News: Software News

Microsoft now rolling out Windows 11 to more eligible devices

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 21:13:06 +0000

Microsoft is now rolling out the Windows 11 upgrade to more eligible Windows devices as part of a phased rollout designed to deliver a smooth upgrade experience.

"The availability of Windows 11 has been increased and we are leveraging our latest generation machine learning model to offer the upgrade to an expanded set of eligible devices," Microsoft said in an update to the Windows health dashboard.

"We recommend that you upgrade your devices to Windows 11 to take advantage of the latest features and advanced protections from security threats."

According to previously available information, the company estimates that all eligible Windows 10 devices will be offered the upgrade to the latest version by mid-2022.

Microsoft released Windows 11 worldwide on October 5 and is now rolling it out via Windows Update to new Windows 10 devices and those pre-loaded with Windows 11.

Windows 10 users can upgrade to Windows 11 via Windows Update as long as their computers come with compatible hardware.

To install Windows 11 on eligible devices, they also need to run Windows 10 2004 and later and have installed at least the September 2021 updates.

PC Health Check force installed on Windows 10 PCs

Customers using Windows 10 can also determine if their devices are eligible for the Windows 11 upgrade using the PC Health Check application.

PC Health Check is a diagnostics tool Microsoft created and released together with Windows 11 to analyze devices' hardware and check if they're compatible with Windows 11.

As BleepingComputer reported this week, Microsoft began force installing PC Health Check on Windows 10 devices last Friday using the KB5005463 update.

Redmond says that customers who do not want PC Health Check on their systems can uninstall it using the Settings app.

However, multiple readers told BleepingComputer that they had to uninstall the app numerous times since it kept automatically reinstalling on new update checks.

Others also reported that Windows 10 states that the update is not installed when attempting to uninstall KB5005463.

To prevent PC Health Check from installing on your computer, you can use the instructions detailed here.

BleepingComputer reached out to Microsoft to learn why PC Health Check is being reinstalled for some users but is yet to receive a response.

Microsoft now rolling out Windows 11 to more eligible devices

Firefox won't prompt anymore when you are closing multiple tabs, but there is an option to enable it

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 21:09:54 +0000

Mozilla Firefox 94 won't prompt users anymore when they are about to close a browser window with multiple tabs. Previous versions of the Firefox web browser displayed a close prompt in that case, which acted as a security precaution. Firefox 94 and newer won't display the confirmation anymore, regardless of the way the browser window is closed (with one notable exception)

Firefox users have several options when it comes to closing the browser, e.g. by using the menu or clicking on the close button. It is interesting to note that the keyboard shortcut to close the browser window is not unified. Windows users need to press Ctlr-Shift-Q, while Mac and Linux users Ctrl-Q.

An option to disable the prompt is provided when it is displayed. Firefox up until version 93 has no option in the Settings to enable the prompt again.

Mozilla reveals why it decided to change the closing prompt from Firefox on a support page. According to the organization, close actions in the contexts mentioned are "likely intentional", and that the prompt is "unnecessary" and may provide "unwelcome friction".

Starting in Firefox version 94, Firefox no longer warns you by default when you exit the browser or close a window using a menu, button, or three-key command. The close actions in these particular contexts were likely intentional and so the messages provided unnecessary and perhaps unwelcome friction.

Firefox 94 and newer displays a close confirmation prompt only on Mac and Linux devices, if the two key shortcut is used, because the risk of accidental closure is higher, according to Mozilla.

The only instance in which a close modal is on by default is for two-key quit shortcuts on macOS and Linux. The risk of accidental closure is higher in this context since the quit shortcut (?+Q) is adjacent to the switch-application shortcut (?+Tab).

Firefox desktop users may enable or disable the closing confirmation prompt at any time in the browser's preferences, starting in Firefox 94.

All it takes is to load about:preferences in the browser's address bar and check or uncheck the new "Confirm before closing multiple tabs" option that is displayed under Tabs on the page.

Veteran Firefox users may remember that the browser's advanced configuration includes a preference, browser.tabs.warnOnClose, that determines whether the close prompt is displayed or not. Just load about:config in Firefox's address bar, paste the preference into the field at the top, and toggle it either to TRUE (enabled) or FALSE (disabled).

Mozilla plans to release Firefox 94 Stable on November 2, 2021.

Firefox won't prompt anymore when you are closing multiple tabs, but there is an option to enable it

Microsoft releases new Office version 16.55(Build 21102600) for macOS Office Insiders

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 21:05:54 +0000

Microsoft has released a new Office Insider Preview Build with version number 16.55 (Build 21102600) for Mac users (Beta Channel). The latest Insider Preview Build brings no new features, instead, you get fixes for issues found in Excel. Beyond that, the update includes no other noteworthy changes. You can read the full official changelog below.

Changelog

Excel

Fixes

We fixed an issue where the preference “Use table names in formulas” would be enabled unexpectedly, after disabling it and restarting Excel.
We fixed an issue with the Format Cells dialog where the currency symbol for currency formats was appearing in the wrong place when using a right-to-left language and Dark mode.

To update to Office Insider Preview Build, open any Office program and go to File > Account > Update options > Update now.

Microsoft releases new Office version 16.55(Build 21102600) for macOS Office Insiders

Microsoft’s Edge Bar Widget has gotten really interesting (video)

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 21:03:49 +0000

A rather long time ago Microsoft introduced the Edge web widget, which had limited functionality and customization.

It seems while we have not been looking the feature has seen sudden improvement, with a quite powerful floating web widget now available in Edge Canary.

The widget can be activated in Edge Settings from where it can also be customized with various modules, including websites of your own choosing (as long as they are responsive and fit into the narrow profile).

It now offers an always-on-top floating button that floats above other apps, allowing you to access to Edge bar instantly.

It can also be resized in various ways and docked to the edges of your screen. You can even have it start up when you restart your PC.

Check out a video walkthrough of its features by Brentech below:

via WindowsLatest

Microsoft’s Edge Bar Widget has gotten really interesting (video)

Microsoft PowerToys 0.49.0 adds new Find My Mouse tool and VCM is back

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 21:00:35 +0000

PowerToys is Microsoft's open-source project that offers a collection of nifty tools that people can use to customize the Windows 10 or 11 UI and experience to their liking. As we know, depending upon feedback and general stability, some of the utilities also make their way to the OS. A prominent example of this is Snap Layouts and Span Groups in Windows 11 which borrow heavily from the FanzyZones tool in PowerToys.

A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft released PowerToys version 0.47.1 to address some bugs and provide stability updates. Today, the company has rolled out version 0.49.0 which primarily centers around modernizing PowerRename's UI, adding a brand new mouse utility. Perhaps notably, the Video Conference Mute is also merged back into the stable releases.

What's new

With the new mouse utility, PowerToys introduces functionality to quickly find your mouse position by double pressing the left ctrl key. This is ideal for large, high-resolution displays and low-vision users, with additional features and enhancements planned for future releases. Special thanks to Raymond Chen for providing the base code PowerToys used to develop this feature. To learn more, check out our Mouse Utilities documentation on Microsoft Docs!

As Video Conference Mute becomes available in the stable releases, there are still known bugs that we are actively working to address. These bugs are tracked on our GitHub, and we welcome any and all feedback as we work to isolate and resolve the cause.

Additionally, Color Picker's HEX format will no longer have the # character. This addresses issues with various color inputs that only accept six characters cutting off the last value. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes as we understand it impacts users who may prefer having # included. However, we believe this is the best solution while the custom string functionality (#8305) is in development.

