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Windows 11 will soon be able to reinstall itself and your drivers without a USB drive via new 'Cloud Rebuild' recovery method

The Hot Take: Nice, but all to push cloud storage I'm assuming.

Microsoft has announced another new recovery method for Windows 11 PCs that will allow users to reinstall the OS using the cloud. The new recovery tool is called Cloud Rebuild which will restore a PC to a "clean, known-good state by performing an entire OS reinstall."The new Cloud Rebuild feature will download the Windows OS along with your devices drivers, and seamlessly install them during the recovery process so that your device is fully functional once the OS reinstalled, all without needing an external USB install drive."Unlike Reset this…

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Zombie ‘who owns Unix?’ lawsuit comes alive again

The Hot Take: Unix trying to come back from the grave? Or just a patent troll wanting another pay day?

The ancient dispute over ownership of UNIX, and perhaps Linux too, has returned to court. Again. As The Register has explained many, many, times since this matter first went to court in 2003, the roots of the case are the 1998 alliance between IBM and a company called the Santa Cruz Operation which sold a version of UNIX for x86 CPUs. Those two companies, plus Intel and Sequent, created “Project Monterrey” – an effort to create a unified version of UNIX that could run on multiple processors. By 2001, Project Monterrey was close to delivering a…

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I built a Linux container on Windows 11 without Docker Desktop, and Docker users should pay attention

The Hot Take: Nore more docker on Windows? Interesting.

Windows 11 can now build, run, and manage Linux containers on its own, without Docker Desktop in the background. Microsoft calls this WSL Containers, and after installing the preview and running a few real workloads through it, here is what works, what still needs Docker, and how to get it running on your own PC. WSL Container should not be confused with the next version of WSL 2, as we already covered how Microsoft shut down the WSL 3 rumors. It has now shipped as a public preview, so we installed it, built a custom container image from…

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Microsoft expected to lay off thousands in what has become an annual July restructuring

The Hot Take: Software development world is condensing fast with Ai....

Microsoft is expected to announce another round of layoffs soon. Less than 2.5% of the company's workforce will be affected, according to sources that spoke with Business Insider. Due Microsoft's size, even that small percentage means thousands of people will be affected.An SEC filing from June 30, 2025 showed Microsoft had about 228,000 employees. That figure has fluctuated since then, but it gives a gauge of the size of Microsoft's full-time workforce.Division cuts & AI infrastructureThis round of layoffs will affect thousands of roles…

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Microsoft denies WSL 3 exists, reveals Windows 11’s WSL Containers ship next week

The Hot Take: Slowly Windows becoming more and more Linux.

Microsoft has shot down the idea that WSL 3 is on the way. The articles that have been calling it WSL 3 mixed up a different feature, WSL Containers, which the company showed at Build 2026 and is now days away from shipping. The correction came straight from the team that builds Windows Subsystem for Linux. TL; DR: WSL 3 does not exist. WSL Containers does, and it shows up in less than a week. Microsoft has officially denied that WSL 3 exists. Craig Loewen, the Product Manager at Microsoft responsible for the Windows Subsystem for…

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Windows 11 26H2 is just 174KB, which is 0.003 % of 24H2’s size. Here’s how

The Hot Take: Impressive size reduction.

The “big” Windows 11 update for the year 2026, aka Windows 11 26H2, is arriving this fall as a mere 174KB enablement package for anyone already running Windows 11 24H2 or 25H2. For context, upgrading from 23H2 to 26H2 requires close to 6.5GB (not a typo). Windows 11 update, depending on which version you are on, can weigh either 174 kilobytes or roughly 6.5 gigabytes. The reason is the shared servicing branch model. With Microsoft now force-installing Windows 11 25H2 on all eligible Home and Pro PCs ahead of the 26H2 launch, we’ll tell you…

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Microsoft is killing the Microsoft account lock-in across products, Windows 11 may be next

The Hot Take: I guess OK? Is it going to be a google authenticated Microsoft account though?

Microsoft is quietly loosening its grip on the Microsoft account (MSA) requirement. Edge is getting a new option to sign in with a Google account, and we already know that internal teams in the company are working to bring back local account in Windows 11. This may be the first time in 10 years that Microsoft is getting a change of heart when it comes to forcing us to sign in with MSA. For years, Microsoft pushed MSA hard. You needed one to set up Windows 11, to get the most out of Bing, to claim Rewards points, and to sync anything in Edge.…

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Microsoft confirms Windows 11 26H2 for fall 2026 release, reveals supported PCs and other details

The Hot Take: Snapdragon gets it's own windows. Makes me think they haven't converged code like Apple has with iOS/iPadOS/Mac OS.

Microsoft has finally confirmed what we reported in February 2026: Windows 11 26H2 is shipping this year, and it’s not a major release, as the company is trying to make Windows updates more predictable. It means this year’s feature update will be similar to Windows 11 25H2 and install via an enablement package (eKB). Windows 11 hasn’t received a major feature update since 2024. Windows 11 24H2 was the last major update, and it was released on October 1, 2024. In 2025, Microsoft rolled out Windows 11 25H2, but it was based on the same…

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Ditch Outlook Classic? Microsoft confirms major New Outlook update with 5 features, all-accounts view, mail merge, .PST, and more

The Hot Take: Interesting features, we'll see if they pull me from eM Client which has all these now. Minus .pst files.

Outlook “New,” which is based on Outlook.com, is far from a decent email client. While it has come a long way, the new Outlook doesn’t feel as good as the Classic version, and it still lacks many features most users want. Microsoft now says it’s adding advanced support for Mail Merge, .PST, and a new single view for all accounts to the new Outlook app. Outlook for Windows and web is getting the All accounts view in August 2026 I asked Microsoft for more details, and it told me that Outlook on Windows 11 (and 10) will get support for a…

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