Microsoft’s Vice President of Design for Windows, Diego Baca, responded to criticism over the missing “Lock the taskbar” feature from Windows 10. He argued that a lock switch would add friction, requiring users to unlock the bar each time they wanted to move it, and could interfere with common actions such as rearranging icons or system‑tray items. Because the Windows 11 taskbar was rebuilt from scratch, the lock code does not exist and would need to be created anew, raising [...]

Lumen Technologies and Microsoft announced an expanded co‑selling partnership aimed at simplifying enterprise AI adoption by integrating Lumen’s cloud‑native networking with Microsoft Azure. The collaboration addresses the fragmentation of networks that link data, applications, and infrastructure across public clouds, private data centers, and partner environments. Lumen will make its full suite of networking and connectivity services available through Azure and the Microsoft Marketplace, enabling customers to plan network transformation alongside Azure modernization and AI initiatives. Joint account [...]

Before the original Xbox launched in 2001, Microsoft approached Nintendo twice about a takeover. The first meeting in 1999 left Nintendo executives laughing, and a second 2000 pitch proposing that Microsoft handle hardware while Nintendo focused on games also failed. Microsoft then turned to acquiring studios, eventually buying Bungie and later Bethesda and Activision Blizzard. While Nintendo rode the success of the Switch family—selling over 156 million original units and more than 23 million Switch 2 units by mid‑2026—Xbox’s revenue [...]

Helen Chiang, a 21‑year Microsoft veteran who served as Xbox chief operating officer, left the company in October and has publicly disputed media claims that she was fired for policy violations. In a LinkedIn post, Chiang refuted a Eurogamer story, stating she did not leak confidential information, join a competitor, or engage in discrimination, bullying, insider trading, embezzlement or other fraud, and she was not passed over for a larger role. She said silence should not be [...]

October 2026 saw an unprecedented 210 Xbox titles launch, the highest monthly total of the year. Flagship releases included Gears of War: E‑Day, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and Final Fantasy Resonance, competing for consumer spend. Analysis from KoreaXBOXnews identified 95 of the launches—45 %—as Xbox Play Anywhere (XPA) games, allowing a single purchase to run on console, handheld and Windows PC. Since June, XPA’s share has hovered near 50 %, and would exceed 70 % if “triple‑stack” achievement titles [...]

In January, a nine‑engineer Microsoft team launched Copilot Cowork, an AI‑driven execution layer that automates multi‑step workflows for knowledge workers using Work IQ, Microsoft 365 security, and a multi‑model architecture. Within four and a half months the project progressed from an empty repository to general availability, and on October 21 the team merged 1,211 pull requests in a single day. Most code was generated by AI agents, while engineers defined specifications, set architectural and security boundaries, and reviewed high‑risk changes. The [...]

Microsoft reported two intrusions in which attackers pretended to be IT support on Microsoft Teams and convinced employees to grant control via Windows Quick Assist. After gaining access, the hackers exploited Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) templates to issue login certificates for privileged accounts, including a domain controller. One intrusion used an ESC1‑type template that let low‑privilege users request certificates for privileged accounts; another employed the PetitPotam relay technique (ESC8) to obtain a domain‑controller certificate without a [...]