Additional work in this release include stability updates and optimizations, installer updates, general bug fixes, and accessibility improvements.

Changelog

General

Find My Mouse utility added! Utilize the functionality to quickly locate the cursor on your displays! Learn more on our Mouse Utility docs.
Accessibility and minor UI improvements to the settings page. Thanks [@niels9001](https://github.com/niels9001!
Added deep links to the Settings menus for various utilities within their respective editors. Thanks @niels9001!
Settings improvements to improve clarity for various options. Thanks @niels9001!
Improved settings window to adjust size and position as needed when multi-monitor conditions change. Thanks @davidegiacometti!

PowerToys Awake

Screen reader improvements for accessibility.

Color Picker

Color Picker's HEX format was changed to remove the # character. Thanks @niels9001!
Accessibility improvements for screen reader and UI to distinguish colors from the border when matching. Thanks @niels9001!

FancyZones

Fixed Color Picker and OOBE windows from being snapped by FancyZones. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
Fixed regression with layouts not being changed via shortcuts.
Fixed crashing issue with FancyZones editor.
Fixed zone layouts resetting after screen locking.
Accessibility improvements for screen reader in editor.

Keyboard Manager

Fixed crashing issue when the editor is opened at high zoom on 4k monitors.

PowerRename

New UI update! We hope you enjoy the modern experience and take advantage of new tool-tips to describe common regular expressions and text/file formatting. Thanks to @niels9001 for all the support on this redesign!

PowerToys Run

Windows Terminal Plugin added. Open shells through Windows Terminal via _ activation command by default. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
Added environment variables to Folder plugin search. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
Fixed certain schemas that were overwritten with HTTPS. Thanks @franky920920!
Fixed issue with program plugin getting caught in infinite loops as certain file paths are recursively searched.

Video Conference Mute

VCM added to stable releases of PowerToys!

If you are using PowerToys in Windows 11, you can grab it in the Microsoft Store. For others in Windows 10, you can open the app and click on "Check for updates" under the updates section on the General tab. Those who would like to try PowerToys for the first time can grab the version 0.49.0 installer from the app's GitHub page.

Microsoft PowerToys 0.49.0 adds new Find My Mouse tool and VCM is back

WSATools - install APK files on Windows 11 with a single click

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 17:52:40 +0000

Last week, Android apps finally came to Windows 11 for Insiders enrolled in the Beta channel. Officially, only apps from the Amazon Appstore are available, and only a few of them at that. However, we’ve already shown you how you can get the Windows Subsystem for Android to run on non-Insider PCs, as well as how to sideload apps using ADB. But if you don’t want to use the command line to install Android apps on Windows 11, there’s an easier way to do it with WSATools.

WSATools is a tool developed by Simone Franco, who shared a look at the app on Twitter (via Windows Central). It’s available on the Microsoft Store, and it essentially acts as a GUI specifically designed to replicate the ADB commands to install Android apps. It’s very straightforward, but it works pretty well already. You can open the app and choose an APK file you want to install or open the APK file directly from File Explorer, since WSATools handles APK file associations in Windows 11, too.

Because it’s just a GUI for the ADB commands, you do still need to set up some important steps. First, you’ll need to download and set up ADB on your Windows 11 PC, and then you need to add ADB to your system environment variables in Windows 11. This makes it so that you can run ADB commands system-wide, without having to open the command-line tool in a specific folder. Here’s how you can do that:

Open the Start menu and type “environment” until you see an option called Change the system environment variables. Click it.
In the window that shows up, click Environment variables.
In the bottom half of the new window, under System variables, choose the Path variable and then click Edit.
Click Browse and navigate to the folder where you stored the ADB platform tools.
Click OK to close all the windows and confirm your changes.

Once that’s done, you just need to have enabled developer mode in the Windows Subsystem for Android, and make sure it’s running by opening an Android app. If you set WSA to continuous mode, it’ll keep running in the background.

Linux runs better than Windows 11

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 12:56:14 +0000

2022 could be the year of Linux on the Desktop

With Windows 11 out as stable and the initial round of updates coming out, benchmarks are starting to compare the new OS with what is out there.

According to Phoronix, Linux benchmarks against Windows 11 Intel Core i9 11900K Rocket Lake system look rather good.

The Windows 11 performance was being compared to all of the latest prominent Linux distributions, including: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu 21.10, Arch Linux (latest rolling), Fedora Workstation 35, Clear Linux 35150. All the testing was done on the same Intel Core i9 11900K test system at stock speeds (any frequency differences reported in the system table come down to how the information is exposed by the OS, i.e. base or turbo reporting) with 2 x 16GB DDR4-3200 memory, 2TB Corsair Force MP600 NVMe solid-state drive, and an AMD Radeon VII graphics card.

Each operating system was cleanly installed and then run at its OS default settings for seeing how the out-of-the-box OS performance compares for these five Linux distributions to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro. But for the TLDR version.

Out of 44 tests run across all six operating systems, Windows 11 had just three wins on this Core i9 11900K system. Meanwhile Intel's own Clear Linux platform easily dominated with coming in first place 75 percent of the time followed by Fedora Workstation 35 in second place with first place finishes nine per cent of the time.

The geometric mean for all 44 tests showed Linux clearly in front of Windows 11 for this current-generation Intel platform. Ubuntu / Arch / Fedora were about 11 percent faster overall than Windows 11 Pro on this system. Meanwhile, Clear Linux was about 18 percent faster than Windows 11 and enjoyed about five percent better performance overall than the other Linux distributions.

Source

Microsoft might replace the HTTPS lock icon in the Edge address bar to avoid confusion

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 12:52:28 +0000

Many web browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge use a lock icon in the address bar to indicate that you're connected to the website via a secure HTTPS connection. However, as noted by Google back in July, many users misunderstand this representation and think that the icon indicates that you're connected to a trustworthy website even though that may not necessarily be the case. The company stated that it is exploring the possibility of replacing the lock icon with a down arrow in Chrome:

As we approach an HTTPS-first future, we're also re-examining the lock icon that browsers typically show when a site loads over HTTPS. In particular, our research indicates that users often associate this icon with a site being trustworthy, when in fact it's only the connection that's secure. In a recent study, we found that only 11% of participants could correctly identify the meaning of the lock icon. To try and reduce this confusion, Chrome will run an experiment in M93 that replaces the lock in the address bar with a more neutral entry point to Page Info (example below). We hope that this experiment will improve the discoverability of critical privacy and security information and controls provided in Page Info, such as site permissions. Importantly, a "Not Secure" indicator will continue to show on sites without HTTPS support, and the experiment includes an enterprise policy in case organizations want to opt-out. In all cases, we'll provide advance notice if we decide to move ahead with a full launch.

Although Google has not rolled out the change to Chrome Stable yet, it appears that Microsoft agrees with Google's stance and is considering implementing it in Edge as well. As spotted by Reddit user u/Leopeva64-2, Edge Canary now features a down arrow instead of the lock icon in the address bar. This can be seen below:

That said, it is important to note that while this feature is definitely being tested, it is currently available for select users on Edge Canary via Microsoft's controlled rollout strategy. The company may decide to roll this out to a wider audience via the browser's development channels before making it available to the Stable channel. While the company hasn't announced any firm release date yet, the materialization of this implementation is highly dependent on developer and user feedback.

