News: Software News

New Windows 11 build fixes Microsoft Installer issue breaking apps

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 23:48:59 +0000

Microsoft has fixed a recently confirmed Windows 11 issue in a newly released build for Windows Insiders in the Beta and Release Preview channels.

This issue would prevent apps from opening on multiple client and server Windows versions after being repaired or updated using the Windows Installer system tool (previously known as Microsoft Installer).

Systems affected by this bug include those where Windows users have installed the KB5007215 cumulative update issued during this month's Patch Tuesday.

The fix issued today with Windows 11 Build 22000.348 (KB5007262) only for Windows Insiders is also expected to roll out to all impacted Windows 11 customers during the December 2021 Patch Tuesday.

"We fixed a known issue that might prevent apps, such as Kaspersky apps, from opening after you attempt to repair or update the apps using the Microsoft Installer (MSI)," the Windows Insider Program Team said.

Systems running older Windows versions waiting for a fix

While Microsoft is now providing Windows Insiders running the latest Windows 11 beta build with a fix, users of all other Windows versions impacted by this issue will have to wait for a future update.

The complete list of Windows versions impacted by this known issue includes:

Client: Windows 11, version 21H2; Windows 10, version 21H2; Windows 10, version 21H1; Windows 10, version 20H2; Windows 10, version 2004; Windows 10, version 1909; Windows 10, version 1809; Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019; Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2016; Windows 10, version 1607; Windows 10 Enterprise 2015 LTSB; Windows 8.1; Windows 7 SP1
Server: Windows Server 2022; Windows Server, version 20H2; Windows Server, version 2004; Windows Server, version 1909; Windows Server, version 1809; Windows Server 2019; Windows Server 2016; Windows Server 2012 R2; Windows Server 2012; Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1; Windows Server 2008 SP2

The list of November cumulative updates that break Windows Installer's functionality includes:

Windows 7: KB5007233, KB5007236
Windows 8.1: KB5007247, KB5007255
Windows 10: KB5007206, KB5007207, KB5007186, KB5007189, KB5007192
Windows 11: KB5007215
Windows Server 2008: KB5007246, KB5007263
Windows Server 2008 R2: KB5007233, KB5007236
Windows Server 2012: KB5007245, KB5007260
Windows Server 2012 R2: KB5007247, KB5007255
Windows Server 2016: KB5007192
Windows Server 2019: KB5007206
Windows Server 2022: KB5007205

Workaround available

While not all impacted Windows versions have a fix ready, Microsoft provides a workaround for customers experiencing difficulties launching apps after deploying one of the problematic updates.

"To mitigate this issue, you will need to uninstall the affected app, then install the latest version of the app," Microsoft said.

Redmond's engineers are working to address this issue for all other Windows customers, which will be released with a future update.

Microsoft is also readying an update to address another issue impacting Windows 11 customers that can trigger blue screens of death (BSODs) on systems with Intel Smart Sound Technology (SST) audio DSP drivers.

New Windows 11 build fixes Microsoft Installer issue breaking apps

Microsoft: Windows Installer breaks apps after updates, repairs

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 23:46:32 +0000

Microsoft has confirmed a new known issue impacting client and server Windows versions that breaks apps after updating or repairing them using the Windows Installer (previously known as Microsoft Installer).

This issue affects systems where Windows users have installed cumulative updates released during this month's Patch Tuesday.

After installing one of these updates, "Microsoft Installer (MSI) might have issues repairing or updating apps," the company says on the Windows Health dashboard.

"Apps that are known to be affected include some apps from Kaspersky. Affected apps might fail to open after an update or repair has been attempted."

The complete list of Windows versions affected by this known issue includes:

Client: Windows 11, version 21H2; Windows 10, version 21H2; Windows 10, version 21H1; Windows 10, version 20H2; Windows 10, version 2004; Windows 10, version 1909; Windows 10, version 1809; Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019; Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2016; Windows 10, version 1607; Windows 10 Enterprise 2015 LTSB; Windows 8.1; Windows 7 SP1
Server: Windows Server 2022; Windows Server, version 20H2; Windows Server, version 2004; Windows Server, version 1909; Windows Server, version 1809; Windows Server 2019; Windows Server 2016; Windows Server 2012 R2; Windows Server 2012; Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1; Windows Server 2008 SP2

Microsoft also provides a workaround for customers experiencing difficulties when launching apps after deploying one of the problematic updates.

"To mitigate this issue, you will need to uninstall the affected app, then install the latest version of the app," Microsoft says.

The company's engineers are currently working on a fix to address this issue which will be released with a future update.

Windows 11 known issues and safeguards

Microsoft is also working on a resolution for another issue impacting Windows 11 customers that leads to blue screens of death (BSODs) on affected systems.

The new issue is caused by compatibility issues between integrated Intel Smart Sound Technology (SST) audio DSP drivers and Windows 11, version 21H2.

Redmond has also added an update block to prevent devices with impacted Intel SST drivers from being offered the Windows 11 upgrade.

Right now, there're only two Windows 11 compatibility holds, with the other one blocking the upgrade from being offered to eligible systems running Oracle VirtualBox when Hyper-V or Windows Hypervisor are also installed.

Microsoft: Windows Installer breaks apps after updates, repairs

Firefox may soon paint all sites in dark or light mode, if you want

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 23:43:17 +0000

Mozilla is working on a new feature in the organization's Firefox web browser that may be used to force a specific color scheme on sites you visit.

Most browsers support light and dark modes already, but the functionality is limited to painting the chrome of the browser using the color scheme. Website content remains unmodified when the feature is enabled or configured.

The latest Firefox Nightly version, version 96.0a1, comes with a new feature that extends the functionality. Once activated, sites will also be displayed in the selected color scheme.

Here is how the feature looks on Ghacks. Dark Mode was enabled on the Windows 10 system and Firefox picked it up to display the browser UI and the content of the webpage using the color scheme.

All sites are displayed using the selected mode and color scheme. Firefox includes options to change some parameters, including text and background colors.

Here is how you configure the feature in Firefox Nightly:

Select Menu > Settings.
Scroll down to the Language and Appearance section.
Activate the "Colors" button on the page.

Here you get the following options:

To configure the force color feature on websites, set "Override the colors specified by the page with your selections above" to Always.
Change the text and Background colors to your liking.
Change the visited and unvisited links colors as well.
Select OK to save the new configuration.

Websites will be painted using the selected mode of the operating system, light or dark, and the colors selected in Firefox's preferences.

The feature was announced by Mozilla employee Morgan on Twitter. According to the information posted there, users should expect that some content may not look perfect when the forced colors mode is enabled. Users are encouraged to report bugs and issues on Bugzilla.

The functionality to override text, background and link colors on sites has been part of Firefox for a long time. The new feature takes this a step further by adding the color mode of the operating system to the site as well; this paints every item on the site using the selected color mode.

Firefox users had to use browser extensions such as Midnight Lizard before to achieve something similar. Mozilla's implementation is bare bones at the time: there is no override option or option to customize the color scheme of a specific site using native options. Since it is been released in Nightly only at the time, it is possible that missing functionality will be added to improve the feature's usability.

Firefox may soon paint all sites in dark or light mode, if you want

Microsoft promises it's focusing on improving Windows 11 performance come 2022

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 06:54:30 +0000

Microsoft released the 1.0 stable version of Windows App SDK a couple of days ago and the Windows developer team decided to conduct an AUA (Ask Us Anything) about it on the Windows 11 subreddit. During the session, when some users complained about some of the sluggish UI performance instances on Windows 11, the Windows developer team confirmed that it is indeed working to address such issues in 2022. This means next year's Windows 11 22H2 feature update could bring a faster overall UI interaction response and performance if things do indeed pan out as Microsoft claims.

