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Microsoft officially ended support for its one-time flagship operating system, Windows 7, at the start of 2020. As the year draws to a close, I ran the numbers to see how many PCs are still running this unsupported OS. Spoiler: It's a big number...With a heartfelt nod to Monty Python, Windows 7 would like you all to know that it's not dead yet.A year after Microsoft officially ended support for its long-running OS, a small but determined population of PC users would rather fight than switch. How many? No one knows for sure, but that number has shrunk substantially in...

Should we be worried?The undead have telepathic powers if Microsoft's latest Windows 10 Insider emission is to be believed.Perhaps stung by cruel criticism that the last batch of bleeding-edge Dev Channel releases have been a little light on features, build 20270 arrived overnight and apparently imbued Microsoft's unloved assistant, Cortana, with mindreading abilities.Assuming one's PC has a mind of its own, of course (and judging by the shenanigans that seem to happen every Patch Tuesday, we're starting to wonder). "You can now use Cortana on your PCs to translate their thoughts into direct actions to open and find files and...

I am surprising myself with a new laptop! (shhhhh - don't tell me about the gift and spoil the surprise) After many, many years of GREAT service from my ASUS "Zen", I'm buying a new "Zen". After searching the net for an easy & straightforward method to transfer my programs, docs, photos, apps, Outlook emails, etc - I've discovered it's not as easy as I thought.

Freeman’s full tweet reads: Exactly how much money do I need to give the Democratic Party for them to pull their shit together? Get angry. Get mean. Get low. We care about people. Awesome. That doesn’t mean we can’t occasionally slide a knife between some asshole’s ribs. Fellow Microsoft employees, including Program Manager Alex Dupler, appeared to endorse Freeman’s tweet, asking “where do I sign up?”

The other night I was forced to take the latest windows 10 update .. again! I keep having to 'rollback' to the 'previous' version because of what happens to my graphics! (I know what causes the graphics problem but not why there is this this new problem!) Let me explain ... A few years ago I went through a similar mess that took me almost a year to solve! Below is a screenshot of what that (and this) cumalative update does to my colors/graphics! DESKTOP SCREENSHOT It took a while but I found that on these updates ... Microsoft would...

Don't worry, there are some useful features in the update too Microsoft has bequeathed new capabilities to both the released and the preview versions of Windows Terminal, a feature-laden alternative to the command prompt.It's the features that now appear in the released version that are most interesting. Windows Terminal – as found in the Microsoft Store – has reached version 1.2, with enhancements including focus mode, always on top, command palette and more. The preview version has been bumped to 1.3 with a new tab switcher, tab search, and some other tweaks.By default the Terminal offers much more than the...

Also: Visual Studio Code update, new toys for Kubecon, and 25 years of the Start Button In brief While eyes were on its new phone, Microsoft slipped out a pair of updates to the Insider version of Windows 10.The Beta Channel (formerly known as the Slow Ring) received a round of security updates as well as a UWP authentication fix for the 20H2 release of the operating system (due at some point in the back half of 2020).The Dev Channel, however, received that most rare of gifts in the form of build 20190: an update with some properly in-your-face user...

Microsoft seems to be getting a kick out seeing users struggle to find Windows 10 features these days. After moving the Fresh Start feature in the latest version, 2004, and reducing the number of days Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education users can manually delay updates, the company is now experimenting with moving key Control Panel features, including System information, to Settings, Windows Latest spotted. It’s a change that some long-time Windows users might not take to easily. If you’re like me and have been using the Control Panel for decades, getting accustomed to this feature will be as arduous...

A Google bombshell last week gave users a great reason to quit Windows 10. Now serious new problems mean millions of Gmail users might want to join them. Gmail’s spam filter is sending possibly perilous messages direct to users’ inboxes Reported by both Windows Latest and MSPowerUser, Gmail users are discovering that Microsoft’s Windows 10 built-in Mail client is deleting their emails and/or sending them to spam automatically.

Microsoft emits a fix for those fearful of Registry tinkering While Microsoft was showing off its new OneDrive toys, the company also slipped out a fix for brave souls running Windows 10 2004 and finding Files On-Demand a little borked.Issues have been rumbling for a few weeks now as users of the new OS began complaining that "OneDrive cannot connect to Windows", rendering the Files On-Demand feature, which pulls data down from the cloudy bit barn when needed, broken.Some found that a Registry tweak would bring the process back to life. Others continued to struggle.Microsoft pointed to devices or apps...

