Security News
Microsoft has warned users clinging to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 that the end really is nigh. Windows 7 went out of support in 2020, but Microsoft recognized that many enterprises were quite happy where they were.
Microsoft on Monday announced the general availability of a feature called Autopatch that automatically keeps Windows and Office software up-to-date on enrolled endpoints. The launch, which comes a day before Microsoft is expected to release its monthly round of security patches, is available for customers with Windows Enterprise E3 and E5 licenses.
It's demanding a return to the freewheeling days of the last millennium, when Office macro viruses didn't face the trials and tribulations that they do today. Worst of all, perhaps, an infected document could implant macros into the global template, thus infecting the computer, and the same macros could copy themselves back out again.
Microsoft says that Windows Autopatch, an enterprise service that automatically keeps Windows and Microsoft 365 software up to date, is generally available starting today.Windows Autopatch was first announced in April when Microsoft said it would be available for free to Microsoft customers with a Windows 10/11 Enterprise E3 license or greater starting July 2022.
Microsoft says last week's decision to roll back VBA macro auto-blocking in downloaded Office documents is only a temporary change. Redmond announced in February that Microsoft Office would automatically block VBA macros in all documents downloaded from the Internet after a rollout stage between April and June.
This article will explain why users should block macros in Internet downloads and how you can block them in Microsoft Office. To prevent this distribution method, Microsoft announced in February that Microsoft Office would automatically block VBA macros in documents downloaded from the Internet starting in June.
Microsoft is investigating an issue causing Outlook search not to display recent emails in desktop apps running on Windows 11 systems. "When searching in Outlook Desktop on Windows 11 you might not see the most recent emails in the search results," Microsoft explains.
Five months after announcing plans to disable Visual Basic for Applications macros by default in the Office productivity suite, Microsoft appears to have rolled back its plans. "Based on feedback received, a rollback has started," Microsoft employee Angela Robertson said in a July 6 comment.
Microsoft has fixed a known issue causing Office applications like Word and Excel to crash when working with cloud documents. The complete list of affected Office apps includes Excel for Microsoft 365, Word for Microsoft 365, and PowerPoint for Microsoft 365.
Microsoft appears set to roll back its decision to adopt a default stance of preventing macros sourced from the internet from running in Office unless given explicit permission. Things got worse over the years, so in 2016 Microsoft upped the ante with a tool that allowed admins to define when and where macros were allowed to run.