What Build 2026 signals about the future of the Windows

Microsoft Build 2026 takes place on June 2 and 3 at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, returning to the city for the first time since 2016. CEO Satya Nadella will open the event with a keynote address, and Microsoft has billed the conference as a two-day, hands-on gathering for AI developers, technical leaders, and enterprise teams, promising "no fluff." In-person tickets are priced at $1,099, with the keynote and select sessions streaming live for free.

With speculation around Windows 12 running hot despite zero official confirmation from Microsoft, Build is worth watching closely this year. The company rarely announces a new consumer OS at a developer conference, but it often uses them to lay the foundation, surfacing platform directions, new developer APIs, and architectural hints that end up defining what comes next. For developers and IT teams planning their roadmaps, spotting those signals early is often the point of attending.

Microsoft has not officially announced Windows 12. The most recent public statement on the subject came at CES, when Microsoft EVP Yusuf Mehdi published a blog post describing 2025 as "the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh" — a clear signal that a new major OS was not on the immediate agenda.

That hasn't stopped a surge of viral speculation from filling the gap. In early March 2026, PCWorld published an article saying that Windows 12, codenamed "Hudson Valley Next," was on track to ship later this year, built on a modular CorePC architecture and requiring an NPU with at least 40 TOPS of performance for full functionality. The piece spread rapidly, but PCWorld's own executive editor has since added an editor’s note stating that a lot of these claims were unfounded. It was a translated syndication from German partner PC-Welt, published without secondary verification.

Windows Central's Zac Bowden, went further and debunked the report based on his own sources. There are no plans to ship Windows 12 in 2026, Bowden wrote, and the "Hudson Valley" codename dates to 2023, where it was tied to Windows 11 planning rather than a new OS. CorePC, likewise, was an internal 2023 project that was never shipped. As for Windows 12, Bowden's assessment is that 2027 would be the earliest realistic announcement window.

The rumor that Windows 12 would require a monthly subscription has also been thoroughly dismissed. Multiple news reports have called the claims "AI hallucinations," tracing them to AI-generated content that was scraped and republished across multiple sites as if it were original reporting. A more plausible scenario, if any subscription element ever materialises, is that it would apply to premium AI tiers rather than locking the basic Windows desktop behind a subscription paywall.

So what is Microsoft actually doing with Windows in 2026? According to Windows Central's reporting on an internal initiative codenamed Windows K2, the company assembled a concerted quality programme in late 2025, targeting the biggest complaints about Windows 11: performance, reliability, and AI feature bloat. Windows K2 is not a new OS release — it's an ongoing effort running through 2026 and into 2027, covering a rebuilt Start menu, faster File Explorer, and a pullback from unsolicited AI integrations across the shell.

None of this rules out Windows 12 as a longer-term product. The Copilot+ PC hardware tier, Microsoft's investment in on-device AI, and the natural pressure of Windows 11's support lifecycle ending in October 2027 all point toward some kind of platform evolution ahead. But for now any specific 2026 launch claims have been broadly debunked, though that does not do anything to make Build 2026 any less significant for the future of the Windows ecosystem.

Build is where Microsoft has historically laid the groundwork for major platform shifts, giving the developer community an early look before any public announcement. The 2011 inaugural conference introduced the Windows 8 Developer Preview, Build 2013 unveiled Windows 8.1, and Build 2015 gave developers an early look at the Universal Windows Platform months before Windows 10 reached the public in July.

The pattern has held since. Whenever there’s a major platform shift in the works, Build is where the technical community gets its first substantive look, along with the first opportunity to ask the engineers behind it how their tooling needs to change.

Build's focus has shifted somewhat in recent years, moving toward Azure, AI tooling, and Microsoft 365. But even within that shift, Windows-specific news has landed consistently, often with more long-term significance than it first appeared. Build 2023 introduced Copilot for Windows 11; Build 2025 renamed the Windows Copilot Runtime to Windows AI Foundry and added MCP (Model Context Protocol) support at the OS level. Each of those moves now reads as groundwork for whatever the next major Windows platform looks like.

There’s more. In March, Windows corporate vice president Pavan Davuluri published a detailed commitment to improving Windows quality on the Windows Insider blog, covering WinUI 3 performance, taskbar customization, and reduced Copilot clutter. Then, at Microsoft's Q3 FY2026 earnings call on April 29, Nadella said the company is doing "foundational work to win back fans" across Windows, Xbox, Bing, and Edge, with native applications and AI-optimized PCs at the center of that effort.

