Microsoft is expanding its Bug Bounty Programs to include .NET Core and ASP.NET to its suite of financially sponsored bounty searches. Starting earlier this month, September 1, 2016, Microsoft will be offering bounties for Windows and Linux versions two of its popular developing codes in .NET Core and ASP.NET Core. Many Windows observers may already know about the .NET Core, but ASP.NET Core may be a new enterprise for some.

As a bit of a refresher:

ASP.NET Core is a new open-source and cross-platform framework for building modern cloud-based internet connected applications, such as web apps, IoT apps and mobile backends. ASP.NET Core apps can run on .NET Core or on the full .NET Framework. It was architected to provide an optimized development framework for apps that are deployed to the cloud or run on-premises. It consists of modular components with minimal overhead, so you retain flexibility while constructing your solutions. You can develop and run your ASP.NET Core apps cross-platform on Windows, Mac and Linux. ASP.NET Core is open source at GitHub.”

For those interested in getting started, Microsoft has issued these details:

• Microsoft will pay a bounty for critical and important vulnerabilities on the latest RTM version, or supported Beta or RC releases of latest versions of Microsoft .NET Core, ASP.NET Core
• It includes vulnerabilities in the default ASP.NET Core templates provided with the ASP.NET Web Tools Extension for Visual Studio 2015 or later
• Also included is Kestrel, Microsoft’s new web server
• The supported platforms are Windows and Linux versions of .NET Core and ASP.NET Core
• The vulnerability must both be submitted on and reproduce on the latest RTM version, or on supported Beta or RC releases above the current RTM version to qualify for a bounty
• The better the quality of your report, the greater will be the payment
• The bounty will begin on September 1, 2016 and run indefinitely (ending at Microsoft’s discretion)
• Bounty payouts will range from $500 USD to $15,000 USD

For anyone looking to test out .NET Core or ASP.NET Core for themselves, Microsoft is encouraging downloads of the respective sources with Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, .NET Core 1.0.0 – VS 2015 Tooling Preview 2 or .NET Core SDK for Windows.

Developer studio 343 Industries has pumped out a lot of new content and features for Halo 5: Guardians. Their live support and continued progress for the gameplay has kept a lot of the community coming back time and time again to enjoyed the latest installments. Many fans are waiting patiently for the next update aptly named Anvil’s Legacy with the Forge file content browser coming in a few short days. What they didn’t expect was the confirmation that a custom game browser was already in the works.

343 Industry dev Frank O’Connor (also known by the username Stinkles) posted on NeoGAF to talk about his recent experience with Halo 5’s new gameplay. “Once the custom game browser is available I think the community might get crazy legit,” he shared casually with the ‘nexus for gamers’ forum.

It wasn’t until the follow up by Josh Holmes that fans really started to get excited about the ability to browse, join, and create custom games. According to VG247, he confirmed by making a statement:

“To be clear, it’s a new feature that will provide similar functionality to a custom game browser, extending the existing file browser. It’s something we’ve wanted to build for years and managed to get done as part of our ongoing support for the game. We’ll be talking in more detail as we near release, but yeah it’s pretty megaton for Halo and will be a great addition on both PC and console.”

Not much more is known about the custom game browser beyond that it is being worked on. However, the file browser will be released on September 8. It’s also worth noting that since the team took off for PAX, the next information dump will be during a livestream that will be tomorrow. “There’s lots of cool stuff on the way, and we can’t wait to jump in with you,” B for Bravo confirmed on the latest preview blog post. Hopefully we’ll learn more about the game browser as well since the cat’s out of the bag.

On September 13th, futuristic action-adventure game ReCore will be the first the first Xbox Play Anywhere title to launch on both the Xbox One and Windows 10. If you missed our previous coverage about this brand new IP from Microsoft Studios, a new blog post on the game’s website has just been published to feature the most important gameplay videos that have been shared on the internet over the last few weeks, and you should really take a look at them if you’re interested in upcoming Xbox exclusives.

