Microsoft has fixed an issue in Windows 11 that could result in a black screen after the user logs into their computer. You’ll find the fix in update KB5127648, available now for Windows 11 24H2, 25H2, and 26H2.

In the update release notes, the bug fix is addressed as:

[Windows Explorer (Known issue)] Fixed: This update fixes an issue that affects Windows Explorer in multi-user environments, such as Azure Virtual Desktop and FSLogix. After sign-in, Explorer.exe might fail to start or repeatedly crash, causing a black screen.

In short, there was a bug in File Explorer that surfaced in multi-user environments like Azure Virtual Desktop and FSLogic. Microsoft doesn’t provide much detail about the bug itself, but the gist is that it caused repeated crashes of Explorer.exe after logging in, which prevented the desktop from loading and resulted in a black screen.

This bug first came to light after the August Windows update. If you’re running into black screens on Windows 11 after logging in, you should install the latest Windows update to address it.

This is just one of the many bug fixes in the October update, which also fixed mouse stutter in games for some users. And not only bug fixe, but this update also brings some much-needed improvements elsewhere, including more reliable Bluetooth and a remappable Copilot key.

Microsoft is doing its best to improve Windows 11’s performance. According to a recent Windows Blog post, the company’s operating system has become up to 20 percent more responsive thanks to optimizations made and released over the course of this year. Improved features include the Start menu, File Explorer, Search, and the Edge browser.

One key change is that Windows now uses the computer’s RAM more efficiently, so it can run more smoothly on systems with 8GB RAM. According to Microsoft, Windows 11 can now keep up to 2GB more active data in RAM rather than moving it to slower storage. You’ll notice the boost most prominently when several apps or browser tabs are open at once.

Microsoft has also reduced memory usage for features that run in the background. On computers with 8GB of RAM or less, for example, the Widgets panel is only loaded when the user opens it. This supposedly frees up to more than 200MB of RAM.

Windows Update has also been improved to require only one system restart per month as well as shorten update installation times. In addition, logging in with Windows Hello and connecting Bluetooth devices should work faster and more reliably overall.

These improvements have been rolled out gradually over time, and further changes are on the way. Microsoft’s claim that Windows 11 has sped up by 20 percent is based on internal measurements, and therefore doesn’t mean that all PCs will experience the same performance boosts.

Earlier this week, October’s Patch Tuesday dropped a record-breaking 1,400+ security fixes across Microsoft’s various products and services, as well as a fix for mouse jankiness while gaming.

But the benefits for Windows 11 don’t stop there. Here are some of the more interesting features and improvements that came with update KB5127648, available for Windows 11 24H2, 25H2, and 26H2.

What’s new in KB5127648?

File Explorer now once again offers a preview for files downloaded from the internet, such as PDF files. For HTML files, one extra click is required: you can view the preview using the new “Preview” button.

You can now remap the Copilot key on your keyboard—which many users find completely superfluous—and finally make it useful. However, by default, the Copilot key can only be remapped to the right Ctrl key, the context menu, or Windows Search. But if you install the free PowerToys suite, you can remap the Copilot key to anything you want.

Bluetooth is a vexing, long-standing issue in Windows. With the October 2026 update, Microsoft significantly improves Bluetooth and promises fixes for audio, microphones, LE Audio, and the Settings page.

According to Windows Latest, other improvements are also on the cards:

• Apps can now open in full-screen mode with a new setting in the Accessibility menu.
• The system emoji set is now Emoji 17.0, including a distorted face, a ballet dancer, an orca whale, and a hairy creature.
• One-finger scrolling on the touchpad and automatic scrolling.
• A Tips widget for the widget overview and lock screen.
• Backing up photos from your smartphone to OneDrive via Settings.
• Updates to the Magnifier toolbar.
• Desktop backgrounds now support DIB images.
• Microsoft has removed the PC-to-PC migration tool.
• Microsoft has fixed bugs with file version history and domain trust.

How to get the update

This Windows 11 update is available under Settings → Windows Update as soon as they become available for your PC. If necessary, click on “Check for updates” to download the updates.

After installing the October update, Windows 11 26H2 has build number 26300.9711, Windows 11 25H2 has build number 26200.9711, and Windows 11 24H2 (which is no longer supported) has build number 26100.9711.

As always with Patch Tuesday, not all new features and improvements are immediately available to all Windows users even after installing the update. Microsoft rolls them out gradually to more and more users over several weeks. The security fixes, however, are immediately ready on all computers straight away post-update.

If your screen suddenly displays strange glitches, freezes, or even goes completely black, often the problem lies with the graphics driver. Instead of restarting the whole PC, there’s a quick and easy solution for this issue: restarting the graphics driver.

To do this, press the key combination Windows key + Ctrl + Shift + B – that’s it!