Source

Chinese server-maker Inspur builds monster natural language processor

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 12:48:42 +0000

Yuan 1.0 said to pass Turing test, and require many fewer GPUs than the GPT-3 Microsoft licensed from OpenAI

Chinese server-maker Inspur has turned its hand to AI, and claims it has produced a text-and-code-generating machine-learning model superior to the GPT-3 model produced by the Elon-Musk-backed outfit OpenAI. And did so using significantly fewer GPUs.

Inspur's model is called Yuan 1.0 and produces text in Chinese. The builder says the model can handle 245.7 billion parameters (GPT-3 can deal with 175 billion) can pass a Turing test, and beat humans at an idiom reading comprehension task.

Yuan 1.0 can also fool most of the people most of the time. Inspur claims that humans who reviewed dialogues, news articles, poems, and couplets produced by the model could distinguish them from human-penned text "less than 50 per cent of the time".

A pre-press paper explains Yuan 1.0 in considerable detail. The model drew on five terabytes of samples and was trained using 2,128 GPUs – rather fewer than the 10,000 used to train GPT-3 (to be fair, Inspur hasn't offered apples-to-apples GPU comparison info).

China's government has made increased use of AI an economic priority, and places great store in the potential of the technology to improve services for its citizens. News that Inspur has developed a very powerful model is therefore welcome in the Middle Kingdom.

Yuan 1.0's debut may be less well-received elsewhere. Nicolas Chaillan – the Pentagon's first chief software officer, who quit the job after branding it "probably the most challenging and infuriating of my entire career" – recently offered his opinion that China's AI development capabilities have outpaced the USA's.

That situation, he opined, means China will achieve military superiority within 15 to 20 years.

Microsoft may also worry it's backed a dud, as it secured an exclusive licence for GPT-3 and plans to use it across its product line. GPT-3 still has the advantage of speaking English, but Redmond has aspirations to do better in China. ®

Source

Microsoft developer calls out Management over handling of .Net Hot Reload issue

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 04:18:54 +0000

Members of the open-source community were recently furious with Microsoft for apparently intentionally removing a feature from the open-source .Net 6 software development platform (which Microsoft manages) so that professional developers would instead use Visual Studio 2022, Microsoft’s quite expensive but very powerful IDE.

It turns out developers inside Microsoft were equally angry, and Microsoft’s reversal of their decision has not placated them, with many fearing the next occasion where Microsoft places its short-term financial interests over their engagement with the open-source community.

This has resulted in the release of an anonymous letter to Microsoft management in which the author directly accuses the company of lying to protect management.

They note that Microsoft intentionally tried to hide the removal of Hot Reload by rushing the PR before .Net 6 developers could comment and that Microsoft’s excuse that they could not focus on Hot Reload for both .Net 6 and VS 2022 rang hollow when there was no indication the work could not be completed satisfactorily for both.

They expressed concern that Microsoft will make further efforts to cripple .Net 6 in an effort to push VS 2022, despite open source tools being quite popular inside Microsoft itself.

The author asked for a transparent investigation into how Hot Reload was pulled and changes to Microsoft’s management so such rash decisions could not be made again.

Despite the somewhat strident tone which has caused many to believe the note is not real, a number of Microsoft MVPs have come forward and confirmed that the letter was indeed written by a Microsoft employee in the DivDev division.

Read the letter in full below:

To Microsoft Developer Division Leadership,

Those of us who work in the Microsoft Developer Division (DevDiv) would like to respond to the recent controversy surrounding the pulling and reinstating of the “dotnet watch” feature of dotnet 6. While we are grateful that cooler heads prevailed and “dotnet watch” was preserved, we do not feel confident that this will not happen again?quite the opposite.

To show this point, we will look at the recent blog post by Scott Hunter (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/net-hot-reload-support-via-cli/). Based on everything we know of the situation and how the Developer Division operates, little of what Scott wrote seems true and contradicts what happened. To be clear, this is not an attack on Scott Hunter; and instead, it shows how far others are willing to go to protect management.

“As a team, we are committed to .NET being an open platform and doing our development in the open. The very fact that we decided to adopt an open posture by default from the start for developing the Hot Reload feature is a testament to that.”

Nothing about the pull request was open. We mentioned it in a blog post (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/update-on-net-hot-reload-progress-and-visual-studio-2022-highlights/) and opaquely rushed the PR to avoid comments. How can we say we’re transparent when this is so clearly the opposite? It is as if we all collectively knew this was wrong but had to go along with it anyway.

“The vast majority of the .NET developers are using Visual Studio, and we want to make sure VS delivers the best experience for .NET 6.”

Even if this is true, does this imply we do not care about non Visual Studio users? How would pulling this feature so late in development make it so Visual Studio has the best experience for Hot Reload? It is insulting to those who don’t always use Visual Studio for their dotnet development, and it says we don’t understand our customers or even employees who use what we build.

We use CLI, and we use VS Code. Stop pretending otherwise.

“We made a mistake in executing on this plan in the way it was carried out. In our effort to scope, we inadvertently ended up deleting the source code instead of just not invoking that code path.”

To be clear, blaming the engineer for this “mistake” is cowardly. The problem was removing the feature, not how they carried it out. Are we saying if only “turned it off” instead of removing it, we wouldn’t have reverted the change? Would this code have been actively worked on or left to rot?

“With the runway getting short for the .NET 6 release and Visual Studio 2022, we chose to focus on bringing Hot Reload to VS2022 first.”

To show that “Quality Control” was not the case with “dotnet watch,” we will compare it with another product we delayed: MAUI.

MAUI is in rough shape. It was clear by RC1 that the quality was not going to be high enough by the time dotnet 6 shipped; there was too much to fix and not enough time to do it. The MAUI Team and its partners brought these issues to leadership, which pushed the product back to early next year.

There was and still is no indication that “dotnet watch” was in the same place. Going through the GitHub issues nor the dotnet team’s backlog show any concerns that the quality was not there. On the contrary, it was doing just fine. These would have been brought up much sooner in our release cycle if there were real quality concerns, not three weeks before shipping.

“As is true with many companies, we are learning to balance the needs of OSS community and being a corporate sponsor for .NET.”

If we read between the lines, this statement is true. We conflict with what we put into dotnet, Visual Studio, and Visual Studio Code. Keeping Hot Reload as a “value add” for Visual Studio keeps those locked into the paid product and less reason to jump to VS Code. In a cold and calculated way, that makes total sense, and it is also absolute nonsense.

What if teams working on Hot Reload for Visual Studio integrated “dotnet watch” into their products? What if leadership pulled these features weeks before the general release? How would that improve Visual Studio in any way? Are we going to keep removing parts from CLI because we’re afraid we’ll lose revenue from Visual Studio?

The way we build the best Visual Studio is by having the best runtime on the planet. When the Visual Studio team adds features to the foundation of dotnet, we have a consistent base for everyone to work on and contribute. We can build the best IDE by collaborating in the runtime, not making our open-source arbitrarily products worse.

What’s next? Are we going to make Omnisharp a closed source product? So that we can make sure it can’t get new features that take away from the “value” of Visual Studio? So that we don’t give away features to Rider? How does that help us at all? These decisions by leadership make sure that Visual Studio will always be second-class to everything else on the market. Moves like these not only hurt us with customers but how we build products internally. They don’t just hurt us with the “OSS community” but everyone in the Developer Division and Microsoft.

If we want to be genuinely transparent about this, we should make these changes to make this right:

We need a complete timeline, posted publically, of how this happened and those directly responsible for how it led to this.

