• PlayStation cuts ties with Kojima Productions for upcoming Physint game
• Hideo Kojima states PlayStation tried to cancel Physint, so he decided to look for a new partnership
• Xbox and Kojima Productions now have a partnership for Physint and future projects, including OD

Sony dented its reputation in the gaming industry with its announcement that it would be ending the production of physical game discs — and the trend of controversial decisions is still going strong.

PlayStation has cut ties with Kojima Productions for its upcoming game, Physint, and Xbox has swooped in as a replacement in a new partnership with Hideo Kojima's video game and film production studio.

In a statement on X, PlayStation says: "After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with Kojima Productions on its project, Physint. We continue to have great admiration for Hideo Kojima's vision for the game."

From that statement alone, it's not exactly clear why the split has occurred. However, Hideo Kojima took to X to weigh in on the matter himself, stating: "We unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the Physint project," which is PlayStation in form, at least based on its cancellations of multiple projects from its first-party studios.

"Physint is an important project both to me personally and to Kojima Productions. Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner. We found Xbox, a partner with whom we share a common vision for the future, and we have decided to team up with them once again."

Unsurprisingly, Xbox is more than happy to partner with the critically acclaimed developer, as its CEO, Asha Sharma, says: "We're honored that Kojima-san has chosen Xbox to work with Kojima Productions on Physint. His ambition to challenge conventions reflects the kind of creativity we want to support at Xbox."

Sony's Physint cancellation attempt hints at bigger concerns

Fortunately, Physint is in fine condition, with development still underway, as Kojima confirmed, calling it Kojima Productions' "genre-defining action-espionage title", which many have lauded as the next Metal Gear-style franchise since Kojima left Konami in 2015.

However, the bigger question remains: is the split between the companies solely due to the PlayStation's Physint cancellation attempt? Considering Kojima's stance against a digital-only future, which Sony has greenlit for games, it's hard to imagine that this didn't play a role in the partnership's collapse.

Kojima highlighted his sadness about Sony's decision to end the production of physical PlayStation game discs, considering the loss of ownership, which he described as a company suddenly stating, "You can turn on the tap for a certain amount of money each month."

That points towards fears of subscription services and how media will only be accessible by using them, and easy access to favorite movies and games will cease to exist.

It's not hard to imagine Kojima getting cold feet about launching Physint on PlayStation as an exclusive, without any physical game discs, as it directly highlights his fears of an all-digital future. It may not have been the direct factor behind the separation, but the timing (a few months after Sony's disc-axing announcement) certainly doesn't appear to be coincidental either.

Whether the blowback from this new decision will push Sony to reverse course is to be seen, but if Kojima's pushback on an all-digital future has anything to do with the disbanding, it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see other developers eventually do the same.

• Microsoft has fixed no fewer than 974 vulnerabilities in its latest Patch Tuesday release
• Two were already being exploited in the wild, 114 categorized as 'Critical'
• AI is to blame for boosting CVE discovery and also intensifying attacks

Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday has become its biggest security release on record, with the company issuing fixes for a staggering 974 vulnerabilities across the entire stack.

According to the company's release notes, an overwhelming majority (723) of the vulnerabilities addressed related to Windows, with Office coming in at second place with 111 of its own vulnerabilities being addressed.

While it's clear that the number of vulnerabilities is going up year-over-year, it's likely that the company was also simply able to find more of them that would otherwise have slipped through the net thanks to AI-assisted discovery tools.

This is Microsoft's biggest Patch Tuesday ever

Speaking about the September 2026 Patch Tuesday in a blog post, Dustin Childs explains that this could be the start of the "new normal." Childs goes on to reveal that Microsoft has patched 2,760 CVEs this year to date – more than double any other year that precedes it.

Childs' figures show that the company patched 1,139 CVEs in the whole of 2025, and a much lower 492 a decade ago in 2016. According to the post, 114 of the vulnerabilities patched in this latest update were 'Critical' – more than one in 10.

In its own notes, Microsoft described CVE-2026-85880 and CVE-2026-81963 as especially notable because they're both being actively exploited, hence the push to get them fixed and for customers to install the update.

Elsewhere in the industry, Microsoft isn't the only company addressing a higher volume of bugs. Childs also highlighted high activity from Adobe, while a number of browser developers including Google, Mozilla, Brave and Microsoft itself have doubled the release cycle to two weeks in order to get fixes into customer hands more quickly.

Besides fixing exploitable bugs, Microsoft also used the opportunity to issue fixes to known issues – including fixing Teams and Outlook crashes on Arm64 PCs – as well as to upgrade Copilot+ AI components.

• Windows 11's latest update has arrived
• The September update brings in the ability to move the taskbar
• There are also new options for resizing the Start menu, and a really useful tweak for Windows 11's search function

Windows 11's latest update has arrived, and it packs some important new features for the interface of the desktop OS.

Bleeping Computer flagged all the additions in the September 2026 update for Windows 11, and there are three major highlights, which I'll pick out here, before providing a general roundup of some of the other tweaks that Microsoft has brought in this month.

As ever, some of these features are being rolled out in a phased manner, so even if you do install the September update today, you may still have to wait a while for certain pieces of functionality to make their way over to your PC.

1. A movable taskbar

Thanks to the September update you'll finally be able to move Windows 11's taskbar away from the bottom of the screen, to the top instead, or the sides if you prefer (an option that people with an ultra-wide monitor often want to use, as it suits that aspect ratio much better).

This is an ability which has always been in Windows 10, but was dropped for Windows 11 because porting it over was a thornier issue than you might think (or so Microsoft told us).

Finally, however, Microsoft has got its act together and the taskbar can now be repositioned in Windows 11 – although I've a feeling this will be one of the features on a slower rollout. Hopefully I'll be wrong on that score and you'll get this ability promptly if you've been keenly awaiting it for the last five years.

It's also worth noting that there's another option introduced here which can make the taskbar smaller, so it takes up less screen real-estate on devices with small displays.

2. The Start menu can now be resized

Want a more compact Start menu? Your wish is Microsoft's command, as this choice has now been introduced to the Settings app for the Start menu. You can elect to have a standard (large) menu, or a small one, rather than leaving it at the default 'automatic' setting whereby Windows 11 chooses the size itself based on your device. The problem with leaving the OS to decide is that sometimes you get the bigger menu on a laptop screen, where it pretty much eats the whole desktop – and so in these scenarios you can now manually choose the more compact Start menu.

With options to remove sections of the Start menu coming on top of this, you can now trim this part of the interface down so it's truly minimal. This choice will be more important than the movable taskbar for many folks – myself included – and it's great to see it now being rolled out.

3. Windows 11 search improvements

Another notable boon with the September update is that there are a few changes for Windows 11's core search functionality, and the most important is a new option that lets you turn off web results in search.

When you're searching for a file on your local drive, those web results often get in the way, so it'll be a relief for many to be able to switch them off. As well as web results (which open in Edge, with searches in Bing, of course), you can also turn off Microsoft Store suggestions. Essentially this is a general decluttering of Windows 11 search which is long overdue, frankly.

Other features in Windows 11's September Update

There's a performance boost for File Explorer in that the Home page now loads faster, and switching between virtual desktops in Windows 11 is now snappier, too.

Microsoft has made some reliability tweaks as well, including ensuring that the app history information in Task Manager is correct, and also that interacting with the Display panel within Settings is now more stable.

Furthermore, Microsoft informs us that there are some design tweaks here: "This update introduces updated progress indicators across Windows, providing a more consistent and modern experience during startup, sign-in, restart, shutdown, and update installation."

It's also worth noting that the weird mouse bug that affected the preview version of this September update (the optional update released at the end of August) has been resolved.

There's a fair bit happening here, and as one Redditor put it: "What's left for the 26H2 [update] then?"

Well, not a great deal in truth, and if you've been following along with Microsoft's annual updates, you may recall that 26H2 is going to be a very minor upgrade that doesn't do a lot. Indeed, some folks are wondering why Microsoft didn't save these juicy new interface features for 26H2, given that it's out next month.

The reason is likely to be because Microsoft wants to ensure that 26H2 runs as smoothly as possible (with no bigger changes involved). Although to be fair, as noted, due to the rollout process, a lot of folks won't be getting the new Start menu options and taskbar repositioning until October (or possibly later) anyway.

• Xbox seems to be using dynamic pricing to tempt back some lapsed Game Pass subscribers
• A photo showing a surprise 30% discount was posted to Reddit by a US user
• The promotion is not visible to others

Are you suddenly being offered an Xbox Game Pass subscription at a lower price than standard? According to Reddit, some users are being shown discounts of up to 30% for 12 months, and there are a few theories as to why.

In a photo uploaded to the platform, one user shared the subscription screen featuring an unusual promotion — an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription for just $16.09 a month (down from the usual $22.99 monthly fee).

The screen states that the discount will last for an entire year unless the user chooses to cancel their membership early. "Been looking for an annual subscription for years," the poster wrote. "$16.09 a month for one year Ultimate. I'll take it."

Interestingly, not everyone is being shown the same discount, and if you head to the Xbox website right now, chances are you'll see the standard $22.99 rate.

This would suggest that the promotion is being dynamically awarded to accounts that fulfil certain criteria, and many commenters were keen to share their theories.

"If you log in to a secondary account on your Xbox, one that doesn't pay for Game Pass, then you will see an offer like this," posed one. "My offer was $18 something for 12 months, so I'm guessing they're doing some kind of dynamic pricing BS."

"I am on and off Game Pass a lot," the original poster went on to explain in the comments, suggesting that this promotion is being used to bring back lapsed subscribers.

"You won’t see any kind of reduced monthly offer while subbed," someone else added in a different comment thread.

Xbox Game Pass has had a tumultuous time recently, with its price only recently reduced following a string of hikes. According to analysts, the decision to briefly add day-one Call of Duty games to the service was expensive, but 'did not lead to a significant increase in Xbox console sales or even subscriptions.'

We'll likely see more efforts like this to boost subscriber numbers in the future.

• 3,000 Swiss government devices will use open source software instead of Microsoft 365
• 172 workers already tested Germany's openDesk software in an earlier proof-of-concept
• The next stage should be complete by the end of 2027, at the cost of $11.1 million

Switzerland's federal government has launched a pilot program to explore the feasibility of ditching Microsoft 365 in favour of open source alternatives, and it's starting with 3,000 machines of the government's estimated 54,000 total computers.

The government is looking to move around 7% of its machines away from M365 by the end of 2027, the chancellery confirmed, but it's not the first time the Swiss government has explored open-source alternatives.

An earlier proof-of-concept, the details of which have just been released, demonstrate 172 federal employees testing German-made openDesk for document processing and emailing.

Switzerland is progressing with its open-source plans

Crucially, the government doesn't look to be removing M365 outright from all 3,000 machines, but rather, workers will be given openDesk to run in parallel in order to avoid any disruptions.

Central to the migration isn't necessarily an anti-Microsoft initiative, but rather a pro-digital sovereignty push. Switzerland wants critical government operations to be less dependent on foreign tech companies, especially US tech giants given ongoing geopolitical tensions.

US cloud legislation potentially allows American authorities to gain access to Swiss government information, and with Microsoft being an American firm, its 365 platform is naturally under assessment.

More broadly, Switzerland isn't the only country to be walking away from Microsoft and other US tech vendors in favor of local, open source alternatives. France and Germany have also introduced similar schemes.

Microsoft is already working on a solution to pacify Swiss sovereignty requirements - in 2025, it announced a $400 million investment in Switzerland to expand its cloud and AI infrastructure, with a major focus on government, finance and healthcare customers.

The ongoing project covering 3,000 devices is expected to cost $11.1 million, per the chancellery, with funding coming from pro-sovereignty initiatives.

• The Bing Wallpaper app is serving an ad in Windows 11
• The advert is for a Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movie collection
• There's a rebellion against this blatant advertising, with a significant number of users saying they've immediately removed Microsoft's wallpaper app

Some Windows 11 users who've installed the Bing Wallpaper app have been treated to an unpleasantly in-your-face advert for Harry Potter.

To be precise, it's an ad for a collection of 11 Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies, and, as Windows Latest reports, this appears as a full-page promotional image that becomes your desktop background.

This isn't happening for every Bing Wallpaper user, and it appears to be a regional rollout; but based on the plentiful Reddit feedback of the negative variety, it's being piped to quite a number of PCs.

For the uninitiated, Bing Wallpaper is an app that serves up daily wallpapers to those who've installed the software — and note that it isn't installed by default; this is something you have to elect to have on your Windows 11 PC.

Nevertheless, it's an over-the-top move by Microsoft to shovel something like this onto the desktops of those who've chosen Bing to pick their backgrounds.

As one annoyed Redditor says, filing the Harry Potter wallpaper under the 'unskippable ad' category in the 'Mildly Infuriating' subreddit: "I had it [Bing Wallpaper] installed since up until this point it was a fairly harmless program that gave a variety of animals, environments or pattern backgrounds that rotate daily. Wtf?"

Replying, another Redditor observes: "Free software from a trillion dollar company means you are the product." Some folks responded to that to say that Windows 11 isn't free, but this Redditor isn't talking about the OS itself, but rather the Bing Wallpaper app, which is a free add-on for Windows, of course.

Analysis: Bing begone

Windows Latest notes that the terms and conditions of the Bing Wallpaper app allow for "promotional offers" from Microsoft, but what's happening here goes well beyond that. Frankly, this isn't acceptable in any way — and Microsoft really should know better than to serve a blatant advert in this manner.

I'd say I was shocked, but ads have always been a problem in Windows 11. On top of that, about a year ago Bing Wallpaper was used to perform another underhand trick with desktops that made me cringe. In that case, an accidental click on the Windows 11 background fired up a Bing search (yes, really), and I called this "a new low" for Microsoft at the time.

This, however, represents Microsoft plumbing fresh depths. A notable number of those complaining on Reddit have said that they've immediately uninstalled Bing Wallpaper due to this incident (generally with a sprinkling of added curse words).

One of the politer comments notes: "Honestly if they cut out text and just left the base [image] with the option to right click to get more info and it took the user there it would be passable. But current state just time to remove Bing Wallpaper."

This is very much representative of Microsoft's different departments not talking to each other. On the one hand, there's a big drive to fix Windows 11 and try to please users with all sorts of nifty changes and long-awaited features. On the other, the Bing Wallpaper team thinks it's fine to deploy what might be the worst example of advertising I've ever seen in the Windows ecosystem — and there's quite some competition for that accolade, sadly.

At any rate, I assume this won't be happening again, Microsoft, given the reaction here… right?

• Microsoft faces claims that its data center noise harms nearby residents
• Standard dBA monitors may fail to capture some low-frequency noise
• Residents accuse xAI of causing noise, vibration, and air pollution

Microsoft and xAI are facing lawsuits over noise and other alleged harms linked to data center operations in Wisconsin and Mississippi.

At least six similar cases have been filed this year, as residents challenge the impacts from currently active facilities.

In addition to nuisance, the disputes also focus on negligence claims, with plaintiffs seeking damages or changes to data center operations.

Low-frequency noise creates a measurement problem

Microsoft faces a proposed class action concerning its Fairwater facility in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, which began operating in June 2026.

Residents filed the case in late July, alleging that persistent low-frequency noise affects their homes and property values, and arguing standard dBA equipment may fail to detect the sound because its frequency falls outside effective measurement ranges.

“dBA measures do not effectively detect lower frequency sounds like those emitted by Defendant’s Data Center operations,” the lawsuit says.

“‘Data center cooling — massive chillers, slow turning fans, compressor arrays — generates exactly the long wavelength noise’” that is not adequately measured using dBA.”

The plaintiffs argue Microsoft could have reduced the disturbance through acoustic barriers, quieter cooling equipment, soundproofing, and improved monitoring.

“A properly operated, maintained, and/or constructed Data Center will contain, capture, or otherwise prevent the emission of excessive noise from its generators and cooling systems,” the filing says.

That argument could create difficulties for facilities where regulatory measurements fail to capture sounds that residents can still hear.

The dispute also raises questions about how noise from data centers should be measured.

xAI faces claims involving turbines and pollution

In Mississippi, residents have sued xAI over alleged noise, vibration, and air pollution from dozens of gas turbines.

