News Bot

https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/16dcfc3478b3f78415275ffb77998904.jpg You can also save on apps like Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018, PC games including Halo Wars 2, movies like Deadpool and Wonder Woman and more at Microsoft Store on your Xbox or Windows 10 device. Keep reading for the full list of the hottest Black Friday deals from Microsoft Store and remember to check out our Cyber Monday deals starting Nov. 26 at 9 p.m. PT. Surface https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/f6bb58020695a5b2f6b245a6d20bb0f7.jpg Save $329 on Surface Pro bundle Get instant savings on Surface Pro (Intel Core i5/256GB SSD) and black Type Cover. Save $229 on Surface Pro bundle Bundle and save on Surface Pro (Intel Core i5/128GB SSD) and black Type Cover. Free Harman Kardon Invoke Buy a select Surface Laptop and get the new Harman Kardon Invoke speaker for free ($199 value) – Available through Monday, Nov. 27. Xbox https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/6903712d25b2650d6f0cef1cd90d0f57.jpg Xbox One S only $189 + free game Score an amazing deal on an Xbox One S 500GB console, plus get a select free game of choice and one month of Xbox Game Pass. Save $50 on Xbox One S bundles + free game Save $50 on Xbox One S 500GB and 1TB bundles plus get a select free game. Windows 10 PCs Save up to $300 off select Windows 10 PCs Looking for a new PC? Save up to $300 this holiday when you purchase a new Windows 10 PC that lights up the recently released Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. The Fall Creators Update brings mixed reality and 3D to the masses, faster broadcasting for gaming, features to turn photos and videos into real memories, and much more. Windows Mixed Reality https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/def3bf36580b2722a40a5a4afd42f852.jpg Save up to $100 on Windows Mixed Reality headsets Grab instant savings on select Windows Mixed Reality headsets with motion controllers, starting at $299 – Available through Monday, Nov. 27. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/3514ec54689147e4da5b603a91325f69.jpg Bundle and save up to $400 Get instant savings on select Windows Mixed Reality headsets and PC bundles. Accessories Up to $20 off Xbox controllers Save instantly on select Xbox Wireless Controllers through Monday, Nov. 27. Save $20 on Minecraft controller Build, dig, and craft in style with the Xbox Wireless Controller – Minecraft Creeper. Save $50 on Elite headset Hear every pin drop with the Turtle Beach Elite 800x on-ear headset with noise-cancellation – Available through Monday, Nov. 27. Digital Up to 50% off games Stock up on the hottest Xbox games this season like Halo Wars 2 and Super Lucky’s Tale. Call of Duty for $49.99 Save $10 on Call of Duty: WWII. Save $20 on Office 365 Home Get Office 365 Home for $79.99 and get things done from virtually anywhere, on all your devices. Microsoft Store Don’t forget! Microsoft Store locations nationwide will offer the first Black Friday shoppers a chance to win an Xbox One X. Be in line before the store opens on Nov. 23, in select locations and on Nov. 24, in most locations for a chance to win.** Check your local Microsoft Store for more information. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ca71a93bf391799c863ee40eef46628f.jpg Happy shopping! Visit your local Microsoft Store, Microsoft.com or any of our retail partners for more details on availability and pricing. Offers valid for a limited time, while supplies last. Not valid on prior orders or purchases; cannot be transferred or otherwise redeemed for cash or coupon code(s). May not be combinable with other offers. Refunds will take into account the discount. Price discount does not include taxes, shipping or other fees. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. Microsoft reserves the right to modify or discontinue offers at any time. Other exclusions and limits may apply. **No Purchase Necessary. Open only to legal residents of the 50 U.S.+ DC, Puerto Rico, or Canada (excluding Quebec) who visit a Microsoft Retail Store beginning on November 23 or 24 (check your store’s Black Friday hours for opening times). One winner will be drawn 15 minutes after opening at each store. Must be present to win. For Official Rules, see a store associate. The post Start shopping Microsoft Store’s Black Friday deals now! appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders! Today, we are releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17046 for PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring and for those who opted in to Skip Ahead. What’s new in Build 17046 Microsoft Edge Improvements Form Fill for Address fields: Microsoft Edge can now save and automatically fill your preferred information in addresses and related forms. When filling in fields on a form, such as an address or other contact information, Microsoft Edge will prompt to save your form information. In the future, you can simply select the preferred information from a drop-down menu to complete all the related fields. Addresses you save will be roamed between your Windows 10 devices, and you can manually add or remove form entries in Advanced Settings. Text Spacing comes to Reading View: Much like when reading an EPUB book, you can now adjust the text spacing when you’re in Reading View. To enter Reading View, open an article or blog post you’re interested in, then tap the book icon next to the address bar. Adjusting the page to use wider spacing can improve reading fluency. Windows Shell Improvements Access advanced UWP app options right from Start: We’ve added a new quick way to get to advanced options! Rather than click through Settings > Apps > Apps & Features > (finding your app) > Advanced Options, if you right-click a UWP app or UWP app tile in Start with this build you’ll find a new Settings option under More which will take you straight there, where you can repair, manage app add-ons, and see startup tasks (if available). We have a goal to make this page the one stop shop for all of the app-related settings you can find across Settings – the Startup tasks work was the first part, but there’s more to come, stay tuned! https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/fcc7eca197037e3b21a304a11e33c89b.png Input Improvements Emoji data overhaul for the touch keyboard: We’ve taken a look at the emoji data across all of the languages we support and have updated it so that more of the emoji you love will appear as you’re typing related words with the touch keyboard. We’ve also added support for a number of languages that didn’t previously support emoji candidates. Please give it a try and let us know how it goes! Try typing words like unicorn, kiwi, artist, or turtle (in your language, of course ????) – primary candidate will be listed in the candidate list, any secondary candidates will be listed in the candidate list once you tap the emoji button. We still have a bit more work to do on the data that will come with a later flight, but you should see a noticeable improvement with this build. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/76e20caf6718e96bcecaeb6a8a2cc9d7.png This flight includes new and updated emoji data for over 150 languages including: Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Danish (Denmark), German (Germany), Greek (Greece), English (Great Britain), Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Mexico), Finnish (Finland), French (France), Hebrew (Israel), Hindi (India), Italian (Italy), Dutch (Netherlands), Norwegian (Norway), Polish (Poland), Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian (Russia), Swedish (Sweden), and Turkish (Turkey). NOTE: To see the emoji predictions as you type in a particular language, as well as typing predictions, you will need to have the optional typing feature applied for that language. It should download on its own as long as you have internet connection when you add the language to your language list, or once you connect to the internet thereafter. If you’re not seeing predictions and have internet connectivity, try removing the language and then adding it back again. Now you can use Emoji Panel to insert a bunch of emoji at once! Based on your feedback, we’re adjusting the design of the Emoji Panel so that after opening up the panel by pressing hotkey Windows logo key + “.” or “;”, you could browse, search and then select more than one emoji. The panel won’t go away until you click close button or press “Esc” key. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/d255e8cc0f777cff805d06c8e4c1bd90.gif Note: The Emoji Panel is currently only available when the en-us keyboard is active. Keyboard Improvements: We’re introducing a new keyboard for Tamil language called Tamil 99, as well as updated Sinhala, Myanmar, and Amharic keyboards Tamil 99 keyboard (hardware keyboard, touch keyboard) is now available on Windows PC! We’ve added a new Tamil keyboard – if you speak this language and would like to try it out, make sure Tamil (India) is in your language list. Click that language entry in Region & Language Settings, then select Options > Add a keyboard > Tamil 99. Here’s an example of how it looks on the touch keyboard: https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/70868fa590547dd0a07cf25eb7757af9.png The Sinhala and Myanmar keyboards have been updated to support more comprehensive ways of inputting sequences, for example these now work: Sinhala: ෙ + ක -> කෙ, Myanmar: ေ + မ = eမ In order to improve the Amharic typing experience, we’ve fully updated the Amharic keyboard so that you can now input compositions more comfortably. Instead of seeing English letters and a dropdown list of candidates while you type, you’ll now see the Amharic script directly inserted into the text field. We would love to hear your feedback as you try out these changes! General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC We’ve added settings that let you view and manage your activity history, which Cortana uses to let you pick up where you left off. Find these settings in Settings > Privacy > Activity history. We fixed an issue where the Properties dialog for This PC in File Explorer wasn’t working in the last two builds. We fixed an issue resulting in Insiders with certain third party antiviruses and OneDrive Files on Demand enabled seeing an error in recent builds citing “OneDrive cannot connect to Windows”. We fixed an issue that could result in delays during logoff and shutdown when a UWP app was open and in suspended state. We fixed a community reported issue where display colors became distorted after upgrading on some TV’s and monitors that incorrectly advertised support for 10/12 bit wire formats. We fixed an issue from the previous flight that could cause heavily-threaded DirectX 12 apps to crash on launch after the first launch. We’ve adjusted the application of acrylic in the touch keyboard to better align with the fluent design standards. We fixed an issue where keys might remain highlighted when typing on the wide touch keyboard layout. We fixed an issue where keys might be dropped when typing with the Chinese (Simplified) touch keyboard. We fixed an issue where when writing a long sentence in the handwriting panel it might scroll while your pen was writing, resulting in an ink stroke across the panel. We fixed an issue resulting in the hardware keyboard text suggestions potentially not working until the touch keyboard had been launched once. We fixed an issue resulting in the mouse noticeably flickering between + and the mouse pointer icon when moving across cells in Excel 2016. We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders seeing their Start menu layout being reset after upgrading to the previous flight. We fixed an issue resulting in miniview windows (for example in Movies & TV or Skype) flying offscreen when attempting to be resized in the last few flights. We fixed an issue where clicking search results for settings in Settings in the last few flights would always take you to the top level category in the last few flights, rather than the actual category you searched for (for example, Display Settings instead of Storage Settings). Known issues If you are experiencing broken functionality in Mail, Cortana, Narrator or missing some features like Windows Media Player, please see this Feedback Hub post: https://aka.ms/Rsrjqn. While this issue has been addressed, if you ever upgraded from 16299.xx to 16299.15 (and then to newer builds) you may still need to take the steps to get your PC back into a good state. Popular Tencent games like League of Legends and NBA2k Online may cause 64-bit PCs to bugcheck (GSOD). VPNs which use custom pop-up windows during connection attempts may fail to connect with error 720. Due to a bug that was introduced on this build, you may not receive all of your notifications from Cortana. Reminders are unaffected by this bug, but you may not receive other Cortana notifications that you are expecting. The fix for this should be in the next flight. [DEVELOPERS] Deploying an x86 app to a x64 PC remotely result in “FileNotFound” deployment failures if the target PC is running Build 17040. Deploying an x64 app to a x64 PC remotely or a x86 app to a x86 PC will work fine. All types of dynamic volumes listed here will not mount properly or be accessible from Windows. The data remains intact on the volume, it is just not accessible from this OS build. If you need access to the data you can roll back to an earlier build. A fix for this issue will be released in the next build. After upgrading to build 17035 or later you may lose certain dictionary files, resulting in not being able to input Japanese or Traditional Chinese via IME, Touch Keyboard, or Handwriting if you are using a non-Japanese or non-Traditional Chinese language-based OS (like an English-based OS). We are working to fix it. In the meantime, this should help to get you unblocked: 1. Go to Start > Settings > Time & Language > Region & language. 2. Under Language, select your language (e.g. “Japanese”). 3. Click [Option] and if the [Download] button is available for “Basic typing” under the Language options, please click it to start download. 