If you missed it, earlier this week, a “leaked” version of Windows 10X for single-screen PCs surfaced on the internet. Thanks to a tweet from Albacore (@thebookisclosed) and the work of the Windows community (fellow Windows activists,) we took the “leaked” VHD file and installed it on a virtual machine.

It should be noted that the leaked version isn’t considered final and many things could change between now and when 10X becomes official. Still, though, it offers an interesting peek at the future of Windows.

Watch our video as we tour you through some of the new things in Windows 10X. We’ll tour you through the Action Center, the Start Menu, as well as showcase some of the new animations. We’ll even open some of the stock apps, and showcase split-screen multitasking, too.

We also invite you to check out our initial hands-on post from a few days ago, In that post, we go a bit more in-depth and showcase how it’s a bit more like ChromeOS.

Larry Hyrb, known far and wide by his Xbox gamertag Major Nelson, is celebrating 20 years at Microsoft. Starting out before that even as a vendor managing communities for MSN (which was far more a social network than a news site at the time), Hyrb was offered a job in 2000 to come to Redmond and serve as Editor-in-Chief at MSN Music. As he details in a thoughtful blog post, Hyrb joined the company of 38,000 (Microsoft now employs over 163,000) on January 15th, 2001.

Serving as Editor in Chief at MSN Music, luckily for Hyrb, placed him basically right next door to the nascent Xbox team, still almost a year away from launching the first Xbox. As he has been an avid gamer ever since his Mom brought home a Sears Video Arcade, Hyrb landed a job at Xbox, where he’s been ever since.

For many of us, Major Nelson is the face of Xbox, appearing on webcasts and at conferences to showcase the latest and the greatest for the game console franchise. It’s worth taking the time to read his blog post on MajorNelson.com, as Hyrb offers some sound advice he’s learned over these last 20 years.

Here’s hoping that the best is yet to come for Major Nelson and Xbox, with the Xbox Series X, a new Halo, Cloud Gaming, and more, it should be an exciting time. As Hyrb’s wife says, “the best things we’ve ever done are going to happen here.”

Good job, Larry, and keep up the great work!

Microsoft is working to fix a critical NTFS vulnerability on Windows 10 that can corrupt users’ hard drives when they open an HTML file, a Windows shortcut, or extract a Zip file that contains a one-line command (via The Verge). When the vulnerability is triggered, users will see a pop up saying that they need to restart their PC to repair drive errors, and doing so will initiate the Windows check disk utility on reboot to repair the corrupted disk.

The vulnerability was actually discovered two years ago by Will Dorman, a security researcher at the CERT Coordination Center. If Dormann believed that Windows 10 versions older than 1803 may not be affected, Bleeping Computer is reporting today that the NTFS issue also impacts older versions of Windows XP.

This problem seems to be introduced around the time of Windows 10 1803. Prior versions of Windows do not appear to be affected.
I'll give Microsoft a shot at addressing this before disclosing what the value of <specialdir> is.
Though I question how such things get prioritized…

— Will Dormann (@wdormann) January 9, 2021

This vulnerability is pretty serious as it can be hidden in a random file and corrupt your hard drive instantly. Worse, Bleeping Computer discovered that it can also be triggered when the Windows File Explorer simply displays a corrupted shortcut hiding the malicious command in a folder. “To do this, Windows Explorer would attempt to access the crafted icon path inside the file in the background, thereby corrupting the NTFS hard drive in the process,” the report explained.

Microsoft has finally acknowledged this critical vulnerability in a statement to The Verge, promising a fix in a future update. “We are aware of this issue and will provide an update in a future release,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. “The use of this technique relies on social engineering and as always we encourage our customers to practice good computing habits online, including exercising caution when opening unknown files, or accepting file transfers.”

Back in October, Microsoft detailed a new Theme and Fluent icon update that would soon make its debut on the Teams collaboration platform. Microsoft Teams users have been waiting for these changes for quite some time now, and this new experience is now available for testers with the newly-released update for the public preview program.

Teams dark theme juste became WAY darker. #Windowsinsiders pic.twitter.com/OLGAPHfn2Q

— Florian B (@flobo09) January 15, 2021

If you are enrolled in the Microsoft Teams public preview program, you’ll notice that the company has updated the default and dark themes in Teams with new background colors and introduced subtle design changes. As seen in the screenshot above, Microsoft Teams has finally picked up an improved dark mode experience, with the UI elements appearing a bit more on the darker side.

The default theme is also getting similar treatment, and a shade of white has replaced the bright purple color in the app bar. The other noticeable changes in this update are the new drop shadow effect that has been applied between panels and the new rounded corners for various UI elements.

Overall, this is a nice coat of paint and a seamless transition to keep the UI of Teams consistent with the overall Microsoft 365 design vision, which was revealed in July 2020. Keep in mind that this release doesn’t include the Fluent icon update, and the company plans to ship it to testers in mid-February. Have you spotted these changes on your PCs? Let us know in the comments down below.

