A report by BleepingComputer has shed light on a Windows 10 bug that granted certain Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps full access to a device’s file system, a great deal more than the expected limited file access.

UWP apps are allowed to request this extra access, however, they are expected to explain to Microsoft what the access will be used for when submitting the app to the store. UWP apps that use this extra access are also supposed to prompt a settings screen with the ability to enable this access when the app is first used.

Unfortunately, this screen wasn’t being prompted correctly and it doesn’t appear as if Microsoft is being that strict with app developers submitting such apps to the store.

This settings prompt bug has apparently been fixed in the Window 10 October 2018 update though that update has been delayed due to some other, unrelated, bugs.

You can read more about the nitty-gritty of this issue, and view some code samples, over on BleepingComputer.

Does this issue bother you? Share your thoughts with the community in the comments below and then follow us on Pinterest for more tech content.

Microsoft has just announced the new games coming to the Xbox Game Pass catalog in November. Sniper Elite 4, Olli Olli 2 XL, Rise and Shone, Sheltered will be playable starting November 1, and Grip: Combat Racing will also be available on November 6, the same day as it launches on Xbox One.

The five new titles will join the four new survival horror games that Microsoft added to the catalog ahead of Halloween last week. In case you missed the news, these are Outlast, Observer, Dead Island: Riptide Definitive Edition, and Hello Neighbor. That’s already nine new games, but Microsoft plans to announce “even more great games” during its upcoming X018 event on November 10.

For just $9.99 a month, Xbox Game Pass gives you access to over 100 Xbox One and Xbox 360 games, including new first party titles on day one such as the critically-acclaimed Forza Horizon 4. You can try the service for 14 days for free, and Xbox Play Anywhere games such as Forza Horizon 4, Sea of Thieves or State of Decay 2 are also playable on Windows 10 at no additionnal cost.

Welcome back to our Windows 10 news recap, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Microsoft’s flagship operating system.

Microsoft confirms ZIP file problems in Windows 10 1809, expects “early November” fix

Problems with Windows 10 continue to surface following the release of version 1809, this time with ZIP files. Copying files from a ZIP folder without extracting it may cause it not to copy or move correctly. Microsoft says it expects a fix in early November.

Microsoft is now testing sandboxing Windows Defender, here’s how to enable it sooner

To improve the security of Windows Defender, Microsoft’s built-in anti-malware software for Windows 10, the company has been working on sandboxing the software, and it now has a sandbox mode in testing.

Windows 10 Twitter PWA updates with image tagging & other improvements

Twitter has been busy working on an update to its PWA, including allowing up to 10 accounts to be tagged in attached images, performance improvements, and more.

Security researchers release Windows zero-day exploit proof of concept

Security researchers have found a zero-day exploit in Windows and have shown off a proof of concept. It affects Windows 10, but is patched as of October.

Confirmed as well on Win10 1803, fully-patched as of October.
It's perhaps worth noting that the service used by the PoC, Data Sharing Service (dssvc.dll), does not seem to be present on Windows 8.1 and earlier systems. https://t.co/W8cNNC4xYO

— Will Dormann (@wdormann) October 23, 2018

That’s it for this week, we’ll be back next week with more Windows 10 news!

Microsoft news recap is a weekly feature highlighting the top Microsoft news stories of the past week. Sit back, grab some coffee, and enjoy the read!

It’s official, GitHub is now owned by Microsoft

Following the EUs approval of Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub last week, GitHub’s CEO has announced it is now owned by Microsoft. In a similar vein to LinkedIn, GitHub will continue to act as an independent company, despite being under Microsoft’s umbrella.

Bing removes and bans advertiser accounts following malicious ads when searching for Google Chrome

The Bing Ads team have acted on a report of malicious advertisements showing when searching for “download chrome”, in an ad that appears to have slipped through the moderation process.

Microsoft’s “By The Numbers” website updated, details new statistics

For those who love numbers, Microsoft has finally taken the time to update its “By The Numbers” website, giving an insight into the company’s top achievements, mainly focused on environmental achievements, like being 100% carbon neutral since 2012.