The turbines supply electricity for the company's Southaven data center, according to allegations contained in the lawsuit.

Attorneys representing residents accused xAI of failing to take meaningful action to address the alleged effects.

“xAI has made no meaningful effort to halt the harm,” attorneys at Weitz & Luxenberg said in a statement.

Similar lawsuits have also been filed in Vineland, New Jersey, Dowagiac, Michigan, North Tonawanda, New York, and Hood County, Texas.

The cases generally rely on nuisance or negligence claims concerning conditions plaintiffs believe operators could have prevented or controlled.

Several other data center disputes remain unresolved, with none of the noise cases reaching summary judgment or trial.

However, other environmental nuisance cases have already produced settlements involving substantial sums of money.

Amazon agreed to pay more than $20 million over nitrate contamination linked to one Oregon data center.

The company said officials settled early to avoid prolonged litigation and concentrate resources on community support instead.

Microsoft had not immediately responded to a request for comment concerning the Wisconsin lawsuit when the report was published.

Via SmartCitiesDrive

• Microsoft is working to speed up boot times
• Over at IFA 2026 a Microsoft executive said that 'we've made significant gains' with startup speeds and more
• The exec also underlined Microsoft's commitment to get Windows 11 running more smoothly on 8GB PCs

Microsoft is readying a major boost to the performance of Windows 11 that should speed up boot times.

Windows Latest reports that at IFA 2026 last week a Microsoft exec confirmed improvements to boot speeds are inbound.

This was Mark Linton, who is VP of Windows & Devices at Microsoft, who told the tech site: "We've made significant gains on things like boot time, Windows Hello responsiveness."

Windows Hello is the secure login that's offered with Windows 11 – often facilitated via an infrared-supporting webcam and facial recognition – and that happening more swiftly, alongside a faster boot time, should mean you arrive at the desktop in a far more timely manner.

This work isn't in testing just yet, we're told, but Microsoft is still tinkering with ramping up boot performance in internal builds.

Analysis: performance promises are underlined

The use of the word 'significant' is promising, and Windows Latest talks about getting to the lock screen 'almost immediately'. In fairness, Windows 11 already boots nippily (on my PC certainly), so we could be looking at effectively booting in the blink of an eye – fingers crossed.

As noted, this isn't even in preview builds of Windows 11 yet, but it should be here before too long. It's part of a larger effort and Microsoft's broad promise to make Windows 11 faster in general, ensuring that menus perform more responsively, and that apps load more swiftly (the latter is already rolling out in the form of a CPU boosting feature known as 'Low Latency Profile').

This performance boosting work is all the more important considering that 8GB laptops are making a resurgence – thanks to the RAM crisis pushing up notebook prices – and so Microsoft is also working to ensure that Windows 11 is more performant with that lesser memory configuration. Speaking of which, Windows Latest said that Microsoft also underlined its commitment to make sure that the desktop OS will run better on 8GB over at IFA 2026.

Linton said of Windows 11 that: "We're continuing to improve on the fundamentals," adding that: "We're optimizing so that 8 gig of RAM runs great on machines as well."

However, the exec didn't provide any estimates of what kind of performance jump might be expected – although that's hardly surprising at this early stage of the game.

• Microsoft reports phishing campaign using ASCII smuggling to bypass spam filters
• Attackers insert invisible characters into keywords, tricking filters and AI agents
• Defenders should normalize Unicode tags and flag unexpected invisible code points as suspicious

Cybercriminals are using the “ASCII smuggling” technique to make sure phishing emails pass security filters and land in people’s inboxes, experts have warned.

ASCII is a character encoding standard that turns characters and words humans can read into numeric values that computers can understand. It can also be used to create characters that aren’t even displayed on the screen (essentially “invisible” ones) but can still be read by the machine.

In a new report, security researchers from Microsoft found crooks are abusing this fact to distribute phishing emails. Most email providers offer solutions that filter out spam emails. These filters look for certain keywords and phrases, such as “funding”, “credit”, “loan”, and similar, and automatically send such emails to the spam folder.

Ongoing campaign

By adding a set of invisible characters in the middle of these keywords, the attackers can break them apart and thus “confuse” the filters.

While the human sees the word “funding” in their email, the security solution is seeing something like “fun[a long string of characters]ding”. This technique has been adopted from prompt injection attacks, where crooks would use ASCII smuggling to deliver malicious and invisible prompts in the emails.

Therefore, when a victim asks their AI agent to summarize the email, it ends up working on a prompt that could be anything from extracting sensitive data, to deploying malware.

Microsoft is saying the campaign has been ongoing for months, and while it peaked in February 2026 with more than 2.3 million emails every day, and has been in decline ever since, it remains active to this day. In early February, Microsoft observed a cluster of almost 150 sender domains, all themed around finance. These domains accounted for almost all (96%) of all the spam emails Defender for Office 365 flagged under ASCII smuggling.

Defending sounds relatively simple, though. IT teams should normalize Unicode tag characters and other invisible code points before applying any keyword detection. They should also consider all unexpected tag-block characters as suspicious.

Via BleepingComputer

• Microsoft warns of Teams‑based campaign where attackers impersonate IT staff
• Victims tricked into granting remote access, leading to malware, lateral movement, and ransomware
• Defenses: verify support contacts, train staff, harden Teams, and use Defender Safe Links/ZAP

Microsoft is warning about an ongoing hacking campaign that starts with a Teams message and ends with a ransomware infection and data theft.

In a new in-depth report published on the Microsoft blog, it was said that unnamed threat actors were reaching out to their targets at various enterprises via a Teams chat, while impersonating IT staff.

They were coercing their victims into granting remote access via screen sharing or remote monitoring and management tools and once received, used their access to install malware loaders and various other implants.

How to defend against Teams-borne phishing

The malware was just the first stage of the attack. Subsequent stages include host reconnaissance, security-product and virtualization discovery, and “periodic desktop screen capture”. In other words - mapping out the landscape and conducting espionage.

The crooks would then enumerate domain accounts, servers, and users, through native tools and Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) queries and begin moving laterally.

The final step includes identifying and extracting valuable data, followed by a ransomware infection.

Microsoft does not name the perpetrators, and mostly refers to them as “threat actors”. It makes sense, since the “fake IT support via Teams” technique is being used by multiple groups at this moment. Russia’s Cozy Bear, FIN7, and Storm-1811 are probably the most obvious examples.

The world’s biggest extortionists - ShinyHunters - are also known to use Teams to trick victims into granting access, but this group rarely deploys an encryptor and instead just focuses on data exfiltration.

Whoever the attackers are, and whoever they’re after, one thing is for certain - the risk in the enterprise environment has never been greater.

That is why Microsoft advises reinforcing user education by establishing internal helpdesk authentication phrases, and by training employees to recognize external-tenant indicators.

The company also urges enterprises to verify unsolicited support contact, and to harden Microsoft Teams and email against social engineering. “Use Microsoft Defender for Office 365 with Safe Links and Zero-hour auto purge (ZAP) so malicious messages and URLs are neutralized at time of click and removed after delivery,” Microsoft urges.

• Microsoft is rolling out a new security feature for Windows 11
• Memory integrity provides stronger defenses for a crucial part of the operating system, and it's being automatically enabled
• Some gamers say the feature hampers gaming frame rates considerably, and they're not happy

Windows 11 is getting its security bolstered with a feature that's being automatically enabled, but which comes at a cost that some PC gamers don't want to pay — and this is proving quite the controversy on social media.

The Verge reports that Microsoft has announced that it's rolling out the enablement of memory integrity protection across eligible Windows 11 PCs, and that this is because "security works best when protection is built in, not bolted on".

Microsoft explains: "More devices will soon receive stronger protection by default, with no additional setup required. Windows quality updates will begin enabling memory integrity protection on eligible devices.

"If not already enabled, these updates will also enable VBS [Virtualization Based Security], helping make additional security capabilities available and reflecting our commitment to making Windows secure by design and secure by default."

The idea is to tighten security for Windows 11's kernel-mode drivers, a core aspect of the OS with direct access to the system's hardware, and there can be no argument that this additional protection gives host PCs tougher defenses and makes them more difficult to exploit. So why the controversy? Let's dive into the pros and cons of what's going on here.

Analysis: a divisive move — but we can't ignore that the threat landscape is changing

In Microsoft's view, this is a no-brainer: stronger security is being rolled out to Windows 11 devices, or at least those which are eligible (older PCs may not be). However, PCs configured via group policy not to use memory integrity, or machines where it's been disabled before, won't have the feature forced on them.

Other supported PCs will get memory integrity (and VBS, because it's required for memory integrity) turned on automatically by Windows 11, and this is where some gamers are up in arms. VBS has a long history of being a thorn in the side for gamers, with the feature being linked to frame rate losses.

How much of a headwind does this cause for PC games? Well, therein lies a big part of the issue, because it's difficult to pin that down exactly, and as ever, it's bound to vary depending on your PC's exact hardware and system configuration.

Some gamers observe frame rate hits of approaching 10%, while others say the impact isn't noticeable at all. There's a lot of back-and-forth on Reddit arguing about the extent of any slowdown, and here's a typical exchange:

One Redditor notes: "HVCI [memory integrity] is a great security feature, and the performance impact on newer platforms (to which this automatic switch will apply) is negligible."

Another replies: "It ain't negligible. 9800x3d, 5080, ddr5 6000 cl28 and my 1% lows get wrecked with this feature on. Way smoother disabled."

This isn't just about frames per second performance for some gamers, then, as there are also accusations of it affecting the lowest troughs (bottom 1%) that the frame rate hits (meaning the game suffers more stuttering at times and generally feels jerkier).

As the first comment points out, though, the likelihood should be that a more modern PC won't feel much of a hit (if anything). The gaming rigs that might see more of a spanner in the frame rate works are those which are older, but still modern enough to get the auto-enablement of memory integrity. In other words, a collection of PCs which are on the outer fringes of that compatibility limit (older machines, but not too old to avoid the feature rollout).

Of course, even those PC owners can always turn off memory integrity. The major beef for some is that they remember that Microsoft got into trouble for automatically switching on VBS in the past in a quiet, under-the-radar manner — and the question now will be whether gamers realize that this feature has been enabled alongside memory integrity.

In all honesty, when I saw what Microsoft was doing here and fired up Reddit to test the temperature of the reactions, I was expecting nothing short of a flamethrower being turned on the software giant. However, the feedback is split quite evenly between the haters — or those who disapprove at least — and users who are applauding Microsoft for this deployment.

Here are a couple of further examples from either side of the fence: "Apparently a controversial opinion, but systems that are for everyone should be failsafe, and that includes the most secure option being the default. There should be an option to disable security to get higher performance, but most secure should be the default."

Juxtaposed with this: "Already have memory integrity turned off as this 'feature' already hits gaming, I've used Windows without memory integrity for decades I think I'll be ok."

I must admit I'm inclined to agree with Microsoft's decision here — providing that when it happens, Windows 11 is clear on informing the user, so they can reverse the change if they aren't happy with it.

I think part of what Microsoft is doing here is keeping one eye on the future in terms of the difference AI might make to the security of Windows 11 PCs.

I keep hearing about how AI is already driving new threats and exploits, and so the kernel defenses that are being brought into play here may not have been quite as necessary in the past — as the last Reddit post I highlighted indicates — but they may be very much needed before too long. AI is accelerating the development of new threats considerably, and making it easier for anyone to becoming a peddler of malware, so Microsoft likely feels the pressure to act.

• Microsoft warns Chinese group Silver Fox spoofed download sites for major tech brands
• Victims install backdoored software enabling persistence, disabling Defender/updates, and payload delivery
• Targets span healthcare, manufacturing, gaming, government; Microsoft urges tamper protection and behavior‑based detection

Cybercriminals are spoofing some of the world’s most popular technology and software companies in an attempt to infect their targets with dangerous backdoors. This is according to security researchers from Microsoft, who warned about the ongoing campaign in an in-depth report published earlier this week.

Microsoft said it discovered an ongoing campaign in which Chinese hackers (presumably Silver Fox, AKA Yinhu) were creating fraudulent download pages for some of the world’s most popular tech and software companies, including Razer, Kaspersky, Microsoft, NetEase, Baidu NetDisk, oCam ScreenRecorder, SteelSeries, Calibre, MindMaster, and many others.

Victim organizations looking to download software built by these companies end up downloading a weaponized version that works primarily as a backdoor. This implant allows the attackers a foothold from which they can maintain access and send/receive messages.

How to defend against Silver Fox

Once installed, the backdoor creates scheduled tasks for persistence, injects itself into legitimate processes, and weakens Microsoft Defender and Windows Update by creating a large exclusion folder and disabling a number of update-related services.

It also deletes backups, and allows the attackers to deploy further payloads.

Victims are primarily Chinese organizations, although the attackers do seem to be casting a rather wide net, Microsoft suggests. The majority of victims were found in medical devices and healthcare, manufacturing, gaming, technology, logistics, government, and higher education.

Microsoft says its Defender product “detected and disrupted” the activity across multiple stages of the attack, “including automated containment through attack disruption.”

Still, to defend against Silver Fox’s latest shenanigans, Microsoft advises organizations enforce tamper Protection which blocks exclusion and registry writes to Microsoft Defender even when the payload runs as SYSTEM.

It also suggests defenders hunt for “behavior, not file names”, set up alerts for tamper sequences, and treat look-alike download archives as malicious in web and mail flow. The full list of Indicators of Compromise (IoC) can be found on this link, as well.

• CD Projekt Red's joint CEO Michal Nowakowski has confidence in game consoles coping with the RAM crisis
• Nowakowski is convinced consoles will 'weather the storm', as analysts expect shortages to continue through 2027
• Sony isn't just facing the RAM crisis, but also a major backlash over its decision to end physical game discs

The RAM crisis is continuing to cause havoc with the hardware market, affecting component prices, PC makers, and potentially delaying next-gen console launches. However, it's not so bleak as you might think, at least in the eyes of CD Projekt Red's boss.

As reported by IGN, CD Projekt Red's (CDPR) joint CEO Michal Nowakowski was interviewed by The Game Business and voiced his confidence that next-gen consoles will survive the RAM crisis despite the prospect of high pricing.

This comes amid concerns and projections from industry insiders and analysts that RAM shortages are going to get worse in 2027 and beyond. The big three memory chip makers — Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron — are expected to increase combined capital spending to nearly 340% from 2024 to 2027.

It doesn't look like RAM shortages and high hardware prices will die down anytime soon, but this doesn't faze Nowakowski, at least when it comes to ensuring CDPR delivers the best possible content.

"Consoles are still necessary to broaden the audience on the casual or semi-casual level. It's important to have easy to plug in and enjoy gaming," Nowakowski says.

"I'm a big believer that they're [consoles] going to weather the storm. Pricing is the objective challenge. And the rumors... we hear them about the next-gen being delayed. I don't know if they're true."

RAM isn't the only worry for Sony

Besides the RAM crisis pushing up prices and causing potential console launch delays, Sony in particular may have an uphill battle ahead. Its recent decision to end production of physical game discs for PlayStation consoles, starting in January 2028, already has gamers in the ecosystem protesting and planning alternatives to escape the impending doom of discs.

An all-digital future means any form of game ownership will cease to exist, as digital content can theoretically be taken away from gamers at any time, and that has led to a loud (and justified, I think) reaction from the console community.

The Game Business didn't question Nowakowski directly about physical game ownership, but did probe further on the effect that delayed next-gen consoles might have, with Nowakowski making CDPR's stance very clear.

"If the next-gen gets delayed, it could be the case that some ideas [for games] are put on a shelf for the future. We'd have to adjust. We're not worried on the commercial side. Consoles are here to stay."

It's fair to say that Nowakowski's last statement is a realistic assessment. Even given Sony's dismissal of physical game discs, this isn't going to lead to a complete collapse in the popularity of consoles.

However, Sony may not make life easy for itself and publishers such as CDPR, as from 2028, when the discs are dumped with the PlayStation ecosystem, a hit to games sales is far from impossible — especially if the ongoing backlash from gamers is anything to go by.