A few words about the game first: ReCore has been developed by Japanese game studio Comcept in partnership with American company Armature Studios, and the game was first announced during E3 2015. ReCore follows the journey of Joule Adams, a young survivor in a dangerous post-apocalyptic world controlled by robots. This first gameplay trailer made its debut back at E3 2016:

Below is the game’s official launch trailer which was published last week by the Xbox team:

Lastly, our colleagues at Polygon have shared the following 15 minutes video of hands-on gameplay over the week-end, and this will probably be your best look at the game so far:

Overall, ReCore seems really fun to play and we can’t wait to see if it will resonate with Xbox enthusiasts over the coming weeks. As a reminder, ReCore is a $39.99 title and you can already pre-order it on the Microsoft Store. Starting September 13th, you will be able to play the game on both your Xbox One and Windows 10 PC with shared progress and achievements. Let us know what you think of the game in the comments below!

Pre-order ReCore on the Microsoft Store

While the HP Elite x3 finally started shipping to consumers in the UK last week, it seems that US customers who pre-ordered the handset from the Microsoft Store won’t receive the premium handset on September 12th as was originally planned. As of today, the store listing on the US Microsoft Store indicates a September 26th shipping date, which is two weeks after the previous release date which was announced by HP last month (via Neowin).

This is actually the second time that the premium handset’s shipping date is delayed in the country as HP initially revealed that it would start selling the Elite x3 on September 5 in the US. Moreover, the manufacturer has yet to start accepting pre-orders for the handset on its own website.

The US Microsoft Store currently sells the unlocked HP Elite x3 for $799 (Desk dock included), and those of you who will receive it later this month will be able to download the Windows 10 Mobile Anniversary Update which is expected to be available for the handset on September 13th. While the premium handset features an iris scanner to easily unlock the device via Windows Hello, installing the latest Windows 10 Mobile version will be necessary to enable the device’s fingerprint sensor which will support Windows Hello as well.

Microsoft (MSFT) 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!

Beam gets busy after Microsoft acquisition, plans announcements at TC Disrupt

Microsoft acquired interactive live streaming service Beam last month and this week we heard about the changes they’ve been making, as well as their plan for TechCrunch Disrupt.

Apple and Google have joined Microsoft’s fight for digital privacy

Microsoft’s fight against the United States’ Department of Justice continues after both Apple and Google join Microsoft’s lawsuit against the department over restricting when it can tell customers that the government is trying to access their data.

Mozilla throws its support behind Microsoft in gag order lawsuit

Adding on to both Apple and Google, Mozilla has also shown its support for Microsoft’s fight against the Department of Justice.

Microsoft deprecating “obsolete” SmartScreen spam filters in Outlook and Exchange

Spam and scams are a huge part of the online world, particularly when it comes to email. For years, Microsoft’s SmartScreen service has been helping keep peoples’ inboxes around the globe free of known spam and scam emails, however, the company is beginning to deprecate the feature in both Outlook and Exchange.

Bing Rewards replaced by Microsoft Rewards as the switchover begins

Microsoft appears to have begun the change from Bing Rewards to Microsoft Rewards, with our Senior Editor, Kip Kniskern, seeing his points increase by 10x, in tally with the cost of rewards, too.

That’s it for this week, we’ll be back next week with more. What’s your favourite Microsoft story? Let us know in the comments!

Welcome back to our weekly “Windows 10 news recap” series where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Microsoft’s latest operating system. Let’s get started.

Nearly 50% of Steam gamers prefer Windows 10

Microsoft is continuing to attract gamers to Windows 10, as shown by Steam’s latest survey for August 2016, which attributes almost 50% of Steam users using Windows 10 as their choice of operating system.

Windows 10 continues to gain share, now on 23% of all PCs worldwide

Following on from Steam seeing increasing Windows 10 usage, NetMarketShare’s latest report also shows Windows 10 gaining traction overall, with it now being on 23% of PCs worldwide.

People Bar may be in the works in Windows 10 Redstone 2 builds

Redstone 2 builds are already being pushed to Windows Insiders on the Fast Ring, and as such, hidden features that Microsoft is working on are being discovered. One of them is called a People Bar. It allows contacts to be placed in the taskbar and accessed easily by clicking their profile picture, which will provide access to places to contact or collaborate on them from, through apps such as Skype and Office.

