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Last month, while we were all distracted by iPhone hacking and Jay-Z's web fiasco, Microsoft silently bumped off the ability for IT administrators to easily take the Windows Store off Windows 10 Pro PCs. Removing the software store, along with other bundled apps, from work machines is normally a good idea to prevent users from installing crap, breaking things and calling the help desk, and generally wasting time at their desks. The Redmond giant quietly posted a support notice warning sysadmins that for Windows 10 build 1511 and later, the ability to remotely disable the Windows Store through Group Policy...

Microsoft has added a QR code to its infamous Blue Screen of Death in Windows 10. As of Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14316, when the operating system falls over, you get not only the sad ASCII smiley but also a QR square that contains an encoded URL that leads you to a webpage about your problem. Scan it with a smartphone or other handheld and your browser will be taken to the embedded web addresses. Right now, it just points to windows.com/stopcode, which explains typical Blue-Screen-of-Death causes, but in future it could contain detailed information about the crash –...

My Sony Vaio laptop came with Windows 7 preloaded and no physical disks. I read that there was supposed to be a recovery partition on the hard drive and figured that would be all I needed. To this point, I never had to use it. I do regular backups of my data (documents, music,etc) to an external HD. Yesterday, I was looking at Task Manager and saw a bunch of processes running. I looked at the descriptions of what they were supposed to do and stopped a bunch I thought I did not need. Computer continued to run fine. Long...

Today at BUILD in the Day One keynote Kevin Gallo announced that you can now run "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows." This is a new developer feature included in a Windows 10 "Anniversary" update (coming soon). It lets you run native user-mode Linux shells and command-line tools unchanged, on Windows. This isn't Bash or Ubuntu running in a VM. This is a real native Bash Linux binary running on Windows itself. It's fast and lightweight and it's the real binaries. This is an genuine Ubuntu image on top of Windows with all the Linux tools I use like awk, sed,...

Short Bytes: Microsoft and Canonical, Ubuntu Linux’s parent company, are partnering to allow you to use Ubuntu on Windows 10. The official announcement is expected to be made at Microsoft’s BUILD 2016 developer conference later today. This partnership is expected to integrate Windows and Linux on the developer desktop.

One in five Windows-powered devices steered to a host of U.S. government websites in March ran Windows 10, according to preliminary data. For the first time, Windows 10 accounted for more than one-fifth of the visits to sites tracked by the Digital Analytics Program (DAP), which mines traffic to more than 4,000 websites on over 400 different domains maintained by U.S. government agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service and the National Weather Service. The bulk of the visits to DAP websites originate in the U.S. Through Thursday, Windows 10 recorded 20.2% of visits in March by Windows PCs, smartphones...

Being notoriously strict about censorship, China makes it difficult for companies to launch their products there. It’s a major stumbling block for businesses that want to take a stab at the largest market in the world.Often, companies will have to bend to suit the requirements of China’s government and that’s exactly what Microsoft has done. Ralph Haupter, Microsoft’s CEO for the Greater China region has revealed that the company’s made a Chinese government-approved version of Windows 10. Partnering with a state-run technology and defense company, CETC, Microsoft created its specialized version of Windows, officially called Zhuangongban, to comply with...

Note: I've posted numerous threads on the "Get Windows 10" nagware situation, and almost passed this one up -- but it's far and away the best I've seen, most complete, and most likely to be accurate. So have at it... - dayglored Subtitle: Here's how to nuke this persistent menace Microsoft uses techniques similar to aggressive malware to promote its “Get Windows 10” offer. As many readers have discovered, the persistent and constantly changing methods Microsoft uses to continually reintroduce its “Get Windows 10” tool, or GWX, onto computers means it’s extremely difficult to avoid. Windows users who decline to...

It feels like Microsoft has been dangling the "Windows will come to Xbox" carrot for the longest time, but now it appears the company isn't too far away from actually delivering. Speaking with Business Insider at GDC 2016, Xbox product manager Jason Ronald revealed that the company will begin opening its PC and gaming ecosystems to over the course of the year, with Windows 10 apps coming to the Xbox One in the summer. Microsoft's plan is to merge the Xbox Store and Windows Store, which will host apps that can be run on a smartphone, tablet, PC or console....

Matt WeinbergerMarch 15, 2016Microsoft's aggressive campaign to get customers to Windows 10 is raising some eyebrows, with scattered reports that some people's PCs are automatically upgrading from Windows 7 — without their explicit permission. For instance, in a post titled "My PC Upgraded To Windows 10 Without Asking, Then Immediately Broke," Kotaku's Patrick Klepek shares the story of how, last week, his Windows 7 PC installed the Windows 10 update automatically overnight. "Maybe I forgot to push back the upgrade schedule, maybe I accidentally scheduled it by clicking the wrong button. Whatever the case, I definitely did not intend to...

