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By Steven P.
Microsoft PowerToys version 0.37.2 fixes explorer.exe freezing and more
by Steven Parker
Almost two weeks ago, Microsoft released PowerToys version 0.37 that brought with it a bunch of improvements to the suite of tools, removing the legacy settings app and moving the Keyboard Manager into an independent process as well as the ongoing process to ready the Video Conference Mute tool for a stable release. Today, the firm is releasing a minor update to fix a few issues in the tools, bumping up the version to 0.37.2.
The company says that the patch aims to fix two regression bugs in 0.37.0 they deemed important for stability based on user feedback.
Here is the complete list of fixes (it's a short one), along with links to the corresponding issue trackers:
PowerRename is a Bulk Renaming tool for Windows 10 If you want the Video Conference Mute utility, you'll need to install the experimental version which was released in the middle of April.
As usual, this release can be downloaded from the GitHub page here, or directly through the tool. It must be noted, however, that users running the experimental version will not receive this update. The next release for those users will contain all the fixes made to the tools in version 0.37.2.
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By indospot
Microsoft releases Windows 10 builds 19042.985, 18363.1556 - here's what's new
by João Carrasqueira
Yet another month has passed, and Microsoft is once again releasing its set of Patch Tuesday updates for all supported versions of Windows, including a multitude of Windows 10 versions. For regular users with Windows 10 Home or Pro, only versions 20H2, 2004, and 1909 are getting updates today, and even then, support for version 1909 ends today, so this is the last update you'll get unless you have an Enterprise or Education SKU.
For Windows 10 version 2004 and 20H2, the cumulative update is the same, and it's labeled KB5003173, which you can download manually here. This will bring the build number up to 19041.985 and 19042.985, depending on which version you have, and it includes these highlights:
The full list of fixes is below:
If you're still using Windows 10 version 1909, this is the last update you'll get if you have Windows 10 Home or Pro, and you may want to consider upgrading to a newer version to stay secure going forward. The update is KB5003169 and it brings the build number up to 18363.1556. You can download it manually here, and the highlights of the update are:
And here are the additional fixes and improvements included:
Finally, there are a bunch of updates for versions of Windows 10 that are only supported in specific SKUs or servicing channels. Here's a quick rundown of everything else being released today:
Version KB Build Download Support 1809 KB5003171 17763.1935
Update Catalog Enterprise and Education SKUs 1803 KB5003174 17134.2208
Update Catalog 1607 KB5003197 14393.4402
Update Catalog Long-Term Servicing Branch 1507 KB5003172 10240.18932
Update Catalog For Windows 10 versions 1803 and 1809, these are also the final updates for Enterprise and Education SKUs. Version 1809, however, will live on in the Long-Term Servicing Channel alongside the other two LTSB releases.
As usual, these updates are mandatory and they'll be installed automatically sooner or later. You can download them manually using the links above to avoid surprises.
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By Abhay V
Three Windows 10 versions reach the end of support today, albeit with some caveats
by Abhay Venkatesh
Every second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft releases cumulative updates for all support Windows versions. Today, three versions are reaching the end of support in some form – versions 1909, 1809, and 1803 –, with version 1803 reaching the end of its life, meaning it will be receiving its final cumulative update and will cease to be supported for all users. The October 2018 Update (version 1809) is still supported for Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) customers and the November 2019 Update (1909) will continue being supported for Enterprise, Education, IoT Enterprise customers till May 2022.
The reason for multiple Windows 10 versions released across a span of two years reaching the end of support on the same day is that Microsoft extended support for version 1803 by six months for Education and Enterprise customers last year due to the pandemic. Therefore, while support for consumer SKUs ended in November 2019, the end of support date for Enterprise and Education SKUs – that enjoyed 30 months of support back then – was pushed from November 2020 to May 2021.
This coincided with the end of support date for version 1809, which was also supported till May 2021. With this version, Microsoft also changed how Enterprise and Education SKUs of the OS were supported. All versions released in the spring – such as version 1903 – began being supported for 18 months, which is why version 1903 (Windows 10 May 2019 Update) reached the end of support before version 1803 did.
Lastly, Windows 10 Home, Pro, Pro Education, and Pro for Workstations users running version 1909 (November 2019 Update) that was released in the fall of 2019 will no longer receive updates after today. However, Enterprise and Education customers will continue receiving updates till May 2022, thanks to the additional year of support for fall releases. Currently, an estimated 11% of PCs running Windows 10 are on this version, so it is best for those users to move to a newer version of the OS to continue receiving updates.
Another interesting fact is that after today, the two Windows 10 versions supported for consumers – version 2004 and 20H2 – will be serviced with the same cumulative updates since version 20H2 was nothing but an enablement package that lit up new features hidden in version 2004. Additionally, when Windows 10 version 21H1 (May 2021 Update - which is another enablement package), makes it to the public, all three supported versions will receive the same patches, which is a first for the OS.
