Computerworld.com [Hacking News]

The launch of a major Windows 10 update isn’t the end of a process — it’s really just the beginning. As soon as one of Microsoft’s feature updates (such as Windows 10 version 22H2) is released, the company quickly gets to work on improving it 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 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.” If you’re looking for information about Insider Program previews for upcoming feature releases of Windows 10, see “Windows 10 Insider Previews: A guide to the builds.”

Updates to Windows 10 versions 21H2 and 22H2 KB5049981 (OS Builds 19044.5371 and 19045.5371)

Release date: January 14, 2025

The update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and January 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 KB5049981.)

KB5048652 (OS Builds 19044.5247 and 19045.5247)

Release date: December 10, 2024

The update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and December 2024 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 KB5048652.)

KB5046714 (OS Build 19045.5198) Preview

Release date: November 21, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which Win32 shortcuts did not back up to the cloud. 

(Get more info about KB5046714 Preview.)

KB5046613 (OS Builds 19044.5131 and 19045.5131)

Release date: November 12, 2024

This update fixes a bug in which some games did not start or stopped responding after you installed KB5044384. This occurred because some games use a third-party DRM component that are not compatible with that update. This update makes changes to support those games while the game developers address the DRM issue.

The update also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and November 2024 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 KB5046613.)

KB5045594 (OS Build 19045.5073) Preview

Release date: October 22, 2024

This build starts the rollout of the new account manager on the Start menu that makes it easy to view your account and access account settings. To change to a different user, select the ellipsis (…) next to “Sign out.” Not everyone will see this change yet, because it’s rolling out gradually.

The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which a vmswitch triggers a stop error. This occurs when you use Load Balancing and Failover (LBFO) teaming with two virtual switches on a virtual machine (VM). In this case, one virtual switch uses single root Input/Output virtualization (SR-IOV).

(Get more info about KB5045594 Preview.)

KB5044273 (OS Builds 19044.5011 and 19045.5011)

Release date: October 8, 2024

This update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and October 2024 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 KB5044273.)

KB5043131 (OS Build 19045.4957) Preview

Release date: September 24, 2024

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which playback of some media might have stopped when you use certain surround sound technology, and another in which Windows server stopped responding when you used apps like File Explorer and the taskbar.

There is one known issue in this update, in which you might be unable to change your user account profile picture.

(Get more info about Windows 10 22H2 KB5043131 Preview).

KB5043064 (OS Builds 19044.4894 and 19045.4894)

Release date: September 10, 2024

This update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and September 2024 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 KB5043064.)

KB5041582 (OS Build 19045.4842) Preview

Release date: August 29, 2024

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which when a combo box had input focus, a memory leak could occur when you closed that window.

There is one known issue in this update, in which you might be unable to change your user account profile picture.

(Get more info about KB5041582 Preview.)

KB5041580 (OS Builds 19044.4780 and 19045.4780)

Release date: August 13, 2024

This release has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and August 2024 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 KB5041580.)

KB5040525 (OS Build 19045.4717) Preview

Release date: July 23, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) send code caused systems to stop responding during routine tasks, such as file transfers. This issue led to an extended send loop.

There is one known issue in this update, in which you might be unable to change your user account profile picture.

(Get more info about KB5040525 Preview.)

KB5040427 (OS Builds 19044.4651 and 19045.4651)

Release date: July 9, 2024

This update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and July 2024 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 you might be unable to change your user account profile picture.

(Get more info about KB5040427.)

KB5039299 (OS Build 19045.4598) Preview

Release date: June 25, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which apps’ jump lists on the taskbar sometimes failed, and another in which systems didn’t resume from hibernation after BitLocker was turned off.

There are four known issues in this update, including one in which Windows devices using more than one monitor might experience issues with desktop icons moving unexpectedly between monitors or have other icon alignment issues when attempting to use Copilot in Windows.

(Get more info about KB5039299 Preview.)

KB5039211 (OS Builds 19044.4529 and 19045.4529)

Release date: June 11, 2024

This build has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and June 2024 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 Copilot in Windows is not currently supported when your taskbar is located vertically on the right or left of your screen.

(Get more info about KB5039211.)

KB5037849 (OS Build 19045.4474) Preview

Release date: May 29, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which devices could not authenticate a second Microsoft Entra ID account, and another in which TWAIN drivers stopped responding when used in a virtual environment.

There are four known issues in this update, including one in which Windows devices using more than one monitor might experience desktop icons moving unexpectedly between monitors or have other icon alignment issues when attempting to use Copilot in Windows.

(Get more info about KB5037849 Preview.)

KB5037768 (OS Builds 19044.4412 and 19045.4412)

Release date: May 14, 2024

This update fixes a bug that caused VPN connections to fail. In addition, it has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and May 2024 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 four known issues in this build, including one in which Copilot in Windows is not currently supported when your taskbar is located vertically on the right or left of your screen.

(Get more info about KB5037768.)

KB5036979 (OS Build 19045.4355) Preview

Release date: April 23, 2024

With this build, you will start getting account-related notifications for Microsoft accounts in Settings > Home. The account also backs up all your account-related data and helps you to manage your subscriptions. The update also makes the Widgets on the lock screen more reliable.

A number of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which Windows Local Administrator Password Solution’s Post Authentication Actions (PAAs) did not occur at the end of the grace period. Instead, they occurred at restart.

(Get more info about KB5036979 Preview.)

KB5036892 (OS Builds 19044.4291 and 19045.4291)

Release date: April 9, 2024

This build has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and April 2024 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 Copilot in Windows is not currently supported when your taskbar is located vertically on the right or left of your screen.

(Get more info about KB5036892.)

KB5035941 (OS Build 19045.4239) Preview

Release date: March 26, 2024

In this build, Windows Hello for Business admins can now use mobile device management to turn off the prompt that appears when users sign in to an Entra-joined machine. To do it, turn on the “DisablePostLogonProvisioning” policy setting. After a user signs in, provisioning is off for Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices.

The update also update improves the Remote Desktop Session Host. You can now set up its “clipboard redirection” policy to work in a single direction from the local computer to the remote computer. You can also reverse that order.

A number of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which a network resource could not be accessed from a Remote Desktop session when the Remote Credential Guard feature was turned on, and another that affected the time service, in which the Windows Settings app did not match what IT admins configured using MDM or a Group Policy Object.

(Get more info about KB5035941 Preview.)

KB5035845 (OS Builds 19044.4170 and 19045.4170)

Release date: March 12, 2024

This build has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and March 2024 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 Copilot in Windows is not currently supported when your taskbar is located vertically on the right or left of your screen.

(Get more info about KB5035845.)

KB5034843 (OS Build 19045.4123) Preview

Release date: February 29, 2024

In this update, using Windows share, you can now directly share URLs to apps like WhatsApp, Gmail, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Sharing to X (formerly Twitter) is coming soon.

The update also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which Azure Virtual Desktop virtual machines restarted randomly because of an access violation in lsass.exe, and another in Remote Desktop Web Authentication in which you might not have been able to connect to sovereign cloud endpoints.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which Windows devices using more than one monitor might experience issues with desktop icons moving unexpectedly between monitors or other icon alignment issues when attempting to use Copilot in Windows. In the second issue, Copilot in Windows is not supported when your taskbar is located vertically on the right or left of your screen.

(Get more info about KB5034843 Preview.)

KB5034763 (OS Builds 19044.4046 and 19045.4046)

Release date: February 13, 2023

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which explorer.exe stopped responding when you restarted or shut down a PC that had a controller accessory attached to it.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and February 2024 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 Copilot in Windows (in preview) is not currently supported when your taskbar is located vertically on the right or left of your screen.

(Get more info about KB5034763.)

KB5034203 (OS Build 19045.3996) Preview

Release date: January 23, 2024

The update fixes a variety of bugs, including one that affected BitLocker data-only encryption. A mobile device management (MDM) service, such as Microsoft Intune, might not get the right data when you use the FixedDrivesEncryptionType or SystemDrivesEncryptionType policy settings in the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) node.

It also fixed a bug that affected Group Policy Folder Redirection in a multi-forest deployment. The issue stopped you from choosing a group account from the target domain. And it addresses an issue that caused some single-function printers to be installed as scanners.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which Windows devices using more than one monitor might experience issues with desktop icons moving unexpectedly between monitors or other icon alignment issues when attempting to use Copilot in Windows. In the second issue, Copilot in Windows is not supported when your taskbar is located vertically on the right or left of your screen.

(Get more info about KB5034203 Preview.)

KB5034122 (OS Builds 19044.3930 and 19045.3930)

Release date: January 9, 2023

This build has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and January 2024 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 is one known issue in this build, affecting ID admins, in which using the FixedDrivesEncryptionType or SystemDrivesEncryptionType policy settings in the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) node in mobile device management apps might incorrectly show a 65000 error in the “Require Device Encryption” setting for some devices in your environment. To mitigate the issue in Microsoft Intune, you can set the “Enforce drive encryption type on operating system drives” or “Enforce drive encryption on fixed drives” policies to not configured.

(Get more info about KB5034122.)

KB5032189 (OS Builds 19044.3693 and 19045.3693)

Release date: December 12, 2023

This build has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and December 2023 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 is one known issue in this build, which affects ID admins, in which using the FixedDrivesEncryptionType or SystemDrivesEncryptionType policy settings in the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) node in MDM apps might incorrectly show a 65000 error in the “Require Device Encryption” setting for some devices in your environment. To mitigate the issue in Intune, you can set the “Enforce drive encryption type on operating system drives” or “Enforce drive encryption on fixed drives” policies to not configured.

(Get more info about KB5033372.)

Windows 10 22H2 KB5032278 (OS Build 19045.3758) Preview

Release date: November 30, 2023

The update adds the Copilot in Windows (in preview) button to the right side of the taskbar. This only applies to devices that run Home or Pro editions (non-managed business devices). When you select it, the AI-powered Copilot in Windows appears at the right on your screen. It will not overlap with desktop content or block open app windows. The update also adds Windows Update opt-in notifications to the screen when you sign in.

The update also fixes a variety of bugs, including one that affected non-admin processes. It also fixes a leak in volatile notifications, which might have stopped you from signing into your computer.

There is one known issue in this build that applies to IT admins, in which using the FixedDrivesEncryptionType or SystemDrivesEncryptionType policy settings in the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) node in mobile device management (MDM) apps might incorrectly show a 65000 error in the “Require Device Encryption” setting for some devices in your environment.

(Get more info about Windows 10 22H2 KB5032278 Preview.)

KB5032189 (OS Builds 19044.3693 and 19045.3693)

Release date: November 14, 2023

This build has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and November 2023 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 is one known issue in this build that affects ID admins, in which using the FixedDrivesEncryptionType or SystemDrivesEncryptionType policy settings in the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) node in MDM apps might incorrectly show a 65000 error in the “Require Device Encryption” setting for some devices in your environment. To mitigate the issue in Microsoft Intune, you can set the “Enforce drive encryption type on operating system drives” or “Enforce drive encryption on fixed drives” policies to not configured.

(Get more info about KB5032189.)

KB5031445 (OS Build 19045.3636) Preview

Release date: October 26, 2023

The update fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which touchscreens did not work properly when you used more than one display, and another in which there was a memory leak in ctfmon.exe.

There is one known issue in this build, which applies to IT admins, in which using the FixedDrivesEncryptionType or SystemDrivesEncryptionType policy settings in the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) node in mobile device management (MDM) apps might incorrectly show a 65000 error in the “Require Device Encryption” setting for some devices in your environment.

(Get more info about KB5031445 Preview.)

KB5031356 (OS Builds 19044.3570 and 19045.3570)

Release date: October 10, 2023

This build has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and October 2023 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 KB5031356.)

KB5030300 (OS Build 19045.3516) Preview

Release date: September 26, 2023

This update brings back a search box design for accessing apps, files, settings, and more from Windows and the web. If you have a top, bottom, regular, or small icons taskbar, the search box appears.

The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which Microsoft Defender stopped some USB printers from printing, and another in which in Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) AppID Tagging policies could have greatly increased device startup time.

(Get more info about KB5030300 Preview.)

KB5030211 (OS Builds 19044.3448 and 19045.3448)

Release date: September 12, 2023

This build fixes a bug that affected authentication in which using a smart card to join or rejoin a computer to an Active Directory domain could have failed.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and September 2023 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 KB5030211.)

KB5029331 (OS Build 19045.3393) Preview

Release date: August 22, 2023

This update improves how Windows detects your location to help give you better weather, news, and traffic information. It also expands the rollout of notification badging for Microsoft accounts on the Start menu, which gives you quick access to important account-related notifications. In addition, it adds Windows Backup to your device.

The update also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which print jobs sent to a virtual print queue failed without an error, and another in which Remote Desktop (RD) sessions disconnected when multiple apps were in use.

There is one known issue in this update, in which devices with Windows installations created from custom offline media or a custom ISO image might have Microsoft Edge Legacy removed by this update, but not automatically replaced by the new Microsoft Edge.

(Get more info about KB5029331 Preview.)

KB5029244 (OS Builds 19044.3324 and 19045.3324)

Release date: August 8, 2023

This build has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and August 2023 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 is one known issue in this update, in which devices with Windows installations created from custom offline media or a custom ISO image might have Microsoft Edge Legacy removed by this update, but not automatically replaced by the new Microsoft Edge.

(Get more info about KB5029244.)

KB5028244 (OS Build 19045.3271) Preview

Release date: July 25, 2023

This update fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) errors might have occurred when you played a game, another in which some display and audio devices were missing when your system resumed from sleep, and another in which some VPN clients could not establish connections.

There is one issue in this update, in which devices with Windows installations created from custom offline media or a custom ISO image might have Microsoft Edge Legacy removed by this update, but not automatically replaced by the new Microsoft Edge.

(Get more info about KB5028244 Preview.)

KB5028166 (OS Builds 19044.3208 and 19045.3208)

Release date: July 11, 2023

This build has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and July 2023 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 is one known issue in this update, in which devices with Windows installations created from custom offline media or a custom ISO image might have Microsoft Edge Legacy removed by this update, but not automatically replaced by the new Microsoft Edge.

(Get more info about KB5028166.)

