Windows 11 has finally overtaken the market share of its predecessor, with just three months remaining until Microsoft discontinues support for Windows 10. From a report: As of today, July's StatCounter figures show the market share of Windows 11 at 50.24 percent, with Windows 10 at 46.84 percent. It's a far cry from a year ago, when Windows 10 stood at 66.04 percent and Windows 11 languished at 29.75 percent.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Microsoft EVP Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog post last week that Windows powers over a billion active devices globally. This might sound like a healthy number, but according to ZDNET, the Microsoft annual report for 2022 said that more than 1.4 billion devices were running Windows 10 or 11. Given that these documents contain material information and have allegedly been pored over by the tech giant's lawyers, we can safely assume that Windows' user base has been quietly shrinking in the past three years, shedding around 400 million users. This is probably why Microsoft has been aggressively pushing users to upgrade to Windows 11 after the previous version of the OS loses support -- so that its users would install the latest version of Windows on their current system (or get a new PC if their system is incapable of running the latest version). Although macOS is a threat to Windows, especially with the launch of Apple Silicon, we cannot say that those 400 million users all went and bought a MacBook. That's because, as far back as 2023, Mac sales have also been dropping, with Statista reporting the computer line, once holding more than 85% of the company revenue, now making up just 7.7%. The shrinking Windows user base can be attributed to a combination of factors -- a major one being the global move toward a mobile-first world, where smartphones and tablets are increasingly replacing traditional PCs for everyday computing needs. At the same time, Microsoft's strict hardware requirements for Windows 11 have alienated users with perfectly functional older machines, prompting some to stick with unsupported versions or abandon Windows entirely. Additionally, many users find Windows 11 less intuitive than its predecessor and are frustrated by Microsoft's push toward data collection and Apple-style design changes.

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An anonymous reader shared this report from WebProNews: The Linux world is abuzz with news of XLibre, a fork of the venerable X11 window display system, which aims to be an alternative to X11's successor, Wayland. Much of the Linux world is working to adopt Wayland, the successor to X11. Wayland has been touted as being a superior option, providing better security and performance. Despite Fedora and Ubuntu both going Wayland-only, the newer display protocol still lags behind X11, in terms of functionality, especially in the realm of accessibility, screen recording, session restore, and more. In addition, despite the promise of improved performance, many users report performance regressions compared to X11. While progress is being made, it has been slow going, especially for a project that is more than 17 years old. To make matters worse, Wayland is largely being improved by committee, with the various desktop environment teams trying to work together to further the protocol. Progress is further hampered by the fact that the GNOME developers often object to the implementation of some functionality that doesn't fit with their vision of what a desktop should be — despite those features being present and needed in every other environment. In response, developer Enrico Weigelt has forked Xll into the XLibre project. Weigelt was already one of the most prolific X11 contributors at a time when little to no improvements or new features are being added to the aging window system... Weigelt has wasted no time releasing the inaugural version of XLibre, XLibre 25.0. The release includes a slew of improvements. MrBrklyn (Slashdot reader #4,775) adds that Artix Linux, a rolling-release distro based on Arch Linux which does not use systemd, now offers XLibre ISO images and packages for testing and use. They're all non-systemd based, and "Its a decent undertaking by the Artix development team. The iso is considered to be testing but it is quickly moving to the regular repos for broad public use."