Update 1.1.1 has begun to roll out to the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla video game on Microsoft’s Xbox One and Xbox Series families of consoles in addition to other supported platforms.

Not major new features were added to the game with this latest update though a very large number of bug fixes and improvements have been made.

Among the more notable changes include the addition of Ubisoft Connect achievements, some improvements to daily quests, damage balancing, and numerous refinements to the game’s graphics.

The full release notes can be read here. Warning: They are extensive.

This Assassin’s Creed Valhalla update should automatically install on Xbox consoles though, if it doesn’t, it can usually be manually triggered by opening the game or restarting the console.

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There’s another Free Play Days event for Xbox Live Gold members this weekend. Starting today through Sunday, January 14, Star Wars: Squadrons, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Yooka-Laylee will be free to play with Xbox Live Gold, and limited-time discounts are also available on the Xbox Store.

Star Wars: Squadrons allows you to take control of iconic starfighters such as the X-wing and TIE fighter. The game occurs after the events of Return of the Jedi, and you can learn what it means to be a pilot whether you fight for The New Republic or The Empire. In addition to the short single-player campaign, the game supports cross-play multiplayer with PC and PlayStation 4 players.

Dragon Ball FighterZ is a fighting game that takes all the things you love about the Dragon Ball series and packs it into an intense fighting game. As for Yooka-Laylee, it’s a light-hearted open-world platformer where you can explore huge colorful worlds with up to three friends on your console.

If you’re already an Xbox Live Gold subscriber, we remind you that you can still upgrade to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for just $1. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate includes all the benefits of Xbox Live Gold, plus unlimited access to a catalog of over 200 high-quality Xbox and PC games, as well as the EA Play catalog.

Following the launch of Microsoft’s Xbox Series X|S and Sony’s PlayStation 5 consoles in November, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published a report yesterday that focuses on the power consumed by the two machines. Microsoft once again claims to have the most powerful console on the market with the Xbox Series X, but the US energy agency has criticized the company’s decision to ship the console with its not eco-friendly “Instant On” setting.

As you may know, Microsoft’s Xbox One received similar criticism back in the day as the console also shipped with this Instant-on mode enabled by default. This choice was made to allow Xbox One consoles to be able to instantly respond to Kinect commands such as “Xbox On,” and Microsoft has kept enabling the Instant-on mode by default on newer consoles even though Kinect has now been deprecated.

“Based on modeling NRDC performed through 2025, this one seemingly inconsequential decision by Microsoft could result in the equivalent of one large (500 MW) coal-burning power plant’s worth of annual electricity generation and cost new U.S. Xbox owners roughly $1 billion on their electricity bills,” the NRDC emphasized yesterday.

To be fair, Europe is the only region where Xbox Series X|S consoles ship with the “Energy Savings” setting to comply with local efficiency requirements. According to the NRDC’s measures, “Instant On” consumes 9 to 10 watts on Xbox Series X, while the “Energy Saving” setting draws less than 1 watt. The latter also still allows Xbox Series X|S consoles to check and wake for updates during sleep, with a very acceptable resume time of 10 to 15 seconds thanks to the new SSDs.

When playing games, the NRDC observed that the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 can draw between 160 and 200+ watts, which is slightly more than previous generation consoles. However, next-gen consoles are more power efficient than previous gen hardware when playing backward compatible games, something that Digital Foundry and other publications also confirmed. The NRDC also confirmed that the less powerful Series S used the less amount of energy during gameplay, with the US agency noting a 53 to 57 watts consumption when playing games like Moto GP20, Descenders, and Call of the Sea.

If the main purpose of game consoles remain to play games on a TV, many consumers are also using them as media centers, even though doing that can also use a lot of energy. “The console will draw between 30 and 70 watts—about 10 to 25 times more power than a streaming device like Apple TV, Roku box, or Amazon Fire Stick to watch the same show. We have repeatedly urged Sony and Microsoft to include a dedicated low-power chip for video playback in their consoles, and this request is even more important today given the potential for long hours of “binge watching” via the console,” the NRDC explained in the report.

Overall, the US energy agency believes that both Sony and Microsoft can do more to reduce power consumption on their next-gen consoles, and the first step would be to “make further improvements in implementation of auto power down and standby modes to reduce overall annual console energy use.” The suggestion to add low-power chips to use for video playback is also interesting, though it would likely require some re-engineering work that both Sony and Microsoft may not be willing to do in the short term.

It’s worth reminding that even though the new Xbox and PlayStation consoles are quite power hungry, they’re still much more power efficient than high-end gaming PCs. A top of the line GPU like the new NVIDIA RTX 3090 will require a PC with 750W power supply, while the Xbox Series X ships with a 315W power supply. All things considered, the Xbox Series X isn’t really much more power hungry than the Xbox One X, though we have yet to see games that really take advantage of the new hardware.

