Later Brandon LeBlanc, who is a Senior Program Manager on the Windows Insider Program Team at Microsoft, provided some additional context as to why the sudden delay happened. A bit apologetically, he revealed that the issue was due to a new bug that is "really bad".

Well how bad you ask? When asked for further details by the community, the bug is known to "impact functionality across the OS" and it affects things like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and USB, as well as the Camera.

When some users wondered if this problem was already affecting currently available build releases, Brandon LeBlanc confirmed that this was a result of code changes it has made in newer builds (possibly for 25H2?) which are not released yet:

The bright side of this news is that Microsoft seems to be aware of the issue and the fix is currently being tested.

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Importantly, Torvalds said that he’s hoping for Linux 6.15 to be released in two weeks, a week after a final seventh release candidate. He wrote: "We've got another two weeks to go in the normal release schedule, and it still feels like everything is on track."

This week, driver-related commits made up the bulk of changes, with GPU and networking drivers being the most active. There was a focus on fixes for AMD GPUs and improvements to network adapters. There are also touchpad improvements for laptops from Dynabook, TUXEDO, and Dell, as well as better support for game controllers including the 8BitDo Ultimate 2 Wireless Controller. The Share button on the Xbox One controllers should now work properly too.

This release also brings file system enhancements, specifically, there are improvements to Btrfs, OCFS2, and EROFS that boost stability, fix bugs, and introduce more efficient handling of compressed files. There are also networking improvements that allow for better handling of IPv6 in complex setups.

Finally, there are improvements to KVM, a key piece of technology used in virtual machines. Once you’re on this kernel, you might see some improvements with the performance of VMs, especially on ARM-based machines.

If you’re interested in any of these updates, you can head over to the announcement and press Ctrl + F to search through the commit log for more in-depth, technical details.

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When a PC is running into having BSOD woes, the difficult thing for the affected user is to troubleshoot the root of the issue. The BSOD screen although blue, is not completely blank as it provides information related to the issue.

In a recently updated official guidance document, Microsoft has shared steps on how users will be able to troubleshoot and hopefully fix such a problem. Previously, the support article was very brief as it only mentioned Safe Mode troubleshooting and the Get Help app.

The company has divided the guide into two parts, first, we have the "basic troubleshooting steps" involving safe mode, using Device Manager, as well as Windows Update:

Basic Troubleshooting Steps for Blue Screen Errors

 

1. Remove any new hardware. If you added new hardware to your PC before the error, shut down your PC, remove the hardware, and try restarting.

    

2. Start your PC in safe mode. If you're having trouble restarting, you can start your PC in safe mode. ... . From safe mode, you can try the remaining troubleshooting steps.

    

3. Check the Device Manager. Right-click the Start button and select Device Manager. Check to see if any devices are marked with the exclamation point (!). Right-click the device and select Update driver. If updating the driver doesn’t help, try disabling or uninstalling the device.

    

4. Check for sufficient free space on the hard drive. The operating system and some applications require sufficient free space to create swap files and perform other functions. Based on the system configuration, the exact requirement varies, but it's a good idea to have 10% to 15% of free space available.

    

5. Install the latest Windows Updates. To check for updates, select Start > Settings > Windows Update , then select Check for updates.

    

6. Restore Windows. If none of these steps help, try restoring Windows using a system restore point, or one of the other options listed at Recovery options in Windows. Choose the recovery option that most closely matches your scenario.

Up next, we have the advanced steps involving Event Viewer, Memory Diagnotics tool, and are mainly for bit advanced users.

Advanced Troubleshooting Steps for Blue Screen Errors

1. Check the Event Viewer. Check the system log in Event Viewer for other error messages that might help pinpoint the device or driver that's causing the error. .. . Look for critical errors in the system log that occurred in the same time frame as the blue screen.

    

2. Run the Windows Memory Diagnostics tool. In the search box, type Memory, and then select Windows Memory Diagnostic.‌ After running the diagnostic, use the Event Viewer to view the results under the system log. Look for the MemoryDiagnostics-Results entry to view the results.

    

3. Memory dump analysis. IT professionals and developers can try performing a memory dump analysis.

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

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We are not sure what exactly made Microsoft change its mind, but some big pending changes have not gone through yet. For example, the unified management of the M365 apps like Teams and Outlook has been put "on hold" for now. Microsoft originally planned for a general availability (GA) rollout for July 2024.

Another "major change" has been delayed and rescheduled too. Back in November 2024, Microsoft announced that it was altering the way New Outlook for Windows and Outlook for the Web with changes to a couple of its policy parameters.

The tech giant had informed that the "OWAEnabled" policy parameter would no longer be checked going forward and only the "OneWinNativeOutlookEnabled" will be checked for accessing mailboxes. You can find the full details about it in its dedicated article.

