Computerworld.com [Hacking News]

Nearly halfway into 2026, enterprises are beginning to see tangible returns on their AI investments. Yet many are discovering that scaling requires something far less glamorous than flashy frontier models and state-of-the-art benchmarking: Clean, interoperable, governed data.

According to a new AI Momentum Survey from Dun & Bradstreet, 97% of organizations report active AI initiatives, but just 5% say their data is ready to support them.

This reflects the messy reality of AI as enterprises struggle to move beyond experimentation to operationalization.

“You do not need enterprise-wide AI-ready data to launch pilots or isolated AI use cases,” said Cayetano Gea-Carrasco, Dun & Bradstreet’s chief strategy officer. “But you do need it to scale AI reliably across mission-critical workflows and systems.”

Early gains seen

Organizations are all-in on AI in 2026 and view it as a mission-critical imperative, according to the D&B report. Well over half (67%) are seeing “early signs or pockets” of ROI, and 24% report “broad or strong” returns.

Further, more than half (56%) of the 10,000 businesses polled by the data and analytics firm say they are planning to increase AI investment in the next 12 months. Around one-third (30%) are scaling AI into production and 26% are operationalizing the technology across multiple core processes.

As adoption rapidly increases, early returns are more common now than even just a year ago, D&B noted, but they still remain uneven. Dovetailing with this, concerns around data readiness are “even more profound” than in 2025.

This is for a variety of reasons, including problems with access to data (reported by 50% of those polled by D&B), privacy and compliance risks (44%), and data quality and integrity concerns (40%). Further, 38% report lack of integration across systems, while 37% say there is a shortage of qualified AI professionals.

Concerningly, however, just a small number of enterprises (10%) say with high confidence that they are able to identify and mitigate AI-related risks.

“The key question is no longer whether organizations are experimenting with AI,” said Gea-Carrasco. “It’s whether they have the data and infrastructure required to deploy AI reliably at enterprise scale.”

He noted that it’s relatively easy for enterprises to launch copilots, chat interfaces, or departmental AI tools using general-purpose models and get “impressive results in a controlled environment.” But far fewer are able to deploy AI into production workflows, where accuracy, accountability, explainability, interoperability, and consistency directly impact business decisions. This includes areas like onboarding, compliance, risk management, and customer operations. “That’s where data readiness becomes critical,” said Gea-Carrasco.

The data hurdle

The challenges around data are only compounded as enterprises move from copilots to more autonomous agentic workflows. “Most enterprise data environments were built for human workflows, not autonomous AI systems operating continuously across the business,” he pointed out.

While AI systems can produce outputs that sound coherent, they can be difficult to trust operationally, due to hallucinations, conflicting recommendations across systems, and compliance issues, Gea-Carrasco noted. This is problematic for all enterprises, but particularly for those in regulated industries like banking, insurance, healthcare, and financial services, where trustworthy and auditable outputs are “non-negotiable.”

Organizations seeing the most progress are those working to ensure that their data is high-quality, reliable, and governed. They are investing in consistent identity resolution and data interoperability and maintenance, so that AI can “reliably consume” and act on information, he explained.

Where enterprises are seeing ROI

Enterprises are beginning to see ROI in areas where underlying data environments are more mature, thus making it easier for AI to be directly embedded into real workflows, according to Gea-Carrasco. This includes areas like sales intelligence, onboarding, compliance workflows, customer research, risk analysis, workflow automation, prospecting, screening, supplier evaluation, and business verification.

ROI is typically reflected in reduced manual research, faster onboarding and review cycles, improved operational consistency, accelerated sales workflows, and better decision support for employees, he said. “In many cases, organizations are using AI to help teams process and synthesize large amounts of information significantly faster than before.”

He emphasized that AI is most successful when it augments existing operational processes rather than fully replacing human decision-making. “Organizations are finding success where AI helps employees work faster, make better decisions, and it reduces repetitive manual work while humans remain involved in oversight and final approvals,” he said.

Enterprise approach to agentic AI

Agentic AI is beginning to enter production environments, although it is “still relatively early and targeted,” Gea-Carrasco pointed out.

Most enterprises today are deploying agents that are narrowly scoped rather than fully autonomous, he said. The near-term pattern is supervised autonomy, where agents execute portions of workflows while humans remain involved in approvals, oversight, and exception handling. Thus, agents are entering what he referred to as “clearly defined workflows,” such as research, onboarding support, and workflow orchestration.

Over the next several years, AI will move from standalone copilots to more connected agentic systems embedded directly into enterprise workflows, he noted. They will increasingly coordinate work across customers, suppliers, partners, employees, and enterprise apps. Agents will likely become ever more prominent in workflows around sales operations, onboarding, compliance, procurement, customer research, risk management, supplier evaluation, and monitoring.

“Enterprise AI is becoming less about isolated productivity tools,” said Gea-Carrasco, “and more about building intelligent operational systems that can support decision-making and workflow execution at scale.”

This article originally appeared on CIO.com.

There are conflicting signals about whether AI is creating or destroying jobs, though many companies have blamed the technology for recent cuts. 

Analysts and industry experts say the reality is more nuanced: jobs being lost now to AI will likely reappear elsewhere, especially for those with hands-on AI experience.

In other words, while AI may be reshaping the labor market, it is not eliminating the need for talent. “We are seeing a shift toward the type of talent employers need and the expectations they have for impact,” said Kye Mitchell, head of Experis US.

Though hiring for entry-level jobs is under pressure as AI absorbs more routine work, that doesn’t eliminate opportunity, she said. “It changes the expectations. Employers now expect candidates to come in with hands-on experience, AI familiarity, and the ability to contribute faster.”

While reductions in headcount are real, the savings from cutting those jobs will reappear elsewhere in hiring for other roles or tasks, said Deepak Seth, senior director analyst at Gartner.

For example, though Claude Code might help IT leaders reduce the number of developers they have on hand, one faulty software rollout could lead to new hiring to fill gaps, Seth said. “Maybe you need to hire more quality testers in another group. Maybe you need to hire more people to train people on how to use these tools,” Seth said.

One thing seems clear: AI is indeed affecting young workers and suppressing entry-level wages. And it goes companies a rationale to do layoffs.

Many big tech companies are attributing large job cuts to AI, Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a May 7 blog post. 

April was particularly brutal for AI-related layoffs, with some top IT firms cutting positions due to efficiencies from AI. “They are also often citing AI spend and innovation. Regardless of whether individual jobs are being replaced by AI, the money for those roles is,” Challenger said.

Opinions vary among workers about whether AI is taking jobs away, according to a study published last month by ADP Research and the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.

Though young workers are especially worried AI will slow job creation in some sectors, more experienced workers are sanguine about losing their jobs, Stanford and BCG said in separate studies.

“There appears to be less cause for concern about widespread job displacement … particularly those in occupations with high experience premiums in which AI is likely to complement the worker’s tacit knowledge,” BCG said in its study “AI will reshape more jobs than it replaces.”

LinkedIn in a January labor report went a step further and projected that AI had created 1.3 million new jobs globally. The jobs were in the areas such as data annotators, forward-deployed engineers and AI engineers.

Microsoft cited the LinkedIn report in its recent Work Trend Index study, and said AI is  creating a new operating model allowing companies to be smarter and more efficient.

But the company sidestepped the larger issue of how AI is affecting the job market. “Some jobs will change. Some will go away. And many that don’t exist yet will emerge,” Microsoft said in the study.

Apple’s key manufacturing partner Foxconn has confirmed its US factories suffered a ransomware attack in recent days after the gang responsible claimed to have stolen 8TB of data from the company — including confidential Apple information.

This isn’t the first attack to hit Foxconn, and such is the scale and value of the company that it is unlikely to be the last. Criminals understand the value of the information it has and see it as a prime target. That it is an industrial company actively deploying smart factory infrastructure across its premises just makes it an even more interesting challenge; what happens if the machinery itself is attacked?

Industrial defenses have improved; so have attacks

In practice, most large industrial facilities are moving to secure their own internal factory networks using technologies such as SD-WAN, private 5G networks, network segregation, isolation of production environments from the corporate network, and active monitoring against threats to factory machinery. All the same, attackers always hope that complex, well-planned combination exploits will find some way into even those most private and secure portions of corporate systems.

What happened at Foxconn

In this particular case, it doesn’t look as if the attack was made against connected industrial equipment at Foxconn. Wired reports a little of the events that took place:

• The attack was identified on May 1.
• Foxconn’s network collapsed.
• Wi-Fi failed first, then the disruption extended to core plant infrastructure.
• As the attack unfurled, workers were told to switch off their computers.
• They were also instructed not to log back in under any circumstances.
• There were previous attacks on other Foxconn facilities and subsidiaries, suggesting regular assaults on the company.

The attackers claim to have stolen key confidential data belonging to Foxconn clients, though sample files published by them don’t seem to include any Apple-related materials.

While it is easy to get lost in the shock value of what seems to be a successful attack against an Apple supplier, the underlying story should be a warning to every company as it highlights the febrile nature of the current threat environment.

The data is clear: factories are targets now

Recent security analyses have confirmed that attacks against the manufacturing sector are particularly severe. The IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2025 described manufacturing as the most targeted industry across four successive years. Dragos claims 70% of ransomware attacks have affected the sector, and the ENISA Threat Landscape raises similar alarms.

Attackers are highly focused on this sector for many reasons. They see the money potential of ransomware attacks and the reality that industrial operations can’t afford downtime, which means they become more likely to pay their way out of trouble. (That’s not to imply Foxconn has done so, but is more of a general observation.)

Attackers also recognize the fragmented nature of industrial cybersecurity as the industry goes through rapid digital transformation, leaving overall security only as strong as its weakest partner or parts.

Attacks are evolving quickly

It isn’t likely that the threat window will close any time soon. Paul Smith, director of Honeywell Operational Technology (OT) Cybersecurity Engineering warns, “Attackers are evolving fast, leveraging ransomware-as-a-service kits to compromise the industrial operations that keep our economy moving.”  

With new breed AI-augmented attacks expected to increase in volume and capacity in the coming years, the entire sector needs to put the strongest possible mitigations in place now. The continued evolution of nation state-adjacent attackers, likely equipped some day with access to quantum computers to power their exploits, is a real threat to industry and national infrastructure.

Put it all together and the recent attack against Foxconn is less of a story about Apple security and more a klaxon to everyone in the sector that the intensity and proficiency of these attacks is accelerating.

Plan for impact, not perfection

This also means larger entities such as Apple will probably need to introduce and/or enhance their mandatory supplier security guidelines to ensure supply chains have sufficient protection in place against such exploits — and the recognition that even when they do, successful attacks will still take place. 

Foxconn clearly had its own mitigation strategy, as it put this into effect the moment the attack took place then moved to threat analysis and dispatched mitigation teams. But even smaller operators should already know what they will do when attacked. Has your business got plans in place for this? Because the moral of today’s tale is that you should develop them immediately.

First they come for Foxconn. Then, they come for you.

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Microsoft has unveiled a new AI-driven vulnerability discovery system that identified 16 previously unknown Windows vulnerabilities, including four critical remote code execution flaws, in what security analysts say could mark a major shift in how software vulnerabilities are discovered and remediated.

The system, codenamed MDASH, was developed by Microsoft’s Autonomous Code Security team alongside the Windows Attack Research and Protection group.

The platform will enter private preview for enterprise customers next month, Microsoft said in a blog post announcing the system.

The vulnerabilities were patched as part of Microsoft’s May 12 Patch Tuesday release.

“Cyber defenders are facing an increasingly asymmetric battle,” Microsoft added in the blog post. “Attackers are using AI to increase the speed, scale, and sophistication of attacks.”

Critical Windows components affected

The four critical vulnerabilities affected core Windows components broadly deployed across enterprise environments, Microsoft said in the blog.

Among them was CVE-2026-33827, a remote unauthenticated use-after-free flaw in the Windows IPv4 stack reachable through specially crafted packets carrying the Strict Source and Record Route option, Microsoft said.

Another flaw, CVE-2026-33824, involved a pre-authentication double-free issue in the IKEEXT service affecting RRAS VPN, DirectAccess, and Always-On VPN deployments.

Two additional critical flaws affected Netlogon and the Windows DNS Client, both carrying CVSS scores of 9.8.

The remaining 12 vulnerabilities rated “Important” included denial-of-service, privilege-escalation, information disclosure, and security feature bypass flaws affecting components such as tcpip.sys, http.sys, ikeext.dll, and telnet.exe, according to Microsoft.

How MDASH orchestrates AI agents

According to Microsoft, MDASH orchestrates more than 100 specialized AI agents across multiple frontier and distilled models, with each agent assigned to a different stage of the vulnerability discovery pipeline.

Some agents scan source code for potential flaws, others validate whether findings are genuine, and another stage attempts to construct triggering inputs capable of reproducing the issue before the finding reaches a human engineer for review.

“The model is one input. The system is the product,” Taesoo Kim, Microsoft vice president for agentic security, wrote in the blog.

Microsoft said the architecture was intentionally designed to remain largely model-agnostic, allowing the company to swap underlying AI models without rebuilding the broader orchestration pipeline.

That detail matters because MDASH arrives only weeks after Microsoft announced Project Glasswing, a partnership involving Anthropic and others to evaluate AI-driven vulnerability discovery using Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview model.

“Microsoft is now operating as platform owner, security vendor, AI infrastructure player, OpenAI partner, Mythos integrator, and agentic security supplier,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research. “That is a formidable position. It is also a concentration of influence that security leaders must examine with clear eyes.”

AI vs AI vulnerability race

The announcement also highlights growing concern that AI-driven vulnerability discovery could accelerate offensive operations as well as defensive research.

Anthropic has previously said its Mythos Preview model identified thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including a decades-old OpenBSD flaw and a long-undetected FFmpeg issue that traditional fuzzing tools failed to uncover despite millions of attempts.

“We’ve entered an AI-versus-AI vulnerability discovery race,” said Sunil Varkey, advisor at Beagle Security. “The winners won’t be the organizations with the best static scanners anymore. They’ll be the ones who can run these agentic systems fastest against their own code and remediate at machine speed.”

Varkey said enterprises should pursue early access to systems such as MDASH where possible rather than waiting for broader commercial availability.

“Early access isn’t just nice-to-have,” he said. “It’s becoming a defensive necessity in the AI era.”

For CISOs, the broader implication may be that vulnerability management is shifting from periodic scanning toward continuous, AI-assisted discovery and remediation.

“The future belongs to security teams that can find, validate, contain, and fix in one governed motion,” Gogia said.

Benchmarks show progress, but analysts urge caution

To support its claims, Microsoft published benchmark results showing MDASH identified all 21 deliberately planted vulnerabilities in an internal Windows test driver without false positives. The company also said the system successfully recovered nearly all historical Microsoft Security Response Center cases tested against older Windows component snapshots.

On the public CyberGym benchmark for vulnerability reproduction tasks, Microsoft said MDASH achieved a score of 88.45%, topping the public leaderboard at publication time.

Gogia said the results show the category is maturing but warned against treating benchmark scores as direct proof of enterprise value.

“CyberGym is a signal, not a buying decision,” he said. “The machinery around the model is beginning to resemble a serious security research workflow.”

He added that many enterprises still lack the governance maturity required to operationalize machine-generated vulnerability discovery effectively.

“Discovery without remediation discipline is theatre,” Gogia said. “It produces dashboards, not resilience.”

This article originally appeared in CSO.

Well, hell’s bells: It’s finally happening.

After years of misguided rumors and off-base expectations — over a decade’s worth, even! — Google is actually now on the brink of combining Android and ChromeOS into a single superpowered platform for laptops and mobile devices alike.

The company officially announced the advent of an entirely new type of product called the Googlebook as part of its pre-Google-I/O “Android Show” event on Tuesday. According to Google, the Googlebook is “a new category of laptops” that brings together Chrome, the Google Play ecosystem of apps, and “a modern OS that’s designed for Intelligence” (a fancy way to say “there’ll be lots of Gemini AI this-and-thats”).

At their core, Googlebooks appear to sport an interface that’s somewhere between Android as we know it and ChromeOS — with echoes of the 2010-era large-screen-optimized Android 3.0 Honeycomb era — to create what Google seemingly now sees as the future of the laptop experience.

In a lot of ways, Googlebooks seem poised to pick up right where ChromeOS left off — like, for instance, with how they make it easy to both natively install Android apps and stream apps directly from your phone on the computer. They also feature a nifty-sounding new Quick Access system that lets you seamlessly search, view, and work with files from your phone right on the laptop, without even having to do any sharing or transferring.

The Googlebook Quick Access system makes your Android phone’s storage easily accessible from your laptop.

Google

But more than anything, what’s defining Googlebooks at this point is what we don’t know about the devices and the ecosystems around ’em. Google is being deliberately cryptic with what it’s revealing about the setup — which is set to ship sometime “later this year” — as part of this early preview.

And what’ll really tell us the story of this new platform and what it’s all about — as well as the equally important tale of what it signifies for the broader Android and ChromeOS ecosystems and the people, companies, and organizations that depend on those — will be the answers to eight critical questions in areas where Google is thus far staying firmly tight-lipped.

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Specifically:

1. Do Googlebooks run Android?

It’s a pretty simple-seeming question, but somehow, it’s an answer that evades us as of this moment — and that, I’m told, is very much by design.

What we know right now is that Googlebooks are “optimized for the Android ecosystem” and able to run Android apps — but the same is technically true for Chromebooks, and those rely on a completely different operating system.

When I pressed for clarity on this during an embargoed press prebriefing (highfalutin lingo for a small meeting when Google presents info ahead of time to a bunch of writer-type folk in exchange for an agreement that we won’t talk about it until a specific stated date), an executive from the Googlebook team divulged that the devices are “built on the Android tech stack” and combine “the best of Android” with what Google learned from ChromeOS — and, of course, all the more recent Gemini stuff, too.

The Googlebook, as shown in a product mock from Google — with many mysteries remaining beneath that shiny outer surface.

Google

But that still doesn’t tell us if they’re Android devices or something else entirely — with an entirely new custom operating system at their core built for this specific purpose and merely based on Android as a starting point. (When I asked for further clarity a couple more times via email after the event, I eventually was told that Google is leaving those exact details to be answered later.)

And you’d better believe that’s a consequential distinction, as my next two questions illustrate.

2. Will device-makers be allowed to mess around with the operating system, à la Android, or will it be more locked down and consistent like ChromeOS?

Perhaps the biggest point of differentiation between an Android device and a ChromeOS device is that Android — for better or sometimes for worse — is a bit of an open canvas, and each individual device-maker and even carrier is able to take it and modify it for their own needs.

That’s why we see such a dramatic difference in how “Android” looks when you experience it on a Google-made Pixel phone vs. a Samsung-made Galaxy phone, for instance — and also why so many devices come with manufacturer- or carrier-added bloatware that exists solely to make those companies extra money at the cost of your user experience.

From the get-go, Chromebooks were kind of the anti-Android in this way. Google made it clear from day 1 that ChromeOS was a pristine surface that’d be identical no matter what exact device you’re using or who made it. And, with minor exceptions, it’s stuck to that all this time. You can pick up a Chromebook made by HP, Samsung, Acer, or Google and know it’ll look and work more or less the same exact way, with more or less the same exact interface and out-of-the-box experience.

If Googlebooks are truly Android devices, it’d logically follow that they’ll work more like Android — with each manufacturer potentially putting on their own custom spin and revamping the interface as well as adding in additional apps as they see fit. In that scenario, a device made by Samsung is likely to be very different from a device made by HP, Acer, or Google (and so on).

The seemingly technical distinction of what operating system is at the core means everything in this area — and the same is equally true and even more consequential with my next big question.

3. What do those last two questions tell us about Googlebooks’ software support and update expectations?

Whoo, boy — here we go: can of worms time.

Because device-makers are able to modify and control so many parts of the software experience with Android, it’s up to each individual manufacturer to process every new operating system update as it arrives — and then provide that update to its customers.

And you know the deal from there, right? In practice, that means there’s a massive disparity in the speed and reliability of post-sales software support across the Android ecosystem — with some devices always receiving new updates within mere days of their release and others consistently waiting six months to a year or even longer to get increasingly stale software. It’s a serious problem in the Android arena, and it has been for ages now.

And even if you don’t care about the more superficial interface improvements and feature additions, you’d better believe timely software support matters. Operating system updates are packed with vital fixes in areas like privacy, security, and performance. Particularly for professionals, knowing you’re always on the latest available Android version should be a given — not something you need to worry about or an area where you risk realizing you’re half a year behind.

If Googlebooks follow the Android model, it stands to reason that this same disparity will exist among them — and that knowing who makes a device and what their upgrade history looks like will be an incredibly important part of any intelligent buying decision.

If Googlebooks are more their own individual operating system and it’s one that more closely mirrors the ChromeOS concept, then Google itself might handle the heavy lifting with updates and deliver ’em all quickly and universally, without any third-party meddling or reliance.

Again, as of now, we just don’t know, nor do we yet know even what the overall standard will be for software support and update longevity with Googlebooks in general. As you can imagine, the answers to these questions couldn’t be more critical — for professionals and organizations in particular, but also just for regular ol’ individual device owners.

Googlebooks present an entirely new software environment — with lots of unknowns.

Google

Speaking of which…

4. What does the Googlebook’s arrival mean for the future of ChromeOS and Chromebooks? 

Here’s the million-dollar question — or maybe the $14.7 billion question, to be more precise:

With Googlebooks set to start shipping sometime later this year, is ChromeOS effectively kaput? Is Google shifting its focus away from Chromebooks and toward Googlebooks as their de facto replacement?

The answer here gets especially murky. When I raised the subject during the aforementioned briefing, executives were quick to note that they will continue to support all existing ChromeOS devices through their promised lifespans — and that they absolutely were not giving up on the platform or abandoning its users.

That’s important, and it’s great to know. But it still isn’t answering the actual question I’m posing here — which is longer term, if Google intends to continue investing in ChromeOS and creating new Chromebook devices or if that platform and device type is essentially being phased out and supported only in a legacy context, for the products that already exist or are presently under development.

