If you’re still on Windows 11 24H2, time is running out. Microsoft is ending support for that version of Windows this month, so you’ll need to upgrade to either 25H2 or (ideally) 26H2 as soon as possible. If you don’t, you’ll put your system at increasing risk over time.
Support for Windows 11 24H2 ends on October 13th, 2026—less than a week from today. Once that deadline hits, you’ll no longer receive security, feature, or quality-of-life updates on your PC.
How do you know if you’re still on 24H2? You can check by opening Windows Settings (use the Windows key + I keyboard shortcut), clicking “System” in the left panel, scrolling all the way down to “About” in the right panel, scrolling down to the “Windows specifications” section, and spotting what it says for “Version.” If you’re on 24H2, it’ll say “24H2.” (Also make note of “Edition,” which will likely be “Windows 11 Home” or “Windows 11 Pro.”)
Windows 11, version 24H2 Home and Pro editions will reach end of updates on October 13, 2026. Devices running these editions will no longer receive fixes for known issues, time zone updates, technical support, or monthly security and preview updates containing protections from the latest security threats. Enterprise and Education editions remain supported until October 12, 2027.
In other words, the end of support will only affect PCs running Windows 11 Home or Pro editions. Windows 11 Enterprise and Education editions will get another year of support, ending on October 12th, 2027. This extra year is in line with Microsoft’s standard practice and isn’t specific to 24H2.
Windows 11 26H2 is already available, so you should upgrade to that if you can. To do so, open Windows Settings again and navigate to “Windows Update” in the left panel, then enable the “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available” option in the right panel. Then, wait until the Windows Update page shows “Windows 11, version 26H2 is available.”
That’s one of the areas in which Microsoft is indeed improving Windows 11. We graded Microsoft’s delivery on its promises from earlier this year—see our Windows 11 26H2 report card for a deeper dive.
The modern look of Windows 11 relies heavily on what is known as ‘Fluent Design,’ with transparent menus and smooth animations. It looks stylish, but it takes up processing power. According to Microsoft’s documentation, rendering certain glass effects — such as the so-called ‘Acrylic’ material — is GPU-intensive and can slow down system performance on older PCs or laptops, as well as putting greater strain on your battery.
Foundry
If you’re using less powerful hardware or simply want a more responsive system, you can disable these effects in just a few clicks:
Disable transparency effects: Press Win + I to open Settings and navigate to Personalization > Colors (or Accessibility > Visual effects). There, toggle off the switch for Transparency effects. This will make the display look a little simpler and may result in smoother performance on less powerful hardware.
Disable animations: Under Settings > Accessibility > Visual effects, you can also turn off Animation effects. This means that, amongst other things, Windows will no longer display animated transitions when opening, minimizing or moving windows, nor will it show other motion effects in the interface. Menus and windows will then appear without these brief transitions, which can make the interface feel more immediate and responsive.
A classic performance tweak via the Control Panel
Foundry
You can also disable further visual effects in Windows. To do this, type ‘Adjust Windows appearance and performance’ into the search box on the taskbar and open the corresponding entry. Go to the Visual Effects tab and select Adjust for best performance. Windows will then disable various animations and other visual effects, which can make the system run more smoothly on less powerful hardware.
Even more performance bottlenecks lie dormant in the Autostart folder on older PCs. Open Task Manager using Ctrl + Shift + Esc and go to ‘Startup apps.’ You can disable any programs you don’t need there. These will then no longer be loaded automatically by Windows at start-up. You can re-enable these start-up programs at any time from here.
Note: Don’t expect these settings to provide a massive performance boost — on modern gaming PCs, the effect is negligible. On older laptops or mini PCs, however, disabling these visual effects can result in smoother performance or longer battery life.
Speaking of Windows and performance, how about that RAM crisis? Microsoft is feeling the squeeze too, and is apparently doing work up and down the Windows stack to improve its memory consumption.
Microsoft’s Windows chief Pavan Davuluri has admitted that the rising cost of memory is pushing the company to make Windows 11 use less RAM. Microsoft is working on the Windows memory manager, memory compression, WinUI 3 and WebView2, and has made “memory optimization for 8GB and above” an official priority for the rest of 2026.
To this day, Windows retains full support for the old MS-DOS 8.3 filename limitation, and it does this by creating 8.3 aliases for files with longer names. Apparently, this has a measurable effect on performance, so naturally, people are going to turn it off to make their Windows installations perform better.
According to the user, this resulted in noticeably smoother scrolling in Tile view. They subsequently repeated the process on several folders they regularly use and reported that searching through files became much faster. The user also claimed that external hard drives became faster and that browsing an Android directory over USB or FTP behaved more like a regular Windows folder, including when copying large numbers of music files.
You can disable this legacy feature in Windows per volume or globally, but Microsoft is warning users not to do so. Even in 2026, applications and registry entries may depend on 8.3 filenames being available, so removing them can lead to unexpected outcomes. It’s just one of those things you wouldn’t expect to still be around or have a measurable impact in the days of fast SSDs, but there’s enough credibly evidence out there to suggest that yes, it actually does negatively affect performance.
If you’re doing a lot of file operations in Windows, it might be worthwhile to do some testing of your own to see if you can speed things up. Or, you know, you can just not use a house of cards disguised as a serious operating system.
Windows Latest noticed significantly lower RAM usage after installing the Windows 11 26H2 update, reporting that the operating system uses up to 2GB less RAM on a three-year-old laptop with only 16GB of total system RAM. One Reddit user writes that on a PC with 48GB of RAM, memory usage at system startup fell by around 2GB (from 6.9GB to 4.8GB).
Microsoft has been working for some time to reduce Windows 11’s memory consumption, promising optimizations that lead to faster boot times and system performance on low-RAM machines. However, the company hasn’t disclosed exactly how it has improved Windows 11’s memory requirements over the past few months.
While users are reporting positive anecdotes, it remains to be seen whether these reports can be generalized or whether Microsoft has actually improved the operating system’s memory usage. Microsoft may reveal more on October 7th at its “Windows. Surface. NVIDIA RTX Spark” event.
Low Latency Profile in Windows 11
In addition, many users report improved performance with the “Low Latency Profile” feature, which speeds up the Start menu, search, and app launches by temporarily boosting CPU clock speed.
The “problem” with Low Latency Profile was that it wasn’t immediately available to everyone—Microsoft put it on a gradual rollout, so some users still didn’t have access even months later. Now, with Windows 11 26H2, nearly all PCs should have access to its speed boosts.
You should notice the speed boost on older PCs or systems with underpowered hardware, whereas on machines that are already powerful, you probably won’t notice any difference.
Since the end of February 2026, Microsoft has been distributing a new internet speed test via Windows Update. You can find it by right-clicking the network or Wi-Fi icon in the bottom-right corner of the taskbar. The option Perform Speed Test now appears in the menu.
Clicking on this opens your browser and takes you to a page on Microsoft’s Bing search engine. This browser-based test uses Ookla’s Speedtest. Ookla is the unofficial global market leader in internet speed tests. The option in the network icon’s context menu is simply a link, but it makes it easier to run the Ookla test.
To start the test, click on Start. The test will first determine the ping from your computer to a Telekom server, and then it will start measuring download and upload speeds. As an alternative to the Bing test, you can also use the Ookla test directly.
Microsoft has confirmed a bug in Windows 11 26H2, 25H2, and 24H2 that can cause some games and applications to crash. That’s right—even the recent major fall update 26H2 contains this issue.
It’ll happen in apps and games that use the Dolby Digital AC-3 audio decoding that’s built into Windows, which may crash when you turn up the volume, change the audio settings, or use certain audio functions.
