Microsoft

Microsoft partners are witnessing Office 365 technology updates, refreshes and changes outpacing their customers' ability to keep up with them.

This is according to a new study by customer experience specialist harmon.ie which surveyed more than 200 Microsoft partners worldwide. Thanks to the complexity and rate of change, partners are seeing new opportunities to step in and provide the much needed bridge to help companies keep up.

Just under two months ago, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 was on 300 million devices. That’s a sizeable number, achieved in around nine months.

Today, in officially announcing the launch date of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Microsoft says the number of devices running the OS has jumped to over 350 million.

Microsoft today introduces a pretty sweet back to school deal, giving students the option to save $300 with the purchase of a Surface device and an Xbox One console. Part of the bundle are three free extras, one of which is a wireless controller.

The promo is valid for all configurations of the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4, and starts at just $878. For the money, students get the base Surface Pro 4 and a 500GB Xbox One game bundle. The two devices are normally available to students for $809.10 and $279, respectively, when purchased separately.

Yesterday, Microsoft accidentally leaked the news that the eagerly awaited Windows 10 Anniversary Update is now set to arrive on August 2, and today the software giant confirms the news, along with details of what to expect from the update.

If you’re a Windows Insider, or have been following news of the various Insider Preview builds, you’ll know there’s a lot of new features and improvements in the update.

The much awaited Windows 10 Anniversary Update might not now be arriving until the start of August, but the Windows Insider previews continue to roll out at an impressive pace.

Today, Microsoft releases Build 14376 for both PC and Mobile to the Fast ring, and also pushes out Build 14372 to the Slow ring. Build 14376 contains over 1,800 fixes compared to the previous build released last week, which is quite some going.

Microsoft’s big Windows 10 Anniversary Update introduces a ton of new features and improvements to the new operating system, including a revamped Start menu, support for extensions in Edge, Windows Ink, and more.

Windows Insiders have been testing these new features for a while, and it’s looking very much as if the Anniversary Update will be a great improvement. The big update was set to be released on July 29, the same day as the free upgrade offer ended, but according to an accidental release from Microsoft, it seems as if the software giant is going to miss that window.

Microsoft has used every trick in the book to get Windows 7 and 8.1 users to upgrade to Windows 10. From making the new operating system free, and introducing an app to simplify the upgrade process, to fooling users into requesting an upgrade even if they really don’t want it.

The latest approach has been to change the behavior of the red corner X in the Get Windows 10 popup. People who clicked the button to close the message assumed they’d rejected the new OS, but had in fact sanctioned the upgrade. Microsoft even went so far as to remove the X in some cases, so people couldn’t even close the popup without agreeing to install the upgrade either immediately, or at a time arranged by Microsoft.

Windows 10 is a great desktop operating system, and for the most part, OEMs have manufactured some solid hardware to showcase it. Respectable companies like HP and Dell have done Microsoft proud with some truly satisfying touch-friendly laptops. Unfortunately, Microsoft has been a bit deficient with its Surface line. Don't get me wrong, the Pro 4 and Book are pretty good choices, but there have been many known bugs, and they are quite expensive.

There's a new player in the Windows world, however, and its looking to outdo Microsoft at its own Surface game. Huawei -- a well-known company in China -- is looking to make a name for itself in the USA. Its all-new affordable MateBook Windows 10 tablet/laptop hybrid is the company's biggest move yet. In such a crowded Windows 10 device world, is this computer worth your money?

Today at the Red Hat Summit, Microsoft announced the launch of .NET Core 1.0. Continuing the company's embrace of other platforms, the latest version of the open source .NET runtime platform supports Windows, OS X, iOS, Android and -- of course -- Linux.

At the summit, Red Hat said that .NET Core 1.0 will be fully supported by Red Hat Enterprise Linux. With Microsoft's partnership with Red Hat late last year, and the company's on-going expansion into the cross-platform cloud, Linux support is not entirely surprising. Also announced today was ASP.NET Core 1.0 and Entity Framework 1.0 for developers to get to work with.

The owner of a California-based travel agency has received a $10,000 settlement from Microsoft after a forced Windows 10 upgrade rendered her computer unusable. Teri Goldstein found that her work computer downloaded and started to install Windows 10 without her permission, but the installation failed.

The installation not only failed, Goldstein says, but also slowed down her computer, leading to days of lost business. After failing to get help from Microsoft's customer support, she took the company to court.

If you're in the market for a Surface 3, now is the time to buy one. Microsoft says that production of the Surface 3 will come to an end in December this year, and warns that stocks are already starting to run low.

It's not yet clear whether the end of production for the cheapest Surface device signals the end of Microsoft's Atom-based devices. But it certainly seems as though the company is keen to focus its attention on the Pro range as well as the Surface Book.

NetMarketShare is set to release its monthly desktop operating system usage share figures for June in one week’s time, and given how aggressively Microsoft has been pushing Windows 10 in the run up to the launch of the Anniversary Update, and the end of the free promotion period, it should make for interesting reading.

Microsoft has just updated its own Windows market share figures, covering April 2016, and as you might expect they show Windows 10 making big gains. Huge gains, in fact.

Windows 10 Insider Preview builds are coming thick and fast now in preparation for the Anniversary Update on 29 July.

We had a new build on Tuesday (Build 14371), and today Windows Insider chief Dona Sarkar has pushed the button on another new release -- Build 14372 for PC and Mobile. That’s just one build newer, but includes fixes designed to improve overall performance and reliability. But that’s not all.

Samsung is probably best known for its Android smartphones and tablets nowadays, but the company is so much more. It makes amazing televisions, plus appliances like refrigerators and washing machines. Samsung even makes Windows laptops and tablets, such as the 2-in-1 TabPro S.

Today, Samsung unveils the all-new 'Notebook 7 spin' laptop. This convertible Windows 10 computer can double as a tablet -- the touch screen can rotate and sit flush on the rear. It even has a backlit keyboard by default -- nice. Best of all, the pricing is rather competitive.

As we’ve reported numerous times before, and with increasing levels of frustration, Microsoft won’t ever seem to take no for an answer when it comes to Windows 10. When the Get Windows 10 app appears to users of Windows 7 or 8.1 they might reasonably expect to have the choice of saying "yes" or "no" to the free upgrade offer. Except while "yes" means "yes", "no" apparently means "yes, but you’ll need to trick me into installing it".

It’s not just Microsoft which pulls this kind of stunt either. This is a recent experience I had when installing Auslogics Disk Defrag.