Software & Apps - Page 12

The Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD, has been a part of Windows since Windows 3.0 launched in 1990. The latest version has been around for a few Windows versions, where errors necessitating a complete system restart display a sad smiley face with a QR code and some information on what happened.

As part of Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3653, Microsoft is "previewing a new, more streamlined UI for unexpected restarts which better aligns with Windows 11 design principles." For Windows Insiders, this new screen is green, drops the sad smiley face and QR code, and presents a simple "Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart" message alongside information on the error at the bottom of the screen.

Green is a more neutral and positive color than blue, so maybe the idea is, "Hey, it's okay; we just need to reboot." However, a new report at Windows Latest says that once the Blue Screen of Death disappears, it will be replaced by a Black Screen of Death.

CrystalMark Retro 2.0, from Crystal Dew World, is a free benchmarking tool that has just been updated to support Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me systems. It took a year of development to extend the tool to cover retro hardware older than Windows XP.

"I decided that Windows 95/NT 4.0 compatibility was necessary to call ourselves a true retro benchmark," Hiyohiyo, the President and CEO of CrystalMark Inc., wrote in the release notes. "It really took a whole year." In addition to supporting ancient beige machines rocking Windows 95, users can post their benchmark results and compare them against modern machines at https://crystalmarkdb.com/retro.

CrystalMark Retro is a complete benchmark suite that measures CPU, storage, 2D graphics, and 3D graphics (OpenGL) performance. It's compatible with VMware, so you can see how Windows 95 runs on a system with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995X 64-Core CPU - per the screenshot above.

Microsoft is working on a new feature for Windows 11 called 'Quick Machine Recovery' which is designed to help companies (or individuals) quickly recover from serious problems with their PCs.

Bleeping Computer spotted the revelation of this tool as one of the elements of Microsoft's Windows Resiliency Initiative, which just as the name suggests aims to make the desktop operating system more bulletproof from gremlins that can cause serious havoc with Windows 11 systems.

The Quick Machine Recovery facility is currently in testing for Windows 11 in the Beta channel (see some screenshots from a well-known Windows Insider, XenoPanther, above), and can be accessed via the Startup menu. (It's in the Advanced Options page, and is labeled as replacing the Startup Repair functionality).

The debut of Windows 11 22H2 introduced the requirement of a Microsoft account for both Windows 11 Home and Pro versions, but users who were particularly annoyed at this requirement and technically inclined enough, discovered a workaround that bypassed the dreaded Microsoft Account.

What is considered to be one of the most popular workarounds is "bypassro," which is a command line prompt that's entered during the setup process that circumvents the requirement of an internet connection to continue the setup process and a Microsoft Account. Unfortunately, this workaround is now being removed by Microsoft, as confirmed in the latest Windows 11 preview build, with Microsoft's reasoning being to "ensure that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account."

As you can probably imagine, this change will be quite annoying for any Windows 11 user who doesn't want a Microsoft Account or an internet connection during setup, but this doesn't mean it's impossible to bypass the requirements. Notably, "bypassro" can be manually re-added in a command line by typing the following, "reg add HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionOOBE /v BypassNRO /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f shutdown /r /t 0".

Instagram is rolling out a double-speed toggle for its reels, allowing users to consume short-form content even faster.

According to an Instagram representative, the feature was 'highly requested' by the community and aimed to give users more control over the Reels experience. Reels currently operate at lengths of 15 seconds up to 3 minutes, and the new settings would allow users to long-press on the edge of the screen to double playback speed.

The impact of short-form social media content is a topic of increasing concern, particularly among youths. Reels on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are designed to be short, engaging, and algorithmically driven, and studies have identified detrimental effects on attention spans, cognitive function, and academic performance.

The maker of Vivaldi has bundled a well-known VPN in its web browser, giving additional security to users in a hassle-free way.

Neowin reports that the service in question is ProtonVPN, which is a weighty name in the security scene, and a trusted brand (with a strict 'no logging' policy, as is expected from any good provider in this arena).

With the VPN being right there in the browser, there's no need for Vivaldi users to install any software, they can just flick a switch and benefit from encryption of their data, and of course online anonymity. Not to mention the other boons associated with a VPN (like being able to access streaming content you otherwise wouldn't be able to view, for example).