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By Sszecret
Microsoft Weekly: Edge Beta for Linux, a new Segoe font, and games galore
by Florin Bodnarescu
A number of things happened in the last seven days, including the arrival of Edge Beta on Linux, the unveiling of a new Segoe font variant, and even a refresh of the Azure logo. You can find info about that, as well as much more below, in your Microsoft digest for the week of May 2 - 8.
Edge Beta for Linux
We should begin with a little info regarding Edge, as not much has happened with the browser this week.
For starters, build 92.0.878.0 made its way to the Dev Channel. While this would normally be pretty exciting, Microsoft says the build doesn’t change much, given that it came out just a few days after the previous build. The changes are so minor that the company didn’t even bother publishing its usual post about it.
Moving on to the stable version, namely version 90, folks may be experiencing problems with YouTube playback, namely crashing. This bug has been acknowledged by a Microsoft engineer, who suggested users disable hardware acceleration as a workaround. The same engineer confirmed that the company is working on a fix, but that the issue may be more significant than initially thought.
And since we’re taking a tour through the various Insider channels, it’s worth pointing out that over six months after the Dev channel availability of Edge for Linux, there is now a Beta variant for the open-source OS.
Lastly, Microsoft is now testing everse image search in the Bing sidebar. This does pretty much exactly what it sounds like it would, namely allows you to right-click on an image and search for it on Bing in the sidebar which appears on the right of the Edge browser. As per Reddit user Leopeva64-2 who stumbled upon this, the capability is available in Edge Dev, though we have not seen this on any of our test devices.
A new font
For Insiders in the Dev channel, Microsoft pushed out yet another preview build, 21376, which included the usual array of fixes and, rather interestingly a new Segoe font variant.
While Segoe UI itself has been used as a default system font going all the way back to Windows Vista, a number of variants have been revealed since, including Segoe Script, Segoe Pro, and what Microsoft used for its Modern design icons, Segoe MDL2 Assets.
The new font is called Segoe UI Variable and as the name implies, it’s meant to vary slightly depending on the use case. Segoe UI itself for example was originally designed to be optimal at 9pt sizes, while Segoe UI Variable tweaks the letter weight and tracking depending on the size.
For smaller text, the letters are more tightly tracked, have more weight and are more open, while at display size, text isn’t quite as tightly tracked and has amplified letter terminals. For those not familiar, tracking refers to the overall horizontal spacing between font characters. This is not to be confused with kerning, which refers to the proportional spacing between two individual letters, whereas tracking refers to, say, an entire word.
On the subject of change, we should touch on the fact that Microsoft is set to fully remove Flash from Windows 10 in July. While support for Flash was dropped by Adobe on December 31, 2020, and Microsoft released a manual update to remove it back in October of the same year, it was, as the name implies, not necessarily mandatory. Starting in July, the Redmond giant is set to push out the update to Windows 10 v1809 and above, automagically removing the media plugin.
To that end, the firm is also removing any update blocks for versions 2004 and 20H2 (May 2020 Update, October 2020 Update), allowing folks to freely upgrade to these supported variants. We’re on the verge of a new feature update anyway, so it’s not much of a surprise that Microsoft wants folks on the latest Windows 10 version, if possible.
Last but not least, to the dismay of perhaps three people, Windows 10X is allegedly delayed indefinitely, as Microsoft focuses on Windows 10 proper.
Since its original unveil at the end of 2019 with the dual-screen Surface Neo and Duo, the former device was delayed out of its Holiday 2020 release window, and Windows 10X was repurposed for single-screen devices - in stark contrast to its initial 'dual-screen devices first' approach. For now, it seems that the Redmond firm is putting 10X on the backburner, focusing its resources on the expected Sun Valley UI refresh coming to Windows 10 later this year.
Games galore
In a rather surprising announcement, Microsoft decided to take the wraps off a sizeable selection of titles now supporting FPS Boost. More than quadrupling the number of supported games from 23 to 97, the latest additions include Dying Light, a number of LEGO games, ReCore, and more, with supported framerates from 60 to 120FPS.
There are good news on the Game Pass front as well, with FIFA 21, Red Dead Online, Psychonauts, Outlast 2 and many others either already available or joining the subscription very soon. Additionally, folks in the U.S. also get four months of Spotify Premium with Game Pass Ultimate, though this is available for new users only.
On the revenue share front, Microsoft dropped its cut from 30% to 12% on PC, and was planning to do the same on console, but it will no longer do so. An interesting tidbit about the company’s strategy relates to exactly why it lowered its split. As per the court documents filed in January, this is done “in exchange for the grant of streaming rights to Microsoft.”, in other words, xCloud. It’s not exactly clear whether the proposal was far enough along to even be discussed with console publishers, but for the time being, the revenue split on Xbox remains 30/70.
