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Every few years, Microsoft is making it more difficult to create a local account during setup of the Windows operating system.
 
The company announced in February 2022 that new setups and first runs of Pro versions of Windows 11 would require a Microsoft account. It did not take long for workarounds to become available, but many users may be unaware of these bypass options.

At the beginning of the month, reports of Windows 11 22H2 (Sun Valley 2) being ready for RTM (release to manufacturing) started doing the rounds and these reports suggested that it was going to happen in May itself, although some other leakers said it could be happening a month later in June.
 
Windows Central's Zac Bowden however seems pretty confident that the most recent Beta channel build 22621 is the one which will be final Windows 11 22H2 build for general availability (GA) later in the year. Bowden also adds that Microsoft will be signing it off on May 20th, which is a week away from now.

With Microsoft getting ready to release Edge 102 in the Beta and Stable channel, Edge 103 is moving from Canary to Dev. The first 103 release is now available for testing in this week's Dev update. Version 103.0.1253.0 is a relatively minor update, with the most significant new feature being support for a natural voice for search in history. You can open the history flyout and type something similar to "YouTube from last week".
 
In case you missed it, in the previous Edge Dev update, Microsoft added support for the Clarity Boost feature that improves the image quality when streaming games from the cloud.

One of the most recent snaps beamed back from the Curiosity rover on Mars has revealed a rather interesting feature in the rocks: what looks to be a perfectly carved out doorway nestling in the Martian landscape.

Linux users are a self-sufficient bunch, but when it comes to hardware, they’re often at the mercy of enormous manufacturers to get working drivers.
 
While Nvidia has offered proprietary drivers similar to its Windows offerings for years, the company is changing tack and will now publish open-source GPU drivers. The initial offerings are now live on Github as well as Nvidia’s self-hosted download pages.

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Sonic the Hedgehog 2' tops the chart, followed by ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness'. 'Uncharted' completes the top three.

It’s the second Tuesday of the month which means only one thing, that it’s Patch Tuesday. The update for Windows 11 21H2 this month is designated KB5013943 and will take your system to OS Build 22000.675. The Windows 11 service stack has also been updated to Build 22000.652.

It's the second Tuesday of the month which means it's Patch Tuesday time again. As such, today Microsoft is rolling out the monthly security update for May 2022 (also called "B release") on Windows 10 for the latest versions, 20H2, 21H1, and 21H2. The new updates are being distributed under KB5013942, bumping up the builds to 19042.1706, 19043.1706, and 19044.1706.

Microsoft has released the Patch Tuesday update for Windows 8.1 (KB5014011) and Windows 7 (KB5014012) today as it’s the second Tuesday of the month. Installing them will protect your system against certain vulnerabilities but both also come with known issues. Here’s what each release contains and their known issues.

Today at the Red Hat Summit, Red Hat Inc. announced the launch of its new operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, designed to enable enterprises to deliver a more secure computing environment at scale, whether in a hybrid cloud, public cloud, or edge network environment.

The new platform is PCI-SS and HIPAA-compliant and adds new cryptographic frameworks with support for OpenSSL, so the users can encrypt data throughout their environments.

The Linux Mint team has announced the general availability of the new Upgrade Tool which allows users of Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 4 to upgrade to LMDE 5 more simply. While this is currently only available for LMDE, the Linux Mint team is working to allow upgrades from Linux Mint 20.3 to 21.0 after that version has been released.

Windows 10 and 11 are (in)famous for frequent prompts asking to provide feedback about various parts of the operating systems. Users who care enough can share their thoughts by answering those prompts or sending feedback directly using the Feedback Hub app. Such posts allow everyone to see what features and changes are the most popular and desired across the Windows 10 and 11 user base.
 
The "Top 10 features people want" series has already covered Word, Teams, OneDrive, and Outlook, and now it is time to see what users want Microsoft to do in the Microsoft Store. Oddly, crickets sounds are Microsoft's dominant reply. The company often provides comments in Feedback Hub, but even the most upvoted posts about the Microsoft Store have the mere "We have got this."

