If you’re unfamiliar with Windows Community Toolkit, it is a suite of extensions and controls for dev’s. The idea is to give creators an easier way to access developer tasks when building .NET and UWP apps for Windows 10. Leading the changes in version 7.0 is the movement of several tool packages. Microsoft says doing so allows packages to become less dependent on each other if only small components are in use....
XAML Standard comes to unify all XAML dialects across XAML-based technologies. It is a specification that defines the standard XAML vocabulary and helps frameworks that support XAML Standard share common XAML-based UI definitions. Microsoft notes that the goal is for XAML Standard 1.0 to be available later this year. The company’s post-specification plans include support of XAML Standard in Xamarin.Forms and UWP. As a result, developers will be able to reuse and share between the frameworks and expand into more platforms, when Microsoft enables XAML Standard....
“This collaboration between Microsoft and Informatica provides customers an accelerated path for their digital transformation. As customers modernize their analytics systems, it enables them to truly begin integrating emerging technologies, such as AI and machine learning, into their business,” explained John Chirapurath, general manager, Azure Data & AI. “Without migrating analytics workloads to the cloud, it becomes difficult for customers to maximize the potential their data holds.” To get customers over the initial hurdle of migration, the pair are offering a free evaluation period....
Booking was introduced last July but has only been available to North American customers. For the global roll out, the service will still only be available to subscribers of the Office 365 Business Premium offering. Microsoft has made no hint that it plans to roll the service out to wider Office 365 customers. If you are unfamiliar with the service, it allows subscribers to book appointments directly online with a mobile device....
“Windows 10 IoT Core uses a unique capability of the NXP i.MX 6 and i.MX 7 to enable trusted I/O which can ensure that malicious applications or rogue actors are unable to tamper with the physical control of a device even if they infiltrate the operating system software.” Microsoft has debuted a private preview on NXP i.MX 6 and i.MX 7 processors. It is available for new previewers here. The company says the final Windows 10 IoT for NXP processors will be finalized for shipping later in 2018....
While it does not seem any of these will force the Windows 10 May 2019 Update to be paused, Microsoft is advising users to avoid manual updates until fixes have been released. One of the problems is limited to machines using Intel chips, which is admittedly most PCs. Microsoft says version 1903 is causing a driver compatibility error with Intel devices. “After updating to Window 10, version 1903, brightness settings may sometime appear as if changes applied took effect, yet the actual display brightness doesn’t change,” Microsoft explains....
When I say update pattern, I mean that both Windows consumer and Windows Server previews receive regular updates on the Insider program. However, Microsoft uses two distinct approaches in flighting updates to users. Windows 10 and Windows 11 consumer builds arrive on channels for the Windows Insider Program through Windows Update. For Windows Server preview releases, Microsoft sends out ISO files to registered users. However, a Tech Community post from Microsoft suggests the company may be looking to move Windows Server previews to the Windows consumer update model....
According to five former Microsoft employees, the company suffered an attack on its internal database for tracking bugs in software. To hack the security, a highly sophisticated cybercrime group that managed to breach a corporate database for only the second time. Speaking to Reuters, the former employees say the database in question was a hold for vulnerability information for Microsoft’s leading software offerings, such as Windows. Once the breach was known, Microsoft acted quickly and fixed the issue....
Yes, this is a Windows 10 20H1 release so will come to end users during the first half of next year. The Insider build in question for the Feedback Hub is version 1.1907.2102.0. As well as the new Feedback Hub UI, Microsoft has made some changes to Diagnostics. Looking at the redesign, Microsoft says the Hub UI has received a total overhaul. A focus has been placed on the UI presenting more feedback on a single page....
SMT will be led by current Executive Vice President of Azure, Jason Zander. He will report directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The goal of the Strategic Missions and Technologies team is to boost development of important emerging businesses at Microsoft. It will be tasked with the ongoing growth of key businesses. ZDNet reports SMT is a combination of Azure Quantum, Microsoft U.S. Federal, and Azure Space & Mission Engineering for Azure....