KB5027293 (OS Build 19045.3155) Preview

Release date: June 27, 2023

This update adds new features and improvements to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. For more information, see Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. It also lets you authenticate across Microsoft clouds. This feature also satisfies Conditional Access checks if they are needed.

A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which scheduled monthly tasks might not have run on time if the next occurrence happened when daylight savings time occured, and another in which all the registry settings under the Policies paths could have been deleted when you did not rename the local temporary user policy file during Group Policy processing.

There is one known issue in this update, in which devices with Windows installations created from custom offline media or custom ISO images might have Microsoft Edge Legacy removed by this update, but not automatically replaced by the new Microsoft Edge.

(Get more info about KB5027293 Preview.)

KB5027215 (OS Builds 19044.3086 and 19045.3086)

Release date: June 13, 2023

This build has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and June 2023 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 is one known issue in this update, in which devices with Windows installations created from custom offline media or a custom ISO image might have Microsoft Edge Legacy removed by this update, but not automatically replaced by the new Microsoft Edge.

(Get more info about KB5027215.)

KB5026435 (OS Build 19045.3031) Preview

Release date: May 23, 2023

This update revamps the search box; Microsoft claims it will let you “easily access apps, files, settings, and more from Windows and the web. You will also have access to the latest search updates, such as search highlights.” If you don’t like the design, you can revert to the existing search box via taskbar context menu or by responding to a dialog that appears when you use search.

A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one that did not let you access the Server Message Block (SMB) shared folder and another in which the Windows Firewall dropped all connections to the IP address of a captive portal when you chose the Captive Portal Addresses option.

There is one known issue in this update, in which devices with Windows installations created from custom offline media or a custom ISO image might have Microsoft Edge Legacy removed by this update, but not automatically replaced by the new Microsoft Edge.

(Get more info about KB5026435 Preview.)

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.

Updates to the Creators Update (version 1703) KB4041676 (OS Build 15063.674)

Release date: October 10, 2017

This non-feature update addresses a wide variety of issues, including ones related to security. It fixes a bug that won’t allow some games from downloading from the MIcrosoft Store. The build also fixes an issue in which some Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps and Centennial apps (.NET and Win32-based Windows applications that have been packaged to be published to the Microsoft Store) have a gray icon and display the error message “This app can’t open” on launch.

In addition, security updates are included for many parts of Windows, including Microsoft Windows Search Component, Windows kernel-mode drivers, Microsoft Graphics Component, Internet Explorer, Windows kernel, Microsoft Edge, Windows Authentication, Windows TPM, Device Guard, Windows Wireless Networking, Windows Storage and Filesystems, Microsoft Windows DNS, Microsoft Scripting Engine, Windows Server, Windows Subsystem for Linux, Microsoft JET Database Engine, and the Windows SMB Server.

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 KB4041767.)

KB4040724 (OS Build 15063.632)

Release date: September 25, 2017

This non-feature update addresses two very minor issues: Cellular connectivity and reliability have been improved, and performance problems with Microsoft Edge that were introduced in KB40387888 have been resolved.

(Get more info about KB4040724.)

KB4038788 (OS Build 15063.608)

Release date: Sept. 12, 2017

This non-feature update addresses a wide variety of miscellaneous minor issues, including one where some machines fail to load wireless WAN devices when they resume from Sleep, and another where spoolsv.exe stops working. Also addressed is a problem in which the option to join Azure AAD is sometimes unavailable during the out-of-box experience, and another in which clicking the buttons on Windows Action Center notifications results in no action being taken.

What IT needs to know

This release includes security updates to Microsoft Graphics Component, Windows kernel-mode drivers, Windows shell, Microsoft Uniscribe, Microsoft Edge, Device Guard, Windows TPM, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Scripting Engine, Windows Hyper-V, Windows kernel and Windows Virtualization. Because it’s 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 KB4038788.)

KB4034674 (OS Build 15063.540)

Release date: Aug. 8, 2017

This non-feature update addresses a variety of minor issues, primarily aimed at IT. Two fixes are for mobile devices: One in which the policies provisioned using Mobile Device Management (MDM) don’t take precedence over policies set by provisioning packages, but should, and another in which an access violation in the Mobile Device Manager Enterprise feature causes stop errors. Also addressed is an issue in which the Site to Zone Assignment List group policy (GPO) was not set on machines when it was enabled.

There are also security updates for many Windows features and services, including Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Windows Search Component, Microsoft Scripting Engine, Microsoft Windows PDF Library, Windows Hyper-V, Windows Server, Windows kernel-mode drivers, Windows Subsystem for Linux, Windows shell, Common Log File System Driver, Internet Explorer, and the Microsoft JET Database Engine.

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 KB4034674.)

KB4032188 (OS Build 15063.502)

Release date: July 31, 2017

This non-feature update addresses a variety of minor issues and bugs, including one in which Win32 applications have problems working with various Bluetooth LE devices including head tracking devices, a reliability issue with launching the Settings app while an application is using the camera, and a bug in which video playback artifacts appear during transitions from portrait to landscape on mobile devices.

What IT needs to know: Several minor issues addressed in this update affect IT, including the Mobile Device Manager Enterprise feature not allowing headsets to work correctly, and a bug that can cause a service using a Managed Service Account (MSA) to fail to connect to a domain after an automatic password update.

(Get more info about KB4032188.)

KB4025342 (OS Build 15063.483)

Release date: July 11, 2017

This security update (a Patch Tuesday release) fixes 54 vulnerabilities in Windows 10, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Exchange. Nineteen of the vulnerabilities were rated as critical, 32 as important and three as moderate.

The critical bugs include six remote code execution ones, including one for Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed reality head-mounted display that is currently available only to developers. It allowed the device to be hacked “by merely receiving WiFi packets, apparently without any form of authentication at all,” in Microsoft’s words.

Microsoft Edge received patches for thirteen critical scripting engine memory corruption vulnerabilities, including one in which an attacker could gain the same user rights as the current user.

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. In addition to the patches for Windows 10 Creators Update are security patches for Windows Server 2016 / Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

(Get more info about KB4025342.)

KB4022716 (OS Build 15063.447)

Release date: June 27, 2017

This non-security update kills more than three dozen minor bugs. Among them are one that causes the Camera app to use a lot of memory on mobile platforms, which reduces battery life. The update also improves Bluetooth connectivity with wearable devices.

What IT needs to know: Some of the bugs affect networks, including one in which network printers may fail when using the printer vendor’s setup software on machines with less than 4GB of RAM. Installing the printers using the Settings app or from Devices and Printers in Control Panel will ensure they’re installed properly. In addition, the update fixes an issue which prevented users from connecting to the Terminal Services Gateway (TSG) running on Windows Server 2008 SP2 after it has been upgraded to the Creators Update, with the result that users were not able to access Remote Desktop Services or remote apps.

(Get more info about KB4022716.)

KB4022725 (OS Builds 15063.413 and 15063.414)

Release date: June 13, 2017

This security update closes dozens of security holes, including two remote code execution vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-8464, which is similar to Stuxnet, and CVE-2017-8543, which is a wormlike attack).

It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which a user may have to press the space bar to dismiss the lock screen to log in, even after the log on is authenticated using a companion device.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied immediately, especially because several of the security holes are being actively used by attackers. (Get more info about KB4022725.)

KB4020102 (OS Build 15063.332)

Release date: May 25, 2017

This non-security update fixes a wide variety of bugs but offers no new features. Among other issues, it fixes a problem when network printers may fail to install using the printer vendor’s setup software on PCs with less than 4GB of RAM. It also fixes several problems with Internet Explorer, including one where non-administrator users can’t install ActiveX controls. (Get more info about KB4020102.)

KB4016871 (OS Builds 15063.296 and 15063.297)

Release date: May 9, 2017

This is a security update that also includes minor bug fixes, but no new features. The security updates are for Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Graphics Component, Windows SMB Server, Windows COM, Microsoft Scripting Engine, the Windows kernel, Windows Server, and the .NET Framework. Among the bugs fixed are one in which autochk.exe can randomly skip drive checks and not fix data corruptions, which could lead to data loss.

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 KB4016871.)

KB4016240 (OS Build 15063.250)

Release date: April 25, 2017

This non-security update squashes a wide variety of bugs but includes no new features. It fixes a bug that caused intermittent logout from web applications and another that made systems unresponsive in certain situations after running Direct3D apps in full-screen exclusive mode. Previous to this patch, Windows Forms configuration issues caused antivirus applications to stop working at startup; they now work.

What IT needs to know: Two of the bugs fixed with this release are one in which some VMs experienced network connectivity loss while provisioning IP addresses and another that prevented Group Policy settings from disabling the lock screen. (Get more info about  KB4016240.)

KB4015583 (OS Build 15063.138)

Release date: April 11, 2017

This security update includes only a few minor bug fixes and no new features. It updates security for Scripting Engine, libjpeg image-processing library, Hyper-V, Windows kernel-mode drivers, Adobe Type Manager Font Driver, Internet Explorer, Graphics Component, Active Directory Federation Services, .NET Framework, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, Microsoft Edge and Windows OLE. In addition, it fixes a problem with updating time zone information.

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 KB4015583.)

KB4016251 (OS Build 15063.13)

Release date: April 5, 2017

This non-security update fixes a few very minor bugs and has no new features. It repairs a problem that caused the Surface USB: Bluetooth radio to sometimes fail during hibernate/resume, and fixes an issue in which a virus protection product driver installation would trigger a system crash on Windows build 15060 configured with DeviceGuard. (Get more info about KB4016251.)

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 2412 (Build 18324.20190)

Release date: January 14, 2025

This build fixes a bug in Word in which the layout of tables were changed unexpectedly. 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 2412 (Build 18324.20190).

Version 2412 (Build 18324.20168)

Release date: January 7, 2025

This build makes tables in Outlook more accessible for screen readers. It also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Word in which a document saved to a network shared folder and set to “Always Open Read-Only” would open in “Editing” mode, and another for the entire Office suite in which application didn’t render the grid properly after switching from page break preview to normal view.

Get more info about Version 2412 (Build 18324.20168).

Version 2411 (Build 18227.20162)

Release date: December 10, 2024

This build fixes a bug in Word and Outlook where characters didn’t render correctly when using Save Selection to Text Box Gallery. 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 2411 (Build 18227.20162).

Version 2411 (Build 18227.20152)

Release date: December 5, 2024

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which some cells might not be rendered properly upon scrolling in a worksheet using freeze panes, one in Word which prevented emails with linked SVG content from saving or sending, and one in which some PowerPoint presentations created by third-party tools didn’t open correctly and some content was removed.

Get more info about Version 2411 (Build 18227.20152).

Version 2410 (Build 18129.20158)

Release date: November 12, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Word in which all characters didn’t appear correctly when creating an Outlook task from OneNote, and one in PowerPoint in which embedded BMP images in the PowerPoint slide were not opening.

This build 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 2410 (Build 18129.20158).

Version 2410 (Build 18129.20116)

Release date: October 28, 2024

This build enables filtering capabilities for the comment pane in Excel and fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Word in which the title bar no longer showed a “Saved” status for locally saved files, and one in PowerPoint in which a graphics-related issue caused the app to close unexpectedly at times.

Get more info about Version 2410 (Build 18129.20116).

Version 2409 (Build 18025.20160)

Release date: October 15, 2024

This build fixes a single bug in Word, in which emails with linked SVG content couldn’t be saved or sent.

Get more info about Version 2409 (Build 18025.20160).

Version 2409 (Build 18025.20140)

Release date: October 8, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Word in which text wasn’t clearly visible in High Contrast Mode when using “Draft with Copilot” and referencing a meeting under “Reference your content.”

This build also includes multiple 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 2409 (Build 18025.20140).

Version 2409 (Build 18025.20104)

Release date: September 25, 2024

This build fixes a single bug, in which when you saved a file in Word, the save status was missing from the Title bar.

Get more info about Version 2409 (Build 18025.20104).

Version 2409 (Build 18025.20096)

Release date: September 23, 2024

This build improves the user experience for selecting which users should have which permissions when a sensitivity label configured for user-defined permissions is applied to a file or when configuring standalone Information Rights Management through the Restrict Access feature. This change affects Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.

The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Word in which Document Mode would switch from “editing” to “viewing” if user enabled “Track Changes” and set “For Everyone.”

Get more info about Version 2409 (Build 18025.20096).

Version 2408 (Build 17928.20156)

Release date: September 10, 2024

This update will remove Flip video support when the service goes offline on October 1, 2024. The build 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 2408 (Build 17928.20156).

Version 2408 (Build 17928.20114)

Release date: August 26, 2024

This build allows you to disable connected experiences for privacy concerns without impacting data security policies, such as sensitivity labels. Services associated with Microsoft Purview (e.g., sensitivity labels and rights management) are no longer controlled by policy settings to manage privacy controls for Microsoft 365 Apps. Instead, these services will rely on their existing security admin controls in Purview portals.

The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Outlook that caused default SMIME labels to fail to apply when a user replied to or forwarded an unlabeled message, and one for the entire suite in which people couldn’t install Microsoft 365 apps on an enrolled device.

Get more info about Version 2408 (Build 17928.20114).

Version 2407 (Build 17830.20166)

Release date: August 13, 2024

This build includes a variety of security updates for Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Visio, and the entire Office suite. See Microsoft’s Release notes for 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 2407 (Build 17830.20166).

Version 2407 (Build 17830.20138)

Release date: August 1, 2024

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which coauthoring on text boxes in Excel sometimes gave unexpected results, another in PowerPoint in which line widths were not preserved when exporting arrow shapes to PDF, and another in Word in which revisions were sometimes skipped when reviewing using VBA.

Get more info about Version 2407 (Build 17830.20138).

Version 2406 (Build 17726.20160)

Release date: July 9, 2024

This build fixes several bugs, including one in Word and Excel in which characters don’t appear correctly in Text Box Gallery. It also fixes 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 2406 (Build 17726.20160).

Version 2406 (Build 17726.20126)

Release date: June 26, 2024

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which Excel documents might be unexpectedly edited when a mandatory sensitivity label has not been applied, one that caused Outlook to exit unexpectedly shortly after launch for some users, and one in which pasting data from Word or Excel to an Outlook template as a link would cause an error message to appear.

Get more info about Version 2406 (Build 17726.20126).

Version 2405 (Build 17628.20164)

Release date: June 19, 2024

This build includes a variety of unspecified bug and performance fixes.

