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Microsoft has recently unveiled Moment 3, an updated feature for Windows 11 that offers a range of advantageous enhancements and performance improvements. This update holds the potential to persuade numerous Windows 10 users to make the transition to Windows 11.
 
In a blog post published shortly after the release of Moment 3, Microsoft provided a comprehensive account of the company's year-long efforts to enhance the experience for over a billion users worldwide. The post serves as a condensed overview of all the changes implemented in the Insider channels throughout the past year, now incorporated into the Moment 3 update.

Microsoft recently released the latest feature update for Windows 11 version 22H2 dubbed Moment 3. Almost simultaneously, a special configuration update via the Controlled Feature rollout (CFR) was also quietly published by the tech giant.
 
A few days after, Microsoft also released a list of performance-related enhancements that it made throughout the year to "more than one billion users worldwide". It is essentially a rundown of what changes were introduced over the past year on Insider channels that have now made their way to the Moment 3 feature.

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'John Wick: Chapter 4' tops the chart, followed by 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie'. ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' completes the top three.
 
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
 
These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.
 
This week we have three newcomers on the list. “John Wick: Chapter 4”, which came out as a high-quality pirate release, is the most downloaded title.

Widgets, the Edge Bar search field and Microsoft Edge sidebar, and Windows Copilot can all be displayed on the Windows desktop, and that is not even considering other features that Microsoft may be working on.
 
Only one of these is available currently in stable versions of the Windows 11 operating system, but Microsoft announced all the others recently or has introduced functionality already in developer builds of the operating system.

Microsoft introduced a new feature in stable versions of its Windows 11 operating system recently. It is called "Get Updates as soon as they're available" and a new option in the Windows Updates settings.
 
The feature is not explained on the page and most Windows users may not click on the "learn more" link to find out more about it.

Earlier this week, Microsoft released the Windows 11 "Moment 3" update with a few quality-of-life improvements and new features (check out our full review here). One of the most notable changes in the release is the ability to enable seconds for the system clock. However, Microsoft warns that enabling the feature will result in higher power consumption and lower battery life. I decided to conduct a small (and limited) experiment to see if the claim is true, and if it is true, see how significant is the battery life impact.

Windows XP continues to hold a special place in the hearts of PC enthusiasts. Despite Microsoft discontinuing support and turning off the activation servers for Windows XP, enthusiasts seeking to relive the nostalgia or utilize old hardware/software often face challenges. A recent blog post by TinyApps highlights an offline activation tool that provides a solution for activating Windows XP. The tool was discovered by Reddit user retroreviewyt.
 
The newly introduced offline activation tool, xp_activate32.exe, offers a compact executable package designed as a "phone activation utility" for Windows XP. This tool allows users to activate the operating system entirely offline, eliminating the need to connect to potentially risky online environments.

Microsoft made a lot of big announcements during its Build 2023 developers conference this week. That included reveals like Windows Copilot, a redesign of its Edge browser, and adding Bing Search to ChatGPT.
 
However, one reveal that Microsoft casually mentioned deep inside in a blog post managed to get a lot of attention from users and the media online. Windows 11 will soon add native support for opening a number of archive file types, including RAR.

Microsoft released its latest feature update for Windows 11 yesterday as it began rolling out Windows 11 22H2 Moment 3. The company has since published a changelog for the update delivered under KB5026446 (Build 22621.1778). Among the changes is OneDrive storage capacity display now in the Settings app, Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) audio support, and more.

Microsoft began rolling out Moment 3 earlier today. Moment 3 is the latest feature update for Windows 11 version 22H2 and is now available for download as a preview release under KB5026446 (Build 22621.1778); the changelog, as expected, is very long. Microsoft releases such Moment updates every three months or so and these add new features. Officially the tech giant refers to it as Continuous Innovation.

Microsoft has started rolling out the latest feature update for its desktop operating system. Dubbed "Moment 3," the release brings several notable changes, long-requested features, and various quality-of-life improvements.

One of the most popular archive file formats for decades has been RAR. Its name is an acronym for Roshal Archive because it was created 30 years ago by a Russian engineer named Eugene Roshal. He also created the popular WinRAR file archiver program two years later in 1995. It's been constantly updated ever since, including a beta update just last week.
 
Using WinRAR or similar programs was the only way to open RAR files in Windows, as Microsoft has never added native support for the format. That is going to change very soon.

These are the headlines from Microsoft's annual developer conference.
 
Microsoft's annual Build developer conference has started! Day one has just wrapped up, and while we do expect there to be more keynotes and sessions tomorrow, we wanted to round up all of the biggest news coming out of Build 2023 so far.
 
The company has published an online "Book of News" that rounds up all the announcements, but it's a super long list. We've riddled it down to just the biggest announcements coming out of Redmond, focused on Windows, Microsoft 365, and you guessed it, AI. 

Microsoft has announced the Windows 11 22H2 'Moment 3' update, bringing many new and long-awaited features to the operating system.
 
