I have to admit that I do not like the ribbon interface that much. You can see it in action in Microsoft’s latest versions of Office, or Windows 7 applications like Paint or Wordpad. It is only a logical consequence that Microsoft is now moving from standard menus to a ribbon interface in Windows 8. [...]

Microsoft added the feature to pin websites in Internet Explorer 9. Users who run the Windows 7 operating system are currently the only ones who can make use of that option. You may recall that Windows 7 users can pin programs, files and other data to the Windows 7 taskbar for faster access, and a [...]

If you, like me, have a Windows Phone and are wondering just when you’ll get a message telling you that an update is available, fear not. Already we have two updates for Microsoft’s new mobile OS. The first was released back in February and simply contained an update to the phone update process itself. Ther [...]

The service pack for Windows 7 has been out for a bit and most users have downloaded it either from Microsoft’s Download Center or Windows Update. Windows Update user without doubt have the most comfortable update process ahead of them, as they just need to watch and wait until the update is downloaded and installed. [...]

Tech blogger Long Zheng has today published an article directly comparing the Previous Versions feature in Windows 7 to the Versions function in OS X Lion, the forthcoming update to Apple’s desktop OS. He describes how “Once again, Microsoft may have implemented the technology first, but Apple has turned it into a compelling end-user experience” and goes [...]

The web is moving towards HTML5 with all new browsers supporting the standard including Chrome, Firefox and the forthcoming Internet Explorer 9.  This new scripting language.  It adds new tags including <AUDIO><VIDEO> and the <CANVAS> tag that can be used for creating effective animation and text effects.  The language now allows you to embed all [...]

Microsoft have outlined the changes that they’ll be bringing to their new Windows Phone smartphone platform in 2011.  The announcement was made on the Microsoft website in a press release earlier today and were timed to coincide with the first day of the World Mobile Congress exhibition in Barcelona. The new features include… Twitter Integration [...]

It’s been reported that the first update for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 smartphone operating system has been delayed until March 8th.  The report by NeoWinsays that sources have told them the update should be expected on March 8th. The cause for the delay is apparently last-minute changes that Microsoft has implemented.  Carriers also need two [...]

Patch Tuesday is coming up and Microsoft has released an advanced notification about the upcoming security patches. Patch Tuesday refers to the second Tuesday of each month on which security patches are released to the public. The Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for February 2011 details the upcoming patches. A total of 12 security bulletins [...]

Microsoft introduced a new email alias feature for all users of their email service Hotmail. Email aliases are alternative on-the-fly email addresses that can be generated directly in Hotmail. Two different versions of email aliases are available. The first available option is to add characters to the first part of the email address. A new [...]

The announcement that Google would remove native H.264 playback support caused quite an uproar on the Internet (see Google Ditches H.264 Support In Google Chrome). Google Chrome up to this point was the only web browser that supported H.264, Theora and WebM8 videos which was bound to change with the announcement. Two browser camps have [...]

There’s no confirmation about this, but the buzz about the long-anticipated first Windows Phone update is that it will be released on Monday February 7th. The news which was being broken by LiveSide today could appear on that day.  The update is going to bring cut and paste and some performance improvements.  This would put [...]

It’s been reported by MicrosoftFeed that Windows 8 will be out on retail shelves on 7th January 2013.  NeoWin have said that “None of this information is verified or is confirmed but is speculation from a reputable individual who, in the past, has provided solid information and leaks.” Let me explain why Windows 8 will NOT [...]

I’ve been conducting my own investigation and tests into the “rogue app” which is leaking data on Windows Phones.  I want to stress at this point that my evidence was not collected in a scientific way and I’ve been wrong before.  While I’m pointing the finger in a particular direction I still could be wrong, [...]

Microsoft have now completed their investigation into Windows Phones that have been leaking data.  It was first reported at the beginning of January that some handsets were transmitting between 30 and 50Mb of data every day.  This was even happening when the phones weren’t being used at night. Most complaints about the data leaks were [...]

Sony have announced that they’re suing the hackers who uncovered the security codes for the PlayStation 3, that the console uses to determine that software is genuine.  This means that anybody who has access to this code can use it in non-approved (and even pirated), software to get that to run happily on the console. Microsoft are [...]

Firstly, a big thank you to everybody who sent me such nice messages after I was given a Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award by Microsoft last week, for “Windows Expert (Consumer)”, you’re all brilliant. But being an MVP isn’t just about being recognised as an expert and community-centred professional, you get goodies too! There’s free TechNet and [...]