And that’s where I’ve been struggling to get a clear, unambiguous answer. Upon following up with a Google media relations rep to try to gain clarity, I received the following carefully worded statement:

Chromebooks have become an invaluable tool for educational institutions, businesses, and consumers throughout the globe, bringing powerful features, security, and simple-to-use management tools for commercial users. We absolutely intend to continue investing in those experiences and supporting those users. And of course, all Chromebooks will continue to receive support through their device’s existing date commitment, and many Chromebooks will be eligible to transition to the new experience.

Okay, so we got a teensy new nugget there — in that “many Chromebooks” will be able to “transition” to the newer, Googlebook-style setup. Again, good to know.

But still, it isn’t the answer we’re looking for here. Will Chromebooks keep being produced and offered indefinitely alongside Googlebooks, as different choices for different markets and/or needs — or will Googlebooks eventually replace Chromebooks as the de facto laptop-level device at some point in the foreseeable future?

When pressed on this point, a media relations rep from Google told me that yes, Chromebooks will “continue to be sold” — and that there are already more devices “in the pipeline” for release. When I followed up further to attempt to clarify, again, if that meant Googlebooks and Chromebooks would both be produced and offered indefinitely moving forward — not just that there’ll be a period of overlap in which both will be available to purchase, based on devices that were already released or under development — I didn’t receive another reply (after a day and a half and in time for this article’s publication).

At the risk of turning this into a total Abbott and Costello routine, I’m still just not entirely sure that what we’re hearing actually answers what I’m asking — or what that might mean for the many education and enterprise organizations relying on Chromebooks now, once their current devices start to near end dates and they’re ready to look for replacements.

As a potentially related side note, all software-level considerations aside, Googlebooks are described as being “built with premium craftsmanship and materials” — every Googlebook — and so it sure doesn’t seem like they’ll be positioned in the same way that many current Chromebooks have, at the more budget or midrange level that’s suitable for mass organizational deployment.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

5. What about other core Chromebook qualities — like the built-in security, lack of slowdown over time, and the true desktop browser experience they offer?

I’ll make this one easy for ya: Don’t know, don’t know, don’t know.

Once more, extremely critical questions. And so far, no known answers.

6. Will Googlebooks be able to run Linux programs — and/or Windows apps, as Google worked so hard to establish with ChromeOS in recent years?

Over the years, ChromeOS morphed into something I’ve called the “everything” OS — an ironic evolution, without a doubt, given the original Chromebook vision.

Part of that means the devices can run practically every type of app imaginable, short of Mac-native software. You can install Android apps, of course, and run anything from the web. You can also install Linux apps and, with the right add-on, even run full-fledged Windows programs on a Chromebook — a move Google made proudly and after lots of thoughtful iteration to close the gap on corporate concerns around ChromeOS limitations.

Part of the Chromebook’s appeal has also always been the desktop-caliber Chrome browser experience it gives you — something that the mobile versions of browsers have never quite been able to match when it comes to speed and unrestricted productivity. It’s a very noticeable difference when you attempt to do work on the web on a Chromebook compared to a traditional Android (or any other mobile operating system) device.

As for Googlebooks, all we know right now is that they can run Android apps. So are they essentially just a new and improved version of an Android tablet — something that’d be fine and maybe even nice for more casual use but a far cry from the sort of productivity-minded environment Chromebooks have grown into providing? Or will they retain their predecessors’ progress when it comes to that singularly versatile platform-bending software support?

Until we know those answers, it’s impossible to really wrap our heads around any of this.

7. Will the devices all be touch-centric, with touch-capable displays?

The way Google is showing its Googlebooks being used certainly makes it seem like they’re more touch-oriented devices — with keyboards available for when you need ’em. 

Chromebooks, though, started out that way and then quickly evolved to showcase a more diverse range of hardware options — which, in recent years, increasingly did not include touchscreens as a baseline option.

If these are being portrayed as more traditional laptops, maybe touch isn’t necessarily expected for them, either. But if they’re more of supercharged tablets, a touch capability would certainly make sense.

The Googlebook’s trademark “glowbar,” as seen on some past Google-made devices.

Google

So. Many. Questions. And, on that note, one more:

8. How will these be branded — and will Google itself be making Googlebook hardware?

Based on the name “Googlebook” (which, on a side note, is remarkably similar to “gobbledegook” — trust me, you’ll never unsee it now), you’d be forgiven for assuming that Google itself is the one making ’em all.

That, we do know, is definitely not the case. Google says it’s partnering with a variety of companies — including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, to start — to create the very first Googlebooks, and that alone raises so much curiosity in my mind.

To wit: Will all of those companies’ devices simply be called Googlebooks — the Acer Googlebook and the Dell Googlebook, for instance? Or will it be more of a Windows-esque model, where they’ll brand ’em however they want and then list somewhere on the packaging that they’re Googlebooks or running, erm, GoogleOS, or Android Googlebook Desktop Edition, or whatever the heck it ends up being called?

For that matter, will Google itself be making a Googlebook? It’d be weird if it didn’t, given the name “Googlebook” and the company’s ever-increasing homemade hardware ambitions. But if it does, will its device be the Pixelbook Googlebook? (Gesundheit.) And will we be seeing the same sort of awkward competition that’s present within Android now, where Google both makes and controls the OS and competes for customers as a creator of the same sort of hardware?

For now, all we can really say is that Googlebooks are coming — and they appear to establish a whole new horizon for how we think about laptops, Android, and ChromeOS. They’ll have a neat glowbar that brings to mind earlier Google hardware products, and they’ll feature a bunch of bits of native Gemini integration. And they’ll interact with Android in some interesting ways.

Beyond that, let’s hope that the answers to all these questions become apparent as the months march on and we grow closer to the Googlebook’s launch — ’cause without these answers, Googlebooks really are just a bunch of gobbledegook, albeit gobbledegook surrounded by a cryptically pretty enclosure and plenty of hazily promising potential.

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It feels like the world’s longest and most public divorce: In late April, Microsoft and OpenAI once again renegotiated the slow-motion breakup that has been playing out between the two over the last several years.

At first glance, it looks like a win-win. In the broadest terms, OpenAI gets more freedom to set its own course — it can sell its models to Microsoft competitors such as Amazon and Google, for example — while Microsoft gets a better revenue deal and first rights to the newest OpenAI technologies into the next decade. 

But in truth, one company got a better deal than the other. Who came out ahead? To figure that out, we first need to look at the most important details of the new agreement. 

A new deal after a lot of rancor

Keep in mind that this new agreement didn’t arise from thin air. It’s a direct result of Microsoft’s threats in March to sue OpenAI when inked a $50 billion deal with Amazon that makes the latter company the only third-party cloud provider ⁠for ⁠OpenAI’s enterprise platform for building and running AI agents. 

After the Amazon-OpenAI contract was signed, Microsoft claimed it violated its exclusive cloud agreement with OpenAI. A Microsoft source told the Financial Times, “We know our contract. We will sue them if they breach it. If Amazon and OpenAI want to take a bet on the creativity of their contractual lawyers, I would back us, not them.”   

That led to negotiations, and ultimately the pact between Microsoft and OpenAI that loosens the bonds between the two companies, making it easier for them to go their own ways It also significantly changes the financial relationships between them. 

What OpenAI got

The deal gave OpenAI what it desperately wanted — a fair amount of independence from Microsoft. The biggest plus for OpenAI is that it can now sell its AI models through companies other than Microsoft, including on Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. (Until now the models were only available on Microsoft Azure.) 

With that new freedom, OpenAI can more easily chart its own course rather than have Microsoft determine it.

OpenAI also gets something vital for its expected IPO — an eventual limit on the amount of money it has to pay to Microsoft. OpenAI now pays 20% of its revenue to Microsoft. Under the new terms, OpenAI will continue to pay until 2030, but the total amount of that payment will be capped. The companies haven’t disclosed what that cap is. 

The cap is vital for OpenAI, because investors will be more likely to buy OpenAI stock if the company’s long-term profitability isn’t weighed down by payments to Microsoft.

What Microsoft got

Microsoft gets a great deal, too. Even though OpenAI can now sell to Microsoft rivals, it remains OpenAI’s primary cloud partner; OpenAI products have to ship on Azure before they’re available from competitors. That gives Microsoft a considerable “first mover” advantage, because its customers will get OpenAI’s latest products before Amazon and Google’s customers will.

The deal also extends Microsoft’s stranglehold on OpenAI intellectual property through 2032. Microsoft has been spending big on its own AI development, so by the time the exclusive arrangement ends, Microsoft will likely no longer need it.

The deal will also do a lot to fatten Microsoft’s bottom line. It no longer has to pay OpenAI royalties for reselling OpenAI products on Azure. Instead, Microsoft now keeps all the revenue for itself. And, as outlined above, Microsoft still gets 20% of OpenAI’s revenue until the cap is reached. 

There’s one final hidden benefit: The new at-a-distance relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI makes it less likely Microsoft could be prosecuted under anti-trust laws in the US or overseas. The US Federal Trade Commission has already looked into the relationship several times, and issued a warning about potential antitrust violations.

Then-FTC chair Lina Khan last year warned, “The FTC’s report sheds light on how partnerships by big tech firms can create lock-in, deprive start-ups of key AI inputs, and reveal sensitive information that can undermine fair competition.”

So who’s the real winner?

Microsoft comes out on top. It no longer has to pay royalties to OpenAI, retains first-mover rights to the latest OpenAI technology, keeps exclusive rights to the AI firm’s intellectual property through 2032, and gets 20% of OpenAI revenues until a cap is reached. In addition, the company is unlikely to be investigated for antitrust violations. Beyond that, it’s still a big stockholder in OpenAI, so it will share in OpenAI’s success. 

OpenAI certainly gets benefits as well — but they’re not nearly as significant as Microsoft’s. It’s yet one more example of how Microsoft has used its relationship with OpenAI to jump-start its own AI capabilities and feather its nest for the future.

A Windows launch isn’t the end a process — it’s really just the beginning. Microsoft continually works on improving Windows 11 by fixing bugs, releasing security patches, and occasionally adding new features.

In this story we summarize what you need to know about each update released to the public for the most recent version of Windows 11 — currently version 25H2 — over the past year. For each build, we’ve included the date of its release and a link to Microsoft’s announcement about it. The most recent updates appear first.

The easiest way to install updates is via Windows Update. Not sure how? See “How to handle Windows 10 and 11 updates” for full instructions. Note that Windows 11 version 25H2 is being released as a phased rollout and may not be available to you in Windows Update yet.

If you’re still using Windows 10, see “Windows 10: A guide to the updates.” And if you’re looking for information about Insider Program previews for upcoming feature releases of Windows 11, see “Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build?”

Updates for Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2 KB5089549 (OS Builds 26200.8457 and 26100.8457)

Release date: May 12, 2026

This build enables dynamic status reporting for Secure Boot states in the Windows Security app. It also fixes a bug in which the Remote Desktop Connection security warning dialog sometimes rendered incorrectly in multi-monitor configurations with different display scaling settings.

It also includes a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and May 2026 Security Updates.

The build has one known issue: devices with an unrecommended BitLocker Group Policy configuration might be required to enter their BitLocker recovery key.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5089549.)

KB5083631 (OS Builds 26200.8328 and 26100.8328) Preview

Release date: April 30, 2026

This update includes a large number of new features being rolled out gradually, including File Explorer’s ability to handle new archive formats including uu, cpio, xar, and NuGet Packages (nupkg). Windows also gets a new way to monitor agents from the taskbar. It supports agents across first- and third-party apps, with Researcher in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app as the first adopter. 

Also being rolled out gradually is a security improvement that changes how the Windows kernel trusts third‑party drivers. Default trust for cross‑signed drivers is removed, while drivers from the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) and an allow list of trusted legacy drivers remain allowed. 

The update also includes several changes available immediately, including one that increases coverage of devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates. Devices receive the new certificates only after demonstrating sufficient successful update signals, maintaining a controlled and phased rollout. For more information, see Windows Secure Boot certificate expiration and CA updates.

A bug in the Remote Desktop Connection security warning dialog is being fixed immediately. Previously, the dialog could have rendered incorrectly in a multi-monitor scenario when the monitors had different scaling settings.

(Get more info about KB5083631 Preview.)

KB5083769 (OS Builds 26200.8246 and 26100.8246)

Release date: April 14, 2026

This update fixes several bugs, including one that caused device reset to fail when using the “Keep my files” or “Remove everything” options. It also improves protection against phishing attacks that use Remote Desktop (.rdp) files. For more information, see Understanding security warnings when opening Remote Desktop (RDP) files.

It also enables dynamic status reporting for Secure Boot states in Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security, with a green, yellow, or red badge indicating your current Secure Boot status. See Secure Boot certificate update status in the Windows Security app for more information.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and April 2026 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Update, April 15: Microsoft has confirmed an issue with this release: “Devices with an unrecommended BitLocker Group Policy configuration might be required to enter their BitLocker recovery key.” See Microsoft’s KB5083769 information page for details and workarounds.

(Get more info about KB5083769.)

KB5086672 (OS Builds 26200.8117 and 26100.8117) Out-of-band

Release date: March 31, 2026

This update fixes a bug in which some devices running Windows 11 version 25H2 or 24H2 encountered the following error while installing the Windows preview update KB5079391 (listed below): “Some update files are missing or have problems. We’ll try to download the update again later. Error code: (0x80073712).”

(Get more info about Windows 11 KB5086672 Out-of-band.)

KB5079391 (OS Builds 26200.8116 and 26100.8116) Preview

Release date: March 26, 2026

This update includes a variety of new features being rolled out gradually, including one that allows you to turn Smart App Control (SAC) on or off without needing a clean install. To make changes, go to Settings > Windows Security > App & Browser Control > Smart App Control settings. When turned on, SAC helps block untrusted or potentially harmful apps. To learn more, see App & Browser Control in the Windows Security App.

The build also includes several improvements and bug fixes, including one that improves Application ID tagging in Application Control for Business policies. With this update, the system identifies which apps should receive tags more accurately and behaves more reliably, Microsoft says.

(Get more info about Windows 11 KB5079391 Preview.)

KB5085516 (OS Builds 26200.8039 and 26100.8039) Out-of-band

Release date: March 21, 2026

This update fixes a bug some users experienced when signing in to apps with a Microsoft account. Even when the device had a working internet connection, a “no Internet” error appeared during sign-in and prevented access to Microsoft services and apps such as Microsoft Teams Free and OneDrive.

(Get more info about KB5085516 Out-of-band.)

KB5079473 (OS Builds 26200.8037 and 26100.8037)

Release date: March 10, 2026

This build improves how Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) handles COM objects allowlisting policies. COM objects were blocked when the endpoint security policy was set higher than the allowlisting policy. With this update, COM objects are allowed as expected.​ The build also introduces additional high confidence device targeting data to Windows quality updates, increasing coverage of devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and March 2026 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5079473.)

KB5077241 (OS Builds 26200.7922 and 26100.7922) Preview

Release date: February 24, 2026

This update includes a variety of new features being rolled out gradually, including one in which Quick Machine Recovery (QMR) turns on automatically for Windows Professional devices that are not domain‑joined and not enrolled in enterprise endpoint management. For domain‑joined or enterprise managed devices, QMR stays off unless it is enabled by the organization.

It also includes several features available immediately, including one in which Windows quality updates include additional high-confidence device-targeting data, increasing coverage of devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates. Devices receive the new certificates only after demonstrating sufficient successful update signals, maintaining a controlled and phased rollout.

(Get more info about KB5077241 Preview.)

KB5077181 (OS Builds 26200.7840 and 26100.7840)

Release date: February 10, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build fixes several bugs, including one that prevented some devices from connecting to certain WPA3‑Personal Wi‑Fi networks. It also includes a broad set of targeting data that identifies devices and their ability to receive new Secure Boot certificates. Devices will receive the new certificates only after they show sufficient successful update signals, which helps ensure a safe and phased rollout.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and February 2026 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5077181.)

KB5074105 (OS Builds 26200.7705 and 26100.7705) Preview

Release date: January 29, 2025

In this build, several new features are immediately available, including one for Data Protection Application Programming Interface (DPAPI) domain backup key management. Administrators can now set how often keys rotate automatically. This strengthens cryptographic security and reduces reliance on older encryption algorithms.

One new feature is being gradually rolled out: The Settings Agent now supports more languages, with expanded support for German, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Hindi, Italian, and Chinese (Simplified).

A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one that caused some systems to stop responding during startup when Windows Boot Manager debugging was enabled.

Get more info about KB5074105 Preview.)

KB5078127 (OS Builds 26200.7628 and 26100.7628) Out-of-band

Release date: January 24, 2026

This update fixes a bug in which some applications were unresponsive or encountered unexpected errors when opening files from or saving files to cloud-based storage, such as OneDrive or Dropbox. In certain Outlook configurations that store PST files on OneDrive, Outlook sometimes hung and failed to reopen unless the process was terminated or the system was restarted. Users may have also experienced missing sent items or previously downloaded emails.

(Get more info about KB5078127 Out-of-band.)

KB5077744 (OS Builds 26200.7627 and 26100.7627) Out-of-band

Release date: January 17, 2026

This update fixes a bug in which some users experienced sign-in failures during Remote Desktop connections. This issue affected authentication steps for different Remote Desktop applications on Windows such as the Windows App.

There is one known issue in this build, in which the password icon might be missing or invisible in the lock screen sign-in options.

Get more info about KB5077744 Out-of-band.)

KB5074109 (OS Builds 26200.7623 and 26100.7623)

Release date: January 13, 2026

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which you might experience RemoteApp ​​​​​​​connection failures in Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) environments. This might occur after installing KB5070311. It also updates the Windows core component, WinSqlite3.dll. Previously, some security software might have detected this component as vulnerable. 

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and January 2026 Security Updates.

It has one known issue, in which you might notice that the password icon is not visible in the sign-in options on the lock screen. If you hover over the space where the icon should appear, you’ll see that the password button is still available. Select this placeholder to open the password text box and enter your password. After entering your password, you can sign in normally. People using Windows Home or Pro editions on personal devices are very unlikely to experience this issue. This issue primarily affects enterprise or managed IT environments.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5074109.)

KB5072033 (OS Builds 26200.7462 and 26100.7462)

Release date: December 9, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which File Explorer briefly flashed white when you navigated between pages.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and December 2025 Security Updates.

It has one known issue, in which the password icon might not be visible in the sign-in options on the lock screen. If you hover over the space where the icon should appear, you’ll see that the password button is still available. Select this placeholder to open the password text box and enter your password. After entering your password, you can sign in normally. People using Windows Home or Pro editions on personal devices are very unlikely to experience this issue — it primarily affects enterprise or managed IT environments.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5072033.)

KB5070311 (OS Builds 26200.7309 and 26100.7309) Preview

Release date: December 1, 2025

A variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including several for Copilot+ PCs. The Click to Do context menu in Copilot+ PCs now has a streamlined design that makes it easier to access frequently used actions such as Copy, Save, Share, and Open. In Copilot+ PCs you can now also use Windows Studio Effects, which provide AI-powered camera enhancements, on an additional camera such as a USB webcam or your laptop’s built-in rear camera.

New features being rolled out gradually to all Windows 11 PCs include a simplified File Explorer context menu for easier navigation. Common actions like Share, Copy, and Move now appear in a single organized menu.

A variety of bugs have been fixed for all PCs, including one in which the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) could become unstable due to an access violation.

There are two known issues in this build, one in which when opening File Explorer in dark mode, the window might briefly display a blank white screen before loading files and folders. In addition, the password icon is missing or invisible in the lockscreen sign-in options on some PCs. (Here’s a workaround for the latter bug.)

Get more info about KB5070311 Preview.)

KB5068861 (OS Builds 26200.7171 and 26100.7171)

Release date: November 11, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build fixes several bugs, including one in which closing Task Manager with the Close button didn’t fully end the process, leaving background instances that could slow performance over time.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and November 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5068861.)

KB5067036 (OS Builds 26200.7019 and 26100.7019) Preview

Release date: October 28, 2025

A variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including several for Click to Do on Copilot+ PCs — notably a streamlined interaction between Click to Do and Copilot. You can now type a custom prompt directly into the text box, which sends your prompt and selected on-screen content to Copilot. Suggested prompts appear below the text box and are available for text selections in English, Spanish, and French. 

New features are being gradually rolled out for all Windows 11 PCs as well, including a redesigned Start menu, which includes scrollable “All” section and category and grid views. The menu now adapts to your screen size.

A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which text sometimes didn’t render correctly when editing content within a multiline text box in certain apps.

Get more info about KB5067036 Preview.)

KB5070773 (OS Builds 26200.6901 and 26100.6901) Out-of-band

Release date: October 20, 2025

This build fixes one bug, in which USB devices, such as keyboards and mice, did not function in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). This issue prevented navigation of any of the recovery options within WinRE.

This build has one known issue: some digital TV and Blu-ray/DVD apps might not play protected content as expected after installing the August 29, 2025, Windows non-security preview update (KB5064081) or later updates. Apps that use Enhanced Video Renderer with HDCP enforcement or Digital Rights Management (DRM) for digital audio might show copyright protection errors, frequent playback interruptions, unexpected stops, or black screens. Streaming services are not affected. 

(Get more info about KB5070773 Out-of-band.)

KB5066791 (OS Builds 19044.6456 and 19045.6456)

Release date: October 14, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one that caused the print preview screen to stop responding in Chromium-based browsers.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and October 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5066791.)

KB5065789 (OS Builds 26200.6725 and 26100.6725) Preview

Release date: September 29, 2025

This build gradually rolls out a wide variety of new features, including one in which you can use AI actions in File Explorer to edit images or summarize documents. To do it, right-click (or press Shift + F10 on the keyboard) on the file and select AI actions. 

Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which you might not have been able to connect to shared files and folders if you were using the Server Message Block (SMB) v1 protocol on NetBIOS over TCP/IP NetBIOS (NetBT).

(Get more info about KB5065789 Preview.)

Windows 11 25H2

At the end of September, Microsoft upgraded Windows 11 from version 24H2 to 25H2, in a slow rollout that could take months to complete. Typically in the past, Microsoft would introduce new features in a once-a-year update like this. That’s not the case with 25H2, though.

