A great feature won't make it to Microsoft Teams, at least anytime soon. Microsoft began testing two minimized views in Teams earlier this year, but development of the features has been paused.

The idea was that when an active meeting window was minimized, Teams would show a minimized window with shortcuts to perform actions like raising your hand or sharing a reaction. One option called Expanded view showed up to four participant videos, while the Compact view focused on quick actions and settings.

"Updated July 7, 2026: We have paused release to GA at this time. We will communicate via Message center when we are ready to proceed. Thank you for your patience," reads the Microsoft 365 Message Center (archived here).

The views were meant to start rolling out in May 2026, but they now sit stuck in the development pipeline. Neowin spotted that the feature was paused.

There's always a chance that preview features will be changed significantly before release or cancelled. Microsoft also needs to work out any issues before shipping a change to Teams.

Microsoft did not share why it paused the development of these minimized views. They both seem like worthwhile additions to Teams that make multitasking easier. I hope Microsoft ships them to Teams eventually.

Teams gets new features regularly. The communication platform gets so many updates that Microsoft has to list changes in a monthly blog post.

But the most talked about Teams feature this year was omitted from the last roundup. Teams now has a controversial feature that lets your boss see where you are if you're connected to Wi-Fi networks at work.

Microsoft was accused of making Teams a "lapdog for your boss," but the company has made changes to the feature since first unveiling it. Microsoft delayed the rollout of that feature, changed the name of the option, and added better privacy controls.

The minimized views within Teams may go through a similar journey. We could see them in the future with altered controls, a new name, or in the same form but at a later date.

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I've heard the term slop bandied around more times than I'd like recently, but today was the first time I'd heard it in the context of Amazon shopping. Meet Knockoff Shopping, the Chrome extension that de-slops your Amazon search results.

What does this mean? Well, if you've used the site at all recently to look for basic items, whether it be clothes, phone cases, or such, you'll notice that many reputable brands are now buried in a sea of items with capitalized letters. Items that appear to be coming from Temu or AliExpress.

Often, you'll be looking for something like a hairdryer, perhaps, and find an identical model listed under 3 different brand names, all trying their damnest to look like Dyson. Should I buy DRYSON, BLOWY, or the SKIBIDI RIZZ hairdryer? It's hard to decide.

Well, someone has had the gumption to create a Chrome Extension to solve this problem; it promises to filter "trademark-squat pseudo-brands (the SZHLUXes and HORUSDYs) out of your search results, so what's left are brands with a reputation to lose."

You can simply head to knockoff.shopping to get the extension and try it for yourself, but here are some more tips on getting it to work for you.

Using Knockoff

I've had issues with these "knockoff" brands myself recently while shopping for an ultrasonic cleaner for my son's retainer. We've now ordered two seemingly identical models under different brand names, and both have given up the ghost after a week.

Third time lucky, right? Well, I'm going to use the tool to help me narrow down my search this time. As you can see in the screenshot above, when I search for the item, my results are flooded with similar-looking items from different pseudo-brands that feel the need to shout their names at me. COSLUS! HYCHIKA! SEANCHEER! BUY US!

Following my installation of the tool, I can fiddle with the options before I go on my search to add brands that I don't want to be filtered, so ANKER and UGREEN, for example, are reputable electronic brands I trust; I don't want those filtered.

Now, upon running the search again, you can either have the tool 'dim' the dodgy results so you can still see them and make changes, or have it hide them completely. For now, I've set mine to dim results so I can start to teach it what I do and don't want to see.

Here I have selected to block this brand permanently. On the other hand, if I see brands I trust, I can tell the tool to add them to the Allow list for me.

Creator Josh Pigford has already mentioned on his X account some brands that may be inadvertently filtered out. I don't recognize many of these, but BIODANCE and LANIEGE are at least reputable Korean skincare brands, and I would add them to my filter.

The tool has now helped me select a third, and hopefully more reliable, cleaner for my son's retainer. It also helped me see more clearly that many of the 'dimmed' brands were around the same price, so I paid a little more for something potentially longer lasting.

I've only just started using the tool myself, afterall it's only been a day! But others are already reporting great success with it and I hope to have even better results as I tweak what I do and don't want to see. The extension is currently only available on Google Chrome, but it's coming to Safari and Firefox soon. No word on Microsoft Edge (yet).

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Have you ever wondered why minimum specs continue to creep upward? Part of the problem is that developers don't need to be as efficient as they did decades ago.

A recent video by Dave Plummer highlights the bloat of modern applications by following the journey of Plummer making a notepad that's just 2,686 bytes.

App development is complex, and there are genuinely good reasons that games and programs require such high specs in 2026. But generally speaking, programming doesn't have the constraints of yesteryear, so developers don't need to trim code.

A single app not being optimized is not that much of an issue, but when every program on your PC is bloated, problems pop up. The same productivity workflow today requires more RAM than it did in 2015.

For context, Windows 10 launched with a minimum requirement of just 1GB (for 32-bit) and 2GB of RAM (for 64-bit). Windows 11 requires at least 4GB just to boot the operating system, but most users want much more memory. It was controversial when Microsoft and other companies started offering new PCs with 8GB of RAM this year.

Plummer is best known for creating the Windows Task Manager. He also discusses programming and Windows history on his YouTube channel.

In a recent video, Plummer shared how he made a small notepad application that's smaller in size than a YouTube thumbnail.

Tiny Retro Pad has the core functionality of the original Notepad app built by Microsoft. Notably, it lacks the modern features seen in Notepad, such as Copilot. Considering Notepad's addition of Copilot was mocked by many, Tiny Retro Pad is an improvement in some ways.

Making a notepad app that's under 4,096 bytes is more about working within constraints than the specific size of the final app. In the early days of Windows, there were several limits placed on developers, such as hardware caps. Having to work within those constraints forced developers to be more efficient.

Plummer was able to keep Tiny Retro Pad small by utilizing what's already in Windows.

"A tiny native Windows program does not bring along its own entire civilization. It arrives with a lunchbox and a map of the city," said Plummer.

Later in the video, he added, "The program is small because it is not carrying what the platform already has. And that is a lesson that modern software could stand to remember. Not every app needs to bundle the universe. Not every utility needs to ship with a browser engine."

Nowadays, PCs, tablets, and phones have absurd specs. Even modest devices have several gigabytes of memory and tons of storage. Those specs make modern workflows possible, but they also leave room for lazy development.

"Somehow it seems modern software manages to go the other way. You just want a text box and somehow you've imported a runtime, a layout engine, a renderer, a dependency tree, a telemetry client, an auto updater, and a small portion of Chromium," said Plummer.

No one needs a notepad application that's less than 4,000 bytes, but if more app developers focused on efficient code, Windows 11 would feel smoother across the board.

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Raise your hand if you've heard this one before: a third-party file management app beat File Explorer to the punch. This time, it's with a clever Tree View that rolled out to Files with an update to version 4.2.

In the latest version of Files, the sidebar includes a view that displays folders in an expandable hierarchy. If you're like me and use subfolders to organize your files, Tree View is an incredible addition.

The update to version 4.2 is large and includes several other additions, including a new Open With flyout and improvements to how the breadcrumb bar appears.

Here's a quick summary of what's new in Files version 4.2 sorted into categories. The app's website has a detailed change log covering the same updates:

Navigation & Multi-Pane Upgrades

• Tree View sidebar: Browse folders in an expandable hierarchy directly from the sidebar.
• Drag a tab to create a new pane: Split your view by dragging a tab to the side, top, or bottom of the file area.
• Open folders in the other pane: Right-click a folder to launch it directly into your secondary pane.
• Open in new pane improvements: Reorganized context menus and Command Palette options give you control over how a new pane is arranged.
• Breadcrumb bar improvements: Adds a cleaner chevron design and new right-click context options to open specific folders in new tabs, windows, or panes.

UI & Quality of Life Tweaks

• Open With toolbar flyout: Quick access to compatible apps directly from your customized toolbar.
• Always show file extensions when renaming: Extensions stay visible while editing a file's name.
• Media file metadata improvements: You can now add metadata to fields that were previously empty.
• Search in Toolbar Customization: A new search box makes finding and adding specific toolbar actions easier.
• Layout scrolling: Cycle through different layout modes using Ctrl + scroll wheel.
• Reverse tab scroll direction: A new setting lets you flip the mouse-wheel behavior when scrolling over the tab bar.
• Improved tab tear-off: Dragging a tab out to create a new window now launches the window exactly where you dropped it.
• Improved continue where you left off: Startup behavior is more reliable.
• Network Discovery banner: Displays a warning on the Network page if locations are missing because Windows Network Discovery is turned off.

Other Notable Highlights

• Windows Fonts folder: Items inside this directory now show proper font thumbnails.
• Archive selection: Creating a new archive now automatically selects it.
• File In Use dialog: Added a "Skip" button.

I'm a big fan of Files, not just as a replacement to Windows 11's built-in File Explorer, but as a showcase of design and features. The developer of Files often experiments with new designs to improve usability or functionality within the app.

There are plenty of File Explorer alternatives, like File Pilot that's now in beta. But I have an affinity for Files. It's a gorgeous app that integrates features and design elements that are often adopted by Microsoft later. Using Files is like looking at an alternate dimension in which Microsoft cares about consistency and design.

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Microsoft has apparently heard the complaints that make it clear not everyone wants AI in their daily meetings. An upcoming change will make it possible to disable Copilot, Facilitator, and meeting recap within Teams.

Before you get excited about vanquishing the AI features, only licensed meeting organizers will be able to toggle the features on or off.

Here's the planned timeline for the release of the controls:

• Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out early July 2026 (previously early June) and expect to complete by mid-July 2026 (previously mid-June).
• General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out mid-July 2026 (previously mid-June) and expect to complete by end-of-July 2026 (previously late June).

Microsoft sent word of the changes through the Microsoft 365 Message Center. If you're not an admin, you can read them through the Microsoft 365 Message Center Archive.

All versions of Teams will be affected by the change (desktop, web, and mobile).

Meeting AI is a collection of features within Teams. It includes Copilot, Facilitator, and Intelligent recap. Admins can disable all Meeting AI features with a single toggle or enable or disable tools individually.

While it's easy to criticize AI, and there are times for it, these Teams features can be useful. Facilitator can provide information to address knowledge gaps automatically. Intelligent recap uses AI to take notes, create summaries, and gather highlights.

But as is the case with many AI features, people want the option to disable them. The new options coming to Teams make that much easier for admins.

When used as a way to enhance the work of a person, AI can improve productivity. But when people over rely on AI, quality suffers. Earlier this year, analyst Dennis Xu joked about banning AI use on Friday afternoons.

Xu's comments were tongue-in-check, but the general idea was that people would be too lazy on a Friday afternoon to double-check work completed by AI tools.

Considering that even Microsoft researchers suggest AI chatbots get "dumber" the longer you talk to them, it makes sense to give meeting organizers simple toggles to disable AI in Teams.

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Microsoft Edge just became a bit more like Google Chrome, but in a way people will probably like. Following a recent update, you can now sign in to Edge with a Google account, allowing you to bring your bookmarks, history, and other content into Edge with less work.

The change is part of a controlled rollout that began with version 150.0.4078.48 of Edge. It may take some time for it to roll out to your system.

We've known about this addition for a while. A Microsoft 365 Roadmap entry revealed the update last month. But now, it is shipping to everyone rather than just being in the works.

The full release notes break down all the changes.

Microsoft Edge (July 2026 Update): Feature Updates

• Clarify choices surrounding third-party cookie settings. Language under 'Settings > Privacy, search, and services > Cookies' is updated to better describe the choices users have when managing third-party cookies.
• Sign in to Edge with a Google account. Users can now sign in to Microsoft Edge using a Google account in addition to a Microsoft account from the profile menu and Edge sign-in screen. Available for Windows and macOS devices. Admins can control availability of this feature using the NonMicrosoftAccountSignInEnabled policy. Note: This is a controlled feature rollout. If you don't see this feature, check back as we continue our rollout.
• Intune MAM Protected Downloads. The protected downloads feature for Intune MAM now saves downloaded files to the 'Documents > Microsoft Edge > Downloads' folder in OneDrive.
• Enterprise WebView2 runtime downgrade via DowngradeVersion policy. Starting with Microsoft Edge version 150, enterprises can actively use the 'DowngradeVersion' policy to downgrade WebView2 applications. Administrators can temporarily roll back specific applications to a previous WebView2 Evergreen Runtime version (N-1 or N-2) using the new 'DowngradeVersion' policy in msedgewebview2.admx. The policy allows enterprises to mitigate critical regressions by specifying per-application executable-to-version mappings. The Edge Updater installs the target version side-by-side, and the WebView2 Loader redirects targeted applications accordingly. Downgrades automatically expire with each new WebView2 release. Applications pinned to N-1 remain on the same version (now becoming N-2) and automatically update in the next release, while applications pinned to N-2 revert to the current Evergreen Runtime. The policy applies only to enterprise-managed devices (domain-joined or MDM-enrolled). For more information, see Microsoft Edge WebView2 Policy Documentation.
• Update to the "View in File Explorer" feature. When the ConfigureViewInFileExplorer policy is enabled, the View in File Explorer feature can be used in SharePoint document libraries. Microsoft Edge has updated the feature to enforce additional validation and restrictions when triggered by webpages to improve security.
• Security Update Alerts in the Edge management service. Administrators can choose a severity threshold and receive alerts when a new Microsoft Edge update includes security fixes that meet or exceed that level, including zero-day fixes. This helps organizations quickly identify updates that may require attention while avoiding unnecessary notifications for routine releases. Note: This experience is in public preview and is available by opting in to Targeted Release in the Microsoft 365 admin center. For more information, see Monitoring dashboard.

Microsoft also shared some reminders about changes to Edge, including the Sidebar app list being retired.

Originally, Microsoft did not plan to integrate Google services into Microsoft Edge. But the company seems to have shifted its stance following feedback over the years.

You don't need a Microsoft account to use Edge, but until now, you did need one to sync your data. Supporting Google account sign-ins lets you have a fuller browsing experience without having to use a Microsoft account.

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Two of the best Microsoft 365 deals of the year just dropped, but they're only available for a limited time. Right now, Microsoft 365 Personal is discounted to $59.99 and Microsoft 365 Family has been slashed to $89.99. Both deals get you 12 months of access.

If you know you need a Microsoft 365 subscription, stop reading and just see if the deals below are still live. Woot discounts run out of stock quickly, especially when they're on a popular software suite like Microsoft 365.

Why subscribe to Microsoft 365?

Microsoft 365 is a massive software suite with several must-have programs. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are perhaps the best known, but a subscription also comes with 1TB of OneDrive storage per user.

Microsoft 365 subscribers also get access to extras like Microsoft Defender for security, Microsoft Editor, and premium tools in Clipchamp for video editing.

I've subscribed to Microsoft 365 since it launched, and had an Office 365 subscription before the suite was rebranded over a decade ago.

For years, Microsoft kept the price of Microsoft 365 Personal (was $69.99) and Microsoft 365 Family (was $99.99) the same. That changed when prices increased at the beginning of last year.

At the time, that price increase was met with severe pushback. But considering the state of the global economy right now, maybe we judged Microsoft too harshly.

The temporary discounts through Woot cut through all of that and slash Microsoft 365 Personal and Microsoft 365 Family to prices that would be discounts back in 2014.

FAQ

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Microsoft rolled out a bunch of new features for Microsoft Teams in June. Calls, meetings, and Teams Rooms have all received updates. As usual, Microsoft gathered together all the new features in a blog post.

Here are the highlights from June, though the item missing from this list is more interesting than anything listed in the blog post:

• New calling agents
• Brand impersonation protection
• Redesigned in-meeting controls
• Bot detection
• Facilitator in Teams Rooms
• IntelliFrame people labels

Interestingly, Microsoft did not mention the controversial feature in Teams that allows your boss to see where you are when connected to Wi-Fi networks at work.

That feature drew criticism when first announced. Microsoft offered clarification and delayed the rollout, but "workplace check-in via Wi-Fi" is now generally available. The feature was previously known as "Automatic Update of work location."

I'm not sure why the feature was omitted from the post recapping everything that shipped to Teams in June. I thought I may have had my dates mixed up, but the Teams blog post from June 12, 2026 states (emphasis added):

"We’re introducing workplace check-in via Wi-Fi for Microsoft Places and Teams, designed to help employees coordinate in-person work by keeping their workplace location up to date when they’re in the office."