On this support page for optional September update KB5124010, Microsoft notes this as a known issue labeled “Applications which require AC-3 audio decoding might close unexpectedly”:
After installing this update, some applications that use AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio decoding might fail to launch or close unexpectedly when certain audio features are used. This issue primarily affects legacy applications that rely on Windows built-in audio decoding. Most modern applications are not affected.
According to Microsoft, most users likely won’t encounter this bug, as it affects “legacy” apps and games that rely on Windows’ built-in audio decoding. And to be clear, this issue is unrelated to the other September update issue involving broken USB audio.
This AC-3 problem persists even after installing optional update KB5124010 on Windows 11 25H2, and upgrading to Windows 11 26H2 doesn’t resolve the issue either. The problem is located deep in the system and affects multiple Windows 11 versions because they all share the same code base.
Microsoft is aware of the problem and working on a fix:
Microsoft is working on releasing a resolution for this issue in a future Windows update. We will provide an update when more information is available.
Windows 10 is over 10 years old, and it really shows. Windows 11 Home is a solid upgrade, but it has its limitations. That’s why it’s worth it to jump straight to Windows 11 Pro, especially now that it’s only $10 (reg. $199) through October 4.
Windows 11 Pro does everything 11 Home can do, with a few useful extras. BitLocker encrypts your entire drive, so files on a lost or stolen laptop are still protected. Developers and IT workers get Hyper-V for running virtual machines, along with Windows Sandbox for testing apps in an isolated space that can’t affect the main system. Azure AD support lets the PC join business networks and use Microsoft’s identity management platform.
All of the standard Windows 11 features carry over to Pro, including Snap layouts, DirectX 12 Ultimate for gaming, and biometric sign-in backed by TPM 2.0. Copilot also appears in the taskbar for answering questions, summarizing pages, and writing code.
Give your computer an upgrade that’s worth it.
Through October 4 at 11:59 p.m. PT, it’s only $9.97 to get Windows 11 Pro.
Windows Search is fine, I guess. But Flow Launcher is a much quicker way to get around. While regular Windows Search can be slow with hit-or-miss results, Flow Launcher optimizes search results and uses keyboard shortcuts to navigate—and shortcuts are just better.
At its core, Flow Launcher is a free, open-source app launcher for Windows. By pressing Alt + Space, a small search box appears, allowing you to open apps, find files, jump to Windows settings, open bookmarks, and more–all without clicking a thing.
You can even use it to search the web. If you type an internet query into Flow Launcher, it’ll send you straight to whichever search engine you’ve set as your default, saving you the extra step of opening a browser first.
Power users will find tons of customization options as well. There’s a big library of plugins and tools that integrate with most popular apps such as Obsidian, Steam games, Spotify, GitHub, and plenty more.
Speeding up Windows Search might not sound life-changing, and I thought the same thing before testing it, but trust me when I say it makes a huge difference. After using Flow Launcher for a while, I don’t plan to go back.
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Malware can gain access to more than just documents and apps on your PC. Get infected with a certain kind of virus, and your camera and microphone are fair game, too.
You can minimize part of the headache by disabling unused microphones. For example, maybe you have both a dedicated microphone and a webcam with a built-in mic connected—if you disable the webcam’s mic and activate the standalone mic’s mute button, that should block any eavesdropping.
Added bonus: You’ll minimize the annoyance of starting Zoom and Teams calls with the wrong mic active. (I swear, for me it’s every. single. time.)
How to disable a microphone in Windows
PCWorld
Head to the Sound settings in Windows (Settings > System > Sound). Under Input, click on the audio device you want to disable—this could be a webcam, a headset, or something else.
In the individual device’s settings, find General > Audio. Click on the Don’t allow button.
Why not just disconnect the cable?
Unplugging an audio device from your PC is a valid strategy if you use it rarely. But otherwise, you may run into one of two problems:
1 – You can’t use the device because the audio input is mixed with other signals and routed over a single cable. (Ex: webcam)
2 – Your USB port wears out from frequent use.
The second problem is fixable by buying a USB hub that has individual on/off switches. But turning off Windows’ access to a mic is free.
Keep antivirus active on your PC!
You can disable your microphone(s) as a precaution, but also take steps to avoid getting spyware in the first place. Let your antivirus program scan your system regularly, and avoid shady websites and downloads. Also keep an eye on your browser extensions and apps installed—sometimes, legit ones can turn bad right under your nose.
This was supposed to be the year Microsoft fixed Windows 11.
Back in March, Microsoft made an unusually blunt promise: Windows would become faster, more reliable, more consistent, and less eager to shove Copilot into every corner of the operating system. Six months later, Windows 11 26H2 is rolling out, and it’s time to grade the results.
The early report card? Search earns an A-, Microsoft has done a decent job putting Copilot back in its lane, and Windows feels noticeably quieter. But the Start menu still gets a C, and performance on 8GB PCs remains a work in progress.
That makes 26H2 less of a dramatic new beginning than a progress report on Microsoft’s Windows reset. And in several important ways, the company really has listened.
Microsoft’s Windows 11 26H2 Update is here, and you should already have it
First things first: chances are that you’ve already had a chance to experience Microsoft’s changes for yourself. Though Microsoft now issues a single, major “feature release” each fall, the changes are actually delivered incrementally. Each month, Microsoft delivers some incremental pieces of code as part of its Patch Tuesday updates, which deliver some of these feature improvements on a regular cadence. The fall update rolling out this week simply “rolls up” those changes within a single update, if a user or organization has optionally delayed those changes for whatever reason.
And the changes to Windows aren’t necessarily additions, either. In general, they’re a look back to what Windows was, in an era before AI was rampant and the world ran on Windows 10.
Let’s get to the grades.
Taskbar and Start menu: C
In September, Microsoft’s update finally allowed you to move your Windows taskbar to any part of the screen you wish, adjust the size, and tweak items such as badging options for individual icons.
Likewise, the Start menu now allows you to resize the individual icons, with separate buttons for Pinned, Recently Used, and All.
I hate to say it, but neither change made a profound difference to me. I absolutely give credit to Microsoft for making these changes, if only because it acknowledged that the company was listening to its customers. I briefly noodled with moving the Start menu around within Windows 10; some of the early browser experiments in rearranging tabs made readjusting the Start menu a fun experiment.
What Windows 11 ultimately “taught” me was that I didn’t strongly care where my taskbar ended up, and forcing it to the bottom center was something I learned to live with.
The Windows 11 Start menu, though, I still truly despise. I really enjoyed how Windows 10’s Start menu combined dynamic live tiles/widgets, which used the large, bright icons to full effect. I would actually use my mouse to navigate either through my array of Live Tiles, or scroll through the alphabetical listing of additional apps. Windows 11’s Start menu used to have that, too! Microsoft pledged to make Start feel faster by moving to WinUI3, and I guess it does. But that’s not really the issue here.
Microsoft’s Start menu hasn’t changed much from March, with various categories of apps that Windows arranges.
Mark Hachman / Foundry
Today, I simply launch new applications by “searching” for them (Win+[app name]) and use the app to bring up recent documents. For me, the “Start” menu is now the icons I have pinned to the Taskbar. But if you do happen to use it yourself, it does feel faster now.
Teaching Copilot to chill: B
I think Microsoft has made progress here. For many, any AI is too much AI, but for a while there, Copilot was everywhere, with its injection into Notepad as its most egregious offense.
Now, you don’t see Copilot icons in Notepad, Photos, and the Windows Snipping Tool anymore (thankfully). You still see it within the Copilot application, obviously (where Microsoft has eliminated its goofy avatar) and within the Microsoft 365 applications, where I think it truly belongs. (Copilot destroyed its human competition in the Excel World Championship when I recently tested it.)
