This is a very niche update, but if you do any music, composition, theatre or sound work, this will be one you’ll like to hear: Windows is getting a MIDI update.
Musical Instrument Digital Interface (aka MIDI) has been around since 1983 (over 42 years ago). It’s basically the technical standard that is used by electronic musical instruments, computers, software and audio equipment to all communicate on the same language so they can all work together (something that wasn’t possible before).
The reality is, though, that the MIDI standard hadn’t really changed in nearly 40 years. MIDI 2.0 was released in 2020, offering everything that modern musicians need today, like increased speed and fidelity, better control of instruments, modern bi-directional conversations and negotiation between instruments, discovery, better USB timing, and more. Windows 11 is going to support MIDI 2.0 very soon and you can download the latest MIDI services and runtimes here. If you’re a heavy MIDI user, MIDI 2.0 claims backwards compatibility with your existing tools so it should work faster and more reliably out of the gate. While there aren’t a ton of MIDI 2.0 compliant devices out there, having the base ready to go when you decide to upgrade your musical hardware will make things smoother down the road.