Software & Apps News - Page 1

Windows 11's next feature update - Moment 3 - has arrived as an optional upgrade.

Moment 3 is here, but it's still in preview right now (Image Credit: Microsoft)

In other words, the cumulative update KB5026446 (which is build 22621.1778 for Windows 11 22H2) is still in testing, but you can install the preview if you want to get all those goodies in terms of fresh features.

The more cautious will likely want to wait, though, until next month, when the full release version of Moment 3 will be deployed (on June 13).

Microsoft is opening things up so more Android app developers can get their wares on Windows 11, if they wish.

Windows 11 should soon offer a lot more in the way of Android wares (Image Credit: Microsoft)

Android Police spotted this announcement, which was rather buried in a whole flurry of revelations and changes Microsoft detailed in a lengthy blog post about its Build conference.

Those introductions include native support for dealing with RAR files (and other less common archive formats) and the big announcement of the Windows 11 Copilot AI.

Windows 11 now supports a whole new bunch of archive formats, to the relief of many who for years may have been frustrated by the lack of the operating system's ability to cope with the likes of RAR files.

Expanded archive format support is not on nearly the same scale as Microsoft's Copilot, but it's still good to see (Image Credit: Microsoft)

We've all been there. Probably. Somebody sends you a bunch of files compressed in a different way to the standard ZIP archive, and you groan, heading off to try to find a third-party app to gain access to the contents. WinRAR was an old standby in the case of the mentioned RAR format, as many will doubtless recall.

Those hardships are now at an end, though, as at the Build developer conference, Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer and VP Microsoft Devices, announced that Windows 11 is getting support for RAR, TAR, 7-Zip and GZ formats. This will arrive in a new preview build later this week, we're told.

Microsoft has made a big revelation at its Build conference, with the software giant putting an AI assistant front and center in Windows 11.

Copilot is the name of the AI, which can be invoked by clicking its icon on the taskbar, then it pops up in a side panel, ready to assist with whatever it is you happen to be doing.

Or, in the usual style, you can simply ask the AI questions. Such as how you can adjust your system to focus on getting some work done, an example Microsoft gives, in reply to which Copilot suggests using Windows 11's focus timer feature and switching to the operating system's dark theme.

Microsoft has been rolling out Edge's built-in VPN functionality to some users in a 'controlled' manner of late, and we've just seen a hint of how much data allowance it could eventually run with.

As spotted by Leopeva64, a regular leaker on all things Edge, in the Canary (testing) version of the browser, the Settings page now clearly states that you get 5GB of free data per month.

The amount of data Edge has offered previously has been bumped up and down a bit throughout the VPN's existence in testing (and in the limited rollout). It has been as high as 15GB for a time (as a trial), and as low as 1GB (which we witnessed when the VPN started to come to the release version of Microsoft's browser).

Windows 11 has a bug that's reportedly causing some VPNs (using one specific protocol) to run very sluggishly, and Microsoft has said it's now looking into the matter.

Windows 11 has been hit by a nasty VPN slowdown bug (Image Credit: Microsoft)

The issue has been reported on Reddit (and other forums online), having started in the cumulative update for May that rolled out last week. (Technically, it began in the preview of that update which was deployed late in April for Windows 11 22H2).

This problem seemingly affects L2TP/IPsec connections, not the most used VPN protocol (that would be the likes of OpenVPN and WireGuard).

Microsoft has finally got round to fixing a bug that broke Spotify integration with its Focus Sessions feature on Windows 11.

That feature is something Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer, and VP Microsoft Devices, tweeted very enthusiastically about back in 2021.

Indeed, Panay called Focus Sessions (fired up via the Windows Clock app) a "game-changer," with Spotify integration being part of what made it so great.

Mac users who also have WhatsApp at the center of their messaging world can now take advantage of a new addition to the app - so long as they're using the latest beta version.

WhatsApp has been making some changes to the way its Mac app works in recent weeks and now a new report suggests that it is working on bringing group calling to the Mac app as well.

The WhatsApp beta watchers at WABetaInfo report that the previous version of the WhatsApp app on the Mac didn't allow group calls to be initiated with the button simply not working. Now however, a new beta appears to have improved matters with the button fully functional for some beta testers.

With Valve making big changes to the Steam client and more coming, the company is looking to make it easier for users to opt in and check out upcoming updates via the Steam Client Beta. The new one-click opt-in will make it easier for anyone to jump in and check out what's on the Steam horizon, in a move that is essentially Valve asking the community for additional help as it preps the next major update.

And the latest update is pretty big, with several under-the-hood changes to the app's code covering the Steam Desktop Client, Big Picture mode, and Steam Deck.

The in-game overlay is getting a massive overhaul, too, with Valve noting that "originally created to be a quick way to chat with friends or check on game-related questions or content, we've built a brand-new user interface, adding new utility and allowing for more customizability."

Windows 11 is going rusty, and we don't mean that someone left the operating system out in the rain for too long - rather that Rust is now part of the OS in a fresh plan being enacted by Microsoft to bolster security levels.

As tweeted by Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure, Windows 11 testers are now using builds of the operating system which have Rust in the Windows kernel (as denoted by the 'rs' in the above screenshot).

What is Rust? It's code that offers a greater level of security than C++, and Microsoft is introducing it to the kernel to beef up memory safety in particular. Tackling that aspect is a big thing, as a good deal of zero-day exploits come about due to bugs in memory handling.