Best of Microsoft — February 2026

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    Article
    Avatar of arstechnicaArs Technica·14w

    Microsoft’s new 10,000-year data storage medium: glass

    Microsoft Research has published in Nature the results of Project Silica, a working glass-based archival storage system capable of storing data at over 1 Gigabit per cubic millimeter. The approach uses femtosecond lasers—emitting pulses lasting 10⁻¹⁵ seconds at millions per second—to etch data into small glass slabs. Glass is highlighted as an ideal archival medium due to its thermal and chemical stability, resistance to moisture and electromagnetic interference, and its passive nature (no energy needed when idle). The project addresses long-standing challenges in archival storage around density, longevity, and write speed.

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    Article
    Avatar of vsVisual Studio Blog·16w

    Roadmap for AI in Visual Studio (February)

    Microsoft's February roadmap for AI in Visual Studio focuses on reliability and refinement rather than new features. Key improvements include better agent stability with enhanced progress indicators, failure handling, and diagnostics. The update introduces early work on a Planning Agent for multi-step tasks, continues Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration, and improves context management for large codebases. Editor experience enhancements address keyboard shortcuts, IntelliSense conflicts, and smoother Copilot integration. The team is also beginning experimental work to integrate Copilot CLI into Visual Studio.

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    Article
    Avatar of newstackThe New Stack·16w

    50 years ago, a young Bill Gates took on the ‘software pirates’

    Bill Gates' 1976 "Open Letter to Hobbyists" complained about software piracy of Altair BASIC, sparking a decades-long conflict between proprietary software advocates and the hacker community. The letter, written when Gates was 20, argued that 90% of users hadn't paid for BASIC and that piracy stifled software development. The hobbyist community responded by creating free alternatives like Tiny BASIC and eventually laid the groundwork for the Free Software Movement (1983) and Open Source definition (1998). Despite initial resistance from figures like Steve Jobs, open source ultimately became mainstream, with Apple adopting it for Safari by 2003.

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    Article
    Avatar of lobstersLobsters·16w

    Microsoft Has Killed Widgets Six Times. Here's Why They Keep Coming Back.

    Windows widgets have been implemented and killed six times since 1997, each iteration failing due to performance, security, screen space, or engagement issues. Active Desktop crashed systems, Vista Sidebar consumed too much screen space, Windows 7 gadgets had catastrophic security flaws, Windows 8 Live Tiles disrupted workflow, and early Windows 11 attempts felt invasive. The current Widget Board uses declarative Adaptive Cards with native WinUI 3 rendering, eliminating code execution vulnerabilities while maintaining interactivity. Every architectural constraint in today's platform exists as a direct response to a specific past failure.

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    Video
    Avatar of techlinkedTechLinked·16w

    Microsoft is going to change for you

    Microsoft announced plans to rebuild trust in Windows by focusing on user-requested improvements rather than AI features. In 2026, they'll prioritize fundamentals like fixing dark mode in Windows 11, addressing File Explorer performance issues, improving reliability, and reducing intrusive popups for Edge and Bing. This shift comes after community feedback about tone-deaf promises around agentic OS features.

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    Video
    Avatar of TechWithTimTech With Tim·14w

    Is C# the best back end language for you to learn?

    C# is positioned as a strong backend language choice for developers working within the Microsoft ecosystem (Windows, Xbox). It's widely used for enterprise-grade backends, game development with Unity, and desktop applications. The language maintains high job demand, particularly in enterprise sectors building large-scale applications. Best suited for robust desktop and enterprise applications leveraging Microsoft technologies.

