Articles about Windows 11

While Windows Subsystem for Linux is widely recognized as being one of Microsoft most impressive achievements in recent times, WSL is not without its flaws.

Now in its second iteration, WSL makes it possible to install Linux distros within Windows 11 but it has a major obstacle that is stopping it gaining mass appeal -- it remains a text-based tool. But this could be about to change. Microsoft is exploring the possibility of introducing a new GUI to simplify the installation and management of distros.

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Despite all of Microsoft's talk of it being a modern operating system, Windows 11 remains firmly rooted in the past. There are numerous elements of the interface that have not changed in years, and there remain options that are only accessible though the old-fashioned Control Panel.

But there is a surprising hangover from days of yore that has just been highlighted by the developer who created the interface for the Format dialog. The design of the UI, the list of options, and even the 32GB size constraint of a FAT volume, were only ever meant to be temporary -- and yet they are still here three decades on.

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Microsoft -- yes, Microsoft -- is set to address an issue that has plagued the look of text in Chrome running on Windows 10 and Windows 11. While this is not a problem that affects everyone, there are large numbers of people who have long-complained about strange-looking fonts in Google's web browser.

The font troubles stem from a font rending incompatibility which Microsoft is finally getting around to fixing. The ClearType Tuner of Windows is ignored by Chrome, but Microsoft's tweaks mean that the browser rendering will be noticeably improved.

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Microsoft has announced that is it transitioning Test Base for Microsoft 365 to end-of-life in just a few weeks. The EOL process for the service started at the beginning of March and will be complete by the end of May.

As Test Base for Microsoft 365 is not something that everyone will have heard of, Microsoft explains that it is "a cloud-based app testing service on Azure that evaluates the compatibility of applications with new Windows releases or updates". The company has decided that it is no longer needed because so much work has been done with Windows 11 that app compatibility issues are rare.

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Five-hundred-and-eighty-seven in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft announced two new Surface devices for business yesterday. The new Surface Pro 10 for Business and the Surface Laptop 6 for Business are up to two times faster than their predecessors according to Microsoft. They are optimized for AI and come with the Copilot key.

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While Microsoft is keen on deprecating features and apps, it has also been engaged in injecting new life into legacy apps in recent years -- just look at how Paint has evolved, for instance. The company has also been slowly but surely updating another software stalwart, Notepad.

Having already added a tabbed interface, an auto-save feature and, of course, a dash of AI, Microsoft is a now set to add a spell checking. It does not end there, though. In addition to a highly customizable spell checker, there will also be an autocorrect feature -- and considerations have been made for developers and coders.

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Here's a blast from the past for you -- ObjectDock. After lying dormant for several years, the customization utility has suddenly been updated by Stardock to add support for Windows 10 and Windows 11.

This is great news for anyone who is not a fan of the Windows 11 Start menu and taskbar, as it adds a macOS-style dock to the desktop which can be used instead. The newly updated app is now 64-bit and it's a welcome -- and surprising -- return almost a decade after the last release.

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Microsoft has quietly announced plans to deprecate TLS server authentication certificates using RSA keys with key lengths shorter than 2048 bits.

The change means that it will not be possible to use 1024-bit keys, although Microsoft is yet to reveal exactly when the changeover will start. This is important information for companies using aging hardware and software as it will mean weaker keys can no longer be used for authentication.

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Microsoft announced the migration of the Microsoft Edge built-in PDF reader to Adobe PDF technology last year. The change would allow Edge users to view PDF documents using Adobe's engine.

Microsoft and Adobe promised back then that this would improve things by providing "a unique experience" with "higher fidelity for more accurate colors and graphics, improved performance" and even stronger security and better accessibility.

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It is a rare month in which Microsoft releases an update for Windows that doesn't cause problems, and March sees the company maintaining this habit. The KB5035853 update released last week was supposed to fix a number of issues, including a persistent 0x800F0922 error, but it seems to have introduced problems of its own.

The KB5035853 update is a security update so it is being automatically installed for the majority of Windows 11 users, and this means that the issues associated with it are hitting a lot of people. Among the problems users are experiencing are BSoDs, slow boot times and reduced system performance.

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Microsoft is preparing to discontinue support for Windows 10 in the near future, giving users the option to either upgrade to Windows 11 or wait for the anticipated successor, Windows 12.

We’re not expecting to see the arrival of the next-gen operating system this year -- Microsoft is focused on adding more AI functionality to Windows 11 at the moment -- but we do have an idea of what Windows 12 could look like.

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Five-hundred-and-eighty-six in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft is rolling out improved versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11 to users in the European Economic Area. These give users more customization options, such as the ability to remove Microsoft Edge or Bing Web Search entirely from the operating system.

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A major frustration for users of Microsoft Teams has been the need to use different versions of the app for different accounts. It has not been possible, for instance, to use a personal account and a work account in the same app. But this is changing.

With the release of Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26080 to the Canary and Dev Channels, Microsoft has announced that a preview version of a unified Teams app is to be made available very soon. A single Teams app will be able to handle multiple accounts, including different types of account, and it will be possible to easily switch between them.

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Microsoft has released a new security update for Windows 11. KB5035853 is a mandatory update which not only addresses security issues, but also introduces changes to make Windows 11 compliant with new DMA legislation in Europe.

On top of this, the update fixes the 0x800F0922 error which many people started to experience back in February. The KB5035853 update also features various other changes and additions such as the arrival of support for the USB 80Gbps standard.

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In three short months, Microsoft is ending support for various editions of Windows 10 21H2. This means that not only will there be no more new features or bug fixes, there will also be no more security updates released for the operating system.

Running any version of Windows that is not in receipt of security updates is a bad idea, but as this latest announcement includes numerous Enterprise and Education versions of Windows 10, the impact could be huge.

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