PCWorld December 2022

Microsoft is placing additional limits on the amount of data you can store in OneDrive, beginning in February of next year, and removing a significant anonymity feature shortly thereafter. According to an email sent to users, Microsoft will begin counting attachments linked to your Outlook.com address against your data cap beginning February 1, 2023. (A copy of the email was forwarded to PCWorld by an outside representative of Microsoft, and referenced earlier by Windows Central.) That means that whatever attachments you have stored in your existing inbox haven’t counted as stored files until now, but will beginning in February of next year. “This update will not impact your Outlook.com mailbox storage amount,” Microsoft wrote. “However, this may reduce how much cloud storage you have available to use with your OneDrive.…

After a so-called “lost generation” for graphics cards plagued by shortages and scalpers, things are finally looking up for PC gamers—and the battle for next-generation GPU supremacy has finally arrived. Nvidia launched its ferocious GeForce RTX 4090 mere weeks ago, but its monitor-melting lead isn’t going uncontested for long. This week, AMD revealed its next-gen RDNA 3 architecture and two GPUs serving as its paragon: the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT. This ain’t your momma’s GPU throw-down, though. AMD is doing some radically different things with RDNA 3 and the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, and we’ve never seen a graphics card quite like this before. We’ve already covered the Radeon RX 7900 XTX’s technical notes in-depth in our announcement coverage, but if you don’t feel like sifting through a…

Far be it from us to criticize a little advertising — after all, it’s what keeps the lights on at this site, and pretty much every similar one around the web. But users who buy a computer and, by extension, a $100-plus copy of Windows from Microsoft are on firmer ground for complaint. For example, the latest place Microsoft wants to experiment with a little add-on-advertisement is the Windows 11 Start Menu, specifically the flyout menu you see when you click on your user profile picture. As spotted by Twitter user Albacore (and elaborated by NeoWin), at least some users of the latest Dev Channel version of Windows 11 are seeing little promo spots for Microsoft OneDrive and creating new Microsoft Accounts in this submenu. It’s not especially surprising, or…

How often have you been in the middle of clearing off your desktop by deleting a bunch of unused files, only for Windows to tell you it’s in use by another program? Except that Windows often doesn’t tell you which program is using it, so you shrug like John Travolta in that one Pulp Fiction scene. The latest addition to the immanently useful PowerToys collection can fix that problem. The File Locksmith tool is available in the latest version of the program, 0.64.0. Using the tool is super easy. In Windows Explorer, right-click the file that’s obstinately refusing to be deleted (or in use in any other way), then click “What’s using this file?” The File Locksmith tool will then give you a list of executables that are actively accessing…

A few weeks after USB4 version 2.0 was announced, Intel has returned fire with its own 80Gbps I/O standard, what it’s calling “the next generation of Thunderbolt” for docking stations and other devices. What will likely be called Thunderbolt 5 has its own quirk: In certain situations, specifically transmitting high-definition video, the available channels can be reallocated to allow from 80Gbps to up to 120Gbps of available bandwidth. But Intel isn’t revealing when the next-gen Thunderbolt technology will roll out, or what it will be officially called. What we do know, however, is that several major I/O standards are aligning for the future. USB4v2, whose standard was finalized on Tuesday, will allow its own 80Gbps connections and forms the foundation for the next-gen Thunderbolt spec. DisplayPort, one of the video protocols that can…

AMD’s Advantage series of laptops, built in cooperation with OEM laptop makers like Dell, Lenovo, and Asus, are a hit. Closely integrating Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs under the watchful technical guidance of AMD itself makes some fan-favorite gaming laptop designs, like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. Along with the announcement of the Radeon 7000 GPU series, AMD has decided to expand the program to include desktops as well. AMD Advantage Desktops will be available soon from CSL, CyberpowerPC, eBuyer, Falcon Northwest, Maingear, Origin, and Xidax. What qualifies a pre-built desktop for that Advantage label? To start with, it must have nothing but the best from AMD’s chip offerings, the Ryzen 9 7950X CPU and the new Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card. On top of that, minimum specs for the other…