The Pentagon has released a statement regarding the messaging app Signal following the White House fumbling causing a national security issue when it added a reporter to a group chat with government officials discussing military strikes in a foreign country.

For those who are out of the loop the warning from the Pentagon about Signals came after The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported he was added to a group chat that among others, included key officials such as Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. The topic of discussion was military strikes in Yemen, with the mention of timings, weapons used, and targets.

Reports indicate that a 2023 Department of Defense memo states government officials are banned from using mobile apps for "controlled unclassified information (CUI)." NPR states that military operations are many degrees more sensitive than CUI, which can include proprietary business information, tax records, law enforcement data, and personally identifiable data. The debacle is still unfolding in the Senate, with members of the Signal group chat now appearing before officials to answer questions about the legitimacy of the plans.

Apple has announced that its Worldwide Developers Conference will kick off on June 9 this year.

In fact, WWDC 25 will run from June 9 to 13, as revealed by the brief press release Apple has posted.

The company states:

Microsoft has finally lifted a block preventing some Windows 11 users from installing the 24H2 update that applied to one particular game, a restriction that's been in place since the upgrade was first released.

In other words, it has taken very nearly six months - Windows 11 24H2 arrived at the very start of October 2024 - to resolve this compatibility block, albeit to be fair to Microsoft, the PC game in question is far from high-profile affair.

It's Asphalt 8 (Airborne), which was released well over a decade ago now (for Windows 8, in fact, in 2013). This game was prone to freezing up with an exception error under Windows 11 24H2, which could happen during gameplay, or while exiting a session (the latter being a scenario that was a good deal less annoying no doubt).

We're more used to Windows 11 patches clattering through the door and causing strife thanks to various bugs - including some very odd glitches - and now the latest Windows 10 update appears to be following suit.

Windows 10's patch for March (KB5053606) came with a problem that's already been widely reported, namely the Copilot app being accidentally deleted (a really weird glitch that also affected Windows 11, and Microsoft swiftly resolved).

Aside from that, there's a known issue with some USB printers that Microsoft has admitted, but that's a bug affecting enterprise users, not consumers.

File Explorer just got a big upgrade for Windows 11 users, with performance of the native app being increased following a new update rolled out by Microsoft.

Microsoft announced the performance hike in a new blog post where it explained the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27818 within the Canary Channel includes big improvements to File Explorer, particularly in the area of extracting zipped files.

More specifically, the performance increase will be felt when unzipping a large number of small files. The update to the Insider Build also includes various others fixes such as known problems with the Taskbar and System Tray, the removal of "Suggested Actions" when you have copied a phone number or future date, various crashes and more.

Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 this year and has reminded users of the operating system that its support severance is approaching.

Windows 10 is still the world's most popular operating system according to data gathered by StatCounter, which states Microsoft's previous generation operating system still accounts for 58% of the desktop Windows market share worldwide.

By comparison, Windows 11 accounts for 38%. Microsoft has now begun sending emails out to Windows 10 users to inform them the world's most popular operating system is officially losing support on October 14, 2025, and following that date, machines running Windows 10 will no longer receive critical software updates such as security patches, meaning these machines will exponentially become more vulnerable to malware, and hacking.

CPU-Z's new v2.15 update delivers support for the latest silicon from AMD and NVIDIA, with support for Strix Halo and Krackan APUs, while added GPU support includes the Radeon RX 9070 series and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.

Not only that, but CPU-Z now lets you check your GPU and ROP count, just in case you want to make sure your graphics card has the right ROP count, as that's now a thing unfortunately. AMD's new Ryzen AI Max 300 series "Strix Halo" APUs and Ryzen AI 340/350 "Krackan" APUs, as well as the new RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 are all supported in CPU-Z now.

NVIDIA's new Blackwell-based GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 are now both supported by CPU-Z, as well as the entire fleet of new EPYC 9000 series CPUs from the monster 192-core, 384-thread EPYC 9965 down to the 8-core, 16-thread EPYC 9015.

Windows 11 users who are keen on talking to Copilot will be pleased to learn that a new feature is now in testing to allow for such conversations to be invoked in a much more convenient way.

