Windows Terminal arrives?

WINDOWS 11

By Will Fastie

Microsoft’s Windows Terminal is not a new thing, but it arrived by stealth in Windows 11. It’s quite a change.

Windows Terminal is a replacement for the Windows Console that can run any command-line-interface (CLI) app within a tabbed interface. It was developed for Windows 10 and has been around since 2019, but it has suddenly appeared in Windows — apparently with no warning.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.09.0, 2024-02-26).

Do you know what to do for identity theft?

I hope you are following Brian Livingston’s series on Password managers. There’s more to come in fact. As a password manager program is one of the best things you can do to prevent identity theft.

As the SANS  OUCH newsletter points out, the best way to prevent such thing is to ensure you are using strong passwords.

“Strong Passwords: One of the most effective ways to protect yourself is secure each of your accounts with a unique, long password, and when possible, enable multi-factor authentication.”

There is no way the human brain can remember a long strong password even if you did make it a passphrase. In addition, if you reuse it on many sites, all it takes is one site that does not do their due diligence in protecting your hashed password and once “popped” by an attacker, they then try that saved hashed password against other web sites.  We are creatures of habit when it comes to reusing passwords. Try to NOT be a creature of habit. Are you following Brian’s series?  Do you use a password manager? What steps have you taken to keep your identity safe?

Born to fail?

BEN’S WORKSHOP

By Ben Myers

A beguiling and captivating laptop showed up here with a bad combination of RAM and SSD.

One of my clients recently traded in a Dell Inspiron 15-7568, a laptop with a brilliant 15-inch, 4K (3840×2160) resolution touch screen; eight gigabytes of memory; and a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD).

Nice, but troubled.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.08.0, 2024-02-19).
This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

Can you use a free password manager, or must you pay?

PUBLIC DEFENDER

By Brian Livingston

We all face security threats on the Internet. A common recommendation by tech pundits is this: at each website where you register, enter a different username-password combination.

Remembering all those combos — especially if you make up random strings, such as 6!p#o&a0%9b — almost forces you to install software called a password manager. But do you really have to?

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.08.0, 2024-02-19).

Microsoft’s groundhog — Copilot

PATCH WATCH

By Susan Bradley

Will you see it, or won’t you?

In the United States and Canada, on a day in early February, a certain rodent is observed emerging from its burrow. Based upon an old Pennsylvania Dutch superstition, if the groundhog sees its shadow, it retreats into the ground for six more weeks, signaling that much more wintry weather.

I feel a bit like this with Microsoft’s release of Copilot — I never know whether a machine is going to see it or not.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.08.0, 2024-02-19).

Who are you? (2024 edition)

EDITORIAL

By Will Fastie

Here are a few things we learned from this year’s reader survey.

First, many thanks to the very large number of readers who took the time to complete our 2024 reader survey. Your response is very gratifying and greatly appreciated.

There are several reasons we do these annual surveys. Of greatest importance is making sure we understand the nature of your use of technology, which directs the content we produce. We also want to know a bit about you and your background — again, so we can gauge the level to which we write.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.08.0, 2024-02-19).

Review your notifications

When you purchase a new Windows 11 computer – especially one that wasn’t manually built by you but purchased from an OEM vendor, you want to look for all of the “upsells”. In the System/Notifications, look for the other apps and other vendors that have preset to give you notifications.

Case in point my Windows 11 Home test laptop purchased “AS IS” from an OEM vendor comes with notifications turned on to “upsell you” to Dropbox.

The other day I saw someone in Enterprise complain that new HP computers were coming shipped with Wolf security and wondering if that bloat could be removed with Intune or Autopilot.

Bottom line anytime you get a new computer, review what’s installed and rip out accordingly.

And for the record “bloat” has long been a problem in the Windows ecosystem.

Master Patch List as of February 13, 2024

Happy Valentine’s day and Happy Post Patch day – or rather the wait and see week.