Based on Microsoft's phrasing, it seems like Automatic Update of work location should be included in the roundup.

My favorite new Microsoft Teams features 💬

Advanced file discovery and filters are the biggest addition to Teams for my workflow. The improved contextual search in Teams indexes every file uploaded to a channel. You can then filter for file type, sender, and date within a channel.

Slack has similar functionality and I use it often. I'm happy to see improved filters and file searching in Teams.

I also love the new Quick Share option in Teams. Sharing options can be accessed by hovering, right-clicking, using overflow menus, and using shared tabs. The fact that OneDrive and SharePoint content shared through Quick Share retains permissions helps ensure privacy.

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In recent months, Microsoft has taken significant steps to improve the Windows 11 user experience through its Windows K2 initiative, including scaling back where Copilot and its integrations appear across the interface.

And now, these efforts appear to have extended to Microsoft Edge. As spotted by Neowin, Microsoft has decided to discontinue its AI-powered history search feature in the Chromium-based browser

"Enhanced search finds sites in your History even when you use a synonym, phrase, or typo," Microsoft added. "After this feature is turned on, sites you visit will be shown in enhanced history search results. An on-device model is trained using your data, which never leaves your device and is never sent to Microsoft. Admins can use the EdgeHistoryAISearchEnabled policy to disable this feature."

Microsoft promised that the feature would leverage on-device AI, keeping your data private, secure, and away from the cloud. It's worth noting that the feature was rolling out to users in waves.

The company has since made an update on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap entry (dated June 25, 2026), indicating:

"We have decided not to move forward with this change at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Neowin reported that many users described the feature as "creepy," while others voiced concerns about trusting Microsoft to keep their data on-device. Some also criticized it as yet another attempt to turn Edge into bloatware.

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Microsoft needs to copy a new feature that makes it easier to multitask on Windows 11. But rather than Sherlocking a third-party app, Microsoft just needs to copy a concept proposed for its own app, PowerToys.

Every once in a while a feature gets added to PowerToys that makes me wonder "why isn't this part of Windows?" FancyZones immediately comes to mind, and Microsoft seems to agree since improved snapping in Windows 11 takes inspiration from that feature.

PowerToys may have another winner on its hands in AltWindowCycle, though I think a new name may be needed.

The utility allows you to switch between windows with a keyboard shortcut. It's similar to Alt + Tab, but it works within a single app. Clint Rutkas explained the tool in a GitHub pull request:

"Introduces a new utility: AltWindowCycle to quickly switch between windows from the same process using Alt + `. It works like Alt + Tab, but scoped to the app you’re already in. Perfect for juggling multiple browser windows, terminals, or editor instances."

AltWindowCycle is still in its early stages. If it is finished and made a part of PowerToys, I hope it also makes its way to Windows 11.

If it does become part of Windows 11, AltWindowCycle would help Microsoft's operating system catch up to macOS and some Linux distros, which use either Alt + \` or Cmd + ` to cycle through windows of the same app, albeit a bit differently.

Many PowerToys features are niche and would be considered bloat by non-power users if included with Windows 11. But a small shortcut that makes multitasking easier would be a natural addition to Windows 11, especially since AltWindowCycle works similarly to the well-known Alt + Tab shortcut.

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I love widgets. Microsoft seems much cooler on the concept. Sure, Windows 11 has a Widgets Panel, but it's barely useful due to its lack of quality widgets. That's why I was so excited to see WidBar highlighted on Reddit.

WidBar is a new app that allows you to add widgets to the empty spaces of the Windows 11 taskbar. It's still in beta, but it's off to a promising start.

The developer of WidBar, Andrea Del Bello, shared the app and detailed its progress.

At the moment, WidBar only has a pair of widgets: "Now Playing" and "System Metrics." They're basic but they do a good job showcasing the app.

Within WidBar, you can drag and drop widgets into a preview of your taskbar. Different widgets can be placed on various monitors.

Any developer can make widgets for WidBar. Del Bello explained how that works on Reddit:

"Each widget is just a small packaged app that you publish to the Microsoft Store like any other app, and WidBar picks it up on its own: there's no separate plugin store, no manual install into WidBar, and no approval from me. The moment your widget is installed from the Store, WidBar recognizes it automatically, it appears in the catalog, and the user can drop it onto the taskbar."

Del Bello also provided a template for making WidBar widgets on GitHub.

Putting Microsoft to shame

WidBar has two supported widgets right now and is still in beta, but it already surpasses Windows 11's Widgets Panel in an important way.

Incredibly, the Widgets Panel lacks a Now Playing widget from Microsoft. Windows 11 has those controls, but they appear in the Action Center. That shows how much Microsoft thinks about the Widgets Panel.

There is a widget made by Stefan vd called "S Media Controls" that seems to fill the gap, but I've only used it briefly in testing.

Even if you give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt and argue having audio controls in the Action Center and the Widgets Panel, it won't take much to catch up.

With just two supported widgets, WidBar is well on its way to beating the Widgets Panel. There are a grand total of 56 widgets in the Microsoft Store for the Widgets Panel. And that count includes "My Tic-Tac-Toe" and several entries that appear to be money grabs that offer little functionality.

Add a clock, a calendar, a recent files shortcut and WidBar is almost 10% of the way to the entire Widgets Panel ecosystem.

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PowerToys just received a small but important update that brings the app to version 0.100.1. The update focuses on fixes to version 0.100.0 of the app, which included a bunch of new features.

Normally I wouldn't cover a small update to an app, but in this case the bugs prevented core features of PowerToys from working. Luckily, the bugs have been squashed.

One issue caused keys that had been remapped to non-modifier keys to be delivered as system-key events. An example of that is mapping Alt to Backspace could result in deleting whole words instead of individual characters.

Another bug prevented monitors from waking from standby after selecting On through Power Display.

The developers of PowerToys log all the changes to the app on GitHub.

PowerToys v0.100.1

Highlights

• This patch release fixes several important stability and behavior issues identified in v0.100.0 based on incoming reports. Check out the v0.100.0 notes for the full list of changes.

Color Picker

• Fixed a bug where the main Color Picker window could appear inside the zoomed-in picker view in #48762 by @daverayment

Command Palette

• Fixed Run history initialization in AOT builds in #48463
• Fixed a bug where the Performance Monitor dock item could show ??? after restart in #48682 by @giruuuuj
• Fixed the Hibernate command using the Sleep icon in #48689 by @MrBisquit
• Limited the "pin to dock" dialog to displays where the dock is enabled in #48723

Keyboard Manager

• Fixed modifier keys remapped to non-modifier keys being delivered as system-key events, which caused unexpected behavior in apps such as Alt-to-Backspace deleting whole words in #47192 by @oMatheusmol

Power Display

• Fixed a bug where selecting On in the monitor power-state control did not wake a monitor from standby in #48628
• Fixed built-in display detection and brightness control on dual-GPU laptops where the internal panel is driven by the discrete GPU in #48637

PowerToys Run

• Fixed VS Code Workspaces discovery after VS Code moved recently opened workspace data to shared storage in #47505

Quick Access

• Fixed Quick Access flyout crashes caused by unhandled XAML exceptions during launch or page navigation in #48457

Shortcut Guide

• Fixed a crash when navigating between Shortcut Guide sidebar sections in #48481
• Fixed number-key rendering in shortcut manifests and added a Postman shortcut manifest in #48461 by @brycewc
• Updated bundled shortcut manifests to use the literal number-key token so number keys render correctly across apps in #48757 by @brycewc

ZoomIt

• Fixed a race condition in audio initialization for ZoomIt video recording in #48685 by @MarioHewardt

Power Display is one of my favorite utilities in PowerToys. It allows you to manage the brightness and other settings of your external monitor through a series of flyouts. It saves me the hassle of reaching around the bottom or back of my display to adjust settings with awkward buttons.

The recently fixed bug took away core functionality of Power Display, so I'm happy to see it addressed.

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Microsoft Outlook for Mac has a peculiar bug that removes the content from a previous conversation when replying to or forwarding an email. Microsoft has confirmed the issue but a fix has not shipped yet.

A user flagged the unwanted Outlook behavior and described what's happening.

Normally, replying to or forwarding an email through Outlook includes the entire original message. That inclusion makes it easier for the sender to draft their message and the recipient to have context of the conversation. But the buggy behavior in Outlook removes the previous conversation, leaving just the new message.

The problem only occurs in the legacy version of Outlook for Mac. That older Outlook, which is a native application that's been around in some form for decades, is set to be retired in October. After the cutoff, legacy Outlook for Mac will receive security updates but will no longer work with Exchange Online mailboxes.

Over 95% of Microsoft 365 users have transitioned to the new Outlook app for Mac, according to Microsoft. The new Outlook is focused on cloud accounts and is the main version going forward.

Over on the Windows side of things, Microsoft's shift to what is essentially a web app as the primary Outlook has been controversial. But the new Outlook for macOS is a native application, making an odd situation where Outlook is arguably better on macOS than on Windows.

Issues with Microsoft Outlook are nothing new. Problems even extended beyond planet earth when Commander Wiseman of the Artemis II couldn't check his email in space. But unwanted behavior is still frustrating.

"This is an extremely frustrating bug in this last update, and I hope a fix is on the way," said user Stephan in response to the original thread. They added, "This is frankly quite disappointing that something major like this completely evaded the software testing process before it was being rolled out."

While Microsoft is investigating the issue with legacy Outlook for Mac, you have two options. You can either migrate to the new Outlook (official recommendation from Microsoft) or roll back to version 16.109 of legacy Outlook for Mac.

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Microsoft Edge is about to lose yet another one of my favorite features. Edge Drop is being — ahem — dropped in favor of AI.

The latest version of Edge Canary shows a message about the change if you open the Drop feature:

"Drop is being retired. Files you share are saved in your OneDrive. Text notes need to be downloaded separately."

Microsoft does not specifically state why Drop is being retired. I believe the reason is a combination of low usage and Microsoft wanting the same space in Edge to house Copilot. We saw a similar development with the retirement of the Edge Sidebar.

Leo Varela discovered the upcoming retirement and shared screenshots on X.

I once called Microsoft Edge Drop "the best browser feature you're not using." That may have proven to be a little too accurate, because the feature is now being retired. Presumably, usage of Edge Drop was low, making other parts of the browser a higher priority.

What is Microsoft Edge Drop?

Edge Drop is a feature within the browser that lets you send messages, files and photos to yourself. All your content stays within a single thread, making it easy to find. The experience is powered by OneDrive, which is why you can still access your content after Drop is retired.

When you send something through Drop, it appears on any instance of Edge on supported devices, which currently includes desktop and mobile versions of the browser.

Drop lives within the Sidebar of Edge on your desktop, which is likely why the feature is going away. Microsoft has prioritized placing Copilot in the same spot as the Sidebar and Drop.

I think there's a way for all the Sidebar features and Copilot to coexist. Low usage figures are likely another factor in the retirement of Drop. While I love Drop, it's similar to sending messages to yourself through WhatsApp, Telegram, or any other messaging service.

The reality may be that people who want to send messages to themselves want to do so without having to use a specific browser on multiple devices.

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One of Microsoft's best free apps has been locked behind region restrictions for ages. It took Microsoft two years to progress PC Manager from beta to general release, and after two more years the app is still only available to certain people.

PC Manager shipped in 2024. Despite the app being available for years, it is still not officially available in my region. After our Editor-in-Chief Daniel Rubino highlighted the app in a couple of our recent meetings, I decided to install PC Manager regardless of the limited rollout.

The app appears to be available in China, India, the United States, and a few other regions. But the official website for the app simply lists PC Manager as "Coming Soon."

You can work around Microsoft's restrictions by changing your region settings or downloading the app through other sources, but you shouldn't have to. Microsoft has had years to determine if there are any issues with PC Manager. It's time to ship it to more regions.

What is Microsoft PC Manager?

PC Manager is a free app for Windows 11 that allows you to optimize your system. It brings together several tools and options from throughout the operating system into a unified interface.

The app has a shortcut called "Boost" that frees up system resources and clears temporary files. It can also scan your PC in several ways to find ways to clear out junk files.

I cleared out over 100GB from my PC in just a few minutes by using PC Manager. Admittedly, many of those files were unused items in my Downloads folder, such as media packs from press releases. But PC Manager also found applications to delete, caches to clear, and temporary files to get rid of.

PC Manager also has tools to manage duplicate files and large files. A button just below those options opens Storage sense. A Toolbox within PC Manager includes shortcuts to take a screenshot, check the weather, and perform other common tasks.

That's a bit of a theme in PC Manager. Very few of the options it manages or steps it can take are exclusive to the app. What makes PC Manager valuable is that it gathers together options by category. With just a few clicks you can boost your PC, clear out old files, and delete unused apps.

Hidden ads and cheeky defaults

PC Manager is a useful app that I recommend. It also has some options that I consider borderline advertising. The "Taskbar repair" option under system protection has the box to "Enable search box on taskbar" on by default. That search box uses Bing when searching the web.

Taskbar repair's main function is to remove any toolbars that have been added to your Taskbar. If you've ever been asked to fix the PC of a friend or family member, there's a good chance you've seen an unwanted toolbar on Windows.

Defaulting to showing a search bar powered by Bing is a cheeky move, especially when PC Manager lacks a way to remove the Search bar (you have to do that through the Windows 11 Settings app).

The Extras section of app management within PC Manager shows a shortcut to get the Bing Wallpaper app. Honestly, it comes off as a bit desperate.

Overall, PC Manager is a solid application that makes it easy to optimize your PC. I just wish it were available in more regions.

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We’ve been running our new Quote of the Day segment for a few weeks, but I recently came across an intriguing line from former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, taken from a 2009 TechCrunch interview (via Fortune).

"The most successful by far is Firefox," Ballmer indicated. "Chrome is a rounding error to date. Safari is a rounding error to date. But Firefox is not. The fact that there’s a lot of competitors probably is to our advantage."

For context, Microsoft dominated the browser market at the time with Internet Explorer, which controlled about 74% of the global share. Google had only just launched Chrome in 2008, but competing was tough since Internet Explorer came pre‑installed as the default on Windows PCs, giving Microsoft an enormous advantage.

“It could have been demoralizing,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai admitted at a commencement address at Stanford University. “But with that California optimism, I told the team that the fact he went out of his way to dismiss us meant we were doing something right.”

The executive didn't discount that Chrome showed early success and momentum, but that triumph was short‑lived as user growth plateaued under various constraints. However, Pichai and his team didn't let up.

Fast forward to 2026, Google now runs the browser show with a massive 70.25% hold of the market share. Microsoft Edge comes in at a distant third with 5.14% of the market share.

Microsoft has been placed under fire by companies like Mozilla in the past for allegedly using "harmful designs and deceptive tactics" to give Edge a competitive advantage over other browsers on Windows 11.

The Firefox maker recently accused Microsoft of using 'dark patterns' to force its Copilot AI on Windows 11 users. It outrightly suggested that Microsoft's "intentional" re-direction with Copilot was only prompted by overwhelming feedback from users. "They’re really admitting that they made repeated choices to serve their business over their customers," Mozilla added.

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The next time you open Microsoft Authenticator to log in to a device, you could be met with a new interface. Microsoft is rolling out a change that requires you to enter a number manually rather than tapping one of three options.

The update first appeared for enterprise and education users, but it has since started rolling out to personal Microsoft accounts. We've seen the new prompt appear on a personal device, suggesting the rollout is in progress.

At first glance, you may think that the change makes Microsoft Authenticator 33 times more secure. That would be true if malicious actors were hacking into accounts by guessing the number that appeared.

Before the change, there were only three options available, giving a theoretical blind hacker around a 33 percent chance of guessing. By requiring a two-digit number to be entered manually, there is only a 1 percent chance of guessing it right.

But attacks centered on multi-factor authentication usually aren't guessing games. Bad actors often spam users with a bunch of prompts to authenticate in the hopes that the user will approve the prompt or guess the correct number.

Accidental approvals are also an issue. With only three numbers appearing on a screen, you could tap the correct number by accident when opening the app or moving the phone around in your pocket.

Requiring a number to be entered manually reduces those risks greatly.

Microsoft has made several changes to its authenticator app to improve security. SMS codes are being phased out as an option for personal Microsoft accounts because they are insecure. SMS-based authentication is the leading source of fraud, explains Microsoft.

The change to requiring manual number entry is more pinpointed than shifting away from SMS-based authentication, but it adds another layer of security.

The update is rolling out gradually, so you may not see it yet.

