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PSA: Microsoft is pushing the web based Outlook to Windows users without giving the option to decline syncing email to their servers and keep using the existing clients. Hopefully the way around this (source) is to delete settings.json from %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\Migration without agreeing to sync contents when The New Outlook first launches. I have been happily using the built-in Mail application since Windows 8, when they added support for Email, Contacts and Calendar syncing with Google accounts, and have been doing my best to avoid The New Outlook like the plague it is. Not only Microsoft's replacement mail app is a ###### Electron wrapper for the online version, it comes with ads AND to work it requires everything to be synced to "The Microsoft Cloud", so instead of just Google reading through my email to advertise, I'd have to allow Microsoft to do so too. Up until now, this meant living with a new toggle in the toolbar and dismissing messages inviting me to to turn it on, but today was different: I got a message saying that on the next start of the Mail app I'd be moved to The New Outlook and I'd be able to toggle back afterwards, no option to refuse. At that point, I checked my installed apps and The New Outlook was there again (I had removed it once already when it first popped up). I then closed the Mail app, waited a bit, and tried to reopen it. Sure enough, the app closed itself immediately and launched The New Outlook, which is where things get interesting: on launch, the only thing displayed is a wizard asking to enable syncing content in the Gmail account to "The Microsoft Cloud", with no option to refuse except by creating a new Outlook.com account. The rest of the window is empty, with no toggle to go back to the old Mail app (I assume it only shows up in the main UI after the wizard is complete) After poking around a bit, I closed the app, without clicking the Continue button in the content sync dialog. Further attempts to launch Mail would repeat the same behaviour, basically locking me out of checking my own email. It was only by finding this support article that I found a way to have the old Mail app launch again - by deleting settings.json from %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\Migration At this point my worry is: did I actually prevent the syncing of my data to Microsoft's servers? Is there any way to check? If someone has gone through these steps, does the syncing need to be approved via Google's Oauth2 flow or does Microsoft just reuse the original authorization Windows gets when adding a Gmail account?

What the title says. I got sick and tired of the included Windows 10 theme, and the slow Start Screen. Now I think it looks perfect. Why make my own? I know there's Window Blinds which is incredibly slow (it uses GDI instead of HW-accelerated Direct2D), doesn't even have blur behind the glass and there's also Glass8 (I think that's what it's called?) but is exceptionally hacky and, I would say, shady. My implementation is not perfect, but it doesn't add a single line of low-level rendering code, doesn't break any application (so far) and it's all (theme+start menu) contained into a single library. On the other hand, it's largely unoptimized, thus DWM memory consumption increased to about 70mb (still nothing compared to most apps). There's some work ahead before I can even release an installer but it can be done if a good amount of people is even interested. Using the flat built in Windows 10 theme:

Since installing the 20h2 (or maybe slightly before, however it's roughly when this started) I've noticed that if intermittently the system hangs after posting but before starting to boot. This seems to happen if the system has been running for a long time (say 5 hours or so) between restarts. I disabled my bios logo to see if this was an issue with the bios or after the bios has handed control to windows. And the hanging occurs after the windows boot logo shows, but before the spinning circle appears, which spins round once or twice and the I can login as normal. I've tried changing a few things (such as disabling legacy csm) and it hasn't seemed to of helped. There are no obvious error messages showing in the reliability centre or event logs. What's the next to resolving this? Is anyone else having this issue too?

Surface Pro 4 M3 Windows 10 Pro Version: 1909 OS build: 18363.815 boggle: snap windows function: upon switching virtual button from off to on, closing that window and reopening shows on/off button has switched back to off. restarts and updates have not resolved this issue. all sub options have been selected as activated/deactivated in every combination - windows snap on off returns to off.

😄 is the internal and F: is the external disk (pic down below). (The language on my laptop is set in german so i can't name everything correctly) So i moved all the files into the external disk. In Settings > System > Storage > Change location for new content i've set that everything will save in F:, including applications. I usually use Opera and i download the apps from there, it asks me where to save the setup and i choose F:. But still, it actually saves all the stuff into C:. When i go to Settings > Applications > Apps & Features and filter it to only 😄 it shows the applications i tried to save in F:. Except for the apps in the Microsoft store, they get saved in F:. How can i change that? I appreciate every help.