If you don’t think that’s such a great deal, maybe some of the Deals with Gold will pique your interest, like the discounts for Borderlands 3, Control, PAYDAY 2: Crimewave Edition, and others.
However, if you have no desire to buy more games and already own the latest iteration of Flight Simulator or the spin-off title Minecraft Dungeons, it’s worth checking for updates, as both first-party games have received a number of enhancements and fixes.
Dev channel
The latest monthly Office Insider build on the Mac has added the ‘Share to Teams’ capability in Outlook, and more. Microsoft has announced its automation tool for security testing AI systems, dubbed Counterfit. Live transcriptions will soon be added for unscheduled and channel meetings in Teams. Microsoft has announced Reading Progress for Teams for education. Whiteboard now has improved Teams integration, support for rich content like images and stickers, and more. The Redmond giant has detailed more education features coming through August. Excel on the web now supports Power BI-connected PivotTables. Microsoft has delivered oxygen, ventilators, and more to support India’s COVID-19 response. New customization options are now available for Reply-all Storm Protection in Microsoft 365. Microsoft customers in the EU will be able to store all their data in the region by 2022. The Redmond firm has warned of a widespread gift card scam targeting organizations. Logging off
We end the week with a refreshed Azure logo, an interesting Defender bug, and some Surface firmware updates.
Starting with Azure, Microsoft has decided that the logo for its cloud service needed a bit of a Fluent Design facelift, and as such unveiled a brand-new icon. Ditching the angular shape of the old logo, this one is much more reminiscent of say, the Visual Studio icon, though in some cases, it may remind folks of the Adobe or Autodesk logos.
On the flip side, what wasn’t needed was a rather weird Microsoft Defender bug, which ended up creating “thousands” of files in users' boot drives. Some folks saw small files less than 2KB in size, while other users reported multiple GBs of storage being eaten up. A fix is already rolling out, and if you’re on Microsoft Defender engine version 1.1.18100.5, you’ll be bumped up to 1.1.18100.6 following this update.
Finally, for owners of the Surface Pro 4, Studio, Laptop 1,2, and 4, Microsoft has released a slew of firmware updates meant to bring stability and security enhancements.
Missed any of the previous columns? Be sure to have a look right here.
If you’d like to get a daily digest of news from Neowin, we now have a Newsletter you can sign up to either via the ‘Get our newsletter’ widget in the sidebar, or this link.
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By Abhay V
Microsoft removes all update blocks for Windows 10 versions 2004 and 20H2
by Abhay Venkatesh
Microsoft releases major Windows 10 updates in a staggered fashion, meaning not all devices get the update immediately. For the past couple of years, the firm has let users decide if they want to install a feature update till the time that the version that they are on reaches the end-of-support. The company does enforce update blocks – essentially blocking those PCs from being served the updates – due to known issues. The firm then gradually removes these “safeguard holds” as and when the issues are fixes.
Since the release of Windows 10 version 2004 (May 2020 Update) one year ago, there have been various holds on certain devices. Considering that the October 2020 Update (version 20H2) contains the same bits as that of version 2004, those blocks also applied to this version of the OS. Though most of these update holds have been removed over the last year and versions 2004 and 20H2 now account for 80% of total Windows 10 machines, at least two upgrade blocks relating to Conexant audio drivers were still in place, at least for some users.
Now, Microsoft has officially noted in the known issues page for both versions (spotted by Ghacks) that the issues have been resolved as of yesterday, May 7, 2021. This means that any devices that have been prevented from upgrading to the May 2020 Update or the October 2020 Update from older versions will now be served the bits automatically. An estimated 11% of users are still running the November 2019 update (version 1909).
Of course, users have had other ways to update to the latest versions such as by using the Media Creation Tool or performing a fresh install using the available ISOs. Additionally, the company also added a Group Policy to Windows 10 allowing IT admins to circumvent these blocks or disable them and force devices to update, in case they deem it necessary.
The official update from the Redmond firm about the lifting of these long-standing safeguard holds comes just a few days from the official end-of-support date for Windows 10 version 1909. Starting May 11, all Home, Pro, and Pro Education SKUs will reach the end-of-support, meaning those on version 1909 must move to any of the newer versions. This also signals the first time that all supported Window 10 versions will receive the same servicing updates, since the upcoming Windows 10 May 2021 Update (21H1) is yet another enablement package, just like version 20H2.
Have any of your devices been blocked from receiving versions 2004 or 20H2, or has your organization held off on updating the devices to a newer version? Let us know in the comments below!
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