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For the longest time, signing into Microsoft Edge has been tied exclusively to a Microsoft account. In practice, that meant logging into the Chromium-based browser with a Google account was virtually impossible. Well, until now.

A new Microsoft roadmap entry (ID 565860) reveals that the company is preparing to let users sign into Microsoft Edge with a Google account (via Neowin).

To that end, the feature is still in development, but it should ship to broad availability by July 2026. This is a welcome change and could make Microsoft Edge more appealing to users who don't necessarily care about the mandatory Microsoft Account requirement when signing in to the browser.

It's a refreshing change of pace and direction for Microsoft, especially given that it had categorically stated in 2020 that it had no plans to integrate Google services into Microsoft Edge by default, even though it was one of the most requested features at the time.

At least, that's one less place you have to worry about Microsoft Account being a mandatory requirement. Of course, it goes without saying that signing into Microsoft Edge with a Microsoft Account comes with many perks, including seamless syncing across devices, tighter integration with Microsoft services like OneDrive and Outlook, and enhanced security.

Elsewhere, Microsoft recently announced that Edge would be moving to a two-week release cycle for major versions of the browser, similar to Google's approach with Chrome.

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Spotify has gotten rid of its disco ball logo that received hate across the web. But if you only use Spotify on your PC, you never saw the logo at all. That fact gives us a hint as to how Spotify feels about Windows 11.

The icon was part of the Spotify 20: Your Party of the Year(s) experience that allowed users to see their first day on Spotify, the total number of songs they've listened to, their first streamed song, and their most-streamed artist.

That experience was limited to mobile users, meaning Windows 11 users could not celebrate their past with the service. Windows 11 users were also spared from seeing the controversial disco ball — or deprived depending on your point of view.

Many shared passionate responses about the logo. Spotify responded by stating the change was only temporary.

Windows 11 was not the only operating system left out. Some Android users saw the disco ball icon, but it never rolled out to everyone.

Spotify has not shared why it left Windows 11 out of the party experience. Windows 11 is often left out of short-term campaigns by Spotify, so it's not as if the company slighted Windows 11 specifically for this one.

But that highlights a greater issue. Why isn't the desktop version of Spotify part of the full experience? I know many disliked the icon, but it can be fun to look back at listening history. The demand from PC users for interactive features is clearly there. Spotify eventually brought a functional Wrapped experience to desktop after years of keeping it mobile-only.

Instead, the Windows 11 app feels completely frozen in time, missing out on modern UI overhauls and native settings such as audio equalizers. Many features are exclusive to mobile devices or better optimized for smartphone use.

It's clear that Spotify does not value integrating its app with Windows 11. The Spotify widget is an embarrassment that doesn't even show your playlists or audio controls. It just presents a few trending playlists.

Even if you hated the disco ball icon, you should be able to hate it alongside everyone else rather than be left out.

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Windows 11 might be regaining its movable taskbar after plenty of outcry from the Windows community, but that doesn't mean it's perfect for all users.

Personally, I don't mind the regular Windows 11 taskbar, although I have tweaked it in the past with ExplorerPatcher. However, while traveling around the web, I came across GroDock, and it finally made me realize what I've been missing.

GroDock is a customizable Windows 11 taskbar alternative with additional docking capabilities for apps. It's like a productivity hub that I never knew I needed.

While it doesn't completely override the native taskbar, it has certainly proven to be capable enough for me to hide the Windows version entirely.

GroDock comes from a solo hobby developer known as "Groad," and their collection of custom apps encompasses Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and more. GroDock is available for free for 7 days as an introductory trial; after that, it costs $4.99 to keep forever. Here's why that one-time cost might be worth it for you.

What can GroDock do that the Windows 11 taskbar cannot?

Let me start by highlighting some of GroDock's more enticing customization options.

You can position the bar along the top, bottom, left, or right side of your screen, and you can also choose icon alignment to be centered or off to the left or right of the bar.

Icon sizes, taskbar transparency, mica effects, theme colors, text colors, Start button logo, and hex colors can all be tweaked to your liking.

The clock is fully customizable, and in the most recent update, a calendar was added with a per-day agenda feature.

Did I mention GroDock supports multi-monitor setups? Yes, you can choose which monitors the custom taskbar shows up on.

Something I absolutely love and find super useful as someone who's constantly copy-pasting is an optional Clipboard history icon. You can even choose how many entries you want to show in the widget.

GroDock also offers an optional kanban board for To-Do lists, a basic notepad feature to jot down ideas, a code snippet repository, and a timer to keep track of how long you've been at a task.

Other optional features include system volume, screen brightness (per monitor, to boot), network info, battery life for laptops, USB devices, and more. Just like the regular Windows taskbar, but completely customizable.

Perhaps my favorite feature is the customizable Start menu style. The Classic version has cascading menus, while the Explorer version shows more options right from the start. The Modern option is more like a scrollable list of apps with a favorites section nearby.

And finally, customizable dock groups make it easy to keep your desktop clean and your favorite apps immediately accessible. You can create any number of dock groups and add any sort of apps you want to those groups, super useful for productivity aficionados.

Why use GroDock instead of the native Windows 11 taskbar?

Windows 11's taskbar is straightforward and familiar. For a lot of Windows users, that's good enough.

But as someone who spends 8+ hours a day at my PC, turning the taskbar into a true productivity tool is well worth the $5 price tag. It's essentially a central command hub for my PC, totally customizable to my liking, giving me far more control and ease of access than I've ever had before.

Something I'm sure a lot of users will appreciate is that it doesn't completely override the native taskbar. You can use GroDock as a complement to the Windows 11 taskbar, or you can use it as a total replacement.

Best part? As mentioned, you can try it out for free for 7 days. If it's not quite what you need, you never have to touch it again. And if it is too good to pass up, as I found out, the one-time $5 cost really isn't too steep.

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The Files app has beaten Microsoft to the punch once again. The same app that added tabs to file management far before Windows 11's File Explorer has added a clever way to show folder sizes.

A recent update to Files adds a button in the size column to calculate the size of a folder. The solution is a clever compromise that adds a simple way to show folder sizes without eating up system resources by showing the sizes of all folders.

The same update adds some other handy features like the option to remove all tags from a file.

Files is not the first third-party file management app to show folder sizes; OneCommander also has the option. But I enjoy following the development of Files. The app looks like what File Explorer should be. It also often adds features before Microsoft adds similar options to File Explorer.

Files v4.1.3: What's New

Calculate folder size on demand

When the Calculate folder sizes option is turned off in Settings, a View size button now appears in the Size column. Clicking it will calculate the size of that folder on demand.

Retain selection across layouts

When switching between layouts, the previously selected item now stays selected, so you don’t lose your place when changing layouts.

Remove all tags from a file

You can now quickly clear every tag assigned to one or more files. There are a few ways to use the new action:

• From the context menu — right-click an item, open the Tags submenu, and choose Remove tags.
• From the toolbar — when the Edit Tags button is pinned to the toolbar, the same option appears in its menu.
• From the Command Palette — open the Command Palette and search for Remove tags. You can also assign your own keyboard shortcut to it from Settings.

If you haven’t pinned the Edit Tags button to the toolbar, you can add it in a few steps:

1. Right-click the toolbar and select Customize toolbar.
2. Expand the File System group on the left.
3. Drag Edit Tags… to the list of added toolbar items.

Updated OneDrive icon

The OneDrive icon has been updated to the latest version. Files now loads it directly from the OneDrive executable, so it always matches the icon used by OneDrive itself.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue with extracting tar archives.
• Fixed an issue where the Signatures page would occasionally cause a crash.
• Fixed an issue where the Play action wasn’t available when a single media file was selected.
• Fixed an issue where Smart Extract would extract archives to the wrong location when switching tabs.
• Fixed an issue where tag search excluded folders when grouping by type.
• Fixed an issue where thumbnails would sometimes fail to refresh after a file was modified.
• Fixed an issue where a BitLocker locked drive wasn’t displayed.

Why doesn't File Explorer show folder sizes?

If you browse around File Explorer, you'll notice folders have a blank space next to them under the size column. To calculate the size of a folder, Windows needs to perform a recursive scan and add together the size of every file within a folder.

A recursive scan would not be an issue for a reasonably sized folder, but if you have a folder with thousands of files and subfolders, the scan would eat up system resources and slow things down.

As a quick side note, File Explorer does show the size of zipped folders, but that's because Windows 11 treats those as individual files, not as folders.

There are ways to make File Explorer show folder sizes, but they require mods. Windows Forum has an excellent piece detailing the process of using Windhawk to show folder sizes in File Explorer.

If you'd like a gauge of how long a recursive scan for a folder takes, hover your mouse over any folder and wait until a file size appears. It may only take a moment for a single folder, but if your PC had to do a similar scan for any folder on your screen, it would not be a smooth experience.

Files takes a different approach to showing the size of a folder by adding a prompt within the size column. I think it's more user friendly and is a clever compromise to showing folder sizes.

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Frozen apps and laggy messages can make any job more stressful. Recent updates to Microsoft Teams should lessen those issues, making chats faster, apps more reliable, and searching for people more streamlined.

A blog post by Ihor Lukyanenko breaks down how performance and reliability were improved in Teams.

Speeding up chats

Chat latency in Teams has been reduced by 20% since the start of this year. The biggest gains will be seen when "cold switching" between chats.

When you switch to a chat you've opened recently, data is in your system's memory and performance is better: that's called a warm switch. A cold switch is when you open a chat that has not been loaded recently. Microsoft focused heavily on cold switches this year.

Cold-switch latency was greatly reduced due to the changes Microsoft made. You should see a difference regardless of your hardware, but people with slower networks or older devices will see the biggest change.

Reducing app hangs

An app "hanging" refers to when it stops responding. A common way hanging affects usage is that touching the app fails to register, often forcing a restart.

Microsoft fixed the most common causes of app hangs for Teams on macOS and iOS this year. Daily users of the apps have seen a 35% decrease in hangs since the changes shipped.

Here's what the developers of Teams did on macOS, according to Lukyanenko:

• Network status monitoring – The native network status tracker was making a blocking call on the main thread to check connectivity changes. We moved this to a background thread, eliminating the single largest source of macOS freezes. 
• WebView2 library loading – Loading the WebView2 dynamic library on the main thread caused 6% of all freezes. Working with the WebView2 team, we enabled a new feature that preloads the library on a background thread, significantly reducing the blocking time during the call to create the WebView2 environment. 
• Error reporting – A URL request made during web app error reporting was blocking the main thread. We switched to an asynchronous call, resolving 1.7% of freezes with a straightforward fix. 

Improvements to Teams on iOS came from a more widespread effort that included redesigning how database operations run, caching, and offloading certain calculations.

Speeding up search

Finding people within Teams is faster as well, 25% faster, to be exact.

Search within Teams refers to more than just the app's search box. These fixes also speed up how quickly names appear when you mention someone with the @ symbol.

To improve search performance, Microsoft "optimized the query pipeline, reduced database queue congestion, and enhanced overall system throughput."

Have you noticed a difference?

Unlike many changes to Teams which we cover just as they roll out or while they're still in testing, these improvements have already shipped and have been out for months. Have you noticed a difference in app performance and reliability this year? Is Teams where it needs to be for daily use?

Lukyanenko highlights that "performance is never finished," but I'm curious if it's good enough for you to use Teams without frustration.

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PowerToys just received a big update full of features and improvements. Release v0.100.0 makes it easier to find Command Palette extensions, adds a new Shortcut Guide, and adds multi-monitor support to Dock.

PowerDisplay is now faster following the update and Zoomit supports overlaying a webcam while recording.

Despite adding new capabilities, the update to v0.100.0 makes PowerToys smaller. The app's developers have upgraded the project to .NET 10, which reduces the footprint by 15% while also improving performance.

👉RELATED: How to get started with PowerToys Command Palette

The Extension Gallery for Command Palette is the biggest change. The feature allows you to browse, install, update, and remove extensions directly within Command Palette Settings. Previously, managing extensions required you to use the Microsoft Store or WinGet.

PowerToys v0.100.0

Advanced Paste

• Fixed Advanced Paste clipboard-to-JSON conversion so clipboard read failures return an empty result instead of surfacing an exception in #48124

Command Palette

Extension Gallery & Extensions

• Added the Command Palette Extension Gallery so users can discover, browse, install, update, and uninstall community extensions from within Command Palette, with cached gallery data, extension details/screenshots, and WinGet status/progress integration in #46636 by @jiripolasek
• Added Command Palette parameter pages so extensions can prompt for lightweight command inputs directly in the search experience, including sample pages and SDK support for parameter runs in #47826
• Updated Command Palette bookmarks to collect placeholder values as inline parameters, so bookmarked commands can be filled in directly instead of opening a separate placeholders page in #47886
• Improved Command Palette Extension Gallery link handling so only HTTP/HTTPS homepage, author, install, and metadata links are shown or opened from the gallery UI in #47898 by @jiripolasek
• Fixed Command Palette Extension Gallery UI bindings so WinGet operation indicators continue to update correctly without build warnings in #47899 by @jiripolasek
• Fixed an AOT-only Command Palette Extension Gallery crash when opening an extension page with screenshots in #48065
• Updated the Command Palette extension template to use the 0.11 SDK package in #48066
• Improved Command Palette accessibility so Narrator announces checkbox labels on the Installed Apps page in Extensions settings in #48135 by @chatasweetie

Dock

• Added Command Palette Dock support for customizing dock bands separately per monitor, allowing multi-monitor setups to keep independent dock layouts in #46915
• Added Command Palette Dock edit mode support for dragging dock bands between monitors, so pinned commands can move across per-monitor dock layouts in #47921
• Added Command Palette Dock drag-and-drop bookmarking for files and URLs, immediately creating and pinning bookmarks, improving pinned folder bookmarks so they open the Command Palette browse experience in #47989
• Fixed Command Palette dock context menu commands so Page commands and confirmation dialogs open the palette at the dock item when invoked from a dock item menu in #47991
• Fixed Command Palette Dock band tooltips so they refresh when the item title or subtitle changes in #47557
• Fixed Command Palette dock startup animations so items pinned to the End section animate consistently with Start and Center items in #48099
• Fixed Command Palette dock subtitle visibility in compact mode so subtitles refresh correctly after async updates in #48088 by @michaeljolley
• Fixed Command Palette hotkey navigation when the palette is showing a transient dock page in #48089 by @michaeljolley
• Fixed a Command Palette dock window border that occasionally remained visible after disconnect/reconnect, by ensuring the owner HWND is set before frame removal in #48180
• Improved the Command Palette Pin to Dock dialog by reordering controls so they appear above the preview, making the dialog easier to scan in #48250

Performance Monitor

• Added a Battery widget to Command Palette Performance Monitor that shows live charge percentage, charging/AC status, and estimated time remaining, updating the dock-band battery icon to reflect current charge level and charging state in #47870 by @Knyrps
• Added Command Palette Performance Monitor dock bands for individual metrics like CPU, memory, network, GPU, and battery when available in #47967
• Fixed Command Palette Performance Monitor's CPU dock reading to use a 0–100% system CPU counter, preventing boosted CPUs from showing values above 100% in #47864 by @Knyrps
• Improved Command Palette Performance Monitor network widgets by giving Send and Receive distinct up/down arrow icons and simplifying their labels in #48118
• Reordered Command Palette Performance Monitor network dock bands to match Task Manager's send/receive order in #48098 by @michaeljolley
• Fixed a Command Palette Performance Monitor crash when a GPU index falls outside the available range in #48103 by @michaeljolley
• Fixed a Command Palette Performance Monitor settings file path collision that could cause widget settings to overwrite one another in #48251 by @namdpran8

Calculator

• Added rand() and randi() to the Command Palette Calculator and improved error messages by distinguishing invalid expressions, NaN, and out-of-range results in #47725 by @daverayment
• Fixed Command Palette Calculator parsing for multi-argument functions in cultures where comma is both thousands separator and argument separator, so expressions like max(1,2) and grouped numbers are handled correctly in #47731 by @daverayment
• Fixed the Command Palette and Run Calculator 'log' and 'ln' functions when whitespace separates the function name from its argument, so 'log (n)' computes log base 10 and 'ln (n)' no longer errors out in #47767 by @daverayment

