Articles about Microsoft

When Windows 7 checks for updates, the process can take an age. Often you might find yourself staring at the screen while nothing much seems to happen.

Finding the list of updates for you to install should only ever take a few minutes at worst, but for many people that isn’t the case. Thankfully there’s a quick fix to try.

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With Windows 10, Microsoft faced criticism for its heavy promotion of the new operating system. Windows 7 and 8 users became more than a little annoyed by the presence of persistent nagging upgrade prompts, and others have been irritated by the addition of 'promoted apps' to the Start menu.

Now Microsoft is at it again. Apparently unhappy with the number of people using its Edge browser, the company is now trying to encourage people to switch from rivals by using popup ads to push Edge and Bing Rewards. Will the company never learn?

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For anyone who is a Windows Insider, the release of a new insider build is something of a double-edged sword. There is -- of course -- the excitement of trying out the latest and greatest build of Windows, but there is also the prospect of a huge download; one that must be completed on every computer you use.

Microsoft has a plan to reduce the size of update downloads. The Unified Update Platform (UUP) sees the introduction of differential download packages meaning that users need only download the bits that have changed since the last release rather than having to download the whole build in its entirety. It's a feature that will be an important part of Windows 10 Creators Update next year, but -- of course -- Insiders get to try it out sooner.

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It’s taken a few days longer than normal for a new build to arrive for Windows Insiders, but Build 14959 for both PC and Mobile finally makes its way onto the Fast ring.

This is the first new build since Microsoft announced the next big step in Windows 10’s evolution -- Creators Update. This is due to be released early next year, but Windows Insiders will get an early taste of all its new features and improvements.

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One of Windows 10’s biggest new features is the inclusion of Microsoft’s personal assistant, Cortana. She can do all sorts of things for you, from searching the web, to setting reminders, and even looking up songs as they play.

You can summon Cortana at any time simply by saying "Hey, Cortana", but if you’d rather call her something different -- "Siri", perhaps, or "Darling", or "Ava" -- it’s possible to give her a name change. This is how.

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Last Wednesday, Microsoft revealed, among other things, an updated Surface Book. The following day, Apple introduced a new MacBook Pro. Both devices look great, sport powerful innards and come with a suitably high price tag.

Which you go for will likely depend on whether you’re a fan of Microsoft or Apple, but if you’re not firmly entrenched in either camp, and need a little guidance to decide which laptop to go for, here are all the details you need.

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The first anniversary of the launch of Windows 10 was marked by Microsoft revealing that the operating system enjoyed one of the fastest adoption rates in the history of Windows. The software giant announced that over 300 million devices are now using Windows 10. Adoption rates for its latest operating system are 145 percent higher than for Windows 7 and 400 percent better than for Windows 8.

But however popular Windows 10 might be in terms of user adoption, it still brings a lot of the baggage of its predecessors for IT professionals to deal with, including painful migrations, time-consuming end-point management and patches. Even with improvements to minimize these issues, Windows 10 can still cause headaches as IT administrators attempt to migrate their endpoint devices without negatively affecting their users.

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Microsoft says that a vulnerability in Windows made public by Google has been exploited by a hacking group with links to Russia. The group -- known variously as Strontium, Fancy Bear, and APT 28 -- has executed several spear phishing attacks, the company says.

Google was criticized for publicizing the vulnerability before Microsoft has released a patch. A fix for the security hole is not due to be released until Tuesday, 8 November -- voting day in the US election.

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Windows 10 Mobile is a solid smartphone operating system with two big flaws -- lack of both apps and developers. This has lead to such low market share, that many consider Microsoft's mobile operating system to be irrelevant. With that said, not everyone needs a lot of apps. If you mostly do things like text messaging, surfing the web, and accessing email on the go, a Windows 10 device is a brilliantly secure way to do so.

Today, Alcatel officially announces the previously leaked IDOL 4S with Windows 10 (there is an Android version too). Not only is the inexpensive device beautiful, but chocked full of solid specs and wonderful features too. Best of all, it comes with a virtual reality headset in the box!

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While Microsoft Edge might be a little lacking in features, compared to more established browsers like Chrome and Firefox, one area where it is better than its rivals is security.

That’s according to NSS Labs which today announced the results of its latest Web Browser Security comparative test. The test pitted Chrome, Firefox and -- for the first time -- Edge against each other to see how effective the browsers are at protecting against threats.

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Amazon Web Services is the undisputed leader in the public cloud market, with a market share larger than the next three competitors -- Microsoft, Google and IBM -- combined, according to a new report from Synergy Research Group.

In Q3 2016, AWS had a share of around 45 percent in the public IaaS (infrastructure as a service) market, while Microsoft's Azure, Google's Cloud and IBM's cloud did not even get past the 20 percent mark.

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According to a new report 65 percent of Windows systems are still running Windows 7, and a small percentage of devices are still running Windows XP.

The survey from trusted access specialist Duo Security analyzed more than two million endpoints and found 63 percent of them running Microsoft operating systems. Yet only 24 percent are running Windows 10. Windows 7 remains the most popular despite there being over 600 vulnerabilities affecting unpatched versions.

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While it was free, and being aggressively pushed on to users (whether they wanted it or not), Windows 10 saw strong growth, rapidly gaining significant market share. However, since it became a paid product, it’s fair to say the new operating system has been struggling.

In September, NetMarketShare reported that Windows 10 didn’t just show slower growth, it went into reverse gear and actually lost usage share. And things weren’t much better for Windows 10 in October either.

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Google has shared details of a 0-day vulnerability in Windows a mere 10 days after informing Microsoft of the problem. In Google's own words, "this vulnerability is particularly serious because we know it is being actively exploited", but the company is accused of putting users at risk.

Microsoft is yet to produce a patch for the security problem, and it's not clear when one will be released.

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In a bid to make its browser faster than ever, Google has started using Microsoft’s Profile Guided Optimization (PGO). Introduced in Chrome 53, this technology can help optimize high-use functions in the browser.

The nightly Chrome builds track how often functions are used, and these functions are then optimized by PGO, sometimes increasing their binary size. In addition, PGO optimizes the memory location of the browser code, keeping rarely and frequently used functions away from each other.

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