If the NRDC is right to push both Microsoft and Sony to improve the efficiency of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, it’s worth reminding that console manufacturers usually ship a “slim” version of their new consoles after three or four years that are also more power efficient. It remains to be seen if this will also happen for the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5, though Microsoft already has the Series S as a more environment-friendly option.

A more recent version of Windows 10X “leaked” online, thanks to the work of the community. Available as a VHD file, this “leaked” version of Windows 10X is a bit different from what we last saw from Microsoft when the operating system was being designed for dual-screen PCs back in January of 2020.

While it’s been confirmed that Windows 10X has now been tweaked a bit (and will only be included on new and lightweight single-screen PCs only,) Microsoft hasn’t officially shared much about the project. Thanks to the “leaked” build, though, we’re able to go a bit closer with the upcoming operating system.

Again, the “leaked” build isn’t final or the RTM version of Windows 10X, some things can change in it between now and when we see the first 10X devices, but this is the closest to final as we’d get. Here’s a hands-on look at the experience, and why it’s like Microsoft’s own version of ChromeOS.

The setup experience and mandatory Microsoft Account

As many on Twitter have pointed out, and as the rumors had originally indicated, this leaked version of Windows 10X comes with a new out of box experience. Unlike regular Windows 10, there’s no Cortana here to help you through things. In place of that, you get helpful and colorful visuals and icons, representative of which step you’re in the setup process. You’ll also need to be connected to the internet for setup, as the leaked version requires you to sign in with a Microsoft Account. Do note that Windows 10X comes with a new startup sound and splash screen, too.

App support and Microsoft Edge

An important note about this leaked Windows 10X build comes in regards to app support. This can change between now and when we get an official release, but in my tests, it looks as though this leaked version of Windows 10X doesn’t support Win32 apps. It also doesn’t have a “windowed” mode to window and move apps around like in regular Windows 10. All apps in Windows 10X appear to only support split-screen or full-screen. That’s just like how it was with Microsoft Store apps in Windows 8 and 8.1

This was the leading rumor, anyway, so it does make a lot of sense. Windows 10X is intended to be lightweight, so it cuts out a lot of the legacy Windows features such as Command Prompt, Powershell, etc in favor of Microsoft Edge and apps in the Microsoft Store.

I tried downloading and installing Chrome, but the .exe file simply would not work. I ended up using Microsoft Edge and creating PWAs for things like Spotify, or Twitter. It’s nothing new to me, as I’m familiar with using Windows 10S, which is also this “locked down” and, as I last argued, isn’t all that bad.

Anyway, it looks as though there is a setting to allow you to install “All Apps” and well as developer options to enable Win32 app development, but I wasn’t able to get these to work as the check box for the feature is disabled.

The Start Menu and Action Center

If you played with the original version of Windows 10X intended for dual-screen PCs, then the Start Menu and Action Center should look and feel familiar. It’s not changed very much between dual-screen and single-screen 10X. Much like what Google has done with the Chrome OS launcher, we’ve lost Live Tiles and a traditional “list” of apps from Windows 10 in favor of a static row of icons. The Start Menu also has a search bar on the top, too, allowing you to search for applications and files, or search the web. You’d also see a list of your most recent files on the bottom half of the Start Menu, too.

As for the Action Center, it also has not changed between dual-screen and single-screen Windows 10X. It’s much more modern and has more elements of Fluent Design compared to Windows 10’s. There’s a slider of volume and quick toggle buttons for location, rotation lock, and more. You even have access to power options, and the ability to summon the keyboard and settings from Action Center, too.

The Taskbar

If you have an eagle-eye like me, then you might have noticed that the Taskbar in this single-screen version of Windows 10X has changed a bit from when we last tried Windows 10X. While the dual-screen version has “levers” which let you pull up the Taskbar from a minimized state when not needed, this single-screen leaked version drops that out. Instead, the Taskbar is always persistent.

Otherwise speaking, icons in the Taskbar in Windows 10X are centered, unlike in regular Windows 10. Pressing the Start Menu button lights it up in Blue. Hovering over an app shows a preview, and there’s a multitasking button on the right side, to show you open apps, and enable split-screen (we’ll have more on that later.) Clicking the Task view icon also lights it up in blue and “expands” the tiles which represent it. Overall, it’s very reminiscent of what we see in Windows 10 Teams OS, which runs on Surface Hub.

Of course, you can also pin open apps to the Taskbar in this leaked version of Windows 10X, too. And, you can see a “preview” of any open app in the Taskbar. The preview window and most things in this leaked version of Windows 10X now has more touches of Fluent Design and has rounded corners, too. When put together, all of these small touches are quite cool.