Performance will be an area of focus for us in 2022. A lot of that focus will go into startup/launch perf; in terms of UI elements rendering on the screen (after the framework is loaded), we've tested the scalability of doing things like putting 10k buttons on the screen, etc. Most of the UI elements render pretty quickly already, but it would be good to understand if there are specific UI element scaling/slowness issues you're experiencing and we could take a look into that specific scenario.

[...] Internally, in addition to wanting to focus some of our our UX framework's time on perf in 2022, we also have a dedicated team formed recently to tackle this topic more holistically. So there's multiple things we're collectively doing here to try and make sure we have a good perf story.

Microsoft seems to be taking user feedback pretty seriously now, at least for some of the aspects. For example, the firm announced just yesterday that it is rolling back to the previous UWP-based Whiteboard due to poor feedback related to performance and reduced features on the new Whiteboard.

Also, this isn't the first time that Microsoft has mentioned performance improvements when talking about Windows 11. Like back in September, the company explained how the OS was designed to get the best performance out of available hardware.

Source: windowsdev_team (Reddit) (1),(2)

Update: Added additional quote from the Windows Developer team to explain the focus on overall Windows 11 performance aspect too.

Microsoft promises it's focusing on improving Windows 11 performance come 2022

Microsoft release Windows 10 Build 19044.1381 / 19043.1381 to the Release Preview Channel

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 01:57:29 +0000

Today Microsoft released Windows 10 Cumulative Update KB5007253 to Windows 10 Insiders in the Release Preview channel.

The update takes Windows 10 21H1 to Build 19044.1381 and Windows 10 21H2 to Build 19044.1381.

The update this additional fix plus all the improvements previously noted here:

Microsoft fixed an issue that might affect devices that use Windows Hello for Business and are joined to Azure Active Directory (AD). These devices might experience issues when they access on-premises resources, such as file shares or websites.
Microsoft fixed an issue that affects the opening of the SearchFilterHost.exe process.

Microsoft fixed an issue that causes searchindexer.exe to keep handles to the per user search database in the path below after you sign out: “C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\\” As a result, searchindexer.exe stops working and duplicate profile names are created.
Microsoft added support for the cancellation of daylight savings time for the Republic of Fiji for 2021.
Microsoft fixed an issue that prevents the enrollment status page (ESP) from displaying the error message or remediation options after a failure.
Microsoft added the –cd argument to wsl.exe to specify a Windows or Linux path as a starting directory for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
Microsoft fixed an issue that fails to apply machine Group Policy objects automatically at startup or in the background to devices on a domain that have certain processors.
Microsoft added the option to configure an Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) maximum transmission unit (MTU) that is less than 576 bytes on an interface.
Microsoft fixed an issue that fails to provide an event description for the System Center – Operations Manager.
Microsoft fixed an issue that incorrectly renders some variable fonts.
Microsoft fixed an issue that might cause the 32-bit version of Microsoft Excel to stop working on devices that have certain processors when you export to PDF.
Microsoft fixed an issue that displays glyphs at the wrong angle when you use the Meiryo UI font and other vertical fonts. These fonts are frequently used in Japan, China, or other countries in Asia.
Microsoft enabled onunload events to create pop-up windows in Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode.
Microsoft fixed an issue that affects predictive pre-rendering in Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode.
Microsoft fixed an issue that causes Internet Explorer to stop working.
Microsoft fixed an issue that causes Internet Explorer to stop working when using the Input Method Editor (IME) to insert elements.
Microsoft fixed an issue that causes the Settings page to unexpectedly close after you uninstall a font.
Microsoft fixed an issue that affects the UI for renaming files when using folder view in File Explorer. The UI fails to properly handle inline composition when using the new Japanese IME.
Microsoft fixed a memory leak in ctfmon.exe that occurs when you switch between different edit clients.
Microsoft fixed a known issue that causes error codes 0x000006e4, 0x0000007c, or 0x00000709 when connecting to a remote printer that is shared on a Windows print server.
Microsoft fixed an issue that turns off screen capture and recording functionalities on the Windows Game Bar because of a service failure.
Microsoft fixed an issue that might cause the return value of GetCommandLineA() to be lowercase in some developer scenarios.
Microsoft fixed an issue that might cause the decryption of a file that is on a remote server to fail. This issue occurs when using the Encrypted File System (EFS) on the remote server and the error message is, “ERROR_DECRYPTION_FAILED”.
Microsoft fixed an issue that prevents you from enabling BitLocker on a thinly provisioned virtual machine (VM). The error is “A device attached to the system is not functioning” and the system logs, “STATUS_UNSUCCESSFUL”.
Microsoft fixed an issue that causes Windows Defender Application Control to incorrectly compare two file version numbers.
Microsoft enabled credentials for Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) users in Quick Assist.
Microsoft fixed an issue that sometimes prevents Quick Assist users from using full screen view after they start a remote assistance session.
Microsoft fixed an issue that prevents the applications that you use often from appearing on the Start menu and prevents you from configuring them to appear on the Start menu using a Group Policy.
Microsoft fixed an issue that causes the syncing of desktop settings to fail when you use the built-in User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) template.
Microsoft fixed an issue that prevents Failover Clustering from updating Domain Name Server (DNS) records.
Microsoft fixed an issue that prevents your device from starting up, and it becomes unresponsive because of licensing API calls.

Windows 10 Insiders in the Release Preview Channel can download the update by Checking for Updates in Settings.

Microsoft release Windows 10 Build 19044.1381 / 19043.1381 to the Release Preview Channel

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021: here are the major changes

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 is now available. windows-10-enterprise-ltsc-2021 The new Long Term Servicing Channel version of Windows 10 is not available as a retail version. The new release "builds on Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019" and its feature set is equivalent to Windows 10 version 21H2, which Microsoft released this week.

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 includes changes found in the Windows 10 versions 1903, 1909, 2004, 21H1 and 21H2, when compared to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019.

One core difference between the two Enterprise versions is that the support lifecycle has been reduced by Microsoft. Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 gets 5 years of support, that is 5 years less than the support lifecycle of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019. The only exception is Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 IoT, which still gets 10 years of support.

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 will be supported until 2026 by Microsoft, that is three years less than the support lifecycle of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019.