We are at the end of the first week of May, which means that it is time to recap everything important that happened in the Microsoft-verse in the past few days, through our latest issue of Microsoft Weekly. This time, we have some very interesting news items to discuss including a surprise appearance from Windows 3D Movie Maker, a leaked Outlook client, and some Defender woes. Find out more in our weekly digest for April 30 - May 6.

Microsoft announced that it would extend the Windows 11 Home requirement of a Microsoft Account and Internet connection during setup to Windows 11 Pro in early 2022.

The upcoming Windows 11 version 22H2 will enforce the requirement for all devices on which Pro is installed on. The change won't affect existing devices that are upgraded to the new version. These will work as before when local accounts are used, and even if no Microsoft Account exists.

Google has announced that it has bought Raxium, a company that has been developing single panel MicroLED display technologies for the last 5 years. According to the search giant, the technologies that Raxium has developed will be used in next-gen technology and offers “miniaturized, cost-effective and energy efficient high-resolution displays”.

Building a custom PC is not an easy process. Mistakes happen when people make them. Let us explore common mistakes so that one can avoid them.

Whether you're driving a car with children yelling in the backseat or trying to read a book in a coffee shop while someone talks loudly on their phone, attention is essential for navigating and interacting with the world.
 
However, attention has a limited capacity, meaning we can only process so many things at once. This is why it's essential to be able to filter out distractions that can divert focus from the task at hand.

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Uncharted' tops the chart, followed by ‘The Batman'. 'Ambulance' completes the top three.

A few days ago, Microsoft released Windows 11 Build 22610 for Insiders in the Beta and Dev Channel. The update offers no exciting new features and focused mainly on bug squashing. Despite that, it caught everyone's attention because the 'technical preview' watermark wasn't there on the desktop, usually indicating that the new major Windows 11 update might RTM (release to manufacturing) very soon.
 
How much sooner will Microsoft sign Windows 11 22H2 off for public release, you ask? Well, according to multiple sources, it's highly likely that Windows 11 22H2 will reach RTM this month. However, some degree of uncertainty still exists regarding the RTM date, for example WZOR (famed build tracker on Twitter) disagrees and says we should expect it at the end of June, so it's fair to say we should take all of this with a pinch of salt.

Microsoft has updated the Windows 11 Health Dashboard with details about a new now-fixed issue in the operating system. According to the company's findings, Windows 11 users could encounter weird screen flashes after entering Safe Mode with no network capabilities. Also, the bug was causing stability issues for various parts of the OS that rely on explorer.exe - a process responsible for rendering the shell, File Explorer, etc.

We are at the close of the last week of April and that means that it is time to recap everything important that went on in the Microsoft-verse in the past few days. This was an exceptionally busy week in terms of news thanks to a somewhat significant Windows 11 build, Microsoft reporting its FY22Q3 results, and a bunch of Edge improvements, including the release of version 101. Find out about all of this and more in our weekly digest for April 23 - April 29.

Microsoft has released a new Windows 11 build to the Dev and Beta Channels that introduces multiple group policies that IT administrators can use to tweak the Start menu, the taskbar, and the system tray.
 
These newly added group policies can also be configured locally by opening the group policy editor and navigating to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar.
 
They can also be deployed onto Windows systems via Microsoft Endpoint Manager using a profile with custom settings in Intune.

Microsoft released an optional Windows 11 update 22000.652 (KB5012643) a couple of days ago that added several changes and bug fixes including one that led to near-hour long startup delays. However, the update has apparently introduced a new bug to Windows 11 systems wherein there is flickering on the screen when one enters the Safe Mode.
 
The issue was first brought to attention by German outlet Deskmodder which noticed the problem. Others like XanxoGaming, that posted the early Ryzen 7 5800X3D review, also noted the issue:

Microsoft is working on a built-in VPN functionality for the Edge browser called 'Edge Secure Network', but there's a catch - it is not a proper replacement for your VPN.

Microsoft Edge could soon receive an integrated VPN service called the “Microsoft Edge Secure Network”. The VPN (Virtual Private Network) service would work very similar to commercial VPN services, but it could be deeply integrated within the Microsoft Edge browser.
 
Microsoft seems ready to deploy the Microsoft Edge Secure Network service. The VPN service will be powered by Cloudflare. The company assures it permanently deletes the diagnostic and support data collected, every 25 hours.