Items tagged with Windows 10
Windows 10X, which we have been talking about for quite some time, could have been the “Chrome OS killer,” but Microsoft has seemingly put the kibosh on it for now. Perhaps this is due to a newly invigorated effort into the upcoming “Sun Valley” update or concerns about the market share a ChromeOS competitor would have. Either way, Windows 10X is on hold, and we will have to wait and see what happens soon. Since at least 2019, we have been hearing about a Windows 10 branch called Windows 10X, which was to be used for dual for folding display devices. After that, leaks and snippets of information came out until 2020, where Microsoft went rather quiet about the entire project...
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Have you ever opened some buried menu in Windows 10 or stumble upon an icon and think, “Huh, that looks old”? That may soon be a thing of the past as Microsoft is prepping to deliver a visual rejuvenation with Project Sun Valley. Testers from the Insider program will get an early look, with the visual changes rolling out sometime later this year. We have talked about the Sun Valley refresh since at least late last year, with rumors of File Explorer changes, among other things. As we get closer to the presumed launch, reportedly coming sometime around October or November, information is slowly starting to trickle out about the update. Most recently, some have noticed some new icons...
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2020 was a miserable time for many of us due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The loss of life, mandatory lockdowns, and not knowing when life would get back to normal weighed heavily on the minds of many people. During that time, however, the necessity of working (and learning) from home meant that PC sales soared dramatically. According to Canalys' data in early January, full-year 2020 PC sales jumped 11 percent, marking the most significant leap since 2010. Today, Canalys is back again with data from Q1 2021, and it's once again looking good for the PC market. According to the research firm, this was the fourth consecutive quarter of growth for the industry, and overall, PC shipments increased 53.1...
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Somehow or another, Adobe's Flash Player has stuck around way longer than it should have, even though Adobe has already stopped supporting it. Adobe also began blocking Flash content from running in Flash Player this past January and "strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems." Adding another nail in its coffin, Microsoft is getting ready to scrub the Flash Player from Windows 10. The first effort will commence on June 2021, in which Microsoft will package its 'Update for Removal of Adobe Flash Player' with its KB4577586 cumulative preview update for Windows 10 versions 1809 and later. That will be an optional update, though the same tool will...
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Once you have gone with a multi-monitor setup, you may wonder have you ever managed with just a single display. It is a boon for gaming and productivity alike. Unfortunately, it can also be maddening, because of an issue in Windows 10 that rearranges your app windows after your system wakes up from sleep. Fortunately, a fix is on the way. This "annoying" (MIcrosoft's word, but also ours) quirk is not a new development, it has been around for several years. It can happen when your desktop or laptop is connected to an external monitor with a DisplayPort cable (and is totally separate from the DisplayPort flickering and sync issue caused by crappy cables). Let's say you spend some time placing your...
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It took a little longer than Microsoft expected for Windows 10 to reach 1 billion active devices, having hit that milestone in March 2020, a little over four and a half years after the operating system launched to the public. Now just over a year later, another 300 million monthly active Windows 10 devices have entered the fray. That's according to Frank X. Shaw, communications lead for Microsoft, who announced the updated milestone on Twitter. It is not a shocking feat, given that the pandemic has spurred PC sales over the past year, as more people find themselves working from home and educating remotely, as part of a social distancing effort. "Windows 10 now has more than 1.3 billion monthly...
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A recent Windows 10 update has some gamers fuming over crippled frame rates and blue screen of death (BSOD) errors—it is related to this month's Patch Tuesday update, which began rolling out to PCs on April 12. Now a couple of weeks later, Microsoft has acknowledged the problem, found the culprit, and is somewhat stealthily pushing out a fix (more on that in a moment). "A small subset of users have reported lower than expected performance in games after installing this update. Most users affected by this issue are running games full screen or borderless windowed modes and using two or more monitors," Microsoft explains in a support article. The issue is related to KB5001330 for Windows...