The Modern File Explorer

As I tweeted before, unlike the original dual-screen version of WIndows 10X, Microsoft looks to be shipping just a “modern” File Explorer in this “leaked” build of 10X. It’s designed almost exactly like the Files app on an iPad with its column view and sidebar. There’s also updated modern iconography in the top right corner for opening files, copying files, and changing views. This matches with the new icons we’ve seen make their way to Windows 10.

Note the sidebar in it. Just like in Chrome OS, seems like you only have a "Downloads" folder in Windows 10X. (It's at the bottom left side of the screen. There's no "My PC," etc. For comparison, here's the one from the earlier Windows 10X build, for dual screens. pic.twitter.com/y5vBm8HAEP

— Arif Bacchus (@abacjourn) January 14, 2021

Overall, though, the Modern File Explorer seems to put emphasis on the cloud and OneDrive, just like Google does with Chrome OS and Google Drive. In this release, the Modern File Explorer has no “My PC” or “Documents” and “Photos,” rather the only thing you see in it is your “Downloads” folder, just like in Chrome OS.

The split-screen as well as the animations

Windows 10X has a lot of cool animations here and there, as well as the same snap assist feature from regular Windows 10. Opening and app cause the icon to “bounce” upwards in the Taskbar, a bit similar to what we see in MacOS. Minimizing an app, meanwhile also causes the icon to do a little “shake.” Closing it, meanwhile, will cause the icon to fade down and away in the Taskbar This is quite the nifty little touch, which I didn’t notice in the original version of Windows 10X.

As for split-screen, in this release, it functions just like it does in the original version of Windows 10X, except it is designed for single-screen setups. You can drag an app from the top with the title bar to the side of the screen you want it on, and have Windows 10X suggest other open apps to snap to the other side. You can also summon all open apps with the Task view button, to help you switch between which one you want to put forward and use. Note that the windows for the previews and the Task view all have rounded corners, which is big in Windows 10X.

Try it yourself!

If you want to try this out for yourself today at your own risk, you can check out the original file from Albacore (@thebookisclosed) on Twitter. You’ll need to have Windows 10 Pro, as well as download and install 7Zip to extract the VHD. You’ll also need to create a virtual machine in Hyper V, which Microsoft explains how to do here. We do warn you though, you’d be doing so at your own risk.

At any rate, it’s still great to see this leaked version of Windows 10X in the wild. It’s not much different from the original dual-screen version we saw last year, but the small touches like the splash screen, new animations, as well as Fluent Design, and the new Start Menu breathe new life into Windows. Even if it’s just like what we see in Chrome OS, this could be the start of a new era for Windows.

Microsoft has announced that the new Approvals app is now generally available in Microsoft Teams. The new workflow tool was first announced back in September 2020, and it started rolling out earlier this week. As the name suggests, it streamlines requests and processes with partners and helps to create and manage requests within the Teams collaboration platform.

“Approvals in Microsoft Teams lets you easily create, manage, and share approvals directly from your hub for teamwork. You can quickly start an approval flow from the same place you send a chat, in a channel conversation, or from the Approvals app itself. Just select an approval type, add details, attach files, and choose approvers. Once submitted, approvers are notified and can review and act on the request,” the company explained.

Microsoft says that Approvals is a native Teams application, and it’s turned on by default if Power Automate is already enabled in your organization. To be clear, these approvals leverage the Power Automate infrastructure to trigger an approvals action directly and doesn’t require a flow to work within the Teams app.

For those of you who are interested in trying out the new Approvals app, users need to have an F3 license to be able to use this feature. To access the app in Teams, click the three dots icon (. . .) available on the sidebar, type “Approvals” in the search box, and click on it to open the app. Here’s how users can create, view, track, and manage their approval requests directly from Microsoft Teams:

Create an approval request

To create an approval in a chat or a channel conversation, click the “Approvals” icon and enter all the required details. These details include the name of the request, approver, and relevant information. Finally, upload an attachment if needed and click the “Send” button.

Approve or reject a request

Once a request is submitted by the user, Microsoft Teams will automatically notify the approvers to take appropriate actions. They will be able to quickly review the details and relevant attachments included in the approval request to approve or reject it. The approvers will see an approvals card along with all the relevant actions related to the requests that are submitted in a chat or a channel.

Track and manage approvals

As mentioned above, the Approvals app in Teams will allow users to view and manage all your approvals from one place. Users will be able to see important details, including the status, source, along with the name of the requestor, and approvers with each request. However, they need to click on a specific approval request to track its progress and see additional details.

The ability to use Approvals in Teams is a welcome addition, and it can help to improve productivity in the workplace. The company is also planning to add an option to create an electronic signature approval natively within the Approval app, and the feature will be available in the coming months. We invite you to check out this support article for additional details on managing the Approvals app in Teams.

