Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Microsoft says it plans to bring Snapdragon X2 chips to the new Surface Pro and Laptop later in 2026; sources say the delay is due to component availability — Although not available today, the company has confirmed that customers will be able to buy its new Surface devices with Snapdragon X2 chips later this year.
Jez Corden / Windows Central: Microsoft's Playground Games accidentally uploads unencrypted pre-load files for Forza Horizon 6 to Steam, leaking the PC version before its release next week — It's a potentially multi-million dollar error. Playground Games uploaded fresh pre-load files to Steam, albeit without encryption.
Jez Corden / Windows Central: Sources: Microsoft is preparing to launch a session-based ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming tier in 2026; users note Xbox Cloud Gaming now references “ad support” — Users have been noticing that Xbox Cloud Gaming has begun referencing “ad support” while launching games, confirming our earlier report.
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Stat Counter: Windows 11 had a 50.9% share of the Windows market on July 4, ahead of Windows 10's 46.2%; the OS, released in 2021, only had a <10% share in 2022 — After four years on the market, Windows 11 has finally surpassed Windows 10 to become the most dominant desktop OS platform in the world.
Jez Corden / Windows Central: Microsoft and Meta unveil the $399 Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition, offering few updates to the $299 Meta Quest 3S, available in “extremely limited” quantities — Last year, Microsoft revealed it was working on an Xbox edition Quest VR headset with Meta of Facebook fame.
Jez Corden / Windows Central: Sources: Microsoft sidelines its native Xbox handheld to focus on Windows 11 gaming performance for third-party OEM devices, like an Asus model debuting in 2025 — Xbox's handheld ambitions continue unabated, but the focus is shifting towards improving Windows 11 for third-party handhelds — for now.
Jennifer Young / Windows Central: Nvidia debuts a native GeForce NOW app for Steam Deck, supporting games in up to 4K at 60 FPS; in testing, the app extended Steam Deck battery life by up to 50% — You can download GeForce NOW on Valve's Steam Deck today and play PC titles outside of the handheld's capabilities over the cloud.
Kevin Okemwa / Windows Central: OpenAI says OneDrive and SharePoint users will be able to connect their files to ChatGPT's Deep Research for analysis, in beta for ChatGPT Plus, Pro, or Team — ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team users can connect their OneDrive and SharePoint libraries to analyze files with Deep Research.
Sean Endicott / Windows Central: Microsoft announces new features for Windows 11 and Copilot+ PCs, including an AI agent in Settings and updates to Start menu, Photos, Paint, and Snipping Tool — Copilot+ PCs and Windows 11 are about to get a ton of new features. … While the brand-new Surface hardware headlined today's announcements …
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: In the latest Windows 11 preview build, Microsoft removed the “bypassnro” command, which let users skip signing into a Microsoft Account when installing Windows — The popular “bypassnro” command, which let users to skip connecting to the Internet and signing into a Microsoft Account, is being removed.
Jez Corden / Windows Central: A look at Microsoft's risky Xbox strategy, where exclusives are the exception; sources say Microsoft is working on cross-platform Xbox interface Project Rainway — Microsoft's strategy has Xbox's core fans upset about the future of console hardware. Today, we're going to analyze the strategy …
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Microsoft releases Windows 11 ISOs for Arm64 PCs, letting users clean install Windows via official offline media, including the latest Snapdragon X Copilot+ PCs — Windows 11 ISOs for PCs with an Arm64 processor are now officially available, but older Snapdragon laptops will need to jump through additional hoops to get them working.
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Microsoft issues Surface Duo 2's final security update ahead of its October 21 end of support; the Duo 2, released in October 2021, got one major Android update — Microsoft has issued the final security update for Surface Duo 2 ahead of its end of support date on October 21.
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Microsoft confirms scrapping plans to overhaul its Edge browser UI, including moving away from a rounded tab design, first announced at a February 2023 event — Unveiled last year, the “new look and feel” for Microsoft Edge is no longer coming. — When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Kevin Okemwa / Windows Central: X activates a setting, on by default, that gives it permission to train Grok on user's posts; the setting can be turned off on the web but not in the mobile app — X's new experience is automatically set to opt-in and uses your data to train its Grok AI model.
Rebecca Spear / Windows Central: Asus ROG Ally X review: easier to grip, comfortable to hold, nice black casing, games run smoothly, and improved, but not great, battery life, but no touchpads — Improved battery life, double storage, and more changes come with this refreshed handheld. — When you purchase through links …
Sean Endicott / Windows Central: HP unveils the 14" OmniBook Ultra, with an AMD Ryzen AI 300 CPU, one of the first non-Arm powered Copilot+ PCs, for $1,450+, and the OmniStudio X 27 and X 31.5 — The HP OmniBook Ultra will be one of the first Copilot+ PCs running on a non-Arm processor, though it will need a free update first.
