Yes, it’s that time of the month again, and Microsoft has released 55 security fixes, including patches that tackle zero-day vulnerabilities actively exploited in the wild.
The tech giant’s latest round of patches has fixes for six critical vulnerabilities, 15 remote code execution (RCE) bugs, information leaks, and elevation of privilege security flaws, as well as issues that could lead to spoofing and tampering.
Microsoft Azure, the Chromium-based Edge browser, Microsoft Office, and its associated products, Visual Studio, Exchange Server, Windows Kernel, and Windows Defender are some of the products targetted by the patches.
Fifteen remote code execution bugs were fixed
Another busy month for Redmond programmers and developers, as they keep fighting old and constantly emerging issues.
While some matters only needed minor tweaks, others were of paramount importance and were treated as such by the tech company
Some of the most interesting vulnerabilities resolved in this update, all deemed as important, are:
CVE-2021-42321: (CVSS:3.1 8.8 / 7.7). Under active exploit, this vulnerability impacts Microsoft Exchange Server and due to improper validation of cmdlet arguments, can lead to RCE. However, attackers must be authenticated.
CVE-2021-42292: (CVSS:3.1 7.8 / 7.0). Also detected as exploited in the wild, this vulnerability was found in Microsoft Excel and can be used to circumvent security controls. Microsoft says that the Preview Pane is not an attack vector. No patch is currently available for Microsoft Office 2019 for Mac or Microsoft Office LTSC for Mac 2021.
CVE-2021-43209: (CVSS:3.1 7.8 / 6.8). A 3D Viewer vulnerability made public, this bug can be exploited locally to trigger RCE.
CVE-2021-43208: (CVSS:3.1 7.8 / 6.8). Another known issue, this 3D Viewer security flaw can also be weaponized by a local attacker for code execution purposes.
CVE-2021-38631: (CVSS:3.0 4.4 / 3.9). Also made public, this security flaw, found in the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), can be used for information disclosure.
CVE-2021-41371: (CVSS:3.1 4.4 / 3.9). Finally, this RDP vulnerability, known before patching was available, can also be exploited locally to force an information leak.
This is a relatively low number of vulnerabilities resolved during the month of November, comparing this release with those of previous years.
Last month, Microsoft resolved 71 bugs, so we can consider this quite a quiet period. Of particular note are patches for a total of four zero-day flaws, one of which was being actively exploited in the wild, whereas three were made public.
If we go back in time a bit more, Microsoft tackled over 60 vulnerabilities during the September Patch Tuesday. Among the patches was a fix for an RCE in MSHTML.
And let’s not forget that alongside Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday software release, there are other companies that have published security updates too, such as:
Aside from Microsoft’s Intune for Education setting a new stage for the company’s revitalized efforts in K-8 classrooms, it’s OEM partners will provide the most integral piece for Window 11 SE, the hardware.
Following Microsoft’s announcement of Windows 11 SE, OEM partners have all lined up devices to help the company re-enter the education segment with more viable products.
Windows 11 SE will be backed with devices by the likes of Acer, ASUS, Dell, Dynabook, Fujitsu, HP, JP-IK, Lenovo and Positivo, powered by Intel and AMD.
“We have heard from educators that they need options that are simpler, secure and work on more affordable devices,” says Paige Johnson, vice president of Education Marketing, in a blog post. “This expanded portfolio complements our current Windows 11 devices for learning, providing even more choices for schools to have the tools, insights and controls they need to deliver optimal learning experiences, at a price that broadens access to Microsoft performance, security and reliability.”
The list of devices is expected to grow in 2022 as more educational institutions and IT Admins get access to Windows 11 SE, Microsoft Intune for Education and Windows Autopilot.
As you might remember, we’ve recently been discussing how creators wanted accessibility to be a core piece of this beloved game and added a bunch of helpful new features.
Start playing Forza Horizon 5 on Steam or via Game Pass
Forza Horizon 5’s early access already began on November 5th, 2021, and those that pre-ordered the premium edition of the game got to take it for a test drive a bit earlier.