4. Once the dictionary files have been downloaded, you can check the status of the necessary optional feature in Settings > Apps > “Apps & features” > “Manage optional features”. The name will be something like “Japanese typing” or “Chinese (Taiwan) typing”. Office Insider Program Are you an Office Insider? If not – you should be! We’re going to be partnering with the Office Insider Team in the coming weeks to promote some fun and interesting scenarios that will be lighting up with new features in Insider Preview builds. So you’ll definitely want to be an Office Insider too! Going forward, you can expect more promotion of Office with our Insider Preview build releases. So sign-up to be an Office Insider today! No downtime for Hustle-As-A-Service, Dona <3 The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17046 for PC appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of This Week on Windows! Head over here to read more about the top Black Friday deals from Microsoft and our partners, kicking off Nov. 23; check out our Windows 10 Tip on editing any URL in your Microsoft Edge Favorites – or, keep reading for more of this week’s news! What’s new in the Microsoft Store: Black Friday deals from Microsoft and our partners https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/b40711f4ad325807c749cf75dc093afd.jpg Black Friday deals from Microsoft Store and our partners kick off Nov. 23. Save big on Surface, Windows Mixed Reality headsets, Windows 10 PCs – and get an Xbox One S at its lowest price ever! You can also save on apps like Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018, PC games including Forza Motorsport 7 – Standard Edition and Halo Wars 2, movies like Deadpool and Wonder Woman and more. Here’s a sneak peek into the hottest deals you can enjoy starting next weekend through Cyber Monday at Microsoft Store and Microsoft.com. You can check out more deals here. Mixer Interactivity, Mobile Broadcasting and Windows Mixed Reality Arrives in the Minecraft 1.2.5 Update https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/640994854aea7dcd8c5187b7a5501e28.png Hot off the heels of MINECON Earth, Minecraft takes a deep dive into the world of Mixer Interactivity and Windows Mixed Reality with the 1.2.5 update, which graduated from beta this week! Players will be able to build, explore and battle mobs from new, creative perspectives, making this update the most immersive yet. Here’s what’s new: Windows Mixed Reality: Building, exploring and coming face-to-face with monstrous mobs in Minecraft takes on new meaning when experienced with a Windows Mixed Reality immersive headset. Now you can share the adventure with friends playing on mobile, Windows 10 or console, set up your own world with Realms, or join one of the massive player-run servers. Mixer comes to Minecraft: Players on Android and iOS platforms will gain access to instant, native broadcasting from directly within the game. If you’re streaming on Mixer, you’ll utilize the power of Faster Than Light technology, enabling you to broadcast with sub-second latency and also co-stream your gameplay with up to three friends. We’re also introducing native Mixer Interactivity for Bedrock Engine-based platforms! Any Minecraft command can be turned into an interactive button on Mixer, enabling communities to play along with their favorite streamers in real time. Netflix – The Punisher https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/6a99508bd37a98b96f99a2f03320b7d4.png From Netflix (Free, subscription required for content) comes the latest Marvel hero to take care of business, his way. The Punisher is Frank Castle, a former FBI agent whose wife and children are murdered after witnessing a mob hit. After exacting revenge on those responsible, he becomes a one-man judge, jury and executioner, delving into conspiracies and rooting out injustices wherever he finds them. Have a great weekend! The post This Week on Windows: Black Friday deals, Minecraft 1.2.5 Update and more appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Did you know, with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, you can now edit the URL of any favorite in the Favorites menu or the Favorites Bar? Here’s how to get started: https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/430f7d219e1500f47e47627c24b74246.gif Simply go to Hub, then Favorites; right-click on a favorite and select “Edit a URL.” Head over here to see how you can now pin your websites in the taskbar in Microsoft Edge, or here to see what else is new in the Fall Creators Update! The post Windows 10 Tip: Edit any URL in your Microsoft Edge Favorites appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders! Today, we are releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17040 for PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring and for those who opted in to Skip Ahead. NOTE: The block for AMD PCs is no longer in effect as of this flight. What’s new in Build 17040 Settings Improvements Adjust the brightness of SDR content on your HDR display: Starting with Build 17040, Windows now lets you adjust how bright SDR content appears when running in HDR mode on the desktop. On an HDR capable system, you will see a slider in the “HDR and advanced color settings” page under Settings > System > Display. This is one of the improvements to HDR image quality that we have planned based on feedback from Insiders. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/a1bb6fbd90c6e9dc75cb2c54624eca46.jpg New Cursor, pointer, and touch feedback section in Ease of Access Settings: Continuing our recent efforts to reorganize this section in Settings, you’ll notice that “change cursor thickness”, “Change pointer size and color”, and “Change touch feedback” have been moved to this new place. Touch keyboard Improvements Shape-writing with wide touch keyboard: With the Fall Creators Update we introduced shape-writing input for one-handed keyboard. We’ve heard your feedback, and with today’s build we’re happy to announce that it’s now also available when using the wide keyboard! https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/004e4edbc88aaf4b93bd80333c6541b7.jpg As a reminder, shape-writing is currently available for the following languages: Catalan (Catalan), Croatian (Croatia), Czech (Czech), Danish (Denmark), Dutch (Netherlands), English (India), English (United States), English (United Kingdom), Finnish (Finland), French (Canada), French (France), French (Switzerland), German (Germany), Greek (Greece), Hebrew (Israel), Hungarian (Hungary), Indonesian (Indonesia), Italian (Italy), Norwegian, Persian (Iran), Polish (Poland), Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian (Romania), Russian (Russia), Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish (Sweden), Turkish (Turkey), and Vietnamese (Vietnam). Handwriting panel Improvements Improved Insertion Gesture: Based on your feedback about gesture recognition, we’ve updated the insertion gesture (to add space between words or letters) to now be a small caret (see below gif for a demo of what it looks like, along with a cameo of our joining gesture). https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/3a045483aa2bf2a6dcbc0dce2e57e106.gif A New Commit Gesture: We’ve added a new gesture so you can automatically commit your text and clear out the text in the handwriting panel. This gesture looks like a 90 degree angle bracketing the end of your text – see gif below for an example of how it works. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/3c6482b6816d6c09818b4d033d6e61bb.gif Improved button layout for Chinese (Simplified) Handwriting: If you use Chinese (Simplified), you’ll now see a layout similar to the one announced for other languages with Build 17035. The buttons in the handwriting panel are collapsed by default – tap the button with the ellipsis to expand them. General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC We’ve added settings that let you view and manage your activity history, which Cortana uses to let you pick up where you left off. Find these settings in Settings > Privacy > Activity history. We fixed an issue where network profiles might change from Private to Public after upgrading to the previous build. We fixed an issue resulting in checkboxes being missing from certain win32 apps. We fixed a typo in the Windows Defender Security Center’s Controlled Folder Settings. We fixed an issue resulting not being able to fully remove Windows.old in the last two flights. We fixed an issue resulting in Narrator not saying anything when the candidate bar for hardware keyboard prediction opened. We also fixed an issue where Narrator wasn’t reading the word candidate when the focus moved into candidate bar. We fixed an issue where the “Working on updates” screen was black with a small theme colored box instead of entirely theme colored. We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders experiencing a green screen on the previous flight with the error BAD_POOL_CALLER. We fixed an issue resulting in UWP app sometimes leaving drop shadow leftovers after closing the window. We fixed an issue where inactive window scrolling wouldn’t work if Excel 2016 was in focus. We fixed an issue resulting in a noticeable flicker when using hotkeys or a precision touchpad to switch between virtual desktops. We fixed an issue where the XAML Reveal light wouldn’t follow your mouse until the first mouse click – instead showing the entire element lit. This issue was visible in Settings and other XAML based UI in the last few builds. We fixed an issue resulting in changes to Feedback Frequency in Feedback & Diagnostics Settings not persisting after leaving the page and returning. We fixed an issue where Start wouldn’t open if you pressed the Windows key when the system menu from elevated Command Prompt or Task Manager window was open. We fixed a rare issue where if you had certain streaming-capable apps on your PC before upgrading you might end up seeing a black screen with only a cursor for some time after logging in. We fixed an issue from recent flights where the “Add” button in the PIN section of Sign-in Option Settings didn’t work for local accounts. We’ve updated the icon for Collections in Cortana. We’ve updated the touch keyboard so that the margin between each key is visual only. This change will be noticeable if you accidentally overshoot the key press by just a tiny bit – before it might seem as if key presses were being dropped in this scenario. Based on your feedback, the feature to restore applications that have registered for application restart after you reboot or shutdown (through power options available on the Start Menu and various other locations) has been set to only occur for users that have enabled “Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting my device after an update or restart” in the Privacy section under Sign-in Options Settings. Known issues If you are experiencing broken functionality in Mail, Cortana, Narrator or missing some features like Windows Media Player, please see this Feedback Hub post: https://aka.ms/Rsrjqn. Popular Tencent games like League of Legends and NBA2k Online may cause 64-bit PCs to bugcheck (GSOD). VPNs which use custom pop-up windows during connection attempts may fail to connect with error 720. Due to a bug that was introduced on this build, you may not receive all of your notifications from Cortana. Reminders are unaffected by this bug, but you may not receive other Cortana notifications that you are expecting. We are working to resolve this issue and will release the fix in an upcoming flight. The Properties dialog for This PC in File Explorer isn’t working and can’t be invoked from the context menu. Insiders with certain third party antiviruses and OneDrive Files on Demand enabled may see an error citing “OneDrive cannot connect to Windows”. Insider Preview Apps Survey Windows Insiders running the latest Insider Preview builds have also been able to try out early versions of Windows apps like Mail and Calendar, Skype, Photos and People. In an effort to improve this experience, we’re asking Insiders to complete a quick survey. The survey only takes 1-3 minutes to complete. As with all our surveys, the feedback you provide will not be will not be shared outside of Microsoft or associated with any personal information unless you choose to provide your Microsoft account email (MSA). Feedback from this survey will help us enhance the app preview experience with more timely app updates, more informative news announcements and other benefits. No downtime for Hustle-As-A-Service, Dona <3 The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17040 for PC appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of This Week on Windows! Head over here to learn more about the Surface Book 2, available today; read more about the top Black Friday deals from Microsoft and our partners, kicking off Nov. 23; check out our Windows 10 Tip on how to make your movies and games sound better with Windows Sonic – or, keep reading for more of this week’s news! Surface Book 2 available today Surface Book 2 removes the barrier between the desktop and the laptop by giving mobile professionals the power of a desktop, the versatility of a tablet, and the freedom of a laptop in one beautifully designed device. With the latest 8th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 and 1060 discrete graphics options, Surface Book 2 is up to five times more powerful than the original and is twice as powerful as the latest MacBook Pro. All this power and Surface Book 2 still provides all-day battery life – up to 17 hours of video playback. Surface Book 2 with the 13” weighs 3.38lbs and the 15” Surface Book 2 is 4.2lbs. Purchase your own Surface Book 2 here The detachable display and hinge of Surface Book 2 has been redesigned to provide a smoother, faster detach into Tablet or Studio Mode – and when you detach to sketch an idea or watch a video, the Surface Book 2 turns into the world’s thinnest and lightest 8th Gen Intel Core i7 PC. Surface Book 2 brings you a full array of ports, including USB-A, USB-C, and full-size SD card reader which makes it easy to connect other devices, accessories and memory cards without the need for a bag full of dongles. Surface Book 2 13” is available today in the United States and additional markets around the world, along with Surface Book 2 15” in the United States at your local Microsoft Store and Microsoft.com. Visit this blog post for 5 reasons you’ll love Surface Book 2. What’s new in the Microsoft Store this week: MINECON Skin Pack for Minecraft https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/92c134b8a5c3c5cd1a44f4c538334c7b.png MINECON is less than a week away! Get ready with the MINECON Skin Pack for Minecraft ($26.99), full of cosplayers, cake and dinner dress – everything you need for a MINECON celebration. Get a free fully explorable Minecraft map by the Elite map maker Jigarbov based on the MINECON Earth logo. Not to be outdone, the Minecraft team themselves have put together a free celebratory map as well, packed full of disco-dancing parrots. This FREE content is available for a limited time only: Nov. 13-27. Hulu: Future Man https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/888588ab337023cd0cb05d9188a8299a.jpg Hulu (Free, subscription required for content) has something hilarious in store this month, debuting Future Man, a new and original comedy series starring John Hutcherson. When his character, a janitor by day, world-ranked gamer by night, is approached by mysterious visitors from the future, they proclaim him the key to defeating an imminent super-race invasion. Watch what happens. Candy Crush 5th Anniversary https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/5bcbb5966987de184017aed13e688bc8.png We’ve devoured this sweet matching game for five years, but we still can’t get enough of Candy Crush Saga and Candy Crush Soda Saga (Free, with IAP options). Now, in celebration of this birthday milestone, there are special events everywhere. Candy Crush Soda Saga offers a Free Birthday Booster for levels 29 and higher through Nov. 21, and Candy Crush Saga does the same from today through Nov. 23. Have a great weekend! The post This Week on Windows: Surface Book 2 available today, Black Friday deals and more appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Yuwa, founded in 2009 by Franz Gastler, uses girls’ team sports as a platform for educational opportunities in rural India. Yuwa works with hundreds of girls in a disadvantaged region of Jharkhand, India – one of the poorest and least literate regions of India – to develop the skills they need to create a self-determined life. These skills begin with teamwork and confidence through team sport – namely football – and are advanced further through school and peer support as well as connections with their families. The girls are coached to build leadership skills and are given personal and team growth responsibilities. Yuwa provides a framework for the girls to establish life goals that enable them to be self-sufficient and contribute meaningfully to their community. “Yuwa girls use technology to discover the wonders of language, math, and science. They are defying the odds—and defining their own futures.” – Franz Gastler “Yuwa girls are usually the first in their families to set their sights on higher education, despite the pressure in their communities to drop out of school and get married,” Franz Gastler says. “By engaging with technology, girls are expanding their world-views and enhancing their employability.” How yuwa works Through this strategy of consistently sustained coaching, girls and their families aspire to a future other than becoming a child bride. They are also able to avoid becoming a victim of human trafficking. When a girl is part of a Yuwa team, she becomes a more regular student through the positive peer pressure from her teammates. She pays attention to her own health and to the health of her teammates. She begins to take her future into her own hands. She marries when she chooses—she and her coaches meet her parents to discuss a future other than an early marriage. “I would like to change the way people in my village think about girls. In my village, people think that a girl cannot be a great person. Villagers only think that boys can do anything in their lives. That’s why they only send boys to private schools, to English schools, so that boys can get a better education and boys can earn a good name for their family. But the villagers think girls should not go to school.” – Konika, 14 years old Microsoft Edge is honored to partner with YUWA and bring to life a new Yuwa website that connects each visitor to the girls who join a Yuwa team. Now anyone can participate in a deeper connection with all those who believe in Yuwa’s work. New website features include: 360 Day in the Life view, authored by the girls – Attend a soccer practice in a full 360-degree view and cheer them on. Find points of interest near the field, key moments during play, and links to videos filmed by Yuwa staff and the girls. The brand-new tool used to create this view, 360 Story Builder, is packaged as a WordPress plugin for use by nonprofits. Interactive infographics – Get the facts about Jharkhand and Yuwa girls that articulate the challenges they face and Yuwa’s effectiveness in changing lives. Opportunities to advance the mission – Here’s how you can connect to the girls through sponsoring them as a team or individual, and learn about how much each contribution makes a difference. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/40bf3042db2864e340cebfdfb3501202.jpg Partnering with Yuwa offered the Microsoft Edge team a unique opportunity to use web technology for a more interactive platform built to meet Yuwa’s goals. We utilized Microsoft Edge’s support for elaborate 360-degree content viewing in a unique way for immersive storytelling through the web. This platform tells the story of Yuwa – who it serves, how, and demonstrates the lives Yuwa has impacted thus far. We are honored to support Yuwa’s work to empower disadvantaged and at-risk girls in Jharkhand. “The new website creates a platform for the world to see what the Yuwa girls are accomplishing and overcoming each day. We are able to have people from all of the world become a part of these girls’ stories, helping them change their lives and family forever,” says Franz. “This new site will help us tell the challenges the girls in Jharkhand face and how we can expand our program and continue to reach more girls, families and communities.” Visit Yuwa now to learn more about the Yuwa program and hear the girls’ inspiring stories. About Microsoft Edge Web Showcase Microsoft Edge Web Showcase is dedicated to partnering with organizations around the world to highlight extraordinary and exciting new ventures. This program explores opportunities to contribute to a diverse set of literacy programs and to develop partnerships to showcase web technology. The post Yuwa partners with Microsoft Edge to showcase the powerful life journey of girls in Jharkhand appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders! Today we are releasing Windows Server Insider Preview Build 17035 to Windows Server Insiders. This build is the first preview build of the next Semi-Annual Channel release of Windows Server. For more information on the Semi-Annual channel, please see the Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel overview New content available Server Insiders now have your choice of ISO format or VHDX format. The images are pre-keyed – no need to enter a key during setup. Also new to Insiders, an early update to the Technical Preview of Project Honolulu. Project Honolulu is a flexible, lightweight browser-based customer-deployed platform and solution for Windows Server management scenarios for troubleshooting, configuration and maintenance. Project Honolulu Technical Preview 1711 Build 01003 is now available to Insiders before the public and is our first update since our initial Technical Preview 1709 released for Ignite. Symbols are available on the public symbol server – see Update on Microsoft’s Symbol Server blog post and Using the Microsoft Symbol Server. As before, matching Windows Server container images will be available via Docker Hub. For more information about Windows Server containers and Insider builds, click here. This Server Insider pre-release build will expire on July 2nd, 2018. For the best experience, the Windows Server team recommends a clean install. What’s New in Build 17035 for Windows Server Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) is enabled. Storage Spaces Direct is the foundation of our hyper-converged solution and we’re continuing to evolve it. In this preview build we not only brought it back, but we’re adding some new and important updates to it – such as support for Data Deduplication, a commonly requested feature for Storage Spaces Direct and ReFS. Starting with this build, Data Deduplication will reduce the data footprint by up to 50%. Developers can now use localhost or loopback (127.0.0.1) to access services running in containers on the host What’s New in Project Honolulu Technical Preview 1711 Build 01003 NOTE: Please manually Refresh your browser (F5) on first launch if upgrading from version 1709. Remote Desktop With the remote desktop tool in the Server Manager solution, you can connect to your machine to complete scenarios that are not yet supported natively in Honolulu. If you want to configure a feature that has no GUI tool, connect with Remote Desktop and open PowerShell! Windows 10 Client Management You can now add Windows 10 client machines as connections in Honolulu, and manage them with a subset of tools in the “Computer Management” Solution Switch Embedded Teaming (SET) Short of SCVMM, there was previously no GUI experience to configure Switch Embedded Teaming (SET), a new feature released in Windows Server 2016. You will find this feature in the Virtual Switches tool. Data grid performance improvements We have updated the grid in the Certificates and Events tools to a more performant control which is able to handle large datasets without a loss in performance. In the next release, it will be updated across all tools. In the Events tool, the data is streamed in as it loads, which can lead to a shorter loading time than the in-box tool when working with channels that contain many events. Removed: LAPS in Service mode We have removed the ability to use LAPS when Project Honolulu is deployed as a Server service. You may still use LAPS when you install Honolulu on Windows 10. How to Download To obtain the Insider software downloads, registered Insiders may navigate directly to the Windows Server Insider Preview download page. If you have not yet registered as an Insider, see GETTING STARTED WITH SERVER on the Windows Insiders for Business portal. It’s all about 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. Use your registered Windows 10 Insider device and use the Feedback Hub application. In the app, choose the Server category and then the appropriate subcategory for your feedback. Please indicate what build number you are providing feedback on. Known issues with Windows Server build 17035 [NEW] The base filtering engine (BFE) service may fail to start, which prevents the Windows Defender firewall (MpsSvc service) from starting. A system crash may occur because of a kernel security check failure (bug check 0x139) from a corrupt list entry in a deferred free pool. An application may crash because of a heap entry corruption error (0xC0000374) in the health attestation configuration service provider (CSP) library (Hascsp.dll). Testing of the Windows core may fail because of a timeout while attempting to load the test libraries. Known Issues with Project Honolulu Technical Preview 1711 Build 01003 This list captures issues in the new features only. You can find the complete list of known issues here. If you encounter bugs (in the new features only) that are not captured here, please post on the Project Honolulu space on Windows Server Tech Community. Remote Desktop The Remote Desktop tool does not currently support any text, image, or file copy/paste between the local desktop and the remote session. To do any copy/paste within the remote session, you can copy as normal (right click + copy or Ctrl+C), but paste requires right click + paste (Ctrl+V does NOT work) Opening the web browser’s debugger while a Remote Desktop session is active may cause your computer to crash. Don’t do it. You cannot send the following key commands to the remote session: Ctrl+Alt+End / Ctrl+Alt+Del Alt+Tab Function keys Windows Key PrtScn Windows 10 Client Management If you try to add a Windows PC connection, but the add connection dialog tries to add it as a server, refresh your browser. If the problem persists, clear your browser cache. When you try to manage the localhost, you will be prompted to elevate the gateway process. If you click no in the User Account Control popup that follows, Honolulu won’t be able to display it again. In this case, exit the gateway process by right-clicking the Project Honolulu icon in the system tray and choosing exit, then relaunch Project Honolulu from the Start Menu. Windows 10 does not have WinRM/PowerShell remoting on by default. To enable management of the Windows 10 Client, you must issue the command Enable-PSRemoting from an elevated PowerShell prompt. You may need to update your firewall to allow connections from outside the local subnet: Set-NetFirewallRule -Name WINRM-HTTP-In-TCP –RemoteAddress Any For more restrictive networks scenarios, please refer to this documentation. Switch Embedded Teaming (SET) When adding NICs to a team, they must be on the same subnet. As with all networking configuration options in Project Honolulu, configuring this feature will cause a temporary loss in connectivity as the server’s networking stack restarts. This will generate errors that can safely be ignored. 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, which takes precedence over any license agreement that may be in the product. No downtime for Hustle-As-A-Service, Dona <3 The post Announcing Windows Server Insider Preview Build 17035 appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Today we’re kicking off Connect(); 2017, one of my favorite annual Microsoft developer events, where over three days we get to host approximately 150 livestreamed and interactive sessions for developers everywhere — no matter the tools they use or the platforms they prefer. Today at Connect(); 2017 I’m excited to share news that will help developers build for the intelligent cloud and the intelligent edge. It’s never been a better time to be a developer, as developers are at the forefront of building the apps driving monumental change across organizations and entire industries. At Microsoft, we’re laser-focused on delivering tools and services that make developers more productive, helping developers create in the open, and putting AI into the hands of every developer so they unleash the power of data and reimagine possibilities that will improve our world. Any developer, any application, any platform In previous years at Connect(); we announced the open-sourcing of .NET Core. Last year we announced Microsoft joining the Linux foundation and shared SQL Server on Linux. This year we’re continuing to deliver on our commitment to the open source community and making sure we can support customers no matter their platform of choice. Azure Databricks — preview: Built in collaboration with the founders of Apache® Spark, Azure Databricks is a fast, easy and collaborative Apache® Spark-based analytics platform optimized for Azure. Azure Databricks combines the best of Databricks and Azure to help customers accelerate innovation with one-click set up, streamlined workflows and an interactive workspace. Native integration with Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Azure Storage, Azure Cosmos DB and Power BI simplifies the creation of modern data warehouses that enable organizations to provide self-service analytics and machine learning over both relational and non-relational data with enterprise-grade performance and governance. Customers inherently benefit from enterprise-grade Azure security, compliance and SLAs, as well as simplified security and identity control with Azure Active Directory integration. With these innovations, Azure is the one-stop destination to unlock powerful scenarios that make AI easy. Microsoft joins MariaDB Foundation: Today we’re excited to be joining the MariaDB community as a platinum member of the MariaDB Foundation. As part of this membership, we’re committed to working closely with the foundation, actively contributing to MariaDB and the MariaDB community. We’re also announcing we’ll be delivering a preview of Azure Database for MariaDB, which will bring the fully managed service capabilities to MariaDB. Developers can sign up for the upcoming preview for Azure Database for MariaDB. Azure Cosmos DB with Apache® Cassandra API — preview: With this preview, developers now get a Cassandra-as-a-service using the Cassandra SDKs and tools they are familiar with using the power of Azure Cosmos DB. Developers re-use existing code they’ve already written and build new applications using the Cassandra API against Azure Cosmos DB’s globally distributed, multi-model database service. Azure Cosmos DB has been designed to scale throughput and storage across any number of geographical regions with comprehensive SLAs and with greater consistency levels for more precise data latency management. GitHub Partnership on GVFS: With GitHub, today we’re announcing Microsoft and GitHub are partnering to bring GVFS to GitHub’s 25 million users. GVFS is an open-source extension to the Git version control system developed by Microsoft to support the world’s largest repositories. Helping developers be more productive At Microsoft our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, and developers are no exception to this. We have a strong set of new announcements to help developers, as well as whole development teams, be more productive as they move into a world of continual innovation and continual development of their apps. At Connect(); we’re announcing: Visual Studio App Center — general availability: The most comprehensive app development lifecycle solution for Objective-C, Swift, Java, Xamarin and React Native, Visual Studio App Center helps developers automate and manage the lifecycle of their iOS, Android, Windows and macOS apps. Developers can connect their repos and within minutes automate their builds, test on real devices in the cloud, distribute apps to beta testers and monitor real-world usage with crash and analytics data, all in one place. Visual Studio Live Share — first look: Visual Studio is delivering the next major advancement in developer productivity with Visual Studio Live Share, which enables true real-time collaboration within both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. It lets developers seamlessly and securely share their project with other developers so that they can collaboratively edit and debug in real time together without having to sit in front of the same screen or in the same room. Rather than just screen sharing, Visual Studio Live Share lets developers share their full project context with a bi-directional, instant and familiar way to jump into opportunistic, collaborative programming. Visual Studio Connected Environment for Azure Container Service (AKS) — upcoming preview: Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code will now use the Connected Environment for AKS features, making Kubernetes development a natural for Visual Studio developers. Developers will be able to easily edit and debug cloud native applications running on Kubernetes in the cloud with the speed, ease and full functionality and productivity they’ve come to expect from Visual Studio. Azure DevOps Projects — preview: Available in the Azure management portal, Azure DevOps Projects will deliver a guided experience, helping developers easily explore the many Azure platform services available to help build their apps and in the process, configure a full DevOps pipeline powered by Visual Studio Team Services. In less than five minutes, this feature will ensure that DevOps is not an afterthought, but instead the foundation for new projects and one that works with many application frameworks, languages and Azure hosted deployment endpoints. Take a look at how Columbia Sportswear is leveraging Microsoft’s developer tools and DevOps platform to drive their own digital transformation. Putting AI in the hands of every developer As AI becomes more pervasive and developers are able to harness the vast amounts of data