Remember that Windows 11 Start menu bug that had Microsoft stumped? It’s now fixed

Microsoft has finally fixed a thorny problem with Windows 11 and Windows 10 that messed with the Start menu and search bar (as well as some UWP – Universal Windows Platform – apps).

You may recall that these problems first surfaced back in January (as we reported last month), and they affected devices with certain apps that are integrated with Windows, Microsoft Office, or Outlook.

And while it’s taken some time, Microsoft has managed to untangle this one at last, and the fix is in new updates for both Windows 11 (KB5027303) and Windows 10 (KB5027293).

The bug is marked as resolved in OS dashboard health updates for both of these operating systems. Note that the mentioned updates carrying the resolution are in preview, so you’ll find them as optional updates (in Windows Update).

Installing them might mean you encounter another (different) bug, as with anything still in its preview or testing phase, but at this point, they’re on the last hurdle before release – and any problems may be far more minor than the glitches that they (hopefully) cure.


Analysis: Fix was much-needed given that badly fudged workaround

This rather nasty bug – that affects the operation of core parts of the Windows interface, like the Start menu, and search – has been hanging around for six months now.

So it’s good to see Microsoft put paid to it, even if it has taken a while – but we could guess it would from the software giant’s updates on the matter. Indeed, we expected to be waiting longer, in all honesty.

If you recall, we were previously given a workaround by Microsoft, but it wasn’t much of one. Indeed, it was a far from ideal fudge of the situation whereby Microsoft advised uninstalling the problematic apps – the obvious issue with that being that you can no longer use them (and they might be important pieces of software for you).

Elsewhere, Microsoft has been busy waving its bug fixing wand on the gaming front, banishing a very unpleasant gremlin that was causing some PC games to crash. That fix was piped through in the (preview) Moment 3 update for Windows 11, but sadly, Windows 10 gamers aren’t getting this fix (at least not yet).

Via Neowin

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Steam gets a huge free update on PC, and it’s good news for Steam Deck too

Valve has announced a major update to its Steam application that brings a “fresh” new look, better notifications, a new in-game overlay and new Notes feature.

Announced on Twitter (see below), and with a blog post, this is one of the biggest updates to Steam we’ve seen for a long time – and due to the popularity of Valve’s Steam platform, these changes will likely impact almost all PC gamers.

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The most noticeable change is the major redesign of the Steam interface, which Valve describes as “targeted visual and usability improvements across Steam.” While the app remains recognizable, the new look feels more modern, with Settings and Screenshot Manager getting particular attention.

Screenshots of the new Steam user interface

(Image credit: Valve)

Better notifications

If you use Steam – and if you play many of the best PC games it’s likely that you do, then you’ll probably have noticed notifications popping up in the corner of your screen while playing. While these can sometimes be useful, more often than not they're useless alerts about someone adding you to their ‘Friends list’, potentially distracting you at a key moment in the game.

So the fact that Valve has improved notifications to be “more useful to you” is certainly welcome – as is Valve’s acknowledgement that Steam notifications haven’t been great. With the new update, the 'bell' icon at the top of the screen will only light up green when there’s “truly something new for you,” and the notification pop-out window will be limited to new notifications (older ones can be viewed by clicking the 'View all' option).

Screenshots of the new Steam user interface

(Image credit: Valve)

Steam now also provides new notification settings that let you fine-tune which notifications pop up, and where they'll appear. Hopefully this will put a stop to immersion-breaking pop-ups showing up while you're playing games.

New and improved in-game overlay

The in-game overlay, which appears when you press Shift+Tab while playing a game, has got a new look as well, with a new toolbar along the bottom that contains buttons for things such as chat, achievements, guides and a web browser, so they can all be quickly accessed. It’s similar to the Game Bar in Windows 11 (which you can open by pressing the Windows key +G on your keyboard.

You can also customize which elements appear in the in-game overlay, and these settings will carry over regardless of which game you play.

