PATREONItems tagged with Windows 10
Although Windows 10X still hasn't been released to the public, there has been a steady stream of information leaked about the operating system in recent months. Windows 10X was supposed to debut on the Surface Neo, but Microsoft delayed the operating system and its dual-screen foldable in May 2020. Reliable Microsoft leaker WalkingCat posted this morning that Windows 10X would launch in March but later backtracked on that statement. However, WalkingCat instead came back with a heavy emphasis on naming for Windows 10X, which is reportedly now referred to as "The New Windows." We don't know how WalkingCat came across this information, but we have no reason to doubt their sourcing. While...
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Microsoft appears to be taking a more conservative and focused approach to its bi-annual feature updates to Windows 10. As such, the first one for 2021—Windows 10 version 21H1—is not overflowing with features (and potential problems), and instead is geared towards improving the experience for those who work remotely. It is a logical decision, for a couple of reasons. For one, some of Microsoft bigger feature updates in the past have stumbled out of the gate. In particularl, the October 2018 Update stands out as a train wreck among the bunch, though more recent ones had their share of annoying issues as well, for some users. For example, the May 2020 Update initially caused a myriad...
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If you have any last words for the Adobe Flash Player that is embedded in Windows 10, you better speak up now, because Microsoft has begun throwing dirt on its grave. Or more precisely, multiple users have reported a new Windows patch being pushed out that wipes out the last remaining remnant of the defunct tool. This comes a month and a half after Adobe officially ended support for Flash, having issued its final update last December (for all regions outside of Mainland China). "We want to take a moment to thank all of our customers and developers who have used and created amazing Flash Player content over the last two decades. We are proud that Flash had a crucial role in evolving web content...
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We are two days removed from this month's Patch Tuesday update, and if you are experiencing the odd blue screen of death (BSOD) error, applying the latest cumulative update could be the cure. Among the things it addresses, this month's Patch Tuesday update includes a fix for a weird bug that hackers could exploit to crash a PC any time a user simply accesses a certain directory. Strange quirks in Windows 10 have been the theme in recent weeks, such as having your hard drive scrambled just by opening a specially crafted file with a single-line command. We wrote about that one in mid-January. Then a few days later, we wrote about the bug in question here, in which a entering in a certain path in...
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Microsoft is in the habit of infusing new features into Windows 10 twice a year through bi-annual major upgrades, in between which it delivers monthly security updates (known as Patch Tuesday), as well as the occasional out-of-band update. In the near future, however, Microsoft might start injecting features into Windows 10 more frequently. Don't worry, the company is not looking to deliver major refreshes more often than twice a year, a schedule that is already sometimes problematic—remember the train wreck that was the initial October 2018 Update? Instead, Microsoft has begun testing what it calls Windows Feature Experience Packs within its Windows Insider program. The first of these...
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It's been roughly a year since Microsoft released the first public/stable version of its Chromium based Microsoft Edge browser. Before that point, Edge had been using Microsoft's own EdgeHTML engine, and wasn't doing much to gain market share in the browser space. However, the switchover to Google's Chromium project has led to a quickening pace of development and an increase in market share for Microsoft. To celebrate its 1-year anniversary, Microsoft has announced some big feature updates for Edge. One such addition is a new sidebar search feature, which can be invoked when highlighting a word on a website and clicking "search in sidebar". The sidebar will then slide over...
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When you are at your wits end with Windows 10, one option is the "Reset this PC" feature, found within the Recovery options in System Settings. There are two subsequent options—keep your personal files, or go full nuclear and remove everything. Neither option had been working for some users for quite some time, though the underlying issue has finally been fixed. The feature is intended to restore your Windows 10 PC back to its default factory configuration (as you might be prone to do if you're running into BSODs that are proving difficult to diagnose), and is generally faster than reinstalling the OS outright. The caveat is that you will need to reinstall your programs afterward, as well...
