Items tagged with Microsoft
This week the Microsoft Flight Simulator developers have gotten plenty of work completed after delays due to the coronavirus. They have released the Feature Discovery Series Episode 7 video touting the coming multiplayer features of the game. In the video, one of the developers is talking about how Microsoft plans to populate the virtual world. The developer says that the team wanted there to be one world for pilots no matter if they are flying in the simulator or flying in real life. The developer indicates that Microsoft will use real-time air traffic data to populate the simulation. That means aviation fans might be able to fly along with flights that are going in the real world or pilot friends...
Read more...
Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system has been plagued with numerous bugs recently, but one issue in particular is frustrating a large segment of its customer base. As we all well now, COVID-19/coronavirus has necessitated that many Americans work from home to adhere with quarantine guidelines. However, this particular Windows 10 bug is preventing some users from connecting to the internet with the apps they need most. For those that are working from home, and need to access their work system using a virtual private network (VPN), a recent cumulative update, KB4535996, is making those connections unstable. "Devices using a manual or auto-configured proxy, especially with a virtual...
Read more...
Microsoft has had more than its fair share of Windows 10 quality control problems over the past few months, with one of the most recent ones relating to its Windows Defender anti-malware software. As we reported earlier this week, users encountered a problem where initiating a system scan would result in Windows Defender failing during both automatic and manual scans. Windows 10 users were presented with a message that stated "Items skipped during scan" when using Windows Defender version 4.18.2003 or later. There was no indication if this was simply a bogus message, or if Windows Defender was actually failing to scan items on a user’s system. Although a workaround was...
Read more...
AMD has confirmed that some of the source code pertaining to its RDNA 2 graphics architecture used in Microsoft's upcoming Xbox Series X console and was posted to GitHub by a hacker who stole the data is legitimate, but downplayed the extent of the theft. According to AMD, the "stolen graphics IP is not core to the competitiveness or security" of RDNA 2. "At AMD, data security and the protection of our intellectual property are a priority. In December 2019, we were contacted by someone who claimed to have test files related to a subset of our current and future graphics products, some of which were recently posted online, but have since been taken down," AMD said in a statement. "While we are...
Read more...
Ever since Microsoft released Windows 10 way back in 2015, the company has made continual improvements to the operating system to make it more palatable for tablet users. Microsoft has come a long way from the basic tablet functionality that was included in Windows 7 and Windows 8.x, but there's still room for improvement. Enter Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 19592, which has now entered the Fast ring for testers. Microsoft is adding what it calls "tablet posture" improvements for 2-in-1 convertibles, which are increasingly becoming popular in the marketplace as an alternative to traditional laptops. It should be noted that tablet posture was trialed in earlier Insider builds (18970 through...
Read more...
Companies around the globe are finding themselves altering their way of business due to COVID-19/coronavirus. That burden even falls on massive multinational companies like Microsoft, which has been making adjustments to its cloud business to handle increased demand. Today, Microsoft has announced changes to Window 10 that will affect the way that cumulative updates are delivered to customers. Starting in May, Microsoft says that it will pause optional updates for Windows 10. Microsoft refers to these optional updates internally as C and D updates (C and D reference the third and fourth week of the month, whereas A and B are obviously the first and second week). This delivery...
Read more...
Microsoft has issued a security advisory warning users that hackers are known to be exploiting a zero-day vulnerability affecting most versions of Windows, including Windows 10, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008-2019. The vulnerability, labeled as Critical, as not yet been patched by Microsoft's engineers. What that essentially means is even if your PC is fully patched, you are still vulnerable to this exploit. The exploit exists within the Adobe Type Manager Library, which deals with the way Windows manages and renders fonts. "Two remote code execution vulnerabilities exist in Microsoft Windows when the Windows Adobe Type Manager Library improperly handles a specially-crafted...
Read more...
Few Windows 10 users will be surprised to hear that Microsoft has issued a Windows 10 update that has caused problems. This time out, an update for Windows Defender appears to have rendered the antivirus scan on Windows 10 unable to function. Reports indicate that when the antivirus protection software runs, it ends with a message that says "Items Skipped During Scan." For some Windows 10 users, the Defender scans fail after a couple minutes with a message that says "items skipped" and a statement that no threats were discovered on the device. The problem is that it's not clear which items are being skipped by Windows Defender and it's unclear if the antivirus software is actually scanning for...
Read more...
More people are working from home to social distance themselves, as recommended by numerous health organizations in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Can the Internet infrastructure hold up? It's an interesting question—several streaming video services, for example, have cut the quality of feeds in Europe. In light of these "new and unique challenges," Microsoft says it is prioritizing its cloud infrastructure to first responders and certain government bodies. "As companies operationalize to address new and unique challenges, we have mobilized our global response plan to help customers stay up and running during this critical time. We are actively monitoring performance and usage trends...
Read more...
The Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 development team has issued its latest development update to let fans know where the game stands. The developers say they stand with the community during this challenging time, referencing the many people that are quarantined and businesses that shut down across the country. The dev update says that with "guidance from our leadership," they have taken steps to establish remote workspaces that will minimize the impact of coronavirus on the development of the game. Developers have prioritized the team focus on key deliverables core to completing the game project while pausing work on deliverables that are not key to the core completion. In the near term, the...
Read more...
It may have taken a bit longer than Microsoft originally anticipated, but Windows 10 is now installed on more than one billion active devices (for real this time, unlike back in January when an Italian-language Microsoft website jumped the gun). To celebrate the achievement, Microsoft teased a fresh look headed to Windows 10. Panos Panay, chief product officer of Microsoft's devices group, posted the teaser video on Instagram. It's a catchy little clip that highlights some of the visual changes users can expect to see in future builds of Windows 10, which notably includes a refresh of the Start Menu. At long last, Live Tiles are getting the boot in favor of app logos. View this post on Instagram...
Read more...
Companies all around the country have sent employees home to work amid the coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak to help prevent the spread of the virus. Many of those people who are working from home are communicating with teams and coworkers using Microsoft Teams, which just so happened to turn three years old this week. Amid the coronavirus outbreak, Microsoft has seen unprecedented use of Teams, noting that it now has more than 44 million daily users. That figure has grown by 12 million users in the last seven days alone. Microsoft says those 44 million daily users have generated over 900 million meeting and calling minutes on Teams each day this week. Microsoft says that it has become "very clear"...
Read more...
Back in October of last year, Microsoft tested the water with AMD's Ryzen hardware by offering the 15-inch model of its Surface Laptop 3 with either a Ryzen 7 3780U or Ryzen 5 3580U. Will we see more Surface devices incorporate AMD hardware inside? A newly leaked benchmark suggests we will, with what could be a Surface Book 3 rocking a Ryzen 5 4500U and Radeon RX 5300M. Certainly we are going to see more AMD-powered laptops in general. AMD recently launched its mobile Ryzen 4000 series based on its Zen 2 CPU architecture, and models based around its newest hardware are starting to trickle into view. It's going to be interesting to see how they fare against against upcoming laptops built...
Read more...
Unless you've been living under a rock for quite a while, you know that 2020 is going to be a big year for gaming. AMD is set to launch its second-generation Navi-based RDNA 2 graphics cards, and it's hopeful that NVIDIA will launch its GeForce RTX 3000 Series based on next-generation Ampere GPU architecture. On the console front, both Sony and Microsoft are on track to deliver their PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X respectively in time for the Holiday 2020 shopping season. Given that consoles are becoming more and more like PCs – for example, the Xbox Series X uses an 8-core/16-thread AMD Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 graphics -- Microsoft is looking to consolidate...
Read more...
