In a blog post to announce the full launch, Microsoft says Windows Virtual Desktop is available across platforms. That means users on desktop (Windows, Mac) and mobile (iOS and Android) can use the tool. There is also a web version of the service available in browsers. Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) allows users to create a virtualization of Windows 7, Windows 10, Office 365 ProPlus apps and third-party apps. With WVD, customers receive remote desktop sessions by running virtualizations in Azure virtual machines....

The company is accused of selling Word and Excel to middleman firms in the country at a discounted rate from 2013-14. The firms would then sell the software to government agencies at close to full price, with officials possibly pocketing the cash. As you would expect, bribes to overseas officials are taken seriously and have been illegal since 1977. Microsoft fired four employees in relation to the probe and terminated relationships with four partners....

Discussing privacy laws in the United States, Satya Nadella favors a national law. He is not alone and joins an almost universal calling from the tech industry for such a legislation. “We hope that there’s more of a national privacy law,” Nadella said in an interview Bloomberg News. Individual states have already started implementing their own privacy laws. For example, California introduced strict data protection laws in June. Nadella says the laws themselves are not an issue, but individual laws across the country would create more costs....

With the latest success of a record stock price, Microsoft CEO is receiving a pay rise as a reward. Nadella’s salary of $2.3 million but thanks to Microsoft’s stock success he has received $42.9 million in total compensation. Aside from the base salary, the rest of the compensation has come from stock awards. Satya Nadella has received a 66% raise compared to the $25.8 million total compensation he received during the previous fiscal year....

Specifically, the web browser preview is now available to users running Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1. If you want to check out those previews, they are available from microsoftedgeinsider.com. The company is now a step closer to bringing Chromium Edge to “every major desktop platform”. All that’s left is Linux, with a preview expected to launch in the coming months. “Delivering the next version of Microsoft Edge to all supported versions of Windows is part of our goal to improve the web browsing experience for our customers on every device, and to empower developers to build great experiences with less fragmentation,” the company said....

Although eBPF integrations in Azure Kubernetes Service are still in internal although one seems to be more advanced. Specifically, that is Isovalent’s Cilium service within AKS. This solution allows “eBPF-powered networking, observability and security.” According to the two companies, Cilium works natively through Azure Container Networking Interface (CNI). Furthermore, the preview will arrive for customers to use early next year. Microsoft also points out that the Cilium Enterprise solution will also become a Kubernetes container app on the Azure Container Marketplace....

Discovered by security researchers at Sangfor, the issue escalated when the group accidentally sent out the proof-of-concept (PoC). Armed with the knowledge of how to exploit the flaw, threat actors could engage in remote execution code attacks to gain system-level privileges. Considering the potential, this is a critical flaw, although Microsoft has yet to officially rate the bug. Sangfor insists the leak of the PoC was an accident. It seems the company believed a patch already existed for the vulnerability....

In total, the company now has 42 Azure regions around the world. By expanding its cloud reach, Microsoft can continue to grow its network and services. Azure has been a driving force behind the company’s revenue growth in recent years. Microsoft says its two new Australian regions will go live during the first half of 2018. The company was quick to point out that both new regions will be certified to handle unclassified and protected government workloads....

Last week, a file association bug was discovered. While it affected both versions 1803 and 1809, it was the former that proved to be the problem. Microsoft confirmed a cumulative update for Windows 10 version 1803 was the root cause. The company says the problem stops users from changing default applications to new formats. As noted, the problem was caused by cumulative updates, specifically KB4464330 for version 1809, KB4462933 and KB4462919 for version 1803....

Microsoft says ACTS will provide governments with tools to combat corruption. One of the main problems with corruption is how hard it is to detect. Specifically, corruption in this case is when money provided for social welfare projects get taken and filtered from those projects. ACTS will help make tracking corruption easier for government by relying on Microsoft Cloud technology and artificial intelligence. With machine learning and data visualization, the project helps to protect investments....

