Articles about Windows 11

It’s been rumored for a while, but today Microsoft finally took the wraps off Windows 11 SE, its education-focused operating system.

Built specifically to support the K-8 classroom, Windows 11 SE will be available on devices from Acer, ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, and others, as well as on the new Surface Laptop SE (pictured above) which Microsoft says has been "custom built for students".

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There is a lot to like -- love, even -- about Windows 11, but it is not to everyone's taste. Microsoft would have to pull off an incredible feat to produce an operating system that made everyone happy, and it is little surprise that Windows 11 falls short for many people.

Microsoft is, of course, eager for as many users as possible to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11. The company has not gone as far as forcing installations, but it is still offering upgrades that could be installed by another user of your computer. Don't want Windows 11? Here's how to block it.

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It recently came to light that a series of problems with Windows 11 -- including apps such as Snipping Tool not working -- were caused by an expired certificate.

Having determined the cause of the issues, Microsoft released a fix; the bad news being that it was only made available to Windows Insiders. Now the patch has been given a wider release and can be downloaded by all Windows 11 users as an out-of-band update.

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Everyone likes the idea of squeezing as much life out of their laptop as possible, and every new iteration of Windows has made great promises about prolonging battery life.

But a strange bug in Windows 11 means you might get more than you bargained for. Over on Reddit, one user shared screenshots of their laptop battery charging to beyond 100 percent. So, what's going on?

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Four-hundred-sixty-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.

Several Windows 11 applications stopped loading after recent application updates, including the Snipping Tool. Microsoft pulled the updates and is working on a resolution of the issue that fixes it on affected devices.

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Just yesterday we wrote about a series of issues with apps in Windows 11. Users found that the Snipping Tools and various Windows settings did not work, something Microsoft has blamed on an expired certificate.

Now the company has released the KB5008295 update to address the problems, but not everyone is going to be able to install it just yet.

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If you have been experiencing problems in Windows 11, particularly with the Snipping Tool, you are not alone.

An issue with an expired certificate means that the Snipping Tool app, as well as other apps and settings in Windows 11, do not work properly -- or at all in some cases. Microsoft has workarounds and fixes for some of the problems, but not all of them.

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There are many complaints about Windows 11, mainly focused on the features and capabilities that were removed.

One change that has proved controversial and frustrating relates to the taskbar. If you try to drag and drop an app to the taskbar to create a shortcut, or drop a document on an existing shortcut to the associated app to open the file, you will find that you can't. Microsoft is planning to bring this functionality back to Windows 11, but not immediately.

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Windows 11 is here! It’s shiny, it’s new, it’s streamlined, it’s -- er -- missing some favorite features. If you’ve discovered that the new Start menu is more stop than start, and yearn for something old and familiar, then the good news is that there are options -- both paid-for and free -- to fill the gap.

Chief among these comes from renowned Windows developer Stardock. It’s just officially released Start11 v1.0. The bad news is that it’s no longer free to use now it's out of beta, but you can at least give it a trial run before deciding if $5.99 is a fair price to pay for it.

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It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for Microsoft to deliver another new build to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.

Windows 11 Build 22494 fixes a lot of bugs, but also introduces some known issues. The biggest addition to this build is the ability to mute and unmute the microphone directly from the taskbar during a Microsoft Teams call.

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The cat’s out of the bag. Windows 11 is here, more than six years after the release of its predecessor, Windows 10.

Microsoft has promised Windows 11 will be "the most secure Windows operating system yet" which, if true, will come as a relief for those plagued by ransomware and malware attacks.

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An odd problem has been found in Windows 11 that sees dozens, scores, hundreds or even thousands of empty folders being created in a directory of the System32 folder.

The fact that the folders are empty means that there is no danger of hard disks filling up, but it's a bizarre bug that has many Windows users scratching their heads. If you're affected by the issue, you'll find that your drive is littered with large numbers of folders with names ending in .tmp.

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Do you need a PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid state drive? No, nobody really needs the insane speed these drives offer. However, the drool-worthy performance is certainly nice to have. Look, if you can afford such an SSD and your computer supports it at full speed, you might as well get one. I mean, why not?

Today, Kingston announces its latest such PCIe 4.0 SSD under its FURY gaming brand. Called "Renegade," it features blazing fast speeds and capacities up to 4TB. Of course, even non-gamers will want to check out the extremely high-end performance FURY Renegade offers.

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The seemingly never-ending stream of printer problems caused by Windows updates shows no sign of abating.

Following the Patch Tuesday releases a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft has added warnings of known issues to the support pages for the KB5006674 and KB5006670 updates. Printer-related errors including 0x000006e4 (RPC_S_CANNOT_SUPPORT), 0x0000007c (ERROR_INVALID_LEVEL), and  0x00000709 (ERROR_INVALID_PRINTER_NAME) are among those the company says users may experience.

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Four-hundred-sixty-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 started the rollout of the new Microsoft Store on Windows 10. It is being made available to Release Preview insider builds at first, but it will be pushed to stable versions of Windows 10 soon as well.

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