Get more info about Version 2405 (Build 17628.20164).

Version 2405 (Build 17628.20144)

Release date: June 11, 2024

This build fixes one bug, which prevented users from sending mail for a few hours after updating add-ins with on-send events. It also fixes 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 2405 (Build 17628.20144).

Version 2405 (Build 17628.20110)

Release date: May 30, 2024

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which an embedded workbook in .xls format might not have closed properly, one that that caused Outlook to close when using Copilot Summarize, one in Word in which content controls may have been removed when coauthoring, and one for the entire Office suite in which the Organization Chart Add-In for Microsoft programs was not loading properly.

Get more info about Version 2405 (Build 17628.20110).

Version 2404 (Build 17531.20152)

Release date: May 14, 2024

This build fixes a number of bugs, including one in Word where content controls might be removed when coauthoring, and one that caused Sovereign users to be unable to create ToDo tasks from Outlook.

It also fixes 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 2404 (Build 17531.20152).

Version 2404 (Build 17531.20140)

Release date: May 7, 2024

This build fixes two bugs in Outlook, one in which it closed unexpectedly using the Scheduling Assistant when creating a new meeting or viewing an existing meeting, and another that caused add-in developers to hit timeouts when retrieving notifications from an Outlook client context.

Get more info about Version 2404 (Build 17531.20140) .

Version 2404 (Build 17531.20120)

Release date: April 29, 2024

This build reduces workbook size bloat from unnecessary cell formatting with a new “Check Performance” task pane. In addition, it fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which the default font could not be set; one in Outlook in which custom forms from MAPI form servers stopped responding; one in PowerPoint in which online videos did not play in some cases; one in which when opening certain Word documents would cause the error, “Word experienced an error trying to open the file”; and one in which the Office update installer appeared to be unresponsive.

Get more info about Version 2404 (Build 17531.20120) .

Version 2403 (Build 17425.20176)

Release date: April 9, 2024

This build fixes 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 2403 (Build 17425.20176).

Version 2402 (Build 17328.20184)

Release date: March 12, 2024

This build fixes three bugs: one in which Access closed unexpectedly, one in which Excel closed unexpectedly when opening files with pivot tables and table design in macro-enabled files, and one in which Word closed unexpectedly when the undo function was used.

This build also fixes 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 2402 (Build 17328.20184).

Version 2402 (Build 17328.20162)

Release date: March 4, 2024

This build fixes several bugs, including one that crashed Outlook when a link was clicked on, and another for the entire Office suite in which opened Office apps didn’t automatically start when a laptop was reopened, and an error message appeared after manual relaunch.

Get more info about Version 2402 (Build 17328.20162).

Version 2402 (Build 17328.20142)

Release date: February 28, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one that caused Outlook to exit unexpectedly when expanding a conversation in the search results from a search of “All Mailboxes,” and another in which users were not able to create a bullet list with hyphens in PowerPoint.

Get more info about Version 2402 (Build 17328.20142).

Version 2401 (Build 17231.20236)

Release date: February 13, 2024

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which macros were being corrupted when saving Excel files and another that affected the entire Office suite in which add-ins would not load after Click trust for content add-in was selected.

This build also fixes 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 2401 (Build 17231.20236).

Version 2401 (Build 17231.20194)

Release date: February 1, 2024

This build fixes a single bug in which expanded groups in the message list collapsed when users changed which column they were arranged by.

Get more info about Version 2401 (Build 17231.20194).

Version 2401 (Build 17231.20182)

Release date: January 30, 2024

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which Excel would stop responding when saving changes, one in PowerPoint in which Notes and Slide layout would open with incorrect proportions when a file was opened from a protected view, and one in Word in which comment cards appeared too wide and cut off text when changing or switching the screen in use.

Get more info about Version 2401 (Build 17231.20182).

Version 2312 (Build 17126.20132)

Release date: January 9, 2024

This build fixes 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 2312 (Build 17126.20132).

Version 2312 (Build 17126.20126)

Release date: January 4, 2023

This build introduces a new sensitivity toolbar in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that helps users understand the security policies that apply to their documents. It’s available when users are creating copies of their documents in File / Save As. In addition, Office now had a new default theme, which Microsoft says is “more modern and accessible.”

It also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which Custom Menu text was truncated when right-clicking in a cell, one in PowerPoint in which restoring a previous version of a presentation was not working as expected when using Version History, and one in Word in which the content control end tag was marked at the end of the document automatically if the document was edited in Word Online and then opened in Word desktop.

Get more info about  Version 2312 (Build 17126.20126).

Version 2311 (Build 17029.20108)

Release date: December 12, 2023

This build fixes one bug in Outlook, in which the message list was blank when switching between the “Focused” and “Other” views.

It also fixes 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 2311 (Build 17029.20108).

Version 2311 (Build 17029.20068)

Release date: November 29, 2023

This build automatically inserts image captioning for Excel’s images. When you insert an image into a spreadsheet, accessibility image captioning is automatically generated for you.

It also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which list box controls would not respond to mouse clicks after scrolling using the mouse wheel, and one in Word in which the language of a presentation was not retained when saving or exporting the presentation to a PDF file.

Get more info about Version 2311 (Build 17029.20068).

Version 2310 (Build 16924.20150)

Release date: November 14, 2023

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which Outlook failed to comply with the default browser settings for some users, and another in which new lines were added to an Outlook signature when pressing Enter in the body of the email.

It also fixes 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 2310 (Build 16924.20150).

Version 2310 (Build 16924.20124)

Release date: Oct. 31, 2023

This build fixes a bug that caused Outlook to exit unexpectedly when clicking the More link in the Search results list.

Get more info about Version 2310 (Build 16924.20124).

Version 2310 (Build 16924.20106)

Release date: Oct. 25, 2023

In this build, the Teams Meeting App works in Outlook, too. With it, you’ll be able to configure a meeting app while scheduling an invite in Outlook. The meeting app will be ready to use when you chat or join the meeting on Teams.

A wide variety of bugs have also been fixed, including one in Excel where certain Pivot Tables would load slowly; one in which OneNote would close unexpectedly when rapidly navigating from one .PDF file to another .PDF file between different sections, or when performing an undo operation on a .PDF printout insertion; and one in the entire Office suite that caused unexpected black borders to appear around screen captures added with the Insert Screenshot functionality.

Get more info about Version 2310 (Build 16924.20106).

Version 2309 (Build 16827.20166)

Release date: October 10, 2023

This build fixes two bugs, one in which users were missing their Outlook add-ins, and another in Word in which subheading numbering with a custom Style would disappear if the file was saved and reopened. It also fixes 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 2309 (Build 16827.20166).

Version 2309 (Build 16827.20130)

Release date: September 28, 2023

This build introduces two new features, including the ability to disable specific types of automatic data conversions in Excel and support for the “Present in Teams” button to present local files in PowerPoint Live in Microsoft Teams.

Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which the setting to control how Outlook opens previous items at start-up was missing from the Options window, and another in Word in which the Add-ins tab was not visible when using custom toolbar information.

Get more info about Version 2309 (Build 16827.20130).

Version 2308 (Build 16731.20234)

Release date: September 12, 2023

This build fixes several bugs, including one that caused Outlook to close unexpectedly when viewing an email, and another in PowerPoint in which the presenter view slide section zoomed in and out when zooming in the notes section.

It also fixes 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 2308 (Build 16731.20234).

Enterprise computers are often the ugly ducklings of the PC world, viewed as dull, slow and less feature-rich than their consumer counterparts. But vendors at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show launched a selection of business machines (alongside their consumer offerings) hoping to capitalize on the rise of generative AI (genAI). 

Despite the focus on AI PCs or Copilot+ PCs, analysts said the vendors might be a bit ahead of the market.

“I liken it to the dot.com era,” said Tom Butler, executive director of portfolio and product management for Lenovo’s worldwide commercial notebook business. “…When the dot.com era kicked off, companies immediately said, ‘I need a dot.com instance.’ …So, it’s very much like that right now. Companies, as we move into this AI PC era, [say] ‘I need an AI PC.’”

Here’s a look at some of the noteworthy business PCs announced at CES 2025 and analysis of whether vendors are hitting the mark for enterprise customers.

Asus

In addition to its Zenbook and Republic of Gamers (ROG) offerings, Asus unveiled the enterprise-focused ExpertBook B5, ExpertBook B3, ExpertCenter P400 AiO, and ExpertCenter P500. Although they’re not Copilot+ PCs (their neural processing unit (NPU) isn’t powerful enough), they qualify as AI PCs; both B5 and B3 laptops include Intel vPro for manageability and have passed the MIL-STD 810H durability tests. Neither is super light, tipping the scales at about 3 pounds.

The B5 supports up to 64GB of RAM and up to a 2TB SSD with RAID support, has an all-metal design, 16-in. screen, and security features including a fingerprint reader, facial recognition, and a smart card reader. 

The B3 has either a 14-in. or 16-in. display, supports up to 64GB of RAM and up to 1TB storage in dual SSDs. And it offers a variety of ports — USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, and even an Ethernet port. (The B5 lacks Ethernet, unless you have a USB dongle.)

On the desktop side, the ExpertCenter AiO (all-in-one) comes in two models, one with a 27-in. display, the other with a 24-in. screen. The P500 is a mini tower supporting up to 64GB of RAM and up to 4TB storage on one SSD and one hard drive. 

Dell

While Dell’s rebranding plans, announced at CES, might be a bit perplexing, the company did introduce several new Dell Pro models “designed for professional-grade productivity.” They come in several flavors: Base, Plus, and Premium, and all qualify as Copilot+ PCs, based on their specs.

At the Base level, there are the Dell Pro 14 and Dell Pro 16, designed to “deliver essential performance for everyday productivity,” Dell said. They feature Intel Core Ultra 5 processors, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and screen resolution of 1920×1200 pixels. 

The company also announced Dell Pro desktops, powered by either Intel or AMD processors, available in micro, slim, and tower form factors. They are, Dell said, the company’s first commercial desktops with NPUs.

One step up are the Dell Pro 13/14/16 Plus, with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. They come in laptop or 2-in-1 form factors and use the same system BIOS to make ordering and management easier for IT departments. Dell claims up to 18.2 hours of battery life for the Pro 14 Plus, and 12.6 hours for the Pro 16 Plus.

At the top of the heap are the Dell Pro 13/14 Premium models. They’re the slimmest and lightest member sof the Pro portfolio, starting at 2.36 pounds. The Dell Pro 13 Premium offers up to 20.8 hours of battery life; the Pro 14 Premium provides up to 21.2 hours. Each can be ordered with an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor, up to 32GB RAM and up to 1TB of storage. 

HP

HP’s EliteBook line expanded with the company’s announcement of a trio of Copilot+ PCs. The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i Next Gen AI PC is, HP said, designed for executives, with its 14-in. UWVA OLED screen on the Intel-powered model. (The Qualcomm model offers WLED screen technology.) They can have up to 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage for the Intel version, or 1TB of storage for the Qualcomm version. HP touted “studio quality” microphones and a 9-megapixel camera for high quality video calls.

The HP EliteBook X Flip G1i Next Gen AI PC has multiple use modes, including laptop, tablet, and tent configurations, with up to 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage. Like the Ultra G1i, it has a 14-in. screen, although touch comes standard (it’s an option on the G1i) and it’s a WLED display, not OLED. 

The HP EliteBook X G1i Next Gen AI PC is powered by either Intel or AMD chips. The Intel model can hold up to 32GB of RAM; the AMD version offers up to 64GB. Both models can have up to 2TB of storage.

The EliteBook X machines will be available in March, with HP saying only that the Ultra G1i is “coming soon.”

Lenovo

Lenovo launched an impressive array of devices, and the two models specifically aimed at businesses both contained surprises.

The ThinkPad X9 14- and 15-in. Aura Editions are sleek, thin and light notebooks tested to meet MIL-SPEC 810H standards. Lenovo claims all-day battery life,and says the machines are designed to allow easy servicing of the battery and SSD. They offer up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

One thing, however, is missing: the X9 is the first ThinkPad to forego the trackstick. Lenovo hastened to note that it’s just for this model — other ThinkPads will continue to have the trademark red nub in the middle of their keyboards.

Two years ago, Lenovo showcased a laptop concept with a rollable screen; this year, that concept became a reality. The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable’s 14-in screen expands upwards at the touch of a button, growing to 16.7 inches and providing 50% more screen space. As with the other new models, it offers up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

It is not a budget-friendly device, though; prices start at $3,500.

AI a gimmick?

As for whether these systems meet enterprise needs, analysts weighed in on what they’re seeing in the current PC market — and they were somewhat dismissive of the AI hype.

“Current AI features are over-hyped and largely invisible or are seen as ‘that’s nice to have’ to business unless the users are proactive in finding more detailed features,” said Ranjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner. “All in all, businesses are unlikely to pay more than 5% above normal prices for an AI PC.”

“I think the AI laptops are a gimmick for the most part, efforts by the OEMs to stay relevant and bottle lightning if they can,” said Jeremy Roberts, senior research director at Info-Tech Research Group. “I have yet to have any of my enterprise or mid-market clients profess to be excited or tell me they’re changing their refresh cycle or anything to incorporate AI features at the PC level.”

IDC’s Ryan Reith, group vice president, Worldwide Device Trackers, said he saw some interest in AI PCs early in 2024, but noted it has since waned.

“What we gathered throughout most of last year, especially  around the middle of the year, is that large enterprises and most developed markets around the world were allocating budget for these genAI PCs,” Reith said. That enthusiasm declined in the second part of 2024 amid concerns that Microsoft and its partners had not delivered on expectations.

What’s important to enterprises

According to Roberts, genAI features have not excited the enterprises he deals with. “Things that excite enterprises are Autopilot compatibility for seamless deployment, TPM chips for encryption, specialized screens to limit viewing angles, decently powerful CPUs/GPUs depending on the use case, and repairability,” he said. 

“I don’t think AI features even make the top 10,” Roberts said. “Most organizations won’t be consuming AI features locally anyway — they’ll use cloud services like CoPilot or Gemini.”

Reith cited feedback from the head of commercial sales for a large OEM who said with tightened budgets and uncertainly about what can be achieved with genAI PCs, companies are shifting their spending to mid-range computers. They don’t qualify as Copilot+ devices, but are still very good PCs.