Microsoft highlights the following core improvements in the new LTSC 2021 version of Windows 10:

System Guard: Improved SMM Firmware Protection feature, which is built on top of System Guard Secure Launch. It is designed to "reduce the firmware attack surface". Windows Defender "enables an even higher level of System Management Mode (SMM) Firmware Protection" to detect a higher level of SMM compliance. Microsoft notes that there are three versions of SMM Firmware Protection. Devices that support version 3, the strongest protection, will be released soon as they require new hardware, according to Microsoft.
Windows Security app: includes Protection history, including Controlled Folder Access blocks, and Windows Defender Offline Scanning tool actions.
Bitlocker and Mobile Device Management (MDM) with Azure Active Directory: better protection against accidental password disclore though a "new key-rolling feature" which "securely rotates recovery passwords on MDM-managed devices".
Windows Defender Firewall: includes several new features.
- Reduce the attack surface of a device through rules that restrict or allow traffic using properties such as IP addresses, ports, or program paths.
- Integrated Internet Protocol Security (IPsec), to enforce "authenticated, end-to-end network communications".
- Easier to analyze and debug. IPsec integrated into Packet Monitor.
- Enhanced Windows Defender Firewall event logs.
- Support for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
Attack surface area reduction: administrators may configure advanced web protections to set allow and deny lists for URLs and IP addresses.
Next Generation protection: extended to protect against ransomware, credential misuse, and removable storage attacks.
Integrity enforcement capabilities: runtime attestation of Windows 10.
Tamper-proofing capabilities: Virtualization-based security that isolates Microsoft Defender for Endpoint security from the OS and potential attackers.
Emergency outbreak protection: updates devices automatically with "new intelligence" when outbreaks are detected.
Improved support for non-ASCII file paths.
Geolocation support of sample data.
Certified ISO 27001 compliance.
Windows Sandbox support.
Microsoft Defender Application Guard enhancements:
- Ability to change Windows Defender Application Guard settings without having to change Registry key settings.
- Application Guard extension for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
- Application Guard supports Microsoft Office.
- Dynamic navigation support "to navigate back to their default host browser from the Application Guard Microsoft Edge".
Application Control:
- WDAC supports multiple simultaneous code integrity policies.
- Path based rules.
- Allow COM object registration.
Windows Hello improvements:
- Official FIDO2 support across all major browsers, Microsoft Account and Azure AD.
- Passwordless sign-in for Microsoft Accounts.
- Safe Mode supports Windows Hello PIN sign-in.
- Windows Hello for Business supports Hybrid Azure Active Directory.
- Added support for virtualization-based security to secure "a user's biometric authentication data".
- Multi-camera support added.
- Remote Desktop with biometrics support.
Windows Defender Credential Guard supports ARM64.
Microsoft privacy settings: new notification icon when apps use the microphone.
Microsoft Intune supports Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 (except for Windows Update Rings in device profiles).
Mobile Device Management policies extended with "new Local Users and Groups settings".
New Key-rolling and Key-rotation features that enable "secure rolling of Recovery passwords on MDM-managed AAD devices on demand from Microsoft Intune/MDM tools or when a recovery password is used to unlock the BitLocker protected drive.
SetupDiag command line tool to analyze why the installation of updates failed.
Support for Reserved Storage.
Microsoft Edge Kiosk Mode support.
Windows Subsystem for Linux is available in-box.
Support for WPA3 H2E standard.

You can check out Microsoft's What's New support article here.

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021: here are the major changes

Winamp prepares a relaunch, new beta version almost ready

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 23:43:59 +0000

Winamp is getting closer to release with a redesigned website, logo, and a new beta signup allowing users to soon test the upcoming version of the media player.

Before we streamed our music, users would rip their albums or download MP3s to listen on their computer using media players.

One of the most popular media players to play MP3s was Winamp, with its retro skins and animated visualizers that moved along with the music you were playing. However, Winamp had not seen any further development after its version 5.5 release in 2007.

In October 2018, after Winamp 5.8 was leaked online, the developers decided to publish the leaked version on their website Winamp.com to allow everyone to use it in all its nostalgic glory. Unfortunately, while Radionomy, the owners of Winamp, said they had big plans for Winamp, no further versions have been released since then.

The only new Winamp development we have seen has been by the Winamp Community Update Project (WACUP ) who released Preview version 1.0.20.7236 with bug fixes and improvements.

Winamp 5.8

Winamp beta test starting soon

As first reported by Vosveteit, the lack of official development is about to change as the Winamp.com site received a redesign and a new logo was revealed for the media player this week.

Additionally, you can now visit winamp.com and sign up for a Winamp beta test, which should become available soon.

New Winamp logo

While it is unknown what version will be released for testing and what bugs have been fixed, the Winamp Head of Product development, Jeremy Scheppers, told BleepingComputer that they are excited for the relaunch of the application.

BleepingComputer has contacted Winamp with further questions and will update the article when we receive a reply.

H/T vosveteit.sk

Winamp prepares a relaunch, new beta version almost ready

WhatsApp Beta for Windows 10 and 11 is now available on the Microsoft Store

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

WhatsApp has effectively replaced texting/SMS in many countries around the World. But when it comes to the competition, the Facebook-owned instant messaging platform's desktop experience is sub-par, when you compare it with Telegram.

WhatsApp Beta for Windows 10 and 11 has been released, and is probably the first step in the right direction. Before we talk about the new app, let's see how the current desktop tool works.

The standalone program, WhatsApp for Desktop, is a bit of a mess, that's an understatement really. The old application is quite resource intensive, and if you close the window, it exits instead of minimizing to the system tray. So, you don't get notifications when new messages arrive.

Even the browser-based WhatsApp Web is better compared to the desktop program. Speaking of which, the interface of both tools are identical, which along with the animations always gave me the impression that it was a mobile app ported to Windows.

WhatsApp Beta has a brand-new interface, and it follows the Windows 10 design. The colored bar at the top is gone, and the sidebar on the left has a lighter tone. Click a conversation to view the messages in it or use the Plus symbol to initiate a new chat, which displays a small pop-up with a search bar that makes finding a contact easier than before. The right-pane of WhatsApp Beta's interface has a semi-opaque backdrop, which sort of has a frosted glass effect.

Note: You may opt in to join the Multi-Device beta from the start screen, to use WhatsApp across devices simultaneously.

Click the contact's name at the top to view their phone number, name, display picture, etc. You can also mute, block or report contacts from this panel, and also assign a specific notification sound for the person. You can view the media, files and links that you shared/received from your contact, manage the Encryption setting, and view groups that you have in common.

WhatsApp Beta supports video calling and voice calls, simply tap the camera or microphone button to place your call. The program displays a floating window for the call, with useful options such as a mute button, and an option to switch to video calls. The search function in WhatsApp Beta actually works, and also displays a badge to indicate the number of results that were found. Click on the Up and Down arrow buttons to jump to the previous or next message.

Right-click on a conversation in the sidebar to mute it, pin it to the top, archive it, mark as unread, or delete the chats. Similarly, the context menu for messages can be used to star, forward, copy messages, etc. Group members are listed at the top of the conversation page

Click the gear cog icon in the top left corner, to access the settings. There are more options in WhatsApp beta than the stable program. The General settings lets you log out of the app, and to toggle auto-start. The next tab, Account, lets you manage your privacy settings including blocked contacts, and the option to control your last seen status. Manage your chat history from the Chats section.

The Notifications tab can be used to toggle the pop-up notification banner. It also lets you set the message notification sounds for chats and group chats. There are 10 tones to choose from.

WhatsApp Beta displays a banner near the system tray when new messages arrive, even if the app is closed. Sadly, there is no option to reply from the notification directly. The Storage options allow you to configure the types of media that the app will download automatically such as Photos, Audio, Videos, and Documents.

WhatsApp Beta does not allow you to edit messages or delete them without leaving a remnant message. That said, the difference between the performance of WhatsApp Beta and WhatsApp Desktop, is really noticeable. The new app's animations are fluid, and uses less resources than the desktop program.

Download WhatsApp Beta for Windows 10 and 11 from the Microsoft Store. You'll need to be on Windows 10 version 18362.0 or higher to use the app. The current version of the app is 2.21447.0

WhatsApp Beta for Windows 10 and 11 is now available on the Microsoft Store

You can now have Windows 11-style menus in Chrome, even on Windows 10

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 03:28:10 +0000

Google is rolling out Chrome 96 today to all users of their browser, which brings an interesting new feature to Windows users.

Using a flag, Windows users can now enable the rounded corners and drop-shadow features in the Chrome browser on Windows 11, and interestingly this is available even on Windows 10.

