Articles about Windows 11

Five-hundred-and-eighty-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 is working on introducing sudo in its Windows operating system. Sudo is well explained by Xkcd's iconic Sandwich comic. Microsoft's implementation supports three different modes at the time. You can check out the introductory post at Microsoft's Dev Blog for additional information on the implementation.

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Whenever Microsoft rolls out new Windows 11 builds for Insiders in the Dev and/or Canary channels you can never be sure what you’re going to get. Sometimes new features are introduced, other times it’s more about fixing bugs and making general improvements.

Build 26052, for both the Canary and Dev Channels, sees Insiders being moved from 23000 series builds to 26000 series ones. Insiders on both of those two channels will, for a short while, receive the same builds, but it’s only a temporary move.

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Microsoft PC Manager is available officially now. Microsoft launched the free tool back in 2022 as a preview. The app, developed by Microsoft China, promises to give PCs a performance boost when needed.

Besides that, it includes some useful and some not-so-useful PC management options and tools.

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Playing Android games on your PC is easy enough. You have the option of using third-party emulators such as Bluestacks or NoxPlayer, or you can take advantage of the built-in Windows Subsystem for Android, available on Windows 11.

However, if you wish to flip the script and play Windows games on your Android device, the process is somewhat more complex, but not impossible. To do this, you’ll need Winlator, which has just been updated to version 5, improving compatibility and performance, and resolving various issues.

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Microsoft BitLocker is a full-disk encryption feature included in certain editions of Windows operating systems, designed to enhance the security of data stored on a computer or external drives. It serves as a crucial component of Microsoft's broader approach to data protection and aims to safeguard sensitive information against unauthorized access, particularly in scenarios where devices might be lost, stolen, or otherwise fall into the wrong hands.

BitLocker operates by encrypting the entire contents of a disk drive, including the operating system, system files, and user data. It uses a symmetric encryption algorithm, typically AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), to secure the data. To access the encrypted information, a user must provide a pre-boot authentication password or use additional authentication methods, such as a PIN or a USB key.

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If you’re currently using Windows 10 or Windows 11, but hanker after the days of Windows 7, then there is a very clever, but simple way to transform your newer OS into the older one. This method can be used to turn Windows 8 or above into Windows 7, or Vista.

This process takes a while to complete, but all you have to do is type a command into the Run box and most things will be handled automatically for you, although you can add extra features (such as Windows Media Player 11) if you wish.

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Confusion surrounds Microsoft's plans for Windows 12, with conflicting rumors suggesting different launch dates. Development is clearly well underway at Microsoft, and Qualcomm has just added strength to idea that Windows 12 could launch later this year.

While we've heard that Microsoft only plans to release the Windows 11 24H2 update this year, holding off releasing Windows 12 until 2025, Qualcomm's suggestion of a mid-2024 launch for Windows 12 is not the first time this release window has been suggested.

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Five-hundred-and-eighty 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 Canary build number made a jump this week to version 27547. It is not an unusual step and not a Windows 12 confirmation. This month, Microsoft will release Moment 5 update for Windows 11 to the release preview.

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Just over a week ago, details emerged of a worrying 0day vulnerability affecting everything from Windows 7 to Windows 11, and Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2022. The EventLogCrasher vulnerability allows a low-privileged attacker to disable Windows logging on all computers in a Windows domain and any local computer, thereby compromising intrusion detection and forensic capabilities.

Microsoft is yet to issue a fix for the problem, and this is concerning given not only the scale of the issue, but also the importance of the logging tool. As it has done before, micropatching firm 0patch has risen to the challenge and released a free patch which can be installed by everyone.

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Microsoft has been making a lot of changes to Windows 11 recently, including adding AI to the OS in the form of Copilot. Despite all this, persuading users to switch from Windows 10 ahead of its impending End of Life is proving to be something of an uphill battle for the tech giant.

For many people, Microsoft’s best operating system was one of its simplest -- Windows 7. The company stopped supporting that operating system years ago, but if you’re wondering what it would look like if it was still being developed today, we have the answer in the form of the re-imagined Windows 7 2024 Edition.

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Windows 11 proved to be a bit of a disappointment for many people, and a lot of Windows 10 users saw no reason to upgrade. This means that there are a large number of users eager for something big and impressive -- and this what it is hoped Windows 12 will be.

Whether you're a Windows 10 hanger-on or a Windows 11 adopter keen for something even newer and shinier, ears are pricked for news about Windows 12. There have been several hints about what the operating system could be like, and even when it might be released, and now there is the first evidence of an increase in pace at Microsoft. The discovery of a new internal development branch at the company suggests that work has acerated on the next version of Windows.

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It may be the longest, slowest death of any deprecated piece of software, but Microsoft is inching closer to the complete killing off of the WMI command line utility.

It is now eight years since Microsoft deprecated the Windows Management Instrumentation Command line (WMIC), but the utility was converted into a Feature on Demand in Windows 11 22H2. However, starting now in Insider builds -- and later in the year for release builds -- WMIC will be disabled by default.

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Installing updates for Windows 11 has turned into something of a gamble in recent times, but this is never more the case than with the preview version of patches released by Microsoft each month. The latest example of a problematic update is KB5034204.

Released a week ago, the KB5034204 update preview was designed to fix a range of issues plaguing Windows 11 users, including troublesome searches, Bluetooth bugs and problems with zip files. But it has also been found to cause a number of new issues, including rendering Explorer unresponsive, 0x8007000d errors during installation, and more besides.

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When installing Windows from scratch, the process has not really changed much over the years -- and neither has the way the setup experience looks. This means that the installer for Windows 11 looks virtually identical to that of Windows 10, which in turn looked virtually identical to that of Windows 8.

Until now. With the latest release of Windows 11, Microsoft has finally updated the look and feel of the installer. This means not only a cleaner and more consistent aesthetic, but also an improved experience for the "Repair my PC" option.

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While there is some fun to be gained from being part of the Windows Insider program, testing out beta versions of Windows 11 can also be a frustrating experience. While it has always been possible to leave the beta testing program, it was not an easy or particularly intuitive process.

Now Microsoft has greatly simplified the procedure, so it is now much quicker and easier to unenroll a device from the beta program. With a quick flick of a toggle, it is possible to return to the release build of Windows 11 23H2.

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