“If you get 200 PCs at a mainstream level, as opposed to 50 at a premium level, they’re going more towards the 200,” he said.

Roberts agreed: “Modern laptops are generally more than capable of handling the typical knowledge worker’s day-to-day. A Dell Latitude 5000 or 7000 (Dell Pro now?) series or a run-of-the-mill ThinkPad from Lenovo won’t struggle with Slack, Teams, or PowerPoint.”

As for what corporate users want, size and weight are often key, Reith said — and companies are now listening to their employees rather than choosing what they think they want.

 “The thin and light PCs are the trend,” Atwal said, adding, “businesses essentially want to future proof their PCs with AI capabilities so [want to] have them include an NPU.”

Lenovo’s Butler said the configuration sweet spot has shifted; it’s now 32GB of memory and a minimum 512GB of storage. And screen sizes have edged up.

“Most business laptops are in the 14- to 16-in. range,” said Roberts. “Anything smaller is quite cramped. Anything larger can be cumbersome to lug around — not to mention more expensive.”

Whither AI PCs, then?

Reith and Roberts differ on the fate of the AI PC/Copilot+ PC.

“AI PCs are a solution looking for a problem,” Roberts argued. “Most end user computing managers won’t be swayed by this branding and additional feature set. … AI will continue to be delivered primarily via the cloud. I expect the CoPilot+ PC will go the way of the Ultrabook: branding attached to computers that are only marginally relevant to the people who buy and use them.”

Reith, however, believes it’s more an issue of timing. “There’s a necessity to have on-device AI,” he said. “It’s just getting pushed forward a little bit to when that inflection point really starts to kick in.

“…I’m trying to use my words cautiously, because we do not believe that this is dead in the water. It was a good chance that then passed. It’s just that the timing was really bad, which no one could have predicted. … But nobody’s really backing off of the developments. Supply side is now just shifting some of their business plans around products. 

“…Whatever we thought was going to be the genAI PC volume in 2025, it’ll be slightly less than that, in our opinion,” Reith said. “But a lot of that will just get pushed forward to a ramp up that’s maybe more towards the end of this year, and certainly into 2026.”

Smart glasses attracted a lot of attention at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, with a range of devices on display that combine lightweight frames with functionality such as heads-up displays and AI-powered assistants. 

These contrast with the mixed-reality headsets that created a buzz early in 2024, including Meta’s Quest 3 and Apple’s Vision Pro – both of which are much heavier devices designed for shorter periods of use.

Apple’s Vision Pro headset captured a lot of attention in 2024, but lighter-weight smart glasses were the rage at CES 2025.

JLStock / Shutterstock

“This year, the focus definitely seemed to be more on smart glasses than on headsets, in part because the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses were a huge hit last year,” said Avi Greengart, president and lead analyst at Techsponential. 

Smart glasses require “purposeful compromise,” when it comes to balancing functionality with a lightweight form factor, and “different vendors are making different decisions,” to achieve this, said Greengart. 

Halliday’s smart glasses, for example, project text and images  directly into the wearer’s field of view. This is perceived as a 3.5-in. screen that appears in the upper-right corner of the user’s view, and remains visible even in bright sunlight, Halliday claims. A “proactive” AI assistant — which requires a Bluetooth connection to a smartphone —  enables features such as real-time translation in up to 40 languages, live navigation for directions, and teleprompter-style display of notes. 

Halliday’s smart glasses come in three different colors.

Halliday

At 1.2 ounces, they’re even lighter than Meta’s glasses (which at 1.7 ounces are only marginally heavierthan regular Ray-Bans). Halliday’s smart glasses are available for preorder for $489, with shipping expected to begin at the end of the first quarter of this year. 

Even Realities also offers a minimalist take with its G1 smart glasses, which start at $599. These include a micro-LED projector that beams a heads-up display onto each lens, while an AI assistant enables live translation and navigation when paired with a smartphone. 

Another vendor in the space, Rokid, recently announced its Glasses, a  lightweight (1.7 ounces) aimed at continuous use through the day. In addition to a simple green text display and intelligent assistant, Rokid’s device also packs a 12-megapixel camera for image and video capture into the frames.

Nuance Audio — owned by Meta’s Ray-Ban partner, EssilorLuxottica — has an even more focused product: glasses that integrate a hearing aid into the frames. “When you need a bit more help hearing someone, you turn them on and the glasses amplify the sound of the person you are looking at and direct it to speakers on the glasses stems that are aimed at your ears,” said Greengart.

Meta is rumored to be have an updated version of its Ray-Ban devices slated for release later this year. They his will reportedly feature a simple display to show notifications and responses from Meta’s AI assistant. Meta has sold more than a million Ray-Ban smart glasses to date, according to Counterpoint Research stats. 

“Most of these glasses are ones that I wouldn’t mind wearing out in public,” said Ramon Llamas, research director with IDC’s devices and displays team. “We’re finally seeing designs that look and feel less bulky, and we’re getting into a bunch of styles instead of the usual wayfarer design.” 

Other glasses, such as Xreal’s One Pro and TCL’s RayNeo X2 (marketed as “augmented reality” rather than “smart” glasses), are heftier and act as a portable display, with the ability to watch videos and access apps when tethered to a laptop or smartphone.

Although demand for smart glasses is still in its infancy, shipments are expected to see a compound annual growth rate of 85.7% through to 2028, according to recent IDC stats. These “extended reality” devices will soon be the second largest category within the broader AR/VR market, IDC predicts, with several million devices sold each year. 

Mixed reality headsets – such as Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest products – will continue to account for the largest share of the AR/VR market, according to IDC, with extended reality smart glasses in second place.

IDC

Though many of the devices shown at CES are largely aimed at consumers, some smart glasses are also being tailored to enterprise customers (Vuzix being an example). 

As the technology matures, Llamas sees a growing range of business use cases for smart glasses: capturing visual information hands-free, for instance, or live translation, which could also be useful for business travelers. 

“This is where having access to business apps can help, especially if you can speak into those apps to execute a task and the smart glasses can handle that,” said Llamas. “I think we’re still a ways off from that actually taking place, so for now, expect smart glasses to be mostly within the realm of consumers — specifically tech enthusiasts and cognoscenti.”

The European Commission (EC) might have at last seen the sense of pulling back on some of its scrutiny of big tech, which could yet benefit Apple and Google. For many, this will be a welcome step, though critics will continue to criticize.

What’s happening, according to Reuters, is that the coming Trump presidency has “encouraged” Europe to take another look at how it is probing big US tech firms under the Digital Markets Act. The report claims the EC will review all its current probes, and that this review could affect current decisions and fines. Investigations will continue until decisions are reached, the report claims. 

Europe has not confirmed the claims, and in a subsequent statement denied its actions were under review; it said instead it was looking at resource allocation and investigation progress. “What we do have is upcoming meetings to assess maturity of cases, to assess the allocation of resources and the general readiness of the investigation,” the spokesperson said.

If the original claims are true, they do not represent the sudden onset of common sense, or any realization among the regulators that they are going too far in their attempt to create an utterly homogenized mobile ecosystem. Instead, the review has been in part prompted by the imminent Trump Administration. US tech giants have been lobbying the incoming president to challenge EU scrutiny of them.

Trump will be sworn in on Monday.

What this means for tech firms — and Apple 

The review means Europe could choose to alter the scope of the probes against tech firms, including Apple.  

All cases launched under the Digital Markets Act since March 2024 will be under review, the Reuters report claims. The review also means that all decisions and potential fines will be put on ice pending completion of the review; that’s significant, given the maximum fine that can be levied under this law is up to 10% of a company’s global annual revenue.

Any such pause would be positive news for Apple, as it gives the company an opportunity to lobby for less punitive outcomes and a more constructive compromise in which its platforms continue to provide unique features unavailable elsewhere. 

The hill Apple will likely be fighting from will include arguments concerning the privacy and security of its users; the company’s support for those values is pretty much unique at this end of the industry. It is worth noting that Apple was making arguments pertaining to such things literally years before the rest of the industry began to echo its concerns. The company’s focus on those things also lines up closely with Europe’s own views on privacy, as evidenced by GDPR.

At the very least, the review does buy Apple time to improve its business systems to better match what it now knows regulators want, without decimating its business. When dealing with any form of change, time is an advantage.

But change remains inevitable

That’s not to say Apple can stand still. The company’s senior executives are expected be in London this week, facing a class action lawsuit that argues it has, in effect, overcharged consumers for sales via the App Store. It remains unclear how Apple’s justifiable argument — that the vast majority of apps are distributed at no, or low, fees — will be understood as it argues that case. Apple faces similar action globally, and the litigation means it will have to change, even if only reluctantly.

Eager to force that change, Europe’s regulators are unlikely to slow their investigations into tech companies, but will be waiting on political direction before they decide the extent to which they will attempt enforcement.

Whatever the outcome of the review, there’s little doubt that Apple’s business continues to be exposed to the unravelling of internationalism. For example, even as the EU offers the sliver of hope that is implied by the DMA case review, the company’s problems in China continue to evolve. China is now slowing down Apple’s move to transplant parts of its supply chain parts of its supply chain elsewhere — particularly in India — with tighter export checks and limits to employee travel.

While there is no doubt that Apple CEO,Tim Cook has done excellent work in terms of managing the political complexity buffeting Apple’s business, it’s hard not to imagine he’d rather spend his own, and his company’s, time and money focusing on product development.

Follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, or MeWe. 

It’s looking like 2025 will be one of the most consequential years for Microsoft in a long time.  Since Satya Nadella became CEO in early 2014, the company has been on an upward trajectory, despite a few bumps along the way. Today it’s the most powerful AI company on the planet and the world’s third-most-valuable company, worth more than $3 trillion.

But in these volatile times, that can change quickly thanks to a still evolving AI market, the federal government targeting high tech, and the coming wild-card Trump presidency. What challenges will the company face in 2025, and how will it handle them? 

Here are my top five.

Microsoft and OpenAI will go from frenemies into enemies

Not so long ago, the Microsoft-OpenAI relationship was tech’s biggest bromance. Microsoft invested $13 billion in OpenAI, OpenAI’s influence and valuation skyrocketed, and Microsoft used the company’s generative AI (genAI) technology to vault to the top of the AI heap.

Last year, the bromance soured and the companies became frenemies; as OpenAI openly courted major Microsoft clients, Microsoft laid the groundwork for developing its own AI technology. Nadella disparaged OpenAI, saying, “If OpenAI disappeared tomorrow…, we have all the IP rights and all the capability. We have the people, we have the compute, we have the data, we have everything. We are below them, above them, around them.”

Don’t be surprised if there’s open warfare between the companies this year. OpenAI will be transforming itself from non-profit to a for-profit company, possibly changing the terms of its contract with Microsoft and allowing it to more easily pursue partnerships with other companies. In addition, the terms of the Microsoft-OpenAI deal says that when OpenAI’s ChatGPT achieves what’s called AGI and can reason on its own, Microsoft will lose its stake in the company. 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman keeps hinting that’s coming sooner rather than later. Meanwhile,  Microsoft has been busy building AI technology that could replace OpenAI’s as the basis for Copilot and other AI products. 

The upshot? Expect open warfare between the two.

Microsoft will get hit with at least one US government antitrust suit

Decades ago, Microsoft was Big Tech’s bad boy, mowing down competitors with shady actions that drew the wrath of the federal government — an antitrust suit that dropped the company from the top tier of tech and led to a lost decade in which it became an also-ran.

After Nadella took the helm, Microsoft became Big Tech’s choirboy, largely avoiding any federal suits, while Amazon, Meta, Google, and Apple were hit with antitrust actions that threaten the core of their businesses. 

That will probably change in 2025. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched a  wide-ranging investigation into what it believes may be Microsoft’s anticompetitive practices. The agency is looking at the very heart of the company and its business practices — AI, cloud computing, its productivity suite, and Teams. The suit could also endanger the company’s billion-dollar contracts with the US government, because the FTC began looking at the company thanks to its poor security practices.

What’s unclear is whether the Trump administration will continue the investigation, and ultimately prosecute the company. My bet is it will. Top Trump advisor Elon Musk has become a Microsoft competitor with his AI company xAI, and he’ll most certainly use his high-level access to push for prosecution. He’s already suing Microsoft and OpenAI for trying to use their power to get a monopoly on AI.

Intellectual property battles will come to a head

Microsoft and other genAI companies face an even bigger problem than antitrust lawsuits — the lack of content on which to train genAI tools like Copilot and ChatGPT. Improving them requires massive amounts of intellectual property. So far, the companies have simply hoovered up anything they can find, largely without paying, claiming they can use the material under fair-use doctrine.

That’s led to plenty of lawsuits against Microsoft and other AI companies for intellectual property theft. In one of the biggest, The New York Times is seeking “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” because of what it calls the “unlawful copying and use of The Times’ uniquely valuable works.” 

Microsoft and other AI companies have begun making deals with publishers to pay for the content to train their AI models. In November, Microsoft inked a deal with the publisher HarperCollins in which it can use many of the company’s nonfiction books to train a new genAI product.

That deal might well be Microsoft’s first in a series of similar agreements with other companies. Expect more to follow this year.

Nadella will try to keep Trump at a distance

Since Donald J. Trump’s election, a number of Big Tech executives and companies have gone full-blown MAGA. In one of the more extreme makeovers, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has gone all in, donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, eliminating fact-checking on Meta platforms, backing away from policing hate speech, ending the company’s diversity efforts, killing transgender and nonbinary themes from its apps, and even removing tampons from its men’s bathrooms, which it had provided for nonbinary and transgender employees. 

He’s not the only one. Top executives from Google, Amazon, Apple, and others have also bowed to Trump. Microsoft had been the lone holdout until early January, when it donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural. Aside from that, though, the company hasn’t curtailed diversity efforts or in any other way changed its culture to put it in line with Trump’s way of thinking. And Nadella hasn’t visited Trump in Mar-a-Lago, as have so many other tech execs.

The big question: Will Nadella continue keeping Trump at arm’s length, and not try to make the company culture more like Trump would like to see it? My guess is he’ll stay the course. But we’ll see.