The rollout was expected to start by January 2025 and finish by February 2025, but that has not happened, and as such, the company has provided an updated timeline on the Microsoft 365 Admin Center portal.

It writes:

Updated May 8, 2025: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We are changing how you enable or disable the new Microsoft Outlook for Windows and Microsoft Outlook for the web.

 

When this will happen:

 

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): We will begin rolling out late June 2025 (previously late April) and expect to complete by mid-July 2025 (previously mid-May).

Those who have access to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center portal can view the message under ID MC922623.

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In this article, I prepared a list of five important things to do after upgrading to or installing Windows 11. Unlike plenty of other articles on the internet, I am not going to tell you where you should keep your Start menu button, how to change the desktop background, or do some other preference-based stuff. Instead, I tried to gather a list of actually useful and important things that affect your user experience.

Here are some quick links:

1. Back up your BitLocker Key
2. Improve the context menus
3. "End Task"
4. Remove ads
5. Turn off OneDrive annoyances

1. Find your BitLocker Key

Not a single guide I looked up mentioned this, but this one is actually very important. The latest Windows 11 version, 24H2, encrypts drives by default, regardless of your edition, without any notification or telling the user where the key is. This behavior just begs for trouble, and there are already reports about frustrated users not knowing how to decrypt their drives.

To avoid this, make sure you have your BitLocker key backed up, not just know where it is. Microsoft stores your BitLocker keys in your Microsoft Account by default, so if you get locked out of it, you are screwed. Here is what to do:

1. Make sure you have signed in to your Microsoft Account on your computer.
2. Go to account.microsoft.com and sign in with your Microsoft Account.
3. Go to the "Devices" tab and select your device.
4. Click "Info and Support."
5. Click "Manage Recovery keys."
6. Find the "Key ID" and "Recovery Key" and write them somewhere safe, say in your password manager.

Alternatively, you can turn off BitLocker encryption during Windows 11 installation.

2. Clean up the Context Menus

Windows 11 context menus have redundant options like "Open in Paint / Photos / Clipchamp / Ask Copilot," etc. These options clutter the menus and slow them down, further ruining the already questionable user experience. Also, for some reason, Windows 11 still offers "Edit with Notepad" wherever I right-click a picture or another file that has nothing to do with text. Ugh...

The good news is that it is quite easy to get rid of all those extra entries. You can either delete those apps (assuming you do not need them) or tweak the system registry to remove redundant options from context menus.

To do so, launch Notepad or any other text editor and paste one of the following app-specific lines. Then, save the file, change its extension from .txt to .reg, and open it to apply the changes.

Remove "Edit with Clipchamp":

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Blocked]
"{8AB635F8-9A67-4698-AB99-784AD929F3B4}"=""

Remove "Ask Copilot":

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Blocked]
"{CB3B0003-8088-4EDE-8769-8B354AB2FF8C}"=""

Remove "Edit with Notepad":

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Blocked]
"{CA6CC9F1-867A-481E-951E-A28C5E4F01EA}"=""

Remove "Edit with Photos":

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Blocked]
"{BFE0E2A4-C70C-4AD7-AC3D-10D1ECEBB5B4}"=""

3. Enable End Task

I love this small feature. It saves me quite a lot of clicks when Microsoft Edge suddenly decides it feels like hanging for a while, or another app misbehaves and stops responding. Instead of opening Task Manager, which on its own likes to throw me a random "Not responding," I just right-click the app on the taskbar and select End Task to kill its process on the spot.

Note that this is different from "Close Windows." "End Task" terminates the process, which makes it an efficient tool for killing stuck applications. However, this option is disabled by default; here is how to turn it on:

1. Open the Settings app and go to the "System" tab.
2. Click "For developers."
3. Find and turn on the "End Task" feature.

   

4. Reduce annoyances and ads

Windows 11 can be quite irritating with its pop-ups, ads, notifications, and other things that only distract and get in your way. Here is how to tame it a little:

Disable notifications and prompts in the Start menu: Go to Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off "Show account-related notifications."

Disable app ads and other recommendations in the Start menu: Go to Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off "Show recommendations for tips, shortcuts, new apps, and more."

Disable feedback request notifications: Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Diagnostics & Feedback and set "Feedback frequency" to Never.

Disable "suggested content" in the Settings app: Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > General and toggle off "Show me suggested content in the Settings app." Here, you can also turn off ad personalization across the operating system and apps.

Disable "Finish setting up this device" screen: This thing can take over your screen after turning on your computer, prompting you to set up additional features like OneDrive backups, Phone Link, and more, especially if you use a local account. To turn it off, go to Settings > System > Notifications > Additional settings and untick all three options.

Turn off widgets' auto-open on hover: Press Win + W and click the Settings icon. Then, turn off "Open Widgets board on hover."

