Windows 10 has been with us for a number of years now, so you might think that you know about all of its features by now -- but there could well still be things for you to discover.

As you're probably well-aware, there's a lot that can be achieved by editing the registry; it's a common way to change inaccessible settings, for instance. We've discovered an exciting free tool that save you from having to delve into the registry, but gives you the opportunity to access hidden options, features and settings. We present the freeware tool Hidden Windows 10 Features – it's like a modern day TweakUI for Windows 10.

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Windows 7 is dead: you know this. There are no more Windows 7 updates for most people: you know this. And some believe Windows 7 should be made open source: yeah, right

Whatever the status of Windows 7, the fact of the matter is that there are plenty of people still using it, and the last update (KB4534310) caused a strange problem for some users, turning their desktops black. Microsoft has now acknowledged the issue, but says that it will only fix the bug for those who are willing to pay.

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Windows 7 is dead to Microsoft -- unless, of course, you're willing to pay. It's now ten days since the operating system reached end of life, but many people, for various reasons, are choosing to stick with it rather than upgrading to Windows 10.

This means missing out on security updates, but the Free Software Foundation (FSF) thinks it has a solution. It suggests that Microsoft 'upcycles' Windows 7 and makes the operating system open source so that the community can "study and improve" it.

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Internet Explorer may be a relic from the past, but it's still out there and used by surprising numbers of people. Not all versions of it are supported by Microsoft anymore, so when a critical bug was discovered in the Windows 7, 8.x, 10, Windows Server 2008 and 2012 versions of the browser, there were questions about who was going to be protected.

The bug was revealed just days after support ended for Windows 7, and it wasn't clear whether Microsoft would stick to its guns and leave those people still using this operating system out in the cold and unprotected. The company has now confirmed what's going to happen.

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Owners of Sonos devices were disappointed when they were told by the company that as of May 2020, there would be no more software updates released for older equipment. Sonos offered customers two options for "legacy products": keep using them without updates, or brick them by putting them in Recycle Mode in return for a 30 percent discount on a future purchase.

There was an understandable backlash from Sonos' userbase, and now the company's CEO has been forced to pen a letter in which he assures customers that devices will work for "as long as possible". Patrick Spence concedes that "we did not get this right from the start". He continues: "My apologies for that and I wanted to personally assure you of the path forward".

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Taking a leaf out of Facebook's book, Twitter has added a new emoji reactions feature.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter reactions are only available for direct messages, not individual posts, but it still adds a new way to respond to messages. In all, there are seven emoji reactions: crying, surprised, sad, heart, flame, thumbs up and thumbs down.

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Apple's Safari web browser was found to have multiple security flaws that allowed for user's online activity to be tracked, say Google researchers.

In a yet-to-be-published paper, the researchers reveal issues in a Safari feature which is actually supposed to increase user privacy. The Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) feature found in the iOS, iPadOS and macOS version of the browser is meant to block tracking, but vulnerabilities mean that third parties could have accessed sensitive information about users' browsing habits.

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It can hardly have escaped your attention that Windows 7 has now reached end of life. For companies and enterprise customers unwilling to pay for Extended Security Updates, this means there will be no more updates. The average home user who has decided to stick with Windows 7 has been completely abandoned by Microsoft, leaving them with an operating system that could be found to contain an endless number of security vulnerabilities.

But, actually, there is another option for home users, and it does not involve paying any money to Microsoft. We're talking micropatches. Specifically, we're talking about micropatches from 0patch. We've covered the work of this company in the past, including its recent fix for the Internet Explorer vulnerability.

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At the end of last week, a serious vulnerability was discovered in Internet Explorer, affecting all versions of Windows. Not only is the bug (CVE-2020-0674) being actively exploited, but for Windows 7 users the vulnerability was exposed right after their operating system reached the end of its life.

Even for users of newer versions of Windows, and despite the severity of the security flaw, Microsoft said it would not be releasing a patch until February. Stepping in to plug the gap comes 0patch with a free micropatch for all versions of Windows affected by the vulnerability.

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A new report reveals how Microsoft exposed nearly 250 million Customer Service and Support records online late last year.

The security research team at Comparitech discovered five servers, each of which contained the same 250 million logs of conversations with Microsoft support agents and customers. The records, which spanned 2005 to December 2019, were accessible to anyone with internet access; no password protection or encryption was used.

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Over the last nine months Microsoft has been drip-feeding us new PowerToys for Windows 10. So far we've seen FancyZones, Shortcut Guide and PowerRename, and now the company is preparing to add another one.

PowerLauncher is -- or will be -- a quick launch tool for launching apps, and it's aimed at power users. Not only is it open source like the rest of the PowerToy collection, there is the promise that it will be extendible through the use of plugins.

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Anyone who has decided to stick with Windows 7 now that the operating system has reached end of support has probably seen the full-screen warning advising them that it's time to upgrade to Windows 10. But while this warning was known about in advance, some Windows 7 hold-outs are now reporting something peculiar post January 14 -- a black desktop.

On the last day of support for Windows 7 Microsoft issued one final update, and it seems that this update has been causing problems with desktop wallpapers.

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When it comes to running Windows applications and games on Linux and macOS, Wine is the go-to tool for many people. Now Wine 5.0 has been released and it includes significant changes that make it even more useful.

After a series of betas and release candidates, the stable version of Wine 5.0 is here. It features multi-monitor support, numerous fixes for problematic games and applications, Vulkan 1.1 support, and more.

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Proton Technologies has announced that it is open sourcing its VPN tool, ProtonVPN.

The Swiss firm says that not only is it releasing the source code for its VPN tool on all platforms, but also that it has conducted an independent security audit. Created by CERN scientists, ProtonVPN has amassed millions of users since it launched in 2017 and the decision to open source the tool gives users and security exports the opportunity to analyze the tool very closely.

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Over the years Microsoft has taken numerous controversial decisions with Windows 10, including installing sponsored apps, using the Start menu to advertise apps it thinks you might be interested in, and -- of course -- the various forms of data-collecting telemetry.

Now it has been discovered that more ads could be on their way. A Windows researcher has uncovered ads in WordPad encouraging people to try out Word, Excel and PowerPoint online.

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