Search the Community

Statcounter: Windows 11's climb slowed down in May 2023 by Taras Buria Several days ago, when detailing performance improvements in the latest Windows 11 update, Microsoft revealed that over one billion computers run its operating system. Unfortunately, the company did not provide extra details, such as how many devices have upgraded to Windows 11. Still, developers and customers are not in the complete dark—Statcounter's monthly reports provide regular insights into how many users each Windows version and other operating systems. Click here to learn more about Statcounter's methodology. Remember that data from third parties is never 100% accurate. According to the May 2023 report from Statcounter, Windows 10 remains the dominant operating system among Windows users. Approximately 71.9% (+0.54 points) of all customers continue using it for their daily computing needs. Windows 11, which soon turns two, slowed down a bit: 22.95%, with a slight dip compared with the previous month (-0.16 points). It will be interesting to see how the just-released "Moment 3" update will affect Windows 11's market share and if the announced at the Build conference features are tempting enough for Windows 10 customers to pull the trigger and update. Together, Windows 10 and 11 hold 94.85% of the entire market. As expected, Windows 7 took a significant nosedive when Microsoft ended the Extended Security Update program in January 2023. Still, a considerable number of users continue operating Windows 7 for all sorts of tasks. Statcounter claims the OS has a 3.61% market share (-0.17 points). Those not planning to upgrade from Windows 7 soon will be glad to learn that Mozilla is ready to continue supporting the now-dead OS for more than one extra year. Even though Windows 7 no longer receives updates, it still has a mainstream browser with regular patches and security fixes. Windows 10: 71.9% (+0.54 points) Windows 11: 22.95% (-0.16 points) Windows 7: 3.61% (-0.17 points) Windows 8.1: 0.72% (-0.13 points) Windows 8: 0.37% (-0.06 points) The honorable mention goes to Windows XP, which will soon mark ten years since the end of its extended support. Per Statcounter's findings, about 0.32% of Windows users are still rocking XP and using it to access the internet. A decade in no-update mode is nothing for a true fan! You can find more information about the Statcounter May 2023 report on the official website. A similar report covering the latest browser stats is available here.

Mozilla finally reveals the end of support date for Firefox on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 by Taras Buria Windows 7 and 8/8.1, two highly polarizing operating systems from Microsoft, are no longer with us. They went six feet under in January 2023, when the software giant ended the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, causing third-party developers to follow suit and stop supporting their software. Still, even though Edge and Chrome were the first to abandon ship, Mozilla Foundation decided to keep supporting Firefox users on Windows 7 and 8/8.1. However, this cannot last forever, so after months of careful consideration, Mozilla is finally ready to reveal the end of support date. According to a document published on the official Mozilla Support website, customers unwilling to upgrade to Windows 10 or 11 can use Firefox 115 Extended Support Release (ESR) until September 2024. Mozilla pledges to continue shipping security updates for 15 more months, giving plenty of time to plan the upgrade process. Here is how the company explains its decision: Microsoft ended official support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 in January of 2023. Unsupported operating systems receive no security updates and have known exploits. With no official support from Microsoft, maintaining Firefox for obsolete operating systems becomes costly for Mozilla and dangerous for users. Although Windows 7 and 8/8.1 have relatively minor market shares (approximately 5% combined), Mozilla says quite a lot of people continue using Firefox to access the internet from PCs with the now-dead operating systems. Keeping testing machines alive for a few extra months "is not the end of the world" for Mozilla, but the non-profit company cannot run them indefinitely. Of course, another end of support will probably mean nothing to die-hard Windows 7 fans. After all, some people still use Windows XP like nobody's business. Still, it is worth reminding that using a connected PC that no longer receives security updates is not a great idea, and you risk getting malware that utilizes unpatched security holes and various vulnerabilities.

Microsoft: Windows 11 also haunted by this SATA BIOS bug just like Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 by Sayan Sen Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11, too, is affected by an age-old bug related to Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA). The bug is related to the firmware wherein an internal SATA drive, be it a slower, mechanical hard disk drive (HDD) or a faster NAND flash-based Solid-state drive (SSD), is misread as removable media in the Windows taskbar. This issue is really ancient (by technology standards) as Microsoft says it affects anything newer than Windows Vista, ie, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and finally Windows 11. On a newly updated support document regarding the issue, Microsoft writes: Symptoms Internal SATA devices (HDDs or SSDs) may show as removable media in your task bar. Cause Whether or not a device is considered removable is determined by your system’s BIOS and how it marks the various SATA ports on the motherboard. The inbox driver directly inspects SATA ports and considers devices connected to those ports marked “external” as removable devices. Not all storage drivers do this, which can be a potential cause for corruption or data loss. Microsoft has also provided a way to fix this issue using elevated Command Prompt CLI. This solution also works on Windows 8, 8.1, and Windows 10: Resolution First, check for and install available BIOS updates from your PC manufacturer. If none are available, you can follow these steps to override the way the inbox driver surfaces devices on certain ports: Open a command prompt with administrator privileges. In the command prompt window, type the following command in hit Enter: devmgmt.msc Under Disk Drives, identify the SATA device you would like the inbox driver to consider internal and open properties for this device by right-clicking and selecting Properties. Note the bus number from the properties overview (“1” in the below example). For Windows 8 and later: Type the following command in the previously opened command prompt and hit Enter: reg.exe add “HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\Parameters\Device” /f /v TreatAsInternalPort /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d x Where x corresponds to the Bus Number you noted in step 4. You may find more details in the support article on Microsoft's website.

Statcounter: 23% of all Windows computers run Windows 11 by Taras Buria In addition to the latest data about desktop and mobile browsers (there are some interesting changes), Statcounter's report provides insights into operating systems, allowing developers and regular customers to learn how popular various OSes are. Disclaimer: Third-party reports are never 100% accurate. Learn how Statcounter gathers its data in a post on the official website. According to the April 2023 report, Windows 11 has reached its all-time high of 23.01%, a 2.06 points increase compared to March 2023. Despite steady growth, dethroning Windows 10 with its massive 71.45% market share, which is slowly going down after a sharp rise that followed the end of Windows 7 support, remains an almost unreachable goal for Windows 11, especially when you consider rumors about Microsoft releasing Windows "12" in late 2024. Another dramatic change in Microsoft's approach to releasing "large" Windows versions may result in Windows 10 turning into another Windows 7—an OS people refuse to leave, even in sight of the incoming end of support in October 2025 (Microsoft has already confirmed version 22H2 is the last feature update for Windows 10). Windows 10 and 11 hold 94.46% of the market, leaving just a tad more than 5% to the remaining now-dead releases, such as Windows 7 and 8. Windows 7 has 3.78% (+0.05 points), and Windows 8.1 is still on 0.85% of all PCs (-0.01 points). Unsurprisingly, people still access the internet from computers running various Windows XP versions. Statcounter says about 0.35% of the market runs the OS Microsoft put to its final rest almost one decade ago. Windows 10 - 71.45% (-0.09 points) Windows 11 - 23.01% (+2.06 points) Windows 7 - 3.78% (-0.05 points) Windows 8.1 - 0.85% (+0.01 points) Windows 8 - 0.44% (-0.07 points) You can find more information about Statcounter's latest OS figures on the official website.

