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.

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.

"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 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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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.

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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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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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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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

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.

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Essentially, Storyline is a personal feed for individual employees to share updates, experiences, and work-related thoughts. It gives people a space to post content that is not tied to a specific team or channel, making it a kind of internal blog or social media wall built right into the app that many people are already forced to use every day.

The way it works is quite simple. Unlike a group chat where every message pings a whole team, these posts are tied to you as an individual. It operates a lot like LinkedIn, but it lives entirely inside your company's digital walls. There is also a dedicated page in your chat-with-self tab where all your past posts are collected, giving you one place to manage your feed.

And just as with regular social media, you can follow your coworkers and leaders to have their posts appear in your activity feed. This means you will see updates from people you choose to follow, not just from the teams you are a part of. You might see an update from a manager about a new company direction or a post from someone in a completely different department sharing a useful lesson they learned.

Of course, none of this works if your company does not turn it on. Getting started depends entirely on your organization's settings.

So, if your admin has enabled the feature, you should eventually get an option to make a "New storyline post" from the Chat tab, appearing right below the "New Message" button.

If you do not see it, you might have to go bother your IT department.

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Earlier this year, Microsoft announced real-time task notifications for the Project Manager agent in Planner in Teams. This lets you know when a task is finished and ready for review or when your input is needed for the agent to move forward. In this update, the Redmond giant is expanding this capability so that you get notified via email. This lets you keep up-to-date with what the agent is doing even when away from Teams.

Another new feature for the Project Manager agent, which is now in public preview, is the ability to generate status reports. For example, you can use this tool to auto-synthesize your plan’s progress, milestones, risks, and next steps, letting your whole team know what’s going on with the project. This is now available in public preview for English users, but additional languages will get it in the coming days.

The last Project Manager agent improvement is that it now supports more than 40 languages, bringing it up to par with Microsoft 365 Copilot - minus Arabic and Hebrew, until later this week. This will allow people outside of the English-speaking world to use Project Manager agent in their native language.

The final change to Planner doesn’t have anything to do with Project Manager agent, it’s a new bulk editing feature to help you boost efficiency. To use it just go to the Grid view of any basic plan and then set the tasks you want to update by selecting and dragging the tasks using the Ctrl + Up or Down arrows. You can use this to update multiple tasks at the same time, whether that be assign tasks, adjust priorities, update progress, or modify start and due dates.

Microsoft used this announcement to also remind users that from August 1, all users will be transitioned from Microsoft Project for the web to Microsoft Planner. Aside from retiring Project for the web, Microsoft will also retire the Project and Roadmap apps in Microsoft Teams. The company said no actions are necessary for this change as all licensing should carry over seamlessly.

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Microsoft's flagship operating system is in limbo as Windows 10 nears its "End of Life" date on October 14, 2025, and the company is using various promotions to convince users to upgrade to Windows 11 to protect them from the potential risks of running an unsupported PC. The cutoff date isn't new; in fact, Windows 10's demise was already considered "old news" when we covered it back in 2021.

However, as we're halfway through 2025, the month of October is creeping up, and Windows 10 fans are running out of options. Well, at least until Microsoft announced that its "Extended Security Updates" program would be free for anyone who syncs their Windows 10 PC settings data to the cloud via a Microsoft Account for support until 2026.

For anyone who prefers to use Windows without a Microsoft Account, the ESU program isn't really a viable option, but those Windows 10 users should be wary of an official "Stay secure with Windows 11" campaign (via PC Gamer) advertised on Microsoft's official Windows Experience blog. While it makes some valid points regarding "overall improved performance", there is a touch of truth-bending in one particular claim.

The OneNote for Windows application now supports Dynamic DPI (dots per inch). What this means is that you can use OneNote across any screen and it will scale according to the display's resolution, and you won't get a disconcerting and distracting blurring effect. You can extend your display to a high-resolution monitor and shift OneNote across displays without a hitch or any distraction. This is similar to the UX that is already present in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

This Dynamic DPI support not only extends to the main text area but also to the section tabs, the Notebooks pane, drop-down menus, and Copilot Notebooks. All of these should look crisp and polished moving forward, without any manual adjustment or even an app restart required from the user's side.