Microsoft has been introducing new features in smaller updates all year round, so 25H2 doesn’t include any major new features. Rather, it includes all the new features that have accumulated in all those smaller updates.

As the company explains, “While this update doesn’t introduce major new features, it activates enhancements that have been gradually rolled out over the past year ensuring your device is up to date with the latest refinements.”

Here are some of the most important features in 25H2 that have been introduced for end users and IT pros since 24H2 was released last fall:

New features for users:

• File Explorer has several useful new features, notably AI actions, which can edit images or summarize documents. AI options such as Blur background, Erase objects, and Remove background are all now displayed in the context menu.
• Task Manager gets a number of minor tweaks, including performance improvements when changing the sort order of processes.
• You can now display the apps that have recently used on-device generative AI models provided by Windows. You can also choose which apps are permitted to use the generative AI technologies. To do that and more, go to Settings > Privacy & security > Text and Image Generation.

New features for IT:

• IT admins can use policy-based tools to easily remove preinstalled Microsoft Store apps from Enterprise and Education editions of Windows 11, version 25H2 and later. This can streamline device provisioning and prevent removed apps such as Microsoft Clipchamp, Media Player, and Microsoft Teams from being reinstalled. For more information, see Policy-based removal of preinstalled Microsoft Store apps and RemoveDefaultMicrosoftStorePackages in the ApplicationManagement Policy CSP.
• Enterprise access points now support Wi-Fi 7, which enables increased speeds, greater throughput, improved reliability, and enhanced security. For details, see https://aka.ms/WiFi7forEnterprise.
• Windows Backup for Organizations is now generally available.
• A new feature called Quick Machine Recovery can recover Windows devices when they encounter critical errors that prevent them from booting. Quick machine recovery searches for remediations in the cloud and recovers from widespread boot failures, reducing the burden on IT admins on cases when multiple devices are affected. For more information, see Computerworld’s Quick Machine Recovery explainer.

Updates for Windows 11 24H2 KB5068221 (OS Build 26100.6588) Out-of-band

Release date: September 22, 2025

This update fixes a bug that affected Microsoft Office applications running in Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) environments. The failure occurred due to a double handle closure in the AppVEntSubsystems32 or AppVEntSubsystems64 system component.

There is one issue in this build: you might fail to connect to shared files and folders using the Server Message Block (SMB) v1 protocol on NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT). This issue can occur if either the SMB client or the SMB server has the September 2025 security update installed.

(Get more info about KB5068221 (OS Build 26100.6588) Out-of-band).

KB5065426 (OS Build 26100.6584)

Release date: September 9, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one that caused non-admin users to receive unexpected User Account Control (UAC) prompts when MSI installers performed certain custom actions, such as configuration or repair operations in the foreground or background during the initial installation of an application.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and September 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5065426.)

KB5064081 (OS Build 26100.5074) Preview

Release date: August 29, 2025

A wide variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including a new personalized homepage in Windows Recall that displays your recent activity and top-used apps and websites (available only in Copilot+ PCs). Among the changes rolling out to all users is a new grid view for Search from the Windows taskbar that helps you more quickly and accurately identify the desired image within your search.

Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which some system recovery features did not work properly due to a temporary file sharing conflict. This affected certain device management tools and disrupted key functions on some devices.

(Get more info about KB5064081 Preview.)

KB5063878 (OS Build 26100.4946)

Release date: August 12, 2025

This build fixes a bug that caused delays during sign-in on new devices. The delay was due to certain preinstalled packages. It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and August 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5063878.)

KB5062660 (OS Build 26100.4770) Preview

Release date: July 22, 2025

A wide variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including a new agent in Copilot+ PCs that is designed to help you find and change settings on your PC. You can describe what you need help with, such as “how to control my PC by voice” or “my mouse pointer is too small,” and the agent will suggest steps to resolve the issue. The agent uses AI on your PC to understand your request and, with your permission, can automate and complete tasks for you. It is rolling out to Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs now, with support for AMD and Intel PCs coming soon. 

Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which If you have an app pinned to your desktop and it updates, the app icon might not display correctly and instead show a white page.

(Get more info about KB5062660 Preview.)

KB5064489 (OS Build 26100.4656) Out-of-band

Release date: July 13, 2025

This update fixes a bug that prevented some virtual machines (VMs) from starting when Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) was enabled. It affected VMs using version 8.0 (a non-default version) where VBS was offered by the host. In Azure, this applies to standard (non–Trusted Launch) General Enterprise (GE) VMs running on older VM SKUs. The problem was caused by a secure kernel initialization issue.

(Get more info about KB5064489 Out-of-band.)

KB5062553 (OS Build 26100.4652)

Release date: July 8, 2025

The build fixes several bugs, including one in which notification sounds didn’t play. Affected sounds included those for on-screen alerts, volume adjustments, and sign-in. It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and July 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5062553.)

KB5060829 (OS Build 26100.4484) Preview

Release date: June 26, 2025

A wide variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including a new Settings home page that includes enterprise-specific device info cards for commercial customers on PCs managed by an IT administrator. The taskbar also now resizes icons to fit more apps when space runs low.

Users in the European Economic Area will see several small changes related to default browsers, such as mapping additional file and link types to the default browser and pinning it to the taskbar and Start menu.

A variety of bugs have also been fixed, including one that prevented the automatic renewal of expiring certificates in Windows Hello for Business.

There is one known issue in this build, in which blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text appears when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. 

(Get more info about KB5060829 Preview.)

KB5063060 (OS Build 26100.4351) Out-of-band

Release date: June 11, 2025

This out-of-band update replaces the KB5060842 Patch Tuesday release, fixing a bug in which Windows sometimes restarted unexpectedly when users opened games that use the Easy Anti-Cheat service. Easy Anti-Cheat automatically installs with certain games to enhance security and prevent cheating in multiplayer online PC games. 

Note: In this build there are reports of blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. The issue is due to limited pixel density at 96 DPI, which can reduce the clarity and alignment of CJK characters. Increasing the display scaling improves clarity by enhancing text rendering.

(Get more info about KB5063060 Out-of-band.)

KB5060842 (OS Build 26100.4349)

Release date: June 10, 2025

After installing this update, Windows will retain system restore points for 60 days only. Restore points older than 60 days are not available. This 60-day limit will also apply to future versions of Windows 11, version 24H2.

The build fixes a bug that prevented users from signing in with self-signed certificates when using Windows Hello for Business with the Key Trust model.​​​​​​​ It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and June 2025 Security Updates.

Note: In this build there are reports of blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. The issue is due to limited pixel density at 96 DPI, which can reduce the clarity and alignment of CJK characters. Increasing the display scaling improves clarity by enhancing text rendering.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5060842.)

KB5058499 (OS Build 26100.4202) Preview

Release date: May 27, 2025

A wide variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including one in which Click to Do gets the new Ask Copilot action. When you highlight text or an image, Click to Do offers the Ask Copilot option. Selecting it opens Microsoft Copilot with your content in the prompt box. You can send the selected text or image directly to the Copilot app to complete your prompt.

A variety of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which devices with BitLocker on removable drives could encounter a blue screen error after resuming from sleep or hybrid-booting.

(Get more info about KB5058499 Preview.)

KB5061977 (OS Build 26100.4066) 

Release date: May 27, 2025

This out-of-band update fixes a bug in the direct send path for a guest physical address (GPA). This issue caused confidential virtual machines running on Hyper-V with Windows Server 2022 to intermittently stop responding or restart unexpectedly. As a result, service availability was affected, and manual intervention was required. This problem primarily impacted Azure confidential VMs.

(Get more info about KB5061977.)

KB5058411 (OS Build 26100.4061)

Release date: May 13, 2025

This update fixes two bugs, one in which your microphone might have muted unexpectedly, and the other in which the eye controller app didn’t launch. It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and May 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5058411.)

KB5055627 (OS Build 26100.3915) Preview

Release date: April 25, 2025

This build gradually rolls out several new features for Copilot+ PCs, including a preview of Windows Recall. When you opt in, Recall takes snapshots of your activity so you can quickly find and go back to what you have seen before on your PC. With it, you can use a timeline to find the content you remember seeing.

Copilot+ PCs also get a new natural-language Windows search in which you can search for anything on your PC without having to remember specific file names, exact words in file content, or settings names. Just describe what you’re looking for. On Copilot+ PCs, you can also more easily find photos stored and saved in the cloud by typing your own words (like “summer picnics”) in the search box at the upper-right corner of File Explorer. 

All PCs get a number of new features, including speech recap, in which you can keep track of what Narrator has spoken and access it for quick reference. With speech recap, you can quickly access spoken content, follow along with live transcription, and copy what Narrator last said using keyboard shortcuts.

A variety of bugs are being fixed, including one in which some devices experienced intermittent internet connections when resuming from sleep mode. Several AI components have also been updated.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which players on Arm devices are unable to download and play Roblox from the Microsoft Store on Windows.

(Get more info about KB5055627 Preview.)

KB5055523 (OS Build 26100.3775)

Release date: April 8, 2025

This update includes a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and April 2025 Security Updates. 

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which players on Arm devices are unable to download and play Roblox via the Microsoft Store on Windows. 

(Get more info about KB5055523.)

Windows 10 has reached the end of mainstream support, which means most users will no longer receive new features, bug fixes, or security updates. Microsoft encourages businesses and individuals to upgrade to Windows 11.

Another option is to purchase extended security updates for Windows 10. Those enrolled in the Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) program will receive monthly security updates, but no new feature releases.

In this story we summarize what you need to know about each update released for the most recent versions of Windows 10 — versions 22H2 and 21H2. (Microsoft releases updates for those two versions together.) For each build, we’ve included the date of its initial release and a link to Microsoft’s announcement about it. The most recent updates appear first.

For details about how to install and manage Windows updates, see “How to handle Windows 10 and 11 updates.”

Updates to Windows 10 versions 21H2 and 22H2

As of November 2025, only computers enrolled in the Windows 10 ESU program (or those with a Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 or 2024 license) will receive Windows 10 updates.

KB5087544 (OS Builds 19045.7291 and 19044.7291)

Release date: May 12, 2026

This Patch Tuesday update enables dynamic status reporting for Secure Boot states in the Windows Security app. It also fixes a bug in which the Remote Desktop Connection security warning dialog sometimes rendered incorrectly in multi-monitor configurations with different display scaling settings.

The build also includes a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and May 2026 Security Updates.

This build has one known issue: devices with an unrecommended BitLocker Group Policy configuration might be required to enter their BitLocker recovery key.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5087544.)

KB5082200 (OS Builds 19045.7184 and 19044.7184)

Release date: April 14, 2026

Applies to: Windows 10 ESU

This update fixes several bugs, including one that prevented users from signing into apps with a Microsoft account. It also improves protection against phishing attacks that use Remote Desktop (.rdp) files. For more information, see Understanding security warnings when opening Remote Desktop (RDP) files.

It also enables dynamic status reporting for Secure Boot states in Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security, with a green, yellow, or red badge indicating your current Secure Boot status. See Secure Boot certificate update status in the Windows Security app for more information.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and April 2026 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Update, April 15: Microsoft has confirmed an issue with this release: “Devices with an unrecommended BitLocker Group Policy configuration might be required to enter their BitLocker recovery key.” See Microsoft’s KB5082200 information page for details and workarounds.

(Get more info about KB5082200.)

KB5078885 (OS Builds 19045.7058 and 19044.7058)

Release date: March 10, 2026

Applies to: Windows 10 ESU

With this update, Windows quality updates include additional high confidence device targeting data, increasing coverage of devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates. This targeting is based primarily on client device diagnostic data; due to limited data, servers are unlikely to qualify, though not explicitly excluded. Devices receive new certificates only after demonstrating sufficient successful update signals, maintaining a controlled and phased rollout.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and March 2026 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5078885.)

KB5075912 (OS Builds 19045.6937 and 19044.6937)

Release date: February 10, 2025

Applies to: Windows 10 ESU

This Patch Tuesday update fixes a variety of bugs, including one that affected folder renaming with desktop.ini files in File Explorer. The LocalizedResourceName setting was ignored, so custom folder names did not show. Now, custom folder names appear as expected.

It also includes a broad set of targeting data that identifies devices and their ability to receive new Secure Boot certificates. Devices will receive the new certificates only after they show sufficient successful update signals, which helps ensure a safe and phased rollout.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and February 2026 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5075912.)

KB5078129 (OS Builds 19045.6812 and 19044.6812) Out-of-band

Release date: January 24, 2026

Applies to: Windows 10 ESU

This update fixes a bug in which some applications were unresponsive or encountered unexpected errors when opening files from or saving files to cloud-based storage, such as OneDrive or Dropbox. In certain Outlook configurations that store PST files on OneDrive, Outlook sometimes hung and failed to reopen unless the process was terminated or the system was restarted. Users may have also experienced missing sent items or previously downloaded emails.

Get more info about KB5078129 Out-of-band.)

KB5077796 (OS Builds 19045.6811 and 19044.6811) Out-of-band

Release date: January 17, 2026

Applies to: Windows 10 ESU

This update fixes a bug in which some users experienced sign-in failures during Remote Desktop connections. This issue affected authentication steps for different Remote Desktop applications on Windows such as the Windows App.

(Get more info about KB5077796 Out-of-band.)

KB5073724 (OS Builds 19045.6809 and 19044.6809)

Release date: January 13, 2026

Applies to: Windows 10 ESU

This Patch Tuesday update includes a subset of high-confidence device targeting data that identifies devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates. Devices will receive the new certificates only after demonstrating sufficient successful update signals, ensuring a safe and phased deployment.

It also fixes one bug, in which some security software might have detected the Windows core component, WinSqlite3.dll as being as vulnerable. 

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and January 2026 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5073724.)

KB5074976 (OS Builds 19044.6693 and 19045.6693) Out-of-band

Release date: December 18, 2025

Applies to: Windows 10 ESU

This update fixes a bug in the Message Queuing (MSMQ) functionality. This bug also affected a clustered MSMQ environment under load. This issue could have led to message queues becoming inactive, messages about insufficient resources, applications unable to write to message queues, error messages about the message cannot be created, or messages about insufficient disk space or memory. This issue primarily affected enterprise or managed IT environments.

(Get more info about KB5074976 Out-of-band.)

KB5071546 (OS Builds 19045.6691 and 19044.6691)

Release date: December 9, 2025

Applies to: Windows 10 ESU

In this update, PowerShell’s Invoke-WebRequest command now includes a confirmation prompt with a security warning of a script execution risk. You can choose to continue or cancel the request. For additional details, see CVE-2025-54100 and KB5074596: PowerShell 5.1: Preventing script execution from web content.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and December 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5071546.)

KB5068781 (OS Builds 19044.6575 and 19045.6575)

Release date: November 11, 2025

Applies to: Windows 10 ESU

This update fixes a bug in which after installing the October 14, 2025 Windows update (KB5066791), the message “Your version of Windows has reached the end of support” might incorrectly display in the Windows Update Settings page. To view the page, click Start > Settings > Windows Update.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and November 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5068781.)

KB5071959 (OS Build 19045.6466) Out-of-band

Release date: November 11, 2025

This build fixes a bug in the Windows 10 Consumer Extended Security Update (ESU) enrollment process, where the enrollment wizard may fail during enrollment.

(Get more info about KB5071959 Out-of-band.)

KB5066791 (OS Builds 19044.6456 and 19045.6456)

Release date: October 14, 2025

This update fixes several bugs, including one in which command time in PowerShell Remoting and WinRMntime out after 600 seconds.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and October 2025 Security Updates.

Note that today marks the official end of support for Windows 10 Home, Pro, and Enterprise, except for organizations and individuals enrolled in Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates program.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5066791.)

KB5063842 (OS Build 19045.6396) Preview

Release date: September 25, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, one in which you might not be able to connect to shared files and folders if you’re using the Server Message Block (SMB) v1 protocol on NetBIOS over TCP/IP NetBIOS (NetBT), and another in which those using Windows Autopilot to deploy Windows 10, version 22H2 to devices with the Enrollment Status Page (ESP) configured might find that the ESP doesn’t load during the Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE).

(Get more info about KB5063842 (OS Build 19045.6396) Preview.)

KB5065429 (OS Builds 19044.6332 and 19045. 6332)

Release date: September 9, 2025

This update fixes several bugs, including one that caused non-admin users to receive unexpected User Account Control (UAC) prompts when MSI installers performed certain custom actions, such as configuration or repair operations in the foreground or background during the initial installation of an application.

The build also enables auditing SMB client compatibility for SMB Server signing as well as SMB Server EPA. This allows customers to assess their environment and identify any potential device or software incompatibility issues before deploying the hardening measures that are already supported by SMB Server. For detailed guidance, see CVE-2025-55234 | Windows SMB Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and September 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5065429.)

KB5063842 (OS Build 19045.6282) Preview

Release date: August 26, 2025

In this build, Windows Backup for Organizations is now generally available. It lets your organization back up Windows 10 settings and restore them on a Microsoft Entra joined device. You can also enable backup of the list of installed Microsoft Store apps, with the ability to restore them to the user’s Start menu as well.

A variety of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which mf.dll failed to enumerate redirected web camera devices on Remote Desktop Services (RDS) environments.

(Get more info about KB5063842 Preview.)

KB5066188 (OS Builds 19044.6218 and 19045.6218) Out-of-band

Release date: August 19, 2025

This build fixes a bug introduced by the August 2025 security update (KB5063709) in which attempts to reset and recover the device fail. This issue happens when users perform one or more of the following processes: 

• System > Recovery > Reset my PC
• System > Recovery > Fix problems using Windows Update
• RemoteWipe CSP

For more information on the issue, see Windows release health. Microsoft recommends you install this optional update if you have encountered this issue. The company also says that if your system isn’t affected or you don’t plan using the methods described above, you can choose not to install it.

(Get more info about KB5066188 Out-of-band.)

KB5063709 (OS Builds 19044.6216 and 19045.6216)

Release date: August 12, 2025

The update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and August 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5063709.)

KB5062649 (OS Build 19045.6159) Preview

Release date: July 22, 2025

This build adds the ability to deploy SKUSiPolicy VBS Anti-rollback protections through the Secure Boot AvailableUpdates registry key.

It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one that affected the Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) enrollment wizard. Some users experienced a problem where clicking “Enroll now” caused the wizard window to open, begin loading, and then close unexpectedly. 

(Get more info about KB5062649 Preview.

KB5062554 (OS Builds 19044.6093 and 19045.6093)

Release date: July 8, 2025

The update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and July 2025 Security Updates.

Note: In this build there are reports of blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. The issue is due to limited pixel density at 96 DPI, which can reduce the clarity and alignment of CJK characters. Increasing the display scaling improves clarity by enhancing text rendering.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5062554.)

KB5061087 (OS Build 19045.6036) Preview

Release date: June 24, 2025

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one that caused jump lists to disappear from the Start menu.           

There is one known issue in this build, in which blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text appears when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. 

(Get more info about KB5061087 Preview.)

KB5060533 (OS Builds 19044.5965 and 19045.5065)

Release date: June 10, 2025

The update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and June 2025 Security Updates.

Note: In this build there are reports of blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. The issue is due to limited pixel density at 96 DPI, which can reduce the clarity and alignment of CJK characters. Increasing the display scaling improves clarity by enhancing text rendering.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5060533.)

KB5058481 (OS Build 19045.5917) Preview

Release date: May 28, 2025

This build offers several new features, including one that brings back the clock view that displays seconds on the calendar. It also fixes several bugs, including one in which in GDI/GDI+, some GB18030-2022 characters in plane 2 were not rendered.

There is one known issue in this build, in which blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text appears when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. 

(Get more info about KB5058481 Preview.)

KB5061979 (OS Builds 19044.5859 and 19045.5859)

Release date: May 27, 2025

This out-of-band update fixes a bug in the direct send path for a guest physical address (GPA). This issue caused confidential virtual machines running on Hyper-V with Windows Server 2022 to intermittently stop responding or restart unexpectedly. As a result, service availability was affected, and manual intervention was required. This problem primarily impacted Azure confidential VMs.

There is one known issue in this build, in which blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text appears when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. 

(Get more info about KB5061979.)

KB5061768 (OS Builds 19044.5856 and 19045.5856)

Release date: May 19, 2025

This out-of-band build fixes a bug in the recent May 13 Patch Tuesday build (KB5058379) that caused the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) process to terminate unexpectedly, triggering an Automatic Repair prompting for the BitLocker recovery key.

There is one known issue in this build, in which blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text appears when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. 

(Get more info about KB5061768.)

KB5058379 (OS Builds 19044.5854 and 19045.5854)

Release date: May 13, 2025

The update improves Secure Boot Advanced Targeting (SBAT) and Linux Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) for the detection of Linux systems. It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and May 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5058379.)

KB5055612 (OS Build 19045.5796) Preview

Release date: April 22, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, including one in which the check for GPU paravirtualization was case-sensitive in Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2). This issue might have potentially caused GPU paravirtualization support to fail.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which certain Citrix components installed might be unable to complete installation of the January 2025 Windows security update. This issue was observed on devices with Citrix Session Recording Agent (SRA) version 2411.

(Get more info about KB5055612 Preview.)

KB5055518 (OS Builds 19044.5737 and 19045.5737)

Release date: April 8, 2025

The update has a broad variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and April 2025 Security Updates. 

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

There are two known issues in this build including one in which devices that have certain Citrix components installed might be unable to complete installation of the January 2025 Windows security update.

(Get more info about KB5055518.)

Windows 10 2022 Update (version 22H2)

Release date: October 18, 2022

The Windows 10 2022 Update is, in Microsoft’s words, “a scoped release focused on quality improvements to the overall Windows experience in existing feature areas such as quality, productivity and security.” In other words, there’s not much new here, although Computerworld blogger Susan Bradley did uncover a handful of new group policies in the release.

Home and Pro editions of the 2022 Update will receive 18 months of servicing, and Enterprise and Education editions will have 30 months of servicing.

To install the update, go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and select Check for updates. If the update appears, select Download to install it.

