Well, its kinda funny see… You had a problem and an update was supposed to fix it. It did.  But it also caused other problems.  It is no secret that MSFT pushes updates out the door at a fast and furious pace. People are starting to report more and more update issues.

Microsoft has been listening and they have release a “Fix Windows Update Errors” tool

Here is the link: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/10164/fix-windows-update-errors

The tool is designed to fix some of the most common update errors.  Here is the official Microsoft speil:

“This guided walk-through provides steps to fix problems when installing updates. Here are some commonly seen error codes: 0x80073712, 0x800705B4, 0x80004005, 0x8024402F, 0x80070002, 0x80070643, 0x80070003, 0x8024200B, 0x80070422, 0x80070020. These steps should help with all errors and not just the ones listed. “

Well, at least partially. Using this guide will turn off the customer experience data flow back to MS.  I personally do not care if MS collects my anonymous (wink wink) data and uses it to improve Windows but I know lots of people do. So here is a relatively straight forward way to turn off the data pipe:

1. Backup your registry first – always a safe bet
2. Launch registry editior (regedit from the run box)
3. Navigate to KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\SQMClient
4. RIght click the SQMclient folder and create a new key.
5. Call the new key WIndows
6. Add a new 32-bit dword
7. Name it CEIPE and set the value to 0 (zero not oh)

Done! In a future article I will show you how to do this via GP

At the end of the year Microsoft released some new virtual machines to be played with. They are all current builds and have developer tools and SDKs ready to go.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows

Beware of download limits though: these are full featured VMs and are 20+ gigs in size!!

They can be run in Hyper-V and other virtualization platforms

Well, its not dead yet… just mostly dead

Looks like the Creator Update (14997)  will further push Flash usage to the back burner.  With the rise of HTML 5 and some pretty serious security concerns for one of the best features of the web 10-15 years ago, it seems like the days of Flash are numbered.  In Edge, Flash will be blocked automatically

No news on what will happen with IE but then again MSFT has not spoken much of their older child lately… Signs of things to come?

Another nail in the coffin. This time we are looking back fondly at XP (and those 3 Vista users out there, somewhere).  Support for a web giant, Firefox, is going to end on those platforms in the near future.  Microsoft ended its support for XP in 2014 and Vista is set for 2017.  Chrome dropped support last year. Now Mozilla says that Vista support will end in Sept 2017.  Goodbye old friend XP, sorry I never really knew you Vista.

I nearly fell over my chair (as my wife would say).  I just came across an article that shows how to rename multiple files at the same time… and there is no coding or wizardry required!

1. Open Explorer in Windows 10
2. Select all the files
3. Rename the first one
4. Hit Enter

Obviously you will need to be a bit careful to only select the files you want and the files will be given an number to identify them based on the selection sequence but ..wow… super easy!

Okay, so they are both going to be around but I have been hearing lots of hype around this new-kid-on-the-block

Cache is going to be another gathering point.  Unlike OneNote which is intended to contain mostly notes Cache is designed around snippets and uses a project-centric approach.

There are quite a few similarities to OneNote but more details will emerge as the app leaves Beta (if it ever does – this is a Microsoft Garage project after all)

Hi Dear Readers,

I took a few weeks off over the holidays and there has been some exciting news.

Here is the big gossip piece:  New Windows 10 build leaked!  Oooohh.. Shiny 🙂

First reported by Windows Central

Here are some of the “reported” newnesses:

1)Folders in the Start Menu Tiles.  You will be able to add folder to the tiles in the Start menu

2) Cortana based setup.  During setup Cortana will be available to help

3) Cortana shortcut.  The Windows Key + C is back!

4) Pause updates. You will now have the option to delay updates by up to 35 days

5) Share UI updates.  Does anyone even use this anymore?  Maybe the update will make it relevant again…

6) Apps moved up in the Settings  Now it can be accessed from the top level of the Settings screen