You can now pin windows from the overlay to appear on-screen while you’re playing. This could be really handy for putting up guides to help you through a tricky part of a game, or – as Valve suggests – you could use it to multitask, such as playing a video or podcast while you game.

The in-game overlay also comes with two brand-new features. The first is the Game Overview panel, which gives you a load of easily-glanceable information about the game you're playing, including achievements, progress, news and more.

Screenshots of the new Steam user interface

(Image credit: Valve)

Valve has also added a new Notes feature, which allows you to type out quick notes and thoughts, or paste images, while playing. This could prove really helpful for keeping track of puzzles within a game, or for creating a ‘to-do’ list to ensure you get the most out of the game.

These notes are synced, so you can see them on any PC you use Steam on – and that includes the Steam Deck, which is a nice touch.

Steam Deck improvements

While the main focus of this update is on improving the PC experience of Steam, Valve has also done some background work on improving the user experience on its handheld console, the Steam Deck.

Code is now more commonly shared between the Steam desktop client, Big Picture mode and the Steam Deck, and Valve promises that this will mean that any changes and updates made to the desktop client will now appear on the Steam Deck more quickly.

It should work the other way around as well, and Valve has noted that the controller configurator feature of the Steam Deck, which is one of the best tools included with the handheld, can now also be used by the desktop version of Steam (via the in-game overlay), making it easier to configure gamepads connected to your PC.

Background work introducing hardware acceleration to Mac and Linux versions of Steam has also been included, so gamers on those platforms should get an experience that’s more in-line with the Windows version, which again is welcome.

So far the changes appear to have been warmly received by Steam users, and the update should be rolling out right now. For more info, check out Valve’s video highlighting the changes below:

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Windows 11 reportedly installs optional update without asking – and it’s causing trouble

Windows 11’s latest optional update – which is a preview of Moment 3 (KB5026446) – is causing trouble for some users, coming with some bugs, and worse still, in some reported cases the upgrade is installing itself automatically.

Windows Latest reports that it experienced the installation of KB5026446 going ahead automatically when updates were checked for on the PC. Note that as an optional update, one that might contain gremlins in the works (which it apparently does), the user should have to manually trigger the update.

In other words, you should have to choose to install this preview update, it should not be installing automatically.

Windows Latest observes that it has received reports from readers that this unexpected installation of KB5026446 has occurred, and indeed, elsewhere online we’ve seen other reports of this happening (even, in some cases, if people hadn’t checked for updates).

As for the problems the Moment 3 preview update is causing, there are various reports of diverse issues, as you might expect with a patch still in testing. One of those is that it breaks the Microsoft Store, or messes with the Game Pass on PC (making games unplayable, we’re told).

There are other reports of worrying system freezes, some apps failing to open, and the keyboards and mice of some users failing to work post-update.

There were installation failures too, with the usual meaningless error messages (strings of hexadecimal), but that’s pretty much par for the course these days it seems with Windows 11.


Analysis: The clue is in the name – ‘optional’

The good news, well, such as it is, is that in all these cases, simply uninstalling the update (via Windows Update, under Update History) cured the PCs of the various ailments mentioned. The galling bit here is for the folks who didn’t want to install the optional update in the first place, of course.

How widespread is this issue with the KB5026446 preview update installing itself? It’s difficult to say, but it is certainly happening for a number of folks. Windows Latest does observe that if you do check for updates, and notice it installing, if you hit ‘Pause Updates’ that’ll cancel the installation. So that’s worth bearing in mind.

One theory is that this sneaky installation may be tied in to those who have selected the new option in Windows 11 to ‘Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available’ (and using that is necessary to enable Moment 3’s new features in KB5026446, as Bleeping Computer previously made clear).

However, even if you have selected this choice, you should not be getting an optional update piped through with no warning at all (especially when you haven’t even checked for updates, as seems to be happening in some cases). Optional updates should always be exactly that – an option, not an automatic installation (and certainly not one occuring stealthily behind the scenes, as it were).

Hopefully we’ll hear from Microsoft soon enough to clarify what’s going on here.