We should never rush a PR through ever again. It was clear from the start that removing the code was the wrong action, and if we genuinely want feedback from the community, we have to be willing to listen not after but before.

If these decisions were made unilaterally by those in leadership, we need to prevent that from ever happening again. There was an apparent conflict of interest between the “needs” of VS and those of dotnet. There needs to be checks and balances to prevent any person, no matter how high up they are, from making decisions like this without genuine feedback from within and out the division.

Our goal here is not to insult any specific person in leadership who may have made this decision. Instead, it’s to fix the core problem: No one should have so much power to impact a product like dotnet so close to release directly. Anyone who leads Developer Division could do the same actions, which we need to prevent. Having clear guidelines to protect these products that form the foundation of everything Visual Studio is will not only make us the best in class as stewards of Open Source software but also help us build the best IDE we can.

Thanks, Graeme for the tip.

Microsoft developer calls out Management over handling of .Net Hot Reload issue

Windows 11 Dev build 22489 adds a new Your Microsoft account Settings page and more

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 22:48:24 +0000

Microsoft today released Windows 11 Dev channel build 22489 that adds a new Your Microsoft account page to the Accounts section in Settings. The rollout of this new section is currently limited, meaning only a small set of users will be able to see the addition added to their build. The page allows users to view and manage Microsoft account settings such as subscriptions, orders, and more.

The firm aims to improve the feature through Online Service Experience Packs that are similar to the Windows Feature Experience Packs, allowing the company to improve select features without major OS upgrades. Unlike Feature Experience Packs that bring improvements to components of the OS, the Online Service Experience Packs are "focused on delivering improvements for a specific experience", the firm adds. These packs will be served through Windows Update and are currently being tested for the new Microsoft account page in Settings but will be used for other features in the future.

In addition to the new MSA page, there are other improvements to Settings including the splitting of the Apps & Features page into two pages, the renaming of the Connect app into "Wireless Display", and more. The firm is also bringing improvement to the DNS over HTTPS feature by adding support for Discovery of Designated Resolvers. Here is the complete list of improvements in this build:

We’ve added support for Discovery of Designated Resolvers which allows Windows to discover encrypted DNS configuration from a DNS resolver known only by its IP address. See this blog post for more details.

To improve consistency, we’re updating the name of the Connect app to now be “Wireless Display”. This app is a feature-on-demand (FOD) and can be enabled by going to Settings > Apps > Optional features > Add an optional feature.

We’re splitting up “Apps & Features” in Settings into two pages under Apps, “Installed Apps”, and “Advanced app settings”.

In case you missed it last week, just a reminder that Windows Sandbox now works on ARM64 PCs!

The build also brings a long list of fixes, which is always welcome. As is the case with every build, the company is promising to bring many of these fixes to the publicly available version of Windows 11, but there is no timeline on when that will happen or which fixes will be included specifically. Here are all the fixes:

[Taskbar]

App icons on secondary monitors should draw more reliably now instead of being blank.

Stopped an explorer.exe crash that was happening sometimes when using the Desktops flyout context menu.

Fixed an explorer.exe crash that was happening sometimes when dismissing the Desktops flyout.

[File Explorer]

Pin to Quick Access is a top-level option now when right clicking a drive in File Explorer.

We improved context menu launch performance.

Made a few fixes to help improve explorer.exe reliability when using File Explorer.

[Windowing]

Closing windows in Task View should look less jumpy now.

Did some work to help address an issue that was causing flickering in the app window when resizing certain apps in recent Dev Channel builds.

[Settings]

Addressed an issue that was causing Settings to crash in certain cases after going to Windows Update.

Added a space that was missing in the search results when searching for Touch Keyboard settings.

Fixed a Settings crash when trying to customize options in Wheel Settings.

If animations are turned off, dismissing a notification using the X will no longer have an animation.

Fixed an issue that was causing the media controls to not show up in Quick Settings sometimes when music was playing recently. Also believed to have impacted hardware media key usage.

The tooltip for the Wi-Fi option in Quick Settings should no longer fly to the top of the screen.

[Other]

Mitigated an underlying issue that was causing the Processes tab in Task Manager to be blank sometimes. This is also believed to be the same root cause causing UAC to open very slowly recently.

Addressed an issue Xbox Game Pass games are failing to install with error 0x00000001.

Fixed an issue where get-winevent in PowerShell was failing with an InvalidOperationException (Issue #60740).

Mitigated a high hitting mousocoreworker.exe crash in the last few flights.

Did some work to try and improve the layout of the text in notification buttons in cases where there’s both an icon and text.

The Get Started app will no longer crash if the Tips app has been uninstalled.

Fixed an issue causing some devices to bugcheck with SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCPTION when updating on previous builds.

Made an underlying change to help fix an issue causing some users to see an unexpected “bad image” error message dialog on boot.

Lastly, there are a bunch of known issues, including one with the Windows Update settings page that the company says will impact how users check for updates. It is best for users to note the known issue and go ahead with installing this build, especially for those upgrading from a flavor of build 22000.

Here are all the known issues:

[General]

In this build, you will notice links to Windows Update, Recovery and For developers under the main Windows Update Settings page. You will need to click on Windows Update a second time to check for updates. The Recovery and For developers links should not appear under Windows Update in settings. These issues will be fixed in a future build.

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.

Some users may experience their screen and sleep timeouts being reduced. We’re investigating the potential impact that shorter screen and sleep timeouts could have on energy consumption.

[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.

[File Explorer]

Trying to rename items on the desktop isn’t working properly in this build. It should work if you open File Explorer, navigate to the Desktop folder, and try to rename from there.

[Taskbar]

The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.

We’re working on the fix for an issue causing tooltips to appear in an unexpected location after hovering over the Taskbar corner.

[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.

[Quick Settings]

We’re investigating reports from Insiders that the volume and brightness sliders aren’t displaying properly in Quick Settings.

The firm has also made available the SDK preview for this build and NuGet packages for those interested. Additionally, the firm is also reminding users that Windows Sandbox now works with ARM64 PCs, a capability that was added last week. As usual, build 22489 should be available for Dev channel users via Windows Update.

Windows 11 Dev build 22489 adds a new Your Microsoft account Settings page and more

Windows 11's Microsoft Store is now available for Windows 10 Insiders

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 22:43:25 +0000

Windows 11 comes with multiple new features including a redesigned Microsoft Store. As we discussed in our Closer Look piece earlier this month, it packs a UI revamp and the ability to support all apps, regardless of their packaging technology. However, as we have known for some time now, the storefront is also coming to Windows 10, and today, the first step has been made in this direction.

Microsoft Store's Principal Architect Rudy Huyn has announced that the storefront is now available for Windows 10 Insiders in the Release Preview ring:

Looking at the responses in the thread, the update is seemingly delivered via the regular Microsoft Store update mechanism. While Huyn hasn't revealed a firm release date as of yet, he has mentioned that the development team will "make sure that the app is bug free, it will be published to all Windows 10 users a little later".

The new Microsoft Store is open to all applications, regardless of the framework or technology used to develop them. This essentially means that developers can publish Win32, .NET, UWP, Xamarin, Electron, React Native, Java, and Progressive Web Apps directly to the storefront, and will be responsible for its update mechanism.

That said, Android app support is not available via the Microsoft Store in Windows 10. The feature is currently being tested in the Windows 11 Beta Channel, and will be exclusive to that OS. If you're on the Windows 11 Beta Channel, find out how to install Android apps via the Amazon Appstore using our brief guide here.

