Every week there is a lot of news from the world of Microsoft and Windows. While we include news as it travels, it’s nice to have a private space to catch up on breaking news. This week, Windows 3.1 celebrated its 30th birthday, Microsoft held a Windows 11 event for hybrid work, and Edge overtook Safari in desktop market share.
Windows 3.1 turns 30
This week, we said happy 30th birthday to Windows 3.1. The operating system was released on April 6, 1992. Many of the features introduced in Windows 3.1 have become commonplace today, such as the CTRL + C and CTRL + V keyboard shortcuts for copying and pasting. The operating system also adds TrueType fonts for better display and comes with a screensaver.
Perhaps most importantly, Windows 3.1 came out with two games, Minesweeper and Solitaire (version without ads).
Windows 3.1 sold more than 3 million copies in its first three months and is generally considered a huge success by Microsoft.
Microsoft takes its Journal app out of the garage
After 14 months of incubation in Microsoft Garage, Journal has a new name and is an officially supported Microsoft app. Now called Microsoft Journal, the app has a refreshed look and feel for Windows 11.
Microsoft Journal is an application that focuses on taking notes and marking up documents. The app supports AI-powered gestures and connects to Microsoft 365.
We’ll take a closer look at the app in an upcoming review, so make sure to stay tuned.
File Explorer tabs and more on Windows 11
Microsoft held a Windows 11 event this week to showcase what they have in store for the operating system. The event was focused on hybrid work, so there weren’t any major announcements, but the company showed off a few cool features.
As expected based on the leaks, Microsoft will bring tabs to File Explorer. With the addition, Windows will finally catch up to other platforms that have had tabs in file managers for years.
Microsoft has also announced plans to make Windows 11 smarter, such as predicting which contacts you might want to send an item to via the share dialog.
Several features were introduced integrating the local Windows 11 desktop experience with the Cloud PC experience powered by Windows 365. PCs will have the option to boot directly to Cloud PC in the future and will support working in Windows 365 even when disconnected from the Internet.
ARM-based mini PC launches for $230
Apcsilmic has announced an ARM-based mini PC that starts at just $229. Dot 1 is aimed primarily at developers, but it can be purchased by anyone. The Dot 1 runs on the Snapdragon 7c processor, has optional 4G LTE connectivity, and is packed with ports.
Edge overtakes Safari to take second place
Microsoft Edge overtook Safari to take second place among desktop browsers. Edge has a 9.65% market share as of March 2022, which is just enough to beat Safari (9.57%). Edge has slowly gained traction since its relaunch as a Chromium-based browser in 2020.
Although Microsoft Edge has overtaken Safari in terms of desktop market share, it is still far behind Google Chrome. Google’s browser still dominates with 67.29% market share. In fact, Chrome actually hit a few percentage points in market share last month.
