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If you aren’t using Microsoft’s voice-activated personal assistant, Cortana, you’re missing out on some beneficial, hands-free functionality. Because Cortana is now fully integrated into Windows 10, she can help you launch applications, make dinner reservations, and more. Try the following commands to make the most out of your virtual assistant.

Hey, Cortana
Before asking her to do anything, we need to get Cortana’s attention by clicking or tapping the Cortana button on the taskbar. If you do not see Cortana on your taskbar, right-click the taskbar and go to Cortana > Show Cortana icon. To enable ‘Hey, Cortana’, simply say “Hey, Cortana,” followed by your question. If you’re using a Windows Phone, you can press and hold the search button to activate Cortana.

Basics tasks
If you’re looking to launch a program or open a website, simply use the word ‘Launch’ or ‘Open’ followed by the website’s name. Make notes by uttering the words ‘take a note’ or ‘note it down’. As for making drafts, start with ‘Write an’ followed by email or text and end with the contact name and the message itself. Lastly, ‘Show me emails from [contact]’ will display all the texts or emails sent from the specified contact.

Scheduling/Reminders
It’s important for small- and medium-sized business owners to stay on top of their schedules. Take a glance at your calendar events with commands such as ‘How’s my schedule looking?’ or ‘What do I have next week?’. Add or move appointments with ‘Add’ or ‘Move’ followed by the appointment and time. Reminders are easily scheduled by uttering the words ‘Remind me’ followed by whatever you need to be reminded about and when.

Search
If you can’t locate the file you need, don’t worry. By asking Cortana to ‘Find’ a document, video, or picture on your device from a specific time frame, she will sift through everything quickly to find what you need. You can easily initiate search queries with ‘Can you find’ followed by whatever you are looking for. You can even look at basic search results without having to open a browser window: Simply ask whatever question you have and enjoy combing through the results.

Window’s voice-activated personal assistant, Cortana, helps you accomplish daily tasks with ease and efficiency — but only if you use the right commands. If you have further questions or would like to know more Cortana commands, feel free to contact us. We’re ready to help!

Microsoft has announced that it will bring back free Windows 10 upgrades, but on one condition: Only small- and medium-sized businesses that have previously passed on the offer are eligible. So if you or someone you know has declined Microsoft’s previous proposition, here are some reasons you might want to reconsider.

“They’re extending the free upgrade to this segment of customers to help them get to Windows 10,” said Wes Miller, an analyst at Direction on Microsoft, specializing in complex licensing rules and practices. Much like the 12-month upgrade deal that ended last August, this offer applies to personal computers running on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. The only difference is, the offer is exclusive for businesses that have subscribed to one of the Windows Enterprise plans.

According to Nic Fillingham, a small business product manager: “Customers subscribed to Windows 10 Enterprise E3 and E5 as well as Secure Productive Enterprise E3 and E5, can now upgrade their Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs and devices to Windows 10 without the need to purchase separate upgrade licenses.“

The Windows 10 Enterprise E3 and E5 subscriptions are priced at $7 per user per month and $14 per user per month, or $84 and $168 per user annually. Unlike Microsoft’s historical licensing — which permanently licensed the operating system on a per-device basis — the E3 and E5 subscriptions are per-user licenses, and payments must be maintained to run the OS. This was introduced to target customers that didn’t want to sign a long-term volume licensing agreement.

In order to qualify for a Windows 10 Enterprise E3 or E5 subscription — which are delivered through a CSP (cloud service provider) — devices must already be running on Windows 10 Pro. SMBs could upgrade their devices for free last year if those devices ran older Windows 10 versions, and SMBs can upgrade the devices they newly acquire this year if those devices are already equipped with Windows 10 Pro.

“When the CSP originated, the only qualifying OS was [Windows] 10 Pro Anniversary Update,” said Miller. “You had to be on 10 Pro. So, if you missed the consumer upgrade window, you would have to buy the underlying 10 Pro license.” It’s this license that Microsoft is giving away to customers subscribing to Windows 10 Enterprise E3 or E5. The acquired license is “perpetual” and will be tied to the specific device. “This means the license will not expire or be revoked if the customer chooses to end their Windows cloud subscription in the CSP program,” added Fillingham.

