Microsoft Edge could soon gain the option to disable all extensions with a single click. The option is in testing within Edge Canary, so it could be a while before it ships to everyone.

That is, of course, if it ships at all. As highlighted by Leo Varela (X user @Leopeva64), Microsoft tested similar functionality a few years ago but chose not to release it.

The new version of the feature differs slightly from the earlier test, but the functionality remains largely the same. When browsing any website, you can use the extensions menu to disable all extensions on that specific site.

Microsoft announced the "unified future for app updates on Windows" this week. The tech giant created the Windows Update orchestration platform to bring together app updates and other updates on your PC.

At the moment, apps, drivers, and other components are updated separately using different methods. This fragmented approach creates more work for IT admins and anyone who manages devices.

The current setup can also cause CPU usage spikes and other issues, which Microsoft outlines in a recent blog post.

"Updates across the Windows ecosystem can feel like a fragmented experience for IT admins managing applications that have their own update orchestrators (e.g., line of business) and commercial management tools that handle their own download, install, restart, and notifications today," said Microsoft.

"To solve this, we're building a vision for a unified, intelligent update orchestration platform capable of supporting any update (apps, drivers, etc.) to be orchestrated alongside Windows updates."

The newly announced Windows Update orchestration platform makes it possible to have app updates run through Windows Update. The platform is now in private preview.

Windows Update currently handles updates to Windows 11, some OEM updates, and certain drivers. The Windows Update orchestration platform will result in a more unified update experience for apps and drivers.

Microsoft has not released official word on the 24H2 issues. However, the tech giant confirmed today similar installation-related problems regarding Windows 11 22H2/23H2 KB5058405, which was released simultaneously with KB5058411 as part of the May 2025 Patch Tuesday.

The company notes that affected users will find that they will run into a "0xc0000098" hex error code in Windows recovery after the update fails to install. The error also reveals that the issue is related to a corrupt Windows ACPI.sys system driver. The ACPI or Advanced Configuration and Power Interface is part of the processor power management that helps control various power states (P-states and C-states) on Windows, meant to run a CPU efficiently.

Microsoft says that you may see the following error during recovery:

Your PC/Device needs to be repaired
The operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors.
File: ACPI.sys
Error code: 0xc0000098

Aside from the error confirmed by the Redmond giant itself, users online are running into other issues too, like one with "0x8007007e" code (via Reddit). Once again, Microsoft's guide does not help.

About the documented 0xc0000098 failure issues, Microsoft adds that home users are unlikely to run into such issues. The company has added that the problem is seen "primarily on devices running in virtual environments" like Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Virtual Desktops, and On-premises virtual machines hosted on Citrix or Hyper-V.

The issue is currently being investigated and thus no workaround as of such has been provided. You can find the issue here on Microsoft's official Windows health dashboard website.

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Microsoft also fixed a bug that caused pen input to stop responding on some PCs and another one that caused some apps like Spotify to fail at launch or when installing from the Microsoft Store (error 0xc80070032). Also, developers resolved system crashes with the SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED message and Group Policy Editor not rendering correctly on systems with certain languages like Chinese. That is pretty much everything that build 27868 has to offer.

Before you update, mind the following known bugs:

• [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”.
  • You may see an Administrative Templates error message when opening Group Policy Editor. If you click OK you should be able to proceed as normal.
  • We’re investigating an issue where the taskbar is unexpectedly not showing acrylic material after upgrading to this build.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue where audio devices with high sampling (like 192Hz) and multiple channels aren’t producing sound after upgrading to this build. Thanks Insiders that provided detailed information in your feedback!
  • [NEW] When Virtualization Based Security is enabled, applications dependent on virtualization, such as VMware Workstation, lose the ability to run unless the “Windows Hypervisor Platform” Windows optional component is installed on the system. Previously, installing the optional component was not required.
• [Task Manager]
  • Search and other options, such as filtering in Task Manager, do not work.

You can find the announcement post on the official Windows Blogs website.

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For starters, you can create a photo collage of up to six images using the Layout feature and arrange them in your preferred way. It's complemented by a new Photo Stickers feature that turns a photo into a custom sticker, which you can add to your status update. Again, you can edit, resize, or reposition a custom photo sticker directly from the Status post creation interface.

Just like Layout, Instagram's Add Yours sticker format is also making its way to WhatsApp Status. You can choose an image, write a prompt, and invite your friends to respond by sharing it as their WhatsApp Status with their take on the topic.

WhatsApp already lets you add music to status updates with photos or videos. Support for soundtracks, similar to Facebook and Instagram, was added to WhatsApp earlier this year. Now, it's building on the experience with a new tool to post Status updates focused entirely on a particular song. You can share a song as your status or turn that song into a sticker and add it to a separate status post.