Compatibility hold slapped on affected kit with fixes in 'upcoming release' It's only the second week of Windows 10's May 2020 Update and things are going... about as well as one might expect. Which, sadly for Microsoft hardware owners, is not ideal.The release popped up last week and we noted that it had its issues. Ten, to be precise. The bork count currently stands at 11 and, worryingly for owners of Microsoft's pricey Surface devices, now includes features the company's fancy fondleslabs.Microsoft is keen to brag about the "Always Connected" nature of its devices but it appears that some have...

Thunderbolt vulnerabilities can let attacker with physical access steal data from memory and encrypted drives. A Dutch researcher has detailed nine attack scenarios that work against all computers with Thunderbolt shipped since 2011 and which allow an attacker with physical access to quickly steal data from encrypted drives and memory. Researcher Björn Ruytenberg detailed the so-called Thunderspy attacks in a report published on Sunday, warning that the attacks work even when users follow security best practice, such as locking an unattended computer, setting up Secure Boot, using strong BIOS and operating system account passwords, and enabling full disk encryption. Microsoft...

My computer was running like a tired old man. This Dell laptop is my surfing computer with nothing involving money or business. Windows 10 by default installs Defender firewall in real-time mode and I finally decided to get rid of it to see if the computer would act like a young person again.

... The April 14 Patch Tuesday updates included fixes for a total of 133 vulnerabilities, including seven critical security flaws in Windows 10. I have always said that users need to take the fixing of security vulnerabilities very seriously indeed. When new research suggests that the average Windows 10 PC has no less than 14 weaponized vulnerabilities, that is ones with known exploits in case you were wondering, that seriousness is reinforced... ...First things first, given the sheer number of Windows 10 users out there, the number of people complaining of these issues, in the hundreds, is relatively small. This...

Tux is ready to give you easy access to your Linux files. Earlier this year Microsoft shared its plans to integrate a full Linux kernel in Windows 10 — now it’s introducing Linux file access into the File Explorer. Users have been able to access Linux files since Windows 1903, but the new feature in build 19603 means you’ll be able to get them more easily. Open up File Explorer and you’ll see Tux, Linux’s penguin mascot, in the left-hand navigation pane. This icon will show you a view of all your distros, and selecting those will place you in the Linux...

I purchased a new PC with Windows 10 the beginning of the year, and one of the first things I did was install Open Shell (used to be called Classic Shell). I had never used it before, but many Windows 7/8 users who were forced into Windows 10 found it to be a useful application to install. For the most part, I like Open Shell. But there is one issue that is bugging me that I can't seem to work around. In a Windows Explorer window, there is a Search box. Normally, past Explorer searches are retained and can be...

Surprising reports paints Linux and Android as less secure than Windows Which operating system has suffered the most vulnerabilities since around the turn of the millennium? That would be Linux, not Microsoft’s Windows, at least according to a freshly released report. An analysis of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Vulnerability Database, compiled by Thebestvpn.com, tracked ‘technical vulnerabilities’ in popular pieces of software between 1999 and 2019. And Debian, a flavor of Linux, was top of the table with 3,067 vulnerabilities over the last two decades. Reasonably close behind was Android on 2,563 vulnerabilities, with the Linux kernel...

Unloved assistant to smarten up its act in Microsoft 365. US only, naturally Microsoft has jammed yet another knife into the consumer incarnation of its unloved electronic assistant, Cortana.As the release of Windows 10 20H1 (or 2004) looms, the company snuck out a blog late on Friday letting the dozen or so customers still using the thing know that "consumer skills including music, connected home and third-party skills will no longer be available in the updated Cortana experience in Windows 10."Cortana services in the Microsoft Launcher on Android will also be axed as a sad-faced engineer resets the "Days since...

A standalone security update released as part of the February Patch Tuesday cycle has created headaches for some owners of PCs running Windows 10. After investigating reports of those issues, Microsoft has yanked KB4524244 from its update servers. Update 15-Feb-2020: The mess gets messier: Judging from a series of cryptic tweets by security experts, this update and its revocation are tied to a situation involving Kaspersky Rescue Disk and a signed bootloader that can circumvent the Secure Boot feature that is the bedrock of security on modern PCs. I'm still trying to figure out the sequence of events here. Stay...

As 1809 is nudged toward the darkness, the Baron of Bork has plans for 1903 and 1909 There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and duff patches from Microsoft. So, yes, some Windows 10 users have found their PC unhappy following Tuesday's patch shenanigans.A helpful forum posting from one of Microsoft's loyal MVPs concerning the arrival of KB4532693 for Windows 10 1903 and 1909, and KB4532691 for 1809, has seen some customers reporting that the updates had left their systems a little distressed.Users have found things reset to a seemingly default state and a temporary user account used for...