By pressing these four keys simultaneously, you are, in a sense restarting the graphics driver. This action occurs by way of the Desktop Window Manager (DWM), which gets reset, and in turn resets the graphics driver.

The beauty of this fix is that you can perform it without having to close any applications. That being said, you should probably save any work in progress, as a failsafe, before you proceed.

Take note, this fix is only applicable to a software issue. If your monitor’s issues are hardware related — originating with the monitor itself or a failing GPU, or owing to some larger system crash — this hotkey won’t solve your problem.

You’ll know the driver has been restarted by a beep or a brief flicker on the screen. The display should now run smoothly again.

Related content

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• I finally found a PC maintenance routine I can stick to. It takes 30 minutes

Googlebooks are here, promising productivity aplenty within the Google ecosystem. But how do Google’s new productivity features compare versus the more familiar Windows 11?

That’s the goal for Smart Mode this week: examining how you (and I) can use Googlebooks as productivity devices, specifically looking at several of the features both offer.

Unfortunately, two of the most novel platforms the PC has seen in years — the Googlebook and the Nvidia RTX Spark platform — have landed on the PC within a week or so of each other. I would have liked to have been part of the Googlebook launch, but it took place in my colleague Michael Crider’s backyard, and he already has an extensive professional history covering Android devices. My colleague Ashley Biancuzzo was first out of the gate with our review of the Acer Googlebook 14. (She did a terrific job. Read it! I definitely did.)

My own review is a work in progress…and you’re reading some of it right now.

I’m currently typing this on Lenovo’s Googlebook 15, which I’m crushed to find has an uncharacteristically crappy keyboard. So far, I have few complaints about the hardware, which wasn’t expected to be the star of the show, anyway. Instead, I’m focused on Google’s new Aluminium OS, driving the next evolutionary step of Chromebook devices. It really feels that Google set out to make AI-powered productivity the start of this show.

The phone problem

A key part of the productivity equation, however, is that your Googlebook demands an Android phone, and specifically an Android 17 phone at that. Only recently did Google allow rival Samsung phones to connect, but — my Samsung Galaxy S23 is up to date and supported, and it still runs just Android 16. Unexpectedly, that gives Windows a leg up here.

Phone Link (once called Your Phone) is Windows’ own version of “Better Together,” the corresponding Googlebook technology that connects an Android phone to a Windows PC. Interestingly, Windows only requires Android 10 as an OS requirement to connect the two devices; Googlebooks still have that pesky Android 17 requirement. Without it, phones and Googlebooks still live separate lives. Phone Link allows you to transfer photos from the phone to the PC, place calls and send messages (via Bluetooth) and even run Android phone apps within PC windows.

From what I’ve seen, Phone Link is Googlebook’s surprising equal in all ways except the app streaming. However, Windows can get fussy about which phones support this particular feature, while Googlebooks promise that all compatible phones will support it, with that Android 17 caveat of course.

But Android isn’t always the answer. Outlook works fine on a Windows PC; on my Googlebook, the Googlebook runs the Android app, which took forever to set up my work account. Even worse, it made me re-authenticate every time I logged on. It then crashed.

Windows, meanwhile, secures the entire OS with Windows Hello or a password, and leaves Outlook open to use. (The Lenovo Googlebook includes both face and fingerprint logins in front of an optional PIN, which I like.)

Are Googlebooks smarter? Maybe

Apps may be problematic, but I love how Google has moved widgets forward. On Windows PCs, they’re a distraction, so much that they’re relegated to a closed window in the corner of your screen. On Googlebooks, widgets live on the desktop, where you can create and modify widgets to show whatever information you’d like.

You can either select from a menu of pre-designed widgets (the screen time widget above is neat) or create your own. This is where AI is going to shine, eventually; you can ask Gemini to create a widget rather than hand-pick features. This doesn’t always work, however. I asked for a “up to the minute widget tracking the MLB playoffs” and received just the scores; I also asked for a widget highlighting all of my priority email and was informed that direct email access isn’t built in. Still, it’s a start.

Microsoft, to is credit, promises something similar with its new Copilot Code feature; I just haven’t played with it at length. Google will probably just make it simpler.

“Simple” also gives Google a slight edge in screen recognition. Magic Pointer and Copilot Vision fall in to the same category of AI assistance to highlight and explain what’s on your screen. Launching the Magic Pointer is more fun when you wiggle your mouse pointer instead of trying to remember another shortcut, for one. Magic Pointer launches a context-aware Gemini that highlights and “knows” what your mouse is pointing toward, and you can ask questions about it. Copilot Vision, hidden within Copilot, takes a different approach, always watching what you’re seeing once you turn it on.

Each has its flaws. Copilot Vision was relatively poor at identifying what it could see. Magic Pointer, though, took close to a full minute using its own “Flash-Lite” engine. Unacceptable!