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Microsoft says it’s curtains for Cortana in Windows 11 (and 10) – but that’s no surprise

Microsoft has announced that it’s killing off Cortana, at least in Windows, where the assistant will be dropped in the not-so-distant future.

Windows Central reported on Microsoft’s revelation that the Cortana app will no longer be supported in Windows late in 2023 (as tipped by @Perbylund on Twitter).

However, the aged assistant will still remain in other Microsoft services, including various bits of Microsoft Teams and Outlook mobile, so Cortana hasn’t entirely been binned.

As for Windows 11, though, you won’t be needing Cortana anyway, because as Microsoft reminds us, the operating system already has elements in place to replace the digital assistant.

For voice controls, there’s now a comprehensive Voice Access feature which Microsoft has been beavering away honing considerably of late.

And for queries and assistance, naturally there’s the new Bing AI (ChatGPT-powered bot) on tap, plus there’s something bigger in the pipeline – Copilot.

In case you missed it (somehow), Microsoft recently revealed it’s bringing Copilot to Windows 11 to sit at the heart of the operating system, offering help with whatever you’re doing.


Analysis: An inevitable move from Microsoft

While Copilot isn’t here yet, the AI will be far more extensive in terms of its scope than Cortana. When it comes to assistance with doing stuff in Windows 11, it’ll not just tell you about useful features for any given task, but offer to automatically enable them if needed. Copilot can also summarize a Word document, for example, Bing AI-style, and its far more wide-ranging skills and utility make Cortana irrelevant as a result.

Just on that basis, it’s no surprise to see Microsoft giving Cortana the elbow from Windows. Indeed, with Cortana getting cut off late in 2023, that perhaps is a further suggestion that this is when Copilot will step up to be incorporated in Windows 11 – perhaps with the 23H2 update? We know Copilot will be in Windows 11 preview builds this month (or at least that’s what Microsoft has told us), so it seems everything is all lining up.

Although there’s always a chance that Copilot is such a big feature addition, Microsoft may want to save it for next-gen Windows (Windows 12, maybe) which is set to arrive next year (rumor has it).

Whatever the case, Cortana is not exactly going to be missed outside a niche of users, at least in Windows, anyway. As a digital assistant, rather than being an all-rounder, Microsoft had already angled Cortana more to business-related use (hence Cortana remaining in Teams and so forth after being ditched from Windows). So, none of this is a shock, and it just makes sense for Microsoft to eject Cortana with Copilot now incoming for Windows 11.

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Adobe Premiere Pro update lets you edit videos like it’s a word doc

Adobe’s latest update to Premiere Pro promises to be an absolute game-changer for video editors with the arrival of text-based video editing. 

According to the company, the feature, first trailed in April 2023, is “an entirely new way of creating rough cuts that are as simple as copying and pasting text.” That means it doesn’t change how videos are produced – it alters who can edit videos. 

Text-based editing isn’t the only new feature now available in one of the best video editing software tools on the market. In a bid to maximize workflows, Adobe has unveiled Background Auto Save, smoother scrolling, and improved language support, too.  

Ctrl + V(ideo) 

Editing videos through text is all about streamlining and simplicity. This is, after all, about making it easier to stitch together rough cuts before fine-tuning. 

Once source footage is transcribed, users can quickly highlight the required text from the transcript and insert it into the timeline. Using the sequence transcript, editors can then copy and paste text to move clips, or delete it to bin them, before refining the cut using Premiere Pro’s trimming tools. 

It’s not the first time Adobe has toyed with text-based video editing. Last year, the company unveiled its Project Blink beta, an AI-powered video editor for browsers, that works in a suspiciously similar manner.

When we reviewed the web-based video editing app, we were impressed  by its overall accessibility. Anyone who’s ever used Microsoft Word or similar will find themselves in somewhat familiar territory. At the time, we said, “it’s fair to say you lack the omniscient control that you’d find in other video editors, and this isn’t exactly an Adobe Premiere Pro alternative. But what would usually take hours in a fully-fledged video editor, Adobe's Project Blink can accomplish in minutes.” 