(Get more info about the Windows 10 2022 Update.)

Windows 10 November 2021 Update (version 21H2)

Release date: November 16, 2021

Version 21H2, called the Windows 10 November 2021 Update, is the second feature update to Windows 10 released in 2021. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new:

• Wi-Fi security has been enhanced with WPA3 H2E standards support.
• GPU compute support has been added in the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Azure IoT Edge for Linux on Windows (EFLOW) deployments for machine learning and other compute-intensive workflows.

There are also a number of features designed for IT and business:

• Windows Hello for Business has a new deployment method called cloud trust that simplifies passwordless deployments.
• For increased security, there have been changes to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) VPN APIs, which includes the ability to implement common web-based authentication schemes and to reuse existing protocols.
• Apps can now be provisioned from Azure Virtual Desktop. This allows those apps to run just like local apps, including the ability to copy and paste between remote and local apps.
• The release closes the gap between Group Policy and mobile device management (MDM) settings. The device configuration settings catalog has been updated to list more than 1,400 settings previously not available for configuration via MDM. The new MDM policies include administrative template (ADMX) policies, such as App Compat, Event Forwarding, Servicing, and Task Scheduler.
• An upgrade to Windows 10 Enterprise includes Universal Print, which now supports print jobs of up to 1GB or a series of print jobs from an individual user that add up to 1GB within any 15-minute period.
• Universal Print integrates with OneDrive for web and Excel for web. This allows users of any browser or device connected to the internet to print documents hosted in OneDrive for web to a printer in their organization without installing printer drivers on their devices.

Microsoft has also announced that starting with this release, Windows 10 will get feature updates only once a year.

Windows 10 May 2021 Update (version 21H1)

Release date: May 18, 2021

Version 21H1, called the Windows 10 May 2021 Update, is the most recent update to Windows 10. This is a relatively minor update, but it does have a few new features.

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new in 21H1:

• Windows Hello multicamera support: If you have an external Windows Hello camera for your PC, you can set the external camera as your default camera. (Windows Hello is used for signing into PCs.) Why should this change matter to you? If you have an external camera, you probably bought it because it’s superior to the built-in, internal one on your computer. So with this change, you’ll be able to use the more accurate camera for logging into your PC.
• Improved Windows Defender Application Guard performance: Windows Defender Application Guard lets administrators configure applications to run in an isolated, virtualized container for improved security. With this change, documents will open more quickly. It can currently take up to a minute to open an Office document in it.
• Better Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Group Policy Service support: Microsoft has made it easier for administrators to change settings to support remote work.

Windows 10 October 2020 Update (version 20H2)

Release date: October 20, 2020

Version 20H2, called the Windows 10 October 2020 Update, is the most recent update to Windows 10. This is a relatively minor update but does have a few new features.

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new in 20H2:

• The new Chromium-based version of the Microsoft Edge browser is now built directly into Windows 10.
• The System page of Control Panel has been removed. Those settings have been moved to the Settings app.
• The Start menu’s tiled background will match your choice of Windows themes. So the tiled background will be light if you’re using the Windows 10 light theme and dark if you’re using the Windows 10 dark theme.
• When you use Alt-Tab, Edge will now display each tab in your browser in a different Alt-Tab window. Previously, when you used Alt-Tab, Edge would get only a single window. You can change this new behavior by going to Settings > System > Multitasking.
• When you pin a site to the taskbar in Edge, you can click or mouse over its icon to see all your browser tabs that are open for that website.
• When you detach a keyboard on a 2-in-1 device, the device will automatically switch to the tablet-based interface. Previously, you were asked whether you wanted to switch. You can change that setting by going to Settings > System > Tablet.
• The Your Phone app gets a variety of new features for some Samsung devices. When using one of the devices, you can interact with the Android apps on your phone from the Your Phone app on Windows 10.

What IT needs to know: Windows 10 version 20H2 also has a variety of small changes of note for sysadmins and those in IT.

• IT professionals who administer multiple mobile devices get a new Modern Device Management (MDM) “Local Users and Groups” settings policy that mirrors options available for devices that are managed through Group Policy.
• Windows Autopilot, used to set up and configure devices in enterprises, has gained a variety of small enhancement, including better deployment of HoloLens devices, the addition of co-management policies, enhancements to Autopilot deployment reporting, and the ability to reuse Configuration Manager task sequences to configure devices.
• Microsoft Defender Application Guard now supports Office. This allows untrusted Office documents from outside an enterprise to launch in an isolated container to stop potentially malicious content from compromising computers or exploiting personal information found on them.
• Latest Cumulative Updates (LCUs) and Servicing Stack Updates (SSUs) have been combined into a single cumulative monthly update, available via Microsoft Catalog or Windows Server Update Services.
• Biometric sign-on has been made more secure. Windows Hello now has support for virtualization-based security for certain fingerprint and face sensors, which protects, isolates, and secures a user’s biometric authentication data.

For more details, see Microsoft’s “What’s new for IT pros in Windows 10, version 20H2.”

Windows 10 May 2020 Update (version 2004)

Release date: May 27, 2020

Version 2004, called the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, is the most recent update to Windows 10. This is a relatively minor update but does have a variety of new features for both users and system administrators. For more details, see: “Review: Windows 10 May 2020 Update delivers little tweaks that add up to… well, not a lot.”

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new in 2004:

• Cortana now runs as a standalone app in a resizable window. It also loses a variety of capabilities, such as playing music, controlling home devices, and working on the lock screen.
• Task Manager now displays new information, including the temperature of your GPU and your disk type.
• Settings gets many small tweaks, including adding a header with account information, and a redone network status page that combines information that used to be found on multiple pages, such as your IP address, current connection properties and data usage.
• The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) gets more features. It now uses a real Linux kernel, and is faster than previously.
• IT can now take advantage of Windows Hello biometrics logins rather than passwords, by setting that up as the default on enterprise devices.
• Installing and setting up Windows for others has been made easier thanks to new controls added to Dynamic Update, which can lead to less downtime during installation for users.
• A variety of new commands have been given to PowerShell for Delivery Optimization, a Windows networking service that reduces bandwidth consumption by sharing the work of downloading update and upgrade packages among multiple devices in business deployments.
• The security of the Chromium version of Edge has been improved, thanks to porting Application Guard to it.

Windows 10 November 2019 Update (version 1909)

Release date: Nov. 12, 2019

Version 1909, called the Windows 10 November 2019 Update, is the most recent update to Windows 10. There are very few new features in this update, making it more like a service pack of old than a feature update. At this point it’s not clear whether in the future there will be one full-featured update and one service-pack-like update per year or whether Microsoft will go back to its two-feature-updates-a-year schedule. For more details, see “What we know so far about the unusual Windows 10 1909” and “5 unanswered questions about Windows 10 1909.”

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new for users in 1909.

• It lets you create calendar events straight from the taskbar. To do it, click the time on the taskbar and you’ll open the Calendar view. Now click a date and time, then type the event’s name into the text box. You’ll also be able to choose the date, time and location.
• When you type a search into the search box, it will now search through files in your OneDrive account as well as on your PC. Also, as you type, a drop-down menu with suggested files appears. Click a file to open it.
• Voice assistants in addition to Cortana, including Amazon’s Alexa, will be able to run on Windows 10’s lock screen.
• Under-the-hood improvements should speed up the performance of some PCs, as well as increase the battery life in some laptops.
• The Start Menu has gotten minor tweaks. When you hover over items in the navigation pane on the left side of the menu, the items clearly show what you’re about to click.

What IT needs to know: The following features in 1909 are of note for IT staff.

• Windows containers no longer need to have their host and container versions match. That requirement restricted Windows from supporting mixed-version container pod scenarios. Previously, containers from older versions of Windows 10 couldn’t be run on newer versions of Windows 10. In this update, it’s possible, so that a container made using 1903, for example, can be run on 1909.
• Windows Defender Credential Guard, which protects enterprise users’ logins and credentials against theft, is now available for ARM64 devices. Some Windows 10 convertible PCs use ARM64.
• Enterprises can now use Microsoft’s Intune enterprise mobility management (EMM) service to allow devices running Windows 10 in S mode to install and run Win32 (desktop) apps. Before this, S Mode only allowed devices to run apps from the Microsoft Store. Microsoft Store apps don’t run on the desktop.
• The security of BitLocker encryption has been improved. Whenever BitLocker is used to encrypt a device, a recovery key is created, but before this security improvement, it was possible for an unauthorized user to get access to the recovery key and decrypt the device. Now, PCs have additional security if a key is exposed. Here’s how Microsoft explains the change: “Key-rolling or Key-rotation feature enables secure rolling of Recovery passwords on MDM managed AAD devices upon on demand request from Microsoft Intune/MDM tools or upon every time recovery password is used to unlock the BitLocker protected drive.”

There are two known issues in this update: one in which some users cannot set Win32 program defaults for certain app and file type combinations using the Open with… command or Settings > Apps > Default apps, and another in which Microsoft Notepad and other Win32 programs cannot be set as default applications.

(Get more info about KB4464455.)

Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809)

Release date: October 2, 2018; paused October 5; re-released November 13, 2018

Version 1809, called the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, is the feature update that preceded the May 2019 Update. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new for users in it. (For more details, see our full review.)

• A new, powered-up Windows Clipboard can hold multiple clips, store clips permanently, let you preview clips and choose which one you’d like to paste into a document, and share clips across Windows 10 devices.
• A new screenshot and annotation tool called Snip & Sketch lets you capture and annotate the entire screen, a rectangular portion of the screen or a freehand-drawn portion of it. After you take a screen capture, you can annotate it and then save it to a file, copy it to the Clipboard, open it in another program or share it via email, social media and other methods.
• Storage Sense, which helps save storage space, now works with OneDrive Files On-Demand to clean out files you’ve downloaded from OneDrive cloud storage to your PC but that you don’t use any longer. You can choose how long you would like the cloud files to stay on your PC unused before you want them deleted, from never to 60 days.
• The Microsoft Edge browser lets you set autoplay permissions for sound and video on websites on a site-by-site basis. It also lets you look up word definitions in its built-in eReader for books and PDFs, and mark up PDFs and books using a highlighter and by adding notes.
• The new Your Phone app links Windows 10 devices to iOS and Android phones. It allows you to start web browsing on an iOS or Android device and then continue where you left off on your PC. It also lets you view photos on your Android phone from your Windows 10 PC.
• Search Previews have been powered up slightly. You no longer need to click to display the preview panel; it opens automatically. It also now shows files found on your PC.
• Smaller changes include a new dark theme for File Explorer; the addition of the SwiftKey swipe keyboard, which lets you enter text by swiping a finger across an onscreen keyboard; updates that are less intrusive; and faster sign-ins on shared PCs.

What IT needs to know: There are few significant changes that affect IT in the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, other than New Microsoft Edge Group Policies that let admins enable and disable full-screen mode, printing, the favorites bar, and browser history saves. IT can also allow or ban Edge extensions (not that there are many available) and configure the Home button and new tab page and startup options.

Windows 10 April 2018 Update (version 1803)

Release date: April 30, 2018

Version 1803, called the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, is the major update to Windows 10 that preceded the October 2018 Update. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new for users in it. (For more details, see our full review.)

• The most important new feature is Timeline, which lets you review and resume activities and open files you’ve started on your PC, or any other Windows PCs you have. It also tracks what you’ve done on iOS and Android devices if you install Microsoft’s digital assistant Cortana on them and are logged in. It shows a list of activities day by day for up to 30 days. Each activity shows up as a large tile, with the file name and document title or URL and website name across it, and the name of the application or app that created it across the top. Click any activity to reopen it. (Note that at present, Timeline only tracks activities in certain Microsoft programs such as the Edge browser and Office applications.)
• The new Diagnostic Data Viewer is supported, which Microsoft is designed to let you see the “diagnostic data collected from your Windows devices, how it is used, and to provide you with increased control over that data.” However, the information is presented in such a complex, technical way that even programmers will likely have a difficult time understanding it. The viewer isn’t built directly into the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. Instead, you have to download it from the Microsoft Store.
• The My People feature now lets you pin up to 10 contacts on the Windows taskbar. Previously, you could only pin up to three.
• Microsoft Edge gets several minor tweaks, including a revamped Hub, the ability to mute auto-playing audio in tabs, and a forms-filler for web-based forms.
• The Notebook feature of Cortana gets a new, cleaner interface for its Notebook. It now has two tabs, Organizer and Manage Skills. The Organizer makes it easier to create lists and set reminders. The Manage Skills tab lets you add “skills” to Cortana, such as controlling your home and its appliances, connecting Cortana to music services such as Spotify, tracking your fitness and more.
• You get more control over app permissions, such as whether they can access your camera, location and contacts.

What IT needs to know: IT staff should be aware of these features that are new in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update:

• Windows 10 Professional now gets the Windows Defender Application Guard, which protects Microsoft Edge. There’s also a new feature in the application guard that lets users download files inside Edge instead of directly to the operating system, as a way to increase security.
• There are new policies for Group Policy and Mobile Device Management (MDM) that can better control how Delivery Optimization is used for Windows Update and Windows Store app updates. You can also now monitor Delivery Optimization using Windows Analytics.
• Windows AutoPilot also gets a tweak that lets IT make sure policies, settings and apps are provisioned on devices before users begin using them.
• Windows gets the Linux curl and tar utilities for downloading files and extracting .tar archives built directly into Windows. Windows also now natively supports Unix sockets (AF_UNIX) with a new afunix.sys kernel driver. That will make it easier to port software to Windows from Linux as well as from other Unix-like operating systems.
• There are a host of improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux, which lets you run a variety of Linux distributions on Windows 10. Linux applications can run in the background, some launch settings for Linux distributions can be customized, and Linux applications have been given access to serial devices. The new Unix sockets report is available for the Windows Subsystem for Linux as well as Windows itself.
• The Windows 10 Pro for Workstations version of Windows 10 gets a new power scheme called Ultimate Performance it’s only for desktop PCs, not those that can be powered by batteries. In addition, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations no longer ships with games like Candy Crush or other similar consumer-focused apps. Instead, it features enterprise- and business-related apps.
• Administrators have been given the power to configure an enterprise’s PCs to run custom scripts during feature updates, which will make configuration and deployment easier.

For  more details, see the Microsoft blog post “Making IT simpler with a modern workplace.”

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709)

Release date: October 17, 2017

Version 1709, called the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, is the major update to Windows 10 that preceded the April 2018 Update. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new for users in it. (For more details, see our full review.)

• OneDrive gets a new feature called Files On-Demand that gives you access to all of your OneDrive files on every device, without having to download them first. You’ll be able to see all the files you have in OneDrive, even if they’re only in the cloud and not on your PC. Icons tell you which are local and which are in the cloud. Just open the file, and if it’s not on your PC, it gets downloaded.
• The new My People feature lets you pin three contacts to the Windows taskbar and then communicate with them instantly without having to open a separate app such as Skype or Mail. You can also click to see a list of all communications between them and you at a glance.
• You can now send web links from your iOS or Android device to your PC and have them open in Microsoft Edge.
• Cortana gets several new features, including displaying results in a scrollable flyout panel, so you don’t have to launch a web browser.
• Microsoft Edge gets some minor improvements, including better Favorites handling and the ability to mark up PDFs and e-books.
• Security has been beefed up, including the addition of Windows Defender Exploit Guard, which includes intrusion rules and policies to protect against a variety of threats, notably zero-day exploits. A new anti-ransomware feature called Controlled Folder Access has also been added; it lets only approved apps have access to Windows system files and folders.
• New privacy features include the ability to review the kinds of devices and services apps from the Microsoft Store want access to before you download them.
• The update incorporates Microsoft’s new design system and guidelines, called Fluent Design. Overall, transitions are smoother, and there are subtle changes to the transparency effect.

What IT needs to know: IT staff should be aware of these features that are new in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update:

• The notoriously insecure SMBv1 networking protocol, exploited in recent ransomware attacks including WannaCry and Petya, won’t be included on clean installs of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, but SMBv1 components will remain if you do in-place upgrades on PCs that already have the component installed.
• Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), a suite of tools introduced in Windows 10 that helps enterprise customers protect their users and networks against threats and respond to attacks, is being beefed up. Among other things, it will run on the Windows Server OS.
• ATP is also part of Windows Defender Application Guard for Microsoft Edge, available only for Windows 10 Enterprise Edition. It protects against malware attacks by confining visits to unknown or untrusted websites to a virtual machine, so that attacks can’t spread to a PC or the network.
• Windows AutoPilot, which improves self-service deployments of Windows 10 PCs, gets a variety of tweaks, including better mobile device management (MDM) services.
• Windows Analytics’ new Device Health tool gathers information on how PCs perform in an enterprise, and based on that, identifies potential issues and outlines steps to resolve them.
• Enterprises get more control over what kind of information Windows Analytics gathers for the IT staff. In order to improve users’ privacy, IT staff can limit the information collected by Windows Analytics to only diagnostic data.

For more details about new features for IT, see “What’s new in Windows 10, version 1709 IT Pro content,”  “Announcing end-to-end security features in Windows 10” and “Delivering the Modern IT promise with Windows 10” from Microsoft.

Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703)

Release date: April 5, 2017

Version 1703, dubbed the Creators Update, is the major update to Windows 10 that preceded the Fall Creators Update. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new for users in the Creators Update. (For more details, see our full review.)

• It helps you better organize the Start menu by letting you put multiple tiles for apps into a single folder — for example, you can group all social media apps into one folder.
• Users are given a bit more control over the update process: They can delay an update for three days and keep delaying it in three-day increments, or choose specific times for updates to install.
• The Edge browser has gotten some improvements, including having Flash disabled by default for security reasons and supporting the ePub and PDF formats for reading books and other content.
• Microsoft added some 3D and virtual reality features, including running HoloLens virtual reality and mixed reality apps for the first time, and introducing a Paint 3D app for creating 3D objects.
• System settings that previously were in multiple locations have been consolidated into the Settings app.
• There’s a new all-in-one security dashboard called Windows Defender Security Center that consolidates many security and computer health settings and information.
• New gaming features include streaming gaming sessions over the internet; a Game Mode to improve gaming performance; and a Game bar to let you record your gameplay, take screenshots and perform games-related tasks.
• The Cortana personal assistant gets a few modest additions, including scheduling monthly reminders and helping you set up devices.

What IT needs to know: IT staff should be aware of these features that are new in the Windows 10 Creators Update:

• Security has been improved in a number of ways, including adding new features and insights into Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to better investigate and respond to network threats. Among the new features are sensors in memory, better intelligence and improved remediation capabilities.
• Several new configuration service providers (CSPs) available in the Creators Update let administrators manage Windows 10 devices through Mobile Device Management (MDM) or provisioning packages. The DynamicManagement CSP, for instance, can enable or disable certain device features depending on location, network presence or time.
• New mobile application management capabilities can protect data on personal mobile devices without requiring each device to be part of the corporate MDM.
• The Windows Configuration Designer (previously called Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer) includes new wizards to make it easier to create provisioning packages, including for desktop devices, Windows mobile devices, Surface Hub devices, HoloLens devices and kiosk devices.
• Enterprise security administrators get a more comprehensive documentation library for Windows Defender Antivirus.
• If an enterprise-wide update policy hasn’t been configured, users with Windows Pro, Windows Enterprise or Windows Education editions have much more control over how Windows updates. With the Creators Update, users can now automatically delay cumulative monthly updates for up to 30 days, and can delay feature updates by up to 365 days.

For more details about new features for IT, see the Microsoft blog posts “Windows 10 Creators Update advances security and best-in-class modern IT tools” and “What’s new in Windows 10, version 1703 IT pro content.”

Microsoft 365 (and Office 365) subscribers get more frequent software updates than those who have purchased Office without a subscription, which means subscribers have access to the latest features, security patches, and bug fixes. But it can be hard to keep track of the changes in each update and know when they’re available. We’re doing this for you, so you don’t have to.

Following are summaries of the updates to Microsoft 365/Office 365 for Windows over the past year, with the latest releases shown first. We’ll add info about new updates as they’re rolled out.

Note: This story covers updates released to the Current Channel for Microsoft 365/Office 365 subscriptions. If you’re a member of Microsoft’s Office Insider preview program or want to get a sneak peek at upcoming features, see the Microsoft 365 Insider blog.

Version 2604 (Build 19929.20164)

Release date: May 12, 2026

The build plugs a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2604 (Build 19929.20164).

Version 2604 (Build 19929.20136)

Release date: May 5, 2026

This build fixes a bug in which Outlook closed unexpectedly after replying to a mail item with labels.

Get more info about  Version 2604 (Build 19929.20136).

Version 2604 (Build 19929.20106)

Release date: April 29, 2026

This build includes “various fixes to functionality and performance,” according to Microsoft.

Get more info about Version 2604 (Build 19929.20106).

Version 2604 (Build 19929.20090)

Release date: April 21, 2026

This build includes “various fixes to functionality and performance,” according to Microsoft.

Get more info about Version 2604 (Build 19929.20090).

Version 2603 (Build 19822.20182)

Release date: April 14, 2026

In this build, Copilot can now edit your PowerPoint documents. Copilot can start a new presentation or build on an existing one, generate slides, update content, improve layouts, and polish design, while preserving formatting, structure, and branding. 

The build also plugs a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2603 (Build 19822.20182).

Version 2603 (Build 19822.20168)

Release date: April 9, 2026

This build fixes several bugs, including one in Outlook in which users could not close the Copilot chat pane using a keyboard. Users can now close the pane by navigating to the Close button using a keyboard or by using the assigned keyboard shortcut.

Get more info about Version 2603 (Build 19822.20168).

Version 2603 (Build 19822.20142)

Release date: March 31, 2026

This build includes “various fixes to functionality and performance,” according to Microsoft.

Get more info about Version 2603 (Build 19822.20142).

Version 2603 (Build 19822.20114)

Release date: March 24, 2026

This build fixes a single bug in which PowerPoint sometimes closed unexpectedly when opening a newly created empty file from the OneDrive folder.

Get more info about Version 2603 (Build 19822.20114).

