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Thank you! I use 1Password and try to use 32 characters or more for my passwords. I am always astonished by the limitations on some sites, however. Macys.com, for example, only allows 16 characters, and limits the characters you can choose. That wouldn’t be so bad if they allowed some form of 2FA or MFA. But of course they don’t.

I’m CTO for a financial company (capital markets), and our systems allow up to 255 characters (the amount to which we salt anyway).

Some sites just haven’t gotten the memo about security.

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Kirsty

I saw this a while ago with my click-to-run version of Office on Windows 10. I installed Office 365 (2016) in March, 2018, and it has updated to 2019 … while maintaining the year “2016” on the app shortcuts. Over the months, various glitches have appeared, some of which were sorted by repairing the installation, some not.

I finally gave up and completely uninstalled my Office Pro Plus, Visio, and Project software and did a complete re-installation. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it remembered all my Outlook settings (I have two .pst files and four email connections) and all the wayward behavior has been corrected.

This is all a long way of me asking: could one or more updates over the past months have gone badly wrong, and would a re-installation fix problems that others are seeing?

[Elly]

You know, that might be it. I noticed that the Office app from the store had been updated this morning. I don’t even remember installing that app, and i’ve made sure to delete it.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Elly.

[MWmC]

Hello. Nothing seems to have been pushed to me, so i decided to live dangerously and try to update it manually. I turned back on updates and went from Click-to-Fail 2006 (13001.20384) to Click-to-Run 2007 (13029.20200). Both Outlook and my ability to search for file names and bring them up in various Office apps has been restored. I guess they squashed whatever bug they introduced, but i’m darned if i know how they introduced it. I turn off auto updates, so it wasn’t on my side.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by MWmC.

[MWmC]

Hello, everyone. I too had a gut-wrenching half-hour of panic (i live on Outlook) until i found a Reddit thread that had this roll-back info. By the way, the problem seems to have affected more than Outlook. In my case, i have long been able to type in part of a file name … “budget” in my case … and Windows 10 Pro finds my latest budget spreadsheet. Hitting enter brings up the sheet in Excel. Before rolling back, hitting enter brought up Excel, but without the sheet opened.

Perhaps the underlying problem is that something has messed with the ability of the apps to parse input files on open? In my case, Outlook is governed by a .pst file (not .ost).

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by MWmC.

[MWmC]

Good morning! I have been with the Adobe CC subscription plan since they launched it, and as a result i get invited into various testing programs. I always decline, since photography is a hobby for me, not a vocation, but i did see an invitation some time ago to a UX A/B testing program. Perhaps those who participated in that voted? The real question is: on what do they base their invitations for beta and other testing? I seem to get a lot of offers because of longevity (i assume), not heavy usage. But perhaps others are invited according to other parameters?

And, sorry, i didn’t answer your real question: i run an all-black background and place my icons on the desktop, so a little color looks good. I guess my only pet peeve is i cannot stand icons that do not scale well on my 2560×1440 monitor.

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by MWmC.

Isn’t it astonishing how many basic things Microsoft gets wrong? Just this morning I was noting, for the umpteenth time, that the Microsoft Store (at least on Windows 10 Pro) tells you when something was first put on the store, but not the date of its latest update … you have to go hunting for that information elsewhere.

[My comment about Microsoft screw-ups doesn’t apply to Azure-related technology. I am an enthusiastic user and supporter of Azure Cloud and Azure DevOps.]

If the update tools determines the machine isn’t ready for 2004, it must be comparing current factors against requirements. Share that information, Microsoft!

I avoid Intel CPUs at all costs, so it seems I’ll be safe for a while from 2004, since I presume they sort out the Intel problems before turning their attention to AMD-based machines. But I second the motion (above) that Microsoft provide some sort of diagnostic capability so we can understand what the hold up is on a machine-by-machine basis.

Good morning. I just checked my updates screen, noting that i’m still paused for updates through 14 June, but i do indeed have the same notification that Susan has seen on her machine — including the statement that my machine “isn’t quite ready” for the upgrade. My machine isn’t that old and has more than enough resources for Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, so i am left to speculate. Microsoft’s Windows “info” is once again useless. (I do not have the same experience with Azure, which is clearly built and maintained by a qualitatively different set of engineers.) I will follow your advice and hold off on this upgrade. Thank you!

1 May and it still works for Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. I just followed the same sequence as mixer did on 29 April, and it works. Updates are now paused for me until 5 June. I’m very grateful to the original poster of this bit of cleverness, and to everyone who has tested it.

Good morning. There’s an interesting article in the FT (only for subscribers i’m afraid), but the gist of it is that Zoom has been routing data through Chinese servers … after specifically having denied such routing.

I think this goes beyond the details of how and under what circumstances intrusions can happen. I have blocked access to Zoom on our platforms and told our partners they need to find another way to communicate with us … if they want our business.

Trust is trust, and Zoom has proven they don’t deserve it.

I really appreciate these separate articles on the Office world, especially since you also include Visio and Project (both of which are important to me). I note though that this article does not make reference to updates to Click-to-Run versions. My current version of Office is 1912, targeted channel (i like to check out the very latest capabilities; i have a separate environment with a stable version as a fall-back), and i have included a snippet from About Excel to give the full release info.

Is there a reason why Click-to-Run isn’t included?

Thank you again for these invaluable articles.

What a thoroughly rubbish response from your vendor! Is this someone with no idea how to run a service business? “American service” used to be a thing; perhaps it isn’t anymore.

I could not agree more. It seems that we have waves of protestations of innocence on the matter from whatever tech giant is caught out on privacy … only to have that same giant exposed for yet another violation not long after. I have an Android phone but don’t use Assistant, nor would i ever have one of those Alexa things, or equivalent, in my home.

The thing that most infuriates me is that i seem to have to make the rounds of the various privacy options on my devices (Android, iPadOS, Windows) to ensure they are still set in my favor. Their manufacturers don’t seem to have a problem overriding my selections … but on what basis i cannot say. It might only be after major OS updates, but i cannot be certain.

The bottom line is that makers of hardware and software are not being honest and honorable about letting us make our own privacy choices.

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Cybertooth

You don’t know me from a hole in the ground, and adherence to ethical standards forces me to admit that my best years are behind me … but i would encourage you to take a long look at Ubuntu. True: it’s been around for a long time, but my equally long experience with it is that it hasn’t grown bloated over the years. Installation and upgrading are a breeze, and you might consider adding another hard drive and installing it as a dual-boot system, as you make the transition. I’ve found Ubuntu dual-boot to work wonderfully well on a range of machines from under-powered laptops to high-powered workstations.

On the other hand, if you want to be cool and hang with the NextGens, you want to take a look at Mint. But i think Mint requires you to have at least one tattoo and one piercing before it will install. [You’ll want to check me on that before heading to an ink den.]

Good luck with your Linux journey!

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WildBill