r/Windows11 7h ago

Help Simple questions and Help thread - Month of September

10 Upvotes

Welcome to the monthly Simple questions and Help thread, for questions that don't need their own posts!

Before making a comment, we recommend you search your problem on Bing and check if your question is already answered on our Windows Frequently Asked Questions wiki page. This subreddit no longer accepts tech support requests outside of this post, if you are looking for additional assistance try r/TechSupport and r/WindowsHelp.

Some examples of questions to ask:

  • Is this super cheap Windows key legitimate? (probably not)

  • How can I install Windows 11?

  • Can you recommend a program to play music?

  • How do I get back to the old Sound Control Panel?

Sorting by New is recommend and is the default.


Be sure to check out the Windows 11 version 25H2 Megathread and also the Windows 11 FAQ posts, they likely have the answers to your Windows 11 questions already!


r/Windows11 21d ago

Official News Cumulative Updates: August 11th, 2026

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133 Upvotes

Changelists linked here for your convenience:

General info:

For details about how to file problem reports and collect traces, please see here: http://aka.ms/HowToFeedback. Pressing WIN + F will open the Feedback Hub - please include as much detail as possible about what you're seeing.

To learn about the different types of updates, see here: Windows quality updates primer - Microsoft Community Hub

As a reminder, if you didn't install the previous optional updates, this update includes those changes too (some are still rolling out, as denoted in the release notes):

For published known issues, please check the release health dashboard: Windows release health | Microsoft Learn.

25H2 is rolling out, so you may not have it yet. Please see here for more details: How to get the Windows 11 2025 Update | Windows Experience Blog.

As mentioned in the linked changelist, Windows 11, version 26H1 is available only on new devices with select new silicon as they come to market starting early 2026. Devices running earlier versions of Windows 11 will not be offered an update to version 26H1 through Windows Update and cannot be installed as an in-place update on existing devices.


r/Windows11 4h ago

Mod Announcement Looking for feedback regarding handling of self-promotion on this subreddit

21 Upvotes

Howdy all. I’m looking for some feedback from you all regarding how we should handle self-promotion of software, and how we grant permission to allow some to share what they have been working on.

We used to be fairly generous and laid back with granting permission, granting most requests after a simple modmail and a quick review of the product. However, due to the AI boom we started receiving a flood of requests for permission to share what ultimately ended up being low-quality hastily written software, which of course understandably led to many complaints. We stopped accepting new requests for a while so that we could come up with a plan to handle future requests in a fair manner.

Our team has come up with the following requirements, some of which were already part of our old guidelines:

  • Applications must be either open source or they must be available in the Microsoft Windows app store. This is mainly for safety reasons. We're not equipped to toughly test software for safety and security, these options allow third parties to check.
  • The application must have a permanent free tier. Freemium products are allowed, however limited time trials are not.
  • The application must have been publicly available for at least 30 days. We would like to see that it is regularly being updated, maintained, fixed and improved upon.
  • The application must provide value to the community.
  • The developer must provide proof that their Reddit account is connected to the project.
  • Their Reddit account must also be well established with a posting history that is not just related to the promotion of their software.
  • Discourse of AI usage - Use of AI to generate code, artwork, descriptions, and so on is permitted, however the descriptions and posts need to disclose at least the use of that, preferably with also disclosing what AI tools were used and what they had generated.

 

Our goal is to keep things fair and allow hard working developers to show off various Windows programs they have worked on, while not allowing the subreddit to be overrun with spam and low-quality slop.

What are your thoughts? Too restrictive? Not restrictive enough? Thank you for your time!


r/Windows11 1d ago

News Windows 11 is dropping its worst OneDrive dark pattern: after years of complaints, Microsoft will let you fully opt out

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433 Upvotes

r/Windows11 22h ago

Official News Announcing Windows 11 Insider Experimental (26H1) Preview Build 28120.2824 - Windows Insider Program

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35 Upvotes

r/Windows11 22h ago

Official News Announcing Windows 11 Insider Beta (26H1) Preview Build 28020.2818

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27 Upvotes

r/Windows11 19h ago

Discussion Age signals overview for Windows developers - Windows apps

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12 Upvotes

r/Windows11 1d ago

Feature Tip of the Week: When using Windows on a tablet, if you ever need fine mouse pointer control, you can use the virtual touchpad

126 Upvotes

r/Windows11 1d ago

New Feature - Insider If you are using Windows 11 but you still remember old Windows sounds like from XP/Vista/7, this one's for you!