Version 2602 (Build 19725.20190)

Release date: March 18, 2026

This build fixes an Outlook bug in which updating a single instance of a recurring meeting in a Microsoft 365 group calendar updated the entire series.

Get more info about Version 2602 (Build 19725.20190).

Version 2602 (Build 19725.20172)

Release date: March 10, 2026

This build introduces agent mode in Word, which adds a conversational chat experience that helps create, edit, and refine document content as you work. In addition, the build fixes a bug that impacted the rendering of extended characters in calendar items, causing certain characters to appear as question marks.

The build also plugs a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2602 (Build 19725.20172).

Version 2602 (Build 19725.20152)

Release date: March 3, 2026

This build fixes a bug in which closing a document sometimes remained in progress indefinitely after the Office app resumed from sleep or hibernation.

Get more info about Version 2602 (Build 19725.20152).

Version 2602 (Build 19725.20126)

Release date: February 24, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one that caused OneNote to close unexpectedly upon startup.

Get more info about Version 2602 (Build 19725.20126).

Version 2601 (Build 19628.20214)

Release date: February 17, 2025

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2601 (Build 19628.20214).

Version 2601 (Build 19628.20204)

Release date: February 10, 2026

This build fixes a bug that sometimes prevented users from opening emails with the Encrypt Only label in Outlook.

It also plugs a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2601 (Build 19628.20204).

Version 2601 (Build 19628.20166)

Release date: February 3, 2026

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2601 (Build 19628.20166).

Version 2601 (Build 19628.20150)

Release date: January 27, 2025

In this build, OneNote applies your chosen proofing language more consistently, so you don’t have to reset it for every paragraph when writing in multiple languages. In addition, the build fixes several bugs, including one that caused Office applications to become unresponsive when profile card-related activities were performed.

Get more info about Version 2601 (Build 19628.20150).

Version 2512 (Build 19530.20184)

Release date: January 21, 2025

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “Various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2512 (Build 19530.20184).

Version 2512 (Build 19530.20144)

Release date: January 13, 2026

This build fixes a number of bugs, including one that caused Excel, PowerPoint, and Word to become unresponsive when profile card-related activities were performed.

It also plugs a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2512 (Build 19530.20144).

Version 2512 (Build 19530.20138)

Release date: January 8, 2025

This build offers, in Microsoft’s words, “Various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2512 (Build 19530.20138).

Version 2511 (Build 19426.20218)

Release date: December 16, 2025

This build offers, in Microsoft’s words, “Various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2511 (Build 19426.20218).

Version 2511 (Build 19426.20186)

Release date: December 9, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build offers, in Microsoft’s words, “Various fixes to functionality and performance.” The build also has a variety of security updates (see details).

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2511 (Build 19426.20186).

Version 2511 (Build 19426.20170)

Release date: December 3, 2025

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “Various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2511 (Build 19426.20170).

Version 2510 (Build 19328.20244)

Release date: November 20, 2025

This build fixes a bug in Outlook that caused users to see “Contacting the server for information” repeatedly when loading some emails.

Get more info about Version 2510 (Build 19328.20244).

Version 2510 (Build 19328.20232)

Release date: November 18, 2025

This build includes, in the words of Microsoft, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2510 (Build 19328.20232).

Version 2510 (Build 19328.20190)

Release date: November 11, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build fixes a bug in Outlook that caused some recipients to be unable to access OneDrive links shared with them via email. The build also has a variety of security updates (see details).

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2510 (Build 19328.20190).

Version 2510 (Build 19328.20178)

Release date: November 4, 2025

This build fixes a single bug, in which @mention searches produced no results in Office apps.

Get more info about Version 2510 (Build 19328.20178).

Version 2510 (Build 19328.20158)

Release date: October 30, 2025

This build introduces a new Get Data dialog in Windows that simplifies finding and using external data, and adds Analyze Data to the Data tab.

The build also fixed an bug in Outlook that prevented users from downloading web add-ins in some virtualized environments.

Get more info about Version 2510 (Build 19328.20158).

Version 2509 (Build 19231.20216)

Release date: October 21, 2025

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2509 (Build 19231.20216).

Version 2509 (Build 19231.20194)

Release date: October 14, 2025

This build has a variety of security updates (see details), along with various fixes to functionality and performance.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2509 (Build 19231.20194).

Version 2509 (Build 19231.20172)

Release date: October 7, 2025

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2509 (Build 19231.20172).

Version 2509 (Build 19231.20156)

Release date: October 1, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, one in Excel in which ribbon controls were not rendered when rejoining Office sessions in a virtual machine, Azure Virtual Desktop, or remote desktop environment, and another that caused Outlook to terminate unexpectedly when starting.

Get more info about Version 2509 (Build 19231.20156).

Version 2508 (Build 19127.20264)

Release date: September 23, 2025

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2508 (Build 19127.20264).

Version 2508 (Build 19127.20240)

Release date: September 16, 2025

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2508 (Build 19127.20240).

Version 2508 (Build 19127.20222)

Release date: September 9, 2025

This build has multiple security updates (see details), along with various fixes to functionality and performance.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2508 (Build 19127.20222).

Version 2508 (Build 19127.20192)

Release date: September 3, 2025

This build fixes a bug in which some Outlook add-ins were getting “Office.auth.getAccessToken is not a function” errors.

Get more info about Version 2508 (Build 19127.20192).

Version 2508 (Build 19127.20154)

Release date: August 26, 2025

This build fixes a bug that caused Outlook to terminate unexpectedly when sending a meeting invite with an encryption label. It also adds support for pixelated rendering of embedded images in SVG assets for the entire Office suite.

Get more info about Version 2508 (Build 19127.20154).

Version 2507 (Build 19029.20208)

Release date: August 19, 2025

This build fixes a variety of bugs.

Get more info about Version 2507 (Build 19029.20208).

Version 2507 (Build 19029.20184)

Release date: August 12, 2025

This build fixes a bug which required users to restart Outlook to open a .msg file after initially accessing it once. The build also includes a variety of security updates (see details).

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2507 (Build 19029.20184).

Version 2507 (Build 19029.20156)

Release date: August 5, 2025

This build fixes a single bug, in which users had to restart Outlook to open a .msg file after initially accessing it once.

Get more info about Version 2507 (Build 19029.20156).

Version 2507 (Build 19029.20136)

Release date: July 30, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including in which Outlook closed unexpectedly shortly after launch, and another in Word in which the word count sometimes displayed incorrectly.

Get more info about Version 2507 (Build 19029.20136).

Version 2506 (Build 18925.20184)

Release date: July 22, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, one that caused the Copilot Command Center to continue to be visible after disabling the Copilot user interface, and another in which when creating handouts in PowerPoint, certain characters (full-width numbers) couldn’t be properly transferred to the handout.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18925.20184).

Version 2506 (Build 18925.20168)

Release date: July 15, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, one that caused Visio 32-bit to close unexpectedly when using the Drawing control, particularly in setups involving COM components or .NET integrations, and another in Word in which copying and pasting content between documents sometimes changed the applied style unexpectedly.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18925.20168).

Version 2506 (Build 18925.20158)

Release date: July 8, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build fixes several bugs in Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, and the whole Office suite, including one that caused the Copilot icon to unexpectedly display in Outlook when Copilot had been disabled by the admin in government cloud.

The release also includes a variety of security updates (see details).

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18925.20158).

Version 2506 (Build 18827.20176)

Release date: July 1, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Word in which print preview sometimes stopped working when printing long emails.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18827.20176).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20176)

Release date: June 26, 2025

This build introduces several new features, including one in Excel in which the PivotTables dialog box interface has been replaced by a redesigned panel, making it easier to view all of your options and simpler to change your data selection before inserting a recommended PivotTable.

Get more info about Version 2505 (Build 18827.20176).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20164)

Release date: June 17, 2025

This build fixes a bug that caused the “Try the new Outlook” toggle to be enabled when working in Classic Outlook side by side with the new Outlook.

Get more info about Version 2505 (Build 18827.20164).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20150)

Release date: June 10, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one for the entire Office suite in which a Save As attempt on an existing file didn’t complete successfully, and subsequent attempts continued to encounter issues when trying to save to a file that no longer existed.

This Patch Tuesday release also includes a variety of security updates: see details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about  Version 2505 (Build 18827.20150).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20140)

Release date: June 3, 2025

This build offers a variety of bug and performance fixes.

Read about Version 2505 (Build 18827.20140).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20186)

Release date: May 20, 2025

This build introduces a new PowerPoint feature: Notification emails for mentions, tasks, comments, and replies will now contain context previews even when the source document is encrypted, and the email will inherit the document’s security policies.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20186).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20168)

Release date: May 13, 2025

This build fixes a bug in which users were seeing high CPU usage when typing in Outlook. It also includes a variety of security updates: see details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20168).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20142)

Release date: May 6, 2025

This build includes various bug and performance fixes.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20142).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20122)

Release date: April 29, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which PowerPoint was unable to open a file from a network mapped drive from File Explore, another in which Word closed unexpectedly when opening .doc files, and another for the entire Office suite in which large 3D files couldn’t be inserted.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20122).

Version 2503 (Build 18623.20208)

Release date: April 17, 2025

This build fixes a bug that could cause Excel to stop responding.

Get more info about Version 2503 (Build 18623.20208).

Version 2503 (Build 18623.20178)

Release date: April 8, 2025

This build fixes a single bug in Word in which users may have encountered an issue with saving, seeing the message “saving…” in the title bar. It  also includes a variety of security updates. Go here for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2503 (Build 18623.20178).

Version 2503 (Build 18623.20156)

Release date: April 2, 2025

This build lets you use Dark Mode in Excel, which darkens your entire sheet, including cells, and may reduce eye strain. It also fixes several bugs, including one in Word in which opening specific files that contain many tracked changes and comments resulted in poor performance, and one in PowerPoint in which the app was not displaying the icon for an inserted PDF object.

Get more info about Version 2503 (Build 18623.20156).

Version 2502 (Build 18526.20168)

Release date: March 11, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which some Word files with numerous tracked changes and comments were slow. It also includes a variety of security updates: see details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2502 (Build 18526.20168).

Version 2502 (Build 18526.20144)

Release date: March 5, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Word in which the default font size may not be 12pt as expected, and another in which PowerPoint automatically closed when the system went into hibernate or sleep mode.

Get more info about Version 2502 (Build 18526.20144).

Version 2501 (Build 18429.20158)

Release date: February 11, 2025

This build removes the option to display Track Changes balloons in left margin in Word. It also includes a variety of security updates. See “Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates” for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2501 (Build 18429.20158).

Tests of how well 19 large language models (LLMs) complete and perform complicated multi-step tasks has shown that they are both error-prone and, in many cases, unreliable.

The findings are contained in a preprint paper, LLMs Corrupt Your Documents When You Delegate, written by Microsoft researchers  Philippe Laban, Tobias Schnabel and Jennifer Neville based on a benchmark they created called DELEGATE-52 that allowed them to simulate workflows that might be part of a knowledge worker’s tasks. The paper is currently under review.

They said that the benchmark contains 310 work environments across 52 professional domains including coding, crystallography, genealogy and music sheet notation. Each environment consists of real documents totaling around 15K tokens in length, and five to 10 complex editing tasks that a user might ask an LLM to perform.

And, they stated in the paper’s abstract: “Our analysis shows that current LLMs are unreliable delegates: they introduce sparse but severe errors that silently corrupt documents, compounding over long interaction.”

Those mistakes are significant, they said. “The findings show that current LLMs introduce substantial errors when editing work documents, with frontier models (Gemini 3.1 Pro, Claude 4.6 Opus, and GPT 5.4) losing an average 25% of document content over 20 delegated interactions, and an average degradation across all models of 50%.”

Benchmark exercise receives a thumbs up

Brian Jackson, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group, found the findings very interesting. “Putting a list of LLMs to the test across different work domains yields a lot of useful insights,” he said. “I think this type of benchmark exercise could be helpful to enterprise developers who are looking to leverage agentic AI to automate specific workflows and understand the limits of what can be achieved.”

However, he said, “what we shouldn’t conclude from this is that, because these foundation models caused document degradation after 20 edits, they can’t be used to automate work in a certain field. It just means they can’t do all of the work as they are currently constructed.”

But, Jackson stated, “in an enterprise environment where having an accurate output is crucial, you wouldn’t take that approach. You would design the automation flow with stronger guardrails in place to prevent errors. This could be done by using multiple agents that play different roles, such as one that makes the edits and another that checks for errors and makes corrections.”

Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, said, “the Microsoft paper should be read as a serious warning about delegated AI, not as a claim that enterprise AI has failed. That distinction matters. The paper is still a preprint, so it deserves careful handling, but its central question is exactly the one CIOs should be asking: can AI preserve the integrity of complex work over repeated delegation?”

The study, he said, is stronger than what he described as “the usual AI benchmark theatre,” because it tests work products, not just looking at clever one-off answers. “It uses reversible editing tasks, domain-specific evaluators, and a round-trip method to see whether a document returns intact after repeated edits. In too many cases, it does not.”

That is the point, explained Gogia. “This is not merely about hallucinations. It is about artefact integrity.”

AI is ‘not yet trustworthy enough’

He added that the headline finding is “uncomfortable: even the strongest models corrupt about a quarter of document content by the end of long workflows, while average degradation across all tested models reaches roughly 50%. The paper also finds that performance varies sharply by domain. Python is the only domain where most models are ‘ready,’ and the best model reaches that threshold in only 11 of 52 domains.”

AI is not failing because it cannot write, said Gogia, it is failing because it cannot yet preserve.

The study, he pointed out, “is especially useful because it shows how errors accumulate. Bigger documents worsen outcomes. Longer interaction worsens outcomes. Distractor files worsen outcomes. Short tests flatter the system, while longer workflows expose it. That maps rather neatly to the enterprise world, where work is messy, files are stale, context is noisy and the most important documents are rarely the simplest ones.”

The honest conclusion, he said, “is not that AI should be kept out of enterprise workflows. It is that delegated AI is not yet trustworthy enough to be left alone with consequential artefacts.”

When AI edits an important document such as a contract, a ledger, a policy, a codebase, a board paper, or a compliance record, Gogia warned, the enterprise still owns the damage.

Mitigation approaches

In order to prevent that damage, Jackson suggested, enterprises can do additional training and fine-tuning of models to be better adapted to their specific workflows: “These foundation models are very good at doing a lot of different tasks, but less good at doing one specific task very well. So, enterprises that want to achieve that may need to improve the models themselves by training on their own data.”

For example, “[the Microsoft paper] points out one multi-agent setup that led to more degradation instead of less, so the method to detect degradation must be well-designed to be effective,” he said. “Another approach that some enterprise platforms have introduced is a way to deterministically verify the output for accuracy using mathematical verification. So, knowing what domains prove more difficult for a single LLM to automate is useful, as developers can plan to add more verification steps to the process.”

He said, “depending on the model, for example, if it’s totally open source or if it’s proprietary, you can have more flexibility in terms of how much you can customize it. So, an enterprise developer might look at these results, pick the LLM best at automating their desired domain, and then send it in for additional training to master the process.”

People do not disappear

According to Gogia, the paper also shows something more precise than ‘AI still needs people.’ “It shows that AI changes the human layer from production to supervision, validation, and accountability. That is a rather different operating model from the one being sold in many boardroom conversations.”

People, he said, “do not disappear. Their work moves. This is the uncomfortable part for enterprises chasing headcount reduction. The people best placed to catch AI errors are often the same people organizations are hoping to replace, reduce, or redeploy. Remove too much domain expertise from the workflow, and the enterprise also removes the people who know when the AI has quietly damaged the work.”

Expertise becomes more valuable, not less, said Gogia: “The paper reinforces this because stronger models do not merely delete content. They often corrupt it. Weaker models are easier to catch when they visibly drop material. Frontier models are more awkward because the content remains present but becomes wrong, distorted, or subtly altered. That requires knowledgeable review, not casual inspection.”

This article originally appeared on CIO.com.

As Apple heads toward next month’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), cast your mind back almost 30 years. That’s when something happened that arguably put events in motion that led to Apple becoming the company it is today. That was when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs returned to the top job at WWDC 1997 — the first such event after Apple acquired NeXT.

The big debt to NS

It took until 2000 to fully realize what the NeXT purchase meant; that’s when the Mac OS X Public Beta was released. The operating system has seen many twists and turns since then, but the NeXTStep OS acquisition forms the basis on which the Apple software ecosystem has been built. Mac, iPhone, iPad – even Apple Watch and Vision Pro – all share elements of it.

You can see its traces each time you use an application that makes use of a macOS API that uses the NS — ‘NeXTStep’ prefix. That means you’re using NeXT when you work in SwiftUI, use Apple’s core frameworks, or write code for use across different platforms in the current ecosystem. Despite the many names for Apple’s platforms, they all have a little NeXT in common.

The need for a new, modern operating system was critical at the time to Apple. The company had fallen into the doldrums with its classic Mac OS operating system and competitors had forged ahead, at least in marketshare. Among others, Michael Dell, Time Magazine, and almost everyone else expected the company to collapse. NeXT was the salvation, Jobs the icon, and history the prize.

The next challenge now

Today’s Apple faces a fresh existential challenge, and while much of it feels media-driven, the company does need to introduce an intelligence layer around and upon its platforms, alongside the tools developers need to exploit AI within their applications. 

Apple knows this, too, which is why it already offers Apple Intelligence APIs to developers to use in their apps. The company also knows they need a way to market those software ideas and get them into the hands of end users; that’s what the App Store provides.

When Apple wove NeXT into its operating system, it somehow managed to provide developers with better tools, modern, enduring foundations, frameworks and everything else needed to build an ecosystem that extends across multiple product families at a range of prices and technological advancement — from the $499 MacBook Neo to the $3,499 Vision Pro. You can build applications for any or all of these platforms using components Apple provides, along with what you bring yourself. To a great extent, all of this potential was unlocked by the acquisition of NeXTStep and its use in OS X at the turn of the century. 

Telling stories

No doubt, developers are eager to discover the extent to which Apple has managed to join the circle of AI development on its platforms. They surely hope for powerful new APIs to enhance their products with a new intelligence layer, even while Apple itself needs to offer developers the same thing to keep them loyal to its platforms. 

If you squint just a little bit, the same challenges that haunted Apple in the late ‘90s echo again today. Apple wants to reinvent itself for AI without sacrificing all the benefits of its existing ecosystem. It wants to do so while making sure its developer community buys into its chosen direction. To help achieve this, it can lean heavily into its inherent hardware advantage: Not only can its products run the apps developers build, but they are also fantastic platforms to build on in the first place. All the same, it needs to convince them with a narrative that resonates, which means that while WWDC in 1997 was all about NeXTStep, WWDC 2026 is all about which steps Apple takes next. 

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OpenAI has unveiled Daybreak, its answer to Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, amid a growing market for frontier AI-powered cyber defense platforms. The initiative combines OpenAI’s large language models, Codex’s agentic capabilities, and integrations with the broader enterprise security ecosystem.

The company said Daybreak is focused on accelerating cyber defense operations and enabling organizations to secure software across the development lifecycle continuously.

Announcing the initiative on X, Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI, said, “OpenAI is launching Daybreak, our effort to accelerate cyber defense and continuously secure software. AI is already good and about to get super good at cybersecurity; we’d like to start working with as many companies as possible now to help them continuously secure themselves.”

Daybreak takes on Mythos

The surge in AI-driven cyber threats has recently shifted the AI race toward AI cybersecurity models. In April this year, Anthropic unveiled Project Glasswing, built around Claude Mythos Preview. Anthropic described it as a cybersecurity-focused AI system capable of autonomously identifying software vulnerabilities at scale.

While introducing Daybreak, OpenAI explained that deploying AI in modern cyber defense involves three core stages. The first is prioritizing high-impact threats and reducing hours of security analysis to minutes through more efficient AI reasoning and token usage. The second involves generating and testing patches directly within enterprise repositories using scoped access, monitoring, and review. The final stage focuses on sending results and audit-ready evidence back into enterprise systems to track, validate, and verify remediation efforts.

In Daybreak, Codex security is designed to identify and fix vulnerabilities by building an editable threat model from the enterprise’s repository and focusing analysis on realistic attack paths and high-impact code. The system would then validate likely vulnerabilities in an isolated environment. This would help teams to prioritise real, reproducible issues over noisy alerts. This will be followed by automated detection and response, where AI will be able to spot higher-risk vulnerabilities and enable end-to-end automated monitoring.

“The divergence reflects fundamentally different approaches to security and commercialization. OpenAI is positioning Daybreak and GPT-5.5-Cyber as a controlled cyber-defense platform for vetted defenders, focused on operational workflows such as vulnerability detection, patch validation, malware analysis, and secure software development,” said Pareekh Jain, CEO at EIIRTrend & Pareekh Consulting. “Strategically, Daybreak helps OpenAI counter the perception that Anthropic leads in frontier cyber AI. Instead of relying on a single secretive model, OpenAI is building a scalable cyber-defense ecosystem integrated into enterprise workflows and developer environments.”

Jain said Anthropic, by contrast, treats Mythos as a far more sensitive dual-use cyber-intelligence system with stronger offensive reasoning capabilities and higher misuse risks. As a result, access remains tightly restricted to a small set of organizations, influenced both by safety concerns and broader US national-security considerations.

OpenAI’s cybersecurity model stack

OpenAI is pursuing a scalable cyber defense platform strategy with Daybreak and is rolling out the initiative through three different model tiers: GPT-5.5 (default), GPT-5.5 with Trusted Access for Cyber, and GPT-5.5-Cyber.

The standard GPT-5.5 model is positioned for general-purpose enterprise use cases, including developer assistance and knowledge work. GPT-5.5 with Trusted Access for Cyber is designed for defensive security workflows such as secure code review, vulnerability triage, malware analysis, detection engineering, and patch validation.

At the highest tier, GPT-5.5-Cyber will provide preview access for specialized cybersecurity workflows, including authorized red teaming, penetration testing, and controlled validation.

Governments and industry join in

OpenAI said it plans to build Daybreak alongside both industry and government partners as it expands the platform’s cybersecurity capabilities and enterprise reach.

