Free Republic

When you're stuck in the middle of the Central African Republic (CAR) trying to protect the wildlife from armed poachers and the Lord's Resistance Army, then life's pretty tough. And now Microsoft has made it tougher with Windows 10 upgrades. The Chinko Project manages roughly 17,600 square kilometres (6,795 square miles) of rainforest and savannah in the east of the CAR, near the border with South Sudan. Money is tight, and so is internet bandwidth. So the staff was more than a little displeased when one of the donated laptops the team uses began upgrading to Windows 10 automatically, pulling...

If you have Chrome as the default browser on your Windows 10 computer, you'd better check to make sure Microsoft didn't hijack it last week and set Edge as your new default. The same goes for any PDF viewer: A forced cumulative update also reset PDF viewing to Edge on many PCs. Do you use IrfanView, Acdsee, Photoshop Express, or Elements? The default photo app may have been reset to -- you guessed it -- the Windows Photos app. Music? Video? Microsoft may have swooped down and changed you over to Microsoft Party apps, all in the course of last...

If you're running Windows 7 or 8.1 on a computer that isn't attached to a domain, you're no doubt familiar with the "Get Windows 10" ads that try to convince you -- sometimes subtly, sometimes forcefully -- to install Windows 10. Microsoft's intrusive campaign has drawn much well-deserved ire among Windows customers. I think it represents a new low in Microsoft marketing -- right down there in the Scroogled end of the gene pool. Back in August, Microsoft posted KB 3080351, a discussion of new Group Policy settings and two obscure registry entries -- DisableOSUpgrade and ReservationsAllowed -- that, taken...

Update for Microsoft XML Core Services 4.0 Service Pack 2 (KB973688)Size: 5.4 MB Install this update to prevent applications from sending too many HTTP requests while a well-known Document Type Definition (DTD) is included. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Once you have installed this item, it cannot be removed.