Microsoft produces ‘record’ FY19 first quarter earnings report with significant Surface, Office 365 and Azure gains

Microsoft has announced its first-quarter earnings for 2019. Its earnings report show significant growth amongst Surface, Office 365 and Azure, all of its main offerings that it has been focused on over the past few years.

That’s it for this week. We’ll be back next week with more Microsoft news.

As the war for improving privacy continues, Mozilla continues to bring new privacy protections to its web browser, Firefox. Expected to release in January 2019, Firefox 65 will bring a big change that aims to deliver greater privacy, by default.

Firefox 65 will block third-party tracking by default. It will block cookies, local storage, as well as certain APIs such as the Broadcast Channel API.

Mozilla’s Firefox will use the Tracking Protection list, provided by Disconnect, to decide which third-party scripts to block when a website is loaded.

For those who like to try things out early, this feature is available in the current release of Firefox and can be enabled by going to Options > Privacy and Security, then enable the “Third-party cookies” option and set the option to “Trackers”.

Microsoft’s By The Numbers website is designed to highlight the company’s top statistics, what sets it apart from the rest and show off its successes. Since its inception, it hasn’t really been kept up to date, but now the company has decided to reinvigorate life into the website, adding a number of new statistics, as well as improving the user experience with new animations (via Neowin).

Let’s dive straight into the statistics enlisted on the website, which Microsoft is proud to show off:

• With a sound level of -20.6dB, Microsoft’s anechoic chamber holds the Guinness Record for “World’s Quietest Place.”
• Beyond a small amount of drinking water, Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus consumes zero water from municipal water supplies.
• Last year, Microsoft donated over $1.4 billion in software and services, helping nonprofit organizations around the world access essential technology and skills.
• 1.5 billion Windows-powered PCs are used around the world.
• Microsoft used a branch of artificial intelligence called reinforcement learning to master the Atari 2600 version of Ms. Pac-Man and get a maximum score of 999,990.
• Microsoft runs several labs around the world that specialize in the fabrication of quantum devices. Cryogenics are used to keep certain quantum components 200 times colder than the farthest reaches of outer space.
• Microsoft has made 137 “AI for Earth” grants to individuals and organizations in 47 countries, helping them use artificial intelligence to protect the planet in the areas of agriculture, biodiversity, climate change and water.
• Microsoft’s Rural Airband Initiative invests in partnerships with telecommunications companies with the goal of bringing broadband connectivity to 2 million unserved people in rural America by 2022.
• Every day, Microsoft analyzes over 6.5 trillion signals in order to identify emerging threats and protect customers.
• Since 2012, Microsoft has operated 100 percent carbon neutral around the world.
• Microsoft’s Seeing AI app, which helps people who are blind or have low vision to better navigate the world around them, has assisted people with more than 10 million tasks.
• Cortana, Microsoft’s intelligent assistant, has been asked 18 billion questions since launch.
• 189 million pounds of food, packaging and dining-related items from Microsoft’s Puget Sound campus go somewhere other than a landfill every six months.

There’s a lot of stats to climb through. As you’ve probably noticed, a large number of them are environment-related, such as operating carbon neutral around the world since 2012. There are, however, some product-related stats in there, including that 1.5 billion devices are powered by Windows 10, and that Cortana has been asked 18 billion questions by users around the world.

What are your thoughts on the stats? Let us know in the comments!

Well, it seems like it was only a matter of time before we got public confirmation that Microsoft was encouraging its new LinkedIn employees to move from using Google Services to the company’s own Office 365 solutions.

Today journalist Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet is reporting on a Microsoft IT Showcase study that identifies how the company quietly pushed 14,000 LinkedIn employees from using Google Services into its parent company’s Office 365 ecosystem.

The case study that goes by “Linking in LinkedIn: How Microsoft onboarded a social networking giant,” details how Microsoft, at least in this specific instance, is rethinking its approach based on the realities of integration.