Microsoft Weekly: Windows security, Edge leakage, and the end of Windows 10 by Usama Jawad It's Saturday, which means that it's time yet again to recap all the important news of the past few days from the world of Microsoft. This was an absolutely jampacked news week as you'll soon find out with items about Windows security, Microsoft Edge, and the end of Windows 10. Find out more in our latest digest covering April 23 - April 28! Windows security Windows security was a hot topic in our news coverage this week. Microsoft released various PowerShell scripts to help IT admins identify if recent patches have mitigated security flaws in their Windows 10 and 11 environments. It also shared a timeline covering the next few months of Windows hardening for various protocols including Netlogon and Kerberos. However, the firm continues struggling with existing security issues in its operating systems. It confirmed yesterday that the latest Patch Tuesday update has broken Local Account log-in on both Windows 10 and Windows 11, a workaround has been issued. It has also cautioned about interop issues in its Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) but has recently fixed most, if not all of them, too. IT admins can also leverage an unofficial third-party GUI tool to manage both versions of LAPS, at their own risk. Another problem related to Local Security Authority (LSA) protection in Windows Defender has been patched too. Additionally, Microsoft revealed more details about the security features present in its revamped Teams desktop app. It might interest some of you to know that the firm is considering unbundling Teams from its Office suite of apps to appease EU regulators and also empower Teams users on Android to disable automatic firmware updates. And if you like to mess around with Windows installations, you might want to check out AtlasOS, which is a third-party, lightweight version of Windows 10 that's supposedly better for gaming. It received updates during this week and is set to get back Windows Defender soon too, with the developer making a seemingly tall claim that AtlasOS will be even more secure than the official Windows 10. But if you'd rather mess with your existing installation at a smaller scale, you can check out Wintoys for Windows 11 instead. Edge leakage Edge and Microsoft's other browser-related efforts found themselves in the news a lot throughout this week, for both good reasons and bad. For starters, someone made a rather startling discovery that Edge is apparently leaking all the websites you visit in the browser to the Bing API, even if you don't use Bing. Microsoft is still investigating this claim and has promised swift action once its findings are complete. Brave has also decided to stop using the Bing API to serve search results and its search index is now 100% independent. We also learned that Microsoft has started to insert ads for the new AI-powered Bing in the search bar if you visit Google Bard through Microsoft Edge. Bing Chat itself received a few updates this week to further decrease the disengagement rate and improve answers for traveling and cooking questions. Talking more about browsers, Windows 11's Mica effect is slated to arrive in Chrome soon. Moreover, the latest Edge Dev 114 update has added several fixes and a shortcut for toggling Sidebar. A recent Canary build is also making it easier to tweak Windows 11-style rounded corners in Edge. In fact, Microsoft has announced that Edge users will soon be able to disable some unnecessary features as well. There were other items to cover in the Microsoft 365 sector too. All Microsoft 365 apps and services will begin using the more neutral "cloud.microsoft" domain soon. Microsoft has also been improving its Microsoft 365 apps and services themselves in recent days. It has detailed all the improvements it made to Excel in April, added the Accessibility ribbon to Outlook for Windows, integrated the Today tab in the latest Skype Insider build, and is implementing a way to make it easier for Outlook mobile users to reply to emails on time. Meanwhile, Microsoft Loop can now be tested via personal accounts on iOS and Android while Microsoft Designer is now available in full via a public preview. Something that will displease Windows Weather app customers though is that Microsoft has decided to infest it with MSN news content, which is ludicrous, to say the least. The end of Windows 10 Microsoft announced earlier this week that version 22H2 is the last version of Windows 10. What this means is that while customers using the OS will continue receiving minor improvements and security updates until October 14, 2025 (and beyond if you're an LTSC customer), there will be no more feature updates. In addition, Microsoft has also announced that the LTSC version of Windows 11 will arrive in the latter half of next year. Windows 10 recently received April's non-security preview update with lots of improvements too. Another thing being discontinued is Microsoft-branded mice, keyboards, webcams. The remaining accessories will only be sold until current supplies last, after which Microsoft will focus only on Surface-branded accessories. In more end-of-support news, the Steam client has started "End of Life" alerts for some users as it will be dropping support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 on January 1, 2024. Roughly 2% of Valve's user base utilizes these three operating systems, which means that the vast majority won't be affected. Windows 11 continued to be Microsoft's focus of attention when it came to operating system releases this week. Apart from the expected April non-security preview updates for Windows 11 version 21H2 and 22H2, there were a few Insider releases too. Windows 11 Beta build (KB5025303) fixed LAPS and ReFS issues, and added new Widgets. Meanwhile, Canary build 25352 brought a new widget picker experience. Some may also find it interesting that Microsoft is looking to make Rust a part of the Windows 11 kernel due to the numerous advantages it offers in writing safer and more optimized code. But in terms of what's available generally right now, we have Phone Link for iOS and guidance for how to get Windows 11 updates faster. And if you're still on the fence about giving Windows 11, make sure to try out the Redmond tech firm's latest evaluation virtual machines for the OS. Git gud Microsoft faced probably its biggest roadblock yet in its bid to purchase Activision Blizzard when the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided to block its deal, citing potentially reduced competition in the cloud gaming space. As Activision stock tanks, Microsoft has decided to appeal the decision, with president Brad Smith calling this initial outcome "bad for Britain". Although another report claimed that Microsoft may close the deal without the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) approval, that rumor was based on the UK CMA giving its blessing in the first place. Now that this hasn't happened, it's unlikely that the purchase will close anytime soon. For now, Microsoft's acquisition has been approved in Ukraine and the firm has signed yet another 10-year cloud gaming deal with a European firm too (Nvidia GeForce Now will continue to get Xbox games despite this setback too). Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick fully expects the CMA's decision to be reversed following the appeal. In other gaming news, there have been a few Xbox Insider builds to fix game art issues and other bugs. And if you're eagerly awaiting Redfall, you can build themed Xbox controllers based on the game through Xbox Design Lab. Similarly, if you reside in London or NYC, you might want to check out the dedicated gaming zones that Microsoft has built with Samsung. Coming over to game updates, Flight Simulator World Update XIII is now available, it targets Oceania and Antarctica. Quantum Break fans will also be pleased to know that the title is back on digital storefronts and is available on PC Game Pass for the first time too. Meanwhile, Grounded players can tackle wasps as a new foe, with the game also being Steam Deck verified now. And in a major win for accessibility, Turn 10 Studios has announced that it is working on tons of accessibility options for the next Forza Motorsport, allowing blind players to enjoy the game as well. Finally, talking about the deals and promotions currently going on, Xbox Free Play Days is offering four games, namely Crusader Kings III, Hell Let Loose, Don’t Starve Together, and Leap. May's Games with Gold have also been announced and they are Hoa and Star Wars Episode I Racer. And if you're on the lookout for games on the cheap, check out the latest Xbox Deals with Gold and this Weekend's PC Game Deals, curated by our News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe. Dev Channel Microsoft's Q3 2023 results show growth but Windows, Xbox, and Devices numbers continue to decline Rufus 4 is out with improvements and a default 64-bit executable Rufus alternative WinToUSB has received "Windows 11 Lite" support Latest WingetUI has a new UI, faster loading performance, and lots more Microsoft has decided to continue working with private Russian companies not under sanctions Fluent Emoji Gallery app is now available with access to Microsoft's three emoji styles Apple Music Preview for Windows has finally netted media keys and lyrics support Microsoft-backed BSA has called for federal rules and guidelines on AI You can now create Power BI reports directly in Jupyter Notebooks Under the spotlight News Reporter John Callaham took a look back at Windows Server 2003, which launched 20 years ago this week. It was the server version of Windows XP and is reportedly still being used in some enterprise environments. Read more about its interesting, but brief, history here. John took another trip down memory lane this week as he reminisced about Microsoft's first PC game, simply called Microsoft Adventure. Meanwhile, News Reporter Taras Buria penned a guide about how you can use a Windows laptop or a tablet as a secondary monitor. Finally, forum member Adam Bottjen published his latest Tech Tip Tuesday guide explaining how you can quickly fill an online form with ease. Logging off Our most interesting news item for this week involves someone building a ChatGPT client in Java that is capable of running on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, and 11. It's called JavaGPT and weighs in at just 6MB. While it's doubtful that it has any real-world use considering that you can just access the service from a browser, it's interesting to see experiments like these from time to time. Find out more details about the open-source Java utility here. If you'd like to get a weekly digest of news from Neowin, we have a Newsletter you can sign up for either via the 'Get our newsletter' widget in the sidebar, or through this link. Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.

Steam Client pushing "End of Life" alert for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 to all by Sayan Sen First announced last month via its Beta update, Valve has re-confirmed that Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 support for Steam Client will be dropping next year on Jan 1st, 2024 at 10am. This annoucement was made with the latest final Client update today as the "End of Life" alert will now be pushed to everyone. According to Valve's own survey data, 1.86% of Steam's user base is on the three operating systems getting the boot. The vast majority of Windows users, which amount to 96.37% of total active accounts on the platform, are using Windows 10 (62.33%) and Windows 11 (32.06%). Alongside that, the update also brings other fixes and improvements like reduced CPU usage during Big Picture Mode window, crash fix in Compatibility mode, among others. Over on macOS side, End of Life alert for macOS 10.11 ("El Capitan") and 10.12 ("Sierra") are being pushed. General Added "End of Life" alert for Windows 7/8/8.1. Steam Client support for these operating systems will end on Jan 1st, 2024 at 10am. See here for additional details. Fixed crash when clicking links in Compatibility Mode alert dialogs Reduced CPU usage of the Big Picture Mode window macOS Added "End of Life" alert for macOS 10.11 ("El Capitan") and 10.12 ("Sierra"). Steam Client support for these operating systems will end on September 1st, 2023 at 10am. See here for additional details. Fix Steam Overlay crash in some games using Metal graphics API You can find Valve's official support article here.

Microsoft Weekly: LAPS and Windows Taskbar, Samsung ditching Google rumors, and app updates by Usama Jawad It's the end of yet another week and it's time again to recap all the important events that transpired in the Microsoft-verse during the past few days. This time, we have news items related to Windows features like Taskbar and LAPS, rumors about Samsung ditching Google as the default search engine, and lots of app updates. Without further ado, let's dive into the latest weekly digest covering April 16 - April 21! Windows Taskbar and LAPS You might recall that earlier this month, Microsoft announced that Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) is now a built-in feature in Windows through the latest Patch Tuesday update. However, users have discovered a few bugs that occur when both versions of LAPS (legacy and Patch Tuesday) are installed on the machine. The company has detailed some workarounds but it's unclear when a more permanent fix will be available. For now though, it appears that Microsoft has fixed a Local Security Authority (LSA) protection bug recently introduced in Windows 11. In related news, patches have also been rolled out for MMIO Stale Data Vulnerabilities in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016. In terms of Insider builds and upcoming features, Microsoft is seemingly looking to restore a popular Taskbar feature to Windows 11, in the form of the "Never combine" option. This is present in the latest Dev Channel build 23440 (which also brings arguably better Start menu recommendations) but it is hidden for now without a way to enable it. Instead, if you're on Dev Channel build 23435, you can instead try and enable the hidden smart window snapping feature or the new OOBE customization options if you're on Canary build 25336. That's not all when it comes to Insider builds though. Canary build 25346 has added Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC) features while Beta Build 22624.1616 (KB5025308) has brought improvements to Windows Update and File Explorer. Additionally, Windows Server vNext build 25346 brought with it a couple of known issues. Moreover, you should also check out the recently released Microsoft utility called Update Health Tools for Windows 10 and Windows 11. It is delivered via KB4023057 and is intended to improve the Windows update experience. However, if you like to try out third-party utilities too, give the latest version of DisplayFusion a go, it now supports Windows 11 but has lost support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. Rumors about Samsung ditching Google A rather surprising rumor emerged this week that Samsung is considering dumping Google Search as the default search engine on its phones in favor of Microsoft's AI-powered Bing. While this report caused a lot of disturbance in the world of tech especially considering that the possibility of this happening has caused "panic" inside Google, another report later debunked this rumor. It claimed that ditching Google Search is not even an option for Samsung because in most major markets such as the U.S., OEMs that want Google Play Store installed on their devices must also set up Google Search as the default search engine. Either way, the real situation is still unclear and none of the parties mentioned have commented on the veracity of the rumors. But talking about companies parting ways with one another, Microsoft has decided to stop using Twitter as an advertising platform, likely because of the expensive API costs mandated by Twitter CEO Elon Musk. In true chaotic Musk fashion and obviously irked by Microsoft's move, the executive has threatened the Redmond tech firm with a lawsuit for illegally using Twitter data to train its AI models, without evidence, of course. Speaking of AI models, Bing Chat now has LaTeX support for better formatting of mathematical formulas while SwiftKey for both Android and iOS have gained the ability to get rid of the Bing button - though, for some reason, Microsoft has also deleted the support forum for the app itself. The company is also looking to add Copilot generative AI capabilities to Viva to boost employee productivity. Microsoft is supposedly going all in on the hardware side of AI too. It's reportedly building its own AI chip with the codename "Athena" and the next Surface PCs will host Neural Processing Unit (NPUs) inside too. Some rumors about the upcoming Surface devices have started swirling too, and if that interests you, check them out in detail here. App updates There were several app updates sprinkled throughout the week for Microsoft services. Let's start with Microsoft Edge. The company's premier browser received a new version 114 Dev build that added improvements for Workspaces and some minor improvements on Android. Additionally, users have discovered that Microsoft is finally adding AVIF support to Edge soon, which means that the browser will be following in the footsteps of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. The feature can currently be enabled through a flag in Edge Canary. Several Microsoft 365 apps and services received updates too. OneNote Beta has netted the scratch-out to erase gesture in Windows 11, Outlook users can now send longer links in emails, and better compatibility with Kindle devices in Microsoft Word. There were a few updates for other services too. Microsoft Translator bagged support for the Lower Sorbian language. Interestingly, this language isn't even supported by Google Translate and is considered highly endangered with less than 7,000 speakers globally. Lastly, Microsoft has also launched Babylon.js 6.0, adding Havok physics for web browser-based graphics. Git gud Microsoft had a bit of a turbulent week in the gaming space this week. It turns out that Halo Infinite's former creative director Joseph Staten, who just left Microsoft, actually departed his position to lead Netflix' AAA gaming initiative. It also seems like another Halo director Frank O' Connor has jumped ship too. There is still good news for the Xbox community though. South Africa has approved Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard and we have also learned that the studio's highly anticipated title Diablo IV will be run at 60fps on both the Xbox Series X and S. And while Xbox gamers have lost the ability to share longer video uploads to Twitter, the Xbox App for Insiders on Windows does bring better accessibility and improvements to collections (there are other bugfixes for various rings too). Earlier, the company also celebrated Earth Day with new sustainability projects. Moreover, PC gamers will be pleased to know that Microsoft has brought with it performance boosts across a range of hardware with DirectStorage 1.2. Another intriguing revelation also indicates that Microsoft is working on a "franchise sequel" that could take a decade of development, it's highly likely that the redacted title being referenced here is The Elder Scrolls VI, which is in very early stages of development currently. Meanwhile, those following our deals and services updates should know that you can grab lots of Xbox titles for up to 90% off in the ongoing Deals with Gold and Spotlight Sale. Xbox Free Play Days is hosting Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed and Roguebook while Xbox Insiders can try out Crash Team Rumble closed beta this weekend. Finally, a handful of games including Redfall are headed to Xbox Game Pass but if you're a PC purist, check out this Weekend's PC Game Deals curated by our News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe instead. Dev Channel Microsoft Security now uses weather terms for threat actor names The infamous Windows 98 "Blue Screen of Death" event happened 25 years ago today Microsoft is promoting Windows 11 PCs that use sustainable materials Microsoft updates Surface Go 2 with Windows 11 Autopilot support Microsoft fixes Surface Pro 8 display flickering issue, improves Windows Hello, more Under the spotlight News Reporter John Callaham posted a couple of pieces that took a trip down memory lane. The first is about Microsoft's first PC hardware product, the Z80 SoftCard, released in 1980. The Apple II PC add-on hardware was a commercial success and was generating half of Microsoft's total annual revenue at one point. John's second piece was published on U.S. Tax Day and took a look back at Tax Avoiders, a 1982 title for the Atari 2600. Moreover, John also penned a piece on his top 10 anticipated Xbox games of this year, check out his listicle here! Finally, forum member Adam Bottjen published a guide providing tips about how to give your PC enough time to get ready after a boot-up, which is good to know, especially for those who are still rocking clunky hard disk drives (HDDs). Logging off Our most interesting news item of the week is undoubtedly about an upcoming first-person-shooter, Unrecord, that can be played from the viewpoint of a body cam. The reason it's making headlines is that it appears to be hyper-realistic with very realistic movements and graphics. In fact, it was so realistic that many labeled its gameplay video as fake and dismissed it. That is, until a developer posted a video of the game running in Unreal Engine with "no clip" mode enabled. Needless to say, hype for the title is at an all-time high but there is also an ongoing argument raging online claiming that it's not a good idea to have younger audiences being exposed to ultra-realistic violent video games. If you'd like to get a weekly digest of news from Neowin, we have a Newsletter you can sign up for either via the 'Get our newsletter' widget in the sidebar, or through this link. Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.