• Chris Malone, OpenAI's head of data centers, has left after seventeen months, with the company confirming the exit but giving no reason
• His responsibilities had already been split before he went, with his reporting line moved to VP Sachin Katti and the job now spread across three executives plus an unnamed CTO for computing capacity
• The move comes as OpenAI is reportedly reviving plans to lease entire facilities rather than build them, a shift from construction to procurement

Chris Malone, the executive who ran OpenAI's data center buildout, has left the company. The Wall Street Journal broke the story last week, and an OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the departure to Bloomberg the same day.

Neither OpenAI nor Malone has given a reason for his departure or his next destination, and a message from Bloomberg to his LinkedIn account received no reply.

The top-level executive joined the company in March 2025, against the backdrop of OpenAI's Stargate announcement in January of the same year, a commitment to invest $500 billion in 10 gigawatts of US AI infrastructure over four years alongside SoftBank, Oracle and MGX.

A job cannibalized by changing priorities at the helm?

With a total tenure of 17 months, a relatively short duration for the job, Malone arrived at a time when the job was incredibly demanding, as OpenAI fended off competition from rival Anthropic, a resurgent Google with its Gemini offerings, and what can perhaps be described as a love-hate relationship with Microsoft.

His exit may have been written on the wall weeks ago, according to the Wall Street Journal, which noted that Malone stopped reporting to OpenAI president Greg Brockman and began reporting to vice president Sachin Katti, who took over leadership of the group.

OpenAI has since appointed a chief technology officer to lead computing capacity, though it has not publicly named that person. Responsibility for what Malone did is now spread across at least three people: Uday Ruddarraju leads the data center team, Brent Mayo runs the build-and-delivery program, and Spas Lazarov, who came from the data center and energy industries, leads data center engineering.

All of this indicates it wasn't a sudden vacancy to fill, but one that had been on the cards for some time. This comes as reports indicate OpenAI is reviving data center initiatives involving leasing entire facilities, with others leading that effort. This would mark a significant shift from its initial plans to get involved in the building side of the business, which it seems to have focused less on lately, and a major strategic shift in how the organization plans to operate in the future.

OpenAI's own narrative points in the same direction, without conceding much, when it told TechCrunch it had "recently reorganized" its "infrastructure organization to support the scale and pace of our work," adding that it retains a strong and deeply experienced data center team with clear leadership. It, however, has not addressed Malone's exit directly.

The move is not isolated, as OpenAI continues to lose high-level executives; Business Insider tallied thirteen senior departures at OpenAI in 2026 as of August 21, and Malone is the fourteenth to leave the company to date. The Next Web counts seven senior departures or replacements since April alone.

Malone is also among the least senior names on those lists by title. The Head of data centers is not a named C-suite role, and after the reorganization, he reported to a vice president rather than sitting alongside a chief operating officer or a chief revenue officer for OpenAI.

Axios reported earlier this month that OpenAI's recent changes are "driven by strategy more than the revolving door" that characterizes the wider AI talent market, with OpenAI president Brockman deliberately building a leadership team to compete in the enterprise space. Brockman has denied this, telling the Journal that the spotlight on his company means "every departure gets scrutinized in a way that it doesn't otherwise."

The scrutiny comes with the ambitions OpenAI currently harbors, many of which seriously affect its direct partners, including Nvidia, AMD, and Microsoft. CNBC reports OpenAI is targeting roughly $600 billion in compute spending by 2030. It is planning a $30 billion data center in Georgia. Nvidia agreed on August 17 to provide up to $105 billion in financing for an OpenAI-leased campus in Ohio, after earlier reports said it was weighing a considerably larger guarantee.

The move comes at a time when the company is getting ready for an IPO that would inject fresh cash while also allowing employees to essentially cash in on their equity of what is one of the world's most valuable startups: OpenAI filed confidentially with the SEC in June, and chief financial officer Sarah Friar told staff last week the company will go public in 2027 or sooner, having originally targeted this year.

An exodus of key employees, including Malone, might just be a strategic change in how the company operates or otherwise, but given the sheer scale of the company involved and the potential consequences of such moves, the scrutiny is well-warranted in an industry that has otherwise progressed relatively unchecked in the name of progress over the past few years.

• Windows 11's antivirus is bugged as of the latest updates
• Microsoft Defender is telling users that it's turned off, when in fact it isn't — it's working just fine
• The warning keeps popping up, though, and that's proving to be frustrating, although Microsoft is now working on a fix

If you use Windows 11's built-in antivirus and you keep getting worrying messages warning that it's turned off and you're no longer protected, the good news is that this is a bug, and you've got nothing to be concerned about.

That said, this is still an annoying glitch, as it's one that's happening repeatedly to those using Microsoft Defender following its most recent updates. Windows Latest noticed the problem, which has been acknowledged by Microsoft on the Windows release health dashboard.

Microsoft tells us: "After installing the latest updates for Microsoft Defender Antivirus, notifications might appear stating that 'Microsoft Defender Antivirus is turned off,' even though the antivirus is functioning correctly and all settings show it as active."

The software giant says you may see these warnings when Windows 11 first boots and "intermittently afterward", noting that they'll appear even if notification settings are switched off. This is also a problem for Windows 10 users.

Microsoft explains that it's working on a fix that will be provided in an update for Defender Antivirus, but we aren't given an ETA for its arrival.

Analysis: a persistent bug that's been hanging around

The bugged pop-up asks you to click to turn virus protection back on, but you obviously don't have to, as it hasn't actually been turned off. Confused users have likely been clicking to re-enable Microsoft Defender, though, and then wondering why they're repeatedly being asked to do this — possibly coming to the conclusion that the antivirus is broken.

Rest assured, it isn't, but this has proved to be a frustrating bug for some, as it sounds like it's appearing quite regularly. As one Redditor complains: "Turns out, yep, it's a bug with their latest update. Fortunately it's harmless but annoying."

Based on reports on Reddit, the issue has been around for over a week at least, and Windows Latest believes it goes back further than that, to early August — although Microsoft only recognized and flagged the problem on its health dashboard a few days ago. Given that the bug has been in play for a while now, hopefully it'll be resolved this week.

I'm surprised that Microsoft hasn't already issued an update to cure this glitch, frankly, but maybe it's a spanner that's pretty deep in the works of Defender Antivirus, so it's taking some time to extract.

It's worth noting that the first time you see this error, you may want to double check whether it's the bug, or a genuine problem elsewhere with Microsoft Defender. You can always ensure that the antivirus is still running by going to Windows Security (type that in the taskbar search box) and looking under 'Virus & threat protection' which will give you the current (correct) status of Defender, flagging any problems if they're present.

• Microsoft has made a welcome change to OneDrive in Windows 11
• Prompts to use the backup service can now be permanently dismissed
• The change has been positively received by most users online

There have been complaints about this going back years, but Microsoft has finally caved in and decided to stop nagging users to back up their files to OneDrive: these alerts can now be permanently dismissed with an Opt out of backup button.

As spotted by Windows Latest, the move is going to please users who have no intention of using OneDrive to store their files, and would rather not have occasional reminders from their operating system that this is an option.

The change seems to be tied to the latest stable Windows 11 25H2 build. Previously, if you didn't want to go ahead with the OneDrive sync, you could only pick Remind me later or Remind me in 3 days — and the message would eventually loom back into view.

It's something we see across the majority of software now, and it's what Windows Latest rightly calls "dark patterns": interface choices that are designed to nudge users towards a certain option even if they're not sure about it.

Heading in the right direction

The reaction on Reddit has been mostly positive, with the general sentiment of the comments suggesting that this change was long awaited. "I fully opted out of Windows instead," remarks one commenter in the thread.

Several contributors to the Reddit discussion say they've already bailed on Windows 11 and switched to Linux or macOS — not just over the OneDrive issue, but also for other problems like memory management and privacy concerns.

For many years now, Microsoft has been trying to foist OneDrive and its other Windows-adjacent apps on to users of its desktop operating system, but it appears that it's finally figured out that this may be doing more harm than good.

To give Microsoft some credit, it has largely been making good on its promise to address the biggest complaints users have had about Windows 11 in recent months, even if a lot of the improvements should've been made a long time ago.

• Windows 11 has a new preview update for August
• It offers some nifty new features, including the ability to move the taskbar
• There are some frustrating bugs in the update, though, which include an oversized retro mouse pointer you can't switch away from

Windows 11 just got a new update — albeit still in preview — and while it delivers some smart goodies for the interface (including a taskbar option many users have been waiting for), there's a problem with bugginess here.

As a result, the preview update for August is an 'install at your own risk' affair, and although it's not going to put you in danger of being trapped in a boot loop or something equally terrible, the bugs are annoying.

Windows Latest noticed the initial reports of problems with this update, which include the mouse pointer being changed to a "big white cursor" and the wallpaper becoming a blank black background.

There are plenty of reports of this happening in the official Reddit thread (posted by Microsoft's Jen Gentleman) pertaining to this Windows 11 update. Apparently the old-style cursor which is appearing in some cases can't be changed, and if you try to revert the cursor back to what you had before, it'll just switch to the legacy pointer again, going by the reports on Reddit. You can, apparently, get rid of the plain black wallpaper.

While this update is optional, as are all preview releases, there's been quite a rush to grab it, because, as mentioned, it comes with some long-awaited interface changes: the ability to move the taskbar away from the bottom of the screen, and to resize the Start menu. There's also functionality that allows you to turn off Bing in Windows 11 search, which is great to see.

Analysis: QA and gradual rollout frustrations

While the bugs are purely cosmetic issues, you do end up with a stark and basic-looking operating system if they happen to your system. The really annoying bit is that you can't escape from the clutches of the oversized white retro mouse pointer (the only solution is to remove the update by all accounts).

One unimpressed Redditor complains: "Wow a buggy mess of an update for everyone."

It's easy enough to draw this conclusion scanning through the official Reddit thread, where there are quite a lot of reports of this issue. However, we've got to remember that those who are affected are more likely to be vocal and drop a complaint (or a straightforward bug report) on social media. So, that skews things and makes matters look worse than they actually are – and notably some folks are chiming in saying they've installed the August optional update just fine with no problems. Windows Latest didn't encounter any pointer-related shenanigans, either.

That said, there are enough reports of this to be a worry, and it's a weird glitch to have made it through to the final stage of Windows 11 testing — where preview updates are actually pushed to customer (non-Insider) devices (if they elect to install the optional release, of course). This again points to issues around QA (quality assurance) and testing for Microsoft, something that I keep banging on about.

At any rate, hopefully it'll be a quick fix from Microsoft here. This preview release will become the September update next month, and so this bug will certainly need to be squashed before then.

It's also worth noting that there are people who've not encountered the mouse cursor bug, but are still expressing their disappointment that they haven't got the mentioned interface changes for the taskbar and Start menu. This is because those features are on a gradual rollout, so they will only come to a selection of PCs to begin with, which will broaden over time.

As another Redditor observes: "So I got black screen, my cursor is stuck to Windows 98 and can't be changed for some reason. I got the movable taskbar but don't have the big or small Start menu. With all due respect, this OS is a 'joke' (more than that actually just wanted to stay super polite)."

It's frustrating to take a chance on an optional update because you want the features therein, only to find you don't get some — or indeed any — of them, but such is the nature of functionality deployment in Windows 11. You just have to be patient, although Microsoft has had some of its bigger changes on a very slow-paced rollout in recent times, and this is proving to be an increasing annoyance for some folks. Better to be 'right' than 'rushed' though…

• Google Cloud launches Gemini Enterprise editions for legal and financial services
• Both releases are its first packaged industry versions, both in preview, with no pricing disclosed
• The key upgrade here versus vanilla model use is AI-centric 'plumbing': domain skills, data connectors, and a permissions model that inherits firms' existing ethical walls and access controls

Google Cloud has launched two industry-specific versions of its Gemini Enterprise platform - one for law firms and corporate legal departments and one for capital markets and corporate banking.

The company has not revealed pricing for either product, both of which currently remain in preview and mark the first packaged industry editions of Gemini Enterprise, which Google launched in October 2025 to target business customers.

Google's contention is that general-purpose enterprise AI cannot meet regulated industries' needs for confidentiality, auditability, and grounding, and it aims to address that with a package that includes the required domain plumbing rather than having each buyer build it from scratch.

Tailor-made enterprise AI offerings for legal and finance professionals

The financial services edition is built around a Google-managed Financial Research agent with more than 50 skills, which are reusable instruction packages for repetitive tasks, and 13 connectors to licensed data sources.

Deutsche Bank is the named design partner for the research agent, which has workflows including KYC research, credit opportunity identification, bond issuance pitching, and portfolio risk analysis.

The legal edition, by contrast, ships skills for brief drafting, citation verification, contract lifecycle management, regulatory horizon scanning, and data subject access request fulfillment.

Its connectors run into NetDocuments, DocuSign, Everlaw, Courtroom5, the Free Law Project's CourtListener, Harvey, iManage, Legora, RelativityOne, Solve Intelligence, and Thomson Reuters. Preview customers include Cleary, Freshfields, Weil, and Williams and Connolly.

Google says the permissions model overhaul allows connectors to inherit the access controls of underlying systems, essentially carrying a firm's legal 'walls' automatically without using its client data, strategies, or output to train the base models in play. This is particularly important for legal customers, given how crucial such limits are before any usable output is obtained.

Google isn't the only player, or even the first, in either place; Anthropic beat it considerably when it launched Claude for Legal in 2026.

Microsoft's Legal agent for Word went to worldwide public preview for Frontier users in mid-June, with general availability from mid-August 2026. OpenAI is pushing in the same direction with ChatGPT Work and an industry solutions page for financial services, though it has not packaged a legal edition the way its competition currently has.

All major AI players, however, are rushing to capture what is an exceptionally lucrative market; whether Google's offerings hold up against the competition remains to be seen in what is shaping up to be extremely competitive landscape.

• Some Microsoft workers were found spending $10,000 to $28,000 on AI tokens every month
• The median is a much lower $300, but that's based off a tiny percentage of workers
• Microsoft says AI usage should lead to meaningful outcomes

Some Microsoft workers are racking up some pretty hefty AI compute bills, with one of the company's workers from the Customer and Partner Solutions business spending $28,000 in tokens over a single 28-day period.

The figures, reported by Gadget Review, came from internal spreadsheets, which are used by workers to voluntarily share compensation information like salaries, bonuses and stock awards.

It's a spreadsheet which, in 2026, gained a new column for monthly AI usage, in which employees can track how much they spend in USD equivalent in terms of AI consumption.

Microsoft workers are using thousands in AI compute every month

Nearly 600 US workers reportedly contributed information to the spreadsheet, with around 350 of them sharing their AI usage figures. Importantly, the company employs more than 223,000 workers globally, participation was voluntary, and figures were self-reported, so the data shared by Gadget Review is not representative of all workers.

The median reported usage was also around $300 per employee per month, so the $28,000 figure is either an extreme or a mistake.

The data also shows how usage varies by Microsoft department, with the likes of CoreAI ($975) spending the highest median figure. Security ($526), Microsoft AI ($490), Cloud and AI ($325), Experiences and Devices ($250), Azure ($241) and Customer and Partner Solutions ($134) each have lower medians.

Similarly, those groups also saw large variations, with some workers spending up to $16,000 within CoreAI, $15,000 for Cloud and AI, and $10,000 for Security.

While the data doesn't provide an accurate overview, the company is said to be monitoring token consumption value more closely to track individuals who use large amounts of tokens. This comes after years of encouragement to incentivize workers to use AI.

The knock-on effect of that has been a trend dubbed 'tokenmaxxing', where users deliberately consume large amounts of tokens to become visible on tracking dashboards. It's a trend seen across the industry, including at Amazon.

"Tokenmaxxing is not what we are optimizing for," CoreAI EVP Jay Parikh previously said in an internal memo. "I want all of us focused on maximising outcomes that move the needle for our customers and our business."

• There's a new version of PowerToys out
• The suite of tools has a new utility called Window Hopper
• This allows you to easily cycle through open instances of the same app, and it's a nifty trick for multi-tasking in certain situations

Microsoft has released a new version of PowerToys, its suite of tools for Windows 11 (and 10), and it packs a smart new addition.

This is PowerToys v0.101.2362.0, and as flagged by XDA Developers, the release notes on GitHub introduce us to Window Hopper.