Microsoft has fussed over its application UI, with one change in May and another, more visionary update just a few days ago, with an eye towards using Windows and Microsoft 365 as a home for vibe-coding and autonomous agents.
Microsoft
The latter effort could lead to trouble, as Microsoft will undoubtedly feel encouraged to show off what those agents can do for you. But for now, Copilot has been corralled into a few specialized applications where it fits naturally.
AI also still exists within Paint, where Copilot can be explicitly asked to design stickers or an AI-generated piece of art. And yeah, that still feels a little weird. What I do like are the image-processing tools within Photos, with everything from generative erasing to super resolution. They’re just Copilot without the Copilot brand, and that’s probably the model going forward: just give us useful AI utilities without throwing Copilot in our face — and use the PC’s local resources where possible.
It’s AI, but at least AI that you’re asking for.
Improved Search: A-
Microsoft promised “a more consistent search experience across the Taskbar, Start, File Explorer and Settings,” as well as “clearer and more trustworthy results.” I think it’s delivered.
Typing a search term — “Copilot,” say — into the Taskbar’s search box produces clear differences between apps, settings, and documents. Searching within File Explorer, at least on my SSD-equipped PC, can be as quick as lighting, and rarely takes longer than a second or two across my entire laptop.
Again, habit has taught me to open the application, and then the file. However, Windows’ search speed now tempts me to do the opposite. It’s seen a big improvement this year.
Windows Update and the Out of the Box (OOBE) experience: B
I appreciate that, but the Windows update process now achieves something Microsoft traditionally struggles with: simplicity on the surface, with more complexity hidden underneath. Do I want the latest updates ASAP? A simple toggle enables this. Do I want to delay the update? I can, and select a specific date as well.
That’s exactly what many people want. Me too. I appreciate even nerdier options such as selecting optional preview and driver updates, as well as the numerous options to reset your PC when something goes wrong or an update fails. There’s even “quick machine recovery,” an automated process I’ve never been forced to experiment with, thankfully. My only complaint at the moment is that the “delivery optimization” feature that’s existed within Windows for years — designed to share updates locally, without needing to download from an Internet server — has never seemed to work, ever.
Windows Update is now simple and manageable.
Resetting or setting up a new PC is also supposed to be faster, and it generally is. One of Windows’ new features is its ability to defer updates, delivering you to the desktop faster. I’ve never taken advantage of this, but anything that smooths the process is a step forward.
I still don’t entirely like the Windows Insider hierarchy for preview builds, however. While I like the easier way to migrate a PC in and out of Insider builds, the process of selecting “beta” and “experimental” builds, then opting in to a “release preview” update, then picking which of the code bases to use… It’s too convoluted. On the other hand, I don’t really think the corps of Insiders wants yet another change to the program.
Windows performance, especially on 8GB PCs: B
This is a tough one. I simply couldn’t say for certain whether Windows feels faster without doing a head-to-head comparison with the same hardware.
What I will say is that PCWorld has tested a few laptops with 8GB of memory installed, such as the Dell XPS 13 this past August. In my own experience, these affordable PCs — based on Intel’s Wildcat Lake processor and its Project Firefly initiative — feel akin to Chromebooks, capable of performing many basic tasks.
Dell’s new $699 XPS laptops are trying to compete with the Apple MacBook Neo.
Dell
For me, the dividing line between what these PCs can or can’t do falls somewhere between the “required” and “recommended” specifications that software vendors include. Will the application run, and will it run well? I never had any problem with basic Web browsing or the Microsoft Office applications on the 8GB laptops I tried. However, simply opening Microsoft Edge with ten browser tabs sucked up virtually every bit of memory that Windows provided, and even an idle background app affected performance.
I think Microsoft has more work to do here, and it may never match Apple in how effectively it aligns its silicon with its operating system and applications. The question is, will it need to? If the memory crunch continues, Microsoft developers will be forced to keep busy. If it evaporates, Windows can begin gobbling up memory once again.
A “quieter” Windows: A-
I’m sure many readers will disagree with me here, but Windows does feel less intrusive. Microsoft’s pledge to make Windows “quieter” essentially targeted Widgets, the crazy-quilt app that lives in the right-hand corner of your PC. Widgets began as a simple notification of the current forecast, a change in a stock price, or a notable news event, but quickly became a repository for every random bit of information Microsoft’s Bing search engine could dredge up.
Windows Widgets don’t feel calm, but they’re more sedate than they were.
Fortunately, Microsoft has reined it in once again. I’m sure many readers see no use for Widgets at all (and if I weren’t in media, I’d agree) but Widgets sits quietly to one side. I also haven’t seen many “ads” for Windows features pop up, either. Then again, I kill off pretty much every Windows notification I can, and I think you should, too.
That’s my evaluation. What do you think? You can find PCWorld on Facebook, Bluesky, X, and more. Give us your grades.
It’s not often that I come across a productivity tip so good that it amazes even me. And that’s what happened when I started testing Windows’ hidden “energy recommendations” to extend laptop battery life.
Before external USB-C battery packs were a thing, I’d carry a backup laptop to conferences. I know, pen and paper work just fine. But to me, no power meant no productivity; what would happen if I needed to file a story as soon as possible? It’s part of the reason I began testing laptops with streaming and office work for a better sense of how long they’ll last.
Today, there’s a simple one-click way to extend your battery life within Windows, which brings together ten different methods of saving power. Oddly, Microsoft identifies them as “energy recommendations” to lower your carbon footprint, rather than power-saving techniques. But that’s exactly what they are. And they work! (The results of my testing are at the end.)
These energy recommendations hide within the Windows Settings menu (System > Power & battery). And right up top, Microsoft includes a nice big “Apply all” button to turn them on all at once. Let’s take a quick tour.
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What’s in Microsoft’s “Energy recommendations”
Set the power mode for best energy efficiency. This is the famous Windows power slider, which can be adjusted for maximum performance or minimal power consumption. Really, you can make the argument that you might as well turn this on 24-7; most productivity apps don’t require a ton of horsepower, and dialing down the performance minimizes fan noise and maximizes battery life.
Turn on Dark Mode. This is more than an aesthetic decision. On modern displays like OLEDs, a “black” portion of your screen is literally off, saving power. On the other hand, sometimes I prefer smaller laptop screens to be lit brightly to make them easier to see.
The “energy recommendations” setting within Windows. You might find that some of these are turned on already.
Set the screen brightness for best energy efficiency. In Windows, this sets the screen brightness at 75 percent by default. Historically, this has been a simple, significant way to improve battery life, but as screen display types and backlight brightness varies between laptops, the improvements won’t be consistent.
Put my device to sleep after three minutes, and turn off my screen after three minutes. Two easy wins, but these are only useful if you’re staring off into space or leave your desk to get a coffee. Otherwise, these settings may never actually engage.
Turn on dynamic refresh rate. Modern laptop displays just don’t “paint” the screen at a fixed 60Hz. Many can now go up to 120Hz for smooth scrolling and mousing…but that takes more power. Many can now drop down to 30Hz to save power…but with potential display stuttering. Windows has a dynamic refresh rate option to intelligently go back and forth, but it’s typically off by default.
Turn off HDR to conserve energy. I’d leave it off all the time, period. High-dynamic range content isn’t designed for productivity applications, and exists mainly in premium streaming content and games.
Save power by optimizing screen contrast and brightness for the content shown. This is a little like the earlier entry, except that Windows will adjust the brightness for a Web page versus a movie. I usually leave this enabled by default, as it affects visual quality as well as the battery life.