To begin with, Daybreak is being developed alongside partners including Cisco, Oracle, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Cloudflare, Fortinet, Akamai, and Zscaler.

At the government level, the European Commission is currently in discussions with OpenAI regarding access to its advanced AI models for identifying cybersecurity vulnerabilities. According to Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier, OpenAI proactively approached the EU, and discussions are underway around potential next steps, including possible access to the company’s new model. Discussions with Anthropic are also continuing. However, they have not yet reached the same stage as those with OpenAI.

While answering questions during the Commission’s daily press briefing, spokesperson Regnier said the European Commission welcomes OpenAI’s transparency and their intent to give the Commission access to its new model. This will allow the Commission to follow the deployment of this model very closely and also to potentially address certain security concerns in a closer way.

Amit Jaju, senior managing director at Ankura Consulting, said, “OpenAI is actively leveraging its trusted access framework to rapidly build goodwill with European regulators and demonstrate transparency. By offering early access, OpenAI aligns itself closely with upcoming regulatory demands and secures a strategic market position.”  Jaju noted that Anthropic is taking a highly restricted approach, initially sharing its Mythos model only with select US technology partners to patch vulnerabilities first. “Anthropic recognizes the severe risks associated with autonomous AI agents and the potential for the model to be misused to target critical software, choosing to prioritize closed testing over rapid geopolitical expansion.”

The article originally appeared on CSO.

If you haven’t heard of Arm, you haven’t been paying attention to how ubiquitous the chipmaker has become. Arm’s processor designs power Macs, iPhones, and every other major smartphone line. Queries made through ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude pass through an Arm-based chip at some point.

For more than 40 years, Arm’s focus was on chip design. Major device and AI chip makers then licensed those designs and turned them into hardware. 

But the company’s focus is changing: Arm is now making hardware using its own AGI CPU, which OpenAI and Meta will use and which will allow the chipmaker itself to compete with the likes of Apple, Intel, Nvidia, Amazon and Google.

Arm’s envisions its new Performix software suite using “recipes” and AI insights to help engineers identify suspect code and CPU hotspots.

Alex Spinelli, who leads Arm’s software initiatives as senior vice president for AI and developer platforms, is as AI-native an engineer as you’ll find; he played a central role in the TensorFlow stack used to launch Gemini and was on the team at Amazon that developed Alexa. 

Computerworld sat down with Spinelli to get his views about the ongoing shift in software and engineering driven by AI, and how engineers can keep up with the fast pace of change.

Alex Spinelli, senior vice president for AI and developer platforms at Arm.

Arm

How does your group support Arm’s shift to building its own hardware? “Our mission is to enable application developers to take full advantage of Arm hardware the day it’s released. That’s the exciting part of the AGI CPU.”

How is software engineering itself changing? “What we’ve seen through computing, going back 60, 70 years, is a gradual progression to a higher order abstraction. You started with punch cards, assembly, low-level languages, higher-order languages, interpreted languages. We’re entering the era of human language becoming the language of programming…. Now, English is the highest level language. 

“Programming doesn’t go away, engineering doesn’t go away. The way we express it is going away.”

Where does this transition leave today’s software engineer? “Engineering is moving to a much greater blending of technical product management thinking, design thinking, and architecture thinking in a different programming model where I’m using natural language to create my programs.

“As an engineer, embracing and understanding where you sit in that tool chain becomes really important. Where AI rubber really hits the road is with agents. Agents use a lot of AI and agents are software.”

How does this engineering structure work in this new model? “Thinking about how I structure that application stack requires a lot of experience and know-how. 

“[For example], I have an OpenClaw instance installed in the cloud that I use to build out my hobby and side projects. I have 15 or so small models, embedding models, SLMs — all running on CPU within my agent application framework. 

“Then I’m selectively calling out to different foundation models, fast, low-cost ones like Haiku or Flash, and foundation models like ChatGPT 5.5 for the most important reasoning problems. That is engineering.”

What do you tell engineers on your team about the future of their careers? “I have hundreds of software engineers on my team. The future of engineering is embracing this new model and not trying to fight it. 

“For new entrants out of college and [with] master’s degrees, I don’t know what the right mix of learning is yet. AI tooling is a power tool for mid-to-senior engineers to embrace.

“If you look at the biggest technical innovations in the world — electricity, assembly line, railroad — they’re automations. When you radically reduce the cost of production of something, humans in history have not used less of it. People are finding new roles and new businesses are launching.

How do you view the “death of the engineer” predictions? “I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder because I didn’t do a [computer science degree. That drove me to go deep…into assembly, into how memory works. Even as LLMs become the new compiler that processes natural language into tool calls and Java or Python, those fundamentals matter.

“Think of an LLM like the smartest, most informed, overconfident, eager, arrogant recent MIT master’s grad. They know every language, but they would need a senior engineer to guide and help them. The importance of great engineers has been elevated. AI needs that guidance.

“We also need to dust off agile skills. Now we’re shifting back to applications and agents, where things change every week.”

Should new developers learn the tools first, or go to school for fundamentals? “I came out at a time when so much was changing. I went deep. I started looking at assembly. That deep understanding, especially in an era of high-level languages — [with] English … the highest level language — is always valuable.

“Even when I’m working with my agent, really knowing how a computer works has never not been valuable. You might never write C++ or C code, but fundamentally understanding what’s happening is really important. There are mistakes, there are corners cut. AI loves to roll its own libraries and not use tried-and-true best practices that understand the quirks of a particular system.

“Do you need formal education and training? I don’t know. There are so many ways to educate yourself if you’re motivated. Go deep, understand how computers work, understand what a compiler is. It’ll pay dividends.”

What are the biggest pitfalls you see for engineers today? “Cost is a big one. Tokens are expensive. In my OpenClaw, when I had it configured wrong, I got a bill for $500 in one weekend, and I was like, what the hell happened here? There’s no free lunch. Rents will be extracted when they’re available in economics.

“Security is another major pitfall. The challenges are less inherent to the frameworks themselves and more about what people are doing with them…, putting passwords and tokens in clear text. You see a response from the industry like NemoClaw, which is really a layer on top from Nvidia to push security policies. 

“My advice to enterprises: don’t try to standardize too quickly across one model, but don’t allow the full Wild West either. You need to institutionalize your policies into your agent frameworks.”

What does the future of the AI-built world look like? “We’re moving toward fast software, similar to fast fashion. When you radically reduce the cost of production, humans in history have not used less of [what’s being produced]. 

“You’re going to have disposable software. We’re going to build things quickly. If they don’t quite work, that’s okay. The agent remembers how to do it. I’ll just rebuild it.

“But we have to accept a different kind of failure. Things might fail hilariously or catastrophically, and then we’ll fix it in an automated way.

“My target is that every engineer has an expert sidecar agent and a swarm of agent developers they can lean on. You use Claude Code or Codex or Gemini to spin up agents, each with a specific role…designer, architect, coder, tester. Research says when you bind an agent to a role with procedures, policies, and standards around it, and you allow those agents to interact, the outputs are orders of magnitude higher quality than leaning on a single agent. 

“We’re looking at literally 10xing the ability for our engineers to produce. We’re not looking for cost savings. We’re looking to do more, because there’s so much more to do.

How do you make projections when AI changes every week? “You need diverse opinions, people with different ways of thinking. The tried-and-true…component-based, modular-based architectures…user-centered design, service-oriented design…are super important. You need the ability to flex and bend. 

“I subscribe to: Think ahead, but don’t future proof, because often you’re going to assume something that needs to change. The pace is new. 

“We almost went away from agile in the industry. Resurfacing those principles…ends up being pretty important now because stuff’s changing.”

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is warning that AI could become a growing threat to global financial stability by making cyberattacks faster and more sophisticated. In a new analysis, the organization describes how new AI tools can help attackers identify and exploit security vulnerabilities in banks, payment systems, and cloud services in record time.

According to the IMF, the financial sector relies heavily on shared digital infrastructure, which means a single vulnerability could have consequences for multiple institutions simultaneously. AI-driven attacks might, for instance, lead to disruptions in payment systems, liquidity problems, and reduced confidence in the financial market.

The IMF points, among other things, to Anthropic’s experimental AI model Claude Mythos Preview to illustrate how quickly AI technology is progressing. The model is reported to be highly skilled at finding and exploiting security vulnerabilities in major operating systems and web browsers.

At the same time, the agency argued that AI tools could also become an important part of security solutions. To mitigate risks, the IMF said banks, government agencies, and tech companies now need to strengthen their collaboration on cybersecurity.

The European Commission is considering new rules that could restrict the use of cloud services from other countries for sensitive public data within the EU, according to sources cited by CNBC. The proposal is expected to be part of the EU’s upcoming “Tech Sovereignty Package,” which is slated to be presented May 27.

The idea is that certain types of data — such as those in healthcare, finance, and the judiciary — should be stored and managed to a greater extent on European cloud infrastructure. If put in place, the rules could affect dominant US players such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud. All could consequently see their use restricted in sensitive public systems.

The move comes amid growing concern about dependence on US technology and legislation such as the US Cloud Act, which in some cases can give US authorities access to data even if it is stored in Europe.

Apple’s platforms are secure by design, but when it comes to authentication, the company seems to be protecting employees more than it protects IT admins. It’s an attack vector just waiting to be exploited — if it hasn’t been already.

As noted first by Six Colors, the problem is that administrator and People Manager accounts on Apple Business Manager (ABM) can’t sign in using federated authentication, even though they manage the federation process for everyone else. 

What are the implications?

What this means in practice is that when admins engage with the authentication process, they need to do so using non-federated Apple Account sign-in with Apple’s two‑factor authentication (typically via a trusted device or trusted phone number using SMS/voice). That’s weird; it means the key accounts that manage protection for sometimes thousands of devices are still only protected by a six-digit SMS code sent to a specified phone number. We know that SMS authentication is risky, with three well-known attack paths:

• SIM swapping, where an assailant contacts your cellular company posing as you and convinces them to transfer your phone number to a SIM in their control. Once that takes place, all your SMS codes go to them.
• Phishing, such as a fake login page that acts normally but intercepts your SMS code once you enter it, capturing and immediately using it to attack your actual account.
• Interception, in which sophisticated, usually nation-state-adjacent attackers exploit the known vulnerabilities of SMS to intercept messages in transit.

While it is true most small and mid-size businesses probably don’t need to worry about that third attack possibility, and the second can be mitigated against by being careful never to use a link provided in an email to access key accounts, the first exploit sits within the reach of determined attackers.

A hole in the bucket

The consequences of a successful attack can be serious. Equipped with a compromised ABM account, an attacker could reassign enrolled devices to an MDM server they control, wipe devices, or push malicious apps/profiles or configurations at your devices. Those outcomes are, shall we say, sub-optimal.

I’m certain Apple has thought about this. It has, after all, introduced a range of security protections for all its devices, including managed devices. But in this case, it’s left things a little exposed. That weakness is made more critical because Apple’s system permits just a small number of administrators for each ABM setup, regardless of company size. 

As a result, an attacker might be able to penetrate a company with perhaps tens of thousands of users simply by identifying five names to target with any/all of the above attacks. Apple does not need to leave this hole in its security bucket.

What can you do to improve protection?

There are some easy wins when you try to protect your business while using Apple’s existing system:

• The best practice seems to be for admins to use a dedicated phone number that is only used to handle the ABM and never anything else.
• The number should have SIM swap protection in place. You might be able to set this up with a call to your carrier to have this applied to the account.
• The number of active admin accounts should be limited to a minimum to narrow the target surface.

What can Apple do better?

Apple needs to change things up. Doing so needn’t be horrifically complex, either, as most of these mitigations are already in place elsewhere in its ecosystem. Here are some suggestions:

• Extend authenticator support to ABM admin accounts.
• Introduce Passkeys for admin accounts.
• Put FIDO2 support in place so admins can use hardware security keys to authenticate, if they choose.
• Introduce mitigations such as conditional access, so logins from unexpected locations aren’t respected.
• Introduce support for Sign in with Apple, using biometric data to a specific device as a second factor.

All of these protections are already available in the Apple ecosystem; all Apple needs is to divert a little of its R&D cash into implementing the same protections in Apple Business Manager. From what I’ve seen, the Apple admin community would rejoice if it did. I imagine the Apple Business team is already lobbying for it to find the resources to do just that.

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The current “no-hire-no-fire” environment in the workplace has slowed the pace of tech hiring in the US, but companies have seen one benefit — the selection of job candidates is easier.

Many employers have become clearer about the qualifications they’re seeking in new hires: they’re focused less on people who can service large stacks of code, and more on ability to have a direct impact on corporate revenue and operations.

“Roles are narrower, expectations are clearer, and teams are being built with purpose rather than volume,” said Kye Mitchell, head of Experis, a division of recruiting firm ManpowerGroup.

That’s the backdrop amid a spate of recent hiring data reports released by the US government and various private firms that track hiring. Overall, employment in the US rose by 115,000 jobs in April, with gains in healthcare, transportation and warehousing, and retail trade, according to the latest report by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

But tech hiring has slowed and in the last week, research firms have released April numbers that vary wildly; some point to big tech job cuts, others see increases in hiring. Looking deeper at the data, jobs fell in tech-related sectors such as telecom (down 2.5% decline) and infrastructure providers (with a 3.9%).

Though the BLS reported job growth for the overall economy in April, placement firm Challenger Gray and Christmas actually reported a jobs decline by 83,387 across all sectors. It also argued that tech companies are indeed making large-scale cuts, with 33,361 losses in April, Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a statement.

AI was cited most often as a reason for job losses, affecting 21,490, or 26% of all  cuts across sectors in April. Other reasons cited were the on-again, off-again tariffs imposed by President Donald J. Trump, the ongoing war in Iran, and slack consumer spending.

“Regardless of whether individual jobs are being replaced by AI, the money for those roles is,” Gray said.

Even with uncertainty about the direction of the job market, recent data indicates a growth in tech job listings, which undercuts the notion that tech firms are drastically reducing payrolls. According to CompTIA, 271,483 tech job listing across were added in April. That brings the total to 575,000 active job postings.

The increase in listings is the result of employers clarifying their tech strategies and AI roles, CompTIA said. Increasingly, roles are being defined around “core tech skills as a foundation for more advanced capabilities,” CompTIA said. 

Challenger, Gray and Christmas has measured 85,411 tech job cuts so far this year, with 33,361 of those cuts coming in April alone. Along the same lines, RationalFX has counted 78,557 tech jobs lost globally so far in 2026.

This year has been especially brutal at some companies: Reports last month indicated that Meta planned to cut 10% of its workforce. In late March, Oracle announced job cuts that financial analysts said could affect 30,000 employees. Amazon, PayPal, Block, and Atlassian are among the other major tech firms cutting jobs.

Many of the job listing numbers could turn out to be transitional, as many CIOs still don’t know what skills they’re looking for in job candidates, said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates.

A particular skill that’s useful today might not be needed tomorrow — especially given the pace at which AI is advancing in the workplace.

“I don’t see the mass elimination of jobs, like some ‘pundits’ have predicted,” Gold said. “It [the AI era] will likely result in new jobs we haven’t thought about yet.”

Windows 11 25H2 has been publicly released, but behind the scenes, Microsoft is constantly working to improve the newest version of Windows. The company frequently rolls out preview builds to members of its Windows Insider Program, allowing them to test out — and help shape — upcoming features.

Our story “How to preview and deploy Windows 10 and 11 updates” details how the Insider program has worked until now. However, Microsoft recently announced sweeping changes to the program that will include the ability to select which new features to test. As the first step, the company is introducing a new channel system and transitioning Insiders like so:

• Beta Channel > Beta 
• Dev Channel > Experimental
• Canary Channel (28000 series) > Experimental (26H1)
• Canary Channel (29500 series) > Experimental (Future Platforms)

This transition is happening over time, starting with the Dev Channel. See Microsoft’s blog post for more information about the transition.

Below you’ll find information about the Windows 11 preview builds that have been announced by Microsoft in the past six months. For each build, we’ve included the date of its release, which Insider channel it was released to, a summary of what’s in the build, and a link to Microsoft’s announcement about it.

Note: If you’re looking for information about updates being rolled out to all Windows 11 users, not preview builds for Windows Insiders, see “Windows 11: A guide to the updates.”

The latest Windows 11 Insider preview builds Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8370

Release date: May 8, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

Several minor new improvements are being gradually rolled out in this build, including improved reliability of Japanese IME usage when Administrator Protection is enabled. In addition, the build fixes a single bug, in which there were notification issues and certain apps hung on launch.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8370.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8376

Release date: May 8, 2026

Released to: Experimental Channel (formerly Dev)

A variety of new features are being rolled out gradually in this build, including new File Explorer address bar support for paths containing double backslashes and quotation marks (for example, C:\Users\user or “C:\Users\user”), improving compatibility with a wider range of inputs.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8376.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.2075

Release date: May 8, 2026

Released to: Experimental 26H1 Channel (formerly Canary)

This build gradually rolls out, in Microsoft’s words, “a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience” of running Windows 26H1. It also improves performance when opening clipboard history.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.2075.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29585.1000

Release date: May 6, 2026

Released to: Experimental Future Platforms Channel (formerly Canary optional 29500)

This build gradually rolls out, in Microsoft’s words, “platform changes in moving to a new active development build.”

It also updates the experience when you use voice typing with the touch keyboard. To reduce distractions, the new design removes the previous full‑screen overlay and instead shows voice typing animations directly on the dictation key.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29585.1000.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8340

Release date: May 1, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

Several minor new improvements are being gradually rolled out in this build, including making Windows ShareSheet more intelligent for Azure Active Directory (AAD) users, with a simple setting to turn promotional app recommendations on or off. Previously, that capability was only available to Windows users with Managed Service Accounts (MSA).

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8340.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8346

Release date: May 1, 2026

Released to: Experimental Channel (formerly Dev)

A variety of new features are being rolled out gradually in this build, including making Windows ShareSheet more intelligent for Azure Active Directory (AAD) users, with a simple setting to turn promotional app recommendations on or off. Previously, that capability was only available to Windows users with Managed Service Accounts (MSA). Another change “quiets” the default behavior for Widgets, with the goal of making them feel less distracting and overwhelming.

There are several known issues in this build, including one in which Insiders who use Feature flags to enable the new WIP experience may see the feature state incorrectly marked as current; however, changing state and applying changes will work as expected.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8346.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1921

Release date: May 1, 2026

Released to: Experimental 26H1 Channel (formerly Canary)

This build gradually rolls out several improvements to Task Manager, including one that provides better insight into NPU usage for PCs that include an NPU. Optional NPU and NPU Engine columns are now available on the Processes, Users, and Details pages, with optional NPU Dedicated Memory and NPU Shared Memory columns on the Details page to give you deeper visibility into how workloads are using NPU resources. Additionally, if there are neural engines that are part of a GPU, they will now appear on the Performance page, providing a more complete view of AI‑related system activity.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1921.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29580.1000

Release date: May 1, 2026

Released to: Experimental Future Platforms Channel (formerly Canary optional 29500)

This build gradually rolls out, in Microsoft’s words, “a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running this build on their PCs.”

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29580.1000.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8283

Release date: April 24, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

Several minor new improvements and fixes are being gradually rolled out in this build, including improved detection of clicks at the leftmost edge of the taskbar to invoke the Start menu when the taskbar icons are left-aligned.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8283.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8289

Release date: April 24, 2026

Released to: Experimental Channel (formerly Dev)

In a phased rollout, Insiders in the Dev Channel are being moved to the new Experimental channel. Insiders who do not see the new experience on their device can enable it under Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program > Feature flags.

Several minor new features are also being rolled out gradually in this build, including improved detection of clicks at the leftmost edge of the taskbar to invoke the Start menu when the taskbar icons are left-aligned.

There is one known issue in this build: Insiders who use Feature flags to enable the new Insider experience may see the feature state incorrectly marked as current; however, changing the state and applying changes should work as expected.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8289.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28200.1873

Release date: April 24, 2026

Released to: Experimental 26H1 Channel (formerly Canary)

This build is gradually rolling out a variety of small improvements, including an updated voice typing experience for the touch keyboard. To reduce distractions, the new design shows voice typing animations directly on the dictation key rather than on a full-screen overlay.

It also fixes a bug in which Settings > Network & Internet > Data Usage showed large, unrealistic values.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28200.1873.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29576.1000

Release date: April 24, 2026

Released to: Experimental Future Platforms Channel (formerly Canary optional 29500)

This build is gradually rolling out a variety of changes, including Point-in-time restore for Windows, which can quickly roll your device back to a previous state, potentially helping minimize downtime and simplify troubleshooting when disruptions strike. 

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29576.1000.)

Windows 11 Builds 26100.8313 and 26200.8313 (KB5083631) 

Release date: April 17, 2026

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build introduces a wide variety of new features rolled out gradually, including a new way to monitor your agents from the taskbar. It supports agents across first- and third-party apps, with Researcher in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app as the first adopter. When Researcher works on a report, Windows shows progress on the taskbar so you can check updates at a glance.

For IT administrators, the update gradually rolls out support for a dynamic app removal list to the “Remove Default Microsoft Store packages” policy for Windows Enterprise and Education. It also removes default trust for cross‑signed third-party drivers, while drivers from the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) and an allow list of trusted legacy drivers remain allowed. Enterprise State Roaming can now be managed through Windows Backup for Organizations policies.

The update also immediately introduces two minor improvements for everyone. Windows quality updates now include additional high-confidence device targeting data, which increases coverage of devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates. In Windows Security, the name of the affected application is now included in event logging related to CVE‑2024‑30098. This change makes it easier to identify applications that rely on smart card certificates and may need updates following recent security changes.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Builds 26100.8313 and 26200.8313.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8271

Release date: April 17, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

Several minor new features were made available in this build for those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, including improved reliability and performance of Windows Hello fingerprint after your PC wakes from sleep.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8271.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8276

Release date: April 17, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, several minor new features are being gradually rolled for those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, including improved reliability and performance of Windows Hello fingerprint after your PC wakes from sleep.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8276.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1863

Release date: April 17, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build fixes a bug that prevented some apps from signing in due to a false report of no internet connectivity. The fix is rolling out gradually.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1863.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29570.1000

Release date: April 17, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel (29500 build series)

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates in the Canary Channel on the optional 29500 build series, this build has a variety of minor changes rolling out gradually, including more widget options and support for lock screen widget personalization, a new setting in Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Touchpad that lets you can choose how large the right-click zone is, and support for a dynamic app removal list to the “Remove Default Microsoft Store packages” policy for Windows Enterprise and Education.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29570.1000.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8165

Release date: April 10, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several minor features, including one in which the size limit for formatting FAT32 volumes via the command line has increased from 32GB to 2TB, and another in which the Windows Security app gets new badges and text that reflect your device’s Secure Boot state and certificate status.