I’d give Google a clear win for “Rambler,” its voice dictation system. Both Windows and Googlebooks have their own dictation system; Windows has one that’s shared across the platform as well as a dedicated dictation function in Word. Windows 11’s version, though, is pretty literal. Rambler, on the other hand, accommodates the user’s verbal fry (those “um,” “er,” “you know” placeholders we all use) and smooths them out.

One of the ways in which you can enable Rambler is by using the CAPS LOCK key, which Google has repurposed as sort of a shortcut for these little utilities. It’s incredibly useful. Most people don’t actually use the Caps Lock key, and in a situation like this, you can go ahead and cram a number of functions into a single key press. In fact, I dictated most of these last few paragraphs using Rambler, and it inserted punctuation, broke up the sentences, and applied the proper punctuation. That’s AI done right!

The Googlebook showed me a way to automatically apply AI to the search function within its Files app, promising to append (not rename) all of the files with an AI description. I haven’t seen this happen again, and I’m less concerned about what the AI thinks of how the file should be described than if I can find it, period. Window 11’s own semantic search and its recent changes to the Search function, period, seem just as promising or more so.

What I discovered while using the Googlebook, however, is that Windows is chock full of different ways to perform the same task, simply because it meets the user halfway. I felt like an idiot when I couldn’t find how to reboot the Googlebook (the power button did it). Why does the CAPS LOCK shortcut only work in certain scenarios, like Gmail, but not in others? I also felt a little nervous when absolutely nothing happened while right-clicking the desktop.

So what feels more productive? If I had to compare a Lenovo Windows machine (my demo Panther Lake laptop) versus the Googlebook, I’d definitely choose the Windows machine. The keyboard is far superior, and even with 16GB the Googlebook felt somewhat choppy and laggy. While I can use the Googlebook in the context I normally do — two displays, plus the Googlebook sitting beneath — running a few apps and Chrome tabs felt a lot choppier than I expected. And I still have no idea on the exact battery life, as there’s no great way to track it. Maybe a custom ROM will help?

In an earlier Smart Mode newsletter, I asked who the Googlebook is for? I’m still not entirely sure. I think some of the individual features of the Googlebook are smart, unquestionably. But as a cohesive whole, I still favor my Windows laptop nine times out of ten.

Productivity on camera

I complain about the Googlebook phone issues…but also show off some of the things on Googlebooks that work well, too.

Productivity in the news:

• As busy as I’ve been, the one thing I’ve missed having a chance to try out are the so-called Artcraft apps: AI-generated clones of Adobe’s popular Creative Suite (Photoshop, Premiere, etc.) released as open-source versions coded in Rust. The developer then moved on to the Microsoft 365 apps, pulling off the same trick. The advantages are obvious: no more subscriptions! The disadvantages (copyright infringement, bugs, and so on) have yet to be rooted out.
• Techtober is in full swing, and so we’re involved in trying to evaluate both Googlebooks (again, with Ashley’s terrific review, and mine and others to come) as well as the upcoming RTX Spark laptops — which will cost up to $7,000, yikes! Microsoft has allowed us to confirm that I have a Surface Laptop Ultra on hand, though I can’t say anything about its performance quite yet. I think I’m allowed to say that the keyboard feels a bit tighter than the Surface Laptop Studio, which I haven’t decided is a plus or not.
• If AI is being injected more and more into Windows…it’s going to arrive via Windows Search. I’m not sure who else picked up on this.
• Love is in the air…with laptop stands.
• I thought that the “learn more” Windows local account trick had been patched out years ago?
• It’s worth noting that the AMD Ryzen™ AI Max+ PRO 495 processor will be going up against the new Mediatek-Nvidia RTX Spark partnership for AI workstation notebooks, with up to 192GB (!!) of unified memory. More memory equals bigger AI models, and eventually the two may go head to head.

Productivity tip for the week:

If we’re going to be sticklers for the concept of “productivity,” the most productive days are days when you don’t have to deal with anything else at work… or be at work. Yes, I mean working weekends. I had to do so this weekend and I love the freedom of simply sitting down and fear without fear of someone pinging me for…something. Even my chat requests went unanswered — which they should have!

Just make sure you don’t make a habit of it, or find a manager who will give you compensatory time off in return.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for tuning in to this edition of Smart Mode, PCWorld’s newsletter devoted to helping you make the most of your life, smartly. Sign up and have it sent to your inbox every Thursday!

If your mouse cursor jerks while gaming, suddenly panning the camera uncontrollably, or behaves unnaturally in other ways, the problem may not necessarily be in your mouse hardware. Microsoft recently confirmed a bug in Windows 11 that could affect mouse input in some games, and a fix was released via the October 2026 update (which also fixes dozens of security vulnerabilities, so you might as well install it).

Available as update KB5127648, you can scroll down to the “Gaming” section of the patch notes, where you’ll see Microsoft’s one-line note:

[Gaming] This update fixes an issue that could cause mouse input to stutter in some games.