We may get real revenue numbers for AI… or not

Finally comes perhaps the biggest issue of all for the company’s financial health: Can Microsoft sign up enough customers to make its genAI ambitions worth its while? We’re no longer in the early hype days when mere possibilities were more important than revenue. In 2025, the ROI rubber will meet the road of reality.

This is particularly important because the investments that need to be made in genAI are far greater in scale than in any technology before it. Microsoft can spend all the billions it wants for infrastructure, electricity, data centers, training, and development. But if businesses and people don’t find AI useful and open their wallets for it, that will mean nothing.

Microsoft claims it’s got plenty of customers, but it isn’t giving out details, such as how many people pay for Copilot on a monthly basis and how much revenue it gets from that. Instead, it publicizes potentially misleading statistics such as “More than 85% of the Fortune 500 are using Microsoft AI” and “Nearly 70% of the Fortune 500 are using Microsoft 365 Copilot.” Most likely those numbers are based on companies launching small pilot programs testing whether AI is useful. Pilots don’t bring in much revenue — only full deployments do.

We’ll know in 2025 if AI is starting to pay off when Microsoft touts real revenue numbers or the number of people actively paying for AI subscriptions. Until then, consider those numbers smoke and mirrors.

Audits are never fun — whether you’re talking about a tax audit, energy audit, or industry compliance audits. But they’re necessary. And when it comes to mobile device management (MDM) deployments, they’re extra important, because mobile devices are endpoints that can expose your company to the security dangers and risk letting corporate data leak out.

Here’s what to consider as you plan an MDM audit and what to include.

What do you need to achieve with an MDM audit

Auditing something as broad as your MDM environment with its mix of identity products, federated cloud services, MDM solutions themselves, policies and groups, app inventories and the devices themselves can get, well, complicated. 

This means your first step is to determine what an MDM audit should cover. 

If you’re confident in auditing other aspects of your IT stack, or your entire stack is from one vendor — say you’re a fully Microsoft shop with a stack built around Entra and Azure, both of which you already have audit programs for — then you might just need to focus on Intune and your mobile device policies and configurations. But if you mix and match cloud services from multiple companies and your MDM solution is from a different vendor than everything else, you’ll need to look at your MDM links to everything else (and possibly how all your other systems link to each other). Auditing systems individually won’t give you a holistic understanding of how they work together.

If your company is subject to various compliance regimes (such as GDPR or HIPAA, for example), some subjects might be defined for you. Either way, set the scope of the audit so it can capture the systems, policies, user groups, device types, apps, user experiences and even the backend tools used in your environment. 

As with any audit, standard procedures need to be considered. Ideally, these basic processes will follow the model of other audit procedures already in place. There will always be some variation — different systems have different functions and require measuring different metrics. But there should be some connective thread that runs through how you capture audit data, process it, report your findings and list corrective steps that need to be taken based on the results. An MDM audit will obviously focus on different things than a server or network security audit, but all three should come from the same basic template.

As you consider the scope of an audit and its processes, make notes of the specific questions you need to answer and the data points you need to answer them. If this is your first MDM audit, brainstorming areas of importance and looking to outside resources such as your MDM (and related service) vendor can help define exactly what you need to ask. Be sure to consider each idea carefully to see whether it’s really significant or simply mission creep. 

If you’ve performed MDM audits in the past, you’ll want to review whether they captured the relevant information or let things fall between the cracks. And even if past audits went well, remember the mobile landscape and threat environment changes quickly. So you’ll need to account for any major changes — such as the recent proliferation of generative AI — since your last audit and decide whether your previous scope needs to be adjusted.

The logistics matter

How the audit is done from a logistical perspective also matters. Some can be carried out simply by examining and testing back-end systems and have no real or direct user-facing components. MDM audits might require some fieldwork, virtual or in-person, to gather accurate data. And if various teams or groups of employees or managers need to be consulted or might be impacted during the audit, you’ll want to establish that up front for both the audit team and anyone affected. 

Who is the auditor(s)?

The next step is determining who will conduct the audit. With something as broad as MDM, which touches several different domains – network access, app licensing, user and group management, device and procurement from multiple vendors, endpoint security, user experience, general and mobile-specific policy requirements and so on – it can be difficult to establish exactly who’s ultimately responsible. 

This means MDM audits are often best done by a team where various stakeholders are represented.

Should you consider a pre-audit?

In some cases, you might know going into the process that there are areas that are problematic. These could include policies you’ve been meaning to update; the criteria on which you authorize user access to resources; how you manage or group users and devices; and significant updates – mobile OS and app versions, backend systems – that you have yet to get around to doing. 

Dealing with these known issues before the full audit occurs can make the entire process easier and shorten your departmental to-do list.

The items you want to capture

Every audit will vary based on your needs and environment. The following isn’t an exhaustive list, but these areas should be part of any MDM audit:

• Logs: Application and system logs from the MDM itself, and logs involving MDM interactions with devices and other services.
• Policies: Auditing MDM policies include the policies themselves (are they appropriate to your environment, security and user needs) and whether or not they are enforced as intended. As MDM provides a wealth of policy configurations and restrictions, this will be one of the major focus areas for an audit and it should be done across every major device/user demographic across an organization

• Device and network security: Broadly speaking, you need to ensure that information being transferred between devices and your network is secure, visible and functions appropriately regardless of how devices are connecting (corporate Wi-Fi, home or public W-Fi and cellular) as well as device integrity/malware checking.

• Device and data controls: One crucial feature of any MDM system is the ability to separate work and personal apps, settings and content. Rules related to this functionality should be clearly established and tested as widely as possible across your device fleet and user community. This can include encryption at rest and in transit and  procedures for handling things such as remote lock and remote wipe.

• Device enrollment and lifecycle processes.

• Mobile OS and app updates: Make sure these are consistent throughout your fleet and environment.

• Suspicious activity monitoring and reaction: What counts as suspicious activity can vary greatly, as can the intended reactions. 

After the audit

After you’ve completed the audit, take time to sift through the results. It’s also good to have multiple sets of eyes and perspectives on the data; an audit should be more than just a list of boxes to check. Seeing which criteria have been met or unmet is critical, but the question of why the results are what they are is equally important. If there are devices or apps that are out of compliance, you’ll need to know that and understand why if you’re going to remedy the issues. Your ultimate report should include this background and potential challenges during remediation. 

Remember, an audit isn’t just about seeing where you miss the mark. Sometimes you’ll discover areas where your organization beats expectations, shows improvement from an earlier audit or helps you see your baseline compared to your overall industry. If something works well, you want to understand why. It might be something you can incorporate more broadly throughout your organization.

The last major step is to create an action or remediation plan. (This is especially important if you’re in an industry subject to regulation such as financial services or healthcare.) What this plan will look like can vary significantly from company to company and even from audit to audit. 

The most important thing is that this plan be actionable. Each item should be specific, have metrics that allow you to ensure it is being addressed and have a timetable for resolution. The main reason for an audit in the first place is to identify issues and make serious improvements. Performing an audit and then letting the results sit in a drawer is nothing more than audit theater — you go through the motions, but don’t act on the results.

A rash of planned feature and application retirements within the Microsoft 365 environment is the result of Microsoft wanting to centralize, modernize, operationalize customer spend, and ultimately economize by simplifying product offerings where it can, an industry analyst said Monday.

Jeremy Roberts, senior workshop director at Info-Tech Research Group, said the fact that a number of Microsoft 365 (M365) services have been or will soon be mothballed does not come as a surprise, as Microsoft has been making quite a few changes to the product. He described those changes as “the nature of SaaS [software-as-a-service]. You get with it, or you get left behind.”

The retirements will precede the end of support for Windows 10, which happens on October 14 of this year, and is a move that Roberts said has resulted in Microsoft facing “quite a bit of resistance.”

“I think the AI thing [in Windows 11] plays better with investors than with enterprise consumers, and features like Recall that have been hyped are maybe more exciting to Microsoft internal folks than to real people,” he said.

He added that he also thinks that “an aggressive effort to get people to upgrade PCs probably has left a bitter taste in some folks’ mouths. That said, for the enterprise, most in my circle have already made the transition. I don’t talk about it much anymore. Besides, if you care that much, you can get extended [Windows 10] support for three more years.”

“Many enterprise organizations are now prepping for the Windows 10 end-of-service (EOS) in October of 2025,” observed Andrew Hewitt, principal analyst at Forrester Research. “As usual, we expect many organizations will not be able to move to Windows 11 by that due date, and they will have to take advantage of Microsoft’s long term support.”

However, he said, “The interesting part of this EOS event, though, is the arrival of the AI PC. While these devices hit shelves in 2024, we expect 2025 to be the year in which more organizations actually adopt them. The Windows 10 EOS provides a great opportunity for organizations to make a clean cut over to Windows 11 while investing in new AI-enabled hardware..”

On the Microsoft 365 front, a blog from Microsoft partner AdminDroid, sourced from the Microsoft software lifecycle reporting site, outlines the following scheduled feature “retirements.” These include:

• Retirement of Tag Feature in Microsoft 365 Apps: Microsoft retired the “Tags” feature in Microsoft 365 apps between Jan. 6, 2025, and Jan. 10, 2025. Users can no longer view or apply tags.
• Office 365 Connectors Retirement from Microsoft Teams: Owners of webhook-based Office 365 connectors in Teams must update their URLs to a new structure by January 31, 2025 to avoid service disruptions; all webhook-based connectors must be updated to continue posting messages in Teams. Microsoft recommends migrating webhooks to the Teams Workflow app.
• The O365 Connectors service will be retired at the end of 2025.
• Microsoft Viva Engage: Retirement of Private Unlisted Groups in External Networks as of Monday, Jan. 13. “After this date, users will no longer be able to create, export, access, or participate in unlisted groups within external networks,” the blog noted.
• As of Tuesday, Jan. 14, The PowerPoint QuickStarter Feature will be completely retired.
• Alert notifications feature in Microsoft Defender for Identity will be retired this week.
• Viva topics, the blog said, will be “discontinued on Feb. 22 and Microsoft will no longer pursue new feature enhancements for the platform.
• Microsoft officially deprecated the Azure AD and MSOnline PowerShell modules in March 2024. However, they will remain functional until March 30, 2025, with support limited to critical security fixes.
• Starting in late January 2025, any OneDrive accounts left unlicensed for more than 90 days will be automatically archived, hitting customers with extra costs to regain access in Microsoft Archive. They will be charged $0.05 per GB per month to store unlicensed OneDrive content and $0.60 per GB to reactivate the account in the Microsoft 365 archive. Microsoft recommends either deleting these accounts or assigning them a license.
• Starting next month, the blog said, “Microsoft will remove the ‘Monitor’ action in the Safe Attachments policy. Any existing policies set to ‘Monitor’ will be automatically changed to ‘Block.’ The recipients, status, or priority configured in the policy will remain unchanged.”

These moves followed the deprecation of the legacy Teams client in March 2024 (with its end of availability scheduled for July 1, 2025), which Roberts said “had more to do with efficiency than with aesthetics. They’ve moved off of Electron and AngularJS [development platforms] to WebView2 and React. This is meant to improve performance, responsiveness, and optimization. Basically, this is Microsoft cleaning up its technical debt.”

That is, he said, “one of the benefits of a SaaS environment, and while it might be a bit of a pain for users to make the transition, the old and new Teams are similar enough that the change management exercise shouldn’t be overwhelming. They have to cut over at some point; otherwise, they’re left maintaining a fractured environment, which is ultimately not really beneficial to anyone in the long term.”

The worst is over with the Teams migration, said William McKeon-White, senior analyst, infrastructure and operations at Forrester Research. “I still find New Teams to be a little less stable than Classic teams, but the weird bugs that plagued the first release have been remediated. There of course will be some confusion (especially as users have to re-pin the app to the desktop;  I anticipate a week or so of tickets around ‘Teams disappeared what happened’) but the migration will be less annoying that the deprecation of Office 365 Connectors.”

The loss of those connectors, he noted, will be “be significantly more disruptive. It will be annoying for administrators and power users, breaking automation until the migration is complete.“

“How onerous this is, will depend on the organization,” he added. “It could be the effort of less than a day, or stretch into weeks for orgs with dozens of connections. While official guidance does helpfully detail the ways to save time through using templates, this transition will require effort. Because of the way some orgs use a complex web of connectors, apps and extensions, something is going to break. … To avoid this, it is advisable for admins to go through their extensions now to evaluate what’s being used in mission critical work.”

The march to the cloud, said Roberts, “continues with the end of support for M365 Apps support on Windows Server 2016/2019 and the end of support for the legacy Office 2016 and 2019 products [which takes effect in October of this year]. I don’t think anyone is surprised that they would make this choice. Microsoft loves recurring revenue. I imagine most corporate clients are already M365 customers, but for those who are holding out, this could complicate things from a security and feature perspective.”

Another strategy Microsoft is pursuing, he said, “involves pushing people towards Graph. I see this as an attempt to standardize on a central environment. Instead of multiple standards and pathways into the ecosystem, a bit of upfront learning in the form of new cmdlets and some familiarity with the Graph architecture could introduce efficiencies at the cost of some upfront learning for administrators.”

Roberts noted that not all of these changes will please IT. “Sysadmins will be grumpy about this because it is more work in the short term,” he said. “Many of the benefits will only be clear after a few years, more than likely.”

This story has been updated with comments from Forrester analysts.

Nobody could accuse the British Government of lacking enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). According to its newly published AI Opportunities Action Plan, the technology’s blossoming will remake the British economy, boost productivity, smooth bureaucracy, and transform the quality of state services such as healthcare.

Through this, the government wants the UK to become an AI superpower, consolidating its position as the world’s third largest AI market, behind the US and China, the report said.

Part of the initiative is a £14 billion investment ($18 billion) by Vantage Data Centres, Nscale, and Kyndryl to build new data center infrastructure, on top of the £25 billion in AI investment announced at the International Investment Summit last October.

Its deeper theme is that the UK should be able to produce as well as consume AI technology, because receiving technology from others is a recipe for dependence.

“There is barely an aspect of our society that will remain untouched by this force of change,” said Prime Minister Keir Starmer in his report foreword.

“This government will not sit back passively and wait for change to come. It is our responsibility to harness it and make it work for working people,” he said.