Azure premium has been created to provide constant performance for IO-intensive workloads that need capability and low latency. Because data is stored on the latest SSD technology, they are perfect across a variety of scenarios. Microsoft says its standard file tier will remain intact and continue to offer affordable reliable performance for less intensive workloads. The company worked with hundreds of customers to develop the new Azure Files premium tier....

For this tool, Microsoft is not building a VPN from scratch. Instead, the Microsoft Edge Secure Network is powered by Cloudflare. According to Microsoft, all user data and diagnostic information will be removed and deleted every 24 hours. Other browsers – such as Opera and Firefox – already have a built-in VPN, so Edge will reach parity with those rivals. In a blog post discussing the tool, Microsoft points to the following features:...

Users heading to the VLC media page via Microsoft Bing were wanted the website was “suspicious” and were advised to avoid entering it. The warning claimed the site was hosting “malicious software”. Bing presented the warning as such: “Site might be dangerous. We suggest you choose another result. If you continue to this site, it could lead you to malicious software that can harm your device.” — VideoLAN (@videolan) November 27, 2018 It seems for whatever reasons; the Bing Site Safety Report feature was falsely triggered....

This is not a feature rich update by any means but does offer something interesting. Microsoft has introduced a Light Mode for the Windows 10 Photos app. Sure, Light Mode was available before, but was limited to the collections and albums sections. Now, the mode is available in the image viewer as well. Aside from that, Microsoft has performed the usual bug fixes and unnamed improvements. If you’re interested, the full release notes are below:...

Windows 10 version 1709 was also known as the Fall Creators Update and launched in October 2017. Microsoft says it decided to extend support beyond the scheduled end-of-life due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak. The company has extended the support for Windows 10 Enterprise and Education customers and will provide security updates for the next six months. “To ease one of the many burdens you are currently facing, and based on customer feedback, we have decided to delay the scheduled end of service date for the Enterprise, Education, and IoT Enterprise editions of Windows 10, version 1709,” the company said in a blog post....

In addition, the company says new Alpha participation invites are being rolled out. Aviation aficionados will be happy to see the Boeing 747-8i make its debut on Microsoft Flight Simulator. However, the company says there are some known issues with the plane. For example, there are some graphics glitches, display problems, guidance system performance issues, and more. Microsoft says these problems will be resolved over the coming weeks. Sticking with aircraft, Microsoft Flight Simulator developers also made improvements to existing planes....

You may remember earlier this year, we reported on the possibility of the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 running the HoloLens 2. That rumor now has a contesting report as sources say it will actually be the Snapdragon 850 in the device. So, either way, Qualcomm seems to be the chipmaker of choice for HoloLens 2. You may know the Snapdragon 850 as an update chipset that levels some of the compromises made by the Snapdragon 835....

Yes, that means the Surface Pro 9 will be available in either Intel or ARM variants. This essentially mainstreams Microsoft’s Windows on ARM plans and puts it on the company’s flagship device. Aside from that huge first, the Pro 9 is very much a small upgrade on last year’s model, albeit it with significant talking points such as 5G support thanks to that ARM support. On the Intel side, the Surface Pro 9 is available running 12th generation CPUs from Intel....

In its latest move, Microsoft seems to have also stopped people in Russia from being able to download Windows 11 and Windows 10 ISOs. Furthermore, the Redmond giant has also now stopped Windows Insiders in Russia from installing new preview builds. While the company has not officially taken this stance, there are enough reports from Russian users to suggest Microsoft is taking a hard line on Windows. This could be just the start too as there is a chance Microsoft will eventually shut down the whole Windows Update system in Russia....

Called AppWindow, the new class allows UWP developers to run all application windows on the same UI thread. Microsoft has released AppWindow APIs with Windows 10 SDK Preview 18327. You can learn more about AppWindow and use the APIs from the GitHub page here. While UWP developers have always been able to create multiple windows in apps, they would need to write hundreds of lines of code. Thanks to the new class, dev’s can now create these multiple windows with just a few lines of code....