Articles about Windows 11

Five-hundred-and-thirty-five 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 changed the schedule for Windows update previews. Preview updates are now always released in the fourth week of a month.

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The Windows Insider program is one of the best places to gain access to the latest features and options, but there are sometimes some hidden gems that serves as signposts of what's to come. The latest Dev build is a good case in point.

References were spotted in Windows 11 build 23419 to Cloud PC thanks to the arrival of the settingshandlers_cloudpc.dll file. There are even entries in Settings that make it clear that Microsoft is betting big on Cloud PC, but it remains to be seen whether this ends up in Windows 11 or Windows 12.

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Earlier this week we learned about a worrying security and privacy flaw in Windows 11's Snipping Tool screen capture app. The way the software saves cropped screengrabs means that it is possible to "uncrop" images, potentially exposing sensitive information.

Acting quickly to address the problem, Microsoft has fixed the vulnerability with a new update. There is just one problem -- the update is not available to everyone, leaving unknown numbers of users at risk.

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Yesterday, Microsoft released Windows 11 Build 23419 for Insiders in the Dev Channel. Today, it’s the turn of testers in the cutting edge Canary Channel to get a new flight to play around with.

Windows 11 Build 25324 comes with an evolved widgets board that sports a larger canvas (up to three columns), with dedicated sections for widgets and feed content.

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Ordinarily Microsoft uses the less stable Windows Insider channels to try out new Windows 11 features -- something the company reiterated when it launched the ultra-cutting edge Canary channel.

But this week saw the release of a new build of Windows 11 to the Release Preview channel, the channel which is the final stage of testing before a build gets full public release. And this time around, things were a little different because the Release Preview build includes brand new features that have not been seen in other builds -- including notifications for Microsoft accounts in the Start menu.

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Users of Windows 11 have been concerned by the appearance of a message that reads: "Local Security protection is off. Your device may be vulnerable". Microsoft is blaming a recent update (KB5007651) for the warning which implies that an important security feature has been disabled.

The issue affects Windows 11 version 21H2 and 22H2, and those hit by the message have been left confused about what they need to do. So what is going on?

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It’s business as usual for Windows 11 Insiders in the Dev Channel as Microsoft today releases a fresh test build for the new operating system.

Windows 11 Build 23419 comes with several new features, including introducing the ability to show seconds in the clock on the system tray. This welcome-sounding addition won't appeal to everyone, however.

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For the majority of Windows users, OS updates are just something that happens in the background. But for anyone who keeps a closer eye on things, the monthly Patch Tuesday is an important day when they know the latest "stable" versions of Windows updates are released.

For some time, however, Microsoft has released preview versions of updates ahead of the wider rollout, giving eager Windows users the chance to grab the latest fixes faster -- and also serve as beta testers. Now the company has announced that a new schedule for non-security preview releases is to be used from next month.

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While there was much interest and excitement surrounding the release of the Moment 2 update for Windows 11, seasoned users were bracing themselves for the inevitable problems to emerge. And emerge they have.

There are a growing number of complaints from people who have installed the update that their system boot times have massively increased. There are also serious issues with severely reduced SSD performance, leading to slow file transfers and poor overall performance.

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Microsoft is working on a new option for Windows 11 that will give users the ability to receive updates for the operating system faster. With the option enabled, there will be no need to wait until Patch Tuesday each month in order to get the latest bug fixes, or even new features.

It also means that there will be no need to manually hunt down the preview versions of updates Microsoft makes available. If this sounds interesting, it is possible to get on board and try out the early access feature right now.

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Microsoft has unveiled plans for what it is referring to as "a principled approach to app pinning and app defaults in Windows". The company has outlined sweeping changes that are coming to Windows 11 that will give users greater control over their computers.

The updates mean that the pinning of apps to the Start menu, desktop and taskbar will respect user choices, and adjusting the default apps used to open specific file types will be much easier. Microsoft says that the changes -- which are due to hit the Dev Channel soon before making their way to everyone else -- will also benefit developers.

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Windows installations benefit from fast hard drives, and installing Windows on USB Flash Drives may sound counter-intuitive on first glance. While it is true that dedicated hard drives, especially Solid State Drives, are better suited for running Windows, USB Flash drive Windows installations offer some features that these dedicated installations don’t.

Installation on a USB drive makes the Windows installation portable. You can connect it to different PCs and use it on these, provided that booting from USB is supported. One downside is that this works best with PCs that have the same hardware. This solution has other benefits; it can be used to boot a copy of Windows on a PC it was created on, even if the main hard drive is no longer available.

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Five-hundred-and-thirty-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 unveiled Microsoft 365 Copilot yesterday, which "combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with business data and Microsoft 365 apps".

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Ahead of next week's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released a preview of the upcoming KB5023774 update for Windows 11.

This is a non-security update, but it addresses a wide range of issues with Windows 11, including problems with Notepad, USB printer abnormalities, and bugs that were sending PowerPoint awry.

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Teach Yourself VISUALLY Windows 11 collects all the resources you need to master the day-to-day use of Microsoft’s new operating system and delivers them in a single resource.

Fully illustrated, step-by-step instructions are combined with crystal-clear screenshots to walk you through the basic and advanced functions of Windows 11.

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