You can try out these new features when they arrive on your Android or iOS device. WhatsApp Status is like the Stories feature on Instagram; it disappears after 24 hours of posting. It's accessible via the Updates tab in the WhatsApp app.

The new features have arrived just days after WhatsApp launched its native app for iPad. In recent updates, WhatsApp has also added a new Advanced Chat Privacy feature designed to keep conversations within the instant messaging app.

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The reasons for the change are to do with the underlying release processes that go on behind the scenes. The company said that over the last 20 years, it has developed a release process with various safeguards, but it’s mostly a manual process that requires the input of seasoned Ubuntu veterans.

Canonical has recently put together the Canonical Ubuntu Release Management Team which will work with the Ubuntu Release Team, composed of the veterans, to develop a new process for releasing Ubuntu versions. The snapshot releases are designed to give the new team a better understanding of the existing processes.

The company said that these monthly snapshot releases for Ubuntu are not fully-fledged releases but curated, testable milestones from the development stream. It’s also important to clarify that Ubuntu is not moving to monthly releases or adopting a rolling release model. For the meantime, Canonical is committed to its six-monthly releases with a Long Term Support (LTS) release every two years.

For anyone out there who likes to get their hands dirty trying the latest development versions of Ubuntu, these snapshots will give you more stuff to try out. For average Ubuntu users, snapshots allow more people to try out Ubuntu releases during development and this could lead to less buggy Ubuntu public releases if more issues are detected during development.

You can get snapshot 1 now from Canonical.

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[Calendar flyout]

 

• Brings back the clock view that displays seconds onto the calendar that was once removed.
• Enhances the Rich Calendar feature by extending the upcoming events period to 30 days.
• Adds description text for the Weather button in the Rich Calendar feature.

 

[GDI/GDI+]

 

• Fixed: Some GB18030-2022 characters in plane 2 are not rendered.
• Fixed: Some GB18030 characters are rendered wider. Additionally, the sample paragraph is not rendered correctly.

 

[Mobile Operator Profiles]

 

• Updated: Country and Operator Settings Asset (COSA) profiles are updated.

 

[WinSaS]

 

• Fixed: An issue affecting the Windows Account Sync Consent system in European Economic Area markets, where secondary accounts were not acknowledged, leading to increased server load.

Known issues only include one bug that causes Noto fonts to appear blurry in Chromium-based browsers on systems with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean localizations.

You can download KB5058481 in Settings > Windows Update. The update is optional, so you need to download it manually. Alternatively, get it from the Microsoft Update Catalog. The support article for KB5058481 is available here.

If you are on Windows 11, you can check out details about its non-security updates here (version 23H2 and 22H2) and here (version 24H2).

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Today's update brings some updates to Click to Do. It now offers text actions on AMD and Intel-powered systems and a new "Ask Copilot" action. Also, Click to Do is now available in the European Economic Area with support for Spanish and French. If you use Click to Do often, you can now assign it to your stylus' shortcut button.

Copilot improvements include the ability to personalize the Win + C shortcut and the Copilot key, and hold those buttons to talk to Copilot. Windows Search now lets you find various settings using natural language on Copilot+ PCs, and Narrator can generate detailed image descriptions (again, only on Copilot+ PCs).

KB5058499 introduces some Settings improvements. The operating system now allows you to stream HDR video even when HDR is turned off and to toggle Dolby Vision independently of HDR. The System > About section now features an FAQ section about your PC's specs. The printer rename UI now matches the rest of Windows 11's visuals, and more mouse settings made their way from the Control Panel to the Settings app (Accessibility > Mouse > Mouse pointer and touch).

Here is the list of what was fixed (gradual rollout):

• [Audio] Fixed: The startup sound might not play on boot, although it is enabled.
• [Bluetooth] Fixed: Settings might stop responding when loading information about Bluetooth devices.
• [Camera] Fixed: Settings might stop working when interacting with content under Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Cameras.
• [Display] Fixed: Unexpected changes to screen size and window position might occur after waking from sleep for some devices.
• [File Explorer] Fixed: If you have disconnected network drives while conducting a search from Home, it might prevent searches from executing and you remain on Home.
• [Input]
  • Fixed: Voice typing won't start from the touch keyboard when using the Chinese (Simplified) narrow layout.
  • Fixed: When using the Symbols section of the touch keyboard, pressing the key to change pages might unexpectedly insert a character into password fields.
  • Fixed: Typing in some apps might stop working after disconnecting from a remote desktop session.
• [JPG] Fixed: When using CopyPixels the pixels may be unexpectedly inverted in certain cases.
• [Microsoft Management Console (MMC)] Fixed: Improved the colors used in MMC when items are selected, both generally, and when contrast modes are enabled.
• [Print] Fixed: Non-admin users can't uninstall printers that they’ve added.
• [UHF Tuning] Fixed: Tuning scan for UHF channels doesn’t work, and only VHF channels are returned.
• [USB] Fixed: Certain USB devices might become disconnected after sleep, until you reboot your PC.
• [Windows Hello] Fixed: When using Windows Hello for Business facial recognition, the camera might unexpectedly stop working after your PC wakes from sleep, blocking login using this method.