I've set up OpenVPN server on my Windows 10 machine. When I connect my phone to the VPN using OpenVPN Connect, I can't access SMB or even ping any machine on my network, but I can ping my phone over the VPN from Windows. My LAN is 192.168.11.0 VPN subnet is 192.168.12.0 I've configured the Windows Firewall rule "File and Printer sharing (SMB in)" scope to include my VPN subnet. Server config: port 1194 proto tcp dev tun ca "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\ca.crt" cert "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\server.crt" key "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\server.key" dh "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\dh2048.pem" server 192.168.12.0 255.255.255.0 ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt push "route 192.168.11.0 255.255.255.0" keepalive 10 120 key-direction 0 tls-auth "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\easy-rsa\\keys\\ta.key" cipher AES-256-CBC persist-key persist-tun status openvpn-status.log verb 3 Client config: dev tun proto tcp remote mydyndnsdomainhere.net 99999 resolv-retry infinite nobind persist-key persist-tun remote-cert-tls server key-direction 1 cipher AES-256-CBC verb 3 <ca> -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- -----END CERTIFICATE----- </ca> <cert> -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- -----END CERTIFICATE----- </cert> <key> -----BEGIN ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY----- -----END ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY----- </key> key-direction 1 <tls-auth> -----BEGIN OpenVPN Static key V1----- -----END OpenVPN Static key V1----- </tls-auth>

Windows 10 October 2018 Update build 17763.17 heads to Slow and Release Preview rings by Abhay Venkatesh Microsoft released the Windows 10 October 2018 Update to “seekers” on October 2nd during its Surface event, completely skipping the Release Preview ring of the Windows Insiders program. However, that didn’t go quite well, as many problems began arising for users who were updating to the newest version of Windows 10. Some issues included minor task manager bugs, but a showstopper bug that was deleting user files meant that the company had to pull the update out of distribution completely. Today, the firm is rolling out a new build 17763.17 to the Slow and Release Preview rings of the Insider Program. The company states that it has investigated, identified, and fixed all the issues that led to the loss of data for a “few (one one-hundredth of one percent of version 1809 installs)” users. The root cause of this issue, as it turns out, is the “Known Folder Redirection” feature that when enabled, moved files from folders such as Documents, Pictures, Desktop, Camera Roll, Screenshots Videos etc. to a new folder, but was deleted from either folders due to some changes made to the logic from the feedback received from Insiders. The fixes include: Using KFR the user redirected a known folder to a different drive. For example, suppose you ran out of space on your C drive. You want to save some files separate from your primary folder, so you add another drive to your system for these. You create “D:\documents” and change the location of the files known folder from the original “old” location c:\users\username\documents to D:\documents. In some cases, if the contents of c:\users\username\documents were not moved to D:\documents, then a user could also encounter this issue. When the October 2018 Update was installed the original “old” folder was deleted including the files in that folder (in this example c:\users\username\documents would be deleted; d:\documents, the new location, would be preserved). The user configured one or more of their Known Folders (Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Screenshots, Videos, Camera Roll, etc.) to be redirected (KFR) to another folder (device drive, external drive or a OneDrive folder). For example, the user changed the location property of the documents folder from c:\users\username\documents to another folder. During this process the system prompts the user and asks if they would like to move the files to the new location. If the files were not moved and the October 2018 Update is installed the original “old” folder was deleted including the files in that folder. The user used an early version of the OneDrive client and used the OneDrive settings to turn on the Auto save feature. This feature turned on KFR for the Documents and/or Pictures folders based on the user’s choice but did not move the existing files from the original “old” location to the new location. For example, if a user turned on Auto Save for pictures the location of the Pictures folder would be changed from c:\users\username\pictures to c:\users\username\onedrive\pictures, but no files would be moved. The current version of this feature moves the files. If the files were not moved and the October 2018 Update was installed the original “old” folder was deleted including the files in that folder (in this example c:\users\username\pictures would be deleted; c:\users\username\onedrive\pictures, the new location, would be preserved). As for users that were affected, the firm says that “Microsoft Support is assisting customers and trying to recover data” and that this support can also be offered by the retail support services in-store. Additionally, you can reach out to the support numbers provided here. The Feedback Hub did have reports of data loss when the October 2018 Update was in preview. However, they didn’t turn enough eyeballs due to the low upvotes and duplicate entries in the Hub. To make sure to remedy such issues, the Windows Insider team says that it is adding the ability to flag the severity of the feedback that users initiate. This will help the team monitor high severity issues even if they receive low volumes of upvotes and feedback. Additionally, users that updated to the October 2018 Update received their first cumulative updates (build 17763.55). Today’s Slow Ring and Release Preview ring updates are to test the builds before they are re-released for general distribution.

