Microsoft shows off Windows updates
Were the ones involving print spooling showcased?
Windows still rules the enterprise, and among all the Azure and Power Platform action during Microsoft's annual Build event for developers, the company had news for users of its flagship operating system. The first followed this week's revelation that Windows Subsystem for Android is now running on Android Open Source Project …
It would not surprise me to hear that MS is making print spooling :-
1) an extra $5.99/month
2) only work when connected to the mothership as all documents have to be printed via MS as they check the contents for illegal images (no prints of bums on photocopiers allowed)
Ok, so I'm joking but all the people I work with have the 'Meh' attitude when it comes to anything coming out of Redmond. They aren't migrating to W11 this side of 2025 if they can avoid it. I'm done with Windows so their faffing around with the UI and everything is irrelevant to me. And to think that once upon a time, I drank the MS koolaid and even was a certified developer. Oh... how silly I was.
I noticed the article missed the part where M$ already knows no one is rushing to the doors for W11. Instead it's all, Were shocked! Shocked I say! How is that it has taken so long to roll out release for W11 overseas?
Then the say with a straight face there is almost no software available waiting for those that upgrade.
Why upgrade when it's not ready? Why should devs waste time with releasing builds for W11 right now either?
While the Reg could probably get away with running a "Still not ready yet" headline with every article, most of the trade press just desperately wants to get you to click on another re-warmed presser so they can serve another page worth of ads. Most of us can safely ignore this whole release for quite a while longer. My head will snap to attention when M$ starts signaling it's going for the heavy push, at least long enough to block the update prompts. Till then friends!
FTFA: The Store is less popular than its rivals, but nonetheless Microsoft boasted of a 50 percent year-on-year growth in desktop apps and games for the first quarter of this year. It would not, however, confirm the number those apps have grown to.)
2 apps total in Q1'21, 3 apps total in Q1'22 would equate to 50% YoY growth. Just saying.
"Any app," it said, "that runs on Windows, including C++, WinForms, WPF, MAUI, React, Rust, Flutter and Java, is welcome in the Microsoft Store."
Could they sound any needier? "Pleeeeease! Anyone? You have a "Hello World" you wrote in VB3? We'd love to have it in the Store!!!"
...the tech, powered by Microsoft Advertising, will "help developers surface their apps to the right user at the right time..."
Yeah, no, I'm too busy retching at that shameless perversion of the word "surface" to offer a comment on that one.
I find W7 and a VirtualBox running Linux Mint suffices for both my legacy and current needs. The VirtualBox gives me the flexibility to have several dedicated application VMs - and an easy way to revert any mistakes in updates or new installs. A VM can be cloned in about 10 minutes while I prepare a meal.
The second coming of Windows 11 is almost upon us. Is it worth chancing an upgrade? We took a look at the latest release preview of 2022's take on Microsoft's flagship operating system.
Windows 11 launched in October 2021 with some controversial changes. The first was a considerably reduced list of compatible hardware (compared to its predecessor, Windows 10). The second was a redesigned user interface that seemed pretty much guaranteed to enrage customers still smarting from the Start Menu fiasco of Windows 8 and 8.1.
But hey, the window corners were rounded (sometimes) and you didn't really care about the fact that a right-click on the taskbar no longer gave a task manager options, did you?
Microsoft has dropped a preview of its next batch of Windows fixes, slipping a resolution for broken Wi-Fi hotspots in among the goodies.
The release – KB5014668 for Windows 11 – addresses the Wi-Fi hotspot functionality broken in June's patch Tuesday alongside some less necessary features like "search highlights," which "present notable and interesting moments of what's special about each day."
KB5014697, which was released on June 14 for Windows 11, had a selection of issues. Some .NET Framework 3.5 apps might fail and connecting to a Windows device acting as a hotspot wouldn't always work. The only fix was to roll back the patch or disable the Wi-Fi hotspot feature.