The following fixes are rolling out "normally":

• [BitLocker] Fixed: This update addresses an issue where devices with BitLocker on removable drives could encounter a blue screen error after resuming from sleep or hybrid-booting.
• [Boot menu screens] Fixed: This update addresses the issue where early boot screens, such as BitLocker PIN, BitLocker Recovery key, and boot menu screens, render slowly.
• [Graphics kernel] Fixed: An issue where some game titles become unresponsive after upgrading to 24H2.
• [Memory leak] Fixed: This update addresses an issue in the Input Service that causes increased memory usage, potentially impacting performance in multi-user, multi-lingual, and remote desktop usage.
• [Multimedia] Fixed: If you turn on multi-app mode or basic camera mode in advanced camera settings, the Windows Hello Face Enrollment might not work and show a bad camera preview.
• [Network] Fixed: This update addresses an issue where Windows Server 2025 always shows the network as "public" on new domain controllers. It now checks for a domain controller name before using loopback addresses to ensure proper Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) binding.

Known issues only include one bug that causes Noto fonts to appear blurry in Chromium-based browsers on systems with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean localizations.

You can download KB5058499 from Windows Update. The release is optional, so you need to click "Download and install manually." Alternatively, get the update from the Microsoft Update Catalog. The complete changelog is available here.

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Bloomberg reports that on June 9, at WWDC 2025, Apple will unveil iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, macOS 26, and tvOS 26, a radical upgrade from the current iOS/iPadOS 18, watchOS 12, macOS 15, etc. The idea is to streamline the naming and eliminate the confusion of having different OS numbers across the device portfolio.

Although the current year is 2025, Apple is adopting the +1 approach, similar to how car manufacturers release their new vehicles or how Electronic Arts updates FC (formerly FIFA). Samsung did the same in 2020, when it launched the Galaxy S20 lineup, the successor to the Galaxy S10, which was released the year before. Therefore, in 2026, expect the announcement of iOS 27, macOS 27, you get the idea.

Apple declined to comment on these rumors, like it usually does in most cases. However, a big naming change seems fitting in light of rumors about the company preparing big design overhauls for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and other operating systems. Should the rumor be true, it would be the biggest naming shakeup in iOS history. While iOS experienced big naming changes in the past (iPhoneOS to iOS and iOS to iPadOS on iPads), its versions followed the strict numerical progression. Now, however, Apple appears to be ready to make a leap and jump from iOS 18 to iOS 26.

Still, nothing beats the upgrade from Windows 95 to Windows 2000.

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In a blog post, the company revealed that Google Photos now stores over 9 trillion photos and videos. The app is used by over 1.5 billion people every month, who make more than 370 million searches, edit 210 million photos, and share 440 million memories.

Google Photos has got a redesigned editor with, of course, AI baked in. It provides helpful suggestions and puts different editing tools in one place for easier access. You can find tools like Reimagine and Auto Frame alongside controls like brightness and contrast.

The revamped editor throws AI suggestions that combine multiple effects for quick edits. You can also tap on specific parts of an image to get suggestions to edit that area. It will roll out to Android users globally next month and to iOS devices later this year.

Another feature that is now rolling out is an improved sharing experience. You can share albums instantly by generating QR codes in the app. Other people can scan the QR code to view or add photos to the shared album. This builds on top of the existing experience on Google Photos, where users can generate a link to share albums with countless photos and videos at once.

Turning a few pages in tech history, Google Photos was introduced as a standalone app in 2015 and eventually became Google's primary photo management solution for Android users. It was a spin-off of the Photos feature in Google+, which was shut down in the same year.

Google Photos was available for Android, iOS, and web from the start, and took a cloud-first approach to help users free up their local storage. It automatically backed up and synced photos and videos to the cloud, making them available across other supported devices that the users had.

The search giant has previously made efforts to improve the sharing experience and media transfer to rival platforms. Moreover, Google promoted the app by offering unlimited original uploads with early Pixel devices and unlimited high-quality uploads for other users. AI-powered features began to appear on Google Photos in later years, including Magic Eraser, Magic Editor, Ask Photos assistant, and the ability to identify AI-generated photos.

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This ambition is bold, especially since Windows Update already has its issues, like the infamous 0x80070643 error many saw with WinRE updates, last March, when an update caused USB printers to print gibberish, or even when an update mistakenly uninstalled Copilot for some. That last one was probably more of a feature for some. The company says this new system is "built on the Windows Update stack". It will allow app developers to plug their updates into this central manager using new APIs and PowerShell commands.

