Since Xbox's new CEO, Asha Sharma, took over, the company has made a number of changes to its strategy, including the Xbox Game Pass subscription service, and it seems as though more Game Pass changes may be planned for 2027, if a recent rumor posted to the ResetEra forums holds any water.

The rumor claims a number of changes are coming to the Xbox Game Streaming subscription services, the biggest of which is the removal of day-one releases as of sometime between February and April 2027, and a corresponding change in the price structure for Game Pass, which will see Game Pass cost $3 less—$19.99 monthly. Additionally, Game Pass will also be split into a $12.99 ad-free tier and the aforementioned ad-supported tier. This is not the first time an ad-supported Game Pass tier has been mentioned, lending credence to the rumors.

Microsoft today rolled out an out-of-band emergency Windows 11 patch with KB5129195, which is being distributed to everyone. This emergency update is automatically downloading across every PC, as it fixes crucial issues and patches privilege elevation vulnerabilities. The list of fixes in this update includes a patch for CVE-2026-62721, issues with remote desktop connection, and importantly, a partial fix for faulty USB audio. If readers recall, Microsoft's previous September update disrupted USB audio output on many PCs, affecting USB Audio Class 1.0 devices, where systems that used to work produced no sound. In the latest patch rolling out today, Microsoft noted that 8-channel and 3D audio modes are being fixed, but several other issues remain. For example, the lack of volume controls and the complete lack of audio output are still present for some USB audio devices, so this release doesn't completely fix the problem.

Next, there are a few unconfirmed issues in the previous KB5124008 September update that sites such as Windows Latest are tracking. Today's out-of-band KB5129195 doesn't fix them. These include issues with AMD Radeon GPU users, who are reportedly experiencing system freezing, crashing, driver timeouts, black screens, missing display output, and even immediate errors after reinstalling the driver stack. Separately, Windows Latest also spotted users complaining about File Explorer failing to start or crashing immediately, as well as not being able to access file history. This issue is present in some enterprise environments such as Citrix UPM, FSLogix, Horizon, or ProfileUnity ProfileDisks on both Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2.

Windows 11 continues its streak of breaking things, as Microsoft has confirmed that there is an issue with the latest September security update. According to the updated support document, Microsoft confirmed that the KB5124008 Windows security update can break audio output on some PCs. Specifically, this security update introduces issues with USB audio devices, where users of these audio output devices can't get any output from them. Messages include "This device cannot start (Code 10)" in the device manager, which fails to recognize some devices, while other symptoms can include unresponsive volume controls, no volume at all, no audio output, unresponsive sound settings, or the complete lack of detection in the device manager.

Microsoft confirmed that this only affects USB Audio Class 1.0 devices, but the current workaround is quite strange. Some USB audio devices can continue to function in standard stereo configuration. However, when switching to multichannel audio features such as 8-channel or 3D audio mode, the device can fail. The company is stating that the mileage will vary depending on the device type and use case, as some users were able to restore audio functions by switching to 2-channel audio mode in cases like these. However, do note that it doesn't mean that the problem is solved, but that only a few devices can find a workaround until a temporary fix is in place. Microsoft is reportedly working on a resolution.

In September, Microsoft released fixes for 999 vulnerabilities, making it one of the largest batches of fixes the company has ever issued. Out of these 999 patches, 723 vulnerabilities have been reportedly patched on Windows alone. For Office and Office 2016, about 111 fixes were released, while SQL Server received 62. Third-party projects received an additional 25 fixes. However, the majority of the focus was on Windows, where two vulnerabilities with very high severity were addressed. Microsoft confirmed that these were being actively exploited to unlock local privileges and allow code and program execution without any issues. These vulnerabilities, CVE-2026-81963 and CVE-2026-85880, have now been patched.

As readers may recall, Microsoft is working on expanding its memory integrity protection feature across its global Windows 11 installations, with the rollout beginning in October. For those unaware, memory integrity protection enhances operating system security at the kernel level, safeguarding it from sophisticated attacks by malicious actors. Using Virtualization-based Security (VBS), the OS employs hardware virtualization to create Windows hypervisors that dedicate isolated virtual environments. The OS always operates under the assumption that the kernel can be compromised.

A few months ago, Microsoft promised its Windows enthusiast community that the company would implement a major overhaul to improve performance and stability in the Windows 11 operating system. We conducted a poll and received nearly 33,000 responses from the community to answer one question: Are you experiencing the promised improvements in Windows 11? However, the findings are quite polarized, as the majority of the enthusiast community doesn't actually notice any difference before and after the promise was made. Among all respondents, 43.4% voted that there are no noticeable improvements. This represents thousands of Windows 11 users worldwide who are not seeing any enhancement in their day-to-day operations with Microsoft's latest operating system.