Microsoft fixes accidental Fast ring build availability pop-up served to non-insiders by Abhay Venkatesh Microsoft released Redstone 5 build 17751.1 to the Fast ring yesterday. Redstone 5 is the next major feature update to Windows 10, which we learnt will be officially called the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. As the build began rolling out to Insiders, a few people began seeing a toast notification prompting them of the new build. However, it wasn’t just Windows Insiders that were receiving this pop-up, as reports of the notification showing up for non-insiders on production machines too began popping up on Twitter. As noted by Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc on Twitter, the pop-up notification has been around for a while and does not show up very often so as to not bother users with constant notifications. However, non-insiders who have never enrolled in the Insider program too began receiving the notification, creating some confusion. I got a message from a family member that this appeared on their computer (which has no user in the insider program on it) and they were confused if they were being forced to update. Are non-insider machines supposed to see this? If so, please don't. — Ryan Buckwalter (@BucksterMcgee) August 31, 2018 I had them send me a screen shot of both the notification and the settings page showing they are not an Insider. What else do you need? pic.twitter.com/26PAOgFzdW — Ryan Buckwalter (@BucksterMcgee) August 31, 2018 Clicking on the ‘Update’ option takes you to the Windows Update settings page, but thankfully, does not download the Insider preview automatically. However, it can get confusing for regular users, as the pop-up prompts that an update is available, but does not really do anything. LeBlanc acknowledged that non-insiders should not be seeing the prompt and the issue was quickly fixed. Luckily we stopped it before it became widespread. — Brandon LeBlanc (@brandonleblanc) September 1, 2018 If you are not a Windows Insider that has signed up for the Fast ring and did see the prompt, there is nothing to worry, as the prompt has nothing to do with your version of Windows 10. If you do see an update, however, then it is most probably the latest cumulative update that went out for users on Windows 10 version 1803 (April 2018 Update) and version 1709 (Fall Creators Update) on Friday, the 31st of August. Via Thurrott.com

I have three drives in my system: C: 512MB SSD D: 256SSD E: 2TB 7200 RPM drive I've cleared off the D drive completely and have formatted it. What I'd like to do is install LInux Mint to the D drive and dual boot Win10 and Mint 18. What's the best way to accomplish this? Do I use the standard Mint installer and just guide it to install on D? Should I use a different boot manager? Any help would be greatly appreciated

Hi, Few months ago I bought a new Aspire F15 laptop, F5-573G-70EB It has an i7-7500U processor , Nvidea GTX 950m graphic card , and 16 GB DDR4 ram,USB 3.1m , long lasting battery and...... Windows10 My rationale was that I need a system that can handle games and lag free. Yet I experienced alot of errors, BSODs and occasional lags on this laptop.I was frustrated because I compared it to my 6 years old i7 8GB RAM HP laptop and the older one was the better one. I noticed that the main difference was Windows 10. Let's just not talk about privacy concerns and other stuff, but I am talking about reliability, errors and BSODs. I factory rest it but only got slightly better, but still sub-par experience. I know I can't now downgrade to 7, and I am stuck with 10.I tried virtual box some other OS, but BSODs just got more numerous so, I reverted back by restore to an earlier snapshot. O fcourse, no need to mention that 3 of my best played games ever stopped working in the last creators update and I got abit more annoyed. Am I exagerating or the experience is really similar with you especially in comparison with other older systems. (Actually while I am writing this post, Baam,BSOD Sorry for the long post Appreciate your advice