The last two, turn off my screen saver and stop USB devices when my screen is off to help save battery are legacy controls, sort of. Although there is some debate on whether screensavers are necessary for OLED displays (or not), you can be certain that an attached USB device like a webcam or mouse will drain the laptop’s battery, whether the screen is off or on.
What’s the difference between these “energy recommendations” and the more conventional “energy saver” that usually turns on when your laptop battery hits 30 percent or so? The “recommendations” don’t really affect your laptop’s functionality (and productivity), while the energy saver can. Energy saver can halt some background tasks and sync requests, which can mean that crucial email might be held or file backups might be paused. That flies in the face of always-on productivity, though it does keep your laptop up and running.
You may see these, too
Microsoft also has some additional “recommendations” options for specialized devices, too. (Not these specialized devices, just ones with unique hardware.)
I usually turn off adaptive brightness, or Change brightness automatically when lighting around me changes, for testing a laptop, but it’s a significantly useful setting that can lower or dim the brightness of a laptop’s display. We’ve traditionally considered 250 nits of brightness or so to be the appropriate brightness for a laptop indoors, but OLED screens change the game. In testing for this article, I reduced a laptop with an OLED display down to 40 percent, which equated to just 65 nits. The high contrast ratio from the OLED display surprised me with its legibility.
Two options are only available to those laptops with a presence sensor, Automatically dim my screen when I look away and Automatically put my device to sleep when I leave. I find the first annoying, as the dimming distracts me. The latter, however, is a useful power-savings tool provided that you can trust your surroundings; walking away from a laptop in a public place is just asking for it to be stolen, power savings or not! That’s even more catastrophic than your battery gauge hitting zero.
Testing Microsoft’s energy recommendations. Do they work?
Do they! But as they say, your mileage may vary.
I tried both an Asus ZenBook A16 laptop as well as the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition. My thought was that both share a common processor architecture (Qualcomm Snapdragon ARM) but the former has an OLED display, and the latter an older IPS display. If the display is typically what gobbles up battery life, would there be a difference?
Older IPS laptops like this Microsoft Surface Laptop may benefit more from this power-saving tip, especially after Windows dials down the display brightness.
Matthew Smith / Foundry
I didn’t perform full rundown tests; instead, I used Procyon’s specialized one-hour office productivity benchmark to track how much battery was chewed up in an hour’s worth of tests, leaving Wi-Fi on.
I wasn’t expecting much, and the Asus laptop didn’t deliver much: battery life dropped 17 percent in a single hour with my default settings (performance dialed down to a minimum but screen brightness up, and with virtually none of the recommendations in place), which equated to about 5.9 hours of battery life. With the recommendations on, the drain dropped to 14 percent per hour, or a projected 7.7 hours of battery life. Still, that’s close to a full work day, and 1.8 hours of difference.
On a second run (because I was kind of shocked that this worked so well), the battery draw dropped from 18 percent to 10 percent, though I turned the brightness up to maximum on my “normal” settings.
But the Surface Laptop — oh, man. Again, I used the same procedure (brightness turned up, performance down to “recommended” levels, with the other recommendations largely off) and Procyon measured a 16 percent drain per hour, projecting to 6.25 hours of battery life. But with the energy recommendations all enabled, battery dropped by just 8 percent, projecting to 12.5 hours of continuous work. I even double-checked it, with an even better score: a 17 percent hourly drop on my normal settings, and a 7 percent drop with Microsoft’s energy recommendations turned on.
Put simply, a single click doubled my battery life. What can it do for you?
Productivity in the news:
Microsoft Copilot is getting a major update with an eye towards productivity. Here’s the breakdown.
One followup to the recent Googlebook launch: Google confirms that some Chromebooks (the Plus devices are the default guess) will be upgradable to the new Aluminium OS.
Applying Windows patches is fine — when it’s done right, there’s no interruption to your workday. When it goes wrong — catastrophe! And that still happens way too much to Windows 11.
Sandra Andrews, head of Microsoft’s go-to-market for Surface, believes that the untold story of Surface is that it’s a touchscreen. (Source: analyst Carolina Milanesi.) I hope there’s more to it than that!
The Windows Clock app might be the most “blah” app on your PC. But it hides a “focus mode” feature that’s perfect for staying on task.
Productivity tip of the week: Shut down your desk as well as your PC
Implement a “shutdown ritual” at the end of every workday. Block out the final 10-15 minutes to clear your physical workspace, review completed tasks, and write down your top three non-negotiable priorities for tomorrow.
Clearing the deck before you step away creates a clean boundary between work and personal life, preventing off-hours mental rumination. When you return the next morning, you eliminate decision fatigue and start immediately on what actually matters instead of spending your first hour figuring out what to do. I personally don’t physically write these things down, but I do leave with a clear sense of how I’m going to start my next workday. Now that I think about it, however, this might be an even better way to end the week and set the stage for Monday.
Thanks for reading!
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Microsoft has announced WSL containers for developers who aren’t already using Docker, Podman, or Rancher on their Windows workstations.
WSL containers is now generally available! Check out this blog post to learn more about this overall feature enabling seamless access to Linux containers on Windows via the new “wslc.exe” command. This new Linux container platform comes with multiple architectures changes compared to WSL, which we’ll detail in this post.
Windows 11 26H2 is here earlier than expected, but before you run off and install it, you might want to take a second. Microsoft has issued a warning that the update contains a few known issues.
USB audio devices might fail to start or produce no sound, meaning some USB Audio Class 1.0 devices display Code 10 or fail in multichannel audio modes after installing the September 2026 update.
Domain-joined devices might lose their secure trust relationship with the domain, meaning some accounts protected by Credential Guard might be unable to sign in with valid domain credentials.
Devices might experience a black screen or desktop loading issues after sign-in, which can occur in some virtual desktop environments.
To be clear, these issues aren’t caused by Windows 11 26H2. In fact, Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 24H2 also show those same issues on their respective Windows Release Health pages. However, it’s possible for your PC to not be experiencing these issues now but start experiencing them once you upgrade to Windows 11 26H2. Meanwhile, if you’re already experiencing them, you’ll likely keep experiencing them post-update.
While Microsoft has marked these issues as “mitigated,” the reality is that they still persist and Microsoft is still investigating solutions.
What should you do?
If you haven’t yet noticed the issues above and absolutely don’t want them to happen on your PC, you should wait until Microsoft reports that these issues have been fixed before installing Windows 11 26H2. (That’s our recommendation, not Microsoft’s.) It’s unclear how long it’ll be before those fixes are released—Microsoft hasn’t provided details.
According to past patterns, Windows 11 26H2 should’ve released next Tuesday… but it’s actually already here. Windows 11 PCs running 25H2 or 24H2 (but not 26H1, which is specifically for Arm PCs) will receive the update as a tiny enablement package.
Once installed, the update will require a single restart. That’s because the actual code for the new features is already on eligible PCs and simply needs to be enabled (hence it being called an “enablement” package).
However, Microsoft isn’t actually rolling out 26H2 to all compatible PCs right away. Instead, it’ll proceed the same way that recent fall updates have gone: Microsoft will slowly make the update available to more and more users, with the rollout occurring in waves. If Windows detects a problem on a particular PC, it’ll prevent the installation of 26H2 on that machine.
To ensure you receive Windows 11 26H2 as soon as possible, you’ll need to enable the option “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available” in Windows Update settings. After that, you’ll just need to wait until your Windows PC shows the “Windows 11 2026 Update” for installation.
Microsoft will provide support and feature updates for version 26H2 on Windows 11 Home and Pro until October 9th, 2028. Meanwhile, Enterprise and Education versions will receive support until October 8th, 2029.