Turn off the news feed in Windows Widgets: Open Widgets and click the Settings icon. Then, select "Show or hide feed" and turn off the feed.

5. Turn off OneDrive auto-backup

Another thing Windows 11 does without your permission is auto-enabling OneDrive backup. Everything on the Desktop and in certain user folders (Pictures, Documents, Music, and Videos) is automatically sent to OneDrive. As a result, objects on the desktop have a green checkmark, and you can get a lot of unwanted stuff if you already have files in OneDrive.

Unfortunately, there is no way to turn off OneDrive auto-backup during the initial setup, so once you are on the desktop, do the following:

1. Click the OneDrive icon in the tray area and select Settings.
2. Go to the "Sync and backup" tab and click "Manage backup."

   

3. Turn everything off.

   

Important: If you have a bunch of files with green check marks (on the desktop or other folders), they will disappear after turning off automatic backup. However, they have not been deleted; they are just in OneDrive. Go to File Explorer, open OneDrive, and check the Desktop / Documents / Music / Pictures / Videos folder.

You can also improve your user experience by replacing some of the stock Windows 11 apps with better third-party options. Also, there are some very useful tweaking apps that offer deeper, user-friendly customization, so check out the following articles:

• Top 10 Windows 11 apps for every user in 2025

• Top 10 apps to fix Windows 11's inconveniences

• Top 11 apps every Windows 11 user should have

   

If you know other useful tips for Windows 11 users (except for staying on Windows 10), share them in the comments.

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Microsoft released an update for the Copilot app, and it introduces a new entry in the ever-growing context menus, joining stuff like edit in Notepad/Clipchamp/Photos/Paint, etc. Now, when you right-click a file, you can select the new "Ask Copilot" command. It will launch the Copilot app, copy the file, and let you ask something about it, like summarize a document, draft an email based on the file, explain something, and more.

Of course, some might see this addition as actually useful. At the same time, it is not difficult to imagine that quite a lot of users will be discontent about yet another feature cluttering the already slow context menus, which were supposed to be less overcrowded like those in Windows 10.

The new "Ask Copilot" option is part of app version 1.25044.93.0, which was released today. Going back to the previous version removes the context menu button, just like uninstalling Copilot for good. However, a simple tweak in the system registry can remove "Ask Copilot" from the context menu. All you need to do is open Notepad and paste the following text (via ElevenForum ) :

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Blocked] "{CB3B0003-8088-4EDE-8769-8B354AB2FF8C}"="Ask Copilot"

After that, save the file, change its extension from txt to reg, and double-click it. Confirm changes in the registry and restart your computer. However, there is more to come. This week, Microsoft announced that you will be able to trigger AI-powered actions by right-clicking a file in Windows 11's File Explorer.

As for more positive changes, Windows 11 is also getting a big Start menu revamp, and you can check out this article to read about how it was made and what designs Microsoft considered.

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A month later today, the company has removed another one of those compatibility blocks. This one was placed as a result of a browser-related issue under safeguard hold ID 49562592. Microsoft has said that the bug was resolved in a recent update to the Safe Exam Browser app.

The tech giant notes that the app's update version 3.8 or later fixes the problem. This is a welcome thing considering Windows 11 version 24H2 just entered its final rollout phase, according to Microsoft itself.

Microsoft writes:

Resolution: This issue is resolved by installing the latest version of the Safe Exam Browser app (version 3.8 or later). Devices which are encountering this issue will need to install the latest version of the Safe Exam Browser prior to updating to Windows 11, version 24H2.

 

If your device still encounters this safeguard hold 48 hours after updating to the latest version of the application, you will need to contact Safe Exam Browser Support for more information on the resolution.

 

Note: If you are trying to install Windows 11, version 24H2 through the media creation tool, you will be able to proceed with the installation after you follow the instructions in the UI that pops up during the installation.

Upon checking the release notes for the Safe Exam Browser (SEB), we did not see any fixes in particular related to the Windows 11 2024 update. However, it does mention a change related to Windows support:

Starting with release version 3.8.0, Safe Exam Browser for Windows requires a minimum operating system version of Windows 10 version 1803.

You can find the Windows 11 24H2 SEB issue entry here on Microsoft's official Windows Health dashboard website. If you still find that your update is blocked, it may be one of the newer safeguard holds, like the one related to a system driver.

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Another big related change Microsoft announced back in January this year was about the end of support for Microsoft 365 (M365) apps like Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, Word, Excel, and more on Windows 10. The tech giant at that time stated that the apps would no longer be supported on 10 after the OS support ended. It wrote:

Microsoft 365 Apps will no longer be supported after October 14, 2025, on Windows 10 devices. To use Microsoft 365 Applications on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11.

However, it looks like Microsoft has had a big change of heart. On a Tech Commnunity blog post about Windows 10 extended security updates (ESU) it recently updated, the company has confirmed that Microsoft 365 apps will be supported for another three years till 2028. Neowin noticed this new addition while browsing.

