Articles about Microsoft

Starting with Firefox 68, Mozilla's web browser began to use Microsoft BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) to deliver updates -- the same technique that is used by Windows Update.

With the arrival of Firefox 70, BITS will be utilized with a dedicated update agent in place as a proxy rather than simply being part of the browser itself, allowing updates to be more easily installed.

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At its Build 2019 developer conference earlier this year, Microsoft revealed the Linux-inspired Windows Terminal, which gives access to the Command Prompt, PowerShell, and WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) in one place.

The code has been available to download and compile for a little while, but now Microsoft has released a ready-made Windows Terminal app for anyone to try out.

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A leaked document has shed light on what it is like to work at Microsoft. It reveals the software and online services that Microsoft either prohibits or discourages employees from using, and there are some big names on the list.

One of the most well-known tools to be slapped with a ban is Slack, with others including the grammar checker Grammarly and security software from Kaspersky. The cloud-version of Microsoft-owned GitHub features on a list of "discouraged" tools and services.

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Work is progressing well on the next big feature update of Windows 10, due out a year from now.

Some builds offer a lot of new features, others are more about fixing problems and making general improvements. Build 18922 falls into the latter category, although it does have some language settings improvements and Feedback Hub updates.

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Codenamed 19H1, the Windows 10 May 2019 Update is Microsoft’s first major update for the operating system this year. It is also the seventh version of the OS after its initial release. The tech company took the update as an opportunity to provide a fresh set of enhancements and features that will improve Windows 10’s security and performance.

Microsoft was supposed to release the update inApril. However, it delayed the rollout to ensure that the final version will be more stable and reliable. The tech giant began limited release on May 21, 2019. On June 6, 2019, Microsoft made the update available for the general public. Now, you may be dying to know what’s new in the Windows 10 May 2019 Update. Well, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve put together this comprehensive guide to show you the important things that have changed and improved in the Windows 10 operating system.

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Windows left-aligns all of the icons on your taskbar. This looks tidy enough, but if you fancy a change -- or perhaps you wish the taskbar looked more like the Dock in macOS -- you can center the buttons, or make other changes to their positioning.

You can add some cool animations too.

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Apple makes great hardware and operating systems, but when it comes to applications, the company has plenty of room for improvement. For productivity, Microsoft still reigns supreme. Apple's iWork, for instance, is passable, but it is largely garbage compared to Microsoft Office. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote may look great, but smart professionals will invest in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint -- they are far more powerful. Even the totally free LibreOffice bests Apple's iWork.

With all of that said, macOS users should be very happy that Microsoft supports Apple's operating system. Quite frankly, without Microsoft's excellent productivity software -- such as Office and OneNote -- Mac computers would be far less attractive to power users and professionals. Today, Microsoft brings another fine app to the macOS platform -- To-Do. It is chock-full of useful features, including the ability to add tags/hashtags by simply typing a #.

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Microsoft has issued a warning to Azure customers using Linux Exim email servers running Exim version 4.87 to 4.91.

The company explains that these versions of Exim are vulnerable to a critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) security flaw and need to be updated to prevent the spread of a worm.

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Not so long ago, the idea of Microsoft releasing an internet browser for Linux would seem to be out of the question. But in recent years, Microsoft's love of Linux has grown exponentially.

Now, having not only started to embrace the Chromium engine for Microsoft Edge, the company is also not ruling out releasing Edge for Linux. It could be argued that Edge on Linux is something that no one -- or at least very few people -- yearn for, but the Microsoft Edge development team has revealed that releasing a Linux-friendly version is something that it would "like to do".

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Check Point Research, has released its Global Threat Index for May 2019 and is warning organizations to check and patch for the BlueKeep Microsoft RDP flaw in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 machines, to prevent the risk of it being exploited for ransomware and cryptomining attacks.

BlueKeep affects nearly a million machines accessible to the public internet and many more within organizations' networks. The vulnerability is critical because it requires no user interaction in order to be exploited. RDP is already an established, popular attack vector which has been used to install ransomware.

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CERN -- the European Organization for Nuclear Research best known for its particle smashing Large Hadron Collider -- has decided to eschew Microsoft in favor of open source software.

For many years, CERN benefited from hefty discounts on Microsoft products, but this is coming to an end. Rather than paying hugely increased licensing fees, the organization is instead implementing its own Microsoft Alternatives project, known as MAlt. CERN says it is "taking back control using open software".

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Windows Insiders are currently testing builds from the 20H1 branch due out a year from now.

The latest new flight, Build 18917, introduces download throttling and Windows Subsystem for Linux 2, as well as a whole host of other improvements.

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Microsoft has released another big feature update for Windows 10. The May 2019 Update is rolling out to compatible systems now, although you can force the update if required.

Of course, a big update like this requires a big download, and the files that Microsoft places on your system don’t get removed immediately afterwards. In other words, the May 2019 Update -- Windows 10 1903 -- could be responsible for taking up tens of gigabytes on your hard drive. Fortunately it’s easy enough to reclaim this.

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Most iPhone users do not own a Mac. If they did, Apple's desktop market share wouldn't be so low compared to Windows. That's historically not a big deal for Apple, since its Mac business was never really about volume -- the company make a fortune off the marked up machines as it is.

The problem, however, is the company is increasingly focusing on services. And as great as iCloud is, the Windows experience has been abysmal. Yes, iCloud on Windows is functional, but it is not even close to the elegance of macOS. So when an iOS user needed to use Windows 10 for iCloud, it made the OS seem sort of... terrible. While Microsoft's desktop OS has lots of problems, and some consider it to be quite bad, the iCloud deficiencies (slow, buggy, etc.) were not really the fault of the OS -- that was Apple's failure. Well, except that one time.

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At E3, Microsoft has revealed details of its next-generation Xbox, dubbed Project Scarlett, which is scheduled for release in late 2020.

It's not yet known what the follow-up to the Xbox One will be called, but among the launch titles is Halo Infinite. As for the console hardware, Project Scarlett will feature an AMD Zen 2 chip, Radeon RDNA graphics architecture, GDDR6 memory, SSD, and support for 120 fps, 8K graphics along with real-time ray tracing.

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