Windows 11's Microsoft Store is now available for Windows 10 Insiders

AdDuplex: Windows 11 off to a good start

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 22:41:04 +0000

Microsoft officially released Windows 11 for the general public on October 5, and even before we jump to November, Microsoft’s latest desktop OS has gained a sizeable market share, according to a survey by AdDuplex.

AdDuplex has released the numbers for October 2021, providing us an insight into the market share of different versions of Windows desktop OS. According to the latest AdDuplex data, Windows 11 now claims 4.8 percent(vs 1.3 percent in September) of the total Windows OS market share, while 0.3% of users are on the Windows 11 Insider Builds. Simply put, Windows 11 claims a total of 5.1% usage share.

Windows 10 21H1 update is the most popular version of the OS with a market share of 37.6%.

A close second is the Windows 10 20H2 update with a 34% market share. The 20H2 is followed by Windows 10 May 2020 update which is currently running on 14.1% of Windows 10 PCs. Windows 10 1909, on the other hand, claims a decent 3.9% usage share, while Windows 10 1903 claims a market share of 2%.

It’s worth noting that the AdDuplex data is based on close to 80,000 PCs running UWP store apps, therefore, it doesn’t paint the whole picture.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has released a new Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22489 for those subscribed in the Dev Channel.

AdDuplex: Windows 11 off to a good start

These Apps Make You Tear Your Hair Out

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 13:00:23 +0000

Hulu, Snapchat, Spotify, and Postmastes are some of the most frustrating apps, users say.

Looking into the blank abyss of your screens can make you feel bad—you don’t need data to tell you that. Even so, here's some data to illustrate what’s causing us stress on our devices. Digital marketing agency HigherVisibility analyzed reviews on Apple’s App Store to see which apps are the most vexing to users.

HigherVisibility looked at apps in the areas of social media, streaming, communication, and food delivery. Let’s start with social media, since its ill effects on people have recently been in the news. According to the review analysis, Snapchat is the most stressful, followed by Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Pinterest. The frustrations of users with each varied, though. Snapchat’s score of 90.3% is mostly because of technical issues, as the company struggles to keep up with its usurper, TikTok. Whereas Instagram users are aware of its ill effects and are quick to point them out in reviews, using words like “addictive” and “damaging.”

When it comes to streaming, Hulu is causing customers the most stress. It’s not the content, since shows like Only Murders in the Building have recently brought it lots of acclaim. Solving the mystery of the negativity around the app requires only a trip to the App Store, where there are complaints about syncing shows between devices, buffering, crashes, and accessibility issues. Spotify comes in second, with similarly spotty service.

Facebook continues its run of complained-about apps in the communications category with Messenger. “Completely unnecessary and terrible” and “overwhelming and extremely difficult to navigate” are some of the comments that sit alongside lists of bug issues that could keep devs occupied 24/7.

If you need a snack break to digest all of this, Postmates might not be the app to use. HigherVisibility said 93.52% of reviews showed signs of distress. Uber Eats wasn’t far behind, at 93.08%. But before you blame the drivers, remember that they’re victims of the gig economy that leaves them unrepresented and unprotected.

You could comb through all the comments on apps you have yourself in the vein of misery loves company (or, rather, some companies), or you could just set some limits on your screen time to reduce your stress.

< Watch the video at the source page. >

Source

Nvidia 496.49 driver brings Game Ready status for GoTG, AoE IV, and many more

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 21:58:08 +0000

Nvidia today released its WHQL-certified 496.49 Game Ready drivers, bringing performance improvements and Game Ready status for several new and upcoming releases – here is the list:

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
Age of Empires IV
Battlefield 2042 Early Access
Call of Duty: Vanguard
Forza Horizon 5
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition
Jurassic World Evolution 2
Riders Republic

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is out today. Our very own Asher Madan’s review, which you can read here, gives it a stellar score. Age of Empires IV will be out on the 28, you can read more about it as well in our review, by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe.

Battlefield 2042 Early Access will be available on November 12 for players who have bought the Gold or Ultimate editions of the game, or subscribe to EA Play Pro. Call of Duty: Vanguard hits the floor on November 5, as well.

Forza Horizon 5 will also be releasing on November 5 for those who have pre-ordered the game's Premium Edition, while Jurassic World Evolution 2 on November 9, and the recently-announced Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition will be landing on November 11 – it will also support DLSS.

Riders Republic will launch on October 28. It’s currently available to play for free, for up to four hours.

Along with these, the driver comes with optimizations for DOOM Eternal’s new 6.66 update that brings players a new Horde Mode, and DLSS support for Chivalry 2. You can read about the performance improvements DLSS brings to the game in Nvidia’s blog post here.

DLAA (Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing) was brought to The Elder Scrolls Online’s test servers last month with the 472.12 WHQL drivers; the feature will be available for live servers starting November 1st, optimized for with this release.

Here are all the bugs fixed with this release:

[Doom 3: BFG Edition]: Visual corruption occurs in the game. [3405146]
[Tom Clancy’s The Division 2]: Flickering and visual corruption may appear after extended gameplay. [3369607]
[LG OLED C1 series]: The display may show random black screen flicker at 1080p. [3404999]

Here are all the known bugs with this release:

[Red Dead Redemption 2][Vulkan]: The game may randomly crash during gameplay. [3405911]
[WRC 8 FIA World Rally Championship/WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship/TT Isle of Man - Ride on the Edge 2]: The games crash on launch. [3409320/3409312/ 3408673]
[Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint]: Textures in the game may flicker. [3410593]
[Supreme Command:Forged Alliance/Supreme Commander 2]: Performance drop when there is mouse movement. [3405920]
[Deathloop][HDR]: TDR/corruption occurs in the game with Windows HDR enabled. If this issue occurs, toggle the Windows HDR setting.
[YouTube]: Video playback stutters while scrolling down the YouTube page. [3129705]
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed may crash on courses where players drive through water. [3338967]
[HDR][G-Sync]: Mouse pointer gets stuck after turning on HDR from the Windows Control Panel or after toggling G-Sync from the NVIDIA control panel. [200762998] To work around, click the mouse (right or left button). The mouse cursor will be sluggish for a few seconds before returning to normal operation.
[Advanced Optimus: After setting the display multiplexer type to “dGPU”, the setting is not preserved across a reboot or resume from S4. [200779758]

This release also adds support for six more G-Sync compatible displays:

Manufacturer	Model	HDR	Size	LCD Type	Resolution	VRR Range
AOC	24G2W1G4	No	24"	IPS	1920x1080 (FHD)	48-144Hz
AOC	AG274QS3R1B+	Yes	27"	IPS	2560x1440 (QHD)	48-170Hz
ASUS	XG27AQM	Yes	27"	IPS	2560x1440 (QHD)	60-240Hz
ASUS	VG32AQ1LA	No	32"	IPS	2560x1440 (QHD)	48-144Hz
ASUS	XG249CM	Yes	24.5"	IPS	1902x1080 (FHD)	48-270Hz
MSI	MPG321QRF-QD	Yes	32"	IPS	2560x1440 (QHD)	60-165Hz

GeForce Experience's one-click Optimal Settings feature now also supports six more games:

Crysis 2 Remastered
Crysis 3 Remastered
Gas Station Simulator
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
Qian Nv You Hun
Sword and Fairy 7

The 496.49 WHQL-certified Game Ready drivers can be downloaded via the GeForce experience app on Windows or via the links down below. The complete release notes are available here, along with the blog post, and if you happen to have any feedback for this release, you can leave it here.

