User interface annoyances

WINDOWS 11

By Will Fastie

The user interface for Windows 11 is changing almost monthly, and sometimes even more quickly.

It’s not clear why, nor are the benefits of the changes explained. Many of the changes arrive silently and are noticed only when something doesn’t work as expected.

Here are a few of my personal aggravations.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.37.0, 2024-09-09).

Log files are useful but annoying

ON SECURITY

By Susan Bradley

Laboring over the Labor Day weekend, I spent a few hours rebuilding a computer at the office. It had suddenly stopped responding.

I attempted to reboot it, to no avail — its SSD hard drive had failed.

The major disadvantage of solid-state drives (SSDs) is that when they fail, they fail suddenly. But mea culpa: I missed a big hint that failure might be imminent. For several days before the failure, it was throwing off Volume Shadow Copy errors that were logged by my backup software. I didn’t notice those errors.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.37.0, 2024-09-09).

MS-DEFCON 2: 24H2 is around the corner

By Susan Bradley

I can always tell when fall is in the air.

No, it’s not a decrease in temperatures — we’re still very hot here in Central California. No, it’s not that pumpkin-spice aroma around coffee shops.

It’s the technology headlines about imminent updates from Redmond and Cupertino. Naturally, that means I’m raising the MS-DEFCON level to 2. Here are a few things you should consider.

Anyone can read the full MS-DEFCON Alert (21.36.1, 2024-09-05).

September 2024 Office non-Security updates are now available

Office non-Security updates have been released Tuesday, September 3, 2024. They are not included in the DEFCON-4 approval for the August 2024 patches. Unless you have a specific need to install them, you should wait until Susan Bradley (Patch Lady) approves them and any problems have been reported.

Remember, Susan’s patching sequence and recommendations are based on a business environment that has IT support and may have time constraints on the updating process. Consumer patching should be more cautious due to limited technical and mechanical resources. The latter is the reason for the AskWoody DEFCON system.

Office 2016
Update for Microsoft Access 2016 (KB5002633)
Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB5002636)

Office 2016 reached  End of Mainstream Support on October 13, 2020. EOS for Office 2016 is October 14, 2025.

Updates are for the .msi version (perpetual). Office 365 and C2R are not included.

Security updates for all supported versions of Microsoft Office are released on the second Tuesday of the month (Patch Tuesday).

Is this article plagiarism? Now you can find out.

PUBLIC DEFENDER

By Brian Livingston

An epidemic of plagiarism — outright duplication of other people’s works — is raging through chatbots and other artificial-intelligence technologies.

One study shows that almost 60% of the outputs from some chatbots contain plagiarism. The good news? The latest detection software can be 100% accurate in separating AI-plagiarized text from original, human work.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.36.0, 2024-09-02).
This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

Get Office Copilot now — without paying

MICROSOFT 365

By Peter Deegan

It’s possible to get many of the AI features promoted for Copilot without paying Microsoft $30 per month.

What you’ll get is less streamlined than in the paid product, but it’s still approachable. Besides, the paid version isn’t yet anywhere nearly as good as the hype.

In this article, I’ll explain some of the ways you can use free Copilot with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. You’ll be able to experiment and thus gain an appreciation for whether paid Copilot Pro or Copilot for Microsoft 365 are worth the cost.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.36.0, 2024-09-02).

Microsoft’s new Master Services Agreement

MICROSOFT

By Will Fastie

Get it while you can.

Microsoft has been notifying users about its updated Master Services Agreement (MSA), which goes into effect on September 30, 2024.

This is not exactly a surprise. Microsoft seems to be on an annual schedule when it comes to MSA changes, although this is not assured. Updates to the MSA are announced in July, giving users two months to review the changes.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.36.0, 2024-09-02).

Safe remote access — from anything to anything

ON SECURITY

By Susan Bradley

One of the most used technologies in the Windows world is more than likely the most abused.

Remote Desktop is one of the oldest ways to get from one machine to another, but it’s also one that relies on older technologies that Microsoft is trying to phase out. Add to that the interaction of Entra ID accounts (in the case of cloud technologies) and Microsoft accounts and firewalls, and it can be a bit confusing to set up.

In spite of all that, the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a technology that many of us use and rely upon.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.36.0, 2024-09-02).