4.24.2025: Microsoft 365 Apps running on Windows 10 will continue to receive security updates for three years after Windows 10 end of support.

On a linked support document, Microsoft has given more details about it, with more specific details, even though the company still recommends moving to Windows 11. It says:

Although apps such as Word will continue to work after Windows 10 reaches end of support, using an unsupported operating system can cause performance and reliability issues when running Microsoft 365 Apps. If your organization is using Microsoft 365 Apps on devices running Windows 10, those devices should move to Windows 11.

 

To help maintain security while you transition to Windows 11, Microsoft will continue providing security updates for Microsoft 365 Apps on Windows 10 for three years after Windows 10 reaches end of support. These updates will be delivered through the standard update channels, ending on October 10, 2028.

Another related support article has been updated too, and like the previous one, Microsoft has encouraged users to make the move to Windows 11 in order to "avoid performance and reliability issues over time" on Microsoft 365 apps. This one says:

Support for Windows 10 will end on October 14, 2025. After that date, if you're running Microsoft 365 Apps on a Windows 10 device, the applications will continue to function as before. However, we strongly recommend upgrading to Windows 11 to avoid performance and reliability issues over time.

 

In the interest of maintaining your security while you upgrade to Windows 11, we will continue providing security updates for Microsoft 365 on Windows 10 for a total of three years after Windows 10 end of support, ending on October 10, 2028.

This is a good move from Microsoft considering many users will find it difficult to upgrade to Windows 11 due to the stringent system requirements of the latter.

Source: Microsoft

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Gaming Highlights:

 

• Intel Game On Driver support on Intel Arc B-series, A-series Graphics GPUs and Intel Core Ultra with built-in Intel Arc GPUs for:
  • DOOM: The Dark Ages
  • Japanese Drift Master

Here is what was fixed:

Intel Arc B-Series Graphics Products:

 

• The Last of Us Part I (DX12) may exhibit color corruptions in certain gameplay scenes.

 

Intel Arc A-Series Graphics Products:

 

• Doom Eternal (VK) may exhibit blue flickers in gameplay with Ray Tracing enabled.
• The Last of Us Part II (DX12) may exhibit flickering black boxes in certain gameplay scenes.

 

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

 

• The Last of Us Part II (DX12) may exhibit flickering black boxes in certain gameplay scenes.

And here is the list of known issues:

Intel Arc B-Series Graphics Products:

 

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (DX12) may exhibit flickering corruption in certain scenes during gameplay.
• Returnal (DX12) may experience an application crash during gameplay with Ray-Tracing settings turned on.
• Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 (DX12) may exhibit corruptions on water areas in certain scenarios.
• MLPerf may exhibit intermittent errors when running on multi-GPU system configurations. It is recommended to disable integrated GPU as a workaround.
• SPECapc for Maya 2024 may experience intermittent application freeze during benchmark.
• PugetBench for Davinci Resolve Studio V19 may experience an application crash while running the benchmark.

 

Intel Arc A-Series Graphics Products:

 

• Returnal (DX12) may experience an application crash during gameplay with Ray-Tracing settings turned on.
• New: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (DX12) may experience an application crash with Ray-Tracing and XeSS enabled
• PugetBench for Davinci Resolve Studio V19 may experience an application crash while running the benchmark.

 

Intel Core Ultra Series 1 with built-in Intel Arc GPUs:

 

• PugetBench for Davinci Resolve Studio V19 may experience errors intermittently with benchmark preset set to Extended.

 

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

 

• Adobe Premiere Pro may experience an intermittent application crash.
• PugetBench for Davinci Resolve Studio* V19 may experience errors intermittently with benchmark preset set to Extended.

Intel 32.0.101.6793 non-WHQL is available on PCs with 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 11 with the following graphics products from Intel:

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

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Intel's i486 was the first "computer number" I ever really understood. Sure, my elementary school computer lab had both the Apple IIGS and Apple IIc, and one of them was slightly more useful, for reasons unexplained to me. But soon after my father brought home his office's discarded Gateway desktop with a 486DX 33 MHz inside, I was catapulted into my first Intel sorting scheme. I learned there was an x86 before this one (i386), and there were models with different trailing numbers (16–100 MHz) and "DX" levels. This was my first grasp of what hardware I was actually using and what could improve inside it.

More than 36 years after the release of the 486 and 18 years after Intel stopped making them, leaders of the Linux kernel believe the project can improve itself by leaving i486 support behind. Ingo Molnar, quoting Linus Torvalds regarding "zero real reason for anybody to waste one second" on 486 support, submitted a patch series to the 6.15 kernel that updates its minimum support features. Those requirements now include TSC (Time Stamp Counter) and CX8 (i.e., "fixed" CMPXCH8B, its own whole thing), features that the 486 lacks (as do some early non-Pentium 586 processors).

