Windows 10 is a good operating system, but it can be a little buggy at times. Hopefully the forthcoming Anniversary Update will fix a lot of these issues, although it’s equally possible it may introduce more bugs along with the raft of new features.

If you’ve been having problems with the Start menu in Windows 10 the good news is Microsoft has released a new troubleshooting tool which can identify and fix many issues automatically.

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Huawei is a very popular brand in China, but hardly a household name in the USA. Quite frankly, outside of in-the-know Android fans, you'd be hard pressed to find many Americans that know the name.

The company is looking to change this, however, in a very big way. Its MateBook 2-in-1 is finally coming to the USA. This elegant Windows 10 tablet/laptop hybrid has a very affordable starting price, and you can pre-order it starting today.

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Windows 10 is a great operating system, offering a solid user interface and advanced security. The default browser, however, is not so great. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft Edge has a lot of potential, but Chrome is arguably the superior browser for now.

Google's browser is not perfect on Windows 10, apparently, as according to Microsoft, it is a battery vampire. In other words, Chrome -- as well as Firefox and Opera -- will drain your battery faster than the default browser. Using Microsoft Edge is like garlic to these vampires, as it can help you reclaim precious battery life.

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With the unstoppable growth of chat apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and the like, emoji have become an incredible phenomenon. The Unicode Consortium is due to publish the Unicode 9.0 spec tomorrow, and it seems that objections from Apple and Microsoft means we're not going to see a rifle emoji included.

The intervention is slightly surprising, yet not entirely unexpected. With the large number of high-profile mass-shootings such as in Orlando, debate about guns has come to the fore once again and the censorship of emoji is perhaps not completely unexpected. But at the same time, there is already a pistol emoji and there are not -- yet -- calls for it to be removed.

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Several readers have asked for my take on Microsoft’s purchase last week of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion -- a figure some think is too high and others think is a steal. I think there is generally more here than meets the eye.

Microsoft definitely needed more presence in social media if it wants to be seen as a legit competitor to Google and Facebook. Yammer wasn’t big enough. LinkedIn fits Redmond’s business orientation and was big enough to show that Satya Nadella isn’t afraid to open up the BIG CHECKBOOK.

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With the planned release date for the Windows 10 Anniversary Update drawing ever nearer, Microsoft is hard at work squashing as many bugs as it can. Naturally, this means new builds released to Windows Insiders won’t offer any significant new features, but they will contain important fixes, general improvements and welcome performance boosts.

Yesterday, Microsoft released Build 14367 to the Fast ring, and today it follows that up by releasing that build's predecessor, 14366, to the Slow ring. It must be pretty stable as it only arrived on the Fast ring on Tuesday.

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While many companies have been hesitant to adopt the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, the blockchain technology that made it possible is now being sought after by a number of companies due to the way it acts as a decentralized ledger that can be used to store data and keep track of how assets are exchanged.

Microsoft has just released the first details into how it will use blockchain in its upcoming Project Bletchley, which will add the technology into Azure services through some new middleware.

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Holy cow, Microsoft. We are just a couple days removed from the release of build 14366 for PC and 14364 for Mobile, yet here we are with a fresh build. Apparently Dona Sarkar and the Windows team like to keep things moving swiftly on the Fast Ring, which makes a lot of sense given the name!

Today, Microsoft releases Build 14367 for both PC and Mobile. If you have OCD, the shared build number should bring you some serenity. As usual, there are both improvements and known issues. Sadly, the mobile "Kids Corner" feature for children is being killed, but that is probably a good thing.

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Continuing the spending spree that started with snapping up LinkedIn earlier this week, Microsoft today announces that it has acquired Wand Labs. The mobile developer has a chat-centric focus, and will help Microsoft to build on the Conversation as a Platform ideas Sayta Nadella has been championing of late.

Neither Wand Labs nor Microsoft has shared details of the amount of money that is changing hands, but the acquisition will assist Microsoft in developing its Bot Framework. Wand Labs' natural language technologies will extend the capabilities of Windows, Bing, Microsoft Azure and Office 365, particularly with intelligent agents and chat bots.

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Yesterday, something went horribly wrong with my PC leaving me with no option but to use the Windows 10 Reset option to wipe all my programs and start over. It was the first time I’d had to use it, and things went smoothly enough, even if it took forever to get everything setup again afterwards.

The ability to Reset Windows 10 -- re-installing the OS while keeping, or removing your personal files -- is a great idea (although admittedly not as good as being able to install Windows over the top of itself as you could with XP), and now Microsoft is spinning it off into a standalone tool.

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The advent of app stores has meant that software installation is very hands-off process these days. Select the app you want, hit install, and everything is taken care of for you. On one hand, this is great as it simplifies and accelerates things, but it also removes an element of control from the user.

With an update to the Windows Store app in Windows 10, Microsoft is changing this. Building on the ability to move apps from one drive to another, Windows 10 Anniversary Edition will now ask where you would like to install larger apps -- a real boon for people with more than one hard drive.

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Do you ever see people working at Starbucks and think they are sort of pretentious? Understandably, seeing someone working in public is weird, but there is actually a lot of sense being made here. As someone who works in Starbucks almost every day (yeah, really), I can attest to the fact that it is a fabulous place for productivity. Obviously it has coffee and free Wi-Fi, which are the biggest pluses, but the overall atmosphere is conducive for work too. Since it can be a neutral meeting place, there is no awkwardness in ending a meeting and leaving -- it is very casual.

Today, Microsoft releases the Starbucks for Outlook Add-in. This is a marriage made in heaven, as coffee and Outlook are two of the most important things from a productivity perspective in many businesses. This add-in for Outlook lets you easily schedule a meeting at the famed coffee shop.

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Major tech companies rarely manage to surprise us, but Microsoft did it earlier this week when it announced the acquisition of LinkedIn. The software giant is spending an enormous sum -- $26.2 billion, to be exact -- to get its hands on the popular business-focused social network. The new Microsoft likes to take chances, and this high-profile purchase is certainly proof of that.

CEO Satya Nadella says that buying LinkedIn will allow Microsoft to "change the way the world works", but what is its motivation behind the purchase, how does it tie into its current strategy, and what do the two companies stand to gain from it?

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With the planned release date for the Windows 10 Anniversary Update drawing ever nearer, Microsoft is hard at work squashing as many bugs as it can.

Naturally, this means new builds released to Windows Insiders won’t offer any significant new features, but they will contain important fixes, general improvements and welcome performance boosts.

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Since the launch of Microsoft Edge, numerous changes and updates have been made to Microsoft's latest web browser. The arrival of ad-blocking was a real crowd-pleaser, but Microsoft is mindful of the fact that many enterprise users are going to be sticking with Internet Explorer for some time yet.

Today the company announces that some of the enterprise-specific enhancements and tweaks made to the Windows 10 version of IE11 will also be making their way to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. In fact, the improvements are rolling out to more Windows 10 users as well. Changes made to Internet Explorer 11 in Windows 10 version 1511 are also coming to version 1507 as part of the cumulative updates released today.

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