A more recent version of Windows 10X, different from the original dual-screen emulator for developers that was officially released by Microsoft, has “leaked” online. As uploaded by Albacore (@thebookisclosed) this build comes in at 20279 (and isn’t an RTM candidate,) but does offer what could be considered a near-final look of the upcoming operating system.

It’s important to note that this “leaked” version of Windows 10X which has circulated isn’t technically a final build from Microsoft. And, as far as we know, Windows 10X is still only for new light-weight devices only, meaning you still can’t download an ISO. The leak is a VHD, or a virtual hard drive containing the operating system. We went hands-on with it here.

However, noted by Rafael Rivera, since Microsoft is officially hosting the files on its update platform, the community used this as a chance to put together a combination of files which makes it possible to try out the experience in a virtual machine on any Windows 10 Pro device. This means it doesn’t reflect any actual features or what we will see when Windows 10X actually ships. Things we’re seeing in this leaked build could still come and go.

Those animations though! Wish regular Windows 10 would get these. So clean, so fluent, so modern. Amazing to see this! The ways the icon bounce! The window animation! pic.twitter.com/cnD9801Ydy

— Arif Bacchus (@abacjourn) January 14, 2021

Still, there are some interesting changes between this version of Windows 10X, and the original dual-screen version from Microsoft. For one, we’re getting a closer look at the Modern File Explorer, which in Windows 10X only appears to have access to OneDrive and downloads. This version also behaves similarly to Chrome OS, in that files save to your downloads folder, and there’s no way to access “My PC,” and other legacy areas of Windows 10. Other new things include the ability to change the desktop background, as well as do split-screen multitasking. There are also some new animations and touchpad gestures for navigation here and there, too.

The way multitasking works reminds me a lot of Windows 10 Teams OS… what Surface Hub is powered by. You can drag apps to one side of the screen or the other, just like in the original dual-screen build, and you see the new fluent UI for the previews, though. SO CLEAN!!!! pic.twitter.com/hh4JRbHNZx

— Arif Bacchus (@abacjourn) January 14, 2021

Though you’d be doing so at your own risk, you can try the emulator today by downloading the image from Albacore, unzipping it with 7Zip, and setting up a virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10. You’d need Windows 10 Pro to do this, however. The leaked build is set up as a virtual hard drive, and not an ISO which according to Albacore, only works with Hyper-V. We’re planning a hands-on look at this leaked build soon, so be sure to stay tuned.

Ever since Microsoft launched its US-based Xbox Gear online storefront back in 2018, international gamers had been clamouring for news concerning a possible expansion to other regions. Shipping to Canada and some European countries was added later in 2018 but there really hadn’t been any major news regarding support for additional regions since.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw a tweet from MissDeusGeek, an Xbox Ambassador from Australia, who casually mentioned in a tweet that the Xbox Gear Shop now shipped internationally. Shocked, I asked her how long this had been happening for and she confirmed that international shipping had been supported since late-2020.

New year. New @Xbox Gear Shop t-shirt.

Am I obsessed?! Yes, yes I am ????????

FYI: Xbox Gear Shop ships internationally now ???? pic.twitter.com/GHkymXxBWt

— Dhayana (@MissDeusGeek) January 14, 2021

This was a genuine surprise as there doesn’t seem to have been any kind of official announcement made about this via the main Xbox social media channels or on the Xbox Gear Shop website itself. I did find a tweet by Xbox’s James Monosmith who announced this expansion on his personal Twitter account. This tweet confirms that international shipping was added in November at the same time as the Xbox Gear Shop’s design refresh and the plethora of new merch that was added for the holiday season.

As someone who was looking longingly at several items in the store in December, I do kind of wish they had added some kind of notification to the site saying something along the lines of “Hey, you can actually order this now!”

Regardless, it’s great that Xbox gamers in more regions can finally order products from the Xbox Gear Shop which had some legit high quality clothing and merchandise inspired by the Xbox brand and a number of video game franchises. Tell your friends!

Microsoft has just released the Windows 10 preview build 21292 for Insiders in the Dev channel, which brings various fixes to the new shortcut for news and interests on the taskbar. This feature made its debut with last week’s build 21286, and it remains only available to select Insider in the US, Canada, , Australia, India, and the UK .