It's not the first time Torvalds has suggested dropping support for 32-bit processors and relieving kernel developers from implementing archaic emulation and work-around solutions. "We got rid of i386 support back in 2012. Maybe it's time to get rid of i486 support in 2022," Torvalds wrote in October 2022. Failing major changes to the 6.15 kernel, which will likely arrive late this month, i486 support will be dropped.

Where does that leave people running a 486 system for whatever reason? They can run older versions of the Linux kernel and Linux distributions. They might find recommendations for teensy distros like MenuetOS, KolibriOS, and Visopsys, but all three of those require at least a Pentium. They can run FreeDOS. They might get away with the OS/2 descendant ArcaOS. There are some who have modified Windows XP to run on 486 processors, and hopefully, they will not connect those devices to the Internet.

Really, though, if you're dedicated enough to running a 486 system in 2025, you're probably resourceful enough to find copies of the software meant for that system. One thing about computers—you never stop learning.

This post was updated at 3:30 p.m. to fix a date error.

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Microsoft says it followed the following four "guiding stars" to make the new Start menu:

• Apps, at a glance: all your apps, including pinned, installed, and freshly discovered, should be "right there."
• Make it yours: the menu should reflect your preferences and workflow, showing what matters the most to you.
• Accelerate the day: speed things up by eliminating unnecessary clicks.
• Honor the icon: keep the menu familiar while also offering some new stuff.

The design team prototyped a bunch of designs. Here are some of them with some interesting ideas, including a unique take on app categorization, a segmented Start menu, widgets in the Start menu (remember live tiles?), some seriously radical notions, and more:

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft adds that over 300 Windows 11 users helped the company in their studies, and some even joined live co-creation calls. As a result, the company implemented the following changes:

Here is the final result in action:

The company also notes that the goal was to ensure the Start menu looks good and is well-optimized for devices ranging from a small Surface Go to massive 49-inch ultrawide displays. Microsoft does not say when the new Start menu will be publicly available for testing (not to mention the public release), but you can already toggle it on using feature IDs in recent Windows 11 preview builds.

What do you think about the Start menu redesign? Do you like how Microsoft addressed popular criticism?

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Brandon LeBlanc, senior program manager on the Windows Insider Program, revealed in a post on X that the Canary bug preventing the team from releasing a new build affects various features, including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections, camera functionality (including Windows Hello), and more.

While build delays are nothing extraordinary in the Windows Insider program, this one is especially unfortunate, considering that earlier this week, Microsoft promised to release some big AI upgrades for Windows 11 in the Insider program. Hopefully, we will get the promised stuff, namely the AI agent for the Settings app, in one of the next week's builds, so stay tuned.

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Microsoft Edge, currently the second most popular desktop browser, has a custom spellchecker called Microsoft Editor, which watches over your writing. In addition to basic typos and misspelled words, Microsoft Editor can highlight grammar mistakes and offer various suggestions to improve your writing. However, after the recent updates, Microsoft Editor stopped working, and now, Microsoft is fixing that with version 136.0.3240.64:

Fixed an issue which prevented Microsoft Editor from working and from offering suggestions for misspelled words.

Note that Microsoft Editor sends the data you type to Microsoft's servers for processing and spellchecking. Also, this feature is enabled by default. If you are not okay with that due to privacy concerns or other reasons, you can switch to basic spellchecking or turn it off for good. To do so, head to Settings > Languages > Writing Assistance > Enable grammar and spellcheck assistance.

Additional changes in Microsoft Edge 136.0.3240.64 update include a fix for CVE-2025-4372, a Chromium security vulnerability:

• CVE-2025-4372: Use after free in WebAudio in Google Chrome prior to 136.0.7103.92 allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Medium)

   

You can update Microsoft Edge to the latest version by heading to edge://settings/help.

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Chen shares these stories in his The Old New Thing column on Microsoft's site and in the latest post, he has described how the Windows native clipboard is different from other clipboard managers but in a good way.

For those who may not be familiar, Windows offers a default clipboard that can be enabled via the Settings app. There is a simpler way, too, by using the Win + V shortcut and then selecting the "Turn on" option.

In this latest story, Chen answers a question that some of you may have noticed and wondered: "Why doesn’t Clipboard History capture rapid changes to clipboard contents?" Chen says that the asynchronous approach is actually what makes the Windows one better, at least in terms of performance, as it does not slow down the system with constant changes.

Windows is able to achieve this using the AddClipboardFormatListener function and the WM_CLIPBOARDUPDATE message identifier. The former is part of the Winuser header (.h file) wherein winuser.h file helps to handle various user-side inputs like keyboard and mouse, among others. These Windows API features were introduced with Windows Vista.

