News Bot

Hello Windows Insiders, Today, we are beginning to test the throttled approach we intend to use to rollout 19H2 to customers with Windows Insiders using the Release Preview ring. This is not the final 19H2 build that we intend to make available via the Release Preview ring once we are closer to launch. For a small subset of Insiders (around 10%) in the Release Preview ring, we have enabled the “seeker” experience for 19H2. For these Insiders, if they go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update, they will see that there is a Windows 10, version 1909 update available. They will be able to choose to download and install this update on their PC. After the update finishes, they will be on 19H2 Build 18363.327. As John Cable mentioned in July, we will be delivering 19H2 to customers using our servicing technology (just like the monthly update process) for customers running the May 2019 Update (19H1). We have been testing 19H2 with Insiders in the Slow ring using the same baseline build number as the May 2019 Update but with an increased revision number like we normally use to show a build has been serviced with a Cumulative Update. However, to designate 19H2 as a feature update, we are revising the baseline build number by one full build. Insiders in the Release Preview ring who get 19H2 Build 18363.327 today will not see all the 19H2 features the Slow ring currently has as not all the features have been incorporated into the build yet. Because of the differences between the way the 19H2 updates are packaged between the Slow and Release Preview rings, Insiders in the Slow ring will not be able to switch to the Release Preview ring and get updates yet. Insiders who are thinking of switching rings should stay put for now. We will communicate to Insiders when it is ok to make the switch. Thanks, Dona and Brandon The post Testing the throttled delivery approach for 19H2 appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Editor’s note: We’re back with the summer batch of weekly Windows 10 tips posts, which highlight some of the many helpful features that come with the Windows 10 May 2019 Update. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make your daily life easier with a streamlined update process, as well as clean and simple experiences for your desktop. Your lists and reminders from across Microsoft To-Do, Cortana and tasks in Outlook can now become one, centrally located in your Microsoft To-Do app. Check it out in action: https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/0a56d77f5bc319fc03b5566c4f4981a6.gif Use Microsoft To-Do anywhere: on your Android or iPhone, with Cortana or on your Windows 10 PC. You can also get to it from the web. It’s automatically synced, so you never miss a beat. And if you want to learn even more about Microsoft To-Do, such as how to prioritize tasks and add steps to a task, watch this Windows Community video. If you like this, check out more Windows 10 Tips. The post Windows 10 Tip: Streamline your tasks using Microsoft To-Do appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/74b7ff7aaa5d4ede3fe5fd26744553fd-1024x576.png “Gears POP!” is now available to play on iOS, Android and Windows 10 devices. In this game, players collect and upgrade dozens of “Gears of War” heroes and villains, which appear as Funko Pop! vinyl designs. Build the ultimate squad and compete in the Arena, where you battle other collectors and competitors. Sign into your Xbox profile to sync your game progress across all your devices. Find out more at Xbox Wire. The post ‘Gears POP!’ now available appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders, today we’re releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18965 (20H1) to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. IMPORTANT: As is normal with builds early in the development cycle, these builds may contain bugs that might be painful for some. If you take this flight, you won’t be able to switch Slow or Release Preview rings without doing a clean-install on your PC. If you want a complete look at what build is in which Insider ring, head over to Flight Hub. You can also check out the rest of our documentation here including a complete list of new features and updates that have gone out as part of Insider flights for the current development cycle. Not seeing any of the features in this build? Check your Windows Insider Settings to make sure you’re on the Fast ring. Submit feedback here to let us know if things weren’t working the way you expected. What’s new in Build 18965 Control over restarting apps at sign-in As some of you already know, apps have the ability to register for restart, which helps in a few situations, including enabling you to get back to what you were doing if you need to restart your PC. Previously this option was tied to the “Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device” option under Sign-in options in accounts settings. We’ve heard feedback that some of you would prefer more explicit control over when Windows automatically restarts apps that were open when you restart your PC, and with 20H1 we’re bringing that option to you. Windows now puts you in control with a new app restart setting. When turned on, Windows automatically saves your restartable apps when signing out, restarting, or shutting down Windows, and restarts them next time you sign in. This setting is off by default and you can change it any time in Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options, and can find it by searching for “restart apps” in Start or the search box. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/f39d92cf0a7ffb252498c200a39a3ce1.png Other updates for Insiders Feedback Hub updates The Feedback Hub team has been hard at work lately to bring you some app updates based on your feature requests, and we have a few changes and improvements to share about the latest version that’s currently rolling out to Insiders in the Fast ring. Feedback Search UI updates On the Feedback section of the app, you will now be able to more clearly see the differentiation between Problems and Suggestions, with each showing an icon, color, and labels Problem or Suggestion displayed above each feedback entry. We also have updated iconography and displays for Adding similar feedback to problems, upvoting suggestions, and adding comments to feedback. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/7fe592984612ad6ad8a1f3987b498c44.png Adding similar feedback In the past, Feedback Hub allowed two kinds of participation on feedback: upvoting and adding more details. The notion of voting on Suggestions makes a lot of sense – engineers at Microsoft want to know which features the community wants us to build next, and voting on feature suggestions is a great way to see where your interest lies. However, voting on Problems was trickier – problems are not a matter of popularity, and what helps engineers here resolve problems is having clear descriptions of how the issue arose. Feedback is especially helpful if it includes a reproduction of the problem, diagnostics that help our teams pinpoint what went wrong so they can fix issues faster. Voting on the search page often did not provide enough detail as to what was happening, and we saw that few people went into existing feedback to add their personal reproductions of the issues. With the new Add similar feedback feature, selecting a problem with symptoms that match your own will take you to the feedback form, with the title pre-filled. You edit the title or add your own description to let us know exactly what was happening when you encountered the problem. We’ll already have your category selected to ensure the right feature team sees your feedback, and in our new Similar Feedback section, the feedback you selected will already be selected. As usual, the last step involves optionally adding your own reproduction of the issue or any attachments you like. Windows Insiders Achievements We are excited to announce a refresh of the Windows Insider Achievements page. We’ve made achievements more discoverable by moving them from your profile page to their own landing page, and we added additional features that allow you to categorize and track your progress. Be sure to check it out today and begin unlocking badges. We would love to hear your feedback on social media by using the hashtag #Builds4Badges. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/e027222b3706cf28fbd9b6d6a407ea1d.png The information previously found in your profile (Device ID and User ID) is now located in the settings section of Feedback Hub. As always, we appreciate your feedback – if you have any suggestions or problems to report, you can share them in the Feedback Hub under Apps > Feedback Hub. General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC We fixed an issue resulting in the screens shown while updating Windows unexpectedly saying “managed by your organization” for some Insiders. We fixed an issue resulting in the taskbar unexpectedly hiding sometimes when launching the touch keyboard. We fixed an issue where some of the colors weren’t correct in Language Settings if using High Contrast White. We fixed an issue that could result in background tasks not working in certain apps. We fixed an issue where if you set focus to the notification area of the taskbar via WIN+B, then opened a flyout and pressed Esc to close it, then the focus rectangle would no longer show up correctly anymore. We fixed an issue where on the Bluetooth & Other Settings page, the device type wasn’t read out loud when using a screen reader. We fixed an issue resulting in help links not being accessible when adding a new wireless display device on the Bluetooth & Other Settings page if the text scaling was set to 200%. Known issues Insiders may notice a new “Cloud download” option in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) under “Reset this PC.” This feature is not working quite yet. We’ll let you know once it is, so you can try it out! There has been an issue with older versions of anti-cheat software used with games where after updating to the latest 19H1 Insider Preview builds may cause PCs to experience crashes. We are working with partners on getting their software updated with a fix, and most games have released patches to prevent PCs from experiencing this issue. To minimize the chance of running into this issue, please make sure you are running the latest version of your games before attempting to update the operating system. We are also working with anti-cheat and game developers to resolve similar issues that may arise with the 20H1 Insider Preview builds and will work to minimize the likelihood of these issues in the future. Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly. We are investigating the issue. We’re working on a fix for an issue resulting in the minimize, maximize, and close title bar buttons not working for certain apps. If you’re using an impacted app, Alt+F4 should work as expected to close the app if needed. Some WSL distros will not load (Issue #4371). We’re investigating reports that DWM is using unexpectedly high system resources for some Insiders. There’s an issue impacting a small number of Insiders which started on the previous flight, involving a lsass.exe crash and resulting in a message saying, “Windows ran into a problem and needs to restart.” We’re working on a fix and appreciate your patience. Join the Bing Insider Program Allergy season got you down? Stay prepared with Bing! Check out current and future pollen counts for various locations. Whether you’re planning a trip to different city or getting ready for a local outing, use Bing to see current levels of tree, grass, and ragweed pollen. If you want to be among the first to learn about these Bing features, join our Bing Insider Program. No downtime for Hustle-As-A-Service, Dona <3 The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18965 appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Just before the IFA tradeshow in Berlin, Dell announces the expansion of its consumer portfolio with brand new form factors and the addition of new 10th Generation Intel Core processors, delivering performance gains needed for compute-intensive, demanding, multi-thread workloads – while still efficiently handling 4K content. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/726cf80d62f2f5df2c187c025635bb05-1024x683.jpeg XPS 13 Bingeing series or always working on the go? Turn to the XPS 13, which will now include Intel 10th Generation Core U series processors, with up to i7 hexacore chips (available in October). With the new Killer AX1650 (2×2) built on Intel Wi-Fi 6 Chipset, wireless connectivity is three times as fast as the previous generation. Along with Dell CinemaColor and Dolby Vision and an optional 4K Ultra HD InfinityEdge display, the XPS 13 will remain eye candy for those glued to their screen. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/05/d540b55cddb4bd52385218c4613504ac-1024x436.jpg XPS 13 2-in-1 And you can now buy the XPS 13 2-in-1, a COMPUTEX d&i award winner. The 2-in-1 is also the first laptop available with Intel’s new 10th Generation Core, with its 10-nanometer silicon processors. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/bfbf8c0984efaca48c6fdcb04a6f967f-1024x1024.png Inspiron 14 7000 The new Inspiron 14 7000 ultralight laptops will also have the latest 10th Generation Intel Core processors. With the new lid-open sensor, Connected Modern Standby and fingerprint reader built into the power button, the system signs on securely and starts in a flash. The laptop, made of magnesium alloy, has four-sided narrow borders with 100% sRGB color coverage, perfect for mobile multitasking. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/ad118da33d4a28045816cb5b21aae660-1024x1024.png Inspiron 27 7000 Other Inspiron systems have been upgraded or are now available (and, depending on the model, these Inspiron systems run on either Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 in S Mode): Inspiron 14, 15, 17 3000; Inspiron 13 5000; Inspiron 14, 15 5000; and Inspiron 14, 15 5000 2-in-1 have been updated with the latest 10th Generation Intel Core processors. Inspiron 13 7000 (available only in China, Japan and Brazil), an ultralight laptop with a starting weight of less than 1 kg*. Made from magnesium alloy and featuring a lid-open sensor, this device offers mobility and productivity. Inspiron 13, 15, 17 7000 2-in-1 first announced at CES 2019 and a Computex Design Innovation Award winner, is now available globally (North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Greater China and Asia Pacific Japan), with the addition of USB Type-C with Thunderbolt 3 support and in an optional silver chassis. Inspiron 14, 15 5000 (available only in non-North America regions): packed with features, is built for reliability and multitasking. You can find them in the following colors (based on regional availability): Platinum Silver, Iced Lilac, Iced Mint and Iced Gold (14-inch only). Inspiron 24 5000 and 27 7000 All-in-One (AIOs) desktops, first announced at Computex 2019, will be available Aug. 23. They fit in your living room or dorm room as a simple and attractive entertainment system or TV replacement. Find out more about these and other Dell announcements at IFA 2019. * Weights vary depending on configuration and manufacturing variability. The post IFA 2019: Dell adds new 10th Generation Intel Core processors to XPS 13 and Inspiron systems, makes XPS 13 2-in-1 available appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders, Thanks for staying up to date on the Windows Admin Center journey! You’ll start to see visual changes in this version as minor style updates to the Windows Admin Center UI, including a new, rich, entry page to the add connection experience: https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/c980c91d9ab9e8e749144edbbb6f3a21.png Other changes include: https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/33ae899ba39e3050024abaa6b2b7b0a0.png NEW TOOL! Packetmon: Packetmon is a new feature that will allow you to diagnose your server by capturing and displaying network traffic through the networking stack in a log that is filtered, organized, and easy to follow and manipulate. This release of Packetmon supports 19H1 and 19H2 builds. In later releases, Windows Server 2019 will be supported, the actual names of networking stack components will be displayed in the log, users will be able to filter the log by components & dropped packets, and users will be able to save captures to analyze and manipulate the captures whenever needed. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/4f3467e52ea0a1fcdac60f547f4eabbc.jpg NEW TOOL! FlowLog Audit: Flowlog auditing is a new capability for the SDN firewall in Windows Server 2019. When you enable SDN firewall, any flow processed by SDN firewall rules (ACLs) that have logging enabled gets recorded. These logs can be used for diagnostics or archived for later analysis. With the new “Flowlog Audit” extension in Windows Admin Center, you can easily manage, search and filter the SDN logs for analysis and diagnostics. It can be difficult to gain insights into flow logging data by manually searching the log files. In this extension, you can also upload the log to Azure Blob, then use Power BI to visualize your most recent flow logs and learn about traffic on your network. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/cebf80aaeb6d7ce0514dc551d4258e8b.png UPDATED TOOL! Security: Install or update the Security tool from the extension feed. This update features a full visual refresh with the ability to toggle real-time Windows Defender protection, run a quick scan, modify your scan schedule, view history and edit default remediation actions. Windows Admin Center can now onboard Failover Cluster and Hyper-Converged Cluster connections to Azure Monitor: To configure Azure Monitor for your cluster, navigate to Settings -> Monitoring Alerts. The onboarding process will help set up the log analytics workspace in Azure and install the appropriate local agents on each server in your cluster to help you collect events and performance counters for analysis, reporting, and alerting. Windows Admin Center extension developers: The Active Directory search that was originally implemented for adding servers is now a reusable control – the link to the example is: https://localhost:6516/devguide/tools/active-directory-search-control WinRM over HTTPS: Supporting WinRM over HTTPS (port 5986) is a top user request. Starting in this version of Windows Admin Center, you will have the option to choose WinRM over HTTPS (port 5986) as the method of connection to your managed nodes. Known issues Azure Monitor onboarding – If you’re managing a server or a cluster using “manage as” credentials, the onboarding may fail. Network – If you have configured an Azure Network Adapter, the value under Microsoft Azure Virtual Network Gateway Address will be formatted as a hyperlink but leads to an invalid address. [20420185] Chrome users may see 403 Forbidden response from WAC after upgrading. The workaround is to close *all* open chrome tabs (make sure there are no chrome.exe processes running). After restarting chrome, everything will function normally. We have an error message that makes this clear, but chrome users with multiple windows admin center tabs open during upgrade will not see the message. How to Download Registered Insiders may download Windows Admin Center Preview 1908 directly from the Windows Server Insider Preview download page, under the Additional Downloads dropdown. If you have not yet registered as an Insider, see Getting Started with Windows Server on the Windows Insiders for Business portal. We value your feedback! The most important part of a frequent release cycle is to hear what’s working and what needs to be improved, so your feedback is extremely valued. Send us feedback via UserVoice. We also encourage you to visit the Windows Admin Center space on the Microsoft Tech Communities forum to collaborate, share and learn from experts. Terms of Use All pre-release software made available to you via the Windows Server Insider program are governed by the Insider Terms of Use. Thanks, Dona and Brandon The post Windows Admin Center Preview 1908 appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/4cac7883632a1fb69454aba7b0b0c3ac-1024x576.png Today I’m thrilled to announce that a Beta release for the next version of Microsoft Edge is now available for all supported versions of Windows and macOS. Our goal with Microsoft Edge is to create better web compatibility with better performance for our customers while ensuring less fragmentation of the web for all web developers. Our community has been with us on this journey from the beginning and your feedback is making it possible to rapidly improve. To date, there have been more than one million downloads of our preview builds, across all supported versions of Windows and Mac, from which we have received more than 140,000 individual pieces of feedback. Thank you! Now that the Beta channel for the next version of Microsoft Edge is available, I’d like to call on all of you to jump in today and be some of the first to download and try it! Microsoft Edge Beta Channel: The next chapter https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/db0b9d0b254263cc925045f80d6ea23f-1024x511.jpg Beta is the third and final preview channel which will come online before launch. As we release Beta, we remain committed to delivering a high-quality product and nailing the fundamentals of a great browsing experience. Beta represents the most stable preview channel, as features are added to Beta only after they have cleared quality testing in first the Canary channel and then the Dev channel. Major version updates can be expected roughly every six weeks, alongside periodic minor updates for bug fixes and security. While still in the preview stage, with this announcement the next version of Microsoft Edge is ready for everyday use. In the Beta today, you will see new ways to personalize your experience, along with support for 14 languages. With new tab page customization, you have the ability to choose what you want to see when you open a new web page by selecting either a Focused, Inspirational or Informational layout. You can also set a dark theme or visit the Microsoft Edge Insider Addons store or other Chromium-based web stores, such as the Chrome Web Store, to add your favorite extensions. You can personalize your experience further by enabling tracking prevention, a feature designed to protect you from being tracked by websites that you don’t visit. Today, this feature is behind a flag but you can enable it in the Beta builds. When enabled, a customer will be able to choose from three levels of privacy – Basic, Balanced and Strict. Additional features that we showed at the Build 2019 Conference will come to the Beta channel in the coming months. Collections is already available for testing in the Canary channel today. Microsoft Edge is getting even better for business Beta also includes many of the commercial features we announced at our Build conference, such as: Microsoft Search built-in to Bing, which will reduce the time spent looking for things at work by intelligently connecting an organization’s people, documents, sites, locations and conversations. Internet Explorer mode, which streamlines today’s not-so-great experience of viewing the web through two different browsers by bringing Internet Explorer 11 compatibility directly into Microsoft Edge, creating one simple experience. This is an important feature for the more than 60% of worldwide organizations that use both IE as well as another browser. Windows Defender Application Guard helps to isolate enterprise-defined untrusted sites, protecting the company while employees browse the Internet. Additional features, like the enterprise-focused new tab, will be coming soon to the Canary and Dev channels as well. Security Bounty Program for Edge Beta With this Beta release, we are also announcing that we have extended the Microsoft Edge browser security bounty program to cover the Beta and Dev channels. We welcome researchers to seek out and disclose any high-impact vulnerabilities they may find in these channels and offer rewards up to US$15,000 for eligible vulnerabilities. See the MSRC blog for more details. Chromium contributions We are also continuing our commitment to be an active contributor to the Chromium community. To date, we’ve contributed more than 1,000 commits to the Chromium project, and we look forward to continuing our active engagement with the community in the shared pursuit of making the web better for everyone. Time to try! Download Microsoft Edge Beta today If you are an enterprise customer, the next version of Microsoft Edge is ready to pilot with either Beta or Dev builds. We invite you to check out the enterprise tab of the Microsoft Edge Insider site, download a build and begin trialing it in your organization. If you are a consumer who is comfortable testing a beta, visit the Microsoft Edge Insider site to learn more and download the builds. Your feedback is critical in helping us build the future of Microsoft Edge and we’re excited to hear what you think. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/c87e07794264e9833bef7dc8d2bfb813-1024x546.jpg As with the Canary and Dev builds, if you’re not comfortable using early release software there is nothing for you to do today. Keep using the Microsoft Edge you know and love, and we’ll let you know when it’s time to make the move to the next version of the browser. Thanks again to everyone who has continued engaging with us on this journey. Stay tuned for more as we get closer to launch! The post Introducing Microsoft Edge Beta: Be one of the first to try it now appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

At gamescom 2019, HP showed off new displays, desktops and laptops, as well as powerful gaming software and services. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/72f370aacda737a785f356227997415c-1024x870.jpg OMEN X 27 Esports players will be able to level up with the OMEN X 27, a Quad HD (2560 x 1440) resolution display that showcases high dynamic range and DCI P3 90% color gamut for a more immersive gaming experience. To keep up with the FPS that high-end PCs muster and esports athletes require, the display rocks an industry-leading 240Hz refresh rate with a 1ms response time. It’s also AMD FreeSync 2 HDR certified, so the game screen is clean of tearing even when playing games in HDR mode. The design includes three micro-edge bezels, a full-metal, height-adjustable stand and ambient lighting that can be controlled via the OMEN Command Center. It is expected to be available in September via HP.com and other retailers for a starting price of $649.99. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/c16eca792abc3703034e8abca394f2c0-1024x870.jpg Pavilion Gaming Desktop Those looking for budget gaming options can check out the Pavilion Gaming Desktop, which emphasizes expandability within a new space-saving design. It includes expansion slots for up to three storage drives and DIY upgradability for memory, graphics cards, networks cards and Wi-Fi cards. CPU options of up to 8-core 9th Generation Intel Core i7 desktop processors or up to 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 desktop processors, graphics of up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 and the latest RTX 2060 SUPER, and up to 32GB DDR4 memory yield the power needed for the latest games or creative projects. It is expected to be available late August via HP.com and other retailers for a starting price of $699.99. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/10706922e09c7788b41a13002051abec-1024x870.jpg Pavilion Gaming 15 The latest Pavilion Gaming 15 is the first AMD powered gaming laptop from HP that features up to AMD Ryzen 7 mobile processor within an angular black chassis. You’ll feel immersed in gameplay thanks to up to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660Ti, Max-Q design graphics and micro-edge bezels with 144Hz or 60Hz 1080p display options. Dual fans, a wide rear corner vent and enlarged air inlets maximize airflow to optimize your overall performance, keeping the machine cool during extended usage. Outfitted with a Wi-Fi 5 option supporting Gigabyte speeds, it was built for dependable game sessions and content creation. It is expected to be available in September via HP.com and other retailers for a starting price of $799.99. Finally, OMEN Command Center, which is available for any Windows 10 PC via the Microsoft Store, introduces new features designed to make it a central gaming hub that works seamlessly with OMEN PCs, displays and accessories. With Rewards Beta (powered by Versus Systems) launching in the U.S., gamers can earn prizes while improving their skills and competing with others in frequently added new challenges and rewards. An AI-based tool, Game Coaching, arrives for OMEN PCs only with initial support for “League of Legends” and more games on the roadmap. Powered by Mobalytics, it will analyze gameplay and provide key insights into strengths and weaknesses to improve player performance. It comes with one year of free access. With My Games, players can now manage devices and access their game libraries from one central location, providing quick and simple access to favorite titles. Included with this: real time monitoring of gameplay to keep track of just how many hours are spent on specific games, along with weekly insights. With the new Profiles feature, you can create mood, activity, or game-based profiles for OMEN PCs and accessories. Find out more at HP. The post gamescom 2019: HP reveals OMEN X 27 display, new Pavilion Gaming desktop and laptop, new services appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders! Today we are releasing 19H2 Build 18362.10014 and Build 18362.10015 to Windows Insiders in the Slow ring. As a reminder, we are testing the ability to ship these updates with features turned off by default so that we can then turn them on via controlled feature rollouts. This helps us gain better feedback on overall build quality. A subset of Insiders in the Slow ring will have features turned off by default, and another subset will have them turned on by default. This means not everyone in the Slow ring will see new features right away: IF you are on 19H2 Build 18362.10012 – you will receive Build 18362.10014 with features turned OFF by default. This includes the below mentioned features as well as the features from the previous release. IF you are on 19H2 Build 18362.10013 – you will receive Build 18362.10015 with features turned ON by default. If you’re on the Windows 10 May 2019 Update and just joining your PC into the Slow ring to take 19H2 updates, it’ll be a virtual “coin toss” as to whether your PC gets features turned on or turned off. Other than one update has features turned off, and the other has features turned on – the two updates released today and highlighted above are identical and contain the following features in addition to the what was included in the last 19H2 update: We have enabled Windows Defender Credential Guard for ARM64 devices for additional protection against credential theft for enterprises deploying ARM64 devices in their organizations. We have enabled the ability for enterprises to supplement the Windows 10 in S Mode policy to allow traditional Win32 (desktop) apps from Microsoft Intune. We have updated search in File Explorer to show web-powered suggestions in addition to files locally indexed on the PC. We have added the ability for Narrator and other assistive technologies to read and learn where the FN key is located on keyboards and what state it is in (locked versus unlocked). As always, Insiders are encouraged to report any issues they experience with these updates through Feedback Hub. Thanks, Dona and Brandon The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18362.10014 & 18362.10015 (19H2) appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/20c0d8f62be1377266975e555d39904f-1024x576.jpg You can now pre-order “Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition” – which releases Nov. 14 – at the Microsoft Store and Steam. It has four brand-new civilizations, three new campaigns, cross-network play and a transport ship full of game improvements. You’ll also be able to play it using the Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta). And now, you can also play the definitive first chapter of the “Age of Empires” franchise (“Age of Empires: Definitive Edition”) on Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta) and buy it from the Microsoft Store and Steam. It now supports cross-network play across all available platforms, which means you can now play with anyone, anywhere. Read more over at Xbox Wire. The post You can now pre-order ‘Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition’ and buy ‘Age of Empires: Definitive Edition’ appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Editor’s note: We’re back with the summer batch of weekly Windows 10 tips posts, which highlight some of the many helpful features that come with the Windows 10 May 2019 Update. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make your daily life easier with a streamlined update process, as well as clean and simple experiences for your desktop. We know remembering a PIN can be tricky, so thanks to the Windows 10 May 2019 Update, Microsoft account users will find a revamped Windows Hello PIN reset experience on the Windows 10 lock screen with the same look and feel as signing in on the web. Try it by clicking the “I forgot my PIN” link when signing in to Windows with a PIN. Insiders can try it out on all Windows 10 editions. Check it out in action: https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/e80fa74546b59bea52b936a7d79e61b1.gif If you like this, check out more Windows 10 Tips. The post Windows 10 Tip: Streamlined Windows Hello PIN reset experience appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Dell and Alienware arrive at the 11th annual gamescom with a complete PC gaming ecosystem aimed at satisfying both die-hard gamers and newer players. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/36ae35d8ad1302d45f1452c64bd63fe3-1024x1024.jpg Alienware Aurora The Alienware Aurora brings the new Legend Industrial design – introduced at CES earlier this year – to a desktop for the first time. It provides improved airflow, along with Intel’s latest 9th Generation Core Processors and NVIDIA GeForce graphic cards. A tool-less upgrade option offers product longevity and scalable performance. It’ll be available in the U.S. Aug. 20, starting at $969.99. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/35fdebf98aec21b65b386314cd0b5bf1-1024x1024.jpg Dell G5 For the new PC gamer or those who are looking for budget-friendly gaming options, the new Dell G5 Desktop extends the G Series brand into the realm of desktops. It’s designed to offer game-ready power, graphics and features in a compact, upgradeable form. Play uninterrupted with the powerful performance and split-second responsiveness of up to i9 K-Series CPUs and VR-capable NVIDIA GeForce GTX and RTX or AMD Radeon graphic cards. It’s easy to expand or upgrade with a tool-less entry and additional storage slots inside. In the Alienware Command Center, you can set the best thermal mode depending on whether you’re gaming, working, studying or watching videos. It’ll be available in the U.S. Aug. 19, starting at $629. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/4b48800230914cd39fe9b3d875f6d271-1024x1024.jpg Alienware 55 OLED Gaming Monitor Marking yet another milestone, Alienware rolls out the world’s first 55-inch OLED gaming monitor* with the Alienware 55 OLED Gaming Monitor (AW5520QF). It has a 120Hz variable refresh rate, a response time of 0.5ms (gray-to-gray) and low-input latency, so images get to the screen much faster. Gamers experience the colors as they were designed with color accuracy and depth at 98+% DCI-P3 color coverage. The sharp 4k UHD resolution allows for either sitting up close for intense gaming, or farther away with a gamepad for a more casual experience. AMD Radeon FreeSync minimizes graphic distortions such as tearing and artifacts for smooth and steady imagery. Customize the gaming experience with AlienFX lighting, gaming-centric on-screen display (OSD) and a remote control whether having the monitor placed on the gaming desk or mounted on the wall, thanks to the included VESA mount adapter. Built-in speakers are tuned with Waves MaxxAudio for audio accuracy and clarity. It’ll be available in the U.S. Sept. 30, starting at $3,999.99. Alienware also introduces fast IPS (in-plane switching) technology with the new Legend Industrial design to its gaming monitor line-up for the first time, with the new Alienware 34 Curved Gaming Monitor (AW3420DW) and Alienware 27 Gaming Monitor (AW2720HF). https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/109b58f50f1a9d521a0ff5715abcfed9-1024x1024.jpg Alienware Low-Profile RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Guided by the gaming community and pro players, Alienware is rolling out a newly designed assortment of Legend Industrial design peripherals, completing the Alienware battle station. These include keyboards and mice, such as the Alienware Low-Profile RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (AW510K) and Alienware RGB Gaming Mouse (AW510M). https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/62a56062705cd850a6ad9679c476ee93-1024x1024.jpg Alienware RGB Gaming Mouse As part of its 10th anniversary celebration, the Alienware Arena relaunches Aug. 19 with a new design that includes side-scrolling items and an enhanced mobile experience. Its community has grown to over 7 million members worldwide over the past decade. They’ll find daily login bonuses and weekly promotions, as well as new ways to earn Alienware Reward Points, exclusive user customization options and unique content from gaming publishers. Members will also see improved forums for quicker posting, new Friends management, one-stop news for “all things gaming” at Dell and, true to its original mission, new community tournaments. Another bonus, if you’re a member of Alienware Arena, or become one: Starting 10:30 a.m. CST Aug. 19, you can claim a free 30-day Xbox Game Pass for PC beta code in the Giveaways section of the website. Play the highly anticipated “Gears 5” when it releases or rediscover the Halo saga with “Halo: the Master Chief Collection.” Xbox Game Pass for PC delivers immediate access to more than 100 high-quality games on Windows 10, with new games added all the time. Find out more about Dell and Alienware’s gaming portfolio at gamescom 2019. *Based on Dell analysis of publicly available data, July 2019. The post gamescom 2019: Dell and Alienware expand PC gaming ecosystem with new hardware and designs appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Today Microsoft is announcing the acquisition of jClarity, the leading contributor to the AdoptOpenJDK project, to support their continued contributions to open source while driving increased performance for Java workloads on Azure. The team, formed by Java champions and data scientists with proven expertise in data driven Java Virtual Machine (JVM) optimizations, will help teams at Microsoft to leverage advancements in the Java platform. At Microsoft, we strongly believe that we can do more for our customers by working alongside the Java community. The jClarity team, with the backing of Microsoft, will continue to collaborate with the OpenJDK community and the Java ecosystem to foster the progress of the platform. In the last few years, Microsoft’s usage of Java has grown and now includes multiple large-scale deployments, such as Azure HDInsight and Minecraft. Additionally, Microsoft customers like Adobe, Daimler and Société Générale have brought their Java production workloads to Azure. With more than half of compute workloads running on Linux, Azure has become a great platform for open source, and that certainly includes Java. The jClarity team are JVM experts who have helped their customers optimize their Java applications while also providing leadership and support within the Java open source community. For us, this is the perfect match. The relationship with this team is not new: since June 2018, Microsoft has sponsored the AdoptOpenJDK project to help build binaries of OpenJDK for different platforms, including Linux and Windows. Microsoft Azure and jClarity engineers will be working together to make Azure a better platform for our Java customers, and internal teams, improving the experience and performance of the platform for Java developers and end-users. The post Microsoft acquires jClarity to help optimize Java workloads on Azure appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders, today we’re releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18963 (20H1) to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. IMPORTANT: As is normal with builds early in the development cycle, these builds may contain bugs that might be painful for some. If you take this flight, you won’t be able to switch Slow or Release Preview rings without doing a clean-install on your PC. If you want a complete look at what build is in which Insider ring, head over to Flight Hub. You can also check out the rest of our documentation here including a complete list of new features and updates that have gone out as part of Insider flights for the current development cycle. Not seeing any of the features in this build? Check your Windows Insider Settings to make sure you’re on the Fast ring. Submit feedback here to let us know if things weren’t working the way you expected. What’s new in Build 18963 GPU temperature comes to Task Manager One of the longstanding requests we’ve been tracking for Task Manager is to add temperature monitoring support, and with today’s build we’re making progress on that ask. If you have a dedicated GPU card, we will now bubble up the current temperature next to its listing in the Performance Tab. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/dffe2461f5bc5506ff58cbc4509e9aca.png We hope you like the change! If you have any further feedback for Task Manager, please don’t hesitate to share it. To make suggestions or report issues in this space, press WIN+F and file the feedback under Desktop Environment > Task Manager in the Feedback Hub. Notes: Showing the GPU temperature in Task Manager is currently only supported if you have a dedicated GPU card. You may need an updated graphics driver to see the temperature. Specifically one which supports version 2.4 (or higher) of WDDM is required. To check which version your PC has, press WIN+R and enter dxdiag. Under the Display tab, it will say your WDDM version next to Driver Model. Currently the temperature value is only supported in Celsius. Renaming your virtual desktops https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/ee90b7d53eb92ed551e67299e6dfeb25.gif Virtual Desktops exist to help you visually and cognitively separate different tasks on your PC. They can also be handy when doing presentations – enabling you to prepare demos on different desktops. Something we’ve heard loud and clear is that you want to be able to set names for your different desktops, in order to help cement the separation between workspaces, and we’re excited to share that rolling out to Insiders in the Fast ring is exactly that! Wanna try it out? With the change, when you open Task View (by selecting the Task View button in the taskbar, or by pressing WIN+Tab,) clicking the name of your desktop will now switch it to be an editable fiel where you can set the name to be anything you’d like (including emoji). You can also right-click the thumbnail of the desired desktop in Task View, and a context menu with a Rename entry in it should appear. If you don’t have any additional desktops created yet, select “New desktop” in Task View to get started. And yes, since we know you’ll ask – the names persist reboot. https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11.2.0/72x72/1f642.png Currently this change is live for 50% of Insiders in the Fast ring, and we’ll be expanding the rollout over the next few weeks as we evaluate the quality of experience. Improving the Optional Features page in Settings Based on your feedback, we’ve made a number of usability improvements to the Optional Features page in Settings (Settings > Apps & Features > Optional Features), and they’re now starting to roll out to Insiders in the Fast ring. Multi-select: You can now select and install multiple optional features at the same time. Better list management: You can now search through lists of optional features and sort them by Name, Size, and Install date. More useful information: You can now see the install date for each optional feature in your ‘Installed features’ list. We’ve also added feature dependencies to the description of each optional feature in the list of features available for install. Easier page navigation: View the status of your latest installs/uninstalls/cancels right on the main page in the ‘Latest actions’ section. You can now add optional features and view your history via pop-up dialogues, so you never have to navigate away from the main page We’re excited for you to try it! Currently these changes are live for 50% of Insiders in the Fast ring, and we’ll be expanding the rollout over the next few weeks as we evaluate the quality of experience. Here’s a peek at what you’ll see once it’s available on your PC: https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/c4d47df00ff9bde6bec1107413768ba4.jpg https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/e4a9a83f981687be73d18e5d733055e4.png Adding Mouse Cursor speed to Settings As some Insiders have noticed, you can now set your mouse cursor speed from within Settings! This is the latest piece of our larger ongoing effort to converge Settings and Control Panel experiences. You can find the setting under Settings > Devices > Mouse. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/263714f09c44708b5915a743c675b454.png Making Notepad store-updatable Notepad has been a well-loved text editor in Windows for over 30 years. Over the last few releases, we’ve been making a number of small improvements to Notepad based on your feedback (including expanded line ending support, wrap around search, and indicating when there’s unsaved content.) Starting with this build, we’re making a change so that future Notepad updates will be automatically available via the store. This will allow us the flexibility to respond to issues and feedback outside the bounds of Windows releases. As always, if you have any feedback for Notepad, we welcome it in the Feedback Hub under Apps > Notepad. Traditional Chinese IME improvements Thank you everyone who’s shared feedback about the new Traditional Chinese Bopomofo, ChangJie, and Quick IMEs. The developer team has been working on improving the quality and fixing bugs. With today’s build: Toolbar Improvements: We fixed an issue where toolbar shows up even when [use IME toolbar] is turned off in the setting. We also added [Hide toolbar] button in the toolbar menu. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/71857529f008d81c874808c5b2941648.png Note: Other ways to show/hide toolbar: From settings: Right click [中/英] icon > Click [settings] > [General] > [use IME toolbar] From right click menu: Right click [中/英] icon > [show/hide IME toolbar] Candidate Window Improvements: We have been working on improving candidate window quality. We fixed an issue where candidate window sometimes only showed limited number of candidates. We fixed an issue where candidates shown in table view cannot be selected by number keys. Please keep trying out this new IME, and let us know your feedback. Changes to your account picture in Windows Changing the picture for the account you use to sign in to Windows is now better than ever! Your updated picture will now show up quickly across Windows, apps, and many of the Microsoft sites you use every day. Previously, you might see as many as three or four different pictures for your account in different apps and sites at one time. Its super easy to try out – just go to Your info in Windows settings and change your picture there! Steps Open “Your info” in Windows settings by pressing the Windows key, and typing “Your info,” and selecting “Your account info.” Use the options in ‘Create your picture’ to select a new picture for your account. Check if your picture has been updated in Windows, and on the sites and apps you use. Note: We’re still working with many sites and apps that will need to be updated to work well with this new feature. For example, the account manager control that appears in the upper right of many Microsoft websites currently updates every 24 hours. This will be changed in the next few months to update quickly when your account picture changes. Other updates for Insiders Windows Search improvements We wanted to take a moment to cover some of the server-side search improvements we’ve been rolling out based on your feedback: Improved spell correction for Apps & Settings searches Windows Search has built-in spell correction to help you find what you’re looking for. When you’re typing quickly sometimes mistakes happen – we’re excited to announce that we’ve updated our spell correction technology to intelligently understand and correct small typos like “powerpiont” and “exce;,” which previously would return no results. With these updates, you get better results faster. This feature is now available on both Insider and retail builds in English-language markets. Hints to improve Best match results https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/197aa83d1d5563296c6ed7455202f31e.png Our goal with Windows Search is to provide a simple, to-use experience, and a key aspect of this is making results easy to understand. Something we’ve heard from you is surprise that sometimes settings search results don’t match your search. To help address this, in certain cases where the Best match result isn’t an exact match for your search, a “Related:” line will be included below the result to help clarify why this result is appearing. We’ll be expanding this feature to include Apps search in the coming weeks. This feature is now available on both Insider and retail builds in English (United States). Bringing the latest Search Home experience to more users With the Windows 10 May 2019 Update we updated Search Home to help you save time by adding quick access to your Top apps and Recent activities. After receiving positive feedback and comments about this new experience, we’re now making it available to more users by rolling it out to everyone using the Windows 10 October 2018 Update as well. We hope you find them useful and that they help make Search Home more productive for you. Here’s a glance at what it looks like for those on the Windows 10 October 2018 Update: https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/6b5d57addc7c6074a5acdc665a2b372a.png We hope you like the changes, and if you have any further feedback about search, let us know! General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC We fixed an issue where when connected via cellular or ethernet, the Network status would show you weren’t connected, even though you were able to successfully use the network. We fixed an issue resulting in the candidate selection in the prediction candidate window for the Japanese IME occasionally not matching the composition string. We fixed an issue where the candidate selection via number keys for the new Simplified Chinese IME did not match with the composition string. We fixed an issue impacting typing speed over remote desktop. We fixed an issue where, when using the emoji panel in certain places with an East Asian language active, it would close automatically after entering a single emoji even if the option to keep it open was enabled. We fixed an issue where typing a very long string with the Vietnamese Telex keyboard without committing could result in the underlying app crashing. We fixed a recent issue where the touch keyboard input a period when pressing the space key when typing in Korean. We fixed an issue where, if the Allow Input Personalization group policy was set to disabled, then search would crash. We fixed an issue resulting in search not returning results after disconnecting from the internet when using a local account. We fixed an issue that could cause the search box to become invisible in the taskbar if you opened Start menu while there was an update pending on your system. We fixed an issue for those using the new Cortana experience, where WIN+C wasn’t bringing up Cortana. We fixed an issue resulting in iCloud calendars not syncing with the Calendar app. In order to help reduce disk footprint, we’re shifting the Connect app to now be available as an optional feature downloadable in Settings. We fixed an issue resulting in not being able to setup Windows Hello in Settings in recent builds. We fixed a recent issue where if Sound Settings was open, and you used the hardware volume keys on your PC to update the volume, the master volume slider in Settings might not stay in sync with the current value. We fixed an issue resulting in the Graphics Settings drop-down list for Microsoft Store apps being empty. We fixed an issue impacting Snip & Sketch capture reliability in recent builds. Known issues Insiders may notice a new “Cloud download” option in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) under “Reset this PC”. This feature is not working quite yet. We’ll let you know once it is, so you can try it out! There has been an issue with older versions of anti-cheat software used with games where after updating to the latest 19H1 Insider Preview builds may cause PCs to experience crashes. We are working with partners on getting their software updated with a fix, and most games have released patches to prevent PCs from experiencing this issue. To minimize the chance of running into this issue, please make sure you are running the latest version of your games before attempting to update the operating system. We are also working with anti-cheat and game developers to resolve similar issues that may arise with the 20H1 Insider Preview builds and will work to minimize the likelihood of these issues in the future. Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly. We are investigating the issue. We’re investigating reports that the minimize, maximize, and close title bar buttons aren’t working for certain apps. If you’re using an impacted app, Alt+F4 should work as expected to close the app if needed. July Windows Insider Leaderboard Now Available See if you topped our lists on the new July 2019 Windows Insider Leaderboard, and try to make next month’s by giving us feedback for new builds, getting upvotes on your feedback, and completing quests through the Feedback Hub. Learn more about how you can be on the Leaderboard. Join the Bing Insider Program School is back in session! Regardless of if you’re more excited about the latest backpack fashions or new math equations to tackle, Bing has you covered. Get ready for the first day and shop school supplies, dorm bedding, backpacks, laptops, and more! Gear up for homework help with essential math, science, and coding tools. Need a fun break? Check out the back-to-school quiz and test your school smarts. Everything you need – all on Bing. If you want to be among the first to learn about these Bing features, join our Bing Insider Program. No downtime for Hustle-As-A-Service, Dona <3 The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18963 appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Today we announced a comprehensive long-term alliance with Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (Jio), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited. This is an exciting advancement that will accelerate India’s digital transformation and bring the latest technologies to millions of businesses across the country. This alliance represents a unique collaboration between our two organizations. Jio has transformed the communication and data landscape here in India, connecting more than 340 million people in the country with the power of affordable data. Microsoft has helped businesses revolutionize the global landscape of digital transformation with the worldview of intelligent cloud and intelligent edge. With a solid foundation of trust, we’re committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and delivering more value to every customer, be it large enterprises, SMBs, startups or consumers, and our partners. This unique alliance also reinforces our commitment to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Earlier today, this announcement was shared as part of the Reliance Industries Annual General Meeting where Reliance Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh D. Ambani shared the news. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shared his thoughts as well and reinforced our enthusiasm for the work we will do together and the potential benefits our alliance can bring to organizations across India, and to the country itself. YouTube Video What this means for businesses India has one of the largest small and medium business markets in the world, which continues to grow significantly. Small and medium businesses in India will have access to a range of cloud-based productivity, collaboration and business applications including Office 365, enabling them to compete more effectively in the Indian marketplace. This collaboration will accelerate innovation to create more affordable offerings for Indian SMBs and startups, including a new range of solutions for one-stop IT capabilities and allowing front-end applications on mobile devices, desktops and other tools. Jio will build new custom solutions on Microsoft Azure for large enterprises who have already benefited from our technology platforms. Companies will also have easy and affordable access to best-in-class technologies like data analytics, AI, cognitive services, blockchain, IoT and edge computing to accelerate India’s digital transformation and enable grassroots innovation. Jio will also leverage Microsoft’s speech and language cognitive services for its device ecosystem, providing support in 13 Indian languages, with the flexibility to add other languages. Its internal workforce will now leverage the cloud-based Microsoft 365 productivity and collaboration tools and all their non-network applications will also move to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. For the partner ecosystem in India, these new offerings create more avenues for greater innovation, deeper customer relationships and exponential growth for their businesses. And in a diverse nation of 1.3 billion people united by the power of digital, the solutions this collaboration will bring around connectivity, computing, storage and tech services will redefine how we empower employees, enable customers, transform products and optimize operations. This joint effort is likely to unlock and accelerate digital innovation in India at an unprecedented scale. I look forward to working with and learning from our current and new customers and partners as we chart a new path with this alliance. The post Microsoft and Jio: Accelerating India’s digital progress appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders! Today we are releasing 19H2 Build 18362.10012 and Build 18362.10013 to Windows Insiders in the Slow ring. As a reminder, we are testing the ability to ship these updates with features turned off by default so that we can then turn them on via controlled feature rollouts. This helps us gain better feedback on overall build quality. A subset of Insiders in the Slow ring will have features turned off by default, and another subset will have them turned on by default. This means not everyone in the Slow ring will see new features right away: IF you are on 19H2 Build 18362.10005 – you will receive Build 18362.10012 today with features turned OFF by default. This includes the below mentioned features as well as the features from the previous release. IF you are on 19H2 Build 18362.10006 – you will receive Build 18362.10013 with features turned ON by default. If you’re on the Windows 10 May 2019 Update and just joining your PC into the Slow ring to take 19H2 updates, it’ll be a virtual “coin toss” as to whether your PC gets features turned on or turned off. Other than one update has features turned off, and the other has features turned on – the two updates released today and highlighted above are identical and contain the following features in addition to the improvements from KB4505903 and the previous 19H2 update: You can now quickly create an event straight from the Calendar flyout on the Taskbar. Just click on the date and time at the lower right corner of the Taskbar to open the Calendar flyout and pick your desired date and start typing in the text box – you’ll now see inline options to set a time and location. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/cc9a9d57f8c15907344cb5f718ca63ce.png The navigation pane on the Start menu now expands when you hover over it with your mouse to better inform where clicking goes. We have added friendly images to show what is meant by “banner” and “Action Center” when adjusting the notifications on apps in order to make these settings more approachable and understandable. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/6c36cef63ea624500333417377850ba7.png Notifications settings under Settings > System > Notifications will now default to sorting notification senders by most recently shown notification, rather than sender name. This makes it easier to find and configure frequent and recent senders. We have also added a setting to turn off playing sound when notifications appear. We now show the options to configure and turn off notifications from an app/website right on the notification, both as a banner and in Action Center. We have added a “Manage notifications” button to the top of Action Center that launches the main “Notifications & actions” Settings page. We have added additional debugging capabilities for newer Intel processors. This is only relevant for hardware manufacturers. We have made general battery life and power efficiency improvements for PCs with certain processors. A CPU may have multiple “favored” cores (logical processors of the highest available scheduling class). To provide better performance and reliability, we have implemented a rotation policy that distributes work more fairly among these favored cores. As always, Insiders are encouraged to report any issues they experience with these updates through Feedback Hub. Thanks, Dona and Brandon The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18362.10012 & 18362.10013 (19H2) appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Today, we joined Samsung on stage in New York City at their Galaxy Unpacked event to share a vision for the future of productivity and how we will continue to partner in the coming years to empower people to achieve more across new Samsung devices and Microsoft experiences. This begins the next chapter of our long-standing partnership with Samsung and is another step in our journey to bring the best of Microsoft productivity to the devices you know and love. We are excited to announce that the new Samsung Galaxy Note10 phones will help you get more done right out of the box, natively integrated with best-in-class productivity apps and services from Microsoft including OneDrive, Outlook, Your Phone app (Link to Windows), and access to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. As Satya said today, our ambition is to help people be more productive on any device, anywhere – and the combination of our intelligent experiences with Samsung’s powerful, new devices, including Galaxy Note10 and Galaxy Note10+, make this a reality. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/9abcd37a2d2da4b083c921d9bc964f4f-1024x741.jpg Connecting your phone and Windows 10 PC With Microsoft’s Your Phone, you can stay more productive on your Windows 10 PC. With the ability to access your recent photos, text messages, notifications and mobile apps right on your PC, you can stay in your flow, without the need to switch between devices[1]. And now, with native integration of Link to Windows on Galaxy Note10, it’s never been easier to connect your Samsung phone to your Windows 10 PC. Just connect your Galaxy Note10 with your PC via the Link to Windows setting and get instant access to your Android phone’s content that matters to you. Now there’s no need to dig for your phone to check notifications, schedule a ride to the airport, or even text. And you can finally stop emailing yourself photos as you can drag and drop photos directly into your email or your PowerPoint presentation. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/e427d2070e2ed6d9531042ac5c6e9753-1024x671.png Later this month, Galaxy Note10 users will be the first to experience the new Phone screen[2] feature, which allows you to access your Android phone’s apps, right from your PC while using your keyboard and mouse, or touch screen. Users can try out multi-touch gestures such as pinch to zoom, rotate, or swipe from their PC’s touchscreen while using Phone screen. As I demonstrated at the event today, whether it’s messaging someone, requesting a ride, scrolling through friends’ updates or ordering dinner, your phone’s screen will be available directly on your PC. And we are not stopping here; later this year, we are planning to introduce the ability to make and receive mobile calls directly from your PC. Accept the call, reply with a text, or send the caller to voicemail right from your PC. All of these features and experiences will continue to deliver meaningful innovation to help you stay focused and more productive on your Windows PC[3]. Your photos and files synced and available across devices OneDrive makes it easy to back up, protect, share and access your photos and files from any of your devices, anywhere[4]. Today we also announced that soon, OneDrive will be natively integrated into the Samsung Gallery app, providing automatic syncing of your photos and videos and enabling new protection and cross-device experiences. The Galaxy Note10 will be the first to get the OneDrive integration, with more Samsung devices to follow. Coming this fall, you’ll have the option to sync your photos and videos to the cloud where they will be safe and accessible across all your devices. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/fbde85a3e2d7ba69665e5fc7a6607fc7-1024x741.jpg In addition to offering the ability to access your files from anywhere, the OneDrive app also has built-in sharing, security and productivity features. For example, you can share and collaborate on files and photo albums, and you can scan and save paper documents, receipts and whiteboards and then mark them up with your finger or the Samsung S Pen. You can also securely store IDs, travel docs and other important files in OneDrive Personal Vault, a protected area of OneDrive that can only be accessed with a strong authentication method or second step of identity verification, such as your fingerprint, face, or a PIN[5] Locked files in the Personal Vault have an extra layer of security, keeping them more secured in the event someone gains access to your account or device. OneDrive customers can get 5GB of free storage with the option to purchase 100 GB or an Office 365 subscription which includes 1 TB plus other premium features including simple recovery from malicious malware and ransomware attacks. Outlook and Office apps help you get more done on the go To help people get more done on the go, Outlook, a top-rated mail and calendar app, is pre-installed with Galaxy Note10. With Outlook, you can access your email, calendar, contacts and files in one convenient app – helping you to save time and focus on what matters. Additionally, Galaxy Note10 users will now have enhanced integration with the S Pen. Samsung aficionados already know they can hover over emails to preview them and take quick actions like archive, delete, flag, or reply. Now, Samsung customers can hover over a contact in email to get detailed information at a glance – tap to chat, call, or email all from your inbox. Or with Outlook’s integrated calendar and contacts, view invitations in your inbox alongside appointments for the rest of your day and hover with the S Pen to accept/decline. Additionally, Outlook has expanded support for the Samsung ecosystem. Outlook for Android is launching an updated user experience for tablets. You can now see your folders, message list and reading pane all together with a three-pane view – and, it’s flexible so you can expand the reading pane based on your personal preference. When connected using the Samsung DeX Station for PC, you can open multiple messages in separate windows and interact with Outlook with your mouse and keyboard. Lastly, we look forward to launching a new Outlook app for Samsung Galaxy wearables in the future so you can get things done even when your mobile phone is not in hand. Galaxy Note10 will also include access to Word, Excel and PowerPoint to offer an untethered Office experience on the go. Familiar and powerful editing, formatting and management tools make it as easy to work on files on your mobile device as it is on your desktop, so that you can continue working even if you’re away from your computer. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/7dd8760add0a01188a5b7ab851856ba9-1024x741.jpg Experience the new Galaxy Note10 at Microsoft Store Visit the Microsoft Store online or in person to preorder[6] and experience the new Galaxy Note10. Beginning Aug. 23, you can trade-in select mobile devices at your local Microsoft Store and receive up to $650 in trade-in value to use towards the purchase of a new Galaxy Note10. New Galaxy Book S delivers Gigabit LTE connectivity Samsung also unveiled on stage today the new Galaxy Book S. Developed in partnership with Microsoft and Qualcomm, this new Windows 10 PC offers Gigabit LTE connectivity to the cloud, touch-to-wake capabilities, the leading Snapdragon 8cx compute platform, and a premium design that that is ultra-slim and light-weight for uncompromised mobility. Galaxy Book S will be available this fall in select markets. Today is an important step for both Microsoft and Samsung, and it’s just the beginning of our investment together. We can’t wait to share more with you over the coming months and years as we invest together to empower individuals and organizations to achieve more. [1] Users must link their mobile phone to their PC through ‘Link to Windows’ on their mobile phone where available, or through ‘Your Phone app’ on their PC. Your Phone app comes preinstalled on PCs with the Windows 10 October 2018 Update or later, and is downloadable for Windows 10 April 2018 Update or later versions. Requires a Microsoft Account and an Android 7.0+ phone. [2] Phone screen requires a Windows 10 PC running the May 2019 Update (1903). Galaxy Note10 and the PC must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. [3] Windows 1809 required [4] OneDrive files may be made available for offline use. Otherwise internet access required. Fees may apply. [5] Face and fingerprint verification requires specialized hardware such as a Windows Hello-capable device, fingerprint reader, illuminated IR sensor, or other biometric sensors and capable devices. [6] Preorder begins 9:01pm PT 8/7; trade-in offer at Microsoft Stores available 8/23 – 9/8 The post Microsoft and Samsung partner to empower you to achieve more appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders, today we’re releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18956 (20H1) to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. IMPORTANT: As is normal with builds early in the development cycle, these builds may contain bugs that might be painful for some. If you take this flight, you won’t be able to switch Slow or Release Preview rings without doing a clean-install on your PC. If you want a complete look at what build is in which Insider ring, head over to Flight Hub. You can also check out the rest of our documentation here including a complete list of new features and updates that have gone out as part of Insider flights for the current development cycle. What’s new in Build 18956 A redesigned Network Status page in Settings Based on your feedback, we’re revamping the Network & Internet landing page in Settings to provide more information at a glance about your device’s connectivity, combining several pages to give you one clear view of how you are connected to the internet. New view of active connections: We now show all available connection interfaces on the Status page, so you can quickly see what is connected and view and change properties as needed. If you have multiple connections, only one will be used for internet connectivity at a time, and that one is still shown in the Status diagram at the top of the page. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/58bd613aa8fdbc58d7b7b50f7eddb96d.png Integrated Data Usage: As you may have noticed in the picture above, you can now see how much data is being used by a network right from the Status page! If it looks like you’re using a lot of data, you can drill into the Data Usage page to create a limit for that network, which will warn you if you get close or go over your limit. You can also see how much data each app is using on that network. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/c1d64e2b96a8fc36a21e365ba57943ee.png We hope you like the changes! If you have any feedback about these, you can share it via the Feedback Hub under Network and Internet > Networking Experience – Look and Feel. Traditional Chinese IME Improvements Thank you everyone who’s shared feedback about the new Traditional Chinese Bopomofo / ChangJie / Quick IME so far! The development team has been working on improving the quality and fixing bugs based on what you’ve told us, including: Bopomofo, ChangJie, and Quick IMEs: We improved the speed of toggling conversion mode ([中] mode and [英] mode). Now it you can switch between the two faster. Bopomofo IME: We heard feedback that some of you’ve been accidentally hitting the Shift + Space keyboard shortcut, resulting in the character width changing unexpectedly between Half-width and Full-width, so we’ve added a new setting for this if you’d prefer to disable the keyboard shortcut (Note: The default is enabled). To access this setting, right click the [中/英] icon in the taskbar, click Settings > General > “Use Shift + Space to switch character width”. As you may have noticed in the screenshot above, we’re now adding the ability to change the candidate font size, separate from the rest of the system if you find that you need it to be a bit bigger. (You can still change the system font size under [Ease of Access]>[Display]>[Make text bigger].) https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/7a7b7061744ba8d2b3139ce9e5971db2.png We also fixed issues where: The candidate numbers sometimes disappeared from the candidate window. Shift+Number wasn’t working for selecting an associated phrase. Thanks again! If you have any further feedback about these experiences, let us know. Notification settings improvements now rolling out to all of Fast Thanks everyone who’s tried out our improvements so far. We’re now starting to roll these out to all Insiders. To recap what you’ll see when you have the change: If you hover your mouse over an incoming notification, you’ll now see a settings icon to make it easy to adjust that app’s notification settings. We’ve updated the design of the per-app notification settings for visual clarity. There’s now a direct link to notification settings at the top of the Action Center. Notifications & Action Settings now has a checkbox for muting the sound of all notifications. By default, the senders in Notifications & Action Settings are now sorted by “most recently sent a notification.” https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/5fb238499b961564e6c34808a1514900.png Cortana rollout increasing to more Insiders using English (United States) We’re increasing the rollout of the new Cortana experience to now be available for 50% of the Insiders using English (United States). You may need to reboot before you see the change on your PC. Looking for something to try once it appears for you? Try “What’s the weather?” or “Tell me a joke” to get started. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/80681e3466aefefe4ea48a58d2bd43a1.png Other Updates for Insiders Calculator app updates Over the next few days we’ll be starting to roll out a Calculator app update to Insiders in the Fast ring. This app is most notable because it adds the ability to put Calculator in an Always on Top mode! Thanks everyone who shared feedback requesting this – we look forward to you trying it out. Once you have the updated version, you’ll be able to switch into the Always on Top mode by clicking the icon next to the calculator mode name. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/60abcf25a32c6abeb5563c3453e52921.gif General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC We’re in the process of returning Tamper Protection to being on by default for all Insiders. You’ll see this change reflected on your PC across the next few weeks. We fixed an issue where, if snipping via Print Screen was enabled, certain UI would unexpectedly dismiss before it could be captured in the snip. We fixed an issue resulting in the touch keyboard button not launching the touch keyboard on certain devices. We fixed an issue where, if you dragged File Explorer while the search dropdown was visible, the dropdown could end up disconnected from the search box. We fixed an issue where, if a search was in progress in File Explorer, then it’d take two clicks on the X to clear the search results. We fixed an issue where using the “Automatically type into Search Box” view setting would result in the first letter of your File Explorer search being dropped. We fixed an issue where File Explorer recent searches weren’t disabled when the group policy “Turn off display of recent search entries in the File Explorer search box” was enabled. We fixed an issue where explorer.exe would crash when searching File Explorer starting in a OneDrive folder if OneDrive was not running. We fixed an issue where Homegroup options might still appear in the “Give access to” File Explorer context menu entry, despite the Homegroup feature no longer being available. We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders experiencing a taskbar search crash right after log-in. Known Issues There has been an issue with older versions of anti-cheat software used with games where after updating to the latest 19H1 Insider Preview builds may cause PCs to experience crashes. We are working with partners on getting their software updated with a fix, and most games have released patches to prevent PCs from experiencing this issue. To minimize the chance of running into this issue, please make sure you are running the latest version of your games before attempting to update the operating system. We are also working with anti-cheat and game developers to resolve similar issues that may arise with the 20H1 Insider Preview builds and will work to minimize the likelihood of these issues in the future. Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly. We are investigating the issue. Occasionally, the candidate selection in prediction candidate window for the Japanese IME doesn’t match with the composition string. We are investigating the issue. When connected via cellular, the Network status will be incorrect, but the device is able to use the connection. Listen to Episode 22 of the Windows Insider Podcast now What skills do you need for a successful career in technology? In Episode 22 of the Windows Insider Podcast: Your Career Path to the Future, Microsoft mentors Anita Varghese and Mike Pell join us to talk about how you can advance your career through creativity, leadership, and confidence. Plus, learn more about how you can start mentoring others. Listen via your favorite podcast app or online. Join the Bing Insider Program It’s that time of the year again – time for football-filled Sundays and all things NFL. Stay in-the-know during preseason with Bing. Explore draft picks, current standings, and game schedules. Even see where your favorite players rank in stats like interceptions, sacks, and receiving yards. It’s game time! If you want to be among the first to learn about these Bing features, join our Bing Insider Program. No downtime for Hustle-As-A-Service, Dona <3 The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18956 appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

What did you have for breakfast today? Depending on where you are reading this, you may have started your morning with coffee and pastries; a smoothie and sourdough toast; perhaps a bowl of congee. Or maybe you skipped it altogether because you were in a hurry. Whatever you chose to do, you probably did not give it much thought. Yet in a world with a finite amount of arable land, and a population that is expected to grow from 7.7 billion to nearly 10 billion by 2050, producing enough food to eat is a challenge today and a potential crisis in the future. As the population expands and diets change, farmers will need to increase food production by about 70 percent. The question is: how? Finding the right answers is one of humanity’s most pressing issues. AI can be part of the solution. AI is already transforming agriculture Already, AI is beginning to transform agriculture in important ways. Many farmers who manage large-scale operations are taking advantage of innovative technologies like self-driving tractors that use GPS, satellite imagery, and AI to plant more efficiently; and sensors and machine learning to make smarter decisions about when to irrigate and how much fertilizer to apply. But what about the majority of farmers who have less than one hectare of arable land (or a little less than 2.5 acres), and who produce 70 percent of the world’s food supply? Many of them live in low-resource communities with limited access to even basic digital technology. Can AI improve their ability to grow food to feed a hungry world? Yes, it can. The AI sowing app – How to improve a groundnut harvest A pilot project in Andhra Pradesh on the southeast coast of India offers a hint of what is becoming possible. In an area of small, subsistence farms where growers have always relied on a combination of ancient traditions and guesswork to decide when to plant, Microsoft is working with the nonprofit International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to enable farmers to take advantage of the power of AI to increase yields. Last year, ICRISAT received a Microsoft AI for Earth grant to support continued development of AI solutions that focus on sustainable agriculture in developing parts of the world. The AI Sowing App we’ve developed together draws on more than 30 years of climate data, combined with real-time weather information, and then uses sophisticated forecasting models powered by Azure AI to determine the optimal time to plant, the ideal sowing depth, how much farm manure to apply, and more. That information is then shared with farmers through text messages that they receive on a basic feature phone. In the pilot’s first year, 175 groundnut farmers participated. Most farmers in the region planted in early June, as dictated by custom and tradition. Farmers who used the AI Sowing App delayed planting by three weeks. For those who waited, the results were dramatic—on average they harvested 30 percent more per hectare than farmers who planted at the beginning of June. In the second year, the program was expanded to more than 3,000 farmers and covered a much wider range of crops, including maize, rice, and cotton. Average increases ranged from 10 percent to 30 percent, depending on the crop and the location. https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2019/08/Agriculture-secondary-1024x683.jpg Rows of crops growing at SnoValley Tilth Farm in Carnation, WA. (Photo by John Brecher for Microsoft) Project FarmBeats – A more sustainable way to farm Microsoft is involved in another project that has important implications for the