Microsoft will let anyone buy cloud gaming playtime hours through the Xbox Store starting in November, letting non-subscribers stream eligible owned games without Game Pass. At the same time, Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will face a new monthly cap of just 15 cloud gaming hours, pushing heavy users toward buying extra hourly bundles. Microsoft is also testing a free, ad-supported cloud gaming tier for Xbox Insiders.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-03
Microsoft will end unlimited Xbox Cloud Gaming access less than a year after introducing it, replacing it with monthly caps of 15 hours for Ultimate subscribers, 10 hours for Premium, and 5 hours for Essential. Players who exceed these limits will need to buy additional playtime bundles through the Xbox store, though unused hours can roll over. Microsoft says the change affects about 4% of Game Pass subscribers and cites rising infrastructure costs as the reason.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-03
Microsoft has clarified that a mouse personalization reset bug tied to the August 2026 preview update KB5120998 only impacts Windows 11 devices set to non-English locales. The company found that certain code components fail to load correctly on these systems, causing cursor and animation settings to revert to defaults instead of user preferences. The update, which also brings Start menu and taskbar changes, is optional and only installs automatically if users have enabled the setting to receive updates as soon as they're available.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-09-03
A Hacker News 'Ask HN' post questions whether Anthropic's Model Context Protocol, despite early hype, is actually being deployed in production systems. The poster asks respondents to share specific use cases and explain what benefits MCP offers over traditional APIs, direct tool integrations, or CLI-based workflows.
news.ycombinator.com
· 2026-09-03
Microsoft has identified a malware campaign named TerminalFix that mimics Cloudflare and other trusted verification pages to trick Windows users into pasting commands into PowerShell or Command Prompt. Unlike earlier ClickFix attacks that used the Run dialog for simpler commands, TerminalFix's terminal-based approach lets attackers run longer, multi-stage scripts that establish persistent proxy access into a victim's machine and network.
techspot.com
· 2026-09-03
Microsoft has updated its Edge documentation to formally list which Linux distributions are officially supported, including Ubuntu 18.04+, Debian 10+, openSUSE 15.5+, and Fedora Linux 39+ on 64-bit systems. Edge has run on Linux for years unofficially, but this marks the first formal support list, arriving roughly seven years after Google published a similar list for Chrome.
techspot.com
· 2026-09-03
Microsoft has acknowledged that its optional KB5120998 preview update, released August 27, 2026, causes desktop backgrounds to reset to solid black on Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 devices. The company says the bug prevents desktop settings like wallpaper, slideshow options, and contrast themes from loading correctly, and affected users cannot manually restore their previous customizations. The same update was already flagged a day earlier for resetting mouse settings with similar restoration problems.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-09-03
Microsoft is restructuring its financial reporting from three business segments into two: Agents and Infra, and Devices and Consumer. As part of the overhaul, the company will for the first time disclose Azure's actual quarterly revenue figures rather than just year-over-year growth percentages, though the metric will now exclude GitHub cloud, Security Copilot, and Healthcare and Life Sciences cloud revenues.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-03
Microsoft says its August 11, 2026 security update (KB5121003) is causing Teams and New Outlook to fail to launch or crash unexpectedly on ARM-based Windows 11 24H2 devices like the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7. The problem mostly hits new or freshly imaged machines that haven't yet grabbed Microsoft Store updates, while Classic Outlook, Word and Excel remain unaffected.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-09-03
Microsoft is shifting from its three-segment business reporting structure to two new categories: Agents and Infra, and Devices and Consumer. The company says the change reflects how artificial intelligence is reshaping its products and operations.
wsj.com
· 2026-09-02
Microsoft announced it will begin reporting Azure cloud revenue every quarter, ending years of disclosing only growth percentages. The move accompanies a restructuring that reduces the company's operating segments from three to two, its first such change since 2015.
cnbc.com
· 2026-09-02
A threat actor dubbed Spring Ring is running voice-phishing campaigns against Microsoft Teams users, tricking victims into granting remote access to their sessions. Once inside, attackers use that foothold to deploy malware and attempt to seize control of broader organizational infrastructure.
darkreading.com
· 2026-09-02
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