There is no official indication of a Windows 12 announcement at Build 2026. Microsoft has positioned this event explicitly for AI developers, technical leaders, and enterprise developers, and the company has scaled back in-person attendance compared to recent years. A consumer OS reveal would be atypical for a conference this narrowly scoped.

Yet what the conference will almost certainly cover is the current state of Windows platform development, and based on what Microsoft has already shipped and announced in the weeks approaching Build, that story is substantial. Here is what we expect developers to hear about, cobbled together from Build 2026’s Session Catalog, official announcements, and recent release trajectories at Microsoft.

This may be the most significant ongoing Windows platform story for app developers, and it predates Build by several months. In March, Rudy Huyn, Partner Architect at Microsoft, confirmed he is forming a dedicated team to build 100% native Windows apps using WinUI 3, ending the company's reliance on WebView2 wrappers for first-party applications. That same month, Davuluri confirmed the Start menu itself is being rebuilt in WinUI to reduce latency.

A string of tooling releases followed quickly. Microsoft shipped WinUI 3 Gallery 2.9, a new Windows App Development CLI (v0.3), and a set of new WinUI templates that let you scaffold, run, and package native Windows apps from the command line without opening Visual Studio.

Most notably for AI-assisted development workflows, Microsoft also released a WinUI agent plugin for both GitHub Copilot and Claude Code, with eight built-in development skills covering UI design, code review, testing, packaging, and WPF migration. Software engineer Beth Pan published benchmarks showing a 25% performance improvement for WinUI 3's portion of File Explorer, with 41% fewer memory allocations and 45% fewer function calls.

The upcoming "Build and ship faster with a developer-optimized experience on Windows" session at Build 2026 covers this territory directly, alongside WSL and PowerToys improvements. Expect Microsoft to use Build to pull these threads together into a coherent pitch for native Windows development, especially as the industry pushback against resource-heavy Electron and web-wrapper apps continues to grow.

Build 2025 introduced Windows AI Foundry as the platform layer for local model deployment. Build 2026 looks set to deepen that story with three confirmed on-device AI sessions: a breakout covering Windows APIs for local model execution, a table talk aimed at desktop developers integrating local inference, and a demo session for Microsoft's Foundry Local tool on Windows hardware.

This area connects most directly to whatever comes after Windows 11. If the next major Windows version does set a higher NPU baseline, developers will need to understand:

• Which AI capabilities are available on-device versus cloud-routed

• How Windows AI Foundry abstracts that difference

• How to structure applications that degrade gracefully on hardware without a dedicated accelerator.

Build is the right venue for that developer guidance, regardless of whether a new OS announcement accompanies it.

Agent development is central to Build 2026 across every platform, and Windows is no exception. The "Claws on Windows: Designing Safe, Bounded Agent Actions" table talk addresses one of the more pressing questions in Windows development right now. How do you give an AI agent useful system access without creating a security liability? The session looks at real claw design failures and how developers can architect safer, scope-limited alternatives.

"AI & Agent-Augmented coding you can trust on Windows" examines how agents discover, reason about, and execute tasks within Windows' enforced boundaries, covering packaged app permissions, execution constraints, and lifecycle management. For developers building agentic applications targeting Windows, these sessions represent the kind of security architecture guidance that has been largely absent from the available documentation.

The security track extends further with "The Windows Security Features That Matter Most for Developers," a lightning talk covering post-quantum resilience and the platform-level foundations developers should be building on as agentic workflows become more common. Analysts following the longer-term Windows roadmap have consistently flagged tighter default security as a pillar of any next-generation OS; this session is likely to preview some of that direction.

At Build 2025, Microsoft open-sourced most of WSL. The confirmed "What's new in Windows Subsystem for Linux" session at Build 2026 will show where that effort has gone since. According to Microsoft's April 2026 Windows quality roadmap, WSL is receiving many performance upgrades this year: faster file access between Linux and Windows environments, better network throughput and localhost reliability in WSL2, simplified onboarding, and stronger enterprise policy controls for managed deployments.

For the significant portion of the developer community that runs Linux toolchains on Windows hardware, these improvements speak directly to daily workflow friction. The "Elevate your developer productivity with Windows Terminal" lightning talk sits alongside this, covering improvements designed to reduce context switching for developers working across Windows and Unix environments.

