (but not really, now) of Windows 10.

It reminded me of something that emerged a little while ago that I had yet to have a proper look at. So I'm rectifying that, today.

AnduinOS is Linux. But in the context of this website, it has a little extra special sauce, in that its creator is a Microsoft software engineer, Anduin Xue.

As far as side projects go, it's pretty spectacular. It's also quite possibly one of the friendliest Linux distros I've tried when it comes to folks who may well be moving over from Windows, be it 10 or 11.

Built by one person, it's pretty astonishing how good it is.

AnduinOS isn't a carbon copy of Windows, but it has that familiarity

Aside from Edge in place of Firefox, this is the desktop greets you on first installation of AnduinOS.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

The most obviously striking thing about AnduinOS is its similarity in appearance to Windows 11. Naturally, it's not an exact likeness, but it's familiar, right down to the weather widget in the lower left corner.

The 'Start Menu' is centralized, opens up into a box as it does on Windows 11, and the All Apps list is just that, a list. The widgets in the bottom right also have a Windows-esque feel to them.

This is, of course, by design. But putting myself in the shoes of someone who might be trying this having decided to try something that isn't Windows, it's reassuring.

It's like draping a comfort blanket around yourself. Not in the least bit overwhelming.

The inclusion of a stock weather widget on the taskbar, just like you get on Windows, is a nice touch.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

The beauty of Linux is that if you have the knowhow, you can make it look and behave pretty much however you want it to. If you were driven to make it look even more like , there's almost certainly a way.

What's nice about AnduinOS — and it doesn't just apply to this distro anymore — is that you could pick it up having been a Windows user and just get right to it. Things live in the same places, and for the most part, it feels similar to Windows to use.

When it originally released, it didn't have an app store, but now it does. With Flatpak built in as standard, and the stock software 'store' you can pretty much install what you need without touching the terminal. The same goes for updates.

That includes Microsoft Edge, which is the same browser you'd get on Windows 11.

Of course, it's Linux, so it does have a terminal. But if you're a beginner, you don't have to suddenly become a command line pro in order to use AnduinOS.

What makes AnduinOS tick underneath

You won't find all your Windows apps, but you can find some of them.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

AnduinOS' mission statement reads as:

"AnduinOS is a custom Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that aims to facilitate developers transitioning from Windows to Linux by maintaining familiar operational habits and workflows."

It's doing this by using some of (though opinions always differ) the most beginner-friendly bits of Linux. Underneath it's Ubuntu, the place many new users start out, and the desktop environment is built using GNOME.

Ultimately it's easy to use, but also customizable, and should be stable. There are also two different versions, one an LTS with support until 2029, and one based on a more current rolling release.

The ISO for AnduinOS is also pretty darn small. Under 2GB small. It's not heavy on resources, either, so should be good on older and lower powered hardware. I've been trying it out in a modestly equipped VM, and it's been snappy and just an overall joy to use.

A great place to start with Linux

If you currently develop using VSCode on Windows, you can get straight on with it in AnduinOS, too.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

I really do feel like being built by someone who works at Microsoft has given AnduinOS a little extra credibility as an alternative to Windows.

It's easy to use, will run well on a huge range of hardware, and if you so desire, can be tweaked and extended accordingly.

Despite being built by a solo developer, too, the documentation is extensive and simple to follow if you want to get a little more out of your setup. Including gaming.

If you've been thinking of trying Linux, you could do a lot worse than trying AnduinOS first.

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New Outlook for Windows getting support for several new PST features

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 21:58:16 +0000

Last month, Microsoft put up a blog post praising its New Outlook for Windows while explaining how its new mail app was, in many ways, much better than the classic app. The company also acknowledged that it was lagging in some areas compared to classic Outlook but assured that more and more new useful features would be seen on New Outlook.

The company specified offline features as well as PST support. Following that, Microsoft has now confirmed that it is indeed adding several new PST features to New Outlook for Windows very soon.

For those who may not be familiar with them, Outlook PST (personal storage table) files are Microsoft's in-house data container files used by Outlook to store copies of mailbox items on the local computer. They hold email messages, calendar entries, contacts, tasks, and notes outside an Exchange Server or Office 365 account. PST files help enable offline access, personal archiving, and mailbox management, making them essential for backup and more.

Before we get into that, let's have a quick look at some of the PST additions that have already made their way to the new app.

In June 2025, Microsoft debuted the ability to favorite folders, check out Profile card details with a click. In regard to mailing, the tech giant also added support for replying and forwarding emails via a PST file.

Following those, right now, the company is working on exporting features for Mailbox including auto-export scheduling support as confirmed by recent Microsoft 365 (M365) roadmap entries. It writes:

With this update of support for .pst files (a.k.a. Outlook Data File) in the new Outlook for Windows, users will be able to schedule an export of an entire mailbox (emails, calendars, and contacts) or a specific mailbox folder to a .pst file.

Microsoft expects to roll this feature out in July 2025, although there can always be delays. For example, the non-auto exporting option was originally planned for launch in June itself but that has since been pushed back to August 2025. You can find the entry here under ID 485743 on the M365 roadmap.

Following export support, Microsoft also intends to add Import support as well. This will work with emails, calendars, and contacts. The company writes:

With this update of support for .pst files (a.k.a. Outlook Data File) in the new Outlook for Windows, users will be able to import emails, calendars and contacts from .pst file to mailbox.

These are intended for release around October 2025. You can find the entries under IDs 485740 and 486840 on the M365 roadmap.

Another PST feature that is also already being delayed is the option to forward emails as attachments. You can find the entry here under ID 485750. The company initially intended its rollout this July, but that has also been pushed out to August.

Source

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