Direct downloads for a fresh install
If you want to upgrade from an older version of Windows 11 (such as 23H2) straight to 26H2, you’ll need to perform a clean install of Windows 11 26H2, which is available on this download page. Using this method, you’ll of course need to activate Windows 11 using a valid license key.
If you need a Windows 11 license key, you can grab one at a big discount from the PCWorld Software Store, where Windows 11 Home can be bought for just $59.99 (originally $139.99). You can then upgrade that to Windows 11 Pro for another $59.99 (originally $99) if you’d like extra features like sandboxing, BitLocker encryption, and virtualization.
A viral social media post claims Windows 11 stores a preview of every photo ever deleted. The controversy centers around a well-known Windows feature called the thumbnail cache, which can still contain image thumbnails long after their original files have been deleted.
The discussion was sparked by user @Ayzacoder, which has been viewed millions of times over the last few days. However, the claim is only partially correct—while Windows 11 can store thumbnails of deleted images, not every image will automatically end up in this cache.
Windows keeps a thumbnail of every photo you've ever deleted.
It sits in a file called thumbcache_256.db, and forensic examiners pull it routinely. There are 15 more stores like it.
Windows 11 creates thumbnails for photos, videos, and some document types so that they can be displayed more quickly in File Explorer. Instead of recreating the preview every time it’s needed, the operating system stores it temporarily in a local database.
This data is stored in the user profile at %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer. There you’ll find files with names such as thumbcache_32.db, thumbcache_96.db, thumbcache_256.db, or thumbcache_1024.db. These are individual thumbnail databases containing preview images in different sizes.
This thumbnail cache system has been in place since Windows Vista. Previously, Microsoft used the familiar Thumbs.db files convention, which were stored in individual folders.
Not every deleted photo is saved
The claim that’s circulating social media right now gives the impression that Windows 11 automatically archives a preview of all deleted images. However, there’s no evidence to support this.
For example, a test conducted by Windows Latest showed that several images that were downloaded and later deleted didn’t appear in the thumbnail cache. The database files weren’t altered at all.
The reason? A thumbnail preview is normally only saved when File Explorer (or another application) generates a thumbnail as part of the file preview process. If an image is never actually displayed as a preview anywhere, it won’t have made a thumbnail to end up in the cache.
Why do thumbnails remain after deletion?
The thumbnail cache is stored separately from the original image files. That means when an original photo is deleted, Windows 11 doesn’t automatically remove the corresponding thumbnail.
As a result, small image previews may still be present even though the original file itself has long since been deleted from the PC.
Investigators make use of the data
The thumbnail cache has been of interest to IT forensic experts for years. Using specialized tools, stored thumbnails can be extracted from these databases even after the original files have already been deleted.
This doesn’t automatically pose a security risk for home users. However, it does show that “file deleted” doesn’t necessarily mean that all associated information is completely wiped from the system.
Should you worry? That depends. Since these are thumbnails, they aren’t complete copies of the original images but rather reduced-size previews. A lot of the original detail will be lost, and whether the thumbnail remains recognizable will depend on the size and subject of the image.
How to clear the thumbnail cache
If you want to remove existing thumbnails from your Windows 11 PC, you can do so using the built-in thumbnail cleaner:
Press the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut.
Type “cleanmgr” and press Enter.
Select the Windows drive.
Tick the “Thumbnails” box.
Click “Delete files.”
Windows 11 will then remove the stored thumbnails. The cache will be rebuilt as required whenever you browse folders later.
In Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, and Education, you can also permanently disable thumbnail caching. To do this, open the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) and navigate to User Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → File Explorer. There you will find the policy called “Disable thumbnail caching.” Microsoft recommends enabling this setting on public computers, shared computers, or any computer where security is a key concern.
Users of Windows 11 Home can instead enable the option “Always show icons instead of thumbnails” in File Explorer. This means that image previews will no longer be displayed and, consequently, no new thumbnail previews will be created.
Microsoft is expected to release the next major fall update for Windows 11 in a few days. But when exactly? We have a guess.
Windows Latest analyzed when Microsoft released the last few fall updates for Windows 11 over the last few years and found that next Tuesday—October 6th, 2026—is the most likely date.
According to the analysis, Windows 11 versions 21H2, 22H2, 23H2, 24H2, and 25H2 were all released on a Tuesday. In three cases, that Tuesday fell in October; in two cases, it fell in September. Only one of those October days fell at the end of the month; all other Tuesdays in October came early in the month. Going by the odds, it seems most likely then that Windows 11 26H2 will arrive on the first Tuesday of October 2026.
Okay, that’s all good and well. But what’s so special about Windows 11 26H2? Who’s going to get it? And how do you get it? We’ve answered all the major questions in our rundown of what to expect when Windows 11 26H2 lands. In short, don’t get too excited; let it come when it comes and install it whenever it’s most convenient for you.
Windows 11 received its September update on the 8th of this month, and within days Microsoft had acknowledged or investigated problems involving Remote Desktop, USB audio, Linux and WSL-based apps like Claude Cowork, and enterprise domain issues. Windows Latest also found File History failures, Explorer.exe crashes, and AMD GPU instability, with an emergency update following on September 14 that still did not fix everything.
This got us curious, and we looked back across the nine monthly updates released from January through September 2026 and, rather unsurprisingly, Windows 10 update history isn’t infected with nearly as many bugs as that of Windows 11.
Of course, Windows 10 also isn’t getting nearly as much attention from Microsoft, but that’s kind of the whole point, isn’t it? Whenever Microsoft touches something, especially over the last 5 years or so, it’s one cascade of failures after the other, eroding trust in Windows’ updates even more (if that’s even possible). In that light, why would you want to use Windows 11 and all the headaches that come with it, when Windows 10 is right there, still being supported, albeit without the latest bells and whistles that only seem to break Windows 11 anyway?
If you really do need or want to use Windows, consider switching back to Windows 10 whenever the usual Windows reinstallation time draws near. You won’t lose much, but will gain quite a bit in the process. Of course, this won’t be a responsible or usable choice forever, but at this point in time, I definitely think it’s the optimal choice for quite a few people.
Microsoft recently released optional out-of-band update KB5002907, intended to bring outdated versions of Microsoft 365 Apps back in sync and continuing to receive updates. However, Microsoft quickly halted the rollout of this update due to a serious issue.
This update was for Windows PCs on which Microsoft 365 Apps were more than 90 days out of date and either on the Current Channel or Monthly Enterprise Channel. Installing the update would allow those apps to be updated again and switch to a more current update channel.
KB5002907 was available via Windows Update. It wasn’t an update for the Windows operating system, nor was it installed automatically. It could only be installed manually.
If you installed it, you may have noticed some issues afterward. Here’s what Microsoft says in an updated note for the patch:
Microsoft has received reports of unexpected results on some devices running Office 2016 or Office 2019 after this update is installed. This update was intended to address issues with devices not receiving updates to Microsoft 365 Apps. As part of the repair action applied by this update, some devices were left without functioning versions of Microsoft 365 Apps or Office. To prevent additional devices from being affected, we have paused the rollout of this update. If your device is affected, use the appropriate resolution:
In some cases, the product may appear to be unlicensed. Users should reactivate their purchased product: Activate Office for Windows
If the issue persists after you complete the appropriate resolution steps, contact Microsoft Support. When you contact support, describe the issue and the steps you have already completed so that we can connect you with the appropriate assistance.
A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the paused rollout to BleepingComputer: “We are aware of these reports and have paused the update while we investigate. Additional customer guidance will be communicated via appropriate channels.”