Microsoft has highlighted that it was encouraged to work on this capability after receiving user feedback from customers in this area. Dynamic DPI is now available to Current Channel (CC) customers on OneNote for Windows, running Version 2504 (Build 16.0.18827.20042) or later.

That's not all, though. Another smaller enhancement present in OneNote moving forward is a revamped setup experience when you launch OneNote on a new Windows device for the first time. You will now receive a list of your five most recently used (MRU) notebooks that will open instantaneusly with a click. If you have more than five notebooks, you can pick and choose the files that you want to open. That said, Microsoft is looking to expand and improve on this experience in the future since it is fairly limited right now.

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We'll start off with admin-facing capabilities since there are only a few of them. For starters, the usage metrics for Copilot in the Copilot Analytics tool now have new prompt categories that give more insights as to how users are engaging with Copilot. This feature has just begun rolling out, but another enhancement to the usage metrics that is already available is dedicated statistics for intelligent meeting recaps. Finally, Microsoft 365 admins can now view and manage their inventory of agents and connectors and also have more granular control over costs and billing policies.

On the user side of things, we have intelligent assistance in Copilot Chat, powered by ContextIQ. This layer of intelligence can scope prompts to internal (SharePoint, OneDrive) and external data sources, find files in the chat, and proactively offer relevant suggestions as you type. In the same vein, the Copilot mobile app is being updated so you can talk to the AI in a natural manner using your voice. In addition, users can also get access to deep reasoning agents such as Researcher and Analyst for more complex and research-oriented needs. The Create experience in the app is also being updated with the ability to generate stories and branded templates.

Other interesting Copilot capabilities rolling out to Edge customers are the ability to prompt the AI through the search bar, access agents from within the browser, and take advantage of Copilot's impressive text summarization capabilities. That's not all though, other features in tow include:

• Enhancements to Copilot in Outlook: Schedule meetings through Copilot chat, summarization of email attachments, a new sidebar experience in the classic Outlook app, meeting preparation, and automated meeting invite creation
• Improved image generation and large file handling in Copilot Chat: More photorealistic image generation with better text depiction, ability to generate longer summaries from bigger files, and PDF scanning capabilities for insights
• Memory in Copilot: Copilot will now remember certain items from your conversation and you can modify or delete them
• Transferred calls summary with Copilot in Teams Phone: Generate a summary of a call and transfer it to a target
• New file extension for Copilot Pages: Copilot Pages will now have .page extension with an updated file icon
• Copilot Notebooks availability in OneNote: We already covered this in detail here
• Seamlessly add brand-approved images with Copilot in PowerPoint: Integration of Copilot with SharePoint Organization Asset Library (OAL) and Templafy asset libraries
• Explain formulas on the grid with Copilot in Excel: Self-explanatory, exactly what it says on the tin
• Expanded availability for the Microsoft 365 Copilot app: Availability of the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Mac

You can read more details about each of the aforementioned features here.

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Microsoft has seemingly confirmed that Windows is losing market share, without specifically saying so. As pointed out by ZDNet, a recent blog post confirmed that Windows is currently in use on over a billion devices. Except, "over a billion" is actually significantly down over the previous number it shared in 2022, not too long after Windows 11 first debuted.

Back in 2022, Microsoft said Windows was in use on 1.4 billion devices, suggesting this most recent number is down enough that it can no longer say 1.4 billion. Of course, this could simply be a rounding oversight on Microsoft's part, or the company is using a different counting metric this time. But it does raise the question, are people really looking to abandon ship from Windows?

ZDNet suggests that with Windows 10's end of support approaching, many are choosing to throw away their old PCs instead of upgrading to a new one. More and more people don't actually need a PC anymore, with smartphones and tablets being more than enough for their personal lives. And for those who do need a PC, alternatives like Mac and ChromeOS are viable options for many in 2025. According to StatCounter, Windows has lost roughly 15% of its userbase in the last 10 years.

That's not to say people aren't upgrading to Windows 11, but since 2023 it feels like Windows as a platform has stagnated, which could play a part in the decline of users. There was a huge buzz around Windows between 2020 and 2023, with Windows 10X eventually morphing into Windows 11 and kickstarting a new era of the Windows desktop.