Adding text-based video editing in Premiere Pro takes that to another level. It not only gives just about everyone the ability to build a rough cut, but makes it an integral part of the workflow for experienced and professional video editors. 

And, like the proliferation of machine-learning neural filters and the ability to  remove objects from an image in one click Photoshop, it’s another example of Adobe simplifying creative processes. We’re all content creators now.  

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ChatGPT Plus will get a huge update this week – here’s why it’s a big deal

ChatGPT Plus subscribers will soon be getting early access to experimental new features for the popular chatbot. Web integration and plugins are rolling out in beta next week, which could prove to be two interesting updates to the chatbot.

If you're subscribed to ChatGPT Plus, a new beta panel will appear in your settings next week. Once the panel has popped up, you’ll be able to try the two new features – though of course, most users are likely to gravitate to the AI’s more important and likely more interesting web browsing capabilities. 

ChatGPT Screenshot

(Image credit: ChatGPT)

According to OpenAI’s official blog post on the beta features, the new internet-connected version of ChatGPT will know when and how to browse the internet to answer questions about recent events or topics. This means you could ask ChatGPT about something going on in the news, about whether or not you should take a scarf on your afternoon dog walk, or dig up trivia for more recent films and TV shows.

Why does this matter? 

This new beta puts ChatGPT in a similar sphere to Microsoft’s Bing Chat, without explicitly turning it into a search engine. The big takeaway is that ChatGPT will basically be able to identify when it lacks information to answer a query and needs to search the internet for a relevant source.

This should make asking for citations a lot easier and – hopefully – a lot more accurate. Alternatively, the chatbot will simply be able to direct you to a webpage that might help. This means that ChatGPT (or at least, the beta version available to Plus subscribers) will no longer be reliant on the limited dataset it was trained on.

However, the issue that comes with chatbots having the ability to scour the web at will is that they often don’t have an appropriate frame of reference or the physical real-world mobility to reliably pick out misinformation. ChatGPT could cross-reference what it finds and try to ‘verify’ the authority of the source, but it can’t truly confirm the information is true in the real world.

Say you want to know about something that is currently ongoing in the real world, like the real-time weather in your area. An AI can't properly go outside to verify these things are true. With ChatGPT now able to search the web of its own accord,  I hope that it will effectively prioritize reputable sites and sources – and avoid digging into incorrect information.

The good news is that OpenAI is taking a relatively conservative approach here. It’s a smart idea to have this feature tested on a smaller scale, with only plus subscribers having initial access and the beta feature being opt-in only.

It’s a safer way to start rolling out features like this without forcing it on the entire user base – a lesson that Microsoft could possibly learn from OpenAI, rather than shoving Bing AI into everything on Windows. With this change, we could see a smarter ChatGPT with more real-life applications, rather than just a text-content-vomiting machine. 

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Bing chatbot just got smarter – and it’s about to get different AI personalities

Microsoft has deployed a new version of its Bing chatbot (v96) featuring improvements to make the AI smarter in a couple of key areas – and a big change has been flagged up as imminent, too.

Mikhail Parakhin, who heads up the Advertising and Web Services division at Microsoft, shared this info on Twitter (via MS Power User).

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So, what’s new with v96? Parakhin explains that users of the ChatGPT-powered Bing will now experience a ‘significant’ reduction in the number of times that the AI simply refuses to reply to a query.

There will also be “reduced instances of hallucination in answers” apparently, which is industry lingo meaning that the chatbot will produce fewer mistakes and inaccuracies when responding to users. In short, we should see less misinformation being imparted by the chatbot, and there have been some worrying instances of that occuring recently.

The other major news Parakhin delivers is that the so-called tri-toggle, known more formally as the Bing Chat Mode selector – featuring three settings to switch between different personalities of the AI Bing – is set to go live in the “next couple of days” we’re told.


Analysis: Long and winding road ahead

The ability to switch between a trio of personalities is the big change for the Bing chatbot, and to hear that it’s imminent is exciting stuff for those who have been engaging with the AI thus far.