While having a jailbroke iPhone or iPad can be good on a consumer side, allowing you to have more control over your device, it is a problem on the enterprise side. Jailbroken iOS devices are less secure. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – the enterprise version of Microsoft Defender – will now provide warnings to organizations when a device is jailbroken. “If it’s detected that a device is jailbroken, an alert is surfaced to the security team in Microsoft 365 Defender,” Microsoft Senior Program Manager Shravan Thota explains in a tech community post....
Specifically, admins can focus on vulnerabilities by finding which are more dangerous. They can then fix those flaws across an organization. Microsoft says Defender for Endpoint detects vulnerabilities in third-party software and within macOS itself: “After onboarding your macOS devices to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, you’ll get the latest security recommendations, review recently discovered vulnerabilities in installed applications, and issue remediation tasks, just like you can with Windows devices.”...
If you use the Coming Soon pane in Outlook, you can enable these features. If not, you will have to wait for them to arrive in the next few weeks. Microsoft will probably roll out the new features along with the October 2018 Update. Among the features is the Simplified Ribbon, which Microsoft explains as a customizable tool. Personalizing the commands in the ribbon allows users to make their Outlook experience more efficient....
This week, the company is announcing new ways in which Windows 365 is crossing the gap between cloud and on-premises productivity. During the Windows hybrid day today, Microsoft revealed new features for the platform that works across all work scenarios. First up is Windows 365 Boot, which allows users to log in to Cloud PC and configure it on a local machine. Microsoft explains the tool “allows different users to log in directly to their own personal and secure Windows 365 Cloud PC with their credentials....
This is quite a win for Microsoft, but also just part of what is a long journey. It is worth remembering that the company once dominated the browser space for decades with Internet Explorer. However, allowing that browser to stagnate meant something new was needed for Windows 10. Microsoft Edge was born but suffered early teething problems such as performance issues and a messy vision. While the vision may not be much better – Microsoft is still throwing all features apart from the Kitchen sink at Edge – it is a capable browser these days....
In fact, by time Windows 11 launches fully this fall, the platform’s native web browser will have plenty of shiny new toys. We already discussed Pickle Clipboard APIs, a new system that allows apps to create file formats in a pickling format, provided developers implement the API. In basic terms, it means users will be able to copy and paste complete custom formats on Windows, Mac, and any other platform that has Edge or Chrome....
This is part of the Microsoft Edge version 88 update that will come to all users out of preview soon. Powerusers using multiple tabs will be aware of the headaches that can cause, especially an impact on performance. Sleeping Tabs aims to solve this problem. It allows Edge to automatically make background tabs idle and consume less power. Microsoft points out it can reduce memory usage by 32% and uses 37% less CPU, both figures on average: “Although individual device performance varies depending on configuration and usage, we’ve heard from users that this decrease in resource and battery usage has improved their browsing experience....
Announced in October, the ambitious new entries will give developers more screen real-estate but require increased flexibility. While that could be complex, Microsoft is indicating that this won’t be half as hard as some may expect. “Your code is important, and you will not have to start anew on these devices. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for your existing websites and apps to work well on dual-screen devices,” said Kevin Gallo, corporate vice president, Windows Developer Platform....
Dirk-jan Mollema, a security researcher for Fox-IT, says the zero-day is several vulnerabilities working together. He went public with the problem last week, describing three default settings that can be manipulated to increase access. Through a hacked lowly Microsoft Exchange email account, a bad actor can elevate account access to admin level. The Domain Controller is a secure server that handles authentication requests on Exchange. Mollema describes the following three vulnerabilities working in unison:...
However, Volexity did not disclose which groups it believes are perpetrating the exploit. The company also did not expand on details. Instead, the Department of Defense (DoD) confirmed the attacks to ZDNet and said the hacking groups are “all the big players”. The vulnerability in question is location in Microsoft Exchange and labeled as CVE-2020-0688. Below is how Microsoft describes the flaw in its official security posting: “A remote code execution vulnerability exists in Microsoft Exchange Server when the server fails to properly create unique keys at install time....