Since the upgrade is considered a subscriber benefit, a PC upgrade might be needed — from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Enterprise — and if the user isn’t already covered by an E3 or E5 subscription, an additional $7 or $14 monthly is needed to run the system. Miller stated that the likeliest reason Microsoft brought back the free upgrade was to get more people onto the User Subscription License (SL). Providing upgrades from older editions makes more of a customer’s PCs eligible for use under the SL model of E3 and E5 (which is licensed per user, not per device). Another motivation could be to promote a partner-centric CSP.

Microsoft has officially confirmed the Windows 7/8.1-to-Windows 10 Pro upgrade offer is a permanent addition to the benefits for subscribers to Windows 10 Enterprise E3 and E5, and not a time-limited pitch. If you’re still hesitating or would like to ask some more questions, feel free to give us a call anytime!

As the saying goes: Out with the old, in with the new. That’s exactly what Microsoft is encouraging Windows 7 users to do as soon as possible. It’s been reported that Windows 7 in 2017 is so outdated that patches are unable to secure it anymore. Maybe it’s the nostalgic qualities that make it hard for users to take the leap. But sentiments aside, Windows 10 is the way to go.

Windows 7 was given extended support in 2015. And with that, Microsoft warned its users that this outdated version would drive up operating costs due to remediating software attacks that Windows 10 systems could otherwise avoid. The three-year countdown toward Windows 7’s twilight officially kicks off with a warning to enterprises that they could face hefty fines for sticking with the platform’s outdated security.

According to Markus Nitschke, head of Windows at Microsoft Germany: Windows 7 does not meet the requirements of modern technology, nor the high security requirements of IT departments. How would this make current Windows 7 users feel? Why are users choosing to remain faithful to the platform’s outdated security? Users can delay upgrades until January 13, 2020, after which extended support for the 2009 OS will end and it will no longer receive patches — unless the customer is paying for a pricey Microsoft Custom Support Agreement.

Markus also added that “As early as in Windows XP, we saw that companies should take early steps to avoid future risks or costs.” The message came as Microsoft published studies that showed Windows 10 Anniversary Update’s built-in security managed to neutralize zero-day exploits, even without patches needed to protect earlier versions of Windows.

Failing to upgrade to Windows 10 means that you and your networks will miss out on noteworthy security features such as the Windows Hello biometric login, the AppContainer sandboxing technology, and Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, which will gain new features after upcoming Creators Update.

On top of missing out on all the security features that Windows 10 has to offer, enterprise organizations on Windows 7 soon won’t have the additional zero-day protection that EMET, or the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit, offered since 2009. Last November, EMET’s expiration date was extended from January 2017 to July 31, 2018.

With the help of newer tools, migrating from Windows 7 to Windows 10 is considerably easier when compared with migrations from XP. Microsoft is still urging corporate users to make the shift before Microsoft permanently terminates support for Windows 7, stating that their business could be looking at real trouble if they fail to comply.

Business owners always do their best to ensure the future of their organization. That includes knowing which tech resources to rely on and which ones to avoid. If you still have questions about Windows 7, feel free to give us a call.

In the past year, Microsoft was heavily criticized for forcing the Windows 10 OS update on PC users. After thousands of customer complaints, the tech giant vowed to make changes and appease disgruntled end users. With the new year are signs that the firm is finally tending to these problems. Here are some of them:

A patch and a glitch away
Users couldn’t escape the glitches in the frequent Windows 10 updates, which caused an array of problems such as frozen systems, broken webcams, and even PCs being unable to secure an Internet connection. In light of the patching dilemma, Microsoft is offering more options to defer updates. In fact, a leaked preview shows a new option to pause updates for up to 35 days via a switch in the Settings menu.