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The Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) has held strong in Windows for nearly 40 years, but that's about to change. From a report: Microsoft revealed earlier this year that it was overhauling its BSOD error message in Windows 11, and the company has now confirmed that it will soon be known as the Black Screen of Death. The new design drops the traditional blue color, frowning face, and QR code in favor of a simplified black screen. The simplified BSOD looks a lot more like the black screen you'd see during a Windows update. But it will list the stop code and faulty system driver that you wouldn't always see during a crash dump. IT admins shouldn't need to pull crash dumps off PCs and analyze them with tools like WinDbg just to find out what could be causing issues. The company will roll out this new BSOD design in an update to Windows 11 "later this summer."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nearly a decade ago, Ars testing found that Valve's "Steam Machines"-era version of SteamOS performed significantly worse than Windows when SteamOS's Linux game ports were tested on the same hardware as their Windows counterparts. Today, though, Ars testing on the Lenovo Legion Go S finds recent games generally run at higher frame rates on SteamOS 3.7 than on Windows 11. [...] As you can see in the included charts, SteamOS showed noticeable frame rate improvements in four of the five games tested. Only Borderlands 3 showed comparable performance across both operating systems, with Windows eking out ever-so-slightly higher frame rates in that game's benchmarks. For the other four tested games, the stock Lenovo Windows drivers were sometimes significantly worse than those included with SteamOS. When playing Returnal at "High" graphics presets and 1920x1200 resolution, for instance, changing from Lenovo's Windows drivers to SteamOS meant the difference between a hard-to-take 18 FPS average and a downright decent 33 FPS average. Sideloading the updated Asus drivers showed a noticeable improvement in Windows performance across all tested games and even brought Homeworld 3's "Low" graphics benchmark test to practical parity with SteamOS. In all other cases, though, even these updated drivers resulted in benchmark frame rates anywhere from 8 percent to 36 percent lower than those same benchmarks on SteamOS. These results might seem a bit counterintuitive, considering that games running on SteamOS must go through a Proton translation layer for every native Windows instruction in a game's code. But Valve has put in consistent work over the years to make Proton as efficient and cross-compatible as possible; not to mention its continued work on Linux's Mesa graphics drivers seems to be paying dividends for SteamOS graphics performance. Running SteamOS also means eliminating a lot of operating system overhead that the more generalist Windows uses by default. Microsoft seems aware of this issue for gamers and has recently announced that the upcoming "Xbox Experience for Handheld" will "minimize background activity and defer non-essential tasks" to allow for "more [and] higher framerates" in games.

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Dès le mois d’octobre, Windows 10 sera un vaisseau à la dérive. Le moteur sera toujours là, vous en serez toujours le capitaine et l’équipage de pilotes sera encore présent. Mais vos cartes ne seront plus mises à jour. Avec la fin des « Updates », vous naviguerez en eaux troubles et le moindre récif infectieux ou de problème de pilote condamnera votre PC à s’échouer.

Cette situation est catastrophique puisque plein de gens ne peuvent pas, d’un point de vue technique, faire la transition vers Windows 11. On a vu que des méthodes existent pour basculer et outrepasser les limitations de Microsoft. Mais pour beaucoup de monde, cela sera encore très chaotique. Microsoft propose donc une alternative, un moyen de profiter des mises à jour de Windows 10 jusqu’en 2026.

L’éditeur va en effet continuer à payer des ingénieurs et tout l’équipement nécessaire pour proposer ces mises à jour à des professionnels en échange d’un abonnement payant de 30€ par an et par poste. Cela veut dire que si ces mises à jour ne sont plus poussées pour le grand public, elles existent tout de même et coûtent cher à développer. Windows 10 ne recevra plus jamais de nouveautés techniques, ces mises à jour ne concerneront que la sécurité.

Il sera donc possible de profiter de ce suivi logiciel « gratuitement » pour toute personne qui le désire à condition d’accepter une synchronisation de ses données dans le Cloud de Microsoft. Cela veut dire partager avec l’éditeur ses données personnelles au travers de Windows Backup. Un outil de sauvegarde automatique qui sera lancé cet été et qui vous permettra de sélectionner les répertoires de votre choix pour en faire des copies sur les serveurs du très américain Microsoft. En échange de cet engagement, vous pourrez recevoir vos mises à jour jusqu’en 2026. Évidemment, pour pouvoir profiter de Windows Backup il y a quelques conditions.

Les premières seront les CLUF de l’application elle-même. D’un point de vue sécurité des données, entrainement d’IA et autres, on ne sait pas encore vraiment ce que ce rapatriement de vos données personnelles donnera sur le stockage dans les nuages de Microsoft.

La seconde sera liée au système lui-même. Pour utiliser Windows Backup il faudra impérativement avoir un compte Microsoft et s’identifier avec. Si vous avez cherché et réussi à passer outre toutes ces années pour ne pas utiliser ce type de compte, c’est une nouvelle tentative de l’éditeur. L’idée étant de pouvoir récolter des informations fraiches sur vous et votre usage de l’engin et de les utiliser comme levier télémétrique pour vendre vos Windows comme autant d’espace d’affichages personnalisés.

Enfin, l’espace alloué par Microsoft ne sera pas infini. Windows Backup utilise OneDrive et votre compte sera limité à 5 Go gratuitement. Le système vous incitera sans doute à passer à la caisse pour augmenter vos capacités de stockage via l’offre OneDrive ou autre. Un abonnement annuel donc pour pouvoir stocker votre répertoire documents et les informations concernant votre système. Ce type de stockage peut être une excellente chose mais il est toujours bon de pouvoir choisir son offre et de comparer les prix. Pas de s’y résoudre sans avoir le choix.