DisplayFusion gains full Windows 11 support, but loses it on Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 by Sayan Sen Remember DisplayFusion? The multi-monitor utility has recently received its latest major update with version 10.0. With this, the software's developer notes that DisplayFusion has now gained full support for Windows 11. The .NET framework version has also been updated to .NET 7 and with that, DisplayFusion will no longer support Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 versions older than 1607. The press release says: We're very excited to announce that DisplayFusion 10.0 is now available for download! This major new version of DisplayFusion fixes hundreds of issues and adds full support for Windows 11. The changelog showing major changes in DisplayFusion 10.0 is given below (via BetaNews): DisplayFusion 10.0 Highlights Change: New code signing certificate Change: Upgraded to .NET 7 (OS support is now Win 10 1607 and higher) Change: Win 7, Win 8/8.1, and Win 10 versions lower than 1607 are no longer supported (DisplayFusion will still install but use at your own risk) Change: Monitor Config backend code completely overhauled to support more configurations and prevent errors for minor variations when loading profiles. Change: It's now possible to open multiple script edit windows Change: Much improved code editor for scripted functions Change: Added an entry for DisplayFusionCommand to the Select Application dialog Change: Advanced settings that are forced by policy setting will now show as red and cannot be edited in the UI Change: Added a policy setting to disable the social links in the Settings window Change: Added a policy setting to disable crash reporting Change: Added an advanced setting to disable webview2 install prompt Change: Added an advanced setting to set the polling interval for the "Lock Mouse Cursor" function Change: Improved some icons to help with colour blindness Change: Removed the "restart explorer" prompt and added an advanced setting to re-enable it Change: Added an advanced setting to adjust the size of taskbar buttons and pinned items A beta version of the software has also been released since. This version, 10.0.1 (Beta 1) also adds more bug fixes: DisplayFusion 10.0.1 (Beta 1) Changes Change: Added additional info to the "you need Pro for this feature prompt" Fix: Borderless mirror window can now be made full screen by double-clicking Fix: Settings backup fix Fix: "Auto-Hide Animation" advanced setting works again Fix: Taskbar button text no longer upside-down when running WindowBlinds Fix: Start menu now stays open when using third-party Start menu replacements Fix: Taskbar button height issue Fix: Resolved a rendering issue with the Windows 7 taskbar You can download the free trial version of the software from Binary Fortress' official website. A detailed changelog of the software is also available there.

Microsoft Weekly: Windows 12 rumors, Windows 11 secrets, and Windows 7 support by Usama Jawad It's the end of yet another week as well as the start of the new month, which means that it is time to discuss all the important things that happened in the Microsoft-verse in the past few days. This time around, we have news items related to Windows 12, some potential upcoming Windows 11 features, and support for Windows 7 in a browser. For further details, dive into our weekly digest for March 26 - March 31 below! Windows 12 rumors Rumors about Microsoft's next operating system, "Windows 12", surfaced multiple times this week. First, we learned of some purported requirements for the OS, which include the continuation of TPM 2.0, but increase the RAM requirement to 8GB. Additionally, Microsoft may decide to ditch older CPUs once again, similar to what it did with Windows 11. Of course, none of this has been confirmed yet so lay down your pitchforks for now. Next, we got some more confirmation that Microsoft did accidentally reveal a Windows 12 prototype a few months ago. Notable changes include a floating Taskbar and a notification area on the top rather than the bottom. Microsoft's recent Insider builds have also included strings to hide certain elements of the system tray and the Taskbar, which could be intended for Windows 12. Finally, a report claiming that Microsoft is building a more customizable and modular variant of Windows emerged. The project reportedly has the codename "CorePC" and is supposedly similar to iOS and Android in the sense that it will have read-only partitions. This should allow the CorePC OS to be more secure and update faster. CorePC may be a flavor of Windows 12. That said, it is important to understand that all of these speculations are just rumors for now. Even if they are true, the next-generation operating system isn't expected until late 2024. Windows 11 secrets Returning to the present, we had some interesting news stories about Windows 11 (now on 20% of PCs) too. It seems that Windows 11 may soon let you move Widgets to the right on the Taskbar. This makes it more Windows 10-like and is obviously just a personalization preference. These changes are present in the Canary build 25324 and can be enabled using a third-party utility but note that the implementation is a bit buggy for now. The Redmond tech firm is seemingly experimenting with redesigned and improved Windows Widgets too. This comes in the form of a larger 3-column canvas with dedicated sections for widgets and My feed. These changes are present in the aforementioned Canary build too and can be force-enabled by following the process outlined here. There are some other capabilities being planned too. Windows 11 may soon let you disable annoying account-related notifications on the Start menu in a move that should please many consumers. The option is present in Dev Channel build 23419 and can be force-enabled by anyone too. And while it's not strictly related to Windows 11, Microsoft may finally be working on a portable version of Windows Terminal as well. In terms of what's available to Windows 11 users right now in an unhidden state, we have several new Insider builds. Beta Channel Insiders were treated to build 22624.1537 which introduced access keys in File Explorer, the ability to create live kernel memory dumps through Task Manager, and lots more. Dev Channel build 23424 brought the improved Widgets board described earlier to more users, along with performance improvements to the Settings app. And Canary Channel users netted build 25330 with lots of relatively minor changes and improvements. Stable channel customers received some love from Microsoft in the form of new builds too. KB5023778 features an improved Taskbar search bar, Microsoft Account notifications, and more. Furthermore, Microsoft has done away with the Acropalypse by releasing Snipping Tool fixes to everyone on Windows 10 and Windows 11. And since we have ventured into the domain of cybersecurity, it's worth highlighting that Microsoft is rolling out the next phase of its Domain Controller hardening to patch a Kerberos security flaw via Windows Update. Additionally, Microsoft Defender started generating false positives by alerting users about safe links, this issue has now been resolved. Finally, if you want to create Windows 10 and Windows 11 ISOs but find Microsoft's Media Creation Tool cumbersome to use, check out this alternative utility instead. And if you use Rufus for your other Windows-related tinkering, the latest version of the software includes an option to disable BitLocker. Windows 7 support... and other app updates Continuing from the previous section which we wrapped up with mention of a Rufus update, we would like to bring your attention to a Ventoy update. The bootable USB solution, which supports Windows 7, now supports over 1,100 ISOs with version 1.0.90. The latest version also improves the Fedora boot process and addresses a Ventoy remount bug on Linux kernel 5.18 and newer. And speaking of Windows 7, Mozilla has decided to extend Firefox support on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 through Firefox 115 ESR, which is due to arrive on July 4, 2023. This version of the browser is supported until Q3 2024, which gives plenty of time for Firefox customers to continue using the browser before they decide to eventually upgrade their OS or consider alternatives. As is the case near the end of each month, there was lots of Teams news this week too. Teams 2.0 is now live in public preview with a major design revamp and performance boosts. The process to launch the app and join meetings is twice as fast and the app uses 50% less memory. Another feature now available in preview for Teams is 3D avatars. Similarly, Teams mobile is getting a new Chat Dashboard while Teams enterprise customers with certain licenses are getting advanced security protections through Microsoft Defender 365. The Redmond tech giant has also shared a changelog of all the features it added to the free SKU of Teams during the month of March 2023. It also detailed a similar changelog for Excel along with introducing the ability to add local videos in PowerPoint for the web. There are a couple of updates related to Microsoft's Edge browser too. Microsoft is working to make it easier to use vertical tabs in its browser and may be planning the return of an upgraded version of the Mica effect too. It's almost impossible to talk about Edge without mentioning Bing Chat. The AI-powered chatbot now supports 200 daily turns and 20 in-session turns, it is slated to receive better formatting of mathematical equations too. In fact, it even supports video and image search now. But with these peaks in super-charged search engines and chatbots, there are some valleys too. Italy's data protection agency has banned OpenAI from using the data of Italians in ChatGPT due to privacy concerns. Additionally, some security researchers also reported a Bing flaw to Microsoft through which they could game search results, which is a major problem considering it's hard enough to trust results generated in conversations by Bing AI too. Some might also be disheartened to know that Microsoft plans to continue with its plans to monetize Bing AI through ads in chat, it has shared some more details in this area too. The company is super-protective about Bing search data as well and does not seem willing to share it with other AI chatbots. Git gud As usual, we will start this section off with some news about Microsoft's ongoing acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The purchase has now been approved by Japan's antitrust regulator, which is a major win for Microsoft, especially since it concerns Sony's "home town". Meanwhile, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has published an email slamming Sony for its "disappointing behavior" during the ongoing deal. On the other hand, Microsoft has dismissed rumors claiming that it pulled in-development ZeniMax games for the PlayStation 5 following a similar high-profile back in 2021. On the hardware side of things, Microsoft has unveiled red and blue variants of the Xbox Elite Series 2 – Core controller, in addition to the standard white. Moreover, if you are a Diablo fan, you can nab an Xbox Series X console with Diablo IV and its in-game items included for $559. And if you are already an Xbox owner and an Insider, grab the Omega console update which brings better subscription management and other fixes. We had some news items related to specific games too. If you're facing problems while trying to open Red Dead Redemption 2 via the Rockstar Launcher on Windows 11 version 21H2, Microsoft has recommended upgrading to version 22H2 if you really want to play the title ASAP and can't wait for the Redmond firm's investigation to complete. But if you're a Minecraft player instead, you might want to check out this Dungeons and Dragons mashup DLC coming soon. Wrapping up this section with news about subscriptions and deals, Microsoft has gotten rid of the popular $1 Game Pass trials on Xbox and PC, while hinting at different promotions in the future. But if you're a Games with Gold subscriber instead, you can claim Peaky Blinders: Mastermind and Out of Space during the month of April, with the latter up for grabs already. Meanwhile, Xbox Free Play Days has four games up on offer this weekend, with the major one being Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. On the other hand, Deals with Gold is headlined by Batman: Arkham Knight and several LEGO titles. However, if you're a PC purist, check out this Weekend's PC Game Deals, curated by our News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe. Dev Channel Prices for Microsoft Cloud services are increasing in Europe very soon New Windows drivers for Surface Duo have brought unofficial Windows 10 support and tons of improvements, the official late March update is available too Microsoft is partnering with certain organizations to protect journalism and improve news distribution Microsoft Viva Connections for Education will help kids keep track of everything, now available More layoffs have hit Microsoft's security division in Redmond and Bellevue, Washington Microsoft has delayed the deprecation of Remote PowerShell in Exchange Online Microsoft Security Copilot will use generative AI to create alerts The second-generation Surface Hub 2S is now official Updates for Microsoft Teams Rooms and Devices include new Cisco digital whiteboards PowerToys' upcoming registry tool will let you preview and edit registry files A Microsoft data center in the Netherlands is generating environmental concerns Google is making file sharing between Windows and Android much easier Under the spotlight We published several interesting original pieces over the past few days. The first one is from News Reporter Taras Buria who highlighted five interesting features that you should give a go in Windows 11 Insider Preview builds. We also have a couple of nostalgic pieces for News Reporter John Callaham. The first talks about how Steam's Early Access popularized this concept of rolling out paid early-stage software to the public for testing and gathering feedback, for better or for worse. In the wake of Intel's founder Gordon Moore recently passing away, John also took a quick look back at Moore's Law, wondering if it will continue moving forward. We also have a couple of guides. The first one is from Taras Buria, who explained how to remove news from Widgets in Windows 11. Finally, we have a Tech Tip Tuesday piece from Adam Bottjen, who guided our readers regarding the process for enabling voice isolation during a phone call on iOS 16.4. Logging off Our most interesting news item of the week is about a person who got caught in China while trying to smuggle 239 Intel Core CPUs worth thousands of dollars... by taping them to his body. He was caught by customs inspectors who decided to investigate him since his because of his "abnormal" and "bloated" experience. There is no word yet on what the punishment for his crime is, but it's certainly interesting to see the lengths certain people will go to in order to pass customs checks at airports and seaports. If you'd like to get a weekly digest of news from Neowin, we have a Newsletter you can sign up to either via the 'Get our newsletter' widget in the sidebar, or through this link. Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.