It also gradually rolls out a fix for a bug that caused Settings > Network & Internet > Data Usage to show large, unrealistic values.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8165.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8170

Release date: April 10, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several minor features, including one in which the size limit for formatting FAT32 volumes via the command line has increased from 32GB to 2TB, and another in which the Windows Security app gets new badges and text that reflect your device’s Secure Boot state and certificate status.

It also gradually rolls out a fix for a bug that caused Settings > Network & Internet > Data Usage to show large, unrealistic values.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8170.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1812

Release date: April 10, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out general improvements and fixes, including a new setting that lets users choose the size of their touchpad’s right-click zone, as well as new badges and text in the Windows Security app that reflect your device’s Secure Boot state and certificate status.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1812.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29565.1000

Release date: April 10, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel (29500 build series)

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates in the Canary Channel on the optional 29500 build series, this build includes “platform changes in moving to a new active development build,” as well as new badges and text in the Windows Security app that reflect your device’s Secure Boot state and certificate status

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29565.1000.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8148

Release date: April 3, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several minor features, including a new icon in print settings to indicate when a printer supports Windows Protected Print Mode.

Several bugs are also being fixed, including one in which some apps weren’t able to sign in, citing an internal connection issue when internet was actually connected.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8148.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8155

Release date: April 3, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several minor features, including one in which users will be able to feel haptic feedback effects on compatible input devices while performing certain actions, such as aligning objects in PowerPoint, window snapping, resizing, or hovering over the Close button. These haptic effects can be configured in Settings under Bluetooth & devices > Mouse > Haptic signals.

Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which some apps weren’t able to sign in, citing an internal connection issue when internet was actually connected.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8155.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1803

Release date: April 3, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates in the Canary Channel, this build includes a small set of general improvements and fixes, including improved reliability for configuring the fluid dictation option in voice typing settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1803.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29560.1000

Release date: April 3, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel (29500 build series)

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates in the Canary Channel on the optional 29500 build series, this build “includes platform changes in moving to a new active development build,” in the words of Microsoft. Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which attached USB devices weren’t working for some Insiders.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29560.1000.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8138

Release date: March 30, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several new features, including one in which you can enable Administrator Protection in Settings under Privacy & security > Windows Security > Account protection and switching the toggle to on. A restart will be required. 

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8138.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8142

Release date: March 30, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several new features, including one in which you can enable Administrator Protection in Settings under Privacy & security > Windows Security > Account protection and switching the toggle to on. A restart will be required. 

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8142.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1797

Release date: March 30, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

This update, in the words of Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience” of running Windows 11.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1797.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29558.1000

Release date: March 30, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel (29500 build series)

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates in the Windows 11 Insider Canary Channel on the optional 29500 build series, this build introduces several new features, including a variety of improvements to the Windows Console, many of which were created by open-source contributors. Several bugs have also been fixed, including an authentication error people received when trying to connect to Azure Virtual Desktop.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29558.1000.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8079

Release date: March 20, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several bug fixes, including for one in which the Network and Sharing Center incorrectly displayed two active Wi-Fi connections after switching from one Wi-Fi network to another. The Network and Sharing Center now correctly shows a single active Wi-Fi connection when you connect to a new network. 

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8079.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8085

Release date: March 20, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build resumes rollout of the Point Indicator Accessibility setting, which enables low-vision users to easily locate and use their cursor. The build also introduces the new Feedback Hub, which offers Insiders simpler navigation and feedback submission flows.

In addition, several bugs were fixed, including one in which the Network and Sharing Center incorrectly displayed two active Wi-Fi connections after switching from one Wi-Fi network to another. The Network and Sharing Center now correctly shows a single active Wi-Fi connection when you connect to a new network.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8085.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1743

Release date: March 20, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build includes several new features being rolled out gradually, including one in which shared audio now provides individual sliders for each listener which adjusts their volume without affecting the other. You can continue to adjust volume for both listeners at the same time through the main volume controls available through Quick Settings or on-device and keyboard controls.

The build also introduces the new Feedback Hub, which offers Insiders simpler navigation and feedback submission flows.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1743.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29553.1000

Release date: March 20, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel (29500 build series)

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates in the Canary Channel’s optional 29500 build series, this build introduces the new Feedback Hub, which offers Insiders simpler navigation and feedback submission flows.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29553.1000.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8062

Release date: March 13, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build includes numerous changes and refinements, including an update to the “Remove Default Microsoft Store packages” policy for Windows Enterprise and Education SKUs that allows IT administrators to remove MSIX/APPX apps by adding their app package family name (PFNs) to a dynamic list.

Starting with this update, the Windows kernel will enforce a new policy removing default trust for cross-signed drivers. The policy allows third-party drivers from the WHCP program by default, with an allow list of trustworthy publishers and drivers from the cross-signing program.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.8062.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8068

Release date: March 13, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build includes numerous changes and refinements, including an update to the “Remove Default Microsoft Store packages” policy for Windows Enterprise and Education SKUs that allows IT administrators to remove MSIX/APPX apps by adding their app package family name (PFNs) to a dynamic list.

Starting with this update, the Windows kernel will enforce a new policy removing default trust for cross-signed drivers. The policy allows third-party drivers from the WHCP program by default, with an allow list of trustworthy publishers and drivers from the cross-signing program.

(Get more info about  Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.8068.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1737

Release date: March 13, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build makes refinements to the Pen settings page, including small changes to the options for the pen tail button. A new option, “Same as Copilot key,” enables the pen tail button to launch the same app as the Copilot key.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1737.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29550.1000

Release date: March 13, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel (29500 build series)

For those  who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates in the Canary Channel’s optional 29500 build series, this build has a variety of minor changes, including one in which changes to global power settings (for example, Display, Sleep, Hibernate timeouts, Power/Sleep button, and lid close actions) from Settings are now applied to all power plans. This should help improve persistence of chosen settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29550.1000.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds 26100.8106 and 26200.8106

Release date: March 12, 2026

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build introduces a wide range of minor features being rolled out gradually, including the ability to turn Smart App Control (SAC) on or off without needing a clean install. To make changes, go to Settings > Windows Security > App & Browser Control > Smart App Control settings. When turned on, SAC helps block untrusted or potentially harmful apps.

The update also improves stability in Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) when you run x64 apps on ARM64 devices. These apps run more smoothly and respond as expected.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds 26100.8106 and 26200.8106.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7961

Release date: March 6, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build re-enables Administrator protection, which aims to protect free-floating admin rights for administrator users, allowing them to still perform all admin functions with just-in-time admin privileges. This feature is off by default and can be enabled via OMA-URI in Intune or via group policy.

Other changes and improvements being gradually rolled out to the same group include the ability to use voice typing (Windows key + H) when renaming files in File Explorer, as well as a smaller peek view in the drag tray.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Build 26220.7961.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7965

Release date: March 6, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build re-enables Administrator protection, which aims to protect free-floating admin rights for administrator users, allowing them to still perform all admin functions with just-in-time admin privileges. This feature is off by default and can be enabled via OMA-URI in Intune or via group policy.

Other changes and improvements being gradually rolled out to the same group include the ability to use voice typing when renaming files in File Explorer, as well as a smaller peek view in the drag tray.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7965.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1685

Release date: March 6, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build lets you use voice typing (Windows key + H) when renaming files in File Explorer. The build also improves the reliability of removing Windows Update files and windows.old files via Settings > System > Storage.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1685.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7934

Release date: Feb. 27, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gives administrators and Application Control for Business policy authors additional controls over the processing of batch files and CMD scripts. Starting with this release, admins can enable a more secure mode for processing batch files that ensures they do not change during execution by adding a value to the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor named LockBatchFilesWhenInUse (DWORD, value 0 or 1). Policy authors can also use the LockBatchFilesWhenInUse application manifest control documented here to enable this mode.

There are a variety of other improvements being rolled out gradually, including one in which a new taskbar indicator displays while you’re sharing, giving a quick reminder that audio is still being shared. Clicking the indicator is a fast path to open sharing settings to change volume or stop sharing.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7934.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7939

Release date: Feb. 27, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

For those who opted to receive the latest updates, this build gives administrators and Application Control for Business policy authors additional controls over the processing of batch files and CMD scripts. Starting with this release, admins can enable a more secure mode for processing batch files that ensures they do not change during execution by adding a value to the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor named LockBatchFilesWhenInUse (DWORD, value 0 or 1). Policy authors can also use the LockBatchFilesWhenInUse application manifest control documented here to enable this mode.

There are a variety of other improvements being rolled out gradually, including one in which a new taskbar indicator displays while you’re sharing, offering a quick reminder that audio is still being shared. Clicking the indicator is a fast path to open sharing settings to change volume or stop sharing.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7939.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1673

Release date: Feb. 27, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

For those who have opted to receive the latest updates, this build gets a variety of new features being rolled out gradually, including one in which Quick Machine Recovery (QMR) now turns on automatically for enterprise managed Windows Professional devices, as well as Windows Professional devices that are not domain-joined. These devices receive the same recovery features available to Windows Home users. For domain-joined devices, QMR stays off unless it is enabled by the organization.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1673.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7872

Release date: February 20, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build offers a variety of new features, including simplified specifications on the ‘Device info’ Card on the Settings Home page and improved mouseover animations for app groups on the taskbar.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7872.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7877

Release date: February 20, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build offers a variety of new features, including simplified specifications on the ‘Device info’ Card on the Settings Home page and improved mouseover animations for app groups on the taskbar.

Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which all File Explorer open windows and tabs unexpectedly jumped to Desktop or Home.

Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7877.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1619

Release date: February 20, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build offers a variety of new features, including one in which Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) supports peripheral fingerprint sensors. Previously, ESS was only available on PCs with built-in biometric sensors, but now it can be used when you plug in a supported ESS fingerprint reader.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1619.)

Optional Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29531.1000

Release date: February 18, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

This build is the first in a new Canary Channel optional path with a focus on platform development, which will introduce new features before the existing 28000 Canary Channel series. Microsoft recommends that most people remain on the 28000 build path, but adds that those who want to get the newest platform changes as early as possible may want to switch to this new 29500 path. Note, though, that if you switch to the 29500 path by installing this build, you won’t be able to go back to the 28000 Canary Channel series.

The build itself, in Microsoft’s words, “includes platform changes in moving to a new active development build.”

Microsoft warns, “because of the focus on platform development for this path, you may notice a temporary loss in some features that you have today. These features will return to this new active development build.”

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29531.1000.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7859

Release date: February 17, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build displays an option to upgrade to a different Microsoft 365 plan on the Accounts page within the Settings app. It also rolls out fixes for several bugs, including one in which all File Explorer open windows and tabs unexpectedly jumped to Desktop or Home.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Preview Build 26220.7859.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds 26100.7918 and 26200.7918

Release date: February 17, 2026

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a variety of new features, including one in which Quick Machine Recovery (QMR) now turns on automatically for Windows Professional devices that are not domain‑joined and not enrolled in enterprise endpoint management. These devices receive the same recovery features available to Windows Home users. For domain‑joined or enterprise managed devices, QMR stays off unless it is enabled by the organization. The build also improves login screen reliability.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds 26100.7918 and 26200.7918.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1611

Release date: February 12, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

This build brings Sysmon functionality natively to Windows. Sysmon functionality allows you to capture system events that can help with threat detection, and you can use custom configuration files to filter the events you want to monitor. The captured events are written on the Windows event log, enabling them to be used with security applications and in a wide range of use cases.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1611.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7755

Release date: February 9, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several new features, including Emoji 16.0, which contains a new set of emojis, and the ability to directly control pan and tilt for supported cameras in the Settings app.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 226220.7755.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7760

Release date: February 9, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several new features, including Emoji 16.0, which contains a new set of emojis, and the ability to directly control pan and tilt for supported cameras in the Settings app.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7760.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1546

Release date: February 4, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

This update, in the words of Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders” running Windows.

It also fixes one bug that affected apps working with files stored on OneDrive or Dropbox.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1546.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7752

Release date: February 3, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

Those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get Sysmon functionality natively in Windows. Sysmon functionality allows you to capture system events that can help with threat detection, and you can use custom configuration files to filter the events you want to monitor. The captured events are written on the Windows event log, enabling them to be used with security applications and a wide range of use cases. (This feature is being gradually rolled out.)

The same group also gets a number of bug fixes being gradually rolled out, including for a File Explorer bug in which icons/tooltips for “Add to favorites” were missing.

(Get more info about Insider Preview Build 26220.7752.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7733

Release date: February 3, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

Those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get Sysmon functionality natively in Windows. Sysmon functionality allows you to capture system events that can help with threat detection, and you can use custom configuration files to filter the events you want to monitor. The captured events are written on the Windows event log, enabling them to be used with security applications and a wide range of use cases. (This feature is being gradually rolled out.)

The same group also gets a number of bug fixes being gradually rolled out, including for a File Explorer bug in which icons/tooltips for “Add to favorites” were missing.

(Get more info about Insider Preview Build 26300.7733.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1495

Release date: January 28, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build, in Microsoft’s words, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience [of Windows 11].” It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one that led to the Windows Update settings page hanging when loading.

The build has two known issues, one that sometimes causes all open File Explorer windows and tabs to unexpectedly jump to Desktop or Home in File Explorer, and another in which the desktop watermark is showing the wrong build number.

(Get more info about Insider Preview Build 28020.1495.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds 26100.7701 and 26200.7701

Release date: January 27, 2026

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a variety of new features for Copilot+ PCs, including one in which Narrator gives you more control over how it announces on‑screen controls. You can choose which details are spoken and adjust their order to match how you navigate apps. These settings apply throughout the app to help reduce extra speech and make Narrator easier to follow.

The build also immediately rolls out a variety of new features for all PCs, including one in Data Protection Application Programming Interface (DPAPI) domain backup key management. Administrators can now set how often keys rotate automatically. This strengthens cryptographic security and reduces reliance on older encryption algorithms.

(Get more info about Insider Preview Builds 26100.7701 and 26200.7701.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7670

Release date: January 27, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several bug fixes, including for an issue in which the Search process was showing an icon with an X instead of a magnifying glass.

The build has five known issues, including one in which some Insiders’ apps aren’t showing in the system tray when they should be.

(Get more info about Insider Preview Build 26220.7670.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26300.7674

Release date: January 27, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, the Dev Channel jumps ahead to receive 26300 series builds. This means that the window to switch from the Dev Channel to the Beta Channel is closed once Build 26300.7674is installed on your PC. This build for the Dev Channel is identical to the Windows 11 Build 26220.7653 release (see below).

(Get more info about Insider Preview Build 26300.7674.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7653

Release date: January 21, 2026

Released to: Dev Channel

This build for the Dev Channel is identical to the January 16th Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7653 released to the Beta Channel. See the writeup below for details.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7653.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7653

Release date: January 16, 2026

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out several changes, including one in which you can now set .webp images for your desktop background in Settings > Personalization > Desktop Background.

The same group also gets a number of bug fixes being gradually rolled out, including for a bug in which Settings crashed when interacting with audio devices.

The build has four known issues, including one in which some Insiders’ apps aren’t showing in the system tray when they should be.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7653.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1371 

Release date: January 14, 2026

Released to: Canary Channel

This build gradually rolls out a variety of bug fixes for those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, including a bug in which File Explorer showed a white flash when navigating between pages.

There is one known issue in this build: The desktop watermark shows the wrong build number.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1371.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7535

Release date: January 9, 2026

Released to: Dev & Beta Channels

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out Copilot-powered image descriptions to Narrator on Copilot+ PCs, making it possible for blind and low-vision users to hear detailed, AI-generated descriptions of images, charts, and graphs.

The same group also gets a number of bug fixes being gradually rolled out, including for an issue in which File Explorer was causing explorer.exe to crash for some Insiders when invoking the context menu on the desktop.

The build has seven known issues, including one in which Settings crashes when interacting with audio devices.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7535.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7523

Release date: December 19, 2025

Released to: Dev & Beta Channels

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out a version of Copilot on the taskbar tailored for commercial customers. It uses Work IQ as contextual information that they can reference in their Copilot chats and with Microsoft 365 AI agents. In addition, the build introduces Agent Launchers, a new framework that enables Windows apps to register AI agents and make them discoverable across the system.

The same group also gets a number of bug fixes being gradually rolled out, including one that addresses an issue in which File Explorer showed a white flash when navigating between pages.

The build has nine known issues, including one in which opening the context menu is causing explorer.exe to crash for some Insiders.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7523.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1362

Release date: December 15, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build gradually rolls out several new features for Copilot+ PCs, including a streamlined design for the Click to Do context menu that makes frequently used actions like Copy, Save, Share, and Open easier to access. It also rolls out new features for all PCs, including improvements to the dark mode experience in File Explorer.

A variety of bug fixes are being gradually rolled out, including one for an issue in which Settings became unresponsive when attempting to navigate to the Network & Internet section.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28020.1362.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28000.1340 

Release date: December 9, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, a “small set of general improvements and fixes” that improve Windows. It also enables more of the new features and improvements originally released with the October non-security preview update for Windows 11.

In addition, the build fixes a bug that caused some Storage Spaces to become inaccessible or Storage Spaces Direct to fail when creating a storage cluster.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28000.1340.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7344

Release date: December 5, 2025

Released to: Dev & Beta Channels

For those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build offers native support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that gives AI agents a universal way to connect with apps, tools, and services. Agents can discover and connect to these tools and other agents via a secure, manageable Windows on-device registry (ODR). By default, all agent connectors in the Windows ODR will be contained in a secure environment with their own identity and audit trail.

In addition, Quick machine recovery (QMR) will now be turned on automatically for Windows Professional devices that are not domain joined. These devices will get the same recovery features as Windows Home users. For enterprise computers that are domain joined, nothing changes — QMR will stay off unless your organization turns it on.

Those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates also get a number of bug fixes, including addressing a bug in which the search window to unexpectedly started floating above the taskbar.

The build has seven known issues, including one in which File Explorer shows a white flash when navigating between pages.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7344.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7271

Release date: November 21, 2025

Released to:  Dev & Beta Channels

This build introduces several features being rolled out gradually for those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates. These include point-in-time restore for Windows, which lets you to quickly roll your device back to a previous state to minimize downtime and simplify troubleshooting, and (on NPU devices) fluid dictation in voice typing, which automatically corrects grammar, punctuation, and filler words as you speak.

The build also expands the availability of the Xbox full-screen experience to additional Windows 11 PCs. You can add a controller to your PC for task switching and streamlined gaming on your desktop, laptop, or tablet.

Those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates also get several bug fixes, including one that resolves a hung taskbar after receiving certain notifications.

The build has seven known issues, including one in which File Explorer shows a white flash when navigating between pages.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7271.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28000.1199

Release date: November 18, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, a “small set of general improvements and fixes” that improve Windows.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28000.1199.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds 26100.7296 and 26200.7296

Release date: November 17, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This update introduces a wide range of features being rolled out gradually, including several for Copilot+ PCs, such as Windows Studio Effects, which provide AI-powered camera enhancements on an additional, alternative camera such as a USB webcam or your laptop’s built-in rear camera.

All Windows 11 PCs get a variety of new features being gradually rolled out, including Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS), now supporting peripheral fingerprint sensors. Also, on PCs with the settings “quick machine recovery” and “automatically check for solutions” both enabled, Quick Machine Recovery now runs a one‑time scan by default instead of repeating scans in a loop. If a fix isn’t available right away, QMR will quickly point you to the most appropriate recovery options to get you back up and running.

A bug fix is being immediately rolled out to all PCs to address an issue that affects Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS), when LSASS could become unstable due to an access violation.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds 26100.7296 and 26200.7296.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7262

Release date: November 17, 2025

Released to: Beta and Dev Channels

In this build, those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of features being gradually rolled out, including using high-definition voices for English (US) in Narrator and Magnifier that use generative AI to adjust tone and pacing for more natural, expressive speech. Also rolling out is a new “Experimental agentic features” toggle in the Settings app that enables the creation of AI agent accounts and an agent workspace, and grants agentic apps access to your Documents, Downloads, Desktop, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders. (Find out more about experimental agentic features.)

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including for a bug in which the Task Manager process wasn’t stopping correctly after Task Manager was closed. As a result, Task Manager might have been unexpectedly open on boot.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which the scrollbar and footer are missing in File Explorer and when text is scaled in the dark mode version of the copy dialog.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7262.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7070

Release date: November 7, 2025

Released to: Beta and Dev Channels

In this build, those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of features being gradually rolled out, including the ability to choose your default dashboard in an updated Widget Board Settings.

Everyone gets an updated Quick Machine Recovery in Windows, which makes it easier and quicker to get back to a working PC. The experience in both Windows Settings and the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) has been streamlined.

A variety of bug fixes are being rolled out gradually to those who have opted to receive the latest updates, including one that fixes a bug in which the “Automatically hide the taskbar” setting unexpectedly turned off after displaying a message saying, “a toolbar is already hidden on this side of your screen.”

There are five known issues in this build, including one in which the scrollbar and footer are missing in File Explorer when text is scaled in the dark mode version of the copy dialog.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7070.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28000

Release date: November 7, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, a “small set of general improvements and fixes.” There are also a variety of bug fixes, including for a bug in which the credentials window was not accessible when trying to log in to Outlook.

There are two known issues in this build, one in which sleep and shutdown aren’t working correctly for some Insiders, and the other in which the new Start menu unexpectedly scrolls to the top.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 28000.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27982

Release date: November 4, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build gradually rolls out several new features, including one in which you can add, remove, and rearrange lock screen widgets such as Weather, Watchlist, and Sports on the lock screen. Windows also provides suggested widgets on the lock screen. To customize your lock screen widgets, go to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen.

