PCWorld March 2022

In February, Microsoft released Windows Insider Build 22557 for the Dev Channel, a massive update that fixed several things users didn’t like about Windows 11 while introducing new experiences, apps, and features to try out. The new build adds folders back to the Start menu, along with folder preview images to File Explorer, and reintroduces drag-and-drop functionality to the neutered Windows 11 taskbar—all criticisms levied at the original release of Windows 11. According to a Microsoft blog post, the new build also adds live captions for recorded video, adds new touch gestures, tweaks Snap functionality, Sleep settings, and applies the Windows 11 UI to Task Manager, as well. Since the release rolled out inside the Windows 11 Dev Channel as part of the Insider preview program, there’s no guarantee that the new…

Reaching the 100th release version of a piece of software is a significant milestone, when most applications only get to 10 or 20 in their lifetimes. But for the browsers that are increasingly becoming the backbone of consumers’ interactions on the web, it might also be a big problem. As Chrome and Firefox both approach version 100 of their releases (98 and 97 at the moment, respectively), the jump to triple digits might cause problems familiar to anyone who was around for New Year’s in the year 2000. Firefox developer and maintainer Mozilla sounded the alarm in a new blog post, spotted by BleepingComputer. The problem arises when a user’s browser reports the user-agent string to a site’s server, which helps the latter know how to format content to make sure…

While the chip shortage continues, graphics cards and CPUs are hard to find and wickedly expensive on the secondary market. Newfangled DDR5 RAM is also hard to locate, and even motherboards are getting pricey. But the one component that’s remained refreshingly cheap is storage: You can find multi-terabyte drives at their lowest prices ever, even for the best SSDs. Or at least, you could. Because we can’t have nice things, a factory accident has tainted millions of new flash storage components, affecting billions of gigabytes of storage headed to the market. Two flash fabrication factories in Japan, used by mega-manufacturers Western Digital and Kioxia, have experienced “contamination of certain material used in [the] manufacturing process.” While details are scarce on precisely what happened, it’s apparently taken out “at least 6.5 exabytes” of…

Microsoft’s cross-platform preview version of Windows Defender, known as Microsoft Defender Preview, is now live: an attractive way to protect your Android phone as well as your PC. If you merely own a Windows 11 PC, there’s nothing that demands you download Microsoft’s new preview app. It’s quite different, however, if you own an Android phone in addition to your PC. We’d recommend that you try out this attractive, free utility that promises to watch over the files you download on your phone as well as the links you access. (Defender Preview will supposedly protect Macs as well, though we haven’t tested or confirmed this.) There is a small catch, however: You’ll need a Microsoft account to use the Microsoft Defender Preview, and it will only protect a total of four devices. WindowsLatest…

The second we saw Valve’s Steam Deck, we said it’s essentially a Nintendo Switch built for PC nerds, and today the company drove that assessment home with a commitment that should speak straight to the heart of any PC-building enthusiast. While most mobile devices (and far too many laptops) are glued-down, screwed-tight black boxes that offer no hope of at-home repairs, Valve is partnering with iFixit to offer replacement parts for the Steam Deck (and more). “Today, we’re announcing that iFixit will be one of the authorized sellers of Steam Deck replacement parts—as well as replacement parts for the Valve Index VR products,” Valve said in a news post. “We are still hammering out the details, and will be sharing more info on this soon.” To celebrate, the repair gurus over at…

Intel recently abandoned 4K Blu-ray playback for its newer CPUs, and the news sadly came as little surprise. Security issues have long plagued the company’s SGX technology, and relatively few people watch physical media on a computer. AMD’s Ryzen CPUs never even supported 4K discs. But people who regularly pop 4K Blu-ray discs into a 11th- or 12th-generation Intel PC don’t have to accept the downscale to 1080p. You can continuing getting that experience with the help of a free (for now) program called MakeMKV, which allows you to rip a copy of movies and TV show episodes as a single MKV file. For most people, this file format offers a similar experience as direct playback from a UHD disc, since it preserves chapters, subtitle tracks, and multiple audio tracks. And…