Microsoft has announced that Windows Insiders now have access to a press-to-talk capability with the latest (preview) version of the Copilot app from the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft notes that the feature:

In a campaign against Spotify and large tech, Pocket Casts - owned by the company behind WordPress - has made its podcast web player and desktop apps available to users free of charge.

Pocket Casts is a podcast streaming platform and app that allows users to discover, subscribe to, download and listen to podcasts. As detailed on the team's website, Pocket Casts takes a rather ethical approach to its services. "The future of podcasting shouldn't be locked behind walled gardens," the team writes, and this approach has been baked into both the pricing, and the tool itself. "We're making a statement,"

The free offering will allow users to stream any podcast directly from its Web Player, without requiring an account or subscription. Users with accounts will be able to sync playback progress across devices, save subscriptions, and manage their queue more seamlessly.

If you've taken the plunge and ordered a MacBook Air M4, or a new Mac Studio (with M4 Max, or M3 Ultra), when these computers arrive later this week (hopefully), you'll be required to perform a day-one update of macOS.

MacRumors reports that a software update will need to be applied to get your Mac running Sequoia 15.3.1, the latest version of Apple's desktop operating system.

This is because the MacBook Air M4 seemingly arrives with macOS Sequoia 15.2 installed, whereas the Mac Studio is more up to date, and runs macOS Sequoia 15.3, but will still require that bump to version 15.3.1.

Not been able to get Windows 11 24H2 due to having AutoCAD installed? There's some good news from Microsoft for you, then, as the compatibility hold put on some PCs due to having this software has now been lifted.

The bug with Windows 11 24H2 meant that Autodesk's AutoCAD 2022 application might fail to work - simply not launching - in some cases, and this could happen to any version. However, AutoCAD 2023, 2024, and 2025 all remained fine.

The fix has now arrived for the 2022 incarnation, thankfully, and Microsoft wrote in its support document on the matter:

It was only recently revealed that X, formerly Twitter, was experiencing a "massive cyberattack" that resulted in the social media platform being unstable for millions of users around the world.

X owner Elon Musk confirmed the disturbance was a result of a cyberattack in a recent X post where he stated that X faces cyberattacks every day, but this one was conducted with a lot of resources by a coordinated group, possibly even with the involvement of a country. It was shortly after Musk's X post that Fox posted a new interview with Musk where the SpaceX CEO touched on the recent outage of the social media platform, and provided some new information about the cause.

Musk said after some preliminary analysis of the IP addresses linked to the cyberattack it was discovered the majority of them were coming from Ukraine. Musk said during the interview that, at the moment, X isn't sure what happened exactly, but the goal of the attack was to bring down the social media platform. This attack is just one of many that have been launched against Musk's businesses recently, with Tesla dealerships and charging stations being hit by vandals that are presumably in disagreement with Musk's involvement and motivations within the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Microsoft debuted the Copilot app for Mac users last week, and this week, the Redmond-based company has thrown a fresh coat of paint onto the Copilot app for Windows users. Introducing, the new and approved Copilot app.

Microsoft explained in a new blog post the Copilot app for Windows 11 has been changed to fall in line with the rest of Windows 11's aesthetic design, with the implementation of a sidebar for separating multiple chats users have with Copilot, native context menus, and an overhauled user interface. Notably, the Copilot app for Windows, when it launched,d was simply a web view of the Copilot website, which came with problems such as delayed responses, missing features for specific users with unknown reasons as to why, and other various minor issues.

Those all seem to be stamped out with the release of the Copilot app, or at least I can report my experience with the app has been quite smooth throughout my time using it (a few days). Additionally, it appears that no features are present on the web version have been lost with the native Copilot app, so you can expect the full functionality with the new app. For those who have never used the Copilot app, users are able to query Copilot with a wide variety of questions either through natural language text or through the Copilot Voice feature. All chats with Copilot will be saved in the sidebar.

Windows 11's most recent (optional) update has been causing serious problems with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, according to some reports - though Microsoft has also fixed a separate issue with this patch.

Let's start with that nasty Black Ops 6 bug, with the game seemingly being scuppered by KB5052093, which is the preview update for February 2025 for Windows 11 24H2.

Windows Latest picked up on this and points out that reports of this happening seem to be scattered, with just a reader complaining and a couple of gamers on Reddit.