AI Growth Zones (AIGZs)

Many of the 13,250 jobs the reports says will be created in the near term will be in “AI growth zones”, the first of which will be in Culham, Oxfordshire, also the HQ for the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

That’s significant because all of the data centers housing AI will consume huge amounts of power, at least 100MW to start with and eventually 500MW. Unfortunately, while Culham is the home of research into nuclear energy, there is no power station onsite, which explains why the report proposes a new AI Energy Council to fill the gap.

Cooling the new data centers could also be an issue in a potential drought zone, despite Thames Water promising to build a new reservoir nearby.

Additional requirements

National Data Library: AI, of course, needs data – lots of it. That’s becoming harder to source. The Report’s answer is a National Data Library, “underpinned by strong privacy-preserving safeguards.” The deeper detail of this has yet to be announced, but issues of privacy and copyright lurk.

Public compute: The UK needs another supercomputer, somewhere. This is despite the new government ditching plans as recently as October to build precisely this type of computer at Edinburgh University. The UK’s other supercomputer centers include Bristol (Isambard AI), and Cambridge (Dawn).

People: The plan proposed working out how many people the UK needs and then developing plans to fill gaps. That includes importing skills by exploring “how the existing immigration system can be used to attract graduates from universities producing some of the world’s top AI talent.”

Regulatory oversight: AI has yet to grapple with its daunting ethical concerns. The report’s answer is to turn the UK’s AI Safety Institute (AISI) into a statutory body with the power to intervene where it thinks fit.

White hot

The idea of a bold national plan for AI echoes that of another Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, who in a famous 1963 speech proposed overhauling the UK through the “white heat of technology”.

This parallel isn’t necessarily happy; although the UK embraced Wilson’s white heat in pockets, it failed to capitalize on the wider opportunities offered by that era’s early development of computing and software. That was despite having plenty of clever people in the field, a decent education system, and big companies willing to invest.

The new plan is also uncomfortably similar to the recent Conservative administration’s championing of everything AI under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right down to his rhetoric about matching AI superpowers the US and China. 

One difference is that the report’s vision was authored by industry figure Matt Clifford, an entrepreneur and investor appointed as the administration’s AI adviser after Labour’s election win in July.

He authored the plan’s 50 recommendations, all of which the government plans to implement. That suggests that the UK’s AI overhaul is not being driven as a pet project by politicians alone. Another backer is Demis Hassabis, co-winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his AI-aided work on protein folding.

Making not taking

In many ways, the challenges faced by the UK in enabling AI – indeed, all future computing projects – mirror what every country faces. Energy and cooling are problems, and tooling up to fill infrastructure and skills gaps is competitive and resource intensive.

One reason Wilson’s 1960’s plan struggled was that the state and public services ignored the computing innovation going on around them. However, given that AI is already being experimented with in the NHS, perhaps attitudes have changed.

But what will really count is that private companies can make money out of AI in the UK in the long run. Governments plans and infrastructure are helpful and set the mood, but only go so far.

“While the focus on investing in infrastructure such as computing power and a national data library is welcome,” said Dr Pia Huesch, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) research fellow, “the UK Government must not forget the risks posed by AI technologies or the international partnerships that are needed to secure long-term benefit from AI technologies.”

Microsoft plans to force-install its new Outlook client on Windows 10 computers in conjunction with a new security update being released Feb. 11, according to Bleeping Computer.

The change affects Microsoft 365 users and the new Outlook client will run alongside the classic Outlook app. It will not change a user’s default settings or any configurations.

Microsoft says that while it’s not possible for Windows 10 users to block the installation, it is possible to remove the application afterwards.

On the day the UK government confirms an AI future for the country (we’ll see how that goes), Apple’s App Store pricing model has gone on trial in London.

Apple is accused of overcharging consumers for software sold via the App Store in a £1.5 billion class-action lawsuit bought by Rachael Kent-Aitken on behalf of 20 million UK consumers. (That equates to about $1.8 billion in US dollars.)

She’s chasing down Cupertino, claiming it is abusing its market dominance by levying up to a 30% fee on download sales, calling the levy “excessive and unfair.”

The trial began today before the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal. The lawyers at Hausfeld represent Kent-Aitken in the case, the costs of which appear to be underwritten (if that’s the appropriate word) by Vannin Capital.

What is Apple accused of?

The accusation is that Apple abused its dominant position by:

• Imposing restrictive terms that require app developers to distribute exclusively via the App Store using Apple’s payments system.
• Charging excessive and unfair prices in the form of commission payments, which are ultimately paid by the device users.

Apple, of course, calls the claims “meritless,” pointing to the fact that the vast majority of developers do not pay a 30% levy on software sales, that those who offer apps at no charge (around 80% of all available apps) pay no levy at all, and that the fee is intended to see the costs of running the store borne by those who generate the most cash from selling software through it. 

In related news, the European Commission has begun fresh scrutiny of the core technology fee Apple charges some developers in Europe in response to the Digital Markets Act.

Senior Apple leaders head to court

Apple appears ready to field an all-star cast of witnesses during the trial with around three days of witness time booked. What is known is that Apple will field some witnesses who will travel from the US, with both Apple Fellow and App Store leader Phil Schiller and Apple Senior Vice President for Software Craig Federighi named in a pre-trial note (pages 24/25). Apple’s newly-appointed Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh will also be forced to give evidence.

The company will also be told to share unredacted versions of some documents used during the European Commission trial against it; there are three days in which Apple has secured witness time for the case, according to one document, though it is not known if that is definite at this stage. Apple witness statements should begin Wednesday afternoon, though it is not known if the witnesses Apple plans to bring will remain the same. 

Apple has previously said: “We believe this lawsuit is meritless and welcome the opportunity to discuss with the court our unwavering commitment to consumers and the many benefits the App Store has delivered to the UK’s innovation economy.” 

It’s worth noting that Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the UK in December. While there he met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and hosted an event at Apple’s Battersea HQ with King Charles.

Apple now supports 550,000 UK jobs through direct employment, its supply chain, and the iOS app economy. 

Is it all about legality — or profitability?

In the end, and as I’ve pointed out before, even some of the company’s critics levy similar fees on sales through their platforms, which means it isn’t a matter of fee/no fee, but a question of how much fee is legitimate for Apple’s storefront, or any storefront, to charge. Even big brick-and-mortar grocery stores charge for shelf placement, after all. 

“The commissions charged by the App Store are very much in the mainstream of those charged by all other digital marketplaces,” Apple said when the case began. “In fact, 85% of apps on the App Store are free and developers pay Apple nothing. And for the vast majority of developers who do pay Apple a commission because they are selling a digital good or service, they are eligible for a commission rate of 15%.”

What happens next?

The litigant at one point claimed Apple made $15 billion in App Store sales on costs of around $100 million, though those costs seem to ignore research and development, OS development, security, payments, and associated investments Apple makes in its ecosystem.

Kent’s lawyer, Hausfeld partner Lesley Hannah, at one point said: “Apple has created a captive market where people who own Apple devices are reliant on it for the provision of both apps and payment processing services for digital purchases.”

Apple will likely argue that the market is larger than just iOS apps (think online services and other mobile platforms) and observe that it is not dominant in the device market. That matters, because it means consumers do have choice and most consumers choose different platforms. (Kent is also involved in similar action against Google.)

Right or wrong, it’s hard to avoid that in general the direction of travel when it comes to App Store encounters in court means the current business model now seems tarnished. Perhaps Apple could introduce a different model in time?

Follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, or MeWe. 

The Linux Foundation has unveiled a new collaborative organization called Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers designed to ensure that open-source projects with connections to Chromium get the necessary resources to be successful.

Members of the group include Google, Microsoft, and Opera, the companies behind Chromium-based browsers such as Chrome, Edge and Opera. Facebook’s parent company Meta has also joined the collaboration, according to Ars Technica.

Currently, there are nearly 30 different browsers based on Chromium, of which the most well-known are Brave, Duckduckgo, and Vivaldi.

Adobe has unveiled a new Firefly “bulk create” feature that lets content designers make changes to thousands of images once, automating actions such as resizing assets and replacing backgrounds at scale.

Up to 10,000 JPG or PNG images can uploaded to the Firefly Bulk Create tool and accessed via the Firefly browser app. Users can then opt to remove the background for the images, swap in another background image uploaded to the app, or generate a new background using Adobe’s Firefly AI models. Users can also resize assets for social or display ads.

Adobe said it plans to eventually add more options related to recoloring and localization. 

Automating these steps with Bulk Create could save designers days normally spent making small adjustments to large numbers of files, the company said. The feature, for example, could provide consistent backgrounds for product images on an e-commerce site or headshot photos of speakers at a conference.

Currently in beta, Bulk Create will be generally available during the first quarter of the year, Adobe said in a blog post Monday, though a specific launch date wasn’t given. Pricing is consumption based and is available to Firefly Services customers; Adobe declined to provide further pricing details. 

Adobe also announced new Firefly Services APIs. Firefly Services, which launched last year, is a set of more than 20 “APIs, tools and services” that let developers integrate capabilities from Firefly, Lightroom and Photoshop into custom workflows. 

Adobe said its Custom Models feature — which lets customers “fine-tune” Firefly to fit their own brand by training Adobe’s generative AI models on their own assets — will be available as a Firefly Services API later this month. Adobe’s Dubbing and Lip Sync tool, which enables translation of video content into different languages, will also be generally available as a Firefly Services API later this month, and a “digital human avatar” API built on Adobe’s text-to-speech AI model is available in beta this month.

Finally, an InDesign API will be generally available in February. 

The next wave of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption is already under way, as AI agents — AI applications that can function independently and execute complex workflows with minimal or limited direct human oversight — are being rolled out across the tech industry.

Unlike a large language model (LLM) or generative AI (genAI) tools, which usually focus on creating content such as text, images, and music, agentic AI is designed to emphasize proactive problem-solving and complex task execution, much as a human would. The key word is “agency,” or software that can act on its own.

AI agents can combine multiple capabilities (such as language understanding, reasoning, decision-making, and planning), and execute actions in a broader context, such as controlling robots, managing workflows, or interacting with APIs. They can even be grouped together, allowing a multi-AI agent system working together to solve tasks in a distributed and collaborative way. (OpenAI unveiled “Swarm,” an experimental multi-agentic framework last fall.)

Agents can also use LLMs as part of its decision-making or interaction strategy. For example, while the OpenAI’s LLM-based ChatGPT can generate a poem, or Google’s BERT can classify sentiment in a sentence, an AI agent such as Siri or Alexa can be used to control smart devices and set reminders.

Benjamin Lee, a professor of engineering and computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, said agentic AI is poised to represent a ”paradigm shift.” That’s because the agents could boost productivity by enabling humans to delegate large jobs to an agent instead of individual tasks.

Specialized models could compute answers with fewer calculations and less energy, with agents efficiently choosing the right model for each task — a challenge for humans today, according to Lee.

“Research in artificial intelligence has, until recently, focused on training models that perform well on a single task,” Lee said, “but a job is often comprised of many interdependent tasks. With agentic AI, humans no longer provide the AI an individual task but rather provide the AI a job. An intelligent AI will then strategize and determine the set of tasks needed to complete that job.”

According to Capgemini, 82% of organizations plan to adopt AI agents over the next three years, primarily for tasks such as email generation, coding, and data analysis. Similarly, Deloitte predicts that enterprises using AI agents this year will grow their use of the technology by 50% over the next two years.

According to Deloitte’s 2025 Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Predictions Report, some of the most impactful use cases include customer experience personalization, and security enhancements, regulatory compliance, agent builders and prchestrators.

AI also helps combat fraud and cybersecurity threats by detecting anomalies in real time and automating tasks like vulnerability detection. It reduces manual effort by up to 90%, addressing talent shortages and providing actionable insights, according to China Widener, Deloitte’s vice chair and US Technology, Media & Telecom leader.

Widener said genAI agents AI enhance customer interactions by personalizing services and automating support tasks. It customizes recommendations, guides setups, and streamlines human handoffs with summarized details.

The tools can also automate the review of regulatory policies and company guidelines to identify gaps and suggest updates, or cite relevant rules to reduce the burden of keeping up with compliance, especially for heavily regulated industries such as finance and healthcare.

“Businesses now have tools to build custom AI agents tailored to specific workflows,” Widener said. “These agents autonomously organize unstructured data, generate reports, and collaborate on complex tasks. For example, startups are leveraging multi-agent systems to create tools like smart spreadsheets, which integrate diverse data sources and perform tasks independently.”

A warning against unsupervised AI

Capgemini, however, warned that organizations planning to implement AI agents should establish safeguards to ensure transparency and accountability for any AI-driven decisions. That’s because AI agents that use unclean data can introduce errors, inconsistencies, or missing values that make it difficult for the model to make accurate predictions or decisions. If the dataset has missing values for certain features, for instance, the model might incorrectly assume relationships or fail to generalize well to new data.

An agent could also draw data from individuals without consent or use data that’s not anonymized properly, potentially exposing personally identifiable information. Large datasets with missing or poorly formatted data can also slow model training and cause it to consume more resources, making it difficult to scale the system.

In addition, while AI agents must also comply with the European Union’s AI Act and similar regulations, innovation will quickly outpace those rules. Businesses must not only ensure compliance but also manage various risks, such as misrepresentation, policy overrides, misinterpretation, and unexpected behavior.

“These risks will influence AI adoption, as companies must assess their risk tolerance and invest in proper monitoring and oversight,” according to a Forrester Research report — “The State Of AI Agents” — published in October.

Matt Coatney, CIO of business law firm Thompson Hine, said his organization is already actively experimenting with agents and agentic systems for both legal and administrative tasks. “However, we are not yet satisfied with their performance and accuracy to consider for real-world workflows quite yet,” he said, adding that the firm is focused on agent use in contract review, billing, budgeting, and business development.

Thompson Hine employs more than 400 attorneys, operates in nine US states and promotes its use of advanced technologies, including AI, in providing legal services.

Coatney stressed that research and development around AI agents is still evolving. Most commercially available tools are either fledgling startups or open-source projects like Autogen (Microsoft). Established players such as Salesforce and ServiceNow highlight AI agents as key features, but the term “agent” remains loosely defined and is often overused in marketing, he said.

For example, Salesforce Einstein is designed to enhance customer relationship management using predictive analytics and automation. And Auto-GPT enables users to create an autonomous assistant to complete complex tasks by analyzing a text prompt with GPT-4 and GPT-4o then breaking the goal into manageable subtasks.