Microsoft looks to be working on a Blue Light Reduction feature for Windows 10 PC and Mobile

Blue Light causes issues with the eye as well as disrupting sleep schedules. Programs such as f.lux aim to help mitigate this by reducing the blue light emitted from displays during certain periods of time. In Redstone 2, Microsoft appears to be working to implement this functionality directly into Windows 10, known internally as Blue Light Reduction.

You can now order Windows 10 Play Anywhere games from the Windows Store

Microsoft is continuing to bring Xbox and Windows 10 closer together. This week, the company made a big stride forward by offering Xbox Play Anywhere titles in the Windows Store, allowing users to pre-order some of the upcoming titles for the price of 1 and own them on PC and Xbox.

For builds this week, here’s what we got:

• Windows 10 build 14393.105 released to Production
• Windows 10 PC Preview Build 14915 is now available in the Fast Ring
• Windows 10 Build 14393.105 now available for Windows Insiders

That’s all for this week – let us know what you’re thinking about Redstone 2 in the comments below!

Earlier we reported on Microsoft’s lawsuit against the United States Department of Justice, showing that a ton of companies (including Apple and Google) are standing behind Microsoft in the interest of a more well-protected standard of privacy. If that wasn’t enough, it turns out that the lawsuit (which aims to take down the government’s right to issue gag orders to companies) just got another big ally: Mozilla.

Transparency  – or more appropriately the lack thereof – is why we care about this case.  When requesting user data, these gag orders are sometimes issued without the government demonstrating why the gag order is necessary. Worse yet, the government often issues indefinite orders that prevent companies from notifying users even years later, long after everyone would agree the gag order is no longer needed. These actions needlessly sacrifice transparency without justification. That’s foolish and unacceptable.

Mozilla has long stood as one of the shining examples of transparency online, which should make it no surprise to anyone that they’ve decided to throw their support behind Microsoft in this case. Regardless of whether or not you think these orders are justified, it only makes sense that an organization like Mozilla would be against something that keeps a company from disclosing vital information to its users. It’s yet to be seen if Mozilla’s support for Microsoft here presents any sort of tangible benefit, but it’s a show of good will that privacy advocates will be very happy to see.

Intel’s Joule module seems like it was made for Microsoft’s IoT. The device is defined on Intel’s website as something meant to “contribute to a new generation of robots, drones, and IoT devices that are equipped with Intel® HD Graphics, 3D modeling, object recognition, and interactive capabilities.” Being a piece of hardware that’s meant to work so strongly in conjunction with IoT, it’s no surprise that Microsoft has announced its partnership with Intel on its Windows blog today, showing off some of the new technology that’s powered by Joule and Microsoft’s IoT Core.

There’s a fair amount of variety in what the technological power couple has been able to accomplish, as several organizations were keen to show off at the Intel Developer Forum 2016 over in San Francisco. Possibly one of the most interesting things to come out of the event was Bamboo, a charming robot panda that can listen to you speak in any language and translate what you said in English on the spot. Beyond this, Joule and Microsoft’s IoT Core wowed audiences with the EZ-B V5 robot and Torch, a mixed-reality gaming table that – according to the blog post – blends the “physical/digital divide.”

If you’re a Windows developer who wants to sink your teeth into the possibilities with Joule as soon as possible, you’re not going to be waiting very long at all. Assuming you have the hardware necessary (most notably the Joule module itself) you should be able to start working with Joule very soon. Windows Insiders should be getting access to Joule-supporting builds of Windows IoT Core sometime this month. Microsoft made it very clear that they can’t wait to see what you developers out there are going to make, and we’re just as excited.

Microsoft is progressing in its cloud business and has reached a new milestone in their cloud enterprise. Microsoft has taken the lead as the leading Software as a Service (SaaS) provider.

Other rivals in this subject include Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, Adobe, ADP, IBM, Workday, Intuit and Cisco, and Microsoft now successfully took the lead from Salesforce after tieing with them in Q1 at 14 percent, as reported by eWeek.

Microsoft’s push at their Azure division has definitely made great progress in the cloud service market. Microsoft caught up to other leaders and even the giant Salesforce and finally surpassed them, but could lose in the future to Oracle that is the fastest growing SaaS provider with Microsoft following shortly after.