If you like the look, you can enable it using the Windows 11 Style Menus flag in Chrome://flags.

Simple go enter Chrome://flags in the address bar, enter Windows 11 in the Search bar and select Enabled – All Windows Versions.

Will you be enabling this feature? Let us know below.

via WindowsLatest

You can now have Windows 11-style menus in Chrome, even on Windows 10

Microsoft releases Edge Dev channel build 97.0.1072.8 with smart history searches in the address bar

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 23:50:17 +0000

Microsoft today released the new v 97.0.1072.8 build for Edge Dev channel users. This new build comes with support for smart history searches in the address bar, new management policies and more. Find the full change log of Edge Dev Channel build below.

Added features and bug fixes:

Enabled support for smart history searches in the address bar. Previously, this was only available on the History management page.
Added a management policy to control if Internet Explorer Mode Tab In Edge Mode is Allowed, which lets sites on the IE mode list be temporarily opened in a non-IE mode tab for testing purposes. Note that updates to documentation or administrative templates may not have occurred yet.
Enabled support for a management policy from Chromium to control CORS Non-Wildcard Request Headers Support.
Added an API to WebView2 apps to control playing media (Issue 41).

Edge Dev Improved Reliability:

Fixed an issue on Linux where certain Settings pages crash or are blank.
Fixed a crash on the new tab page.
Fixed a crash when certain popups open.
Fixed a crash when showing certain menus or popups.
Fixed a crash when interacting with certain popups.
Fixed an issue where interactions with desktop notifications sometimes fail.

Changed Behavior:

Fixed an issue where PDFs sometimes start seeing blank white pages after scrolling for a while.
Fixed an issue where certain types of text annotations in PDFs don’t work.
Fixed an issue where pinned tab groups aren’t restored when the browser is re-opened.
Fixed an issue where the mini context menu blocks UI on certain websites that have their own UI that appears upon selection.
Fixed an issue on mobile where certain sync settings don’t work.
Fixed an issue on mobile where website notifications don’t work.
Fixed an issue on mobile where saving payment card info to the browser sometimes fails.
Fixed an issue on mobile where importing data from other browsers sometimes fails.

Known issues:

Users of certain ad blocking extensions may experience playback errors on YouTube. As a workaround, temporarily disabling the extension should allow playback to proceed. See this help article for more details.
Some users are still running into an issue where all tabs and extensions immediately crash with a STATUS_INVALID_IMAGE_HASH error. The most common cause of this error is outdated security or antivirus software from vendors like Symantec, and in those cases, updating that software will fix it.
Users of the Kaspersky Internet Suite who have the associated extension installed may sometimes see webpages like Gmail fail to load. This failure is due to the main Kaspersky software being out of date, and is thus fixed by making sure the latest version is installed.
Some users are seeing “wobbling” behavior when scrolling using trackpad gestures or touchscreens, where scrolling in one dimension also causes the page to subtly scroll back and forth in the other. Note that this only affects certain websites and seems to be worse on certain devices. This is most likely related to our ongoing work to bring scrolling back to parity with Edge Legacy’s behavior, so if this behavior is undesirable, you can temporarily turn it off by disabling the edge://flags/#edge-experimental-scrolling flag.

This Edge Dev channel update should download and install directly but in case it doesn’t then you can head to the Edge settings and manually update the browser.

Microsoft releases Edge Dev channel build 97.0.1072.8 with smart history searches in the address bar

Windows 11 Dev build 22504 fixes Explorer crash issue, adds redesigned Your Phone, and more

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 23:48:30 +0000

Microsoft just released a new build for Windows 11 insiders on the Dev channel. The new build 22504 brings a redesigned Your Phone app which means rounded corners and more. It also expands the support of the 13 themes for the touch keyboard to more input experiences, including IMEs, the emoji panel, and voice typing. The new build will also allow some insiders to create custom emojis based on the face and skin tones of family members, and more.

Redesigned Your Phone app

The major changes and improvements are given below:

To further personalize your Windows text input experience, we have expanded the 13 themes for the touch keyboard to now apply to our other input experiences, including IMEs, the emoji panel, and voice typing. Also available for all themed experiences is the theme engine that allows you to create a fully customized theme including background images. You can find all this under the new “Text Input” section under Settings > Personalization. This isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.

We have added the ability for personalized combinations of emoji based on face and skin tones of family members, couples with heart, kissing, and people holding hands. Just open the emoji panel (WIN + . ) and try these combinations out by typing the following in the search box: family, couple, holding hands, or kissing. This isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.

Aside from the big changes noted above, there are some more improvements the build brings:

You can now use the WIN + Alt + K keyboard shortcut to toggle the new mute icon in the Taskbar when it’s showing.
Based on feedback, we’re making emoji search in Portuguese and Polish a little more flexible with keywords containing diacritics.
Introducing .NET Framework 4.8.1 our latest .NET Framework that will bring native ARM64 support for the .NET Framework runtime.
As Settings > System > Sound in Windows 11 shows a warning when microphone access has been restricted in your privacy settings, we’re removing the notification to alert you about this.
Added support for the cancellation of daylight savings time for the Republic of Fiji for 2021.
We’re making a change so that going forward on new installs the touch indicator option will now be turned off by default under Settings > Accessibility > Mouse pointer and touch. As part of this change, we’ve added a link to this Settings page from Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Touch and made it so that the press and hold visual is now always displayed regardless of the setting state.
Apps will now launch maximized by default when in the tablet posture on small devices (11-inch screens diagonal and under).

Build 22504 also brings plenty of bug fixes:

[Start]

Fixed an issue believed to be the root cause of icons not displaying correctly in the Recommended section of Start (showing the wrong or a generic icon) sometimes.
If you open Start and immediate press Shift + F10 or the context menu key, the context menu should be aligned with the search box now.

[Taskbar]

Fixed an issue leading to an explorer.exe crash in recent builds if there were issues loading the battery icon in the Taskbar.
Made some changes to help the clock in the Taskbar update more reliably, including addressing a recent issue where it wasn’t updating at all over Remote Desktop.
Mitigated a positioning issue that could cause the date and time to get clipped off the end of the Taskbar.
If you’ve updated the critical and low battery level notification definitions, the battery icon in the Taskbar will now align with that, rather than using the default values to show a warning.
Right clicking the date and time in the Taskbar will now dismiss the Notification Center if it’s open, so that you can see the context menu options.

[Input]

Keyboard lights (for example, for caps lock) should work properly again now with this build.
We’ve made a few more tweaks to our emoji search keywords based on feedback, including improving results for day, night, and face with raised eyebrow. Please continue sharing feedback with us about this under Input and Language > Emoji Panel in the Feedback Hub.
Fixed an issue that was causing the kaomoji list in WIN + . to be blank when accessed while using a Chinese IME.
Fixed an issue with the emoji panel search results that could lead to a single gif being displayed repeatedly with certain queries.
Mitigated an issue resulting in IMEs not working with certain games.
Addressed an issue where the options under Settings > Personalization > Typing to change the settings “Show text suggestions & add a spacebar after I choose a text suggestions” for the touch keyboard might unexpectedly not display.
If you make a long pause while using voice typing (WIN + H), it should be able to resume listening more reliability now.
Fixed some inconsistencies between actual listening status and the microphone visual in voice typing.
Text should no longer be unexpectedly duplicated if the caret is moved while using voice typing.

[Windowing]

Selecting snap layout options should no longer randomly put windows on your other monitor sometimes.