But this effort seems to have been abandoned midway through. There are parts of Windows 11 today that are still incomplete, with missing features and broken UX. Dark mode for example, a standard feature of all modern platforms, is basically outright broken on Windows 11. For whatever reason, Microsoft doesn't feel it's important to fix issues like this, instead prioritizing Copilot, AI, and enshittification across the board.

Copilot+ failed to boost the market

As Redmond explains in recent advisory updates, this bug affects Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems in environments with quality update deferral policies that enable admins to delay update installation on managed devices.

While update deployment delays are an expected result when using such policies, the wrong timestamp for the June security updates will postpone them beyond the period specified by administrators, potentially exposing unpatched systems to attacks.

"Some devices in environments where IT admins use quality update (QU) deferral policies might experience delays in receiving the June 2025 Windows security update," Microsoft explains. "Although the update was released on June 10, 2025, its update metadata timestamp reflects a date of June 20, 2025. This discrepancy might cause devices with configured deferral periods to receive the update later than expected."

While still investigating this known issue, Microsoft has provided Windows admins with several temporary workarounds to accelerate deployment for the June 2025 updates until a fix is available.

To achieve this, Redmond recommends creating an expedited deployment policy to bypass deferral settings and ensure that the updates are delivered immediately in organizations using Windows Autopatch. As an alternative, admins can modify deferral configurations or deployment rings to minimize the delay for impacted devices.

As detailed in a new Microsoft 365 Message Center advisory, this can be done by going through the following steps:

1. Go to Intune \ Devices \ Windows Updates.
2. Click on the Quality Updates Tab.
3. Click "Create Expedite Policy".
4. Select the 6B release, fill out other relevant details, and assign desired Entra groups.
5. Validate your update as normal and assign additional groups to the policy to finish rolling out the latest updates to your devices.

"This delay issue affects only the timing of update availability for organizations using QU deferral policies and doesn't impact the quality or applicability of the update," Microsoft added. "We will not change the metadata value from the current June 20, 2025, value. This workaround is the final resolution we will provide for this issue."

Earlier this month, Microsoft rolled out a configuration update (KB5062324) to address a known issue that caused update failures after the scan for Windows updates stopped responding on some Windows 11 systems.

In May, Redmond fixed another bug blocking Windows 11 24H2 feature updates from being delivered via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) after installing the April 2025 security updates.

One month earlier, it addressed what it described as a "latent code issue" that was causing some PCs to be upgraded to Windows 11 overnight despite Intune policies designed to block Windows 11 upgrades.

In May, the company also revealed that it aims to update all software on your PC via a new update orchestration platform built on top of the existing Windows Update infrastructure, a platform that aims to unify the updating system for all apps, drivers, and system components across all Windows systems.

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AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.6.3 optional driver is finally bringing FSR 4 support for Monster Hunter: Wilds, the Capcom-developed action RPG that released earlier this year. The title is well known for its performance issues, so the FSR update should help RX 9000 series owners get more frames without losing too much graphics fidelity.

Next, the driver also delivers FSR 4 for Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced. The expanded and enhanced version of the title featuring ray tracing and other features only hit the PC platform a few months ago, and now, latest-generation Radeon graphics users can use the upscaling tech to improve their frame rates.

AMD has also fixed an issue with FSR 4 in this release that made the technology not enable properly on a bunch of games. They include DragonKin: The Banished, Blades of Fire, RoadCraft, The Alters, Star Wars Outlaws, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.

A Black Myth: WuKong crash on the RX 7650 GRE GPU and a The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered texture corruption issue on the RX 9070 XT have also been resolved in this release.

Here are the known issues that AMD is still working on:

• Stutter may be observed while playing games with some VR headsets at 80Hz or 90Hz refresh rate on some AMD Radeon™ Graphics Products, such as the Radeon™ RX 7000 series. Users experiencing this issue are recommended to change the refresh rate as a temporary workaround.
• Intermittent system or application crashes may be observed while playing Cyberpunk 2077 on some AMD Radeon™ Graphics Products, such as the Radeon™ RX 7000 series and Radeon™ RX 9000 series.
• Intermittent application crash or driver timeout may be observed while playing Monster Hunter Wilds with Radeon™ Anti-Lag and Instant Replay enabled.
• Stutter may be observed while playing Call of Duty: Warzone Season 03 ‘Verdansk’ map on some AMD Graphics Products.
• Stutter and lower-than-expected performance may be observed while playing 4K resolution YouTube videos in Chrome. Users experiencing this issue are recommended to play videos in full screen as a temporary workaround.

