Windows Archive

In 19H1, we are adding the ability to uninstall the following (preinstalled) Windows 10 inbox apps via the context menu on the Start menu All Apps list:

• 3D Viewer (previously called Mixed Reality Viewer)
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Groove Music
• Mail
• Movies & TV
• Paint 3D
• Snip & Sketch
• Sticky Notes
• Voice Recorder

Developing a Chrome-like testing infrastructure for something as complicated and sprawling as Windows would be a huge undertaking. While some parts of Windows can likely be extensively tested as isolated, standalone components, many parts can only be usefully tested when treated as integrated parts of a complete system. Some of them, such as the OneDrive file syncing feature, even depend on external network services to operate. It's not a trivial exercise at all.

Adopting the principle that the Windows code should always be shipping quality - not "after a few months of fixing" but "right now, at any moment" - would be an enormous change. But it's a necessary one. Microsoft needs to be in a position where each new update is production quality from day one; a world where updating to the latest and greatest release is a no-brainer, a choice that can be confidently taken. Feature updates should be non-events, barely noticed by users. Cutting back to one release a year, or one release every three years, doesn't do that, and it never did. It's the process itself that needs to change: not the timescale.

The Windows 10 October 2018 Update is version 1809, and while it's the latest feature update, a major focus of this update was fixes and refinements. Some features, like Sets and Alt-Tab bringing up browser tabs, have been delayed, and despite Sets not having returned yet in Skip Ahead builds, Microsoft has assured Neowin that the feature is still going to return.

Today we're very pleased to announce that an optimised Ubuntu Desktop image is available from the Hyper-V gallery. This will give an optimum experience when running Ubuntu Desktop as a guest on a Windows 10 Pro desktop host. From the Ubuntu Report data we know that a lot of people are using Ubuntu as a virtual machine, and so we want to make that experience as seamless as possible.

Flatpak creator and lead developer Alexander Larsson of Red Hat has got the basics of Flatpak applications working under Microsoft Windows 10.

Before getting too excited, while he has the basics working, obviously there are some shortcuts involved. In particular, the Flatpak support requires Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL/a.k.a. "Ubuntu Bash for Windows") as well as needing to install a Win32 X11 Server.

Windows 10 insider build 17744, which will be available in next month to the public as Windows 10 2018 October update has warned a user when he tries to install Firefox browser to open and use Microsoft Edge. We know Windows 10 nudges to use Edge as the default browser, but this is definitely different. A user shared about this on Twitter, here is what the dialog informed the user.

Lenovo is announcing a second ARM-powered Windows 10 laptop this week, and this time it's a Yoga. The Lenovo Yoga C630 WOS (Windows on Snapdragon) is, as you might have guessed, powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 850 processor. It's the first Windows laptop we've seen with the Snapdragon 850, and its a chip that Qualcomm specifically designed for always-connected Windows 10 PCs. This new processor ushers in the latest generation of ARM-powered Windows 10 laptops.

Lenovo is promising 30 percent better performance over its previous Miix 630 Windows on ARM device, and a surprising claim of 25 hours of battery life to match. While the battery life sounds impressive, it's the performance that will matter in a device like this and we’ll need to test this latest range of ARM-powered laptops to see if app compatibility and performance has improved. As this is powered by the Snapdragon 850, there's also built-in LTE support for mobile connectivity on the go.

A recent Windows 10 Insider Feedback Hub quest revealed that Microsoft is developing a new throwaway sandboxed desktop feature called "InPrivate Desktop". This feature will allow administrators to run untrusted executables in a secure sandbox without fear that it can make any changes to the operating system or system's files.

"InPrivate Desktop (Preview) provides admins a way to launch a throwaway sandbox for secure, one-time execution of untrusted software," the Feedback Hub questions explains. "This is basically an in-box, speedy VM that is recycled when you close the app!"

The PowerPC is a RISC processor architecture which grew out of IBM's POWER architecture. Windows NT support was introduced in Windows NT 3.51, and it didn't last long; the last version to support it was Windows NT 4.0. Despite not being supported by the flagship operating system, it continued to be supported by Windows CE, and a later version of the PowerPC was chosen as the processor for the Xbox 360.

As with all the processor retrospective series, I'm going to focus on how Windows NT used the PowerPC in user mode because the original audience for all of these discussions was user-mode developers trying to get up to speed debugging their programs on PowerPC.

Have you ever had to stop what you were doing, or wait for your computer to boot up because the device updated at the wrong time? We heard you, and to alleviate this pain, if you have an update pending we've updated our reboot logic to use a new system that is more adaptive and proactive. We trained a predictive model that can accurately predict when the right time to restart the device is. Meaning, that we will not only check if you are currently using your device before we restart, but we will also try to predict if you had just left the device to grab a cup of coffee and return shortly after.

This is the first of a series of posts in which we'll explore all things command-line - from the origins of the command-line and the evolution of the terminal, to what we're doing to overhaul and modernize the Windows Console & command-line in future Windows releases.

Microsoft is bringing support for leap seconds - yes, that one extra second - to Windows, starting with Windows 10 Redstone 5 and Windows Server 2019. With the upcoming updates for Windows 10, Microsoft's operating system now deals with leap seconds in a way that is incredibly accurate, UTC-compliant, and traceable.

Leap seconds typically occur every 18 months, resulting in one extra second. The extra leap second occurs to adjust with the earth’s slowed down rotation, and an extra second is added to UTC in order to keep it in-sync with mean solar time. To deal with the extra second more appropriately, Windows 10 will now display that extra second, instead of directly jumping to the next one, making it the world's first OS to have full support for leap seconds.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming how businesses gather and use data to develop competitive insights and create new financial opportunities. As IoT technology matures and our partners gain more experience, they are evolving their business models to increase the overall return on investment of their IoT solutions. This includes adding recurring revenue, enhancing security, and reducing support costs.

At Computex a few weeks back, we announced Windows 10 IoT Core Services, which enables our IoT partners to commercialize their solutions running on Windows 10 IoT Core. We are now excited to announce the public preview of this service along with details on purchasing and pricing. As described in our previous blog, IoT Core Services provides 10 years of operating system support along with services to manage device updates and assess device health.