There was a lot that happened in the world of Microsoft this week. There were updates to all supported Windows versions, including the first-ever update to Windows 11 that began rolling out to the public as part of the Patch Tuesday updates. While the updates brought fixes aplenty, not all was well for a few people when it came to performance. There were also disappointments in store for those excited about 3D emojis in Windows 11. This, gaming, and more are in our weekly digest for October 10 – October 16.
Patch Tuesday and Windows 11 preview builds
The second Tuesday of the month brought a bunch of updates to all supported Windows versions. This time around, Windows 11 joined the group and received its first-ever public update. As usual, other versions included Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and users of Windows 7 that have opted for extended security updates. While these updates did bring a bunch of bug fixes and improvements, what they did not bring were fixes for the issue affecting users running Windows 11 on AMD processors. Instead, performance on Ryzen systems reportedly deteriorated. The issue affected even the latest-generation chips.
The fix was said to come later in the week, which it actually did in the form of Windows 11 build 22000.282, which rolled out to the Beta and Release Preview channels. The build brought a ton of fixes, which will be eventually rolled out to the production version. Dev channel users, however, received Windows 11 build 22478 that included a few new features, improvements, and the addition of new Fluent emojis. The emojis were a topic of conversation as they were not as “3D” as the firm had been promising.
For those interested, the firm also detailed how it reduced the size of Windows 11 updates by 40%.
WSL in the Microsoft Store, security, and more
Continuing with the firm’s efforts to move more apps to the Microsoft Store, the newest entrant is the Windows Subsystem for Linux in Preview form. This will help the company bring new features to the capability without having to tie them to OS releases. This is also the version that the firm will be promoting as the optimal solution, it added.
The week also brought a few security-related news, the direst of which was the report by Microsoft that U.S. defense companies are being targeted by a threat actor that is being linked to Iran. The cluster is currently termed DEV-0343. The firm has listed some hunting queries for Microsoft 365 Defender and Azure Sentinel that customers can utilize to detect malicious activity, which you can find here.
As for Windows 11, the company demoed a hacker attack on systems without TPM, VBS, and other security features, further justifying its decision to adopt those standards as the default. In addition to this, the company also showed off how Azure won against its biggest DDoS attack ever back in August this year.
In unrelated news, Microsoft also announced this week that Visual Studio 2022 will officially launch on November 8, bringing features such as .NET 6 and C++ 20 support, better performance for the core debugger, and much more.
Xbox Series X “Mini Fridge”, console giveaways, and games
We start off the gaming roundup with news of two custom Xbox Series X consoles; one featuring SpongeBob SquarePants and another featuring Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which are a part of a giveaway commemorating the launch of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. Talking about new hardware, the company announced that the Xbox Series X “Mini Fridge” would launch in December for $99.99, for those that have been interested in the product.
Moving on, this week’s list of Deals with Gold included discounts and offers on games from the Batman and Fallout franchises. In terms of what’s new, Xbox Game Pass users on the PC will finally be offered Minecraft on that platform. This includes both the Bedrock version and the original Java Edition. Mojang Studios also announced that the next major update, Minecraft The Wild Update, will be out in 2022, bringing Ancient Cities, frogs, and more. Talking about subscriptions and platforms, Fallout 3 received an update that removed the requirements for Games for Windows Live completely.
Concluding the gaming section is the news of Halo: The Master Chief Collection updates. The latest inclusion of features comes via Season 8 which is titled Mythic. It comes with enhancements to the Firefight mode, custom games browser support for more titles, PC file share, and much more.
Dev channel:
- Microsoft launches UK's first British Sign Language billboard campaign
- Microsoft releases PowerToys 0.47.1 to address stability issues
- Everything new in Windows Holographic vesion 21H2
- Closer Look Series: Taking a look at the new Paint app and the lock screen on Windows 11
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Microsoft is deploying HTTP/3 on Exchange Online servers to reduce latency by up to 67%
Logging off:
For those disappointed about the absence of a full-fledged clock on secondary displays when running Windows 11, a third-party utility called ElevenClock helps users add a clock on the second display, including with seconds – something that is entirely missing on Windows 11. It must be noted that the tool is an unverified, third-party offering.
In addition to the tool, be sure to not miss our detailed coverage of Windows 11 as part of our Closer Look series here.
Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.
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