future success of small farms. Called Project FarmBeats, the initiative was launched at Dancing Crow Farm, not far from Microsoft’s headquarters. There, on a few acres of rich agricultural land, Dancing Crow’s owner Sean Stratman is exploring a new approach to agriculture that uses sensors to measure soil moisture and temperature along with drones to gather aerial imagery, and then feeding all that data into cloud-based AI models that provide a precise, up-to-the-minute picture of the conditions on his farm, down to the square meter. With this level of precise knowledge, Stratman is able to make pinpoint decisions about when to plant, when to water, how much fertilizer to apply, when to harvest, and more for each small section of his farm. It’s an approach that is saving labor, reducing costs, and improving output. And it is pointing the way toward a future where farms of all sizes can produce more food, operate sustainably, and generate greater profits. Reducing our 1.3 billion tons of food waste According to the UN, increasing production is only part of the answer to the problem we face in feeding the world’s growing population. Almost as important is to reduce the amount of food that is wasted every year. The Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that one-third of all food produced for human consumption—1.3 billion tons—is wasted annually. Here, I believe AI can play a huge role. One way it will have an impact is by ensuring that highly-perishable foods such as milk make it from the farm to the processing plant quickly and safely. This is an important focus of a pioneering AI-based operations management system that is improving efficiency, ensuring safety, and lowering costs for a brand-new milk processing and manufacturing facility operated by ACM in Girgarre, a small town in Australia. Designed to handle 200 million liters of milk, the facility uses a state-of-the art information system built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Azure Cognitive Services to automate the process of pumping milk from tanker trucks to silos – monitoring quality, and creating a rich data trail so the milk can be tracked from the farm to the store. ACM has also implemented a sophisticated temperature monitoring system that uses sensors and Microsoft technologies including Azure and SQL to detect temperature fluctuations in storage tanks and trucks, sending alerts to farmers and drivers. If the system senses an electrical failure on a farm, for example, it can automatically dispatch trucks to collect the milk before it spoils. The potential economic implications of these technologies extend far beyond the farms currently being served. Australia ranks fourth in the world in global market share for dairy exports, behind New Zealand, the EU, and the United States. Overall, Australia’s (AUD) $4.3 billion dairy industry – the country’s third largest rural industry – employs more than 42,000 people. The opportunities to increase production and improve efficiency could bring more jobs and greater prosperity to rural communities in the dairy farming regions of southeastern and southwestern Australia where the climate is particularly suitable for raising cattle. Initiatives like this one in Australia and the pilot projects in Andhra Pradesh and Washington State offer an early indication of how we can empower farmers on farms of every size and in every part of the world to increase yield in ways that are better for the environment. Taken together, I believe they offer a reason to be optimistic that we will be able to feed the world. Read about how AI is also transforming healthcare. The post Harnessing the power of AI to transform agriculture appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Editor’s note: We’re back with the summer batch of weekly Windows 10 tips posts, which highlight some of the many helpful features that come with the Windows 10 May 2019 Update. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make your daily life easier with a streamlined update process, as well as clean and simple experiences for your desktop. Thanks to the Windows 10 May 2019 Update, you’ll find that your Clipboard can do more. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/7ed09adb114a2d3986051baebf4ec858-1024x576.jpg Hold down the Windows key + V to check it out. You’ll find a history of the past 25 things you’ve copied, including URLs, text from web pages and docs – and even screenshots. See it in action: https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/08/6d3de704504594654bf7ded77a0e1054.gif Find out more about Clipboard through this Windows Community video and article. If you like this, check out more Windows 10 Tips. The post Windows 10 Tip: Clipboard appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders, today we’re releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18950 (20H1) to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. IMPORTANT: As is normal with builds early in the development cycle, these builds may contain bugs that might be painful for some. If you take this flight, you won’t be able to switch Slow or Release Preview rings without doing a clean-install on your PC. If you want a complete look at what build is in which Insider ring, head on over to Flight Hub. You can also check out the rest of our documentation here including a complete list of new features and updates that have gone out as part of Insider flights for the current development cycle. What’s new in Build 18950 Japanese IME Improvements Thank you everyone who’s shared feedback so far about the new Japanese IME. The development team has been working on improving the quality based on your feedback. Here are some improvements that you can try out in this build: Prediction Candidate window key navigation: We fixed an issue where the focus inside prediction candidate window wouldn’t move when using the Up Arrow key. Key customization: We’ve improved the discoverability of key assignment settings. Also, based on feedback, we’ve updated the default assigned value of Ctrl + Space to be “None”. Ctrl + Space can still be used for toggling IME-on/off by changing the value through its setting. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/07/fabd42468b5d16841bfd60e4b615fccd.png Please don’t hesitate to continue sharing your thoughts with us about typing in Windows – our ears are open and we’d love to hear from you. Other Updates for Insiders Snip & Sketch improvements headed your way Thanks everyone who’s shared feedback so far for our updated snipping experience! We really appreciate it and are starting to roll out some more improvements based on what you’ve told us: Single window mode: Do you tend to retake snips multiple times in order to get the perfect screenshot? We’re updating the New button to now open new snips in your current app window, so you don’t end up with a ton of open snips (that you then need to close.) If you’d rather keep all snips open in separate windows. the option is now a toggle in settings, so you can decide which mode you prefer. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/07/68e4b23012ecb176416db3fb6e5fed03.png Zoom: Need we say more? You can now zoom in on your screenshots if they’re a bit too small for you to annotate on (and yes, CTRL+Plus, CTRL+Minus and Ctrl+Mouse wheel are supported!). We’ll also zoom out to make sure the whole snip fits in the Snip & Sketch window. If you want to see the snip at its original size, click the Zoom button and then “Actual Size”. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/07/0fb5ef24d21c7585408473997902671c.gif Improving WIN+Shift+S discoverability: You mentioned you loved learning about using WIN+Shift+S to take new snips any time and we thought others would too! If you haven’t taken a snip yet, we’ll now use the canvas space in Snip & Sketch to help you learn how to start a snip without needing to open the app first. These changes are currently available for a portion of Insiders in the Fast ring as we evaluate the quality before continuing the rollout. Note the rollout for each change mentioned above is being handled separately, with separate random populations in the initial rollout, so seeing one of the changes with app version 10.1907.2064.0 doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see all three. General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC Insiders may notice some references to “Cloud download” relating to PC reset or refresh. This feature isn’t available and working quite yet. We’ll let you know once it is, so you can try it out! We fixed an issue where ctfmon.exe might crash if clicking the input mode indicator in the taskbar to switch the Japanese IME between modes. We fixed an issue where pasting from clipboard history (WIN+V) wouldn’t work when using the Bopomofo IME. We fixed an issue resulting in hanja conversion not working for the updated Korean IME when typing in certain apps. We fixed an issue that could result in the OneNote app intermittently acting as if the Ctrl key was pressed when it wasn’t. Known Issues There has been an issue with older versions of anti-cheat software used with games where after updating to the latest 19H1 Insider Preview builds may cause PCs to experience crashes. We are working with partners on getting their software updated with a fix, and most games have released patches to prevent PCs from experiencing this issue. To minimize the chance of running into this issue, please make sure you are running the latest version of your games before attempting to update the operating system. We are also working with anti-cheat and game developers to resolve similar issues that may arise with the 20H1 Insider Preview builds and will work to minimize the likelihood of these issues in the future. Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly. We are investigating the issue. Tamper Protection may be turned off in Windows Security after updating to this build. You can turn it back on. In August, Tamper Protection will return to being on by default for all Insiders. Occasionally, the candidate selection in prediction candidate window for the Japanese IME doesn’t match with the composition string. We are investigating the issue. Windows Insider Webcast is back on August 1 The Windows Insider webcast is back tomorrow, August 1! We’ll have guests from the FX Amplify team joining us for a conversation and Q&A on their efforts. Local Seattle-area Insiders are also invited to join us in-person at the Microsoft Store in Bellevue. Tune in at 2 p.m. PDT / 9pm UTC on the Windows Insider Mixer channel! Join the Bing Insider Program Game on. Stay up to date with everything eSports. Use Bing to get tournament info, match details, and player/team rankings for your favorite online games. Check out events for League of Legends, CS GO, Dota 2, and Overwatch. If you want to be among the first to learn about these Bing features, join our Bing Insider Program. No downtime for Hustle-As-A-Service, Dona <3 The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18950 appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders! Today we are pleased to release a new Insider preview build of the Windows Server VNext Semi-Annual Channel editions. What’s New Extending support for FIDO2 security keys to hybrid environments We’re adding the capability for modern passwordless credentials, such as FIDO2 security keys, to authenticate and provide seamless Single Sign-On (SSO) to on-premises environments. Please refer to this blog entry that discusses this capability for cloud environments. Addition of this new capability will extend this feature to hybrid environments. Available Content Windows Server vNext Semi-Annual Preview The Server Core Edition is available in the 18 supported Server languages in ISO format and in VHDX format in English only. Windows Server Core App Compatibility FoD Preview Windows Server Language Packs Windows Admin Center 1907 Symbols are available on the public symbol server – see Update on Microsoft’s Symbol Server blog post and Using the Microsoft Symbol Server. Matching Windows Server container images will be available via Docker Hub. For more information about Windows Server containers and Insider builds, click here. The following keys allow for unlimited activations of Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel Previews Server Standard: V6N4W-86M3X-J77X3-JF6XW-D9PRV Server Datacenter: B69WH-PRNHK-BXVK3-P9XF7-XD84W This Windows Server Preview will expire July 31st, 2020. How to Download Registered Insiders may navigate directly to the Windows Server Insider Preview download page. See the Additional Downloads dropdown for Windows Admin Center and other supplemental apps and products. If you have not yet registered as an Insider, see GETTING STARTED WITH SERVER on the Windows Insiders for Business portal. We value your feedback! The most important part of a frequent release cycle is to hear what’s working and what needs to be improved, so your feedback is extremely valued. For Windows Server, use your registered Windows 10 Insider device and use the Feedback Hub application. In the app, choose the Windows Server category and then the appropriate subcategory for your feedback. In the title of the Feedback, please indicate the build number you are providing feedback as shown below: [server #####] Title of my feedback See Share Feedback on Windows Server via Feedback Hub for specifics. We also encourage you to visit the Windows Server Insiders space on the Microsoft Tech Communities forum to collaborate, share and learn from experts. For Windows Admin Center, Send us feedback via UserVoice. We also encourage you to visit the Windows Admin Center space on the Microsoft Tech Communities. Known Issues There is an issue where the App Compatibility FOD cannot be added to the OS .wim image offline using DISM /image method. After upgrade, it is necessary to reinstall the new FOD using DISM /online method. Terms of Use This is pre-release software – it is provided for use “as-is” and is not supported in production environments. Users are responsible for installing any updates made available from Windows Update. All pre-release software made available to you via the Windows Server Insider program are governed by the Insider Terms of Use. No downtime for Hustle-As-A-Service, Dona <3 The post Announcing Windows Server vNext Insider Preview Build 18945 appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

