News and Updates about Windows Tips

Windows 11 24H2 reached end of support Oct. 13, 2026, for Home, Pro, Pro Education, and Pro for Workstations editions. The deadline has already passed, and the October security update was the last monthly update for those editions.

Microsoft built a developer-focused configuration of Windows 11 it calls Project Zenith, and the company says it "represents Windows at its best": tips switched off, account notifications silenced, and a quieter File Explorer and Start menu.

Microsoft recently confirmed that KB5127648, the October 2026 Windows 11 security update, can leave the Smart App Control toggle grayed out on some PCs. The known issue applies to devices running Windows 11 24H2 and later, and it only shows up on machines where Smart App Control had already been switched off before the update installed.

Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra launched October 16, following preorders that opened October 7 at a $2,599 starting price. The laptop is built on Nvidia's RTX Spark platform and targets developers, creators, and users running demanding local AI workloads, according to Microsoft's launch announcement and Tom's Hardware.

Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra pairs Nvidia's RTX Spark SoC with up to 128GB of unified memory and up to 1 petaflop of AI compute. The company has confirmed a $2,599.99 starting price, with preorders open ahead of its Oct. 16 release.

Does Windows Update include BIOS updates? Sometimes, yes, but there's no blanket rule guaranteeing your specific machine will receive one alongside a routine monthly patch. Windows Update can deliver system BIOS/UEFI firmware updates to supported PCs. Whether you get one depends on your PC maker, the exact model you own, its firmware-update capabilities, and whether the manufacturer publishes a compatible package through that channel.

Microsoft began removing Publisher from Microsoft 365 subscriptions on October 1, 2026, with access ending on or shortly after that date as removal updates roll out. Anyone sitting on a folder of old newsletters, flyers, or brochures saved as .pub files now has one real question: can you convert Microsoft Publisher files with LibreOffice instead, and will the results actually hold up? Devaland ran 25 real .pub files through LibreOffice's free converter earlier this month and found the text...

A Windows security feature designed to warn users about potentially dangerous downloads has been bypassed in real-world attacks, prompting Microsoft to release a fix as part of its October 2026 Patch Tuesday updates. The vulnerability affects Windows Shell and can allow malicious files to evade protections that normally help flag untrusted content.

Microsoft moved WSL Linux containers out of preview and into general availability on September 29, 2026, giving Windows users a built-in command-line tool and programmable API for building, running, and deploying Linux containers on Windows through the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Microsoft says users can access it by running wsl --update or installing the latest WSL release from GitHub. Its announcement does not list supported Windows editions or Server versions, so availability should be...

If you've gone looking for a way to stop Windows from swapping out a GPU or audio driver you'd rather keep, you've probably landed on a Group Policy setting called "Do not include drivers with Windows Updates" and paused on the wording. To block driver delivery, you set this policy to Enabled, not Disabled, which reads backward the first time you see it (How-To Geek, last year).

Xbox's disc-to-digital feature is now being tested across the Xbox Insider program, and the interesting part isn't simply that a physical game can unlock digital access.

Is Microsoft Copilot becoming an operating system, or is Microsoft just borrowing OS-like language for a new layer of AI tools? The company has started describing its overhauled Copilot as a unified "AI workspace" that routes chat, coding, and autonomous agent work through one system. That framing sounds like Microsoft Copilot as an operating system in the making, but it's not the same as replacing Windows, and the gap between the two matters if you're wondering whether your Windows 11 PC is...

Microsoft has fixed the Windows 11 KB5124008 bug that broke Plan9 host-folder sharing for some Linux virtual machines, including environments used by Claude Cowork and the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

The Microsoft Windows and Surface event on October 7 is shaping up to focus on local AI, RTX Spark hardware, and new Windows experiences, though Microsoft has not yet confirmed pricing or a release date for either new device. The event takes place in San Francisco at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, with CEO Satya Nadella, Windows and Surface chief Pavan Davuluri, and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang all confirmed to appear on stage.

Microsoft and NVIDIA are both talking about local AI on Windows right now, but they're describing two products at very different stages of readiness. One is Microsoft Copilot+ PC local AI processing, a hardware certification already sitting on store shelves. The other is NVIDIA's RTX Spark, a GPU/CPU "superchip" that exists mostly as company specifications and a fall ship date. If you're shopping based on either company's local-AI claims, it matters which one you're actually comparing.

ArtCraft, the studio run by Brandon Thomas, has published three free Microsoft Office alternatives on GitHub: WordCraft, a Word alternative; GridCraft, an Excel alternative; and DeckCraft, a PowerPoint alternative, all built as open-source Rust applications, according to Pasquale Pillitteri. The three apps are available right now as free installers for Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD, with no account or sign-in required.

Microsoft has created a new internal group called Xbox Labs, but what Xbox CEO Asha Sharma actually confirmed is a small research team exploring emerging technology, not a game, app, or AI-created port that players can use today. Sharma announced the group in an October 13 post on Microsoft's official Xbox Wire website, and PCMag Middle East reported that the move follows a rise in AI-assisted game decompilation among enthusiasts and software developers.