Raymond Chen, longtime Microsoft employee and author of the very popular The Old New Thing blog, published an interesting post about the Win32 scrollbar. It turns out there’s actually quite a few interesting shortcuts and useful hidden features, like clicking inside a scrollbar while holding down shift will make the content jump to that point. Halfway through the article, though, Chen laments how nobody really uses proper Win32 scrollbars anymore.
Sadly, almost nobody uses Win32 scroll bars any more. Everybody uses frameworks that provide their own custom scroll bars.
And as you might expect, none of these scrollbars work like the Win32 one, making even something as basic as the scrollbar a fragmented mess. He doesn’t just blame things like Electron, either, as Microsoft’s own WinUI framework, which is used for most “new” Windows UI developed by Microsoft for Windows 11, also uses custom scrollbars that do not work like the Win32 one does.
Great, so by the time I learn about a shortcut for scroll bars (Shift+click), the ecosystem has fragmented so much that I can’t even rely on it working.
When I used Windows for a month because you people paid me to do so, the utter lack of consistency in the way applications and the operating system itself looks, feels, and behaves was a major sticking point. It turns out, though, that I was only scratching the surface of just how bad things really are on Windows. Case in point: the new WinUI Notepad application that replaced the classic Win32 one. I had no idea just how bad it really is.
It’s been seven weeks since I last complained about something in Windows on this blog. That feels like too long, so here’s a post about menus – specifically, the menu bar in the modern version of Notepad in Windows 11.
That menu bar has, unfortunately, quite a few regressions compared to the menu bar in the old Win32 version of Notepad.
Once a month, Microsoft pushes a security update to all Windows users. Tomorrow’s is a new record:
Microsoft’s patch for September is a doozy, with a record number of roughly 972 vulnerabilities fixed and 112 of them meeting the high critical-severity threshold.
It was only two months ago that Microsoft patched a then-record 570 vulnerabilities. Then, last month, Microsoft patched some 620 of them. Google and other companies have also published record numbers of vulnerabilities in recent months. Two weeks ago, OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and 100 companies and organizations published an open letter warning of a narrowing window for patching vulnerabilities ahead of an expected tsunami of AI-enabled attacks that actively exploit them first. The industry is taking the threat seriously by pumping out unprecedented numbers of patches in their software.
This is the result of AI-powered vulnerability finding, and a good example of AI helping the defenders more than the attackers.
What will be interesting to watch is how the number of vulnerabilities changes over the next few months. My prediction is that it will continue to increase as the AIs get better at finding software vulnerabilities, and then decrease as they run out of vulnerabilities to find. How high the number gets, how fast the trend reverses, and how quickly it declines after that are all unknown.
And Microsoft is right: The window to patch has shrunk to “immediately.” AIs are also good at reverse-engineering exploits from patches, which means that these vulnerabilities will be weaponized as soon as the update is published.
BlueMoon, a shared Chrome and Windows exploit kit, shows why “patch later” is becoming a dangerous gamble.
Security updates are easy to put off. The browser still opens, Windows still works, and choosing to relaunch your browser or restart your computer later can feel harmless.
But a newly documented exploit kit called “BlueMoon” shows how quickly patching delays can become dangerous. Proofpoint Researchers found four espionage groups using the same exploit chain against Chrome browsers running on Windows within days of one another.
The campaign is a timely reminder that once a security flaw, or even its fix, becomes public, attackers may move faster than many users expect.
The attacks began with phishing emails. A victim who clicked a malicious link could be sent to a web page designed to exploit two vulnerabilities in Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine, followed by a Windows vulnerability to break out of the browser’s protections and gain higher privileges on the computer.
The Chrome vulnerabilities used by BlueMoon were patched in the Stable channel on September 3 and September 8, 2026. The first was already actively exploited when Google released its update. Microsoft addressed the Windows vulnerability in its September Patch Tuesday updates, by which point it was also being exploited.
The notable part is not just that BlueMoon exploited the flaws, but how quickly the capability appears to have spread. Publicly visible upstream fixes can give attackers clues before downstream browser updates reach users, allowing a weaponized chain to be developed and adopted by multiple groups very quickly.
Does that mean that patches can no longer be tested before they are released to the public? No, but we may need to rethink how they are tested and deployed, because it appears some cybercriminals are effectively beta-testing the patches themselves.
The researchers also found clues, but no conclusive evidence, that the exploit kit was developed with AI assistance. The broader concern is credible: AI tools can help attackers interpret source-code changes, write and modify code, document test results, and learn from failed attempts.
In practical terms, the gap between “a flaw is fixed upstream” and “most people are protected” may be increasingly valuable to attackers. We should try to minimize that gap.
How to stay safe
Not every security update needs to be installed the moment it appears. In organizations especially, updates may need testing, staged deployment, and contingency plans. But vulnerabilities known to be actively exploited deserve greater priority. That is precisely why CISA’s KEV catalog is so important: It helps organizations identify the vulnerabilities they should address first.
For home users:
Install browser and operating-system updates promptly. Use the few minutes they take to grab a drink rather than repeatedly postponing them.
Don’t click links in unsolicited emails.
Use up-to-date, real-time anti-malware protection to help catch the malware that exploit kits attempt to deliver.
Stop threats before they can do any harm.
Malwarebytes Browser Guard blocks phishing pages and malicious sites automatically. Free, one click to install. Add it to your browser →
Zenith is a variant of Windows for “developer-class devices”.
Project Zenith comes with a set of pre-installed tools spanning languages and runtimes, source control, and productivity tools. Windows Terminal and Visual Studio Code are pinned to the Taskbar by default, putting your favorite tools within immediate reach.
We’ve also pre-configured Windows Settings for coding across File Explorer, Search, Start, and the Taskbar. File Explorer shows file extensions, hidden files, the full path in the title bar, and the details pane, with long-path support enabled. Recently used files and folders and sync provider tips are turned off for a cleaner workspace. In Search and Start, Command Palette is enabled, while Start menu tips and account notifications are turned off to reduce distractions.
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has become foundational for running Linux workloads on Windows. Last year we open-sourced WSL. Building on that momentum at Build 2026, we integrated WSL more deeply into Windows with WSL containers to provide a built-in way to create, run, and interact with Linux containers directly on Windows.
It’s highly unlikely you’ll be using this Zenith Windows flavour any time soon, as it requires 64GB of unified RAM with 250 GB/s memory bandwidth. In 2026, that’s a serious ask. On top of that, it’s not entirely clear to me if Zenith will be available as a separate Windows variant, without having to buy a complete device.
Of course, it would be trivial to set all of this up on any fresh Windows installation.
When I wrote about using Windows 11 for a month as part of the ongoing OSNews fundraiser (keep donating to get me to do the same for macOS!), one of the things I mentioned was that “the modern desktop context menu has its own classic Win32 context menu”. This is, in fact, a long-standing complaint I’ve repeatedly used as the perfect example of just how chaotic and low-quality Windows has become. Thankfully, and naturally I fully attribute this to my repeated complaints (*), Microsoft has been working on a brand new, faster, configurable context menu, and Neowin actually reviewed it.
If you ask me, this revamped context menu addresses just about the biggest problem users had with the one in Windows 11, and that is the need to click through more buttons than necessary to do simple things like renaming a file or opening its properties. That problem is now basically gone.
I have no issues with the new design. It looks modern, it feels more consistent with the rest of Windows, and even though all the new sections can still make it look a little busy, you now have the option to make it as simple or as button-packed as you want. That should cover most use cases and preferences well. I’d even say that when the new context menu becomes available to everyone, my guide on how to bring back the classic context menu might become obsolete.
