Articles about Microsoft

If you have been using the Microsoft Store as your point of purchase for ebooks, you're going to have to start shopping elsewhere. Microsoft has ditched the Books category from the store, and this means that not only will it not be possible to buy books from the Microsoft Store, but also that previous purchases will not be accessible after July.

For anyone who has built up a library of ebooks via Microsoft, this will come as bad news -- but there is a slight silver lining. The company says that it will provide full refunds for all book purchases.

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With precisely zero fanfare, Microsoft has added a new mid-range Surface Book 2 to the existing line-up. Priced at $1,499, the 13.5-inch model is now available with the new i5-8350U processor.

The addition of an 8th generation Intel quad-core Core i5 processor was something we'd heard rumoured, and this new model not only opens up the range of options available to buyers, it also means that other prices have been reduced.

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Visual Studio is not only one of the oldest IDEs around, having launched in the late-1990s, but it is also one of the most popular. Chances are, if you ask developers what they use, Visual Studio will be among the top answers. And, for good reasons: it is a mature, powerful and versatile IDE that is used across the globe to create websites, desktop software, mobile apps and games in a number of popular programming languages, like C# and C++.

And, every couple of years, Microsoft gives it a major update to add new features, refine existing ones and make it look more modern. This year is no different, as it introduces Visual Studio 2019 -- and, for the first time, a Mac version is ready to go from the start as well. Here are the biggest changes that are coming with it.

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Windows 10 offers a number of power plans you can switch to, depending on your needs. 'Balanced' is the recommended choice, but if you have a high-end system and want to really get the most out of it, it’s worth activating the Ultimate Performance power plan.

This plan is really designed for workstations, but gamers and video editors will benefit from it too. It likely won’t be available to simply switch to on your PC, but you can enable it with this simple hack.

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It took quite some time for Windows 10 to overtake Windows 7, but it finally did it in December 2018, at least according to NetMarketShare’s figures.

In February however, Windows 10 actually lost share, while Windows 7 gained some, narrowing the gap between the two operating systems once more. In March though, roles were reversed, as Windows 10 made some big gains, and Windows 7 lost a sizable chunk of its share.

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For the most part, I am not a fan of Super Hero movies or TV shows. Fighting crime with magical powers seems silly to me. As a child I loved comic books, but as an adult, I have no time for such nonsense. With that said, there are two exceptions -- Deadpool and the Christopher Nolan Batman films are enjoyable to me. This is probably because they are more adult-focused.

There is a new DC Comics movie coming out called Shazam!, and holy cow, it looks horrid (you can see the trailer below). Based on the TV commercials, it seems to be very childish and goofy -- I will skip this one. Maybe it will be good; who knows. Microsoft seems keen on Shazam!, however, as today it announces a new limited-edition Xbox One X console inspired by the film. How rare is it? There are only two, and both are being given away in a new raffle. So, yes, you have a chance to win one. The problem? It is very ugly. The colors are terrible, and the controller customization looks like it was an afterthought.

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The October 2018 Update, or Windows 10 1809, has been nothing short of a disaster for Microsoft. It was so buggy it had to be pulled shortly after its release last October, and it only began to be pushed out as an automatic update a week ago.

AdDuplex, which monitors the share of each version of Windows 10, has been reporting for months on the incredibly poor adoption of Windows 10 1809, and March was another month in which the update gained hardly any additional share. With the next big feature version scheduled to arrive next month, it looks as if most people will be skipping the older update.

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If you opted to join the Skip Ahead ring, bypassing the 19H1 builds, you are currently being served up flights from the 20H1 branch -- the feature update that Microsoft is set to release a year from now.

Today the software giant rolls out Build 18865 which fixes numerous problems, including multiple issues affecting Narrator.

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Back in December 2018, Microsoft announced that it would be moving its Edge browser over to Chromium, with the intent being to align its web platform with both the main web standards and other Chromium-based browsers. Microsoft also said at the time that Edge would be made available for "all supported versions of Windows", not just Windows 10.

Last week, an early version of the browser leaked onto the web, and while most people who tried it would no doubt have done so through Windows 10, it does indeed run on Windows 7 (and Windows 8.1).

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We have known for a little while that Microsoft is planning to release a Chromium-based version of its Edge browser, and a new leak gives us our first glimpse at it. With Chromium at its core, it is perhaps no surprise that this version of Edge bears more than a passing resemblance to Google Chrome.

The leak also confirms much of what we thought we already knew about the upcoming browser -- support for Chrome extensions, a dark mode, synchronization of favorites, and more

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Although it’s a bit of a meaningless term these days, it looks as if 19H1 Build 18362, which was released to the Fast ring on Wednesday and is now making its way on to the Slow ring today, could well be the Release Candidate for the next big feature update of Windows 10.

The new release, due out next month, has the unenviable task of following the disastrous October 2018 Update, and Microsoft will hoping things run a lot smoother this time around, especially as the previous update only began its full rollout yesterday.

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Although the Windows 10 October 2018 Update did arrive in October 2018, it came with lots of problems, and Microsoft was forced to pull it, reissuing a slightly less buggy version in November.

Despite this, the actual phased rollout didn’t start in January, and even so uptake was very slow. Yesterday, however, Microsoft finally flipped the switch to begin automatic updates, but there are still some users who won’t be offered it.

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Back in September last year Microsoft announced the launch of its Virtual Desktop to allow Windows to be run in the cloud.

At the time, however, it was only a private preview. Today the public preview launches, so anyone with an Azure subscription can try out the service.

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In February, Microsoft announced Microsoft Threat Experts, a new service within Microsoft 365 Security designed to better protect businesses.

Today, the software giant extends its endpoint protection platform to Mac, and in keeping with that move renames the Windows Defender ATP platform to Microsoft Defender ATP.

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Yesterday, Microsoft rolled out Windows 10 19H1 Build 18361 to the Fast ring, and today it follows that up with Build 18362 which fixes a couple of problems.

In addition, the software giant has released Build 18860 for the 20H1 branch of Windows 10, which is planned for release early next year.

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