Let us know what you think about Microsoft’s cloud offerings in the comments below!

From manspreading, the pizza rat, or even the woman who most recently dropped live bugs in a packed subway car, the New York City Subway System has been home to many bizarre moments. A new moment for the list, however, is a man that was captured playing his Xbox 360 while riding the subway.

As posted on Urban Leak, the man in the photo above reportedly paid no mind to the commuters around him but was rather focused on playing Madden on the portable TV and Xbox 360 just a couple of feet away from his face. It’s not exactly clear how he managed to power both the TV and Xbox 360 while on the go (we’re assuming it’s a battery of some kind and not a flux capacitor), but it’s safe to say that this brings “Xbox anywhere” to an entirely new level.

There is, nonetheless, a homemade portable option available for new Xbox One S. As we originally reported back in August, Ed Zarick created the Xbook One S laptop and sells the device for the hefty price of $1,200. Perhaps this gentleman could consider investing in an upgrade.

Holidays are great things for a number of reasons. Not only do we often get time off at work and enjoy fun and often tasty celebrations, but we usually enjoy opportunities to save some serious money as well. This year’s Labor Day holiday in the U.S. is no different, as the Microsoft Store is joining with a number of other retailers in offering up some significant discounts on a variety of PCs.

Here’s a list of some of the best PC deals available at this year’s Microsoft Store Labor Day sale. Note that you also get a free NuVision 8″ Windows 10 tablet with select PC purchases.

• Alienware 15 Touch Signature Edition Gaming Laptop, $1,499.00 (was $2,499.00)
• Lenovo Z50-75 Signature Edition Laptop, $349.00 (was $599,00)
• Dell Inspiron 15 i5559-4682SLV Signature Edition Laptop, $449.00 (was $749.00)
• Dell XPS 13 9350-2007SLV Core i5 128GB Signature Edition Laptop, $999.00 (was $1,099.00)
• Dell Inspiron 15 i5568-5240GRY Signature Edition 2 in 1 PC, $699.00 (was $849.00)
• HP ENVY Curved 34-A051 Signature Edition All-in-One, $1,699.00 (was $2,099.00)
• Dell XPS 15 9550-0000SLV Signature Edition Laptop, $1,399.00 (was $1,699.00)
• Razer Blade Signature Edition Gaming Laptop, $1,699.00 (was $2,399.00)

It’s not only PCs that are on sale this weekend. The Microsoft Store also has some nice offers on select Xbox One games, Surface, and accessories. If you’re looking for a good way to say goodbye to Summer and hello to Fall, then saving some money on PC hardware and gaming titles seems like a good idea to us. Let us know in the comments if you plan on making a trip to a Microsoft Store this Labor Day weekend or entering your credit card information online.

Microsoft’s development features for its next scheduled Windows 10 release, internally being referred to as Redstone 2, has been much of a mystery to date. Reading the tea leaves and following the gossip leads us to conclude that the Windows team is focusing on restructuring the OneCore of Windows 10 while also adding some enterprise features to its Mobile SKU of the operating system.

While the broad strokes of Windows 10 future development are focused on enterprise and mobile, some lesser highlighted items coming to users could be just as useful. According to a report from Windows Central, for example, the Windows team is currently testing out a new feature to Windows 10 for PCs dubbed the People Bar, which could make its way into the Redstone 2 release of the operating system in early 2017.

The People Bar seems to be an evolution of the People Hub functionality mixed with the familiarity of the well-known Windows Task Bar. Apparently, the idea of the People Bar is a take on the Pinned Contacts feature enabled on Windows Phones or the Start Menu in Windows 10.

However, instead of having the contact buried in the Start Menu on Windows 10 PCs, it would rest in plain sight on the Task Bar. Contacts placed in the People Bar will have communication support from services and apps such as Skype, GroupMe, and Office, to help encourage more active and quick collaboration from anywhere within the operating system.

We’ll be keeping our eyes on Redstone 2 and its development over the next several months. Along with the apparent “blue light” functionality that we reported on the other day, the People Bar makes it obvious that the Windows 10 team intends to continue to make their premier operating system increasingly functional in anticipation of the new hardware that’s apparently coming with the Redstone 2 release in 2017.