being created every day, coupling with the power and scale of the cloud, we want to make it easy for developers to create the next generation of intelligent applications. We want to put AI in the hands of every developer with the tools and platforms they are most familiar with. With the announcements below, we’re delivering new AI tools and bringing machine leaning and intelligence to the edge. Visual Studio Tools for AI — preview: This is an extension of our popular Visual Studio IDE, which will allow developers and data scientists to create AI models with maximum productivity. Visual Studio Tools for AI delivers debugging and rich editing, with the support of most deep learning frameworks such as Cognitive Toolkit, TensorFlow or Caffe. With this addition, developers and data scientists have a full development experience at their fingertips to create, train, manage and deploy models locally, and scale to Azure. Azure IoT Edge — preview: Today we’re making available the preview of Azure IoT Edge, a service that deploys cloud intelligence to IoT devices via containers, and we’re introducing a new set of breakthrough cloud capabilities to run on IoT Edge, with Azure Machine Learning, Azure Functions and Azure Stream Analytics. Azure IoT Edge enables developers to build and test container-based workloads using C, Java, .NET, Node.js and Python, and simplifies the deployment and management of workloads at the edge. Azure IoT Edge can run on IoT devices with as little as 128MB of memory. As part of this announcement, we’re also releasing Azure Machine Learning updates, which enables AI models to be deployed and run on edge devices through the Azure IoT Edge service. Additional updates include easier AI model deployment on iOS devices with Core ML, as well as updates to the Azure Machine Learning Workbench tool. Every year at Connect(); we get to share new tools and services that we hope will empower and inspire developers to build great apps. I encourage you to tune into Connect(); 2017 to learn more about all of the new innovations we’re announcing today, and to see what you can reimagine. The post Developing for the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge at Microsoft Connect(); 2017 appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Three years ago, we began a journey to evolve our culture at Microsoft, and in so doing redefine our relationship with employees, customer and partners. This journey started by grounding our aspire-to culture in a growth mindset focused on three attributes: Obsessing over our customers; Operating as a unified company (One Microsoft); and Becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization. We recognized then, as we do today, that our culture is critical to attracting and retaining talent, enabling our strategy and achieving results for our shareholders. It is also critical to our success as an employer with a sense of purpose and mission to make a difference in the world. To achieve our mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more, we know we need to be unwavering in our efforts to build a diverse and inclusive organization. While we define diversity broadly, with intentional action plans to support all dimensions, our data today reflect specific areas in need of progress across the tech industry. We also know that for our employees to realize their full potential, each and every person needs to feel like they belong – and be able to contribute with their full and authentic selves. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/39bff63962d3c1ad7b2e8663143219b9.jpg Kathleen Hogan, Chief People Officer at Microsoft Today, we are releasing our annual workforce demographic numbers, which is just one milestone along our path toward building a more inclusive culture. You can get a comprehensive look at our most current information (through Sept. 30, 2017) on this site. LinkedIn, which Microsoft acquired late last year, is also sharing diversity demographics today and they can be accessed here. (As you will see below, I am also sharing combined percentages for Microsoft and LinkedIn in a couple of key categories.) The top-line: Based on intentional efforts, we are starting to make important progress when it comes to attracting and retaining women and minorities to work at the company, and we are also making progress in expanding talent across roles within the company. That said, we are not content, and we know there is much more we can and will do. Combined demographics at Microsoft, including LinkedIn: Given that it has been 11 months since we finalized our acquisition of LinkedIn, we are providing a combined summary view of two key diversity demographics: women globally; and racial/ethnic minorities in the U.S. It is important to note here that LinkedIn’s leadership and commitment to Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) progress is equal to that of Microsoft’s, and is a strategic business priority for both companies. As of Sept. 30, 2017, women represent 27.3 percent of Microsoft’s and LinkedIn’s combined global workforce. This compares to Microsoft’s number alone last year of 25.8 percent. The addition of LinkedIn’s workforce served to increase female representation overall. In the U.S., our combined representation of African-American/black employees is 3.9 percent. Representation of Hispanic/Latin employees is 5.6 percent. These compare to last year’s numbers for Microsoft alone of 3.7 percent and 5.5 percent respectively. In these categories, before the combination of the two companies, Microsoft’s representation was slightly higher than LinkedIn’s representation. Women at Microsoft: Outside of the LinkedIn acquisition, the percentage of women employed at Microsoft globally is 25.9 percent, a slight increase from 25.8 percent last year. Excluding the phone manufacturing business wind-down where female representation was higher than our average, female representation in our global workforce increased by 0.9 percent, reflecting much of the emphasis and work we’ve placed on diversity and inclusion. Underneath that top number, we are seeing important progress in some key areas. We continue to see growth in the representation of women being hired into Microsoft across all levels, as well as the following key indicators: The percentage of women in technical roles increased from 17.5 to 19.0 percent; The percentage of women in leadership positions at the company increased from 17.9 to 19.1 percent. Racial and ethnic minorities at Microsoft: Over the past year, we also saw increases in the representation of African-American/black (from 3.7 to 4.0 percent) and Hispanic/Latinx (from 5.5 to 5.9 percent) employees at Microsoft in the U.S. We are also seeing slight increases in representation for leadership and technical roles. Specifically: The percentage of African-American/black employees in technical roles increased from 2.4 to 2.7 percent. The percentage of African-American/black employees in leadership roles increased from 2.1 to 2.2 percent. The percentage of Hispanic/Latinx employees in technical roles increased from 4 to 4.3 percent. The percentage of Hispanic/Latinx employees in leadership roles increased from 4 to 4.3 percent. Board of directors representation: Our board of directors continues to be among the most diverse of any company in technology today, with women and ethnic minorities nominated on this year’s proxy representing six of our 14 positions. Our philosophy and approach While today we are sharing certain information about our workforce, we know that diversity and inclusion are so much more than gender and race demographics. It is about different cultures, religions, ages, political affiliations, education and sexual orientations, just to name a few. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion means creating an environment where everyone feels included and valued. Fostering this sense of inclusion and community will, in turn, create an environment that can help us fulfill our company mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. This is an ambitious goal, but one we are very much committed to achieving. To accelerate our progress, we have an end-to-end global D&I strategy comprised of five core pillars, with support from our CEO and senior leadership team. Below are examples of what we are doing to improve in each area. We share this today as we continue to learn from our own efforts, from what other companies are doing to improve in this area and hope to continue to learn from others as we continue our cultural transformation. Expanding our pipeline of talent We are committed to building and expanding the pipeline for diverse technical candidates. From our work in DigiGirlz, which has offered more than 40,000 girls the opportunity to participate in STEM, to our partnership with NCWIT Aspirations in Computing for women, to our TEALS program where we have embedded volunteer computer science teachers in 349 schools across 29 states, to our expanded Microsoft Software Systems Academy military program on seven military bases worldwide, to Year Up, serving urban adults with skill development, we are investing in many programs to build a more diverse pipeline of talent. We will continue to seek meaningful ways to encourage and cultivate our future workforce. Driving an inclusive recruiting process In addition to building and expanding the pipeline, we want to look outside our traditional recruiting practices to become more expansive in our sources and more inclusive in our processes. Great talent is everywhere. We have expanded the scope of universities where we recruit, such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Our Autism Hiring and Engineering Acceleration Program (LEAP) programs are examples of how we are actively seeking non-traditional sources to help make us stronger. We are focused on diverse slates and taking the time to ensure we find the best talent, and require managers to take our Inclusive Hiring training. We will continue to hire exceptional people, but with a wider aperture through which to view talent and profiles before making hiring decisions, while ensuring the process is inclusive for everyone. Empowering and retaining our people Equally important to recruiting more diverse talent is our ability to retain great talent. We know that people go where they are invited, but they stay where they are welcomed. Our managers play an important role in the development of talent, and we are investing in them to help be better coaches and advocates. As we continue to invest in our Employee Resource Groups (LGBTQ, Disability, Parents, Asians, Blacks, Hispanic/Latinx, and Women) to build community and create opportunity, we are partnering closely with them to identify, discuss and address the unique needs surfaced by each community. Delighting our customers through diversity Building a diverse culture is a critical element to spark innovation and allow unique perspectives and insights to surface. Focusing on a more inclusive design process enables us to build products for a broader set of customers, and appeal to their unique needs. For example, technologies like Seeing AI, a vision-to-language technology that assists the visually impaired community, and Eye Control, which empowers people to use a mouse, keyboard and text-to-speech with their eyes, are two examples where our focus on employees with disabilities has helped us innovate for everyone. Transforming our culture Building a culture where each and every employee feels valued, has the opportunity to grow, and is empowered to fulfill their own sense of purpose is foundational to what we are doing. Yet to activate and sustain this culture, we have challenged our employees to embrace changes, big and small. From redefining our performance and development approach, to launching 10 inclusive behaviors that include everyday acts – such as not interrupting each other – every employee is part of the change we’re driving. This includes our senior leadership team, who must model the culture we aspire to have, and where a portion of their bonuses are tied to progress on diversity and inclusion within their respective organizations. Looking to the future: Our journey to build a more diverse and inclusive culture continues, and when it comes to our diverse representation, we know that we still have a long way to go. We are committed to improving and learning. We will continue our efforts to attract, develop and retain diverse talent and embrace each person with appreciation for their uniqueness as individuals. I want to close by recognizing and honoring the entire employee population at Microsoft. While today I focus on representation of women and ethnic minorities, the need to feel included applies to everyone. And given our broad ambitions and mission, we need everyone. I want this to be a company where all of our employees feel they can thrive, have great careers and can be their authentic selves. That is the true definition of inclusion, and what we aspire to have. The post Strengthening our culture of inclusion appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Three years ago, Minecraft became a part of the Microsoft family, and my team began our work to extend Minecraft’s potential in classrooms around the world. Flash forward to today – one year after the release of Minecraft: Education Edition – and I’m thrilled to share that we’re continuing to see tremendous momentum with more than 2 million licensed users in 115 countries around the world and more than 250 educator created lesson plans in our community. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/e74f394c080dc39d3df83423ee8b1b69.jpg Educators are teaching a wide variety of subjects with Minecraft: Education Edition, and we’ve seen particularly exciting results when Minecraft is used to teach Computer Science. Though many don’t realize it, coding is in fact one of the most creative activities a student can do, building something with no limitations but his or her own creativity. And research continues to show that creativity, collaboration and coding are all critical skills for students’ long-term success in the modern workplace. As part of Microsoft’s continued commitment to empower students with these skills, we’ve partnered with Code.org for the past two years to offer educators and students a free Hour of Code tutorial using Minecraft. The results – far beyond anything we could have imagined. To date, nearly 70 million Minecraft Hour of Code sessions have introduced the basics of coding to people around the world, joining the global movement. Today, I’m excited to announce that we have built a new Minecraft Hour of Code tutorial called Minecraft: Hero’s Journey. Available at Code.org/Minecraft today, Hero’s Journey introduces a fun character called the Agent and 12 new challenges that teach core coding concepts like loops, debugging, and functions. It’s free and playable across iOS, Android and Windows platforms. Upon completing the tutorial, students can import their code into Minecraft: Education Edition for the first time ever, bringing their work to life in the game, or share their work via email, text message or social media. Learn more about the tutorial at education.minecraft.net/hour-of-code, and read more about today’s news over at the Education Blog! The post Minecraft: Education Edition reaches a milestone of two million users and releases new Hour of Code tutorial appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/22e1f7685896ff2bb99e34d738bc7419.jpg Students try out an early preview of the new Minecraft Tutorial at the Skyway Boys & Girls Club, in Skyway, Washington, on Oct. 16, 2017. In a few weeks, people around the world will celebrate Computer Science Education Week. Millions of kids and others will participate in an Hour of Code, a global call to action to spend an hour learning the basics of coding. Today, it’s my privilege to announce that Microsoft has released a new Minecraft tutorial for Hour of Code, called Hero’s Journey, that will be used in classrooms, at after-school programs, community centers and homes everywhere. The tutorial uses game elements loved by so many young people, and introduces a fun character called the Agent, to present computer science concepts in a fun and creative way. Learn more in a post today by Deirdre Quarnstrom, Minecraft Education general manager, and start planning your Hour of Code. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/1d70ed17cc86e1afd5eab8a7c7a5d9a9.jpg The Agent from Microsoft and Code.org’s new Minecraft Hour of Code tutorial. If you’re on the fence about whether you should join this global movement, consider a 2015 study by Gallup that shows how far we still have to go when it comes to helping everyone, including parents and teachers, understand the definition of “computer science.” The study found that “while most students, parents, teachers and school principals surveyed correctly identified ‘creating new software’ and ‘programming and coding’ as computer science activities, many also incorrectly identified ‘creating documents or presentations’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘searching the Internet’ as part of computer science.” This gap of understanding about what computer science and coding enables threatens our ability to dream big. We need to break down those barriers to help more students appreciate the importance, versatility and creativity that define coding. Learning to think critically through coding is the single most important step students can take to prepare themselves to fully participate in, and benefit from, the digital economy. Few points drive this fact home better than one from a report by the World Economic Forum, which predicts that 65 percent of children who enter primary school today will work in completely new jobs that don’t currently exist. Among the study’s recommendations: the need for students to have technical skills to better adapt to our changing workplace. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ec00cec3b6e6c60bc7cbfa3264532913.jpg “Learning to think critically through coding is the single most important step students can take to prepare themselves to fully participate in, and benefit from, our increasingly digital economy,” writes Mary Snapp, vice president, Microsoft Philanthropies. This brings home an important reality: technology is transforming the economy at the speed of light, putting new demands on our workforce, and on the young people who will soon join that workforce. That’s why, for years, we’ve been engaged with schools, with nonprofits and with others to arm young people with the skills they need to thrive in an increasingly digital economy. It’s why we are working across the United States, and around the world, to help young people and adults become creators of technology, advance their careers and grow their local economies. Jean Yang, a computer scientist and blogger, writes that “computer science is the study of what machines can do for us.” It’s a great definition. And learning to code, which unlocks those things that computers – and technology as a whole – can do for us, is something that all of us can, and should, learn. Take that first step today. Here are a few ways you can do it: Try our new Minecraft Tutorial, and have a friend or family member join you. Share the code you have written on social media. Access a robust set Hour of Code of learning opportunities compiled by Microsoft Philanthropies. You can also visit your local Microsoft Store for a hands-on experience. Starting today, all Microsoft Store locations will host a free Computer Science for Everyone workshop series for educators and parents at all coding levels who want to learn new coding skills, understand why computer science is critical for students and how to lead their own Hour of Code. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/0d601144ea4cb0f367fafc12896402b1.jpg Students learn coding skills at a free Hour of Code workshop at the Microsoft Store at Westfield Century City in Los Angeles on July 20, 2017. Sign up today for Hour of Code workshops, including the new Minecraft tutorial, by visiting your local Microsoft Store. Microsoft Stores will also host free Hour of Code workshops during Computer Science Education Week, featuring the new Minecraft tutorial for those who want to join in the global movement with family or friends. Let’s work together to ensure that every young person has their eyes opened to the endless possibilities before them, unlocked by taking that first step, through an entertaining and enlightening Hour of Code. The post Hour of Code 2017: Unlock an exciting new world by taking a ‘Hero’s Journey’ appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/5fbfe83a5df48411527c197798286584.jpg What is Spatial Sound? Imagine watching a movie or playing a game and hearing helicopters not only fly around you, but also fly directly over you. With spatial sound you can! Spatial sound is an enhanced immersive audio experience where sounds can flow around you, including overhead, in three-dimensional virtual space. Spatial sound provides an enhanced atmosphere which traditional surround sound formats cannot. With spatial sound, all your movies and games will sound better. Some games, movies, and shows can natively support spatial sound – which provides the highest level of audio immersion and location accuracy. Otherwise, any traditional surround sound content is automatically upscaled to also provide an enhanced audio experience. What spatial sound formats does Windows support? You can choose from three different spatial sound providers to hear the benefits: Windows Sonic for Headphones, Dolby Atmos for Headphones, and Dolby Atmos for home theater.* Windows Sonic for Headphones can be used with any headphones, earbuds or headsets, and makes all your movies and games sound more immersive and enables games to place audio with pinpoint accuracy. Dolby Atmos brings Dolby’s premium cinema experience to your home or to your device on the go. Dolby Atmos can be experienced over headphones or through your Dolby Atmos enabled home theater system, sound bar, or TV. With Dolby Atmos, you’ll be able to experience powerfully immersive and emotive audio in many of today’s blockbuster movies. Games that take advantage of Dolby Atmos provide new ways to heighten the experience for gamers with stunning detail, precision, and realism. How do I get Windows Sonic for Headphones or Dolby Atmos? Windows Sonic for Headphones is available out of the box as part of Windows 10. Simply follow the instructions below to enable it. To enable Dolby Atmos, just download the Dolby Access app, available for free in the Microsoft Store. You can then enjoy your Dolby Atmos enabled home theater system, sound bar, or TV for free. To enable Dolby Atmos for Headphones, you can purchase it through the Dolby Access app for $14.99, which activates it on up to 10 devices (including Xbox One). How do I enable Windows Sonic for Headphones or Dolby Atmos on my PC? To enable spatial sound on your Windows 10 PC: Plug your headphones or Dolby Atmos capable audio-video receiver via HDMI to your PC. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/2f8a66fa5d31cf0afc4adf69adcf77bc.gif Right click on the volume icon in the Task Tray, highlight the spatial sound provider you’d like to use. (Note: If you choose Dolby Atmos for Headphones or Dolby Atmos for Home Theater, you will be taken to the store to download the free Dolby Access From there you can follow the instructions to try or buy Dolby Atmos for Headphones or enable Dolby Atmos for Home Theater.) Start your favorite movie or game and enjoy! *Available on select Windows 10 PCs running the Windows 10 Creators Update or higher. The post Windows 10 Tip: Make your movies and games sound better with Windows Sonic appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ad58e7dd8b3da13fffae640a9a3a3515.jpg It’s one of my favorite times of the year and this holiday, I’m looking forward to welcoming my sons home from college, enjoying time with my daughter, and watching a lot of football. Of course, it’s also a great time to celebrate loved ones with incredible gifts and Microsoft has some great options – from the must-have Xbox One X or amazing value of the Xbox One S, to positively reviewed Surface devices, to cutting-edge technology like Windows Mixed Reality headsets. With Black Friday just around the corner, Microsoft Store and our partners are offering some great deals on my favorite tech, there’s something great for everyone on your list. Here’s a sneak peek into the hottest deals you can enjoy starting next weekend through Cyber Monday at Microsoft Store and Microsoft.com. You can check out more deals here. Save up to $329 on new Surface bundles https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/13242bf796487f573f52fa79243b7fb3.jpg Described as a “killer device” and “near perfection” by top reviewers, the new Surface Pro is a beautiful ultra-light, versatile and powerful device. If you have a loved one looking for uncompromising mobility and productivity so they can create, study, work or play anywhere, the Surface Pro is the ideal gift. You can take advantage of our best deal ever for the new Surface Pro – $329 off the Surface Pro i5 256GB and $229 off the Surface Pro i5 128GB. Both Surface Pro options feature all-day battery life, a stunning PixelSense display, and a lighter-than-ever-feel, both bundled with the Black Type Cover. You can also add Office 365 Home for $79.99 and save 20%. Save $199 with the purchase of Surface Laptop and the new Harmon Kardon Invoke speaker https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/7ca1a40207afdad114b535f330fba47b.jpg From November 23 – 27, you can purchase Surface Laptop (either i5 256GB or i7) with the Harman Kardon Invoke voice-activated speaker and save $199.95. Surface Laptop blends portability and performance with impeccable design, and the Harman Kardon Invoke speaker delivers premium sound, the intelligence of Cortana, Skype calling, and more – all hands-free. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/6f403140653bddf6080d097fcec6d985.jpg Cortana works across both devices, helping you get things done so you can focus on what matters. Invoke will also be available at a discounted price of $99 from November 23 – 27.* Get Xbox One S at its lowest price ever, starting at just $189 https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/dc1c22eda69091d2dff462bb9e8a02f3.jpg From November 23 – 27, gamers can get incredible deals on a variety of Xbox One consoles, games, and accessories, including Xbox One S at its lowest price ever, starting at just $189. Xbox One S offers the best value in games and entertainment, with over 1,300 games including blockbusters, popular franchises, and more than 220 Xbox One exclusives. With Xbox One S, you can play with friends on Xbox Live – the fastest, most reliable gaming network – and enjoy built-in 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and 4K video streaming. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/71fdfb644dc854649cd784f48f045979.jpg You can also save $50 off Xbox One S 1TB and 500GB bundles, which include a console, game, and additional bonuses like Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold subscriptions. Blockbuster games like Forza Motorsport 7, Gears of War 4, Halo Wars 2, and Forza Horizon 3 are each $20 off and you can save $20 on Xbox Wireless Controllers, $15 on Stereo Headsets, and $10 on 3-month or 6-month Xbox Live Gold subscriptions. Save up to $100 on Windows Mixed Reality headsets https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/af038baf95671c9207fb47a0e527fcb6.jpg With Windows Mixed Reality, you can escape to the most immersive experiences – touring top travel destinations, getting inside the most exciting games, attending the most popular events, even traveling across time and space – right in your own home, with you at the center of everything. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/4d42aef3d3350dabeee95cd5171b5ec8.jpg Available for the first time this holiday, you can save up to $100 on Windows Mixed Reality Headsets from our partners Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung and savings up to $249 on PC bundles from Acer, Dell, and HP. Try them out and experience mixed reality at your local Microsoft Store. Upgrade to a new Windows 10 PC with savings of up to $300 off Looking for a new PC? Save up to $300 this holiday when you purchase a new Windows 10 PC that lights up the recently released Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. The Fall Creators Update brings mixed reality and 3D to the masses, faster broadcasting for gaming, features to turn photos and videos into real memories, and much more. Additional Black Friday deals from our partners include: Save up to $150 on the Acer Aspire 1 and Aspire 3 laptops starting November 24 at Acer.com. Save up to $100 on ASUS Transformer Book Flip 2-in-1, TP200 at ASUS.com/US. Save on PCs from Dell, like the Alienware 17 Laptop available for $1599.99, the Dell Inspiron 14 3000 for only $129.99, or the Dell Latitude 3580 for just $579. The deals start November 15 and roll into Black Friday at Dell.com/BlackFriday and Dell.com/sbblackfriday. Save $230 on the HP Pavilion 15 x360, or $200 on the HP 15” Notebook. Save on great Lenovo devices like the Yoga 720 for $729.99, the Legion Y520 for $749.99, and the Yoga 910 Star Wars Glass for only $999.99. Check out these and other great deals starting on November 20 on Lenovo’s website. Save on Samsung devices this Black Friday with Galaxy Books starting at $529.99 November 17 – 27, and All-in-One PCs November 19 – 25 at Samsung.com and other retailers. Visit Microsoft Store for great deals https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/4a9879d3cc47e92ccc4a6deb6a752a22.jpg I encourage you to visit Microsoft Store for your holiday shopping. Whether you’re looking for the perfect gift at any price, picking up a purchase you made online, or just experiencing the best of Microsoft from Surface to Xbox to Windows Mixed Reality – Microsoft Store has you covered. Check out free demonstrations of virtual reality and Windows Mixed Reality. Experience true 4K gaming on Xbox One X. Encourage STEM with top products like Lego Boost ($149.95) or littleBits Gizmos & Gadgets Kit ($79.95), or Minecraft Super Plus Pack ($39.99). Celebrate design with Marimekko patterned sleeves ($75) and skins ($39), or Surface Arc Mouse ($79.99). Microsoft Stores nationwide will offer the first people in line before the doors open on November 24 a chance to win an Xbox One X.** Get hands-on with the latest technology and join free, in-store activities in a fun, learning environment. Create holiday cards, learn how to paint, scan or play in 3D or build a Minecraft Holiday Village. Happy shopping! Yusuf Visit your local Microsoft Store, Microsoft.com or any of our retail partners for more details on availability and pricing. Offers valid for a limited time, while supplies last. Not valid on prior orders or purchases; cannot be transferred or otherwise redeemed for cash or coupon code(s). May not be combinable with other offers. Refunds will take into account the discount. Price discount does not include taxes, shipping or other fees. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. Microsoft reserves the right to modify or discontinue offers at any time. Other exclusions and limits may apply. *Setup requires the Cortana app for Windows 10 PC or phone, Android or iPhone and signing in with a Microsoft Account (requires Android version 4.1.2 or higher, or iPhone 4 with iOS 8.0 or higher). Must accept Cortana Terms of Use. Works with select music services (paid subscriptions may be required). Works with select home automation providers. Must accept Skype terms of use. Skype credit required for calls to mobile phones and landlines. Visit microsoft.com/en-us/cortana for all product features and compatible services. Cortana experience may vary by device. Wi-fi required. **No Purchase Necessary. Open only to legal residents of the 50 U.S.