The new AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.6.3 optional update is now available for download from the AMD Software app as well as AMD's own changelog page for the driver.

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The KClock app for KDE Plasma over the years has received a number of updates, like better integration with KRunner and a dedicated background service (kclockd) for managing alarms. Now, it looks like KDE devs want to add something cool: pop-out timers using the new Picture-in-Picture protocol for Wayland.

This all started from a simple observation. Kai Uwe Broulik, a KDE developer, saw someone using a small timer window during a presentation and thought it was a good idea. The problem is that achieving this kind of "always on top" behavior is handled differently between the old X11 display server and the newer Wayland.

With X11, an application could pretty much do whatever it wanted. If a program wanted to draw a drop-down menu, it would just create a borderless window, place it in a specific spot, and grab all user input. Wayland operates on a different philosophy.

As Broulik notes, under Wayland, the application describes what it wants, and the compositor gets to decide how to handle it. A drop-down menu is an XDG Popup. The application tells the compositor which button spawned it, and the compositor handles the placement and behavior.

This is much more secure and consistent. It also means an application cannot just decide to keep its window on top of everything else. This restriction prevents a web browser from implementing an overlay video player under Wayland.

To get around this in a standardized way, a proper Wayland support model for Picture-in-Picture, or PiP, was needed. Enter the xx-pip-v1 protocol. It is a new protocol designed specifically for creating floating PiP windows, and KWin, Plasma's compositor, recently gained support for it. Because it is an experimental protocol, its use is gated behind an environment variable, KWIN_WAYLAND_SUPPORT_XX_PIP_V1.

A new protocol is fine for demos, but it needs a real application to find its weaknesses. So Broulik implemented it in KClock. This work allows KClock to offer pop-out timers and even a pop-out stopwatch in a small PiP window.

The user could get system-wide options to control where the PiP window appears, or if it appears at all, and have that setting apply to every single application that uses the protocol. You can check out the merge request on GitLab for more technical details about this feature.

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Linux kernel development cycles usually see new features arrive in the two weeks after the previous release and then each week after that a new release candidate is pushed with fixes for the new features as well as existing features. The stable version arrives after seven or eight release candidates.

This week, Torvalds said that one-third of the changes were concerning file system updates with a significant focus on bcachefs, alongside some SMB and Btrfs fixes. Another third was driver updates, notably from reverts to device mapper due to some performance issues.

The final third of changes were miscellaneous changes including documentation updates, architecture fixes (LoongArch, UM, x86), selftests, and various other general fixes. As usual, Torvalds asked the community to carry on testing the kernel so that it’s in a better state when the stable version arrives.

Users will be able to get Linux 6.16 quite soon after it is released, especially those running bleeding edge Linux distributions like Arch and Fedora. If you’ve got some newer hardware that’s incompatible with Linux right now, be sure to test it out when Linux 6.16 arrives around the end of July to see if anything changes.

According to Phoronix, the Linux 6.16 kernel is expected to come with some significant hardware improvements including open-source driver support for Nvidia Blackwell and Hopper GPUs, and Intel Wildcat Lake processors.

While Torvalds has called for testers to try out the release candidate, it’s not straightforward to run a different kernel than what ships with your distribution, so don’t mess around with the release candidate on a production machine.

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Almost the entire web development community agrees that Oracle has done very little historically to support or promote the development of JavaScript. The only reason that it owns the trademark is that Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, which had previously acquired Netscape, the creator of JavaScript. This meant that trademark rights on the term transitively flowed through to Oracle.

However, this angers the web development community, and especially those who work on the open-source side of things. They believe that this trademark ownership creates legal uncertainties, especially since Oracle can potentially sue anyone for using the term for commercial purposes. For example, you may have heard about conferences for various technologies, but you have never heard of a "JavaScript Conference", because Oracle doesn't really care about the technology and people who do likely don't have permissions to hold such an event.

