Security News
Microsoft's Windows Hello biometric, PIN, and hardware authentication system is slowly growing in popularity, according to a new report from Microsoft. For those unaware, Windows Hello allows users to authenticate secure access to their devices, online accounts, web browsers, etc with a Windows Hello supported hardware such as FIDO keys, PINs, or biometric features such as iris scan support, fingerprint scanner, and facial recognition.
A new Windows 10 utility called TaskbarGroups lets you group shortcuts on the taskbar so they can easily be launched without taking up a lot of space. Once you pin a group to the taskbar, you can click on the pinned group to open a small overlay containing all of the grouped programs.
Microsoft's December 2020 Windows 10 updates are conflicting with the Corsair Utility Engine software and causing the operating system to go into a BSOD crash loop. After the December 2020 Patch Tuesday updates were released, Windows 10 users began reporting that the operating system would go into a crash loop where Windows would restart and automatically crash and restart again.
Microsoft is working on a new built-in command-line 'Disk Usage' utility that reports how much disk space a folder uses. In the past, users would need to download free tools like TreeSize to list folders using the most space.
Microsoft has removed a safeguard hold blocking Windows 10 updates on systems affected by a known issue causing blue screen of death crashes when users plugged in a Thunderbolt NVMe Solid State Drive. After discovering the BSOD issue, Microsoft added a compatibility hold to prevent impacted devices from being offered Windows 10, version 2004 or Windows 10, version 20H2 upgrades.
Microsoft has partially addressed known issues impacting Windows 10 devices with certain Conexant or Synaptics audio devices after investigating ongoing errors since May 2020. The known issue impacting computers with Conexant audio drivers has been under investigation since May 2020 when Microsoft released Windows 10, version 2004.
With the Windows 10 October 2018 update release, Microsoft had quietly added a built-in command-line network packet sniffer called Pktmon to Windows 10. Compared to a network monitor with a graphical user interface, the command-line interface of Pktmon takes a bit more time to get used to it.
Microsoft has announced the long-awaited ability to run emulated 64-bit applications in Windows on ARM. This new feature will allow applications to use more memory and thus gain better performance than their 32-bit counterparts. When Windows 10 for ARM was released in 2017, Microsoft created an emulation layer that allowed users to run 32-bit applications.
The first batch of security updates or 'B' updates for the month of 'December 2020' is now available for all supported versions of Windows 10 including version 20H2. If you want to grab these updates, check for updates in the Settings and the update will begin installing. Below is the list of all new updates for Windows 10.
Microsoft's digital assistant Cortana was first unveiled with Windows Phones and it is now included in all versions of Windows 10. Cortana is evolving, and it's here to stay, but it's no secret that many users aren't really big fans of Cortana after consumer-centric features were removed in May 2020 Update.