Microsoft says it has optimized Windows 11 for 8GB RAM machines, reworking memory management so the OS can keep up to 2GB more active data in RAM instead of shuffling it off to slower storage. The claim comes from a post on Microsoft's official Windows blog. The reporting reviewed doesn't name a build number, release channel, or a list of qualifying devices, so there's no way yet to confirm whether a specific 8GB PC has actually received this change.

Link to Windows remote shutdown restart sleep controls are now showing up for a small group of Android testers, letting a paired phone power down, restart, or put a Windows PC to sleep without anyone touching the keyboard. Beta build 1.26101.103.0 replaces the app's old single "Lock PC" button with a new Power menu that adds Sleep PC, Shut down, and Restart.

Microsoft PowerToys version 0.102.2803.0 is a confirmed pre-release for Windows 11, published October 8, 2026.

Microsoft 365 Current Channel Version 2609 Build 20430.20182 started reaching devices on October 13, 2026, and Microsoft's update-size page lists it as the most current Current Channel release.

Microsoft says Windows 11 is now "up to 20% more responsive," with gains the company describes as noticeable from the moment a PC boots and extending through Start, File Explorer, Search, Snipping Tool, Microsoft 365, and Edge, according to the Windows Experience Blog.

Before installing anything billed as the latest AMD chipset drivers for Windows 11, check two things first: the exact chipset on the board, and the version already installed. The AMD X870 and WRX80 support pages captured for this report list chipset driver revision 8.02.18.557, released March 9, 2026, as the Windows 11 64-bit package for those two platforms (AMD WRX80, two months ago; AMD X870, two months ago). AMD's pages may have changed since that capture, so check the matching page for the...

Nvidia RTX Spark Windows laptops became available from OEM partners on Oct. 16, 2026, after preorders opened ahead of launch. Nvidia and Microsoft are marketing this hardware heavily around local AI agents and large language models that run without a cloud connection. That pitch is only part of the story.

Microsoft is reshaping Copilot Notebooks from a source-grounded question-and-answer tool into something that can act on notebook content: delegating tasks, running recurring automations, and editing Office files directly inside a notebook, according to Neowin.

A reader shuts their laptop down every night, yet Task Manager still shows three days of uptime the next morning. Another keeps hitting a graphics glitch that survives shutdown after shutdown, no matter how many times the machine gets powered off. Neither is broken. Both come down to a single Windows setting that quietly changes what "off" actually means.

A console with a game disc inserted should, by most players' intuitions, be able to run that game. During Sunday night's Xbox outage, that assumption failed. The Xbox outage blocked disc games alongside digital titles for roughly 15 to 16 hours, not because the discs were unreadable, but because a backend licensing service that Xbox depends on stopped working.

Can MS Paint run Doom? Yes, technically, though the honest answer takes some unpacking. Doom is fully playable inside Microsoft Paint right now, complete with sound, music, and a frame rate that hits 35 fps at the game's native resolution (The Verge, today). The project is called DoomPaint, built by Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Azure's CTO and a Technical Fellow (Windows Central, today). It loads the genuine shareware DOOM1.WAD file and sustains Doom's classic 35 tics-per-second cadence at...

Uninstall a Microsoft Store app, wait for the progress bar to finish, then check your storage. The number barely moves. If you're wondering why Windows 11 storage does not change after uninstalling apps, the answer depends on where the app came from: MSIX-packaged apps and traditionally installed desktop software can fail to free up space for two entirely different reasons. For a Store app, that result can be normal even when removal from your account went through without a hitch.

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for September 2026 shipped fixes for 973 vulnerabilities, including 113 rated Critical, making it the largest Patch Tuesday on record, according to Automox. Cisco Talos counts the same 973 CVEs and 113 Critical bugs. Rapid7 puts Microsoft's own tally slightly higher, at 974, and counted 999 vulnerabilities total once it added 25 non-Microsoft CVEs reviewed in the same release. None of the three publications explain the small gap between their counts.

Reviewed by: Y. Garcia

Microsoft has introduced a Windows platform framework that lets apps request an age signal tied to the person currently using the PC.

Microsoft has until Oct. 31, 2026, to explain why a June 2013 internal presentation called "Second-Hand Software" was not identified and disclosed earlier in its long-running antitrust dispute with ValueLicensing.

"Excel multiple values in one cell" can mean two completely different things.

In December 2017, Microsoft and Qualcomm pitched a new category of Windows Always Connected PCs that would behave more like smartphones: instant wake, long battery life, and cellular connectivity without hunting for a hotspot.

Microsoft has turned Copilot in Excel from a chat-based assistant into a tool that can edit workbooks directly. That change matters more in shared files, where multiple people may be changing formulas, formatting, charts, and data at the same time.