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There's a struggle deep within every portable PC between the need for maximum performance and a desire for longer battery life. Reduced power consumption is why modern processors spin down to very low frequencies when they're not busy. At the same time, maximum performance is why seemingly every processor these days has boost clocks that scale far beyond the base rated speed of the CPU. Even boost modes can help power efficiency, as most work loads are burst-focused and processors race towards an idle state. This behavior requires the cooperation of the operating system, and now Microsoft has introduced a new way to find the right point on the curve between power and efficiency. Most enthusiasts...
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Have you been experiencing gaming issues since the release of the latest Windows 10 update? You are not alone. The problems associated with the last Windows 10 update are being investigated by NVIDIA and others, and so far the suggestion is to just roll back the update. NVIDIA staff member “Manuel” stated in a forum post, “If you are seeing lower performance in games, check if rolling back Windows 10 Update KB5000842/KB5001330 solves the issue.” This solution has been previously tested by several Reddit users as well and, many confirmed that rolling back the update did seem to resolve the issues. Users have experienced a wide range of performance issues since they installed...
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Earlier today, we reported on DNS issues with the latest Patch Tuesday update (KB5001330 and 1337), and the Windows 10 pain train does not seem to be slowing down. Users are now reporting a variety of gaming-related issues such as unstable frame rates and game stutters. Earlier this week, Reddit user /u/m4dden posted to the Windows 10 subreddit that he was facing numerous issues while trying to play games. These included stuttering, unstable FPS, broken VSync, and FPS drops when sharing games in Discord calls with screen share. After he uninstalled the new patch, the issues seemed to all disappear, making Windows 10 the culprit. There are 72 comments on the post at the time of writing,...
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Last month, several issues with printers appeared when Microsoft released its regularly scheduled Windows 10 update. Another Patch Tuesday has come and gone, but not without additional concerns from from users. Some Windows 10 corporate users are reporting DNS and shared folder issues, with the current fix being to simply roll back the update. After installing the new updates, which brought security vulnerability and bug fixes to users, some people reported having DNS resolution issues that could stop access to shared folders on servers when they attempted to identify them by name. If a user used the IP address for the server instead, they would have no issues. However, that is rather inconvenient....
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If you've been looking forward to enjoying Microsoft's Project xCloud game streaming beta on platforms other than Android, then we've got some good news in store for you. Microsoft says that starting tomorrow, it will send out a limited number of invites to existing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members to test out xCloud on iOS devices (iPhones, iPads) and Windows 10 PCs. With Android smartphones and tablets, accessing xCloud is made possible via the Xbox Game Streaming app. However, iOS and Windows 10 access will come via a web browser. You'll have to visit xbox.com/play using either Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Safari. Browser access is the only way for iOS users to access xCloud, as Apple...
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At some point in the not-too-distant future, Microsoft will roll out an updated version of Windows 10 with its Sun Valley UI overhaul, consisting of a refreshed Start menu and other visual enhancements. It is also working on tweaking File Explorer with its Fluent Design language. Ahead of these changes, however, a teenager posted a nifty File Explorer concept that is garnering lots of praise. File Explorer concepts are not exactly rare—people are always messing with Microsoft's design and sharing their vision of what it should look like. But we have to admit, this is one of the better visions we have seen, and that seems to be the general consensus. What exactly is Microsoft's Fluent Design?...
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After a lengthy technical preview, Parallels has officially released Parallels Desktop version 16.5 which includes official support for Apple's latest Macs. That includes support for the 2020 Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro which all bear the Apple Silicon M1 processor. Supported guests include Windows 10's Insider Preview for Arm 64 and multiple Linux distributions. During the preview period, we discovered that the Arm version of Windows ran pretty well, even when the guest OS is limited to just 4 GB of RAM and four CPU of the M1's eight CPU cores. Not only did the four-core VM outrun a Snapdragon 8cx in single- and multi-threaded Geekbench, it also more than doubled up performance...
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Windows 10 can be used for just about anything due to its versatility, from running services to simply being a basic client PC. Soon, Microsoft will add more functionality to hopefully make the operating system even better for specific usage scenarios. In the past few months, we have heard about Microsoft testing new workflows, designs, and other features to improve user experience. Internally, Microsoft has also been testing a new “Device Usage” page in the Settings App, according to Windows Latest. This new page would allow users or organizations to customize Windows 10 for "specific use cases, such as schoolwork, entertainment, gaming and more.” This feature is being...