[Settings]

The brightness and volume sliders in Quick Settings should no longer randomly become invisible.
Fixed an issue preventing Adjusting active hours from being set to manually.
Addressed an issue which could result in the touch keyboard occluding the password entry field when connecting to a network in Quick Settings.

[Other]

Fixed a scaling issue that was causing the update prompt dialog (and other dialogs of that style) to get cut off and not draw correctly after the DPI changed.
Improved the positioning of the context menu when right clicking the bottom corner of the desktop.
Mitigated an issue related to TCPIP which could result in bug checks when waking a device.
Fixed an issue where high priority notifications (such as an alarm) would sometimes unexpectedly dismiss without you engaging with it, leading to it randomly reappearing the next time a normal priority notification came in.

As with any new build, this one too has several known issues that are given below:

[General]

Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing. If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.
We’re investigating an issue where some PCs are unable to install new builds, or other updates. The PC may report an error code 0x80070002. If you are experiencing this issue, please reboot your PC and try again.
Some devices may bugcheck with error code 0xc1900101-0x4001c when installing this build. If you hit this, after the device rolls back to the previous build, you may want to pause updates until we release a fix.

[Start]

In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[Taskbar]

The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.

[Windowing]

Hovering your mouse back and forth between different desktops in Task View will result in the displayed thumbnails and content area unexpectedly shrinking.

[Search]

After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.

Microsoft has also added that some of these fixes noted here could end up in the GA Windows 11 21H2 that's publicly available. You may find more information on Build 22504 in the official press release here.

Windows 11 Dev build 22504 fixes Explorer crash issue, adds redesigned Your Phone, and more

Intel SST audio driver causing BSODs on Windows 11 PCs, confirms Microsoft

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 23:44:25 +0000

Microsoft has shared details on a new issue it has found on certain Windows 11 21H2 devices. This new issue arises as a result of compatibility problems between Windows 11 and Intel's Smart Sound Technology (Intel SST) audio driver and affected systems can throw up a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) or Stop screen error. While totally unrelated, this news comes just days after Microsoft reverted back to the color blue for BSODs on Windows 11 insider builds.

On its release health status page, Microsoft describes this issue as follows:

Intel and Microsoft have found incompatibility issues with certain versions of drivers for Intel Smart Sound Technology (Intel SST) and Windows 11. Windows 11 devices with the affected Intel SST driver might receive an error with a blue screen.

Microsoft further adds that it has added a safeguard against this by applying an upgrade hold on the affected devices.

To safeguard your upgrade experience, we have applied a compatibility hold on devices with affected Intel SST drivers from being offered Windows 11. If your organization is using Update Compliance, the safeguard ID is 36899911.

Intel SST is an integrated audio digital signal processor (DSP) that is basically responsible for handling and processing audio signals on many modern Intel devices.

Microsoft notes that the issue exists on SST driver versions 10.29.0.5152 and earlier, or versions 10.30.0.5152 and earlier. Hence, the solution to fix this problem is to update to driver versions 10.30.00.5714 and later or versions 10.29.00.5714 and later.

After the driver is updated, the Windows 11 upgrade prompt should come to you within 48 hours says Microsoft. That's very likely to be true since the company announced yesterday that it is accelerating the pace of the Windows 11 rollout owing to the "positive" feedback it has received.

You may find more details on this problem on Microsoft's release health status page.

Intel SST audio driver causing BSODs on Windows 11 PCs, confirms Microsoft

Google is extending Chrome support for Windows 7 by another year

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 23:41:31 +0000

Google continues to support all editions of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system by another year.

Microsoft ended support for Home editions of Windows 7 on January 14, 2020 officially. Businesses and Enterprise customers can subscribe to Extended Security Updates (ESU), which unlocks security updates to Windows 7 devices for up to three years. Microsoft announced this month that it won't extend support beyond January 2023.

Many software companies announced extensions of support beyond 2020. Browser makers such as Mozilla or Google announced that their products would continue to support Windows 7.

Microsoft's own Microsoft Edge web browser is supported until January 15, 2023 on Windows 7. The company stopped supporting the operating system, at least on Home systems, but continues to support select applications.

Internet Explorer 11 on the other hand, won't be supported after June 15, 2022 by Microsoft. The decision affects all supported platforms, not just the Windows 7 operating system.

Google announced that it would support Windows 7 for another year-and-a-half initially, until July 15, 2021. The company extended the pledge to support Windows 7 until January 15, 2022 at the very least. With the day coming up fast, the company announced that it would extend support by another year. In other words: Google will support Chrome on Windows 7 until at least January 15, 2023.

The new support end date syncs it with Microsoft's ESU support end date.

Important: Chrome is extending support for Windows 7 through January 15, 2023 for critical security and stability updates.

Google's wording on the support page suggest that Chrome will only receive security and stability updates, similar to how Microsoft handles updates for Windows 7 devices that are subscribed to ESU. Whether that is indeed the case or just a careful wording remains to be seen.

For now, Chrome is supported on the following Windows platforms:

Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 or later
Servers require Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, or Windows Server 2016.
Intel Pentium 4 processor or later that's SSE3 capable

Other Chromium-based browsers will likely extend support by another year as well. Mozilla continues to support Firefox on Windows 7 as well; the organization has not revealed an end of support date yet for Firefox on Windows 7.

Closing Words

Google extending support by another year for Chrome on Windows 7 suggests that a sizeable number of Chrome installations is still run on Windows 7. Google did not reveal numbers, percentage or otherwise, though.

Google is extending Chrome support for Windows 7 by another year

Brave Wallet: Brave integrates a crypto wallet into the browser

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 09:12:03 +0000

Brave Wallet, a new crypto wallet, is now available in the Brave Browser. The integrated wallet enables Brave users to "store, manage, grow, and swap their crypto portfolio from a single wallet".

Since it is integrated, it does not require an extension or applications that users need to install. Brave Browser is required, however, and that limits availability to the platforms the browser is available on. At first, Brave Browser is only available for desktop versions of Brave, but a mobile Brave Wallet will become available "soon" according to Brave. Syncing between Brave Browser instances is not supported either at this point, but Brave hopes to launch syncing soon as well.

The Brave Wallet supports all EVM compatible chains (Polygon, xDai, Avalanche, etc.) and L2s, and unlike other wallet extensions, the Brave Wallet is built with an open MPL license, enabling developers to make contributions easily.

Brave Wallet supports "almost any crypto asset" according to the announcement. Activate the Brave Wallet icon in the main toolbar of the browser to get started, or load brave://wallet/crypto/onboarding directly to open the onboarding page.

You are asked to set a password to protect the wallet. Brave's minimum requirements are quite low: 7 characters, at least one number and one special character.

Once you have set up the password, you get the option to back up the crypto wallet; this step is optional. If you select continue, you get a 12-word recovery phrase, which you may use to recover primary crypto accounts.

Once that is out of the way, you are taken to the main Wallet page in Brave. There you see an overview of your assets and development over time. Options to buy, send and swap cryptographic currency is provided on the page.

Brave users may create additional accounts, import them from the local system, or connect Ledger and Trezor hardware wallets to the Browser as well using the account management option. Options to continue using other wallets, e.g. Brave's legacy wallet Crypto Wallets, or third-party wallets as well if they prefer.

Brave users may use the Wallet to store BAT, which they may earn in the browser through its advertisement feature. The wallet itself is free to use, according to Brave. Transactions on the other hand require " gas fees, and swaps may also include an additional transaction fee", which will be "similar to—or the same as—other crypto wallets"

You can check out Brave's announcement on the official site here.