Forrester Research

“AI agents are still largely experimental, but looking at where enterprises have historically invested in automation is instructive,” Coatney said. “Time-consuming, frequent tasks are ripe for this type of solution: finance, operations, administrative processes, etc. Additionally, AI agents are being explored for tasks where genAI)is specifically strong, such as writing.

“For instance, one could imagine a multi-agent system involving an AI project manager, blog writer, brand manager, editor, and SEO specialist working in concert to automatically create on-brand marketing material,” he said.

“These agents leverage the strengths of multiple paradigms while mitigating risk by using more deterministic techniques when appropriate,” Coatney said. “I am particularly excited about the potential of integrating systems and data both within and beyond the enterprise. I see great potential in unlocking value still largely isolated in departmental and vendor silos.”

Forrester Research

Limited capabilities today

Tom Coshow, a senior director analyst at Gartner, said many agents today have limited independence, making few decisions and often requiring human review of their actions. Additionally, one of the bigger challenges with deploying agents is ensuring they’re grounded with quality data that produce consistent results, he said.

“AI agents are tricky to deploy and require extensive testing and monitoring,” Coshow said. “The AI agent market is bubbling with startups, the hyper scalers, former RPA [Robotic Process Automation] companies, former conversational AI companies and data and analytics firms.”

Yet, businesses are optimistic about AI broadly, hoping automation will drive efficiency and better business outcomes. Among tech decision-makers who work in services, according to Forrester Research, 70% of businesses expect their organization will increase spending on third-party RPA and automation services in the next 12 months.

Among digital business strategy decision-makers, 92% say that their firm is investing in chatbots or plans to do so in the next two years; 89% said the same about Autonomy, Will, and Agency technology — the three main facets that allow AI agents to act with varying levels of independence and intentionality.

“Businesses must navigate a convoluted landscape of standalone solutions with piecemeal applications lacking an overarching framework for effective coordination or orchestration,” Forrester explained in a September report, “AI Agents: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.”

The challenge is that AI agents must both make decisions and execute processes, which requires integrating automation tools like iPaaS and RPA with AI’s flexible decision-making, Forrester said.

Last year, companies such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft, and Workday introduced AI agents to streamline tasks such as recruiting, contacting sales leads, creating marketing content, and managing IT.

At Johnson & Johnson, AI agents now assist in drug discovery by optimizing chemical synthesis, including determining the best timing for solvent switches to crystallize molecules into drugs. While effective, the company remains cautious about potential risks, like biased outputs or errors, according to CIO Jim Swanson.

“Like other cutting-edge AI solutions, agents require significant technical and process expertise to effectively deploy,” Thompson Hine’s Coatney said. “Since they are so new and experimental, the jury is still out as to whether the increased value is worth the complexity of setting them up and thoroughly testing them. ROI, as it always has been, is highly project dependent.”

Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg said his decision to reduce his team’s weekly hours working on WordPress by 99% , from 4,000 hours to 45 hours, was designed to pressure WP Engine to drop its lawsuit against Mullenweg and Automattic

“They don’t actually make WordPress. They just resell it,” Mullenweg told Computerworld Friday evening. “If what they are reselling is no longer getting all of the free updates, they have less stuff to sell.” 

“It doesn’t make sense for Automattic to pay people to work on all of these things,” he said. “We are under attack and we are circling the wagons. Our number one goal is for WP Engine to drop their expensive lawsuits against me and Automattic.”

WP Engine was asked for comment, but did not respond.

Asked whether the move would also hurt users of WordPress, Mullenweg said that he didn’t think it would. 

“WordPress is great software. It doesn’t change anything that WordPress already does,” Mullenweg said. “How does this affect the timeline? For new stuff, it might slow it down, it might not. It depends on who shows up and commits code. In terms of new functionality, the scope will be smaller.”

He added, “I love WordPress and will continue to put in hours, nights, and weekends to help however possible.”

Mullenweg also stressed that the 45 hours his team will continue to work on WordPress will make sure that security updates/patches are maintained. 

“Security is never going to be an issue. We will always maintain security,” he said. “No one would ever stop a security update.”

Automattic controls WordPress.com, while the project site, WordPress.org, is controlled solely by Mullenweg.

The cutback in hours had been considered last month when Automattic announced a holiday shutdown of some WordPress services and Mullenweg later said that the shutdown might last all of 2025. Instead, Automattic management opted to implement this severe development hours cutback.

On Thursday, Automattic announced, “we’ve observed an imbalance in how contributions to WordPress are distributed across the ecosystem, and it’s time to address this. Additionally, we’re having to spend significant time and money to defend ourselves against the legal attacks started by WP Engine and funded by Silver Lake, a large private equity firm.”

“Automatticians who contributed to core will instead focus on for-profit projects within Automattic, such as WordPress.com, Pressable, WPVIP, Jetpack, and WooCommerce,” the statement said. “As part of this reset, Automattic will match its volunteering pledge to those made by WP Engine and other players in the ecosystem, or about 45 hours a week that qualify under the Five For the Future program as benefitting the entire community and not just a single company. These hours will likely go towards security and critical updates.”

The implication is that the labor reallocations would be reversed were WP Engine to drop its lawsuit. Mullenweg said recent changes that WP Engine has made has altered his demands. He is no longer asking for money, for example.

His original demand had been for payment; in late October, Mullenweg said WP Engine “could have avoided all of this for $32 million. This should have been very easy,” and he then accused WP Engine of having engaged in “18 months of gaslighting” and said, “that’s why I got so crazy.” 

But on Friday, Mullenweg said he is no longer seeking money because WP Engine made extensive changes to its web site and is no longer violating Automattic’s rights to the trademarks, which was apparently what the payment was for.

“They have stopped violating the trademark. They have cleaned up,” Mullenweg said. “To use someone else’s trademark, you typically license it. For more than 18 months, we were trying to do a deal there. They obviously never did one. I realized that they were just stringing me along.”

Analysts and members of the WordPress user community, who made their comments to Computerworld prior to Mullenweg’s interview, were mixed. Some said they were worried that these latest WordPress changes might exacerbate enterprise IT worries about sticking with WordPress.

“This is a massive number of hours that they are planning on cutting back. The community is not likely to make up those hours. They are going to direct their resources to a legal battle and the platform will not be stable,” said Melody Brue, VP/principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “Users have to plan for the likelihood that they cannot take up the slack. WordPress users are already panicking. They can’t trust him now. They will turn off automatic [WordPress] updates.”

Brue said that Mullenweg’s tactics have yet to work. 

“This has become a spiteful game that he is playing. Part of his whole game is that he makes these big tantrums and threats to get attention,” Brue said. “So far, that hasn’t worked.”

Michelle Rosen, an IDC research manager, said that she was not sure whether this move would ultimately hurt WordPress.

“Automattic has been the largest contributor to WordPress by far, so this decision has to hurt the project’s ability to evolve and improve,” Rosen said. “That said, WordPress has been around for a long time and many users rely on it only as the core of their CMS solution, with other components built on top. In this context, the impact may be lower, especially if Automattic continues to handle security issues.”

Users’ reactions were also mixed.

Jack Prenter, the CEO at WordPress site Dollarwise, said he was somewhat concerned. 

“There is a general loss of confidence. I don’t know if there’s a lot you can do. That’s why the situation is so painful,” Prenter said. “There is such a large ecosystem built around it that people are not going to let it fall apart. It can technically continue to function, but you can cancel all of the future roadmap. Nothing new is going to happen.”

Another WordPress user, Ben May, managing director of The Code Co in Australia, is less concerned. “I suspect this latest statement is ratcheting up the WPE campaign, I guess in an effort to change the hearts and minds of people sympathetic to WPE. I don’t see it as an existential threat to WordPress and am not losing any sleep over it for the time being,” May said. “From what I’ve seen online already, the community is big enough and willing enough to step in and fill in the gaps that would be left with the reduced contributions.”

Tech hiring rose in December, dropping the IT unemployment rate to 2% — its lowest since November 2023, according to an analysis of the latest jobs data published today by the US Bureau of Labor statistics (BLS). The overall national unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, according to the BLS.

The tech sector added a net 7,000 jobs, bringing the total core tech workforce to nearly 6.5 million, according to CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce. The group found that the unemployment rate last month among tech professionals fell a full half a percent from November.

CompTIA

And as 2025 gets under wa, IT employment and hiring appears to be on a positive track, according to staffing agencies. According to ManpowerGroup, the net employment outlook for Q1 2025 is 2% higher than it was for the same period last year — 37% this year compared to 35% in early 2024.

ManpowerGroup recently published its Q1 2025 report on hiring, which claimed hiring in IT fields will beat all other professions in the US. Still, the firm also predicted employers will pull back on hiring in the months ahead because of “economic uncertainty.”

ManpowerGroup

“As we move into 2025, we’re seeing stable year-over-year hiring trends, with employers holding onto the talent they have and planning muted hiring for the quarter ahead,” said Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup chair and CEO.

Overall, studies by ManpowerGroup, online hiring platform Indeed, and Deloitte Consulting showed that IT hiring will increasingly be based on finding workers with flexible skills that can meet changing demands.

In fact, employment within the tech sector encompassing all types of workers declined by 6,117 jobs in December, according to CompTIA’s data. Positions in PC, semiconductor and components manufacturing accounted for the bulk of those cuts.

The tech sector employs nearly 5.6 million people, which translates to a percentage decline of 1%.

ManpowerGroup

“Employers know a skilled and adaptable workforce is key to navigating transformation, and many are prioritizing hiring and retaining people with in-demand flexible skills that can flex to where demand sits,” Prising said.

Ger Doyle, ManpowerGroup’s US country manager, said the December BLS jobs report delivered “a strong finish to 2024 and is a promising sign of what’s to come in the new year. However, the labor market may still face challenges until inflation is under more control, which is necessary to prevent slower hiring, layoffs, and reduced job growth. Our real-time data shows that open positions have decreased by 8% month-over-month, but increased by 3% year-over-year.”

Overall, job postings have remained steady since November, up 13% year-over-year, reflecting growing demand in digital services, healthcare, and convenience retail, according to ManpowerGroup’s data.

The temp job market was also a bright spot, with open job postings reaching their highest levels since September 2023 and new job postings at their peak since March 2022, according to Doyle. “This surge is driven by an increased demand for IT roles as organizations turn to project work to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning,” Doyle said.

Kye Mitchell, head of Experis North America — a ManpowerGroup tech recruiting business — said demand increased among tech employers in December, particularly related to the “gig economy.” Uber led the surge in such jobs with a remarkable 4,150% increase in job postings, while Outlier Inc., a platform that connects experts to advance generative AI, saw a 342% rise in demand.

“This trend was also evident in the temp job market, where the demand for computer and information research scientists skyrocketed by 2,000% as organizations focused on developing artificial intelligence and machine learning, increasingly relying on temp workers,” Mitchell said.

In December, there were 434,415 active tech job postings, including 165,189 newly added (both down from November). Roles in software development, IT project management, cybersecurity, data science, and tech support saw the most activity, according to CompTIA.

Top hiring companies included Amazon, Accenture, Deloitte, PwC, GovCIO, Robert Half, Lumen Technologies, and Insight Global. Job postings spanned all career levels: 22% required 0-3 years of experience, 28% wanted 4-7 years, and 16% sought 8+ years, CompTIA’s data showed.

Notably, 45% of postings across tech roles didn’t require a four-year degree, according to CompTIA. Network support specialists (85%), tech support specialists (72%), and computer programmers (54%) had the highest percentages of degree-optional roles.

For more historical data, here’s a rundown of tech unemployment data dating back to mid-2020.

Forty-one percent of companies intend to cut their workforce in the next five years as many tasks are automated with AI, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF) Future of Jobs Report 2025.

At the same time, 70% of companies say they expect to hire people with knowledge of the new AI tools, reports CNN Business.

The WEF sees advances in AI and renewable energy as reshaping the labor market, driving demand for a variety of technical or specialist roles while leading to a decline for others. The shifts will also likely push companies to upskill their own employees.

There’s good news as well. According to the WEF forecast, while 92 million existing jobs will disappear by 2030, 170 million new jobs will be created. In other words, there will be a net addition of 78 million jobs if the forecast is accurate.

Apple has told us Macs aren’t secure enough and it continues working to improve their security, as it does across all of its platforms. But a newly identified malware attack confirms that third-party developers can sometimes be a weak link in the perimeter.

In this case, Checkpoint security has identified a malware-as-a-service attack it calls Banshee macOS Stealer. 

This insidious attack, which has apparently now been closed down, was spread via seemingly legitimate browser downloads distributed outside of Apple’s Mac App Store. When installed, it was capable of exfiltrating all kinds of information, including account, banking and crypto logins, and more, and was resistant to Apple’s own antivirus protection system, Gatekeeper. (The malware is also available on Windows, but I’m less sure of the degree of risk users on that platform face.

If it’s too good to be true, it’s too good to be true

Here’s what we know:

• The software was distributed in infected versions of popular software (such as Chrome or Telegram) via phishing websites and fake GitHub repositories.
• When in the field, it targets third-party browsers such as Chrome, browser extensions, and makes use of a 2FA extension to capture sensitive information.
• It also tricks users into sharing their passwords with legitimate seeming system prompts, sending stolen data back via command and control servers. 

An attack-as-a-service malware of this kind usually relies on a command server within the exfiltration process, with legitimate-seeming but infiltrated software a method of attack ever since people used to share applications via FTP, and probably before.

None of this is new. Nor is the main attack’s reliance on tricking users. Everyone by now knows that computer users are now and will forever be the weakest link in platform security. Convincing people to download software that is infected is common, and recent attacks from NSO and other reprehensible companies showed that it is still possible to craft attacks that don’t even require user intervention. (Though those are very, very expensive.)

What is new is that those behind the attack used some of Apple’s own anti-virus tools, stealing, “a string encryption algorithm from Apple’s own XProtect antivirus engine, which replaced the plain text strings used in the original version,” according to Checkpoint.

This is what helped the attack evade detection for two months, though it was eventually identified, mitigated, and the operation shut down. Crisis over.

Prevention beats cure

Except the crisis is never really over. 

