Items tagged with office 365
Heads up, Microsoft has issued a patch for what security researchers had dubbed a "highly sophisticated" zero-day vulnerability in Windows that hackers could use to target Office 365 and Office 2019 users. It is available as a standalone release, and also as part of this month's cumulative Patch Tuesday update, which rolled out to PCs yesterday. Tracked as CVE-2021-40444, the zero-day flaw is described as a Microsoft MSHTML remote code execution vulnerability. Prior to releasing the patch, Microsoft said it was aware of targeted attacks against potential victims, by way of specially crafted Microsoft Office documents. "An attacker could craft a malicious ActiveX control to be used by a Microsoft...
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Security researchers say they discovered and reported to Microsoft a "highly sophisticated" zero-day attack vector in Windows that targets Office 365 and Office 2019 users. In some cases, simply opening an infected document would be enough to compromise a PC. Furthermore, there does not yet exist a patch, though one is on the way. In a Twitter post, cybersecurity outfit EXPMON said it notified Microsoft of the flaw over on Sunday and has been "working tirelessly over the holiday weekend to protect users." EXPMON also said it was able to reproduce the attack method on a typical user environment. Microsoft released a security bulletin (CVD-2021-40444) saying it is investigation the situation, and...
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Even though many are out of the office right now, Microsoft has made a sly announcement of a new version of Office software. This recent Office announcement came at Microsoft Ignite 2020, and the latest software is slated for the second half of 2021. At the conference, Microsoft announced the next versions of Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, Skype for Business Server, and Project Server coming in the latter part of 2021. Just below that, though, was a little blurb about a new Microsoft Office edition: Microsoft Office will also see a new perpetual release for both Windows and Mac, in the second half of 2021. The first takeaway from this is that a new version of Microsoft Office is in the works....
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Microsoft has just debuted a new feature that is bound to be useful for a wide range of people, from students to business professionals to the “Regular Joe”. The Redmond, Washington-based software giant has debuted what it calls Transcribe in Word, which allows you to easily upload audio or even video that you have previously recorded into Word, and have that speech transcribed into words that you can insert into any document. If you do choose to upload a conversation, however, it must be presented in MP3, WAV, M4A, or MP4 formats up to 200MB in size (and up to 5 hours in length). You can even record conversations directly into Word through your microphone without needing to upload...
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Microsoft has announced some significant changes to its cloud offerings, starting with a major change in how it markets its software tools and services to consumers. Office 365, which is the name of the subscription software as service -- that was once standalone Microsoft Office software, including Word, Excel, and Outlook -- is going away, as of April 21. It will be replaced by new Microsoft 365 plans for consumers. The Microsoft 365 plans will include offerings for both individuals and families. Family plans will cover up to six people in the same household. Pricing starts at $6.90 per month for individuals and $9.99 per month for families. This pricing is the same as it is for current Office...
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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...
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Microsoft has been on a big services push under Satya Nadella’s helm, which means that its customers are becoming increasingly reliant on its cloud platforms. However, this over-reliance on the cloud also means that business customers can be left in a lurch any time that Microsoft experiences an outage. Customers are feeling the effects hard today, as multi-factor authentication (MFA) for multiple Microsoft products is currently experiencing an outage. Affected products include Office 365 and Microsoft Azure, with customers unable to login to either service with MFA. The login issue is occurring because users are not receiving authentication requests via SMS messages or via a phone call...
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Microsoft is killing off a way that many people were able to score deeply discounted versions of Office for home use. Office 2019 is available to purchase with a perpetual license (meaning you purchase it once, and it's yours forever), but Microsoft is removing this option from its Home Use Program (HUP). HUP allows business and educational institutions that purchase licensed software from Microsoft to offer that same software to employees at [often times] incredibly low prices. For example, my wife is a teacher, and her school district allows her to purchase Office Professional Plus 2019 for around $15 for use on her computer at home. Microsoft has now updated its HUP FAQ to state....
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If you're still hanging on to the Windows 7 operating system on your rig, Microsoft wants you to abandon ship and upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as possible. Windows 7 was first released on July 22nd 2009, which was nearly a decade ago. The operating system proved very popular following the disappointment of Windows Vista, and was quickly adopted by both consumers and businesses. That popularity has been a double-edged sword for Microsoft. The performance, stability, and overall ubiquity of Windows 7 has led many to simply stick with the OS over upgrading to the [long forgotten] Windows 8/8.1 operating system and even the current Windows 10. But with support for Windows 7 coming...
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It can be a major pain to transfer information from physical documents to digital ones sometimes. As it turns out, Microsoft is working on a feature that would make this process faster and much more convenient. Microsoft Excel users will soon be able to take a picture of a receipt or some other form of table data and insert that information directly into a Excel sheet via some fancy optical character recognition tricks. Users will first tap the “Insert data from the picture” button on their tablet or smartphone. Once they have fit their data within a red capture area, they will be able to take a photo and crop it. Excel will then import the data and convert it into a table. Users...
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Microsoft published a set of three videos that it has dubbed "The Twins Challenge" to help promote its Office 365 software. In the videos, Microsoft is taking shots at more traditional office programs such as its recently released Office 2019 in order to demonstrate the advantages held by Office 365. The three videos published to date focus on the three most important components of Microsoft's Office product suite: PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. To make the videos a tad more comical, Microsoft hired biological twins to test these utilities, with the twist being that one twin would use Office 2019 whereas the other twin would use Office 365. The most impressive video demonstration was for the Excel...