Closing Words

Brave Wallet integrates natively in the Brave Browser; this alone may appeal to users of Brave, especially those who use it to earn BAT currency while using it. Several features are not available yet, including syncing or support for mobile versions of Brave; this limits the solution and some users may prefer to wait and considering switching or starting using it once these missing options become available.

Brave Wallet: Brave integrates a crypto wallet into the browser

Due to "positive" feedback, Windows 11 rollout is about to get a whole lot faster

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 23:43:03 +0000

For those who are eager to get on board the Windows 11 train, Microsoft just announced some pretty positive news. In a blog post, the company has stated that it will be accelerating the Windows 11 rollout from today as it is pleased with how the update rollout process has gone so far.

Today, based on the positive rollout update experience and user feedback we have seen to date, we are advancing the pace of the rollout faster than we previously anticipated, and are now making the Windows 11 upgrade more broadly available to eligible Windows 10 devices.

By "eligible Windows 10 devices" Microsoft notes that these must be running Windows 10 2004 (May 2020 update) or something newer and have the September 14, 2021 security update. And while the firm doesn't explicitly state it, the update will only be available to devices that fulfill Microsoft's processor requirement criteria and other minimum system specs requirements.

Here Microsoft reminds us that Windows 10, version 2004 will reach the end of servicing period on December 14, 2021, and hence receive no new updates after. This is to probably urge users to upgrade to Windows 11 or a newer version of 10 if their PCs haven't already been.

Alongside this, Microsoft also shared some more information about the Windows 10 21H2 update (November 2021) that has started rolling out today. The firm announced that it's moving to an annual update cadence just like on Windows 11. This means the next feature update for Windows 10 will be coming in 2H of 2022. You can find out much more detail about the new Windows 10 21H2 in our article here. In case you want to read the original press release, go here.

Due to "positive" feedback, Windows 11 rollout is about to get a whole lot faster

Windows 11 BSOD is back to the beloved Blue Screen of Death, with Build 22000.346

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 23:41:29 +0000

A few days back, Microsoft released its Insider build 22000.346 to the Beta and the Release Preview channels. And among the many changes and fixes it brought, like those for printer issues, it also noted that the firm was revertingto the color blue for its stop error screen, which is more commonly called the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

The changelog point denoting this reads:

We changed the screen color to blue when a device stops working or a stop error occurs as in previous versions of Windows.

Microsoft has used the blue color for a long time now but switched it to black when it launched the insider preview builds of Windows 11. Other than the color of the background itself though, there wasn't anything else that was different with the black BSOD. Hence, switching it back to blue was probably not too difficult for the Redmond giant.

If you recall, the company made a similar change back in 2016 when it had introduced the Green Screen of Death for Insider preview builds. According to Microsoft, this was done to make it easier to distinguish errors on preview builds from final stable versions. And the company may have applied somewhat of the same reasoning here too for the Windows 11 previews.

The first GA of Windows 11 has long been out and so Microsoft may have felt it was time to get back the BSOD to its blue roots. However, there could be some other reason too that we aren't aware of.

via Ars Technica

Windows 11 BSOD is back to the beloved Blue Screen of Death, with Build 22000.346

Microsoft releases Windows 10 Build 19044.1379 and 19043.1379 to Release Preview Channel

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 23:39:37 +0000

Microsoft today announced the release of Windows 10 Build 19044.1379 (21H2) and Windows 10 Build 19044.1379 (21H1) (KB5007253) to the Release Preview Channel Insiders running Windows 10. These new builds include several improvements. Find the full change log below.

What’s new in Windows 10 Build 19044.1379:

We fixed an issue that affects the opening of the SearchFilterHost.exe process.
We fixed an issue that causes searchindexer.exe to keep handles to the per user search database in the path below after you sign out: “C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\\” As a result, searchindexer.exe stops working and duplicate profile names are created.
We added support for the cancellation of daylight savings time for the Republic of Fiji for 2021.
We fixed an issue that prevents the enrollment status page (ESP) from displaying the error message or remediation options after a failure.
We added the –cd argument to wsl.exe to specify a Windows or Linux path as a starting directory for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
We fixed an issue that fails to apply machine Group Policy objects automatically at startup or in the background to devices on a domain that have certain processors.
We added the option to configure an Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) maximum transmission unit (MTU) that is less than 576 bytes on an interface.
We fixed an issue that fails to provide an event description for the System Center – Operations Manager.
We fixed an issue that incorrectly renders some variable fonts.
We fixed an issue that might cause the 32-bit version of Microsoft Excel to stop working on devices that have certain processors when you export to PDF.
We fixed an issue that displays glyphs at the wrong angle when you use the Meiryo UI font and other vertical fonts. These fonts are frequently used in Japan, China, or other countries in Asia.
We enabled onunload events to create pop-up windows in Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode.
We fixed an issue that affects predictive pre-rendering in Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode.
We fixed an issue that causes Internet Explorer to stop working.
We fixed an issue that causes Internet Explorer to stop working when using the Input Method Editor (IME) to insert elements.
We fixed an issue that causes the Settings page to unexpectedly close after you uninstall a font.
We fixed an issue that affects the UI for renaming files when using folder view in File Explorer. The UI fails to properly handle inline composition when using the new Japanese IME.
We fixed a memory leak in ctfmon.exe that occurs when you switch between different edit clients.
We fixed a known issue that causes error codes 0x000006e4, 0x0000007c, or 0x00000709 when connecting to a remote printer that is shared on a Windows print server.
We fixed an issue that turns off screen capture and recording functionalities on the Windows Game Bar because of a service failure.
We fixed an issue that might cause the return value of GetCommandLineA() to be lowercase in some developer scenarios.
We fixed an issue that might cause the decryption of a file that is on a remote server to fail. This issue occurs when using the Encrypted File System (EFS) on the remote server and the error message is, “ERROR_DECRYPTION_FAILED”.
We fixed an issue that prevents you from enabling BitLocker on a thinly provisioned virtual machine (VM). The error is “A device attached to the system is not functioning” and the system logs, “STATUS_UNSUCCESSFUL”.
We fixed an issue that causes Windows Defender Application Control to incorrectly compare two file version numbers.
We enabled credentials for Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) users in Quick Assist.
We fixed an issue that sometimes prevents Quick Assist users from using full screen view after they start a remote assistance session.
We fixed an issue that prevents the applications that you use often from appearing on the Start menu and prevents you from configuring them to appear on the Start menu using a Group Policy.
We fixed an issue that causes the syncing of desktop settings to fail when you use the built-in User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) template.
We fixed an issue that prevents Failover Clustering from updating Domain Name Server (DNS) records.
We fixed an issue that prevents your device from starting up, and it becomes unresponsive because of licensing API calls.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft releases Windows 10 Build 19044.1379 and 19043.1379 to Release Preview Channel

Windows 11 Dev Channel gets a new Media Player app

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 23:37:58 +0000

A couple of months ago, Microsoft inadvertently showed off a new media playing experience that it was working on. However, little was known about it due to the fact that only a screenshot of it had appeared online. Today, Microsoft has confirmed the existence of a new "Media Player" app for Windows 11, and it is rolling it out to those on the Dev Channel right now.

Microsoft has noted that the Media Player app will replace Groove Music on Windows 11 eventually and all existing libraries and playlists will seamlessly and automatically migrate to the new experience. Apart from that, Media Player will obviously be able to play local music and video content as well. Microsoft has noted that the new app has been designed with Windows 11 aesthetics in mind, so do expect rounded corners and other design elements related to the OS.

