Software & Apps - Page 5

We all know how aggressive Microsoft can be when pushing Windows updates. You can be in a hurry to fire off that work email, or to jump on the game with the boys, but as soon as you turn your PC on, you're met with the Windows update screen. Well, now it seems Microsoft is taking things to the next level and forcefully updating your Windows device, even if you had no plans to do it yourself.

According to Microsoft, an update to Windows 11 25H2 is now available for all devices that are running the older 24H2 version. Not only that, your device will be "automatically" updated to the new version. At the moment, this forced update applies to users of Home and Pro versions, whereas IT departments and organizations are currently excluded from the rollout.

Microsoft claims that users will have to perform "no action" to get the update, but they do have limited control over when the update is installed. You can postpone the update, but of course, that functionality is only temporary. It is interesting to note that Microsoft is labeling this as a "machine learning-based intelligent rollout", although there is no explanation provided about what that entails.

Microsoft Windows apps are often categorized as what many would call bloatware. They are slow, sluggish, eat your resources in the background, and they seem to exist purely so you can download a different browser (yes, I am looking at you, Edge). Some people do give these apps a fair chance, but the results rarely reward that patience. And it seems these issues don't stop on Earth either, as Microsoft apps appear to cause problems even in space.

A recent Microsoft Outlook anomaly has been making the rounds online, and it comes straight from NASA's Artemis II Orion spacecraft livestream. A clipped portion of the stream shows a puzzled astronaut asking Mission Control for help because they "have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working."

Similarly, for the everyday user, the experience isn't much different. A clip shared by Zac Bowden on X shows Microsoft's Outlook app taking more than 15 seconds to display an email after selecting it from a notification. Bowden notes that this is not related to a recent Windows update or a broader system performance issue, but rather appears to be an Outlook-specific problem.

The Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for March 2026 are now available, and as we've gone over the big movements in the GPU space, there is one other notable shift worth digging into. And it arrives in the OS space, with Linux crossing the 5% market share barrier for the first time. According to the results, 5.33% of Steam gamers on PC are playing on Linux, with SteamOS being the number one distro.

And with that, Microsoft's Windows market share has dropped to 92.33%, with Windows 11 retaining the top spot as the most popular OS among PC gamers on Steam, with a 66.85% market share. Although Windows 11 saw the biggest shift, gaining 10.57% in March, Windows 10 saw the biggest drop, losing almost 15% of its market share, bringing that figure down to 25.36%.

Steam Hardware & Software Survey results tend to fluctuate from month to month because Valve samples only a portion of its 130+ million monthly users. However, with the SteamOS-powered Steam Deck and the upcoming Steam Machine both being Linux-based, the non-Windows platform for PC gaming is definitely gaining traction, especially when you factor in several other gaming-focused Linux distros, like Manjaro, growing in popularity.

You'll now need at least 6GB of RAM to run Ubuntu 26.04 LTS comfortably, as Canonical has quietly raised the minimum memory requirements. According to the official specs, Ubuntu Desktop 26.04 LTS (Resolute Raccoon) now requires a "2 GHz dual-core processor or better, a minimum of 6GB RAM, and 25 GB of free hard drive space." Most of it remains unchanged, except, of course, the increased RAM requirement.

Experts at OMG Ubuntu call the change a "honesty bump," noting that the extra memory isn't going toward the core OS but rather system resources. With GNOME 50, modern web browsers, and typical multitasking workloads, 6GB of RAM doesn't feel like a stretch. Moreover, key apps such as Firefox, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, and GIMP are updated in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.

The last time Canonical added extra GBs to its memory requirements was in 2018, when Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) arrived, requiring 4GB. Prior to that, Ubuntu LTS RAM requirements had been sitting at just 1GB, as seen with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) in 2014.

Valve is going to roll out a Steam Store Home page refresh designed to make it easier to find new games and to display more content and information. The Steam Store Home page refresh is also about modernizing the UI by using higher-resolution game art and taking advantage of modern high-resolution QHD, 4K, and ultrawide displays. Valve notes that the store is now wider and more responsive, with the updates also making their way to the Steam Deck and Steam's Big Picture mode.