To take back control of the term for the benefit of the public, the creator of Node.js, Ryan Dahl, and the inventor of JavaScript, Brendan Eich, penned an open letter to Oracle to abandon the trademark and return it to the community. However, those efforts went in vain, so Dahl (who is also the creator of open-source JavaScript runtime, Deno) filed a cancelation petition against Oracle, claiming that the company had used fraudulent means to renew its trademark, the term is too generic to be trademark, and that the firm has actually abandoned it due to its inactivity in the space, so it shouldn't own the term anymore.

While Dahl was backed by the open-source and web development community at large, the case has been dealt a blow as the Node.js creator has informed the public that his claim about fraudulent behavior has been dismissed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). Although Dahl says that he disagrees with the decision, he is not amending the claim, as that would delay the process for the other two claims even further.

Dahl has emphasized that the heart of his petition is the other two claims, genericness and abandonment, and those still stand. He has noted that JavaScript is purely a programming language, not a brand or product of Oracle.

Despite this setback, those following this legal battle should know that Oracle will have to respond to Dahl's claims in detail on August 7. Following that, there will be a discovery process that will kick off on September 6. Dahl hopes that by winning this case or by Oracle conceding defeat and releasing the trademark, no one will have to worry about trademark symbols, litigation, or licensing fears when using the name of the programming language.

Over on Hacker News, where the forum thread regarding this topic has been gaining traction, the community has mostly voiced vehement support for Dahl's efforts but has expressed surprise over Oracle's continued stranglehold over the trademark, even though it seemingly does not benefit financially from it.

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A significant step forward is being made on Wayland session restoration; the xx-session-management-v1 restore protocol has been implemented in Qt 6.10, which means KDE applications and Plasma itself can soon start using it to finally bring proper session restore to Wayland.

For more immediate user-facing changes in Plasma 6.5, the Welcome Center application now teaches you about the many available keyboard shortcuts, as well as "what the heck the 'Meta' key is."

For those who frequently work remotely, Plasma's built-in RDP server now supports syncing clipboard text between the client and server. The clipboard also received another useful feature, letting you copy the QR code for an item, not just view it.

The team is also addressing smaller usability issues across the desktop, including fixes that will land in point releases for Plasma 6.4. Spectacle, for example, will no longer show a ghostly semi-transparent version of its menus in screenshots. The New! badge, which was introduced in Plasma 6.4 is now easier to read with better colors.

Other notable UI improvements include:

• A new button on the "missed notifications" pop-up that lets you view what you actually missed.
• The Networks widget is now much better at telling you what it is doing, like when it is "looking for wireless networks".
• Inertial scrolling with touchpads is now active in all QtQuick-based KDE software.

As always, the KDE team spent the week squashing bugs across various versions of Plasma and related software. Plasma 6.4.1, which went live this Tuesday, addressed several crashes in the desktop portal implementations and patched the open/save dialog, where apps could insert extra UI elements in the wrong places.

It also resolved a recent performance regression affecting some games and fixed a strange issue with drawing tablets where the pointer could disappear when two were connected in different modes.

6.4.1 tackled a particularly odd hardware-specific problem with Samsung Odyssey G5 monitors endlessly turning on and off because of a faulty DDC implementation. KDE responded by blacklisting the device.

In addition to that, the update fixed an accessibility regression in Discover, corrected an issue where deleting a favorited app left behind a ghost item you couldn't un-favorite, and restored the Window List widget's ability to minimize windows.

As for fixes planned for 6.4.2, here's the full list as outlined by the Plasma team:

• Fixed a case where System Settings' Flatpak App Permissions page could cause the whole app to crash.
• Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause Plasma to go back to sleep again right after waking up, when the "Sleep then hibernate" setting is in use.
• The appearance of text labels in Folder View pop-ups is once again correct.
• You're no longer erroneously prompted to authenticate for a Wireguard VPN whose credentials are already stored in KWallet, and the wallet is set up to automatically open at login.
• Fixed an issue in the KDE desktop portal's screenshot implementation that prevented the delay setting from taking effect.
• Missing app backends listed in Discover's Settings page once again show the correct names.
• The brightness level shown on System Settings' Display & Monitor page now matches the one shown in Plasma.
• Fixed an issue that caused the panel to have too much space in it until restarting Plasma if you stop displaying the date on a horizontally-laid-out Digital Clock widget.

The older Plasma 6.3.6 fixed video stuttering on variable-refresh-rate screens and patched the Weather Report widget after Environment Canada changed its data format.