As detailed previously, the trio of personalities available are labeled as Precise, Balanced, and Creative. The latter is set to provide a chattier experience, and Precise will offer a shorter, more typical ‘search result’ delivery, with Balanced being a middle road between the two. So, if you don’t like how the AI is responding to you, at least there will be choices to alter its behavior.

Various different versions of the Chat Mode selector have been tested, as you would imagine, and the final model has just been picked. This is now undergoing honing before release which should happen later this week as noted, but we’re guessing there’ll be plenty of further fine-tuning to be done post-release.

Certainly if the overall Bing AI experience has been anything to go by, as the whole project is, of course, still in its early stages, and Microsoft is chopping and changing things – sometimes in huge ways – seemingly without much caution.

The current tuning for v96 to ensure Bing doesn’t get confused and simply not reply will help make the AI a more pleasant virtual entity to interact with, and the same will hopefully be true for the ability to switch personalities.

At the very least, the Creative personality should inject some much-needed character back into the chatbot, which is what many folks want – because if the AI behaves pretty much like a search engine, then the project seems a bit dry and frankly in danger of being judged as pointless. After all, the entire drive of this initiative is to make Bing something different rather than just a traditional search experience.

It’s going to be a long road of tweaking for the Bing AI no doubt, and the next step after the personalities go live will likely be to lift that chat limit (which was imposed shortly after launch) to something a bit higher to allow for more prolonged conversations. If not the full-on rambles initially witnessed, the ones that got the chatbot into hot water for the oddities it produced…

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Finally, someone is limiting the time kids spend on screens and it’s TikTok?

Even TikTok agrees teens and tweens are spending too much time on TikTok and now, somewhat surprisingly, the popular social media platform is doing something about it.

The company announced in a blog post on Wednesday a new effort to help young people manage their time on TikTok on some of the best smartphones, though it hinges on platform members telling the truth about their age. 

Soon, TikTok will set a 60-minute usage limit for all users under 18. The prompt, though, will be more of a suggestion in that the teen will only have to enter a passcode to extend their time. For those who do so and break the 100-minute barrier (who doesn't?), TikTok will soon encourage them to set up their own screen time limit for the app.

Usage rules for those under 13 will be more strict. Once they reach the 60-minute limit, a parent or guardian will have to enter a code to restore access. There is nothing in the announcement about how TikTok is verifying the age of its users.

TikTok is pairing these new limits with a collection of screentime management tools that it's adding to its Family Pairing parental management feature. They include a screen time dashboard and the ability to mute notifications. The latter should help keep TikTok phone notifications from pulling teens back onto the platform.

The moves come just two days before the US celebrates National Unplugging Day, an unofficial gadget and social media holiday where people of all ages are encouraged to put down gadgets and screens and relearn pre-digital skills like hobbies, screen-free bedtime, and face-to-face social interaction.

Whether or not you believe in unplugging, there's no arguing with the current, startling screen time trends, especially among teens and tweens.

TikTok Screen time management tools

TikTok’s new screen time management tools (Image credit: TikTok)

A growing problem

Screentime among tweens and teens has been growing for years and all but exploded during the pandemic. Common Sense Media's 2021 survey reported a 17% spike in media use between 2019 and 2021. A more recent study put kids' daily TikTok use at 80 minutes per day. That's a lot of short videos.

Parents and maybe some overstimulated teens may welcome some screentime structure but it's also worth noting that TikTok's motives might not be entirely altruistic. The company is facing heavy scrutiny from US Government officials, many of whom are calling for an outright TikTok ban. The concern, though, has nothing to do with too much screen time and everything to do with TikTok's ties to the Chinese government.

TikTok is still owned by Chinese tech firm ByteDance and many fear that the Chinese government has unfettered access to TikTok data and, therefore, all of our activities on the platform. However, TikTok has been moving all of its US data to Oracle servers based in California. The company claims that no one in the Chinese government has access to US TikTok data.