Explaining how all this works, Chen writes:

The clipboard history service operates asynchronously. It registers for clipboard changes via AddClipboardFormatListener, and when it receives a change notification, it updates the clipboard history. The listener is notified asynchronous, however, so by the time the listener receives the WM_CLIPBOARDUPDATE message, the clipboard may have changed a second time.

 

This is different from clipboard viewers, which are notified synchronously when the clipboard changes. The downside is that you might miss out on clipboard changes. The much better upside is that you don’t slow down or hang the clipboard.

Thus, it looks like Microsoft has taken an approach such that even something like the clipboard has been created in a way so that it does not affect the performance of the OS. It is good to see that the company takes care of these small yet significant things in order to make Windows great.

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GroupMe, a messaging app owned by Microsoft, was revitalized in 2024 with Copilot. Since that major update, Microsoft has quietly worked on additional AI features for the app. This week, GroupMe gained support for 4o image generation powered by Copilot.

Within any GroupMe chat, you can tag @Copilot and ask the tool to generate an image. For example, you could ask Copilot to transform an image into a specific art style.

You can also tag Copilot and ask for help with plans, facts, and topics of discussion.

It's interesting to see GroupMe gain new features. The app has been around for ages, but it is more of a niche app that's popular on college campuses.

With the death of Skype, GroupMe is one of few casual communication platforms owned by Microsoft. While there is a free version of Microsoft Teams, many view Teams as a tool for work or education.

GroupMe: What's new

Upload + Prompt

Drop an image into your group chat and tag @Copilot with what you want to see. That selfie from last night? Turn it into an album cover. Your coffee pic? Make it look like a Renaissance painting. Your imagination is the prompt.

"@Copilot make our group selfie look like a 2000s boy band album cover"

One of the major criticisms of Windows 11 on handhelds such as the ROG Ally to date is the clunkiness of the UI. Windows just isn't built for tiny screens.

With the first 'Xbox handheld' on the way, aka, Project Kennan — a device we have reported on and which has experienced its first photoshoot recently — Microsoft is starting to make some small, but important additions to the Xbox app.

First reported by The Verge's Tom Warren, the Xbox app on Windows 11 is now showing useful system information when in Compact Mode, including a clock, battery status, and Wi-Fi.

This change ushers out the long-serving Totem video player, known simply as "Video Player" to many GNOME users, in favor of the modern replacement in the upcoming GNOME 49 release expected in September 2025. Unfortunately, Showtime could not make it in time for the GNOME 48 release earlier this year, but its inclusion is now confirmed.

The motivation behind replacing Totem was clear: it relied on the older GTK3 toolkit. It had seen minimal maintenance or major feature development in recent years, leaving it feeling increasingly outdated within the evolving GNOME desktop. Showtime was built from the ground up with modern technologies, leveraging GTK4 and Libadwaita. This provides a more contemporary appearance that integrates smoothly with the rest of the desktop and ensures better adaptability across different device screen sizes.

Showtime emerged from the GNOME Incubator program, aimed at bringing new, well-aligned applications into the core collection. Its development focused on delivering a simple and distraction-free video watching experience. This philosophy is echoed in the application's description on Flathub:

Play your favorite movies and video files without hassle. Showtime features simple playback controls that fade out of your way when you're watching, fullscreen, adjustable playback speed, multiple language and subtitle tracks, and screenshots — everything you need for a straightforward viewing experience.

This design manifests in a minimalist interface where controls conveniently fade away during playback, putting the focus entirely on the content. Compared to Totem, Showtime brings active development and essential playback features users expect today, like remembering where you left off in a video, options to jump forward or backward using the keyboard, the ability to grab screenshots, and easy switching between audio tracks and subtitles.

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Here are some of the key highlights from this update:

• Chat
  • Custom instructions and reusable prompts (more...).
  • Smarter results with tools for GitHub, extensions, and notebooks (more...).
  • Image and Streamable HTTP support for MCP (more...).
• Chat performance
  • Faster responses on repeat chat requests (more...).
  • Faster edits in agent mode (more...).
• Editor experience
  • Improved multi-window support for chat and editors (more...).
  • Staged changes now easier to identify (more...).

In addition to the new features listed above, this latest version of Visual Studio Code is getting a new base model, in the form of GPT-4.1, one of OpenAI's latest advanced language models. While this model excels in coding, you can always change it in the Chat view to another model at any time.

If you're not too keen on using AI to help you do your coding, a change that may appeal to you in this update are the two new floating window modes: compact and always-on-top. In compact mode, some UI elements are hidden to show more code and always-on-top keeps you chosen window on top of all the other windows until you leave that mode.

Finally, affecting code editing, this update includes a new Next Edit Suggestions (NES) model that gives you faster and more context-relevant code suggestions. Aside from suggestions being given quicker, they're also less intrusive and align more closely with your recent edits.