Also new is a “drag tray” that appears at the top of your screen when you drag a local file from File Explorer or your desktop. You can drop the file into one of the displayed apps or select More to open the Windows share window.

A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which if you used your PC for a while without rebooting, explorer.exe might start crashing repeatedly.

There are two known issues in this build, one in which sleep and shutdown aren’t working correctly for some Insiders, and the other in which the new Start menu unexpectedly scrolls to the top.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27982.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7051

Release date: October 31, 2025

Released to: Beta and Dev Channels

In this build, those have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of features being gradually rolled out, including Ask Copilot in the taskbar, which gives  you one-click access to Copilot Vision and Voice, so you can search via Copilot using text, voice, or guided support with Copilot Vision. As you type, results appear and update instantly. Turn it on by going to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Ask Copilot.  You can also manage whether the Copilot app launches automatically at sign-in using the “Auto start on log in” toggle in the Copilot app settings.

The same group gets a variety of bug fixes being rolled out gradually, including one to address an issue in which  interacting with a folder or its contents in Start menu could result in the folder becoming invisible.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which the scrollbar and footer are missing in File Explorer when text is scaled in the dark mode version of the copy dialog.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7051.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6982

Release date: October 24, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of changes being gradually rolled out, including Copy & Search, which allows you to search the text in your clipboard with a single click. When you copy text anywhere in Windows, a paste gleam will appear in your search box. Click on this gleam and your copied text will appear in the search field, allowing you to search instantly.

The same group gets a variety of bug fixes, including one for a bug in which the search icon in File Explorer sometimes infinitely looped in an animation.

There are five known issues in this build, including one in which the scrollbar and footer are missing in File Explorer when text is scaled in dark mode version of the copy dialog.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6982.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27975 

Release date: October 23, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, a “small set of general improvements and fixes” that improve Windows.

A variety of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which Settings crashed when accessing drive information under Settings > System > Storage. This also impacted accessing the drive information from the properties when you right-clicked a drive in File Explorer.

There are two known issues in this build, one in which sleep and shutdown aren’t working correctly for some Insiders, and the other in which the new Start menu unexpectedly scrolled to the top.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27975.)

Windows 11 Builds 26100.7015 and 26200.7015

Release date: October 21, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This update includes a wide variety of new features being rolled out gradually, including a redesigned Start menu that includes a scrollable All section, has new category and grid views, and which adapts to your screen size. The build also includes new features for Click to Do, which can now translate text into other languages. File Explorer now has a recommended files feature that shows content such as files you frequently use, have recently downloaded, or have added to your File Explorer Gallery.

Two bugs are fixed in this build: one that caused an ACCESS_DENIED error when users attempted to change passwords remotely on member servers or workgroup devices, even when they had the required permissions, and another in which protected content playback failed on some machines after installing KB506408.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds 26100.7015 and 26200.7015.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6972

Release date: October 17, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a new feature being rolled out slowly, which lets you add and manage your mobile devices from Settings by navigating to “Mobile Devices” under the Bluetooth & Devices section. The page allows you to view your mobile devices, add new mobile devices, and manage features such as using your device as a connected camera or accessing your device’s files in File Explorer.

Those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get two bug fixes being rolled out slowly, one for a bug that caused File Explorer to show a Catastrophic Error (0x8000FFFF) when extracting large (1.5GB+) archive files, and another that sometimes caused an old white toolbar to randomly appear in File Explorer.

There are five known issues in this build, including one in which the scrollbar and footer are missing in File Explorer when text is scaled in the copy dialog in dark mode.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6972.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27971 

Release date: October 16, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this build, the Notification Center can be used on secondary monitors. You’ll be able to see your calendar on any of your monitors and open Notification Center on any of them by clicking the date and time in the system tray of your taskbar. Note that this functionality will be rolled out gradually.

A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which File Explorer crashed when transferring files to a network drive.

There are three known issues in this build, including one in which sleep and shutdown aren’t working correctly for some Insiders.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27971.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6780 

Release date: October 10, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a handful of changes and new features, including one in Settings in which more results appear in the search flyout and let you quickly modify the settings you’re searching for.

Those with any PCs who have turned the toggle on get several changes, including a new OneDrive icon in Accounts and Homepages in Settings, and the return of the ability to enable Administrator Protection via Windows Security under Account protection.

The same group gets a variety of bug fixes, including one for an issue in the previous flight in which File Explorer frequently crashed, and another that was causing the Start menu to unexpectedly scroll to the top when interacting with it.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which the scrollbar and footer are missing in File Explorer when text is scaled in the copy dialog in dark mode.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6780.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6780 

Release date: October 10, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This update is identical to Build 26120.6780 for the Beta Channel, detailed above.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6780.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27965

Release date: October 8, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update introduces a new scrollable Start menu, with “All” on the top level, so apps are accessible without having to navigate to a secondary page. There are also new category and grid views to browse and launch your installed apps in the “All” section. The new menu adapts its size based on your device’s screen size.

There are also several bug fixes, including one in which the taskbar was not autohiding correctly.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which Settings may crash when accessing drive information under Settings > System > Storage. This also impacts accessing the drive information from the properties when you right-click a drive in File Explorer.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27965.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27959

Release date: October 6, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update introduces the option to move the hardware indicators for brightness, volume, airplane mode, and virtual desktops to different positions on your screen, including the current bottom position and new top-left and top-center positions.

There are also a variety of bug fixes, including for one in which icons and text sometimes overlapped on the desktop when using increased text scaling.

There is one known issue in this build, in which sleep and shutdown aren’t working correctly for some Insiders.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27959.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6772

Release date: October 6, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features, including Image Object select for Click to Do in Copilot+ PCs, in which you can   hover over your image to preview selectable areas. Once selected, you can copy and paste your object into other apps or use it to kick off a chat with Copilot. Also included are improvements to dark mode for File Explorer for all PCs and the ability to use peripheral fingerprint sensors with Windows Hello. These changes are rolling out gradually.

The same group gets a variety of bugs fixed, including one in which Encrypted File System (EFS) related dialogs in File Explorer weren’t responding to increased text scaling. The bug fixes are rolling out gradually.

There are five known issues in this build, including one in which some searches may show unexpected text instead of the expected results and images.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6772.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6772 

Release date: October 6, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This update is identical to Build 26120.6772, detailed above.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6772.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6760

Release date: September 29, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features, including the ability to do a network speed test straight from the taskbar. You can launch it via the Wi-Fi and Cellular Quick Settings pages or by right-clicking the network icon in the system tray. The tool opens in your default browser and supports testing Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and cellular connections. It helps in assessing network performance and troubleshooting.

The same group gets a variety of bug fixes, including for an issue in which the battery icon got out of sync with the actual charging state — for example, it would show that you weren’t plugged in when you were.

Everyone in the Beta Channel gets a variety of bug fixes, including one for developers that addresses an issue in which PIX on Windows was unable to play back GPU captures. 

There are six known issues in this build, including one in which some searches may show unexpected text instead of the expected results and images.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6760.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6760 

Release date: September 29, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build is for those who have already upgraded to Windows 11 version 25H2.

In this build, those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features, including the ability to do a network speed test straight from the taskbar. You can launch it via the Wi-Fi and Cellular Quick Settings pages or by right-clicking the network icon in the system tray. The tool opens in your default browser and supports testing Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and cellular connections. It helps in assessing network performance and troubleshooting.

The same group gets a variety of bug fixes, including for an issue in which the battery icon got out of sync with the actual charging state — for example, it would show that you weren’t plugged in when you were.

Everyone in the Dev Channel gets a variety of bug fixes, including one for developers that addresses an issue in which PIX on Windows was unable to play back GPU captures. 

There are six known issues in this build, including one in which some searches may show unexpected text instead of the expected results and images.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6760.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27954

Release date: September 25, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running” Windows. It also includes fixes one bug in which you might not be able to connect to shared files and folders if you were using the Server Message Block (SMB) v1 protocol on NetBIOS over TCP/IP NetBIOS (NetBT) after the latest updates.

There is one known issue in this build, in which PIX on Windows is unable to play back GPU captures on this OS version. This will be addressed by a new PIX release, estimated to arrive by the end of September. In the meantime, if you are affected, you can use the “Send Feedback” button in PIX or contact Microsoft on the DirectX Discord server and get help via private builds.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27954.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6690

Release date: September 19, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have Copilot+ PCs and have turned on a toggle to receive the latest update, this build gradually rolls out several new features, including one in which Click to Do can let users translate on-screen text with just a few clicks. 

All PCs that have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one in which File Explorer became unresponsive if a UNC server name was directly typed into address bar. There are 10 known issues in this build, including one in which the placeholder text in the Settings search box may appear vertically misaligned.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6690.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6690

Release date: September 19, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build is for those who have already upgraded to Windows 11 version 25H2. 

For those who have Copilot+ PCs and have turned on a toggle to receive the latest update, this build gradually rolls out several new features, including one in which Click to Do can let you translate on-screen text with just a few clicks. 

All PCs which have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one in which File Explorer became unresponsive if a UNC server name was directly typed into address bar. There are 10 known issues in this build, including one in which the placeholder text in the Settings search box may appear vertically misaligned.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6690.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27950

Release date: September 19, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running” Windows. In addition, Advanced Settings will revert to the previous “For Developers” experience after updating to this build. 

There are also a number of bug fixes, including one in which the app preview windows in the taskbar became misaligned (away from the app icon you’d clicked / hovered over) after a display resolution change. 

There are two known issues in this build, including one for developers in which PIX on Windows is unable to play back GPU captures. This will be addressed by a new PIX release, estimated to arrive by the end of September. In the meantime, anyone impacted can use the “Send Feedback” button in PIX or contact Microsoft on the DirectX Discord server and Microsoft can help provide private builds.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27950.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds 26100.6713 and 26200.6713

Release date: September 12, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

Build 26100.6713 is for those on Windows 11 24H2, and 26200.6713 is for those on Windows 25H2.

These builds gradually roll out a large number of new features, including AI actions in File Explorer for editing images or summarizing documents, and the ability to pin favorite apps in the Windows share window to quickly access them when you need them.

The builds fix several bugs immediately, including one that disrupted Windows Update for those using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). Additionally, several bug fixes are being gradually rolled out, including for a bug in which when Windows Sandbox was enabled, the VmmemCmFirstBoot process may have consumed large amounts of CPU after login, causing your PC to become unresponsive.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds 26100.6713 and 26200.6713.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6682

Release date: September 12, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have Copilot+ PCs and have turned the toggle on to receive the latest update, this build gradually rolls out a new Copilot prompt box in Click to Do designed to streamline interaction with Microsoft Copilot.

New emoji from Emoji 16.0 are being gradually rolled out in the emoji panel for those who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including for one that caused some PCs to bug check (green screen) while hibernating, and another in which the Shared section in File Explorer Home was visible even if there was no content to display.

There are seven known issues in this build, including one in which the placeholder text in the Settings search box may appear vertically misaligned.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.6682.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6682

Release date: September 12, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build is for those who have already upgraded to Windows 11 version 25H2.

For those who have Copilot+ PCs and have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, this build gradually rolls out a new Copilot prompt box in Click to Do designed to streamline interaction with Microsoft Copilot. New emoji from Emoji 16.0 are also being gradually rolled out to the same group.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including for one that caused some PCs to bug check (green screen) while hibernating, and another in which the Shared section in File Explorer Home was visible even if there was no content to display.

There are seven known issues in this build, including one in which the placeholder text in the Settings search box may appear vertically misaligned.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6682.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27943

Release date: September 11, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running” Windows.

There are also a number of bug fixes, including for a bug that caused Settings > System > Storage > Temporary files to get stuck when scanning files. This issue also caused the entry to clean up previous Windows Installations to not show in Storage Settings.

There are five known issues in this build, including one in which audio stops working and Device Manager shows one or more devices with a yellow exclamation mark, including “ACPI Audio Compositor” and others. Selecting Properties on these devices will show “Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing.”

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27943.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27938

Release date: September 8, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build introduces AI actions into File Explorer. These offer new capabilities when you right-click a file, such as editing a graphic or summarizing a Word document. For now, there are four of them, all related to image files. You can perform a Bing search based on an image file, blur the background in an image, erase objects in an image, and remove the background in an image.

A number of bugs have been fixed, including one that caused Task Manager to freeze when going to the performance section, and another in which the red color used for a low space drive in This PC was unexpectedly light colored.

The build has five known issues, including one in which audio stops working and Device Manager shows one or more devices with a yellow exclamation mark.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27938.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.5790 

Release date: September 5, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

For those who have Copilot+ PCs, this build introduces fluid dictation, which makes voice-based dictation easier. It automatically corrects grammar, punctuation, and filler words as you speak, reducing the need for manual editing. In addition, being rolled out on supported Copilot+ PCs is the ability to use Studio Effect’s AI-powered camera enhancements with an additional, alternative camera — such as a USB webcam or your laptop’s built-in rear camera.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new on-hover actions in File Manager Home for faster file management.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug in which the right-click context menu in File Explorer sometimes unexpectedly switched back and forth between the normal initial view and “Show more options” with each right-click when certain apps were installed.

There are five known issues in this build, including one in which for some users, the Shared section in File Explorer Home may be visible even if there is no content to display.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.5790.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.5790 

Release date: September 5, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build appears to be identical to Build 26120.5790 for the Beta Channel, detailed above.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.5790.)

Echoing concerns from other security experts, Orange Cyberdefense (OC) recently warned that employees have become the biggest security threat faced by business. 

Now, in the latest illustration of its ongoing security response, Apple is putting new protections in place in macOS 26.4 that should help – but employee education remains critical as hackers turn to complex, multi-stage, social engineering attacks to infest systems with malware.

Your people are your weakness

The data tells its own story. OC explains: Employees account for 57% of all security incidents and 45% of these incidents come when workers bypass or ignore security policies by, for example, using unapproved tools. 

Attackers are actively searching for and exploiting those kinds of policy workarounds, seeking weaknesses in commonly used, but unapproved, tools. Users really should educate themselves.

While companies can put some mitigations in place using device management and policy controls to constrain app use and downloads across their endpoints, Apple is also working to keep systems secure with a focus on the Terminal app. 

Terminal’s early warning system

In this case, it will introduce new malware warnings and protections to help prevent people from using Terminal to override system security to install malware-laden scripts. That’s the attack vector currently being used in the ClickFix series of attacks, which use fake macOS utilities to trick Mac users into doing just that.

It’s yet another example of how attackers rely on complex social engineering attacks to fool targets into undermining their own security. These attacks often begin with an attempt to get users to install infostealer malware on their own machines, and run them, bypassing Mac’s native malware defence.

Apple already has many, many protections to help combat attacks like these; now, we’ll see warnings in macOS Tahoe 26.4 whenever a relatively novice user pastes anything into the Terminal. Apple’s XProtect continues to block known malicious scripts. 

Helping people make better decisions

These warnings don’t appear in the first 24 hours after setting up a Mac, nor do they appear if a user has developer tools such as Xcode installed. That’s because Apple assumes developers are savvy enough to avoid falling for such tricks, while many users setting up their Macs may have legitimate need to use Terminal for legitimate purposes. (Apple will always warn when you try to paste code from sources known to be malicious.)

To an extent, Apple’s new protection reflects its belief that users should have choice while ensuring they are informed. Figuring out when to warn a user of the dangers they take has always been a challenge, as you don’t want to interfere in the user experience too heavily. But the prevalence of the kinds of threats OC warns about pushed Apple to put a new gate in place. 

FileVault keys come to the Passwords app

This isn’t the only new protection Apple has planned for macOS 26.4. The update does something many have long wanted. Ever since Apple’s first M-series chips arrived, we’ve had situations in which users forget their FileVault key, which can lead to Macs getting bricked when sold. Apple has now moved the macOS FileVault recovery key into users’ end-to-end encrypted Passwords app.

That’s good in two ways: it removes the threat Apple could lose or leak the key and makes it easier for a user to recover that key using the Passwords app on anther device. When you protect the data on your Mac with FileVault, you get a recovery key during set-up. If you forget the password for your Mac, you can reset the password by entering the recovery key.

Finally, IT admins seeking to ensure compliance with security policies will appreciate that Apple began rolling out Background Security Improvements in iOS 26.3.1, iPadOS 26.3.1 and macOS 26.3.1 to deliver incremental fixes and additional protections in between normal software updates. Still, as the OC data shows, the best and most effective security (beyond moving to a Mac) is to ensure employees fully understand the implications and significance of your company’s current security policies.

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AI is capable of mimicking a real person. It’s clear this capability exists, and the ethics of using AI for this purpose are often very clear. But increasingly, new applications are leading to ethically murky results. 

The good

For example, the CEO of a company, or a politician, could choose to create a clone using AI tools, creating a chatbot plus an avatar — a digital twin — that can interact with people on their behalf. Silicon Valley is big on the idea: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman are working on, or have already created, digital twins of themselves. 

Cloned politicians include Pakistan’s Imran Khan, who used an authorized voice clone to campaign from prison, and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who used voice-cloned robocalls to speak with constituents in languages like Mandarin and Yiddish.

This kind of use case is probably ethical — as long as the people interacting know that they’re dealing with a digital clone and not a real person. 

The bad

The flip side of ethical uses for AI-generated clones is the non-consensual (and therefore unethical) cases. And of these, there are already many. For instance:

• In 2019, the first widely documented case occurred when scammers used AI to mimic the voice and German accent of a parent company’s executive, successfully tricking the CEO of a UK energy firm into transferring €220,000 into a fraudulent account.
• In 2023, an Arizona mother, Jennifer DeStefano, was targeted by extortionists who used an AI clone of her 15-year-old daughter’s voice to demand a $1 million ransom.
• And in 2024, a finance worker at a multinational firm in Hong Kong was tricked into transferring $25 million after attending a video conference call featuring deepfake recreations of his CFO and several other colleagues. 

Other unethical, non-consensual uses for AI cloning include deepfake videos, where a celebrity’s face is superimposed on a porn actor. In all the above examples, the ethics are clear. This is all very wrong. 

But with China leading the way in the emergence of AI clones, the ethics are becoming far murkier. 

And the ugly

One emerging trend involves workers using specialized software to build digital versions of their bosses or colleagues. The most prominent project driving this trend is Colleague Skill, which was posted in late March by its creator, a 24-year-old Shanghai-based engineer named Zhou Tianyi. 

Colleague Skill and its forks and copycats, which tend to be open source, enable people to upload chat histories, emails, and internal documents to create a functional persona that mimics a specific coworker’s professional expertise and communication style. The technology stack includes tools like Claude, Kimi, ChatGPT, DeepSeek API, OCR (Tesseract), and sentiment analysis modules.

Colleague Skill uses a person’s past communications to build a talking replica of their personality. If you think of a regular AI as a general student who knows a little bit about everything, this tool acts like a specialized mask that forces the AI to behave like one specific individual. 

In other words, it produces a chatbot with the knowledge and patterns of speech of a real person. 

Colleague Skill started as a satirical commentary on AI-driven layoffs. But some employees began using it in earnest to clone their colleagues. There are several stated reasons for doing so, including retaining institutional knowledge and having an instant sounding board to “discuss” plans and ideas with. 

A similar motivation is the use of AI to clone bosses, so employees can better predict how that boss might react to the employees’ work. 

In most of these instances, according to reports out of China, the creation of the boss-bot or colleague clone is nonconsensual. 

Is non-consensually basing a custom chatbot on a colleague or boss unethical? 

And then it got personal (and weird)

Tianyi, creator of Colleague Skill, later forked it into something called Ex-Partner Skill. The idea is to re-create a former partner with AI so the user can continue the relationship. 

It operates on the same technical engine but applies it to a much more personal part of life. Users upload photos, social posts, chat logs and other content. The AI chatbot can then mimic the former partner’s tone, catchphrases, and subtle linguistic nuances, something that, “truly sounds like them — speaks with their catchphrases, replies in their style, remembers the places you went together.”

This allows a person to simulate conversations with someone who is no longer in their life.

If Colleague Skill is in a grey area, Ex-Partner Skill is in a darker grey area. 

(Note: many of the original repositories for Ex-Partner Skill have been removed from public view in China or “sanitized” after regulatory pressure. But the framework reportedly continues to circulate in private developer circles, and similar tools are increasingly used for “digital resurrection.”)

Ethically, the concept feels like it exists on a wide spectrum somewhere between therapy at one end and revenge porn at the other. (It’s like revenge porn in the sense that when “content” consensually made by two people for one purpose is later used consensually by one person in a way that the other person might find objectionable.)

Or maybe it’s closer to the “deathbot” phenomenon, where an AI-generated simulation provides a fake version of the dearly departed. (In both cases, the user interacts with a digital twin of someone who is no longer present in one’s life.) In fact, some people in China are using Ex-Partner Skill as a deathbot for a deceased loved one. 

The lack of consent feels like an ethical lapse. But we don’t consider it unethical to think about, remember, imagine conversations with, or journal about ex-partners — or dead family members. 

Boosters of the Ex-Partner Skill idea say that conversations with digital exes are therapeutic. They point out that because it’s private, it’s not harassment or stalking or an invasion of privacy. Instead, they argue, it helps with personal reflection and emotional healing.

As for people who have died, according to Chinese media reports, some users say the tool gives them a sense of closure and allows them to say the things they wish they could have said to the real person. But is it really closure if one person is still obsessively trying to interact — or pretend to interact — with the other person?

It’s healthy to communicate. But it’s not communication when a person is by themselves talking to no one and sending messages to a person who never gets those messages.

While ex-bots are a thing these days in China, the trend is showing up elsewhere. Some Character.AI users outside of China have created chatbots based on ex-partners, even though  the company has changed its Terms of Service to explicitly ban the creation of bots using the likenesses of private individuals without their permission. 

The emergence of nonconsensual cloning of coworkers, bosses and ex-partners is a new challenge to our sense of right and wrong, and yet another way AI is challenging us to step up and figure out how to respond.