Four-hundred-eighty-seven 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 Microsoft Store may soon be the home for third-party widgets that users may download and install. The Widgets feature of Windows 11 displays first-party content only at the moment.

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The developers over at Canonical have been busy baking a yummy new version of Ubuntu recently, and following a brief beta period, it is finally time to take the open-source operating system out of the oven. Yes, folks, the stable Ubuntu 22.04 is finally here!

Code-named "Jammy Jellyfish," Ubuntu 22.04 is an "LTS" version, which stands for "Long Term Support." Yeah, that means exactly what it sounds like. The Linux distribution will be supported for a long time -- five years to be exact. Very nice.

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As organizations move to fully embrace cloud, the significant benefits of running IT infrastructure via cloud services are becoming even more evident. Not only do cloud-based services come at a far lower cost than physical platforms and deployments, IT leaders are also able to side-step much of the risk and 'heavy lifting' around tech investment and maintenance by moving this out of local data centers. They can also enjoy expert third-party systems management and reliable service delivery, without having to give up much of the control for end users.

Microsoft 365 is a great case in point. The procurement model for this ever-expanding suite of high-qual­ity IT services is based around a price per user. It is easily scalable as teams and organizations grow and can therefore help to optimise budgets, avoiding payment for infrastructure that may go unused. It’s also growing, with new features and functionality added every day that will keep IT departments at the cutting edge of optimal business processes.

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Microsoft has announced that it is beginning the final phase of disabling the SMB1 file-sharing protocol in Windows. Having already disabled SMB1 by default in Windows 10 and Windows Server, the company is now doing the same for Windows 11 Home.

While conceding that the ditching of SMB1 may "cause a consumer pain among folks who are still running very old equipment" and acknowledging that this is a "group that's the least likely to understand why their new Windows 11 laptop can't connect to their old networked hard drive", Microsoft says that the time has come for the aging technology to be dropped.

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Windows 7 introduced a useful hidden God Mode that displays all of the admin tools and control options on a single screen. Because Microsoft has yet to phase out Control Panel entirely, this feature works just fine in Windows 11.

It’s very easy to action God Mode -- you just need to create a folder and give it a special name -- and there are actually quite a few alternative God Modes available. Here’s what you need to do.

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While some versions of Windows 10 are reaching the end of support and many people are making the upgrade to Windows 11, Microsoft continues to push newer editions of Windows 10 to users.

For those people who either do not want to upgrade to Windows 11 -- or find that the hardware requirements mean that they are simply not able to -- there is Windows 10 version 21H2 (Windows 10 November 2021 Update as it is also known). Microsoft has just announced that this particular edition is now designated for broad deployment.

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Widgets in Windows 11 have proved somewhat divisive, but it is safe to say that the feature has not proved as popular as Microsoft would have hoped.

Part of the problem is the lack of interesting and useful widgets that are available, and Microsoft has previously hinted that it may offer support for creations from other companies which could be installed and updates via its own software store. Now further evidence has emerged that Windows 11 users could soon be able to install third-party widgets via the Microsoft Store.

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Over the years, Microsoft has found a variety of ways to bombard its customers with ads. As well as using Windows 11 to promote its own Edge web browser, the company has also used the Start menu to "recommend" apps to people.

And now it seems as though Xbox gamers are next. A new report says that Microsoft is working on a program that will display third-party ads in Xbox games. So, what is going on, and is it as bad as it sounds?

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A few days ago, Microsoft released a new build of Windows 11; while this was primarily a problem-fixing release, there were a handful of new additions and changes.

For many people, having issues addressed is the most important feature of any update to Windows 11, but new tools, toys and options are always welcome. With the release of Windows 11 build 22598, Microsoft has some treats for users of Task Manager -- power users in particular.

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Four-hundred-eighty-six 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.

Windows 10 version 20H2 support is running out next month. Devices may be upgraded to a newer version of Windows 10, e.g., Windows 10 version 21H2, or to Windows 11, provided that they meet the system requirements.

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Patch Tuesday may have come and gone, but this does not mean that Microsoft has finished pushing out updates for Windows. The latest to be released is the KB5012643 update for Windows 11 and it is jam-packed with fixes for various issues.

Among the numerous improvements are a fix for an issue that caused extremely slow startup times, as well as addressing a memory leak. The update also improves the Secure Boot and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) components.

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Great news for Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel today, as in addition to a new Windows 11 build, there’s also an updated version of the new Media Player available to install.

This new release offers some new features, and also improves performance for users with very large media libraries.

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Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel today not only get a new build to play around with but also new ISO files to allow for a clean install.

In Build 22598, Microsoft is trying out auto-launching of the Get Started app with some Insiders, and testers in China on Lenovo PCs will now be able to update to the latest builds once more after they were briefly blocked.

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Windows 11 users have an important update to install. The KB5012592 update takes the operating system up to build 22000.613 and not only includes a number of important security fixes, but also introduces several significant changes.

Like the previously released KB5011563 update, the new KB5012592 update makes it possible to display up to three high-priority toast notifications simultaneously as well as fixing issues with OneDrive. The update also introduces a simpler way to change the default web browser in Windows 11, although it is a change that has been met with disdain from like likes of Mozilla and Vivaldi.

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When Microsoft launched Windows 11, the company was heavily criticized for just how difficult it was to change the default web browser to something other than Edge.

After listening to these complaints, Microsoft used the KB5011563 update to simplify the process of switching browsers. While a welcome improvement, it was not enough for Mozilla who said that there was still more to be done to reduce the number of steps involved. Now Vivaldi has joined the Firefox-maker in saying that moving away from Edge should be made even easier, and not limited to those who are 'technically competent'. The company goes beyond this, accusing Microsoft of malpractice.

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