Microsoft

A bug with Windows Defender has been filling computers with thousands of largely useless files. The bug is fixed with the latest update and this is definitely an application worth keeping updated. Windows Defender (officially known as Microsoft ... Defender Antivirus) is the built-in security tool in Windows 10. The consensus view is that it's not as good as the best third-party tools, but does a decent job and is certainly a useful line of defense for the average user. Unfortunately a recent update, which took Windows Defender to version 1.1.18100.5, introduced an annoying bug. Users noticed a ... (view more)

Windows 10X, a variant designed originally for dual-screen machines, may never appear according to new reports. The system had also been tipped as an alternative to Google's Chrome OS. Microsoft officially announced it was working on Windows 10X in ... October 2019. At that time, the idea was to produce a separate Windows variant that was designed for dual-screen devices. Such devices, sometimes called clamshells, serve a variety of purposes. Some are designed to fold back completely so that users can switch between using it as a laptop and using it more like a tablet. Microsoft appeared to ... (view more)

Microsoft has released an optional Windows 10 update that could solve a recent problem with high CPU usage. Users who haven't had this problem can probably give the update a miss. The update, with the reference KB5001391 is optional as it's a "C ... release". That means it's made up of fixes and features that will roll out in the main update cycle later on but are available now as a preview. The main point of interest in KB5001391 is a fix for a memory problem. Microsoft hasn't made things entirely clear but it appears it's targeted at recent reports of users suddenly seeing their CPU usage ... (view more)

The upcoming twice-yearly "major" Windows 10 update looks like it lacks any major features. That could be good news for users who have come to fear such updates causing compatibility issues and software bugs. The spring feature update, currently ... codenamed 21H1, is one of the two big updates delivered each year. This time round it's really not that big in terms of content or impact. Arguably the best news is that the installation is not only optional but should be relatively quick and simple. That's because it's mainly an "enablement package" that simply activates code that's already been ... (view more)

Microsoft has released an optional update for Windows 10. It's arguably only worth installing for users who've suffered the specific glitches it fixes. The update, KB5000842, is available for Windows 10 versions 2004 and 20H2, meaning any machine ... that received either of the two major feature updates from last year. It's an optional update as it contains fixes which will then roll out in next month's automatic update. That means there's still a degree of testing with these fixes, which makes for a bit of a gamble given how often a Microsoft fix for one problem appears to cause another problem ... (view more)

Microsoft is trying a new method for releasing and managing Windows 10 updates. The aim is to reduce the number of bugs where an update doesn't install properly. The plan involves combining two types of updates: cumulative and servicing stack ... updates, which were previously released separately. The cumulative update contains new content and fixes for Windows. Cumulative refers to the way the updates are designed to be downloaded and installed in order, meaning each individual update can be a relatively small file size. Unfortunately, the cumulative updates are also part of the reason Windows ... (view more)

Long-time Hotmail and Outlook users may face a choice between seeing old messages deleted or paying $70 a year. Microsoft is legitimately enforcing storage limits but critics say it didn't do enough to remind users they were approaching those ... limits. The policy affects users of Outlook.com, with those most likely to be affected being Hotmail users that migrated over back in 2013 when Hotmail closed. As part of the move, users could keep their old Hotmail address, but were subject to a 15GB storage limit as with all other Outlook users. That includes both sent and received messages and file ... (view more)

As many as 100 million PCs could still be running Windows 7 according to a newly-published estimate. That's despite Microsoft withdrawing support for the 11-year old system last year. The estimate comes from Ed Bott of ZDNet and is based on data ... published at analytics.usa.gov. That brings together site visitor data from most US government agencies. It means the figures will primarily represent visitors from the United States. (Source: zdnet.com ) Bott notes that across the agencies, 8.5 per cent of visitors in the past 90 days were running Windows 7 and 3.4 percent running Windows 8 or 8.1. ... (view more)

A free Microsoft offer to upgrade to Windows 10 was supposed to expire in 2016. However, it appears the upgrade still works, with claims the deadline was simply a marketing ploy. With Windows 10 released in the middle of 2015, the free upgrade offer ... was advertised as running for a year. It was available for Windows 7 and 8.1 users, with most getting an upgrade to the Windows 10 Home edition. Those running Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 8.1 Pro could upgrade to the Windows 10 Pro edition. As most people either upgraded in the first year or decided to give Windows 10 a ... (view more)

A Windows 10 update causing problems is no surprise, but the two latest glitches will be familiar to long-time users. Both can lead to the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death," indicating a significant problem. The first problem affects users who run the ... built-in CHKDSK utility, which scans hard drives to look for errors. It appears that running "chkdsk /f" via command line (after the new KB4592438 patch has been applied) can cause the file system to corrupt, which then might result in Windows not able to boot at all. Microsoft says a fix has already been rolled out through an automatic ... (view more)