Readit, the Reddit app of choice for many Windows phone and Windows 10 users, has joined the Xbox party and the app is now available on the Xbox One platform.

Now, you can read about apps like NASA TV Live coming to the Xbox platform right from your Xbox! Readit offers a number of features useful to Reddit users, according to the app description:

The best Reddit client for Windows phone is now available on any of your Windows devices. Readit has moderator support and support for many gold features as well! Welcome to Readit! A beautiful, well-crafted reddit app for the Windows Platform. From features like secondary tiles, a stunning interface, and complete markdown support, you are missing out if you aren’t using Readit for your reddit browsing habits on Windows. Readit supports so many features, including the following:

• Gold Feature Support
• Secondary Tiles
• Toast Notifications – Detailed for specific users/messages/comment replies
• Pinning Subreddits to your start screen for easy access
• Complete Imgur integration with native Album browsing
• Gilded comments indicator
• Complete Reddit markdown support
• Very high performance
• Customizable Theme
• A stunning and beautiful interface
• Many more features

If you’re a Reddit user, or if you’re not and want to be, check out Readit for the Windows Platform, now including on Xbox One.

ReCore, a futuristic action-adventure game developed by Armature Studio, is one of the most exciting Xbox exclusive games, set to be released on both the Xbox One and Windows 10 on September 13. Today, Senior Creative Director for ReCore Joseph Staten shared on Xbox Wire the game’s launch trailer as well as more details about the game’s story and voice cast.

ReCore will let you play as Joule Adams, one of the last remaining humans on a planet controlled by robots out to kill you. Staten explains that this new trailer is narrated by Joule’s father, Dr. Thomas Adams, and reveals “new gameplay and characters from ReCore’s cinematic story as well as the qualities Joule inherited from her father; qualities that will help her and her Corebot companions to bring new life and hope to Far Eden.”

Staten also shared that Armature Studio hired some familiar actors to bring the game to Life: the game features Erika Soto (Halo Wars 2) as Joule , Connor Trinneer (Stargate: Atlantis and Star Trek: Enterprise) as Dr. Adams and
Harry Shum Jr.(Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments and Glee) as Kai Brehn, the latest game character to be unveiled in this new trailer.

ReCore will be available on September 13 in North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific (except Japan), September 15 in Japan and September 16 in EMEA. The game will be available for $40 in the US, and as with all upcoming Xbox Play Anywhere titles you’ll be able to play it on both your Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs with shared progress and achievements.

IFA 2016 kicked off earlier this week in Berlin and several PC manufacturers including Acer and Lenovo already introduced their latest line up of Windows 10 PCs to the public. In the US, PAX West 2016 is also officially underway in Seattle, WA and Dell attended the show yesterday to unveil a brand new portfolio of Alienware gaming notebooks available in three editions.

The Alienware 13 is the company’s smallest gaming laptop but it’s configurable with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10-Series GPU which makes it VR-ready. If you’re looking for a slightly bigger option, The mid-size Alienware 15 with its 15.6-inch Full HD display may provide you a better gaming experience. This model is also VR-ready thanks to its NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, and additional options include a FHD 120Hz display with NVIDIA G-Sync and a UHD IGZO option for 4k resolutions.

If you’re not looking for the most portable solution, the Alienware 17 is Dell’s flagship gaming laptop which features a thinner design, anti-smudge finishes as well as a new hinge that improves system ventilation. Other features include:

• Overclocked Intel Core i7 processors and DDR4 memory running up to 2667 Mhz.
• Optional IR Tobii eye-tracking technology adds great accessibility features based on where you’re looking
• New speaker design includes internal smart-amps that monitor audio waveforms, enabling the use of the entire thermal margin of the speaker for stronger sound

Dell’s latest Alienware gaming laptops can also be plugged into the Alienware Graphics Amplifier which can power up to three displays and boost your gaming experience with more dedicated graphics power. All Alienware notebooks will be available in the coming weeks on Alienware.com or Dell.com in the United States and in select countries around the world but exact specifications, prices, and availability may vary by region. Let us know in the comments what do you think of Dell’s latest Alienware lineup.

