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After Tuesday's big launch of Windows 10 S, it emerged the software will force people to use Edge and Bing. How can that be?The supposedly streamlined operating system aimed at kids and their teachers will only run apps from Microsoft's official Windows 10 S software store. Right now, there are no third-party browsers available from its shelves. That leaves users with the bundled Edge browser and Bing for web search.You can't change the search engine from Bing, and, for now, you can't get another browser besides Edge. Even if you could get another browser, Edge will override all the time,...

Microsoft is introducing a new version of Windows 10 today: Windows 10 S. It's essentially Microsoft's answer to Chrome OS, to simplify Windows for low-end hardware and in particular, the education market. “Everything that runs on Windows 10 S is downloaded from the Windows Store,” says Microsoft’s Windows chief Terry Myerson. That doesn't mean that desktop apps won't run on this version of Windows 10, but they'll need to be specially packaged and listed in the Windows Store. During a demonstration onstage, Myerson showed off the ability to support peripherals and devices just like regular Windows 10. Myerson also noted...

Ahead of a highly anticipated earnings report, America's most valuable company is now worth more than ever. Apple briefly hit a market capitalization of more than $776.59 billion on Tuesday, topping its previous peak market value of $774.91 billion to remain the only U.S.-listed stock with a market value of more than $700 billion. Even with other tech stocks near record highs, Apple dwarfs Alphabet, at $646.6 billion, Microsoft at nearly $536.4 billion and Amazon at $451.5 billion, according to FactSet.

At about noon on Thursday, I lowered a headset over my eyes and, for the first time in my life, stepped into Microsoft Windows. I was invited to attend an Acer event in New York where the company primarily discussed its VR and gaming ambitions. But I had one mission: to finally see what Microsoft's "mixed reality" experience is all about. What the heck is mixed reality? First, let's talk a bit about the differences between mixed reality, virtual reality and augmented reality. Virtual reality is what Oculus and Facebook are doing, allowing users to step out of this world...

With so few features, for so few phones, one wonders what the point is.Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mobile Creators Update rides the coattails of the desktop OS, heavily leaning on improvements in Cortana and Edge to nudge Microsoft’s nearly comatose mobile platform further ahead.As the free upgrade rolls out Tuesday, our review of the Creators Update can't help but conclude that it's even less of an improvement than the Windows 10 Mobile Anniversary Update. We can tell you that Windows’ new ability to buy and read ebooks within Edge represents its most potent addition. You can turn off a screen while...

An antivirus service used by tens of thousands of businesses and millions of home users shut down an untold number of computers around the world after it mistakenly identified core parts of Microsoft Windows as threats, the company confirmed Tuesday. Webroot Inc. of Broomfield, Colorado, said it issued an updated detection rule that "identified false positives" for critical Windows operating files Monday afternoon, resulting in those files' being "quarantined" and inaccessible to Windows. Kristin Miller, a spokeswoman for Webroot, said the program incorrectly classified as "bad" a common folder that is often targeted for malware. She said that the false...

MICROSOFT has reiterated the importance of collecting information from Windows 10 Creators Update users, likening the diagnostic data to the "life-blood" of the operating system.Windows 10 Creators Update is slowly rolling out to users across the globe.The blockbuster update includes a number of headline features, including a ground-up redesign for the Paint app and a new performance-focused Game Mode.Windows 10 Creators Update also focuses on transparency around its data collection policies.Every Windows 10 user – whether they're upgrading a previous version of Windows 10, or installing one for the first time – will be given the chance to review the...

An independent security researcher claims to have uncovered a security flaw in Microsoft Edge.The issue enables any website to identify a user by his username from another website, according to Ariel Zelivansky. More specifically the researcher alleges that Edge exposes the URL of any Fetch response, in contradiction to the specification. This is a problem because it's possible to identify users by crafting a Fetch request to a URL that will redirect to a URL with the user's username (e.g. https://facebook.com/me to https://facebook.com/username).Zelivansky approached Microsoft but the software giant dismissed the issue. El Reg requested a comment only to be...

Solitaire has been a staple for office distraction since Microsoft first included the game in Windows 3.0 in 1990. But the digital adaptation wasn’t made by an iconic coder or just one of the company’s many full-time employees. It was programmed by an intern. Great Big Story has an interview with Wes Cherry, who was an intern at Microsoft in 1988. He describes the experience as “all-encompassing,” but even internships at Microsoft have lulls. He put the downtime to good use. “I came up with the idea to write Solitaire for Windows out of boredom, really,” Cherry said. “There weren’t...

Microsoft tries to thread the needle of transparency by telling its consuming audience as much about governmental collection of data as possible. Toward that end Microsoft releases a biannual transparency report. Within the latest transparency release Microsoft reports in the first half of 2016 they received a massive increase in FISA orders; primarily from U.S. governmental agencies. • “For the latest Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data reported, Microsoft received 1,000-1,499 FISA orders seeking content disclosures affecting 12,000-12,499 accounts, compared to the 0-499 FISA orders seeking disclosure of content impacting 17,500-17,999 accounts reported for the previous period. We received 0-499...

