Windows

KB5019980 may break ODBC database connections

Microsoft has acknowledged an issue with the Windows 11 22H2 November 2022 Patch (KB5019980). The issue is causing affected apps to fail to connect to databases via connections using the Microsoft ODBC SQL Server driver. “After installing this update, apps that use ODBC connections through Microsoft ODBC SQL Server Driver (sqlsrv32.dll) to access databases might not connect,” Microsoft explains. “Additionally, you might receive an error in the app, or you might receive an error from the SQL Server.” Microsoft is currently working on a resolution (however that resolution take a bit longer than normal given Microsoft’s minimal operations during the holidays…

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Windows 11 22H2 Update KB5020044 causes Task Manager Issues

Why does this feel like a pharmaceutical commercial or perhaps it is just job security for Microsoft Corporation 411,84 -2,74 -0,66% engineers? Users on the ‘C’ update channel who have installed the upcoming Windows 11 22H2 November Preview (KB5020044) may find their task manager is unreadable. However, network file copying should be back to speeds it was prior to the 22H2 update. Note: users on the regular update channel will not be offered KB5020044 until the December (13th) Patch Tuesday) and this issue could be resolved by that point. “After installing KB5020044, Task Manager might display certain elements in the…

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Microsoft Fixes Slow Network File Copying in Windows 11 22H2

One the remaining unresolved known issues with the Windows 11 22H2 release was slow (sometimes taking twice as long) network file copying, Microsoft Corporation 411,84 -2,74 -0,66% has addressed this issue with the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25252 on Monday. This should be rolled out to all Windows 11 22H2 users via the KB5020044 optional cumulative update with December’s Patch Tuesday on December 13th. Microsoft has addressed a known issue leading to significant performance hits when copying large files over SMB after installing the Windows 11 2022 update. “There is a performance reduction in 22H2 when copying larger files…

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PREVIEW: Windows 11 December 2022 Patch Tuesday

Microsoft Corporation 411,84 -2,74 -0,66% has released Windows 11 KB5020044 optional cumulative update preview (“C” update) for admins to test fixes rolling out to all users with the December 2022 Patch Tuesday (December 13th). This update will be released for the following Windows 11 22H2. The Windows 11 KB5020044 preview release comes with over two dozen fixes and improvements, with the five highlighted ones listed below: Gives Microsoft OneDrive subscribers storage alerts on the Systems page in the Settings app. The alerts appear when you are close to your storage limit. Provides the full amount of the storage capacity of all…

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Microsoft Windows News

A couple news items from Microsoft Corporation 411,84 -2,74 -0,66% last week with regards to both Windows 10 and Windows 11. For Enterprise users Microsoft is still “investigating and working” on Remote Desktop issues. While we first reported this back in October shortly after the Windows 11 22H2 release, apparently this has been ongoing since late September. Home users are not experiencing these issues due to using different connection protocols from Enterprise users (due to corporate Firewalls) As BleepingComputer previously reported, Microsoft has been investigating this issue since late September following a stream of reports from administrators and home users saying…

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Windows 8.1 Support Ending January 2023

All (even not so) great things must come to an end. Microsoft Corporation 411,84 -2,74 -0,66% Windows 8 series was not so well received when it was released 10-yeaes ago. In the beginning user did not like its radical UI change (aka Metro or Tiled or Tablet interface) with the removal of the standard start menu.  A year later Microsoft released Windows 8.1 which (albeit hidden) allowed user to start in a desktop interface.  It has been over 10-years now and two new Windows versions (10 and 11) later, the time has come for Microsoft to put Windows 8.1 to…

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Have You Tried Restarting?

It is a running Tech Support joke: The user is asked if they have restarted their device. It is recommended you restart your devices (phones, tablets, music players and even PC’s) at least once a week. The 2-5 minutes it takes for the device to restart will save you a lot of time in the future with the increased performance. This is even more important for PC’s. A little background: Last week as I normally do towards the end of the week I pre-order our weekend pizza on Dominos. However, this time around Chrome refused to load the site and…

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PREVIEW: Windows 10 December 2022 Patch Tuesday

Microsoft Corporation 411,84 -2,74 -0,66% has released Windows 10 KB5020030 optional cumulative update preview (“C” update) for admins to test fixes rolling out to all users with the December 2022 Patch Tuesday (December 13th). This update will be released for the following Windows 10 builds 20H2, 21H1, 21H2, and 22H2. Also a reminder Windows 10 21H1 will no longer be updated after this December’s Patch Tuesday. The Windows 10 KB5020030 cumulative update preview includes ten improvements or fixes, with the four highlighted ones listed below: The search box now appears, by default, on the taskbar when the taskbar is at…

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Patch Tuesday: Windows 10 KB5019959

Today is the second Tuesday of November, better known as Patch Tuesday. Today, Microsoft Corporation 411,84 -2,74 -0,66% has released KB5019959 for Window 10 (builds 20H2, 21H1, 21H2 and 22H2). With the KB5019959 update, Microsoft has made a total of nineteen bug fixes or improvements, with the eight highlighted changes listed below: It addresses an issue that causes an OS upgrade to stop responding, and then it fails. It addresses an issue that affects the font of three Chinese characters. When you format these characters as bold, the width size is wrong. It addresses an issue that affects Microsoft Direct3D 9 games….

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Microsoft Testing Ads on Windows 11 Sign-out Menu

As if the Windows Search taskbar tip flyouts were not bad enough, Microsoft is reportedly testing advertising their own products/service via the Windows 11 Sign-out menu. Again this appears to be targeted to select groups of people who have the Windows Insiders Builds for Windows 11 installed. Microsoft sign-out ads (Albacore) I have on occasion while visiting Bing while using Chrome have gotten ‘an ad’ from Microsoft to use Microsoft Edge. To be honest this wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be when I saw the article come across my feed. There ‘ads’ are very subtle and blend…

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