Wayne Williams

Microsoft’s original grand plan for Windows 10 was an operating system that was always up-to-date. Updates were intended to be mandatory, and while you could delay them a bit, you couldn’t opt out of them entirely. And the software giant was committed to rolling out two major feature updates a year.

Fast forward to now, and things are very different. You can delay, or avoid, most updates, including feature updates -- assuming you’re even offered them in the first place.

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It’s been hinted for a while that Microsoft is working on a new operating system for dual-screen and Chromebook-like PCs, and while the software giant has yet to confirm the existence of the rumored "Windows Lite" OS, Nick Parker, Corporate Vice President, Consumer and Device Sales, did drop some pretty big hints about it at Computex 2019 in Taipei.

While on stage he referred continually to a modern operating system designed to run on "modern PCs and innovative devices" that offers seamless background updates and zero interruptions, greater security, and always on connectivity.

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It was the iPod touch that first turned me on to iOS. The gateway drug to getting an iPhone if you will. I had the second and third gen models before graduating to Apple’s smartphone (and the iPad), and if it wasn't for that, I'd probably be an Android user with a Samsung Galaxy S10.

I wouldn’t buy an iPod touch now that I have an iPhone XS, but if you want to enjoy the delights offered by the App Store, without spending a fortune on a flagship phone, then it’s the perfect solution, and Apple has just introduced a new, much faster and more capable model.

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Microsoft began to roll out the latest big feature update for Windows 10 a couple of days ago, and you can get it via Windows Update, or force the update if it’s not yet showing up for you.

With each new OS update, however, some existing features get dropped, or stop being actively developed. Here’s what’s missing in Windows 10 1903, the May 2019 Update..

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After an extended period of testing in the Release Preview ring, Microsoft has finally started rolling out the May 2019 Update to Windows 10 users, albeit in a "measured and throttled" way.

You might be able to get it now by going through Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update or, failing that, via the Media Creation tool. There is a very simple way to force Windows 10 to start the upgrade process immediately however.

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Windows 95 has been enjoying a little nostalgia-fueled revival recently. There have been concepts made for modern versions of the ancient OS on desktop and mobile and it’s even possible to give an Apple iPhone a Windows 95 makeover.

Last year, developer Felix Rieseberg released Windows 95 as an Electron app and he updated this a few months ago so it could run gaming classics like Doom. His latest update gives the OS a welcome performance boost.

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Windows 10 May 2019 Update is now rolling out to users with compatible systems.

If you can’t wait to try the new features, the good news is Microsoft has updated its Media Creation tool to include the update and you can use this to download Windows 10 now and create your own installation media on either a USB flash drive or DVD. This is particularly handy if you want to perform a clean install, or update multiple computers in quick succession.

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After the mess that was the October 2018 Update, Microsoft has been a lot more cautious with the follow up, giving it an extended period of testing in the Release Preview ring.

Today, the software giant declares the May 2019 Update stable enough to begin making it available to non-Insiders, although it says it will still be taking a "measured and throttled" approach to availability.

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There are plenty of applications you can use to view and print PDF files, including Microsoft Edge. Some of them offer editing features, but they are usually a bit limited.

PDF Shaper is a collection of tools which will let you merge and split PDF files, rotate and crop pages, extract text and images, edit metadata, add a page number watermark, and convert PDFs to images (and vice versa) or to text.

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Game of Thrones has never been a show to play things safe. Every time viewers thought they knew where things were going, the series would usually prove them wrong -- often with an unexpected death, or a twist hardly anyone saw coming.

The eighth and final season has just ended, and it’s fair to say -- like much of the eighth season (episode five, The Bells, in particular) -- the finale left viewers divided. I personally loved it (albeit not unreservedly), while my colleague Brian Fagioli hated it. Either way, people have been talking about it.

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If you’re a Windows 10 user then you might be interested in -- or even excited for -- the next generation of Microsoft’s Edge browser which is being built around Chromium.

If you’re a Mac user, then you likely couldn’t care less about it. Still, Microsoft is hoping it can change your mind and today it introduces the first preview build for macOS.

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These days, if you want to chat with friends and family you probably do so through one of the many mobile messaging choices -- such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Snapchat.

Before mobile communications really took off, Microsoft’s cross-platform MSN Messenger (later rebranded Windows Live Messenger) was the chat tool. At its peak, some 330 million users a month were logging into the instant messaging client. MSN Messenger was discontinued in 2014, with Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype from eBay largely to blame for its demise, but if you’ve ever wondered what the chat tool might look like if it was revived today, then MSN Messenger 2019 Edition is the answer.

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The May 2019 Update is still undergoing testing in the Release Preview ring, but Microsoft is busy working on builds from the 20H1 branch, the feature update set to be released in the first half of next year.

We’re starting to see new features arriving on that branch, and today’s flight, Build 18898, adds a useful addition to the Task Manager.

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Intel yesterday disclosed a new group of Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) hardware vulnerabilities that affect its CPUs.

Rogue In-Flight Data Load (RIDL), Fallout, and ZombieLoad speculative execution attacks are related to Spectre and Meltdown which were discovered last year, and allow attackers to leak in-flight data from CPU-internal buffers (Line Fill Buffers, Load Ports, Store Buffers), including data never stored in CPU caches.

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Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP back into 2014, but took the 'highly unusual' step of releasing a patch for the ancient OS two years ago in a bid to fightback against the WannaCry ransomware, and then included XP in that June’s Patch Tuesday updates.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that that would be the very last time Microsoft patched XP, but no. The software giant has included Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (also no longer supported) in today’s Patch Tuesday fixes.

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