Articles about Microsoft

Microsoft has acknowledged that "a small subset of users have reported lower than expected performance in games" after installing one of two recent Windows 10 updates, and issued a rare type of fix.

Gamers complained about dropped framerates and poor performance after installing the KB5001330 update, and the same report came from those who installed the preview version of the same update, KB5000842. Now the company is using a fairly uncommon Known Issue Rollback (KIR) to resolve the problems, just after NVIDIA issued advice of its own to affected gamers.

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The issues caused by updates for Windows 10 have been varied and plentiful. With each new batch of updates, anyone willing to install them finds they are playing an unwitting game of Russian roulette; the patch may fix some problems, but the chances are that they will introduce new ones as well.

This month's KB5001330 update -- just like the non-security preview version from the previous month, KB5000842 -- was just the latest in a long line of bug-riddled updates. This time the plethora of problems includes a performance hit for a number of games and to help with this, NVIDIA has a simple (if slightly controversial) solution.

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Any changes that Microsoft brings to Windows 10 have a tendency to be rather polarizing, and the latest addition of News and Interests to the taskbar is no different.

While on the face of it, the ability to keep updated with the latest news headlines, see up-to-date weather forecasts, track stock prices and more from the taskbar may seem useful, it's certainly not of interest to everyone. So, if the feature has rolled out to you and you don't like it, here's how to disable News and Interests in the taskbar.

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Microsoft has released the KB5001396 update preview which, among other things, bring the new News and interests taskbar feature that the company is rolling out to Windows 10.

Microsoft has, as is the norm, released a preview of next month's Patch Tuesday updates and it brings more than just the new taskbar feature that Microsoft has been drumming up excitement about. The non-security update also includes a host of fixes and improvements.

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We've already written about the release of Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 21364 and some of the great new features and options it includes. But it seems that Microsoft forgot to mention a change that was introduced in this particular version of the operating system.

As such, the company has published updated release notes for build 21364 of Windows 10, notifying users that Aero Shake -- the feature that lets you grab a window by the title bar and 'shake' it to minimize all other windows -- is undergoing something of a change.

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The Windows taskbar has remained unchanged for years, and few people would complain about that.

However, Microsoft has been working on a big change to it which Windows Insiders have been able to test for the past few months, and which will finally begin rolling out to all users from today, although it could be a while before you get it.

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In the latest build of Windows 10, Microsoft has introduced various changes and additions, but one of the most useful comes in a somewhat surprising place. It is perhaps not one of the most exciting Windows 10 utilities, but Task Manager is about to get much more useful, particularly for anyone looking to boost the performance of their system.

Microsoft has introduced a new "Eco mode" option that makes it possible to throttle process resources. This makes it easier for power users to ensure the most important apps and processes have access to CPU and memory when needed.

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It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s time for a new Windows 10 Insider build on the Dev Channel, and Build 21364 is one of the best releases in a while with exciting new features for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Task Manager.

Arguably the biggest addition here is that Windows Subsystem for Linux now includes a first preview of support for GUI applications. Nicknamed WLSg, this open source feature lets you run your favorite Linux GUI apps, which makes it even more useful.

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Across its Mac, iPhone and iPad range, Apple's App Store is users' first port of call for downloading new app; on Android, the Play Store is Google's equivalent. But when it comes to Windows 10 large numbers of people eschew the Microsoft Store app in favor of simply downloading apps from developers' websites.

But Microsoft would like this to change, and the company is planning a major revamp of its own store app, according to reports. As well as a visual refresh, the Microsoft Store is set to become friendlier for developers, thanks to relaxed policies -- including permitting the submission of raw, unpackaged .exe and .msi apps.

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Microsoft has been rumored to be working on an Azure-powered Cloud PC service for a while now, but it seems that we might be seeing the results of its labor as soon as June or early July this year.

The Cloud PC service, codenamed Project Deschutes, will let users access a Windows desktop remotely and run software such as Microsoft Office. This could be useful if you want to access the same desktop from multiple locations, and it would also allow Windows 10X users to run Win32 apps.

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Developers waiting for news about the next installment of Visual Studio need wait no longer. Microsoft has announced that Visual Studio 2022 will be released later this summer as a public preview.

The company has also revealed that the software is going 64-bit, overcoming the limitations of the 32-bit edition. Microsoft says that the user experience will feel cleaner, more intelligent and action oriented, and that there is an increased cloud focus thanks to improved GitHub integration.

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Anyone testing out the very latest versions of Windows 10 has a new bug-fixing patch to install. With the release of the KB5001391 update, fixes and changes introduced to the Dev channel now make their way to the Beta and Release Preview channels.

This latest patch sees Microsoft taking Windows 10 20H2 up to build 19042.962 and Windows 10 21H1 up to build 19043.962. It includes a large number of bug fixes, and addresses problems with a profile-related Group Policy, and fixes an issue that caused soaring memory usage by the lsass.exe process, as well as high CPU usage that led to system lockups.

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In the middle of January, we reported about a vulnerability in Windows 10 that could be used to corrupt the contents of an NTFS formatted drive. A specially crafted folder name was all that was needed to cause a volume to be marked as dirty, and then require a fix with the Chkdsk utility.

But Chkdsk did not always do the trick, leaving victims with unbootable systems. A couple of months ago, Microsoft started testing a fix with Windows Insiders and now the patch is being made available to everyone. It addresses the problems which was being tracked as CVE-2021-28312 (Windows NTFS Denial of Service Vulnerability).

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It is only a few days since Microsoft released the KB5001330 and KB5001337 updates for Windows 10 which kills off the legacy version of Edge. Having wondered aloud what problems might be caused by the latest batch of updates, we didn't have to wait long for the first issues to rear their heads.

But problems with gaming performance, boot loops and screen flicker are not, it would seem, the end of the story. Users are also reporting problems with DNS resolution and issues with shared folder following the installation of the KB5001330 update.

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While there have been new PowerToys builds released over the last few months, it has been a while since a new tool was added. Now, with the launch of PowerToys Experimental v0.36.0, this changes.

The latest release of the much-loved Windows 10 utility collection now features the Video Conference Mute tool, giving users the ability to quickly mute their microphone and turn off their camera with a keyboard shortcut.

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