Microsoft was planning on releasing Windows 10X soon, which would rewrite the operating system from the ground up. Now reports indicate that the project may be dead in favor of the current incarnation of Windows X. Leo says the problem is that Microsoft is obsessed with keeping the OS compatible with every computer out there, making it practically impossible to modernize it.
2020 may have been a rough year for us, but the top five tech giants had a banner year with nearly 2 Trillion in revenue. Those giants included Apple, Google (Alphabet), Microsoft, and others. Leo says that Apple, in particular, enjoyed a 42% profit margin. And a 78% margin rumored to be from the app store.
Tracey says that Dragon Naturally Speaking doesn't support the Mac anymore. What are her options? Leo says that Apple's Speech to Text, operated by Siri, is quite good. As good as Google's Voice Dictation, which is also good. Microsoft recently bought Dragon, and it's possible that they may add macOS support in the future. Express Dictate by NCH Software is about the only one that's close to Dragon.
Now that EDGE has replaced Internet Explorer as Microsoft's default browser, the company has announced a new Kids mode that can be turned on in the settings. There are two modes based on age .... 5-8, and 9-12, which can whitelist various websites and block others. Leo says that whitelisting will help parents to prevent their kids from going to sites they don't want them to visit. If a kid wants to go to a page that's not on the White List, a parent can be asked for permission.
Karen's work stores their data up in the cloud, but her boss wants to password protect all files because he isn't thrilled with anyone in the company having access to all their data on One Drive. Leo says that Microsoft's Sharepoint is a collaborative security service, which allows companies to provide permissions to folders, files, and other data. Microsoft One Drive for Business also has that feature.
Microsoft says that a recent zero-day flaw has been patched in 92% of servers. But Leo says that doesn't mean that a bad guy hasn't gotten into the system before it was patched. So they could still be compromised.
Don noticed that Microsoft has a new update called an "Optional Quality update." What is it, and should he run the update? Leo says that it's likely a fix for a previous update or a new set of hardware drivers. Leo usually waits a few weeks on those to see if they break connectivity on peripherals like printers, scanners, etc.
Gloria wants to know if she should install the recent Windows 20H2 update. Leo says that Microsoft has really made things more difficult by changing the naming conventions for the updates. They used to use a numerical year and month, but that wasn't very clear because people thought it was a year. So they wouldn't update to 2004, even though that was the Spring 2020 update. So they changed it to the first half, second half. That means that 20H2 is the second-half update. The good news is that it's a feature update, and you can defer it. Eventually, Microsoft will require it.
The website "Have I Been Pwned", or HIBP, was created by Microsoft Regional Director Troy Hunt as a free resource for the public to check if their personal data had been compromised by a breach on the internet. You can visit HaveIBeenPwned.com and enter your email address or account password to see if either had been involved in a data breach. The way Troy has built the site ensures visitors can enter their passwords safely and securely.
Doug has a problem after updating Windows 10 to version 20H2. Ever since the update, his wireless mouse jumps all around. Doug decided to update the drivers on his wireless mouse as well and it's still producing the same problem. Somewhat ironic, the mouse is proprietary hardware from Microsoft.
