#windows-11

#windows-11

The ROG Xbox Ally X, the handheld console collaboration from Asus and Microsoft, is an impressive, yet expensive, piece of gaming tech. The pricier of the two portable gaming devices dropping on 16 October, the all-black ROG Xbox Ally X will cost you a cool 799 (899/$999/A$1599) to sample its splendour. (The less powerful ROG Xbox Ally, which comes in white, will run you 499/599/$599/A$999.) Thankfully, the pricier option has said splendour in spades.

Microsoft's October Windows 11 update has managed the impressive feat of breaking localhost, leaving developers unable to access web applications running on their own machines. The problem first surfaced on Microsoft's own support forums and quickly spread to Stack Overflow and Server Fault after the October 2025 cumulative update (KB5066835) landed, which appears to have severed Windows' ability to talk to itself. Developers describe HTTP/2 protocol errors and failed connections affecting everything from ASP.NET builds to Visual Studio debugging sessions.

Figuring out how and where to find every feature in Windows can be challenging, even for advanced users. If only we had a guide that could direct us to a specific setting just by asking about it. Well, that's the idea behind a new skill coming to Microsoft's Copilot app for Windows. Rolling out to Insiders Now rolling out to Windows Insiders is a cool new feature that aims to help you better navigate Windows.

Installing that update finally fixes an age-old problem that prevented you from accessing notifications on a secondary monitor. "The Notification Center functionality is now available on secondary monitors," Microsoft said on the support page. "To open it, select the date and time in the system tray on the taskbar. With the August 2025 non-security update ( KB5064081), you can also show a larger clock with seconds above the calendar."

Microsoft is closing a popular loophole that allowed users to install Windows 11 without a Microsoft account. The change has appeared in recent Insider builds of Windows 11, indicating it is likely to be included in the production version soon. Microsoft refers to these loopholes as "known mechanisms" and is talking about local commands in this instance. You can learn all about these in our piece for getting Windows 11 installed with a local account, but suffice to say start ms-cxh:localonly is no more.

An update coming to all Windows 11 Insiders on Copilot Plus PCs will introduce a new AI-powered feature on its Photos app that will place images of receipts, screenshots, identity documents, and handwritten notes in their own folders. Microsoft says the Photos app will automatically categorize these images based on their visual contents, even if the text in the image is in a language other than English.

The ROG Xbox Ally X, which the company describes as the "ultimate high-performance handheld" that's "built for the most demanding players," will set you back $1,000. Meanwhile, the ROG Xbox Ally "for everyone from the casual player to the avid enthusiast" is priced at $600, and you can pre-order that model from other retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart.

If you're tired of staring at the same old static wallpapers in Windows 11, there's help on the way. Microsoft has just added support for animated video backgrounds in the latest Insider builds of its popular operating system, heralding their likely appearance in a production update soon. The hidden capability, which was first spotted by feature-finding guru phantomofearth, works with any MP4 or M4V video file and adjusts it to fill your screen.

Specifically, this bug prevented people from using the integrated camera with Windows Hello facial recognition. This stopped users from running a facial scan to sign in to the Camera app, any app or service that normally supports facial scanning via Windows Hello, or any other app or device that relied on the integrated camera. Also: Windows 11 lets you run a network speed test right from the taskbar now - how to try it

To qualify, you need to enable optional diagnostic data. For that, head to Settings in Windows 11, select Privacy & security, click Diagnostics & feedback, and then turn on the switch for "Send optional diagnostic data." Next, open Paint. A notification may pop up asking if you'd like to join the program. If not, click the Settings icon and you may see a new section for Windows AI Labs asking if you want to try and share the latest AI-powered tools.

Also: This new Photoshop feature can boost image resolution in just one click, thanks to AI Normally, you might save that image as a PNG or JPG file. But that's a problem since those formats won't retain the layers. That means you can't make any additional adjustments to them should the image require further editing.

Microsoft is getting more aggressive about tying its flagship productivity products to the Microsoft cloud. In the most recent release of Windows 11, the OneDrive Backup feature is turned on automatically when you sign in with a Microsoft account; as a result, some of the most common data folders -- Documents, Pictures, and Desktop -- are moved out of their normal location and into OneDrive.

Tech influencers on YouTube and TikTok were quick to jump on the reports of corrupted data and disappearing drives, laying the blame squarely at Microsoft's feet. We're not saying any company is above lying to the public, and Microsoft has a history of rocky update rollouts, but both Microsoft and Phison claim they've been unable to recreate the issue.

Microsoft is testing a new Windows 11 feature that will let you resume using your Android apps right on your PC. The capability is gradually rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Dev and Beta Channels, and only supports the Spotify app for now. If you're in the test, you can try out the feature by linking your Android phone to your PC, and then opening up a song on Spotify's mobile app.

I wanted to see exactly how Microsoft manages to hide Windows beneath the Xbox interface that's debuting on these handheld devices. After a short startup, I was met with the standard Windows login prompt. But I could use the controller to input the PIN code, an immediate improvement over what's available right now. And as soon as Windows 11 loaded up, the interface immediately disappeared. The Xbox PC app took over and went full-screen - and for the most part, I didn't have to leave.

Microsoft caused a bit of a furor last year by dropping the word "deprecated" into a support document for the Control Panel. It hastily stepped back from the precipice, but the current verbiage, "the Control Panel still exists for compatibility reasons," should leave users in no doubt. Microsoft would very much like this refugee from an earlier era of Windows to be put out to pasture.

Apart from affected clients running Windows 11 v23H2 and Windows 11 v22H2, the bug affected systems running Windows Server 2022 and Windows Server 2019.

Snap Layouts allow users to arrange their applications into predefined screen layouts, making it easier to organize workspaces according to personal preferences.

QMR, or Quick Machine Recovery, is an optional Windows feature enabling devices to recover from boot errors, using cloud-based remediations for known issues.