Articles about Microsoft

Microsoft plans to end support for the Home and Pro versions of its Windows 10 operating system on October 14, 2025. The company released a new feature update for Windows 10, called Windows 10 version 22H2, just last month.

With the new support dates in effect, this version of Windows 10 will be supported until May 14, 2024. With less than 18 months of support left after May 14, 2024, some administrators and users may wonder about Microsoft’s plans in the coming three years regarding feature updates.

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AI services are more than a trend, they are a phenomenon, and every technology company wants to get in on the action. Microsoft is no exception; the company has just announced that its Azure OpenAI Service is now generally available, giving access to a far wider audience.

Microsoft is pushing Azure as "the best place to build AI workloads", and part of this involves harnessing the power of GPT-3-powered natural language. On the horizon is ChatGPT, which is described as "a fine-tuned version of GPT-3.5 that has been trained and runs inference on Azure AI infrastructure".

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Towards the end of last week, Microsoft confirmed an issue that stemmed from a flawed Microsoft Defender for Endpoint ASR rule that results in the deletion of app shortcuts from the Start menu, desktop and taskbar.

The company issued an update to prevent the problem from arising again, but said that there was no alternative but to manually recreate any shortcuts that had been lost. Now though Microsoft has released a PowerShell script that will automatically recreate some -- but not all -- deleted shortcuts. The company has also released a trio of advanced hunting queries (AHQs) to help with the issue.

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The writing has been on the wall for Groove Music for quite some time now, with Microsoft having resurrected Media Player as a replacement in Windows 11.

Now, as expected, the company is doing the same for Windows 10 users. Microsoft is bringing the same Media Player app found in Windows 11 to the older operating system, migrating users away from the Groove Music app.

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David Ringstrom coined the phrase "Either you work Excel, or it works you!" after observing how many users carry out tasks inefficiently.

In this book, Exploring Microsoft Excel's Hidden Treasures, you’ll learn how to get more done with less effort. This book will enable you to create resilient spreadsheets that are easy for others to use as well, while incorporating spreadsheet disaster preparedness techniques.

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Microsoft has been gradually evolving Windows 11, and the insider builds are where much of the innovation is to be found. But even for eager users who install the latest builds as soon as they are available, sometimes a little extra legwork is needed.

And this is true of two hidden search features -- one for the taskbar and one for the Start menu. These secret options can only be enabled using a special third party tool, and they give a very interesting glimpse into what Microsoft has planned for Windows 11 in the future.

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With the holidays becoming a distant memory, Microsoft is back to its weekly Windows 11 release schedule for Insiders in the Dev Channel.

Today's new flight, Build 25276, comes with the usual set of improvements and fixes, and includes a change for Task Manager and adjustments to the Settings account page. This build also sees the Network Troubleshooter being replaced with a new network connectivity troubleshooting experience through the Get Help app.

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Microsoft introduced Nearby Share in Windows 10 as a way to quickly transfer files between PCs that support it wirelessly. The system uses Bluetooth or Wi-Fi for the functionality and is supported on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Microsoft improved Nearby Share on Windows 11 by adding sharing over a private Wi-Fi network to the functionality.

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Anyone with an Xbox Series X or S can expect to see a software update from Microsoft in the near future that will change the way their console uses energy-saving power modes.

The company has announced that it is rolling out an update that should dramatically reduce power consumption when an Xbox is not in use. The update will switch consoles to using Shutdown (energy saving) mode, which Microsoft says can cut power usage by up to 20 times.

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Back in October, Microsoft announced plans to launch Microsoft Teams Premium, a paid-for version of its meeting and collaboration software. Now we know that the Premium tier is due to launch next month, and that as of February some of the features and options that are currently available to everyone for free will only be available to Premium users.

Although a precise launch date has not yet been revealed, Microsoft has told partners that the current schedule has Microsoft Teams Premium launching in "early February 2023". The company has also said that "some Teams features will move from Teams licenses to Teams Premium licenses".

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Microsoft has announced a new low-cost Microsoft 365 tier, giving access to a cloud storage boost and more. Priced at just $1.99 per month, Microsoft 365 Basic includes 100GB of cloud storage, removes advertising from the mobile and web versions of Outlook, and also includes access to the free web-based versions of various Office components.

Microsoft 365 Basic is replacing the current OneDrive Standalone 100GB plan, with existing users being automatically migrated later this month. Microsoft is quick to point out that while there is no change to plan costs, there are now more benefits for the same price -- including technical support for Windows 11.

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For anyone who has been put off upgrading to Windows 11 because of the way it looks, there could be some good news. While there is not a complete redesign of the operating system on the cards, there are supposedly plans to revamp the aesthetics of a key component -- File Explorer.

We have already seen Microsoft giving File Explorer some attention with the arrival of the somewhat polarizing tabbed interface. Now news has been leaked by reliable source FireCube Studios which says we can look forward to another major update as some point in the future.

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Microsoft has released the KB5022287 update for Windows 11 21H2, as well as the KB5022303 update for Windows 11 22H2.

Both updates are mandatory and, like this month's updates for Windows 10, include fixes for Local Session Manager (LSM) and ODBC issues. There is also a fix for a blue screen 0xc000021a error and numerous security patches.

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Less that two weeks into 2023, Microsoft has released the first cumulative updates of the year for Windows 10.

The KB5022282 and KB5022286 updates are available for Windows 10 versions 1809, 21H1, 21H2 and 22H2. Among the bugs addressed are an issue with the Local Session Manager (LSM) as well as fixing a Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) problem.

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Microsoft has revealed details of its latest foray into the world of artificial intelligence. Billed as a "neural codec language model", VALL-E is an advanced AI-driven text-to-speech (TTS) system that the developers say can be trained to speak like anyone's based on just a three-second sample of their voice.

The result is an incredibly natural-sounding TTS system that takes an entirely different approach to existing systems. Able to convey tone and emotion better than ever, VALL-E sounds realistically human, but there are concerns that it could be used for audio deepfakes.

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