Windows 10

It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s time for a new Windows 10 Insider build on the Dev Channel, and Build 21364 is one of the best releases in a while with exciting new features for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Task Manager.

Arguably the biggest addition here is that Windows Subsystem for Linux now includes a first preview of support for GUI applications. Nicknamed WLSg, this open source feature lets you run your favorite Linux GUI apps, which makes it even more useful.

Across its Mac, iPhone and iPad range, Apple's App Store is users' first port of call for downloading new app; on Android, the Play Store is Google's equivalent. But when it comes to Windows 10 large numbers of people eschew the Microsoft Store app in favor of simply downloading apps from developers' websites.

But Microsoft would like this to change, and the company is planning a major revamp of its own store app, according to reports. As well as a visual refresh, the Microsoft Store is set to become friendlier for developers, thanks to relaxed policies -- including permitting the submission of raw, unpackaged .exe and .msi apps.

Microsoft has been rumored to be working on an Azure-powered Cloud PC service for a while now, but it seems that we might be seeing the results of its labor as soon as June or early July this year.

The Cloud PC service, codenamed Project Deschutes, will let users access a Windows desktop remotely and run software such as Microsoft Office. This could be useful if you want to access the same desktop from multiple locations, and it would also allow Windows 10X users to run Win32 apps.

If you have lots of folders, and shortcuts to folders, on your PC, it can be tricky to identify one you want as they all look the same.

To make your favorite folders much easier to spot it’s worth changing the color of them, choosing a different icon, and/or adding emblems.

Anyone testing out the very latest versions of Windows 10 has a new bug-fixing patch to install. With the release of the KB5001391 update, fixes and changes introduced to the Dev channel now make their way to the Beta and Release Preview channels.

This latest patch sees Microsoft taking Windows 10 20H2 up to build 19042.962 and Windows 10 21H1 up to build 19043.962. It includes a large number of bug fixes, and addresses problems with a profile-related Group Policy, and fixes an issue that caused soaring memory usage by the lsass.exe process, as well as high CPU usage that led to system lockups.

In the middle of January, we reported about a vulnerability in Windows 10 that could be used to corrupt the contents of an NTFS formatted drive. A specially crafted folder name was all that was needed to cause a volume to be marked as dirty, and then require a fix with the Chkdsk utility.

But Chkdsk did not always do the trick, leaving victims with unbootable systems. A couple of months ago, Microsoft started testing a fix with Windows Insiders and now the patch is being made available to everyone. It addresses the problems which was being tracked as CVE-2021-28312 (Windows NTFS Denial of Service Vulnerability).

It is only a few days since Microsoft released the KB5001330 and KB5001337 updates for Windows 10 which kills off the legacy version of Edge. Having wondered aloud what problems might be caused by the latest batch of updates, we didn't have to wait long for the first issues to rear their heads.

But problems with gaming performance, boot loops and screen flicker are not, it would seem, the end of the story. Users are also reporting problems with DNS resolution and issues with shared folder following the installation of the KB5001330 update.

While there have been new PowerToys builds released over the last few months, it has been a while since a new tool was added. Now, with the launch of PowerToys Experimental v0.36.0, this changes.

The latest release of the much-loved Windows 10 utility collection now features the Video Conference Mute tool, giving users the ability to quickly mute their microphone and turn off their camera with a keyboard shortcut.

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

Microsoft removed Timeline's activity history sync feature in preview builds. Timeline is changed to a local activity history tool. The company removed the official Microsoft Translator application as well this week from the Microsoft Store.

Earlier this week we asked -- slightly tongue-in-cheek -- what problems would be caused by this month's Patch Tuesday updates. As the weekend crests the horizon, we have our answer, and this time around it is the Edge-killing KB5001330 update that is proving problematic.

And the problems appear to be not only plentiful, but also fairly significant. Among the reported issues are a drop in the performance of games, error messages, screen flicker and more.

A lot of people hate Windows 10, but I think it is actually quite good. With that said, I'd much rather use a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu or Fedora. With Linux, I feel more safe and secure. No operating system in infallible, but bad guys are more likely to write malware for Windows. Not to mention, Microsoft does "spy" on its users with extreme telemetry. Ultimately, with Linux, I feel like I own my computer. Conversely, with Windows, it can feel like Microsoft owns my PC.

Understandably, switching from Windows to Linux can be a scary affair, but it doesn't have to be. Some Linux distributions look a bit like Windows, so there is a degree of familiarity. Not to mention, with so much being done in the web browser nowadays, the underlying operating system becomes less important. In other words, just having Google Chrome available makes Linux a viable option for most home users these days.

Yesterday, Microsoft released two new updates for Windows 10 that, among other things, killed off the legacy Edge browser. There’s no question that the Chromium-based successor to that browser is a huge improvement, and today the software giant makes it even more useful for families.

The new Microsoft Edge Kids Mode gives parents more peace of mind when their offspring are browsing the web, which is great news as children are online more than ever these days.

With the release of the latest insider preview of Windows 10, Microsoft has made a key change to the way the Timeline feature works. The idea behind Timeline was to not only provide a web browser-style history option for general computing activities, but to synchronize this history across devices via the cloud.

Now Microsoft has decided that the cross-device synchronization side of things is not needed, and the company is getting rid of what was arguably the most useful feature of Timeline. While currently only deprecated in the Windows 10 Build 21359 preview, this is a change that will ultimately roll out to all Windows 10 users.

When Apple switched from Intel to its own ARM-based processors for new Mac computers, some people were dubious that the transition would go smoothly. Well, guess what? Apple did it, folks. The company moved to a new chip type without any major negative issues. In fact, Apple's M1 chip has been universally praised as being both fast and energy efficient.

Earlier this year, some people got Linux-based Ubuntu running on the M1 hardware, and that process is getting better all the time. Sadly, owners of M1 Mac computers have been unable to run Windows 10 like they could on older Intel-based Mac machines. Until now, that is. Yes, you can finally run Windows 10 on Apple M1 Mac computers -- sort of.

It’s Wednesday, so that usually means a new Windows 10 build for Insiders on the Dev Channel, and this week is no exception.

There aren’t any major new features in Build 21359, but there are quite a few changes and improvements to report.