Tag Archives: Windows

Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

End Of Support Notifications Being Sent To Windows 7 Users

If you’re still clinging to your old Windows 7 machine, you should know that the day is relentlessly drawing closer when Microsoft is going to stop supporting the OS altogether.  In fact, in the near future, you’re going to start seeing reminders pushed out by the company that the end is drawing near. They’re calling this a “courtesy reminder” and recommending an upgrade to Windows 10.

If you’re dead-set on continuing to use Windows 7 past the date when official support ends, Microsoft is offering an additional three years of paid support for the platform. However, the price of that support will double with each passing year.

The company has taken pains to continue supporting what is still a surprisingly popular operating system.  However, given all of the above, the writing on the wall is pretty clear to see at this point.

If you haven’t yet begun to make plans to move away from your legacy systems that require Windows 7 to function, it’s well past time to do so.  When the support stops, you’re going to find yourself at increasing risk. The hackers around the world are going to find flaws in Windows 7’s armor and Microsoft isn’t going to be around to fix them.

Even worse, an increasing percentage of modern software simply won’t run on those older systems, which puts you in an increasing bind on that front. You would have to buy separate systems to run the newer software you need, while maintaining a few of the older boxes to house and run the software that depends on the older OS.  That complicates things, to say the least.

The longer you delay, the worse those risks are going to become.  Painful as it might be to consider moving away from the platform, the alternative is worlds worse.  Time and technology have simply moved on.

 

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

New Windows 10 Update May Cause Gaming Issues

If you’ve installed Microsoft’s March 1st update for Windows 10, version 180G, be aware that a growing percentage of users are reporting performance issues that impact graphics quality and mouse movement. Granted, the issues seem to have the biggest impact on games, with gamers who play games like Destiny 2 and Call of Duty 4. Of course, performance issues are likely to crop up in a variety of other applications as well.

Microsoft engineers are tracking various discussion forums and Reddit threads where the issue surrounding the KB4482887 update is the topic. They have concluded that the biggest performance impacts come from users who are playing older games (upwards of ten years old), but don’t seem to impact people who play newer games nearly as much, which is curious to say the least.

It’s not at all surprising that gamers are the first to report performance issues.  After all, gaming tends to demand quite a lot from a computer system’s resources in ways that mucking around in a spreadsheet simply doesn’t.  Then there’s the fact that gamers live and die based on in-game lag and latency, so even small blips are very noticeable.  Even so, there are several resource intensive Enterprise applications that may suffer similar performance issues.

For their part, Microsoft is on the case and is currently scrambling to provide a fix for the update. Although to this point, they haven’t provided users with a timeframe for when it might be released.

This latest incident follows on the heels of several months’ worth of problematic Windows 10 updates which have left the company with egg on their faces and prompted them to revisit the way they handle QA/QC prior to the release of an update.

Despite the fact that they’ve been working hard to improve their approach, it seems clear that they’re not quite where they need to be yet.  If you haven’t installed the KB4482887 update yet, and you make frequent use of resource-intensive programs, it may be worth holding off until Microsoft issues an update to the update.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Nvidia Drivers Should Be Updated For Security Issues

If you use a Nvidia graphics card, be aware that the company has recently released their first security patch of 2019, bearing the ID # 4772.  It’s an important one in that it addresses eight security flaws that leave un-patched systems vulnerable to attack.

It should be noted that none of the flaws addressed in this patch are rated as critical, but all are rated as high.

The issues addressed in the patch run the gamut of protecting your system. This ranges from denial of service attacks, to remote code execution, and in six of the eight cases, an escalation of privileges.

This patch is applicable across a range of Nvidia’s most popular products, including their GeForce, Quadro, NVS and Tesla graphics cards. So if you use Nvidia graphics cards, then odds are good that this patch will be of benefit to you.

This brings us to the topic of how to apply the latest patch.  If your system is Windows based, then applying the latest patch via the Windows control panel should be the only action needed.  If you’re a Linux user, then the specific steps you’ll need to follow will vary from one build to the next. It and may involve a bit of manual work, navigating to the Nvidia control panel after the driver has been updated.

Also note that if you have Nvidia products on your system, you can download and install an app called the GeForce Experience, which will alert you when a new patch is available and guide you through its installation.

In any case, this patch is important enough to warrant a special mention, as the issues it protects against are fairly high profile.  Make sure your IT staff is aware so they can put this one high on the list of priorities.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Microsoft Account Email Phishing Attempt Looks Legitimate

Researchers have discovered a pair of nasty phishing campaigns that are making use of Microsoft’s Azure Blob Storage in a bid to steal the recipient’s Microsoft and Outlook account credentials.

Both campaigns are noteworthy in that they utilize well-constructed landing pages that have SSL certificates and a windows.net domain, which combine to make them look totally legitimate.

Given that most users don’t pay close attention to the exact address they’re navigating when they click on a link embedded in an email, these things are more than enough to fool many users. The first campaign relies on some basic social engineering to prompt the user to do something.

The subject lines vary a bit, but fundamentally they are called to action like:

“Action Required: (user’s email address) information is outdated – Re-validate now!”

The body of the email reinforces this point and helpfully contains a link to help you on your way to re-validating your account.  Clicking on the link doesn’t raise suspicion because the landing page is a carbon copy of the Outlook Web App that’s complete with a box that allows you to “validate” your password. Of course, what you’re actually doing is giving your email password to the hackers, who then have unfettered access to your inbox and contact list.

The second campaign is the weaker of the two, although it’s set up much the same way.  The subject line indicates that you need to take action to re-validate your Facebook Workplace service account, but when you click the link, you’re actually taken to a clone of Microsoft’s landing page. This was no doubt a mix-up on the part of the hackers and will be addressed in short order.

In any case, it pays to make sure your employees are aware of both of these, so they don’t inadvertently wind up handing over the keys to their digital kingdom.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Progressive Web App Office Software Coming To Windows 10

Microsoft has recently announced a new addition, coming soon to the Microsoft Store.  A free Office progressive web app (PWA), which is slated to replace the My Office app that comes pre-installed on Windows devices. The new app is functionally similar to the Office App you’re currently using, but it brings some exciting new features into play that users and IT managers alike will love.

In addition to being a central window giving you a birds’ eye view of your recent documents, contacts, and various Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook), it also serves as a bridge between working offline and working online with Windows 10.

Users will be able to access Office apps installed locally on their devices, as well as web apps. They will also have a view into locally stored files as well as files stored on the cloud, which in the Microsoft ecosystem, generally means SharePoint and OneDrive.

In addition to that, because it’s a Progressive Web App, it can work offline as well and be pinned to the taskbar, just as you can do with a native Windows App.  The only catch is that you’ll need to be running the 1803 version of Windows 10 (or later versions) to make use of the new capabilities.

Although individual users will no doubt find a lot to be excited about, the company’s own statements make it clear that they’ve designed it with IT managers specifically in mind. That is, given that it will allow managers to customize the Office app with company branding and allow users to access a variety of third-party apps through the lens of the Office app.

In tandem with this announcement, Aaron Gustafson (from the Microsoft Edge browser development team) also announced that the next version of Edge will be built around Chromium and will allow users to install PWA’s from the browser itself. That build brings Edge back to par with both Google Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox.

These are all excellent moves, and we can’t wait to start playing with the new app.  Kudos to Microsoft.

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