L’autre solution pour profiter des mises à jour est à la fois infantilisante et couteuse. Elle consistera à accumuler des points Microsoft. En faisant vos recherches sur Bing par exemple, ou en faisant vos emplettes sur le Microsoft Store au lieu de passer par le site de l’éditeur pour acheter un jeu ou un programme, vous pourrez accumuler des points. Cette monnaie de singe servira ensuite à montrer que vous avez été un bon citoyen à Microsoft qui, dans sa grande mansuétude, vous accordera de pouvoir continuer à utiliser le logiciel que vous avez payé sans risque. Un an de Windows Update coutera 1000 points.…

La volonté de Microsoft étant d’uniformiser son parc vers Windows 11, ces solutions alternatives n’existent que comme une manière d’aplanir la transition. Avec 53% du parc, Windows 10 est toujours le système d’exploitation utilisé majoritairement dans le monde et on voit mal comment la situation pourrait changer d’ici octobre. Windows 11 a largement progressé ces derniers temps entre la fin de l’année 2024 où il était à 34% du parc, il est désormais évalué à 43% des machines connectées. Avec de grandes disparités suivant les régions, les pays riches ayant plus de solutions de mises à jour techniques et matérielles.

Est-ce que cette offre repoussant la date butoir à 2026 permettra de rendre Windows 10 minoritaire ? Possible, c’est en tout cas probablement un des espoirs de Microsoft.

Une solution alternative existe mais peut ne pas convenir à tout le monde, basculer son PC sous Linux.

Sources : Microsoft et The Verge

Windows 10 va proposer des mises à jour « gratuites » pour tous… © MiniMachines.net. 2025

Microsoft will offer free Windows 10 security updates through October 2026 to consumers who enable Windows Backup or spend 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, the company said today. The move provides alternatives to the previously announced $30-per-PC Extended Security Update program for individuals wanting to continue using Windows 10 past its October 14, 2025 end-of-support date. The company will notify Windows 10 users about the ESU program through the Settings app and notifications starting in July, with full rollout by mid-August. Both free options require a Microsoft Account, which the company has increasingly pushed in Windows 11. Business and organizational customers can still purchase up to three years of ESU updates but must pay for the service. Windows 10 remains installed on 53% of Windows PCs worldwide, according to Statcounter data.

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KDE isn't the only organization reaching out to " as Microsoft prepares to end support for Windows 10. "Now, The Document Foundation, maker of LibreOffice, has also joined in to support the Endof10 initiative," reports the tech blog Neowin: The foundation writes: "You don't have to follow Microsoft's upgrade path. There is a better option that puts control back in the hands of users, institutions, and public bodies: Linux and LibreOffice. Together, these two programmes offer a powerful, privacy-friendly and future-proof alternative to the Windows + Microsoft 365 ecosystem." It further adds the "real costs" of upgrading to Windows 11 as it writes: "The move to Windows 11 isn't just about security updates. It increases dependence on Microsoft through aggressive cloud integration, forcing users to adopt Microsoft accounts and services. It also leads to higher costs due to subscription and licensing models, and reduces control over how your computer works and how your data is managed. Furthermore, new hardware requirements will render millions of perfectly good PCs obsolete.... The end of Windows 10 does not mark the end of choice, but the beginning of a new era. If you are tired of mandatory updates, invasive changes, and being bound by the commercial choices of a single supplier, it is time for a change. Linux and LibreOffice are ready — 2025 is the right year to choose digital freedom!" The first words on LibreOffice's announcement? "The countdown has begun...."

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Microsoft will require all USB-C ports on Windows 11 certified laptops and tablets to support data transfer, charging, and display functionality under updated hardware compatibility program rules. The mandate targets devices shipping with Windows 11 24H2 and aims to eliminate what Microsoft -- and the industry -- calls "USB-C port confusion," where identical-looking ports offer different capabilities across PC manufacturers. The Windows Hardware Compatibility Program updates also require USB 40Gbps ports to maintain full compatibility with both USB4 and Thunderbolt 3 peripherals.

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BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: Microsoft just can't leave well enough alone. The company is now injecting formatting features into Notepad, a program that has long been appreciated for one thing -- its simplicity. You see, starting with version 11.2504.50.0, this update is rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels, and it adds bold text, italics, hyperlinks, lists, and even headers. Sadly, this isn't a joke. Notepad is actually being turned into a watered-down word processor, complete with a formatting toolbar and Markdown support. Users can even toggle between styled content and raw Markdown syntax. And while Microsoft is giving you the option to disable formatting or strip it all out, it's clear the direction of the app is changing.