The "Build, deploy, and scale agents with Windows 365" lab runs multiple times across both conference days, covering how Windows 365 provides preconfigured, governed computing environments for AI agent deployment. A digital version of the same lab is available for online attendees.

For enterprise developers and IT architects, this is worth watching closely. Windows 365 is the likely delivery mechanism for governance-sensitive Windows AI features, and the architecture on display here, covering how agents are provisioned, constrained, and monitored in managed environments, reflects how Microsoft is thinking about enterprise-scale Windows deployment more broadly.

Build 2026 is a tighter event than recent editions, running just two days with a smaller in-person attendance cap and a deliberate focus on technical depth.

For developers building on Windows or integrating AI into desktop and enterprise applications, the combination of confirmed tooling announcements, exec-level platform commitments, and a strong Windows session track makes this year's conference worth close attention.

In-person tickets are priced at $1,099, with registrations open by clicking here.

Microsoft is offering visa support for international attendees whose registrations are accepted and will refund tickets if visa applications are unsuccessful.

If you can't make it to San Francisco, the keynote and a selection of sessions stream live for free at the same address, with on-demand recordings available after the event.

source

Chrome is no longer the lightweight browser most people think it is. And if you don’t believe me, just check the storage Chrome is taking up on your PC. Recently, a lot of users have reported Chrome silently downloading a 4GB file on their PC or Mac. And when I checked on mine to confirm, sure enough, it was sitting there too.

What makes the whole situation frustrating is that Google doesn’t ask for any permission before downloading it. There’s no pop-up or even an explanation before the download. The good thing is, Chrome does let you remove the file and reclaim the storage space. But once you understand what the file actually does and why Chrome needs it, you probably wouldn't want to do it.

AI downloads this large deserve an opt-in prompt
They should’ve asked first



If you have Chrome installed on your PC or Mac, there’s a chance a massive file named weights.bin is sitting on your storage drive and taking up nearly 4GB of space. I wouldn’t blame you for not knowing this, because it's a file Chrome downloads silently. You can find the file in Chrome’s directory.

   • macOS: /Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceModel/

   • Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\OptGuideOnDeviceModel

This file is essentially the brain behind Chrome’s on-device AI system, also known as Gemini Nano. In simple terms, it contains the machine learning model that allows Chrome to run certain AI features locally on your PC instead of sending requests to Google’s cloud servers.

These AI models help with things like generating text, summarizing an article, and warning you about potential scams. So yes, it’s kind of important. But the problem is the storage it takes, and more importantly, Chrome doesn’t really ask for consent before downloading a file this large. As soon as you interact with a feature that relies on these AI models, it simply downloads the file silently.



Google’s reasoning doesn’t completely convince me
I understand the logic, but I still don’t like it



To be fair, Google has stated legitimate reasons for putting Gemini Nano directly on your PC. According to Google, the local AI model powers important features without constantly sending your data back and forth to the cloud. In theory, that’s better privacy, as some AI tasks happen entirely on your device instead of Google’s servers.

There’s also a practical reason behind this. Running AI models in the cloud is incredibly expensive. Every AI query costs computing power, electricity, and server resources. By shifting some of that workload onto your PC or Mac, Google can reduce the pressure on its own infrastructure while still offering important AI-powered features.

But personally, I still don’t think it fully justifies Google downloading the file without user consent. While Google does mention that the model is supposed to automatically uninstall itself if the device starts running low on storage, there’s no clarity on what that “low storage" number actually is.

Yes, you can delete it, but there’s a catch
Do you really want to?



Technically, it’s possible to get rid of the weights.bin file from your PC or Mac. It’s really no different from deleting any other file, and doing so doesn’t affect your browsing data. The problem is that Chrome will simply redownload the same file and occupy storage space. The only way to reclaim that 4GB permanently is to disable Chrome’s on-device AI features. To do that, open Chrome Settings, switch to the System tab, and turn off On-device AI toggle.

Once disabled, the on-device AI file will disappear automatically, and it won’t come back. Of course, there’s an obvious downside to this. Removing the weights.bin file also means giving up on Chrome's AI features, which include things like summarizing pages and even scan protection tools. And that’s what makes this whole situation complicated.

 absolutely dislike the idea of Chrome silently placing a 4GB AI model on my PC. But at the same time, using a browser without these features in 2026 also feels limiting. So yes, if Chrome had simply shown me the prompt, I’d have clicked Yes anyway, mainly because some of this model also powers security features.