You can check out the full update on the official KDE Blog.

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

These Dynamic Update packages are meant to be applied to existing Windows images prior to their deployment. These packages include fixes to Setup.exe binaries, SafeOS updates for Windows Recovery Environment, and more. Dynamic Updates also help preserve Language Pack (LP) and Features on Demand (FODs) content during the upgrade process. VBScript, for example, is currently an FOD on Windows 11 24H2.

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

KB5062233: Setup Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 24H2 and Windows Server 2025: June 26, 2025

 

Summary

 

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

 

...

 

KB5062197: Setup Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 22H2 and 23H2: June 26, 2025

 

Summary

 

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

Up next, we have the recovery updates:

KB5060843: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 24H2 and Windows Server 2025: June 26, 2025

 

Summary

 

This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment in Windows 11, version 24H2 and Windows Server 2025.

 

...

 

KB5061090: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 22H2 and 23H2: June 26, 2025

 

Summary

 

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

Microsoft notes that the Recovery updates will be downloaded and installed automatically via the Windows Update channel. The Setup updates, however, need to be downloaded and installed manually. You can avail them on Microsoft's Update Catalog website: KB5062233, KB5060843, KB5062197, and KB5061090.

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Mecha BREAK launches on July 1 on consoles and PC. This first-person shooter is set in a futuristic world where a newly-discovered material solves the energy crisis on Earth but also pollutes waste areas where only mechas can operate safely. If you plan to play Mecha BREAK on your Intel-based PC, grab today's driver for the optimal day-one experience.

Here is what was fixed:

Intel Arc B-Series Graphics Products:

• Returnal (DX12) may experience an application crash during gameplay with Ray-Tracing settings turned on.
• SPECapc for Maya 2024 may experience intermittent application freeze during benchmark.

Intel Core Ultra Series 2 with built-in Intel Arc GPUs:

• Valorant (DX11) may fail to enumerate supported resolutions in game settings.

Known issues are the same as in the previous driver (minus fixes above), except for Fortnite crashing when "Performance - Lower Graphical Fidelity" is selected as Rendering Mode. Intel recommends using the default DirectX12 rendering mode to mitigate the problem.

Intel 32.0.101.6913 WHQL supports 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 PCs with the following Intel processors and graphics cards:

You can download the driver from the official website here. Full release notes are available here (PDF).

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Back in 2022, we listed the top 10 features that people wanted in Microsoft Teams, and the Redmond tech did roll out some of them globally in the past years. Examples of those include the ability to use multi-tenant accounts and delete private messages.

Now, it's time to revisit the same topic in a similar fashion with a list of the top five requests. It is important to note that these feature requests highlighted below are based on the dedicated Feedback portal, are ranked by upvotes, and only include those which have not yet been fulfilled by Microsoft:

1. Enable us to move channels from one team to another (39,451 upvotes): This is similar to what was being requested back in 2022, but Microsoft is still ideating on how to implement this functionality. The item is still in the backlog and the scope and design of the solution are yet to be figured out, and the company is asking for further feedback and ideas in this area.
2. Include Office 365 group calendar (26,998 upvotes): Again a request carrying on from our previous coverage. At that time, Microsoft said that this feature is a priority for it and users will see incremental updates soon. However, the enhancement has now been deprioritized and has been entered in the consideration phase again. The effort to implement this solution would require cross-functional collaboration which doesn't seem to be possible right now, but Microsoft hasn't updated its response in two years.
3. Allow export of Teams chat history (13,685 upvotes): A similar request is present in our previous coverage, but Microsoft says that the ask is still under review, despite vehement support.
4. Enable conversations to move to different channels (13,540 upvotes): In our 2022 coverage, Microsoft suggested workarounds to implement this behavior and its response is almost the same right now. The company is still asking for feedback about why you would want this feature, and people aren't too happy with Microsoft's pace on the issue.
5. Enable access to email from left tab panel (12,265 upvotes): Interestingly, Microsoft has flat out declined this request after internal consideration.

That's all for now. It is great to see that many items from our 2022 have been completed and rolled out to customers but the feature requests in this list do indicate that Microsoft sometimes takes years to implement Teams functionality even when the demand is seemingly high. In fact, it can even decline highly-upvoted customer requests without providing detailed justification.