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Microsoft is previewing a new Windows Update orchestration platform that lets third-party apps schedule and manage updates alongside system updates, "aiming to centralize update scheduling across Windows 11 devices," reports The Register. From the report: On Tuesday, Redmond announced it's allowing a select group of developers and product teams to hook into the Windows 11 update framework. The system doesn't push updates itself but allows apps to register their own update logic via WinRT APIs and PowerShell, enabling centralized scheduling, logging, and policy enforcement. "Updates across the Windows ecosystem can feel like a fragmented experience," wrote Angie Chen, a product manager at the Borg, in a blog post. "To solve this, we're building a vision for a unified, intelligent update orchestration platform capable of supporting any update (apps, drivers, etc.) to be orchestrated alongside Windows updates." As with other Windows updates, the end user or admin will be able to benefit from intelligent scheduling, with updates deferred based on user activity, system performance, AC power status, and other environmental factors. For example, updates may install when the device is idle or plugged in, to minimize disruption. All update actions will be logged and surfaced through a unified diagnostic system, helping streamline troubleshooting. Microsoft says the platform will support MSIX/APPX apps, as well as Win32 apps that include custom installation logic, provided developers integrate with the offered Windows Runtime (WinRT) APIs and PowerShell commands. At the moment, the orchestration platform is available only as a private preview. Developers must contact unifiedorchestrator@service.microsoft.com to request access. Redmond is taking a cautious approach, given the risk of update conflicts, but may broaden availability depending on how the preview performs. Meanwhile, Windows Backup for Organizations, first unveiled at Microsoft Ignite in November 2024, has entered limited public preview. Redmond touts the service as a way to back up Windows 10 and 11 devices and restore them with the same settings in place. It's saying it'll be a big help in migrating systems to the more recent operating systems after Windows 10 goes end of life in October. "With Windows Backup for Organizations, get your users up and running as quickly as possible with their familiar Windows settings already in place," Redmond wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. "It doesn't matter if they're experiencing a device reimage or reset."

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It's like "a USB-C port for AI applications..." according to the official documentation for MCP — "a standardized way to connect AI models to different data sources and tools." And now Microsoft has "revealed plans to make MCP a native component of Windows," reports DevClass.com, "despite concerns over the security of the fast-expanding MCP ecosystem." In the context of Windows, it is easy to see the value of a standardised means of automating both built-in and third-party applications. A single prompt might, for example, fire off a workflow which queries data, uses it to create an Excel spreadsheet complete with a suitable chart, and then emails it to selected colleagues. Microsoft is preparing the ground for this by previewing new Windows features. — First, there will be a local MCP registry which enables discovery of installed MCP servers. — Second, built-in MCP servers will expose system functions including the file system, windowing, and the Windows Subsystem for Linux. — Third, a new type of API called App Actions enables third-party applications to expose actions appropriate to each application, which will also be available as MCP servers so that these actions can be performed by AI agents. According to Microsoft, "developers will be able to consume actions developed by other relevant apps," enabling app-to-app automation as well as use by AI agents. MCP servers are a powerful concept but vulnerable to misuse. Microsoft corporate VP David Weston noted seven vectors of attack, including cross-prompt injection where malicious content overrides agent instructions, authentication gaps because "MCP's current standards for authentication are immature and inconsistently adopted," credential leakage, tool poisoning from "unvetted MCP servers," lack of containment, limited security review in MCP servers, supply chain risks from rogue MCP servers, and command injection from improperly validated inputs. According to Weston, "security is our top priority as we expand MCP capabilities." Security controls planned by Microsoft (according to the article): A proxy to mediate all MCP client-server interactions. This will enable centralized enforcement of policies and consent, as well as auditing and a hook for security software to monitor actions. A baseline security level for MCP servers to be allowed into the Windows MCP registry. This will include code-signing, security testing of exposed interfaces, and declaration of what privileges are required. Runtime isolation through what Weston called "isolation and granular permissions." MCP was introduced by Anthropic just 6 months ago, the article notes, but Microsoft has now joined the official MCP steering committee, "and is collaborating with Anthropic and others on an updated authorization specification as well as a future public registry service for MCP servers."