Although the overall layout is similar, the refresh introduces notable changes. For example, the 'Featured & Recommended' section at the top includes more detailed information when you hover over the cover art, including a user review round-up and a summary of the game, while also displaying adjacent games in the carousel.

The 'Discounts & events' section is also getting larger artwork, with the new Discovery Queue feature getting a prominent fixture, where you can browse through these curated titles without leaving the home page. 'Your Wishlist' and 'DLC for Your Games' sections are also being added, highlighting any potential discounts right there on the home page.

There has existed a clear divide between Android and Apple over the past decade or so. Green bubbles vs. Blue bubbles, Safari vs. Chrome, and so many more differences have kept the two platforms separate. One of the most crucial differences between the two was the coding language that was used to develop their apps. Apple's apps use the Swift language, while Android predominantly uses Kotlin and Java for its development.

That divide is about to come crashing down thanks to a new update to Apple's programming language, Swift. With the release of Swift 6.3, there is a dedicated Software Development Kit (SDK) for Android, enabling developers to use the language to build Android apps. This is a monumental milestone, marking a significant step toward blurring the lines between Apple and Android development.

The official Swift changelog states that the new SDK equips developers with the tools to integrate Swift code into existing Android app projects written in Kotlin/Java. Moreover, you can also create native Android apps from scratch using Swift if you want. The cross-platform integration will probably be the more important feature for developers who build versions of their apps for both platforms.

It looks like gears are finally turning at Microsoft, as they have confirmed that they have been working on major changes to Windows 11 over the past couple of weeks. First, Microsoft confirmed a major Windows 11 update with changes to Explorer and reduced Copilot integration. Then they discussed forming a new team to replace web apps with 100% native Windows 11 apps to streamline the user experience. Now, it looks like another big change is coming.

Microsoft's Windows Shell product head, Tali Roth, took to X (formerly Twitter) to respond to a tweet that raised concerns about Windows Search. Roth confirmed that "a lot of improvements" are coming to the Windows 11 Search experience, with the main focus on making it "simpler and less distracting."

If you have ever typed in the Windows Search bar to find something you're looking for, you know that there's a 99% chance that you won't find it. Instead, you are more likely to get irrelevant web search results and some random file buried deep in the catalogs that merely resembles the name that you are looking for. This concern was raised with Tali Roth in a separate tweet, to which she replied affirmatively.

Microsoft has been pretty vocal lately about improving the Windows 11 experience. The company recently pushed a major Windows 11 update that plans to fix the OS by removing unnecessary Copilot features, reducing File Explorer launch times, adding the ability to resize and reposition the taskbar, and offering a more compact layout closer to the Windows 10 experience.

Luckily, the improvements aren't stopping at just the OS level. Microsoft has now confirmed it will build 100% native apps for Windows 11. Rudy Huyn, a Partner Architect at Microsoft working on the Store and File Explorer, says he is putting together a team specifically focused on building better apps for Windows 11.

"I'm building a new team to work on Windows apps! You don't need prior experience with the platform. What matters most is strong product thinking and a deep focus on the customer," Huyn wrote on X. "If you've built great apps on any platform and care about crafting meaningful user experiences, I'd love to hear from you."

A new report has highlighted how much more reliable Macs are than Windows PCs in an enterprise setting.

The Register brought the report from Omnissa to our attention, which is officially entitled the 'State of Digital Workspace' (with the company, which was formerly a VMware business, offering a 'digital work platform').

There are a whole bunch of findings, as you might imagine, but the real eyebrow raiser here is just how much more prone to crashing Windows systems are than macOS, at least going by Omnissa's telemetry data.

Microsoft appears to be turning over several new leaves with Windows 11 - or indeed rewriting the entire book to an extent - with plans to improve and fix the OS, and we might even see the return of the ability to install the operating system with a local account.

Windows Latest spotted a post on X (via TechRadar) from Scott Hanselman, who is a VP, Member of Technical Staff, at Microsoft, and one of the execs behind the big project to fix everything about Windows 11 which is apparently now in full swing for 2026.