Other features that Microsoft has touted are album art and "rich artist imagery" that will be visible both in the full screen mode as well as the mini player. Keyboard shortcuts and accessibility-focused enhancements are in tow too.

The legacy Windows Media Player will apparently co-exist with the new Media Player app for now though, if you would rather use that. Microsoft has noted that it is already aware of issues related to playing content stored in network locations, and those related to editing metadata or UI components not respecting app theme preferences. That said, the company will be looking to fix these problems and add new features to the app with the passage of time. Microsoft has not committed to a general release date for Media Player on Windows 11 yet, and has not indicated that it will arrive on Windows 10.

Windows 11 Dev Channel gets a new Media Player app

Microsoft is moving to annual release cadence for Windows 10

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 23:36:02 +0000

Microsoft today announced that Windows 10 moving to annual release cadence to align with the Windows 11 cadence. With this change, Windows 10 users will be getting only one feature update in a calendar year. The next Windows 10 feature update will be available during the second half of 2022. Microsoft also announced the following today:

Microsoft will support at least one version of Windows 10 through Oct. 14, 2025.
As a second half (H2) of the calendar year release, Home and Pro editions of the November 2021 Update will receive 18 months of servicing and support, and Enterprise and Education editions will receive 30 months of servicing and support beginning today.
Microsoft is renaming the servicing option for releases to the General Availability Channel starting with the November 2021 Update (Note: this replaces the previous “Semi-Annual Channel” term for the servicing option).

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft is moving to annual release cadence for Windows 10

Windows 10 21H2 is released, here are the new features

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft has released Windows 10 21H2, also known as the November 2021 Update, and it is available to users running Windows 10 2004 or later as an optional update in Windows Update.

The Windows 10 21H1 feature update is a limited release with only a few new features, primarily directed at business users. However, as this is the latest release of Windows 10, and Windows 10 2004 reaches the end of support next month, it is recommended that users install the new feature update.

Windows 10 21H2 is being rolled out in stages, with it first offered as an optional update to "seekers" running version 2004 or later. Seekers are those who manually perform a check for new updates in Windows Update.

To install the Windows 10 November 2021 feature update, click on the Start Menu > Settings > Update & Security and click on the 'Check for updates' button. Windows 10 will check for new updates and then display the optional 'Feature update to Windows 10, version 21H2', which you can install by clicking the 'Download & install now" link.

The Windows 10, version 21H2 feature update

This feature update is being rolled out as an enablement package for Windows 10 2004, Windows 10 20H2, and Windows 10 21H1, allowing these versions to quickly update the new feature update.

For users running older versions of Windows 10, you will need to install the full update, which will take substantially longer.

Microsoft warns that Windows 10 21H2 is being rolled out in stages, so please be patient if you do not see it immediately.

Windows users can also use the Windows 10 Media Creation tool to upgrade to the new version or create an ISO to clean install Windows 10 21H2.

What's new in Windows 10 21H2

Windows 10 21H2 is one of the smallest feature updates released by Microsoft, with only a few new features, which are outlined below.

With this release, Microsoft has added support for the WPA3 H2E (Hash-to-Element) protocol, which provides increased protection against side-channel attacks.

In 2019, researchers disclosed a new side-channel attack called "DragonBlood" that could be used to steal a WPA3 password.

After the vulnerability was disclosed, the Hash-to-Element protocol was added to WPA3's Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) authentication protocol to prevent these types of side-channel attacks.

"In response to the Dragonblood paper, IEEE 802.11 updated SAE by defining a new “Hash-to-Element” (H2E) method, as an optional alternative to the existing “Hunting-and-Pecking” method for the secret PWE (Password Element) derivation used in SAE authentication. H2E is significantly more computationally efficient and provides robust resistance to side channel attack," explained Cisco in a blog post about the security issue.

Also included in Windows 10 21H2 is the eagerly awaited GPU compute feature to the Windows Subsystem for Linux and Azure IoT Edge for Linux and Windows.

GPU compute has been the #1 most requested feature for WSL, and it allows Windows users to use their graphics card to "accelerate math-heavy workloads and uses its parallel processing to complete the required calculations faster, in many cases, than utilizing only a CPU.

To use the GPU computer feature, you will need to have Hyper-V and WSL2 installed.

Finally, this feature update improves Windows Hello for Business by supporting passwordless deployment models for easy rollouts of new machines predefined security policies.

Windows 10 transitioned to annual release cadence

With the release of Windows 10 21H2, the operating system is now being transitioned to annual feature update releases to align with Windows 11.

"We will transition to a new Windows 10 release cadence to align with the Windows 11 cadence, targeting annual feature update releases.

We are now renaming the servicing option for releases to the General Availability Channel starting with the November 2021 Update (Note: this replaces the previous "Semi-Annual Channel" term for the servicing option)."

Under this new release cadence, the next Windows 10 feature update is scheduled for release in the second half of 2022.

Microsoft states that at least one version of Windows 10 will continue to be supported through October 14, 2025.

Furthermore, Home and Pro editions of the November 2021 Update will receive 18 months of servicing and support. Enterprise and Education editions will receive 30 months of servicing and support as of today.

Windows 10 21H2 is released, here are the new features

Linux 5.17 To Boast A Big TCP Performance Optimization

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 16:20:02 +0000

While the Linux 5.16 merge window just ended and that kernel won't be out until the tail end of the calendar year, already for Linux 5.17 new material is beginning to accumulate in the respective subsystem development trees... One set of changes merged this morning from Google can provide a sizable performance win around TCP performance in the datacenter.

Merged this morning by David Miller is these TCP optimizations from Eric Dumazet, a Google engineer.

The most exciting part of these optimizations is this patch in the TCP code to defer SKB freeing after the socket lock is released. The existing kernel code was found to introduce excess latency that can be avoided by not carrying out the SKB freeing while the socket lock is held. Instead they will be freed after the socket lock is released or directly from the BH handler.

This yields "much improved performance" at least for high volume TCP traffic in the data-center. On a 100Gbit NIC, TCP network throughput tests with a 1500 MTU size went from 55 to 65 Gbit while for a 4096+ MTU went from 82 to 95 Gbit.

While only TCP is touched for now, the merge does note that a similar optimization can likely be extended to other protocols. These TCP optimizations will be found in Linux 5.17 next year.

Source

RoundedTB's Fill Taskbar gains an all-new effect only for Windows 11 with release 3.1

Mon, 15 Nov 2021 23:47:30 +0000

A new RoundedTB version 1.3.1.0 (Release 3.1) was published by its developer TorchGM yesterday and as expected, the new release lands with some new features. For those who don't know, RoundedTB is a taskbar customization app that works without needing to tweak system files making it an easy-to-work-with software. The app allows adjusting the margins, corner radii, among many other things.

The new features in the release are given below:

The option to have the taskbar "fill" when a window is maximised (or when alt+tab or the Task Switcher is invoked if you're on Windows 11)
The ability to summon the app's settings pane by re-opening it from Start
The option to have the tray show only when you're hovering over it
Automatic detection for when the taskbar "overflows" in dynamic mode, and switching back to basic mode as a result

The features have also been shown in the image below:

Here's how TorchGM describes the new "Fill Taskbar On Alt+Tab":

When this option is enabled, RoundedTB will fill in the taskbar as described above whenever you invoke Alt+Tab or the Task Switcher.

As stated above, this feature, for now at least, is Windows 11-exclusive, though in the future it might work on Windows 10 too. You can also read about the other available options on the Microsoft Store link provided below.