What is perhaps more alarming is that many enthusiasts report a worse experience following Microsoft's promises. About 38.1% of the voters indicated they are experiencing actual degradation in day-to-day operations, as Microsoft continues to push updates that negatively impact everyday use and introduce more bugs. Notably, a recent example is the Windows 11 August update, which reset custom cursors to an oversized default one. In some cases, the color and size settings don't stick, no matter how many times they are changed. This update has also caused gameplay issues, such as forced crashes, random freezing, errors, and unexpected device restarts due to RGB peripherals.

At IFA 2026 in Berlin, Germany, Microsoft confirmed that the company is listening to user feedback on various aspects of the Windows experience, including boot times, Windows Hello, and optimizations for PC systems with 8 GB of RAM. Speaking at the event, Mark Linton, Corporate Vice President of Windows & Devices at Microsoft, stated that the company is making a series of decisions that will impact Windows 11 users, and many of these changes will be rolled out over the next few builds.

Mark Linton, MicrosoftWe've made significant gains on things like boot time, Windows Hello responsiveness… We're continuing to improve on the fundamentals... We're listening to customer feedback, continuously improving Windows, and you'll see those updates as Windows just gets better as the updates come through... We're optimizing so that 8 gig of RAM runs great on machines as well.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is apparently getting a personalized price test, at least for some subscribers. A Reddit post from user synthlov3r on r/XboxGamePass shows an offer of $16.09 per month for Game Pass Ultimate, locked in for 12 months before reverting to the standard $22.99 rate. That works out to $193.08 for the year, roughly $82.80 less than paying the regular monthly price the whole way through. Other users replying to the same thread reported different numbers, with some seeing offers closer to $18 or $20 a month. One commenter mentioned that their secondary account received the discount while their main account didn't, which suggests account-level targeting.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate dropped from $29.99 to $22.99 back in April, after subscriber numbers reportedly took a hit following the earlier price hike. Under CEO Asha Sharma, Xbox has already signaled interest in making Game Pass pricing more flexible, so personalized discounts aimed at lapsed or price-sensitive subscribers would fit that direction. Microsoft hasn't confirmed any of this as an official pricing program yet, so treat these figures as anecdotal for now, even if the pattern checks out across multiple reports.

Microsoft appears to be working on a battery status widget for Windows 11 that would show the charge level of your PC alongside any connected wireless accessories in one place. First spotted on Discord, references to the battery status widget were found in recent preview builds, though the feature isn't functional yet. The widget is designed to appear on both the Widgets Board and the lock screen, with light and dark theme variants already present in the build's assets. It would list the PC's own battery at the top, followed by connected peripherals like Bluetooth mice, keyboards, or headphones, each shown with its own icon, name, and battery percentage. It also looks like it will indicate the charging status and whether Energy Saver is enabled for a given device.

It's a fairly obvious addition and, honestly, quite overdue. Android and iOS have offered similar battery overviews for years, so Windows 11 catching up here isn't exactly groundbreaking. The Widgets Board has struggled to find a real purpose since launching in 2021, with only a handful of apps, such as Phone Link, OneDrive, and Weather, making good use of the space. A genuinely helpful system widget like this one might finally give people a reason to open it. Since none of this is live yet, there's no word on when Microsoft plans to ship it, or whether the lock screen version will roll out at the same time as the Widgets Board one.

Microsoft has published a quick-start guide showing developers how to build a native WinUI 3 app for Windows 11 in about 30 minutes using AI. The workflow runs on free tools, VS Code,.NET 10, GitHub Copilot's free tier, and Microsoft's winapp CLI, so Visual Studio isn't needed. The guide covers scaffolding a project, using an AI agent to add features like a settings page, testing the result, and packaging it as an MSIX installer for the Microsoft Store.

The agent used here, called winui-dev, isn't the general Copilot chatbot most Windows users already know. Rather, it's a specialized plugin with skills for WinUI design, code review, UI testing, packaging, and migrating older apps. Microsoft also recommends connecting it to its Learn MCP server so it pulls current WinUI documentation instead of relying on training data, since WinUI 3 is newer and less represented in AI training sets than older frameworks like WPF and UWP.