Every fifth PC runs Windows 11 as the OS reaches its all-time high by Taras Buria StatCounter's latest data is out, and it is not a lame attempt to be funny on April 1st. The March 2023 report shows Windows 11's continuous and unstoppable growth—Microsoft's newest operating system is now on every fifth Windows PC as it almost reaches the 21% mark. In March 2023, Windows 11 gained 1.81 points and increased from 19.13% to 20.94%. However, Windows 10 also went up, albeit not as drastic as in February 2023, when Microsoft killed Windows 7 and 8.1. The current market leader holds 73.48%, a 0.17 points increase from the previous month. As expected, people started leaving Windows 7 and 8.1 much faster after Microsoft announced the end of the Extended Security Updates program (ESU). Windows 7 continues its decline, reaching the 3.72% mark and losing 1.62 points. Windows 8.1 currently holds a puny 0.84%, a 0.3 points decrease from February 2023. Here is what the Windows market looks like according to Statcounter: Windows 10 - 73.48% Windows 11 - 29.94% Windows 7 - 3.72% Windows 8.1 - 0.84% Windows 8 - 0.51% Considering other operating systems (Android, iOS, macOS, ChromeOS, Linux, and others), Windows remains the second most popular OS, losing ground only to Android. Microsoft's desktop operating system has a 28.29% market share (+0.56 points) between Android and iOS. Android - 41.56% (-2.32) Windows - 28.89% (+0.56) iOS - 17.29% (+0.16) macOS - 7% (+0.33) Unknown OSes - 3.05% (+0.62) You can find more information on the official StatCounter website.

Windows 11/10 and Windows 8.1/7 security drivers for Nvidia GTX 700 and 600 (Kepler) is here by Sayan Sen For the folks out there that are still running Nvidia GeForce Kepler desktop GPUs, like those belonging to GeForce GTX 600 and GTX 700 series, as well as GTX TITAN, TITAN Z, and TITAN Black, the company has announced a new WHQL-certified display driver update today. You may be a bit surprised by this announcement as Nvidia had already ended driver support for Kepler. However, this is not the general Game Ready driver which brings support for new graphics cards or optimizations for new game titles. Instead, this is a security update driver meant to patch some of the security issues that have come up. Nvidia had earlier stated that it would provide security updates for Kepler through September 2024, and it looks like the company is keeping true to its word. As such, the driver changelog does not list any fixed bugs or known issues. The release note only says: NVIDIA has released a software security update for NVIDIA GPU Display Driver. This update addresses issues that may lead to code execution, denial of service, escalation of privileges, information disclosure, or data tampering. The links to download the new security drivers are provided below: Download: Windows 10 64-bit/ Windows 11: Standard / DCH (474.30) Windows 7/8/8.1 64-bit: Standard / DCH (474.30) The driver mitigates the following security vulnerabilities: CVE-2023-0184 CVE-2023-0182 CVE-2023-0191 CVE-2023-0181 CVE-2023-0199 CVE-2023-0186 CVE-2023-0187 CVE-2023-0188 CVE-2023-0192 CVE-2023-0194 CVE-2023-0195 You can find more details on these vulnerabilities on Nvidia's security bulletin page here.

Plex Media Server will end support for Windows 7/8/8.1 and macOS 10.11/10.12 on April 10 by John Callaham Microsoft officially dropped support for Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 a while ago, but many apps and services continue to support those older operating systems. One of them is Plex Media Server, but this month Plex quietly announced it will soon be ending support for those older Windows versions, along with macOS 10.11 and 10.12. In a post on the Plex forums, it stated: Starting with version 1.32.0 (planned for public release on April 10th), Plex Media Server will no longer support versions of Windows older than Windows 10 (version 1607) or macOS older than 10.13 (High Sierra). The good news, if you can call it that, is that people who are still using the older operating systems can continue using the older versions of Plex Media Server on their PCs. However, Plex does strongly encourage those folks "upgrade their systems to at least Windows 10 (version 1607) or macOS 10.13 (High Sierra)." That way, both the operating systems and future versions of Plex Media Serve will keep getting critical security updates. Earlier this week, Valve revealed that it will end support on its Steam game service for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 on January 1, 2024. The Firefox web browser will continue to provide updates for those operating systems until at least Q3 2024. However, Google's Chrome ended its support for the older Windows versions in January 2023.

Firefox gives Windows 7 and 8 users more than one extra year of support by Taras Buria According to a new post on Firefox's bug tracker website, Mozilla does not plan to end Firefox support on Windows 7 and 8.1 any time soon. Initially, Mozilla Foundation considered pulling the plug for the browser on the now-dead operating system in August 2023, but the revised plans now give users much more time. Mike Kaply, a Mozilla employee, has revealed that Firefox 115 ESR (due to arrive on July 4, 2023) will support Windows 7 and 8.1. Moreover, the browser will receive security updates and fixes until at least Q3 2024. Furthermore, the development team has yet to pick a specific date to stop supporting Firefox on outdated operating systems. In November 2022, Mozilla said Firefox still has "a lot of users on Windows 7," and keeping their test machines running for a little longer would not make a big difference. Of course, sticking to a now-outdated operating system with no security updates is a questionable decision. However, it is not all black and white, and some users cannot move to Windows 10 or 11. Therefore, it is still good to see developers giving those unable to upgrade a supported and up-to-date mainstream browser. Unlike Mozilla, Google and Microsoft have already ended Chrome and Edge support on Windows 7 and 8.1. That, in turn, threw a wrench into apps relying on Chromium. For example, Valve recently announced that Steam would stop working on Windows 7 and 8.1 in January 2024.

