Articles about Microsoft

Microsoft has become one of the most relevant mobile developers by offering its best products and services to (virtually) everyone who owns a smartphone and tablet -- for free. Major apps like Word, Skype and Outlook are among the most popular titles in their respective categories on the two biggest platforms: Android and iOS.

Microsoft did not stop there though, as it also created new apps specifically tailored to attract new users on a platform. Microsoft Launcher is one of them, being designed as an alternative launcher for Android devices that ties in with the company's other products. And, believe it or not, users have responded really well to it.

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Microsoft has been bundling a password manager that features a dangerous flaw with some versions of Windows 10, a Google security researcher has revealed. Tavis Ormandy noticed that his copy of Windows 10 included Keeper, which he had previously found to be injecting privileged UI into pages.

The version that Microsoft was including with Windows 10 featured the same bug. What does this mean? In short, it allows any website to steal passwords from you.

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It's quite interesting to see just how far Microsoft has come since Satya Nadella became CEO. The company has gotten out of its comfort zone and made its products more appealing to a wider range of customers, embracing rival platforms and the open-source community. Having Visual Studio on Macs and tons of apps on Android and iOS is something that would have been unheard of only a few years ago.

The same goes for offering a subsystem for Linux or OpenSSH support on Windows 10. That last bit may not excite everyone, but it is especially useful for those who want to log in remotely on Linux devices -- which would have normally required third-party tools like PuTTY. Microsoft is not stopping there though, as it's taking things to the next level by adding a native OpenSSH client and server to Windows 10.

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The Xbox One X is the best gaming console on the market -- from a raw power perspective, that is. Despite having lesser specs, many people would argue that the Nintendo Switch is the superior machine. Why? Mario and Zelda. After all, when it comes to video games, content is king -- fun trumps frame rate. Not to mention, Microsoft's latest is wildly expensive at $500 while only working with a TV. The Switch costs less and doubles as a mobile console.

If you can't afford an Xbox One X, but really want one, I have good news. Microsoft is giving some of them away -- three to be exact. The company is running this contest as a way to promote Digital Gift Giving. To make this giveaway even sweeter, the prizes are the fairly rare "Project Scorpio Edition" variants. Best of all, entering is insanely easy.

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Today, at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit, Microsoft and Qualcomm officially unveiled the first ARM-powered Windows 10 laptops.

These devices, referred to as Always Connected PCs, are always on, always connected (via LTE), and promise "incredible" battery life. How incredible? Well, depending on how much you use them, you could see around 22 hours of active use/a month of standby between charges.

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Windows 10: All-In-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition includes all the guidance you need to make the most of this latest update of Windows.

This freshly updated resource cuts through the jargon and covers everything you need to know. It shows you how to set up multiple user accounts, create a Homegroup for easy sharing between devices, backup your files, troubleshoot common problems, and much more.

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Despite Microsoft's aggressive pushing of Windows 10, Windows 7 remains staggeringly popular. A growing number of users are currently reporting an issue with Windows Update at the moment  -- specifically error 80248015.

The full error message reads: "Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running. You may need to restart your computer." Needless to say, a simple restart is not enough to fix the problem, although a workaround has been discovered that solves the issue for some people.

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While Windows 10 still lags behind Windows 7 in terms of market share, there’s one section of user that has embraced the new operating system since day one -- gamers. That’s no surprise of course, as they like to run the latest and greatest hardware and software.

Steam’s monthly usage survey, which shows the state of things from the gamers’ perspective, has consistently reported Windows 10 as the top operating system of choice, until last month when -- to the surprise of many -- Windows 7 took over.

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Each month, analyst firm NetMarketShare releases numbers showing the state of the desktop operating system market, and we report on it.

This month, it showed the gap between Windows 10 and Windows 7 narrowing significantly (although the two operating systems aren’t quite as close as shown by StatCounter’s figures). That’s not the only change though -- the historical figures of the two operating systems have been adjusted as well, so what’s the story?

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Microsoft has launched the first stable version of its web browser for mobile with the release of Edge for iOS 1.0 and Edge for Android 1.0.

Both browsers are targeted at Windows users who have Edge as their default -- the primary purpose of both is to allow users to sync settings and content between desktop and mobile, following a similar path trodden by the likes of Chrome and Firefox.

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When StatCounter released its operating system usage share figures last month it showed the gap between Windows 7 and Windows 10 had narrowed significantly.

It looked, based on that data, as if the new operating system would overtake the old one during November, but surprisingly that didn’t happen.

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According to the latest figures from NetMarketShare, Windows 10 is edging closer to Windows 7’s usage share, but it still has a way to go until it overtakes it.

In October, Windows 10 saw its slowest growth in months, posting a gain of just 0.17 percentage points. In November, however, it’s a very different picture.

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At 2015’s Build developer conference, Microsoft announced that it anticipated over 1 billion Windows 10 devices to be in consumers hands within 2 years, but thanks to the failure -- and ultimate death -- of Windows 10 Mobile, that was clearly never going to happen, and Microsoft was forced to admit as much a year ago.

When the OS was offered as a free download, initial growth was strong, with Windows 10 finding its way on to 350 million devices in the first year. But growth slowed significantly once the free period ended.

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Microsoft is working in earnest on the next feature update of Windows 10, codenamed Redstone 4. It’s already released a number of builds to Insiders in the Fast ring, and today the software giant revealed some of the big new features users can look forward to.

However, it also delivered something of a bombshell to Insiders keen to test forthcoming features and changes for themselves -- future additions aren’t going to be available to all.

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Microsoft released the Creators Update for Windows 10 back in April, but it was a glacial, and at times problematic, rollout. A fortnight after the initial launch, Microsoft warned users to wait until they were offered it, rather than opting for a manual update, and even when it was finally made available to (almost) all, the take up was very low.

Its successor, the Fall Creators Update, launched in October, at which point a quarter of Windows 10 users still didn’t have the Creators Update.

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