Amp up your collaboration skills and rock the modern workplace by harnessing the power of Microsoft 365 with this one-stop guide to the world's leading productivity platform.

The Microsoft 365 productivity solution for the workplace is a cloud-based service with many features for effective and secure collaboration virtually or in person. Whether you start your day with meetings in Teams, respond to Outlook emails, create documents with Office apps, or even automate your work with artificial intelligence, Microsoft 365 has you covered. But first, you must unlock the potential of this powerful solution to showcase your ability to keep up with the modern workplace and make an impact in your organization. To do that, you need Microsoft 365 For Dummies! 

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Minisforum is a well-known manufacturer of miniature computers. The company has many models with differing specifications and features. Quite frankly, it can be hard for consumers to choose, as there are so many options!

Today, Minisforum unveils yet another tiny PC, and it is one of the company's most impressive offerings. Called "NUCG5," this little Windows 11 desktop is powered by a 12th generation Intel Core i5 processor and comes with either 16GB or 32GB of RAM. While the specs are quite nice, there are three things that really make this model stand out -- the beautiful carbon fiber chassis, external Wi-Fi antennas, and two ThunderBolt 4 ports.

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One of the various things that puts people off upgrading to Windows 11 is that the operating system has very particular system requirements. For someone looking to upgrade from Windows 7, for instance, it is likely that their hardware will not make the grade. There is an answer, however, in the form of tiny11.

Coming from the same team that was behind tiny10 -- NTDEV -- tiny11 is a majorly stripped-back, bare-bones version of Windows 11 Pro that dramatically lowers the system requirements. The operating system needs just 8GB of disk space and 2GB of RAM, and it does not require TPM (Trusted Platform Module) support. This sounds great, but there are a few caveats to keep in mind.

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Five-hundred-and-twenty-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 stopped sales of Windows 10 on its own stores this week. The only client-based Windows operating system that is still available directly from Microsoft is Windows 11. Third-parties continue to sell Windows 10 licenses though.

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Microsoft is, it seems, at it again. No stranger to irritating ads and nags, the company has been spotted pestering Windows 10 users with a full-screen prompt to upgrade to Windows 11 for free.

If the appearance of an unwanted nag screen was not enough, the upgrade prompt is also rather deceptive, appearing to give users just two choices -- install Windows 11 now, or schedule the installation. It is actually possible to back out of the upgrade, but Microsoft has made it less than obvious.

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Microsoft today stops selling Windows 10, instead redirecting would-be purchasers towards Windows 11. There are ways around this however.

For Windows 11 testers in the Dev Channel, Microsoft has released a new build, and this one is available for Arm64 devices. Last week’s flight (Build 25284) was blocked due to a known issue that resulted in devices getting stuck at the OS boot logo.

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Although Windows 11 has a lot to recommend it, it does feel rather unfinished, and it’s a situation which isn’t helped by a never-ending stream of problematic updates -- no wonder people are already talking about its potential successor, Windows 12.

But maybe we don’t need to make a full version leap just yet, perhaps the problems with the new OS could be solved with a bit of thought and attention.

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Apple's iPad is a tablet, obviously, but when you add a keyboard case, it magically becomes a laptop too. But did you know M1 or M2-powered iPad tablets (running iPadOS 16.1 and higher) can also serve as a desktop PC with full-screen monitor support? It's true! By plugging in a USB-C dock, you can connect a keyboard, mouse, monitor, external storage, and more.

Today, Plugable launches a new USB-C Stand Dock (model number UDS-7IN1). While this product is primarily designed for M1/M2 iPad devices (such as iPad Pro and iPad Air 5), it can work with USB-C Android devices and Windows tablets (such as Surface Pro) as well. While this dock should technically work with laptops and desktops, the "stand" aspect (which props up the phone or tablet like a monitor), would be wasted.

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It is no secret that the updates released for Windows 11 have been rather more problematic than updates for previous versions of Windows. Microsoft has managed to earn itself an unenviable reputation for poor quality control, with update after update causing a wide range of issues over the past year and a half.

The problems with updates tend to rear their heads once they have been installed, but there is also an issue that is preventing people from installing updates in the first place. The recently released KB5022303 and KB5022360 updates are among those that fail to install, generating various unhelpful error codes including 0x800f0988 and 0x800f0831.

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Updates for Windows 11 have proved to be astonishingly problematic over the last year and a half. Just about every patch and update that has been released has ended up causing new issues that have had to be addressed with yet another update.

Considering the problems caused by Windows Update, it is interesting to see a new option Microsoft is working on at the moment. Hidden in the latest Insider builds of Windows 11 is a new addition to the Recovery tools in the System section of the Settings app: Fix problems using Windows Update.

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Five-hundred-and-twenty-seven 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 won't sell its Windows 10 operating system anymore on its website after January 2023. Third-party retailers and OEMs may still sell Windows 10 licenses though.

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Ahead of a full, wider release next month, Microsoft has made available a preview version of the KB5022360 update for Windows 11.

This is a non-security update, but it does include -- in Microsoft's words -- "quality improvements". What this means in practice is that the update addresses a number of Windows 11 problems such as an issue with searchindexer.exe and another with firmware Trusted Platform Modules (TPM). It also introduces a change to the way .NET Framework update previews are installed.

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More than nine months before the end of support for Windows 11 21H2, Microsoft has started to forcibly upgrade users to Windows 11 22H2 -- or the Windows 11 2022 Update as it is also known.

While the upgrades may be unwanted, Microsoft is not being quiet about what it is doing. The company is using a security angle to try to win over those who may be unhappy with what is happening.

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Running Windows on Macs is nothing new, but with the loss of BootCamp support for the newer Silicon-based Macs (those running M1 and M2 chips), your only option for installing Windows is through virtualization software. You’ll find plenty of free and paid-for options available, so what makes UTM 4.1 stand out from a crowded field of virtualization tools?

When it comes to running Windows, UTM offers nothing you can’t find elsewhere in the form of Parallels Desktop, but there’s one crucial difference: UTM is open source and -- if you’re willing to update it manually -- completely free. If you want automatic updates, or you simply want to support the project, a one-time fee of $9.99 can be paid by purchasing UTM through the Mac App Store.

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It's an exciting day for Windows 11 Insiders in the Dev Channel as Build 25284 arrives with a selection of handy fixes and a brand new widget for the Messenger app.

Unfortunately, this new build won’t be made available for Arm64 devices due to a known issue that results in devices getting stuck at the OS boot logo.

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