Reliability & UX

• Added a pinned commands section to the Command Palette Home page with context-menu actions for reordering pinned commands in #45869 by @jiripolasek
• Updated Command Palette Shell provider to behave more like Windows Run, improving command execution and suggestions for network paths, NTFS paths, and other edge-case paths in #47642
• Improved Command Palette Window Walker by showing a loading state while open windows are queried during search in #47919
• Improved Command Palette list items by limiting visible tag pills to three and showing a +N overflow badge, preventing tags from crowding out titles in #47140
• Added a Command Palette All Apps setting to hide app description subtitles in search results for a cleaner list view in #47128
• Fixed Command Palette back navigation so the bottom command bar refreshes immediately when returning with Esc or Backspace in #47126
• Fixed Command Palette Extensions settings text so single command and fallback command counts use singular wording in #47125
• Improved Command Palette extension logging by routing extension messages to info, warning, or error logs according to their reported severity in #47896
• Updated Command Palette versioning to 0.11 in #47841
• Added stable Command Palette automation IDs so UI testing tools can reliably target controls and generated list items across sessions in #48033
• Fixed Command Palette Dock positioning when opening palette items from secondary displays, so the palette appears on the correct monitor in #48061
• Updated developer documentation with steps for debugging Command Palette directly through its Visual Studio solution filter in #48108 by @Morma016
• Added Command Palette Remote Desktop support for connecting to arbitrary hostnames typed into the list page, in addition to discovered connections in #48069 by @michaeljolley
• Improved Command Palette result scoring by synchronising fallback title and subtitle formatting so similar items rank consistently in #48085 by @michaeljolley
• Added a Command Palette "Show details" / "Hide details" toggle (with an icon) to the context menu, replacing the previous separate entries in #48140 by @chatasweetie

FancyZones

• Added translator-comment guidance to the FancyZones Editor strings 'Space around zones' and 'Highlight distance' so localizers translate them as margin/padding and adjacent-zone detection distance, fixing misleading Japanese renderings in #47226

File Explorer

• Fixed a Markdown preview crash on UTF-8 files (notably CJK content) that exceeded WebView2's NavigateToString byte limit by switching the size check to count UTF-8 bytes and falling back to the temp-file rendering path when the threshold is exceeded in #47391

File Locksmith

• Fixed File Locksmith handling of Unicode file paths when passing paths between normal and elevated runs, preventing certain non-ASCII paths from being corrupted in #47361

Grab And Move

• Fixed the LNK2038 C++/WinRT version mismatch breaking GrabAndMove on CI by adding the Microsoft.Windows.CppWinRT NuGet to GrabAndMove.vcxproj so it uses the repo-pinned CppWinRT instead of whatever the Windows SDK ships in #47910
• Removed the "NEW" tag from the Grab And Move entry in Settings now that the module has shipped through a full release in #48174 by @moooyo

Image Resizer

• Added live settings reload to Image Resizer so external changes to settings.json take effect immediately without relaunching the flow in #45266 by @daverayment
• Improved Image Resizer accessibility so Narrator announces the Resize button by name and the window title now reads 'Image Resizer' instead of the generic 'WinUI Desktop' in #47752

Keyboard Manager

• Enabled the redesigned Keyboard Manager editor by default, so new installations open the WinUI 3 editor without changing settings in #48245

Mouse Without Borders

• Added Mouse Without Borders Refresh Connections to Quick Access and the Settings Dashboard so users can reconnect devices faster in #46025
• Refactored Mouse Without Borders logging cleanup with no intended user-facing behavior change in #44553 by @mikeclayton

Peek

• Added a 'Show file preview tooltip' toggle to Peek's Behavior settings so users can disable the on-hover metadata tooltip (filename, type, date modified, size), and fixed the binding so toggling off no longer leaves an empty popup attached in #46624

PowerDisplay

• Improved Power Display by automatically disabling the feature after a detected DDC/CI capability crash and showing a Settings warning before users re-enable it in #47734
• Fixed Power Display flyout keyboard handling so pressing Escape closes the window in #48026
• Improved Power Display monitor detection by rescanning displays when the screen wakes and temporarily locking controls until the refresh completes in #47876
• Updated PowerToys documentation to include telemetry events for Grab And Move and Power Display in #47228
• Updated Power Display localization comments so the product name remains untranslated in UI strings, including the system tray tooltip in #47351
• Improved Power Display monitor discovery by distinguishing internal panels from external monitors before applying brightness controls, reducing unnecessary DDC/CI probing on built-in displays in #47740
• Fixed Power Display upgrades so existing per-monitor preferences are carried forward from older monitor IDs to the current stable IDs in #47977
• Added a Power Display Max compatibility mode setting that can find monitors skipped by standard DDC discovery, with an immediate rescan and warning in Settings when enabled in #47875
• Improved Power Display brightness, contrast, and volume sliders by committing changes after a short debounce and allowing mouse-wheel adjustments in #47756
• Fixed Power Display brightness, contrast, and volume controls on monitors whose native DDC/CI ranges are not 0-100 by scaling slider percentages correctly in #47679
• Added a Power Display Settings confirmation prompt before enabling the module and improved monitor diagnostics for troubleshooting in #48111
• Fixed Power Display per-monitor settings so toggles persist across restarts, monitor reordering, and transient discovery failures in #47712
• Added a built-in Power Display monitor blacklist so known problematic displays are skipped during DDC/CI discovery and reported in logs instead of being probed in #48051
• Fixed a Power Display false-positive crash detection when the host process exits cooperatively, so the safety lockout no longer triggers on clean shutdowns in #48173 by @moooyo
• Removed the "NEW" tag from the Power Display entry in Settings now that the module has shipped through a full release in #48174 by @moooyo
• Reworked the Power Display warning dialog with clearer messaging, distinct warning kinds, and a dedicated dialog view-model so users get more actionable guidance after a DDC/CI issue in #48249

PowerToys Run

• Improved PowerToys Run Calculator to return a friendly error for expressions whose result is a complex number (e.g. sqrt(-1)) instead of throwing during decimal conversion in #47506 by @MardSilva
• Documented the third-party PowerToys Run plugin Community.PowerToys.Run.Plugin.DiskAnalyzer for scanning folders/drives to find the largest files and folders in #48106 by @thetsaw

Quick Accent

• Updated Quick Accent’s popup UI to standard PowerToys styling while keeping the accent selector experience unchanged in #46604
• Improved Quick Accent language selection consistency by sharing the same language list between the accent popup and Settings UI in #47211 by @daverayment
• Added Greek Polytonic as a Quick Accent language, making polytonic Greek characters available from matching letter keys and Settings in #47021 by @daverayment and @guidotorresmx
• Fixed Quick Accent popup sizing, positioning, and selection glitches on high-DPI or multi-monitor setups, and improved Shift-key detection for navigation in #46593 by @daverayment

Settings

• Added Image Resizer size preset validation so empty or whitespace names are ignored, keeping presets named and easier to understand in #45425
• Fixed the Settings UI resource list by removing a duplicate Quick Accent Greek Polytonic language entry, allowing Settings builds to complete cleanly in #48054
• Improved Settings UI with refreshed PowerToys imagery, constrained OOBE/SCOOBE layouts, and cleaner General settings controls and icons in #48024
• Fixed the Settings “No shortcuts to show” empty-state message so it displays with a single period in #47287 by @daverayment
• Updated Grab And Move settings localization guidance so the Korean translation for “Activation modifier key” uses the feature activation meaning instead of product activation wording in #47352
• Fixed the Quick Access flyout shortcut editor so clicking Reset no longer crashes PowerToys Settings and leaves the shortcut empty cleanly in #47407
• Fixed PowerToys auto-update so it now actually relaunches after install with a 'successfully updated' toast, backs up all JSON configs before updating with restore on detected corruption, and defaults AutoDownloadUpdates to true for fresh installs in #46889
• Renamed the OOBE overview "Learn" link label to "Documentation" so the call-to-action is clearer to first-time users in #48155

Shortcut Guide

• Fixed Shortcut Guide key visuals to show readable key names instead of raw numeric key codes, while preserving arrow key glyph behavior in #48037 by @noraa-junker
• Improved Shortcut Guide V2 reliability and accuracy by showing the configured shortcut, including additional PowerToys module shortcuts, matching app manifests correctly, and exiting cleanly from Esc or the close button in #48043 by @noraa-junker
• Added Shortcut Guide V2, a redesigned shortcut reference with built-in manifests for Windows, PowerToys, and common apps, plus taskbar/context-aware navigation and updated Settings, OOBE, docs, and installer support in #40834 by @noraa-junker
• Renamed the Settings UI module label from "Shortcut Guide V2" to "Shortcut Guide" now that V2 is the only shipping version in #48151
• Fixed a Shortcut Guide V2 crash that occurred when the per-app Manifests directory was missing or unreadable, by treating the directory as empty in that case in #48171 by @MuyuanMS
• Reworded the Shortcut Guide module and OOBE descriptions so they better explain what V2 does and how to invoke it in #48248

Workspaces

• Reworked the Workspaces editor with WPF Fluent theming (dropping ControlzEx and ModernWpf), refined fonts, spacing, and Mica background, and moved action buttons to the top with full-width scrolling in #46172 by @Jay-o-Way

ZoomIt

• Removed a stale Microsoft.Windows.ImplementationLibrary NuGet import from ZoomItBreak.vcxproj that was unused but broke the official build after the .NET 10 upgrade bumped the sibling project's WIL version in #47649
• Added webcam capture overlay and multi-clip append-with-transitions support to the ZoomIt recording/trim editor, exposed the new options in the ZoomIt Settings page, and fixed microphone/webcam selection-dialog bugs along the way in #47529 by @foxmsft and @markrussinovich
• Fixed ZoomIt's record-hotkey registration so when Alt is the only modifier the window-record hotkey (base XOR Alt) is no longer registered as a modifier-less key that had been hijacking every bare keypress in #47388
• Exposed ZoomIt's 16:9 aspect-ratio toggle for the screen-region recording hotkey (default Ctrl+Shift+5) in the PowerToys Settings UI in #47695 by @foxmsft

Development

• Build / dependency improvements:
  • Updated PowerToys build and developer tooling to .NET 10, with Visual Studio 2026 now required for building from source in #41280 by @jerone and @snickler
  • Fixed Shortcut Guide v2 release signing by adding the YamlDotNet dependency to the signed binaries list in #48050
  • Updated shared PowerToys .NET runtime and library packages from 10.0.7 to 10.0.8 for the latest servicing fixes in #48010 by @snickler
  • Improved PowerToys build tooling so build scripts discover Visual Studio 2026 Insiders/Preview installations with C++ tools and skip unusable installs in #47462
  • Updated PowerToys WinUI platform dependencies, including Windows App SDK 2.0.1 and WebView2, for apps and the Command Palette extension template in #47470
  • Updated shared PowerToys .NET runtime and library packages from 10.0.6 to 10.0.7 for the latest servicing fixes in #47517 by @snickler
  • Fixed Quick Accent release signing by adding PowerAccent.Common.dll to the signed binaries list in #48058
  • Fixed Advanced Paste release signing by adding the Google Gemini-related dependency DLLs to the signed binaries list in #48001
  • Updated Advanced Paste AI dependencies, including Semantic Kernel and provider connectors, to newer package versions in #47819
• CI & automation:
  • Added a Telemetry PR Check workflow that detects telemetry event changes in pull requests and posts contributor guidance in #47889
  • Updated GitHub issue triage automation by renaming the area-labeling workflow and removing the legacy product auto-label workflow in #47911
  • Added GitHub issue triage automation that applies Product/Area labels to new or reopened issues and supports manual backfill in #47808
  • Fixed GitHub issue auto-labeling by correcting Product label names so the workflow applies existing repository labels in #48027
  • Added a GitHub Action and tester for issue triage that applies Product labels from issue template areas, with AI fallback and manual modes in #47485
  • Fixed GitHub issue auto-labeling so the workflow can authenticate with GitHub Models and apply area labels again in #47820
  • Updated spell-check CI expectations by removing obsolete tokens, reducing noisy advisory comments on pull requests in #48110
  • Updated CI to skip automatic builds for draft pull requests until they are ready for review in #47442
  • Fixed the README roadmap reference for v0.100 so it renders as a clickable milestone link in #47785
  • Updated README download guidance to point users to release assets and changes the release notes link to the releases page in #47432
  • Updated the GitHub issue tracker duplicate-resolution reply to more clearly point users to the original tracking issue in #47981
• Setup / installer:
  • Shrunk the PowerToys installer by removing genuinely-unused dependencies (System.Data.SqlClient, MFC/AMP/OpenMP VC++ runtime DLLs) and deduplicating WinAppSDK files between the install root and WinUI3Apps subfolder, reducing download size by roughly 11 MB in #47233
• Enterprise / GPO:
  • Bumped the en-US ADML revision to 1.20 to match the ADMX file, fixing a Group Policy Editor load error that prevented administrators from loading the PowerToys policy templates in #47672
  • Migrated spdlog from a git submodule to vcpkg manifest mode with an overlay port pinned to the same upstream commit (gabime/spdlog@616866fc), replacing the polyfill shim and removing the in-tree src/logging/ wrapper in #48039
  • Removed the last git submodule (deps/expected-lite) since the code path that used it had already been switched to std::expected, leaving PowerToys fully submodule-free in #48159 by @DHowett
  • Fixed a grammar typo in the PowerToy project-template README, changing "Settings Informations" to "Settings Information" in #48148 by @P-r-e-m-i-u-m
  • Moved the Command Palette API spec back into src/modules/cmdpal/doc/ so the spec lives alongside the generated API code that consumes it in #48160

PowerToys has been one of the best free Windows apps for a long time, and it keeps improving. Many online have asked why PowerToys is not built in to Windows 11. By having PowerToys separate, the app's developers can move quickly and ship updates frequently. There are also several features that people would consider bloat on Windows 11 even though they're useful additions to an app designed for power users.

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It's no secret that Microsoft has been pushing hard for its customers to transition from the built-in Windows Mail & Calendar apps to the new Outlook client. However, the move has been met with backlash and reservations from users, including our Senior Editor Zac Bowden, who argued that the client isn't yet ready for prime time with its sluggish performance as one of the major pain points.

"Enshitification," a user lamented on Reddit. "Release a new product with less functions than the old one, but promote it constantly as "new", then charge customers extra to upgrade to a product which is nearly as good as the old one, but not quite, those extra bits you need are classed as a premium add-on."

New Outlook is a disaster; why do they persist, it is missing so many features from r/Office365

Feature parity is evidently a major point preventing most users from transitioning from the Classic Outlook to the new Outlook client. However, Microsoft is working hard to bridge this gap and has shipped 15 features over the last few months to the new Outlook client (via Neowin).

Some of these 15 features include the capability to pin a mail, which makes it easier to track important messages as they trickle in. It also features modern themes, including a dark mode. Additionally, you can temporarily snooze an email from your inbox until it becomes timely and relevant again, and a meeting recap.

Other notable additions include: improved meeting tracking, schedule send, and keyboard shortcuts to help you enhance productivity by bolstering effectiveness and efficiency.

To that end, Microsoft previously indicated that adoption and transition to the new Outlook client are slowly picking up pace; however, it's still pushing the opt-out phase by one year. This suggests that the company is giving organizations ample time to make the bold jump.

It's worth noting that Microsoft will continue supporting the Windows Mail & Calendar apps through 2029.

Have you transitioned to the new Outlook yet? Let me know in the comments.

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Last month, I reported on Microsoft's plans to retire SMS codes for authentication and account recovery on personal Microsoft accounts. The company stated that SMS-based authentication is a leading source of fraud, and outlined its plans to replace it with more secure options, such as passkeys, authenticator apps, and verified email addresses.

And now, a similar change is making its way to Microsoft’s Chromium-based web browser, Edge. The company recently removed support for the Master Password feature. Microsoft first announced the change during the rollout of Edge version 145, noting its plan to end support for master passwords in the browser’s password manager on June 4, 2026 (via TechRadarPro).

Microsoft is replacing the master password feature in Edge with device-based authentication methods such as Windows Hello (PIN, fingerprint, or facial recognition). The company views Windows Hello as more secure and convenient compared to the custom primary password arrangement. This is because it is less susceptible to sophisticated attacks by bad actors since they'll need your fingerprint, face, or iris scan to access your account.

For context, a master password is designed to let you unlock and access all your online accounts. However, it can be viewed as a risk, especially if a third party knows your custom primary password. This means they can access sensitive data without your consent.

Alternatively, you can use your Windows PC's login, which is restricted to your device's hardware and won't send authentication data to the cloud.