Microsoft is putting a hard cap on Xbox Cloud Gaming for the first time, ending years of unlimited streaming for Game Pass subscribers. Starting in November, Game Pass Essential will include 5 hours of cloud streaming a month, Premium gets 10 hours, and Ultimate tops out at 15 hours. Once subscribers burn through their allotment, they'll need to pay for extra hours through the Xbox Store to keep going. Xbox says the change should only affect around 4% of subscribers, so casual streamers likely won't notice much. Heavy users are a different story, particularly anyone leaning on cloud streaming as their main way to play.

Xbox hasn't announced pricing for extra hours yet, saying more details will come before the change goes live. The company did admit outright that "the practical result is a higher cost" for some players. Contrary to how generous this might look on paper, Xbox's own ceiling is notably tighter than NVIDIA GeForce Now's 100-hour monthly cap on its top tier. Microsoft points to rising cloud infrastructure costs as the reason, though it's hard not to read this as part of the division's overall push toward profitability after a rough stretch of layoffs.

Microsoft is working on expanding its memory integrity protection feature across its global Windows 11 installations, with the rollout beginning in October. For those unaware, memory integrity protection enhances operating system security at the kernel level, safeguarding it from sophisticated attacks by malicious actors. This feature is straightforward, requiring little to no additional configuration from the user, meaning any complexity is hidden while the PC remains significantly more secure. Using Virtualization-based Security (VBS), the OS employs hardware virtualization to create Windows hypervisors that dedicate isolated virtual environments. The OS operates under the assumption that the kernel can be compromised.

Microsoft developed this robust protection mechanism using Virtualization-based Security (VBS), allowing for more security hotpatches to be installed on the fly without needing a hard restart. For installations running in critical environments, this means the OS will continue running its dedicated tasks while receiving constant security updates. For large organizations with managed Windows 11 devices, setup will be easy as all devices will automatically benefit from the memory integrity addition. All existing admin and user decisions and policies will remain fully in effect, while devices with memory integrity currently disabled will not have it automatically enabled by the October rollout.

Microsoft has launched the Xbox Cozy Collection, a themed lineup of peripherals developed in partnership with 8BitDo, SteelSeries, and KontrolFreek, all available now. 8BitDo is contributing two products in a Forest Wonder colorway. The Retro 87 Mechanical Keyboard comes with its co-developed Kailh tactile switches, hot-swappable PCB, programmable Super Buttons, an independent control panel, and RGB backlighting. The matching Retro R8 Mouse comes with its charging dock, Huano micro switches, and a magnetic adapter compartment. The 8BitDo Ultimate 3 Controller is available in a Mossy Lagoon theme, with improved grip, adjustable joystick tension, a wireless charging dock, and supports wireless and wired on Xbox and PC, with Bluetooth for mobile.

The Xbox Cozy Collection is completed by products from SteelSeries and KontrolFreek. The Arctis Gamebuds from SteelSeries are now available in Matcha and Yuzu colorways. The earbuds feature Active Noise Cancellation, Quick-Switch between 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth 5.3, 360° spatial audio, IP55 water and dust resistance, 40 hours of total battery life and over 200 audio presets via the Arctis Companion App. KontrolFreek is adding to the collection its No-Slip Thumb Grips in matching Matcha and Yuzu colors, made from the company's proprietary GripTek non-slip material.

Recently, rumors popped up that Sony may be rethinking its commitment to an all-digital game future, thanks to supposed internal chatter at Microsoft about a "100% physical" Xbox Helix console. Now, industry insiders, both former and current, appear to be shutting down those rumors entirely, alleging that Sony will stick to its digital guns and have an all-digital console ecosystem by the end of December 2028.

Richard Browne, formerly of Sony and Psygnosis, commented on both new rumors in a new X post, claiming that there was no talk of a change in Sony's plans at the recent Gamescom industry expo, adding that publishers are "following their guidance for discless in 2028," and that Microsoft's new Project Helix would also likely be digital when it launches. While his commentary has largely been called into question, given he last worked at Sony in 2014, notable leaker, NateTheHate2, has also chimed in, echoing Browne's comments about Sony.

Microsoft has now admitted that its latest Windows 11 optional update, KB5120998, is messing with mouse cursors. The company updated its release health notes to confirm that cursor personalization settings are "being changed or reverted to certain standard settings" after installing the update. Released August 27, KB5120998 brought some genuinely useful stuff, like a movable taskbar and a resizable Start menu. However, it also seems to be resetting custom cursors to an oversized default one, and in some cases the color and size just don't stick no matter how many times you change them. Some users have also reported wallpaper issues alongside it. Here's what the updated release notes now say:

"Microsoft has received reports indicating that mouse cursor personalization settings are being changed or reverted to certain standard settings. This occurs following installation of Windows updates released August 27, 2026 (KB5120998) and later."