As someone who practically lives inside a browser all day for work, it doesn't make sense to remove Chrome’s local AI model just to free up some storage space. That said, I’ll be keeping an eye on the file to make sure it doesn’t quietly balloon in size as Google continues to add new AI features. If you don’t like the idea of Chrome using this much storage, though, it’s better to switch to a different browser entirely, like Edge, Brave, or any of the other open-source alternatives that’s far more lightweight.

source

Back in 2001, a tiny startup launched an operating system called Lindows. It was a genuinely ambitious idea: take Linux, add on a compatibility layer for Windows apps, and then sell the resulting OS for cheaper than Windows itself. The name was both a pitch and perhaps the seed of its eventual downfall. Microsoft noticed immediately, and started a two-and-a-half-year legal battle that threatened to unravel one of Microsoft's most valuable trademarks altogether.

What Lindows actually was
A Linux distro designed to poach Windows users



Founder Michael Robertson (who already sold MP3.com to Vivendi Universal for $372 million) started Lindows in San Diego in August of 2001. His main goal was to create a Linux distribution that could run major Windows apps without forcing users to leave Linux entirely to do so. Lindows used Wine for this task, a compatibility layer that's still in use today that translates Windows API calls into Linux compatible equivalents on the fly. Wine was around since 1993, but Linux users had to configure it themselves, the idea here was more of a turnkey solution: install Lindows and your Windows apps just work

The OS was built on Debian Linux, ran the KDE desktop environment (styled to look familiar to Windows users), and featured a paid software storefront called Click 'N' Run (CNR) — an early precursor to the app store model — that let users browse and install both free and commercial Linux software without touching the command line.

As soon as June 2002, Walmart was selling budget PCs with LindowsOS preinstalled, starting at $299, making it the first major retailer to ship Linux-based computers to consumers. Microsoft had 90 percent of the world's PCs at the time, and was fairly hostile to the upstart Linux. That would, of course, change eventually, but not before it tried to litigate this little startup out of existence.

The lawsuit Microsoft probably shouldn't have filed
How "Windows" nearly became a generic word



Microsoft sued Lindows in December 2001, saying that the name infringed on its Windows trademark. The idea was that consumers might confuse the two products. Lindows fired back with a perhaps more damaging argument: "windows" was already a generic term in computing before Microsoft ever trademarked it. Windowing interfaces existed at Xerox PARC and Apple years before Windows shipped in 1985.

US District Judge John Coughenour didn't take to Microsoft's trademark defense right away. He denied the company's request for a preliminary injunction in 2002, which raised questions about whether "Windows" could even be protected as a trademark. In February 2004, he ruled that any jury deciding the case would have to consider whether "windows" was a generic term before 1985, and not as a computing term as we understand it today.

If the case went to trial and a jury decided "Windows" was generic, Microsoft could lose trademark protection for its flagship product's name.

Microsoft went global to squeeze Lindows
The European pressure campaign that worked



OK, so the US case wasn't looking good for Microsoft, so the company took the fight to fronts in Finland, Sweden, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Canada, and Spain. European trademark laws were more favorable at the time, and Microsoft won preliminary injunctions in Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The Dutch ruling was the most aggressive: it prohibited Lindows from selling its OS or even operating its website in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

Lindows tried to keep going. It launched ChoicePC.com and started selling lifetime Lindows memberships for $100 to raise some cash. It renamed the product "Lin---s" in countries that had blocked the Lindows name, though Microsoft's lawyers argued that it wasn't enough. The renamed product eventually became Linspire in April 2004, after Lindows lost its bid to have a US court block Microsoft's European litigation.

The settlement that ended it
Microsoft paid $20 million to buy a name it tried to kill



With a US trial looming and a real risk that "Windows" could be ruled a generic term, Microsoft settled in July 2004. It paid Lindows a total of $20 million, with $15 million up front and $5 million contingent on Lindows handing over its Lindows-related domain names. As part of the deal, Lindows Inc. transferred the trademark to Microsoft and rebranded globally as Linspire.

Tom Burt, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, said the settlement would let Lindows "compete in the marketplace with a name distinctly its own." Lindows CEO Michael Robertson said the terms "make business sense for all parties."

Microsoft spent years and millions of dollars trying to destroy the name and ended up having to buy it.

Linspire continued operating after the settlement, pushing more and more into consumer Linux. It launched a free version called Freespire and even signed deals with Canonical and Mint to offer software through its app storefront CNR. But the brand recognition was gone and the company struggled to find a foothold.