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On Friday, Microsoft released another patch to fix some outstanding issues when printing graphical images in Windows 10. It appears that quality assurance is certainly struggling this month; however, as many users are reporting the update has failed to install with error code 0x80070541. While the error code may be largely useless, there is a workaround if you must install the update. Last week, Microsoft provided a separate workaround for a printer issue that was causing blue screens of death (BSOD), among other problems. This stemmed from printer driver incompatibilities and was easily fixed by an optional patch just two days later. Afterward, some users found they could not print graphical...
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Earlier in March, Microsoft released a Patch Tuesday update, which unfortunately unleashed numerous printer-related issues that led to some cases of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). This was caused by driver conflicts within Windows when users went to print. The company then quickly acknowledged the problem, provided a workaround, and a subsequent patch in the following days. Now, Microsoft is releasing a new out-of-band update to squash the issue once and for all…hopefully. As Microsoft explains in its recent announcements, issues arose when users went to print graphical content. The problem, stemming from the March 9th and March 15th updates, could result in “missing or solid color...
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Anyone who builds a new PC after Microsoft rolls out its next major update to Windows 10, codenamed Sun Valley, will notice some missing apps. Not to worry though, they are probably not ones you used very much, if at all. Arguably the most notable one is Paint 3D, as shown above, which will no longer come pre-installed on Windows 10. In essence, Microsoft is clearing out some of the bloat from Windows 10. Nothing overly dramatic, mind you, but a few apps that do little more than take up disk space are getting the boot on new installations. If you are upgrading an existing build, however, the banished apps will remain on your PC. Likewise, if you truly miss them when performing a clean installation...
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Despite all the advancements made in computing, even today the printer can still an extreme source of frustration. Usually it's because the network refuses to recognize the darn thing, and sometimes it's because the printer obsesses over a low ink level and stubbornly refuses to print. But more recently, a bug in Windows 10 was causing blue screen of death (BSOD) errors when attempting to print documents. Fortunately, the issue has been resolved, if you know where to look. The initial bug was introduced with this month's Patch Tuesday update, via KB5000802 and KB5000808. For some, these were automatically downloaded and applied to their Windows 10 PCs. However, some users quickly began complaining...
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When Microsoft releases updates on Patch Tuesday, we typically expect the company to fix problems, not create new ones. Unfortunately for the owners of certain printer brands, the KB5000802 and KB5000808 updates are causing all sorts of headaches for Windows 10 users. KB5000802 and KB5000808 were released earlier this week as cumulative updates during Patch Tuesday. The updates were automatically downloaded and installed to Windows 10 systems for some users. When users of Kyocera, Ricoh, Zebra printers (among others) attempt to print, they are instead presented with an irritating Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). According to a thread over at Reddit, the exact error message that the BSOD throws...
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Microsoft may not be releasing numerical upgrades to its Windows operating system these days (which is to say we will never see a Windows 11), but it is constantly tweaking and, at times, even overhauling Windows 10 as time goes on. One of the biggest changes on the roadmap is the eventual wholesale alteration of the user interface, and another glimpse of what that entails is now available to certain Windows Insiders. This is part of Microsoft continuing roll out of its Fluent Design language, to ensure the look and feel of Windows 10 stays fresh and modern. These things do not always work out as planned—remember the relatively short-lived Metro UI? Fortunately, Microsoft's efforts since...
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If you are looking for a tiny bit of good news this weekend, here you go—Microsoft has apparently figured out a way to prevent a weird and potentially destructive Windows 10 bug from scrambling your hard drive with relative ease. There is a catch, though, and it is not an insignificant one. The fix is only available to Windows Insiders who download the latest build in the Dev channel. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the company missed an opportunity to generate some goodwill points by not being able to dish out a fix in this month's Patch Tuesday update. The bug itself is actually three years old, and was brought to the public’s attention by security researcher and Twitter user Jonas...
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