Martin Suchan is a huge fan of astronomy, and has been working on creating apps to be able to watch NASA TV live broadcasts for years. He first brought an app to Windows Phone 8.1, brought that to Windows 8.1, moved up to the Universal Windows Platform for Windows 10, and only three years later than expected, has brought the app to the Xbox One.

Suchan describes the app in a thread on Reddit:

 It’s super simple app – one click for launching the NASA TV Live stream, second click for full screen. The current version is free and without Ads, but If you like it, you can purchase optional Pro upgrade which costs like 1.5 USD.

NASA TV Live provides access to both the public and media channels, allows viewing of live broadcasts, shows playback in a “full chrome-less mode for the best experience,” and is available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, and now Xbox One.

You can get NASA TV Live from the Windows Store, or from searching for “NASA TV Live” on your Xbox.

Age of Empires is a classic PC game, first launched way back in 1997, with revisions and new titles appearing all the way up until this year. Now, it looks like you just may be able to play Age of Empires on an Xbox One soon, according to a somewhat cryptic tweet by Mike Ybarra, Xbox’s Director of Program Management:

Age of Empires anyone? #Xbox pic.twitter.com/A6xBGPmam1

— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) September 1, 2016

For an Age of Empires elephant to be featured in a Microsoft stairwell might not be news, as the game is one of the most popular games on PC, selling some 20 million copies (not quite Solitaire, but still!), according to Wikipedia. However Ybarra tagged the tweet with an #Xbox tag, giving hope to those millions that they might be seeing a new version capable of running on an Xbox One as well as PC.

Update: now Ybarra is backing down, tweeting out that it was “just a picture:”

Sorry to disappoint, but it was just a picture of an Age elephant we have in one of our buildings. https://t.co/qKFDsorEhO

— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) September 2, 2016

Are you an Age of Empires player? Would you be excited to play it on a console as well as PC? Let us know in the comments below.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that foosball is just a silly game for college kids with too much time on their hands, but it’s actually a silly game for adults who work at technology start-ups, too. Microsoft Vancouver invited local tech companies to compete in their first annual Tech Foosball Championship recently, and the result is what seems to have been an incredibly fun day where like-minded people could get together, put on ridiculous mascot costumes, play foosball, and just have a good time.

The tournament’s highlights were put up on YouTube for those interesting in seeing what the tournament was like. Fans of Microsoft Vancouver, fans of foosball, and fans of the nebulous concept of “fun” should all take a few minutes to watch. The winners of the tournament (Spoiler: the winners were from Global Relay, a communications company) got themselves a trophy to take home, along with the ever-important bragging rights going into next year’s tournament.

No ground-breaking news or serious events to analyze here–just a reminder that Microsoft and all of the other tech geeks out there running businesses still like to have fun every now and again. Here’s hoping that the 33 tech companies that took part in the tournament all have a fruitful future ahead of them.

If you can take a break from World of Warcraft’s latest expansion, there’s some other Blizzard-related news that may give you a good reason to be excited. Overwatch, Blizzard’s slam-dunk success of a team-based shooter, is going to be enjoying a free weekend from September 9th to September 12th.  This presents an opportunity for those on the fence about Overwatch to try out the game and see if it’s for them before they decide to take the plunge and buy their copy.

This free weekend doesn’t have any complications to it – the deal is pretty simple. You get to play Overwatch for three days for free, and you can earn loot boxes, level up, play every hero, play on every map, do every game mode, etc. If you fall in love with Overwatch after the free weekend, buy the game and you can pick up where you left off.

If this is your first time taking part in a free weekend and you’d like something to clear up any confusion, you can read Blizzard’s blog post. The post includes an FAQ about the free weekend, launch schedules with times listed for each time zone, and more. Whether you’re new to the genre or have been playing similar games for years, Overwatch is an extremely good time – you’re going to want to get on this trial if you’re at all on the fence about the game. As long as you have an active Xbox Live Gold membership and an empty schedule, next weekend is primed to be a fun time for you.

Microsoft released Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14915 this week to the Fast Ring, bringing fixes to a number of issues that were introduced in the previous Insider build. However, as sometimes happens with beta programs, a new issue has been introduced that affects a limited but meaningful number of users.