While Windows Hello will seemingly make your passwords and online credentials more secure, the security feature also ships with its own fair share of challenges. In June 2025, multiple reports from web users indicated that Windows Hello no longer worked in the dark.

Microsoft confirmed that it wasn't a bug and that Windows now requires both IR sensors and a webcam that can see your face to sign in. If you've relied on a master password in Edge until now, it's time to consider your options for secure sign-ins — and always keep your passwords safe!

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Microsoft will use a Build 2026 session to show developers how to port x86 apps to Windows on Arm using AI agents.

NVIDIA and Microsoft aim to usher in "a new era of PC" with RTX Spark. That chip, which is a Windows on Arm processor, is a powerhouse workstation that could brute force its way to run just about any app. But the RTX Spark won't have to flex as hard to run native Arm applications.

Microsoft and Qualcomm have pushed Windows on Arm for years, and now NVIDIA has joined the fight. Microsoft claims that 90% of time spent on Windows on Arm PCs is spent within natively compiled apps. The tech giant appears eager to close that gap.

A session at Microsoft Build focuses on how to port x86 apps to run natively on Windows on Arm by using AI. Agents are a major theme of Build 2026. Those AI assistants can perform actions and handle the more mundane and repetitive aspects of coding.

"See where ARM performance gains are real today, and how agentic AI can help convert and validate x86 applications for speed, compatibility, and scale," reads the Build session description.

In this context, "native" refers to an app being optimized for a specific architecture, such as ARM64. The term native can also refer to a program that is not a webview app. Microsoft also helps developers make the other type of native apps, they're just not the focus here.

If you listen to online trolls, you'd believe Windows on Arm is incredibly niche and all of your favorite apps are incompatible. The reality is that a large number of popular apps run natively on Windows on Arm PCs. I suggest checking "Works on WoA" to check the compatibility of your must-have apps.

Apps that do not run natively need to run through Microsoft's Prism emulation. Between native apps and emulation, a large library of apps are available on Arm-powered PC.

But a large library is not the same as a comprehensive library. There are some legacy applications, enterprise apps, and other programs that will not run well on Windows on Arm systems. In select cases, required apps will not work at all.

To fill those gaps, developers need to port their apps to Windows on Arm. The Build session runs through the tools developers can use to port apps, including debuggers, profilers, and compilers.

Qualcomm's Gaurav Goel will lead the session, which runs for 15 minutes on Wednesday, June 3 at 6:20 PM ET.

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Microsoft wants more native apps and elements on Windows 11, and so should you. Native apps and native code mean better performance and smoother computing. At Build 2026, Microsoft held several sessions to help third-party developers make native applications.

A core part of the Windows K2 initiative is to rebuild pieces like the Start menu as native components, but that's only part of the effort. For the entire Windows experience to improve, third-party developers need to embrace native Windows apps.

In this piece, native refers to modern Windows apps built with the latest Windows frameworks, such as WinUI 3. Native can also describe apps compiled for a specific architecture like ARM64, but that’s a separate topic. Here I’m focusing on Windows‑native apps, not architecture‑native builds.

Microsoft is building its own team of experts to make native in-box apps and experiences for Windows 11. The tech giant also has several tools and pieces of advice for developers that want to create native apps.

A session at Build 2026 titled "Use agents to build WinUI 3 apps" taught how to use agents to assist in the development of native apps. During the session, Beth Pan and Nikola Metulev explained how to create new WinUI 3 apps, improve existing apps, and migrate apps to use the Windows UI stack.

Migrating to the WinUI 3 framework can be tricky when using AI tools. Agents and models are often trained generically, meaning they'll show unoptimized results. The WinUI agent plugin for GitHub Copilot and Claude Code is a specialized AI agent that pull WinUI skills by default.

That's one of many tools made available to developers. Microsoft also has WinUI 3 templates (in preview) to streamline native app creation.

Another Build session breaks down how to modernize apps with AI. "Modernizing apps isn’t just rewriting code—it’s untangling dependencies, tracing data flows, and making changes without breaking production," explains the session description.

Developers relying heavily on AI will need hardware that can cope. The Surface Laptop Ultra was announced at Computex, but you can bet it was mentioned at Build.

The Surface Laptop Ultra is built to handle AI agents. It will be available with up to 128GB of RAM and is the first Surface to be built on the NVIDIA RTX Spark platform.

That platform combines the N1x CPU (20-core Arm), an RTX GPU (up to 6,144 cores), and unified memory to deliver up to 1 petaflop of AI compute.

The new NVIDIA Spark laptops can handle creative apps and even games, but they're also a power play by Microsoft to win over developers.

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Microsoft's expansion into more layers of the AI landscape will put pressure on OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. It should also give developers more options and reduce how much it costs to use AI.

Microsoft announced seven in-house models during Build 2026, though some of them are variants of the same bases. The flagship model is MAI-Thinking-1, which is the company's first reasoning model.

MAI-Thinking-1 is built for efficiency and performance, but Microsoft emphasized the low token cost of the model in a blog post. The tech giant was eager to share that MAI-Thinking-1 matched Opus 4.6 on coding abilities.

With Microsoft owning the model and the cloud compute powering the experience, the tech giant can reduce costs to developers.

Here are all the new models from Microsoft:

• MAI-Thinking-1
• MAI-Code-1-Flash
• MAI-Image-2.5
• MAI-Image-2.5-Flash
• MAI-Transcribe-1.5
• MAI-Voice-2
• MAI-Voice-2-Flash

Microsoft's Mustafa Suleyman discussed the new models:

"All these models are built on a shared foundation, hill-climbing from the bottom with zero distillation. They share the same data discipline, the same infrastructure and the same evaluation framework. They are designed to work together, and to integrate directly into the products people use every day. But the models themselves are only part of the story."

A major differentiator is that Microsoft’s new models use zero distillation. Distillation is the process of training a smaller model to imitate a larger, preexisting one. It’s cheaper and faster than training a model from scratch, but it also limits the ceiling of the resulting model because the "student" can only ever match the behavior of its "teacher."

Microsoft stresses that its new models are “trained from scratch with zero distillation,” meaning they aren’t imitations of another system. They’re original architectures.

MAI-Image-2.5 and its flash variant are the first models from Microsoft capable of text-to-image and image-to-image workloads. Both new image models are rolling out to PowerPoint and OneDrive for Foundry (preview) users.

MAI models will be available on Fireworks AI, Baseten, and Open Router in the future.

Microsoft has invested in AI to the tune of billions of dollars over the last few years. Azure powers several of the most popular AI tools and Microsoft works closely with the biggest AI companies. But Microsoft now has its own in-house models.

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It's only Tuesday and thanks to Computex and Microsoft Build I'm officially exhausted of hearing about AI. We get it, OK. All you big tech companies out there REALLY want us to know that AI is something you want us to use.

The latest to get slapped with the AI stick is Windows Terminal, an app that is easily one of Microsoft's current finest. The positive is that Windows Terminal itself hasn't been altered, but instead forked, and from there we have the new, experimental Intelligent Terminal.

It's available now and is described simply by Microsoft as "an open-source experimental fork of Windows Terminal with native agent integration." Yay for AI agents, I guess.

I sound snarky out of that exhaustion I've already spoken of. Right now I want to hear about an interesting new product or piece of software that doesn't talk about AI. We can dream, though, right?

The key thing to remember here is that this is a completely separate app, and if you want no part of native AI agents, your existing Windows Terminal is completely fine and untouched.

As a result of Intelligent Terminal emerging, Microsoft has also confirmed that Terminal Chat in Canary is being deprecated. Use Intelligent Terminal instead.

Snark aside, Intelligent Terminal looks to have some useful features, beyond just the fact it hooks into an agent. What's been shown so far is actually good stuff, such as error detection that will ping information and suggestions on why something failed into the agent panel.

I also like that the Command Palette can be used as an on-ramp to answering questions. You can use it to ask questions about the content in your current terminal session, and the agent will open in the background so as not to get in the way.

I'm sure there are plenty of developers out there that will find Intelligent Terminal useful, and anyone interested can get it right now from the Microsoft Store, winget, or hit up the GitHub repo.

Naturally, GitHub Copilot is the default agent, but you can use any ACP-compatible agent in its place if you prefer.

AI skepticism is still out there, though, and two of the early comments on Microsoft's announcement post are a perfect example. The important thing is that, at least for now, the regular version of Windows Terminal is completely untouched. That's how it probably needs to stay as well.

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Microsoft and NVIDIA are pushing a “new era of PC” built around the RTX Spark platform and the N1x chip. It’s the first real attempt to bring workstation‑class performance to Windows on ARM, and Adobe is already preparing its apps to take advantage of it.

Adobe partnered with NVIDIA to optimize Photoshop, Premiere, and other creative apps for the RTX Spark chip. Adobe promises two times faster AI usage, editing, coloring, and effects across Photoshop and Premiere.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang promises that RTX Spark chips will run every Windows app ever made. But there's a difference between merely running an app and fully supporting it. Several Adobe apps now fall into the latter category.

Premiere takes advantage of RTX Spark's unified memory, Blackwell GPU, and TensorRT, resulting in faster rendering. Photoshop has been "reimaged with GPU-accelerated compositing at its core," which helps with the performance of live filters, HDR, and other effects. AI features get a boost from TensorRT.

The NVIDIA RTX Spark platform is the combination of an N1x CPU, RTX graphics, and unified memory. It powers a new class of computing not previously available through Snapdragon X processors (though Qualcomm was eager to welcome NVIDIA to the family).

The NVIDIA RTX Spark platform is a full-stack collaboration between Microsoft, ASUS, and NVIDIA. The result is monstrous specs, such as 6,144 Blackwell RTX cores and support for up to 128GB of unified LPDDR5X RAM.

There are still major questions around the platform. NVIDIA hasn’t detailed pricing for N1x systems, and we still don't have a full list of specs. Claims made by NVIDIA, Microsoft, and other OEMs are promising, but we'll need to wait to see full benchmarks and real-world performance.

We'll see a wide range of devices powered by NVIDIA RTX Spark this year. The Surface Laptop Ultra and ASUS ProArt P16 and P14 are all built on the platform.

Adobe's apps should be updated to utilize NVIDIA RTX Spark around the same time. The company expects to ship updates to Premiere, Photoshop, and Substance 3D by the end of the year.

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Microsoft isn’t called the software giant for nothing. CEO Satya Nadella has acknowledged that co‑founder Bill Gates’s“software factory vision” was instrumental in turning the company into a profitable powerhouse. But Nadella has also cautioned that this formula may no longer hold in the age of AI. Looking ahead, he signaled that Microsoft will pivot toward security, quality, and AI transformation as its core business priorities.

Windows and Office are foundational to Microsoft's ecosystem, with broad adoption worldwide and generating massive recurring revenue. But the company's Office product could be looking at a serious threat to its dominance in the space. Enter Euro-Office.

"A coalition of European enterprises and community organizations," including IONOS, Nextcloud, Eurostack, XWiki, OpenProject, Soverin, Abilian, and BTactic, is behind Euro-Office, which is a Europe-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) designed to give Microsoft Office and Google Docs a run for their money (via ZDNet).

The suite of productivity tools is set to be available for everyone early next month, on June 9. You'll be able to download Euro-Office's 1.0 release from the project's public GitHub repositories.

Perhaps more interestingly, the service is designed to have a familiar user interface that will feel right at home for any Microsoft 365 user — the only difference is that it'll now fall under European governance instead of the US. It's designed to provide a sovereign alternative for the needs of public authorities, education systems, and some enterprises, moving away from an overdependence on US-based productivity clouds.

According to IONOS CEO Achim Weiss:

"With the geo-political developments we have seen in the last year, there is a clear need for a reliable, fully Microsoft-compatible and easy to use sovereign office solution in Europe. Our joint initiative delivers a suite with an extremely familiar interface and capable of working with documents, presentations, and spreadsheets."

This isn't the first threat to Microsoft's dominance with Windows and its Office productivity tools. In April, the French government revealed that it was ditching Windows for Linux as part of the country's broader strategy to reduce its dependence on American tools.

Similarly, at the beginning of this year, France announced plans to ditch Microsoft Teams and Zoom for a domestically developed platform called Visio across its public institutions by 2027.

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Discord is now available as a native app on Snapdragon X-powered PCs. Before the native app rolled out, you could still use Discord on any PC running Windows on Arm, but you had to run the app through emulation or use your web browser. The native version of Discord should perform better on PCs like the ASUS Zenbook A16.

Discord has not officially announced the release of its Arm-native app, but you can download that version through Discord's official website. Neowin spotted the addition recently.

Since Discord is now Arm-native, it should run better on Windows on Arm PCs. Microsoft's Prism emulation has improved greatly over the years, but a native app is preferred to an emulated one.

A busy year for Discord

Considering that Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam handed the social market to Discord and people have remained on the platform, it's a good time for Discord to gain an Arm-native application.

It's a bit strange that we saw an unofficial way to use Discord on Windows Phone 7 this year before we got an official Arm-native version of Discord shipped to PCs, but now people have more ways to chat.

Discord came under fire back in February when it started requiring some users to verify their age to use the app. When age verification rolled out, searches for "Discord alternatives" spiked, but many found it difficult to switch to other apps.

Like X, Discord’s strength comes from the size of its community. Getting people to migrate away from Discord can be difficult.

Many have decided to stick with Discord. Microsoft has embraced Discord as well by adding Discord Nitro to a new tier of Xbox Game Pass.

Discord joining the growing list of Arm‑native apps is another sign that Windows on Arm is settling into its rhythm.

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In March, I reported on California’s Digital Age Assurance Act, requiring operating system providers in the state to collect users’ age information during setup, including Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux distros like SteamOS, and more.

The bill was unanimously passed by both the Assembly and Senate and is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027. However, California lawmakers are introducing a new amendment that will exempt open-source operating systems from the state’s forthcoming Digital Age Assurance Act (via Tom's Hardware).

This means open-source operating systems like Linux, including its mainstream distros like Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, and more, will be exempt from the mandatory age checks during setup.

According to the new amendment in the controversial bill:

"An operating system provider or developer that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software without any platform-imposed technical or contractual restrictions imposed by the provider or developer on installing all modified versions."

I previously argued that age verification checks for open-source operating systems like Linux distros would be an uphill task because they don’t have centralized accounts, and users can download ISOs from global mirrors and freely modify the source code.

"This is basically impossible for California to enforce," a user lamented. "Even if Linux Mint decides to add some kind of age verification, to comply with CA law, there's no reason anyone would choose that version."

Elsewhere, GrapheneOS, a privacy-focused Android-based operating system, indicated that it won't be party to emerging laws requiring mandatory age verification during setup. "If devices can't be sold in a region due to its regulations, so be it," GrapheneOS added.

On the other hand, age verification is not a new phenomenon in the Windows ecosystem. Users are already required to provide their date of birth during the Microsoft Account setup process.

However, Microsoft pledged to improve the general user sentiment around Windows 11 by addressing pain points across the operating system, which could lead to scrapping the mandatory Microsoft account when setting up a new PC. As such, you can technically bypass the age verification checks in the Windows ecosystem.

It'll be interesting to see how everything unfolds, especially after more states and potentially the whole world embrace age verification measures to protect users from harmful or inappropriate content.

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A new Markdown reader is now available through the Microsoft Store. Sefer is designed for reading documents, books, and notes. Since it's a Markdown reader, it's a versatile app. Markdown is a flexible text format you've likely seen in your everyday life without thinking about it.

Sefer is a specialized app that delivers on its promise to be a "quiet Markdown reader for Windows." It renders Markdown files well, lays them out in a way that's easy to read, and has some nice design elements that are worth admiring from an app development standpoint.

Sefer comes preloaded with some books: The Odyssey, Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and Common Sense. I admire the collection — Little Women is one of my wife's favorite books — but they don't showcase any fancy formatting in the text body.

Instead, they showcase the layout of the app. Sefer has wide margins to simulate the spacing of a printed book, though it also scales when it is resized. It shows a table of contents along the side of the app, making it easy to jump to a specific part of a book or document.

Sefer will return to a specific page when you reopen a book. It can also rerender a page if you edit the source file and save changes.

Rather than syncing to the cloud or the web, Sefer loads local .md, .markdown, and .mdown files.

A unique WinUI app

I spoke with Josh, the developer of Sefer, about the app. If you just care about having a good document reader, you can skip this part, but I love learning about what goes into making Windows apps.

The Markdown rendering within Sefer is custom, though it's built on Markdig. That allows Josh to choose how different elements are rendered.