Like any piece of software, release 3.1 also contains some known issues:

When initially enabling dynamic mode with centred taskbar icons, the taskbar may stretch to the left. If this happens, just set the taskbar to left-aligned then back to the centre once and it should be fixed.
Autohiding is not supported and may lead to a lot of flickering, especially with TranslucentTB compatibility or dynamic/split mode enabled.
Rounded corners are not antialiased (smooth) due to a Windows limitation.
Dynamic mode/split mode only work correctly when the taskbar is horizontal at the top/bottom of the screen.
Split mode on Windows 10 only supports the main taskbar, secondary taskbars will not be split.
When using dynamic mode, the taskbar may occasionally become too large, too small or not update. This can usually be fixed by moving a window to or from that monitor, or briefly changing the taskbar alignment.
Compatibility with taskbar mods outside of TranslucentTB is not currently guaranteed.

If you're interested, you can download and try RoundedTB either from Microsoft Store or from GitHub. You can run it on Xbox (according to Microsoft Store's description apparently) and Windows 10 version 17763.0 and newer platforms.

RoundedTB's Fill Taskbar gains an all-new effect only for Windows 11 with release 3.1

Microsoft says they blocked EdgeDeflector so they can provide “end-to-end customer experiences”, but this is a poor excuse

Mon, 15 Nov 2021 23:42:52 +0000

We recently reported that Microsoft has blocked the functionality of the EdgeDeflector app, which allows users to open links from Cortana, Windows Search, the News and Interest widget and more in their default browser rather than Edge.

The developer wrote:

You can’t change the default protocol association through registry changes, OEM partner customizations, modifications to the Microsoft Edge package, interference with OpenWith.exe, or any other hackish workarounds.

Microsoft doesn’t even bother throwing up the “An app default was reset” error message. It just silently ignores the UserChoice registry keys for the protocol in the registry and opens Microsoft Edge instead. Windows still uses the default protocol associations to detect and present possible Edge beta or preview builds.

Microsoft has now offered a statement to The Verge explaining the reasons for their behaviour, saying:

“Windows openly enables applications and services on its platform, including various web browsers. At the same time, Windows also offers certain end-to-end customer experiences in both Windows 10 and Windows 11, the search experience from the taskbar is one such example of an end-to-end experience that is not designed to be redirected. When we become aware of improper redirection, we issue a fix.”

On the face of it, this makes sense – by only using their own browser Microsoft can guarantee a consistent and predictable user experience for their “end-to-end” Windows features.

There are however a few reasons why this is a bogus excuse.

One is that a standards-compliant solution should work equally well in Chrome as in Edge.

The second is that users may have their own reasons why they prefer the links to open in their own browser, such as having a unified history of their travels around the internet or having their relevant passwords and subscriptions already stored in their main browser.

Lastly, it ignores the performance hit from having two browsers running, both with their own memory-sucking overhead.

In short, any improvements in user experience gained from having a consistent experience is negated by numerous disadvantages.

In fact, users may end up avoiding features such as Windows Search, Cortana and News and Interest, meaning Microsoft has once again let the Edge tail wag the Windows dog.

Given that Microsoft is only testing their “fix” with insiders at present, the company will hopefully have an opportunity to rethink their solution and instead put user wishes first.

Microsoft says they blocked EdgeDeflector so they can provide “end-to-end customer experiences”, but this is a poor excuse

New WhatsApp Desktop app for Windows 11 spotted

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

WhatsApp has long been rumoured to be working on a new WhatsApp desktop app for Windows, and today ALumia managed to grab a leaked copy of the app, likely from the Microsoft Store.

The app is surprisingly UWP rather than Electron, which means it’s super-fast starting up. The app also has the latest Mica transparency effects, which lets your wallpaper peek through to your app, and has revamped settings. Importantly it is now also able to receive notifications when closed, unlike the current version.

It also has a number of new features, such as being able to easily create and send a drawing from a scribble panel.

The new settings include:

General : at the moment it is possible to set the start of WhatsApp by turning on the PC and log out of your account;
Account : here you can manage your privacy (blue check, who can see our profile picture, etc.) and security (end-to-end calls);
Chat : in the chat section you can archive all chats with a single click, delete all chats or empty conversations;
Notifications : in the notifications section you can customize the notification sound (messages and groups);
Memory : you can select which content to download (or not to download) automatically;
Help : Here you can see the WhatsApp version and other useful links.

ALumia have not shared the executable for the app, but it is likely that we will not have to wait too long for the app to become available.

New WhatsApp Desktop app for Windows 11 spotted

Google Chrome 96 is out: here is what is new

Mon, 15 Nov 2021 23:38:42 +0000

Google released Chrome 96 for all supported desktop operating systems and Android this week; the new version is 96.0.4664.45. No mentioning of security updates in the release.

Chrome 96

Google plans to roll out the update to all devices running Chrome in the coming weeks. Desktop users may speed up the process by loading chrome://settings/help in the browser's address bar. The page that opens displays the currently installed version and runs a check for updates. The new version will be picked up and installed automatically. A restart is required to complete the process.

The official blog post on the Chrome Releases blog offers virtually no information on the release. It lists the version number and that the extended stable of Chrome has been promoted to Chrome 96 as well. Google switched to a 4-week release cycle for Chrome recently and created the extended channel to increase the release period to every other release (8-weeks).

A Chrome 96 beta post on the Chromium blog reveals information on what is new in the new version. Here is a list of important changes:

HTTPS is used to connect to websites if an HTTPS record is available from the domain name service (DNS).
Web applications may register as URL protocol handlers, e.g. to launch twitter links using the Twitter PWA, or FTP links using a web FTP application.
New Origin trial: Conditional focus
- Applications that capture other windows or tabs currently have no way to control whether the calling item or the captured item gets focus. (Think of a presentation feature in a video conference app.) Chrome 96 makes this possible with a subclass of MediaStreamTrack called FocusableMediaStreamTrack, which supports a new focus() method.
New Origin trial: Priority Hints
- Priority Hints introduces a developer-set "importance" attribute to influence the computed priority of a resource. Supported importance values are "auto", "low", and "high". Priority Hints indicate a resource's relative importance to the browser, allowing more control over the order resources are loaded.
Back forward cache on desktop for faster navigations to "previously-visited pages after cross-site navigations".
New credentialless policy for Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy.
- Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy has a new credentialless option that causes cross-origin no-cors requests to omit credentials (cookies, client certificates, etc.). Similarly to COEP:require-corp, it can enable cross-origin isolation.
Unique IDs for desktop PWAs.
- The appmanifest spec doesn’t explicitly define what uniquely identifies a PWA. Currently, on the desktop versions of Chromium-based browsers and Firefox on Android, PWAs are uniquely identified by app's start_url and Android Chromium-based browsers use manifest_url instead. This is confusing to developers. Also it made developers unable to change their start_url and manifest_url.Having a stable id allows apps to update other metadata like start_url and manifest_url, and have a consistent way to reference apps across browser platforms, PWA stores and other external entities.This feature tracks the launch process for implementation on the desktop side, as the Android implementation will be done with a different timeline. They will both follow the same specification.
Enhanced content security policy to improve interoperability with WebAssembly.
Deprecated: The PaymentRequest API has deprecated the basic card payment method. Will be removed in Chrome 100.

Google is also running a trial to find out if Chrome's version 100 release will cause any issues on the Internet. Site owners and users may test this by enabling the flag chrome://flags/#force-major-version-to-100.

Google Chrome 96 is out: here is what is new