As the name suggests, this utility lets you easily hop between windows in Microsoft's OS with a shortcut that defaults to Alt + backtick (the ` symbol top-left of your keyboard, usually under the Escape key, or on the left of the number 1 key).

At this point you may be thinking: can't you switch between the windows of running apps by using Alt + Tab? Yes, you can, but there's a key difference between that shortcut and this new ability.

With Window Hopper, you are switching between the open instances of the same app, in the case that you're running multiple windows of said app. For example, like me, you might commonly have three or four browser sessions running in different windows, and pressing Alt + backtick will cycle between just those.

That's handy because it means all the other apps you may have open won't get in the way if you specifically just want to 'hop' between multiple instances of Chrome, say, or a clutch of Word documents you're working with (or folders in File Explorer).

If you don't like the default key combination to invoke Window Hopper, that can be changed.

On top of this new PowerToy, the existing Command Palette tool now has a compact mode, so it opens as a tiny window (and then expands with results when you start typing). This offering has also been tweaked to be more responsive and stable in general.

The new version of PowerToys also features some general interface polishing and tweaks to some other tools, including PowerDisplay, which is now capable of controlling the brightness of multiple monitors simultaneously. The Mouse Highlighter feature, which draws attention to the cursor when you left or right click (with a color to differentiate between both clicks), now has a smart new ripple effect.

Analysis: more power, fewer problems

I'm a big fan of PowerToys, and I think there are some highly useful tools here. Granted, some of these bits of software are for power-users only, but some are very handy for everyday users – and the good thing with this suite is that you can install it and only turn on a small handful of utilities that you really want, leaving the rest aside.

However, PowerToys is still not all that well known, and many average Windows users are missing out on nifty bits of functionality because they simply don't know about them. This is why I've argued in the past that certain PowerToys features should just be ported over to Windows 11 directly, where Microsoft could have them as options in the Settings app, removing the hurdle of having to find and install this suite of utilities (which, in overall terms, still remains somewhat obscure).

I think the Window Hopper is a prime example of something that could be easily ported over to Windows 11, where it would be useful for some folks to have as a native ability. Power Display, which just got a smart tweak with this new release of PowerToys, is another utility that I've said in the past would be great to have in the full version of Windows 11.

Would these tools be adding to system bloat, arguably? Well, some people may feel that way, but remember, they would be disabled by default and therefore wouldn't be eating any system resources (save for a small bit of drive space) unless you turned them on. Microsoft could also focus on very lightweight additions, too, as a starting point (simple tricks like Window Hopper, or partial ports of pieces of the beefier utilities).

For some people, PowerToys could even reduce bloat, as it might mean they can uninstall other third-party software that they've set up to achieve certain ends.

Hopefully Microsoft will at least be considering picking some choice pieces of functionality from PowerToys for inclusion in its desktop OS – and I note that there is a modernized mouse-finding ability inbound for Windows 11 (as Windows Latest spotted), which is good to see.

• Surfshark found that Meta's apps declared the most data types on average
• The seven hungriest apps in the study were all Meta-owned
• The figures come from developers' own App Store privacy labels

A new study from Surfshark has put a hard number on something privacy watchers have long suspected: among the biggest names in tech, Meta's apps are the hungriest for your personal data.

Of the 12 Meta apps included in the study, an average of 25 out of the possible 35 data types were collected.

That is more than three times as much as Microsoft and Apple gather on average, according to the research. The company's apps sit far ahead of the pack, and the gap is stark enough that Surfshark's team argues it reflects a purposeful choice rather than a technical necessity.

No amount of privacy tooling, not even the best VPN, can claw back information you consent to hand over when signing into a service. This makes knowing which apps take the most a useful first step in guarding your privacy.

Meta leads the pack, but Google is everywhere

Surfshark's researchers examined 171 apps in the Apple App Store, split across Google (44), Apple (41), Microsoft (40), Amazon (34), and Meta (12), and counted how many of the 35 data categories each developer self-reports collecting.

Meta came out on top by a distance. Its apps collect 25 data types on average, ahead of Google (17), Amazon (12), Microsoft (8), and Apple (7).

The gap widens at the extremes: the seven most data-hungry apps all belong to Meta, led by Meta AI on 33 data types, followed by Meta Horizon, Meta Business Suite, Meta Ads Manager, Messenger, Forum, and Facebook on 32 each.

This echoes an earlier finding that Meta's Messenger collects 32 of a possible 35 data types, nearly double the messaging-app average.

Google's story is about scale rather than intensity. It accounted for 29 of the 40 apps declaring the broadest data collection, though it was also overrepresented in the sample with 44 apps.

Even where individual Google apps collect less than Meta's, their sheer spread paints a wide picture of your activity.

At the other end, Microsoft and Apple were consistently the tamest, with Safari the only Apple app in the study to log browsing history.

What it means for your privacy

The concern is not any single app, but what happens when the data is stitched together.

Surfshark research lead Dr Luis Costa said the Big Tech business model is often built on an "insatiable appetite" for user information, weaving search history, purchases, and location into a detailed map of your life. Crucially, Meta ties this data directly to your identity, fuelling hyper-targeted ads.

Costa argues that collecting triple the data for the same tasks proves that this level of tracking is deliberate, not required. Meta's tracking has drawn scrutiny before, from WhatsApp's metadata trail to Facebook's Link History feature.

If you would rather not feed the machine, disabling precise location and your device advertising ID is a sensible place to start.

How to stay safe

As Costa puts it, "awareness is the only effective defense when a familiar voice or face can no longer be trusted implicitly".

For personal calls and messages, he suggests setting up a family "safe word" you can use with loved ones to confirm identity when a request feels urgent or out of character.

On video calls, a "glitch test" can help too. Ask the other person to wave a hand in front of their face, as deepfakes often blur or distort when facial features are obscured.

TechRadar has more advice on catching convincing AI images and deepfakes if you want to sharpen your eye.

Remember that big leak about Microsoft having begun developing a version of Windows that was built around AI, before eventually abandoning the project? Well, it's surfaced again, this time with some interesting new information on just how focused Microsoft was on Copilot, which I think is quite telling — or indeed worrying for those who believe Microsoft might be backtracking on AI somehow.

Windows Latest has gone back over the leak (which was first reported by our sister site Windows Central last month) with a fine-tooth comb, and the tech site flagged up some fresh details that flew under the radar at the time.

To recap briefly, the concept of the OS shown, codenamed 'Project Aion' — with the leaked material dating back to 2024 — was a lightweight web-based version of a Windows operating system that streamed apps to the desktop (as opposed to running them natively on the PC) and put Copilot at the heart of the experience.

This was a horror show of an idea for many, of course, and what Windows Latest starkly highlights here is the extent to which Microsoft was building Aion around AI. In a SharePoint site in the leak, it's described as a "Copilot OS" and a cross-platform system that can span all devices and is generically known as an "Agent OS".

The broader idea, is said to be of an operating system fashioned around "an agent that marshals and organizes all the capabilities of our computers and our clouds on our behalf", and that this is known as an "agent of agents" or the "outside agent".

"The version that Microsoft will build should be known as Copilot OS or the Outside Copilot," the top-level description on the SharePoint site observes. Another term mentioned is a "self-driving OS", which hints at the desire to build an autonomous platform powered by AI here.

Copilot is envisioned as being the "primary way people express, entertain, and educate themselves, and complete tasks across all aspects of their lives".

But Aion is dead, right? Yes… but hold up a minute

So, what's the big deal here? Windows Latest breathes a sigh of relief that the "odds are already in favor" of this abandoned Aion concept staying dead and buried, arguing that Microsoft is clearly backtracking on AI features these days. And that's very true — there's no denying that Microsoft has reversed course on pushing AI quite so hard as it did in 2025.

But I don't think we can declare that 'Aion is dead' quite so readily. Yes, that exact concept may be buried, but there are nuances here. For me, what Windows Latest has surfaced shows just how serious Microsoft was about exploring the idea of a fully AI-driven desktop. More to the point, an operating system that was effectively an 'agent of agents', or an overseeing AI pulling the strings of a collection of smaller dedicated agents working within the framework of that system.

Here's the thing: Microsoft's efforts to rein in AI within Windows 11 certainly exist (although I wonder about how much of this is for show, frankly). The software giant is currently delivering its best effort to please the disgruntled masses, and a big part of that is fixing Windows 11 — but another hefty piece of the puzzle is to place less emphasis on AI and shoveling more Copilot features into the desktop OS.

But don't be mistaken here: Microsoft still very much sees AI as the future. The company just realizes that it can't be vocal about that right now, especially given that the RAM crisis has forced 8GB laptops back onto the scene, as notebook makers, including Microsoft itself, try to cope with hefty spikes in the cost of manufacturing these devices.

It's a bit embarrassing to be talking about Copilot+ PCs needing 16GB of RAM for AI features when Surface models have had to be reintroduced packing 8GB to get their price down to a vaguely palatable level. Indeed, talk of Copilot+ devices seems to have evaporated this year, as if Microsoft feels this is best brushed under the carpet for now. While a recent leak from Lenovo talked about 'Non-Copilot' laptops with less than 16GB of memory (as flagged by Windows Latest), this kind of spec talk isn't something you'll hear from Microsoft.

Downplaying AI is the tactic for now, but not forever

For me, it's clear enough that Microsoft is downplaying AI in a strategic manner for the time being, and likely through to next year. The next big thing, however, remains AI agents in Windows, even if Windows 11 isn't going to be transformed into next-gen Windows Copilot (or whatever a more AI-centric desktop platform might be called).

Microsoft is still very busy working on those agents. These entities will begin the shift towards an operating system that's built around AI, with smaller-scale agents executing dedicated tasks on the local PC (with the user's permission, of course, to access stuff). This will be a gradual ramping up of AI usage within Windows 11 (and while folks who hate AI and everything it stands for won't have to go anywhere near these agents, doubtless the idea is that minds will be changed eventually).

I think it's also telling that in Microsoft's recent roundup of the progress it's made in fixing Windows 11, the company talked about future improvements for the OS later this year, and a central aim was to streamline resource usage so the operating system runs better with 8GB of RAM. Interestingly, a few other goals were listed alongside that, and one of them was to make "voice more natural and fluid to interact across the apps you use every day". If you recall, part of the initial sales pitch for AI in Windows 11 was Copilot Voice (and Vision), so I think the importance placed on voice functionality here reflects a broader AI goal that's still in the background.

Ultimately, I think Microsoft is still pushing towards an operating system that's built around AI; it's just that the timeline to reach this end-game objective has been pushed further out. While Project Aion as leaked before was too big a concept, it clearly shows how Microsoft ranks the importance of AI for the future — and I think it's a mistake to think this idea is somehow 'dead' or derailed.

As far as I'm concerned, this remains the destination where Microsoft is heading with next-gen Windows: a lightweight (possibly modular) OS focused on AI, and one that leverages the cloud and streamed apps, too. I think the leaked Project Aion shows us the future as Microsoft wants to realize it, but what it doesn't mention at all is what I think will be another key driver for the software giant: subscription charges.

The golden ticket for Microsoft is to get consumers subscribing to the Windows platform (as businesses do – well, enterprises anyway). AI agents as Windows add-ons with a small monthly (or yearly) fee attached seems a likely way to bring this monetization method into play while making minimal waves (and I recently discussed how there are signs that this is already happening).

That will eventually turn into a grander scheme, and Windows could, over time, end up getting a lot closer to the Aion or Copilot OS concept than some might imagine — although admittedly, that could still be a long way off.

• Microsoft used to tell you when a bot was in the lobby, now you can automatically block it
• Watch out, because legitimate add-ons like AI assistants could end up being blocked
• More protections are coming to Teams soon, too

Microsoft is rolling out an important new security policy for Teams, and admins can now finally block external meeting bots automatically.

Previously, the software would identify bots and label them accordingly within the lobby, but leave the final decision to meeting organizers – this new update prevents external bots from joining in the first place.

The company hopes the upgrade will give organizations more control over security to reduce the risks associated with unwanted participants.

Teams now automatically blocks external bots

Despite the new change, the policy will be disabled by default, so Microsoft won't be banning third-party bots across the board. But company admins will be able to enable the policy for users or groups to reduce the burden and security risks accordingly, marking a major improvement over the earlier bot protections introduced just two months ago.

Importantly, any external bot detected in a meeting will be blocked from entering, thus legitimate tools could also be blocked, hence the decision to disable the tool by default. That includes legitimate tools like AI meeting assistants, transcription tools, recording add-ons and other similar tools.

"Bots have begun joining meetings that participants never intended them to attend," Meera Ajam explained in a June post, hinting at a shift to hybrid (human and machine) participants.

Nevertheless, it's an important change for the video conferencing platform, which has seen a rise in cybercriminal activity.

Further admin controls, like allow lists for approved bots and audit logs, are also set to come to the productivity suite. This latest update is starting to roll out now, with general availability expected by late September.

• Microsoft has concocted another scheme to pay people to use Edge
• It's a referral link that gives you reward points for every friend invited
• A strange Bing app has also been spotted that switches some browsers to have Microsoft's search engine by default, and it's proving controversial

Microsoft is once again pushing Edge — and also Bing — in promotional efforts that may elicit more than a few groans from Windows 11 users.

We're used to this kind of thing in Windows 11, mind, and I'll come back to Bing later, as this is an apparent plan that hasn't kicked into action yet. However, the latest Edge scheme is active, and as Windows Latest reports, it's offering financial incentives to get people to use Microsoft's web browser.

This is happening on the mobile version of Edge where users are being offered a referral scheme. If you can get a friend to switch to Edge via a referral link, you'll receive 500 Microsoft Rewards points (with the ability to accumulate up to 7,500 points per month if you're feeling ambitious).

The person you invite can't be an existing Edge user (they must never have installed the mobile browser), and they will also earn 500 points for signing up. However, your invited friend must sign into Edge and use the browser for at least two days (web searching on Bing, too) within the first two weeks of being referred.

Windows Latest observes that there's no way to access this referral scheme should you be interested — you'll just have to keep using Edge mobile and wait until it's presented to you.

As well as the promotion of Bing in that offer (in terms of the requirement to use the search engine for a couple of days), there's a more brazen initiative to push Bing usage that Windows Latest also spotted.

This was highlighted in a post on X by leaker Xeno who discovered a small app called 'Microsoft Recommended Search' which has one sole and simple purpose: to change your default search engine to Bing.

When run, it offers up a simple slider to set Bing as the default engine, and if you allow this, the app switches to Microsoft's search engine across some of your installed browsers. That means Chrome and Firefox, and also apparently Brave and possibly others, via extensions which are added to these browsers. Apparently the experience is rounded off by sending the user to the Microsoft Rewards page.

Where is this app exactly? Thankfully it isn't something that's being deployed to Windows 11, and Windows Latest notes that it's just a standalone application hosted on Microsoft's official download servers (download.microsoft.com) — for the time being, anyway.

Analysis: an ominous sign?

Does this mean that the Bing switching application is something Microsoft intends to pipe out to Windows 11 at some point? That's the obvious worry, because you've got to wonder why Microsoft built this mini app in the first place. I'm guessing that this is something for use in testing, though, and not active deployment — although it could come to Windows 11 in theory (or something similar could).

I really hope not, and given that Microsoft is doing its level best to get everyone to appreciate its desktop OS this year, it's obvious that anything along these lines would be highly counterproductive to that goal.

However, there's plenty of suspicion on Reddit about Microsoft's intentions here, and chatter from those who've already switched to Linux, pointing out that this kind of thing is exactly why they migrated. As one Redditor put it: "Every day is a Microslop news day, I'm so glad I quit Windows a while ago." There are quite a few others in that thread who see this as another reason to defect to Linux, despite the fact that nothing has happened with this Bing app yet.

As for the referral scheme to promote Edge, this isn't the first time Microsoft has effectively offered lowkey bribes to get people to switch to the browser. Indeed, the likes of million-dollar prizes have been thrown around recently (and the same has been true of Bing in the past). Not that there's anything wrong with this idea in principle, except it does show that Microsoft's getting rather desperate in its efforts to recruit folks to use Edge and Bing.

The most baffling part of all with Edge is that it's a good web browser which stands on its own merits, and I think it would benefit from not being promoted so much (as that activity only makes people suspicious, or determined not to use Edge as a reaction to being constantly cajoled about it).