App developers or those managing updates will need to register their software with the new orchestrator. As part of that, they will point the system to an executable that can scan for their app's new updates. Then, they use APIs to tell the orchestrator about any available updates, including details like the update's name, version, what kind of package it is, if a restart is needed, and any deadlines for managed devices.

If an app is not a neat MSIX or APPX package, say a regular Win32 app, developers can also provide executables to handle the download and installation, and even offer scripts to close and reopen apps that might block the update. Once all that information is handed over, the orchestrator is meant to intelligently schedule the downloads and installations, and flash those familiar Windows Update notifications when input is needed. The app then has to report back if the update succeeded or failed, so the system can try again if necessary.

The potential upsides sound good on paper: smarter scheduling that considers whether you are actually using your PC, and a single place for update history in Settings. For developers, this means they might not have to build and maintain their own update systems.

For now, this is in private preview, so it is still early days, and Microsoft says that if you want to join, you'll need to reach out to unifiedorchestrator@service.microsoft.com.

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The company explained that developers and IT product teams can onboard their updates to this new orchestration platform via Windows Runtime (WinRT) APIs or PowerShell commands after joining the private preview by contacting unifiedorchestrator@service.microsoft.com.

After registering as an update provider, the orchestrator will regularly run an update scan tool supplied during the registration process to discover pending updates. The orchestrator then queues downloads and updates at optimal times to minimize CPU and bandwidth spikes while also considering user activity, power status, and network conditions.

Under this new update model, it will also handle restart requirements, notification deadlines, and rescheduling of failed operations without requiring developers to build a custom scheduling or logging solution.

"Updates across the Windows ecosystem can feel like a fragmented experience. To solve this, we're building a vision for a unified, intelligent update orchestration platform capable of supporting any update (apps, drivers, etc.) to be orchestrated alongside Windows updates," Microsoft said.

"Built on the Windows Update stack, the orchestration platform aims to provide developers and product teams building apps and management tools with an API for onboarding their update(s) that supports the needs of their installers."

Currently in private preview

Microsoft's new update orchestration platform is now in private preview for developers or anyone who builds apps or management tools for updates, and it supports applications packaged as MSIX, APPX, or traditional Win32 installers.

Onboarding offers several key benefits, including a consistent notification experience through native Windows Update dialogs and centralized app update history in the Settings app together with official Windows updates.

"Built on the Windows Update stack, the orchestration platform aims to provide developers and product teams building apps and management tools with an API for onboarding their update(s) that supports the needs of their installers," Microsoft added.

"The orchestrator will coordinate across all onboarded products that are updated on Windows 11, in addition to Windows Update, to provide IT admins and users with a consistent management plane and experience, respectively."

This new initiative adds to Redmond's Winget Windows package manager and Microsoft Store, as well as third-party package managers like Chocolatey and Scoop, which can also be used to install, manage, and update applications on Windows systems.

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Fences 6 introduces tabs, a feature that allows you to place multiple fence groups together in a tabbed experience for a modern layout. And with the ability to dynamically add, remove, and apply color to a tab, Fences 6 continues to raise the bar as the best desktop organizational tool for Windows.

Also new in Fences 6 is the ability to apply a color tint (here is a partial tint example) to all the icons on your desktop. This simple but innovative feature allows you to apply a color expression for all your desktop icons to create a stylistic and distraction-free layout or to help any individual Fence stand out. And combined with many of the quality-of-life updates like improved navigation for Folder Portals™, Fences 6 is another significant step forward for functionality and personalization.

Fences is used by thousands of businesses, from healthcare to law offices and finance organizations. To help these businesses deploy organized dashboards of desktop icons, Fences 6 for Business adds advanced tooling to create templated deployments with multiple configurations ready out of the box. And with Stardock also offering customized deployment configurations with each enterprise rollout, Fences 6 is the most configurable, deployable, and scalable version of Fences ever.

Top New Features in Fences 6:

• Tabs let you stack a fence on-top of each other for a modern workflow.
• Icon tint allows you to apply a color expression to all of your desktop icons to personalize your desktop and reduce distractions.
• A new color picker tool makes it easy to pick the perfect color a Fence group or icon tint color.
• Folder Portal navigation has been overhauled to provide a more natural workflow.
• Full Arm support means that Fences 6 is ready for the newest generation of devices powered by ARM CPUs.
• And many quality-of-life improvements like the ability to apply color to a tab for easy recognition, updates to quick hide, and a lot more.

"Fences 6 is our biggest leap forward for the productivity tool," said Brad Sams, General Manager of Stardock Software. "Fences is widely recognized as the best way to organize your desktop and with the new features in Fences 6, it is now the best tool for managing not only your desktop but every desktop within your organization.”

The Fences 6 is available today, starting at $9.99 and is also included in the award-winning Object Desktop package. Object Desktop includes programs such as Start11, Groupy, SoundPackager, DeskScapes and Multiplicity.