Microsoft acknowledges the issue at the Answers community:

Hello Windows Insiders,
After the release of build 14915 to to the Fast ring for PC yesterday, a Wi-Fi bug has been discovered that is impacting a subset of users. Please review the following:

• Surface Pro 1
• Surface Pro 2
• Wi-Fi adapters using the Marvell driver
• (There may be other similar drivers affected, research is ongoing)

You may review in Device Manager to see if your PC is affected. You will see an icon on your Wi-Fi adapter similar to this:

The percentage of users impacted is limited, but for those affected, all Wi-Fi functionality is lost and there is no temporary fix to restore Wi-Fi on this build given the nature of the bug. Affected users will need to use a wired connection if available or roll back to the previous OS version on their device to bypass this issue.

Our Engineering teams have quickly completed a root cause analysis of the issue and are working to get the fix checked-in to make it available in our next flight.

Thank you as always for the feedback that has been provided and for the quick efforts to share this issue with us.

There’s some evidence that this issue is affecting a number of other machines, including this writer’s homebuilt desktop using a Netgear A6210 802.11ac adapter. This Answers thread provides a discussion of various unsuccessful attempts to resolve the issue.

We’ll be looking forward to the next Insider build, where this issue will hopefully be rectified. Those without a wired Ethernet connection will likely need to roll back to the previous build and then update to the next build to get around this issue. Let us know in the comments if you’re suffering from the bug, and what system you’re running.

Microsoft is making changes to SmartScreen, a spam content filter, available in Windows 10. These changes will affect Outlook and Exchange users. In Outlook and Exchange, SmartScreen analyzes each email message and rates the email according to SmartScreen’s Spam Confidence Level (SCL). These emails are then sent to Outlook’s junk folder. SmartScreen is also available in Edge and Internet Explorer browsers, offering online protection against malicious websites and online content, including downloads.

Here’s a look at the changes to SmartScreen, according to Microsoft:

1. On November 1, 2016, Microsoft will stop generating updates for the SmartScreen spam filters in Exchange Server 2016 and earlier (2013, 2010, 2007), Outlook 2016 for Windows and earlier (2013, 2010, 2007) and Outlook 2011 for Mac.
2. The SmartScreen spam filter will be removed from future versions of Exchange Server and Outlook for Windows. (SmartScreen is not available in any other version of Outlook).
3. This announcement does not affect the SmartScreen Filter online protection features built into Windows, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer browsers. While branded similarly, those features are technically distinct. These SmartScreen Filters to help people to stay protected from malicious websites and downloads.”

After November 1, 2016, Microsoft will no longer release spam definition updates to SmartScreen filters in Outlook and Exchange. Your existing SmartScreen spam filters will remain in place; Microsoft will simply no longer provide updates for them.

Microsoft clarifies that the changes to SmartScreen in Outlook and Exchange will unlikely impact many users and most “should not experience any change in their email experience or see an increase in spam.” SmartScreen’s spam filters in Outlook and Exchange are being replaced by Exchange Online Protection (EOP), a cloud-based email filtering service utilized by Office 365 subscribers.

EOP is already built into all Office 365 and Outlook.com email accounts. EOP is also available for on-premises Exchange Server enterprise customers, and is available for just $1.00 per user per month.

It’s a great day to be a Minecraft fan, as there is news to report on two fronts. Mojang, the Minecraft developer, has released Battle Map Pack 3 for consoles and has also updated an experimental Snapshot.

Available for the price of $2.99, Battle Map pack 3 includes three new locations for you to enjoy. The first of the three locations is Castle, which features majestic halls for some good hand to hand combat. Second is Invasion, which is a modern city that’s been destroyed by an unknown presence. Last up is Shipyard, which is a city built around an airship suspended miles above the ground.

On the other side of things, Mojang also released Minecraft Snapshot 16W35A today. This Snapshot brings a text change to bring the Snooper Data description into line with the updated privacy policy. It also brings a multitude of Bug fixes, some of which can be seen below.