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    Article
    Avatar of wheresyouredWhere's Your Ed At·15w

    Premium: The Hater's Guide To Microsoft

    Microsoft is spending unsustainably on AI infrastructure while revenue growth stagnates. The company has invested $277 billion in capital expenditures since 2022, primarily on GPUs and data centers, yet Azure's growth has flatlined. Capital expenditures now consume 117% of Azure revenue and 45% of total company revenue, while Intelligent Cloud segment growth has stalled despite massive infrastructure investments. CEO Satya Nadella has overseen 80,000+ layoffs since 2014 while transforming Microsoft from an asset-light software monopolist into an asset-heavy behemoth betting on AI returns that haven't materialized. The company's remaining performance obligations suggest declining future revenue despite paper deals with OpenAI and Anthropic worth hundreds of billions that appear financially impossible to fulfill.

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    Video
    Avatar of bigboxswebigboxSWE·13w

    You Can't Beat Linux

    A commentary piece arguing that Linux is winning by default as Microsoft and Apple stumble. Microsoft's recent troubles include GitHub outages, Copilot reliability issues, Windows bugs, and aggressive monetization. Meanwhile, Linux is gaining ground with Photoshop compatibility progress, gaming-focused distros like Bazzite seeing massive adoption, and Valve's continued investment in Steam OS. The core argument is that Linux's freedom from corporate and shareholder pressures makes it uniquely resilient and trustworthy as an operating system.

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    Article
    Avatar of theregisterThe Register·14w

    Why is Windows 11 taskbar like that? Ex-Windows man explains

    Former Microsoft CVP Mikhail Parakhin revealed that Windows 11's locked taskbar position resulted from a design vision to create symmetric panes with widgets on the left and system controls on the right, pushing the Start menu to center. This decision removed Windows 10's taskbar customization options, including the ability to move it to different screen edges—a feature present since Windows 95. Parakhin acknowledged fighting against removing customization options, though Microsoft prioritized the widget-centric design over user flexibility.

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    Video
    Avatar of johnhammondJohn Hammond·13w

    Russia is hacking zero-days again

    Russian hacking group APT28 was observed exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Office (CVE-2026-21509) just one day after its disclosure, targeting Ukrainian government officials via malicious Word documents. The exploit leverages OLE object linking and embedding to trigger a WebDAV connection that downloads a shortcut file, executes shellcode hidden in a PNG file, performs COM hijacking, establishes persistence via scheduled tasks, and deploys Covenant C2 infrastructure using filen.io for command and control. A hands-on walkthrough demonstrates analyzing the malicious RTF file using REMnux, grep, xxd, strings, and a Python OLE scanning script to identify the WebDAV reference and matching CLS ID. Mitigation involves patching to Office 2021 or later, or applying registry key blocks for the relevant COM class IDs.

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    Article
    Avatar of 80lv80 LEVEL·15w

    Microsoft DMCA Takes Down Steam Game, Then Is Reversed

    Microsoft filed a DMCA takedown notice against Allumeria, a voxel sandbox game on Steam, claiming it infringed Minecraft-related content rights. The game was temporarily removed from Steam but was restored the next day without the developer needing to file a counter-notice. The developer suspects the takedown was handled automatically by an AI enforcement service rather than human review.

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    Article
    Avatar of aspnetASP.NET Blog·15w

    .NET Framework 3.5 Moves to Standalone Deployment in new versions of Windows

    .NET Framework 3.5 will no longer be included as an optional Windows component starting with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27965. Instead, it must be installed via a standalone installer for legacy applications. This change affects future Windows releases but not Windows 10 or Windows 11 through 25H2. The shift aligns with .NET Framework 3.5's approaching end of support on January 9, 2029, and Microsoft encourages migration to newer .NET versions. Detailed guidance, installers, and migration paths are available on Microsoft Learn.

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    Article
    Avatar of dotnet.NET Blog·15w

    .NET and .NET Framework February 2026 servicing releases updates

    .NET 10.0, 9.0, and 8.0 received February 2026 servicing updates with security and non-security fixes. The releases include versions 10.0.3, 9.0.13, and 8.0.24 across runtime, ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework Core, SDK, and other components. No new .NET Framework updates were released this month. Detailed changelogs and release notes are available on GitHub for each affected component.

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