As we saw at the weekend, this campaign includes bolstering performance - and reducing the overheads Windows 11 places on the system, including the RAM consumed - as well as cutting away elements of AI, and providing more control over Windows Updates.

Microsoft is starting to share details on how it plans to improve Windows 11 this year, with Windows president Pavan Davuluri posting a new blog post titled 'Our commitment to Windows quality' over on the Windows Insider channel. According to the post, he and the Windows team have spent "past several months" analyzing feedback (and criticisms) surrounding the current state of the operating system.

And with that, the first round of updates and improvements is set to begin rolling out to Windows Insiders this month and throughout April, focusing on a few areas. This includes limited AI integration and even the removal or reduction of "unnecessary" Copilot features in apps such as Snipping Tool and Notepad. Another big one on the horizon looks to be a massive overhaul to how Windows Updates are handled.

The ability to skip updates, along with rebooting and restarting without updating, is coming, plus fewer automatic restarts and notifications. And when it comes to Windows 11 stability and speed, File Explorer is getting overhauled to deliver "quicker launch experience, reduced flicker, smoother navigation, and more reliable performance."

Windows 11's 'Snipping Tool' is one of its better features, offering detailed, easy-to-access controls for capturing screenshots and videos. From the ability to focus on a single window or a free-form rectangle to capture something specific and store it in memory for some copy-paste action, it's one of those features that countless Windows users make use of daily.

In one of Microsoft's latest how-to articles posted on the Windows Learning Center titled, 'How to use Snipping Tool on Windows 11: Screenshots, shortcuts, and screen recording,' it looks like Microsoft is relying on Copilot to generate the image of Snipping Tool in action. As spotted by Windows Latest, Microsoft isn't hiding this fact, as the image carries an 'AI Art Created via Copilot' caption. However, it's being called AI slop because of some glaring issues.

Well, one. The image, which shows someone sitting in front of a laptop, shows a seemingly special version of Windows 11 with two Start buttons. Which is a problem for a guide that might ask you to click the Start button and then leave you wondering, "Which one?"

If you've got a new Windows 11 laptop with a physical Copilot key and you'd rather have that as a right Ctrl key, then you're in luck.

While Microsoft won't let you redefine the key to summon its AI assistant in Windows 11, there's a small third-party utility that does the job for you, as Neowin reports.

This is 'NoCopilotKey' and you can download the executable and fire it up, whereupon the Copilot key will once again become the Ctrl key on the right. If you want to end the program, you can kill it in Task Manager.

Sometimes your videos and photos don't turn out as well as you hoped. For example, old family photos can be blurry, travel sunset shots may appear soft, vlog clips might be shaky or noisy, and gameplay recordings often look low-resolution when shared online. Thankfully, with VideoProc Converter AI, those flaws aren't something you have to live with. It enhances videos and images by upscaling resolution, sharpening details, smoothing motion, and applying additional AI enhancements, while also handling common media tasks so your content looks its best.

VideoProc Converter AI is an all-in-one media solution with a built-in AI video/image enhancer. It uses advanced AI models to upscale resolution, reduce noise, fix blur, stabilize footage, interpolate frames, and enhance other aspects of your videos and images, improving overall visual quality across a wide range of media. This easy and budget-friendly software also includes tools for format conversion, basic editing, screen recording, and additional media utilities, making it a fairly complete media processing toolkit. In testing, its level-3 hardware acceleration stood out, enabling faster processing on NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, and Apple M-series GPUs while keeping CPU usage relatively low.

For a limited time, you can get VideoProc Converter AI with 62% off. This is a one-time payment that includes lifetime updates and access to all future AI model iterations. On top of that, you'll receive 4 extra premium apps valued at $283 for free, including an AI-driven background remover and other professional media tools.

After years of waiting, Google is finally introducing native support for ARM64 devices with Linux. This support comes several years after Chrome added support for ARM64 devices running macOS and Windows. According to a post at the Chromium blog, Chrome for ARM64 Linux devices is currently due in Q2 of 2026.

Linux users with ARM64 processors have been able to use the open-source Chromium browser for some time, but while its core browser functionality works well enough, users should appreciate being able to access the full stack of Chrome services via a Google account login.

