Articles about Windows 11

The lukewarm reception to Windows 11 is clear from the wave of third-party tools built to fix it. One of the most recent is Crapfixer Rebirth Version, a utility that’s been around for about seven years (although it looks older), which has now been given a full refresh.

Winhance is another tool you’ll definitely be interested in. It can debloat and optimize Windows -- and keep it that way. Although it’s been designed for Windows 11 it works just fine on Windows 10. Winhance was originally a PowerShell GUI application, but version 4 is a standalone app that can be installed or uninstalled easily, and it also comes in a portable version, so there's no reason not to get started with it today.

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It is only too easy to dismiss something that is less than perfect, that does not meet your every need or desire, as crap. It is an accusation that is frequently leveled at Windows 11, and now there is something you can do about it.

The bluntly named Crapfixer does exactly what the name suggests -- fixes those niggling issues, the crap, that makes Windows 11 annoying. It’s not entirely dissimilar to CCleaner, and that’s something the developer points to as a source of inspiration. So let’s take a look at Crapfixer Rebirth Version and see what it can do for you.

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Ahead of next month’s Patch Tuesday release, Microsoft has released a preview, non-security update for Windows 11. The KB5055627 update is an interesting one, largely because it sees the launch of a preview version of the controversial Recall feature.

But there is more to this update than the feature that sparked so many privacy concerns. While there are changes and fixes for all Windows 11 PCs, the vast majority of the KB5055627 update -- or at least the most exciting elements of it -- are for Copilot+ PCs only. This is the start of a two-tier Windows 11 user experience.

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Using Windows 11 can be enough to make anyone turn the air blue, but being irritated by aspects of the operating system is not the only reason for swearing at your computer.

Profanity is a part of everyday language, but Microsoft has been very prudish about it -- to the extent that the Voice Typing feature censored curse words. But this is changing. An update to Windows 11 means that it is possible to dictate swearwords and have them converted into text.

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We regularly suggest operating systems to consider if you’re feeling disillusioned by Windows 11, and judging by their popularity, Microsoft should be concerned by just how many people are looking to jump ship.

Commodore OS Vision has just been updated to version 3.0, and it’s a major overhaul. The Linux-based operating system offers the modern features you’d expect, but with a retro twist. It’s also packed with classic Commodore content that will appeal to anyone who owned one of those systems in the past.

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Six-hundred-forty-four 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 announced the deprecation and removal of the Maps app by July 2025 from the Microsoft Store. The app won't be uninstalled on user machines, but it won't receive updates anymore and can't be installed again if it is removed by the user after July 2025.

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ThinkPad computers are absolutely legendary, and today Lenovo is expanding its lineup with a fresh batch of laptops and mobile workstations. The company has announced updates across several models, including the ThinkPad P14s Gen 6 AMD, ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 AMD, new L Series business laptops, and additional configurations for its X1 Aura Editions.

Leading the charge are the new ThinkPad P14s Gen 6 AMD and P16s Gen 4 AMD mobile workstations. These machines aim to offer a balance of power and portability, with the P14s weighing in at just over 3 pounds and measuring 16.13mm thin.

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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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