• Windows 11 can remove a discrete GPU driver as part of its clean-up routines, as shown on Reddit
• This can happen if the laptop has been in Eco mode for an extended period
• Because the GPU is effectively gated off from the system, the driver is marked as unused and therefore deleted by the OS during clean-up – but you can stop this from happening

Apparently, Windows 11 can end up stripping away the discrete GPU driver from your laptop in certain scenarios if the OS is left to run in Eco mode for a long time – and that's a distinct annoyance if you own a gaming laptop, as per a report on Reddit.

Wccftech spotted a Redditor who posted about their Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop with a discrete Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti, and how Windows turned off that GPU.

At this point, some of you may immediately be thinking: who runs their gaming laptop in Eco mode? And that's a fair point, and one raised in the Reddit thread – I'll come back to that.

First, let's look at the mechanics of how this works, based on the Redditor's investigation of what went on (they noted that it "took me months to work this out"). When the laptop is put into Eco mode, power is completely cut to the discrete GPU, effectively leaving it offline (just as if it were an unplugged USB stick, as the Redditor describes).

That's not a problem – obviously it's a power-saving measure – but the issue is that Windows 11 runs a driver clean-up process from time to time as part of routine system maintenance. By default, this happens every 30 days, though the Redditor notes their laptop was set to 15 days, and this can be modified.

What happens is that if the laptop has been in Eco mode for a long time, with the GPU effectively walled off and not present as far as the system is concerned, and the clean-up happens, it judges the driver to now be superfluous, and it's removed.

When Eco mode is subsequently switched off, the driver doesn't return – it remains ditched, and the GPU shows as a 'Microsoft Basic Display Adapter' instead of an Nvidia GPU in Windows 11's Device Manager.

The Nvidia graphics driver must then be reinstalled to get the GeForce graphics card functional again – and the same is reportedly true of AMD discrete GPUs.

Analysis: a niche problem, but an annoying one – here's how to avoid it

Let's return to that question: who runs a gaming laptop in Eco mode? No gamer really does this, at least not when they're regularly playing some of the top PC games on their notebook. However, someone might be a student cramming for finals and using the laptop for work, having given up gaming distractions for a few months. In this case, with Eco mode enabled to keep battery life up while studying, Windows 11 could disable the GPU.

Okay, so it's something of a niche situation – and the Windows 11 clean-up routines are useful for keeping the system streamlined. But it's not an unthinkable scenario, and Microsoft's OS should be tuned to be more careful around GPU drivers – and it'd be useful if the system could give a warning of such a clean-up happening (so it could be avoided).

That said, this may not happen in all situations. Another Redditor notes that they have had their Zephyrus G16 in Eco mode for two months, and the Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti is still present and correct.

Whatever the case, if you run into this problem yourself, at least you know why it's happening. The fix is to simply reinstall the Nvidia driver, although the same thing could happen again if you're one of those people who regularly uses Eco mode on your gaming laptop.

You can apply a Registry fix to permanently stop the clean-up process, but I wouldn't recommend messing with those settings unless you're confident (see the Reddit post for instructions). Also note that you'll miss out on other clean-up duties, not just GPU-related activity.

A better solution is to simply remember to take your laptop out of Eco mode now and then (every couple of weeks), which will bring the discrete GPU back into play, and save the driver from being earmarked for removal.

The Redditor notes: "Or just keep the GPU visible now and then. Optimized mode in G-Helper turns the dGPU [discrete GPU] on whenever you plug in. Flipping to Standard [mode] every couple of weeks does the same thing. Resets the counter, no Registry editing."

• The price and release date for the Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition have seemingly leaked
• Reliable leaker 'billbil-kun' says it will cost around $899.99 (roughly £660 / AU$1,255)
• It will reportedly launch on November 27

After the price and release date for Microsoft's 25th anniversary Xbox Wireless Controller were leaked earlier this week, details of the matching limited edition Xbox Series X have also surfaced.

As per the reliable 'billbil-kun' of Dealabs, who has accurately reported on new and unannounced hardware in the past, the upcoming Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition, which sports a translucent green shell, will cost a whopping €899.99.

This translates to an estimated $899.99 price point in the US (roughly £660 / AU$1,255), and is about €100 / $100 more than the regular 1TB Xbox Series X with a disc drive.

When Microsoft announced the Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition and the matching Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition in June, it said that both would be together in select markets as a limited-edition collection in November.

Now, billbil-kun claims the console will release on November 27, which aligns well with Black Friday.

It's unclear when pre-orders begin, but the leaker recently reported that the matching controller's October 20 release date and $79.99 / £74.99 / €79.99 price point will be revealed at Gamescom 2026, with pre-orders beginning on August 26.

Both the Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition and the Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition are translucent "OG green," inspired by the original Xbox, and feature light-up buttons and "Xbox 25" branding.

After the Xbox Series X25 reveal during Xbox Fanfest at Summer Game Fest 2026, free consoles were reportedly given to fans in attendance.

• Windows 11's August update has broken some PC games
• Microsoft is investigating reports of crashes, but right now it's unclear what the root cause is
• Theories point to security measures in the update potentially causing issues with certain drivers and conflicts with anti-cheat tools

Windows 11 has run into trouble with gamers (again) after the latest monthly update for the OS, and Microsoft is investigating what's gone wrong.

The Register noticed that Microsoft has posted on the Windows release health dashboard about "reports of certain games becoming unresponsive" following its latest patch.

In some cases, games are either freezing and becoming unresponsive, as mentioned, or simply closing (crashing to the desktop), with an error ('Exception Access Violation') being displayed in some cases. There are also some reports of spontaneous reboots occurring after a game crashes.

Not all PC games are affected by any means, with Microsoft noting that reports are coming in from players of Arc Raiders, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, and The Finals.

Microsoft is currently trying to work out what's going on, saying: "Ongoing investigation indicates that this issue is related to peripherals or internal device components which have RGB lighting features. Such devices may install drivers or code components with file names similar to inpoutx64. In systems where these drivers are found, the issue is then triggered by launching certain games."

Microsoft adds that it's currently trying to "understand the relationship between these RGB components and the games which trigger this issue", and says it will update gamers when more information becomes available.

Analysis: theories and workarounds

Microsoft is suggesting that this may be a driver-related issue of some kind, rather than a problem with Windows 11 itself. Of course, changes to Windows 11 could be the root cause, and the company admits that, and says it's still trying to "determine if this is an issue caused by Microsoft" on the release health dashboard.

As The Register points out, some on Reddit are theorizing that this bug is to do with "tightened kernel handle validation" which was introduced with the latest patch for Windows 11. Essentially meaning that Microsoft has tightened aspects of security with the August update, and that this is causing driver glitches, ones that were previously ignored, to be picked up (and subsequently crashing games).

The mentioned driver (inpoutx64) isn't just used in software controlling RGB lighting, but also in some system utilities needing low-level system access (for hardware monitoring, for example, and one such tool is mentioned in the above Reddit post: ZenTimings). It seems that if this driver is present on the host PC, the game's anti-cheat probing it now throws up a problem (post-patch), and that leads to the crash.

If this bug is causing you grief — and there are a lot of Arc Raiders players out there in that particular boat — there are workarounds that can make the game playable again.

The first is the most obvious and easiest fix: remove the August update for Windows 11 (or roll back the OS to before it was installed). You can remove an update in Windows Update, in the Update History panel — just find the patch (KB5121003 in this case) and uninstall it. However, bear in mind that you will be without a bunch of security fixes (and other features, including faster app launching) if you don't have this update on your PC.

The other alternative is to remove the problematic driver file, which seemingly won't harm your system (that said, if you do so, it's at your own risk — I haven't tested this). Going by the advice in the above Reddit thread — and also from the developer of Arc Raiders (Embark) — what you need to do is open the Command Prompt in Windows 11 by typing cmd in the search box, then right-click on Command Prompt and select 'Run as administrator'.

Once the prompt appears, type the following and press enter:

sc stop inpoutx64

Then type this second line and press enter:

sc delete inpoutx64

Now close the Command Prompt, open File Explorer, and find the following folder: C:\Windows\System32\drivers.

In that folder you should see the inpoutx64 file, it may be a SYS or DLL file (or both). Delete any of those files which are present.

That's the driver removed, and you should now be good to go, and you can still have the August update installed. But as I already noted, proceed at your own risk if you take this route.

The best bet for now may be to sit tight and wait for the results of Microsoft's investigation, and hopefully we'll hear something soon. However, this could be a somewhat thorny problem to untangle, and it rather sounds like a case of Microsoft dealing with a security issue — one which should be fixed — and that cure causing collateral damage due to driver wonkiness.

Whatever the case, on social media, a good many PC gamers are blaming Microsoft for this latest gaming-related issue in Windows 11.

One Redditor delivers the following barb: "They can't even keep the one thing they had over Linux. If you have to worry about whether or not your games work anyway, why still use Windows?"

Another observes: "Since 2025 December update till today — EVERY single month the update breaks something! There was no single month without issues."

There's no shortage of shots fired at Microsoft for monthly update woes, accusations of this being the fault of vibe coding (AI), and threats to leave for greener Linux desktop pastures. Business as usual, then.

• Windows 11 is getting per-app permissions for all desktop software
• Previously this was limited to just apps from the Microsoft Store
• Microsoft has also decided to drop an incoming interface addition called the drag tray, which had drawn complaints from some testers

Windows 11 is finally giving you a full range of options to maintain your privacy from potentially snooping apps, and the OS is being further improved as Microsoft is scrapping an unpopular addition for the interface which was in testing.

First up, let's look at the privacy move, which as Windows Latest reports is the expansion of individual privacy controls for apps in Windows 11. This was first highlighted by Jakub on X, who noted: "Huge changes are coming to Windows 11 privacy & security. In the latest Experimental Insider Build (26340.9212) you can now revoke access to the camera & microphone for specific Win32 apps!"

What this means is that in Settings you can allow or deny access to the camera and mic (as well as location access) for desktop apps on an individual basis. Couldn't you do that before, I hear you ask. Only for Microsoft Store apps, with other (Win32) applications having just one 'master switch' to either toggle all these permissions on or off (on a blanket basis).

Thankfully, in a new experimental test build of Windows 11, Microsoft has changed things so you have granular privacy controls over all apps, not just Microsoft Store software.

On top of that, testers are seeing smartphone-style app permission prompts for allowing access to the camera and mic, which is a feature Microsoft has said it's bringing in before.

Windows Latest also noticed that Microsoft has officially canned the drag tray, which was a new part of the interface in testing with Windows 11.

The idea here is that when you grabbed and dragged a file on the desktop, this tray would appear at the top of the screen, and if you moused the file over it, you'd get some quick sharing options (so you could simply drop the file to share via WhatsApp, or Outlook, or a bunch of other icons).

Tthe drag tray could be handy for users with a touchscreen, for example, as an easier method than going by the right-click menu sharing options. So, what was wrong with this feature?

The problem was for those users with busier desktops, perhaps crowded with folders, because in these situations — or when using a maximized folder window filling the display — if a file was dragged towards the top of the screen, the tray might appear and get in the way of the target folder (effectively blocking it).

These frustrations led to some complaints, and Microsoft has ultimately decided to drop the tray.

In the notes for the most recent Windows 11 preview build in the Experimental channel, Microsoft told us: "Thank you to Insiders who have provided feedback about the Drag Tray experience. Based on feedback, we're removing the experience in this build. We're continuing to explore improvements in this area and look forward to sharing more about a future replacement experience in a later update."

Analysis: a real drag

The drag tray had to go, then, at least in its current implementation, but as Microsoft noted, this isn't necessarily the end of the road for this concept. It may be brought back to testing in a different incarnation, and indeed that sounds like the plan here, so I'll be keeping an eye out for the feature's reemergence at some point.

As for the privacy options, this is a very welcome move, as it's pretty important to be able to pick and choose which apps have what permissions. The only real question here is: why wasn't this the case in the first place? Granted, there are technical reasons why it's a good deal trickier to implement a per-app system like this for Win32 software compared to applications from the Microsoft Store. However, it isn't like this was something Microsoft couldn't solve – clearly, as it's being done now.

There might be quite a lot of work involved, but really, that isn't an excuse, and this is another one of those long overdue changes for Windows 11. A bit like the streamlining and new customization options for the right-click (context) menu in the OS, although admittedly that was a good deal more urgent. At any rate, at least both these changes are happening now, although this per-app privacy system is still in testing, and could end up looking somewhat different by the time it reaches release.

All of this is part of Microsoft's drive to fix Windows 11 while introducing a host of crowd-pleasing features that have long been requested, such as that context menu change. Note that the drag tray never actually arrived in the full release version of Windows 11, just to make that clear – it was only ever in testing, showing that not everything in preview makes the cut by any means.

• Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition will reportedly launch on October 20
• Leaker 'billbil-kun' claims pre-orders will open during Gamescom on August 26
• The controller will cost $79.99 / £74.99 / €79.99

The price and release date for Microsoft's 25th anniversary Xbox Wireless Controller have reportedly leaked online ahead of Gamescom 2026.

The company revealed the Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition in June, alongside the Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition, both inspired by the original Xbox and the "OG green" that players remember.

We haven't heard anything about the hardware since, but now, according to reliable leaker 'billbil-kun' of Dealabs (via IGN), the X25 controller will launch on October 20, 2026.

The leaker also claims the controller will cost $79.99 / £74.99 / €79.99 / Canadian$99.99, with pre-orders opening on August 26, coinciding with its announcement at Gamescom.

We know Xbox will be at Gamescom, but its plans for Opening Night Live, where host Geoff Keighley will take to the stage to unveil world premiere trailers for new and upcoming games, are currently unknown.

However, billbil-kun claims the X25 controller details will be featured during the event, with pre-orders opening soon after.

There are no pricing details for the Xbox Series X 25 Limited Edition. Still, Xbox previously stated in an Xbox Wire post that the console and controller will be available together in select markets as a limited-edition collection in November.

Both the console and controller are a gorgeous translucent green, allowing players to see their internal builds, with illuminated Xbox buttons and "Xbox 25" branding.

"This is just one of the ways we’re celebrating 25 years of XBOX with you, the players who have made XBOX what it is. Thank you," said Jason Ronald, VP Next Generation, in the same post.

• Microsoft says blocking domains is ineffective against MacSync Stealer’s evolving infrastructure
• Defender experts tracked over 30 domains by analyzing behavioral patterns instead
• Mitigation focuses on spotting suspicious shell sessions, osascript activity, and /tmp/sync archives

Microsoft says it has found a way to stop the dangerous MacSync Stealer malware by monitoring certain behaviors, rather than keeping track of the domains used in the attacks.

MacSync Stealer is a piece of infostealer malware built for the Apple ecosystem - it steals passwords, browser data, cookies, Keychain secrets, cryptocurrency wallets, Telegram sessions, SSH/cloud credentials and other sensitive information.

It was being distributed via ClickFix scams. Victims would visit a malicious website which would tell them they had a problem (an outdated browser or a “protected” document that can only be viewed after “verifying” identities), and which would immediately offer a solution. That solution is to bring up the Terminal and paste a command which, in reality, deployed the malware.

Initially, defenders would keep their Mac fleets safe by blocking the domains used to host the infrastructure - the websites, the malware executables, and the exfiltrated data. But they soon realized that a new domain would pop up as soon as the old one was blocked, and the malware would continue its operations unabated.

Behavioral analysis

Now, in a new report, Microsoft said it successfully identified more than 30 domains by looking at behavioral patterns such as repeated execution, request characteristics, staging behavior, and upload methods.

“Microsoft Defender Experts expanded that view by correlating recurring endpoints and network behaviors across the activity. This behavior-led approach connected more than 30 domains and showed that the infrastructure supported more than C2 communication, extending into active collection, staging, and exfiltration,” Microsoft explained.

In other words, to defend against MacSync Stealer, don’t focus on blocking domains. Instead, pay attention to shell sessions spawning ‘curl’ with specific flag combinations, osascript quickly chaining into network activity, and archives appearing under /tmp/sync just before outbound PUT traffic begins.