Steam won't run on Windows 7/8/8.1 starting in 2024 as support goes away by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Like many other services, PC gaming giant Steam is soon dropping support for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1. The major change will make the Steam client inoperable on these legacy operating systems, with users losing access to their games library unless they are using an updated version of Windows. The support drop will occur on January 1, 2024, with Valve saying that "after that date, the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows." The change was announced in the latest Steam beta update by the company. Beta versions will now alert players running Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 with an "End of Life" notice with a recommendation to switch or upgrade to a newer version before support goes away. The alert should arrive to the regular Steam client soon as well. "The newest features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows," added Valve explaining the reasoning behind the change. "In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above." According to Valve's own survey data, 1.86% of Steam's user base is on the three operating systems getting the boot. The vast majority of Windows users, which amount to 96.37% of total active accounts on the platform, are using Windows 10 (62.33%) and Windows 11 (32.06%).

Microsoft Weekly: Free USB drives, Bing AI in Edge, and pirated Windows by Usama Jawad We are at the end of yet another week and it is time again to recap everything important that happened in the world of Microsoft in the past few days. This time around, we have news about Microsoft handing out free USB drives to Insiders, Bing integration in Microsoft Edge, and items about pirated Windows copies being endorsed by Microsoft, kind of. Without further ado, let's dive into our weekly digest covering March 12 - March 17! Free USB drives With Dev Channel Insiders being moved to the new Canary Channel recently, users who want to switch to lower channels need to clean install their OS. In order to assist customers in this endeavor, Microsoft is offering free USBs on a first come-first serve basis. The bad news is that delivery for the hardware may take 6-8 weeks, find out how to claim your USB here. Speaking of Insider channels, Microsoft confirmed that it will not be flighting Dev or Canary Channel builds this week - although the company is working on a new capability for Insiders to receive efatures faster. Instead, Insiders on the Beta Channel netted build 22624.1465 (KB5023775) with improved live captions, touch keyboard settings, VPN status changes, and a couple of bugs. Similarly, Windows 10 and Windows 11 Insiders on the Release Preview Channel received lots of backend enhancements. It wasn't Insiders that had all the fun though. Customers on stable builds were treated to Patch Tuesday updates. Windows 10 users received security updates and a known issue whereas Windows 11 version 22H2 and 21H2 featured lengthy changelogs with lots of fixes. Although there wasn't really a lot of activity in the higher Insider channels, Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) did receive better performance and stability in Dev and Beta. This areais perhaps becoming even more important for Microsoft as it faces competition from Google Play Games, which is coming to more countries soon. Over on the Linux side, Microsoft brought Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) custom kernel support to Arm. Those who use Windows 10 for gaming should also know that some OEMs are seemingly turning on virtualization-based security (VBS) in the OS, which could lead to slight performance drops. And since we are talking about performance, it's important to highlight that Yandex has alleged that AMD writes its drivers in a way that unfairly favors Edge and Chrome, compared to Yandex Browser. And while it's not related to the aforementioned topic, Microsoft says that it is working on new policies for app pinning and default apps as a part of its "long-standing approach to put people in control of their Windows PC experience" (hehe). The company has formally published guidance for family features in Windows 11 and made AppLocker deployment easier across various versions of Windows recently too. AI everywhere Microsoft is on a mission to bring its AI capabilities to its mainstream products. To that end, Bing AI is now embedded in the Microsoft Edge Sidebar and it seems like GPT is on its way to LinkedIn too. Microsoft has also announced Microsoft 365 Copilot for its Office productivity apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and others. You can also check out a video of this feature in action in PowerPoint here. The Redmond tech firm is also busy making improvements to Bing Chat. The chatbot is now running on GPT-4, sports daily chat and per session turn limits of 150 and 15 respectively, and allows people to share answers on social media platforms. Faster responses from the AI are being worked upon too. Some people are even reporting that they don't need to get in a queue to access the chatbot anymore. Microsoft is also working on integrating Bing Chat answers directly in Bing Search. In related news, Microsoft gave customers an inside look at how it combines its Azure cloud with Nvidia hardware to power AI supercomputers, which are also the backbone for ChatGPT's large language model. While its hardware and software are certainly impressive, some might find it problematic that Microsoft has laid off its entire ethical AI team. When it comes to updates to other Microsoft apps and services, video filters are now available in Teams, while Avatars and 3x3 default video view for Edge and Chrome are coming in May. Speaking of Edge, the stable version now sports Adobe Acrobat PDF reader natively while Dev has tab pinning, video ad blocker on Android, and more. Meanwhile, the Canary version has implementation that disables the Bing button and toggle off rounded corners on webpages. Microsoft is also intent on bringing Bing Search to Windows 10 desktop via Edge, without the AI copilot for now. It has begun testing the browser on iPhone and iPad too. Finally, Microsoft will begin rolling out the new Outlook client to more users in April, and for those who have the new Microsoft 365 app on Android, you can now quickly jump to recently opened files. Pirated Windows copies A somewhat funny story emerged this week when a Windows 10 customer reported that a Microsoft support official activated their copy by leveraging a script that is used to crack the operating system. Yes, you read that right. This was confirmed by the script's creator who noted that their method is illegal and isn't an official way to activate Windows. Overall, there is no harm done since the user in question had already purchased the Windows 10 copy officially, but was having trouble activating it. In related news, Microsoft has released PowerShell scripts to patch the WinRE BitLocker bypass in order to improve security. Its Patch Tuesday updates have also fixed a critical Outlook 0-day exploit and another reported by Google; it was related to a ransomware bypassing Microsoft SmartScreen. And if you're running a relatively insecure Windows 8.1, you should also know that Power BI Desktop is ending support for the OS in a few months. In other security news, hackers from North Korea are reportedly invading LinkedIn with fake job listings targeting unsuspecting people. In order to further secure customers against threats like these and more, Microsoft is also publicly previewing custom real-time detections in Microsoft 365 Defender. Lastly, the company is working on implementing an NFT and crypto wallet in its Edge browser (sigh). Git gud As has been the case for the past several weeks, we will once again kick off this section with Microsoft's ongoing purchase of Activision Blizzard. The former has signed two more deals with cloud streaming platforms regarding the distribution of Call of Duty, those being Boosteroid and Ubitus. Despite these seemingly consumer-friendly moves, the FTC has accused Microsoft of holding back documents requested regarding the acqusition while the EU has delayed its decision to May. As the acquisition continues to stretch on, Blizzard has confirmed that it currently has no plans to bring Diablo IV to Xbox Game Pass. Ghostwire: Tokyo is coming to the service on April 12 though. Meanwhile, Microsoft's highly anticipated Starfield has been handed an R18+ rating in Australia due to excessive drug use. This means that it can't legally be sold to minors and Microsoft may have to be careful while advertising the title too. On the other end of the spectrum, Minecraft is now available on select Chromebooks. Moreover, the Xbox app on Windows has been updated with improved filters and game discovery capabilities, read the changelog here. Coming over to deals and promotions, Xbox Free Play Days has Anno 1800, Session, and Autonauts on offer. Lamentum is free to claim on Games with Gold and NFS Unbound headlines Deals with Gold. However, if console gaming doesn't interest you, check out this Weekend's PC Game Deals curated personally by our News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe. Dev Channel You can now nominate your favorite Windows apps for Microsoft Store Awards 2023 Tiny10 version 2303 brings modern, lightweight, and serviceable Windows 10 to old PCs Satya Nadella remains Microsoft board's chairman, but there is a new lead independent director Build 2023 has been confirmed for May 23-25 SwiftKey for Android has been updated with Unicode 15 emojis and a new theme The second preview of Visual Studio 2022 17.6 is now available Microsoft 365 Apps version 2302 has resolved issues in Access, Outlook, Project, and Word Microsoft has issued a firmware update to fix abnormal shutdowns in Surface Laptop 4 Rufus 3.22 Beta has added an option to disable BitLocker and removed ISO downloads on Windows 7 Microsoft has updated WinUI 3 Gallery app to help developers create beautiful Windows apps Under the spotlight Neowin's John Callaham authored a very interesting piece comparing today's reality with what Microsoft envisioned a smart home to look like in 1999. Read more about the comparison here to find out how accurate Microsoft was in its predictions. We also have a couple of guides to spotlight. The first is from News Reporter Taras Buria who explains how you can disable the new Bing button in the Sidebar in the latest Edge 111 Stable update. The other guide is from forum member Adam Bottjen, who detailed the process to enable Back Tap on your iPhone in his latest Tech Tip Tuesday piece. Logging off Our most interesting news item in this edition of Microsoft Weekly is about the Redmond tech giant once again pushing ads for Microsoft Edge. This time, this was a full-page ad without the title bar - which meant that you couldn't close the window by pressing the traditional "x" button -, and it displayed after a browser update rather than first launch. This is not being widely reported so far, so it is possible that this ad being served to us after a browser update is a glitch rather than something intentional. But then again, you never know given Microsoft's history in this area. If you'd like to get a weekly digest of news from Neowin, we have a Newsletter you can sign up to either via the 'Get our newsletter' widget in the sidebar, or through this link. Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.

Power BI Desktop to end support for Windows 8.1, new features unveiled by Hamza Jawad At the beginning of last year, Microsoft ended extended support for Windows 8.1 - almost a decade after the operating systemlaunched. Today, as part of its monthly feature summary for Power BI Desktop, the tech giant has also revealed that support for the data analytics service on Windows 8.1 will be ending on January 31, 2024. Aside from this announcement, a bunch of new features have been unveiled for Power BI Desktop this month, including on-object interaction, a new 'Apply All Slicers' button for reports, several connector updates, and more. A couple of recently introduced enhancements have hit general availability, including Power BI's integration with PowerPoint, and Multiple Audiences for Power BI org apps - which was previewed back in August. Moreover, the third-party visuals highlighted this time around from AppSource include Financial Reporting Matrix v7.0, Acterys Variance, Feature Summary for Drill Down Combo PRO, and Gantt Chart by MAQ Software. Aside from that, two new visuals have also been released in the store, including Horizontal Bullet Chart with Label and Banzae BI Dashboard. The full list of changes is as follows: Reporting Apply all slicers button, Clear all slicers button, and Optimization presets update Format Pane – new styling On-object interaction (Opt-in) Visual container improvements Data Connectivity Google BigQuery, Google BigQuery Azure AD (Connector Update) Azure Databricks, Databricks (Connector Update) Dremio Cloud (Connector Update) FactSet RMS (Connector Update) SurveyMonkey (Connector Update) Service Storytelling in PowerPoint Power BI org app Multiple Audiences Announcing new Scanner API scenarios Email Subscriptions Mobile Discover external orgs content in your mobile app Grant access on the go Visualizations (third-party visuals) New visuals in AppSource Financial Reporting Matrix v7.0 Acterys Variance Feature Summary for Drill Down Combo PRO Gantt Chart by MAQ Software (PREMIUM) The January 2024 release for Power BI Desktop for Report Server will essentially be the last one to support Windows 8.1, after which only Windows 10 and newer versions will be supported. Notably, security updates will continue to be shipped to Windows 8.1 users of Power BI Desktop until January 2025.