Notable changes:

• Some bugs have been asked to bother another game
• Most bugs agreed to move on

Bugs fixed in 16w35a:

• [Bug MC-2298] – Placing trapdoors / fence gates right beside a redstone source will not update them to the open state
• [Bug MC-4603] – The Ender Dragon is hostile to players in Creative
• [Bug MC-83337] – Eye of Ender in the mainhand doesn’t block offhand item usage
• [Bug MC-84095] – Ender Dragon destroys fireballs/Fireballs invisible
• [Bug MC-85805] – Two pistons smashing a shulker glitch
• [Bug MC-94274] – Hitbox of cocoa beans too small
• [Bug MC-94485] – Hand animation continue swing when cocoa block placed already
• [Bug MC-95738] – Slimes health resets to max when setting any nbt-tag

For the complete details on the Snapshot, be sure to head over to this official post on the Mojang blog. After you’ve checked it out, please come back to WinBeta and let us know what you think of the latest Battle Map and Snapshot by dropping us a comment below.

Wipfli, a business accounting, tax and consulting company with 36 offices across the United States and two offices in India, is moving to Office 365 to improve the productivity of its employees. Michael Pynch, technology partner at Wipfli explained in a new guest post on the Office blog what pushed the company to switch to cloud-based solutions from Microsoft. “We are doing this by empowering our more than 1,700 associates with the mobility, connectivity and security of Microsoft cloud technologies, including Office 365, Microsoft CRM Online and the Azure cloud platform,” he explained.

Pynch expects Office 365 to improve the workflow of Wipfli employees in many ways, and the company will also leverage Microsoft’s FastTrack program to implement mobile device and application management services on the company’s iOS and Windows devices.

The technology partner also highlighted the following Office 365 use cases:

• Wipfli employees now easily share documents with OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online.
• Yammer is also used by employees across the country to start conversations and help serve clients.
• Skype for Business will gradually replace previous audio conference solutions as well as the 13 various phone systems that the company previously accumulated through acquisitions. “We expect to save a significant amount annually,” explained Pynch.
• The company will also move its development environments, website and other production servers to the Azure cloud to “save time and money managing on-premises infrastructure.”

Overall, Pynch thinks that moving to Office 365 will allow Wipfli to “realize our own goals for a more efficient, connected enterprise.” He added:

Creating an environment that reflects the changing workplace expectations of our associates ensures that we employ and retain top talent. Not only do we reduce the cost of turnover, but our clients enjoy greater consistency, and our associates have better job satisfaction. This three-way win is a great example of the multiple levels of business value we get with Microsoft cloud technologies.

Wipli is not the only big consulting company to choose to roll out Office 365 to all its employees: last month, we reported that design company Atkins which has 18,600 employees worldwide also became a new Office 365 customer.

Microsoft Partners pushed to get Microsoft to offer a partner-managed, cloud-based subscription service for enterprise users. At the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC 2016) in July, Microsoft introduced the Windows 10 Enterprise E3 for the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program. The CSP program offers enterprise users the latest security, management, and control features available in Windows 10 Enterprise Edition without requiring enterprise users to enter into a long-term licensing agreement.

Earlier today, Microsoft announced the details of Windows 10 Enterprise E3, including information on Windows 10 Enterprise E5 program details that will come in October 2016:

“Starting today from $7 per user/per month, businesses of any size can purchase Windows 10 Enterprise E3 through the CSP program and take advantage of enterprise-grade security and management functionality. Windows 10 Enterprise E3 was designed for businesses that handle sensitive customer data (such as credit card or social security numbers), operate in regulated industries, or create and monetize intellectual property. These businesses need enterprise-grade security and management capabilities found in the Windows 10 Enterprise edition such as Device Guard, Credential Guard and Managed User Experience. Additionally, Windows 10 Enterprise E5, which includes all the features and functionality available in Windows 10 Enterprise E3 plus Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection and advanced IT administration management functionality will be available for CSPs to start selling October 1.”

The Windows 10 Anniversary Update allows enterprise customers to quickly and easily move their devices to a Windows 10 Enterprise edition with the Cloud Solution Provider program and an Azure Active Directory login. There is a large number of Microsoft Partners available in the CSP program, giving more options to customers using the Windows 10 Enterprise edition.

Microsoft launch partners, ALSO, Tech Data, and Synnex, will be offering the Windows 10 Enterprise E3 to enterprise customers starting today. For more program specifics, visit Microsoft’s Windows For Business website.