Software & Apps - Page 6

Microsoft has been not-so-subtly warning Windows 10 users that support for the world's most popular operating system will be coming to an end this year, and now the Redmond company has written via a new blog post that support severance will include Office applications such as Word, Powerpoint, etc.

Microsoft will be officially ending support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, and following that date, Windows 10 users will be faced with a difficult decision: upgrade their system OS to Windows 11, which may require a hardware upgrade, or pay the $30 a year for continued security updates. Alternatively, Windows 10 users can do nothing at all and run the risk of their machine exponentially becoming more vulnerable to attacks. Despite Microsoft's continued efforts of trying to entice Windows 10 users to migrate to Windows 11, the now 10-year-old operating system still accounts for more than 60% of the total operating systems on PCs.

In yet another attempt to push Windows 10 users to Redmond's latest operating system, Microsoft has taken to its blog post to remind users, "Microsoft 365 Apps will no longer be supported after October 14, 2025, on Windows 10 devices." Adding, "To use Microsoft 365 Applications on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11." For those wondering if this means Office applications will stop working completely post-October 14, 2025 - they won't, but over time, the performance and reliability of the applications could falter.

If you're on Windows 10, and don't care for Microsoft's new Outlook app - well, you are out of luck sadly, as the software giant is now forcing this software onto its older OS.

As Bleeping Computer spotted, just as happened with Windows 11, those on Windows 10 will automatically get the New Outlook app.

This will happen with the next cumulative update for Windows 10 - either preview, or the full release of said update.

Windows 10 is scheduled to lose support in October this year, which will force millions of users around the world into deciding whether to upgrade to Windows 11, or pay for continued Windows 10 security updates every year -- or, of course, run the risk of their machine exponentially becoming more vulnerable to attacks.

To remind users Windows 10 is on the chopping block when it comes to support Microsoft has decided to roll out a full-screen pop-up ad that warns Windows 10 users support for the operating system is soon coming to an end, but, unfortunately, some Windows 10 users are reporting this pop-up ad is causing their machine to crash. A recent report by WindowsLatest details the error message that users are finding after seeing the upgrade reminder pop-up, which reads, "Reusable UX Interaction Manager is not responding".

According to the publication the Reusable UX Interaction Manager (RUXIM) is system process responsible for managing prompts and pop-ups across different applications and situations. The RUXIM is used to maintain a consistent user experience with pop-ups such as the one presented after the full-screen ad for Windows 11 crashed, but more interestingly, RUXIM is also associated with Windows update. TechSpot reports RUXIM helps deploy and schedule Windows updates, which is ironic considering RUXIM appears to need an update itself to correctly display an advertisement for Windows 11.

Microsoft has pushed out another stark reminder that support for the world's most popular operating system will be ending this year, and that users of that operating system will need to upgrade to Redmond's latest OS to continue getting critical security updates.

Microsoft has taken to its website with a new blog post by Microsoft EVP and consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi, who explained that Windows 11 is "available at a time when the world needs it most," which references the looming October 14, 2025 date that will mark the end of support for Windows 10. Users still running the now 10-year-old OS will be faced with a choice of no longer receiving critical security updates that will result in their machine becoming exponentially more vulnerable to attacks, or pay the $30 a year to continue to receive Windows 10 security updates.

Despite Microsoft's marketing speak such as Windows 11 being available at a time "when the world needs it most," it's been long reported by myself and numerous other publications that Windows 11 adoption rate will not hit Microsoft's desired mark by the time October 14 rolls around. For example, Windows 10 is still currently on more than 60% of all PCs. In fact, over the last two months Windows 10 user base increased to 62.7% while Windows 11 fell to 34.1%. However, looking at the Steam Survey data, Windows 11 is in the lead with a 55% marketshare, while Windows 10 holds 42%.

With the new year having arrived, the prospect of Windows 10 support running out has become more concrete - it happens in October 2025 - and that has prompted ESET to issue a warning not to hang around in mulling your upgrade path from Microsoft's older OS.