Disclaimer: Neowin's relationship to Stardock

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New features can be pretty subjective for users in terms of how much of an impact they have on the user’s experience. If you like using a smaller search engine, like Ecosia, then one major update you’ll like in Firefox 140 Beta is the ability to add custom search engines.

To add a custom search engine in this release, right-click a search field of a supported website and select Add Search Engine. Alternatively, you can go to Settings > Search > Add (below the search shortcuts table) to manually enter a search URL.

Another new item in this release is the ability to remove the Firefox Extensions button from your toolbar. When you hide the button, you can access the extensions panel again at any time from the Firefox menu by clicking the Extensions menu item.

Some less notable changes, but present in the release notes nonetheless are improvements to vertical tabs allowing you to keep more pinned tabs in view by dragging the divider to resize your pinned tabs section. There is also now a “Select All” option for bookmarks in Firefox for Android.

Finally, for users concerned about the resources being taken up by tabs, Firefox 140 Beta gives you the option to unload tabs by right-clicking on a tab and selecting “Unload Tab”. If any heavy tabs are slowing your computer down, you can use this feature to get your speed back.

If you want to try out Firefox 140 Beta now, just head over to this page on the Firefox website.

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A promo video attached to the post also revealed what features Grok will bring to Telegram. The service will be integrated into the search bar, allowing you to ask Grok about something without switching apps. Customers will also get a dedicated chat with Grok with a threaded experience to keep different topics and conversations separate.

Smart Text Editing with Grok will let you generate and rewrite text, summarize long messages, entire chats, and documents, get insights about links, and more. Also, Grok AI will be able to moderate group chats, run business chats, and fact-check posts in channels. Of course, no modern AI goes without generative "creativity," so Grok in Telegram will be able to generate static and animated stickers and avatars.

Durov revealed that his partnership with xAI will secure $300 million in cash and equity. The two companies will also equally split revenue from xAI subscriptions sold within Telegram.

Pavel Durov and Telegram are known for pedaling online privacy, but details about the privacy aspect of the Telegram-xAI partnership are currently unknown. When a user asked whether Telegram plans to send data to xAI for training, Durov responded, "No, this has not been discussed."

In another post, Durov announced that Telegram Premium now has over 15 million paid subscribers, and this number doubled in just one year.

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Since this is an OOB which is essentially a sort of hotfix to resolve a major bug, it does not contain a long list of changelog. Microsoft only notes the single fix it brings. It writes:

This non-security update includes quality improvements. When you install this update:

• [Hyper-V Platform] Fixed: An issue in the direct send path for a guest physical address (GPA) where confidential virtual machines running on Hyper-V with Windows Server 2025 might intermittently stop responding or restart unexpectedly, affecting service availability and requiring manual intervention. This issue primarily affects Azure confidential VMs.

Microsoft notes no known issues with this release.

This is the third emergency OOB update that Microsoft has shared this month. First it released KB5061258 for Windows 11 LTSC 2024, and following that it issued one for Windows 10 under KB5061768.

The KB5061977 update is only available for downloading manually from the Update Catalog website. You can grab it here.

Microsoft has provided detailed installation instructions for it on the support article here.

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For those unfamiliar, Notion is a popular all-in-one productivity app for note-taking, project management, collaboration, document and knowledge base organization, to-do lists, and a lot more. It is available across all popular platforms, on the web, and now, in the Microsoft Store. This makes the store more attractive to users by providing quick and easy access to all your favorite apps from a single, trusted source, without the need to go through multiple websites in the browser.

The arrival of Notion and other popular applications is the result of Microsoft's continuous efforts to improve its app store and make it appealing to developers and customers. At Build 2025, Microsoft announced the latest batch of improvements, which include the ability to directly update Win32 applications, a zero-fee entry for individual developers (you are no longer required to pay $19 to create a developer account), various enhancements for app metrics, and, at long last, the ability to check the last update date for apps in the Microsoft Store.

You can download Notion from the Microsoft Store using this link. Curiously, the listing shows that the app requires a minimum of 8GB of RAM, while the official system requirements only list Windows 10 version 21H2 and newer.

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The new release brings improvements for the Settings app with a new FAQ page related to system information. Aside from this, Widgets on the Lock screen have also received new customization options. Speaking of more customization, Taskbar app pinning has also improved with new options for Admins. Copilot key customization is here, too.

The full release notes are given below:

[Copilot]

• New! You can open Copilot on Windows with Win + C. You can personalize your Copilot key and Win + C experience at any time with the existing “Customize Copilot key on keyboard” under Settings > Personalization > Text input. For Enterprise users, see Updated Windows and Microsoft 365 Coplot Chat experience.

• New! To start Press to talk with Copilot on Windows, hold the Copilot key—or Win + C if your keyboard doesn’t have one—for two seconds. Press Esc or stay silent for a few seconds to end the call. Use Alt + Spacebar to talk with Copilot on Windows. You can interact with Copilot using your voice and receive instant responses while continuing your tasks.