+ DC, Puerto Rico, or Canada (excluding Quebec) who visit a Microsoft Retail Store beginning on November 23 or 24 (check your store’s Black Friday hours for opening times). One winner will be drawn 15 minutes after opening at each store. Must be present to win. For Official Rules, see a store associate. The post Announcing the top Black Friday deals from Microsoft and our partners appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of This Week on Windows! It’s been a major week for us this week with pre-order for Surface Book 2 now open, the launch of the world’s most powerful console – Xbox One X – and the availability of the Samsung HMD Odyssey and Super Lucky’s Tale. Head over here to learn more about the Windows 10 Tip in this week’s episode on how to pin your favorite websites to the taskbar with Microsoft Edge, check out the HP Spectre 13, powered by Windows 10 – or, keep reading for more of this week’s news! In case you missed it: Surface Book 2 available today for pre-order Surface Book 2 is available today for pre-order with delivery beginning Nov. 16. Surface Book 2 removes the barrier between the desktop and the laptop by giving mobile professionals the power of a desktop, the versatility of a tablet, and the freedom of a laptop in one beautifully designed device. With the latest 8th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 and 1060 discrete graphics options, Surface Book 2 is up to five times more powerful than the original and is twice as powerful as the latest MacBook Pro. All this power and Surface Book 2 still provides all-day battery life – up to 17 hours of video playback. Surface Book 2 with the 13” weighs 3.38lbs and the 15” Surface Book 2 is 4.2lbs. The detachable display and hinge of Surface Book 2 has been redesigned to provide a smoother, faster detach into Tablet or Studio Mode – and when you detach to sketch an idea or watch a video, the Surface Book 2 turns into the world’s thinnest and lightest 8th Gen Intel Core i7 PC. Surface Book 2 brings you a full array of ports, including USB-A, USB-C, and full-size SD card reader which makes it easy to connect other devices, accessories and memory cards without the need for a bag full of dongles. Surface Book 2 13” is available for pre-order today in the United States and additional markets around the world, along with Surface Book 2 15” in the United States at your local Microsoft Store and Microsoft.com. Delivery will begin on Nov. 16. To learn more about Surface Book 2, please visit this blog post. The world’s most powerful console, Xbox One X, launches worldwide https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/08871e08d983b35da0ec9bf4ab4d12b7.jpg The official launch of the world’s most powerful console, Xbox One X, brings a new era of immersive 4K gaming and 4K entertainment to gamers across the globe. With 40 percent more power than any other console, Xbox One X is where console gamers can play the best versions of games. The new console launches with the largest games lineup in Xbox history, with more than 70 Xbox One X Enhanced titles coming in the first week and more than 50 available on launch day, including Forza Motorsport 7, Super Lucky’s Tale, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, and FIFA 18. The Xbox One games library consists of more than 1,300 games and more than 220 exclusives, all of which play best on Xbox One X. More titles are on the way like the hottest game on the planet PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, releasing as an Xbox One console launch exclusive Dec. 12, 2017. The power of Xbox One X Xbox One X is built for true 4K gaming, with enough power to drive native 4K resolutions, High Dynamic Range and Wide Color Gamut into a pristine visual package beyond what’s capable in existing consoles. Existing Xbox One games play even better, with improved textures, smoother frame rates and faster load times, even on a 1080p TV. Xbox One X is also the only product in the world that packs all of the following features in one amazing device: 4K gaming for the world’s greatest games, a built-in 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, 4K streaming capabilities, High Dynamic Range support for gaming and video, and premium audio that puts gamers in the center of spatial sound with Dolby Atmos support. The craftsmanship in the Xbox One X hardware means it’s not only the world’s most powerful console, it’s also the smallest and most feature-rich Xbox ever. For the latest on where to buy Xbox One X, visit xbox.com/xboxonex. You can also head to your local retailer, including Microsoft Store, for more information. Read more over at Xbox Wire! Samsung HMD Odyssey is now available https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/a9822e41bb8cd8e970167dcaf85d5511.png The Samsung HMD Odyssey is now available for purchase. The Samsung HMD Odyssey provides a remarkable immersive experience with Dual AMOLED high-resolution displays, a 110-degree field of view, built-in premium AKG headphones, and built-in 6 DOF inside-out position tracking. The device is quick and easy to set up and delivers a premium virtual reality experience with superior picture quality. You can buy the Samsung HMD Odyssey today from the Microsoft Store. Here’s what’s new in the Microsoft Store: Super Lucky’s Tale Super Lucky’s Tale ($29.99) is a delightful, playground platformer for all ages that follows Lucky, the ever-optimistic, energetic, and lovable hero, on his quest to find his inner strength and help his sister rescue the Book of Ages from Jinx. Dive into unpredictable foxholes, or try devilish side scrolling challenge levels to unlock additional rewards. Read more about Super Lucky’s Tale over at Xbox Wire! Forza Motorsport 7: Samsung QLED TV Car Pack Arriving today for #Forza7, the @Samsung QLED Car Pack features an incredible variety of vehicles. Check out the trailer! pic.twitter.com/lhiLI1YRav — Forza Motorsport (@ForzaMotorsport) November 7, 2017 The first of the monthly DLC releases for Forza Motorsport 7, the Samsung QLED TV Car Pack ($6.99) includes 7 new cars for $6.99. In true Forza fashion, this pack features an incredible variety of vehicles – from the latest Alfa Romeo to Nissan’s famous Bluebird Super Silhouette race car, as well a couple of rough-and-ready off-roaders. Have a great weekend! The post This Week on Windows: Surface Book 2 now available for pre-order, Xbox One X launch, Samsung HMD Odyssey availability and more appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders! Today, we are releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17035 for PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring and for those who opted in to Skip Ahead. PLEASE NOTE: Due to a bug that causes PCs with AMD processors to bugcheck during upgrading to current builds, we are blocking PCs with AMD processors from receiving this build. We are investigating and working to fix so we can remove this block. What’s new in Build 17035 Microsoft Edge Improvements Mute-a-Tab! This build introduces a new experience for muting a tab playing audio. The audio icon that displays when a tab is playing media is now clickable and will mute the audio streams that tab is playing when clicked. The tabs audio will unmute when clicked again. This feature is also available from the context menu via the right click action on the tab. Thanks everyone who shared feedback requesting this! Have an opinion on what we should implement next? Please log feedback! https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ac8a13aeb6238f2fe57c21743abc4522.png Save free EPUB books: If you’re reading a free EPUB book from the web in Microsoft Edge and want to save it, you can now do that. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/62403b0932d65fee26b359a6f96aac4e.png New context menu options for books: For your convenience, we’ve added a few new options when you right-click books in the Book pane, including View in Microsoft Store, Pin to Start, and Refresh books. Remove from here has been renamed Remove from device. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ff557df5b2cd74be48ad5dd3de9d9aa9.png Introducing Near Share Say you’re in a meeting with your boss and need to quickly send them the report you’re looking at on your screen? Or you and a sibling are hanging out on the couch using your laptops, and you want to send him a screenshot of your latest Minecraft creation? You can now wirelessly share files and URLs to nearby PCs using the new Near Share feature. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/7d1d6f974c2de3eaf7d4bf6739923921.png So how do you use it? If your PC supports Bluetooth: Ensure that Near Share is turned on for your PC (and the PC you are trying to Share with – that means both PCs will need to be on RS4 Build 17035+) – there’s a new quick action in the Action Center that will need to be set to ON. If the quick action isn’t immediately visible and your PC has Bluetooth, check if it’s enabled under Settings > Notifications & Actions > “Add or remove quick actions”. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/e34507628dd980b87a421c3ec305d017.png Look for the Share icon in any of your favorite apps – e.g. Photos, Microsoft Edge, and or even File Explorer (right-click a file and choose Share). Click on Share! You will now see a list of devices at the top – select the one you want to share to, any nearby PCs in Bluetooth range with the feature enabled should show up. Once the recipient accepts (they will get a notification via Action Center to accept or decline), watch your file magically transfer wirelessly! Shop Surface hardware using the Microsoft Store app Navigate to this page in the Store: http://aka.ms/ShopSurfaceOnWin10. This feature is available on Windows 10 PCs running version 11709.1001.7 or newer version of the Store app. Try it out and make sure to do this quest! Note: Currently only available for U.S., U.K. and Australia markets, and looking to expand to more markets soon. Settings Improvements Windows Update Improvements: You can now limit the download bandwidth that is used in foreground downloads. Foreground downloads take place when you interactively start a download, for example – you click on “Check for updates” or start downloading an App from Windows Store. Sound Settings are moving to Settings: You can now change some of your common sound settings, such as switching devices and troubleshooting, in Settings > System > Sound. Head on over for a preview of how sound settings are moving out of the legacy Control Panel and into the Settings app. We still have some things to add and fix on this page, so stay tuned! Updated Ease of Access Settings: This build adds additional Ease of Access settings to further round out the revamping of settings which flighted for the first time with Build 17025. New sections on Display, Audio, Speech Recognition and Eye control (beta) have been added to group related settings. (NOTE: Eye control settings are not yet in this flight but coming soon.) https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/b3358ba5fec82161e9a140a3ddda10f3.png Also updated were Narrator settings to include a setting to control verbosity of text characteristics. And the layout in Color filters settings has been revised to provide filter descriptions. Touch keyboard Improvements Now with Acrylic! With this build we’ve updated the touch keyboard to now have an acrylic background. This change is reflected in all keyboard layouts hosted in the XAML touch keyboard, including the wide layout, the one-handed layout, and the handwriting panel. Thanks everyone who logged feedback about this! https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/473c75670abfb3e5c6684e4ad3386e16.png The standard touch keyboard layout option comes to 190+ more keyboards: We’ve been hard at work addressing your feedback, and we’re happy to announce the touch keyboard now supports the standard keyboard layout for all languages except Korean, Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese (which we’re still working on). If you want to switch between wide, onehanded, and the standard touch keyboard layouts, just tap the button in the top left of the keyboard. This includes adding the standard keyboard layout to the following keyboards and more: English (United Kingdom), Irish, Czech, Danish, Greek, Canadian French, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Latvian, Dutch, and Polish. More details about touch keyboard usage here if you need it. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/f34a3374287003c24e92adf52f0378a1.png Handwriting panel Improvements Streamlined text insertion: In this release, we’ve added some slick new animations and changed the button layout of the handwriting panel based on your feedback. Ink some words in the panel and watch them appear in your selected text field! https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/110054c006b0f6bee81f37d16f86e5a1.gif Improved re-recognition of words: Write a letter on top of another, and the handwriting panel will recognize your corrections more accurately than ever before. Use a gesture to create more space between words: Draw a “split” gesture between two words in the handwriting panel by drawing a vertical line between them. More space will be created where you drew the line so that you can write more in the newly-created space. As a reminder you can also draw a split gesture inside a word to break apart the word and ink more characters in the new space. Japanese Input Method Editor (IME) Improvements Text suggestions from AI chatbot Rinna: Microsoft AI chatbot Rinna has more than 6 million friends (users) on LINE, which is the most popular messaging service in Japan. Starting with Build 17030, the Japanese IME can now leverage her strong communication skills to suggest possible phrases as you’re typing. Her suggestions are indicated by a Rinna icon next to the candidate. This feature is off by default, however you can enable it in the Japanese IME settings (right-click the IME mode icon “A” or “あ” in systray, select “Properties”, then “Advanced” – on the “Predictive Input” tab you will find a new checkbox to enabled “Rinna – AI Chatbot” under Suggestion Providers). Please try it out and share your feedback! https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/46c7c575f6debedf61d0f180f039374d.png Bringing inclusive design to the hardware keyboard We’re introducing the ability to see text suggestions while typing on a hardware keyboard. You can see three text suggestions near caret while typing and choose candidates in text suggestions if you find a word you want to insert. Set focus to the first suggestion by tapping the up arrow key on your keyboard and using the left/right arrow keys to change focus. To select the desired candidate, tap space or enter. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/6df7624e8d0640713e940ae95dc70af2.png This is an opt-in feature targeting English language learners, education and accessibility. We only support en-US at this time. To enable the feature, make sure English (United States) language is added in Settings > Time & languages > Region & languages, then set this feature to On by enabling the “Show text suggestions as I type on hardware keyboard” setting under Settings > Devices > Typing. General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC ATTENTION DEVELOPERS: We fixed an issue from the previous flight where launching an app with a debugger attached caused it hang at the splash screen. Debugging UWPs now works again. When the default location is set on your home or office PC, Cortana now knows to show you location-based reminders in the area on your PC. Your default location can be set in the Maps app. We’ve updated Cortana Collections to now support light theme. We’re making some changes to the Data Usage settings page under Settings > Network & Internet — you’ll notice some differences in this build. Not everything is working so stay tuned for an announcement in a later flight when everything is up and running. We fixed an issue where some Store download errors were unexpectedly displaying on the Windows Update history page. We’ve updated the Action Center to now use Fluent Design’s Reveal. You’ll also notice we’ve updated “Clear all” to now say “Clear all notifications” to improve discoverability. We fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to swipe to clear notifications from the Action Center in the last few flights. We fixed an issue where dismissing an alarm notification above lock resulting in the alarm sound continuing to play despite being dismissed. We fixed an issue where after uninstalling an app, its pinned tile might still exist on the Start Menu. We fixed an issue where after connecting via Remote Desktop the first local launch of Start menu would show Start briefly clipped to the top half before animating in the bottom. We fixed an issue where after upgrading the Start Menu might contain multiple listings of apps with only the name “NoUIEntryPoints-DesignMode” and a grey tile. We fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to rename files in File Explorer when using the Small Icons view. We fixed an issue where using the File Picker from a UWP app would show an error saying “multiple selections aren’t allowed” when attempting to pick multiple images from a phone connected to the PC via USB. We fixed an issue resulting in “Occasionally show suggestions in Start” being reset after upgrading. We fixed an issue resulting in a drop in Start menu reliability in the last two flights. We fixed an issue where notifications with progress bars wouldn’t update while the Action Center was open. We fixed an issue where valid characters in the touch keyboard were unexpectedly disabled in password fields for certain keyboards. We fixed an issue where you couldn’t switch to alpha mode when using the touch keyboard using a third party Japanese IME since the key wasn’t available. We fixed an issue where the input indicator state wouldn’t be preserved across reboot if set to something other than the default value. We fixed an issue resulting in the touch keyboard coming up unexpectedly after setting focus to Start when in tablet mode. We fixed an issue resulting in ink strokes in OneNote sometimes unexpectedly changing thickness after interacting with buttons in the app. We fixed an issue resulting in the touch keyboard not coming up in certain text fields with the keyboard docked in tablet mode. We fixed an issue where words would sometimes get duplicated when using the handwriting panel in certain apps. We fixed an issue resulting in screen flickering in the last flight after bringing up the game bar, volume slider or other on-screen UI when playing fullscreen DirectX9 games. We fixed an issue resulting in Forza Horizon 3 unexpectedly failing to run with an “unsupported graphics card” error on some laptop configurations. We fixed an issue where pressing Shift + Del while editing the URL of a favorite would delete the favorite entry instead of performing a Cut action. We fixed an issue from the previous flight where changes made to About:flags in Microsoft Edge wouldn’t persist. Known issues If you are experiencing broken functionality in Mail, Cortana, Narrator or missing some features like Windows Media Player, please see this Feedback Hub post: https://aka.ms/Rsrjqn. There’s a noticeable screen flicker when using hotkeys or the touchpad to switch between Virtual Desktops. You might notice checkboxes missing from certain Win32 apps. We’re investigating. No downtime for Hustle-As-A-Service, Dona <3 The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17035 for PC appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

The Lucky’s Tale series is a diary of sorts for our development team. The original Lucky’s Tale, both our first platformer and first experience with virtual reality, was very challenging for us, but we couldn’t wait to return to that world and those characters to tell even more of their story. We learned a lot about who Lucky is – a brave, curious fox who loves adventure and making people smile. For Super Lucky’s Tale, we wanted to expand on the language of the first game without losing the simple pick-up-and-play control scheme that keeps the game both accessible and engaging. We’ve introduced the nefarious Jinx and his Kitty Litter, created a whole new cast of silly characters, and expanded on Lucky’s backstory by introducing his older sister, Lyra, and their stewardship as guardians of The Book of Ages. I hope that you have as much fun playing the game as we had making it. We’d love to hear from you! We really mean it, too – don’t hesitate to share your thoughts on Twitter (@PlayfulLucky), our Facebook page, or even an email (feedback@playfulcorp.com). Thank you for playing! The post Super Lucky’s Tale is here! appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

With the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, you can access your saved files in OneDrive just like any other file on your PC without filling up your disk space. Easily tell which files are available online only or offline. Online-only files download on demand with a double-click, and you can make them online only again to free up space – or, you can select files to always be available offline. When you turn on Files On-Demand, you’ll see all your files in File Explorer and get new information about each file. New files created online or on another device appear as online-only files, which don’t take up space on your device. When you’re connected to the Internet, you’ll be able to use the files like every other file on your device. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/1a57d07509569f560752bd47579f9b58.gif Here’s how to turn on Files On-Demand: Make sure you’re signed into OneDrive on your device. Right-click the OneDrive cloud icon in the notification area, at the far right of the taskbar, and select Settings – or, select Start, and search for OneDrive. On the Settings tab, select the Save space and download files as you use them box. Make a file online-only to save space, and make a file always available offline so it’s always with you: https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/c62de526b34b8b7a9cc405eeabb442b0.gif Right-click a file or folder, and select Always keep on this device or Free up space. Head over here to learn more about OneDrive Files On-Demand and how to enable it, or here for how to get the Fall Creators Update. Have a great week! The post Windows 10 Tip: Save disk space with OneDrive Files On-Demand appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of This Week on Windows! Head over here to read more about our news out of Future Decoded, get started with two new extensions now available for Microsoft Edge – 1password and Dashlane – and check out our Windows 10 Tips on how to export your Minecraft creations to Remix3D.com, and how to pin your favorite websites to the taskbar with Microsoft Edge! In case you missed it: Playful fun abounds in the Super Lucky’s Tale launch trailer Today over at Xbox Wire, we revealed the launch trailer for Super Lucky’s Tale! The video starts by introducing the game’s larger-than-life characters. There’s Lucky, of course, but also Jinx and his mischievous children, collectively known as the Kitty Litter. Early in the game, Jinx steals a mysterious artifact called the Book of Ages, inside of which are entire wondrous worlds and charming creatures who are no match for the Litter. It’s up to you and Lucky, a brave little fox with heroic aspirations, to thwart their wiles and save the day. On Nov. 7, dive headlong into a world of adventure when Super Lucky’s Tale releases exclusively for the Xbox One family of devices and Windows 10 PC. Plus, as an Xbox Play Anywhere title, you can pick up where you left off on another Xbox One device or Windows 10 PC, sharing all saved progress, Gamerscore and Achievements across platforms. Classic platforming gameplay, playful puzzles, colorful characters and action-packed challenges take center stage in a nostalgic tale the whole family will enjoy. It’s time to be a hero, so put on your cape, grab your controller and get ready to leap into Super Lucky’s Tale. Read more over at Xbox Wire! Ford Performance and Xbox collaborate on custom F-150 Raptor to appear at SEMA and in Forza Motorsport 7 https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/779343402eb5de8362d5365506e46284.jpg In celebration of the Nov. 7 launch of the Xbox One X, Ford Performance and Xbox have teamed up to create a specially-modified Xbox One X version of the new F-150 Raptor which will be showcased this week at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas. In addition, early next year, this version of the F-150 Raptor will be available for free to Forza Motorsport 7 players within the game. The 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor Xbox One X Edition boasts unique graphics, paint, and upholstery inspired by the console’s internal code name, “Project Scorpio,” as well as the Raptor’s desert racing heritage. Custom wheels, bumpers, chase rack and LED lighting in Xbox’s signature green complete the look. Performance-enhancing modifications include a Fabtech six-inch lift kit, upgraded Alcon brakes, Addictive Desert Designs intercooler and Ford Performance Borla exhaust. The partnership between Ford and Forza goes back over a dozen years to the first Forza Motorsport and the original Xbox. Today, Forza features more Ford vehicles than any other video game, with the Fiesta ST, Focus RS, Mustang GT 350, F-150 Raptor and Ford GT each making their video game debut in the Forza series, the latter two as cover cars. Forza Motorsport 7 is currently available as an Xbox Play Anywhere title (Xbox One and Windows 10 PC versions included with a single digital purchase at no additional cost) and is releasing on the Xbox One X on November 7 when players will be able to experience it in native 4K and HDR at 60FPS. The 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor Xbox One X Edition will be available early next year in “Forza Motorsport 7” for Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. Read more about today’s news over at Xbox Wire. Have a great weekend! The post This Week on Windows: Super Lucky’s Tale launch trailer reveal, a Microsoft Edge tip and more appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

With the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, you can pin your favorite websites to the taskbar and have the icon show up in the taskbar for instant access. Here’s how to get started: https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/1be0b53b880dd96554fc6f25bce0116a.gif Simply head to the menu, select “Pin this page to the taskbar,” and watch the site icon appear on your Windows taskbar! Head over here to read more about all the new features in the Fall Creators Update, and have a great week! The post Windows 10 Tip: How to pin your favorite websites to the taskbar with Microsoft Edge appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Today, Microsoft announced its first quarter earnings. One big takeaway is that we exceeded our goal to meet a $20 billion in commercial cloud annualized revenue run rate. This exciting milestone represents our continued delivery of new cloud technologies and our customers’ digital innovation. Across major industries — from finance and energy sector to retail and professional sports — organizations are betting on Microsoft to help them transform their customers’ experiences, employee productivity, operations and products. In fact, 96 percent of Fortune 500 companies have at least one of our cloud offerings, and 90 percent have at least two. I will share some of the product news and customer stories. Last quarter, we shipped a range of cloud infrastructure and applications to give customers the foundation for new digital services. Our hybrid cloud solution, Azure Stack, is now available through hardware partners to help companies realize the benefits of an “intelligent cloud, intelligent edge.” We also introduced Azure Confidential Computing, an industry-first advancement in cloud security. Our differentiated hybrid cloud approach addresses the real-world needs of customers and is a key reason they are choosing to partner with Microsoft. During the same period, Bank of America selected Azure for its tech infrastructure modernization and business transformation, including a goal to deliver 80 percent of its workloads in the cloud in the next few years. Also in financial services, TD Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation are using Azure and its data services to improve customer experiences. And the largest security technology company, Symantec, runs Norton security on Azure to help protect 50 million people, a key part of its hybrid cloud strategy. From oil and gas to healthcare, industry leaders are choosing Azure. BP chose Azure to power its proprietary data lake to make better business decisions. Schlumberger’s new DrillPlan digital well construction solution relies on Azure and the Azure Stack, as well as Office 365 and Microsoft Teams. And, Haliburton’s DecisionSpace 365 digitizes the oil field with IoT on Azure. This week, we announced an alliance with PAREXEL, a leading biopharmaceutical services organization, to drive transformation in the life sciences industry powered by Azure technology. Together we’re aiming to accelerate the drug development process, reducing the time it takes to bring therapies to market and into the hands of patients. Microsoft continues to invest in data and AI solutions that help customers convert raw information into insights and intelligent services. The new generation of Azure Machine Learning makes it easy to develop, experiment and deploy AI models on any data, at any scale. The new SQL Server 2017 is a hybrid cloud database for a company’s most important apps, with built-in AI and world-class security. Steelcase is using Azure IoT to develop Steelcase Workplace Advisor and the Steelcase Personal Assistant app, which help organizations create workplaces that respond to the needs of people while also optimizing real estate investments. Online fashion retailer ASOS is using our global database service, Azure CosmosDB, to better serve 15 million active customers with relevant product recommendations as it introduces 5,000 new products every week. Progressive, one of the largest auto and homeowner insurance carriers, is using Microsoft AI to build its Flo Chatbot and transform the insurance quoting process. And Huawei is delivering real-time translation on the new Mate 10 series device using Microsoft Translator running on our Cognitive Services. We are infusing AI into all our products, and this last quarter we announced Dynamics 365 AI solutions —part of our focus on business applications that modernize work processes. The first solution, already in use at HP Inc., includes an intelligent virtual agent for customer care and service. And across the board, customers of all stripes are adopting Dynamics 365 to reinvent how they do business, from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to the Seattle Seahawks. Our hometown football team is all in with Microsoft’s Cloud, Dynamics 365 and devices throughout its organization. Fostering the modern workplace is a top priority as well. We want to empower everyone to be more creative and collaborative with Office 365, Windows 10 and security technology. In the first quarter, we advanced this effort with the introduction of Microsoft 365 F1 for the world’s 2 billion first-line workers, as well as Microsoft 365 Education, including Minecraft, for students and teachers. From retail to automotive, we’re seeing companies leverage the power of our cloud to help their workforce collaborate. Lowe’s, a FORTUNE® 50 home improvement company, is creating a modern workplace for 260,000 employees and more personalized service in 2,200 stores, providing anytime access to productivity tools from any device, including Surface Hubs. Devon Energy, a Fortune 500 oil and natural gas exploration and production company, uses Microsoft 365 to connect field employees with engineers and petrochemical professionals a thousand miles away. The Coca-Cola Co., the world’s largest beverage company, has selected and will deploy Windows 10 to be the foundation to safeguard its business with intelligent security built-in to modernize end user IT management processes to reduce cost, and to empower and unlock the creativity of its global workforce. Canadian Imperial Bank Corporation is deploying Windows 10 as the foundation of its modern IT workplace. The move will help empower their employees, improve efficiency and modernize end-user technology management tools and processes. Ford designers are using mixed reality to blend 3D holograms digitally with both clay models and physical production vehicles, allowing them to experiment and iterate on design much more quickly. I am inspired every day by how our customers are embracing digital transformation to create lasting value. At Microsoft, nothing is more important than the success of their transformation, which is why we are committed to partnering at every step of their digital journey. Judson The post The story behind Microsoft’s