“To elicit a positive response, we needed to gain a deep understanding of differences in our organizational cultures and develop an approach that complemented the strengths of both organizations. We decided that was the logical starting point for helping LinkedIn employees access and use Microsoft assets in a way that best supported — or even improved — LinkedIn’s business.”

Even though the goal was to have all LinkedIn employees eventually using Outlook, Teams and Outlook Calendar by the end of December 2016, the company had to stage its integration mandate to best accommodate employee workflow with previous Google alternatives, leaving its integration roadmap ‘still in progress’.

Over the past few years, Gmail and Outlook have incorporated several interoperability functions into their software that make moving from to the other relatively painless.

Calendar functions, however, proved to be a sticking point of sorts for LinkedIn employees.

“For example, with Google Calendar, LinkedIn users could easily book multiple rooms in multiple buildings at the same time. That task wasn’t as simple to do in our implementation of Outlook. To ensure a consistent user experience, the LinkedIn migration team used the available APIs to create a new Outlook tool that employees can use to book multiple conference rooms.”

Microsoft was forced again to come out of its comfort zone, so to speak, to help LinkedIn employees accustomed to Google Docs streamlined collaboration tools, begin using Office 365 in a similar fashion.

While Microsoft has seemingly worked tirelessly to add collaboration function parity, there are still gaps in the productivity suites efficiency and user flow. According to Foley’s report, to mitigate the employee frustration and boost adoption, Microsoft implemented a “training and migration plan that included tracking user adoption and utilization to see where any paint points were.”

Presumably, Microsoft will take this telemetry and is work on digital walk-through of its collaboration tools and create new material for its partners to use when selling Office 365 commercial seats.

One would also think that a move from Google Hangouts to Microsoft new productivity chat tool, Teams would seem to be a hard task as well.

However, the company reported that LinkedIn employees moving from Hangouts to Teams, did so, at a high rate of adoption, leaving Microsoft to characterize the integration process as a “success.”

Aside from a servicing as a nice little pat on the back, Microsoft’s case study also highlights the company can start to use its recent acquisitions as hands-on learning experiences that then trickle out improvements to its Office 365 offerings and customers as well as better understand its seller’s market.

Rather than simply pitch its products, Microsoft is learning first hand the ups and downs of moving companies from one productivity tool to another.

After the EU approved Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub last week, Nat Friedman, CEO of GitHub announced today that the company is now officially owned by Microsoft. The Redmond giant spent $7.5 billion in stock to acquire the web-based hosting service earlier this year, but just like LinkedIn, GitHub will continue to operate independently as a company.

“We will start by focusing on the daily experience of using GitHub and will double down on our paper cuts project,” Friedman wrote today. “We will improve core scenarios like search, notifications, issues/projects, and our mobile experience. And of course we are excited to make GitHub Actions broadly available,” he continued.

Back in June, the initial acquisition announcement was met with some hostility from developers, but that apparently didn’t impact GitHub’s business. As spotted by Geekwire, GitHub actually gained 3 million developers since June, and has now crossed 31 million users overall.

“Our vision is to serve every developer on the planet, by being the best place to build software,” said Friedman. “This is a dream opportunity for all of us at GitHub, and we couldn’t be more excited to roll up our sleeves and start this next chapter.”

If you’re planning to get a new Xbox One console during the holiday season, Microsoft has just launched its new Xbox All Access financing plan in the US. Xbox All Access includes an Xbox One S or Xbox One X console plus 24 months of Xbox Games Pass and Xbox Live Gold, all with no upfront cost and one low monthly price over a 24 months period.

With Xbox All Access, get an Xbox One and 100 great games with no upfront cost and one low monthly price. Now available online for a limited time (US)^ https://t.co/ObB2h3r3Vx pic.twitter.com/4JXfBz8ZK7

— Larry Hryb ????????☁ (@majornelson) October 25, 2018

We made the math before and Xbox All Access is a pretty good deal, and it’s actually cheaper than buying everything separately. The financing plan starts at $21.99/month if you choose an Xbox One S console, and the Xbox One X is available for $34.99/month. The program is powered by Dell Preferred Account, and all consumers can take advantage of 0% APR for 24 months. Once the bundle is fully paid, consumers also get to keep the console.