What this attack exposed is that platforms can be undermined, and while Macs (and Apple’s other products) are — unlike others — secure by design, that doesn’t mean they are infallible.

The introduction of Lockdown Mode demonstrates that Apple knows attacks happen. Within that context, it becomes super-important to ensure every user understands that if software they usually pay for is available free somewhere, they should absolutely avoid installing it. And they should always ensure that legitimate software (such as Chrome) is installed from the original source.

That’s not a problem if you stay within trusted app distribution ecosystems, of course — particularly Apple’s own heavily-policed app stores. But as the company is forced to open up to third-party distribution, that security will be eroded as, at least in some cases, some app developers insist on independent distribution of their software. 

That represents a golden opportunity for malware distributors to try to build legitimate-seeming download sites for these apps. Though it’s possible that Apple’s Notarization system (as it expands) might become an essential tool to protect against this.

While some developers continue to complain about the cost of distribution on Apple’s platforms, it must be stressed that the cost of cybercrime is expected to surpass $10 trillion this year. That means it is in the public interest for app developers — if they really want to play their part to combat cybercrime — to ensure they create and protect secure software distribution systems that do not confuse consumers. 

We all play a part

It’s actually in the national (international) interest. “I think some of the top people predict that the next big war is fought on cybersecurity,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told Time in 2016. 

Software consumers need to play their part. “As cyber criminals continue to innovate, security solutions must evolve in tandem to provide comprehensive protection,” Check Point Research explains. “Businesses and users alike must take proactive steps to defend against threats, leveraging advanced tools and fostering a culture of caution and awareness.”

Despite this attack, the Mac remains the world’s most secure PC platform. One of the easiest ways for anyone to improve their own security posture is to move to Apple’s platforms. And one of the easiest ways to undermine that security is to install dodgy software, no matter how genuine it appears to be. If it seems too good to be true, it’s too good to be true.

So, don’t download it.

You can follow me on social media! You’ll find me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, and MeWe. 

Meta’s mission statement is to “build the future of human connection and the technology that makes it possible.”

According to Meta, the future of human connection is basically humans connecting with AI. 

The company has already rolled out — and is working to radically expand — tools that enable real users to create fake users on the platform on a massive scale. Meta is hoping to convince its 3 billion users that chatting with, commenting on the posts of, and generally interacting with software that pretends to be human is a normal and desirable thing to do. 

Meta treats the dystopian “Dead Internet Theory” — the belief that most online content, traffic, and user interactions are generated by AI and bots rather than humans — as a business plan instead of a toxic trend to be opposed. 

In the old days, when Meta was called Facebook, the company wrapped every new initiative in the warm metaphorical blanket of “human connection”—connecting people to each other. 

Now, it appears Meta wants users to engage with anyone or anything—real or fake doesn’t matter, as long as they’re “engaging,” which is to say spending time on the platforms and money on the advertised products and services.

In other words, Meta has so many users that the only way to continue its previous rapid growth is to build users out of AI. The good news is that Meta’s “Dead Internet” projects are not going well. 

Meta’s aim to get people talking and interacting with non-human AI has taken several forms. 

The Fake Celebrities Project

In September 2023, Meta launched AI chatbots featuring celebrity likenesses, including Kendall Jenner, MrBeast, Snoop Dogg, Charli D’Amelio, and Paris Hilton. 

Users largely rejected and ignored the chatbots, and Meta ended the program. 

The Fake Influencer Engagement Program

Meta is testing a program called “Creator AI,” which enables influencers to create AI-generated bot versions of themselves. These bots would be designed to look, act, sound, and write like the influencers who made them, and would be trained on the wording of their posts. 

The influencer bots would engage in interactive direct messages and respond to comments on posts, fueling the unhealthy parasocial relationships millions already have with celebrities and influencers on Meta platforms. The other “benefit” is that the influencers could “outsource” fan engagement to a bot. 

(“Here at meta, we engage with your fans so you don’t have to!”)

And Meta has even started testing a new feature that automatically adds AI images of users (based on their profile pics) privately into their Instagram feeds, presumably to drive demand and acclimate the public to the idea of turning themselves into AI. 

The Fake Users Initiative

Meta launched its AI Studio in the United States in July 2024; it empowers users without AI skills to create user accounts of invented fake users, complete with profile pics, voices, and “personalities.” 

The idea is that these computer-generated “users” have profiles that exist just like human-user profiles, which can interact with real people on Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and the web.  Meta plans to enable these personas to do the same on Meta’s “metaverse” virtual reality platforms.

A senior Meta executive recently defended the AI-powered fake user concept. “We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” Connor Hayes, vice president of product for generative AI at Meta, said in a Financial Times article. “They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform . . . . That’s where we see all of this going.”

Hayes added that while “hundreds of thousands” of such characters have already been created by users, most have been kept private (defeating their purpose of driving engagement).

The Fake Experiences Folly

Meta also plans to release its text-to-video generation software to content creators. This will essentially enable users to place themselves into AI-generated videos, where they can be depicted doing things they never did in places they’ve never been.

The Fake Facebook Folks Fiasco

About a year ago, Meta created and managed 28 fake-user accounts on Facebook and Instagram. The profiles contained bios and AI-generated profile pictures and posted AI-generated content (responsibly labeled as both AI and “managed by Meta”) on which any user could comment. Users could also chat with the bots. 

Recently, the public started noticing these accounts and didn’t like what they saw. Social media mobs shamed Meta into deleting the accounts. 

One strain of criticism was that the fake users simulated human stereotypes, which were found to not represent the communities they were pretending to be part of. 

Also, as with most AI-generated content, the output was often dull, generic, corporate-sounding, wrong, and/or offensive. It didn’t get much engagement, which, for Meta, was the entire purpose for the effort. (Another criticism was that users couldn’t block the account; Meta blamed a “bug” for the problem.)

AI slop is a problem; Meta sees an opportunity 

All this intentional AI fakery takes place on platforms where the biggest and most harmful quality is arguably bottomless pools of spammy AI slop generated by users without content-creation help from Meta. 

The genre uses bad AI-generated, often-bizarre images to elicit a knee-jerk emotional reaction and engagement. 

In Facebook posts, these “engagement bait” pictures are accompanied by strange, often nonsensical, and manipulative text elements. The more “successful” posts have religious, military, political, or “general pathos” themes (sad, suffering AI children, for example). 

The posts often include weird words. Posters almost always hashtag celebrity names. Many contain information about unrelated topics, like cars. Many such posts ask, “Why don’t pictures like this ever trend?”

These bizarre posts — anchored in bad AI, bad taste, and bad faith — are rife on Facebook.

You can block AI slop profiles. But they just keep coming — believe me, I tried. Blocking, reporting, criticizing, and ignoring have zero impact on the constant appearance of these posts, as far as I can tell. 

And the apparent reason is that Meta’s algorithm is rewarding them. 

Meta is not only failing to stop these posts, but is essentially paying the “content creators” to make them and using its algorithms to boost them. Spammy AI slop falls perfectly into line with Meta’s apparent conclusion that any garbage is good if it drives engagement. 

The AI content crisis

AI content, in general, is a crisis online for a very simple reason: Social media users, content creators, would-be influencers, advertisers, and marketers don’t quite seem to realize that AI-generated content, for lack of a better term, sucks.

AI-generated text, for example, uses repetitive, generic language that doesn’t flow and doesn’t have a “voice.” Word choices tend to be “off,” and the AI usually can’t tell the difference between what’s important and what’s irrelevant. 

AI-generated images are especially problematic. According to multiple studies, people feel more negatively about AI-generated images than real photos. 

Social networks are filled with AI-generated images. Billions have been created using text-to-image AI tools since 2022, many posted online. 

To quantify: A year ago, some 71% of images shared on social media in the US had been AI-generated. In Canada, that figure was 77%. In addition, 26% of marketers were using AI to create marketing images, and that percentage rose to 39% for marketers posting on social.

According to the 2024 Imperva Bad Bot Report by Thales, bots accounted for 49.6% of all global internet traffic in 2023. One-third (32%) of internet traffic was attributed to malicious bots. And 18% came from “good bots” (search engine crawlers, for example). 

In 2023, only 50.4% of internet traffic was human activity. Now, in the first month of 2025, human traffic is definitely a minority of all internet activity. 

The “Dead Internet Theory” people are not only conspiracy theorists, they’re also ahead of the curve. If the theory holds that a majority of online activity is by AI, bots, and agents, then the theory is now objectively true. 

(The theory offers a host of reasons for that outcome that have not been proven true. Proponents believe bots and AI are intentionally created to manipulate algorithms, boost search results, and control public perception.)

Meta cheerfully boasts about its intentional creation of AI bots, but mainly to drive engagement. 

Meta’s fake-user initiatives remind me of its failed “metaverse” programs. 

As with the “Dead Internet Theory,” the “metaverse” concept was a dystopian nightmare dreamed up by novelists as a warning to mankind. The “Dead Internet Theory” is a conspiracy theory that attempts to explain how the internet went horribly wrong. But to Meta, the “metaverse” and “Dead Internet theory” are product roadmaps. 

Meta is proving itself to be an anti-human company that’s working hard to get people away from the real world and trapped for many hours each day, going nowhere, doing nothing, and interacting with no one. 

Meta will fail. The public will reject its dystopian goals.

But the rest of us should learn from their bad example. What the public really wants — something Meta used to understand — is human connection: people connecting to other people.  Advertising, articles, posts, comments, and chats made by people rather than bots are becoming harder to find and, as such, also more valuable.

Because a “connection” with nobody is no connection at all. 

PC sales certainly weren’t going gangbusters in 2024: They only grew a paltry 1% over 2023.

According to new figures from IDC, vendors shipped 262.7 million PCs in 2024. But things did pick up a bit in Q4 2024: Shipments grew 1.8% over the prior year, reaching 68.9 million.

While all this may seem like a modest gain, it still represents progress in a time of economic instability, fear of inflation, geopolitical tensions, and the upcoming US regime change.

“1% growth is actually a pretty good thing in the PC industry right now,” Ryan Reith, group vice president, IDC’s Worldwide Device Trackers, told Computerworld. “That’s what we expected for the year, and actually, the market is shifting back to some recovery.”

The year of refresh

2025 will likely see bigger numbers. IDG expects 4.3% growth in total PC shipments in the coming year. This will largely be due to commercial refreshes that occur even in the “toughest of macro-economic times,” Reith pointed out. Typically, medium-to-large sized companies update their PCs at least every three to four years.

“The commercial refresh usually is pretty resilient because, certainly in developed markets, a lot of medium to large enterprises want to stay ahead,” said Reith.

Indeed, Microsoft has declared 2025 the “year of the Windows 11 PC refresh,” as the tech giant is ending feature and security support for Windows 10 PCs beginning October 14.

However, many factors remain uncertain, including fears of inflation, ongoing geopolitical disputes, and big changes expected with the impending Trump administration. The Consumer Technology Association, for one, estimates that Trump’s proposed steep tariffs on imports — ranging from 10 to 20% for most countries and climbing as high as 100% from China — could increase laptop and tablet prices by as much as 68%.

What about AI PCs?

There has been a ton of hype around AI PCs, as they are set to fundamentally change the way people interact with devices. For instance, built-in AI can perform certain tasks such as information retrieval, while more advanced AI agents can even take autonomous action, leading to significant productivity gains.

Gartner, for instance, has projected that AI PCs will account for 43% of all PCs in 2025. The firm’s analysts estimate that worldwide shipments of AI PCs will total 114 million units this year, representing an increase of more than 165% over 2024. Further, the firm predicts that by 2026, AI laptops will be the only choice of laptop available to large enterprises (compared to less than 5% availability in 2023).

Big tech is certainly betting on this trend. Microsoft, for its part, introduced Copilot+ PCs in May, and Nvidia introduced its AI PC Project Digits this week at CES. Qualcomm and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) have unveiled their own AI processors and Dell is working on AI hardware, too.

“This is a huge leap of technology, from every aspect of software down to the hardware and everything in between,” said Reith. “This is going to be a fundamental change, in a positive way, in the industry.”

More advanced PCs that can do more than other PCs (and humans, too) might eventually translate to less hardware shipped, he noted. However, it will be a net positive. “There’s going to be a lot of revenue gains from that, from the software side, cloud side, everything else.”

Not so fast…

Still, Reith noted, the industry has gotten a little ahead of itself when it comes to AI PCs. While they someday will become the norm — all modern laptops and desktops, after all, contain some sort of AI — that’s more of a long-term trend.

This is notably because “budgets are constrained across the board,” said Reith. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a tech company, healthcare, whatever. When AI comes up, it’s, ‘Look, how much extra is that going to cost?’ It’s all about the dollar.”

Also, while they’re innovating at an impressive clip, big tech companies haven’t really lived up to the hype, he pointed out. Industry watchers, for instance, thought Microsoft would deliver more around Copilot+, providing concrete use cases through its partnerships and illustrating how enterprises can get returns on their investments.

“Microsoft didn’t deliver, but it didn’t fall on its face,” said Reith. “Even if you under-deliver a little bit in a time when budgets are constrained, it puts a bigger spotlight on, ‘Hey, maybe we can wait a little bit.’”

There are still very, very good PCs out there

IT decision makers don’t need to feel rushed to purchase AI PCs, Reith noted. Don’t rule out PCs the next level down, he advised; there are still “really, really good” products from PC vendors that run Intel’s Meteor Lake processors (introduced in 2023) or AMD chips, among others.

“So don’t feel like you’re buying down,” said Reith. “We have a lot of very, very good PCs; they’re just not the ones that are the latest and greatest and cost 50% more.”

Also, he pointed out, while Microsoft is sunsetting Windows 10, enterprises still have access to an affordable service support extension. “It’s a very, very attractive option, especially right now, if you’ve got good hardware.”

The AI PC buzz is real

Recognizing the dampening of interest (at least for now) in AI PCs, suppliers like Lenovo, HP, Dell, and others are already adjusting and shifting their focus to PCs the next level down in their portfolio, said Reith.

“It’s going to pick up, they’ve kind of paused a little bit on the supply side,” he said. However, “they’re not going to slow down the innovation.” In fact, “they’re innovating like crazy.”

Ultimately, “the buzz is real,” he said. “I think everyone got a little over their heads on the immediate opportunity. It’s just going to be a little bit more prolonged.”