This new build also brings improvements to x64 emulation on ARM64 devices, fixing bugs and crashes in apps like Your Phone, Steam, or Serif Affinity Photo. You can find the full list of changes, fixes and known issues in the build 21292 below:

Improvements to news and interests on the taskbar

Thanks for all the feedback on news and interests, which we announced in last week’s blog post. The team has been reading it all! We’re continuing to improve the experience and this week are happy to announce a handful of fixes:

• We fixed multiple issues impacting performance and reliability.
• We fixed an issue where an empty flyout would be shown after opening news and interests.
• We fixed an issue where the text on the taskbar button wasn’t being read by screen readers and some tooltips were missing.
• We fixed an issue where news and interests in the taskbar was not displaying correctly when using small taskbar icons.
• We fixed an issue where the news and interests button would temporarily show no content.
• We fixed an issue where the news and interests flyout would not dismiss by tapping outside the window or again on the taskbar button.
• We fixed an issue where the content of the taskbar button would look blurry.
• We fixed an issue where news and interests would not show fresh content after toggling the background apps setting.
• We fixed an issue where the flyout would not dismiss when you hover off the right edge.
• We fixed an issue where it was not possible to navigate into the flyout using keyboard.
• We fixed an issue where the news and interests taskbar setting would be reset to show icon and text after updating to a new windows version.

Changes and Improvements

• Based on feedback, we’re updating Settings > System > Sounds to now display a message when microphone permissions have been turned off for the whole system or for all apps, with a link to the microphone privacy settings page.

Fixes

• We’re continuing to work on improving x64 emulation on ARM64 thanks to your feedback. This build fixes issues in several apps, including crashes in Zwift, Serif Affinity Photo, and Your Phone as well as blank pages in Steam.
• We fixed an issue resulting in an increase in Insiders seeing a message saying “Critical Error: Your Start menu isn’t work” in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue from the last two builds where explorer.exe / the Windows shell was hanging and or crashing, particularly after interacting with audio/video.
• We fixed an issue where NTFS was logging false positive torn write events.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Teams and certain other apps unexpectedly displaying as just “Program” (instead of the app name) in Task Manager’s Startup tab.
• We fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to sort processes in Task Manager by Status.
• We fixed an issue that could result in not seeing notifications following WIN + Shift + S shortly after clean installing or resetting your PC.
• We fixed an issue from the previous build where when Xbox Game Bar was launched from Start or via the Windows key + G when using a text editor, the computer might appear unresponsive.
• We fixed an issue where when using Windows with scaling greater than 100% in recent builds, if you opened and closed Task View, open windows would appear unexpectedly large in the transition back to the desktop.
• We fixed an issue where typing “-“ on a number pad when using the Japanese IME wasn’t taking into consideration whether the IME was in full width or half width mode.
• We fixed an issue where Hanja word conversion with the Korean IME wasn’t working in Excel when the Korean Language pack for Office was installed.

Known issues

• We’re working on a fix for an issue Insiders have reported where certain games like State of Decay 2, or Assassin’s Creed, may hang or crash when launching.
• We’re investigating an issue where Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War may not launch starting with this build. If you play these games, you may wish to pause updates until the issue is resolved.
• You may experience some rendering / graphic issues after resizing certain app windows. If you minimize all your app windows and open them again it should resolve the issue (Press the Windows key plus D twice).
• We’re investigating an issue where some 32-bit systems may lose network connection after taking this build. If you are running a 32-bit version of Windows, you may wish to pause updates until the issue is resolved.
• Miracast users may experience very low frame rates in this build.
• We’re looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
• Aero Shake is disabled in this build. To enable it, you will need to go here in Registry Editor and create a new DWORD entry named DisallowShaking with a value of 0:
  • HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced
• Live previews for pinned sites aren’t enabled for all Insiders yet, so you may see a grey window when hovering over the thumbnail in the taskbar. We’re continuing to work on polishing this experience.
• We’re working on enabling the new taskbar experience for existing pinned sites. In the meantime, you can unpin the site from the taskbar, remove it from the edge://apps page, and then re-pin the site.
• [News and interests] Upgrading to this build will cause your news and interests taskbar setting to be reset to “Show icon and text”. This is fixed going forward.
• [News and interests] Sometimes the news and interests flyout cannot be dismissed with pen.
• [News and interests] News and interests uses more taskbar space on the left than expected.
• [News and interests] The taskbar button can show stale information each time the user signs into their Windows session.
• [News and interests] The news and interests flyout shows content in a single column before quickly switching to double column.
• [News and interests] Text in taskbar button can look pixelated in high resolution screens.
• [News and interests] The taskbar context menu and news and interests overlap.
• [News and interests] In certain circumstances, news and interests uses 100% of CPU when first launched.
• [News and interests] Attempting to share content dismisses the flyout.
• [ARM64] Insiders who installed the preview version of the Qualcomm Adreno graphics driver on the Surface Pro X may experience reduced brightness of the display. This will be addressed in a future update.

In today’s blog post, the Windows Insider team shared more details about how to get started with news and interests in the taskbar, explaining how to get quick access to the latest headlines and weather, real-time traffic conditions, and more. “We’re continuing to improve the experience,” the team said today, and we’re hoping to see the experience coming to more markets in the next couple of weeks.

Microsoft Teams is now testing a new feature that will make virtual communication more engaging and impactful than ever before. This week, Linus Cansby, a Microsoft MVP, spotted that the company has rolled out the PowerPoint Presenter View for Teams meetings in preview.