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Under Satya Nadella's leadership, Microsoft has made no bones about embracing subscription services for their products. Office 365 has largely phased out its perpetual licensed counterpart - e.g. Office 2019 - by enticing users with a low up-front cost, continual updates, and additional perks utilizing Microsoft's cloud services. According to Nadella, Microsoft is now looking to differentiate the subscription package further. "I think about Microsoft 365 as a two-sided market," says Satya Nadella. "What we are doing with Office 365 or what we will soon be talking about as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, those would be again completely consumer businesses." Microsoft 365 is not...
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Over the last few years, many consumers have complained that Microsoft has focused primarily on businesses. The company abandoned products like the Windows Phone and Microsoft Band Fitness Trackers, and has instead labored on its business applications, data, and AI. Microsoft recently stated that it would be working harder to attract consumers. A few recent job listings have hinted that the company plans to fulfill that promise, and Microsoft will likely release a 365 Consumer Subscription. Microsoft has posted job listings for a Microsoft 365 Consumer Subscription product manager and senior product manager. The responsibilities for both positions include understanding the needs of consumers...
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Microsoft just announced that its next-generation Office 2019 productivity suite is available today for volume license customers. This is the traditional "offline" version of Office -- you know, the way that Microsoft used to deliver the productivity package before it began to focus more on the cloud-based Office 365 and recurring revenue from that subscription model. Office 2019 will replace Office 2016 in Microsoft's productivity suite lineup, and will come loaded with the following software applications: Word Excel PowerPoint Outlook Project Visio Access Publisher According to Microsoft, it is continuing to devote resources to standalone Office releases to cater to customers "who...
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Microsoft had issues with its datacenter near San Antonio, Texas yesterday -- some of which are still ongoing -- that led to some of the server and network infrastructure equipment operating in that facility to shut down, impacting multiple major cloud services for many of its customers. The cause was a lightning strike resulting from severe storms in the area that led to what Microsoft describes as a "power voltage increase that impacted cooling systems." With cooling systems being critical in a data center, the loss of cooling meant that Microsoft's automated data center procedures to keep data and hardware from being lost or damaged began a "structured power down process." By 11:40 AM Microsoft...
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It's not uncommon for people to work with multiple electronic devices these days. You might have a laptop for work, a laptop for personal use, a desktop at home, and a tablet for yourself and several devices for other family members. Lots of devices are common, and this posed a problem for some people when it came to subscribing to Microsoft Office 365. Originally Office 365 was device-limited depending on the subscription you went with. Office 365 Home was limited to ten devices total with five users able to access Office while Office 365 Personal had a limit to one PC or Mac and one tablet for one user. Microsoft has announced a big change coming on October 2 that will impact usefulness of...
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Office 365 is getting a facelift. Microsoft recently announced that it will release several updates for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Microsoft’s goal with these changes is to offer users a more powerful and streamlined experience. Microsoft will initially release three updates. First, Office 365 will include a new “ribbon” that is cleaner and dedicates more space for collaboration. Users who tend to work more on their own or prefer to have most of the commands at their fingertips will still be able to expand the ribbon to the familiar three-line view. Microsoft argued that one of the reasons that it is allowing customers to keep the classic ribbon is because users “have...
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When Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would be the last monolithic version of Windows ever, it raised some questions on how that would work and what it meant for future updates. Now almost two years after the OS was released to the public, Microsoft has some concrete answers. Going forward, Microsoft says users and IT professionals can expect (and plan for) two major upgrades to Windows 10 every year. The same goes for Office 365 ProPlus, Microsoft's productivity suite that lives in the cloud. Barring any delays, these will roll out every March and September. Microsoft has already doled out two major upgrades to Windows 10—the Anniversary Update (Redstone 1) last year and more recently the...
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Computer users are living in a digital world where their data is increasingly coming under attack. While governments and even news organizations are being threatened by hackers from around the global, John and Jane Smith also have to deal with increasing levels of malware and ransomware everywhere they turn. To help combat these security threats, Microsoft is beefing up security in some if its most popular software products: Windows 10 and Office 365. In an effort to strangle phishing emails, 90 percent of which hijack your browser to launch an attack, Microsoft has introduced Windows Defender Application Guard for Microsoft Edge. If a link included in an email directs the user to a site that...
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Word is ubiquitous these days (as are the rest of its Office app counterparts), which is possible thanks to decades of development and advancement by Microsoft. But despite the fact that Word may have a few grey whiskers jutting from its chinny chin chin, this old dog is definitely up for learning some new tricks. And today, Microsoft has revealed that its machine learning prowess has resulted in a new feature that will make it easier for researchers to search for information without impeding their workflow. If you’re writing a research paper, Microsoft’s new Researcher tool for Office 365 brings in the power of the Bing Knowledge Graph via a sidebar that pops up on the right-hand side of your...
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If you're an iOS user who's been dying to try out a new on-screen keyboard, Microsoft has a new one that's well worth testing. Called "Hub Keyboard", Microsoft aims to make the simple on-screen keyboard a lot more powerful, and intuitive. If you're an Office 365 user, the app's usefulness can greatly improve your workflow. Do you hate having to switch apps just to complete routine tasks, such as pulling in a URL or pasting a block of text you recently copied? Hub Keyboard is all about shortening the amount of time it takes to conduct such tasks, even inserting a period. With this solution, simply double-tapping the space bar will insert the period, reducing the chance of you accidentally hitting...
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If you’re the owner of a new Lumia 950 or Lumia 950 XL Windows 10 Mobile smartphone, Microsoft is just about to make your day a little bit brighter. The company announced that it will soon be giving customers a free one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal as a gift for purchasing its latest flagship smartphones. In case you were wondering, the Office 365 Personal subscription is worth $70, so this is generous offer from Microsoft. To take advantage of the free subscription, you will have to navigate to the Lumia Offers app on your smartphone, and choose the “1-year Office 365” selection from the available offers. Within five days of singing up, Microsoft will send you promotional code (which...
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