Category: Microsoft

Windows 10 breaking hard drives?

Looks like the weirdness of 2020 will continue into this new year.  Case in point: lets say in 2019 I were to come across an article such as the one I came across right here stating that by merely looking at a desktop icon on my Windows 10 PC can cause my hard drive to become corrupted, I would have lost whatever remains of the little bits of hair that remain on my head.

BUT…this is post 2020 so nothing is off the table, including the use of sight, hovering of the mouse cursor over an icon, etc that would cause your hard drive to fail.

Apparently this only affects those drives that are NTFS formatted but nevertheless, what a heck of a development!

Can’t delete Outlook.com email? Me neither!

And I thought I was going crazy!  Turns out that due to the increasing numbers of users unable to delete email from their account (i.e. MSN, Hotmail, etc.), Microsoft has finally decided to investigate why this is occurring throughout the world.

As BleepingComputer.com has reported here, perhaps this is due to the issue resulting in 503! errors when users attempted to access various Microsoft resources.

Hopefully Microsoft resolves this as soon as possible…let us know if you are one of those unfortunately affected by this!

Windows 10 version 200nineerrum…20H2 is here!

So…who can tell me which screenshot is real or fake?  Who know what the long term vision is for Microsoft when it comes to the naming conventions of their Windows 10 operating systems but what we do know is that the latest version of the flagship OS is ready for downloading and installation…that is of course, you’re feeling a bit daring at this moment.  Good luck and let us know how the install went… 🙂

Microsoft Releases Annual Security Report

As its now becoming an annual tradition, Microsoft has released their latest “Digital Defense Report” which compiles lots of data and statistics in order to make determinations on what the current landscape looks like along with the ever changing trends of what organizations both large and small should be aware of when it comes to best protecting themselves.

Kurt Mackie at Redmondmag.com has a great summary of the report here and if you want the entire 88 page summary, it can also be found here as well.

Windows 10 Version 2009* coming soon!

Ok so I know I’m not being 100% accurate with the title of this post; it’s definitely intended to poke fun at Microsoft’s newest naming scheme for their famed Windows operating system.  Being that this is the third change in five years, one can only hope that this will be the last one to happen for some time.

As with all of the latest Windows 10 version updates, we can only hope that the necessary testing done will result in a smooth rollout with minimal issues…hey, even if it hasn’t happened in any other previous release that’s besides the point! LOL!  Always do your best to view the glass as half full!

For more details about the latest and greatest version of Windows 10, check out Kurt Mackie’s article here…enjoy!

A Windows 7 End of Service PSA courtesy of the FBI

In one of the most obvious assessments of the year, the FBI has warned stakeholders that one of the biggest threats today is the continued unsupported use of Windows 7 in many firms across the U.S.

Obviously, the current pandemic has turned the world upside down but that shouldn’t stop anyone from doing one of two things: upgrade to Windows 10 or purchase extended support licenses.  Just freaking do it! HAHA!

Issues with MS Edge crashing

 

So I personally dealt with this issue for at least two weeks and didn’t have the slightest clue as to what could be causing Edge to crash randomly.  I checked everything I possibly could: checked the version number, uninstalled and reinstalled, tried different websites, even tried using in safe mode with networking!

And then I come across this post from Brad Sams…

If you have Google set as the default engine and try to type in the search bar, the browser may crash. The problem is related to “Search Suggestions” and when that API is called, the browser crashing instantly.

I am seeing it on my dev and release channel builds of the browser. If you have been experiencing this issue, you can navigate to edge://settings/search and turn off the feature as a workaround.

And low and behold…I always set Google as my default search engine no matter what browser I use so umm yeah…I guess I should be happy the problem was identified and fixed.

Should Microsoft make their own CPUs?

In light of Apple’s decision to move away from Intel processors, many in the industry have been asking: should Microsoft also follow suit in manufacturing their own as well?  While they have a past history in doing just that (see the short-lived Surface RT), Brien Posey at Redmondmag.com makes the case that they should not and continue building their relationship with Intel and other chip makers.

See his article here for the full story and feel free to chime in on whether this would be a good thing for Microsoft to do.  Enjoy!

R.I.P. Microsoft Retail Stores

After 11 years in existence, Microsoft has decided to close all of its retail stores.  Modeled in a very similar fashion to the wildly successful retail stores of its rival and counterpart Apple, I felt that it was a decent way to showcase all of what Microsoft brings to the table as it relates to personal computing and gaming.  Unfortunately for them, they never generated the type of excitement among consumers that they had hoped for.

Interesting enough, they ended up serving as a great benefit to those needing immediate hardware servicing of their devices along with fulfilling some SMB requests.

Askwoody.com has a great post going into great detail about how Microsoft’s stores may have had grand visions upon its inception and opening but evolved into a niche player in serving their customers specialized needs.  Check out the full story here and let me know what you think!

This doesn’t make sense: Edge for Win7

 

Yes, you read it right.  Microsoft will now be “forcing” the installation of the new Chromium Edge browser onto an operating system that has officially reached end of life status and doesn’t even receive the extended security updates for free…

Don’t believe me?  Click on the link here for yourself and get back to me…strange times indeed.