microsoft news

Microsoft has added a new theme pack to the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 users. Titled ‘Earth from Above PREMIUM’, the new theme pack contains 14 high-quality 4K wallpapers, the description of which...

Microsoft has added a new theme pack to the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 users. Titled ‘Staircases PREMIUM,’ the new theme pack contains high-quality 4K wallpapers, the description of which reads as...

Microsoft has added a new theme pack to the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 users. Titled Panoramic Cityscapes PREMIUM, the new theme pack contains 10 high-quality 4K wallpapers, the description of whi...

Microsoft has added a new theme pack to the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 users. Titled Explore the USA PREMIUM, the new theme pack contains 25 high-quality wallpapers, the description of which reads...

New subscribers to Xbox Game Pass may be privy to free three month memberships to Discord Nitro in what would be the latest of many Game Pass promotions.Neowin reports that the latest Discord 9.8.3 be...

Update:Telltale has confirmed earlier reports about its partnership with Netflix. Minecraft: Story Mode is coming to Netflix this fall and Telltale will publish a game based on Stranger Things for consoles and PC at a later date.Separately, we're thrilled to confirm that Telltale is developing a game based on Stranger Things that we'll publish to consoles a...

If for some reason you’re still ruing on operating systems well over a decade old, you soon won’t be able to play games on Steam. Valve aounced that starting on January 1, 2019 the Steam client will cease to support Windows XP and Windows Vista.“Starting on January 1 2019, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating s...

Microsoft provides an Advanced Startup options menu in Windows 10, which serves as a central location for all of Windows start up features.Advanced Startup offers the ability for users to Reset their PC, use System Restore, or boot up into Safe Mode among others. It’s a useful tool, especially if you suspect something’s wrong with your PC and you want to fix...

Update: The first batch of April’s original Xbox backward compatible games are now live.Original: Inside Xbox promised news on original Xbox backward compatible games and they sure did not disappoint. Though five titles leaked earlier today before the official aouncement, they weren’t the complete list. A total of 19 original Xbox games will be playable on...

It appears ads, which are becoming increasingly pervasive on Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system, have now reached the Windows 10 Mail app.Users on Reddit are now reporting that a baer has shown up in the Windows 10 Mail app in a space above the Mail, Calendar and People buttons. The baer caot be removed except by closing the menu, and currently ad...

It looks like Amazon may soon release its official Amazon Music app for Windows 10 devices in Microsoft Store. The Amazon Music app was spotted in Microsoft Store today and as per the listing it will be available only for x86 PCs.The official Amazon Music app is now available for download from Microsoft Store in the US, UK, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. And this app can be downloaded only on x86 PCs for now.Using this app, you will be able to enjoy music from Amazon Music Unlimited, Prime Music, Amazon My Music and the music you have stored locally on your PC.Amazon Music Unlimited:Choose from tens of millions of songs, thousands of curated playlists and stations, and get...

Microsoft today released Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 17095 to developers. This SDK can be used with Windows 10 Insider Build 17093 or later.And this release includes bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface area. The SDK is supported byVisual Studio 2017 and can work side-by-side with older SDKs.As you might have noticed in the recent SDK preview releases, this release also includes the C++/WinRT headers and cppwinrt compiler (cppwinrt.exe). This compiler comes in handy if you need to consume a third-party WinRT component or if you need to author your own WinRT components with C++/WinRT.The updated Preview SDK can be downloaded here. You can find the list of new API additi...

Microsoft today aounced that they are acquiringChalkup, a classroom collaboration platform. Educators & students from 1 in 3 universities and 1 in 5 high schools in the United States have used the Chalkup Class Collaboration Platform to engage and coect with their classes. As part of this deal, Chalkup’s co-founder Justin Chando is also joining Microsoft.Microsoft is plaing to bring the best of Chalkup including features such as Chalkup’s iovative rubrics system toMicrosoft Teams.“In spending time with the amazing people at Microsoft, it was clear that we were completely aligned in our mission for coecting classrooms, sparking student collaboration, and finding new and iovative ways to work ...

