Microsoft has quietly added OpenAI’s new GPT 5.6 model to Microsoft 365 Copilot on the very same day it reached ChatGPT, a surprisingly fast turnaround. The catch is that Microsoft renames the model, so instead of the clear Sol, Terra and Luna labels that OpenAI uses, Copilot users only see
Microsoft 365 business prices jumped on July 1, 2026, and if you manage a company or government subscription your next renewal will cost more. The increase hits Business, Enterprise, Frontline, and Government plans, with rises ranging from 0% to a steep 43%. Home users on Personal, Family, Premium, and Education
The AI engine inside your Excel and Outlook may have changed in the last few weeks, and Microsoft never told you. Microsoft has quietly started routing some Copilot prompts to its own MAI models instead of the OpenAI and Anthropic technology that used to do the work. The Copilot button
Microsoft has given Windows 10 extended support another year of life, pushing the free consumer ESU deadline to October 2027 or . If you run Microsoft 365 or Office on Windows 10, that sounds like good news, but it changes almost nothing for your Office apps. Microsoft 365 updates and
Microsoft Teams now puts a Test mic and speaker button right on the meeting join screen, so you can run a quick audio check in the seconds before you click Join. Teams has let you test audio for years. What is new is where the test lives and how fast
Wondering when your version of Microsoft Office stops getting security updates? This is the plain English Microsoft Office support end dates checklist, kept current for 2026. Microsoft 365, Office 2024, Office 2021 and every older release run out of security and bug fixes on different dates, and once that day
Microsoft now has two different apps both called Copilot, and the naming is genuinely confusing. The Copilot app is a free, standalone AI chatbot built into Windows. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app is something else entirely: the old Microsoft 365 hub for your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, now with
Outlook search has vastly improved with Immersive Search, and if your mailbox has a Copilot plan attached, it is worth trying today. Instead of hunting for exact keywords, you can type a plain English question like and get a real answer, complete with links back to the source emails. It
Microsoft has rebuilt the PowerToys Shortcut Guide, and this version finally earns a place in every Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Office user’s toolkit. Instead of a generic list of Windows shortcuts, the guide is now app aware. Open Word, Excel, Outlook classic, PowerPoint, Access, OneNote, Project, Publisher or Visio, and
Random numbers in Excel are easier than most people think, and you have three main tools to choose from: RAND() for decimals between 0 and 1, RANDBETWEEN() for whole numbers in a range, and RANDARRAY() for filling whole blocks of cells at once. This guide shows you how to make
Choosing 64-bit or 32-bit Office sounds like a decision that matters, but for almost everyone it does not. Since around 2020, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Office have installed as 64-bit software by default, and that is the right choice for nearly every Windows PC. The 64-bit version is faster, uses
Just installed Microsoft 365 or Office on a new PC? Before you open a single document, do one quick thing: check for updates. We did a clean install straight from Microsoft using the standard “Click to Run” method, expecting the newest version, and within minutes an update check found fresh
Quick Parts in New Outlook for Windows and web lets you save reusable chunks of text, complete with formatting, images and tables, then drop them into any email in two clicks. Standard replies, disclaimers, directions to your office or a greeting you type fifty times a week: save it once
Reusable content in Outlook should be simple, but Microsoft has turned it into a confusing tangle of overlapping tools with near identical names. Mail Templates, My Templates and two completely different features both called Quick Parts all promise to save you retyping the same email text, yet each one works
Microsoft stops all security updates for Office 2021 on October 13, 2026, with no extension and no paid reprieve. After that date, every newly discovered flaw in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook stays unpatched forever, leaving home users and businesses more exposed to attackers each month. You do not need
The Microsoft 365 Workplace Discount Program (WDP) cuts 30% off Microsoft 365 Premium, Family and Personal for employees of companies and government agencies that buy Microsoft volume licenses with Software Assurance. Formerly the Home Use Program, the WDP is now simple to claim: enter your work email, verify, and link
Copilot in Word, Excel and PowerPoint lets you pick which AI model handles each task, but the menu is confusing and changes all the time. So what is an AI model, why does Microsoft offer several, and which Copilot model should you actually choose? This plain English guide explains the
Outlook gives you two built in ways to reuse email text, and neither one is good enough. Mail Templates can build a whole new message but cannot help with replies. My Templates saves reusable snippets but strips out all formatting, so no bold, no headings, no links, no images. If
Outlook gives you two built in ways to save reusable email text, and both are frustratingly limited. My Templates only stores plain text, with no bold, links, images or tables. The other way works for new messages but not replies. So if you send the same content over and over,
The Microsoft 365 military discount is one of the best kept secrets in Microsoft pricing, and there are actually two of them. US and Canadian service members, veterans, and their families can buy the full Microsoft 365 Family plan for far less than the $129.99 civilian price, year round, with
Microsoft’s much hated Copilot button finally has a way to get out of your way, and we’ve found the first real world example running on a live machine. The promised “Move to Ribbon” choice has arrived in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but it’s not quite what Microsoft pledged. Instead of
The FIFA World Cup 2026 runs from June 11 to July 19, spanning 16 host cities across the US, Canada, and Mexico with 104 matches spread across four time zones. Keeping track of every kickoff time is a perfect job for Outlook’s calendar, which automatically converts match times to your
Section breaks are the hidden cause behind some of Word’s most frustrating layout problems: random extra pages, headers that change unexpectedly, and pages that refuse to switch from portrait to landscape. Most Word users have never heard of section breaks, let alone seen one, because Word keeps them invisible by
Excel formulas translate automatically when you share a workbook across languages, and most users never know it’s happening. Whether a colleague opens your file in French, German, Spanish, or Italian, they see the formula names in their own language. This quiet translation system is why an Excel workbook built in
