Microsoft awarded Pentagon's controversial JEDI contract
Microsoft has beaten Amazon to win the controversial $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract from the US Department of Defense.
A year ago, Microsoft employees were trying to discourage the company from bidding for the contract over concerns that the technology is develops could "be used for waging war". The DoD confirmation that the "contract will address critical and urgent unmet warfighter requirements for modern cloud infrastructure" will do nothing to calm these fears.
Major leak reveals more about Microsoft Windows 10X
When Microsoft revealed the Surface Laptop 3, Surface Pro 7 and Surface Pro X recently, it also revealed Windows 10X, a version of Windows 10 optimized for dual-screen devices. At the time, details were not extensive, but now a major leak sheds some light on what we can expect to see.
Documentation for Windows 10X (or Santorini OS) has appeared online, revealing that Microsoft will also allow the operating system to be run on more traditional laptops. There are also some intriguing screenshots that give us a glimpse into the future.
Best Windows 10 apps this week
Three-hundred-and-fifty-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 is rolling out a Store update that features a new layout. The update is rolled out over time and features a new set of categories and sections. Apps are now found under Productivity in the Store.
Windows XP 2019 Edition is the operating system Microsoft should be making [repost]
Microsoft launched Windows XP 18 years ago today. Despite support ending for it back in 2014, the OS is still to be found on just under 3 percent of the world's PCs, according to NetMarketShare. Many people still look back fondly on it, and for good reason. It was a huge step up from the gray, bland Windows versions that proceeded it.
Although Microsoft does issue the very occasional update for XP, in the main it's now viewed as a relic from days gone by, and lacking many of the modern features we take for granted in Windows 10. But what if Microsoft updated it? To celebrate the operating system's big 18th birthday, we thought it would be fun to repost this story from a couple of months ago.
Microsoft releases KB4522355 update for Windows 10, fixing Start menu problems and more
Microsoft has released a series of problematic updates in recent months. The company seems to be playing catch-up, pushing out patches for bugs caused by the last update, in turn introducing new problems.
With the newly released KB4522355 update, Microsoft says that it has fixed a number of issues -- including problems with the Start menu, the Cortana Search bar, Tray icons and Microsoft Edge -- that were caused by other recent updates.
New Microsoft Store layout is rolling out
A new Microsoft Store layout featuring a new look and categories is rolling out now.
Windows 10 users who open the Microsoft Store on their devices may see the new layout already. It includes a new set of categories and reorganizes entire sections of the store.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 teardown reveals that it is partly held together with magnets
Microsoft recently unveiled the Surface Laptop 3 and, true to form, iFixit has taken one into the labs and ripped it to pieces.
The teardown shows that Microsoft has learned a lot, and the laptop is significantly easier to repair than the previous generation. While still a long way from perfect, the Surface Laptop 3 earns itself a huge jump in its repairability -- not least because it is held together in places with magnets.
Microsoft releases Windows 10 20H1 Build 19008
Microsoft is currently expected to begin rolling out the Windows 10 19H2 release -- the November 2019 Update -- on November 12.
In the meantime however, it’s busy working on the follow up, due out next May. The latest flight from the 20H1 branch doesn’t have any new features, but Build 19008 does include a number of useful fixes and improvements. These are:
Microsoft buys cloud migration tool Mover to simplify switching to OneDrive
With a seemingly endless array of cloud storage services to choose from, you may well find that you want to switch allegiances at some point. Jumping from one service to another can be a pain, but with its purchase of Mover, Microsoft has just made it much easier to make the move to OneDrive.
Details of the deal have not been revealed, but Microsoft is keen for people to use the service to migrate from one several supported cloud providers to either OneDrive or SharePoint.
Microsoft teams up with chipmakers to create Secured-core PCs with unhackable firmware
Microsoft is partnering with PC manufacturers and chip-makers on a new initiative designed to make systems with firmware that cannot be hacked.
Called Secured-core PCs, the systems apply the security best practices of isolation and minimal trust to the firmware layer. This helps to protect systems from low-level interference by malicious code.
KB4520062 update is breaking Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection for some
Another update for Windows 10 is causing issues. This time around the update is KB4520062 for Windows 10 version 1809, and it was supposed to fix problems with Bluetooth and blank screens when it was released earlier this week.
But some users are finding that the update is breaking Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). Microsoft has acknowledged that the update can stop the anti-malware tool from running, and may also result in a 0xc0000409 error.
KB4517389 is causing even more problems with Windows 10 than first thought
That Microsoft's updates for Windows 10 have been problematic is hardly a revelation, but the scale of the problems just keeps on growing.
We have already written about numerous bug-ridden updates, including KB4517389 breaking the Start menu and Edge. Now this same update is being blamed for display issues and random BSODs.
Microsoft releases Windows 10 20H1 Build 19002 with improved Bluetooth pairing
It won’t be too long now until Microsoft begins to roll out Windows 10 19H2 -- the November 2019 Update -- but in the meantime it’s working hard on the next big feature update due out next May.
The latest flight from the 20H1 Branch released today, Build 19002, has one major improvement, and that concerns Bluetooth.
Microsoft warns Windows 7 Pro users about end of support
Six months after informing users of Windows 7 Home about the impending end of support for the operating system, Microsoft is now starting to display the same warning to Windows 7 Pro users.
While the warning message is spreading to most Windows 7 Pro users in a bid to encourage upgrading to Windows 10, not all users will see it.
Microsoft launches two new open source projects for developers -- OAM and Dapr
Continuing its embracing of open source, Microsoft has today announced two new open source projects. The first is Open Application Model (OAM), a new standard for developing and operating applications on Kubernetes and other platforms
The second project is Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime), designed to make it easier to build microservice applications. Microsoft says that both OAM and Dapr "help developers remove barriers when building applications for cloud and edge".
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