Whoever is looking at the data, there may soon be less of it to peruse if TikTok's screen time management efforts are successful.

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Apple explains what ‘Clean Charging’ is for iOS 16.1 – but it’s US only for now

iOS 16.1 is now available for iPhone 8 and newer handsets, and it comes with an interesting carbon-saving feature that helps bolster Apple's eco-friendly credentials – and the company has now explained how it works.

In a support document, Apple states that when this feature is enabled, your iPhone gains an overview of the carbon emissions being used in your area, and iOS 16.1 will charge your device during times when cleaner energy production is being used.

It's an interesting feature, and it makes us wonder how this could expand to Apple's other devices.

A reduced carbon footprint for your MacBook Pro?

Macbook Pro 14-inch

(Image credit: TechRadar)

iPhones are one of the most repeatedly charged devices that many of us rely on every day, but most of us don't think about where the electricity we use to charge our iPhones comes from.

At the moment, this feature is only available to people in the US, though we hope it gets a global rollout soon. If you're in the US and you don't see Clean Energy Charging in your battery settings, you need to have Location Services enabled, alongside System Customization and Significant Locations. These can all be found within in Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services.

It's too early to tell if the Clean Energy Charging feature will make a big difference in carbon emissions, but if it does, could we see it come to other Apple products, such as Macs and MacBooks?  With rumors that new M2 MacBook Pros could be arriving soon, it could be perfect timing for this feature to pop up in a future macOS Ventura update.

Apple recently published a press release, calling on its supply chain to fully decarbonize by 2030 and use fully-renewable sources, so it's clear that the company is getting serious about minimising the environmental impact of its products.

We're expecting the company to go harder in its renewable-energy efforts in the near future, further showing the industry how it can thrive in a clean-energy world while we enjoy sending memes to friends over iMessage.

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It’s now quicker than ever to buy the items on your Pinterest board

Pinterest has made it even easier to purchase your inspiration with a new partnership with Woocommerce.

The official ‘Pinterest for WooCommerce’ extension is now available in the WooCommerce Marketplace, allowing sellers on both platforms the ability to offer Pinterest shopping functionalities directly from a Pinterest account.

The two companies say the exchange of services means over three million WooCommerce sellers will now be connected with Pinterest’s 400 million monthly users.

Social media meets ecommerce 

According to Pinterest data, 97% of the top searches on the site are unbranded, meaning shoppers are within the discovery stage of their journey. When they do purchase, Pinterest users spend two times more than people on other platforms. 

“By partnering together we provide the best integrated Pinterest shopping experience possible for WooCommerce merchants to be on the cutting edge of social commerce,” said Aleksandra Bettin, Vice President of Business Development at WooCommerce. 

“WooCommerce is highly invested in our merchants' success. Merchants need the right options to reach the right audiences–this integration with Pinterest helps them do that.”

WooCommerce ecommerce merchants can create or connect a Pinterest for Business account and automatically sync their product catalog, turning their products into browsable product Pins. 

Similar to an ecommerce platform, users will be able to measure conversions on their Pinterest ads and optimize these ads for shopping campaigns or retargeting by installing the Pinterest tag.

“WooCommerce is a critical partner to continue to grow our support for our Pinterest business community. Pinterest supports the entire shopping journey not just for Pinners, but for advertisers, merchants, and creators too. Our goal is to make it easier than ever for WooCommerce merchants to reach and convert Pinterest shoppers,” said Rachel Hardy, Head of Shopping Product Marketing at Pinterest.

In 2015, Pinterest introduced a ‘Buy it’ button for pinners to make purchases from the collection of ideas saved on their Pinterest board. At the time, any item with a blue price tag was labeled a buyable pin, which meant you could tap it and buy it with a credit card or Apple Pay.

As a shopping platform, Pinterest plans to combine the commercial intent of its audience with the ability to visually explore products as you would in a magazine or catalog.

  • If you are looking to create an ecommerce site, we’ve featured everything you need to choose the best website builder for you 

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