Generally, WinUI apps rely on RichTextBlock or WebView. RichTextBlock struggles with certain types of content, such as code blocks. WebView uses a Markdown to html reader, which does not align with the native nature of Sefer.

While Sefer is a WinUI app, it has some design elements that make it stand out from something just built with templates. Little touches like the transition from light mode to dark mode feel fluid and add some flair to the app.

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“Together again, again.” Kermit’s line from Muppets Most Wanted lands differently after Microsoft’s latest Teams announcement.

Teams Together mode is being retired next month. Meeting attendees will instead have to rely on a scalable gallery view or meeting in person. Following the change that will take place on June 30, Teams users will still be able to be together, just not in Together mode.

Microsoft introduced Together mode in 2020, when remote work made meetings feel flat and disconnected. Putting everyone in a shared virtual space was meant to make meetings feel more natural and help people connect.

Six years later, the landscape is different. Many companies have pushed people back into offices. Teams has also added new features, such as an expanded gallery view, that make Together mode a bit redundant.

Microsoft explained in a blog post that it is getting rid of Together mode to simplify the meeting experience and allow engineers to focus on improvements that help all types of Teams meetings.

Custom scenes and seat assignments will disappear alongside Together mode. Organizations will have to rely on branded backgrounds instead.

Microsoft notes that having so many options for meetings can increase the cognitive load for users and fragment the experience across devices.

A simplified meeting interface should reduce clicks, make meetings run smoother, and lead to faster innovation, according to Microsoft.

If you want to mimic parts of Together mode, Microsoft suggests pinning speakers, spotlighting presenters, and using multiple displays.

I get why Together mode is going away. If I had to choose between buggy meetings with poor performance and my colleagues sitting together in a virtual auditorium, I'd pick the former. But I will miss Together mode. It came out at a time when social interaction was strained and did its best to bridge the gap.

Microsoft even had some fun with Together mode by releasing holiday themes for the feature in 2020. We can still wear ugly sweaters this year. We just won’t be sitting in the same virtual room.

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Updated 19/5/2026: This article has been updated to reflect a statement from Microsoft.I heard back from Microsoft about the issue flagged by Excel users about the unremovable floating Copilot button. The company shared two resources: one on how to disable Copilot in Excel and Word, and the other talked about architecting Copilot into Office apps as part of its broader strategy to "build an AI-forward design system that supports work today, while carrying us into tomorrow."

I had my head buried behind a Windows PC as early as the Microsoft Encarta days, but I’ve never quite managed to master Microsoft Excel. However, Microsoft's strategic partnership with OpenAI and the consequent integration of generative AI across its tech stack seemingly aimed to transform the user experience from an uphill climb to a walk in the park.

While Copilot in Excel might be viewed as a game-changer, allowing users to generate and explain formulas, summarize large datasets into charts, and more, Microsoft has seemingly resorted to disrupting the app's user experience with a floating Copilot button (via Neowin).

The change has received backlash from users because there's no way to hide the button from your user interface. However, you can right-click the floating Copilot button and select the Dock option, which will only slide the button to the side of the screen "with a caret-like behavior that launches the Copilot side panel and returns the floating button if you click on it," as the outlet describes the experience.

"The icon is visually disruptive and gets in the way for those that do NOT want to use Copilot - and lots of people don't," a user lamented. "And of course, speaking of which, even uninstalling it does not work, because it just gets reinstalled in the next update. What gives? Please stop trying to force people to use your apps when they do not want to. The only thing that it does is to make them look at alternatives. I know I certainly am."

The floating Copilot button does ship with useful capabilities, including options to either conduct research or create a table. Still, users have expressed reservations about the change and requested that Microsoft return it to its original position in the toolbar at the top or include an option to hide the floating button completely, while describing it as "visually disruptive."

According to a user in Excel's dedicated feedback hub: "Please get rid of the floating copilot icon at the bottom right of my Excel screen, or give me a way to turn it off. I do not want, nor need, Copilot in any capacity. Its presence is infuriating."

"This is atrocious implementation," another user added. "I capture screenshots for validation, and this is inserting itself over the data, which already has limited space on my screen. The button also blocks clicking the scroll bar at the point it overlaps (docked and undocked), at least on MacOS 26.4.1 (25E253)."

"Putting a button over the working content was not a good move by Microsoft. There needs to be a toggle or something to move it back to the ribbon (without requiring the admin to do it for our work 365 accounts). Or just undo this change, it was completely unnecessary."

In the past, Microsoft has been on the spot for forcibly integrating Copilot across its tech stack, specifically Windows 11. It's only recently that the company decided to scale back its aggressive AI push across its operating system by reducing where Copilot buttons and menus appear as part of its broader Windows "K2" initiative, which is designed to address pain points across the operating system and improve its overall user sentiment.

It'll be interesting to see whether Microsoft listens to feedback about adding an option to hide the floating Copilot button in Excel, and how fast it acts. While the integration can be useful, Microsoft should always give users control over Copilot, allowing them to surface it when they need it.

I've reached out to Microsoft for a comment about the issue and will update this article as more information becomes available.

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Microsoft Edge will no longer load all your passwords into memory in plaintext on startup. The upcoming change comes shortly after a security researcher discovered and disclosed the behavior.

When it comes to security, it's better to be safe than sorry. That's the core message Microsoft shared when explaining why its Edge browser will no longer load passwords into memory on startup.

Earlier this month, researcher Tom Jøran Sønstebyseter Rønning found that Edge decrypts every credential on startup and keeps that data in memory. Edge is seemingly the only Chromium-based browser to load all stored passwords into memory using plaintext at startup. In contrast, Chrome only decrypts specific passwords and loads them in plaintext in memory when a user asks to see the password.

Shortly after Rønning shared their findings, Microsoft issued a statement on the discovery explaining that the behavior "is an expected feature of the application." The company also noted that accessing browser data through the behavior would require a device that was already compromised.

Microsoft's blog post explaining its change to Edge reiterates that the current behavior is not a security concern:

"Based on our existing criteria, this behavior falls within the expected threat model, since the risk begins after an attacker has already compromised the device. At the same time, we believe there’s opportunity to improve. In this blog, we’ll show you what we’re changing and why."

In an update that brings Edge to version 148, the browser will no longer load passwords into memory on startup. The change is already live in the Canary Channel of Edge and will roll out to all users soon.

It's an interesting development because Microsoft is simultaneously repeating that the behavior is not a serious security risk and rolling out an immediate change to alter that behavior.

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Microsoft Edge no longer has a Copilot Mode, but its still full of AI features that integrate with your browsing experience. Microsoft just announced changes to the desktop and mobile versions of its browser that place Copilot at your fingertips without having to swap to a dedicated mode.

Copilot Mode is being retired, but its key features are being built directly into Edge. Microsoft announced the changes in blog post.

Many features that were limited to the desktop version of Edge are now available on mobile devices as well, including Copilot reasoning across open tabs, organizing your browsing history (Journeys).

The desktop version of Edge has also gained a Study and Learn mode, a Writing assistant, Copilot quizzes, and a feature that turns tabs into a podcast.

Microsoft Edge mobile's major update

The mobile version of Microsoft Edge has been brought closer to parity with its desktop counterpart, at least on the Copilot side of things. You can now grant Copilot permission to reason across your open tabs when answering questions and gathering information.

Journeys has also made its to the mobile version of Edge. That feature organizes your browsing history by topic and lists suggested steps to take, the idea being that it can help you plan and make decisions.

The biggest addition to the mobile version of Edge is the addition of Vision and Voice support. You can now interact with Copilot and the web through voice while the AI assistant watches your screen.

The new tab page from the desktop version of Edge has also been shipped to the mobile version of the browser.

Is Microsoft Edge getting better?

Microsoft Edge is a good browser that I use frequently, but its "progress" over the years has made me look elsewhere. Standout features like the Sidebar have been displaced by Copilot, and the browser feels more bloated than ever.

When Microsoft announced the retirement of apps in the Sidebar, the company said the move was done to simplify Edge. But that simplification process has left Copilot largely untouched.

Even the end of Copilot mode does not mark the end of Copilot features in Edge. If anything, this week's changes place Copilot more in the face of users.

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In a rather surprising turn of events, the gigantic social media platform Reddit recently started blocking some mobile users from accessing its website in a blatant attempt to force them into downloading the official Reddit app instead.

While speaking to Ars Technica, a Reddit spokesperson indicated that: "We recently started running a test for a small subset of frequent logged-out mobile users that prompts them to download the app after visiting the site."

As such, if you try to visit reddit.com on your phone, there's a chance you'll see a pop-up asking you to "get the app to keep using Reddit." What's worse, it can't be dismissed. I decided to visit the website on my iPhone, and for now, it still works for me, so the change is likely rolling out in waves.

Reddit claims that the transition from the mobile website will improve its general user experience with better search, a personalized feed, and a better hold on updates from your favorite communities. Based on the complaints lodged by users across multiple subreddits and even X, it's safe to say that the move is unpopular among most of them.

Why Reddit blocked my daily visit to its mobile website. from r/technology

Interestingly, some users leveraged this opportunity to complain about other elements that they don't like about the platform, including its auto-refresh feature, which makes it hard to resurface critical posts once they disappear. Multiple users also complained about seeing repeat posts in their timelines, even after they had already upvoted them.

It seems rather odd that a platform that started as a website wants to fully transition its users to using the app. What about traffic? It doesn't seem like a big deal to Reddit, as is the case with other social media platforms like X and even Instagram. The service seeks to determine whether users who previously used the platform without logging in have a better experience with the app.

"if Reddit forces us to download an app, then I just won't use Reddit anymore," a user indicated. "Dystopian shit," another user lamented in the r/enshittification subreddit. "iI Reddit forces us to download an app, then I just won't use Reddit anymore."

Right now, Reddit boasts approximately 121 million daily active users. However, despite its massive user base, the platform has struggled to establish a clear path to monetization, especially after it went public on the stock exchange a little over two years ago.

The site heavily depends on ad revenue as its bread and butter, which potentially explains its sudden push to convert its users into the mobile app. Perhaps part of the company's broader (if unintentional) "enshittification" to get a better hold and access to track user activity and potentially maximize profit.

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Microsoft is urging developers to embrace the Microsoft Store. Three changes that are rolling out make it free to create an account, add support for signing up with an organization's work account, and streamline the onboarding experience.

Last September, Microsoft got rid of fees for individual developers. Now, companies have received the same treatment. Before the change, companies needed to pay a $99 onboarding fee to get started on the Microsoft Store.

Onboarding is also easier, thanks to support for Microsoft Entra ID. Microsoft VP Giorgio Sardo highlighted that many have requested support for using an organization's work account to sign up.

Those who take advantage of the removed fee and broadened signup options will be met with a redesigned onboarding experience that's meant to clarify steps developers need to take.

Winning over developers

Microsoft is on a mission to fix Windows 11, and part of that effort is improving the app experience. Well-known developer Rudy Huyn is building a new team to work on Windows apps.

The Microsoft Store is in a much better state than when it launched in 2012 with Windows 8, though it was known as the Windows Store back then. The Microsoft Store now supports Win32, UWP, PWA, .NET MAUI, and Electron apps. That support opened the floodgates for legacy apps and desktop apps to enter the Microsoft Store.

The option for developers to host apps on their own servers lets them distribute apps and updates through systems they already rely on rather than paying for Microsoft’s hosting.

Improved search, better developer resources, and other changes have attracted big-name companies to the store.

Our Senior Editor Zac Bowden called the Microsoft Store a "must use app store." I've lamented the fact that the current version of the Microsoft Store did not ship a decade ago.

Removing the registration fee for individual developers last year was a step in the right direction. Dropping the fee for companies takes it one step further and may help persuade remaining holdouts to add their apps to the Microsoft Store.

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Google Chrome stands as the most popular web browser, with a 67.97% share worldwide (translating to around 3.62 billion people), at least according to StatCounter. Apple's Safari comes in at a distant second with 17.09%.

In a surprising turn of events, security researcher Alexander Hanff (also known as "That Privacy Guy") released a damning report alleging that Google Chrome is silently downloading and installing a 4GB on-device AI model onto users’ devices without their knowledge or consent (via Tom's Hardware).

Perhaps more concerningly, Hanff flagged a similar issue with Anthropic's AI software, citing that the company's Claude Desktop app installed a Native Messaging bridge across seven Chromium-based browsers on every system it was installed on.

Alexander Hanff described his discoveries as a broader look at the patterns in how big tech deploys AI features across its portfolios and properties. While the news of Google Chrome installing a 4GB AI model has sparked controversy, with many referring to it as bloatware or spyware, the AI model is actually designed to protect your privacy when you're using AI features.

For context, navigating to your hard drive’s Chrome User Data folder (C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data), you'll discover a massive folder called OptGuideOnDeviceModel containing a big file named “weights.bin.”

weights.bin is Google's Gemini Nano on-device AI model and is part of Google's broader strategy to integrate AI tech directly into its Chromium-based browser. Chrome depends on these weights to run AI features locally on your device instead of via the cloud, which comes with its fair share of challenges, including data privacy questions.

While speaking to Android Authority, a Google spokesperson commented on the issue:

Interestingly, the large file does seemingly come with a "warning" that Chrome will download it, suggesting that the browser may have been granted permission to download any files it requires to function.

"Chrome does not surface it," That Privacy Guy added. "If the user deletes it, Chrome re-downloads it."

So, Google Chrome will automatically download the AI model directly to your computer when you first interact with any feature that relies on its new AI-centric APIs. However, your device must meet the following specifications:

• OS: Windows 10 or 11; macOS 13 or later; Linux; Chrome OS on Chromebook Plus devices.
• Storage: 22GB of free space.
• CPU or GPU: Built-in models can run with a GPU or a CPU:
• GPU: More than 4GB of VRAM.
• CPU: 16GB of RAM or more and four CPU cores or more.
• Network: Unlimited data or an unmetered connection for the initial model download.

To find out whether the foundational model has already been installed on your device, navigate to chrome://on-device-internals in Google Chrome’s address bar. You can also check the model's version, installation path, and folder size in the Model Status section.

Windows Central's take

It's quite obvious that users have been split on the usefulness of AI on their PCs for a while now. Some would rather have AI features completely scrapped from their systems, while others have found reasonable use cases to support their workflows and hobbies.

I'm not opposed to the idea of having AI features embedded into my operating system, as it seems that's the direction the world is headed anyway. Still, I'd rather "Big Tech" use more subtle approaches to their AI roadmap. For instance, giving users more control over how AI is deployed onto their devices, with complete transparency, and at the very least, having an option to opt out of experiences that might not necessarily be viewed as paramount for the everyday user.

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Thanks to a new feature for Microsoft Teams, the next time you hear the app's famous ring for calls, you won't have a brand impersonator on the other end.

The change is set to start rolling out in mid-May. The rollout should be complete by the end of the month.

Teams will take a look at any inbound calls with a specific emphasis on brand impersonation. If the app detects a likely impersonator, it will show a high-risk call warning before you answer.

You will still be able to accept the call if you'd like. Teams will also show options to block that user or end the call.

The new feature is detailed in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. If you cannot sign in there, you can read the details through the Microsoft 365 Message Center Archive.

"Brand Impersonation Protection for Teams Calling adds proactive safeguards against fraudulent or deceptive external callers who attempt to appear as trusted organizations. This helps reduce social-engineering risks and improves tenant security when users receive first-contact external calls. This update aligns with Microsoft’s ongoing investments in caller identity protection and secure collaboration."

The feature works with inbound VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls for callers getting in contact for the first time.

Admins don't need to do anything to enable the feature.

Why Teams is a target for impersonation

We first covered this feature in January, but it is only rolling out now. While many people use Teams for internal chats, external calls are a normal part of sales, support, and client work.

If you speak with customers or partners, you probably receive a steady stream of calls from unknown contacts. That makes Teams an attractive target for brand impersonation and other social‑engineering attacks.

Teams users have already been on the receiving end of phishing attempts. Earlier this year, Check Point researchers found attackers using urgent billing names to bypass detection and pressure people into responding. Brand Impersonation Protection is meant to catch the same kind of behavior when it happens over a call instead of a message.

Microsoft continues to add security features across Teams, but safe practices still matter. You should treat unexpected invites or calls with caution and verify anything that feels out of place. If something looks suspicious, you should ask an admin to confirm who is trying to reach you.