• Microsoft Teams is changing how it displays swear words
• The toggle to hide bad words is now Off by default
• However Government users will have to wait a little longer, for an unknown reason

Frustrated Microsoft Teams users finally be able to express their true feelings after the company revealed changes to how it censors profanity in captions - although not all users will be able to "benefit" just yet.

In an updated message center post, Microsoft outlined the changes coming to its profanity filter for Teams, noting that the default setting for live captions has now been switched from On to Off.

However this doesn't yet apply to all users, as Government officials and staff will have to wait a little while longer, with their rollout deadline now extended until sometime at the end of August 2026.

Safe for work

Microsoft first introduced the profanity toggle in 2023 in a bid to cut down on bad language in Teams Live Captions by replacing any swear words with asterisks.

Originally, it was up to the user whether to leave the toggle on, rather than the meeting organizer or admin - but in May 2026, Microsoft appears to have changed its mind for some reason, and opted to disable the "profane words" filter by default.

"This change ensures captions more accurately reflect spoken content, supporting accessibility needs and aligning with regional regulatory requirements (including the EU)," the company wrote.

Microsoft added that users retain full control and can enable or disable the filter at any time, but, somewhat tongue in cheek, notes that, "No admin action is required, but informing support teams and users is recommended."

The delay will apply to Government Community Cloud (GCC), GCC High, and US Department of Defense users, who often face extra complications due to security checks and operational reasons - although Microsoft offered no clues as to why that is the case here.

The news is the latest in a series of recent updates seemingly geared towards helping Microsoft Teams users show off how great they are.

This includes bringing "Badges" to your Microsoft Teams profile card, allowing users to display all their achievements to anyone who cares to look.

It is also working on a feature which will automatically update a user's work location when they connect to an office Wi-Fi network - hopefully meaning less confusion about where workers actually are situated, but bad news for those looking for a quiet day in the office tucked into a corner.

Via The Register

• Leaker Billbil-kun claims the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Diablo 4 will launch on September 15
• The "Age of Hatred Collection" will reportedly include the base game and the Vessel of Hatred and Lord of Hatred expansions
• The physical edition will have a code in the box

The long-rumored Nintendo Switch 2 port of Diablo 4 could reportedly launch very soon after BlizzCon 2026.

That's according to reliable leaker 'billbil-kun' of French outlet Dealabs (via Resetera), who originally reported on the Switch 2 version of Diablo 4 earlier this month.

Now, they claim that Diablo 4 will arrive on Switch 2 on September 15, nearly three years after its release on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and PC, two days after BlizzCon 2026, which takes place between September 12 and September 13.

The edition will be called the "Age of Hatred Collection," and will include the base game and its two expansions, Vessel of Hatred and Lord of Hatred, and will cost $69.99 / £62.99 / €69.99.

Pre-orders are expected to begin on September 12, coinciding with the opening of BlizzCon 2026, and it appears that the physical version won't have a cartridge, but will offer a code in a box instead.

Billbil-kun couldn't determine when the game will be announced, but suggested that an official reveal could be made during Gamescom 2026 next week, where Xbox has confirmed its presence, but it's currently unclear. The announcement could just as well arrive at BlizzCon, too.

Diablo 4 launched in 2023 and is regarded as one of the best isometric, open-world role-playing games (RPGs). In TechRadar Gaming's five-star review, freelance contributor Cat Bussell praised the game's "darkly compelling fantasy world," "fluid combat that scales well in single and multiplayer," and "endlessly customizable characters."

• Windows 11's right-click menu has some big changes in testing
• This context menu is being streamlined and is now more responsive
• You can also customize the entries in the menu, or even switch it to be like Windows 10's version

Microsoft is finally streamlining Windows 11's context menu — the one which pops up when you right click something on the desktop — as well as bringing in more customization choices.

In a blog post for a new preview build in the Experimental channel, Microsoft announced that it's rolling out a redesigned context menu for File Explorer (meaning the files and folders on your desktop).

It's "designed to feel faster, cleaner, and easier to tailor to the way you work", and Microsoft has made two major improvements here.

Firstly, the right-click menu is a lot less cluttered, with far fewer options now appearing in the list by default (building on some previous work along these lines). On top of that, there's new functionality in Windows 11's settings, enabling you to customize what appears in the context menu.

Windows Central reports that it has tried this revamped right-click menu, and that it's not just trimmed down, but also faster to load (no doubt reducing the bloat has helped to improve performance).

You can also choose to have a Windows 10-style context menu, where the elements at the top in the horizontal panel (cut, copy, rename and so forth) are integrated into the vertical menu list (removing the top panel, essentially).

It's possible to ditch any entry you don't want from the menu, too, so gone are the days when you installed a third-party app and it annoyed you by placing itself in the context menu when you didn't want that to happen. You can now simply banish the offender.

Analysis: it's about time

In my opinion, you should have been able to tailor the right-click menu to your own preferences right from the very off in Windows 11. Or at least you should have been able to remove the likes of third-party additions to the menu, even if Microsoft kept the core defaults set in stone.

Still, Microsoft has improved the context menu immeasurably here, and the more responsive performance is great to hear about. Windows 11 users have long complained that it's ridiculous that right-clicking on something could mean a delay of a few seconds before the menu actually appears. This is a basic piece of interface functionality, and not one that should be running slowly on an average PC.

Bear in mind that this is just in testing for now, so this new layout and options may take some time to arrive in the full version of Windows 11. That'll likely happen later this year, although you can't be sure whether Microsoft will keep everything as it is now (some choices could be scrapped, changed, or more might be added, even).

For now, a good many Windows 11 users are impressed by this work, but there are some who, like me, are still a bit sore about it taking so long to happen. One Redditor said: "They had 5 years to do that. Better late than never I guess."

There are others who have already left Windows 11 behind and can't resist making it clear that they won't be coming back, no matter how far Microsoft takes its drive to fix Windows 11. This Redditor observed: "Too little too late, I will refuse to ever go back to MS," adding that: "They've lost me and everyone who listens to me for IT advice."

Others point out that the performance work to fix Windows 11's sluggishness is a decision driven by necessity and the RAM crisis. Someone else on Reddit pointed out: "Probably has a lot more to do with having to figure out how to get Windows 11 working on 8GB of memory since they can't control the price of memory."

And another Redditor replying to that agreed, saying, "This is exactly why this is happening. All the 'fixes' started after they announced 8GB Surfaces."

It's easy to be overly negative on Windows 11, yes, but responses like these are ultimately Microsoft's fault, and a result of the attitude it has shown with the development of the operating system through the years.

With that said, it does very much feel like a fresh leaf has been turned over, and I'm very happy that this is the case. Hopefully Microsoft can apply changes to Windows 11 that'll continue to surprise us, and make this desktop OS a more enticing prospect — although it's unlikely those more disgruntled Linux defectors out there will ever be tempted back.

• Chinese government moves ahead with Windows 10 replacement
• Heavily customized Windows edition will be replaced by domestic alternative
• Windows 10 official end of life was October 14, 2024

The Chinese government has revealed plans to finally remove Windows 10 from its systems as it looks to move towards home-made alternatives.

A report from Bloomberg claims the Chinese Ministry of State Security has told some state-linked entities to start uninstalling the software as part of a multi-year plan to remove dependence on Western technology.

The version of Windows 10 is developed by C&M Information Technologies Co (CMIT) which was formed in 2016 as a joint venture between Microsoft and the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corp in a bid to make sure Windows 10 was compliant with the government's security requirements.

A welcome change?

There's no official confirmation as to why the decision has been made now, with CMIT reportedly planning to retire the software in February 2027, in line with a government campaign to curb the use of foreign technology.

Bloomberg notes the move comes just weeks before US President Donald Trump is set to meet with Chinese premier Xi Jinping, where security concerns will no doubt be high.

“Microsoft is not aware of a security incident affecting this product, which continues to receive regular security updates,” a spokesperson for the US company told Bloomberg. “We have nothing further to share.”

Windows 10 famously saw its end of life in October 2024, as Microsoft retired the software in order to focus on newer editions.

However some users were initially able to get extra support until 2026, a deadline which was surprisingly extended even further recently, with Microsoft's Extended Security Updates (ESU) scheme now indicating support will run through to October 2027.

The move was slow to catch on, as a study in July 2026 found one in six PCs still ran the older software as opposed to 78.8% for Windows 11 - with healthcare and pharmaceuticals (23%), consumer and retails (23%) and manufacturing (18%) among the industries most likely to still be running Windows 10, with SMBs (21.4%) more likely to be running the outgoing OS compared with enterprises (16.6%).

This is especially concerning as the average Windows 10 device has around three times as many active CVEs (1,903) as a Windows 11 devices (652).

The ideas that we take for granted in today's computing landscape were once all original thoughts that somebody had to devise and implement out of nothing. Both Apple and Microsoft were pioneering companies in this space, but not all great ideas that stuck necessarily came from either company.

Best of frenemies

When word got out that Bill Gates had announced Windows for the first time at the Comdex trade show, Steve Jobs was furious and asked for a face-to-face meeting.

According to an account from Apple's designer of Macintosh system software, Andy Hertzfeld, Jobs "went ballistic" upon learning that Microsoft's new mouse-based system had made its debut.

The two companies had agreed a staggered release – with Windows only allowed to launch in 1983, a year after Mac. Because Mac had been delayed, and that possibility was never defined in their 1981 agreement, Microsoft was still within its rights to launch Windows.

Jobs felt this was a stolen idea anyway and that it represented a betrayal of a fragile partnership. In this meeting, Hertzfeld wrote, Gates simply pointed out the fundamental idea wasn't either of theirs – and that the terms of a 1981 agreement still held up.

North star

Gates' witty quote underlines the frosty relationship that he shared with Jobs throughout their careers, until they buried the hatchet a couple of decades later.

This conflict originated when Jobs recruited Microsoft to be the first software developer for the Macintosh. Both companies, at this point, had exposure to the ideas being developed at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) – especially the mouse-based system the company's engineers had refined. For instance, Xerox Star was a highly influential predecessor operating system.

Microsoft didn't shift a working version of Windows until almost two years later, and, according to Hertzfeld, it was just as crude as Jobs had predicted. When Microsoft launched a version of Windows in 1988 that Jobs deemed good enough, he sued Microsoft for copyright infringement but lost on a technicality.

• Microsoft Excel is pulling the COPILOT () function
• Function allowed users to describe tasks in natural language, including as part of a formula
• It never reached public launch, and has now been overtaken by other tools

Microsoft is dropping its COPILOT function in Excel as part of its wide-ranging overhauls to the AI platform.

In a Message Center alert, the company warned users that the tool will be pulled on September 14, 2026.

First announced in August 2025 and originally set for launch in January 2027, the tool has been in testing for over a year with Frontier and Insider users, but Microsoft has apparently decided not to move forward with its service.

Copilot dismissed

At launch, Microsoft had described the COPILOT () function as helping users to describe tasks in natural language, including as part of a formula, before receiving the results created by Copilot, in their cells, without needing to open up a separate Copilot window

It proved an initial hit for tasks such as text summarization, classification, content generation, and looking up information on the Internet.

Some examples of =COPILOT's use cases include summarizing customer feedback, categorizing data, integrating external knowledge and formatting.

In its most simple form, a function might look like "=COPILOT(prompt_part1, [context1])" – though context is optional.

Microsoft did say the function should not be used for numerical calculations, which might have been a major use cases for many - as well as saying users should avoid using it for gathering and finding information already stored inside a workbook or for content subject due to legal and compliance requirements.

So what's next? Microsoft explained that it is removing the COPILOT() function as it believes Excel cam already provide other, more effective ways to access the same AI capabilities.

Users can continue working with Copilot through both the Copilot side panel and the floating Dynamic Action Button (DAB), making a dedicated function slightly redundant.

The move comes as Microsoft makes a number of changes to AI capabilities within Excel as user demands continue to evolve and change.

This includes a new update to Copilot in Excel aimed specifically at finance workers, positioning the spreadsheet software as an AI-powered tool for financial modelling, forecasting and reporting.

Via Neowin

Tech companies, including those in Silicon Valley and others outside of the set like Microsoft, have been through various guises through the years. Plenty of the old tech giants, like IBM and Toshiba, continue to enjoy success in the 21st century due to a chameleon-like quality that keeps them innovating and bringing in new revenue streams.

Evolve or die

The Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote these words in his first email to company employees when he took the reins from Steve Ballmer.

In this opening salvo, he set out his vision that the next decade of computing would be dominated by the proliferation of devices and the rise of more accessible "intelligence" – hinting at the rise of AI in some form.

The company that he was to lead would embark on a strategy that would "harness the power of software" and deliver this through a network of connected devices for every organization and individual. The innovation that he referenced largely came in the form of a move away from a desktop-oriented mindset and one that was more embracing of the cloud.

Pivoting for AI

As the decade since this email wore on, Microsoft stayed true to that mantra. And, in the last few years, Nadella led the company through another significant shift in light of the rise of AI.

When ChatGPT burst onto the scene, Microsoft rushed to forge ties with the company and has aggressively added AI into its core products and services – from Bing to Windows.

While Azure continues to scale at a tremendous pace, surpassing $100 billion in revenue, the company has seen a mixed picture on the AI front. That's not due to a lack of demand, but to a shortage of physical space and energy to power these services and to expand capabilities in model training, deployment, and usage.

• Fans think they've uncovered The Elder Scrolls 6's eight-letter subtitle
• Redditor 'starfieldnovember' suggests the subtitle is "Sentinel"
• The clue comes from Starfield's character creator and employee number, which, translated via the alphabet, spells "Sentinel"

The Elder Scrolls 6 fans believe they've uncovered the game's secret subtitle, and it may have been under our noses the entire time.

Earlier this week, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma shared an X post that blew up, which read, "Live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls 6: ******** this morning. The scale and grandeur are incredible. The story is even greater."

Of course, fans instantly began speculating what those eight asterisks could be; Hammerfell? Nope, too many letters. Redguard? Already been used. But one fan has offered up their own theory, and it's the best one yet.

According to Redditor 'starfieldnovember', The Elder Scrolls 6's subtitle could be "Sentinel," and the clue has been hidden in Starfield's character creator without anyone realizing until now (via IGN).

"By the way, Sentinel was already teased in Starfield," they began. "In Starfield Direct and in the final game, we can see our employee number during character creation. Random string of numbers at first look, but if you translate it by dividing it into pairs and then using the corresponding letter of the alphabet, you get SENTINEL.

"This title was at our noses for more than 3 years, and we somehow missed it."

Other fans seem to agree with the theory, not only because Bethesda loves to hide easter eggs in its games, but because Sentinel is a major coastal capital city located in the northwestern hills of Hammerfell, which is rumored to be the setting of The Elder Scrolls 6.

What's more, Bethesda developer Michael Kirkbride replied "Yep" to a separate Reddit post after a fan suggested the name could be Sentinel, which seems like a done deal, but we'll have to wait and see.

The Elder Scrolls 6 was revealed in June 2018, and its announcement has now become as old as The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim was at the time. Over eight years later, there's still no development update on the game, besides Sharma's confirmation that she's played it, and no release date.

In November 2025, Todd Howard, director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, said the game is "still a long way off," and revealed at the time that the studio "did a big play test."

It was also speculated that Bethesda could shadowdrop the game, just like The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered in April 2025, and when the idea was brought up to Howard, he didn't immediately reject it.

"You might say that was a test run. It worked out well," he said on Oblivion Remastered.

In the meantime, Bethesda is currently working on remasters of both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, and continuing support for Starfield.

• Microsoft is again under fire for aggressively pushing Edge
• A survey conducted by the Browser Choice Alliance shows how deep some problems run
• That includes encountering 'challenges' while attempting to change default browsers, and users who get stuck with Edge when they don't want it

Microsoft has again come under fire for the way it pushes the Edge browser on Windows 11 users.

Windows Central highlighted a survey from the Browser Choice Alliance (BCA) which makes it clear that there are still issues around the way Edge is promoted in Microsoft's desktop operating system.

This was a poll of 2,000 adults in the US who own a Windows PC (either a laptop or desktop), and it found that the majority of respondents (86%) believe they should have "primary control over default browser choice", and moreover, most of those (80%) believe there should be a one-click system to pick that default.