Desktop Tourism My 20-year-old son is an aspiring athlete who spends a lot of time in the gym and thinks nothing of lifting 100 kilograms in various directions. So I was a little surprised when I handed him Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio and he declared it uncomfortably heavy.
At 1.8kg it's certainly not among today's lighter laptops. That matters, because the device's big design selling point is a split along the rear of its screen that lets it sit at an angle that covers the keyboard and places its touch-sensitive surface in a comfortable position for prodding with a pen. The screen can also fold completely flat to allow the laptop to serve as a tablet.
Below is a .GIF to show that all in action.
Updated Microsoft's latest set of Windows patches are causing problems for users.
Windows 10 and 11 are affected, with both experiencing similar issues (although the latter seems to be suffering a little more).
KB5014697, released on June 14 for Windows 11, addresses a number of issues, but the known issues list has also been growing. Some .NET Framework 3.5 apps might fail to open (if using Windows Communication Foundation or Windows Workflow component) and the Wi-Fi hotspot features appears broken.
If Windows Autopatch arrives in July as planned, some of you will be able to say goodbye to Patch Tuesday.
Windows Autopatch formed part of Microsoft's April announcements on updates to the company's Windows-in-the-cloud product. The tech was in public preview since May.
Aimed at enterprise users running Windows 10 and 11, Autopatch can, in theory, be used to replace the traditional Patch Tuesday to which administrators have become accustomed over the years. A small set of devices will get the patches first before Autopatch moves on to gradually larger sets, gated by checks to ensure that nothing breaks.
Microsoft has accidentally turned off its controversial hardware compatibility check, thus offering Windows 11 to computers not on the list.
Windows 11 does not install on computers that lack a recent TPM-equipped CPU, although there are exceptions (notably for some of Microsoft's own hardware, which failed to make the cut in the original list). It is possible to circumvent this limitation, although there is no guarantee that a future version of Windows 11 won't slam the door permanently.
However, users noted overnight that that PCs on the Windows Insider Release Preview ring without a qualifying CPU were offered the update without the usual terse rejection message.
The next major version of Windows 11 is drawing near with the code hitting the Insider Release Preview Channel.
Build 22621, which has been floating around the Beta Channel since May 11, arrived last night.
Back in May, Microsoft noted that the disappearance of the watermark from the desktop "doesn't mean we're done." However, its arrival in the Release Preview Channel means that, fixes aside, it is pretty much feature-complete and ready to roll.
Microsoft has treated some of the courageous Dev Channel crew of Windows Insiders to the long-awaited tabbed File Explorer.
"We are beginning to roll this feature out, so it isn't available to all Insiders in the Dev Channel just yet," the software giant said.
The Register was one of the lucky ones and we have to commend Microsoft on the implementation (overdue as it is). The purpose of the functionality is to allow users to work on more than one location at a time in File Explorer via tabs in the title bar.
Microsoft Build Microsoft Azure on Thursday revealed it will use AMD's top-tier MI200 Instinct GPUs to perform “large-scale” AI training in the cloud.
“Azure will be the first public cloud to deploy clusters of AMD's flagship MI200 GPUs for large-scale AI training,” Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott said during the company’s Build conference this week. “We've already started testing these clusters using some of our own AI workloads with great performance.”
AMD launched its MI200-series GPUs at its Accelerated Datacenter event last fall. The GPUs are based on AMD’s CDNA2 architecture and pack 58 billion transistors and up to 128GB of high-bandwidth memory into a dual-die package.
Microsoft has quietly updated its release health dashboard and declared Windows 11 "designated for broad deployment."
Adoption of Microsoft's latest OS stalled in recent months as enthusiasts that could upgrade did, and those who didn't meet Microsoft's draconian list of hardware requirements mostly remained on Windows 10.
A wave of enterprise upgrades is yet to materialize, with many organisations opting to stick with what they know, although the designation of being "broad deployment" ready will make it easier to add the upgrade to the corporate roadmap.
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