If you missed the first two parts of my in-depth review of the new ExoPC Slate Windows 7 tablet you can find part 1 here and part 2 here.  So far I’ve looked at the hardware, which is fantastic, and the custom ExoUI interface.  Admittedly this interface is still in beta and it needs work [...]

There’s been good news and bad for Microsoft this week.  The good news is that the number of apps available in the new Windows Phone marketplace has been growing steadily since October and has now passed the 5,000 mark.  This is excellent news for anyone who has a Windows Phone (like me if it ever [...]

Christmas day this year brought an extra present for me, I was due a free upgrade on my phone from my mobile carrier.  I’d spent a long time before weighing up the pros and cons of the various mobile operating systems and handsets but eventually needed to make a choice.  That choice, as you can assume [...]

Bloomberg have today written that Microsoft’s apparent new Tablet version of Windows that’s set to be unveiled at CES next month will be a special version running on ARM chips, which is great news for those wanting a low-power tablet device.  The bad news though is that we’re unlikely to see this new version of [...]

How do you keep track of topics of interest on the Internet? Do you visit news site, subscribe to RSS feeds, email newsletters, Google Alerts, Twitter? Many Internet users are overwhelmed by the information at their disposal. Montage is a new online service by Microsoft Fuse Labs that allows everyone to create visual web albums [...]

Two interesting stories about Microsoft and the world’s most popular social networks have emerged and been reported on NeoWin here and here. In the first story it’s now emerged that after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg turned down a $1 billion buyout offer from Yahoo! he then also turned down a whopping $15 billion buyout offer [...]

The record was set only a year ago by Apple’s iPad, but now Microsoft have stolen back the crown as their new Kinect motion controller for the Xbox 360 has become the fastest-selling device in gadget history. Apple managed to sell 2 million iPads on the first two months after it went on sale.  The [...]

Two interesting Windows Phone stories have emerged today.  The first of which is that the phone’s app store now has over 3,000 apps and 15,000 developers.  This means we can expect to see an explosion of apps for Microsoft’s new smartphone platform in the next few months. This is fantastic news as many commentators, no [...]

Neowin is reporting that new beta of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 browser has leaked to the web.  The new build, version 9.0.8027.6000 apparently began circulating on the weekend which meant, as it was apparently compiled on Friday 19th October, it must have leaked almost immediately having been finalised. Apparently there are new features including a download [...]

A report compiled by security company Bit9 has named the “dirty dozen” web browsers with the most discovered vulnerabilities, and the results, which have been posted by NeoWin come as something of a, well let’s face it, a major surprise. Bit9′s CEO, Harry Sverdlove said “A variety of vulnerability types – including buffer-overflow and cross-site [...]

There has been discussion for a few weeks now about how Microsoft’s new smartphone OS handles expendable storage, with many people reporting that inserting the wrong card can reduce the OS to a crawl. Now Engadget have discovered that the Windows Phone OS makes permanent changes to a card that can prevent it from being read, [...]

So the time has come!  I’ve had my HTC Mozart review handset for a week now and I’ve written here about various aspects of Microsoft’s new smartphone operating system. If you missed any of the previous parts of this review, you can catch up with them here… Windows Phone 7 Review, Part 1 – Unboxing [...]

So far in this review series I’ve covered the main OS, the handset I’ve been provided with by Microsoft and the main apps.  But what’s a Windows Phone like to live with on a day to day basis?  This after all is the most important factor to any consumer when deciding whether to buy one [...]

As Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 motion-sense controller launches and interesting story has emerged on the website Cult of Mac.  The core technology was acquired, as so often happens these days, with Microsoft purchasing it from the company that developed it.  In this case Israeli company PrimeSense. It has now transpired that PrimeSense initially approached Microsoft’s [...]

My week with my test Windows Phone from Microsoft continues and I have to say I got used to using the phone very quickly.  In this part of the review I thought I’d write about the main applications that are built into the core operating system. The main way these apps work is through panels.  [...]

Yesterday I published part one of my hands on review with Windows Phone 7, and this isn’t like the early hands on where people played with one at a Microsoft event, I got the Redmond giant to send me a phone so I could give you all a real understanding of the OS and what [...]

At gHacks we’ll always bring you the best and latest news so I’ve secured a review unit from Microsoft of a new Windows Phone and will be bringing you a complete in depth review of Microsoft’s new smartphone operating system over the next couple of weeks.  I’ll be writing the full reviews at our sister site, www.Windows7News.com and [...]

