Linux, Open Source, & anti Microsoft news

Microsoft released an out-of-band (OOB) update yesterday to fix some Windows issues caused by last week’s monthly patching cycle on Patch Tuesday. One of the major issues that came up during the week for IT admins included finding that Windows Server 2012 became stuck in a boot loop, while other versions suffered broken Windows VPN clients, and some hard drives appeared as RAW format (and unusable). Many IT Admins were forced to roll back the updates — leaving many servers vulnerable with none of last week’s security patches.

Microsoft Corp. is buying Activision Blizzard Inc. in a $68.7 billion all-cash acquisition, uniting two of the biggest forces in video games. It’s the software maker’s biggest deal ever, almost three times as large as the 2016 purchase of LinkedIn. Here are five key reasons why it happened.

Today, everyone — yes, even Microsoft — use Linux and open-source. It’s been years since Linux was under attack by SCO for imaginary copyright violations, and then Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claimed that Linux violated over 200 of Microsoft’s patents. So over 15-years ago, the Open Invention Network (OIN) patent consortium was formed to defend Linux against intellectual property (IP) attacks. Even so, Linux and open-source software are still under attack from patent trolls and other attackers. That’s where the Open Invention Network (OIN) steps up by expanding its patent non-aggression coverage by updating its Linux System definition.

Microsoft has launched a new political correctness feature for the users. It intends to assist users in using more ‘inclusive’ language by identifying words or phrases that may offend others. The MS Woke feature is now available in Microsoft Word and several Microsoft web-based programs.  The disadvantage of MS Woke is its tendency to change the meaning of statements. Some of the most well-known speeches, phrases, and songs may lose part of their intent and impact as a result of Microsoft’s new Woke feature.

Microsoft has pulled the January Windows Server cumulative updates after critical bugs caused domain controllers to reboot, Hyper-V to not work, and ReFS volume systems to become unavailable. Tuesday, Microsoft released the January 2022 Patch Tuesday updates for Windows Server that includes numerous security updates and bug fixes.

Microsoft has released 96 security fixes including updates to address six zero-day vulnerabilities. In the Redmond giant’s latest round of patches, usually released on the second Tuesday of each month in what is known as Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has fixed problems including remote code execution (RCE) exploits, privilege escalation flaws, spoofing issues, and cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities.

Microsoft has acknowledged an issue following the installation of the KB5008212 update. The problem causes email searching in Outlook to break, and no fix is currently available.

When you’re as big as Microsoft, it gets harder to grow even bigger. You end up having to exploit every advantage to try to keep your customers using more and more of your products and services. That seems like Microsoft’s strategy, and it’s no doubt financially successful for the company. The problem is that it makes the overall user experience worse, which is the one thing no company should ever do.

Microsoft has released a fix for a harebrained Exchange Server bug that shut down on-premises mail delivery around the world just as clocks were chiming in the new year. The mass disruption stemmed from a date check failure in Exchange Server 2016 and 2019 that made it impossible for servers to accommodate the year 2022, prompting some to call it the Y2K22 bug.

It seems like Microsoft is hellbent on adding everything but the kitchen sink to its Edge browser, in an attempt to have it cater to every imaginable use-case. Over the past few months, we have seen the introduction of many new utilities in various channels of the browser, including shopping features, a Word-like Citations tool, Office integration, a Math Solver, and more. One could argue that none of these are core browser features so should be added as extensions, but clearly, Microsoft thinks differently.