Articles about Windows 10

When it comes to Windows, sometimes Microsoft overthinks and overdesigns things -- remember the Windows 8 nightmare? MS Paint is a wonderful tool that people have enjoyed for decades. Microsoft famously tried to replace it with Paint 3D, but no one wanted that as it was terrible. Look, people know what they like and Microsoft should respect that. Apps like Paint, Notepad, and the Snipping Tool are simple to use and work well.

Well, folks, it seems like Microsoft is finally starting to get it. After threatening to kill off the popular Snipping Tool, the company today announces that not only is the app alive and well, but it has a very bright future.

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Microsoft introduced its subscription-based Windows 365 last month, and earlier in the week announced general availability for the service that makes it possible to run full versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11 in the cloud.

If your business was planning on joining the Cloud PC revolution but hasn’t already done so, you might have a bit of a wait on your hands before you can take the service for a spin -- struggling to keep up with demand, Microsoft has paused its free trials.

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The transition to PCIe Gen4 is in full effect, with more and more computers and motherboards having the new standard. Whether or not the user truly needs the benefits of PCIe 4.0 is debatable, but it is still cool regardless. After all, it is important to continually push boundaries.

One of the best aspects of PCIe 4.0 is faster solid state drives. For instance, today, Micron unveils the latest such SSD from Crucial. Called "P5 Plus," the PCIe Gen4 M.2 SSD is insanely fast. The drive features 6600MB/s read speed across all capacities. The 1TB and 2TB capacities offer 5000MB/s write speed, while the 500GB variant offers 3000MB/s.

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Microsoft is making a change to the way so-called Potentially Unwanted Apps (PUAs) are handled by Defender and Edge in Windows 10.

Starting this month, Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 will default to blocking PUAs. Users who want greater control over the apps that can be run on their computer have the option of disabling the setting, but this does mean missing out on an important protective measure.

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Back in the days before Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and WhatsApp, we had other chat platforms such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), MSN Messenger, and ICQ to name a few. At first, everyone used the first-party apps for each platform, but eventually, many of us switched to third-party software that could connect to multiple chat platforms at once. The multi-chat apps were more convenient, but equally important, they were usually advertisement-free. AIM, for instance, had annoying ads.

One of the most popular such programs was Gaim, which was ultimately renamed to Pidgin. Believe it or not, Pidgin is still being developed to this day. The open source Pidgin is available on both Linux and Windows. Unfortunately, use of Pidgin has dipped dramatically over the last decade. Hell, I don't even remember the last time I used it. And now, in what is certainly a huge blow to Pidgin, the Ubuntu Linux-based Xubuntu is finally ditching it.

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Microsoft took the wraps off its subscription-based Windows 365 last month, and today the software giant announces general availability for it.

Windows 365 is a cloud-based service that lets anyone securely stream full Windows 10 or Windows 11 to their personal or corporate devices, regardless of the native operating system.

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The PrintNightmare vulnerability has indeed proved to be something of a nightmare for Microsoft, and it's one that shows no signs of coming to an end. Security researchers have unearthed yet another method of exploiting the Windows print spooler vulnerability, making it possible for anyone to gain administrator privileges.

The latest method involves creating a remote print server and connecting to it. This causes Windows to install a driver which requires loading a DLL with System privileges -- a fact that can be exploited to launch an elevated Command Prompt. Even on a fully patched and updated copy of Windows 10 21H1, the attack works.

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Windows 11 is rumored to be released in October, and since it is already in the Beta Channel, that rumor seems plausible. So, yeah, Microsoft is sure to dominate headlines in the final quarter of the year.

While a new version of Windows is surely exciting, that won't be the only operating system getting a new version later in the year. You see, the Linux Mint developers have shared some exciting news about when version 20.3 of the Ubuntu-based distro will be available for download.

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Windows Subsystem For Linux has evolved hugely over the years, and with WSL2 things have become really impressive. But in order to enjoy everything the WSL2 has to offer, you have to have it installed, and this is something that Microsoft has acknowledged as being unnecessarily complicated.

So the company has done something about it. In the latest preview builds of Windows 11 and Windows 10, you do not need to jump through endless hoops to get WSL2 installed; a single command is now all it takes.

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Four-hundred-forty-nine in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft revealed this week that future Windows Server releases will all be Long-Term Service Channel releases. All releases will be supported for 10 years, with 5-years of mainstream updates and 5-years of extended support updates.

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It's time for Windows 10 users to gamble with another update. With the release of the KB5004296 update, Microsoft addresses a longstanding problem with game performance under Windows 10.

KB5004296 does not include any security fixes but the promise of boosting game performance is a major highlight. Microsoft says that the update "addresses an issue that prevents power plans and Game Mode from working as expected", pointing out that this has been causing "lower frame rates and reduced performance while gaming".

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Windows 10 is not a terrible operating systems. In fact, other than the extreme telemetry (spying), it is pretty good. With that said, the upcoming Windows 11 is very polarizing, featuring radical changes to the user interface. Not to mention, the system requirements will leave many still-capable computers unable to upgrade. These unfortunate computer owners will have to decide whether to continue using Windows 10 or buy a new Windows 11-compatible PC.

Thankfully, there is an arguably better option -- just switch to Linux! Yes, modern Linux-based operating systems are very well-supported and most will run great on aging hardware (unlike Windows 11). Linux Lite, which uses the Xfce desktop environment, is one of the best Linux distributions for Windows-switchers, as it is lightweight, modern, and familiar.

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Four-hundred-forty-eight in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft revealed this week that its DirectStorage API is coming to Windows 10 as well (not just Windows 11 as originally announced). The API improves game loading times on NVMe storage devices significantly.

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A local privilege escalation vulnerability has been discovered in Windows 10 that can used to gain access to otherwise inaccessible areas of the registry. In turn, this access makes it possible to discover passwords, obtain DPAPI decryption keys and more. The problem also affects Windows 11.

Dubbed HiveNightmare (because of the access it allows to registry hives), the zero-day vulnerability comes hot on the heels of the PrintNightmare security flaw. While no patch is currently available, Microsoft has provided details of a workaround in the meantime.

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Although much of the development focus at Microsoft is understandably on Windows 11 at the moment, work is still underway on polishing up the next feature update for Windows 10 -- 21H2 -- and getting it ready for release.

The latest new flight for this, Build 19044.1149 (KB5004296), is now available in the Release Preview Channel.

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