Articles about Windows 10

Three-hundred-and-ninety-one in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Microsoft Store in the past seven days.

Microsoft's latest feature update for Windows 10, Windows 10 version 2004, has quite a few bugs. The company announced plans to change the names of the Windows Insider channels from "ring" to "channel" to better reflect the expected release quality of each channel.

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Two recent updates for Windows 10 introduced printer problems for some users. After investigating the issues caused by KB4560960 and KB4557957, the company issued an out-of-band update for some versions of Windows 10.

Now the company has issued another update for the problem, this time for people who have Windows 10 version 2004 -- or Window 10 May 2020 Update. While this patch may fix printing problems, Microsoft warns that it may introduce problems of its own.

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Yesterday, Microsoft released the first build from the Windows 10 20H2 branch to the Beta Channel -- what was previously the Slow ring.

Today, the software giant rolls out Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 20150 to the Dev Channel -- that’s what used to the Fast ring. This build comes with a number of changes, but the headline additions are to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

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As we reported a few days ago, two recent Windows 10 updates started to cause problems with printing for many users. Following an investigation into the KB4560960 and KB4557957 updates, Microsoft has now released an out-of-band update to address the issues.

For now, Microsoft has published patches for versions 1909, 1903, 1809 and 1803 of Windows 10 with the promise that "other affected versions of Windows will have updates released in the coming days".

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Change is coming to the Windows Insider Program. Yesterday Microsoft announced that it would be replacing its current ring system with channels, and today it rolls out the first build for the next big feature update of Windows 10, which it is officially calling 20H2.

Build 19042.330 (20H2) is arriving in the Beta Channel -- that’s what used to be the Slow ring -- but it won't be delivered to you automatically.

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Although it’s causing a bit of a trail of destruction in its wake for some users, the latest Windows 10 feature update -- version 2004, or the May 2020 Update -- is currently rolling out to compatible machines, and Microsoft is turning its attention to the follow up.

Windows 10, version 20H2 -- the next feature update’s official name -- will be released in the second half of this year, and Microsoft says it will be "delivered in an optimized way for anyone running the Windows 10 May 2020 Update". In other words, the next version will install like a monthly update for those on 2004.

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Windows 10 has always had a number of recovery options for when the time comes to reinstall the operating system. One of these is called Fresh Start, which gives you the option of reinstalling Windows 10 while retaining files and some settings and apps.

In Windows 10 May 2020 Update (Windows 10 version 2004), this handy recovery tool seems to have vanished. In fact, Microsoft has even updated its support pages to indicate that Fresh Start is only available in Windows 10 version 1909 and earlier. But the functionality of Fresh Start is still available -- you just need to know where to look.

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The Windows 10 version of PowerToys has been available as a preview for a little while now, and Microsoft is gradually adding more and more handy utilities to it.

But something you may have noticed recently is the appearance of an error message when running certain apps or commands as administrator. Run an app with elevated privileges, and you may see a message that reads: "We've detected an application running with administrator privileges. This blocks some functionality in PowerToys". Here's what's going on and how to fix it.

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Windows Insiders currently have a choice of three test rings -- Fast, Slow, and Release Preview. The Fast ring sees the most releases -- typically one new build a week -- and these tend to be the least stable. Slow ring flights come out much less often, and are more reliable and less buggy. Release Preview is for those who want early access to servicing updates on released versions of Windows 10.

That’s how it’s been for years, but now Microsoft is gearing up to make a big change that focuses on the quality angle of builds and better supports parallel coding efforts.

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It seems that few updates from Microsoft are without problems these days, so the fact that a big release such as Windows 10 May 2020 Update is causing issues should shock no one.

A particularly annoying problem that is plaguing some people who have installed the update is that they are not automatically signed into their user account in Chrome. As an extension of this issue, website passwords are not being remembered. Problems have also been found with Edge and OneDrive forgetting credentials after upgrading to Windows 10 version 2004.

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Earlier this week, Microsoft released June updates for Windows 10. As has become increasingly common of late, this has led to problems for many people.

Two updates -- KB4560960 and KB4557957 -- are proving problematic, and both updates are causing issues with printing. As well as causing some traditional printers to suffer print spooler errors, the bug is also causing issues with tools for saving files as PDFs.

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

The roll-out of the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge web browser is now in full swing. Microsoft started the roll-out to all devices running Windows 10 this week.

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Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows 7 five months ago, giving users a pretty stark choice -- switch to Windows 10, or stick with an aging operating system that the software giant is no longer supporting.

While the more sensible choice would be to upgrade to Windows 10, there are plenty of people who have avoided doing so for various reasons, not least that they just prefer how Windows 7 does things -- no Cortana, no forced Bing integration, no invasive telemetry…

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Who can forget the bad old days when Microsoft decided it knew best and forced Windows 10 upgrades on users without their consent? Windows 7 owners who left their systems alone for any length of time often returned to find they’d been 'upgraded' to Windows 10.

Thankfully those days are behind us, and now when Microsoft rolls out a Windows 10 feature update that’s compatible with your system, you can choose when to install it. Except, that is, when Windows 10 goes rogue and installs the latest update without warning.

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Although Windows 10 doesn’t spy on its users in the way it did when first launched, and people now have much greater control over their privacy settings, the truth is many users would prefer to tighten their control over the operating system further than Microsoft allows.

There are a number of great free third-party tools which let you boost your privacy and make various changes to the software, including removing annoying bundled software. That’s fine right? Not according to a lawsuit in which Microsoft says this is a breach of its license.

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