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Are they even still doing that weird campaign about how everything is an Xbox?

As part of their Xbox Developer Summit keynote at GDC this week, Microsoft shared that a new and refined Xbox mode will soon begin rolling out to Windows 11 users "in select markets." Starting at some point this April, Microsoft will start to release a new "Xbox mode" for Windows 11 that will make the Xbox experience more "consistent across screens."

An early version...

At long last, 2026 is the year of Linux Windows!

Hey, how's it going. How's Windows 11 been treating you? Yeah? That bad, eh? Yeah. I hear you. So apparently does Microsoft because according to president of Windows and devices, Pavan Davuluri, 2026 is the year in which Microsoft makes Windows 11 suck a little less.

Speaking with The Verge, Davuluri says that Microsoft needs to "improve Windows in ways that are meaningful to people. This year you will see us focus...

Microsoft's New Year's resolution is to be as good as SteamOS.

Microsoft continues to be rattled by how well games run on SteamOS compared to Windows 11. While they have already started to make some improvements, namely for handhelds, they apparently have several more ideas on how to improve gaming performance within Windows 11. Their plan seems to be to roll out these improvements throughout 2026.

In a new Windows Experience Blog, Microsoft states that they are committed...

Where's that bubble pop when you need it?

Microsoft is rolling out several artificial intelligence (AI) updates to Windows 11, specifically to enhance the functionality of its Copilot AI. These updates are trying to make Microsoft AI more appealing to users by having it automate some tasks, understand your speech, and connect to other services across different devices.

The biggest new addition will now let Windows 11 users use Copilot by saying "Hey, Copilot."...

This will impact a very small amount of Steam users.

Valve has officially announced it is ending support for Steam on all 32-bit Windows operating systems. The change is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2026. In the announcement, Valve explained that this change is necessary because "core features in Steam rely on system drivers and other libraries that are not supported on 32-bit versions of Windows." According to Valve's data, this change will impact a very small portion of...

Because Unreal Engine 5 still goes brrr----rrr-rr--rrrrr-rr----r.

Microsoft announced this week that they are working on a new update for DirectX 12 Ultimate that they hope will reduce load times and shader-related stuttering in games. They call it "advanced shader delivery" and they claim it "addresses one of the most frustrating challenges for PC gamers today." That being long load times and "disruptive stuttering during a game's first launch." ...

Microsoft isn't satisfied with the performance yet.

Production on a first-party handheld Xbox device has reportedly been put on hold. Jez Corden from Windows Central claims that Microsoft is sidelining the handheld in order to work on improving Windows 11 gaming performance, particularly for third-party handheld devices.

Though nothing was ever announced by Microsoft, it has long been rumored that the company was working on their own handheld gaming device. An official...

The issue with Ubisoft games was marked as resolved.

The extremely buggy 24H2 update for Windows 11 may just be slightly less buggy now. According to Microsoft, the issue of Ubisoft games becoming unresponsive or crashing has been marked as "Resolved" as of January 17, 2025.

Microsoft claims that some Ubisoft titles are no longer affected by issues from the 24H2 update after Ubisoft released several updates for their impacted titles. Those titles that have...

This is, actually, good news for Windows 11 users.

Microsoft is officially blocking the release of Windows 11 24H2 for computers that have a couple different Ubisoft titles installed. Ubisoft titles that include Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Assassin's Creed Origins, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Star Wars Outlaws, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora are on the short list of games that, if installed on your Windows 11 machine, prevent the 24H2 update from downloading.

These titles...

If you sideload Windows on your Steam Deck, Microsoft is working to make the experience a lot better.

Word from The Verge says that Microsoft is currently experimenting with a new "handheld mode" for Windows. This Windows handheld mode would allow those who install Windows onto devices like the Steam Deck to enjoy a more streamlined experience.

The report from The Verge cites a leaked video that dates back to September 2022. The video is from an internal hackathon...

You want to be secure, right?

A new update for Windows 11 is in the works from Microsoft that aims to "help protect hybrid work." This new security feature is called Smart App Control and it hopes to prevent you from running malicious software. "Hybrid work" in this case is a combination of work that is done both at home and in-office, something that isn't too uncommon these days.

The new Smart App Control will be built into Windows 11. It will monitor...

This is just one part of the fix however.

Earlier this month, it became apparent that there were some issues with AMD Ryzen performance when using Windows 11. In fact, these issues were present since some of the earliest betas for Windows 11 but they largely went ignored until the operating system's first public release. Some testing showed that system performance could decrease by roughly 15% compared to the same hardware running on Windows 10. At the time, AMD and Microsoft said...

Fixes are in the works, but are not out yet.

If you are using an AMD based CPU and you plan on upgrading to Windows 11, you may want to hold off on that for a little while longer. Hell, I still say that you avoid Windows 11 regardless of your CPU for a good year or more if you can help it as it's just not in a good state right now.

But if you're moving forward with Windows 11 despite this warning, you should be aware that you may experience reduced system performance by...

The new tech is called Wi-Fi Dual Station and it's been designed for gamers.

If you are at all serious about playing games competitively online, chances are you've been told that a wired Internet connection is the way to go. The main reason comes down to the increased latency and potential packet loss that comes with Wi-Fi connections. Now, thanks to the efforts of Valve, AMD, Qualcomm, and a few other companies, Wi-Fi might just be a very viable alternative.

These companies...