OneDrive placeholders
Since the launch of Windows 10, many users have eagerly awaited Microsoft to re-introduce this beloved feature to the operating system’s built-in OneDrive cloud storage service. In Windows 8.1, placeholders (aka Smart files) allowed users to see all their OneDrive files, whether or not they were stored on the device. Making its return in Windows 10 File Explorer when using OneDrive, the feature shows user files stored locally as well as on the cloud.

Owning up to the update fiasco
Not only is Microsoft addressing the various complaints it received, but it’s also owning up to some of them. Just before Christmas, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer, Chris Capossela, admitted that the company had gone too far when it tried to get Windows 7 and 8 users to upgrade to Windows 10. This referred to Microsoft’s decision in early 2016 to change the design for the user prompt for its Get Windows 10 app, the software responsible for scheduling upgrades. The user prompt was altered so that clicking X to close the window causes the user to unknowingly agree to a Windows 10 upgrade. This change puts Microsoft in direct violation of its own user experience guidelines for developers on dialog box design.

“Within a couple of hours of that hitting the world, we knew we had gone too far,” recalled Capossela. “Those two weeks were pretty painful and clearly a lowlight for us.” It was then that Microsoft reversed its decision on tweaking the pop-up, so clicking on X would dismiss the upgrade.

It seems that 2017 is the year that Microsoft will start listening more to its users and addressing their complaints. Maybe: Hopefully this renewed strategy will benefit users sooner rather than frustrate them later. Contact us and we’ll keep you up-to-date with the latest Microsoft updates.

Recently, Microsoft has made new upgrades to their web browser platform. Despite numerous changes, one making the biggest waves for users of all kinds is the lack of instant and easy compatibility with Adobe Flash. Adobe Flash is a web platform and add-on that many business websites have put to extensive use. However, now that Microsoft has made these changes, it can mean big things for business owners and web designers alike. Get to know more about why Microsoft has blocked Adobe Flash and the possible ramifications for those changes.

The primary purpose behind the recent changes made to Microsoft Edge is to make it more competitive with the popular Google Chrome web browser. Among efforts to do just that is the change to how Adobe Flash works on the Edge browser. Now, instead of Adobe Flash plugins playing and loading immediately when a person navigates a website, the application will be blocked.

An alert will come up near the address bar, letting users know that Adobe Flash has been blocked and will give the option to run the add-on or continue blocking it. For businesses that use Adobe Flash throughout their websites, this can be a frustrating change as visitors will need to take an extra step to access the full website.

However, there are numerous legitimate reasons for these changes to the Microsoft Edge browser. The most important of these issues is the fact that Adobe Flash is a security risk and is easily hackable, making it more likely for information and control to be lost to web users. Another issue is the fact that Adobe Flash is a big drain on battery life for computers and other devices.

The theory is that Adobe Flash is on its way out, and that newer, better systems are on their way in. As of now, Windows Insider users are the only ones with access to these updates, but soon the updates will go global and be made available to all users. In fact, Microsoft plans to eventually automatically load HTML5 web information first without loading Adobe Flash content at all.

Because so many sites use Adobe Flash, this can mean major renovations to existing web content. If you worry about the impact this will have on your business, contact us for immediate help and assistance in maximizing your website usability before these changes go live for all Microsoft Edge users.

Windows 10, the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system, has proved to be a system full of many strengths and some very decided weaknesses. One of the biggest flaws of this particular operating system is the fact that Windows Updates are often clunky, take a great deal of time, and use large amounts of processing power. Luckily, Microsoft has recently proposed a fix for that problem in hopes of speeding up the update process for the Windows 10 operating system.

What Microsoft is proposing to streamline for the Windows 10 update process is a system known as a UUP or a Unified Update Platform. A Unified Update Platform is essentially a large series of changes to Windows 10, all of which occur behind-the-scenes and will not affect overall user experience. These changes will work to reduce the amount of processing power required to update Windows as well as make the updates move faster for Windows 10 users who need to keep things moving along quickly.

This UUP ambition will be accomplished in a number of ways, including significantly shrinking the size of the update files for all devices, and especially, making the Windows phone update process much more streamlined than it currently is. One of the ways Microsoft proposes to streamline and speed up the update process is by sending updates that are device-specific rather than distributing a full bundle of updates together, some of which are not necessary for the device in question.