Microsoft has for years been accused of being shy about standard’s compliance.  For many years they said they could do the web better and, for many years the web went along with it. Recently though the company has taken a more pragmatic approach and has moved, slowly admittedly, towards full standards compliance.  With their next [...]

Microsoft has been leaking like a sieve in recent years and now Windows 8 Beta are reporting that the release candidate for Windows 7 Service Pack 1, build number 7601.17105.100929-1730 has leaked to the web. The service pack, which is also applicable to Windows Server 2008 R2, is usually the milestone after the implementation of [...]

To mark the release of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out from Microsoft Press, that has been written by Mike Halsey, one of the editors here at your favourite tech website gHacks.net, we have a fantastic competition in conjunction with our sister site www.Windows7News.com and a massive 52 prizes to give away! The prizes here at gHacks.net are…  [...]

The Windows Product Scout is a new addition to Microsoft’s Windows homepage. The free service offers product and software recommendations on a weekly basis. All item suggestions are fully compatible with Windows 7 and take advantage of the operating system’s feature set. For some, it looks like clever placed advertisement, and that is surely one [...]

It was a great idea that was sadly let down by poor implementation and poor support.  Games for Windows, which was launched with Windows Vista, was intended to be the marker by which consumers would know any games they bought would work happily on their Microsoft Windows computer. The seal of approval, that was carried [...]

Microsoft have now announced a beta of their Office 365product suite for businesses.  The suite is the long anticipated hosted solution for exchange and sharepoint.  In itself these hosted services will save a great many companies from having to purchase and maintain their own server rooms, but Office 365 brings much more to the table [...]

Microsoft have already said that the new Office:Mac 2011 suite will be launched on October 26th, but now NeoWin is reporting that Microsoft have said that at 8am PDT on Tuesday 19th October, Kurt DelBene, the President of the Microsoft Office division and Chris Capossela, the Vice-President for Information Worked Product Management Group will make an [...]

Docs.com is an online document management, creation and publication tool that is closely tied to Microsoft and Facebook. Without going into to much detail, Facebook users can use the service to read, create or edit their Word, PowerPoint or Excel documents. Close ties to Facebook make it possible to share documents with Facebook friends, and [...]

It was one of the biggest complaints about the iPhone for the best part of three years and looked set to also be a major gripe about Microsoft’s new smartphone OS, Windows Phone 7.  Now though, Microsoft have come out to say that the OS WILL get Cut and Paste in an update early in [...]

With the smartphone market already crammed with handsets, operating systems and options, Microsoft have now entered the fray with their latest and greatest.  At an event in New York city this morning, Windows Phone 7 was officially unveiled. It’s exciting too, finally a smartphone OS for people who bemoan the lack of buttons on their [...]

With the official launch of Microsoft’s long-overdue new Smartphone operating system, Windows Phone 7 just two days away, it’s little wonder that people at Apple and Google might be more than a little worried about the publicity it’s bound to receive and how it will impact on their own businesses. In an interview this week [...]

Microsoft’s email service Hotmail recently received an update that improved the options to recover an account. That’s helpful for users who cannot sign in to Hotmail, either because their username or password is not accepted, or other errors or even attempts at hacking the email account. But account recovery is only one of the options, [...]

My new book Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out from Microsoft Press goes on sale by the beginning of November and, yes, it’s been written by one of the staff writers here at gHacks.net! You can pre-order it here and from Amazon and it will be available from online retailers and all good bookshops.  Now as an exclusive I’m [...]

Microsoft’s Hotmail service is undergoing a period of expansion, with new features being added.  As always happens this adds levels of complexity to the service but, recognising that many users still like to use their PCs using keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V for instance, Microsoft have released a guide, which for some reason comes a [...]

There’s been huge speculation about when Microsoft would launch Windows Phone 7.  Microsoft had already pre-booked an event to be held in New York City on October 11th but some commentators such as technology blogger Paul Thurrott said that Microsoft held an event there every year and this wouldn’t be it, so people started talking [...]

Microsoft have been hemorrhaging web browser market share ever since the first launch of Mozilla’s Firefox browser.  Now the fight back has begun with the, frankly excellent, Internet Explorer 9 and the move towards HTML 5. Both Google and Mozilla are including HTML 5 support in their latest browsers too, but neither have managed to [...]