It took nearly 2 weeks, but all of my Windows PCs have been updated to the Anniversary Edition. How did it work out for you? The updates worked as expected in most cases, but there are always some systems that experience problems. Let's take a look at some of the problems people have experienced and then review the improvements.
Three of the four computers I'm responsible for updated either on August 2nd or the following weekend. The fourth (my primary computer) refused to update, claiming incompatible monitors.
The problem seemed obvious: Because the computer had been running Windows 10 for more than a year, the monitors clearly were compatible. Microsoft support claimed that the Anniversary Edition had more stringent requirements for monitors, but was unable to state exactly what those requirements were or to name a brand and model of monitor that would be compatible. What I found, eventually, is that the Anniversary Edition wants monitors no smaller than 1024x600 instead of the previous 800x600. My monitors significantly exceed those specifications. In fact, the system significantly exceeded all specifications.
"NS" in the following chart indicates no specification.
Twelve days after the initial Anniversary Edition update, Microsoft pushed out an interim update and, once that has been installed, the hardware detection process no longer saw the monitors as being incompatible and the update installed as expected. My conjecture is that there was a flaw in the function that examined hardware and that even though the monitors were fully compatible, the fact that they were reported by windows as "Generic PnP" caused the test to fail.
Apparently that is not one of the more common installation problems. If you've encountered an installation problem, Windows Central has a summary of the most common issues and recommendations for resolving them. Some of the problems that have been reported:
A subsequent update to a notebook computer on the Windows Insider program now causes the Control Panel to crash whenever I try to view the update history and the Power icon on the Start Menu no longer works. These are problems that Microsoft will eventually fix, but it's infuriating that those who report such problems are constructively made to feel that they have done something wrong and that the problems don't really exist.
You won't find any must-have improvements in the Anniversary Edition. As with most mature applications and operating systems, changes and improvements are gradual and evolutionary. Still, there are some high points.
Microsoft says that the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition is the most secure version of Windows ever. Hardware-based isolation protects the operating system against attacks. The Edge browser offers sandboxing and isolates Flash from the browser. Windows Defender is more capable in protecting against malware.
Passwords will eventually be eliminated. I've been using Windows Hello on the Surface tablet to log me in by recognizing my face. The Windows Hello fingerprint scanner has improved.
The maps feature could challenge Google Maps. The interface is good and Microsoft Ink works well with Maps. If I wanted to give someone walking directions from the 116th Street 2/3 subway line to Bed and Breakfast Mont Morris on 120th Street, I could just draw on the map, which also highlights the Settepani Bakery on the corner.
To be a bit more ambitious, I asked Maps to provide directions from Columbus to Bed and Breakfast Mont Morris. It offered 4 driving options that range from about 9 and a half hours to 10 hours.
Any of the routes would work, but I would choose the one that goes north to I80 and then east.
Microsoft's Edge browser continues to improve and now offers maybe a dozen or so extensions. When compared to the thousands that are available for Chrome and Firefox, it's clear that Edge has a long way to go. At least my most essential extension can now be installed: LastPass.
One welcome safety feature is Edge's policy not to activate a newly installed extension automatically.
Users need to explicitly activate extensions.
Unlike most other browsers, extensions don't find places on the browser interface. Instead, they appear only on the menu. Instead of a single-click to get to LastPass, two clicks are required.
Once LastPass is open, it looks exactly like it does in any other browser.
The most common Linux command line interface, Bourne Again Shell (bash), is now available to Windows 10 users, but not by default. Those who want to use it need to install it and they need to be running a 64-bit version of Windows. To enable bash, start with Settings and drill down to Update & Security. Then click For Developers and enable Developer Mode. Be sure that you read and understand the warning before continuing.
The Developer package will be installed and you'll be told that restarting Windows is essential to activate all of the extensions.
After rebooting, open the old-style Control Panel, navigate to Programs, and click Turn Windows features on or off. Scroll down until you find Windows Subsystem for Linux (Beta), select it, and then click OK and wait a while for Ubuntu to be installed. The Ubuntu-based bash environment is Ubuntu 14.04, which is more than 2 years old.
Once you've done all that, you need to reboot once again before you can start using the bash command line.
Unless you know what Linux is and how you might want to use Linux on a computer that's running Windows 10, there's little reason to work through this process.
As I mentioned, this is more of an evolutionary update, so some of the improvements might not be something you'll notice right away. For example, now you can set active hours for Windows Update to limit the times that Windows will reboot to install pending changes. The largest chunk of time you can block out is 12 hours, so you could tell Windows not to reboot anytime between 9am and 9pm.
Cortana continues to improve. I haven't yet been able to snuggle down next to her, but she really does have a lot to offer. Microsoft says "Cortana learns about you over time based on the information you provide in the notebook, becoming more useful every day. She can suggest things like books to read or movies to see based on what you like. She can even detect things like flight or shipping confirmations in your email and offer to track them for you. But as smart as she is, you control what Cortana knows through the notebook. And you can edit or delete what’s in it whenever you want." Depending on how paranoid you are, that might be a cool thing or it might be frightening.
