Gabe Aul, long the face of the Windows Insider Program, is standing down from that particular leadership role to focus instead on his work at Engineering Systems Team in WDG. 18 months, 35 desktop builds and 22 mobile builds down the road, Aul has realized he's unable to give 100 percent to both roles.

The new head of the Insider program is Dona Sarkar who has been with Microsoft since the days of Vista. Having worked on Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, as well as HoloLens, the Windows Insider Program leadership role is one she says she has been "waiting for this job for 11 years" to get. With Windows 10 Anniversary Update due to launch in just a few weeks, she's being thrown in at the deep end.

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Microsoft is opening its HoloLens to a range of partners, the company announced at Computex today. This means that future VR headsets based on the HoloLens platform will come from a variety of manufacturers, and will be available in different forms, taking full advantage of Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

With a price tag of $3,000, the existing official HoloLens headset is out of the reach of many people, but in opening up the platform to partners, Microsoft says that cheaper price points should also be available. The company is also doing something interesting. One of the criticisms levelled at HoloLens is its limited field of vision. Partners will be able to build devices with wider fields of vision meaning that the official HoloLens will almost certainly not be the best.

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Security firm Trustwave has discovered a zero-day exploit for Windows for sale on an underground Russian hacking forum. A user going by the name BuggiCorp says the vulnerability affects all versions of Microsoft's operating system, from Windows XP and 2000 upwards, including both 32- and 64-bit versions.

The source code for the exploit is offered for upwards of $90,000, and the seller explains that it can be used to elevate the privileges of any software process to SYSTEM level -- the highest there is. Payment is requested in Bitcoin, but while the exploit is considered serious, experts suggest that the asking price is a little high.

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Last month, NetMarketShare’s initial desktop operating system usage share figures made it look as if Windows 10’s growth was badly stalling, gaining just 0.2 percentage points in April to put it on 14.35 percent. However, revised figures showed it had in fact gained 1.19 percentage points, and was sitting on 15.34 percent. That’s very much in keeping with the new operating system’s growth in previous months.

For May, Windows 10 really packed on the users, thanks in no small part to Microsoft going all out on forcing the operating system on to users of Windows 7 and 8.1. Let's give Microsoft a nice big slow handclap for the achievement.

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Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft are working in conjunction with the European Commission to try to tackle the problem of illegal online hate speech. This is something that the companies have taken steps to fight individually, but now there is a concerted effort to combat hate speech and terrorist propaganda in Europe.

New EU regulations require the companies to review notifications they receive about hate speech within 24 hours. The four tech giants have agreed to the new code of conduct, saying the 'majority' of reported content will be examined within a day.

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If you’re an Outlook.com user you may have noticed a lot more spam arriving in your inbox over the past day or so.

BetaNews writers have reported suddenly receiving a lot more junk messages in their Outlook.com accounts, and we’re not alone -- it’s a problem affecting users globally. But don’t panic, it’s nothing to do with the mega-breach affecting Tumblr and MySpace users, but rather something far more innocuous.

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With online ad blocking becoming ever more popular, companies have to find new ways to push their products at people. With Windows 10 -- which is being aggressively pushed onto people -- Microsoft has found the perfect vehicle.

We've already seen ads in the Start menu and ads on the Lock Screen, but it doesn't end there. Windows Insiders are also treated to ads in one of the new features available in the preview builds -- the Windows Ink Workspace.

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Microsoft has today announced a new department designed to invest into disruptive start-ups in their early phases.

The department, led by Nagraj Kashyap (corporate vice president) and executive vice president of business development Peggy Johnson, holds the name Microsoft Ventures.

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Both Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile are inconsequential in the mobile market. In other words, Microsoft has largely failed with its mobile platforms.

With that said, Microsoft is not a failure in mobile overall. Its applications and services work brilliantly on the mobile platforms that matter -- Android and iOS. Today, the Windows-maker announces that Xiaomi will be pre-installing both Office and Skype on its Android devices.

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A lot has been said about Windows 10, Microsoft's latest operating system. That's both good and bad because, while it's an improvement over the previous 8.x offering, the company is trying hard to foist the new OS upon users. Really hard. To the point that it has led to embarrassing high-profile situations.

Undaunted, the company continues with its strategy, but now one hardware maker is telling its users to say no to the nagging messages.

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Microsoft is like an annoying salesman who pitches a product you don’t want then refuses to leave you alone after getting a loud and clear "No". So, it keeps trying, again, and again, and again, hoping that you will finally make the "right" decision. It does not care why, when or how you do it, just as long as it gets you on the Windows 10 bandwagon.

This is the Microsoft of today, a company that risks being in the position of having what I consider to be the best Windows release yet and a user base alienated by its overly aggressive tactics. Desperate people do desperate things, I know, but this feels like a step too far in the wrong direction.

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Citrix and Microsoft announced recently that they will be expanding their partnership. More precisely, Citrix will use Microsoft’s Azure as its cloud.

Besides Azure, they will also integrate Citrix XenMobile and NetScaler into Microsoft’s Enterprise Mobility Suite.

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There is no shortage of Surface competitors these days, as more and more manufacturers realize that there is huge potential for growth in the hybrid device market. Even Apple has entered this space, launching the iPad Pro last year to quickly establish itself as the sales leader. Can ASUS, with its new Transformer 3 devices which it just unveiled at Computex, have something to say in this market?

ASUS seems to understand what makes hybrid devices -- or ultraportables -- so appealing. The Transformer 3 Pro -- the top of the line model in the line -- features powerful hardware in a shell similar to a large tablet. It also has a keyboard, that is included in the box, and a screen big enough for every day use. On paper, it might be a better laptop replacement than Microsoft's Surface Pro 4.

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If a discovery by a reddit user is anything to go by, Xbox One game streaming could be making its way to Windows 10 Mobile. The Xbox Beta app from the latest Fast Ring Insider Preview build appears to include references to streaming games from an Xbox One to a mobile device.

Reddit user, eric5949, noticed that a new 'Play from console' option has appeared on his handset. Microsoft has not said anything about this feature yet, but it's possible that it's something we could see later in the year in Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

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In days of yore, filenames in Windows were limited to the 8.3 format -- just eight characters for the filename, and three for the extension. With the arrival of Windows 95, Microsoft stripped away this limit and allowed for much longer names.

That said, the Windows file system still imposes some restrictions such as which characters can be used in filenames, and the overall length of paths. For some time the maximum path length has been 260 characters, but in the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview, it is possible to use Group Policy or a registry hack to remove this limit.

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