When Microsoft confirmed "Project Helix" back in March, CEO Asha Sharma said it was the codename for the company's "next generation console." News has since been trickling in about this "Project Helix" console, including a leaker who claimed it would be equivalent to a $2,000- $3,000 high-end gaming PC. While much is not yet known, we do know from Microsoft that the Helix console will use a custom AMC SoC and support both Xbox and PC games. More recently, however, CEO Asha Sharma spoke to the BBC News at Gamescom, and she had this to say about Helix:

"We've been hard at work on a great next generation and a great family of devices for Helix, and we'll share more soon."

As was recently discovered by an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 owner on Reddit, there is apparently a conflict between Windows 11's built-in driver management tools and ASUS's proprietary power profiles. After leaving their Zephyrus G14 laptop, with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti dGPU, in Eco Mode for a number of weeks, Reddit user u/OK-Horse-3169 switched their laptop back into performance mode in order to play some games, only to discover that Windows had deleted the GPU driver. According to ASUS's support documentation, this is expected behavior.

As it turns out, on basically any laptop with a MUX switch that disables the dGPU entirely, Windows 11 will automatically remove the drivers, because the driver is no longer necessary for a device that's no longer connected—it treats it much like it would a removable USB drive or peripheral. The source of the problem, as discovered by the redditor, is called pnpclean.dll, a maintenance task that deletes the aforementioned drivers if a device hasn't been connected for 15-30 days. After the driver was deleted, Windows recognized the user's RTX 5070 Ti as a generic display adaptor until the driver was reinstalled.

Microsoft has begun rolling out a new feature update KB5120998 for Windows 11, introducing significant visual changes to the user experience. Among the notable additions is the long-awaited expanded taskbar customization, allowing users to position the taskbar at the top, left, or right side of the display, in addition to its traditional bottom placement. Microsoft is also introducing a smaller taskbar mode that reduces both icon and taskbar size, which should be particularly useful on devices with limited screen space. The Start menu is receiving similar attention, with small, medium, and large size options, and the Recommended section has been renamed to "Recent."

Windows Search has undergone a visual and functional refresh, featuring a less cluttered search home and clearer indicators showing whether a result comes from an application, setting, file, web result, or the Microsoft Store. Users can now disable web and Store suggestions, and Windows can automatically index frequently used folders. File Explorer Home should launch faster, and its Recommended section now supports touch scrolling. Additionally, Microsoft has updated progress indicators for startup, sign-in, restart, shutdown, and update installation, while virtual desktop switching and display settings receive reliability improvements.

We recently postulated that the early launch of the Xbox disc-to-digital entitlement system meant that the upcoming Xbox Helix console would not launch with a physical disc drive. Although there has been no confirmation that this is the case, it's clear that Microsoft is moving away from physical media, just as Sony is doing the same for its console. In a recent interview with the BBC, Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma, lends credence to this theory with vague comments that dodge the question entirely.

Much of the interview revolved around the current hardware and memory crisis affecting both console and PC hardware, but when it came to the topic of the disc drive in the next-gen Xbox Helix, Sharma's go-to response was to deflect, saying that "This next generation, we have to be thinking about efficiency and affordability alongside performance," adding that "All of the industry needs to start to innovate on affordability and efficiency," although she acknowledged that affordability "is absolutely something all of us need to be thinking about and innovating on and giving people more choice in terms of how they play their console and how they purchase their console."

Late last week, we reported that the Windows 11 August update was causing gameplay issues such as forced crashes, random freezing, errors, and unexpected device restarts. The company investigated the problem and discovered that the interaction between games and RGB peripherals was the root cause. They released a workaround involving a registry hack and marked the issue as resolved, even though no proper update was provided. Microsoft has pointed to the existence of RGB peripherals as problematic, shifting the blame to these devices and stating that the only solution is to block the inpoutx64 driver from loading, rather than offering a complete fix.

MicrosoftThis issue is resolved by a block that prevents the inpoutx64 driver from loading. The block targets devices with this specific driver enabled and the game ARC Raiders installed. This resolution disables the inpoutx64 driver and displays a message window with information about the disablement. Following this message, the game will launch as normal.

According to NVIDIA support documents, the company plans to provide new GeForce Game Ready drivers for the Windows 10 operating system until October of this year, after which support will be discontinued. Officially, Microsoft ended support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025. Almost a year later, many gamers are still using the operating system. NVIDIA recognized that a large number of GeForce users are still on Windows 10, so the company decided to extend support for another year to allow more time for transition. As the support documentation notes, the last Game Ready Driver for Windows 10 will be released in October of this year, after which there will be no more game and feature updates for Windows 10 users. However, NVIDIA will continue to provide security updates for Windows 10 until October 2029, which is four years after Microsoft's end of life for the OS.A complete FAQ from NVIDIA's page follows.