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Microsoft is introducing a new "Cross Device Resume" feature for Windows 11, enabling app developers to let users seamlessly continue activity between devices in a manner closely mirroring Apple's Handoff for Macs and iPhones. Unveiled at Build 2025 during a session titled "Create Seamless Cross-Device Experiences with Windows for your app," the feature was demonstrated -- before the session was quietly edited to remove this segment -- by showing Spotify playing a song on an Android phone, then surfacing the Spotify app in the Windows taskbar with a phone icon; clicking this launches Spotify on the PC at precisely the same point in the app as on the phone, preserving playback position for uninterrupted use.

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The BBC visits "the strange, stubborn world of obsolete Windows machines." Even if you're a diehard Apple user, you're probably interacting with Windows systems on a regular basis. When you're pulling cash out, for example, chances are you're using a computer that's downright geriatric by technology standards. (Microsoft declined to comment for this article.) "Many ATMs still operate on legacy Windows systems, including Windows XP and even Windows NT," which launched in 1993, says Elvis Montiero, an ATM field technician based in Newark, New Jersey in the US. "The challenge with upgrading these machines lies in the high costs associated with hardware compatibility, regulatory compliance and the need to rewrite proprietary ATM software," he says. Microsoft ended official support for Windows XP in 2014, but Montiero says many ATMs still rely on these primordial systems thanks to their reliability, stability and integration with banking infrastructure. And a job listing for an IT systems administrator for Germany's railway service "were expected to have expertise with Windows 3.11 and MS-DOS — systems released 32 and 44 years ago, respectively. In certain parts of Germany, commuting depends on operating systems that are older than many passengers." It's not just German transit, either. The trains in San Francisco's Muni Metro light railway, for example, won't start up in the morning until someone sticks a floppy disk into the computer that loads DOS software on the railway's Automatic Train Control System (ATCS). Last year, the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority (SFMTA) announced its plans to retire this system over the coming decade, but today the floppy disks live on. Apple is "really aggressive about deprecating old products," M. Scott Ford, a software developer who specialises in updating legacy systems, tells the BBC. "But Microsoft took the approach of letting organisations leverage the hardware they already have and chasing them for software licenses instead. They also tend to have a really long window for supporting that software." And so you get things like two enormous LightJet printers in San Diego powered by servers running Windows 2000, says photographic printer John Watts: Long out of production, the few remaining LightJets rely on the Windows operating systems that were around when these printers were sold. "A while back we looked into upgrading one of the computers to Windows Vista. By the time we added up the money it would take to buy new licenses for all the software it was going to cost $50,000 or $60,000 [£38,000 to £45,000]," Watts says. "I can't stand Windows machines," he says, "but I'm stuck with them...." In some cases, however, old computers are a labour of love. In the US, Dene Grigar, director of the Electronic Literature Lab at Washington State University, Vancouver, spends her days in a room full of vintage (and fully functional) computers dating back to 1977... She's not just interested in early, experimental e-books. Her laboratory collects everything from video games to Instagram zines.... Grigar's Electronic Literature Lab maintains 61 computers to showcase the hundreds of electronic works and thousands of files in the collection, which she keeps in pristine condition. Grigar says they're still looking for a PC that reads five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disks.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We've known for months now that Valve is expanding its Linux-based SteamOS operating system beyond the Steam Deck to other handheld PCs, starting with some versions of the Asus ROG Ally. This week, Valve began making some changes to its Steam storefront to prepare for a future when the Deck isn't the only hardware running SteamOS. A new "SteamOS Compatible" label will begin rolling out "over the next few weeks" to denote "whether a game and all of its middleware is supported on SteamOS," including "game functionality, launcher functionality, and anti-cheat support." Games that don't meet this requirement will be marked as "SteamOS Unsupported." As with current games and the Steam Deck, this label doesn't mean these games won't run, but it does mean there may be some serious compatibility issues that keep the game from running as intended. Valve says that "over 18,000 titles on Steam [will] be marked SteamOS compatible out of the gate," and that game developers won't need to do anything extra to earn the label if their titles already support the Steam Deck. SteamOS uses a collection of app translation technologies called Proton to make unmodified Windows applications run on SteamOS. This technology has dramatically improved SteamOS's game compatibility, compared to older SteamOS versions that required games to support Linux natively, but it still can't support every single game that Windows does. Valve says that the "SteamOS Compatible" label isn't meant to imply how well a game will run on the Steam Deck or any other SteamOS handheld but that this label is "just the first step." The company is "continuing to work on ways for people to have a better understanding of how games will run on their specific devices."

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