Xbox All Access is currently US-only and it will be available for a limited time in the country. It really seems to be a really affordable way to get an Xbox One console, and the inclusion of Xbox Games Pass means that consumers get a catalog of over 100 Xbox One and Xbox 360 games right out of the box. Sound off in the comments if you’re planning to take advantage of this limited-time offer.

The former head of Windows, Terry Myerson took to the stage last year during the WinHEC conference to unveil the company’s new always-connected initiative.

Always Connected PCs that are instantly on, always connected with incredible battery life.

This year at Microsoft’s WinHEC (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference) 2018 Events in Taipei and Shenzhen, OEM Partners showed of made a pitch for their second round of always-connected devices, many of which were ARM and Intel Mobile architectures with LTE cellular connectivity that rely on the use of a SIM Card or eSIM like today’s mobile phones (via All About Microsoft).

On the heels of several new PC reviews and releases recently, Microsoft is looking to go back to its old role as an alley-oop assisting Center, by providing a bit of digital billboard space with a new section on its Microsoft Store website to help OEM’s peddle their wares powered by Windows.

For some, the new marketing move may feel like a throwback to 2012, when Microsoft started helping OEM market Windows 8 PC’s. With a half a billion dollars dedicated to marketing its new hybrid touch operating system, some observers saw Microsoft’s stewardship of the industry’s marketing direction as a desperate move by a company flailing to make Windows 8 a success, others saw it as the company having a more direct hand in helping partners educate the market on the benefits of new computing paradigms. What both perspective observers agreed upon, was that the days of such public facing co-marketing were behind Microsoft, however, it would appear that strategy continues today with the company’s new highlighted Always Connected PC purchase page on the Microsoft Store Online portal.

While it seems Microsoft is doing some of the digital promotion of the new ACPC lines on its new page, its the OEM’s that are placing substantial financial bets on PCs running a Snapdragon 850 chip such as Lenovo with the Yoga C630 or Samsung as they ditch Intel for the released its Galaxy Book 2 and use Qualcomm technology  which improves LTE speeds by 20 percent.

The drive last year when OEM’s partners showed off there first Windows 10 ARM devices indicated that the Always-Connected PC would be in its own category, but the sub-category is quickly proving to be the future bet many companies are making with their product lines. Erin Chapple, Corporate Vice President said;

“A ‘modern device,’ now, to us, is an Always Connected PC”

Chapple also said,

Built-in LTE networking will allow them to shift to “network as a service” rather than setting up and run their own custom networks.

Once again, Microsoft finds itself in the educator’s seat as the new page explains what eSims are, the convenience afforded by them and where customers can go to purchase them for their new devices.

As interesting as the concept of eSim and Always Connected PCs may appeal to an average person who operates a smartphone, Microsoft’s true push into forging this new PC category is arguably one that targets enterprise. With the release of the Surface Go with LTE support, Microsoft is quietly laying the foundation for its Point-of-Sale marketing benefits of ACPC’s, and it seems on the back of those efforts, OEM partners benefit.

While not as daunting as trying to convince customers to buy into a chunky PC tablet or a hybrid PC/mobile operating experience from overpriced laptops with seemingly unnecessary touch panels bolted on, the industry shift to Always Connected PCs will undoubtedly feel like another semi-Herculean task placed the shoulders of Microsoft and its partners this shopping season.

More details about which devices currently have LTE here

Back in November 2017, we reported that Remedy’s Alan Wake was being removed from the Xbox and Steam stores due to an issue with the music licensing. To drive new sales before the game’s removal, Remedy offered 90% off the game in a final sale on Steam.

Nearly a year later, Remedy has now announced that Alan Wake will be returning to the Xbox Store “very soon”, according to Remedy’s Communications Director, Thomas Puha:

Yes, we don’t know exactly when but should be very soon.