Some Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users have begun to howl over Microsoft's practice of automatically upgrading their PCs to Windows 10, saying that they were never given a chance to decline the upgrade before it installed itself. That was contrary to how Microsoft has described its aggressive strategy of pushing Windows 10 to devices running older versions of its operating system. strategy chess How creating an alumni strategy closes the skills gap Smart companies are looking to their past employees to help drive future success and are actively READ NOW It stuck to that today. "Customers continue to be...

As Microsoft auto-upgrades more PCs to Windows 10, some users are complaining that they weren’t adequately notified. Reports of unwanted Windows 10 upgrades have been circulating for the past few days on Reddit and Twitter, after the last Patch Tuesday. These users say they never approved or initiated the upgrade, and were dragged away from their Windows 7 (or perhaps Windows 8) installs anyway. This is all part of Microsoft’s plan, of course. Last October, the company announced that it would reclassify Windows 10 as a “Recommended” update from older versions starting in early 2016, at which point many more...

A number of Windows 7 users were taken by surprise this weekend when their operating systems started to automatically upgrade to Windows 10, causing hardware and software issues for some. Problems reported by users included hardware drivers no longer working after the upgrade, software incompatibilites, and users getting large bills for using several gigabytes of cellular data. Microsoft copped flak last September for quietly downloading Windows 10 components onto users' computers in preparation for a later upgrade, taking up storage space and eating into data caps. The company has since published instructions for users who want to opt out of...

If Microsoft's documentation is correct, installing Patch Tuesday's KB 3139929 security update for Internet Explorer also installs a new Windows 10 ad-generating routine called KB 3146449. Many people -- present company included -- feel that putting an ad generator inside a security patch crosses way over the line. In fact, you have to ask yourself if there are any lines any more. Microsoft lays it all out in black and white in its inimitable, most obfuscatory way. This month's MS16-023 security patch for Internet Explorer, KB 3139929, says: This security update resolves several reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The most...

In just 6 months, Windows 10 has reached 13 percent market share, gaining a percentage point every month, recorded bt Net Applications. Windows 10 is up and running on 12.82 percent of computers, reports Net Applications. That the feat has been achieved in just six months of its existence makes it all the more impressive.Windows 10 adoption rate has also been steady so far, having grown from 11.85 percent in January and 9.96 percent in December. This makes for a gain of a percentage point for every month.With that many PCs running Windows 10, the latest version of Windows is...

Windows Ten started downloading automatically. I simply unplugged the computer and restarted in safe mode. How do I get rid of this bastard system update. Specifically purchased new Windows 7 Pro machine and do not want to update EVER! How do I shut off this auto update. Not computer savvy BTW

The March roll-up update for Windows 10 appears to be causing headaches for users, some of whom have been left with computers that don't boot up after the patch has been applied. Microsoft issued the update on March 2 Australian time and users who installed it via Windows Update soon after started complaining of problems. Some experienced extremely long start-up times, with their devices taking over an hour to reach the user account login prompt. Others said they were forced to boot from USB thumb drives with an earlier installation version of Windows 10 and attempt startup repair. Also reported...

Redmond plans pre-loaded WinPi for thing-makers Microsoft has announced a cut Windows 10 IoT Core for the Raspberry Pi 3. The new Insider Preview of Windows 10 IoT Core, yours for the downloading here, supports the new Pi. Windows 10 IoT Core is a long way short of full Windows comparable to Windows Embedded rather than efforts like Windows 8.1 with Bing intended to run on very cheap hardware. So don't go getting excited about the chance to cook up a fleet of very cheap Raspberry Pi PC replacements. Some may, however, be excited that Microsoft says it's signed up...

Microsoft PC users be alert. I was notified Tuesday of an important Windows 7 update. It turned out it was an update to install the Windows 10 upgrade app on Windows 7 (and maybe 8 and 8.1) machines, KB 3035583. I thought it might have been the earlier upgrade from last fall, but it was released February 23, 2013 with some file updates from February 17. I have a sticky note on my monitor with this MS update number (and some others) and when I receive notice of Windows updates I check the list. In this instance, I immediately hid...

Microsoft keeps shouting about the millions of users that have switched to Windows 10, and soon the company will have another 4 million to bray about. The US Department of Defense is the latest big name to give Windows 10 the seal of approval apparently unconcerned with the privacy and telemetry issues that have put off others. 4 million enterprise upgrades for Windows 10 is a real feather in the cap for Microsoft, and the aim is to get each system running the latest version of the operating system inside a year. The DoD has also announced that it is...