For those unfamiliar, Microsoft Teams already supports a built-in presentation mode but with certain limitations. Currently, presenters can’t enable the PowerPoint View to change the way slides are presented to other participants in a meeting. It makes it impossible for them to see their notes and move between slides out of order, but this should change soon.

With the new addition, presenters will be able to view the current slide, the slide notes, and a thumbnail strip of all the slides during ongoing meetings. For starters, this should enable them to discuss the meeting notes as needed and move back and forth between slides to provide a quick recap. This change will help presenters to keep their meetings on track.

To get started, you need to opt into the public preview program for Microsoft Teams. To use this feature, users need to click the Share icon available besides the Leave button in the meeting window. Then select a recent PowerPoint file from the Teams Share Tray or browse for a local/OneDrive file to automatically open the Presenter View.

It is important to note that only the presenter needs to enable the new meeting experience in the Teams desktop app Settings to use Presenter View, and it only works in multi-window meetings. While the new functionality is currently available in public preview, it will start rolling out to the general public later this month.

Towards the end of last year, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 was updated to make it compatible with the most popular VR headsets. Oculus, Valve, HTC, and even Windows Mixed Reality headsets all now allow you to experience the simulator from an entirely new perspective.

I recently got my hands on a Samsung Odyssey HMD+ Windows Mixed Reality headset so I could try out the experience, and it was truly breathtaking. I took the skies over my hometown of New York City and playing Flight Simulator 2020 in Virtual Reality really felt like piloting an actual airplane.

But just my words won’t do justice as to how real it felt. Watch the video above to see for a hands-on look at the experience, and why it’s so real that you might need a pilot’s license.

Editor’s Note: You might notice a “black bar” effect and some slight lag as I turn my head in certain parts of this video. This black bar isn’t noticeable to me when I had the headset on, it’s just the hardware limit, and the effect of recording the preview of the Windows Mixed Reality feed in the background for this video so you can get the same view that I have through the headset.

The Specs

Before getting into anything, I’ll mention the minimum specs for VR in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. You’ll need to have a PC with at least an Nvidia GTX 1080 or equivalent, 16GB of RAM, 150 GB of free space on an SSD or HDD, as well as Direct X11 installed.

I played on my HP Envy 15, which I previously reviewed. I’m able to get *decent* framerates at 30-40 frames per second on high settings, and beyond that on medium, but your experience might depend on your hardware.

My specs include the following — Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q GPU with 6GB GDDR6 VRAM. 16GB DDR4-2933 SDRAM. and the 6-core Intel Core i7-10750H processor. If you’re hoping to run Flight Sim in Virtual Reality, I suggest you open and run the Windows Mixed Reality Portal to see if your PC is compatible. It will give you a checklist of things, and suggestions on how to improve your PC for maximum VR compatibility. You also can check out the Flight Simulator forums, where people are posting about their setups and what’s working and what’s not.

The initial setup

Launching Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 in virtual reality is a multi-step process. First, I needed to set up my headset through the Windows Mixed Reality portal. From there, once everything is set up, I took my headset off and booted up Microsoft Flight Simulator on my desktop. With the game fully loaded at the menu, I needed to press CTRL+TAB to toggle the simulator into VR mode. This caused my headset to “reboot” and open Flight Sim as an application.

When this happens, I put the headset on, and see the menus in a virtual space. It’s suggested to press the spacebar key on the keyboard to center the headset and the images for the best possible experience. Once in VR, I also suggest pausing the simulator, heading into the graphics settings menu, and going to VR graphics options, and tweaking the settings for your graphics card and your PC. Don’t overload the settings if you know your PC can’t handle VR that well.

Note that Windows Mixed Reality controllers currently aren’t supported by Simulator 2020. I needed to connect my Xbox controller to my PC via Bluetooth and use it for navigation, as well as controlling the airplane. You can also use a flight stick, too, if you have one.

The pre-flight-checks and initial experience

The first time I booted into Flight Simulator in Virtual Reality, my mind was instantly blown away. I felt like I was standing on the runway next to an actual airplane. The Robin Cap10 I was sitting in front of me before my eyes on one of the shorter runways at JFK International Airport. I moved my head left and right, and it was like I was standing on the tarmac next to the airplane getting ready to board it.

But that was just the start. Right away, I switched views to the cockpit mode. I moved my head forward, and back, the simulator moved with me in the game. It knew I was looking closer at the dashboard and it zoomed in for me. I was able to perform pre-flight checks, move forward to check all my gauges, look outside the window at the wings, and even turn my head back and check out the tail of the airplane. The tracking in Windows Mixed Reality headsets is spot-on, despite only using sensors built-in on the headset itself.

As a side note, I want to mention that you can use a keyboard and mouse to touch these gauges and tweak certain settings if need be, too. It would have been great to see support for the WMR controllers, but I can see the technical issues of making that happen.

