Articles about Windows 11

Six-hundred-forty-three 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 Windows 11 Snipping Tool is getting improved OCR support. The functionality is now available directly via a button or the shortcut Shift-Windows-T. You had to take a screenshot first previously to extract text from it.

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Canonical has announced the arrival of Ubuntu 25.04 -- "Plucky Puffin." This latest interim release introduces a number of updates across the desktop, as well as developer tools, and improved hardware support, with a focus on boosting performance and improving the user experience.

Ubuntu 25.04 ships with GNOME 48, offering new features like a Preserve Battery Health mode, HDR support, and Canonical’s triple buffering patches, now accepted upstream. A new Wellbeing Panel helps users manage screen time, while a redesigned install and boot experience adds improved partitioning options and experimental Dracut support for faster system startup.

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Microsoft has once again been forced to mitigate a problem caused by a faulty update for Windows 11 with a Known Issue Rollback (KIR).

The KB5055523 update, release earlier this month is causing BSoDs and a 0x18B error. The same issue applies to the KB5053656 preview update from March. While it used to be possible to refer to KIRs as a rarely used fix for particularly serious issues, it is something Microsoft is falling back on more and more. The problem is, they don’t work for everyone.

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We’re huge fans of PowerToys, and one of the greatest modules included in the utility collection is Text Extractor. As the name suggests, this provides a way to pull text out of images ready to edit and use in other documents. Microsoft has also added a similar tool to Microsoft Photos, and now the company has brought it to another area of Windows 11.

The increasingly useful and powerful Snipping Tool has been updated with a text extractor button in the app’s capture bar. This makes the process of copying text from your screen to the clipboard insanely quick and easy, eliminating the need to take a screenshot before extracting text.

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Nitrux, which is one of our favorite Linux-based Windows 11 alternatives, is rolling out a major upgrade to how users manage software on the system. The move, which is aimed at improving reliability and user control, replaces two aging tools -- the NX Software Center and the zap CLI -- with a new, purpose-built system called NX AppHub.

For those unfamiliar, Nitrux doesn’t use a traditional package manager like apt or rpm. Instead, it focuses on AppImages, which are self-contained applications that run independently of system libraries. Although this approach avoids dependency issues, it previously came with a rather major downside -- apps were often outdated or pulled from unreliable sources. That’s where NX AppHub comes in.

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Great news, folks -- the developers of Manjaro have officially launched version 25 of the popular Linux distribution. Codenamed “Zetar,” this release delivers updated desktop environments, new features aimed at improving performance and usability, and expanded hardware support through the latest Linux kernel.

The GNOME edition now ships with version 48 of the desktop environment, a release first introduced in March 2025. One of the key features is notification stacking, which organizes alerts from the same app into expandable groups. GNOME 48 also includes dynamic triple buffering, a technology aimed at delivering smoother animations and reducing skipped frames.

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Microsoft is starting the process of lifting a compatibility hold that was preventing some Windows 11 users from updating to Windows 11 24H2.

The block has been in place since September, stopping users with certain unnamed wallpaper customization applications from installing the latest version of the operating system. Microsoft has still not provided a list of the apps that it has, until now, considered troublesome, but says that it will “gradually remove this safeguard hold”.

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You know what, folks? Sometimes, the best updates are the ones that don’t try too hard. That’s exactly the case with MX Linux 23.6. There’s no nonsense to be found here -- just a strong Linux distribution that continues to get better.

While Microsoft continues to push AI distractions and questionable design changes in Windows 11, MX Linux sticks to what matters: speed, stability, and letting the user stay in control. In fact, MX Linux 23.6 could truly be the Linux distribution of your dreams!

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Cast your mind back to just last week, and there was the usual chaos of problematic updates from Microsoft. But one of the more peculiar things about one of the updates was the creation an empty folder called inetpub after installing the KB5055523 update for Windows 11.

The appearance of this folder caused confusion, but failed to be explained by Microsoft. Users who were irritated by the folder materializing unbidden simply deleted it without side effects -- but now Microsoft has spoken out. The company says that the folder should not be deleted because it improves system security -- but leaves many questions unanswered.

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Ever since Microsoft pulled the plug on support for Windows 7 in January 2020, many users have felt like something was missing. Known for its clean interface, reliability, and minimal bloat, Windows 7 struck a balance that newer versions of Microsoft Windows have struggled to replicate.

While Windows 10 and 11 have introduced modern features and visual updates, not everyone welcomes the shift,  especially those who value simplicity and familiarity (and don't want AI features jammed in everywhere). For a lot of longtime Windows users, Windows 7 wasn’t just an operating system; it was the sweet spot in Microsoft’s design history, and its "end of life" marked the beginning of a long search for that classic experience in a modern shell.

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If you’ve ever wished that Windows 10 or Windows 11 were a little less, well, boring, you’re not alone. Microsoft’s operating systems are functional, but they hardly wow in the design department.

Thankfully, Seelen UI is here to save the day. It’s a free tool that reimagines what a Windows desktop could look like and behave, providing users with everything they need to completely transform Microsoft’s OS. The customization features on offer allow you to craft a unique, stylish, and practical workspace.

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Six-hundred-forty-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 security updates for Windows this week that introduce a few new features to Windows 11 as well. The update creates a mysterious inetpub folder in the root drive next to that, which is empty and can be deleted.

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When Microsoft first added the AI-powered Recall feature to Windows 11, it could hardly have been expecting the backlash that came from users. Concerns about privacy and security forced the company to delay the rollout of the activity and screen monitoring snapshot tool.

Now Microsoft thinks it has made the improvements required to calm the concerns of those who spoke out very loudly against the tool. A new preview version of Recall is making its way to some users right now.

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Are you tired of the constant updates, ads, and restrictions in Windows 11? Well, folks, you’re certainly not alone. Thankfully, SparkyLinux 7.7 “Orion Belt” just dropped, and this open source operating system might be the escape hatch you’ve been looking for. Built on Debian 12 “Bookworm,” this is exactly the kind of no-nonsense Linux distro that gives users freedom, speed, and stability without all the Microsoft bloat.

Unlike Windows 11, SparkyLinux doesn’t shove AI assistants in your face or lock you into a Microsoft account. Instead, it quietly gets the job done. Quite frankly, that’s what makes it a solid choice for folks who just want their computers to work.

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If you’ve installed the updates for Windows 11 released by Microsoft earlier this week, you may have noticed several things. Firstly, you likely found that several bugs have been fixed but, secondly, new problems have been introduced.

Thirdly, you may be one of many people to install the KB5055523 update for Windows 11 and then found that a strange folder called “inetpub” has appeared. What’s the story here?

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