It's a little surprising that official support has taken so long to implement. Linux on ARM servers has long been a stable market, and Chromebooks with the full Google product stack have ARM support, as does Android. So, gluing the two together for Linux end users should not be too much of a technical challenge.

Generative AI tools are slowly making their way into all industries and markets, especially in software development and engineering. AI has reached a point where 'vibe-coding' lets people without programming experience create custom apps, websites, and more through natural-language input, with generative AI handling all the coding.

And when it comes to coding and programming, it probably doesn't get more complicated than an operating system, or OS. This brings us to Vib-OS, the world's first AI-generated vibe-coded operating system that supports both ARM64 and x86 architectures, with a modern UI. The goal was to deliver a Unix-like system, but the result is more than a little off the mark.

As detailed in a new video from YouTube creator tirimid, Vib-OS not only took a lot of effort just to boot when installed on a virtual machine, but that was just the beginning of an operating system that looks like it was ripped from a nightmarish fever dream.

Recently, PC World published an article that claimed Microsoft was planning to ship Windows 12 later this year. In addition, the new operating system would make AI a fundamental part of the system, with AI agents and tools taking over tasks such as search, document, and file categorization, and more. And much like with Copilot+ PCs, there would be a hardware requirement: a CPU with a dedicated NPU with at least 40 TOPS of performance.

It's a pretty lengthy report, and one that quickly made waves, as it outlines most of the key features that would make up Windows 12, along with Microsoft's planned release date, which would be around October 2026. However, after some backlash from other media outlets and insiders questioning the article's validity, PC World has issued a statement saying it "should not have been published."

"It does not meet PCWorld's standards and should not have been published," Brad Chacos, PCWorld executive editor, writes. The article is still online for public record. As for Windows 12 potentially coming anytime soon? Well, Windows Central's Zac Bowden says Microsoft's current focus is to fix Windows 11.

Since its debut, outside of gaming, PC and Windows users across the globe haven't exactly been in a rush to make the jump from Windows 10 to Windows 11. As we headed into 2025, four years after the operating system's initial launch, Windows 10 still commanded just over 60% of the global 'Desktop Windows Version Market Share,' according to StatCounter. Of course, that didn't stop Microsoft from officially making Windows 10 end-of-life on October 14, 2025.

As expected, for many everyday Windows users and businesses, the end of official support accelerated the need to upgrade. And with that, it took only a few months for Windows 11's market share to match Windows 10's, at around 50% as of December 2025. And now, as we head toward the close of the first quarter of calendar year 2026, it looks like Windows 11 adoption has kicked into high gear.

According to the latest Windows Market Share figures from StatCounter, as of the close of February 2026, Windows 11 now has an impressive 72.57% market share, with Windows 10 dropping to 26.45%.

Microsoft's latest Windows 11 builds 26100.7918 and 26200.7918, released through its preview channels, have given us a first look at some new features coming to the operating system in the coming weeks. The big one looks to be a new feature coming to the taskbar, a built-in network speed test.

Accessible from the current Wi-Fi or mobile network settings, or right-clicking on the network icon, the new feature automatically opens your default browser to measure internet speeds. This will be handy for laptop users who connect to new networks or move around, as it offers quick access to speed tests for troubleshooting or ensuring they've got a stable connection.

There are several other improvements and new features in the update, including shorter PC resume-from-sleep times, updated storage settings, and improved performance when scanning files. There are also quality-of-life improvements, such as the ability to extract all files when browsing non-ZIP folders.

Windows 11's Notepad app is slowly becoming WordPad, after Microsoft ditched the latter, and made up for that (in a fashion) by adding quite a few extra features to the former - but one introduction has ushered in a security vulnerability.

This highlights that concerns here are not just about Notepad becoming 'Bloatpad', but also that these new features may not just bog down the app - making it less responsive over time with the incremental weight of said additions - they can also put the user at risk.

PC Gamer reports that the new tables feature brought in for Notepad recently - allowing for formatting basic tables in your text docs - has a remote code execution flaw.