Desktop GPUs:

Download: Windows 11 | Windows 10 - DCH

Notebook GPUs:

Download: Windows 11 | Windows 10 – DCH

Nvidia 496.49 driver brings Game Ready status for GoTG, AoE IV, and many more

Windows 10 KB5006738 released with fixes for printing issues

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 21:54:55 +0000

Microsoft has released the optional KB5006738 Preview cumulative update for Windows 10 2004, Windows 10 20H2, and Windows 10 21H1.

Microsoft says this update and a separate Windows Server preview update will fix all outstanding printing issues affecting users since they mitigated the PrintNightmare vulnerabilities.

The KB5006738 cumulative update is part of Microsoft's September 2021 monthly "C" update, allowing Windows users to test upcoming fixes before they are released as part of the upcoming November 2021 Patch Tuesday.

Unlike Patch Tuesday updates, the "C" preview updates are optional and do not include any security updates.

Windows users can install this update by going into Settings, clicking on Windows Update, and manually performing a 'Check for Updates.'

As this is an optional update, you will be asked whether you wish to install it by clicking on the 'Download and install' link, as shown in the image below.

Windows Update offering the optional KB5006738 update

Windows 10 users can also manually download and install the KB5006738 preview update from the Microsoft Update Catalog.

Fixes released for numerous printing issues

With the release of the Windows 10 KB5006670 update, users began experiencing numerous printing issues or problems installing new printers.

With today's update, Microsoft says they have fixed an issue that prevents the installation of printers over the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP).

Microsoft also claims to have fixed the following printing issues with a separate Windows Server KB5006745 preview update released today:

Addresses a known issue that prevents an internet print server from properly packaging modified printer properties before sending the package to the client.
Addresses a known issue that might prevent the successful installation of printers using the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP).
Addresses a known issue that might ask for administrative credentials every time you attempt to print. This occurs in environments in which the print server and print client are in different times zones.

What's new in Windows 10 KB5006738

After installing this update, Windows 10 2004 will be updated to build 19041.1320, Windows 10 20H2 will be updated to build 19042.1320, and Windows 10 21H1 will be updated to build 19043.1320.

The Windows 10 KB5006738 cumulative update preview includes twenty improvements or fixes, with the highlighted ones listed below:

Addresses an issue that might prevent subtitles from displaying for certain video apps and streaming video sites.
Addresses an issue that prevents Windows 10 virtual private network (VPN) users from connecting to Windows Server 2019 Routing and Remote Access service (RRAS) servers.
Addresses an issue that causes Windows to go into BitLocker recovery after a servicing update.
Addresses an issue that might cause Kerberos.dll to stop working within the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS).
Addresses an issue in Code Integrity that might cause a memory leak.

A full list of fixes can be found in the KB5006738 support bulletin.

Windows 10 KB5006738 released with fixes for printing issues

Microsoft appears to be working on a new Windows Defender app for Windows 11

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 08:19:02 +0000

Microsoft appears to be readying a new Windows Defender Preview app for Windows 11, according to a tweet by Alumia.

The app has the code-name GibraltarApp and appears to be rebuilt using WPF and XAML. It will replace the current inbox app in Windows 11.

It is claimed to offer “simple, seamless and personalized protection” to users and is expected to roll out to Windows Insiders in the near future.

via Deskmodder

Microsoft appears to be working on a new Windows Defender app for Windows 11

AMD Radeon 21.10.3 driver brings hefty optimizations for Age of Empires IV and others

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 02:51:00 +0000

AMD's driver team has aimed its sights on several new game releases with the Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.10.3 suite, and major optimizations are being made for Age of Empires IV and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Ubisoft's Riders Republic (October 28) and Doom Eternal's latest update 6.66 have also received support in this release.

Going into the details, those with cards from the red team running Age of Empires IV when it releases on Thursday, October 28, will be able to see performance uplifts of up to 45% over the last driver. This massive increase in frame rates was seen using an RX 6800 XT with the game running at 4K maximum settings. Read our review of the RTS game here, where it received an outstanding 9/10 verdict.

Meanwhile, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is launching on October 26, and with this driver, AMD says it saw performance increases of up to 21% on both an RX 6900 XT and an RX 6800 XT with the title running at 4K ultra settings. This is another game we have a review for reading, with it also receiving a stellar 9/10 verdict.

While it's unclear how these performance boosts will apply to other GPU families of AMD, suffice to say, the driver is a recommended install for anyone wanting to play the mentioned games at launch.

The fixed issues in this release are as follows:

In Radeon™ Software, the CPU Tuning feature may be missing for some users with AMD Processors such as Ryzen™ 9 5950X Processor.
Some users may experience elevated disk space consumption by the Multimedia Athena Dumps folder.
While playing a game, some users may experience a black screen flicker if they have multiple displays connected and they attempt to switch between open windows (via Alt + Tab shortcut).
Battlefield™ V may crash during gameplay on some AMD Graphics products such as Radeon™ RX 6600 Graphics.
Image corruption may be observed on some characters when Radeon™ Boost is enabled while playing Cyberpunk 2077® on some AMD Graphics products such as Radeon™ RX 6700 XT Graphics.

Known issues to keep an eye out for are these:

Users may experience display corruption issues when they set their Samsung™ Odyssey G9 C49G95T monitor to 5120X1440 @ 240Hz.
Visual artifacts may be observed while playing Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War on some AMD Graphics products such as Radeon™ RX 6800M Graphics.
AMD Radeon™ Software may crash or become unresponsive while playing some DirectX® 11 games such as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds™ with multiple displays connected in extended mode.
Enhanced Sync may cause a black screen to occur when enabled on some games and system configurations. Any users who may be experiencing issues with Enhanced Sync enabled should disable it as a temporary workaround.
Radeon performance metrics and logging features may intermittently report extremely high and incorrect memory clock values.

The Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.10.3 optional driver is now available for download on the Radeon Settings app on Windows 10 and Windows 11. Standalone download links are listed on the official release notes page here.

AMD Radeon 21.10.3 driver brings hefty optimizations for Age of Empires IV and others

Apple's macOS Monterey is now available as a free download

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 02:47:40 +0000

Apple has announced the availability of macOS Monterey, a free upgrade for supported Macs. It includes several cool updates to FaceTime, Safari gets Tab Groups and improved Intelligent Tracking Protection and there’s a feature called Live Text which makes the text in photos interactive right across the system making it easier to copy or translate words.

To run this version of macOS you must have one of the following computers:

MacBook: Early 2016 and newer
MacBook Air: Early 2015 and newer
MacBook Pro: Early 2015 and newer
Mac Mini: Late 2014 and newer
iMac: Late 2015 and newer
iMac Pro: Late 2017
Mac Pro: Late 2013 and newer

If you’ve found that you have a compatible machine, you should make a complete backup with Time Machine or store your files on iCloud and then free up space for the installer, which is around 12 GB according to the Mac App Store website. Once you’ve done all that, press the Apple menu and go to System Preferences then click Software Update. If you’re using a version of macOS before Mojave, you’ll need to head to the App Store and download it from there instead.

Apple typically supports each macOS release for three years. It has not finalised an end-of-support date for macOS Catalina and above but if it sticks to the three-year cycle, Monterey should continue getting updates until around October or November in 2024.

Apple's macOS Monterey is now available as a free download

Microsoft is pushing out the PC Health Check app out to Windows 10 users, whether you want to upgrade or not

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 21:57:27 +0000

Microsoft is pushing out the new PC Health Check app out to Windows 10 users as part of KB5005463.