This fix was not included in the September optional preview update.

The Windows 11 mouse input bug

Microsoft doesn’t provide details as to which specific games were affected, how many users experienced the problem, or what caused the bug. As such, it’s impossible to tell whether all reports of jerky mouse movements were attributable to the same bug. In recent months, many users reported issues after installing Windows updates, and some of those issues persisted even after replacing the mouse or adjusting mouse settings.

One example is a post on the Microsoft Q&A forum from June 2026. In it, a user described problems with camera control in Star Wars: The Old Republic and Final Fantasy XIV. The user tried out various settings for their Logitech G600 mouse, swapped input devices, and performed a clean system restart. According to their account, the problem persisted. There have been similar complaints in the past as well. For instance, in February 2025, other users on the Microsoft Q&A forum reported persistently laggy and jerky mouse movements on Windows 11 24H2.

Current discussions on Reddit also show similar reports, with gamers reporting jerky camera movements in The Division 2, even though the game itself runs smoothly. In posts here and here, they discuss possible causes like mouse polling rate, drivers, and other hardware components.

It hasn’t been confirmed whether these specific cases are linked to the Windows bug that has now been fixed. However, the entry in Microsoft’s release notes shows that at least one such issue was indeed caused by the operating system itself, not mouse hardware.

How to install the fix

The fix is included in security update KB5127648 dated October 13th, 2026. It’s available for Windows 11 24H2, 25H2, and 26H2. To install the update, follow these steps:

1. Open the Windows 11 Settings.
2. Go to Windows Update.
3. Click Check for updates.
4. Download and install the KB5127648 update if it’s available.
5. Restart your PC.

This update brings Windows 11 26H2 to Build 26300.9711, 25H2 to Build 26200.9711, and 24H2 to Build 26100.9711. If Windows Update does not offer the package, or the installation fails, you can also grab for it via the Microsoft Update Catalog.

If you’re experiencing problems with jerky mouse input while gaming, you should first check whether the update has already been installed.

What if your mouse continues to stutter?

Even after installing the update, problems with mouse input may still occur. Other possible causes can include out-of-date mouse, USB, or graphics card drivers; very high polling rates; radio interference with wireless mice; and issues with Nvidia G-Sync or Adaptive Sync affecting the display.

Another potential source of problems is USB docks and connected monitors. As early as 2025, a user on the Microsoft Q&A forum described how their mouse worked without any issues on a Dell laptop normally, but became jerky when connected to external monitors via a Kensington dock.

If the October update doesn’t resolve the issue, it’s therefore advisable to connect the mouse directly to the PC, try different USB ports, and check the drivers. For wireless models, you can also try switching the wireless connection or reducing the polling rate.

In an age of 4TB SSDs and massive NVMe drives, many users tend to leave the entire storage space as a single, huge system drive. While this is convenient, from an administrative point of view it is a risky move that amounts to flying blind. Instead, we recommend strategically partitioning your largest drives.

This brings tangible benefits for data security, system recovery, and backup efficiency. Think of partitions as digital firewalls within your hardware. If your operating system becomes corrupted by a faulty driver, a failed update, or even malware, a clean reinstallation is often the quickest way back to a stable system.

However, if you’ve stored everything on a single partition, you’ll have to laboriously back up terabytes of data before reinstalling, or risk losing it when formatting the drive.

By separating the operating system onto partition C: and your user data onto partition D:, you can completely wipe and reinstall Windows, while your game collections, video projects, and documents on the second partition remain completely untouched. This not only saves time but also spares you a lot of stress in crisis situations.

To implement this optimization, you must first analyze your current configuration. To do this, open the Command Prompt with administrator rights and enter the command fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo C:, then press the Enter key to confirm. Look for the value ‘Bytes per cluster’ in the results.

By default, Windows uses 4KB, which is ideal for the system partition to minimize fragmentation when dealing with many small system files. However, for data-only partitions where you mainly store large files such as 4K videos or backups, it makes sense to adjust the cluster size to 64KB.

Here’s how to do it: The neatest way to change the cluster size in Windows 11 is via Windows Settings. Press the Windows + I key combination to open Settings. In the left-hand menu, navigate to ‘System’ and then click on ‘Storage’ on the right. Scroll down to the ‘Storage management’ section.

Next, expand ‘Advanced storage settings’ and select ‘Disks and volumes.’ A list of all physical drives will appear. Click the arrow next to your hard drive to view the associated partitions (volumes). Select the desired data partition and click the ‘Properties’ button.

Next, click the ‘Format’ button. The crucial dialog box will now open. Here, under ‘Label,’ enter a name for your drive. Ensure that ‘NTFS’ is selected under ‘File system.’ In the ‘Allocation unit size’ drop-down menu, select ‘64KB’ explicitly instead of ‘Standard (4KB).’