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My favorite Microsoft Edge feature is being retired, and it appears that even a petition and a slew of complaints in Microsoft's feedback portal can do nothing to keep Edge's Sidebar as part of the browser.

Technically, the Sidebar will still exist, but in a different form. Microsoft is removing the ability to add apps to the Sidebar, and a future update to Edge will remove any apps users have already added.

But the core experience provided by the Sidebar is being retired. There is a petition to keep Edge's Sidebar around, but I believe it will go unnoticed.

On an unspecified date, Microsoft will cut the main reason many people use the Sidebar and leave us with what is essentially a shortcut to Copilot.

Sidebar's impending retirement is not new information. We've known that Microsoft will get rid of the feature for months. Even the "simplifying Edge" phrasing has been around for a while.

What is new, is my perspective. I still want Edge to have a Sidebar, but Microsoft's recent push to reduce bloat and improve Windows 11 has me thinking.

How do we define bloat? How do we view a feature that some find useful and others consider a waste of space and system resources?

I've come up with a list of what I feel makes a feature bloat. I'd argue that any feature that meets two or more of these bogs down an app or OS:

1. The feature is not a core part of the app or OS experience for most users.
2. The feature uses system resources even when not in use (such as running in the background when background sync is not essential).
3. The feature cannot be disabled or hidden.
4. The feature's addition or existence comes at the cost of losing a separate feature.

Even with these rules, there's some wiggle room, such as what is a core experience? Microsoft may define Copilot as a fundamental part of web browsing, for example.

Take Split Screen in Microsoft Edge. It's an entirely optional feature that only appears in the toolbar if you enable an option through Settings. As far as I can tell, Split Screen does not use any system resources unless you're actually using it.

Sidebar fits into the same category. Those who don't want it will never see it. Those who love it can use it peacefully.

Microsoft seems to disagree, and I still don't believe the company's reasoning. I've argued for months that I believe the Sidebar is being removed because it competes for space with Copilot.

Even Microsoft's support document about the retirement of Sidebar says "Copilot is not affected by this change, and we’re continuing to improve and enhance it."

Sidebar shipped before Copilot existed, so I think the perspective needs to be flipped, asking, "Is the Sidebar affected by the push to use Copilot?"

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Windows 11's Snipping Tool has some new competition through the Microsoft Store. N-Studio is now available to download through the Microsoft Store, giving creators a new way to access the tool designed for screen recording and editing.

Nicke Manarin, a developer of N-Studio, shared the news on X.

You can download the Starter version of N-Studio for free through the Microsoft Store. The app has an option to upgrade to the Professional version.

The free version of N-Studio (Starter) is more robust than many free applications. Here's the full feature set, as shared by N-Tech:

• Capture your screen freely
  • Control the framerate
    • Regular (1 to 60 fps)
    • Manual capture (via button or shortcut)
    • User interaction (mouse or keyboard events)
  • Select screen area, window or screen
  • Capture cursor and clicks
  • Capture key strokes
• Capture audio from your microphone or system
• Make quick adjustments before exporting
  • Trim
  • Crop
  • Resize
  • Toggle layers
• Export to multiple formats
  • APNG, GIF, WEBP
  • MP4, MKV, MOV, WEBM
  • MP3, WAV, FLAC, ALAC, OGG
  • PSD, NSM, STG
  • JPG, PNG, BMP, AIF, HEIC
• No limits
• No watermark
• No ads

The paid version of N-Studio (Professional) costs $36 or $3 per month. For that price, you get access to full edits. Here are all the features in N-Studio Professional:

• Everything that Starter has
• Extra capture frequencies
  • Timelapse (1-60 frames per minute)
  • Long timelapse (1-60 frames per hour)
• Extra adjustments before exporting
  • Change framerate of animation
  • Change playback speed
• Full-fledged editor with timeline
  • Insert layers
    • Recordings (screen or sound)
    • Media (video, image, audio)
    • Texts
    • Images
    • Shapes
    • Drawings
    • Progress indicator
    • Pixelation
    • Brightness
  • Add effects
  • Split segments
  • Resize
  • Crop
  • Trim
• With free upgrades to minor versions (v1.X)

Is a screen recorder and editor worth $36

The free version of N-Studio is easy to recommend. It's easy to use, has a clean interface, and supports exporting in a wide range of formats. Not keeping support for hiding the cursor in videos, enabling or disabling system audio, and showing or hiding the frame behind a paywall is nice.

But the real question is if it's worth paying $36 for a screen recorder and editor. Unfortunately, I can't tell you if something fits your budget.

I will say that I like N-Studio and how all of its tools fit neatly together. While you could use Windows 11's built-in Screen Recorder and edit videos with Clipchamp or another editor, N-Studio packages things together well.

I value not having to jump between apps to streamline my workflow, and I'm willing to pay for it. But I understand that subscription fatigue is real and one-time costs add up.

My suggestion is to try the free version and test if you find yourself trying to click the features that are greyed out unless you upgrade.

Not content with threatening to replace your role at work or causing company layoffs, AI is taking credit for work it did not even generate. Or at least it was until Microsoft Copilot got called out.

Until recently, VS Code had been adding "Co-authored by: Copilot" to Git commits, even if Copilot had not helped at all. The behavior was caused when a pull request altered a Git extension to add the text by default.

The feature in question is meant to note when Copilot is used to create AI-generated code. It was off by default in March but swapped from off to all on April 16.

The change resulted in Copilot being added as a co-author when AI was involved in any way, even when AI had not generated code.

Even if a user had set chat.disableAIFeatures to true, the credit to Copilot was added.

Dmitriy Vasyura, the reviewer who approved that pull request, shared an apology on Hacker News:

"I am the person who approved this PR and would like to acknowledge and apologize for the mistake of turning this feature on by default without sufficient upfront validation," said Vasyura.

They clarified that the move was not made maliciously:

"There was no ill intent by evil corporation, but rather a desire to support functionality that some customers expect of VS Code w.r.t. AI-generated code. As folks mentioned here - many similar tools do this as well."

Based on the email address shared and their GitHub page, Vasyura works with or for Microsoft.

The feature is now set to off by default once again.

Despite Vasyura's assurance of no ill intent, many were upset by the change. Copilot being credited incorrectly could cause issues for developers.

User "PufPufPuf2" explained the risks of the change (emphasis added):

"My issue with this: if my intention is to never have these "co authored by " trailers in my commits, this is a sudden breaking change. What's worse, it is not immediately visible to the user. Now I could look like I use a not-company-approved AI. That's absolutely unacceptable, this could cost people their jobs."

In one comment, Vasyura clarified that the pull request was reverted due to a bug in the feature, not massive backlash over the change. A separate comment by Vasyura confirmed that the bug was caught in testing but shipped anyway.

Vasyura detailed the situation in a GitHub post. Comments replying to that post are critical.

"Automatically enabling this was bad. Then claiming it was to “fix a bug” is utterly ridiculous," said martinbean.

"We’ve seen Microsoft shoehorning Copilot into literally everything it can, so when automatically adding “Co-authored by Copilot” to commits from inside a Microsoft code editor is claimed to be an “accident”, you can understand how people just aren’t going to believe that. At all."

Earlier this year, Microsoft was accused of injecting ads into GitHub pull requests. Microsoft disagreed with the definition of an ad, referring to an insertion as a "coding agent tip."

User trust in Microsoft tools is eroding. GitHub outages have spiked since Microsoft acquired the platform and well-known developers are moving on to other tools.

This VS Code issue will likely hurt Microsoft's reputation further.

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Late last year, we learned that Microsoft planned to kill the Sidebar feature in its Edge browser. "We're simplifying Edge," the company explained. "New apps can no longer be added, and the quick access list will be removed gradually in future updates."

Interestingly, the company indicated that Copilot won't be affected by the change, further highlighting that the Sidebar's retirement will help it focus on improving its user experience.

The change seems unpopular among most users, and now, a petition has been launched to potentially get Microsoft's attention and even get it to pull the plug on its plan to retire Edge's Sidebar completely. At the time of writing, the petition had 74 verified signatures.

For context, the Sidebar in Edge is a tool designed to help users access tools and view websites and web apps within a small dedicated window, and can be used without leaving a webpage. When you launch Microsoft Edge on your PC, you'll notice the Sidebar on the edge of your browser window.

Copilot is also conveniently positioned in the same location. It's easy to subscribe to the notion across social media, suggesting the Sidebar's retirement is just another big push by Microsoft to get more users to use Copilot.

Petition to stop the removal of MS Edge's sidebar. from r/MicrosoftEdge

As highlighted in the "Keep the sidebar and collections in the Microsoft Edge browser" petition, the main issue is summarized as a message: "Microsoft Edge team, it makes no sense to remove a feature that users love—it’s very useful and works perfectly. Plus, this is one of the few features that sets Edge apart from other browsers. Please keep the current sidebar and collections, don’t remove it."

A quick look at Microsoft's feedback portal, highlighting the retirement of Edge's Sidebar, reveals that a vast majority of users are against the change. A user indicated that if the company moves forward with its plans to kill the feature, it should at the very least consider making it optional.

"God forbid the sidebar is removed," another user lamented. "I am literally only on MS Edge for that very reason."

That said, Microsoft has been making elaborate measures to rehabilitate and improve the current state of Windows 11 and address major pain points across the OS. Part of these efforts includes the return of Windows Insider meetups to bridge the gap between the developers and users, returning fan-favorite features like the movable and resizable Taskbar and more.

Interestingly, Microsoft is actively reducing where Copilot and its integrations appear, and has already lived up to part of the promise by removing the AI assistant from its Notepad app. However, some users have argued that the company renamed it to AI writing tools.

Elsewhere, Microsoft isn't walking away from AI entirely either. It recently added support for AI agents on the Taskbar and Search Box in Windows 11. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft handles complaints lodged by users and whether it will reconsider killing Edge's Sidebar.

On the flip side, some users are less-than-optimistic that Microsoft will reconsider its position about killing Edge's Sidebar. "Unfortunately, this won't achieve anything," one user commented. "If a large bureaucratic corporation has made a decision, it's already inevitable, and user feedback won't have any effect on it."

Do you find the Sidebar in Microsoft Edge useful? Let me know in the comments.

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The latest update to PowerToys includes new features that Windows and Linux users will love. On top of a number of general improvements and bug fixes, PowerToys v0.99.0 adds two new utilities, and one of them may stop Windows users from flirting with Linux.

As I've shared in recent editions of the Windows Wrap, I'm quite happy with the direction Windows is going in. Microsoft is working to improve its flagship operating system and the culture surrounding feedback.

All signs are positive, but Microsoft needs to continue on this path. If Windows 11 keeps some of its biggest weaknesses, I may look at Linux again.

It's easier than ever to migrate from Windows to Linux and there are several areas in which Linux beats Windows 11 (though Windows remains the better choice for most people).

But now there's one less reason to switch from Windows to Linux, albeit a small one. The most recent update to PowerToys adds a new utility called Grab And Move that lets you resize and drag windows without having to click the title bar or window edge.

By default, Grab And Move is set to move a window when you hold Alt + Left Click and resize a window when you hold Alt + Right Click. You can set the utility to use the Windows key rather than Alt if you'd like.

PowerToys v0.99.0 also adds Power Display, which is a new utility that lets you adjust your monitors through the system tray.You can already adjust system brightness through the system tray, but that feature is limited when using multi-monitor setups or certain displays.

On my setup, the built-in Windows 11 brightness slider only adjusts the screen of my laptop. To adjust my external monitor's brightness, I need to use buttons on the display. Power Display lets me adjust both from the same menu.

Below is the full changelog for the latest PowerToys update. You can read more about the changes on the app's GitHub page.

PowerToys v0.99.0

Advanced Paste

• Eliminated 13 XAML compiler warnings by switching x:Bind expressions on non-observable properties from OneWay to OneTime mode in #46726
• Fixed auto-copy failing on Electron/Chromium apps (e.g. Teams, VS Code) by releasing held modifier keys before injecting Ctrl+C in #46486

Always On Top

• Fixed the pin/unpin sound playing even when the operation failed by gating sound playback on whether SetWindowPos actually succeeded in #46910

Command Palette (Dock)

• Added a new pin-to-Dock dialog that gives users more control over how commands are pinned, replacing the previous one-click pin behavior in #46436. Thanks @niels9001!
• Added a Compact Dock mode (28px tall, subtitle hidden) for Top/Bottom dock positions, and hid the Dock Size setting for Left/Right positions in #46699
• Made the Dock window stay on top of all other windows by default, automatically yielding when a full-screen app is detected in #46163. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Decoupled the Dock context menu from the Command Bar's active item so it no longer updates when a different list item is selected, and made the Dock search box position follow the Dock position in #46420. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed duplicate dock bands caused by missing duplicate check when pinning in #46438
• Fixed a build-breaking merge inconsistency in DockWindow.xaml.cs in #46639. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed the Dock not reflecting pin/unpin changes until restart in #47169
• Fixed the Dock window showing a visible frame on startup by hiding the DWM border during window creation in #47187

Extensions & SDK

• Added plain text viewer and image viewer IContent types to the extension SDK in #43964. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Added persistent calculator history with save, reuse, delete, and clear actions, configurable primary action, and replace-query-on-enter behavior in #45307. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Added a NetworkSpeedUnit choice setting to the Performance Monitor extension (bits/s, decimal bytes/s, IEC binary bytes/s) in #46320. Thanks @niels9001!
• Enabled dock pinning of Windows Terminal profiles with per-profile icons, and hardened GUID parsing so a malformed profile entry no longer breaks the whole list in #46372
• Assigned stable IDs to FancyZones layout commands in the PowerToys extension so users can pin individual layouts to the dock in #46198. Thanks @vanzue!
• Hardened the Performance Monitor extension with exception handling and crash recovery via a sentinel file mechanism in #46541. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Gave each built-in extension its own settings file with transparent one-time migration from the legacy shared settings.json in #46685. Thanks @michaeljolley!
• Shipped Copilot instructions and 5 skills (publish-extension, add-adaptive-card-form, add-extension-settings, add-dock-band, add-fallback-commands) inside the extension template in #46683. Thanks @niels9001!
• Fixed invisible/corrupted icons in newly created extensions by extracting template expansion into a dedicated service that no longer rewrites binary files in #46490. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed a Watson crash where a single extension in a bad state would kill the entire extension-loading loop in #47032
• Fixed right-click context menus failing to open on the first attempt for slow out-of-process third-party extensions in #46626. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed the Settings toggle for disabling fallback commands from out-of-process extensions by switching the type check from a concrete class to the WinRT interface in #47127
• Simplified the Time & Date extension page to recalculate results on every query rather than caching, breaking a potential infinite update loop in #46396. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed Calculator extension unit tests failing under non-English cultures in #46911. Thanks @niels9001!

Search & Indexer

• Improved indexer search with implicit filename broadening for plain free-text queries, retry-with-literal matching for punctuation-heavy searches, and a Windows Search availability indicator in #46907. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed a crash when converting large calculator results to hex/oct/bin by switching the secondary-results base conversion to BigInteger with a custom base converter in #46176. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Split the full-screen shortcut guard into separate full-screen and busy checks with an opt-in IgnoreShortcutWhenBusy setting, added a live diagnostic InfoBar, and introduced an opt-in triple-press breakthrough to bypass suppression in #45891. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed the Window Walker Close window command to respect the "Keep open after closing window" setting and automatically refreshed the window list in #45721. Thanks @jiripolasek!

Reliability & UX

• Fixed a 100% reproducible crash when typing in the search box by adding a reentrancy guard around filtered-items mutations in #47148. Thanks @MuyuanMS!
• Fixed a second typing crash that occurred when the indexer fallback was enabled by correcting a P/Invoke function signature in #47186
• Hardened ListViewModel item-fetch synchronization with copy-on-write cache publication, latest-fetch-wins semantics, and improved cancellation cleanup in #46429. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Refactored settings and app state to be immutable end-to-end to eliminate concurrency race conditions in #46451. Thanks @michaeljolley!
• Added a CanGoBack guard to Frame.GoBack, preventing a crash when navigating back with an empty navigation stack in #46493. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed duplicate and contradictory Pin to Dock/Unpin from dock context menu entries appearing on top-level home-page items in #46458. Thanks @michaeljolley!
• Prevented PgUp/PgDown paging from landing on non-interactive entries like separators and section headers in #46439. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed keyboard focus restoration on the Extensions settings page so Shift+Tab returns to the previously selected extension card in #45903. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Reverted focus-restoration on the Extensions settings page that was causing clicks to open the wrong extension item in #46642. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed inline code (backtick text) in the Details and Content panels being invisible on light-theme backgrounds in #46739. Thanks @michaeljolley!
• Fixed the Window Walker "Not Responding" tag being illegible in dark mode in #46924. Thanks @niels9001!
• Fixed a WinUI layout bug where the settings page content was visually offset when wrapped in a ScrollViewer with MaxWidth in #46568
• Fixed a regression in PinToDockDialogContent.xaml where a type rename was missed during a merge gap in #46599. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Fixed a screen reader accessibility issue where the Alias text box announced "Enter Alias" instead of just "Alias" in #45906
• Added screen reader announcements for shortcut key information on the settings button in #46164. Thanks @chatasweetie and @jiripolasek!
• Removed redundant container-level tab stops in the details panel for improved keyboard accessibility in #46346. Thanks @chatasweetie!