• [Search on Taskbar] Improved support for web search providers in Windows Search for the European Economic Area (EEA), including with increased discoverability.

• [Settings] New! Find answers to commonly asked questions about your PC and Windows 11 in the new FAQs section under Settings > System > About page. It covers topics like system setup, performance, and compatibility—all in one place.

• [Taskbar] New! Admins can configure taskbar policies so users can unpin specific apps, ensuring they are not repinned during the next policy refresh. To turn on this feature, use the new PinGeneration option.

• [Widgets] New! There are some new updates to the new Widgets on Lock experience for devices in the EEA. In addition to accessibility and craftsmanship improvements, the Lock screen weather widget now supports customization. To configure your weather widget, go to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen and select the “Customize widget” option from the weather widget more options menu. More widgets will be customizable in the future.

• [Windows Share] New! When you drag a local file from File Explorer or your desktop, a tray appears at the top of your screen. Drop the file into a suggested app or select More to open the Windows share window.

• [Input]

  • Fixed: Voice typing won't start from the touch keyboard when using the Chinese (Simplified) narrow layout.

  • When using the Symbols section of the touch keyboard, pressing the key to change pages might unexpectedly insert a character into password fields.

• [Voice access] Fixed: Voice access might stop responding with error “working on it” when dictating.

   

Microsoft notes one known issue for the release wherein Noto fonts are broken on systems with certain languages.

To download the optional update, head over to Windows Settings > Update & Security and select Check for Updates, and it should be available for download in the Optional Updates area. Alternatively, manual downloading can also be done from the Microsoft Update Catalog website here. The official support article can be viewed here on Microsoft's official website.

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There is never a time I consider perfect for updating your system.

Even if absolutely no issues were reported with updates, there might be side effects of the updating process itself.

But for now, for both consumers and businesses, it’s appropriate to lower the MS-DEFCON level to 4. I recommend installing updates.

How do you protect yourself from side effects? At the risk of sounding like a very broken record, there are three things you can do. First, always have that backup in place. Second, wait it out until you’re confident that all the issues with the updates themselves have been identified and sorted out. Finally, have another PC you can use to identify solutions — just in case your primary one gets in trouble.

Yesterday, I discussed some of the major items we are tracking this month. The one that grabbed the most headlines concerned Windows 10. Despite the news hype, the issue where the installation of KB5058379 would trigger a recovery boot — which in turn would trigger a request for the BitLocker recovery key — occurs only on PCs with an Intel vPro processor, 10th-generation or later. If that matches your situation, install KB5061768; you will need to manually download this from the catalog site, because it’s not handled by Windows update. Otherwise, you need take no action.

Consumers

In addition to installing security updates, it’s also a good time to consider installing the Windows 11 24H2 feature release if you have not already done so.

If updates are paused and you used InControl to keep your PC on 23H2, remember that InControl blocks only feature releases, not security updates. To fully control security updates and the feature releases offered to you, you must utilize a combination of both InControl and pausing updates via Windows update settings or with a tool such as wumgr.

Those of you with iPhones and iPads should also check your update status. Apple released iOS 18.5 and is performing a slow roll-out on systems. On the iPhone, it includes security updates. The 18.5 update allows users to easily access the All Mail inbox. You can more easily toggle between categorized inboxes and your complete email list. By the way, I have yet to find anyone who likes the categorized inbox. In fact, I’ve had several users complain that they can’t find an email. So then I point out that it’s really there — it’s just hiding in their new, filtered view. For those of you with older, 12.9-inch and 10.5-inch second-generation iPad pro devices and iPad sixth-generation, Apple released iOS 17.7.8.

Businesses

For businesses, 24H2 is still a mixed bag. I’ve seen several administrators indicate that they were still keeping 24H2 at bay and would not install it until it becomes absolutely necessary for support purposes. Many have complained about the loss of Internet access after updating. One solution is to remove the WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service (WinHttpAutoProxySvc) from dependency.

If you are in the process of rolling out Server 2025 as a Remote Desktop server and need the ability to print to PDF inside certain business applications, such as QuickBooks, be aware that Server 2025 isn’t exactly like Windows 11. Normally, you can fix this error in Windows 11 by going into Turn Windows features on or off and enabling the Microsoft XPS Document Writer. But if you attempt to do the same thing on Server 2025, you will find that option does not exist.

So how do you solve this problem? — By stealing the file from a Windows 11 machine and placing it onto Server 2025. This workaround is documented in a Microsoft Tech Community post.

Resources

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In its current state, Windows 11's only option to customize the widgets experience is "Weather and more", which displays the weather info, some random news headlines, a stocks widget, and a couple of other widgets. The only other choice that users have is to disable the experience completely, which is what many users do, because they do not like the default widgets or the content that they display.

