Microsoft's current desktop operating system, successor to Windows 10, updated via periodic feature releases (22H2, 24H2, 25H2) that change tools and defaults.
Windows 11 is up to 20% more responsive and handles 8GB machines better, according to Microsoft. The one hands-on test of an 8GB PC that TNW cites found no change, so fleet owners should time it themselves.
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Microsoft's Windows VP Navjot Virk detailed dozens of Windows 11 changes, now in Insider builds and due for full release later this year, Gizmodo reported. Fleet owners should pilot the memory changes on low-end PCs before the movable taskbar.
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Microsoft ended security updates for Windows 11 24H2 Home and Pro on October 13, 2026, with Enterprise and Education covered to October 12, 2027. For fleet owners the cutoff is a patching deadline, and the memory-price pressure Microsoft's executive describes is a separate hardware-budget question.
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Microsoft says the KB5127648 update can gray out the Smart App Control toggle on Windows 11 24H2 and later devices where it was off. No fix is available, so managed fleets need Microsoft's registry or Group Policy workaround to turn it on.
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Microsoft documented on October 14 that Windows 11 hosts with Administrator protection can reject non-admin Remote Desktop logins with error 0xC000000D. The listed workaround turns the feature off on those hosts, and the issue is still open.
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Windows 11 update KB5127648 switched NTLMv1 blocking to Enforce and broke 802.1X PEAP single sign-on on enterprise Wi-Fi and wired networks. Setting BlockNtlmv1SSO to 0 restores sign-on for now, but the retirement plan stays, so teams need an EAP-TLS schedule.
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Microsoft's October Patch Tuesday update for Windows 11, KB5127648, carries the same fixes on 24H2, 25H2 and 26H2. BleepingComputer says it patches hundreds of vulnerabilities; Windows Latest says it is 24H2's last update.
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Microsoft charges business customers $122 per device for year-two Windows 10 security updates, double the $61 it charged in year one. Statcounter puts Windows 10 at 27.8% of Windows PCs, without splitting business from consumer machines.
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Microsoft says Windows devices on unsupported versions will lose all Windows Update access when update certificates expire on May 17 and June 19, 2027. Every supported release below Windows 11 25H2, servers included, needs a specific monthly update installed first to stay connected.
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According to CRN, Microsoft's Execution Containers for securing AI agents on Windows 11 are now generally available, and Intune policies manage them. Windows teams now have a supported place to govern agents, though the report says little about what a container actually isolates.
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Microsoft is testing an XP-style list view for taskbar windows and an Android phone tile in hidden Windows 11 build 26340.9596, Windows Latest found. Neither has a release date, so desktop teams get an early look at two small chores Windows may shorten.
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Microsoft is turning Windows 11 into an agentic OS that uses free local models in place of paid cloud ones, with a $2,599 Surface Laptop Ultra as its flagship. What each seat's AI costs now depends on its hardware and on how many cloud tokens its user actually burns.
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Microsoft has redesigned Windows Search to carry out typed commands, such as switching dark mode on or off. Admins rolling it out now have to decide which of those commands a managed PC's search box should be allowed to run.
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IT advisers told ITPro the fixed PC refresh cycle is splitting by device and user role, while IDC projects a 20% year-on-year fall in PC sales. The one large fleet in the reporting stretched its cycle from three years to four, so the evidence so far points to a longer calendar with exceptions.
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Microsoft's release health note says RDP connections can fail after several minutes and servers can hang at the Remote Desktop Configuration screen. Group Policy mitigations cover ten build families while a permanent fix is still in work.
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Microsoft confirmed its September 2026 KB5124010 Windows 11 preview crashes some apps that rely on Windows' built-in AC-3 (Dolby Digital) decoding. The update is labelled optional, but 24H2 machines with the early-updates setting switched on install it automatically.
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Microsoft has switched Windows settings backup on by default for Entra-joined and hybrid-joined PCs upgraded to Windows 11 26H2, released September 29. Tenants that never set the policy now copy users' settings and Store app lists until an admin turns it off.
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Microsoft has stopped calling new PCs Copilot+ even when they clear the old bar of a 40 TOPS NPU and 16GB of RAM, Surface CVP Brett Ostrum said. Buying specs that used the name as shorthand for that hardware now have to state the NPU and memory figures themselves.
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Microsoft has removed the legacy WMIC binary rather than deprecating it again. WMI itself stays, so admin scripts and detection content keyed to wmic.exe both need rework this cycle.
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A driver installed by RGB lighting hardware is crashing games on Windows 11 after KB5121003. Microsoft points at the peripherals; Embark Studios points back at a Windows kernel change.
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Security · August 25, 2026 · One report1 publisher
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