Statcounter: Almost every fifth PC runs Windows 11, Windows 10 gets major spike by Taras Buria At the beginning of each month, Statcounter publishes its reports detailing the latest browser and operating system market shifts. Data for February 2023 is now available, and it shows several interesting changes, such as Windows 11 approaching a 20% milestone and Windows 10 experiencing a notable spike. According to Statcounter, in February 2023, Windows 11 increased its market share by 1.01 points, reaching an all-time high of 19.13%. In other words, almost every fifth PC runs Microsoft's newest operating system. The latest feature update released on February 28, 2023, might tempt more Windows 10 users to pull the trigger and migrate to Windows 11. You can learn what is new in the Windows 11 "Moment 2" update in our review. The operating system market is massive and rarely experiences sudden spikes or significant changes. However, February 2023 is an exception. In January 2023, Microsoft put Windows 7 and 8.1 to their final rest and ended the Extended Security Updates program. This resulted in more companies upgrading their computers to Windows 10, bringing its market share up from 68.86% in January to 73.25% in February. Despite the final end of support, Windows 7 remains the third most popular Windows version. However, it lost a massive chunk of users and dropped from 9.55% to 5.39%. Windows 8.1's market share also halved from 2.28% to 1.15%. Windows 10 - 73.25% (+4.39) Windows 11 - 19.13% (+1.01) Windows 7 - 5.39% (-4.16) Windows 8.1 - 1.15% (-1.13) Windows 8 - 0.52% (-0.1) You can learn more about the latest Statcounter findings on the official website. Note: Third-party reports are never 100% accurate. Learn how Statcounter gathers information in the official FAQ.

Statcounter: Windows 11 crosses 18% mark but Windows 10 is not giving up by Taras Buria In addition to covering the most recent changes in the browser market (desktop and mobile), Statcounter's January 2023 report covers operating systems for computers and mobile devices. And since Microsoft rarely provides precise numbers and performance figures for its OSes, Statcounter, Valve, and other companies are the only way to analyze how different Windows versions progress or decline. According to Statcounter, in January 2023, Windows 11 increased its market share by 1.16 points, effectively reaching 18.13%. It is a relatively modest number, but it remains consistent over months. Slow but steady, Windows 11 continues biting off customers from Windows 10 and other operating systems. Windows 10, the king of the hill, is not giving up easily. The soon-to-be eight-year-old operating system increased its customer base and went up from 67.95% in December 2022 to 68.75% in January 2023. The end of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 extended support periods is the most likely reason for the sudden spike. As expected, Windows 7 and 8.1 experienced a notable dip in their market shares. Windows 7 went down from 11.2% to 9.62% (-1.58 ), and Windows 8.1 lost 0.29 points. Windows 8 closes the top 5 Windows versions list with 0.62% (-0.03), and Windows XP is sixth at 0.45% (-0.04). Windows 10: 68.75% (+0.8) Windows 11: 18.13% (+1.16) Windows 7: 9.62% (-1.58) Windows 8.1: 2.331% (-0.29) Windows 8: 0.62% (-0.03) Overall, Windows holds 74.14% of the desktop operating system market. The value went down 1.2 points in January 2023, which is nothing uncommon compared to the previous months. The closest rival to Windows, Apple's macOS, is second with 15.33% (+0.67). Windows: 74.14% (-1.2) macOS: 15.33% (+0.67) Unknown: 5.27% (+0.49) Linux: 2.91% (-0.02) ChromeOS: 2.34% (+0.06) Finally, when considering the entire mobile and desktop operating systems market, Windows is the second most popular OS that only Android manages to beat. iOS and macOS are third and fourth. Android: 43.01% (-1.59) Windows: 29.18% (+0.77) iOS: 17.24% (-0.05) macOS: 6.03% (+0.5) Unknown: 2.15% (+0.73) You can find more information about the desktop operating system market on the official Statcounter website. Keep in mind that reports like this one are not 100% accurate and leave a margin for errors and inaccuracies.

My Windows 10 PC has finally been offered Windows 11, but I'm not sure I want to update by Usama Jawad If you have read my Windows 11 coverage over the past year or so, including my review of the OS, you probably know that there are many things I like about the OS along with some that I don't. However, I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I actually have a dual-boot setup on my personal PC, with both Windows 10 and 11 installed. For the past seven or so years, Windows 10 has been my primary OS, and it remains so today, despite the release of Windows 11 back in October 2021. Thanks to my dual-boot setup, I use Windows 10 about 80% of the time and Windows 11 Dev Channel builds in the remainder portion. The latter usage is primarily to check out the new features in Dev Channel builds and for their coverage that I do on Neowin. Importantly, despite fulfilling all major Windows 11's strict requirements such as having a recent CPU and TPM 2.0, my PC was not offered the upgrade due to a safeguard hold. Following this month's Patch Tuesday update, it seems my PC is finally allowed to update... but I'm not sure if I want to. Let me explain myself a bit. As some of you already know, I like a number of features in Windows 11 including the aesthetics, Snap Layouts, simplified context menus, tabbed File Explorer, and more. However, I also think that Microsoft has made several unnecessary changes just for the sake of it and these include the Teams integration, removing the seconds from the system clock, the dumbed-down Taskbar, the mediocre Start menu, and more. And while the good definitely outweighs the bad, I have been asking myself: do I really need Windows 11? Is a prettier design along with a couple of productivity improvements really worth migrating from a stable OS to one that seems to cause issues after updating each month? So far, the answer has been in the negative. I absolutely expect Windows 11 to become more stable and better over time, but unlike Windows 10 where I installed the OS as my primary setup on day one of Technical Preview (basically the Insider Program of yesteryear), I don't quite feel the need to do the same this time around. A major reason for this is that I found the predecessors - both Windows 8 and 8.1 - to Windows 10 simply awful and I could not wait to jump ship to a newer OS. Things aren't quite the same right now. I really like Windows 10 and have become quite familiar with it. I don't feel the itch to upgrade to Windows 11 as soon as possible. Perhaps part of the reason is also that Windows 11 leverages much of the groundwork that Windows 10 has already laid and improves upon it in some areas. For me, Windows 11 right now is just a prettier but unstable version of Windows 10. And is that something I want to upgrade to ASAP? I don't think so. The situation is somewhat similar when it comes to my work PC, although in a different context. On that machine, I was offered Windows 11 from day one but have not pulled the trigger yet simply due to the mantra, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Windows 10 meets all my job's needs and I've always considered it a risk to install feature updates in fear that it may break some critical functionality that I need. I know that I might sound a bit irrational but that's how my brain works when it comes to my work PC. I install security updates as they become available but I treat feature updates differently and delay them until they are forced upon me. Contracting as a software engineer for offshore clients in different timezones means that I really can't afford downtime. If I face blocking issues on my PC that require admin privileges from the side of my clients, I may lose an entire day of productivity at the very least while waiting for offshore IT admins to come online. All in all, while l really like Windows 11 in some aspects, I'm currently struggling to convince myself to upgrade to the OS despite having the update available on both of my PCs. Will I be able to convince myself to update in the short-term? Will Microsoft? The chances are slim, but you never know. The fact of the matter is simply that Windows 11 doesn't have big differentiating factors compared to Windows 10, and while Microsoft's latest OS may be pretty, its predecessor is relatively more stable and familiar. Have you updated to Windows 11 or are you on the fence as well? What is your rationale for upgrading? Let us know in the comments section below!