Anyway, it’s not like the gauges were blurry. The closer I moved my head to the dashboard of the airplane, the more real the gauges looked. I was able to spot the carbon emissions sticker, check the mileage on the airplane, check the buttons, look at the frequency on the radio, and explore the cockpit in all its glory.

The takeoff and flying experience

I thought that seeing the gauges and looking at the airplane on the ground was amazing, but as soon as I started my takeoff roll down the runway at JFK, it got even better. Thanks to spatial audio and the built-in speakers in the Samsung HMD Odyssey + my ears were blessed with the greatness of aviation that is usually only reserved for real pilots.

I heard the tires screeching as they lifted off the runway. I heard the gears in the engine start to turn up as I pumped up the throttle, and I even heard and saw tiny dirt particles hit the windshield as I started climbing. It’s truly a breathtaking experience.

What was even more breathtaking was turning my head and looking out the window. As I slowly pulled back on the analog stick to gain altitude, I felt the sense of speed as the airport was getting smaller under me. I even could see a departing airplane taxi on the runway, too. Even the radio on the dashboard reflected my change in altitudes, and the switch in radio frequencies as my flight got handed off from Kennedy Ground to Kennedy Departure. It doesn’t get more real than this!

The exterior views, and the flight

Just like the main game, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 in VR isn’t just limited to the cockpit view. Once in flight, I switched to the exterior view as I approached some of the tourist sites in New York City after I departed JFK Airport. This experience itself is also something that’s quite unique, too.

In the exterior view, you’ll be placed behind your plane in the flight, and are free to look around by turning your head. You can get a “birds-eye view” of anywhere you’re flying, and look down on the world as if you were in a glass helicopter. I did this when I was playing over New York City’s Central Park, the trees and the water looked so realistic. Even looking down at the West Side and East Side of Manhattan looked real, especially when approaching the MetLife building. It’s like I was a bird flying over my own city. I could make made out the smallest of details.

A great simulator, that shows Windows Mixed Reality at its best

After spending more than a week doing virtual flights in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I must say that this should be the new hallmark game for virtual reality. The way Flight Sim pulls from Bing Maps and the high level of details in the airplanes and environments and the head tracking make for a truly realistic experience. I’ve tried other titles such as Project Cars 2, and Starwars Squadrons, but flight Simulator has the perfect combination of everything to equate for realism.

If your laptop or desktop is capable, I highly suggest you download the game, invest in a Windows Mixed Reality headset or other VR headset, and give the game a go. You won’t regret it, and you won’t need a pilot’s license.

The Windows Insider team came back from the holidays last week with the first Windows 10 Insider build of 2021, which brought an interesting addition to the OS. Select Insiders in the Dev Channel can now see a new shortcut for news and interests the Windows 10 Taskbar, right next to the system tray. It had been a while since we last saw a significant new feature make its way to the Dev channel, but the Windows Insider team could have a lot more to share with Insiders.

Indeed, it has been previously reported that a big Windows 10 redesign codenamed “Sun Valley” could be planned for the Windows 10 21H2 update coming in the second half of 2021. Microsoft’s Panos Panay himself announced last year that the company was “going to accelerate innovation in Windows 10”, and a recent Microsoft job listing teased “a sweeping visual rejuvenation of Windows experiences.”

While Microsoft has yet to discuss these design updates in more detail, Zac Bowden from Windows Central shared today a couple of mockups showing new features and UI changes that could be part of this “Sun Valley” redesign effort. The first mockup below represents a rounded Start Menu that would appear as a floating windows above the taskbar.

The second mockup shared by Windows Central represents improvements to the Snap assist view, with Microsoft Edge tabs being separated from app windows. “I’m also told that snap assist will be getting an update to make it more reliable when docking to and from a larger display, now remembering which apps are snapped where instead of forgetting once you connect or disconnect,” Bowden explained.

Bowden also mentioned several other new features and improvements that Microsoft could be planning to deliver as part of the “Sun Valley” update, including a simplified Taskbar inspired by the one on Windows 10X, as well as a new battery usage chart in the Settings app. The Task view area could also welcome a new “dashboard” feature highlighting key information on personal or work/school Microsoft accounts, including recent Office documents and upcoming calendar events.

It remains to be seen if any of the new features described in the report will soon be available for Insider testing. Again, Microsoft has yet to officially discuss this Sun Valley update, and the Windows Insider team keeps saying that new Insider builds and their new features are not tied to a specific release.

Still, the upcoming release of Windows 10X on Chromebook-like devices should be the start of a new era of Windows 10 design. It’s going to be interesting to see if Chief Design Officer Panos Panay will be able to leave his mark on Microsoft’s operating systems, and we hope that the company will implement consistent design guidelines across Windows 10X and the regular Windows 10.