Currently, Windows 10 updates essentially overhaul the entire version of Windows 10 that users have on their device. This makes the update process easier on Microsoft, but not on users. Instead of this system, the UUP will eventually allow updates to occur only to the specific programs and systems that need updating, leaving the rest of the operating system untouched. Larger system-wide updates will also be much faster and more efficient with the UUP system in place.

Should you have further questions about what this new Windows 10 update process could mean for you and your business, contact us as soon as possible. We can help you with all your operating system needs.

Microsoft Paint has long been a staple to the Windows computing platform for many years. And only recently has this cornerstone application been updated with the introduction of a new program, Microsoft Paint 3D. If you have long awaited such an upgrade, you’ll be delighted to hear about the the new changes.

With the new Microsoft Paint 3D, users will have the opportunity to create both 2D and 3D graphics and images. It is just as easy as it always was to use pen and paintbrush features to draw a 2D image, but now these images can be converted into 3D. There is also a stamp feature that allows a user to add stickers to their 2D creations to make them 3D.

Additionally, just like in the world outside of the computer, the 3D objects in Microsoft Paint 3D can be written on with pencils, pens, or paintbrushes, adding 2D imagery to 3D creations. One of the additional benefits of Microsoft Paint 3D is that the creations that users make on the app can easily be shared on social media. This makes it easier than ever before to put Microsoft Paint creations to use.

With Microsoft Paint 3D, users are also able to take images from their smart phone and transform them to 3D images in Microsoft Paint 3D. Even further, if you have a 3D printer, you can actually bring the 3D creations from your app to life.

All these new innovations make Microsoft Paint 3D an exciting development in the Microsoft product offerings. This new version of Microsoft Paint will be made available with the latest updated version of Windows 10 Creator’s Studio and should be released early in 2017. If you are ready to get started with this program or want more information about what else the Microsoft Creator’s update has in store for you, contact us as soon as possible.

As Microsoft outlines new updates to its latest platform, Windows 10, many people do not even realize that changes are afoot. In fact, a lot of the best new features Windows 10 has to offer have been sneakily revealed, and so many people don’t even know that’s been happening. If you are a current Windows 10 user, get to know more about some of the best new features this computing platform has to offer. Then, if you have further questions or want to know more about how to get these features working for you when they are fully available, you can contact us right away to get started.

Groove Music Maker

One of the biggest Windows 10 features that Microsoft sneakily revealed for is a new program known as Groove Music Maker. Presumably designed to compete with Apple’s Garageband application, this program allows users to create computer-generated music by using the program’s own digital instruments or by recording their own voice or instrumental work and adding sound effects. Sure, that may not be particularly earth-shattering for most SMBs, but maybe you want to experiment with a new jingle for your local ads?

Windows Store

The Windows Store will also be greatly improved with the ability to make in-app purchases directly from the Windows Store homescreen. This streamlines the experience for users who wish to purchase apps, movies, or music quickly and easily. Make sure that if you have any Windows store apps, they’re optimized for this development.

Microsoft Edge Browser

The Microsoft Edge browser will also have major improvements as well. The tab viewing and browsing process will be made easier by allowing users to set browser tiles aside for later access and use. On top of this feature, Microsoft Edge users will also be able to use scrollable tab previews that let the user get a look at what page is on each tab before they toggle back to that tab. Both these features make the web browsing process easier and help to make Microsoft Edge competitive with the features of other popular web browsers.

Windows Defender

Windows Defender, the built-in security system for Windows 10, will also be improved in these new features and updates. The software will be more user-friendly and include virus protection, firewall, computer performance features, and much more.

Windows 10 Basics

The entire base of the Windows 10 platform will be enhanced as well. Users will be able to pick up where they stopped working from other devices linked to the computer. This streamlines the user experience and can prevent information and data loss. The quick actions menu will also be adjusted so that users can more easily perform necessary actions. The accent color scheme will also be made customizable, and live tiles will be introduced to the Start Menu feature, making it easier to access your latest photos, documents, and recently used apps.