I meet the system requirements for "Sea of Thieves" on my custom built gaming desktop. My video card has DX 11, listed as a requirement for the game. But I want to continue using Windows 7, I had nothing but a crap experience with Win 8.1 then 10, on my laptop. I really hate Win 10. Why wouldn't it be possible to run SoT on my desktop? Can I fool an installer than I am running Win 10 ?

Fitbit Coach is coming to the Xbox One and Windows 10 devices [Update] by Craig Mu Fitbit is getting ready to bring their personalized training app, Fitbit Coach, to the big screen as the company announces its availability on the Xbox One and Windows 10 devices. Different from the regular Fitbit app, Fitbit Coach brings you guided workouts from the comfort of your own home or wherever is best for you. The app offers a variety of workout plans, exercises, and features to help you stay fit whilst keeping you comfortable and motivated when doing so: Video workouts—like Warm It Up and 10-Minute Abs—that show you the exercises and provide step-by-step coaching, motivation, and tips. Most workouts are dynamic and evolve based on your plans, goals, and feedback. New workouts are added regularly to keep things fresh. Customizable music via Fitbit Radio powered by Feed.fm, which offers a variety of stations, from pop to hip-hop, so you can choose what motivates you. Recommended Workouts based on your daily activity (if you use a Fitbit device), providing personalized fitness guidance to better help you reach your goals. More than 50 expert-designed running and walking audio workouts in the Fitbit Coach mobile app designed to help you safely improve your endurance, speed, and form. Choose from outdoor or treadmill sessions and select the difficulty, duration, trainer, and music. All the above are said to be available to users with a Fitbit Coach Premium subscription, costing $39.99 a year, whilst "basic (free) members receive access to one personalized program and a selection of additional audio and video workouts." The app has been available on Android and iOS for a while now but with its entry into the Microsoft ecosystem, Fitbit notes some added benefits such as being able to see your heart-rate in real time on your TV. This requires a Fitbit device that has the ability to monitor that information but the company goes on to state, "although you can complete Fitbit Coach workouts without wearing a PurePulse-enabled Fitbit device, having one will greatly enhance your experience," so the app should still work but with fewer features. After the retirement of Xbox Fitness last year, Fitbit Coach could be a great replacement for those looking to start working out. The app is listed in the Microsoft Store but is unavailable to download until later today, according to Fitbit. Update: The app is now available to download from the Microsoft Store. Source: Fitbit via MSPoweruser | Image: Fitbit

This is more or less for anyone searching Google. But I am running TrendMicro Officescan XG 12.0 domain wide, and the Fall Creators Update 16299.15 installed fine, except the cumulative update KB4043961 to take it to 16299.19 would install get to 30%, reboot then would produce a BSOD of PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA on ntoskrnl. It would then reboot once more, BSOD again and revert back. The culprit: OfficeScan Apparently it isn't compatible yet, here is some info from TrendMicro with anticipated patch/service pack dates for their products - https://success.trendmicro.com/solution/1118555-trend-micro-business-endpoint-support-for-windows-10-fall-creators-update-rs3

I miss the Windows 8/8.1 Start "Tattoos". I'd really love to see them come back to Windows 10 Start... Feeback to upvote, if you agree: https://aka.ms/Cra0c5

I'm wanting to encrypt my back up data before sending to the cloud. What's the best encryption tool currently?

