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Welcome to the final edition of Microsoft Weekly for this year and what a year it’s been. As with last time, we have a relatively short digest today due to the holiday season, with news expected to pick up again next week. This time, we cover some Windows news that might make you nostalgic, an interesting feature coming to Notepad, and some app updates. Without further ado, let’s dive into our latest digest from December 24th to December 30th!
Windows 95
Let’s start with a sip of nostalgia. It turns out that Stardock’s latest WindowsBlinds 11 update introduces a brand new “Windows Classic Skin,” which is basically a Windows 95 theme. Of course, this is just a cosmetic change and is intended for those who either want to take a trip down memory lane or younger readers who just want to see how Windows has evolved over the past two decades. The good news is that Windows 95 skins are available for both Windows 10 and Windows 11 PCs.
Another dose of nostalgia we had this week (sort of) was running Windows 7 on a machine clocked at just 5MHz, using a Pentium-S processor – 200 times slower than the official requirement – and 128MB of RAM. Of course, Windows 7 isn’t as old as Windows 95, it’s still over a decade old. Overall, it’s a very interesting experiment that doesn’t offer any real-world utility, but it’s mostly successful.
Tabs in Notepad
Following the release of Tabbed File Explorer in Windows 11, it looks like Microsoft is also developing a tabbed interface for Notepad, as can be seen in the screenshot above. The image was inadvertently leaked by a Microsoft employee and was quickly deleted, but surprisingly, the issue arose in the first place because the app has a huge red banner above it. Employees have been asked not to discuss features or take screenshots of this version. Notepad. Either way, now Windows 11 users at least know that Microsoft is considering this capability for Notepad.
Speaking of what to expect next, the Redmond tech company is reportedly preparing three feature updates (!!!) for Windows 11 in 2023. The first is due in February or March, the next in May or June, and the final in September or October. For a detailed breakdown of what to expect in each of these updates, check out our piece here.
Teams and other app updates
Just in time, Microsoft shared all the features added to Teams in the month of December 2022. The online communication and collaboration tool has seen many improvements including an option to delete chats for better organization, reactions to messages with more than 800 emojis. , AI-powered suggestions on how to add people to new chats, and the ability to add new members to a chat directly via the “@” keyword instead of an add dialog, among many other things.
Meanwhile, Wingate UI, a third-party GUI utility tool for managing CLI package managers, was added to fix the blurry texture on Windows 10 and the context menu for the taskbar in Windows 11. Received a major update to improve positioning, among other things.
Finally, Rufus alternative Ventoy also received an update to bypass Windows 11 system requirements and Microsoft Account (MSA) / Internet connectivity with version 1.0.86. This utility is used by many people to create bootable Windows media.
Good
Some recent testing has revealed that Windows 11 is the best gaming OS compared to Ubuntu on AMD hardware. A number of games and software were tested on the two operating systems, with Windows 11 emerging as the winner. Although of course, you could argue that Windows 11 is a preferred OS for the gaming community anyway because of the developers targeting it and the associated ease of use and installation.
Wrapping up this section with deals, Gold subscribers are getting Xbox games. Iris Fall And Autonauts next month. Meanwhile, Gold Promotion headlines the latest deals. Rainbow Six Siege And Vampire. And if you’re a member of PC Master Race, check out this weekend’s game deals curated by our News Editor Plasthi Aryasinghe.
Dev Channel
Under the spotlight
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A few days ago, I shared my thoughts on why Microsoft 365 is my favorite Microsoft product, ahead of Windows 11, Xbox, Game Pass, Edge, and the rest. You can read my thoughts here.
Meanwhile, news reporter Taras Boria makes a case for the top 11 Windows 11 apps he thinks every user should install.
And Steven Parker, co-founder of Navin, wrote a guide on how to quickly fix empty live tiles in Windows 10’s Start menu. Interestingly, this solution is not widely known so if you run into this problem, check out Steven’s write-up here.
On the other hand, news reporter Hemant Saxena wrote a guide detailing the process of resizing the taskbar in Windows 11.
And last but not least, forum member Adam Botgen explains how to log off a device from Facebook in his latest edition of Tech Tip Tuesday.
Logging off.
Our most exciting news of the week is that Amazon has started delivering orders via drones in California and Texas. The company had received the green light from the US Federal Aviation Administration a few years ago. During this latest trial period, drones will fly to designated shipping addresses, land in customers’ backyards, and deliver packages, requiring limited human intervention. The service is currently limited to the College Station Prime Air Drone Delivery Center (PADDC) and Lockford PADDC, but will gradually expand to more customers in the future.
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Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all at this link.
Thank you for sticking with us this year and we hope you have a great 2023!