Knowing these are some of the upcoming features that Microsoft plans to add to Windows 10, you can now see how these changes will benefit you and your user experience with Windows 10. For more information about Windows 10 as it is now or will be in the future, contact us today.

As a new and gigantic improvement on versions 7, 8 and 8.1, Windows 10 bears a significant burden in regards to security. Despite being regarded as one of the best Windows operating systems supported, it suffers from imperfections, just like every other piece of software on the market. But with such a swift and thorough response to flaws from its programmers, it’s hard to complain. Make sure to read this article before installing Windows’ most recent patch.

Internet Explorer

In its Windows 10 announcement, Microsoft clarified that it found four zero-day flaws, which are vulnerabilities that have never been seen before. Of the four, the most concerning is the one that allows cyberattackers to remotely take control of your machine with full administrative rights via Internet Explorer. All that is required to deploy the malware is visiting a website with the corresponding code.

Office

Microsoft Office also has a critical flaw that grants attackers the ability to corrupt memory and abuse privileges inherent to the user who opened the mischievous Office document. By amending how documents are saved and how code within a document is executed, Microsoft believes users will be much safer from email attachment schemes.

Exchange Server

For companies with on-premise servers, Microsoft Exchange Server patches need special attention. Without them, a malicious email could grant cyberattackers the ability to remotely insert and execute commands within the server. Patch MS16-108 provides cumulative updates and changes the way hotfixes and service packs are delivered. Lastly, it tries to ensure Microsoft Exchange Server follows a scheduled delivery model.

Microsoft Graphics

This security update for the Microsoft Graphics component of Windows 10 is considered ‘critical’ because of its presence throughout the entire operating system. Patch MS16-106 removes vulnerabilities in graphics processing protocols that would allow attackers to remotely control and exploit target systems.

If your desktops have not automatically updated themselves, users can trigger a manual update by opening the Settings window, selecting Update & Security, and finally Windows Update. Once there, simply select Check for Updates and follow the prompts to download and install the necessary updates.

Managing one machine is hard enough. If you’re struggling to keep an entire office up and running, chances are you feel like you’re treading water in steel-toed boots. For total monitoring and maintenance of all your Windows machines, call us today — we’ll throw you a lifeline and pull you aboard.

Last month Microsoft announced that over 400 million devices have Windows 10 installed. But despite the general consensus that those adoption rates are a huge success, Microsoft wants more. Because one of the biggest obstacles to large-scale migrations is varied compatibility among workstation hardware and software, a new tool has been released to analyze and report on the feasibility of making the move to Windows 10. If you’ve got any machines waiting for a worrisome upgrade, this article may contain all the information you need to make it easy.

Named the Windows Upgrade Analytics Service (WUAS), Microsoft is gifting administrators and service providers with tools very similar to those it uses to do its own bulk installs. By gathering data on multiple devices, applications, and hardware drivers on a network simultaneously, massive disruptions and troubleshooting events can be avoided entirely.

If any of these variables are customized or outdated, they may not work in a Windows 10, derailing a focused migration workflow. Available right now, this service does more than just inventory your workstations, it also uses the data it has gathered to guide administrators step-by-step through the most efficient order of upgrades possible.

If all your IT components are uniform and compatible with the most recent Windows 10 service pack, it will recommend a straightforward migration. However, if you have pockets of older, or more specialized machines, WUAS may suggest splitting the process up by upgrading those machines first to smooth the process.

Microsoft delivers the features of this service through its cloud-based Operations Management Suite. Make sure it’s installed on your machines and add ‘Upgrade Analytics’ from the ‘Solutions Gallery.’ From there, a simple wizard will guide you one item at a time through the four-step process.

Windows gets several updates per year, and it’s a waste of company resources for your staff to be stuck waiting for their machines to get back up and running while they update. Why not just outsource the entire process to professionals who will finish the task in a fraction of the time? Our managed services come with a flat fee, regardless of whether you want to upgrade all or just some of your workstations. Don’t believe us? Just call today to find out more!