Articles about Windows 10

Two weeks ago, Microsoft began rolling out a refreshed Start menu and personalized taskbar for Windows 10 Insiders on the Dev Channel. The new menu, which removes the solid color backplates behind the logos and adds a translucent background to tiles, comes as part of Build 20161 but isn’t available to everyone. We’ve already shown you one way to force Windows 10 to display this menu, but if you're feeling adventurous we have a second, more powerful method for you to follow.

Microsoft uses a system called Feature Control to hide new and unfinished features from users -- including the new Start menu -- but it’s possible to find and enable these, giving you the chance to test them out before anyone else.

Continue reading →

Fans of Microsoft’s famous Flight Sim won’t have long to wait until the latest incarnation arrives. This promises to be the most detailed and authentic version to date, with incredibly accurate landscapes that are ever-changing, coupled with highly detailed aircraft, covering everything from light planes to commercial jets.

Microsoft Flight Simulator has been around since 1982 -- feeling old yet? -- and the new version will be available in three editions -- Standard ($59.99), Deluxe ($89.99) and Premium Deluxe ($119.99).

Continue reading →

Three-hundred-and-ninety-four 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 unveiled a redesigned Start Menu in the latest Windows Insider build. Check out Mark's article on enabling the Start Menu in that particular version.

Continue reading →

Microsoft has revealed details of a new platform security technology which the company says will prevent data corruption attacks.

Kernel Data Protection (KDP) works by marking sections of kernel memory as read-only, so there is no way it can be tampered with. The technology comes in response to the fact that increasing numbers of attackers are using data corruption techniques to bypass security, gain additional privileges, and more.

Continue reading →

Windows 10 has a number of things that users find annoying about it, not least that it forces you to use other Microsoft products. Type a web query into the Windows search box, or ask Cortana something, and the results you receive will come from Bing.

Microsoft has recently replaced its old Edge browser with a Chromium version, and while this is a big improvement, the software giant has forced it onto users and made it hard (but thankfully not impossible) to remove.

Continue reading →

Ah, PowerToys… how much we love thee! After reviving the much-loved utilities for Windows 10, Microsoft has wasted no time in releasing update after update, adding more and more tools and refining this incredible software.

It's only a week since the release of PowerToys v0.19.0, but the development team already has a new version for you to try out.

Continue reading →

Since the days of Windows 8, operating system settings have been split across the traditional Control Panel and the newer Settings. Over time, Microsoft has gradually tried to encourage people away from the Control Panel, burying it deeper and deeper in Windows.

Now the company has taken yet another step that signals the end of the line for the Control Panel you've come to know and love. In the latest builds of Windows 10, the System applet has been rendered all but redundant.

Continue reading →

After giving us a tease of a redesign, Microsoft rolled out the new look Start menu in Windows 10 build 20161.

But while there was a great deal of excitement about the cleaner, more refined look complete with translucent backgrounds, many Windows users were disappointed to find that the new Start menu was not available to everyone. Here's what you need to do to see the new Start menu.

Continue reading →

We've already seen Windows 10 May 2020 Update causing a range of problems for users, including login issues, problems with Storage Spaces and issues with OneDrive. But there are also some people for whom even the installation is problematic.

We've already heard about people being unable to get the update because their "device isn't quite ready". Now there are reports that some users are seeing a message informing them that "this PC can't be upgraded to Windows 10". In the error message, Microsoft tells affected users that: "Your PC settings aren't supported yet on this version of Windows 10".

Continue reading →

Three-hundred-and-ninety-three 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 launched a redesigned Start Menu in the latest Insider build that it released this week. The main changes make the tile backgrounds semi-transparent and introduce support for accent colors.

Continue reading →

Microsoft has been teasing users with images of its refreshed Windows 10 Start menu for a while now, and you can finally try it out for yourself.

But that’s not all the software giant is changing in Windows 10. In addition to a much nicer looking Start menu, it’s introducing a personalized taskbar, an improved notification experience, and also adding extra features to Alt+Tab.

Continue reading →

Intel's diminutive NUC bare-bones computers are quite a bit of fun. Not only are they cute and tiny, but once you add RAM and storage, they can run both Windows 10 and Linux brilliantly. Hell, I am currently running macOS on one as a "Hackintosh" (Shh! Don't tell Apple). The only knock on the NUC is that you can't really upgrade the GPU. Unless your NUC has Thunderbolt 3 and you add a pricey eGPU, you are essentially stuck with Intel's ho-hum onboard graphics.

With the unveiling of the "Ghost Canyon" Intel NUC 9, however, this changed. While obviously bigger than earlier NUC models, this unit can accommodate a proper gaming card from AMD or NVIDIA (if you choose to add one). You can even eventually upgrade the CPU with what Intel calls replaceable "compute elements." And now, if you have some money to spare, you can finally buy the top model of Ghost Canyon -- the drool-worthy Intel NUC 9 Extreme is available today!

Continue reading →

Microsoft has released two off-schedule patches for serious vulnerabilities in the Windows Codecs Library affecting Windows 10 and Windows Server.

With the updates, which have been released through the Microsoft Store, the company is addressing the "critical" CVE-2020-1425 and the "serious" CVE-2020-1457. Both are Remote Code Execution vulnerabilities, and both have been addressed with little fanfare from Microsoft.

Continue reading →

Microsoft recently started to push out the new, Chromium-based version of Edge to all Windows 10 user via the KB4559309 update. But in addition to bringing a new browser, the update brought problems for some people.

Rather than leading to crashes or restarts, or causing error messages like some previous problematic updates have done, some people are complaining that their computers are noticeably slower after installing KB4559309.

Continue reading →

Microsoft has released a new data recovery app which can be used to retrieve files that have been deleted, or get back documents from drives that have been formatted or have become corrupt.

Windows File Recovery is a free app in the Microsoft store which can be used to recover data that has been lost for a variety of reasons. The command line tool can be used to retrieve data from local hard drives as well as removable media such as USB drives and memory cards.

Continue reading →