— Thomas Puha (@RiotRMD) October 25, 2018

As noted, there’s no firm date as to when, but fans of the game should expect the game to back in the store in the near future. It’s good to see that Microsoft and Remedy have seemingly resolved the long-standing music licensing issue that prevented the game from being sold.

Microsoft announced its FY2019 Q1 results yesterday, and it was a new record for the company’s first quarter filings with significant Surface, Office 365 and Azure gains. Microsoft’s cloud and productivity solutions are definitely getting traction in the enterprise world, and the company took the time yesterday to emphasize how it’s innovating like never before.

In a document that summarizes Microsoft’s quarterly highlights and product releases, the company posted a long list of examples showing how it’s “accelerating innovation across our businesses while expanding our market opportunities.” From Microsoft 365 to cloud-driven innovations like Project xCloud, it’s hard not to be impressed by the company’s forward-thinking approach. Perhaps, it was the company’s forward thinking planning that enabled it to beat analyst’s expectations yesterday.

We won’t go through the entire list, but it unsurprisingly kicks off with Microsoft 365, the company’s new enterprise bundle that is set to become a core offering for Redmond. This past quarter, Microsoft announced Microsoft Managed Desktop, a new subscription service which will help companies maximize their business by having Microsoft manage their Windows 10 devices. On the security front, Microsoft also announced password-free sign-in for thousands of apps, Modern Compliance enhancements and much more.

Office 365 also remains very important for Microsoft, and the company is currently improving its core productivity apps with AI-powered features such as LinkedIn integration and collaboration enhancements. It has also been a great year for Microsoft Teams, which has now reached feature-parity with Skype for Business. The communication hub for Office 365 users now has a free tier to compete with Slack, and Microsoft is competing aggressively with intelligent communication features and deep integration with Office 365 apps.

Azure remains one of Microsoft’s fastest-growing business, as well as a huge area of innovation for the company. In recent months, Microsoft introduced new Azure Machine Learning capabilities for data scientists and developers, as well as new Azure IoT products such as Azure Sphere. Microsoft is also making good progress on Quantum Computing, which will be a future Azure capability.

While most of these topics are enterprise-focused, there are other areas where the frontiers between the consumer and business worlds start to blur. As an example, Microsoft’s new 10-inch Surface Go is the most affordable Surface ever, which is obviously great news for consumers. However, the 10-inch form factor could also be very interesting for first line workers and point of sale (PoS) systems, and with Microsoft’s new Surface All Access financing plan, consumers and SMBs can both get a Surface Go for just $25 a month.

On Windows 10, the new Your Phone that syncs texts and photos from Android phones is becoming a great productivity tool. Upcoming features like Android app mirroring could also open up a whole new world of possibilities on Windows 10 PCs. It has been great to see Microsoft embracing iOS and Android devices in its app development roadmap, and expanding the reach of Cortana through interoperability with Alexa is pretty exciting.

“Across our businesses, we are accelerating innovation… picking the right secular trends and investing in large growing markets – many of which are still in their infancy. Additionally, every one of our solutions is reinforcing our core intelligent cloud and intelligent edge platform,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during the company’s First Quarter Earnings conference call yesterday. The CEO’s strategy has delivered great results thus far, and the rest of the company’s fiscal year 2019 appears set to be another very exciting year with new products like Project xCloud and HoloLens 2 in the pipeline.

In addition to the Xbox One X offered by in a Taco Bell giveaway, Microsoft is offering another Xbox One S giveaway in London. In a partnership with Foot Locker, Microsoft is offering a chance to win a special edition Xbox One S console. As noted in post by Microsoft News Centre UK, the giveaway is taking place in Great Britain as well as German and France. Here’s a look at the Foot Locker-branded Xbox One S.

Over the next three weeks, Foot Locker is giving away thousands of Xbox prizes every minute in its retail stores across Europe. Lucky shoppers can take home the Foot Locker Xbox One S, valued at £249.99, Xbox Design Lab controllers, Xbox Game Pass 12-month subscriptions, and much more! To be eligible to win an Xbox prize, Foot Locker shoppers must spend £50 or more in thirty-six Foot Locker locations in England, Scotland, and Wales.