Tick the box next to ‘Perform quick format’ and confirm the process by clicking ‘Format.’ Please note: This process will irrevocably delete all data on this partition. You should therefore only carry it out on newly created or empty data partitions.

This adjustment to 64KB is so effective because it reduces fragmentation in large files and minimizes the amount of metadata that needs to be managed in the Master File Table (MFT). Please bear in mind a technical limitation: With the standard cluster size of 4KB, an NTFS partition is limited to a maximum of 16TB.

If you upgrade to even larger drives in future, you must use larger clusters to be able to utilize the full capacity. On modern SSDs, you should also ensure that the partitions are aligned with the internal NAND memory.

Nowadays, Windows handles this correctly and automatically when creating partitions via Disk Management or the Settings app, in order to avoid unnecessary write cycles (write amplification).

Related content

• PC survival skills: 5 things every PC user should know how to do
• Should you encrypt your PC’s hard drive? The pros and cons explained
• How to permanently erase data on SSDs, hard drives, & USB flash drives

Yesterday was October Patch Tuesday, and Microsoft’s security updates addressed 1,416 new vulnerabilities. Not only is that another record broken, but it’s also the first time over 1,000 flaws were fixed in a single month. Indeed, October 2026 saw more security vulnerabilities fixed in the month than were fixed in any previous year.

Alongside flaws fixed in Windows and Office, we also saw a bunch of fixes in Exchange Server, SQL Server, Hyper-V, Skype for Business, Microsft Defender, .NET Framework, Visual Studio, and Microsoft’s cloud services.

Microsoft classifies 85 of the 1,416 vulnerabilities as “critical,” including 67 remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities. The other vulnerabilities are classified as “high risk,” with one vulnerability already being exploited in the wild while two were publicly known in advance.

The next Patch Tuesday is scheduled for November 10th, 2026.

Windows security vulnerabilities

A large number of the vulnerabilities—over 1,000 this time—are spread across the various Windows versions (10, 11, Server) for which Microsoft still provides security updates, including Windows 10 via the Extended Security Updates program, which was extended until October 12th, 2027.

Note: If you’re still on Windows 11 24H2, this is your last Patch Tuesday. Computers running 24H2 will no longer receive security updates going forward. When prompted by Windows Update, you should upgrade to Windows 11 25H2 or 26H2. That’ll keep you secure and up to date.

Windows under attack

One Windows security vulnerability is already being exploited in the wild this month. CVE-2026-96951 in the Windows Shell allows attackers to bypass the system’s defenses by disguising the origin of an executable file from the internet (Mark of the Web, or MotW).

Critical Windows vulnerabilities

Microsoft has classified 42 Windows vulnerabilities as critical, including 30 RCE vulnerabilities. Via these flaws, an attacker could remotely execute injected code without authentication or user interaction. The malicious code could then spread further across the network.

Microsoft Edge security vulnerabilities

The latest security update to Microsoft Edge 155.0.4283.45 is dated October 8th and based on Chromium 155.0.8059.40. It addresses 247 Chromium vulnerabilities, which are not included in the sum of flaws fixed in Microsoft Edge this month.

Microsoft Office security vulnerabilities

Microsoft has fixed 194 vulnerabilities in its various Office products, including 25 RCE vulnerabilities classified as critical. With “critical” RCE vulnerabilities in Office, the preview pane is usually an attack vector—a user doesn’t need to open an infected file for an attack to succeed, but rather only needs to preview it in the preview pane. Meanwhile, “high risk” RCE vulnerabilities usually require a user to open an infected Office file in a vulnerable Office product (open-and-own).

Among the numerous vulnerabilities in SharePoint, CVE-2026-102866 is an elevation of privilege (EoP) vulnerability that Microsoft classifies as critical. It is also the only SharePoint vulnerability that an attacker could exploit without a user login. They would need to obtain a valid user token, modify it, and impersonate that user on the server.

Exchange Server security vulnerabilities

Microsoft has fixed 7 vulnerabilities in Exchange Server this month. Six of these are classified as high risk, including five EoP vulnerabilities. CVE-2026-70571 is also included, an RCE vulnerability classified as critical.

This year, Windows users had to deal with Microsoft’s shaky rollout of Secure Boot certificate updates, which were needed to keep PCs protected against rootkits and other threats that could compromise a system at startup. Now, users are facing a different kind of certificate update, and it’s slated to arrive less than a year from now.

The next big certificate update concerns Windows Update. Starting May 2027, current Windows Update certificates will expire, which Microsoft explains on this support page:

Prepare for Windows Update certificate rotation in 2027

Certificates used to establish trusted connections to Windows Update will expire on May 17, 2027 and June 19, 2027. Devices must contain the replacement certificates to continue receiving updates after the applicable expiration date.

In short, if your PC doesn’t get updated Windows Update certificates, you’ll lose access to Windows updates.

