In recent years, Microsoft has made a concerted push towards open source. Whether through open-sourcing its own solutions or supporting the community, to splashing $7.5 billion on purchasing GitHub. For those who have followed Microsoft long enough, the shift has been startling, surprising, and frankly awesome. Let’s not forget this was a company that largely shunned open source and sometimes outright lambasted the concept. Joining OpenChain is just another step in the ladder....

The .NET API Browser lets developers search for a class, interface, namespace or method using a simple interface. You don’t even need to know the full name, as the InteliSense-like search completes it automatically. It acts as a hub for documentation, lettings users search through a list of all APIs or specific .NET versions. As such, it’s a great discovery tool for those still learning. It also integrates a table of contents, so that devs can jump between and drill down into the various APIs even if they’re on a different page....

At Inspire, Microsoft was eager to talk up how Windows 365 Cloud PC is arriving at a perfect time. Over the last year, remote work has become normal as people adjusted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Being able to work wherever and whenever has become important for many organizations and their employees. It is also a multi-requirement situation. Organizations need solutions that allow for collaboration, remote access, while also maintaining security in a difficult cybersecurity environment....

With Patch Tuesday yesterday, the company came good with that fix. Rolled out as KB4496796, the update patches Windows 10 Preview build 18356.21. While that means the path is clear for users to update to preview build 18362, the door is not open just yet. Microsoft says it will be a few days before the update becomes available for that subset of Slow Ring users. At the time, Microsoft said users on build 18356....

Laybourn says Microsoft has connected with 4,500 publishers around the world to curate content for its news aggregator: “We’ve got the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Times of India Kyoto News… It’s 4,593 to be exactly precise. So, we just added two more in Poland last week.” Combatting fake news is not an easy task, not least when Microsoft News handles 170,000 pieces of content each day....

Indeed, this latest offer mirrors the last. It allows new users a longer grace period before they decide whether to purchase a Groove Music subscription. New users are still required to sign up for the free one-month trial. Credit details are still necessary and the monthly price is still $9.99. However, instead of getting 30 days, Microsoft will send a promo code that adds a further three months. Like most subscriptions of its kind, Microsoft will start billing a card once the trial is over....

The ability is coming to both Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel on iPadOS. You may remember Microsoft began testing this support back last month. It is worth noting since then PowerPoint support for the trackpad has also been added. Microsoft is sending out the update is phases, so some iPad users will see the changes before others. Trackpad support for Office apps on iPadOS is a major step. We previously reported on Microsoft also wants Word and Excel to have mouse and trackpad support on iPadOS....

Usually, that takes about two weeks, so we expect to see the features below come to all Office customers this month. For Windows 10 Office users, Microsoft has bumped the suite to build 17.8431 for Office Mobile apps. This release is in the Slow Ring and comes with some significant improvements. For example, Microsoft has bolstered the smart quotes feature in Word. The company has not broken down the update, simply saying the feature is now “smarter”....

Developers can now submit their tools through the Partner Center Developer Dashboard. It is worth remembering that Edge is now Chromium Edge built on Google’s Chromium web engine. Microsoft will launch Chromium Edge in January following months of preview. Because of this, applications built for Chromium will be functional within Microsoft Edge Addons with no code changes needed. As for developers creating addons for the first time, Microsoft says the submission program is in preview....

The change would bring it closer to the Surface Pro Touch cover, which was thinner than current models but didn’t feel quite as tactile. Interestingly, the mockups of the touchpad show more rounded edges on the bottom corners, which is interesting. The thickness of the Surface Pro keyboard isn’t really an issue when in use, but it does add to the bulk when in a bag or being held. In essence, it undoes some of the hard work engineers have done to make the tablet thinner....

Apparently, the company will shift Windows 11 into feature updates that will roll out four times every year. Then the company plans a new “major” release every three years. I can imagine IT department are already crying to the heavens. With such a schedule, Windows 11 would be in almost perpetual update with just three months between new feature releases. Considering the headaches involved with rolling out updates across an organization, this will probably not go over well in the enterprise sector....

In a new twist, attackers trick people as the malware installs by merely hovering over an infected PowerPoint link. This is an extension of the Office macro malware attack, which used email spams. That previous attack relied on victims unwittingly clicking a link, which installed malicious content through a macro download. However, this new method even navigates past the link. It means general advice about not clicking links that are unknown would not work....

We have already seen how Microsoft is borrowing the idea of a tabbed File Explorer from Apple, now the company is looking at the ability to use the Spacebar to preview files. This is already available on macOS but could make its way to Microsoft’s PowerToys. Over on Reddit, u/MSFT-SAM published an image showing the new PowerToys component known as Peek. This new tool allows a “a lightning-fast file preview feature for Windows....

Starting with the recently launched Screen Ruler, it adds a measuring tool that features four modes: crosshair, rectangular, horizontal, and vertical. Users can switch between these modes through a small popup. In a more recent update to the PowerToys GitHub repository, Microsoft discusses the upcoming OCR “toy” that will give users the ability to copy text from any part of the screen, including images. PowerOCR allows users to copy the text by selecting a rectangular region, by clicking a word, or by right-clicking an image file....

Power BI helps users analyze data and share insights. The suite’s dashboards provide a 360-degree view for business users with their most important metrics in one place. Report theming preview One of the most important new features included in the March Update is the report theming preview. Thanks to the latest update, users now can quickly color their entire report to match a theme or a corporate branding. When a user imports a theme, all their charts will automatically update to use the theme colors, and they will have access to the theme colors from the color palette....

For build 19028, Microsoft has followed a recent trend where Windows 10 20H1 has not received any new features. That makes sense as the company is winding down development. Recent previews have been focused on fixing bugs and general improvements, and that has continued here. One significant fix is a solution for a bug that was affecting Windows Update. Insiders had experienced issues with installing cumulative updates on Windows 20H1....

The most exciting features are coming to phones, with new photo and scanning experiences. Users can now access the scan feature with ease via a dedicated icon in the tab bar. From there, they can annotate, add multiple pages, change file names, and more. Even more useful is the camera upload support coming to OneDrive for Business on iOS and Android. Users can now set their gallery to automatically upload, ensuring they’re always in the cloud when they need them....

Microsoft initially launched the platform on October 2 alongside new Surface devices. However, version 1809 was quickly put on ice as the manual update was deleting personal user files. Before it was pulled, the build was reaching millions of users. When Windows 10 October 2018 Update was re-launched earlier this month, Microsoft thought its troubles were behind it. That is not the case it seems as another blocking bug has been reported....

Of course, Gamescom 2017 does not kick off until Wednesday, but as usual, Microsoft is holding its announcements before the event. In terms of Xbox One X, the company says there will be three methods to transition from the Xbox One S: Settings back-up – your existing Xbox One settings data (presumably including the new modular Home menu) can be copied to an external storage device, and reapplied to an X....

MSIX is a new format that allows current Win32 application to run in a container on devices with Windows 10 17682 or higher. The new Microsoft Store app allows developers to convert apps to MSIX without needing to download or use the full Windows 10 SDK. As this is a preview app, it is still only available to Microsoft Account holders who are members of the Windows Insider Program. Microsoft has detailed all the requirements for being able to download the app: However, there are a number of prerequisites, which include:...