Jez Corden / Windows Central: Microsoft's decisions, like seemingly rowing back on Surface, Start Menu ads, closing studios, and porting AAA games to PS5, show a short-term financial focus — Microsoft has made a range of baffling decisions and awful mis-steps recently. You can trace everything back to insatiable desire for money.
Jez Corden / Windows Central: Emails: Xbox President Sarah Bond establishes a game preservation team, and reiterates plans for the next Xbox to aim for the “biggest technical leap ever” — The backward compatibility program will continue to future Xbox hardware. — What you need to know
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Microsoft announces a New Era of Work event on March 21 at 9am PT, where updates to Windows 11, Copilot and Surface Pro and Laptop are expected — New Surface hardware and Windows 11 features will be announced on March 21. — What you need to know — Microsoft has published …
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Microsoft launches a Windows App on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Windows, and the web, letting enterprise customers stream a copy of Windows, available in preview — Microsoft brings Windows to non-Windows devices. — What you need to know — Microsoft is launching the “Windows app” …
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Microsoft updates its support documentation to say Surface PCs shipped after January 1, 2021, will receive firmware updates for six years, up from four years — Surface PCs shipped in 2021 onward are getting two extra years of firmware updates. — What you need to know
Samuel Tolbert / Windows Central: The UK CMA approves Microsoft's ~$69B Activision acquisition, after Microsoft restructured the deal to sell some of Activision's cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft — The final roadblock has been removed. — What you need to know — UK regulatory authority the CMA granted Microsoft approval to purchase Activision Blizzard.
Jez Corden / Windows Central: Sources: at an Activision townhall hosted by James Corden, Bobby Kotick discussed Microsoft, Elon Musk's Neuralink, hinted at a Guitar Hero revival, and more — Kotick and Corden (not me) discuss the future of Activision. — What you need to know — Sources familiar …
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Microsoft ends software support for the original Surface Duo, three years after its launch; the Android smartphone received only two major OS updates — On its third birthday, the original Surface Duo is no longer supported by Microsoft. — What you need to know
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Microsoft plans to drop Cortana support on Windows 10 and Windows 11 in late 2023, touting the company's AI efforts as suitable replacements for the assistant — Microsoft will no longer support the Cortana app starting this fall. — What you need to know
Jez Corden / Windows Central: Microsoft has laid off the entire teams behind the virtual reality platform AltspaceVR, which will shut down in March, and the Mixed Reality Tool Kit framework — HoloLens, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality are all but dead at Microsoft. — What you need to know
Daniel Rubino / Windows Central: Microsoft's Q4 Surface revenue increased 10% YoY, driven by commercial PC sales, as Windows OEM revenue declined 2% YoY due to PC production shutdowns in China — Production shutdowns hampered commercial PC sales, but Microsoft's Surface met expectations due to enterprise purchases.
Sean Endicott / Windows Central: The White House has asked Congress to approve $150M to fund two new manufacturing plans, including one targeting domestic semiconductor manufacturing — President Biden's budget proposal to Congress includes a call to fight the current semiconductor shortage. — What you need to know
Dan Thorp-Lancaster / Windows Central: Microsoft says a DNS outage causing issues with services like Teams, Azure, and Office 365 is mostly over, cites spike in DNS traffic as preliminary root cause — If a Bing goes down and no one is around, did it even happen? — What you need to know — Several Microsoft services …
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Sources: Microsoft aims to let developers bring Android apps to Windows 10 with little to no change in code, via a project codenamed Latte, as soon as next year — Microsoft is working on a software solution that would allow app developers to bring their Android apps to Windows 10 with little …
Sean Endicott / Windows Central: Microsoft says a standalone, non-subscription version of Office will be released in the second half of 2021 for both Windows and Mac — Microsoft will release a new perpetual release of Microsoft Office in the second half of 2021. The new perpetual release only appears in a single sentence …
Zac Bowden / Windows Central: An inside look at how Microsoft tried and failed in creating a version of Windows for dual-screen devices like Surface Duo, and eventually picked Android — Curious what Surface Duo was like when it was a Windows device? Wonder no more. — Here at Windows Central …
Jez Corden / Windows Central: Sources: Xbox Series X will be priced at $499 and will launch on November 10, 2020 alongside the Xbox Series S — The Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X together. — Microsoft is set to hold a press event soon to showcase the next-gen console pricing, and it's pretty familiar. — What you need to know
Dan Thorp-Lancaster / Windows Central: Microsoft will end support for “classic” Skype 7.0 in November, with desktop support ending November 1, mobile and tablets on November 15 — It looks like Microsoft is ready to take a second stab at moving Skype users to the modernized desktop app.