What feature do you think is still missing in Microsoft Teams? Let us know in the comments section below and let Redmond know your thoughts in the Feedback portal here!

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Another important thing worth noting is that build 26200.5670 is the first officially confirmed Windows 11 version 25H2 build. 25H2 is this year's Windows 11 annual feature update, and it is now properly communicated in Settings > System > About and in the winver dialog. Note that the Beta build is still based on version 24H2.

As for 1Password, customers who use this password manager can now enjoy a more seamless passkey experience. Windows Security will use passkeys stored in your 1Password and save new passkeys there as well. However, this change requires installing 1Password Beta for Windows 11.

Here are other changes included in today's builds that are rolling out gradually:

• [Voice access]
  • We are temporarily disabling support for Japanese to iron out a few more bugs.
• [Settings]
• In addition to the small changes that we made in the EEA region for default browsers via Settings > Apps > Default apps with Build 26200.5603, we’re also making this change:
  • The new default browser will be pinned to the Taskbar and Start menu unless you choose not to pin it by clearing the checkboxes.

    

• [File Explorer]
  • Fixed an issue which could cause File Explorer Home to crash (potentially also making File Explorer crash on launch, since Home is the default section for File Explorer).
  • Fixed an issue which could cause the thumbnail for a pinned favorite in Home to disappear.
• [Start menu]
  • Fixed an issue which was causing duplicate entries to appear when interacting with folders on the Start menu.
  • Fixed an issue where the folder expand animation wasn’t correct in some cases.
• [Input]
  • Fixed a high hitting ctfmon.exe crash in the latest flights, which could impact the ability to type.
• [Other]
  • Fixed a memory leak which could happen when lock screen was set to use a slide show, which could impact performance and reliability over time.
  • Did some more work improving how dialogs in the system react to increased text scaling, for example the “You must restart your computer to apply these changes” dialog should now support it.

Here are the fixes that are available to all:

• [General]
  • Fixed the issue causing the Windows Vista boot sound to play instead of the Windows 11 boot sound. Unfortunately the fix wasn’t completely working in the last Dev Channel flight.
• [File Explorer]
  • Fixed the issue causing File Explorer to not persist view changes after the last Dev Channel flight, including desktop icons.

And here is the list of known issues:

• [General]
  • [UPDATED!]When joining the Dev Channel on Windows 11, version 24H2 – you will no longer be offered Build 26200.5641 first and will be offered the most current update available in the Dev Channel.
  • [UPDATED!] When joining the Beta Channel on Windows 11, version 24H2 – you no longer will be offered Build 26120.4250 first and will be offered the most current update available in the Beta Channel.
  • [UPDATED!] Some Windows Insiders may experience a rollback trying to install this update with a 0x80070005 in Windows Update. We’re working on a fix for Windows Insiders impacted. If you are impacted, using Settings > System > Recovery > “Fix issues using Windows Update” may resolve the issue.
• [Start menu]
• The following are known issues for Windows Insiders with the new Start menu:
  • Using touch to navigate the new Start menu may not work reliably. For example, it currently does not support the swipe-up gesture.
  • Drag and drop capabilities are limited from “All” to “Pinned.”
• [Xbox Controllers]
  • Some Insiders are experiencing an issue where using their Xbox Controller via Bluetooth is causing their PC to bugcheck. Here is how to resolve the issue. Open Device Manager by searching for it via the search box on your taskbar. Once Device Manager is open, click on “View” and then “Devices by Driver”. Find the driver named “oemXXX.inf (XboxGameControllerDriver.inf)” where the “XXX” will be a specific number on your PC. Right-click on that driver and click “Uninstall”.
• [Click to Do (Preview)]
  • The following known issues will be fixed in future updates to Windows Insiders:
  • Windows Insiders on AMD or Intel™-powered Copilot+ PCs may experience long wait times on the first attempt to perform intelligent text actions in Click to Do after a new build or model update.
• [File Explorer]
• The following are known issues for AI actions in File Explorer:
  • Narrator scan mode may not work properly in the action result canvas window for the Summarize AI action for Microsoft 365 files when reading bulleted lists. As a workaround, you can use Caps + Right key to navigate.
• [Widgets]
  • Until we complete support for pinning in the new widgets board experience, pinning reverts you back to the previous experience.

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

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