This is the third-moment update for Windows 11, and it will begin rolling out to users via May 24th's optional update. The Moment 3 changes will be turned off by default, but you can enable the features by turning on a toggle in Windows Update settings. The Moment 3 features will be enabled by default in June's optional update and July's Patch Tuesday.

Windows 11 and Windows 10 have a bug that can prevent the Start menu, Windows Search, and UWP apps from opening. The issue can affect apps that use Microsoft Office APIs to integrate with the Office suite, your Outlook calendar, or Windows itself. ClickShare is one app that can run into problems because of the bug, though several other applications could be affected.
 
The bug is outlined in a document from Microsoft. Issues like this appear occasionally, and we often cover them. People should know what could cause problems on their PC after all. But sometimes, outlets add confusion and conjure fear when covering reports of bugs. That appears to be the case with a recent piece by TechRadar titled "Windows 11 is so broken that even Microsoft can't fix it."

Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system comes with dozens of stock applications for all sorts of tasks. Some apps are used a lot, others occasionally, and then there are apps that may not be used at all.
 
Some Windows 11 apps can be removed from Settings > Apps or the classic Control Panel, but others are locked and can't be uninstalled. Third-party tools as well as PowerShell commands may be used to remove these from the operating system.
 
PowerShell works well, but it requires expertise, especially since the removal of apps may have unintended consequences at times.  Third-party tools, like O&O AppBuster, take care of that.

The open source application JunkCtrl is another option. It is a new program that is developed by the creator of programs like BloatyNosy and ThisIsWin11. The app BloatyNosy includes uninstallation functionality as well.

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' tops the chart, followed by 'Sisu'. ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' completes the top three.
 
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
 
These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

Another week has whizzed by. That means more Microsoft news to catch up on. This week the EU approved Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard, Bing Chat got some major upgrades, and Windows 11 users gained access to iMessages through the Phone Link app. We also saw the announcement of Mortal Kombat 1 and Overwatch 2's co-op PvE mode get canceled.
 
Here are all of this week's biggest stories, plus a collection of our reviews, editorials we covered.

Another weekend—another issue of Microsoft Weekly, your regular seven-day recap of everything that happened in the world of Microsoft. This week was relatively tame and quiet, something you can call the calm before the storm Build, Microsoft's annual developer conference. It is kicking off next week, and we expect many announcements from the software giant. But before that, time to look back at this week full of Windows bugs, apps, updates, Bing, and other news.

With the 64-bit only CPU proposal, Intel says that it will lead to faster CPUs by removal of legacy functions which are not in use anymore.

Almost 3 decades ago, Intel and HP started working on a 64-bit micro-architecture for the Intel CPUs. After years of work, Intel finally announced IA-64, which was a 64-bit CPU architecture. The first CPU to launch in with this architecture was Intel Itanium (Merced) processor.

ASUS has apologized to its customers for a server-side security maintenance error that has caused a wide range of impacted router models to lose network connectivity.
 
The problem has been extensively reported on social media and discussion platforms since May 16, 2023, with people appearing puzzled by the simultaneous connectivity issues on multiple ASUS routers and others complaining about the lack of communication from the vendor's side.
 
As the Taiwanese hardware maker explained in a statement published today and via a security bulletin, the problem was introduced by an error in the configuration of a server settings file.

Microsoft released Patch Tuesday updates for the month of May 2023 earlier this week on Windows 10, Windows 11, and Server. The company patched the BlackLotus UEFI security flaw which has been known to bypass measures like Secure Boot, VBS, BitLocker, Defender.
 
Microsoft had previously already published a guide on how to detect a system compromised by BlackLotus UEFI bootkit. A bootkit is essentially a malicious Windows Boot Manager. The issue is being tracked under CVE-2023-24932, and Microsoft stated that Patch Tuesday marked the initial deployment phase of the security fix under KB5025885.

When Windows 10 and 11 boot up, Microsoft Edge also loads into memory using a feature called startup boost. This way when you go to open it, it's already in memory and loads much faster.
 
If you do not use Microsoft Edge or wish it wouldn't load with Windows, here is how to disable it.

Back in February of this year, the popular third-party Windows 11 tweaking and customization tool, ThisIsWin11 (TIW11) received an update to version 1.4.1. While this update carried a few minor bug fixes, the major change was the complete repackaging of the tool into "Debloos". The developer of the utility, 'builtbybel', pitched Debloos or Debloat OS as the "Universal Debloater and PC Manager for Windows 11". However, it did not stop there as the application underwent another round of renaming as the developer of the tool finally settled for "BloatyNosy".
 
Unfortunately for the dev, Microsoft banned the app from the Store due to some policy violations. Although it made a short-lived re-entry after workarounds, BloatyNosy was once again removed and it seems this time the ban may be permanent.

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'The Covenant' tops the chart, followed by 'Air'. ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' completes the top three.
 
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
 
These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.