We reported recently that the Bing app on Android now directed users to Google Maps, and speculated that Bing Maps may be next on the chopping block at Microsoft.Today we have another bit of evidence to add to the pile, as it appears Microsoft has withdrawn support for Windows 10 Mobile from theirBing Maps Web Control.This means if you are one of the rare few who use a Windows Phone and you come acrossa website with an embedded Bing Map you will only see a blank page.According toRicky Brundritt, Senior Program Manager at Bing Map “support for Windows Phone as a whole (not just maps) started ending in January” and “Windows Phone was removed to align with Windows Phone as a whole no longer bei...

As the release of Redstone 4 approaches, Microsoft has been gearing up to prepare the first build for Redstone 5. According to Buildfeed, Microsoft has just compiled the first build of Redstone 5. This comes just after Microsoft created a new RS4_release branch which will serve as the official branch for RS4 releases starting next month.If you recall, Microsoft did the same thing as with RS4 last year. Once the Creators Update was almost ready, Microsoft started flighting RS4 builds to selected Insiders in Skip Ahead Ring. We expect the same to happen as Microsoft prepares for a global rollout of Redstone 4 next month.The current compiled build for RS5 branch is17600 and it looks like this w...

Microsoft today released Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 17083 to developers. This SDK can be used with Windows 10 Insider Build 17083 or later.And this release includes bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface area. There’s new TreeView control, new printing APIs, HDR, screen capture APIs and more. The SDK is supported byVisual Studio 2017 and can work side-by-side with older SDKs.As you might have noticed in the recent SDK preview releases, this release also includes the C++/WinRT headers and cppwinrt compiler (cppwinrt.exe). This compiler comes in handy if you need to consume a third-party WinRT component or if you need to author your own WinRT components with C++/WinRT.The...

Microsoft is finally delivering a feature in Windows 10 Photos app which they demoed at Build developer conference last year. With the latest Photos app update, Microsoft has included the“Choose a Star” feature which will allow you to select someone in the video as the star. Once selected, Photos app will create a video around the person you choose, pulling in relevant photos and videos, zooming in on your star, and choosing an appropriate theme.Here’s how you can use this feature:Select the “Create” button on the top toolbar. Choose “Automatic video with music” and select content. Click the “Create” button on the top toolbar again and title your video. Then select “Create video.”Once you’re...

Microsoft today released Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 17069 to developers. This SDK can be used with Windows 10 Insider Build 17074or later. At this stage, it, unfortunately, comes without a changelog, but likely includessupport for C++/WinRT compilers in the Windows SDK as its headline feature. The SDK is supported byVisual Studio 2017 and can work side-by-side with older SDKs. The updated Preview SDK can be downloaded here. Via Neowin ...

There has been an increasing momentum around folding smartphones, which would let smartphone screen sizes escape from the confines of being pocketable. Despite interest from a number of companies it was ZTE which brought the first mode smartphone with a dual-screen design, the ZTE Axon M, exclusive to AT&T. The device has had a middling reception, with reviewers criticizing the thickness of the device and Android’s somewhat clunky support for dual screens. This does not seem to have put the company off, however, with ZTE’s vice president of marketing Jeff Yee telling Engadget in an interview at CES 2018 that consumers who purchased the device like it, and that associated issues were sim...

While processor manufacturer AMD initially claimed their chips were not vulnerable to Speculative Execution flaws, later research showed that this was not completely true and that flaws in Speculative Execution could allow hackers to exfiltrate data from your PC. Microsoft’s OS-level patch for the issue appeared to cause more harm than good, however, causing Microsoft to pull it from distribution. AMD itself, however, has now started delivering a fix to PC and motherboard OEMs to push out to their clients. AMD says: AMD will make optional microcode updates available to our customers and partners for Ryzen and EPYC processors starting this week. We expect to make updates available for our p...