The survey also found that: "72% of Windows users who tried changing default browsers in the past 1-2 years reported that they encountered challenges while attempting to do so."

That includes Windows "recommending or redirecting them back to the pre-installed browser" (Edge), or having website links or apps still open in Edge when it's not their default choice.

The BCA further observed: "Even after selecting a preferred browser, nearly 1 in 3 Windows users report experiences and tactics that undermine their ability to maintain that choice over time. They've fallen into a Reset Trap."

On that subject, 29% of users said that a Windows system update had "contributed to their browser preference being changed or reset".

Interestingly, 19% of respondents said that Edge was their preferred browser — which seems high compared to global stats — although 26% indicated that Microsoft's browser was set as their default in Windows 11. That means 7% of those surveyed had Edge as their default when they didn't want it.

Some of those presumably 'stuck' in this way may be older Windows 11 users, based on the survey's discovery that 44% of those over the age of 65 reported that changing their browser was a "complex" task in Windows 11, compared to 15% of those in the 18 to 44 age group.

61% of those aged over 65 felt "slightly or not at all confident in their own ability to consistently select and run the browser of their choice", which is a worryingly large percentage.

The survey maker concludes: "Microsoft should respect consumer preferences by removing unnecessary barriers and ensure users, not its operating system, remain in control over their browser experience."

Analysis: choice not challenges, Microsoft

It's worth noting that the Browser Choice Alliance is an organization that contains some rival browser makers, including Google (Chrome), Opera and Vivaldi. This doesn't make the report any less valid, but it's something to bear in mind.

I don't think there's any arguing with the broad conclusion drawn here, and that there are unnecessary hoops to jump through, and various annoyances, pertaining to Edge being foisted on Windows 11 users. On top of links unexpectedly opening in Edge, or outright resets of browser preferences in some situations, there's also Microsoft pushing folks to use its browser through 'recommendations' or ads of one kind or another.

It's all anti-consumer nonsense that needs to be stopped, and the fact that just over 70% of those who took the survey said they had "encountered challenges" in trying to change their default browser really isn't good enough.

Microsoft can do better than this, and in the EU, it does do better than in the US (or other regions) as another recent report commissioned by Mozilla (the maker of Firefox) pointed out.

Mozilla alleges that Microsoft engages in trick wording, nagging, preselection, and other underhand tactics to try to get Edge picked as the browser for Windows 11. However, due to regulations in the EU, countries in that region escape a lot of the more dubious activity in this regard. So, why doesn't Microsoft apply this improved approach with less hassling elsewhere? We know the answer to that, of course: it doesn't make any business sense.

It's not a good look if a company only implements pro-consumer policies because it's forced to, and for no other reason. But here we are…

Microsoft is certainly hearing Windows 11 users as part of the great campaign to fix the operating system, so maybe it'll start listening to browser users who want a fairer, more level playing field in the desktop OS. History very much suggests that it won't, though.

• A limited-edition Gears of War: E-Day Xbox Wireless Controller has been revealed
• The controller releases on September 30 and can be pre-ordered now for $89.99 / £84.99
• A separate 8BitDo charging dock is also up for pre-order

Xbox has unveiled its limited-edition Gears of War: E-Day Xbox Wireless Controller ahead of the game's launch on October 6.

"To celebrate the launch of Gears of War: E-Day, we’re giving fans two new ways to immerse themselves in one of gaming’s most iconic universes," reads the Xbox Wire announcement post. "Together, these offerings pay tribute to Emergence Day with hardware inspired by the symbols, scars, and battles that defined humanity’s war against the Locust Horde."

Starting today, fans can pre-order the Gears of War: E-Day Limited Edition Xbox Wireless Controller at participating retailers worldwide and the Xbox online store. The controller, which was "inspired by the horror and brutality unleashed on Emergence Day," will be released on September 30 and cost $89.99 / £84.99.

Where to buy the Gears of War: E-Day Limited Edition Xbox Wireless Controller

Fans seem to love the design, with one on Reddit saying, "My wallet is not gonna be happy." Another on X said, "They look frigging awesome."

"Drawing from the E-holes that scar the world of Gears of War: E-Day, the controller features 3D molded, laser-etched details of cracked asphalt with red, glowing cracks created by the power of an erupting E-hole, exposing the iconic Crimson Omen beneath the surface," the description reads.

"Blacked-out ABXY buttons are punctuated by a transparent red X button, while matching red triggers and a transparent D-pad reflect the destruction left in the wake of Emergence Day. A dark silver metallic COG tag on the battery door signifies Never Fight Alone. Squad up. Textured grips round out a design built for fans ready to carry a piece of Sera into every battle."

Additionally, beginning September 30, fans can design their own E-Day controller with Xbox Design Lab, featuring exclusive artwork from heavy metal illustrator Luke Preece.

8BitDo is also releasing an Ultimate Charging Dock for Xbox Controllers – Gears of War: E-Day complimentary accessory, which is compatible with Xbox Series X, Series S and Xbox One Wireless controllers, and includes an 8BitDo rechargeable battery pack. The charging dock will cost $33.99 / £29.54.

• Photos of a Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe laptop have been leaked
• It's clearly similar to Apple's MacBook Neo in terms of its overall appearance and striking colors
• That said, the Lenovo device offers a better port selection and hints suggest it'll be more powerful, so likely pricier – but all of this is just theorizing

Lenovo appears to be readying a rival to the MacBook Neo, based on leaked photos of the laptop that have just surfaced.

Windows Latest got hold of the promo images of Lenovo's IdeaPad Vibe, publishing a bunch of them to give us a good look at the notebook (add your own seasoning around any such leak, but the material looks authentic enough).

Going by the trendy name, the 'Vibe' and the range of punchy colors (including a striking yellow, green and pink), it seems clear enough that this is aimed squarely at the Neo's territory – not to mention that it looks more than a little similar to Apple's laptop.

There are differences, of course: you won't find a Copilot key on a MacBook (mind you, a good many people don't want to find it on their Windows laptop, either).

Lenovo has also pushed for more connectivity than the MacBook Neo, and that's the biggest difference we can see just looking at the photos.

There's a pair of USB-A ports on one side, and two USB-C connectors on the other, along with an HDMI port, headphone jack and a microSD slot. As a reminder, you only get two USB-C ports with the Neo, plus a headphone jack, a barebones allocation for connectivity (and that's before we even mention the older USB speeds the MacBook Neo uses).

The photos also show cooling vents on the underside of the IdeaPad Vibe, so there'll be a fan for cooling (the Neo is passively cooled, meaning there's no fan).

There are thin bezels around the screen, and a tiny panel on top to house the webcam which also has a privacy shutter.

While the leak doesn't provide any specs, we do learn that based on the image file names, there will be one model with an AMD CPU, and one with a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip – although they both look identical.

Analysis: competitive vibes

The MacBook Neo has certainly stirred things up in the world of Windows laptops. It did this by coming in at a price point that surprised many (myself included), with Apple offering a lot of value with its new lowest-tier MacBook, which was very much recognized by buyers – it started flying off the shelves. Part of the cost-cutting effort here was dropping the RAM to 8GB, as you may recall, but despite this the Neo still manages to provide enough pep to cover everyday computing duties.

Since then, we've seen a host of planned 8GB laptops that run Windows 11, which was inevitable really, given the RAM crisis pushing up the price of memory (and storage, as well as other components) so much. The Neo also gave these machines a mainstream lead to follow, as it were.

An obvious sticking point, however, is Windows 11's performance running on 8GB compared to macOS. Now, Microsoft is working on fixing Windows 11 so it's speedier with just 8GB, and I'd argue that the Neo is a big reason for this happening. Well, that and the RAM crisis, of course.

In short, the MacBook Neo has forced Windows laptop makers (and Microsoft) to up their game, and Lenovo's effort here couldn't be a much clearer statement of echoing Apple's tactics with its budget laptop.

That said, the IdeaPad Vibe looks to be a more premium device than the Neo, with clues to that such as the privacy shutter, the much beefier port selection, as well as the overall sleek lines, and the active cooling. The latter means the Vibe will likely offer a good deal more performance grunt than the Neo, and it's surely going to be pricier as a result.

We don't get a hint of the price tag, but I'm betting that even after Apple's MacBook Neo price hike – it's no longer quite as affordable as it was at launch – the Lenovo machine's going to be a fair bit more expensive. We shall see, but the price is the main concern here, along with the people on Reddit who have reservations about Lenovo's build quality compared to Apple's (which really nailed quality in a lower-priced laptop).

One Redditor is skeptical and observes: "Pretty sure it won't share the same build quality [as Apple]."

Another adds: "IdeaPad 3 I had, had pretty bad hinges, lasts 1-2 year only."

The IdeaPad Vibe will obviously have to perform well enough on the build quality front if it does want to get in on the action and capitalize on the Neo's current popularity.

• MyOffice closes St. Petersburg and Innopolis development centers, moving remaining staff into Kaspersky Lab's Moscow office after restructuring
• Parent company New Cloud Technologies restated its 2025 accounts in June 2026, raising the net loss from 4.02 billion to 8.82 billion rubles, roughly $107 million, while revenue halved to about 1 billion rubles
• Kaspersky Lab, which owns 68.8%, has moved the asset to "slow burn" mode, with its CEO saying publicly that import substitution does not work in the office segment

Russia's flagship attempt to replace Microsoft Office has closed the office where the product was actually built.

MyOffice, developed by New Cloud Technologies, has reportedly closed its St. Petersburg and Innopolis development centers, according to news outlet Vedomosti (in Russian), which spoke with current and former employees.

CEO Vyacheslav Zakorzhevsky confirmed several offices had closed without saying which ones, and said that remaining staff had moved to the Moscow office of the company's controlling shareholder, Kaspersky Lab, in the Olympia Park business center.

An expected exit for Russia's take on Microsoft Office?

After four years in a captive market, a state mandate, and no Microsoft to compete with, MyOffice still managed to lose two points of market share, and its financials suggest a potential long-term rout for the software company.

The numbers in MyOffice's case are possibly the most damning here; its net loss for 2025 was 8.82 billion rubles (roughly $107 million), a sevenfold increase over the previous year.

It is important to note that this follows a June 18 2026 resubmission of its accounts for the year, which more than doubled its reported loss (RU) from 4.02 billion rubles to its current level; much of this was due to impairment losses on the company's intangible assets (software).

This was somewhat prompted by the company, which is majority-owned by Kaspersky Labs (68.8%), as it cut back on several services and products, many of which were quietly discontinued as part of a restructuring that also saw it lay off employees in a bid to balance its books.

This includes several products that form the backbone of its software offerings: Mailion, MyOffice Mail, Squadus, and Documents Online, which saw development suspended even as current deployments were sustained.

At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the CEO of Kaspersky Labs, Eugene Kaspersky, told TASS that the asset was loss-making and had been moved to what he called "slow-burn mode", with development investment cut. Product development and support, he said, would continue at a reduced level. He went further than the financials required, stating that import substitution does not work in the office segment.

This is a damning verdict for a company that is 24.96 billion rubles in debt to its primary shareholder, up 33% over the last year.

Despite having the most perfect set of conditions, including Microsoft formally withdrawing from the domestic market amid lawsuits and a legal mandate from the state for local bodies and critical infrastructure operators to operate domestic software only, MyOffice did not manage to turn its windfall to its advantage; its product share of the domestic market actually shrunk from 5% to 3% (RU) in 2025. Its retreat is simply the result of its failure to make people use its products despite the competitive advantages it was offered.

• Windows 11's August update is now rolling out
• It brings faster launch speeds to apps via functionality that was previously only available for certain Windows menus
• There's also a smart feature for Voice Access that deals with background noise interference, and some tweaks for search in Windows 11

Windows 11's August update has arrived, and it's mostly minor work, although there are a few notable moves with this new patch.

One important introduction is that Microsoft is extending a previously rolled-out feature — a secret sauce for faster launch times — to cover apps in Windows 11. That's good news for the performance you'll experience in the OS in general, and there are a couple of other nifty improvements besides.

Let's take a look at those, and I'll also round up some highlights of the rest of the work that's present in Windows 11's latest patch for those who are planning to grab it.

1. Faster app launches

One key move here is that apps are now going to launch faster in Windows 11, thanks to the extension of a previously rolled-out feature called Low Latency Profile (LLP).

Windows Latest flagged the deployment of this capability, which speeds up the launching of apps considerably. Note that LLP first debuted in June, but it only applied to certain parts of the Windows 11 interface (like the Start menu, for example, or Notification Center), and now it works for all your apps.

LLP nudges the processor when an app (or menu) is launched, asking for a brief speed boost so that the app in question will load a lot more quickly. If you have Task Manager open when you run an app, you'll see that as you start it, the CPU will ramp up its speed for a second or two, before returning to normal once the program is running.

Bear in mind that this ability is on a controlled rollout, which is normal for this sort of feature, as Microsoft tests the waters to make sure it's working as intended. This means you may have to wait a little while before getting it.

(While you can force the enablement of LLP with apps by using a bit of trickery via a Windows configuration tool, I wouldn't recommend this approach, and I'd advise simply waiting for the rollout to happen naturally. There could be a good reason why your PC has been swerved for this particular feature).

2. Voice Access improved to filter out background noise

Windows 11's built-in voice functionality (Voice Access) also gets a boost this month with a new feature called Voice Isolation. If this is switched on, it filters out any background noise, including other people speaking, so only your voice is picked up. Microsoft informs us (in the optional June update release notes, which was this patch in preview) that there's a setup process required to recognize your voice, but you only have to do this once.

There's another setting that just removes background noise (any non-speaking sounds), which doesn't require any setup. For those who do want the full Voice Isolation experience, you'll find the setup is accessed in Voice Access settings > Improve speech recognition.

3. Windows search improvements

Microsoft keeps taking steps to make Windows 11 search more user-friendly, and there are a couple of worthwhile additions in this update. First off, we're told that when searching for apps, Windows will handle typos better, so if you misspell the software you're hunting for, it should still be found. Likewise, partial app names will produce a result.

Furthermore, when you're searching for a Windows 11 setting, the more useful options should now appear higher in the returned search results. While these are more minor tweaks, Microsoft is clearly making strides towards search becoming a good deal better, and that includes some important streamlining work that's inbound (including ditching web results).

What else is new?

Other changes delivered by the August update for Windows 11 include new gesture controls for precision touchpads, which include the ability to adjust the default speed for zoom and scroll gestures. In the latter case, you also get scrolling acceleration applied so the more you repeat the gesture, the faster the scrolling becomes, allowing you to zip through long documents or web pages.

A useful piece of functionality has returned for laptops, too, namely the ability to set a level for when Energy Saver should be turned on (in Settings > System > Power & Battery). This was previously removed as Microsoft wanted the energy-saving feature to manage itself, but users were confused as to where the option had gone, and still wanted a manual setting present — so it's back (for now).

Widgets have also been tidied up so that the Lock screen only shows the weather by default (rather than multiple widgets), and notification badges in the taskbar use the Windows accent color rather than being red (making them less of a distraction).

There's a whole raft of minor tweaks, including Windows Hello getting support for peripheral fingerprint sensors and the addition of a "parental controls notice" during Windows 11 setup that points out online safety features for families.

• The unannounced Xbox Elite Series 3 controller may have leaked
• Photos were posted to Reddit and have since been deleted
• They showed a plausible-looking gamepad with a built-in screen

A Reddit user seems to have somehow managed to get their hands on a prototype Xbox Elite Series 3 controller, and the upcoming gamepad appears to have some surprising features.

In a now-deleted post to the r/Controller subreddit, the author asked, "Anyone know what controller this is?" and claimed they managed to buy the accessory on the online marketplace website OfferUp.

The post also included a handful of photos of the alleged controller, which hasn't even been officially announced, and they certainly seem genuine — or at least very difficult to fake.

It looks quite similar to the Xbox Elite Series 2 overall, but with some key differences. These include a redesigned, more plate-like D-pad, two weird scroll wheels at the bottom, and a little LED screen embedded at the top. Other major differences include the addition of a removable rechargeable battery pack, which lines up with information surfaced back in May.

The screen is definitely the most interesting detail here, and I wonder how it could function in the finished product. One photo shows it displaying an animation of a spaceship flying towards an Xbox Series X console, which makes me think that it could be used as a cute way to denote the controller's pairing status.

