Microsoft

For years, Microsoft has used KB identifiers (or knowledge base identifiers that take the form KBXXXXXXX) to refer to updates for Windows. As well as being a handy means of identifying a particular update, it also provides an easy way to cross reference the same updates across various pieces of documentation.

But last month Microsoft announced that it is changing the system. The company is not getting rid of KB identifiers, but it is changing the way they are used in release notes and support documentation. In many instances, the KB identifier will be hidden in the source code of web pages -- something even Microsoft concedes is "not ideal".

Microsoft has continued its trend of releasing problematic updates for Windows 10. Just a few days ago, the KB4601319 update was found to break File History backups in Windows 10, and this month's Patch Tuesday cumulative updates have also been causing issues.

As we have reported, there have been numerous complaints from people who have installed the KB5000802 and KB5000808 updates for Windows 10. Now Microsoft has confirmed that there are indeed problems with printing after installing these updates, specifically BSoDs and a APC_INDEX_MISMATCH error.

If you’ve been following Windows 10’s development you’ll likely know that Microsoft’s newest operating system is set to get a makeover later this year.

We’ve already started seeing some elements of the tweaked UI, but the finished release -- currently codenamed Sun Valley -- will take things further, with improvements to the design of the Start menu, File Explorer and Action Center, bringing with it rounded corners and new colors.

With the release of Windows 10 Creators Update over 3 years ago, Microsoft was betting that 3D was the future. We're not talking Windows with a 3D interface or anything like that, but the company seemingly noted the increasing popularity of 3D printers and decided to jump on the bandwagon.

This saw the arrival of Paint3D in Windows 10 as well as a 3D viewer tool, but now Microsoft appears to have changed its mind about the third dimension. We recently wrote about the disappearance of the 3D Objects folder, and now Windows 10 users will no longer see other 3D-related components after a clean installation.

For Insiders on the Dev Channel, Wednesday is the day when they are most likely to see a new Windows 10 build arrive.

Today’s new flight, Build 21332, introduces a number of changes and improvements but also takes away one big new feature -- the 'News and interests' experience on the Windows taskbar. Don’t panic through, this is only a temporary move.

Yesterday was the second Tuesday of the month, and for users of Windows this means one thing -- Patch Tuesday. Sticking to its regular schedule, Microsoft released updates for Windows 10, specifically the KB5000802 and KB5000808 cumulative updates.

These updates fix literally dozens of issues, including actively exploited 0-days. But while the number of problems addressed is impressively large, there are also -- predictably, perhaps -- already reports of new problems being caused by the updates.

The original Microsoft Edge browser wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t finished. Microsoft hasn’t always made the best decisions when it comes to Windows 10 (who can forget the dark days when the software giant 'upgraded' Windows 7 machines to the new OS without user consent), but adopting the Chromium engine for a brand new version of Edge was one of its smartest moves.

The new Chromium browser is a huge improvement, which is just as well as from today Microsoft is stopping supporting its predecessor, now referred to as Edge Legacy.

Microsoft famously lost out on the mobile market when consumers largely rejected its Windows phones and embraced Apple and Google's offerings instead. This is a shame, as smartphones running Microsoft's Windows 10 Mobile were actually quite good -- they just lacked apps and third-party developer support. And so, Microsoft abandoned its mobile plans, ultimately embracing the Linux-based Android for the Surface Duo.

Following smartphones, the next big thing was voice assistants, and sadly, Microsoft lost there too, getting beat out by Amazon and Google. This is also unfortunate, as Microsoft's assistant, Cortana, was pretty great. Once again, however, consumers rejected it. And so, like Windows 10 Mobile, Cortana has been largely canceled, as the company slowly phases it/her out.

I know it has its fans, but I’ve always found Microsoft’s search engine to be a bit, well, rubbish. Partly my views on it have been formed by years of using Google. I get the results I expect to see when I type something into that, but I don’t when I use Bing.

The UK’s Prince Philip has been in hospital recently -- which isn’t a huge surprise as he is 99 years old. He underwent a heart procedure on a pre-existing condition and is currently recuperating at King Edward VII’s Hospital in London. Doctors there say he’s doing well. Bing, on the other hand, has declared him dead.

Microsoft has revealed a new deployment service for driver and firmware updates which will make it easier for administrators to keep enterprise systems up to date.

The company says that the new system will make it possible to see drivers hosted on Windows Update that match devices, as well as giving admins control over the selection and deployment of updates.

Four-hundred-twenty-eight 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 released build 21327 for Windows 10 to Insider devices this week; the new build debuts a new look for the news and interests feed widget that Microsoft introduced in preview builds some time ago. The new build comes with a new font and several system icons have been updated as well.

It has been a little while since there was a PowerToys update, but Microsoft has today rectified this with the release of version 0.33.1 of the suite of Windows 10 utilities.

There are a number of notable changes in this particular release, including improvements to plugins in PowerToys Run, and the editor UX in FancyZones. PowerToys v0.33.1 also features a new 'First time load' experience which serves to introduce new users to what is available in the software.

The original Microsoft Edge was often described as being 'half-baked' with features commonly found in other browsers either poorly implemented or missing entirely.

With the switch to Chromium, Microsoft had a chance to start over, and it hasn’t wasted the opportunity. The new Edge is a massive improvement over its predecessor and the software giant isn’t resting on its laurels either, striving to add new features on a regular basis. Case in point being Microsoft Edge 89.

These days, it is almost a given that an update for Windows 10 will not only fix bugs and introduce new options, it is also likely to cause additional problems. It is something that Windows users have been painfully aware of for some time, and Microsoft has been working on a solution.

And that solution is KIR, or Known Issue Rollback. The new system enables Microsoft to rollback changes introduced by problematic patches rolled out through Windows Update. KIR only applies to non-security updates.

We already know that Microsoft is planning on giving Windows 10 a major makeover later this year as part of a refresh code named  Sun Valley.

Insiders in the Dev Channel can from today start to get an idea of how this new Windows update will look.