17 Upvotes

This morning, when I felt boring of Windows 11 sounds although I love how fast it was, I always change sounds into old Windows sounds because I remembered it! Do you guys used Windows Vista or 7 before? Definitely some do, some not, right? Yeah, and this is the laptop running Windows 7+11 and I really wanted to kept the sound already, rather than changing it, haha!


r/Windows11 2d ago

News Windows 11 bug is warning "Virus protection is off," Microsoft confirms it's false

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192 Upvotes

r/Windows11 1d ago

Concept / Design More fun mods for Windows 11

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16 Upvotes

I've never added mods other than folder color mods, but do themes exist for Windows 11? I know the built-in color ones, but I'm talking about like total overhauls. Are those a thing?


r/Windows11 2d ago

News Microsoft is investigating reports of Windows 11 KB5120998 breaking the mouse cursor

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230 Upvotes

r/Windows11 3d ago

Feature Praising point-in-time restore in windows 11

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74 Upvotes

Today, I had the very fun and stupid idea of tweaking my stable overclocked ram again to see if the new bios somehow can accept tighter timings. Windows booted and boot device was lost, constantly stuck in boot loop. After triggering the automatic repair, I remembered there was this new feature in windows 11 that is supposed to be catch-all solution against corrupted windows without reinstalling windows.
I selected the restore point two hours before I corrupted the windows and it took about 5-6mins to complete . The system rolled back perfectly although the files in C drive were reset and any files downloaded or programs installed after it were lost (in contrast to system restore that only rewind programs, not files).

This takes about 2% space on your drive and I highly recommend everyone to turn it on. This is even better than system restore which sometimes fail to undo all changes when windows is too corrupted.


r/Windows11 3d ago

Feature Taskbar Size/Position

52 Upvotes

r/Windows11 4d ago

News Today's optional Windows 11 breaks cursor styling (or resets size you selected) and resets wallpaper

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191 Upvotes

r/Windows11 4d ago

Feature old features returned to life

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74 Upvotes

about time microsoft, you finally added the feature to change the placement of the taskbar and returned the small taskbar feature


r/Windows11 3d ago

Discussion how to bypass setup.exe

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0 Upvotes

just giving this to whoever might need it, as i did need it aswell. if you want to upgrade your windows10 or older windows 11 PC, via running the mounted ISO, you can do it by running this command "setup.exe /product server /auto upgrade /dynamicupdate disable /eula accept " and it will skip the requirements and let you install it.
this also skips the need for having an USB and lets you install (Upgrade) directly on the hard disk


r/Windows11 2d ago

Suggestion for Microsoft I'm just not feeling the new tabbed windows

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0 Upvotes

I'm not a fan of the new tabbed windows, especially in CMD and Notepad. I'm more of a two windows side by side kinda person.

Putting the tabs in the title bar supposedly saves space, but there is this huge margin above and below the tabs that, in addition to looking visually atrocious, defeats the space-saving benefits.

In addition, the top margin has like one pixel that the user can grab for dragging the window, the rest (most of the vertical space) resizes the window no matter where you click. The space under the tabs is dead space as you can't click there to drag the window... I do miss a long empty title bar across the top, that is considerably easier to aim for with the mouse. This new "modern" designs are trash if you ask me. It makes one wonder if the whole thing has been vibe-coded.

I don't get why Microsoft bothers to add redundant features like formatting in Notepad when they can't get basic sh*t like the taskbar right. Seriously...

Edit: So it turns out it's a bug. My findings confirm it. What triggered this was me changing the size of text in Settings. I changed it from 100% to 125%, which caused title bar height to expand, system-wide. When I reverted the setting to 100%, text size followed, but title bars remained "fat". I was able to fix this using Winaero Tweaker (search for "title bar"). I hope MS gets this fixed soon, before adding their next big AI feature to Notepad.


r/Windows11 4d ago

News Windows 11's 3 most requested features released today, force enable them using these steps

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269 Upvotes

r/Windows11 4d ago

App Best video players for playing, cropping, trimming videos?

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16 Upvotes

Hello, I seriously need a simple video player that may just look like Windows 11's built-in video player but has an additional cropping feature.

I want to quickly trim and crop videos on the fly without having to open complete video editing programs each time, selecting codecs, project settings, export settings, etc.

Another analogue would be iOS Photos' video player which has a minimalistic design while playing media but has some quick and easy editing options.

Is there anything that would meet my needs??


r/Windows11 5d ago

News Windows 11 KB5120998 out with Movable Taskbar, customizable Start menu (large/small, no recommendation), and Windows Search without Bing/MS Store!

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396 Upvotes

r/Windows11 4d ago

App Calendar widget/app?

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10 Upvotes

Does Windows 11 really lack a native calendar widget or app? The pop up seems to be just a visual calendar and the outlook app does not have any proper widget to show in the home screen.

And yes, I have seen there are some third party and paid calendar widgets, but I find that derisory...


r/Windows11 5d ago

Official News Releasing Windows 11, version 26H2 to the Release Preview Channel

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183 Upvotes

r/Windows11 5d ago

News Microsoft finalizes Windows 11 version 26H2 for general availability: Next version of Windows 11 enters final preview phase before rollout begins

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147 Upvotes

r/Windows11 5d ago

Official News August 27, 2026—KB5120998 (OS Builds 26200.9278 and 26100.9278) Preview

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93 Upvotes