This is changing, Microsoft has announced a new Lock Screen experience for testers that will allow you to select what widgets appear on the screen. In order to do this, you will need to change some options under the Settings > Personalization > Lock screen. Essentially, you can choose to add new widgets, or remove existing widgets to declutter the lock screen, That's not all that's changing, Windows 11 also lets you rearrange the widgets. Microsoft says that these options will be available for the following widgets: Weather, Watchlist, Sports, Traffic, and more.

The official announcement says that "Any widget that supports the small sizing option can be added here.", which likely means that third-party widgets will be supported.

While we are on the topic of Widgets, Microsoft is also making a change to the Widgets board that you can access from the Windows 11 Taskbar. This panel now supports multiple dashboards, to allow users to add as many widgets as they want. The widgets board has a new navigation bar on the left, using which you can switch between multiple boards.

The changes to the lock screen widgets experience is currently rolling out to users in the Windows Insider Program, and have opted in to the Beta channel. It won't be long before these features make their way to the stable release of Windows 11.

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With Firefox 139.0, the browser can now translate extension pages that start with the moz-extension:// scheme. Mozilla says this feature has been a popular request from users, and it is now finally delivering it, allowing everyone to translate extension pages.

Next are the new customization options for the new tab page. You can now set custom wallpapers by uploading your own images for the new tab page. Also, the browser allows picking any custom color for the background. Finally, Mozilla added a new "Celestial" wallpaper category. Note that new tab page wallpaper features are rolling out gradually, but you can turn them on right away by heading to Firefox Labs.

Link Previews (on the screenshot) is a new experimental feature that you can turn on in Firefox Labs. It allows you to preview a page and get a short AI-generated summary by hovering the cursor over a link and pressing Alt + Shift.

Other changes and fixes in Firefox 139.0 include the following:

• PNG images with transparency now keep their transparency when pasted into Firefox.
• The upload performance of HTTP/3 has been significantly improved, particularly on resumed connections (QUIC 0-RTT) and high-bandwidth and high-delay connections.

• Due to recent changes in how Chrome encrypts user data on Windows, the Firefox migration wizard can no longer directly import payment methods or passwords from Chrome. However, users can still export passwords from Chrome to a CSV file and then import them into Firefox using the migration wizard or the password manager.

• The Review Checker feature is shutting down and will no longer be available after June 10, 2025.

   

Security fixes in Firefox 139.0 are available here. Enterprise Release Notes are available here, and Developer Information is available here.

You can update Firefox by heading to Menu > Help > About Firefox. Alternatively, get the browser from the official website or the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 and 11. Full release notes for version 139 are available here.

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Josh Miller, the CEO of The Browser Company, has published a Letter to Arc members, explaining why the app is being shuttered. Arc was created as an Internet Computer that was designed for work, personal life, as an all-in-one browser. Miller says that Arc failed due to a "novelty tax" problem, it did not manage to retain users primarily because it differed too much from a traditional browser. Its interface was different, and the whole workflow was unique, users were not willing to put in the effort to re-learn how to browse, or even to switch to another browser. When I wrote about it 2 years ago, I pointed out that Arc has a learning curve, and that it could deter users. Apparently, the browser's key features like Spaces, Live Folders, Calendar Preview were barely used.

Miller says that his company began working on Dia, a simpler browser. It will get rid of Arc's bloat, and use familiar interfaces. Dia is also touted as a lightweight, snappy, responsive app. The most important thing here is that Dia will integrate an AI. Who would have guessed?

Miller claims that traditional browsers will die, in favor of AI-powered features. He goes on to say that web pages consisting of apps, articles, files will become tools that can be accessed with AI chat interfaces which are basically like browsers. Are they? Dia will act as an AI agent that is also your web browser.  He also highlighted that security is a priority for Dia.

One more thing that is worth mentioning here is that Miller had stated that it wouldn't be possible to open source Arc's codebase, because it isn't merely a fork of Chromium, it uses a custom infrastructure called Arc Development Kit (ADK), and that it was the company's secret sauce. ADK is also the foundation of Dia, so it won't be open sourced, not now anyway. This explanation was met with criticism from fans who would rather see the project live on with the help of contributors. Shortly after, when a user proposed a community-run Arc, Miller said he was open to the idea, for which was once again criticized because he had just rejected the notion. I would like to point out that The Browser Company was valued at $550 million in March 2024. It is possible that the company is keeping a closed lid on the source code due to its investors, even though they are claiming otherwise.

Naturally, Arc users were far from pleased to hear about the news about the browser's discontinuation, and have criticized the whole idea. There is absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel here, it would have been better to simplify Arc, i.e. declutter it. But no, the answer is AI.