If you want to download this update, get it from the Visual Studio Code website. If you already have it installed, look out for any notifications about the update.

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On Windows 11, the computer will lock the system automatically after a period of inactivity to minimize the chances of someone else trying to access your device when you're not near your desk. However, if you're in a secure environment or privacy isn't much of a concern, you can customize the system settings to prevent your computer from locking up automatically.

The settings you have to change will depend on the features you have configured on your computer and how you want to prevent the computer from locking automatically.

For example, if you want the system to stop requiring a password when you have been away, you must change the Sign-in options. However, if you're using Dynamic Lock, you may want to turn off the feature to stop Windows from locking your computer every time you step away.

If you're using the legacy Screen Saver, you must customize the resume settings for that feature.

In the case that the device locks automatically too quickly, you can change the screen, sleep timeouts, and the presence sense settings (if applicable).

In this how-to guide, I'll outline the steps to prevent the computer from locking automatically on Windows 11.

How to stop Windows 11 from locking automatically

To control how the operating system locks your computer automatically, you have a number of options. Here's how.

OneNote already has a bunch of features that help make the best use of your screen real estate, especially on smaller devices like the new Surface Pro 12-inch. For example, you can switch to vertical tabs to have more vertical room and use the simplified or hidden ribbon. However, below the ribbon, there was a search box with a lot of unused horizontal space. Microsoft has now fixed this omission by making the search box float over the canvas, thus giving you more room for notes.

Before

After

We’ve eliminated the unused horizontal space between the ribbon and your canvas, instantly giving you more room for what matters most. Not only do you now have a larger view of your canvas, there’s also more vertical room to see more of your page list at once. The search box that previously occupied this space now floats over the canvas, remaining accessible without consuming so much space.

Here is how the canvas looks before and after the update:

The search box can sometimes cover your notes, though. In such a case, Microsoft recommends clicking the double arrow button to expand the canvas (or you can scroll the page a bit).

The updated OneNote UI is rolling out to Office users in version 2503 (build 16.0.18730.20074 and newer) on Windows. Note that this change applies to the desktop OneNote app, not the Windows 10 version, which will be discontinued in October 2025, alongside the operating system.

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Windows 10 hits its end-of-support date on October 14, 2025, and it's fast approaching. Despite requests and pleas from millions of users, including a Public Interest Research Group that filed a petition asking Microsoft to reconsider its decision to end support for Windows 10, citing "the single biggest jump in junked computers ever," the tech giant isn't changing its plans.

As such, Windows 10 users are left with limited options: upgrading to Windows 11, paying up for an additional year of support through the Extended Security Updates program, or switching to another operating system entirely.

It's apparent that Microsoft wants users to upgrade to Windows 11, but its stringent minimum system requirements for the operating system are making the transition an uphill task. Many Windows 10 users may have to ditch their current, incompatible devices to buy new Copilot+ PCs or other devices loaded with Windows 11.

Microsoft hasn't been shy about its campaign for Copilot+ PCs, touting it as the perfect device for an intuitive Windows 11 experience with better battery life, faster performance than Apple's MacBook Air M4, and up to 5x faster than a 5-year-old Windows 10 device.

However, a small team known as End of 10 has a different (yet exhaustingly familiar) approach and solution to Windows 10's imminent death.

Rather than buying a new device to meet Microsoft's stringent system requirements for Windows 11, the group floats the idea of ditching the Windows ecosystem entirely and switching to Linux on their outdated Windows 10 devices.

Interestingly, a report by Canalys claims approximately 240 million PCs aren't Windows 11-ready because of the system requirement limitations.

General system tray apps, like Minimize To Tray, Traymond or Tray Everything, and specialized apps, like TBTray, give Windows users options in this regard.

Why you may want to push app icons from the taskbar to the system tray: It is a good option if your Windows taskbar can't display all taskbar icons at once anymore. Some users do like to push apps that they do not really need to access much, or at all, to the system tray,so that they are out of the way. These can be Internet radios, download managers, monitoring applications, or any other program that does not need to be accessed frequently. So, web browsers or email programs probably not, but even those may make sense in some regards,as they are just a click away as well.

Travy: open source, easy to use system tray pusher

Travy is a new open source application, inspired by the classic Windows app RBTray, is the latest addition. The application is compatible with Windows 10 and 11, and can send nearly every open program or Progressive Web App to the system tray.

The app is straightforward to use. Downoad the less-than 400 kilobytes file to the local system and unpack it. Run the application afterwards. Right-click on the Travy icon in the system tray and select App List to add new programs. Just type the name of the application, e.g., Thunderbird, Google Chrome or Notepad, to get these to minimize to the system tray area. Save the list and the program handles the rest with ease.