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The last thing you want to experience when working on your PC or playing a game is to experience a blue screen of death (BSOD) error, especially since these kinds of crashes can sometimes be difficult to diagnose. There are many reasons why you might experience one, though. Case in point, there is a rather odd bug that can crash your PC from within Google's Chrome browser. It is another bug for Microsoft's software engineers to investigate. You might recall that last week we reported on a different quirk that could scramble your hard drive, with a simple string of command-line code. One of the ways it could be leveraged is to hide the code within a system icon, and if downloaded to a PC, it would...
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Do you think Microsoft might be feeling the heat from Apple to improve the Windows 10 experience on Arm hardware, now that Apple has released its M1 chip? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, Microsoft last month released a preview build of Windows 10 on Arm to Insiders in the Dev channel, which added the ability to run x64 apps in emulation. However, a subsequent cumulative update breaks the experience. Windows 10 Insider build 21292 in the Dev channel is the one that adds support for x64 app emulation. It arrived in the second week of December 2020, and bolstered the functionality of Arm64 devices like the Surface Pro X and Lenovo Flex 5G. Those have been off limits up to that point, as when Arm64...
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We've got 99 problems but Windows 10 ain't one. Just kidding—sometimes Windows 10 is one of those problems. We've had good luck with Windows 10 ourselves, but are aware of various issues people have encountered over the years. One of the stranger ones is a lingering bug that could easily corrupt your hard drive, just by downloading a icon. Security researcher and Twitter user Jonas L brought attention to the nearly three-year old bug in Windows 10, calling it a "nasty vulnerability" because it can be triggered just by opening a specially crafted file with a single-line command. NTFS VULNERABILITY CRITICALITY UNDERESTIMATED - There is a specially nasty vulnerability in NTFS right now. Triggerable...
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Windows 10X is reportedly targeted to be Microsoft's optimized operating system for dual and single screen mobile devices like Microsoft's Surface Duo or traditional hybrid 2-in-1 laptops. As rumors and features begin to trickle out, so too do images and renders of what the Windows 10X user interface is supposed to look like. We have gotten a glimpse of what Windows 10X will roughly look like in the past, but some new imagery floating about Twitter seems to reaffirm Remond's new mobile device UI. Earlier today, Zac Bowden of Windows Central tweeted out what he called the "first look at Windows 10X for single-screen PCs." It features a redesigned Start Menu that lies in the middle of the screen...
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The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating affects across the globe, upending the everyday lives of nearly everyone, while at the same time resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands. Because of how COVID-19 is spread, people that can work from home along with students participating in virtual learning have resulted in a massive spike in PC sales. According to Canalys, overall PC shipments for the year 2020 hit 297 million units, which was a 11 percent increase compared to 2019. In fact, 2020 represented the biggest leap in full-year PC sales growth since 2010, and marked the highest number of unit shipments since 2014. More specifically, looking at data just for Q4 2020, we see that PC shipments...
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For as long as developers have been writing software code, they've been inadvertently creating bugs. It's when those bugs can compromise the security of a PC that a bug goes from an annoyance to a potential real danger. Security issues with apps can be worked around in the interim, even if it means uninstalling it, but what about when the security vulnerability is in the driver for some critical piece of hardware; say a video adapter? When that happens, developers have to isolate the cause and act quickly to plug the holes, or else risk any PC with that hardware being open to attack. Such was the case for NVIDIA this week. The GeForce, Quadro, and AI accelerator maker has issued a series...
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When summer rolls around, it will have been six years since Microsoft first released Windows 10 to the general public. Since then, Windows 10 has received several major updates with new and improved features, and a bit of tweaking to the overall user interface (UI). But the biggest visual change to Windows 10 is yet to come, and Microsoft is hiring help to make it happen. The revelation came by way of a job listing Microsoft posted, in search of a full-time senior software engineer for its Windows Core User Experiences team. "On this team, you’ll work with our key platform, Surface, and OEM partners to orchestrate and deliver a sweeping visual rejuvenation of Windows experiences to signal...
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If you're one of the unlucky few still running Adobe's hated Flash Player plugin, it's time to start saying your goodbyes. Adobe announced long ago that it would end support for Flash given that newer web technologies have emerged over the years to take the place the its security-challenged offering. Earlier this month, Flash Player received its final update. "Today marks the final scheduled release of Flash Player for all regions outside of Mainland China," said Adobe at the time. "We want to take a moment to thank all of our customers and developers who have used and created amazing Flash Player content over the last two decades. We are proud that Flash had a crucial role...