The somewhat controversial app is taking on an additional role beyond just checking the readiness of your PC for Windows 11.

Microsoft says the PC Health Check now also includes diagnostics to monitor device health and troubleshooting to improve performance, all from the convenience of a single dashboard.

Key features include:

Windows 11 eligibility: Provides a comprehensive eligibility check based on the minimum system requirements for Windows 11.
Backup and sync: Sign in or create a Microsoft account to sync device preferences across devices and set up Microsoft OneDrive to protect your files.
Windows Update: Keep your device secure by always running the latest version of Windows 10.
Battery capacity: View the battery capacity relative to the original for devices that use a single or multiple batteries.
Storage capacity: View the storage usage for the main drive that contains files, apps, and Windows.
Startup time: Manage startup programs to improve startup time.
Tips on PC health: Provides additional tips to improve overall PC health and performance.

Notable the app will automatically install updates when you open it, usually followed by a prompt to restart your PC, which may be an annoyance for some users.

You can, fortunately, uninstall it by going to Apps > Apps & Features > App list (Windows PC Health Check) > Uninstall.

Microsoft is pushing the app out automatically to Windows 10 but not 11 users. If you want it now you can download KB5005463 from the update catalogue here.

via onMSFT

Microsoft is pushing out the PC Health Check app out to Windows 10 users, whether you want to upgrade or not

Linux 5.15-rc7 Released A Day Late Due To Travels

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 19:37:31 +0000

Linus Torvalds normally releases new kernel versions on Sundays like clockwork, but yesterday was one of the rare occasions where that trend was interrupted.

Due to Linus Torvalds' travels of last week ending on Sunday and lacking in-flight WiFi followed by being tired, Linux 5.15-rc7 is only now available.

Linus Torvalds wrote of 5.15-rc7, "the delay isn't because of any kernel trouble. In fact, the worry I had last week about a big rc6 turned out to be just a false alarm due to timing of pulls, and rc7 looks nice and small, right in the range of normal. Both the number of commits and the diffstat looks fine. It's all pretty small and flat (meaning mostly small trivial changes) with just a couple of peaks for some x86 kvm code, and some ksmbd changes."

At this stage Linux 5.15 is looking quite good and it's rather likely Linux 5.15 stable could debut next Sunday. However, as Linus will again be traveling next week, he is inclined if the need presents itself to delay the 5.15 release to then avoid the Linux 5.16 merge window during his next round of travels.

Long story short, Linux 5.15 will be released in the next week or two depending upon how things play out over the days ahead. See our Linux 5.15 feature overview for more details on the big changes of this next kernel release.

Source

Windows XP@20: From the killer of ME to banging out patches for yet another vulnerability

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 19:23:49 +0000

When NT and 9x became one

It was on this very day, 20 years ago, that Microsoft released Windows XP to General Availability.

Regarded by some as the cockroach of the computing world, in part due to its refusal to die despite the best efforts of Microsoft, XP found its way into the hands of customers on 25 October 2001 and sought to undo the mess wrought upon the public by 2000's Windows Millennium Edition (ME). While ME used the Windows 9x kernel, XP was built on the Windows NT kernel, formerly aimed at the business market and a good deal more stable.

It also upped the hardware requirements on its preceding consumer OS. Where ME recommended 64MB of memory, XP wanted at least 128MB. And although masochists could run ME on a VGA screen, XP insisted on a minimum of SVGA. It all seems rather quaint now, but could be a painful jump back in the day.

The user interface was given an overhaul, giving the OS a markedly different appearance to what had gone before, and the Start Menu introduced with Windows 95 was tweaked as well to feature two columns.

Internet Explorer 6 also came in the box, but it wasn't until 2004's Service Pack 2 that a Security Center was added as Microsoft sought to bolster the defences of what had turned out to be a highly hackable operating system. Enough to make one, er, Wannacry.

Still, that particular bit of miscreant nastiness was in the future as Windows XP launched. Two editions appeared in 2001: Home, which lacked enterprise features like domain joining, and Professional, which was aimed at corporates and also had the breath-taking ability to support a pair of physical processors.

While mainstream support ended in 2009 (and extended support breathed its last in 2014), Windows XP remained hugely popular until finally being overtaken in popularity by Windows 7 in 2012 (another operating system, Windows Vista, was launched between the pair but proved unpopular).

Microsoft has, however, continued to emit the occasional patch for the OS. The last was in 2019, just as mainstream support for the POSReady 2009 version of XP ended.

Although the consumerisation of Windows NT caused a twinge or two – some might regard Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 as the high-water mark for Microsoft's operating systems – XP signalled a new era for the company. Sure, the default theme might have felt like a child's toy, but what lurked behind the scenes represented a huge leap forward from Windows 9x.

The same, we fear, cannot be said of Windows 11.

Happy GA day, Windows XP. ®

Source

Linux 5.16 Will Be A Great Christmas Gift For Open-Source Fans With Many New Features

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 14:04:37 +0000

While Linux 5.15 isn't even making its debut for another week or two, there is already a lot to look forward to when it comes to Linux 5.16. Here is a look at some of the new features expected for the 5.16 cycle.

Thanks to closely monitoring the many "-next" branches and mailing lists, here is a look at material currently queued and on-deck for Linux 5.16 barring any last minute issues or objections from Linus Torvalds once the 5.16 merge window opens in early November. Of course, stay tuned to Phoronix during the Linux 5.16 merge window for details on other interesting merges and other drama that may ensue followed by benchmarks of the new kernel.

- FUTEX2 is set to appear for that updated system call of interest to many Linux gamers for helping Windows games running on Linux via Wine / Proton.

- Cluster scheduler support is queued.

- Initial DisplayPort 2.0 code for the AMDGPU driver.

- AMDGPU is finally enabling Panel Self Refresh (PSR) by default for new GPUs.

- Cyan Skillfish display support for that Navi 1x APU.

- AMDGPU USB4 DisplayPort tunneling is added in preliminary form for next-gen Rembrandt / Yellow Carp APUs.

- NVIDIA Tegra NVDEC open-source support.

- Intel Encrypted PXP support.

- Intel Alder Lake S graphics are considered stable / ready.

- The new parallel submission uAPI for the Intel graphics driver.

- A Steam Deck display panel quirk.

- More extensible VirtIO GPU driver handling with "context types" support.

- NVIDIA's preparations for future laptops with EC-driven backlights.

- The panel-edp driver is being added to yield less hard-coded eDP panel configurations.

- Many block / I/O optimizations.

- The Realtek "RTW89" 802.11ax WiFi driver is being introduced.

- Vortex86 processor detection.

- Apple Magic Keyboard 2021 support.

- The Apple Silicon PCIe driver will be added, clearing the way for more Apple M1 drivers and functionality to appear.

- DMA-BUF peer-to-peer support for the Habana Labs AI driver.

- System76 laptops with open-source EC firmware can now have battery charging thresholds and newer System76 laptops also now have CPU and GPU fan speed and temperature reporting via the system76_acpi driver.

- Better HP Omen laptop support.

- Expanded ASUS motherboard sensor support.

- Improved USB low-latency audio playback.

- RISC-V hypervisor support is finally landing for KVM.

- New AMD Linux audio driver code.

- The AMD PSF disable bit will be exposed to KVM guests.

Not certain yet but:

- Potentially an updated Zstd implementation.