Microsoft Weekly: New File Explorer, the death of Windows 8.1, and a Teams paywall by Usama Jawad Welcome to a new edition of Microsoft Weekly where we recap everything important that happened in the Microsoft-verse in the past seven days. Finally, we have a jampacked week full of interesting news items related to Windows updates, some upcoming Windows features, as well as Microsoft 365 enhancements. Without further ado, let's dive into our latest digest covering January 8 - January 13! New File Explorer We heard some pretty exciting news this week where we got our first look at what could be a new version of File Explorer for Windows 11. This "leak" came from a recent Dev Channel build 25272, indicating that a new home page is in the works with more details like Insights, Activities, Properties, Related Files, Conversations, Sharing status, and more. This is in addition to the recommended content that Microsoft is planning for File Explorer too. The good news is that the enthusiasts among us can enable the hidden UI through the process mentioned here, but know that the software is unstable in its current state. Speaking of the Dev Channel, we did get build 25276 this week. It brings several new features like live kernel dumps in Task Manager, updates to cloud storage notifications - including new reminders for OneDrive -, updated dialog boxes, and more. Naturally, this was also followed by a Windows Server Preview build 25276 without a changelog. A security feature that may intrigue some readers is that Microsoft will soon be disabling insecure SMB guest authentication fallbacks in Windows 11 Pro. In the same vein, the Redmond tech giant is also planning on killing off Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) within the next couple years, likely due to the security threats it poses. Some of you might also have noticed slow download and install speeds when updating to new Windows 11 Insider builds. And if that is the case, you will be relieved to know that Microsoft is actively investigating the problem. The death of Windows 8.1 This week, Microsoft finally put Windows 7 and 8.1 to sleep forever in terms of support. Both the operating systems are no longer supported which means that Microsoft will not provide technical support for them and you might run into security and usability issues while running the OSes too. It is important to note that Windows 7 was supported up until this week only for paid Extended Security Updates (ESUs) customers anyway. Naturally, this was followed by news of several third-party software dropping support for the operating systems too. Among these are Paint.NET 5 and Google Chrome. That said, the latest version of Chrome is the last version to support the legacy OSes, support will officially end next month with Chrome 110. Amid all of this commotion, we learned that Microsoft mysteriously implemented a half-baked version of native UEFI and Secure Boot in Windows 7, which is odd considering the OS was pretty much on its deathbed. Both Windows 7 and 8.1 also received their last Patch Tuesday updates this week. They pack some authentication improvements, fixes for a buggy SQL Server driver, and a couple of known issues. Meanwhile, Windows 10 nabbed some security fixes along with a known issue. And Windows 11 had similar improvements with two known problems. Interestingly, the Windows 11 Patch Tuesday also packs two hidden features (find out how to enable them here), but does not document them. In terms of other fixes and improvements from Microsoft, the company resolved an OOBE issue in Windows 11 version 22H2 and a BSOD problem on Windows 10. It also established a partial fix for a Friday the 13th bug that led to Defender randomly deleting shortcuts on various versions of Windows. In the same vein, Microsoft is making it easier for IT admins to manage Win32 app upgrades and replacements across their organizations too. Third-party developers weren't far behind in providing software updates either. Rufus received an updated FIDO script to fix broken Windows ISO downloads while its alternative Ventoy resolved numerous bugs related to Windows 11 requirements bypass, a VHDX booting issue, and more. Finally, in terms of app updates, it seems like the new Windows 11 Media Player is also on its way to Windows 10. But if you simply can't wait for that, another interesting news item for you could be that hell has frozen over as preview apps for Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Devices have landed in the Microsoft Store. Microsoft Teams paywall Earlier in the week, Microsoft Teams customers received some not-so-good news as we reported that Microsoft is locking some existing features behind the more expensive Teams Premium add-on, launching next month at $10/user/month. The capabilities that will find themselves behind a paywall next month include live translated captions, custom Together mode scenes for organizations, timeline markers in Teams meetings recording marking when a member joined or left a meeting and more. OneNote customers will be happy though with AI-backed voice commands for OneNote on Mac, along with preview features consisting of a keyboard shortcut for drawing straight lines, complete with Pen & Ink improvements. Similarly, Microsoft Planner finally netted Recurring Tasks and Grid view, while SwiftKey for Android offered a new way to change your app language. Microsoft also confirmed a bunch of issues in Outlook which it is still investigating. That said, it has offered a workaround for now. This week also saw the release of Microsoft Edge 109 with security fixes, text prediction, TLS server certificate verification changes, and account Linking between a personal Microsoft account (MSA) and Azure Active Directory (AAD) account. In addition, we learned that Microsoft is working on even more rounded corners, this time in Edge. Lastly, if you think that Microsoft 365 is too expensive for you, Microsoft is now offering an enticing Basic plan with the following capabilities: 100GB of space in OneDrive Ad-free Outlook on the web and mobile Additional security features, such as data encryption in Outlook, attachment scanning, and suspicious links checking Additional features for OneDrive, such as Personal Vault, password-protected and expiring links, ransomware data recovery, and bulk file store (coming later this year) Additional technical support over phone or online chat for apps and Windows 11 Microsoft 365 Basic costs $1.99/month or $19.99/year. Git gud Microsoft finally confirmed its rumored gaming showcase with Bethesda a couple of days ago. It's called "Developer_Direct" and is expected to offer closer looks at Forza Motorsport, Minecraft Legends, Redfall, and the future of The Elder Scrolls Online on January 25. Starfield is a noticeable absentee but Microsoft has assured gamers that a standalone showcase for the highly anticipated title is planned for later. In other interesting news, Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition deal is now facing opposition from Google and Nvidia too. The two have lodged complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) citing unfair advantages for Microsoft in the cloud, subscription, and mobile gaming sectors if the deal were to be approved. This has not distracted Microsoft from other gaming areas. It recently published a video emphasizing the benefits of gaming on Windows 11 version 22H2, and made sure that Xbox is the first carbon aware console in the world. On the topic of games, I Am Fish is the title on offer via the Xbox Free Play Days promotion while Mortal Shell: Enhanced Edition, Monster Hunter Rise, and a couple of Persona titles are the latest additions to Game Pass. But if none of that interests, you might want to check out this Weekend's PC Game Deals instead, curated by our News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe. Dev Channel Surface Laptop Studio now has better Windows Hello facial recognition Surface Pro 8 has netted a bunch of new drivers in the latest firmware update Microsoft has acquired Fungible in push for datacenter innovation Microsoft could be planning to invest $10 billion in OpenAI, with some caveats Android 13-based Windows Subsystem for Android is now available for Windows Insiders Latest Exchange Server updates have improved the security of PowerShell payloads but introduced a known issue too Under the spotlight News Reporter Taras Buria published a listicle with his thoughts on the top five features Microsoft added to Windows 11 in 2022. Find out whether or not you agree with him here. Meanwhile, News Reporter Rahul Naskar shared his thoughts on how despite switching to macOS, he still misses Windows a lot. On the other hand, News Reporter Hemant Saxena published a piece listing five ways to speed up your Windows PC if it has recently been struggling in terms of performance. Lastly, if you're struggling to keep track of your tasks and to-do items, make sure to check out forum member Adam Bottjen's Tech Tip Tuesday piece about note-taking on Windows PCs. Logging off We actually have more than one interesting news items of the week in this section this time. For starters, the U.S. Congress has denied the Army's request for a $400 million fund to purchase almost 7,000 HoloLens headsets. The rationale behind this is that the investment is not worthwhile in the current state of the headsets with soldiers experiencing eye strain, nausea, and headaches. Instead, a $40 million budget has been approved to improve the headset to resolve the existing issues in the next iteration of the hardware. Microsoft's hardware woes just don't end there though. The company has apparently ditched the Surface Duo 3 initially planned for late 2023, at least in its current form factor. This is due to the lukewarm reception to this lineup. Instead the firm is now working on a conventional foldable and another one with a "standard" smartphone design. This is part of the "Perfect Together" strategy to differentiate Surface hardware from other competitors. Only time will tell how successful this plan ends up being. If you'd like to get a weekly digest of news from Neowin, we have a Newsletter you can sign up to either via the 'Get our newsletter' widget in the sidebar, or through this link. Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.

Google Chrome 109 now available, last version to support Windows 7 and 8.1 by Usama Jawad Google Chrome version 108 arrived well over a month ago, and now it's time for Chrome 109 to be rolled out to consumers. Although Chrome releases are generally separated by a four-week gap, the break was longer this time around due to the holiday season. Regardless, Chrome 109 is now rolling out, it's a significant release because it's the last version of the browser to support Windows 7 and 8.1. Microsoft itself dropped support for both the operating systems quite recently. Interestingly, the latest release of Chrome also packs Cookies Having Independent Partitioned State (CHIPS), which is Google's alternative to third-party cookies, something that it is deprecating within a couple of years. This implementation has an opt-in mechanism for developers to subscribe to the top-level site, which Google claims should enable "non-tracking-related" use-cases and won't be restricted to cross-site cookie blocking. Another interesting feature in this release of Chrome is MathML, which is a better way to insert mathematical formulas in web page as it reduces complexity, and improves performance and consistency with the ability to embed notation in HTML and SVG. And yet another capability that may intrigue web authors is the enablement of the Origin Private File System (OPFS) component of the File System Access API on Android for faster performance when accessing files. There are also some video conferencing improvements in tow, particularly related to the capturing of the correct window through a feature called Conditional Focus. Similarly, web developers can also leverage a mechanism to play window audio captured by a video conferencing app through the local speakers connected to the device. Additionally, there are a bunch of CSS enhancements listed below too: Auto range support for font descriptors inside @font-face rule CSS `hyphenate-limit-chars` property CSS 'lh' Length Unit Snap border, outline and column-rule widths before layout to bring Chrome's Blink in line with WebKit (Safari) and Gecko (Firefox) That's not all in terms of new features though. There is also support for bring-your-own-buffer (BYOB) readers for WebTransport to reduce unnecessary memory allocation and same-site cross-origin prerendering triggered by the speculation rules API for faster page rendering, and the addition of a field to indicate the HTTP response code when using PerfomanceResourceTiming. There are several capabilities behind origin and developer trials (flags) too. You can have a look at them below: Developer trial (behind a flag) Compute Pressure: Allows websites to respond to CPU utilization changes to improve performance CSS nesting: For improved modularity and maintainability of styling X-Requested-With in WebView: This header is being discontinued Origin trial Back/forward cache NotRestoredReason API: Lets developers know why a page is not being served from the BFcache Lastly, the Event.path method is being discontinued because it is a non-standard API that is causing compatibility problems with other browsers. Chrome 109 should be available for you now. If Chrome does not automatically update to version 109, head over to Help > About Google Chrome to trigger the update once it becomes available. Next up is Chrome 110 which will hit the Beta channel on January 12, followed by an "Early Stable" release on February 1 and Stable on February 7.

Final Windows 7 (KB5022338) and Windows 8.1 (KB5022352) Patch Tuesday updates land by Paul Hill Microsoft has released the final Windows 7 (KB5022338) and Windows 8.1 (KB5022352) Patch Tuesday updates. Both include improvements but unfortunately also some known issues which will now never be addressed. The release notes are as follows: Windows 7 Improvements Authentication might fail after you set the higher 16-bits of the msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes attribute. This issue might occur if encryption types are not set or if RC4 Encryption type is disabled on the domain. Resolves a known issue that affects apps that use Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) SQL Server Driver (sqlsrv32.dll) to connect to databases. The connection might fail. You might also receive an error in the app, or you might receive an error from the SQL Server. Known issues in this update Symptom Next Step After installing this update and restarting your device, you might receive the error, "Failure to configure Windows updates. Reverting Changes. Do not turn off your computer", and the update might show as Failed in Update History. This is expected in the following circumstances: If you are installing this update on a device that is running an edition that is not supported for ESU. For a complete list of which editions are supported, see KB4497181. If you do not have an ESU MAK add-on key installed and activated. If you have purchased an ESU key and have encountered this issue, please verify you have applied all prerequisites and that your key is activated. For information on activation, please see this blog post. For information on the prerequisites, see the How to get this update section of this article. After this update or a later Windows update is installed, domain join operations might be unsuccessful and error "0xaac (2732): NERR_AccountReuseBlockedByPolicy" occurs. Additionally, text stating "An account with the same name exists in Active Directory. Re-using the account was blocked by security policy" might be displayed. Affected scenarios include some domain join or re-imaging operations where a computer account was created or pre-staged by a different identity than the identity used to join or re-join the computer to the domain. For more information about this issue, see KB5020276—Netjoin: Domain join hardening changes. Note Consumer Desktop editions of Windows are unlikely to experience this issue. We have added guidance to KB5020276 and are evaluating whether optimizations can be made in a future Windows Update. This guidance will be updated as soon as those changes are released. Windows 8.1 Improvements Authentication might fail after you set the higher 16-bits of the msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes attribute. This issue might occur if encryption types are not set or if RC4 Encryption type is disabled on the domain. Starting in this release, we are displaying a modal dialog box to remind users about the End of Support for Windows 8.1 in January 2023. This reminder does not appear on managed devices that run Windows 8.1 Pro or Windows 8.1 Enterprise. Resolves a known issue that affects apps that use Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) SQL Server Driver (sqlsrv32.dll) to connect to databases. The connection might fail. You might also receive an error in the app, or you might receive an error from the SQL Server. Known issues in this update Symptom Next Step After this update or a later Windows update is installed, domain join operations might be unsuccessful and error "0xaac (2732): NERR_AccountReuseBlockedByPolicy" occurs. Additionally, text stating "An account with the same name exists in Active Directory. Re-using the account was blocked by security policy" might be displayed. Affected scenarios include some domain join or re-imaging operations where a computer account was created or pre-staged by a different identity than the identity used to join or re-join the computer to the domain. For more information about this issue, see KB5020276—Netjoin: Domain join hardening changes. Note Consumer Desktop editions of Windows are unlikely to experience this issue. We have added guidance to KB5020276 and are evaluating whether optimizations can be made in a future Windows Update. This guidance will be updated as soon as those changes are released. Both of these updates will be delivered via Windows Update (you need an ESU SKU for Windows 7) automatically. If you have offline machines, you can grab these updates as independent downloads from the Microsoft Update Catalog (Windows 7, Windows 8.1). If you’re on Windows 7, be sure to check earlier coverage about Microsoft adding half-baked UEFI Secure Boot to Windows 7 right before killing the operating system.