Infrastructure & Code Quality

• Extracted persistence and file I/O logic from SettingsModel and AppStateModel into dedicated service classes in #46312. Thanks @michaeljolley!
• Introduced CmdPalLogger, CmdPalLoggerProvider, and an extension method integrating Microsoft.Extensions.Logging with ManagedCommon.Logger in #46768. Thanks @michaeljolley!
• Bumped all CommunityToolkit.WinUI packages from 8.2.250402 to 8.2.251219 and removed three SearchBar workaround hacks in #46027. Thanks @niels9001!
• Enabled telemetry event firing correctly in AOT builds by adding EventSourceSupport in #47121
• Updated the extension solution filter files to include new transitive dependencies and added a leaner SLNF for faster developer builds in #46896. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Updated the Microsoft.CmdPal.Ext.PowerToys solution filter file to include missing project dependencies in #46136. Thanks @jiripolasek and @vanzue!
• Removed a legacy workaround for FontIconSource.CreateIconElement (fixed in WinAppSDK 1.8.4) in #45790. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Moved developer documentation to doc/devdocs/modules/cmdpal to align with other PowerToys modules in #46926. Thanks @niels9001!
• Bumped Command Palette version to 0.10 in #47181

Image Resizer

• Migrated Image Resizer from WPF to WinUI 3, unblocking future AOT compilation and aligning with Windows 11 design language in #45288. Thanks @moooyo and @niels9001!
• Restored honoring the user-configured JPEG quality setting when resizing JPEGs, which had been silently ignored at a fixed ~Q90 default after the WinUI 3 migration in #47134
• Fixed missing PNG encoder settings by applying codec-specific encoder properties in the transcode path in #46695. Thanks @moooyo!
• Fixed a regression where JsonPropertyName attributes were not forwarded by the ObservableProperty generator, restoring correct JSON serialization in #47056

Keyboard Manager

• Reverted multiline text replacement back to character-by-character sending with Shift+Enter for newlines, fixing multiline replacements in chat apps and plain editors in #46794
• Addressed code review feedback on manual key selection: fixed localization, centralized VK_DISABLED constants, added validation for disable mappings, fixed dropdown revert logic, and plugged Process handle leaks in #46377

Light Switch

• Fixed Light Switch and PowerDisplay integration by re-enabling the Apply monitor settings expander and disabled-warning InfoBar in Settings, and ensuring every hotkey press notifies PowerDisplay instead of only every other press in #47190

Mouse Utilities

• Refactored PadImage in PowerOCR (Text Extractor) to improve memory management and nullability clarity in #44906. Thanks @adelobosko!

Peek

• Added auto-detection of file name encoding when previewing zip files, fixing garbled text for archives created on non-UTF-8 systems in #44799. Thanks @oxygen-dioxide!

Power Display

• Re-enabled the PowerDisplay module with a new icon/logo, DPI fixes, UI/UX improvements, and installer integration in #46489
• Cleaned up the PowerDisplay module by fixing resource leaks, removing dead code, converting a recursive parser to iterative, and changing the default activation shortcut to Win+Ctrl+Shift+P in #46979
• Fixed thread safety by marking shared fields as volatile, guarding color temperature writes behind a capability check, and correcting a misleading log message in #47008
• Fixed PowerDisplay startup restore, volume initialization, and Identify window lifecycle in #47051
• Introduced a shared flyout positioning helper used by PowerDisplay and Quick Access, fixing taskbar overlap at 100% scaling and off-screen rendering after DPI changes in #47097
• Polished Power Display by standardizing the module name, shrinking the flyout slightly, and removing dead code in #47163

PowerToys Run

• Fixed a command breakout in the Shell plugin by escaping double quotes in the command string, while still allowing environment variables to expand in #45554. Thanks @RinZ27!
• Removed unused XAML namespace declarations from PowerLauncher XAML files in #46221. Thanks @niels9001!

Quick Accent

• Added subscript and superscript Unicode characters to the Special Characters set for keys 0-9, A, E, N, X, Y, Z, and math operators in #45540. Thanks @Salehnaz!
• Added the missing Icelandic accented letter í to the VK_I key definition in #46424. Thanks @squirrelslair!
• Added Shift+N capitalization support for superscript Latin small letter n in #46571. Thanks @PesBandi!
• Restored the en-dash character under the VK_MINUS key in the Special Characters set in #47106
• Fixed the default "All available" language setting silently falling back to a small character set due to parsing issues, added case-insensitive parsing with invalid-entry warnings, and added two new Hungarian character mappings in #47117. Thanks @daverayment!

Settings

• Fixed the Settings shortcut/key visuals so arrow glyphs (up/down/left/right) render as proper FontIcon glyphs instead of literal text in #46454. Thanks @vanzue!
• Formatted the last checked for updates timestamp as friendly relative strings (Today at 1:22 PM, Yesterday at 3:45 PM) in #46923
• Fixed Dashboard layout issues by removing excessive empty scroll space, restoring responsive behavior, and correcting a 1-pixel vertical alignment mismatch in #46922
• Fixed the Quick Accent character-sets grid being clipped and showing an inner horizontal scrollbar, so the list reflows from 3 to 2 to 1 columns on resize in #45986. Thanks @daverayment!
• Renamed the shortcut conflict checkbox label from "Ignore shortcut" to "Ignore conflict" for clarity in #46318
• Fixed the backup folder path being visually clipped on the General and Image Resizer pages in #46920
• Refreshed Settings UI assets and copy: fixed a ZoomIt page regression, updated the Command Palette settings page with current links and screenshots, and added missing overview screenshots in #47132
• Fixed missing images in the Settings UI by adjusting the project file so image assets are packaged correctly in #47165
• Tweaked wording on a handful of Settings strings for clarity and consistency in #47164

Text Extractor

• Removed the third-party WPF-UI library in favor of native WPF Fluent theming with custom control templates in #46218

Window Manager (Grab And Move)

• Added the Grab And Move module enabling Alt+Left Click window dragging and Alt+Right Click window resizing, without needing to target title bars in #47024
• Unstuck the Alt key after Ctrl+Alt+Del or Alt+Tab into an admin process, made Win selectable as the move/resize activation modifier, and made the window geometry readout opaque in #47052. Thanks @foxmsft!
• Updated Grab And Move Settings strings to be modifier-agnostic now that Win is selectable alongside Alt in #47178

ZoomIt

• Added panoramic/scrolling screenshot capture, text extraction when snipping, and break timer improvements with screen saver mode and optional computer lock in #46506. Thanks @foxmsft, @MarioHewardt, and @markrussinovich!
• Fixed ZoomIt x86 build compatibility by emulating the _mm_cvtsi128_si64 intrinsic with _mm_storel_epi64 for 32-bit targets in #46529. Thanks @foxmsft!

Development

• Added a full OOBE page for Grab And Move, high-resolution icons and overview images for both Grab And Move and PowerDisplay, NEW badges on Settings nav items, and refreshed the README utilities table in #47033
• Added an update-available badged tray icon, a new "Update available" tray menu entry that opens Settings to General, and raised the update InfoBar severity to Warning in #47030
• Updated the dark-mode PowerToys tray icons to use the correct shade of black for the outline in #47166
• Changed default-on state for new installations by disabling 7 modules by default to streamline the initial experience for new users in #47027
• Added explicit default-disabled overrides to eight module interfaces so the native Runner defaults match the managed enabled-modules list, eliminating first-launch enable/disable flicker in #47144
• Updated the Windows Implementation Library (WIL) from 1.0.231216.1 to 1.0.250325.1 via Central Package Management in #43503
• Fixed the build.ps1 script so the -RestoreOnly switch works correctly and added support for the newer .slnf solution filter file format in #46012. Thanks @raycheung!
• Upgraded the check-spelling CI action to v0.0.26 which fixes spell-check failures on fork PRs and updates exclusion patterns in #46851. Thanks @jsoref!
• Refreshed the check-spelling action to 0.0.26 and synced dictionaries, patterns, and expect/reject lists across docs, source, and resource files in #47119. Thanks @jsoref!
• Pinned the check-spelling GitHub Action to v0.0.26 to attempt to fix the CI pipeline blocking PRs from forked repositories in #46746
• Reverted the pinning of the check-spelling action after determining that the pin was unrelated to the pipeline issue in #46749. Thanks @moooyo!
• Added contributor names from a recent PR to the spellchecker allow-list to prevent CI spelling errors in #46765. Thanks @jiripolasek!
• Added comprehensive DSC (Desired State Configuration) documentation with per-module reference pages, settings examples, and an overview guide covering 25+ PowerToys modules in #42554. Thanks @Gijsreyn!
• Cleaned up root-folder Markdown files by consolidating bullet styles, fixing spelling and grammar, converting HTML to Markdown, and applying sentence-case headers in #46582. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
• Documented three missing telemetry events (ModuleLaunchedFromSettings, CmdPal_DockConfiguration, KeyboardManager_LaunchEditor) in #46371
• Added telemetry event logging to CLI entry points for FileLocksmith, Awake, and Image Resizer so command-line invocations are tracked alongside GUI usage in #46872. Thanks @MuyuanMS!
• Added 75+ MSTest unit tests covering Hosts ValidationHelper (IPv4/IPv6/hostname validation) and ColorPicker ColorFormatHelper conversions (CMYK, HSB/HSI/HWB, CIE XYZ/LAB, Oklab/Oklch, sRGB-linear, NCol) in #46679
• Fixed MSTEST0017 analyzer warnings by correcting assertion argument order in 22 Assert calls across 8 test files in #46712
• Fixed a CI test hang where Common.Interop.UnitTests.TestSend could block for 80 minutes when a prior run left a named-pipe handle alive, by ensuring pipe names are unique per run and bounding handshake waits in #47123
• Resolved StyleCop SA1614, SA1616, SA1622, and SA1623 warnings across Command Palette, Power Display, Settings UI, DSC, and Extensions Toolkit code in #46706, #46707, #46717, #46718
• Bumped the azure/login GitHub Action from v2 to v3 in the MS Store submissions workflow in #46323
• Bumped the azure/cli GitHub Action from v2 to v3 in the MS Store submissions workflow in #46562

This update also improves Command Palette, Keyboard Manager, and ZoomIt. The changelog is so long that I'm a bit surprised the PowerToys team didn't hold off for a major release number.

The developers of PowerToys are also working to migrate the app to WinUI 3. Microsoft is shifting toward more native experiences, and WinUI 3 is one of the native UI platforms for Windows.

Image Resizer is being migrated from WPF to WinUI 3, making it look more modern as well as aligning it with the rest of PowerToys.

Overall, this is a massive update with new features and improvements. If you use PowerToys, it's time to hop into the app's settings and install the latest version.

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Microsoft 365 and Outlook are down. Microsoft confirmed the outage today and has shared a couple of updates on the official Microsoft 365 Status account on X.

Downdetector also shows a spike in outages and issues that began around 4:50 AM ET. Outlook, Microsoft 365, and other Microsoft web experiences all seem to be affected.

It's not clear at this time how widespread the outages are or how many people are experiencing issues.

The timing of the issues is poor, since many are starting their work at the moment and are unable to use essential services such as Teams or Outlook.

Below are the most recent X posts about the outage, including an update clarify that things are improving and that Microsoft is monitoring the situation to "ensure the service fully recovers."

This is an ongoing news story and we will update this piece as more information becomes available. Microsoft also has a status page that is updated regularly.

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A new product by the Microsoft AI team improves the experience of entering Japanese characters on your PC. Following six months of testing, Copilot Keyboard is now available for free on Windows.

Copilot Keyboard is an IME (Input Methad Editor), meaning it allows users to input text from languages that do not work well with a QWERTY keyboard.

Usually, an IME requires manual updating to incorporate new concepts or terms. Copilot Keyboard uses AI to add new terms to conversation suggestions. One of its key features is adding words that appear on popular social media sites.

It also supports importing a user's dictionary data from the legacy Microsoft IME.

The app supports Copilot Search, so you can look up a definition without having to switch to a browser.

The standard Microsoft IME will continue to be available, even if you install Copilot Keyboard. Users can swap between the two through Windows Settings.

Copilot Keyboard appears to be a useful tool that makes it easier to input Japanese characters. I confess that I cannot speak, write, or read Japanese, but I'll take the word of the Windows team behind the tool.

It also has a cool concept that I think should be tested in the main Copilot app. When you install Copilot Keyboard, it can place a floating Copilot button on your desktop that you can drag and drop items into.

I'd like to see a similar floating button added to Copilot for Windows as an option. I'm sure some people would be against the feature being on by default or built into Windows 11, so it makes more sense to have it as an optional feature within an app.

If you don't want to have the Copilot logo appear on your desktop but still want the drag and drop functionality, Copilot Keyboard has you covered.

You can set Copilot Keyboard to show the Copilot icon on your desktop, which is the default, or show one of the AI characters.

Copilot Keyboard includes several AI characters, including one that will look familiar to some who used Office in the 90s. Kyle the dolphin first appeared in Office 97 in Japanese editions of the productivity suite.

Kyle eventually became available in other regions, though you had to go out of your way to download the dolphin. Kyle stuck around for about a decade before being retired.

The return of Kyle is a nice nostalgia bump for those who used the assistant years ago.

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Windows 11’s File Explorer is getting faster and more reliable, but it's still missing one of the simplest upgrades Microsoft could ship: a customizable toolbar. The latest preview of the third‑party app Files adds that option, and it immediately makes File Explorer feel behind.

Files 4.0.39 lets you add, remove, and reorder toolbar actions so the app fits your workflow. It cuts down on clutter and makes common tasks quicker. You can also choose which buttons show text labels, which helps if you can’t remember which icon represents copy, paste, or anything else Windows hides behind small icons.

The update has some other nice additions, such as an Edit Tags button in the toolbar and a keyboard shortcut for changing the app's theme.

I appreciate apps like Files, but I also recognize that many people will never use a third-party file explorer. Microsoft needs to copy the best features from different file management apps to improve File Explorer.

Files v4.0.39: What's New

Customizable toolbar

You can now personalize the toolbar to better fit your workflow. A new toolbar customization window lets you choose from all available actions and add or remove buttons as you see fit. You can also set which buttons display labels for easier identification.

We also added an Edit Tags button that can be added directly to the toolbar for quickly editing a files tags.

Keyboard shortcuts for changing the app theme

It’s now possible to assign custom keyboard shortcuts to change the app theme. You can also toggle between light and dark mode using the Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut.

Media duration in tooltips

Tooltips for media files now display the duration of the video or audio. We’ve also improved the overall responsiveness of tooltips in the Grid Layout.

Multiline comment in Properties Window

The Comment field in the Properties window’s Details page now supports multiple lines of text. You can enter multiline comments using Shift+Enter, and the full content will be correctly saved and displayed when you reopen the Properties window.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where PowerToys Peek was not detected when installed in a custom path.
• Fixed an issue with the Preview Pane.

I’ve followed Files for years and spoken with its developer many times. The app keeps pushing what a modern file manager should be. It had tabs before Microsoft added them to Windows 11. It has a column view, a proper preview pane, and a customizable interface that feels like it should be part of Windows already.

Performance varies depending on your hardware. Some people prefer to stick with the built‑in File Explorer. Even so, Files is worth watching because it often ships features long before Microsoft does. For example, it had tabs before Microsoft revamped File Explorer in Windows 11.

Toolbar customization is another example. Microsoft should copy it. Until that happens, Files is the best way to get it.

You can pay for the app through the Microsoft Store to support the developer or grab Files for free through GitHub (you can also sponsor the developer through GitHub if you prefer).

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