The latest dump of hacking tools allegedly belonged to the NSA is believed to be the most damaging release by the Shadow Brokers till the date. But after analyzing the disclosed exploits, Microsoft security team says most of the windows vulnerabilities exploited by these hacking tools, including EternalBlue, EternalChampion, EternalSynergy, EternalRomance and others, are already patched in the last month's Patch Tuesday update. "Most of the exploits that were disclosed fall into vulnerabilities that are already patched in our supported products. Customers still running prior versions of these products are encouraged to upgrade to a supported offering," Microsoft Security Team...

There are all kinds of new features in the Windows 10 Creators Update rolling out on April 11, but one change really sticks out. Greater transparency about the data that Microsoft collects from your PC.There are new dashboard screens that all Windows 10 users will see the first time they install or upgrade to the Creators Update. Perhaps more interestingly, for the first time Microsoft has detailed information about the user data it collects for diagnostics.Diagnostics collection Let’s start with the diagnostics collection, as Microsoft’s come under heavy fire from privacy advocates for refusing to allow users to disable it completely...

Microsoft is planning to start pushing out the free Windows 10 Creators Update on April 11. As is often the case, this will be a gradual rollout, meaning not everyone will get the update on day one. Microsoft will slowly ramp up the release — but starting today, you can get the latest build of Windows 10 without waiting.You can use the Windows 10 Update Assistant to avoid having to convince Windows Update to serve the Creators Update to you. On the Windows 10 computer you want to update, head to microsoft.com/software-download/windows10 and click the blue “Update now” button. This...

'Dodgy' unwanted operating system update sparks potential class-action lawsuit Updated Three people in Illinois have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, claiming that its Windows 10 update destroyed their data and damaged their computers.The complaint [PDF], filed in Chicago's US District Court on Thursday, charges that Microsoft Windows 10 is a defective product and that its maker failed to provide adequate warning about the potential risks posed by Windows 10 installation – specifically system stability and data loss.Microsoft "failed to exercise reasonable care in designing, formulating, and manufacturing the Windows 10 upgrade and placing it into the stream of commerce," the...

Upgrade or die Software king of the world Microsoft is locking down system updates for those using AMD’s Ryzen and Intel’s Kaby Lake processors on Windows 7 and 8.1. Users are now starting to encounter the following error message: “Your PC uses a processor that isn’t supported on this version of Windows.” This message appears when a user attempts to update their OS and a quick look at Microsoft’s support page reveals upgrading to Windows 10 is the only way to fix the problem. Microsoft’s support page on the matter says that Windows 10 is the ‘only’ OS to...

Yesterday we reported that an international group of hackers claim they have breached Apple’s iCloud user database and stolen 300 million usernames and passwords. The group has threatened to initiate a widespread factory reset on April 7th, 2017, potentially wiping out data on tens of millions of iPhones and iCloud accounts should Apple fail to pay a ransom. But that breach by nefarious hackers, while serious, is nothing compared to what your trusted operating system provider may be doing on your personal computer. According to a recent report, if you are a Windows 10 user then every single keystroke you...

A day after Microsoft introduced an innocent Artificial Intelligence chat robot to Twitter it has had to delete it after it transformed into an evil Hitler-loving, incestual sex-promoting, 'Bush did 9/11'-proclaiming robot.

Mark your calendar: Microsoft's promise to cut off Win7 and 8.1 support for the latest PCs will cause howls of pain next month Events of the past week have drawn into sharp focus the likely result of next month's patching cycle. If you have a Windows 7 or 8.1 PC that you bought, built, or upgraded in the past year or so, it would behoove you to understand exactly what Microsoft plans. Many people -- I'll raise my hand here -- thought that Skylake-based computers would continue to receive Windows 7 and 8.1 patches until the respective end-of-life. We are...

Technology giant Microsoft is blocking Windows 7 and 8.1 updates on Intel's seventh generation Core i3, i5 and i7 AMD's seventh generation processor (Bristol Ridge) and Qualcomm's 8996 processors. While trying to scan and download updates through Windows Update, error messages appear saying, "Windows could not search for new updates" and "code 80240037 Windows Update encountered an unknown error." As explained in Microsoft Knowledge based article the errors occur as the new processor generations require the latest Windows version. For those on Windows 7 and 8.1, Microsoft recommends updating the devices to Windows 10. In response to the matter a...

A new User Access Control (UAC) bypass technique relies on altering Windows registry app paths and using the Backup and Restore utility to load malicious code without any security warning. The technique revolves around the notion of "auto-elevation," which is a state that Microsoft assigns to various trusted binaries. For example, the Task Manager binary is an auto-elevated file because it's created and digitally signed by Microsoft, and is also housed in a trusted file location, under C:\Windows\system32. This means that despite the UAC security level, launching Task Manager doesn't show a UAC window. Similarly, there are tens of other...