Articles from July 18, 2026
Browse all Windows news articles published on July 18, 2026
Windows 11 KB5101650: Missing Taskbar Clock? It's Probably a Policy, Not a Bug
Two weeks after the July 2026 cumulative update for Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 landed, reports began trickling onto forums: the system tray clock, notification area, or network and volume indicators...
The Cloud Certification Rush: Avoid Exam Dumps Before Microsoft Retires AZ-204
Microsoft will retire its Azure Developer Associate certification – and the required AZ-204 exam – on July 31, 2026. For Windows developers who want to validate cloud-native application skills,...
Microsoft Pours Billions Into Azure AI Infrastructure—But Your Day Job Won't Change Yet
Microsoft is doubling down on the data-center muscle it needs to power the next wave of AI features in Windows, Microsoft 365, and Azure. A new industry overview from Kalkine Media, published July...
Chrome's Secret Background Helper Is Drawing Blank White Rectangles on Windows Desktops — Here's the Fix
Windows users have been scratching their heads for weeks over an empty white rectangle that stubbornly sits in the upper-left corner of the desktop. The box appears after signing in or unlocking the...
Windows 11 25H2 Pulls WMIC: How to Scrub Your Systems Before It’s Too Late
Windows 11 version 25H2, which began rolling out on September 30, 2025, removes the WMIC command-line utility during the feature update. The underlying Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)...
OneDrive Now Flags Outlook Attachments as ‘From the Internet,’ Breaking Macros by Default
OneDrive’s Latest Update Automatically Flags Email Attachments as Untrusted, Disabling Macros If you’ve ever saved an Excel workbook or Word document from an Outlook email straight into your...
Radeon RX 9070 XT Buyers Need a CPU. Two New Guides Disagree on the Best Pick.
In July 2026, gamers building or upgrading PCs around AMD’s new Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card have two conflicting CPU guides vying for their attention. A community-sourced analysis published on...
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D Review: A Stellar Gaming CPU That Only Makes Sense Below $300
AMD quietly unleashed the Ryzen 7 7700X3D on July 16, and it instantly became the most affordable 8-core X3D processor for the AM5 platform. At $329, it packs 96MB of L3 cache, eight Zen 4 cores, and...
Obsidian Is Making a New Fallout Game—and Fallout 5 Is Now in Pre-Production
Bethesda has confirmed that Fallout 5 is in pre-production, that Obsidian Entertainment is developing a separate Fallout project, and that remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are in the...
Zenless Zone Zero Lands on Microsoft Store July 29 with Xbox Play Anywhere and Free S-Rank Agent
HoYoverse is bringing its hit free-to-play action RPG Zenless Zone Zero to the Microsoft Store on Windows on July 29, 2026. The launch coincides with the Version 3.1 update, “The Long Goodbye,”...
Microsoft Abandons 'Halo: The Endless' Trademark—What It Means for You
On April 1, 2026, Microsoft abandoned its U.S. trademark application for “Halo: The Endless”—a name that had fanned three years of anticipation among Halo fans. The move, first spotted by Halo...
July 17 Gemini outage: What happened and why Google hasn't said a word
{ "title": "July 17 Gemini outage: What happened and why Google hasn't said a word", "content": "Google’s Gemini AI assistant stumbled on Friday afternoon, July 17, 2026, as users across the...