The most popular operating system in the world, Microsoft’s Windows is the software that powers hundreds of millions of PCs. Introduced back in November 1985, Windows has changed and evolved over time to grow as gaming, design, development, and productivity needs have shifted. Whether XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, or, most recently, Windows 11, Microsoft’s OS is one of the most important pieces of software ever made.
Following a test in June, Microsoft will now let you send files to your linked Android phone from the Share menu in Windows 11. The update will roll out gradually to users starting today.
Today I learned there’s a really neat Windows app called Twinkle Tray that lets you easily manage the brightness levels of multiple monitors. Useful for the winter nights when you want to adjust brightness levels easily, and the app even integrates neatly into the Windows 11 system tray.
Microsoft has admitted that its August security update has ruined some dual-boot Linux devices. The security patch wasn’t supposed to hit dual-boot Linux / Windows machines, but Microsoft admits “on some devices, the dual-boot detection did not detect some customized methods of dual-booting.” Workarounds include disabling Secure Boot and deleting Microsoft’s update while the company investigates the issue.
[MicrosoftLearn]
Microsoft has been working on moving Control Panel features to its Settings UI in Windows for more than 10 years, but a new support note has got some speculating the Control Panel might finally be removed soon. “The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app,” says Microsoft. It’s not news that Control Panel is being replaced, but Microsoft still hasn’t answered when that will actually happen.
Stardock’s excellent Start11 app is making its way to Windows on Arm PCs this week. Version 2.1 brings native ARM64 support for customizing the Windows 11 Start menu to exactly how you want it to look and feel. Start11’s update comes just weeks after Microsoft launched its Qualcomm-powered Copilot PCs, and ahead of the busy back to school season for laptops.
Microsoft is adding a toggle to let you only enable HDR on your monitor when you’re streaming video from services like Netflix or YouTube on Windows 11. It’s a nice change that will mean you don’t have to have HDR enabled all the time and run into issues sharing your screen with others in apps or taking washed out screenshots.
APU, audio, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth drivers are now available, according to Valve. Just note that the audio driver is only for audio over headphones or Bluetooth — speaker drivers are coming later.
Personally, I’m still waiting for Valve to release the long-promised ability to dual-boot Windows.
5
Verge Score
This Snapdragon-powered laptop is a productivity machine, but unless work foots the bill, you can do better.
CrowdStrike blamed testing software for taking down 8.5 million Windows machines last month, but now a full root cause analysis offers more details. The main issue was a mismatch between the input fields expected by CrowdStrike’s Falcon driver and the ones supplied in a content update. CrowdStrike is now promising to better test updates and is using two independent third-party software security vendors to review its sensor code and release processes.
[crowdstrike.com]
As we started testing Windows 11 on Arm with new Copilot Plus PCs, we noticed issues with the performance of Adobe Premiere Pro. Adobe blocked the x86 software from Snapdragon X Elite laptops before their public launch, but now Windows Central says it’s available under emulation, and is “good enough for a basic video project,” while a planned Arm-native version is still in development.
Along with CrowdStrike’s post incident review, this has Microsoft telemetry data and some explanations (performance, tamper resistance) for the kernel driver architecture that crashed millions of Windows systems.
Microsoft has called for locking down that access, and this post again brings up alternate options:
...security vendors can use minimal sensors that run in kernel mode for data collection and enforcement limiting exposure to availability issues. The remainder of the key product functionality includes managing updates, parsing content, and other operations can occur isolated within user mode where recoverability is possible.
[Microsoft Security Blog]
Believe it or not, there’s another blue screen that’s popping up on some Windows machines. Microsoft says some Windows 11 devices will see a blue BitLocker recovery screen at boot after installing the July 2024 Windows security update. The issue isn’t widespread, but those impacted will have to enter a recovery key to get a PC to boot properly. A fix is on the way.
Microsoft made Secure Boot a requirement for Windows 11, and has been pushing to use the technology to secure against BIOS rootkits for years. Now, researchers have found that Secure Boot has been compromised on more than 200 device models from Acer, Dell, Gigabyte, Intel, and more. Ars Technica reports that an important cryptographic key was published on GitHub in 2022, by “someone working for multiple US-based device manufacturers.”