High-end third-party controllers like the Nacon Revolution X Unlimited and Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra already have their own screens. They can be used to edit controller settings, swap between profiles, and even receive text messages, hinting at some possible uses Microsoft might have in store.

Unfortunately, the poster says they haven't been able to pair the controller with any of their consoles — prompting others to speculate that it could be a special developer unit that requires a registered Xbox dev account.

With units appearing in the wild, it seems reasonable to assume that an official reveal isn't far away. We might even see the controller unveiled at Gamescom 2026 later this month.

• Someone has ported Word for Windows 1.1a to Windows 11
• It's a fully native port
• It's not easy to get it up and running on your system — should you wish to — but there are other alternatives to the feature-creep of Notepad

Somebody has taken a version of Word from 1990 and created a fully functional port for Windows 11 — and as you might imagine, this is a word processor with an incredibly light footprint.

Tom's Hardware noticed this feat, which was achieved by Justin Marshall, who's the developer behind the 'Microsoft Word for Windows 1.1a' project on GitHub.

As Marshall explains, this is not an emulator or some kind of fudge, rather it's a "fully working native Windows x64 port" of Word for Windows 1.1a which was codenamed 'Opus' back in the day.

This port was possible because Microsoft released the source code for the app (over 10 years ago), and Marshall took that code and ran with it. (As Tom's notes, it's available from the Computer History Museum).

Marshall explains that the project builds on that original Word source code (and complementary resources) with "modern replacements for the 16-bit assembly, segmented-memory, and Win16 platform boundaries".

The result is a very simple word processor that takes the idea of a streamlined app to new levels. Indeed, this modern take on Word for Windows 1.1a can fit in less than 1MB of RAM in Windows 11. How's that for lean? And there's not a drop of AI in sight…

Analysis: Word up

Can those fed up with Microsoft's feature-creep in Notepad, or other bloat, go and pick up this spin on Word from 1990 for a breath of fresh air in terms of a lightweight word processor? No, unfortunately, as there's no installation package to simply download and fire up.

That's because, as Marshall points out, the "historical source files retain their original Microsoft and third-party copyright notices", which means that commercial use or even sharing copies on the web isn't permitted.

This is why if you want to use Word for Windows 1.1a on your modern PC, you'll need to get it up and running by following the instructions on GitHub. This isn't for the technically faint-of-heart, as you might guess, and you'll need Visual Studio 2022 with Desktop development with C++, a Windows 11 (or 10) SDK installed through Visual Studio, as well as CMake 3.25 (or newer) and PowerShell.

In short, it's unlikely that many people will go to the effort, but it's not surprising that a fair bit of interest has been stoked in this project simply because of not just the novelty — although that's obviously the driving factor — but also as it's an illustration of how far Word can be stripped back, running with such a tiny footprint and resource usage.

One Redditor commenting on this simply said: "Not all heroes wear capes."

Another observed: "For the curious, Microsoft Office 97 will install and run on Windows 11 with no hassle. I've been using it for years now just for the fun of it."

Bear in mind, of course, that should you take that approach, you'll be lagging behind considerably for supported file formats, and also in the security stakes (that's the main drawback with using apps that haven't been updated in a long time, and lack patches against exploits that have since popped up).

If you are keen on a lightweight alternative to Notepad, then take a look at TinyRetroPad, which is built very much in the same vein as the original Microsoft text editor, and is just as tiny as the name suggests.

• Microsoft Teams is bringing badges to your profile card
• Badges will include a user's particular awards and certifications
• Microsoft says this will make the experience more consistent across Teams and Outlook

If you're really looking to show off your skills at work, then Microsoft Teams might have the perfect answer for you - however it might not be for everyone.

The online collaboration platform has announced it is working on bringing "Badges" to your Microsoft Teams profile card, allowing users to display all their achievements to anyone who cares to look.

The addition will show Awards and Certifications on a user's profile card, where they will show up as badges, giving you an easy way to show off exactly what you can do.

Badge of honor

"You can now see Awards and Certifications as badges on a user’s profile card, bringing a more consistent experience across Teams and Outlook," a Microsoft 365 roadmap post outlining the feature explained.

The feature is listed as being "in development" right now, with an expected release date of September 2026. Upon release, it will be available to users across Windows and Mac around the world.

Badges have been available to Microsoft 365 users since 2023, designed as a way for users to display their expertise and qualifications (see above example) on specific cards.

The cards are currently available in several programs, including Outlook and the Copilot app, with their expansion to Teams clearly part of Microsoft's push to make the platform more informative.

This includes a recent upgrade to block bad bots with "smarter protection" which will let humans check all participants in a call are who they say they are, including bots in a call lobby, much like a nightclub bouncer.

Microsoft Teams is also working on a feature which will automatically update a user's work location when they connect to an office Wi-Fi network - hopefully meaning less confusion about where workers actually are situated, but bad news for those looking for a quiet day in the office tucked into a corner.

• Microsoft has hiked the cost of a Windows 11 license for PC makers
• A new report claims that the annual price increase is 'significantly' more this year
• That's really not going to help the PC market, coming on top of all the pain with hardware price rises that we're already experiencing

PC prices are already facing various unfortunate pressures — thanks to the RAM crisis, and other increased component costs aside from memory –— but it appears that Microsoft is throwing fuel on the fire with hikes on the software side.

Wccftech spotted a report from Economic Daily News (EDN), a Taiwanese site, claiming that Microsoft has increased the price it charges PC makers for a Windows 11 license. Apparently the cost of installing Windows 11 on a pre-built desktop PC or a laptop has gone up by 7% to 10% as of last month.

Of course, bear in mind this is just a rumor (and the article is translated, so we need to be careful about any potentially lost meaning), but it's an alarming sounding prospect.

Microsoft puts up the price of a Windows 11 license every year, so this isn't new or unexpected, but normally Microsoft applies a single-digit increase, and this year the price hike has reportedly been a good deal more, possibly tipping into double-digits (10%). The (translated) article calls this a "significant increase" compared to past years, and the information comes from an executive at an (unnamed) PC maker.

Seemingly current product prices already reflect Microsoft's extra charge, with the bigger rises in fees having been given to PCs with faster processors, we're told.

EDN observes that the prices of PCs are expected to rise by 5% in the third quarter of 2026, at least for Acer and Asus systems in the Taiwanese market. Other regions and vendors may, of course, vary, but all OEMs (PC makers) must pay Microsoft for a Windows 11 license (if using the OS, of course).

Analysis: software salt

As noted, these cost increases are supposedly already priced into hardware on the shelves, and EDN observes that neither consumers nor businesses have really batted an eyelid.

That's mainly because the hardware-based pricing misery — for more expensive RAM, SSDs, GPUs (increasingly of late) and other components — is driving the nastier price rises, and the Windows 11 increase is relatively small fry in comparison. So, this software hike has purportedly flown under the radar, effectively eclipsed by the hardware pain.

If this report is true, and Microsoft has indeed put prices up a good deal more than normal, that's a distinctly unhelpful move. On the hardware side of the equation, we know prices to manufacture goods are going up — and that cost increases will inevitably be passed on to the end buyer. That's just business, but there's no obvious reason why software costs should be hiked more than normal, other than what the cynical might suggest appears to be opportunism from Microsoft (and maybe the growing cost of the AI side of the company).

This is effectively rubbing software salt into hardware wounds, and the PC market could really do without it. Although speaking of salt, all of this depends on whether this rumor is on the money, and I think it's worth remaining somewhat skeptical in that regard, albeit that EDN has proved a reliable source in the past.

• Windows 11's Weather app uses a surprising amount of RAM
• It consumes over 1GB at times — and worse still, pushes adverts
• This is a lot of what's wrong with Windows 11 in a nutshell

If you want a neatly crystallized summary of some of the key remaining failings of Windows 11 — pain points Microsoft has yet to fix in its campaign to right the wrongs of the OS — you only need to look at the Weather app.

This is one of Microsoft's default apps with Windows 11, and as Windows Latest pointed out, the RAM that this software eats up is mind-boggling, frankly.

The tech site observed that the Weather app somehow used over 1.2GB of system memory, and that this isn't far off five times as much as the native Weather app on macOS (which uses something like 250MB of RAM).

On my Windows 11 machine I didn't see quite that level of resource usage, but the Weather app did consume around a peak of 1GB at times (although that did drop as low as 800MB, and that was the level I saw it running at in the main). That's still a lot of memory, though, and it's clear the app has a heavy system footprint.

On top of that, there's an additional downside here, which is that you get adverts displayed alongside your forecasts and weather details (in panels at the side). These are full-on adverts, too, for the likes of shoes or medical insurance, not just Microsoft's nudges to use its products like OneDrive or similar.

As Windows Latest observes, this is because this app is actually the MSN Weather app, with the adverts being pulled over from the MSN network.

Analysis: a shower of adverts

Granted, the app provides a lot of weather information, and it's pretty comprehensive — but at what cost? What should be a lightweight and streamlined app consumes an improbable amount of RAM. Why is that? Well, it's due to Weather being a web app, one that, when you peek behind the hood, is running eight separate Chromium processes.

That's a clunky way of working, and the high level of resource usage this causes is particularly unwelcome in the current climate of the RAM crisis, where 8GB laptops are being brought back to try and keep costs down as manufacturers struggle to keep a lid on prices.

Okay, so Microsoft is looking at performance improvements across the board for Windows 11, and it's specifically aiming to address the issue of the memory footprint for 8GB PCs. And hopefully the Weather app will get some attention as part of that streamlining, and sooner rather than later.

For now, though, even if you don't use Weather, it remains a clear reminder of what's wrong with some parts of Windows 11 in terms of unnecessary bloat, both in the way the app is programmed, and the addition of those adverts (which doubtless don't help performance, either). These ads are present in Windows 10's Weather app, too, in case you were wondering, and it's surely a simple enough job — and an easy win — for Microsoft to at least ditch these.

As you might imagine, there have been a fair few potshots fired at Microsoft over this on social media, and one Redditor echoes something I've said myself in the past: "It's honestly ridiculous that we pay for a premium operating system and still get served ads inside basic native apps like Weather."

This is a key point for me. You can either have a free operating system that pays for itself via promotional bits and pieces — you can't really argue with that if you've forked out nothing for the privilege of running an OS — or you have a paid one that has no promotions.

Microsoft has promised to chill on the upselling in Windows 11, and it looks like the Weather app would be a good place to revisit with that in mind.

• Microsoft has admitted it's automatically installing an app on Windows 11
• The OneDrive Photos app is also being deployed mistakenly to business PCs as well as consumers
• There are a few odd things about this episode, and it's an anti-consumer move that doesn't sit well with Microsoft's broader goals to make Windows 11 better

Microsoft is in hot water after an odd decision to roll out a OneDrive Photos app to Windows 11 PCs used by consumers (with it also accidentally deploying the app to enterprise systems).

Windows Latest reports that Microsoft "effectively" told the website that the OneDrive Photos app is being automatically installed on Windows 11 computers whether it's wanted or not.

OneDrive Photos is a separate app to OneDrive, and it's designed for photo viewing and organization (with a light editing element bolted on). However, it's plain user-hostile behavior to have this software stealthily piped to a Windows 11 PC and forcibly installed.

What if you don't want it? What if you don't even use OneDrive sync at all, and you aren't signed in with a Microsoft account on your PC? Tough — you still get OneDrive Photos, as Windows Latest points out.

Even more bizarrely, this app — which is labelled as a beta — is appearing on business PCs, which it definitely shouldn't be doing (it's only used with a personal Microsoft account).

Microsoft wouldn't previously comment on the appearance of the OneDrive Photos app, but at least the company has now acknowledged that it is being installed on Windows 11 PCs.

There's still no official comment on why business devices would be getting this software, but Windows Latest tells us that it "understands that the rollout to enterprise PCs was not intentional". So apparently this was a mistake, and one that Microsoft is presumably in the process of correcting.

It's worth noting that there's also been some controversy about AI scanning faces for a feature in OneDrive Photos, accessed via the 'People' option, but this is only active if you explicitly allow it to be turned on (it's clearly opt-in, in other words).

Microsoft has clarified that if 'face grouping' is enabled, it runs only in the cloud with OneDrive photos (not other images on your PC), and any data collected is removed 30 days after you turn it off. The company has also assured users that it isn't using any photo data to train AI models on faces.

Analysis: I'm trying to tell you now, it's sabotage…

What is Microsoft playing at here? I really don't know, but this OneDrive Photos affair is a mess for a lot of reasons, and as you might guess, it has rubbed people up the wrong way. For starters, business users are very unhappy about having a piece of consumer-targeted beta software automatically deployed on their PCs, and are busy writing scripts to remove it (like this one on Reddit for example), rather than waiting for Microsoft to fix its error.

This is a baffling move for consumers too, because as noted, even if you don't use OneDrive at all, you'll still get this partner photo app. You can't even remove the OneDrive Photos app without deleting OneDrive as well — so if you do use the cloud storage app and sync features in Windows 11, but don't want this extra Photos application, well, you're stuck with it. You can have both, or neither.

That latter situation will change, though, Windows Latest informs us, and Microsoft is preparing an update that lets you remove the OneDrive Photos app without needing to nuke OneDrive entirely. I should hope so, too, and it's confusing how this rollout of a beta app went ahead without that choice in place.

The broad reaction on Reddit has been heated to say the least, and this is just more grit for anyone with an anti-Microsoft axe to grind.

One Redditor said "I'm uninstalling Windows. Linux is a little bit of a pain but worth it." There are more than a few similar comments in that thread, whether they're from people vowing to switch to Linux, or those who've already departed for OS pastures greener: "So glad I left Windows behind. Good riddance."

Interestingly, there are reports of this app appearing on Windows 10 PCs in the Reddit thread those comments are drawn from, although I haven't seen it on my computer with that OS (while it is on my Windows 11 system).

The trouble with all this is that it underlines how Microsoft is a vast corporation where the various limbs aren't always moving in alignment with the same aims. While the right hand is fixing Windows 11 and implementing a whole bunch of crowd-pleasing features or tweaks, the left hand is still messing around with anti-consumer initiatives such as this. Did no one tell the OneDrive team that Microsoft is supposed to be going full-tilt to persuade everyone that Windows 11 is the place to be, and that the software giant has mended its pushier and more obnoxious ways?

Apparently not, and just as we don't want third-party apps for the likes of monitors pushed on us quietly, in the background, via Windows Update, we don't want to unknowingly get first-party Microsoft software sprung on us, either.

Sort it out, Microsoft, please, because this is becoming an embarrassing oversight in terms of the big (and otherwise commendable) drive to make Windows 11 better.

• Microsoft temporarily rolls back planned Teams tool concerning muted chats
• The update would have made it easier to organize (and ignore) unnecessary conversations
• It's not known when the update will get back in progress

Microsoft has pulled an update which would have made it much easier for Teams users to organize their chats - particularly those which have been muted.

The company had revealed it was working on new built-in sections within Teams to house all the muted chats in one area, meaning users shouldn't be distracted or annoyed by unnecessary alerts.

However the update has now been "temporarily rolled back", with Microsoft apologizing for the "inconvenience".

A bit of a shame?

The move is a slightly odd one, as the description of the update makes it sound like something all Teams users would appreciate.

In its Microsoft 365 roadmap entry, the company said the new grouping will "help reduce clutter and keep conversations easy to find" - but also probably help lower stress levels for users plagued by alerts on chats they don't need to know about.

The change, which was in the works for users across Android, iOS, desktop and web, would have seen muted chats grouped together in a dedicated area, while meeting chats would have been able to be collected into a single section for quick access.

Microsoft had even added that "You’re always in control", as each section would have been able to be activated or turned off based on a user's specific preferences.

The new Meeting chats section would have replaced the Meeting chats filter, found at the top of the chat and channel list, giving users a much better insight to their conversations.

Microsoft hasn't given any details as to why the update is delayed, or when it will be coming back onto the workbench, so we'll just have to wait and see.

As mentioned, it's a shame, as Teams users no doubt would have welcomed any relief from the overload of chats. Slack already offers this feature, with muted channels and conversations hidden away if desired, so maybe Microsoft is taking extra time to finesse and develop the feature before releasing it to users.