Articles about Microsoft

Last month we saw Microsoft releasing the "feature-complete" Windows Terminal Preview v0.9, and now the company has pushed out v0.10.

Although Microsoft said that the previous version was "the last version of the Terminal that will include new features before the v1 release", this update introduces two new ones. First up is mouse input support in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) applications.

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It won't be until November that we see the general release of .NET 5, but ahead of this Microsoft has released .NET 5 Preview 1 for developers to try out.

With .NET 5, Microsoft is continuing to unify .NET into a single platform; it will include ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework Core, WinForms, WPF, Xamarin and ML.NET. Key changes here are significant improvements to the Regex engine, which Microsoft says brings throughput improvements of  between 3x and 6x.

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Microsoft has announced plans to acquire npm Inc, the company behind popular JavaScript package manager npm.

No details of the amount of money involved have been revealed, nor the timing of the acquisition, but Microsoft says that it plans to integrate npm into GitHub. Both companies feels that acquisition will help the open source community in general, but the JavaScript community in particular.

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Microsoft is no stranger to using nag screens to annoy Windows 10 users, and now the company is back to its old tricks again. After installing the latest batch of update for the operating system, users are being confronted with a full-screen "Get even more out of Windows" message.

The nag screen encourages users to investigate other Microsoft products such as Your Phone, Windows Hello, Office 365 and OneDrive. It's part of what Microsoft describes as "post-upgrade setup".

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Earlier today, Microsoft revealed a ton of new information about its upcoming new game console -- the terribly named Xbox Series X. This is just three months after the game system was first unveiled to the world. Despite its terrible name, the Xbox Series X is looking to be an incredibly powerful console. The AMD-powered system features 12 Teraflops of power, 4K gaming, and an insane 16GB of GDDR6 memory.

The Xbox Series X will come with a super-fast 1TB SSD too, which sounds like a lot of capacity, but it really isn't. Look, with more and more people downloading games and forgoing optical disks, a terabyte of storage will fill up very quickly. Thankfully, Xbox Series X has a special storage expansion port on the rear that will allow owners to easily increase capacity without opening up the device. Best of all, this port will apparently allow the same speed as the internal drive. Unfortunately, however, Microsoft has opted for a proprietary port -- one that will only work with this console.

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We always knew that the Xbox Series X was going to be an impressive, powerful device, and now Microsoft has confirmed this. The company has revealed the full specifications for the upcoming game console... and it's a beast!

The console is more like a high-end gaming PC (it's not without good reason that Microsoft bills it as its fastest, most powerful console ever) and it offers hardware-accelerated raytracing, 4K output at 60 fps, and support for up to 120fps. All of this is driven by an 8 core AMD Zen 2 CPU and an RDNA 2-class GPU -- and you'll be able to buy it this year.

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When Microsoft was preparing to launch Windows 10 back in 2015 it famously stated that it expected over 1 billion devices to be running the new OS within 2-3 years. For a variety of reasons -- most notably the dismal failure of its mobile aspirations -- that never happened.

But the OS has been gaining share at a steady rate, and today the software giant announces that Windows 10 has, five years later, finally hit the coveted 1 billion milestone.

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The worldwide coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is leading to many people self-isolating, and employers encouraging -- or requiring -- staff to work from home. Many schools also decided to turn to remote teaching solutions to keep pupils away from the risk of infection.

Just as millions of people settle into the idea of remote working or learning, many for the first time, Microsoft Teams is suffering with major problems. Users found that they were unable to send messages via Teams, and were met instead by a notification reading: "we're sorry -- we've run into an issue".

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The Coronavirus (COVID-19) is wreaking havoc across the globe, infecting people on all continents with the exception of Antarctica. Whether or not the disease is serious or not seems to depend on the infected's age and other underlying medical conditions, but still, people are hoarding food and supplies as if it were the apocalypse.

So, why are people panicking? Well, there are many reasons, but a big one is misinformation. Sadly, the internet is full of fake data and mistruths, causing people to worry. Since so much misleading information is on social media, people have no idea where to turn for reliable data. Microsoft is hoping to provide truthful information with an all-new Bing Coronavirus (COVID-19) Tracker.

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Microsoft has announced that not only is Windows Subsystem for Linux -- or WSL 2 as it's also known -- soon going to be generally available in Windows 10 version 2004, but also that the Linux kernel will be updated though Windows Update.

The new approach comes as Microsoft removes the Linux kernel from the Windows OS image. The change in update delivery will enable Microsoft to push out updates faster than before, and eliminates the need to user interaction.

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For many people, Bill Gates is synonymous with Microsoft, even though for years now he has had very little to do with the company he co-founded.

These days, Gates’ focus is mostly on philanthropic activities, like global health and development, education and climate change. He stepped down from the day to day running of Microsoft in 2008, but remained on the board. Today he announces that is no longer the case.

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Three-hundred-and-seventy-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.

Check out Wayne's guide on downloading Windows and Office ISO images legally.

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Earlier this week, Microsoft inadvertently released details of a critical vulnerability in the SMBv3 protocol in Windows 10 and Windows Server. While there was no fix available at the time, the company did provide suggestions about how to mitigate against attacks.

With the information out in the wild, Microsoft was under pressure to get a patch released to customers -- and now it has managed to produce such a fix. KB4551762 is an emergency patch for the CVE-2020-0796 vulnerability, and users are advised to install it as soon as possible.

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Microsoft, like many other tech firms, is encouraging its employees to work from home as the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread across the world. It’s still business as usual for the Windows team though, as they roll out a new Windows 10 build for those Insiders on the Fast ring.

Build 19582 mostly focuses on fixes and improvements, although it also comes with a major update to the Eye Control settings.

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If you want to download an ISO file of the latest version of Windows 10, the process is very straightforward -- just use Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool to generate the image file for you.

But what if you want an older version of Windows 10, or one of the many Windows Insider builds? Or what if you want a copy of Windows 7 or 8.1, or a copy of Microsoft Office? We have the answer.

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