So I'm hoping that someone might be able to help me with finding a fix for this problem. Recently upgraded my 3 systems to Windows 10 Creators build 15063.11. Two systems are Home, one is Pro. Upgrades on all systems occurred without a hitch. The only issue I have since discovered, and its not a major one, is that only on one of the systems does the Windows Defender Security Center Health Report work. The other two systems show "Last Health Scan: Not Available". And when you click on the Device performance & health icon it only shows "Health Report not Available". I've compared the following , on the working system, services, windows defender registry setting etc. - all systems show the same settings. I've looked on the net for solutions and did a quick scan through the MS support forms , but can't find any mention of this issue. When looking at the main interface this option, unlike the others shown does not display the green check mark - it's like it is turned off. The weird part is I can run a system health report using "perfmon /report" and it works fine. So I'm stumped on how to get this option working as intended on the other two systems. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Hidden inside today’s Redstone 3 build is a postponed feature we’ve all been waiting for: My People. The bad news? It’s not ready for prime time yet. You may recall, My People was that people-centric sharing and communication experience announced for Creators Update but ultimately pushed to Redstone 3. Today’s build confirms that My People is still a thing and is still being worked on. And with a bunch of ninja work, I was able to get this feature powered up and running. By Rafael Rivera Via Thurrott: https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/108864/sneak-peek-people-redstone-3-build-16170

Attempting to reinstall Windows Store, other store apps are running and are run in the background but i have been unable to reinstall windows store, due to the fact that it is missing from the C:\windows\WinStore directory is missing. I have tried everything published online and i am refusing to do a system restore/reset just for one app. If possible can someone share me or send me the Directory c:\Windows\WinStore thanks . . I wish I had another computer that ran Windows 10. Share via Gooogle Drive or MediaFire whatever way you wish.

Hi all, I'm considering a switch to Windows Phone 10. The Lumia 950XL is cheap now, and security on Android is woeful - even for Google Nexus phones, once they're not current model anymore. However since patching of security fixes is quite an issue, in my opinion, and Google is lacking on that, I do wonder how often MS phones currently get security updates, and how often security updates for apps are published. If I look at the list of published updates from the MS website (I looked at it today but unfortunately I cannot find the link anymore!) I see the latest updates are from July / August (depending on model: 950 or 650). But those are only the major releases, and that doesn't say much about intermediate security fixes, like they are published monthly for Windows on PC. Anyone who can provide me some insights in that? Thanks in advance, --Tim :-)

Hi all, I wanted to share a program I made which allows one to customize the Windows 10 taskbar by changing its opacity/blur and color. The program running: If you want to use it, please get it here. You will want to download the latest zip file. Simply unzip it, and run the TranslucentTB.exe file, and it should put an icon in your tray. You can also check out command line options I hope you like it!

Hello Folks! Please refer to the enclosed Pictorial description & help Confirm on the veracity of this spotted BUG within Win 10 OS. Mine is Windows 10 Version 1511 64-bit (as depicted by the most lauded Program on this platform aka Winaero Tweaker 0.6.0.8) Thanks.

Just noticed all my production Win10 machines have the new OneDrive menu that was reported on a while back:

Normally I format my machine for several things... To get rid of a virus, To speed things up, and to Install a fresh version of the updated Windows 10. Will I be able to achieve these goals if I do a full Windows reset? Will it wipe the malware clean? Can the malware harm it's installation files? Do I have to install the updates again or does it have the latest updates when I reset? Will it also resolve broken updates which sometimes cause some issues?

For the last two fast ring builds, the installation fails with vtss.sys causing a blue screen and the system rolls back to 14942.. Anyone else having the same issue? Log files generated by Powershell can be found here.

Hello Members! Group-Policy privileges have helped me turn OFF the Windows Defender, but it continues to gain a foothold within Context-Menu entries, System-Tray icons & Windows Task-manager! Refer to the enclosed Pictorial description & suggest credible ways to recover the System resources. Can this also be construed as a veritable Windows 10 Bug? Why are Apps shown the door continue to hover around in one form or the another? Inputs will be sincerely appreciated...& are keenly awaited! :-) Thanks.