Articles about Microsoft

Four-hundred-eighteen 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.

More than 84 percent of all Windows 10 users use Windows Hello to sign-in to the system according to Microsoft. What about you? Do you use Windows Hello?

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Four-hundred-and-seventeen 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 versions of Windows 10 will feature additional options in the Settings including options to manage Cameras in the Devices section.

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Microsoft took a big gamble with Windows 8. Back in 2012 the tech giant believed that touchscreens were the way we’d all be interacting with our devices, and so overhauled Windows to give it a touch-first design and a Start screen in place of the traditional Start menu -- which didn’t go down at all well with the Windows faithful.

Although the company relented and eventually added a Start menu and made various other user-requested tweaks, Windows 8 is viewed by many as one of the worst versions of Windows, which is a little unfair as it had much to recommend it.

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The Surface Duo is a pretty cool device on paper. If you aren't familiar, Microsoft essentially connected two Android smartphones using innovative hinges. Why did the company do this? Well, the goal was productivity -- having two apps running simultaneously on two displays would be great for business use (and entertainment).

Unfortunately, Surface Duo doesn't just exist on paper -- it is an actual product. And for the most part, it has been panned by critics. Its software is reportedly buggy and the hardware durability is questionable -- the damn thing develops cracks. Its bezels are large and unsightly, making it look very outdated. There are reports that the camera is horrible too.

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Microsoft has made some very dramatic changes to the look and feel of Windows 10 over the years, and this is not a trend that's set to change any time soon. Continuing its plan to kill off the legacy Control Panel, the company is introducing big changes to Windows 10's Settings app.

The changes will be important to anyone who is keen on customizing or taking control of Windows, giving them two important new options that are sure to be welcomed by power users -- especially those who want to kill off the Task View button.

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Last week, Microsoft released two different Windows 10 builds to the Dev Channel, giving Insiders a chance to choose if they wanted to stay on the FE_RELEASE branch or switch to the more experimental RS_PRERELEASE branch.

For those who stuck with the FE_RELEASE branch, Microsoft now has another new build to try out (those on RS_PRERELEASE won’t get this).

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From now, Windows 10 Insiders on the Dev Channel currently have the choice of installing preview builds from the FE_RELEASE or RS_PRERELEASE branches. By default, Insiders will get flights like new Build 20277 from the FE_RELEASE branch, but you can switch to RS_PRERELEASE if you’re feeling more adventurous.

To get the alternative download, Build 21277, you will have to actively choose to download it via Windows Update. Be warned though, once you’ve switched to RS_PRERELEASE you won’t be able to download FE_RELEASE builds any more.

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We're used to Microsoft rolling out a new Windows 10 Dev Channel build on a weekly basis, but this time around it has something different for us -- two Dev Channel builds, from different branches. It’s like a choose your own adventure.

The first of the new flights, Build 20277, comes from the usual FE_RELEASE branch and sports a handful of fixes and known issues.

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Having released the experimental PowerToys v0.28 earlier this week complete with the video conference mute feature, Microsoft has now released an update to the stable version of its Windows 10 utility collection.

We were not expecting to see an update to PowerToys v0.27 just yet, but Microsoft has produced one out of the blue. The company says it deemed the release "important" as it addresses a number of issues.

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Microsoft has launched a new feature for Excel which it says will revolutionize formulae. Called LAMBDA, the new capability is being made available to Beta users for now, and it introduces the ability to create custom functions using Excel's formula language.

The company points out that Excel formulae are the world's most widely used programming language, and now it has gained the option of defining custom, reusable functions. There's no need to learn a complex programming language, making LAMBDA accessible to all.

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Four-hundred-and-fifteen 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.

New features could soon be introduced independently of feature updates on Windows 10. Microsoft plans to use the Windows Feature Experience Pack to deliver (smaller) feature updates to Windows 10 devices that install just like any other update.

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Microsoft is experimenting with a new Feature Experience Pack which will make it easier to add great new features to Windows 10 in the future.

It is still working on feature updates though, and today it rolls a new FE_RELEASE build to Insiders on the Dev Channel.

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Only yesterday we wrote about some of the exciting changes coming in PowerToys v0.27.0. Microsoft had teased upcoming improvements to the much-loved utilities but gave no hint of just when this particular build would be released.

As it turned out, we did not have to wait long. PowerToys v0.27.0 is now available to download and in includes not only numerous bug fixes, but also various improvements and enhancements. Oh... and if you were wondering if you'd somehow managed to miss a build, Microsoft explains "we skipped 0.26's release for higher priority work". And this is the result.

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Microsoft has announced that it is committed to privacy as the company introduces changes to its Productivity Score tool that raised concerns recently.

The tool is part of Microsoft 365 and was designed to help employers analyze the performance of teams working on projects. But privacy advocates said that the ability to monitor employees on an individual basis amounted to it being a "full-fledged workplace surveillance tool". With the newly announced changes, Microsoft is hoping to allay such fears.

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When you install a feature update for Windows 10 -- the likes of Windows 10 October 2020 Update (20H2), for instance -- Microsoft does not give you very long to change your mind and uninstall it. If you decide you don't like the changes introduced by a feature update, you have just 10 days to easily remove it without having to go down the route of using a backup.

It might not just be the fact that you don't like changes that have been made to the way Windows 10 works. There have been numerous updates to the operating system that have been problematic and buggy, but Microsoft still only gives you 10 short days to go back to your previous version of Windows 10. But there is a way to get yourself more time to play with.

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