Qualified shoppers will be given scratchcards at checkout that will offer a chance to win any one of the Xbox prizes being offered. The Xbox giveaway starts now and runs until November 11, 2018. This year’s Foot Locker Xbox giveaway is similar to last year’s October 2017 event where Foot Locker shoppers played Forza Motorsport 7 for a chance to win an Xbox One X and footwear.

It’s surprising that Foot Locker is not including copies of Forza Horizon 4, given the Xbox One game title takes place in locations across the UK. If you want to enter the Xbox One S giveaway, visit your local Foot Locker. Sorry, offer is only valid for residents of the UK, Germany, and France.

Yet again, Microsoft has had to confirm another issue regarding its Windows 10 October 2018 Update.

According to M. Hammer, a Microsoft Agent and Community Moderator, “If you copy files from a .ZIP file without extracting them, they might not be copied or moved correctly, even though it looks like they have been.”

There appears to be another known issue with the October 2018 Update the consent prompt for placing unzipped files is missing and results in either misplaced content or no placement at all despite the operation appearing to be complete.

This failure can occur in the following scenarios:

• Copying from a compressed (.zip) folder to a regular folder.
• Moving from a compressed folder to a regular folder.
• Copying from a compressed folder to a protected folder.

There is a silver lining in all this mess, according to Hammer, despite the normal inclination to redo the process, users shouldn’t worry about duplicating or overwritten content as the process just silently fails with the supposedly moved file simly being removed or deleted.

With that being said, Hammer warns users not to try and Cut and Paste items from a compressed (.zip) folder, doing so might inadvertenly make the files unrecoverable.

Thus far, the best solution is to fully extract the zip folder before copying any filed to a new destination. For anyone, who has already suffered content loss or misplacement, Hammer offers this workaround to recovery:

Restore files from the Recycle Bin

• Open the Recycle Bin
• Locate item
• Right-click and select Restore.

Restore files from Temporary File Directory

• Open the Run command box by simultaneously pressing Windows logo + R keys.
• Type %temp% and then click OK to open the Temp folder containing temporary files.
• Locate the file or folder. On the ribbon, select Move to and choose a location or folder to move the file into.

That latest Windows 10 October 2018 Update issue futher highlights the seemingly prolematic quality testing that went into this release as Redmond Magazine points out that that .zip exctract problem may have been a known bug for sometime.

With roughly a week left in the month of October, it seems increasingly unlikely Microsoft will re-release the October 2018 Update on schedule to the general consumer, especially since a fix for .zip extract isn’t estimated until early November.

Digital pre-orders for World of Final Fantasy Maxima are now live on Xbox One consoles ahead of its November 6th release.

World of Final Fantasy Maxima is a re-release of the original World of Final Fantasy video game that came out a couple of years ago which features improved visuals and a new feature that allows the main characters to appear as classic Final Fantasy video game heroes.

Here’s the official game description and trailer:

Expanding the horizons of FINAL FANTASY. A tale of many encounters and the birth of a new world.

Originally released in October 2016, WORLD OF FINAL FANTASY is now available on Xbox One as the powered-up FINAL FANTASY Maxima! Beloved characters from FF lore (Champions) and a multitude of capturable monsters (Mirages) appear in this fun and exciting adventure. This new and enhanced version of WORLD OF FINAL FANTASY also features the Avatar Change system, which allows the protagonists, Reynn and Lann, to fight as Champions. Fight your way through exhilarating battles as legendary FINAL FANTASY heroes!

The Xbox One console is expected to get an increasing number of Final Fantasy video game re-releases over the coming year with Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD Remaster, and Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age all confirmed for launches in 2019.

Are you a Final Fantasy fan? Let us know which games you’re looking forward to playing on the Xbox One in the comments below and then follow us on Pinterest for more gaming content.

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