Microsoft is rolling out the new certificates via an update, and the good news is that all actively supported versions of Windows 11 will receive said updates. That means if you’re running Windows 11 26H2 or 25H2 and you stay on top of Windows updates, you have nothing to worry about—Microsoft already distributed the updated Windows Update certificates as part of the security updates released in July 2026.

What happens if your Windows PC does not get updated certificates?

According to Microsoft:

Devices without the replacement certificates will lose access to Windows Update after the applicable expiration date. This change does not apply to devices receiving updates from Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

However, if you’re still on an older, unsupported version of Windows 11, you might run into trouble. Your Windows PC will no longer be able to download updates from Microsoft’s servers without the proper certificates.

To ensure that doesn’t happen to you, here are the relevant updates you should install depending on your version of Windows:

Windows 11, version 24H2 and Windows Server 2025: Install the September 2025 security update or later before June 19, 2027.

Other in-support versions of Windows 11, Windows Server 2022, and in-support versions of Windows 10: Install the July 2026 security update or later before June 19, 2027.

Windows 10 Enterprise 2019 LTSC, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2016: Install the July 2026 security update or later before May 17, 2027.

Other Windows versions: Upgrade to a supported version of Windows client or Windows Server.

Further reading: Still on Windows 11 24H2? You have one week to upgrade

Well, it was bound to happen. Last month, someone discovered a simple trick for skipping the mandatory Microsoft account when setting up a new Windows 11 PC or reinstalling the operating system. Now, Microsoft has blocked the trick, making Microsoft accounts truly mandatory once again.

The trick was unbelievably easy. During Windows 11 setup, there was a page that prompted you to sign in with your Microsoft account. But if you clicked on “Learn more,” Windows 11 allowed you to create a local account with administrator rights, bypassing the Microsoft account requirement altogether. Unfortunately, this workaround no longer works.

According to Windows Latest, the most recently updated Windows 11 26H2 ISO file has changed up the setup process. Now when you click the “Learn more” link, you’re taken to the usual page that tells you how Microsoft manages your data. The only button on that page takes you back to the sign-in screen that demands a Microsoft account login.

UPDATE: This mandatory Microsoft account requirement workaround by clicking on the tiny "Learn more" hyperlink in the Microosft account sign in page during the Windows 11 OOBE has been recently quietly patched server side. 🥀 https://t.co/vVV7DPrDfa pic.twitter.com/AfOadeY0gj

— Bob Pony (@TheBobPony) October 9, 2026

On social media, user @TheBobPony (who originally discovered the trick) posted an update that talks about the workaround being patched server-side by Microsoft. This likely means Windows 11 is unable to bypass the Microsoft account requirement anymore, although Microsoft hasn’t mentioned this blocking measure in any of its changelogs.

TL;DR: Get Microsoft Office 2019 and Windows 11 Pro together for life on sale for $18.97 (reg. $428). Sale ends October 11.

Setting up a new PC usually means paying for Windows and then paying again for productivity apps like Microsoft Office. This Microsoft bundle gives you both Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2019 and Windows 11 Pro together for life, and it’s only $18.97 (reg. $428).

Office 2019 comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, and Access. You pay once and install it on one Windows PC for home or work, and you never have to deal with any recurring fees like you would with Microsoft 365. This version of Office may be a few years old, but it still works great, and you don’t have to worry about clumsy AI integrations or other unasked for changes.

Windows 11 Pro adds tools that Windows 11 Home leaves out. BitLocker encrypts your whole drive, and Hyper-V lets you run virtual machines on the same PC. Windows Sandbox is useful for testing a sketchy app without risking your main system. Gamers also get DirectX 12 Ultimate, and Copilot opens right from the taskbar to answer questions and summarize pages.

Before buying, run Microsoft’s PC Health Check app to confirm your PC supports Windows 11, including TPM 2.0. A Windows 10 machine that can’t take the free upgrade through Windows Update won’t be able to run Windows 11 Pro.

Stop paying separately for your operating system and your office apps.

Get Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2019 and Windows 11 Pro on sale for $18.97.

Sale ends October 11 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

The All-in-One Microsoft Office Pro 2019 for Windows: Lifetime License + Windows 11 Pro BundleSee Deal

StackSocial prices subject to change.

TL;DR: This bundle pairs Windows 11 Pro with a lifetime Office Pro 2021 for Windows license. Get both for $34.97 (reg. $418.99) and skip the subscriptions.

Upgrading your operating system and your office suite usually means two big bills, or two subscriptions that never end.

Get this Ultimate Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows and Windows 11 Pro Bundle for $34.97 (reg. $418.99) and take care of both in one purchase.

Two licenses that cover the whole PC

Windows 11 Pro adds the tools Home leaves out: BitLocker drive encryption, Hyper-V for virtual machines, Windows Sandbox for safely testing unfamiliar apps, and Azure AD support for business networks. Snap layouts, biometric sign-in, and Copilot in the taskbar round it out.