I’ve updated the Master Patch list for the February updates.  I’ll be updating the page for any known issues or issues that we are tracking.  Still seeing failures on Windows 10 and KB5034441 which fails to install with error code 0x80070643.  That has not been fixed.

Consumers: At this time I only want you to install browser updates.

Businesses: You’ll want to install Exchange updates for your on premise mail servers NOW.  Exchange 2016 – you must run a script.  Exchange 2019 has a patch. Make sure you read this post.

Mind you at this time I still have not given the go ahead and strongly recommend that you do not install updates at this time. But I know some of you are testing updates at this time. The full details will be in Monday’s Plus newsletter.

As always, thank you all for supporting the cause! Remember we use the “name your price” model where you can choose how much you will pay for  a membership . Plus membership gives you access and if you donate $50 or more you’ll get a special code to enable text messages sent to your phone each time the Master Patch List gets updated and when I change the MS-DEFCON level.  More details in Monday’s newsletter.  You are missing out if you don’t sign up. All content is human made with our own blood, sweat, tears, fingers and brain power and 100% AI free.  Therefore, if I’ve fat fingered any KB numbers or if you have any questions, as always post in the forums and I’ll follow up!

February 2024 patches for Windows

Ready or not, here comes the February updates for Windows.

Will we see a fix for our  KB5034441 for Windows 10 22H2 and in KB5034440 for Windows 11 woes? (so far, the answer is no)

What we will see is “Highlights for Windows 11, versions 22H2 & 23H2 (cont.) •The Copilot in Windows icon will appear on the right side of the system tray on the taskbar. Also, the display of Show desktop at the rightmost corner of the taskbar will be off by default.”

Ugh. And double Ugh.

I’ll be adding more links to this post as I digest the info.

And of course it’s a “dribbled” change

• Note Windows 11 devices will get this new functionality at different times. Some of these new features roll out gradually using controlled feature rollout (CFR) to consumers.

Remember if you get Copilot and don’t want it, we’ve got your back here and here.

Grrrrrrrrrr and double grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Zero day blog on the updates released today.

Exchange getting patched again today. SQL client fixes released in the OS patches so check those line of business database connections.  Not seeing any automated patch for the Windows RE issues. Office and specifically Outlook is getting fixed for a preview pane security issue.  Defender for endpoint getting fixes for zero day that led to malware being installed.

Replacing WordPad (and more) with Office Online

MICROSOFT 365

By Peter Deegan

Anyone can view and even edit a Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote file on a computer by using Office in a browser. It’s free for anyone.

Word for the Web is Microsoft’s recommended replacement for the soon-to-be-deleted WordPad app in Windows. The browser-based apps are worth keeping in mind. They let you keep working with Word, Excel, or PowerPoint docs if Office isn’t working or you’re at another computer. All you need is:

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.07.0, 2024-02-12).
This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

How to link your smartphone with Windows 11

WINDOWS 11

By Lance Whitney

Connecting your iPhone or Android phone to Windows 11 lets you make phone calls, send texts, and view notifications directly from your PC.

As an iPhone owner and Windows user, I’d like to be able to access my phone from my computer at times. Maybe I want to make or answer a call, or send or view a text message, but my phone isn’t handy. Or maybe speaking or chatting with someone feels easier when I’m already using my PC for other tasks. Whatever the scenario, this is a capability I often need. And it’s all doable with the right tools.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.07.0, 2024-02-12).

Sandboxie-Plus — A safe place for apps to run

FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT

By Deanna McElveen

Whether trimming the rose bushes, pulling weeds in the garden, or watering the hanging pots, and when needing to take my eyes off my tiny twin girls, I just plopped them down in the sandbox.

It’s hard to do real-world damage to a castle when it’s only a castle in a sandbox. You can treat programs the same way.

In the sense of software, a sandbox is a way of running software in a protected space (virtualized) so that it can run as normal but can’t do any harm to the host computer.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.07.0, 2024-02-12).