Not much. Based on my own experiences and those I've seen reported on Microsoft's support site and various other sites, I had a couple of questions for Microsoft. Of course it's impossible to contact anyone at Microsoft directly, but the company does have a public relations agency that in theory is supposed to be able to seek out information from inside the black box that is Microsoft and provide a certain amount of factual information. In practice, it doesn't work out quite that way.
Based primarily on what I had personally observed, I asked: My conjecture is that the hardware detection routine was faulty and threw bogus error messages. It seems that the detection routine has been patched and no longer detects compatible monitors as being incompatible. Can you or someone at Microsoft address that issue on the record?
Microsoft's response: Windows 10 continues to have the highest customer satisfaction of any version of Windows. If a customer has any issues during their upgrade to Windows 10 or upon updating to the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, we offer free customer support at www.microsoft.com/support.
Then I tried a two-part question: What statistics do you have on successful upgrades to the latest version of Windows? Based on my experience and what I've seen discussed on the internet, it would appear that most updates are succeeding. Are you able to release any statistical information?
Microsoft's response: We are really pleased with the global reception to Windows 10 and Microsoft devices and excited to see over 350 million monthly active devices running Windows 10. In fact, Windows 10 continues to be on the fastest growth trajectory of any version of Windows – ever.
Businesses and politicians today seem to live in extreme fear that some of the words they utter might actually mean something. There is absolutely no useful information in either of the responses (I cannot bear to characterize them as answers) from Microsoft's public relations agency. And I can't really fault the agency. After all, Waggener Edstrom can do only what Microsoft allows it to do and the agency is probably unwilling to rock Microsoft's boat. Microsoft is the agency's largest client and has been since the early 1980s.
What's needed is a decision by Microsoft's public relations vice president. The identity of that person, while probably not a closely held secret, is not something that Microsoft makes easy to learn. Certainly the PR VP is listed in some public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. One presumes that the PR VP reports directly the Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella who should have some say in how the company responds to the public.
Microsoft really needs to examine its public relations policies, consider what it can do to be more transparent, and communicate those new policies to Waggener Edstrom. I can't imagine the frustration of being a Waggener Edstrom employee who is forced to respond to legitimate questions with little more than drivel.
Windows 10 is clearly the best version of Windows ever, and it may be better than Apple's OSX, but it's not perfect. Microsoft and Waggener Edstrom do the company no favors when the denies, obfuscate, avoid, and use canned statements that have no functional content to answer legitimate questions. Windows 10 has many outstanding features and the Anniversary Update adds more, but Microsoft should stop acting like there are no problems. I am reminded of the time when Bill Gates infamously and disingenuously claimed that Microsoft had "no bugs" in its software.
BOTTOM LINE: If you made the jump to Windows10, the Anniversary Edition update is something you should be sure to obtain. But if you're a Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 die-hard who saw no reason to upgrade to Windows 10, you'll probably also see no reason to obtain the Anniversary Edition update.
J3llyh34d 1ndu5tr135 (that's "Jellyhead Industries" for those who don't read LEET fluently) is a British company that seems to want to be taken seriously for dealing with advanced computer threats. For starters, the company might want to change its name.
Jellyhead (I'll use the common English spelling from now on) has signed a deal with Chemring Technology Solutions to become a value added reseller for that company's Perception cyber security application.
The application was developed for the UK Government and is a bio-inspired network security system. I'll try to explain what that means in a bit. Jellyhead provides cyber security services to several UK police and fire services and the company says that the Perception application will complement its customers' existing computer network security systems by identifying unseen potential threats.
Jellyhead's managing director Simon Twigg (that would be "51m0n 7w166" in LEET) says the application provides a new approach to dealing with information leakage and advanced threats such as zero-day vulnerabilities, targeted vectors, and root-kits. Perception "gives the good guys a sustainable advantage over the bad guys," he said.
Perception has no rules-based architecture and instead adapts to a network's changing profile to identify malicious activity. The developer also claims that it can detect slow, unauthorized external extraction of information.
If you'd like to know more about either company, you'll find information at www.j3llyh34d.com and www.chemringts.com.
Crowd-sourcing and social networking are everywhere these days and Bulc Club says they can be used to fight spam.
Brothers Don and Mike Citarella of New York City design studio ERA404 initially set up the process for friends and family. Don Citarella says that friends of friends started asking if they could have an account, too. "We had no idea it would become this popular."
When people provide their email address to businesses and on-line services, it's likely to be shared or sold to advertisers and third parties. Bulc Club gives its members an unlimited number of forwarding addresses that can't be used to send mail, but can be used to receive mail. If one of the forwarders receives spam, the member can disable it. The real email address remains hidden.
Before any email is forwarded to member in-boxes, it passes through a filter based on Bulc Club's member rating that is crowd-sourced from Bulc Club's social network. If more than half of the recipients tag the senders as spammers, Bulc Club holds the emails instead of forwarding them. Members may decide if they want the held emails to be delivered, otherwise they will automatically be deleted.
You may be wondering about privacy. Many services such as Gmail can view entire messages you send or receive. Citarella says that Bulc Club analyzes only email headers -- the sender's email address, originating domain, IP address, mail server location, and such -- not the email itself.
Bulc Club is free and Don Citarella says that there are no hidden fees or in-app purchases. Bulc Club's web site hosts other free features such as the ability search email addresses and domains to see their member ratings.