Office Professional 2021 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, and Teams, all installed on your PC instead of rented monthly.

Each license covers one PC and arrives by email right after purchase. Check compatibility with Microsoft’s PC Health Check app before buying.

The bundle has a 4.9/5 average from 131 verified reviews. For a new build or an aging PC, it handles the OS and Office in one move.

Get Windows 11 Pro and Office Pro 2021 together for $34.97 (reg. $418.99) before this pricing ends.

The Ultimate Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows: Lifetime License + Windows 11 Pro BundleSee Deal

StackSocial prices subject to change.

For the past couple of years, Microsoft has made a concerted effort to move users from the classic Outlook app for Windows 11 to “new” Outlook, a web-based app.

If you’re using new Outlook, you should take advantage of the ability to back up your account settings. These settings are stored in the ‘UserSettings.json’ file, which you can find in the ‘C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Olk’ folder. If you have set up multiple accounts in Outlook, you will find separate configuration files in each of the individual user folders.

To create a backup, copy this file or these files to another secure location, or include them in the backups created by your backup software. To restore the configuration, simply copy the JSON file back to its original location.

If the Olk folder is missing — for example, after reinstalling Outlook — create it manually. The configuration will be applied automatically when you start Outlook.

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For years — decades, really — the entry point inside Windows has been the Start menu. But from what Microsoft showed as part of its AI vision for Windows 11 this week, Start might be on its way out. Instead, Windows Search may be the app you connect with first when you want to get things done.

Yes, Windows Search, the humble search box buried in your taskbar and at the top of the Start menu. Microsoft plans to embed even more functions inside it, including Actions, essentially mini-widgets for controlling features like Windows’ dark mode. Think of it like a chat box already built into your PC, and you can start to see where this is going.

Eventually, Windows Search will start calling on other applications, including Copilot, to provide answers and complete tasks. Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft’s executive vice president of Windows, says “thousands” of these actions are headed your way by year’s end.

You’re not just searching. You’re doing. Weird. Or is it?

Let’s back up a bit. In July, Microsoft said it was moving to a quieter, purpose-built iteration of Windows Search, following an earlier mega-memo about simplifying and focusing Windows. That included cutting out unnecessary uses of Copilot — bye, Notepad Copilot — and moving to a new framework called WinUI 3, which Microsoft thinks is more efficient and will speed up Windows as a whole.

That’s happening, Microsoft said this week, as part of an update provided to Microsoft’s Experimental Insider Channel. Windows is getting faster! That’s good.

But from a design standpoint, things are getting a little odd. Originally, the Search app featured recommended content, highlighting offbeat holidays like World Otter Day and suggesting games to play. That was too unfocused, so the July update pared back the recommended content. The update also polished features such as detailed document previews, making it easier to make sure you had the right file.

However, Microsoft’s upcoming Search update concluded that not enough people were clicking on the previews — were they supposed to? — so those rather nice-looking previews are disappearing, too.

For now, anyway. Later this year, Windows Search will add those document and web page previews back as small cards in the list of Search results, along with “widgets” like weather and stock price, plus visual results for queries like “How tall is the Eiffel Tower?” Too rich? Not rich enough? Microsoft can’t seem to make up its mind.

What “hybrid intelligence” means to you

This isn’t about two design teams squaring off in the cafeteria over variable fonts, though. There’s a reason. Windows Search is responsible for turning up the right document and information both on the user’s PC and online, and that dichotomy is the tricky balance Microsoft is carefully navigating.

Wednesday’s official launch of the Surface Book Ultra and competing third-party devices ushered in what Microsoft calls “hybrid intelligence,” a way of balancing intelligence based in the cloud (Bing, Copilot) with information stored and searched for on the PC (File Explorer). Nvidia’s RTX Spark superchip (tied to a Mediatek Arm CPU) is being asked to run AI locally on the PC. Well, some AI, anyway — Microsoft wants to balance how cloud and local AI interact.

It just so happens that Windows Search is one of the first places where this battle is being fought.

In addition to the cards or widgets that Windows Search plans to add, there will be Actions, which Microsoft began talking about last year: turn on dark mode, adjust your mic volume, or turn on “do not disturb.” You can take a screenshot or adjust your windows positions, too. All of these capabilities have seeped into Windows over time, from the short-lived effort to have Copilot control your PC to adjustments made in the search bar within Windows 11’s Settings. Heck, Windows 10’s Cortana even allowed some of these changes.

“You can make these changes as fast as you can type,” Davuluri said.

Copilot: less of an app, more of an ingredient

That seems like a signal. Windows Search feels more like an iteration of Copilot than it ever has, where users type in what they want and Windows responds. That’s not far-fetched! Microsoft wants Copilot to “know” what’s on your PC, just as it wants it to know what you’re working on. It’s not that far from Microsoft understanding that the “Contoso spreadsheet” refers to a specific file to wondering if you want to book that same hotel in Maui you visited last year.