You may also configure the programs to be displayed in the system tray area when they are closed and to hide on the tasbar (which is the default).

Note that the functionality is only provided while Travy is running. As our colleagues over at Deskmodder note, you may want to consider adding Travy to the Windows autostart to enable its functionality whenever the system is started. Otherwise, you'd have to launch Travy manually each time you want to make use of its functionality.

Tip: Check out our guide on managing system tray icons in Windows.

Closing Words

Travy works well and it is a tiny open source app. If you have apps that you do not want on your Windows taskbar, you can give it a try to push them to the system tray area using the program.

Now You: Where do you prefer your minimized programs on? The taskbar or the system tray? Feel free to leave a comment down below. 

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In addition to these codenames, Lefebvre also announced that the Mint-Y theme, which is used by default, has received an ever so slight color change to fit with modern design principles. The light theme has had the blue increased to make it look more metallic and modern. The increased blue makes it look more cold, rather than the neutral that you get from standard gray.

Lefebvre also said that libAdwaita, used in Flatpak applications, has also recently made the color shift so things should look a bit more uniform. Overall, these color changes make the themes look more modern and the dark theme and Cinnamon elements are “softer and much nicer looking”.

On the themes front, a small change has been made to something called the XDG Desktop Portal XApp. The change means that Flatpak apps that use libAdwaita can now use the accent color you’ve set in Linux Mint, making apps blend into your desktop better.

Finally, Lefebvre said some efforts have been taken to try and make libAdwaita apps work better with Linux Mint. These apps are designed for GNOME and do not play well at all with other desktop environments like Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce which Mint offers.

To try to make them work better, the Mint team has updated its Mint-Y and Mint-X themes to align more with libAdwaita’s colors and it has modified libAdwaita itself to not enforce its own stylesheet and respect the system theme. This approach has shown good results when tested with GNOME Calendar, GNOME Characters, and Foliate.

With this said, the Mint team still wants a sustainable solution long term. It could continue to patch libAdwaita, create an XApp platform library like libAdwaita but for wider desktop support, or fork applications, but the team isn’t keen on this last option as it’s seen as needlessly duplicating apps.

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The Microsoft engineer said that the project was mainly a personal project, resulting in his desire to create a comfortable, Ubuntu-based Linux distribution, with minimal modifications outside the changed user interface. As a Software Engineer 2 at Microsoft (he doesn’t work on Windows), Anduin Xue says he’s financially stable and sees no need to commercialize AnduinOS.

Explaining the financial aspects of the project, he said:

“Many have asked why I don’t accept donations, how I profit, and if I plan to commercialize AnduinOS. Truthfully, I haven't thoroughly considered these issues. It's not my main job, and I don’t plan to rely on it for a living. Each month, I dedicate only a few hours to maintaining it. Perhaps in the future, I might consider providing enterprise solutions based on AnduinOS, but I won’t compromise its original simplicity. It has always been about providing myself with a comfortably themed Ubuntu.”

In our coverage of the AnduinOS 1.3 release last week, one commenter pointed out that the distro is from China. For some, this will raise issues, but Anduin Xue addressed this in his blog post, too, saying that the source code is available to the public. For this reason, he told lacing the operating system with backdoors for the Chinese government would be “irrational and easily exposed.”

For those worried that the distribution may be abandoned, Anduin Xue said that he intends to continue supporting it and may even maintain it full-time if sponsorship or corporate cooperation emerges.

In October, Microsoft plans to end mainstream support of Windows 10, and many computers will be left unable to upgrade to Windows 11. Given this fact, Linux stands as a good option to keep computers running, and if you want something that looks similar to Windows, then AnduinOS is worth checking out.

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It has been almost three years since the app entered the testing phase and even today, people are complaining about it as they feel the features of the new app are still underwhelming. On the positive side though Microsoft seems to be aware of all this and it has been making changes.

We recently learned that the company is adding the ability to run Classic Outlook simultaneously with the New Outlook app without switching.

Meanwhile, other essential features like PST features and offline support are also being added gradually. Last year, the company began working on offline mode for the New Outlook such that it would launch without internet. Following this, offline email sync and the ability to open attachments without internet were added.

Today, Microsoft has added another new feature to the list of Outlook features that will work without the internet. The company is adding offline support for Calendar, a useful feature that Microsoft also migrated to Teams.

The offline Outlook Calendar support has been confirmed by a new Microsoft 365 roadmap entry. The description says:

Outlook: Offline Support for Calendar - Create, Edit and Delete Event support

 

We are adding more offline functionality in the new Outlook for Windows. You will now be able to create, edit, and delete events in your calendar when not connected to the internet.

The entry notes that the general availability rollout of offline Calendar will start next month in June 2025. This is the estimated arrival time and feature releases can get delayed sometimes. You can find the entry here under ID 490059 on the Microsoft 365 roadmap website.

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