In July 2008, Linspire stockholders voted to sell all company assets to Xandros, a Canadian Linux distributor, and went dormant. Xandros discontinued Linspire in August 2008, and the rights eventually landed with PC/OpenSystems LLC, which relaunched the Linspire name in 2018 as a paid Ubuntu-based distribution.

The legal legacy matters more than the product

The Lindows case is less remembered for the OS and more for what it nearly did to MIcrosoft's most important trademark. Lindows may have lost the name (and eventually, its entire business), but it forced one of the most powerful software companies in the world to pay $20 million as a hedge against possibly having "Windows" declared a generic term in open court. That's a pretty reasonable outcome for a company that was set up on Wine and $100 memberships. Ironically, Microsoft ships its own Linux layer these days, WSL, doing roughly what Lindows was trying to do from the start.

source

China's chip manufacturing ushers in a historic turning point!

Recently, Huawei, in collaboration with the domestic industrial chain, completed the installation and debugging of the first domestically-produced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine at the Songshan Lake base in Dongguan, officially entering the chip trial production process.

This breakthrough marks a new stage in China's independence in core technologies in high-end chip manufacturing, and may completely rewrite the global semiconductor industry landscape.



Technological breakthrough: Light source efficiency reaches 3.42%, and production capacity exceeds similar equipment of ASML

The domestically produced EUV lithography machine tested by Huawei uses the laser-induced discharge plasma (LDP) technology developed by Harbin Institute of Technology. The core light source energy conversion efficiency reaches 3.42%, which is close to the international top level.

Test data shows that the equipment can process 250 wafers per hour , surpassing the 195-wafer capacity of ASML's equipment of the same level. The equipment size is reduced by 30% and the cost is only 1/3 of imported equipment.

Unlike the carbon dioxide laser bombardment technology that ASML relies on , the Chinese team directly converts electrical energy through solid pulse lasers, eliminating the complex laser amplification process, reducing power consumption by 40%, and completely bypassing ASML's LPP (laser plasma) patent barriers .

Industry chain collaboration: more than 30 upstream and downstream companies work together to tackle key problems

The breakthrough of domestic EUV lithography equipment is inseparable from the deep collaboration of the domestic industrial chain. Shanghai Lingang has built a lithography equipment industrial park, gathering more than 30 upstream and downstream companies such as Keyi Hongyuan and Guowang Optics:

   - Keyi Hongyuan: Light source technology achieves stable output, and energy conversion efficiency reaches the international leading level;

   - Guowang Optics: The objective lens system has an accuracy of 0.2 nanometers, surpassing the lens jointly developed by ASML and Germany's Zeiss.

In addition, the self-aligned multiple patterning (SAQP) technology developed by Huawei and SMIC has achieved equivalent 3nm chip manufacturing on existing DUV lithography machines, paving the way for the implementation of EUV technology.

Policy and funding: National special investment exceeds 20 billion yuan

The "14th Five-Year Plan" special plan will inject more than 20 billion yuan into the research and development of lithography machines, with a focus on breakthroughs in core components such as optical lenses and laser light sources.



The second phase of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund is expected to raise 200 billion yuan, leverage more than 450 billion yuan of social capital, and form a "policy + capital" dual-wheel drive model.

Future plan: Mass production in 2026, yield target 70%

The Huawei team plans to achieve mass production of EUV lithography machines in 2026, and it is expected that the cost of domestic chip manufacturing will be reduced by 40%-50%.

According to the plan:

   - 2027: The yield rate of the pilot production line will be increased from 30%-40% to 60%-70%;

   - 2028: Mass production will be expanded to meet 70% of domestic chip manufacturing needs;

   - 2030: To partially surpass international giants in some areas.

Global impact: China's chip independence is accelerating

The latest report from the Semiconductor Industry Association of the United States shows that the gap between China and the world's top level has been narrowed to 12 months.

With breakthroughs in domestic EDA tools and advanced packaging technologies, China is expected to achieve full-process independence in high-end chip manufacturing around 2028.

A former ASML engineer revealed anonymously that China's EUV prototype has entered the "system assembly-single test" cycle stage, and it is estimated that the full process debugging will take 18 months, and the "changing lanes and overtaking" strategy of domestic technology may significantly shorten this cycle.