(And it’s still a little scary.)

Jacob Andreou, the executive tasked to lead the Copilot experience at Microsoft, showed Copilot with a big toggle switch next to “Hybrid Intelligence,” implying you’ll be able to flip it off if you want. Of course, the idea is that you won’t.

“Copilot now has access to three new things,” Andreou said. “First, local context. Local context means that Copilot can now [access] all of the local files on your PC… Second, local actions. Local actions means that Copilot can now take action directly on my machine. It can move files, it can change a setting, it has the same level of the ability to control and change things that I do as a user, but always with permission.”

Copilot will also use the cloud when needed for complex tasks, but where “cost and privacy matter more, it can delegate down to local models that run directly on your computer,” Andreou added.

Last month, Microsoft detailed a major update to Copilot, which would let you vibe-code Windows apps (Code) and design and set loose agents (Autopilot) on your PC. Andreou showed off how Autopilot could respond to a task from an accountant, assembling a bunch of tax documents.

In the demo, Autopilot searched the user’s inbox, assembled the documents from OneDrive, the Documents folder, and other locations, collected them into a folder, renamed the files (?!) and then even bundled them into a zipped archive. Copilot then authored a email response and waited for approval.

“Copilot now truly understands your PC,” Andreou said, adding that this is Copilot “natively designed for Windows.” These new features will arrive in the next couple of months, he said.

Is the future of PC work just giving orders?

At one time, you typed in an address into a web browser. You visited Google to search. Today, every browser in existence allows you to search right from the URL bar and a similar transition feels like it’s occurring on the PC. Did I mention that you’ll be able to access Copilot from Windows Search, too?

Microsoft has promised features like putting your PC into dark mode for years. And yet, time and again, it hasn’t quite delivered. It feels like Microsoft wants PC computing to be less about moving windows around with a mouse and more about telling your PC what to do. I mean, you’ll even be able to install LLMs when you set up a new PC.

I’m sure that there will be more than one way to perform all these tasks, such as launching the Copilot app directly. But Microsoft wants to take its new AI-powered Windows and build a front door. And, well, who would have thought? That door is apparently Windows Search.

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.”)

Microsoft explicitly states on this support page:

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.”

Even though the update has a few known issues for some users, it has some important optimizations that speed up Windows 11 performance on older hardware, so it’s worth taking the leap.

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.

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

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.

Related content:

• 12 easy tweaks that maximize your Windows 11 PC’s speed
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• I use Windows Task Manager daily. I wish I’d known these 9 tips sooner

Windows 11 26H2 dropped last week, but it doesn’t actually bring too much that’s new and interesting—and it may even cause issues for some. The update is a bit of a mixed bag as far as how well Microsoft has delivered on its promises, but if there’s one thing to be excited about, it’s that 26H2 brings some much-needed performance improvements.

Windows 11 uses less RAM

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.

Low Latency Profile first rolled out to the general public back in June, with great success especially on older machines. Two months later, Microsoft updated Low Latency Profile with more tweaks to File Explorer, search, and app launches, resulting in an even more responsive experience.

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.

You can find the browser version at www.speedtest.net or you can download it from the Microsoft Store as a standalone app.

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.

TL;DR: Windows 11 Pro is only $10 through October 4.

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.

Microsoft Windows 11 ProSee Deal

StackSocial prices subject to change.

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.

For more fun and helpful tips, tricks, website and app recommendations, be sure to subscribe to our PCWorld Try This newsletter.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Microsoft basically acknowledged that Windows updates were out of control, pledging to move back to a single monthly update.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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?

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.
• Ooh, a nerdy story combining ergonomics and monitor placement! You can do more if you’re not dealing with neck strain.
• Hate those Windows ads? Try adjusting these settings to minimize them.
• 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.
• Meanwhile, colleague Alex Wawro gets right to the point: Is Windows 11 finally good?

Productivity on camera:

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!

Thanks for tuning in to this edition of Smart Mode, PCWorld’s newsletter devoted to helping you make the most of your life, smartly. Sign up and have it sent to your inbox every Thursday!

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.

According to the Windows Release Health notes:

• 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.

Further reading: What’s coming in the Windows 11 26H2 update?

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.

If you’re wondering whether the update is worth it, learn more about what’s coming in the Windows 11 26H2 update. However, there are some known issues with the update, so you might want to wait to update.

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.

Here's how to find them and wipe them:

— Ayzaa (@Ayzacoder) September 26, 2026

What is the thumbnail cache?

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:

1. Press the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut.
2. Type “cleanmgr” and press Enter.
3. Select the Windows drive.
4. Tick the “Thumbnails” box.
5. 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.

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
• In rare cases, the product may have been removed. Users should reinstall their purchased product: Download and install or reinstall Office 2021, Office 2019, or Office 2016

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.”