- Potentially Intel AMX landing? At least the FPU prep clean-up and other work is in good shape, but so far all the AMX enablement code doesn't appear to have been queued.

Linux 5.16 stable should debut right around the end of the year / early next year depending upon how everything plays out.

Source

Asia's 'superapps' bundle ride-share, food delivery, even financial services – and they're beating big tech

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 13:47:26 +0000

China backed the concept of tools users perceive as an extension of the OS, not just an app

Catch a ride, pay your utility bills, order your dinner, top up your insurance, chat with friends – how many apps did you need to get that lot done? In much of the world North America and Europe your answer could involve a fistful of apps, but in Asia you could do it all in one, thanks to rise of the "superapp".

Superapps are, for now, largely an Asian phenomenon, although the concept is more than a decade old. Blackberry founder Mike Lazaridis coined the term in 2010 to mean "a closed ecosystem of many apps that people would use every day because they offer such a seamless, integrated, contextualized and efficient experience".

Academic and researcher of digital business models and ecosystems at Singapore's ESSEC Business School Dr Jan Ondrus thinks a better definition for a superapp is essentially "an operating system".

In conversation with definition to The Register, he likened superapps on mobile devices to using Windows on a desktop.

"With a superapp," said Ondrus, "you don't need to use multiple apps, you can use just one app and tap into a lot of other services – you can live pretty much inside the superapp."

In the West we love our Google search – in some respects that is our superapp

That convenience matters, because the crowded real estate of a smartphone home screen only has so many slots. App publishers have come to realise that offering more functions in one app is their ticket to prominence and ongoing user engagement.

WeChat, the boss of all superapps

To truly understand superapps, consider the most popular of them all – and probably the original superapp – WeChat.

WeChat began as a messaging platform for Chinese tech giant Tencent in 2011. It is now a gateway to more than one million services – including ride hailing, booking flights and hotels, making medical appointments, accessing social media, making payments, and even arranging a date.

Plenty of those services are offered by third parties through "mini-programs" – tools that allows businesses to create their own digital products and offer them to WeChat's users. WeChat takes a fee on transactions.

While users can choose to use only Tencent's messaging services, there's no reason to leave for almost any other service.

As of the end of December 2020, WeChat and Weixin – the version of WeChat for mainland China – had a combined 1.23 billion monthly average users.

Other prominent superapps include Korea's Line & Kakao, Indonesia's soon-to-merge Gojek and Tokopedia, India's Paytm, and Vietnam's Zalo.

Singapore-based Grab deserves special mention because when Uber tried to enter Singapore, Grab was already entrenched. Uber eventually sold its entire Southeast Asian efforts to Grab. Uber's blog post when it announced it was leaving the region read:

One of the potential dangers of our global strategy is that we take on too many battles across too many fronts and with too many competitors.

This transaction now puts us in a position to compete with real focus and weight in the core markets where we operate, while giving us valuable and growing equity stakes in a number of big and important markets where we don’t.

That's an admission that Uber's approach was too limited to succeed against superapps.

"The approach of integrating as many services as possible in one app makes you extremely powerful," explained Dr Ondrus. "What most companies are searching for is the relationship with customers. WeChat is intermediating the relationship with everyone, making them a very powerful intermediary."

Superapps also thrive because offering many services lets them understand customers better.

"[Superapps] have a better AI system to predict what you are going to do because they integrate all the data collected. When using separate apps, it will be near impossible to replicate that," Ondrus explained.

China set the snowball rolling

While superapps have spread across Asia, and made inroads in South America, other regions have not displayed the same enthusiasm.

"If you take a step back you can see why the apps are [in the East] and not [in the West]. I think it comes down to where these markets started from and the drivers of adoption, and the initial market was China, wasn't it?" KPMG's Singapore-based Head of Financial Services Anton Ruddenklau pondered in a Zoom call with The Register.

"The Chinese government actually mandated tech firms to move into these adjacencies," added Ruddenklau. Each company was given a specialty to develop to drive digitization across sectors and make them work to scale.

WeChat is intermediating the relationship with everyone

Superapps were helped by the fact that they were native to mobile devices. In the West, many users' formative internet experiences were on PCs and other platforms dominated by Google, Facebook, Microsoft et al.

Most Chinese netizens skipped straight to smartphones and sought out mobile-first services. Early in China's internet boom, such services weren't prevented from building horizontal platforms.

Much of Southeast Asia also went straight to mobile devices for internet access. Again, that wave of netizens had no PC-centric habits to adopt on their smartphones. New market players had an opportunity to create a new ecosystem that catered to Asia's youthful demographic, even as the likes of Google and Facebook worked to make existing services more mobile-friendly.

Superapps also understood their target markets' culture in ways that Western firms did not. Yet superapps aren't big enough to understand every culture. ESSEC Business School's Dr Ondrus points out that Alibaba acquired Singaporean e-tailer Lazada to access its growing regional footprint.

"It was much easier for Alibaba to buy Lazada, which had already established activity in Southeast Asia. For big companies, starting from scratch is very painful," explained Ondrus.

Where are the West's superapps?

While superapps are huge in Asia, they're hard to find in the West. Facebook tried to pack more third-party services into Messenger and Instagram, but with limited success. Some Facebook services, like marketplace, are free – seemingly because Facebook values engagement over the kind of revenue it could win from taking on eBay, Gumtree, and Craigslist.

"The difference in the West is we love our Google search – in some respects that is our superapp," said KPMG's Ruddenklau. While Google mostly wins revenue from ads, rather than taking a cut of transactions, Ruddenklau sees that as an advantage because the lack of full integration between Google products means users have a perception of privacy.

"Westerners like to be able to ringfence certain apps or services, so that they don't think anyone has a full picture of their lives," said Ruddenklau.

Even if Western users wanted superapps, Big Tech might not be so keen to build them.

Ruddenklau told The Register clients often ask how to build platform-based business models. He replies that banks can comfortably make over $1,200 a year from each retail customer, but superapps like Grab, Alipay or WeChat might pull in a handful of dollars per user.

"Which [business] do you want want to be?" Ruddenklau asks. ®

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One of Microsoft's most-hated products might actually be getting a useful upgrade

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 13:33:10 +0000

Microsoft Bing will help with file finding and more

Searching for lost files or that extra bit of data to make the difference at work could be quicker than ever thanks to a new upgrade from Microsoft.

The tech giant is boosting one of its less-celebrated products to give enterprise users an easier way to search online.

The update means that enterprise users will now get their historical searches as suggestions in the autosuggest pane on Bing and Microsoft Search in Bing, according to the official Microsoft 365 roadmap entry.

Bing bling

Bing, for anyone who may need reminding, is Microsoft's own search engine, designed to rival the likes of Google in offering information to users across the globe.

The new update should mean that enterprise users looking to quickly find files that they've searched for or opened before will no longer need to manually trawl through endless files and folders in search of the elusive location.

The update is still currently in development, but Microsoft will doubtless be keen to get it out soon and help boost Bing engagement.

The feature is set to be available to Microsoft Search users across the globe via the company's general availability route, meaning web, desktop and mobile users will all be able to utilize it upon release.

Microsoft has kept its support for Bing despite the huge disadvantage versus Google, which has dominated the web search market for years.

However, this support may have been slightly lessened by recent findings from Google, which claimed that the most searched-for term on Bing is actually Google itself, as Windows users setting up a new laptop or desktop PC often use Microsoft's browser first before installing Google Chrome using their search engine of choice, Google Search.

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