Linux, Open Source, & anti Microsoft news

Although Microsoft introduced new Windows 10 monthly charges, that has not improved the quality of its updates. In fact, Microsoft has just warned all Windows 10 users that its latest upgrade may permanently delete their personal data…

Microsoft unveiled a bunch of Surface hardware during a press event in New York City last night. While matte black Surfaces, headphones with Cortana, and a new Surface Studio were the highlights of the hardware side, Microsoft unveiled an interesting change to its Windows operating system. Windows 10 will soon fully embrace Android to mirror these mobile apps to your PC.

Microsoft has flung out an advisory for some of its on-premises Dynamics 365 customers. Integrated Skype? Turn it off. Turn it off now. The issue, which could stop a user being able to sign in, affects Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations in an on-premises environment. A “refactoring” in the way Skype authenticates its users has been blamed.

Microsoft today began shipping its fourth round of Windows 10 cumulative updates for September, bringing another batch of fixes to PCs on the April 2018 and Fall Creators updates (via Neowin).

Microsoft is planning to more deeply integrate LinkedIn into the company’s Office apps. While we saw some LinkedIn integration in Word last year, Outlook will be updated to include information about contacts for calendar appointments and document sharing. Outlook users will soon be able to coauthor documents with LinkedIn contacts in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, making it a little easier to share documents to friends or coworkers on LinkedIn.

The Zero Day Initiative has gone public with an unpatched remote-code execution bug in Microsoft’s Jet database engine, after giving Redmond 120 days to fix it. The Windows giant did not address the security blunder in time, so now everyone knows about the flaw, and no official patch is available.

Basically, if you’re an overworked sysadmin – or you don’t want an army of IT admins – you can sign up your workforce to use MMD-controlled, cloud-connected machines, and let Microsoft handle the updates, patches, security, and configuration changes. Meanwhile, you define how you want your applications automatically provisioned, and how you want to secure your users’ computers, and it’s all automagically executed across your fleet from Microsoft’s centralized cloud.

Microsoft has apparently reversed course on a Windows 10 test feature that sought to warn people from installing Chrome, Firefox and other browsers that challenged Microsoft’s own Edge.

Microsoft really wants you to use Edge in the latest Windows Insider builds, and the software giant is not afraid to let you know it. Windows Insider Sean Hoffman took to Twitter last night to express his displeasure at a pop-up shown by Windows 10 when he attempted to install an alternative browser. When he ran the Firefox installer, a pop-up showed up suggesting perhaps he’d like to stick with Edge. It is safer and faster, after all (according to Microsoft).

In total, Microsoft addressed 61 CVE-listed vulnerabilities this month, including 23 that would potentially allow for remote code execution. One of the more noteworthy of those bugs is CVE-2018-8475, a remote code flaw that can be triggered simply by viewing an image file in Windows. While no exploits are out, Microsoft warns that details on the vulnerability are already public.