The biggest reason I’m linking to this is not because I care about whatever monster of a context menu Windows users are having to deal with. No, I’m only linking to this because I never in my life imagined I’d be linking to a review of a context menu. I mean, at least it’s not the chess application icon. That would be embarrassing.
Raymond Chen explains what, exactly, the file winstart.bat in Windows 95 is used for.
In Windows 95, you could create a winstart.bat file in your Windows directory. During startup, the virtual machine manager initializes and creates the so-called “System virtual machine” (the “System VM”), which is the virtual machine that all Windows programs run in. But before running the user-mode kernel in that virtual machine, the virtual machine manager runs the winstart.bat batch file if it exists.
Chen needs to use several diagrams to really explain what the batch file is used for, but as a very crude summary, it allows you to load TSRs that only apply to Windows programs, while not affecting any additional DOS command prompts you may load later after Windows is already running. While many think it’s a Windows 95 feature, it was already present in Windows 3.x.
A unique feature that I doubt many people made active use of.
According to a new report from Taiwanese publication United Daily News (UDC,) Microsoft is raising the cost of Windows license fees for hardware makers by a much higher amount than normal. According to the report, certain OEMs are seeing licensing price hikes of between 7% and 10%.
Like every other tech company diving head-first into “AI”, Microsoft is losing money on its gamble head-over-fist, with no profitability in sight. Since admitting betting the company on “AI” was a mistake is out of the question, Microsoft has to extract the money from somewhere else to make up for it. The cost of Windows licenses for OEMs is an obvious lever to pull, as OEMs really have nowhere else to turn to (yes, desktop Linux is making gains, but not in any meaningful numbers), so they’ll take hit and pass the cost on to consumers.
The end result will be that prices for laptops will increase even more than they already have thanks to the “AI”-induced RAM and component crisis, creating a double-whammy of price increases caused by “AI”, either directly or indirectly. It’s just another category of products we can add to the cost of living crisis that’s causing untold harm and damage to hardworking people all over the world.
The price of incompetence is rarely paid for by the incompetent.
There’s been a small flurry of articles from a variety of sources, all talking about more or less the same thing: Microsoft is trying to explain why Windows 11 is as difficult to develop as it is, in turn justifying why it’s become such a mess over the years. I’m picking this one from Windows Central, which is an interview with Microsoft’s CVP of Design and Research for Windows and Devices, Marcus Ash. Taking the long, still ongoing transition from the Control Panel to the Settings application as an example, Ash explains why this is such a long and difficult process.
Unsurprisingly, Ash says that the reason this has taken so long is that Microsoft prides itself on compatibility with legacy tooling and workflows, so it can’t just rush in and modernize everything without first ensuring the modern replacements maintain functionality with what came before.
This isn’t really news to anyone. One of Windows’ prized strong points is its often excellent backwards compatibility. This doesn’t just apply to individual applications, but also to things like software makers adding settings panels to Control Panel, or complex business applications expecting certain entry points into the Control Panel to exist – and much, much more, all over the operating system. I’m exaggerating, but you can’t so much as move a single pixel in the taskbar without breaking some component of some obscure corporate middleware suite from 1999 that somehow still functions as the beating heart of like 187 Fortune 500 companies.
Sometimes I wonder if Microsoft is going about this the wrong way entirely. Of course, I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I feel like Microsoft has so man tools at its disposal to deal with this issue that it’s not really using to their fullest potential. Specifically, Windows itself has a number of incredibly capable tools in its toolbox to make sure any application ever written for Windows and even DOS, regardless of how many bits it requires, can run. Windows has advanced and highly capable tools for virtualisation and containerisation, and on top of that, Windows NT has a very capable personalities system that feels underutilised, too.
Couldn’t these tools be harnessed to effectively isolate the entire backwards compatibility problem from the actual Windows operating system people use, and turn them into optional components installed and activated when required by an older application? Isolating backwards compatibility this way would then leave the Windows team much less shackled and more free to improve Windows at every level without having to worry so much about maintaining backwards compatibility. If the components an older application needs are virtualised, containerised, or part of a Windows NT personality and thus frozen in time, the Windows team would be free to work on the “current” version of said component without breaking the application in question.
I feel like Microsoft has tried to use these technologies to address backwards compatibility in the past, but in true Microsoft fashion, it always seems to do so halfheartedly, without any real coherent vision behind it. Again, I wish to reiterate I’m by no means qualified enough to make any definitive statements about this, but it sure does feel like Microsoft is underutilising a lot of the tools it already has at its disposal.
When I had to use Windows 11 for a month because you people paid me to do so, the one seemingly small thing that really ground my gears were Windows 11’s terrible right-click (context) menus. They were full of stuff I didn’t put there, slow to open, and in some places, a modern Windows 11 context menu would have its own old Win32 context menu with even more stuff. It seems Microsoft is finally going to fix all of this.
This new compact menu will be much faster and more reliable, as it foregoes needing to load in all the third-party actions that slow it down currently. Additionally, at the Windows Insider Meetup in London, Microsoft showed me a new context menu customization feature coming soon that will let users configure what apps and actions appear in the right-click menu.
Look, I know to us non-Windows users this seem like an incredibly small and dumb thing to focus on, but when your operating system is as much of a trashfire as Windows has become, improved context menus are massive improvements that make a meaningful difference. Of course, Microsoft makes these types of promises all the time, so I’ll believe it when I see it.
The year is 2026, and I’m still amazed when I find a new entry in my Start menu’s All apps list for an app I don’t remember installing. This time, it’s Microsoft again, and the product is OneDrive Photos, which appears to be yet another photo viewer and editor for Windows 11 that nobody asked to have installed automatically.
While searching for Microsoft Photos, a new app called “OneDrive Photos” showed up in my results out of nowhere. It appears to have arrived either via Windows Update or an update for the OneDrive sync client on Windows.
A Hermes AI agent was used to automate parts of a cyberattack targeting Thailand's Ministry of Finance, according to research by Hunt.io and security researcher Bob Diachenko. The investigation found evidence of an operator using the agent in unattended "YOLO" mode while staging exploit code, web shells, stolen credentials and a previously unreported Hades implant on exposed infrastructure.
The research team identified three open directories on a Hong Kong-hosted server between July 9 and 13, 2026. The directories contained 585 files totaling about 470 MB of attack code and stolen credentials. The material included tools targeting the ministry's internal systems, multiple known vulnerabilities and payloads for both Windows and Linux environments.
Hermes AI Agent Ran Unattended Attack Operations
The investigation found logs showing the Hermes AI agent enumerating hosts associated with the Ministry of Finance, traversing files and collecting privilege escalation information from an adjacent system.
Hermes was reportedly operated in YOLO mode, which removes prompts requiring human approval for potentially dangerous commands. Logs recovered from the exposed directories showed the agent using LinPEAS to assess privilege escalation opportunities and enumerate services, files and system information.
Researchers also found evidence that the agent was instructed to search content connected to the Office of the Permanent Secretary for Finance. The material included PDF, DOC and XLS files, along with personnel records. However, the researchers said there was no evidence that these files had been exfiltrated.
The investigation also identified a custom LinPEAS script configured to scan for several 2026 Linux kernel vulnerabilities, including CVE-2026-43503, CVE-2026-31431 and CVE-2026-43284/CVE-2026-43500.
Hades Implant Found in Windows and Linux Payloads
The 10 July directory contained 62 compiled binaries for Windows and Linux. Analysis of two recovered samples confirmed that they belonged to the same custom malware codebase, which the operator referred to as the Hades implant.
The malware communicates over HTTPS and uses URI paths designed to resemble legitimate web traffic. Its communications are encrypted using AES-256-GCM with a hardcoded key for each build.