The Slovakian security firm - which makes a popular antivirus app, and other security software besides - penned a blog post on the urgency to move away from Windows 10, as spotted by Neowin.

Thorsten Urbanski, Director of Marketing and Communication at ESET DACH (based in Essen, Germany), tells us:

Is it time for some good news about Windows 11 24H2, finally? No, it isn't sadly, instead we've got further tales of woe about fresh bugs in the 24H2 update.

There are two new critters which are skittering about in the works of Windows 11 24H2, as highlighted by Microsoft in its release health status dashboard for the OS.

The first glitch is with the Auto HDR feature, and when it's switched on, those running 24H2 may find the colors in games are messed up (with "certain display configurations" Microsoft advises).

The latest version of GPU-Z has just dropped with v2.61.0 adding support for Intel's new Arc B580 and B570 "Battlemage" graphics cards, as well as preliminary support for AMD's new RDNA 4-based Navi 48 GPU. You can download GPU-Z 2.61.0 here.

TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.61.0 is also the first version of the software to support detection of Qualcomm Adreno 540, 630, 640, and 642L with the team noting that "GPU-Z is an x86 application, although you can run it on Windows on Arm platforms, where the operating system's emulation allows GPU-Z to detect the underlying hardware".

Not only do we have Battlemage and RDNA 4 GPU support, the team has added support for the integrated GPUs of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, NVIDIA H100 80 GB HBM3, A4000H, A800 40 GB Active, RTX 5880 Ada, and Tesla K40st. There's also new PCI vendor detection for ONIX, the new Intel Arc board partner, as well as Shangke.

It was in April of this year that the Senate passed a bill that banned TikTok from operating in the United States, as the software powering the application is now considered to be controlled by an adversary nation, China.

The new legislation that was passed deems TikTok a national security risk as the app has the ability to scrape the data of 170 million Americans, which could then be shared with China's government. According to lawmakers, the app having a China-owned parent company, ByteDance, along with its potential to spread misinformation in the US, has made it a dangerous piece of software. The US government is requiring ByteDance to sell its share of TikTok to an entity the US government is satisfied with or face a ban across both app marketplaces (App Store - iOS and Android - Google Play Store).

The US government has given ByteDance until January 19 to sell its share of TikTok or be forced to shut the app down across the US, which the Chinese company said at the time of the legislative decision wasn't enough time. ByteDance filed a temporary injunction to pause TikTok's US ban, but the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has found its claims "unwarranted," meaning the initial deadline of January 19 still holds. Notably, ByteDance can still file an appeal with the Supreme Court, which, if that court rules in ByteDance's favor, could prevent the TikTok ban.

Apple has announced the debut of iOS 18.2, an expansion of Apple Intelligence that arrived in a barebones form in late October.

For those that don't know, Apple will be rolling out Apple Intelligence features in stages, with iOS 18.1 being the first in a long process of slowly familiarizing users with a new suite of AI-powered features. In iOS 18.1, users were introduced to several new features, such as Writing Tools, an overhauled Siri, the Photos App becoming intelligent, the Clean Up tool, and other prioritization features.

iOS 18.2 is an expansion of iOS 18.1, with improvements being made in some of the previously announced features, such as the Photos app becoming even smarter, proofread, rewrite, and summarise text being added to Writing Tools, and ChatGPT being integrated into Siri. There are also other additions in iOS 18.2 that warrant being highlighted, and below, you will find a brief explanation of each.

Windows 11's Recall feature is back in play - in testing, and it just expanded to include AMD and Intel x86 Copilot+ PCs - but the controversial functionality has run into yet more trouble.

As you're doubtless aware, Recall is a supercharged AI search that uses regularly taken screenshots to find stuff on your PC. Those so-called 'snapshots' are not supposed to include any screen that has sensitive information on it, such as credit card details as an obvious example.

Tom's Hardware has been testing Recall in this respect, though, and found out that the results are hardly ideal in terms of maintaining cast-iron privacy for your more sensitive data.