Articles about Microsoft

Microsoft has announced Power Fx, a new open source programming language. The Windows-maker describes it as "a low-code general purpose programming language based on spreadsheet-like formulas".

The language can be used across Microsoft’s Power Platform, and the fact that it is based on Microsoft Excel means that it should be immediately accessible to large numbers of people, even if they would not necessarily consider themselves programmers.

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Whether you’re a system administrator or a Windows power user, the chances are that you spend lots of time performing the same tasks over and over again. To help with this, Microsoft has made its Power Automate Desktop tool for Windows 10 free for everyone.

This enterprise-quality macro-like utility can be put to endless uses, helping to optimize all manner of workflows by automating frequently performed tasks. Available to install free of charge right now, it will eventually be included in Windows 10 as standard.

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It’s been a month since Microsoft released Windows Terminal 1.6 Preview, the first update in 2021 of its powerful command line tool. That brought with it a new UI for Settings, as well as various other minor improvements.

The software giant is now rolling out Terminal 1.7 Preview, a move which means Terminal 1.6 is now generally available to all Windows 10 users.

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We recently shared some very shocking news about Linux Mint users. Sadly, it turned out that users of that operating system were extremely irresponsible regarding updates. You see, Linux Mint developers spilled the beans on this upsetting trend -- many of its users weren't just a little behind in installing updates, but were running unsupported versions for more than a year!

This shows that not all Linux users are responsible, nor are they necessarily more knowledgeable than Windows users regarding computer maintenance. It also highlighted that the Linux Mint developers were doing a poor job in convincing users to update. And now, it seems the Linux Mint developers are taking a page out of Microsoft's playbook by planning to force some updates on its users. Yes, folks, Linux Mint is becoming more like Windows 10.

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Around a month and a half ago we reported about a serious flaw in Windows 10 that could be exploited to corrupt the contents of an NTFS drive. With Microsoft dawdling in its response, it was down to security researchers from OSR to produce a third-party patch.

But now Microsoft has stepped up to the plate and, finally, come up with an official fix for the flaw. Sadly, it's not all good news as the fix is not currently available for everyone.

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Four-hundred-twenty-seven in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Microsoft Store in the past seven days.

Future Windows 10 updates will incorporate Servicing Stack Updates (SSU) to streamline the installation process. Windows Update does take care of this automatically, but administrators who installed updates manually ran into installation issues from time to time if a particular update required a specific SSU that was not installed.

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There are many different types of update for Windows 10, some of which are more important than others. To make things easier to manage, both for the company itself and for end users, Microsoft is now integrating servicing stack updates (SSUs) into the latest cumulative updates (LCUs).

Cumulative updates should be familiar to most Windows 10 users, but SSUs are not something that everyone will be aware of. Nonetheless, the change Microsoft is introducing is a important one that should help to reduce update problems in future.

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It is now five and a half years since Windows 10 was released, and we've seen a lot of changes to the operating system over this time. There have been endless additions, numerous changes, and the occasional removal of dead wood.

Among the things that have been killed off so far are various elements of the Control Panel and ways of accessing it, causing upset with many users. But now Microsoft is turning its attention to things which the vast majority of people regard as completely unnecessary. The company has seemingly realized that very few people are interested in 3D modelling and is indulging in a little spring cleaning.

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Ahead of March's Patch Tuesday releases, Microsoft has released a preview of the KB4601382 update. This cumulative update is available for Windows 10 2004 (Windows 10 May 2020 Update) and Windows 10 20H2 (Windows 10 October 2020 Update), and it includes a number of important fixes.

Some of the highlights of this particular update include addressing a screen flicker issue during video playback, fixing a problem that prevented some keyboard keys from working, and improving application startup times in certain scenarios.

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At the tail end of last week, Microsoft released a Windows 10 Dev Channel build with the ability to paste content as plain text in clipboard history.

Today, the software giant rolls out another new flight for Insiders on the Dev Channel, although Build 21322 is mostly about fixes and general improvements.

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Knowing your way around Microsoft Office requires you to be part mathematician, part storyteller, and part graphic designer -- with some scheduling wizard and database architect sprinkled in. So what do you do if these talents don't come naturally to you? 

Fear not! Office 2019 All-in-One For Dummies fills in the gaps and helps you create easy-to-read Word documents, smash numbers in Excel, tell your tale with PowerPoint, and keep it all organized with Outlook. With additional books covering Access, OneNote, and common Office tasks, this is the only Office book you need on your shelf.

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Anyone who has invested in Windows 10 LTSC (Long Term Servicing Channel) has had the comfort of knowing that Microsoft offered 10 years of support. But this is changing.

The company has announced that the support period for Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC is being halved to just five years, bringing the operating system in line with the recently announced changes to Office support. However, support for Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC will remain at 10 years.

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Earlier in the week, Microsoft officially announced the first Windows 10 feature update of the year -- 21H1 -- and made it available for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel to test.

Today, the software giant releases Windows 10 Build 21318 (RS_PRERELEASE) to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel (it’s also available for ARM64 devices).

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Although Microsoft is expected to begin giving Windows 10 a bit of a long-overdue redesign later in the year, the truth is that operating system has become a bit, well, boring. The last feature update, and the next one due out in he coming months (21H1), have made only minor tweaks to the OS.

Isn’t it time for a full, proper new version of Windows? Isn’t it time for Windows 11?

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Four-hundred-twenty-six in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Microsoft Store in the past seven days.

Microsoft announced Office 2021, a non-subscription based version of Office. In other news, the next feature update for Windows 10 is ready for testing. It will be a smaller update similar to Windows 10 20H2.

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