The Windows and Linux versions also included different persistence and execution capabilities. The Windows build supported persistence through Registry Run keys and scheduled tasks, while the Linux version used cron jobs. The Windows sample also supported screenshot capture and process hollowing, while both versions included interactive shell, SOCKS proxy and file transfer capabilities.
The recovered samples contained hardcoded command-and-control addresses that researchers said linked the malware to additional infrastructure identified through TLS certificate analysis.
Attackers Targeted Thailand's Ministry of Finance Infrastructure
Custom scripts found across the exposed directories referenced Thailand's Ministry of Finance systems, including an administrative web panel, Hadoop infrastructure and the Ambari management platform.
Researchers identified tooling designed to target Apache HiveServer2 using hardcoded credentials and a malicious Hive user-defined function capable of executing commands. Additional scripts targeted an internal GlassFish application server and attempted to deploy web shells.
The investigation also uncovered scripts testing mailbox credentials against ministry mail infrastructure, along with session material associated with an internal administration panel and document management platform.
The attackers had also staged exploit code targeting several known vulnerabilities, including CVE-2021-3156, CVE-2021-4034 and CVE-2017-7269. The research noted that the tooling indicated preparation for privilege escalation and further movement within targeted systems.
Researchers Link Infrastructure to Ongoing Activity
Hunt.io identified three exposed directories hosted on 43.246.208[.]207, an IP address associated with infrastructure in Hong Kong. TLS certificate analysis connected the activity to two additional servers in Malaysia and Hong Kong.
The researchers also identified a separate IP address in the Hermes configuration that appeared to have been used to connect to the staging server.
According to the investigation, the activity appeared to be ongoing when the exposed directories were discovered. The combination of an autonomous AI agent, a cross-platform implant and custom tools targeting specific Ministry of Finance systems indicated significant preparation by the operator.
The initial method used to gain access to the Ministry of Finance network remains unknown. Researchers said they found no evidence confirming that data had left the network.
Thailand's national CERT and National Cyber Security Agency were notified on July 15, 2026, and acknowledged receipt the same day. The research was published following a standard seven-day disclosure window.
The investigation assessed with low to medium confidence that the actor may be Chinese-speaking or closely familiar with the Chinese language, based on the infrastructure history and language-related indicators. Researchers said they would continue tracking the activity and associated infrastructure.
Dave Farquhar published an article today about Windows NT 3.1’s place in the market when it was originally released, and while the article is interesting and a fun read, it does mention this:
[…] Microsoft took its nascent code that it intended to form the base of OS/2 3.0, renamed it Windows New Technology, and eventually released it as Windows NT 3.1.
While Microsoft did, in fact, use the “New Technology” branding as a marketing trick, this is not what “NT” originally stood for. Two developers from the original Windows NT development team, Mark Lucovsky and David Thompson, explained all the way back in 2003 that “NT” came from the codename for Intel’s then-new RISC platform, the Intel i860 (Raymond Chen confirmed the veracity of their story). The i860 was the first target platform for Windows NT, and it was codenamed “N-10” – NT.
Finally, it was time to start writing some code. “We checked the first code pieces in around mid-December 1988,” Lucovsky said, “and had a very basic system kind of booting on a simulator of the Intel i860 (which was codenamed “N-Ten”) by January.” In fact, this is where NT actually got its name, Lucovsky revealed, adding that the “new technology” moniker was added after the fact in a rare spurt of product marketing by the original NT team members. “Originally, we were targeting NT to the Intel i860, a RISC processor that was horribly behind schedule. Because we didn’t have any i860 machines in-house to test on, we used an i860 simulator. That’s why we called it NT, because it worked on the ‘N-Ten.'”
The i860 was one of Intel’s many attempts over the years to replace x86 with something more modern, but – as would become tradition with Intel and attempting to replace its x86 architecture – it suffered from endless delays, missed targets, and lacklustre performance. It saw only sporadic use in the market, and ended up on the chopping block after only a few years. Intel tried to replace x86 again soon after with Itanium, which suffered an identical fate.
Still, the engineers working on the i860 platform in the late ’80s and early ’90s at Intel can at least take some pride in that to this day, the most popular desktop operating system in the world got its name from the product they developed. Intel’s i860 might barely even be worthy of a footnote today, but billions of PC users log into their Windows “N-10” machines every day, unwittingly carrying a torch for the failed x86 replacement.
The Verge reviewed the latest Surface Laptop, which only comes with 8GB of RAM at a higher price than the previous 16GB model, and they conclude that Windows isn’t really usable on 8GB of RAM. Whether that’s true or not I do not know – I would assume it depends a lot on your usage – but this quote from the review I found quite peculiar:
I was on a Microsoft Teams call (using the app, not a browser) when the host streamed a brief video, which made the whole laptop hang for several seconds. At the time, I had about 10 Chrome tabs open across two desktops, alongside Slack and Signal — not an obscene level of multitasking.
Excuse me, but that is actually an obscene level of multitasking because every single one of those “applications” is a complete Chrome browser. Just in the paragraph above, there’s four individual complete Chrome browsers running, with little to no optimisation. Why would anyone be surprised this scenario strains a mere 8GB of RAM? This isn’t merely a Windows problem; this is a programmers choosing suboptimal tooling × managers have no idea what they’re doing problem.
If Teams, Slack, and Signal had been proper, native applications instead of websites running in terrible frameworks, Windows 11 would have handled this scenario just fine.
Well, this is new – but not at all unexpected considering the state of Windows and the wider technology industry. When you connect certain LG monitors to a Windows machine, Windows Update will pull in a bunch of adware promoting antivirus trash. Of course, all done without any consent, because Silicon Valley inherently does not understand nor respect consent.
Windows Update first installed LG extension and software component packages. Windows Reliability Monitor showed that LG Monitor App Installer appeared one minute later. The installation did not display a consent prompt or require the user to approve the download.
Gamers Nexus tested the application across 32 consecutive system boots. It displayed a McAfee promotion during 31 of them. On the remaining boot, it promoted one of LG’s own monitor utilities. The McAfee popup offered a 30-day trial that would convert into a paid subscription.
In what should be a surprise to absolutely nobody, Microsoft assigns a persistent identifier to every Windows installation, tying it to its user, and the company has no issues handing it over to law enforcement. Abhijith M B at windows Latest dove into the details, and it’s just as bad as you would expect.
Am I glad Stokes got caught? Yes, without hesitation. Thirty-five pages of a teenager bragging about diamond chains spelling out “HACK THE PLANET” while extorting a jewelry store don’t leave much room for sympathy, whatever role Microsoft’s telemetry played in building the case.
But that doesn’t make the GDID okay. Every company selling you software has some version of this, and a persistent device identity is a reasonable thing to build into activation and fraud systems. What gets me is that most people had never come across the term GDID before a federal court filing such as this. Microsoft wrote one sentence about it in an Azure Monitor reference table meant for enterprise IT admins pulling update reports, not for the 1.6 billion or so regular people whose PCs are generating this data.
You might be tech savvy enough to turn off Activity History, pick a local account, and strip out every scrap of optional telemetry, but none of it changes the fact that the identifier exists, and that it answers to your Microsoft Account instead of you. Microsoft only told the public about it once a court forced the issue.
The thing is, even without this GDID, I can’t imagine Microsoft would have much trouble tying a Windows installation to a specific user. Consequently, I’m afraid the following is going to happen: this story gains even more traction, Microsoft removes the GDID, and everyone thinks the problem is resolved. Of course, in reality, any one of the hundreds of other metrics and data Microsoft collects can and will still be used in the exact same way as this GDID thing in this case.
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