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In this episode of First Ring Daily, Brad Sams and Paul Thurrott discuss what happened at Microsoft Build and Google I/O this week, plus OpenAI’s surprise acquisition of Jony Ive’s AI hardware startup.

Microsoft is getting ready to retire the SharePoint Alerts feature in SharePoint Online. The company has announced on the Microsoft 365 admin center that a gradual phase-out is set to begin in July 2025. In SharePoint Online, SharePoint Alerts is a built-in feature that notifies users when changes occur in lists, libraries, or specific items….

Microsoft announced a major legal strike last week against the Lumma Stealer malware, a sophisticated cyber threat that has infected nearly 400,000 Windows computers worldwide in just two months. The company’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) discovered the malware’s widespread reach as part of its ongoing fight against cybercriminal networks. What is Lumma malware and how…

PowerTree is a free tool that is now available to download for PowerShell 7+ on GitHub. It’s similar to the Windows tree command but provides advanced filtering, sorting, and display options that make exploring and documenting file systems more efficient. For example, unlike the tree command in Windows, with PowerTree you can: Install PowerTree PowerTree…

Microsoft has officially rolled out support for Custom Attributes in Entra Domain Services. This new feature enables administrators to leverage custom attributes in managed domains, which provides significant benefits for legacy applications. Microsoft Entra Domain Services is a cloud-based service that offers managed domain services such as group policy, domain join, LDAP, and Kerberos/NTLM authentication…

Despite Microsoft’s ambitions for Windows 11, users are not impressed and organizations are reluctantly migrating from Windows 10 as it reaches end of life. Stardock’s Brad Sams thinks users can be productive with Windows 11 — if you give organizations better control over the desktop experience. It’s no secret that Windows 11 got off to…

Microsoft has warned that cybercriminals are increasingly targeting Active Directory (AD) Domain Controllers to launch sophisticated ransomware attacks. By compromising these critical servers, attackers gain high-level access, allowing them to spread ransomware across entire enterprise networks rapidly. A domain controller is a specialized server in a computer network that manages user identities, authentication, and access…

Microsoft has issued an out-of-band update (KB5061768) for Windows 10 to fix critical BitLocker recovery issues and blue screen crashes triggered by the May 2025 Patch Tuesday updates. This bug specifically impacts systems running Windows 10 22H2 and Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021. BitLocker is a built-in Windows security feature that encrypts the entire drive…

This step-by-step guide will help you master changing directories in PowerShell and navigating your file system. You will learn how to use basic and advanced techniques to change directories efficiently and streamline your workflow using PowerShell cmdlets like Set-Location, aliases like cd, and path shortcuts. Changing directory in PowerShell Changing file directories is essential when…

Microsoft’s GitHub has introduced a new Copilot AI coding agent that operates asynchronously within GitHub Actions, tackling tasks in the background. This autonomous assistant can seamlessly add new features, fix bugs, and enhance documentation—all without interrupting the developer’s workflow. Microsoft first announced the GitHub Copilot Agent as Project Padawan back in February. It’s different from…

Microsoft has announced major enhancements to its Edge for Business experience at the Build 2025 conference. One of the major highlights of these updates is Agents in Microsoft 365, designed to automate routine tasks and deliver smarter, more relevant results to users. “For example, Sales Assistant Agent will generate leads, track customer interactions and offer…

Microsoft has announced the general availability of its Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 Spring release at its Build 2025 developer conference. This update brings an updated Microsoft 365 Copilot app, the new Create experience, and Copilot Notebooks tailored for commercial customers. According to Microsoft, the updated Microsoft 365 Copilot app is designed to enhance human-agent…