Sources:

Reports on Huawei's EUV lithography machine testing progress from Xueqiu , Sina Finance, NetEase and other platforms (June 2025)

Harbin Institute of Technology's official statement on LDP technology breakthrough

Public information on the National 14th Five-Year Plan and Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund

source

Aggressively pushing passkeys on Windows 11


Microsoft is killing SMS login codes for personal accounts

For years, typing in a six-digit code sent to your phone has been the universal standard for verifying your identity online. But that era is officially coming to an end in the Windows ecosystem.

In a statement to Windows Latest, Microsoft independently confirmed that it’ll stop sending SMS codes for personal accounts.

Now, first spotted by Windows Latest, Microsoft has officially announced that it is pulling the plug on SMS codes for personal accounts. According to a support document quietly published earlier this year, the company is actively phasing out text messages as a method for both two-factor authentication and account recovery.

While the tech giant subtly hinted at this shift in a previous security advisory earlier this year, stating it was “committed to advancing security standards,” the newly released documentation explicitly confirms the end of SMS verification.

Moving forward, Microsoft is forcing a transition to passwordless alternatives, mandating the use of passkeys, authenticator apps, and verified secondary email addresses.

Why Microsoft is abandoning SMS authentication

Redmond’s decision to kill off SMS verification comes down to the undeniable fact that text messages are no longer a secure way to protect your digital identity.



In their official advisory, Microsoft states that “SMS-based authentication is now a leading source of fraud.”

“Microsoft is committed to advancing security standards, and as such, we will start phasing out SMS as a method of authentication and account recovery for personal Microsoft accounts,” Microsoft noted in an advisory spotted by Windows Latest. “Microsoft believes that the future of authentication is passwordless, secure, and user-friendly.”

Text messages were never designed with modern cybersecurity in mind. They are transmitted in plain text across vulnerable cellular networks, making them highly susceptible to interception.

Furthermore, hackers frequently use SIM-swap attacks, a tactic where a malicious actor tricks your mobile carrier into transferring your phone number to a device they control. Once the transfer is complete, the hacker instantly receives all of your SMS two-factor authentication codes, allowing them to easily hijack your accounts.

To combat this, Microsoft believes the future of account security is entirely passwordless. The company is replacing SMS with passkeys, which are a modern, phishing-resistant security standard.



Unlike traditional passwords or text codes that can be intercepted, passkeys use your device’s built-in biometric hardware.

When you sign in using a passkey, you authenticate your identity using Windows Hello facial recognition, a fingerprint scanner, or a localized device PIN. This creates a cryptographic key pair where the private key never leaves your physical hardware, rendering remote phishing attacks virtually impossible.

Depending on your setup, passkeys can be device-bound, meaning the private key never leaves the physical hardware (like your laptop’s TPM chip), or they can be synced across your devices via services like Apple iCloud Keychain or Google Password Manager. This cross-device compatibility ensures that if you lose your phone, your verified email and synced passkeys will still allow you to recover your account safely.

The problem of a forced passwordless transition

On paper, eliminating vulnerable SMS codes in favor of biometric passkeys is an objective win for global cybersecurity. In my daily workflow, the passwordless ecosystem is genuinely fantastic. I use Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Password Manager, and the Microsoft Authenticator app across all my devices. Thanks to the IR camera on my Lenovo laptop, Windows Hello face recognition makes logging into my personal Microsoft account a breeze.

However, Microsoft’s forced transition may cause significant headaches for power users.

As a Windows Insider, I constantly spin up, configure, and manage new virtual machines (VMs) to test software builds.

When I attempt to log into my Microsoft account within these isolated, nested environments, the passkey experience falls apart. Biometric hardware won’t be available on a VM, for obvious reasons, and I do not have access to security keys either. When trying to log in with passkeys via PIN, I’m always shown an error.



In these highly technical, edge-case scenarios, requesting an SMS code was the ultimate, foolproof fallback. It just worked.

Passwords and SMS codes are ubiquitous. Typing in a six-digit text code is an instinctive, habitual behavior for billions of people. To successfully change a deeply ingrained habit, the replacement technology must be utterly flawless across every conceivable scenario.

Microsoft could drop the forced Microsoft account sign-in during Windows 11 setup; now that’s one less place where you’ll need to sign in!.

Either way, Microsoft will soon begin prompting all personal account holders with a “Sign in faster with your face, fingerprint, or PIN” screen, urging them to set up a passkey and verify a backup email address. While losing the convenience of SMS codes may be a bitter pill to swallow for some, it is a necessary step to secure Windows 11 against modern threats.

source