Following the split from Xbox as a result of the gaming giant's year-long "reset," game studio Double Fine will be hosting the first Amnesia Fortnight event, a game jam event in which is pitches ideas and lets the community vote on which will eventually get made into a game.

This will be the studio's first Amnesia Fortnight since 2019, when the company was acquired by Microsoft. This time, the Amnesia Fortnight event will be accompanied by a Kickstarter campaign that Double Fine says will "help support our newly (re)gained independence," and backers will vote for four finalists to become a game prototype, one of which will "become a real (small) game."

Microsoft is working on providing processors with unified memory dedicated control parameters in Windows 11, as indicated by the recent Windows 11 build 29648.1000. This build, originally released on August 17, includes a hidden feature called IntelligentCarveout. This feature will allow the system to manage unified memory in SoCs like NVIDIA's upcoming RTX Spark, AMD Ryzen Halo, and other APU-like chips that integrate the CPU and GPU into a single package. These are connected to external LPDDR5X memory, which acts as a unified pool for both the CPU and GPU. With the new feature, we will see specialized controls that allow settings to be configured for independent partitions of this unified memory. During Computex, Microsoft even hinted at this feature arriving for Windows 11 in their announcement for NVIDIA's RTX Spark platform.

MicrosoftTo realize the potential of up to 128 GB of unified memory on RTX Spark, we have focused on improving how Windows supports unified memory systems, starting with a new higher, smarter limit on total system memory accessible by the GPU. This updated limit increases the memory available to the GPU on high-memory systems, unlocking the ability to load larger local AI models or render more complex projects.

According to Windows Latest, Microsoft's upcoming Windows 11 26H2 is expected to be one of the most uneventful releases in terms of new features. Instead, this release focuses on resetting the support cycles that Microsoft is implementing, rather than introducing major features or overhauls. For those who are not aware, Microsoft has altered its update approach for Windows 11 for some time now. Since Windows 11 24H2, the company has adopted a shared servicing model applied to the Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 branches. Since late 2024, support and updates have been rolled out across every OS branch, with each new release cycle activating these features rather than leaving them dormant in the kernel. Enablement packages (eKB) are central to this process, as downloading an update essentially involves eKBs that activate certain functionalities.

For instance, on a device running Windows 11 24H2 or 25H2, a simple eKB is needed to upgrade to the latest Windows 11 26H2 version. For older versions like 22H2 and 23H2, which are on an older servicing branch, Windows 11 26H2 will be a full feature update. In terms of new functionality with 26H2, Microsoft's focus is on resetting the support cycle timeline. The 26H2 version will receive regular support for 24 months on Home and Pro versions, while Enterprise and Education versions will receive 36 months of support. Starting from 2026, this support will extend until October 2028 for Home and Pro, and until October 2029 for Enterprise and Education. For those already running Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 with the latest updates and patches, 26H2 will not introduce any new features.

TechPowerUp recently reported on what appeared to be a Windows 11 update resulting in forced crashes, freezing, errors, and even forced restarts. Microsoft had previously said that it was conducting an investigation into the issue, and the software giant has since found an explanation for the issues users were reporting. According to an update published by Microsoft, the investigation has determined that some interaction between games and RGB peripherals is the cause of the issues.

Ongoing investigation indicates that this issue is related to peripherals or internal device components which have RGB lighting features. Such devices may install drivers or code components with file names similar to inpoutx64. In systems where these drivers are found, the issue is then triggered by launching certain games.

In early June, Microsoft introduced a limited edition console to celebrate 25 years of Xbox, called the Xbox Series X25. This special edition features a translucent green design for both the console and its controller, allowing you to admire its inner workings. Both the console and controller are marked with exclusive "Xbox 25" branding. In terms of specifications, it seems to be the same as the standard Xbox Series X, although the dashboard might have some unique artwork. Microsoft plans to release the Xbox Series X25 in November 2026.

According to exclusive information from Dealabs Magazine, the console's price in Europe will be €899.99, which is €100 more than the regular Xbox Series X with a 1 TB configuration. In the United States, the price is expected to be around $899, plus sales tax. Microsoft has also confirmed that the controller will be sold separately, allowing you to purchase additional ones for your new Series X25 console. However, the price of the controller has not been announced yet.