Martin Brinkmann

Six-hundred-thirty in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Next month, Microsoft will install the new Outlook app as part of the February security updates on all unmanaged PCs. Microsoft says there is no way to block that initial installation, but users can remove it again and block it afterwards.

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Six-hundred-twenty-nine in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Windows 10 users will mass-migrate to Windows 11 this year according to Microsoft. The older version of Windows will run out of support in ten months. Users may extend support for a year officially though.

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Six-hundred-twenty-eight in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

The last week of December has been a slow news week, as usual. Reports suggest that some Path of Exile 2 players experience high CPU loads on Windows 11, but the issue has not been added to the official known issues list yet by Microsoft.

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Six-hundred-twenty-seven in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft confirmed a new Windows 11 issue this week that prevents future installations of security updates. The issue affects Windows 11 devices that were installed using installation media, but only if the October or November 2024 security updates were included. No workaround at the time for affected users.

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Six-hundred-twenty-six in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft confirmed new issues this week, some of which are blockers that prevent the upgrade to version 24H2 of Windows 11. Notable is an Auto HDR issue, that can cause game freezes and color distortions. You can check out the full list here as usual.

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Six-hundred-twenty-five in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft lifted several blockers that prevented earlier Windows 11 systems from upgrading to version 24h2. The company announced that the update will be offered to more devices going forward.

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Six-hundred-twenty-four in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft reaffirmed its position on the TPM 2.0 requirement of its Windows 11 operating system. The company called it non-negotiable. That is bad news for Windows 10 customers whose devices do not support it.

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Six-hundred-twenty-three in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft confirmed several issues this week that affect Windows 11, version 24H2. One plagues Ubisoft gamers in particular.

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Six-hundred-twenty-two in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft released Bing Wallpaper to the Microsoft Store this week. It is not in our list of recommendations though, as Microsoft added lots of PUP -- potentially unwanted programs -- functions to it, including auto-installation of other software, options to decode cookies in non-Microsoft browsers, prompts to make Bing the default search and homepage, and more. I have added an alternative to the list of apps below.

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Six-hundred-twenty-one in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft removed Actions from the Microsoft Store. Actions replicated the instant gaming feature of mobile operating systems. In other words, it allowed you to play some games directly without installation.

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Six-hundred-twenty in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

The core Windows apps Notepad and Paint are getting more AI features. Some of them are reserved for Copilot+ PCs, others are available for all Windows 11 devices.

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Earlier this year, Microsoft confirmed that it would be resurrecting its Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for Windows 10. The company had good news this time for home users too, as it promised that ESU would become available for practically everyone and not just businesses and organizations.

What Microsoft did not reveal back then was the price that home users would have to pay to keep their precious Windows 10 devices secured with updates.

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Six-hundred-nineteen in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft has finally announced the price that home users have to pay to extend support for Windows 10.

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Six-hundred-eighteen in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Several new issues were added to the list of known issues of Windows 11 version 24H2 this week. Some of these have been mitigated by now, including the BlueScreen crash that plagued users of certain Western Digital storage devices.

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Six-hundred-seventeen in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft ended support for Windows 11 version 22H2 Home and Pro this month. No more updates for the version, but updates are available to newer versions. There are bypasses available for devices that do not meet the official system requirements.

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