earnings: Our customers’ digital innovation in the cloud appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of This Week on Windows! Head over here to read more about the official launch of the Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco, the launch of the World’s Most Powerful Console – Xbox One X – our Windows 10 Tip on how you can bring your stories to life with the reimagined Photos app, or, keep reading for more of this week’s news! In case you missed it: Here’s what’s new in the Microsoft Store: Shocktober https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/5b6767f940bc439a387722f9a4c54b42.png Halloween is just around the corner, and Microsoft is getting into the spirit with its annual Shocktober collection of terrifying games, chilling entertainment and haunting apps for Windows 10 PCs. Each day will feature select heroes. Learn more about all the deals in this blog post! Atomic Blonde – Buy from $14.99 https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/0f7fe047a71e174d14fc1aec909b1736.jpg Charlize Theron stars in Atomic Blonde as an undercover MI6 agent sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate a murder and recover a priceless dossier. This gritty action thriller is available now in the Movies & TV section of the Microsoft Store, three weeks before it comes to Blu-ray. The Walking Dead – Buy Season 8 from $27.99 https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/d0060a01f95b728d50503b8ad418c4ef.jpg The wait is over! The Walking Dead (Season 8: $42.99 HD, $27.99 SD) returns for an eighth epic season as Rick and his friends prepare for brutal, all-out war with Negan. Watch the action-packed season premiere now, available in the Movies & TV section of the Microsoft Store. Have a great weekend! The post This Week on Windows: Shocktober, tips for using the reimaged Photos app and more appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders! Today, we are releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17025 for PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring and for those who opted in to Skip Ahead. REMINDER: Going forward, we plan to release new builds for RS4 from the RS_PRERELEASE branch to Insiders in the Fast ring and those who opted in to Skip Ahead at the same time. What’s new in Build 17025 Revamped Ease of Access Settings: This build adds new Ease of Access settings to make your device easier to use and fit your needs. We also grouped related settings together which help you see, hear or interact with your computer to assist in discovering settings more quickly. Additionally, we heard your feedback and improved setting descriptions to help you more easily understand the available accessibility features. Go to the Ease of Access section in Settings to see what’s available to make your computer easier to use! https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/4448795f19a9bb94f76a1e5614afe568.png Controlling your Startup tasks: Continuing our work from the previous flight, with today’s flight we’ve updated the Advanced options under Settings > Apps & Features so that UWP apps that are configured to run at startup will now have a new option to see all available tasks specified by the app developer and their status will now have a new option to see all available tasks specified by the app developer and their status. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/f4914e0a682dc6da10bf8855a6fe80ba.png Evolving the Microsoft Yahei Font: As our Insiders from China likely know, Microsoft Yahei is the font we use to display Windows UI text in the Chinese (Simplified) language. We’ve heard your feedback, and with this build we’re updating this font to improve the legibility, symmetry and appearance. Notable improvements include: We’ve added three additional weights for Microsoft Yahei: Semilight, Semibold and Heavy. The additional weights will be installed by default in ZH-CN builds, and available as an optional feature to download for non-ZH-CN builds. We’ve scaled the glyphs to improve inter-character spacing. This makes reading easier and increases character recognition. We’ve tuned the fonts with our new hinting algorithm so that the glyphs will be less jagged at small sizes. We’ve redesigned all punctuations and symbols in the new fonts per customer feedback. Here’s a sample of the updated font – the blue is the new version, the grey is an outline of the previous font: https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ade261d6516867831e61f16b5116dce5.png If you use this display language, we would really appreciate you keeping a close eye on how the display font looks with this build, and logging feedback to share your thoughts. General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC Continuing our effort towards Fluent Design, in this build you’ll notice that not only have we soften our light press effect based on your feedback, we’ve also enabled Reveal by default in CalendarView (seen, for example, in the Clock and Calendar flyout). UWP apps leveraging the Preview SDK for this build or higher will see this change automatically. We fixed the issue where if you RDP into a PC running this build with certain GPU configurations, when you go to sign in to the PC locally it will appear stuck at a black screen with only the cursor available. We fixed an issue resulting in the touch feedback appearing visually corrupted in the last flight, with strange artifacts rather than the expected circle. We fixed an issue resulting in UNC paths not being recognized when typed using the touch keyboard with the Japanese layout. To improve the speed in getting you where you want to go, when typing with the Japanese IME into Internet Explorer’s address bar or search box, you will now see the search suggestions dropdown while composing the string, rather than having to wait until the candidate string is committed. We fixed an issue where using an app in mini mode (for example Groove Music) would result in the taskbar appearing on top of a remote desktop session. We also fixed an issue where using Cortana to launch an app while playing a game fullscreen on another monitor could result in the taskbar drawing on top of the game. We fixed an issue resulting in not being able to scroll to the very bottom of Start using touch when in tablet mode on small devices. We fixed an issue where mouse input in Start might become offset. We fixed an issue where clean installing Windows while not connected to the internet might result in default Start tiles showing download arrows indefinitely rather than the expected image. We fixed an issue where right-clicking a folder already pinned to Start in File Explorer would still show the option “Pin to Start”. We fixed an issue where attempting to log into Windows using a VM with Enhanced Session Mode might result in being prompted for your password twice. We fixed an issue where toggling some DX9/DX10/DX11 games between windowed and fullscreen (for example using Alt + Tab) could result in the game window become black on certain PCs. We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders with x86 PCs experiencing a blue screen with a HAL INITIALIZATION FAILED error when upgrading to the previous flight. We fixed an issue where Insiders with restore points set might have experienced a volsnap.sys Green Screen error on boot. We fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Edge taking an unexpectedly long time to load the new page after clicking on certain links, appearing hung. We fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Edge being unexpectedly slow to respond when tabbing through controls with certain third party screen readers active. We fixed an issue where settings under Windows Update’s Delivery Optimization page were unexpectedly disabled in the last flight. We fixed an issue with the Courier New font where the numeral 2 was not displaying clearly on some display configurations. Improved the Yu Gothic Bold font focusing on consistent baseline alignment and clarity of various Kana characters. Known issues If you are experiencing broken functionality in Mail, Cortana, Narrator or missing some features like Windows Media Player, please see this Feedback Hub post: https://aka.ms/Rsrjqn. Using a swipe gesture with touch to dismiss notifications from the Action Center is currently not working. We’re investigating – for now you’ll need to use the clear all button, or use mouse/keyboard. There’s a noticeable screen flicker when using hotkeys or the touchpad to switch between Virtual Desktops. Invoking the Game bar with Win + G may cause the mouse cursor to become unresponsive while Game bar is up. Keyboard navigation still works and pressing Win + G again will close the Game bar, restoring the mouse cursor to the game. Calendar toast dismiss and snooze icons may be missing from notifications in Action Center. No downtime for Hustle-As-A-Service, Dona <3 The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17025 for PC appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

Earlier this month we talked about Microsoft’s vision for mixed reality and demonstrated Windows Mixed Reality experiences available this holiday. Our backdrop that day was the Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco, a community hub for creators and developers to come together, learn, collaborate, and help fuel the era of mixed reality. I am excited to announce the official launch of the Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco and the opening of Mixed Reality Capture Studios and the San Francisco Mixed Reality Academy. Create pioneering mixed reality experiences We are at the threshold of the next revolution in computing. Microsoft is passionately committed to mixed reality. The possibilities are limitless, and the future will unfold with the energy, ingenuity, and passion of the community. Together, we are on a once in a lifetime journey. To help fuel this opportunity, we are expanding our investment in technologies that enable the broader ecosystem to create for mixed reality worldwide. Our goal is to reach and support partners, creative agencies, studios, application developers, and others to help them create the most immersive mixed reality content possible. The Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco, located at 680 Folsom in SOMA, will serve as the flagship location for two very important initiatives – Mixed Reality Capture Studio and our Mixed Reality Academy. We want to help MR experts become even more expert. We want to bring together the vibrant and unique perspective of our Bay Area developers. We want to help creators invent cutting-edge experiences that dazzle us in imaginative new ways. Mixed Reality Capture Studios open to empower new forms of creativity At our Mixed Reality Capture Studio in Redmond, we’ve captured thousands of performances over the past seven years, from all types of creators — musicians, athletes, actors, educators, dancers, and even animals. A few notable ones include Buzz Aldrin, George Takei, , and . Today, we announced the opening of our Mixed Reality Capture Studio in San Francisco. These studios enable customers to create holograms that can be used for mixed reality experiences from 2D screens to fully immersive VR. Our goal is to make high-quality holographic captures accessible for mixed reality creators everywhere. In addition, we’re expanding our studios globally with our first licensed studio opening in London with our partners Hammerhead and Digital Catapult, forming Dimension. We expect to license studios in other major markets worldwide. More details about the Mixed Reality Capture Studios can be found here. San Francisco Mixed Reality Academy offers developers the tools they need to create in mixed reality Since opening the Mixed Reality Academy in Redmond two years ago, we have seen the transformational impact a mixed reality learning environment can have. We are now bringing the popular courses we offer in Redmond to San Francisco based mixed reality developers. The San Francisco Mixed Reality Academy will offer a range of on-site courses and workshops, including: Discovery Program: Where you begin your journey. Introduction to building mixed reality experiences, and how to further engage with the Mixed Reality Academy. Expert Program: A multi-week course that kick-starts the ability for partners to join our Mixed Reality Partner Program (MRPP). Find out more about the MRPP here. Workshops: Tailored courses where developers can learn and get expert advice from our team on topics such as adding spectator view to their app, improving performance, adding shared experience, or supporting the latest hardware. Hackathons: We look forward to offering a robust calendar of hacking and porting events. You can learn more about Mixed Reality Academy offerings here. This truly is an exciting time for us and everyone who is on the mixed reality journey with us. We look forward to sharing more and seeing what everyone creates in the months ahead. Liz The post Mixed Reality Capture Studios now open appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...

https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/5b6767f940bc439a387722f9a4c54b42.png Here’s a look at some of our Shocktober favorites for Windows: RESIDENT EVIL 7 biohazard Deluxe Edition – 50% Off https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/a3a241088ea07a840ec11c2ab50d3623.png The goings-on at this abandoned Southern farmhouse are horrifying, but now they’re on sale at 50% off ($44.99, regularly $89.99). There are serious chills and unsettling twists-of-fate around every corner in RESIDENT EVIL 7 biohazard Deluxe Edition. Dead Rising 4 Deluxe Edition – 15% Off https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/27519b57a9c324f79ab7f40f976fb9df.png What’s Halloween without zombies? In the horrifying Dead Rising 4 Deluxe Edition, 15% off during Shocktober, a mysterious outbreak has left the local mall and surrounding town overrun with deadly, undead predators. As Frank West, you explore this world of dangerous new zombies and discover all the creative ways you can kill them. TellTale Games – Up to 60% Off https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/b002647bde7e2ee6e448ba6af33ca7ed.png TellTale games put you in the driver’s seat of adventure, and right now you can save up to 60% on thrillers like The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, The Walking Dead: Michonne, Batman: The Enemy Within, and Guardians of the Galaxy. djay Pro – 30% Off https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/f3d501f0b77cf7c0a40dad10944eff76.png Hosting a Halloween party this year? Spice up the music with DJ Pro, now 30% off for Shocktober. Djay Pro gives you access to more than 30 million Spotify tracks, along with the tools you need to mix them. Millions of songs, amazing features and effects – you’ll be a ghoulishly good DJ this Halloween! Halloween Movies & TV https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/e03c9575db1fd266182dee54e1b0c24f.jpg Get ready for Halloween and scare yourself senseless with our Shocktober Movies & TV collection of modern horror hits, classic scary movies, spooky TV shows, and more. From Get Out to The Shining to The Walking Dead, you’ll find all your horror your palpitating heart desires. Halloween Horror in Books https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ad14304b3a406c76c53f44aa4e9416b9.png Curling up with a good book is a nice way to relax, unless it’s a title from this terrifying Shocktober collection of Books. You’ll find spine-tinglers, tales that have you listening for strange noises, and others that won’t let you sleep, including It by Stephen King, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. Shocktober is back with great deals to spice up Halloween on your Windows 10 PC. And if you’re an Xbox fan, don’t miss out on the great Shocktober deals Xbox has to offer. Happy Halloween! *Available 10/24/2017 to 10/31/2017 on select items available through Microsoft Store. Offers and content varies by market and may change at any time. Not valid on prior orders or purchases. May not be combined with other offers. Other exclusions and limits may apply. The post Shocktober is back! Snag deals on frighteningly great games, terrifying movies and more appeared first on Windows Experience Blog. Continue reading...