We’re living amid an invisible revolution driven by the Internet of Things (IoT). This revolution goes far beyond the smart speakers and thermostats in homes and includes billions of connected devices and sensors that are transforming every industry on the planet, from manufacturing to energy distribution, from smart cities to smart agriculture, from smart buildings to smart medical equipment – and so much more. IoT is also starting to have a profound and beneficial impact on the planet, reducing energy and natural resources as well as improving sustainability. IDC expects that by 2025 there will be 41.6 billion connected IoT devices or “things,” generating more than 79 zettabytes (ZB) of data. These billions of devices are creating unprecedented visibility into a business, leading to transformation of operations, energy, products and workplace safety, to name just a few areas. Today we’re launching a new annual report – IoT Signals – that provides an industry pulse on the state of IoT adoption to help inform how we better serve our partners and customers, as well as help business leaders in development of their own IoT strategies. We surveyed more than 3,000 IoT decision-makers in enterprise organizations to give the industry a holistic, market-level view of the IoT ecosystem, including adoption rates, related technology trends, challenges and benefits of IoT. What the study found is that while IoT adoption is on the rise and opening the door to business transformation, companies are being held back by skills shortages, project complexity and security challenges. To summarize the findings: IoT is seen as profitable and critical to business success and is creating opportunities to leverage more advanced cloud and networking technologies. Nearly nine in 10 (85%) surveyed are in IoT adoption and 88% see IoT as critical to business success. We heard from businesses adopting IoT that they believe they will see a 30% ROI on their IoT projects going forward. As they look ahead, respondents believe critical technology drivers for IoT success in the next two years are AI, edge computing and 5G, followed by digital twins and blockchain. Nearly all respondents (97%) have security concerns when implementing IoT, but this is not hindering adoption. Internet connectivity is a two-way street. With these devices becoming a gateway to our homes, workplaces, and industries, they also become targets for attacks. The cost of a data breach averages between $4M and $8M dollars, and the costs only compound as you think about additional damage to your brand and to the operational technology driving your business’s revenue. The top three security concerns we found among IoT adopters are: creating strong user authentications (43%), tracking and managing each IoT device (38%) and securing endpoints for each IoT device (38%). There is a skills gap for IoT solutions which is compounded by solution complexity. Almost half (47%) say there are not enough available skilled workers and one in four (38%) IoT adopters cite complexity/technical challenges to using IoT as a barrier to further their IoT adoption. Existing IoT complexities and lack of resources prevent IoT decision makers from more IoT adoption, and 20% cite complexity/technical challenges as a top challenge. Looking Ahead: Recommendations for a Successful IoT Strategy With security concerns mounting and IoT becoming more complex with the rise of AI, 5G and edge capabilities, how can companies create a digital strategy to transform their business with IoT successfully? We partnered with the BCG Group to narrow down the seven key ingredients for success: Business strategy and rationale – Successful IoT projects start with a clear understanding of the business problems to be addressed, the investment needed and the return on investment that is expected. Leadership and organization – Successful IoT projects have executive sponsors in the business unit the IoT project will impact to help bridge organizational boundaries, communicate the strategic vision for IoT and achieve broad alignment across all participating teams. Technology roadmap planning – The companies that think about technology roadmaps and plan for the infrastructure needed to scale IoT solutions are better positioned for long-term success. Involve leadership early as proof of concepts are being developed and start to have those conversations around future-state technology needs. Talent – Designing, deploying and operating IoT requires multi-disciplinary skills, and experience in IoT architecture, data science, security and AI/ML can be rare and challenging to attract for more traditional enterprises. Companies must craft their unique talent strategy to acquire or build capabilities in their workforce based on their starting point and the gaps they need to fill. Operations and core business processes – IoT requires a mindset shift from thinking of IoT as a “one and done” effort to thinking of it as a fundamental change in the way the business is run. Enterprises should begin by ensuring that the core business processes affected by IoT are primed to capture value. In addition, they must be sure to involve frontline staff, such as manufacturing- or store-operations managers, in IoT initiatives from the start. Partnerships and ecosystem – Business partnerships are critical to successful IoT deployments. Our IoT and intelligent edge ecosystem includes more than 10k partners and is growing. Partners can deliver critical industry expertise, making it easier to integrate solutions, share data, meet industry compliance needs and more. Companies with successful IoT implementations recognize the importance of establishing partnerships early and fostering these relationships over the course of their IoT journey. Security as foundational – IoT security needs to be addressed at every layer – from the silicon layer to the cloud. It cannot be a bolt-on or an afterthought. Microsoft is leading the charge to address these IoT challenges We are committed to helping customers bring their vision to life across every industry with IoT, and this starts with simplifying and securing IoT. Our customers are embracing IoT as a core strategy to drive better business outcomes, and we are heavily investing in this space committing $5B in IoT and intelligent edge innovation by 2022 and growing our IoT and intelligent edge partner ecosystem to over 10k. And this investment is paying off with recent recognition as a leader by IDC in Industrial IoT platforms for manufacturing and energy[ii]. We are dramatically simplifying IoT to enable every business on the planet to benefit. We have the most comprehensive and complete IoT platform and are going beyond that to simplify IoT. Some key examples include Azure IoT Central, which enables customers and partners to provision an IoT app in seconds, customize it in hours and go to production the same day as well as our recently announced IoT Plug and Play, that dramatically simplifies all aspects of IoT device support and provides devices that “just work” with any solution. To help train IoT developers, we have developed both an IoT School and an AI school, which provides free training for common application patterns and deployments. Security is crucial for trust and integrity in IoT cloud- and edge-connected devices because they may not always be in trusted custody. Azure Sphere takes a holistic security approach from silicon to cloud, providing a highly secured solution for connected MCUs, which go into devices ranging from connected home devices to medical and industrial equipment. Azure Security Center provides unified security management and advanced threat protection for systems running in cloud and on the edge. We have also contributed to and developed industry resources such as the Security Maturity Model and Seven Properties of Highly Secured Devices to help customers establish a set of best practices around IoT security. Finally, we’re helping our customers leverage their IoT investments with AI and at the intelligent edge. Azure Digital Twins enables customers to create complete virtual models of physical environments, unlocking new opportunities in smart buildings, automotive, manufacturing, agriculture and more. Azure IoT Edge enables customers to distribute cloud intelligence to run in isolation on IoT devices directly and Azure Databox Edge builds on Azure IoT Edge and adds VM and mass storage support. When IoT is foundational to a company’s transformation strategy, it can have significant positive impact on the bottom line, customer experiences and products. We are invested in helping our partners, customers and the broader industry to take the necessary steps to address barriers to success. Read more on the Microsoft Transform blog about what customers like Starbucks, Chevron, Bühler AG, Steelcase, Thyssenkrupp and more are driving their business forward with IoT. Worldwide Global DataSphere IoT Device and Data Forecast, 2019–2023, (Doc #US45066919), May 2019. [ii] IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Industrial IoT Platforms in Manufacturing 2019 Vendor Assessment, (Doc #US45116819), June 2019. The post IoT Signals report: IoT’s promise will be unlocked by addressing skills shortage, complexity and security appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

The data landscape has changed rapidly over the past few years, enabling tremendous opportunity for enterprises to digitally transform. Data estates are increasingly diverse with fit-for-purpose systems (NoSQL, RDBMs, Data Lakes & Big Data, SaaS apps, etc.) spanning on-premises and cloud environments capable of processing data of all shapes and sizes. This rapid evolution has empowered data professionals including data engineers, data scientists and data analysts to do much more, but at the same time has vastly increased the size and diversity of data estates, making data management and governance harder than ever. In fact, 57 percent of Gartner survey respondents cited “supporting data governance and data security” as one of the biggest challenges for their data management practice.1 At the heart of any digital transformation is making data discovery, access and use simple, secure, compliant and trustworthy. Data privacy is one of the defining issues of our time, as evidenced by the introduction and evolution of privacy laws across the globe (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, etc.). As technology becomes more engrained in our lives and our work, it must be simple to understand and control what data is collected and easily manage who has access to that data and for what purpose. Today we are excited to announce the acquisition of BlueTalon, a leading provider of Unified Data Access Control solutions for modern data platforms. BlueTalon works with leading Fortune 100 companies to eliminate data security blind spots and gain visibility and control of data. BlueTalon provides a customer-proven, data-centric solution for data access management and auditing across the diverse systems resident in modern data estates. The IP and talent acquired through BlueTalon brings a unique expertise at the apex of big data, security and governance. This acquisition will enhance our ability to empower enterprises across industries to digitally transform while ensuring right use of data with centralized data governance at scale through Azure. Together with BlueTalon, we are committed to help enterprises become data-driven companies in a secure and compliant manner. We’re excited to welcome the BlueTalon team to Microsoft and can’t wait to get started. For more information, please see BlueTalon CEO Eric Tilenius’ blog post. ¹ Gartner Survey Analysis: Data Management Is Pressed Between Support for Analytics — and Data Governance, Risk and Compliance, Figure 3, Roxane Edjlali, March 22, 2018 The post Microsoft acquires BlueTalon, simplifying data privacy and governance across modern data estates appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Editor’s note: We’re back with the summer batch of weekly Windows 10 tips posts, which highlight some of the many helpful features that come with the Windows 10 May 2019 Update. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make your daily life easier with a streamlined update process, as well as clean and simple experiences for your desktop. In early February, Unicode finalized the set of emoji to be included with Emoji 12.0. With the May build, when you press WIN+(period) or WIN+(semicolon), all of these emoji now have keywords linked to them to make them more searchable, so you can try it once you install the build. Keywords include otter, sloth, waffle, ballet shoes and more. The new emoji’s expansion into the animal kingdom also includes orangutans and flamingos. Foodies can now pop in (butter), (garlic), (onion), https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11.2.0/72x72/1f959.png (falafel), (waffles) and (ice cube). (The newest images won’t appear in this post if you don’t yet have the update.) There are a total of 59 new emoji and 171 new variations on existing ones in Emoji 12. The release of Emoji version 12.0 aims to better represent people with disabilities. You’ll now see mechanical limbs, sign language and hearing aids; as well as manual and motorized wheelchairs and two different versions of service animals. There are also many new emojis that represent different combinations of relationships and skin tones. There are now five skin tones as well as nearly 70 different possible combinations of the “People holding hands” emoji. Check it out in action: https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2019/07/127787dddeeb529a8b45676f16c4b97f.gif If you like this, check out more Windows 10 Tips. The post Windows 10 Tip: Emoji 12 ✨ appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...