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Windows 10 is by far and away the most popular PC-centric operating system on the market, and quickly rose through the ranks following its initial debut over 5 years ago (Summer 2015). Despite its age, Window 10 doesn't "feel" like an old and crusty operating system because Microsoft's "Windows as a Service" strategy has kept it looking fresh, complete with numerous new features over the past half-decade. One operating system that is old and decrepit at this point is Windows 7, which was first introduced to the public back in 2009. Despite Microsoft declaring the end of support for Windows 7 back on January 14th, 2020, many consumers and businesses alike refuse to get rid...
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When someone gets up and walks away from their computer for an extended period of time, they either power it off or it goes into sleep mode. Both options can take quite a bit of time to recover from when you want to get back to work or gaming. Microsoft created the Modern Standby feature to solve this issue, which allowed Windows 10 devices to enter an idle state where they could still connect to the network and do background tasks. Now, that same functionality will be launching with Windows 10X to improve the laptop Windows experience. The Windows 10X OS is one of Microsoft’s best worst-kept secrets in the past year. The goal of Windows 10X is to provide a simple user experience and be...
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Slowly but surely, computers are going the way of smart home speakers or HAL 9000, wherein you can use your voice to complete tasks. Now, Microsoft is testing a new feature called “voice launcher,” which could simplify how people use Windows 10 computers. It will be widely available to use with the Settings app, File Explorer, and Windows Search starting with the October 2021 Update. This new voice launcher feature could be an incredible improvement to current search mechanics in Windows, or it could go the way of Cortana. While it remains to be seen how it will play out, the feature will start popping up in the aforementioned areas and will also appear anywhere in the Windows OS...
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The bug hunters that comprise Google's Project Zero team are getting a little fed up with companies that issue incomplete or otherwise incorrect patches for zero-day vulnerabilities they discover. Going into 2021, the team plans to reevaluate how it handles these kinds of situations, with a recent privilege escalation flaw in Windows serving as the tipping point. At issue is a zero-day flaw in Windows (CVE-2020-0986) that was actually discovered by Kaspersky this past summer. "An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when the Windows kernel fails to properly handle objects in memory. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in kernel mode. An attacker...
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For some people, Windows 10 can be a bit of a roller coaster. One moment everything is working fine, then the next moment a simple 'chkdsk' command is wreaking havoc, throwing PCs into a blue screen of death (BSOD). Fortunately, Microsoft has issued a hotfix for that specific issue. Unfortunately, there is another issue causing BSODs on some PCs, and it relates to a Corsair driver. Apparently the problematic driver was being doled out through Windows Update. Normally this is not cause for concern—given the myriad hardware combinations out there, it's a miracle Windows 10 runs at all, and Microsoft generally does a good job of keeping systems updated and humming along. Not without exception,...
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Over the weekend, we brought you news about a new bug with the Windows 10 Check Disk Utility (chkdsk) that is crippling some PCs. The bug was unfortunately introduced with KB4592438 for Windows 10 20H2 during Patch Tuesday earlier this month. The update led to disk corruption – primarily with SSDs – when running chkdsk /f using the command prompt as an administrator. After running the chkdsk, users would be presented with a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) pointing to a NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM error. Microsoft has now acknowledged the problem in an update to the “Known Issues” for the KB4592438 update. "A small number of devices that have installed this update...
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If you need to check the integrity if your file system using the built-in Check Disk utility in Windows 10, be advised that some users are reporting issues with it, when attaching the "/f" parameter, which tells the utility to fix errors on the disk. The problem seems to only be affecting solid state drives (SSDs). For those of you who have never heard of the Check Disk utility, it dates back several decades and was something us old fogies ran on many occasions. These days Windows does a much better of job of taking care of disk maintenance on its own, though there are still instances when IT admins and tech savvy users might want to run the command, which is initiated by typing "chkdsk" in a...
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