PSA: Windows 8.1 extended support ends today by Justin Luna Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system (OS) has finally reached its end-of-support date after almost a decade. As of today, January 10, 2023, the Redmond tech giant will no longer provide the OS with software updates, technical support, or security patches. You won't immediately notice anything different if you keep using the OS past this date. However, because the OS no longer receives security updates, your system will become more vulnerable to viruses, ransomware, and other security threats. Also, if your PC encounters any issues, it will be difficult to get support without paying a premium. Finally, some programs may no longer work properly as some software manufacturers discontinue support for Windows 8.1. Introduced back on October 17, 2013, Windows 8.1 was Microsoft's response to the many negative user complaints about Windows 8. It brought back the Start button (but not the menu), provided users with the ability to boot straight to the desktop instead of the Start Screen, and featured a Bing-based unified search system. Aside from these, Windows 8.1 also had a tighter integration with SkyDrive (now OneDrive), a transparent device encryption system based on BitLocker on compatible devices, and support for 3D printing. According to Statcounter, 2.59% of PCs worldwide still run Windows 8.1 as of December 2022. If your PC is one of these, you can easily upgrade to Windows 10 at no cost using your current Windows 8.1 key. There's also the Windows 11 option, but it might be more difficult to take this route because of the OS's stringent system requirements. By upgrading to a more modern OS, you regain access to new features, security updates, and support. Personally, I commend Microsoft for coming out with Windows 8.1. While it wasn't until Windows 10 that I believe Microsoft offered the best of both worlds for touch and traditional PC users, it was an admission from the Redmond giant that Windows 8 needed a lot of work. It also showed that the company remained committed to people still using a keyboard and mouse combination despite the OS having a touch-heavy interface. To Windows 8.1, we bid you farewell. Do you have fond memories of using Windows 8.1? Tell us all about it in the comments section below.

Microsoft Weekly: New builds for Windows 11, Microsoft 365 improvements, and Edge upgrades by Usama Jawad Welcome to the first edition of Microsoft Weekly for 2023. As most of our readers may be aware, Microsoft Weekly is a digest where we recap every important news related to the tech giant from the past seven days. This time, we have some updates related to Windows 11 builds, as well as a bunch of enhancements for Teams and Outlook. Let's dive into the latest Microsoft Weekly edition covering January 1 - January 6! New year, new builds After the holiday break spread over the last few weeks, Microsoft resumed rolling out Insider Preview builds a couple of days ago. Windows 11 Dev Channel Insiders were treated to build 25272, which contains a long list of bug fixes and general improvements. But more importantly, it also rolls back a controversial Start menu feature, that being the recommendation of websites in bottom half of the UI. That said, it's not clear yet if this will make a return in the future. Additionally, we learned that Microsoft may also be working on a "Gallery" interface, but it's unclear how it will differ from the Pictures directory. Meanwhile, Beta Channel Insiders received build 22623.1095 (KB5022364). It contains ever more rounded corners for the search box in the Start menu, along with bug fixes for the Task Manager, Start menu, and the Taskbar. That's not to say that there isn't anything to talk about in the generally available version of Windows. Microsoft fixed a SQL Server issue affecting apps on various versions of Windows in the past week too. And for all you performance stats nerds out there, some new data indicates that Windows 11 may not be faster than Windows 10, and it may not have a huge advantage over Ubuntu either. In related news, there have also been sporadic reports about the latest Patch Tuesday update for Windows 11 version causing freezing issues on AMD Ryzen PCs. AMD has also claimed that it will boost Windows 11 performance on at least its latest Ryzen 7000X3D chips. Lastly, if you're still using Windows 8.1 for some reason, consider upgrading as soon as possible as the OS is running out of support in a couple days. Microsoft 365 improvements There were a bunch of Microsoft 365 related updates in the past few days. For starters, the Microsoft 365 Current Channel netted build 15928.20198 (version 2212). The update brings new features for Access and Word and also fixes a few bugs in the latter software and Excel. Speaking of Excel, Microsoft has finally introduced the Automate tab for Excel desktop users both on Mac and Windows too, find out what it does here. Meanwhile, Outlook mobile users are set to receive a bunch of new features next month. These include better email forwarding and better warning messages and cleanup options when you're about to run out of email storage. On the other hand, iOS users will receive more customization options. Similarly, Team customers were treated to some good news too. The meeting toolbar has been revamped to make navigation a lot easier, but the feature is not generally available yet. Furthermore, February will bring "busy options", which basically means that users can customize how incoming calls are routed when you are busy in an existing call or meeting. Finally, it's worth highlighting that Skype and OneDrive briefly went down this week but Microsoft managed to resolve the outage within a few hours. Microsoft Edge and other app updates With 2023 now underway, it seems like Microsoft has its work well cut out in the Edge department. This is because the latest stats from Statcounter have revealed that the browser managed to gain only 2% desktop market share throughout the whole of 2022. This does not mean that it performed worse compared to other browsers, but it does solidify the fact that having more than one billion Windows devices running worldwide is not enough to make Microsoft win this race. In related news, Microsoft Edge received a new Dev build recently too. On Android, a notable feature is improved ad blocking but you should experience fewer crashes and enjoy other bug fixes across other platforms too. Similarly, PowerToys 0.66.0 towed with it a hefty list of bug fixes and improvements - but no new toys unfortunately. And third-party utility Virtual Desktop Helper now supports Windows 11 Insider builds too. Find out more details about this update here. Git gud While Edge in the desktop market probably isn't doing as well as Microsoft would have hoped, Windows 11 is seemingly making waves in the gaming community. Valve's latest survey data indicates that the OS is being used by almost 29% of gamers, which is a significant figure given the young age of the operating system. In other notable news, Microsoft has agreed to ZeniMax Studios staff forming a labor union in the U.S. This is a first for Microsoft's U.S. division, with the labor union consisting of approximately 300 quality assurance team members, more than any other U.S. game studio to date. On the Xbox side, we got an Alpha ring preview build with "Recent Parties" feature to quickly dive back into a game with the same group of people you were playing with before. Meanwhile, CES 2023 saw a gimmicky ASUS ROG Raikiri Pro Xbox controller sporting a 1.3-inch OLED display above the Xbox button which can be used to display text or animated wallpapers. There was also a new Xbox Series X bundle with Forza Horizon 5 and lots of in-game extras. Additionally, Games with Gold subscribers were treated to Iris Fall, but if console gaming doesn't really suit your palette, check out this Weekend's PC Game Deals curated by our News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe instead. Dev Channel Nvidia has announced new RTX Video Super Resolution for Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome A student is working on a tool to combat AI-powered plagiarism from tools like ChatGPT Microsoft and ISRO are collaborating to support space-tech startups in India Under the spotlight In this section, we first have a couple of Outlook-focused guides. The first is from News Reporter Hemant Saxena who describes how to recall or edit an email after sending it through the Outlook 365 app. Next, we have a guide from News Editor Justin Luna talking about how to schedule emails from the Outlook web app. Our third and final guide for this week is from forum member Adam Bottjen's Tech Tip Tuesday article, explaining how you can reduce the blue light from your PC's display to ease the strain on your eyes and help you sleep better. Read this important guide here. Logging off Our most interesting news item of this week is undoubtedly a report claiming that Microsoft is looking to integrate the popular ChatGPT large language model in its Bing search engine. This wouldn't be too surprising considering that Microsoft has invested $1 billion in OpenAI, the company behind the machine learning model. Of course, both companies have declined to comment on the topic but it would be really interesting to see if Bing on steroids powered by ChatGPT is enough to dethrone Google in the long term. If you'd like to get a weekly digest of news from Neowin, we have a Newsletter you can sign up to either via the 'Get our newsletter' widget in the sidebar, or through this link. Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.

PSA: Support for Windows 8.1 is ending next week by Usama Jawad Windows 7 reached end of support about three years ago and it's almost time for another Microsoft operating system to bite the dust. Windows 8.1 will be reaching its end of life next week on January 10, 2023. As a refresher, Windows 8.1 was released back in 2013 as a response to customer feedback about Windows 8. As such, it notably featured the return of the Start button, a Bing-based unified search system, the ability to boot directly direct to desktop, and more. Although it was received more positively than its predecessor, it failed to address several issues and as such, it does not have the loyal customer base that Windows 7 enjoyed. In terms of what end of support means for Windows 8.1 users, they will not be offered any more security updates or technical support following the OS' end of life. Although Microsoft has noted that some people might be able to upgrade to a newer version of Windows, it's probably better to get a new PC instead. Of course, it recommends Windows 11 but it is important to remember that Windows 10 is still an option too, as it is supported until October 14, 2025. This is why Microsoft recommends purchasing a new PC instead of upgrading your the OS of your existing system: PCs originally built with Windows 8.1 are designed with technology that is about 10 years old. Once you move to a new PC, there will be many aspects of Windows that you will find familiar, but also with important software and hardware innovations and capabilities that were not available a decade ago. Some of the innovative new features available with Windows 11 on a new computer: Newer PC hardware that is faster, more capable and more compatible with the latest industry technology. To help you keep your computer secure, you can take advantage of the latest security capabilities: Get built-in security at no extra cost. Your Windows computer comes with built-in security features, including firewall and internet protections to help safeguard against viruses, malware and ransomware. Use facial recognition or your fingerprint for more-secure sign-ins into Windows 11 on a PC compatible with Windows Hello. You can also use a localised PIN or your phone as a key. Organise your image files with the Photos app and they’ll be ready for easy viewing and sharing—even across devices. You can also search for certain themes and people in your photos. You just need to make sure your images are stored on OneDrive and you’re signed into your Microsoft account. Microsoft has boasted that Windows 11 is the way to go because it is its most secure OS to date, saying that it's really easy to migrate your existing content and software to its latest OS. While your Windows 8.1 PC will continue functioning in an unsupported state after January 10, you may experience degraded experiences across some software. For example, in-app and new purchases from the Microsoft Store will not be possible after this date, Microsoft Store app updates will stop after June 30, you may experience problems with Office apps, and web browsers such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge will be dropping support for the legacy OS soon too.