There you have it, folks. AI is going to solve everything! That's exactly what Microsoft did with Edge and Copilot, Google is adding Gemini AI to Chrome. ChatGPT and Perplexity may be the cool new toys now, but they can't replace a traditional browser or app. There is one lesson that none of these companies have learned, not everyone wants to use an AI, not every task needs an AI!

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The development of Linux 6.16 will begin today when the merge window opens, so it won’t be long until we start getting release candidates for that version. Things could get off to a slow start on Monday, however, because in the US it’s memorial day and people may be taking a break, but the merge window will still open - with Torvalds saying: “but like the USPS, “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” - nor memorial day - stops the merge window.” Except last year, when an ice storm during winter did stop the merge window.

Hardware updates

In terms of specific hardware support mentioned in this week’s log, we have:

• HP ZBook laptops: Improved micmute LED functionality.
• Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 14ASP10: A new quirk to address specific hardware behavior.
• Dell Chrome platform laptops: Restoration of auto-mute mode.
• HP Agusta laptops: New support for the CS35L41 HDA audio chip.
• Marvell uDPU: Definition of pinctrl state for alarm LEDs.
• Allwinner H6: A revert related to its PMIC connection.
• Intel Arrow Lake U/H NPU: A fix for its PCI ID within the power management controller.
• Fujitsu Lifebook S2110: Added support for hotkeys.
• Rockchip RK3576: New clock definitions and a power-down workaround for its SDHCI controller.

Software updates

On the software side of things, this week saw Bcachefs get some updates related to casefolding, improving case-insensitive directory support. For those that don't know, Bcachefs is a newer file system introduced in 2015 for Linux that aims to compete with ZFS and Btrfs on features, while delivering the speed and performance of ext4 and XFS. As for casefolding, this is a process that converts your searches into lowercase when searching case-insensitive file systems, this week's enhancements ensure this is more reliable.

There are improvements to io_uring which could lead to better network performance, the memory management (mm) subsystem has received a bunch of updates that include fixes and performance enhancements, including refinements for buffer handling and protections against some memory vulnerabilities.

If you want to read about this week’s fixes in detail, you can check out the entry over on LKML.

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For those wondering, Microsoft debuted Smart App Control (SAC) with the release of Windows 11 version 22H2 in September 2022. And in a new article, Microsoft has shared several advantages of it over traditional antivirus software.

One of those, according to Microsoft, is the inherent advantage Smart App Control offers in terms of performance over the typical AV application. The tech giant explains how constant background scanning by the latter can bog down devices. Microsoft writes:

An advantage of Smart App Control is its lighter impact on your PC’s performance. Since it helps block harmful apps before they can run, there’s no need for constant scanning of active files. This means less strain on your system, so you can keep working or gaming without worrying about slowdowns. Traditional antivirus software, on the other hand, can sometimes use more resources as it scans files and processes continuously.

The company says this is so because Smart App Control is a proactive antimalware solution rather than being reactive like a traditional AV.

Thus the benefit is twofold according to Microsoft. Not only do users get better performance and a snappier system, but SAC can also neutralize new threats based on suspicious behavior that it can pick up based on its past machine learning and cloud data. It writes:

Smart App Control takes a proactive approach, blocking suspicious apps before they get the chance to do any harm. Traditional antivirus, however, is more reactive, responding to threats only after they've been detected on your system. This means traditional antivirus is excellent at identifying and removing known threats, but it may not catch new or sophisticated ones as quickly.

Irrespective of what Microsoft says though, there are reports from time to time about SAC impacting performance too due to bugs that do pop up sometimes, as this Broadcom support article points out. Curiously, Broadcom also highlights that the Redmond giant provided "no specific guidelines on how to address/remediate such scenarios."

The discussion is quite relevant given that the majority seem to still feel older Windows editions like Windows 8.1/8 are ahead performance-wise, despite being relatively modern in terms of UI/UX and feature-set.

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Mozilla also recently released another significant update. At the start of April, the firm rolled out a "Firefox Address Bar Refresh 2025," with headlining features like "Unified Search Button, Contextual Search Mode, and Contextual Search Engine Options" and more. You can check the release notes of that version, 137.0, in its dedicated article. At the time, Mozilla had shared some details about the features for a quick glance. However, this week, a new blog post was published where a more in-depth look has been provided.

There are multiple search-related improvements with this. Users can toggle and choose between every search provider, like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and options like History. This is meant to make it "easier to switch between providers and search modes" and to give "users real choice in how they explore the web."

Another neat quality-of-life improvement is how the original search still remains visible with this 2025 address bar refresh instead of being replaced when a user tries to alter the search provider. For example, say if you were trying to switch from Google to Bing, then previously, the address bar would remove the original search query and replace it with the Bing address.

Aside from these, Firefox is making it simpler to look up tabs, bookmarks and history using plain keywords. Also, actions like “clear history,” “open downloads,” or “take a screenshot” are possible with such commands by typing them into the address bar.

You can find the blog post here on Mozilla's official website.

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