This sequel is an absolutely massive game, featuring hundreds of cars in a beautifully rendered world and an endless number of events and challenges for players to complete.
Horizon 5 takes up a considerable amount of space on practically any gaming device, so be prepared for a hefty chunk of software to be downloaded and installed.
On Xbox Series X|S it takes up to 103GB, it’s 116GB for the Xbox One, and 103GB for PCs, so we hope you have some free space for this new experience.
Players who are conscious of storage space can use Xbox Cloud Gaming, which uses streaming and doesn’t need to download anything to play Forza Horizon 5.
As much as system requirements go, if you want to simply enjoy the game as a casual gamer, the situation isn’t that alarming, However, if you want the full HD experience, you will need some serious gear.
If you have a touchscreen PC running Windows 11, using a touch keyboard can be helpful if you want to take advantage of it as a tablet.
But, rest assured, this feature can help you even if the device you are using is not touch screen friendly. Let’s say your keyboard broke or is just out of battery.
The only way to input text is to use the virtual keyboard, and sometimes starting it isn’t as simple, especially if you don’t use it that often.
Did you know you can enable an icon on your Taskbar to bring the on-screen keyboard up anytime you want? We’re about to show you how to bring up this handy too with a simple click.
How does virtual keyboard work on Windows?
The virtual keyboard has been a part of Windows for years, and in the past, it has been used as an accessibility feature.
However, with the introduction of touchscreen devices, such as tablets are laptops, the virtual keyboard has become an essential component for text input.
Does virtual keyboard work on non-touchscreen devices?
Yes, a virtual keyboard works perfectly on devices that don’t have touchscreen functionality. However, the only way to input text is to use your mouse.
Using this feature on a device that doesn’t support touch input can be a bit cumbersome, but it can still be used as an accessibility tool.
How do I enable the touchscreen keyboard on Windows 11?
Change the Taskbar settings
Right-click the Taskbar and click on the Taskbar settings.
Click the Taskbar corner icons option to expand the menu.
Switch the Touch keyboard option to On.
Click the new Touch keyboard icon in the Taskbar to start the virtual keyboard.
How can I customize the virtual keyboard?
1. Change the keyboard size and theme
Press Windows key + I to open the Settings app.
Navigate to Personalization and select Touch keyboard.
From here you can adjust the keyboard size and its theme.
You can also change the size of the keys or enable background for them.
2. Change the layout
Start the virtual keyboard by clicking its Taskbar icon.
Click the gear icon in the top right corner.
Expand the Keyboard layout section and pick the desired layout.
How can I create custom virtual keyboard themes?
Press Windows key + I. This will open the Settings app.
Go to the Personalization. Now select Touch keyboard.
Expand the Keyboard theme section and click on Edit.
From there you can change the color of the keys, text, and the window, or add various backgrounds.
What’s the difference between an on-screen keyboard and a touch keyboard?
The on-screen keyboard is the first iteration of a virtual keyboard on Windows, and it’s used primarily as an accessibility tool.
This version allows you to input text by scanning over keys or by hovering over the desired key, which makes it a great tool for people with disabilities.
On the other hand, the touch keyboard doesn’t have any of these options since it’s designed to work with touchscreen devices.
So, if you ever find yourself in a tight spot and are in need of quickly accessing Windows 11’s touch keyboard, look no further than your Taskbar.
The external webcam, as well as the monitor, have become of the most important parts of many people’s lives during the COVID pandemic. The two go hand in hand and help make video conferencing and productivity easy for both those in home offices as well as hybrid workforces.
With the right webcam and monitor, you can fit more on your screen, get more work done, and look better when on video calls. Accordingly, we’ve already reviewed the Teams certified Dell 27 Video Conferencing Monitor. We found that it’s the do it all monitor for Teams thanks to its pop-up webcam and integrated speakers. Yet, that monitor is more for conference rooms, and there’s still more from Dell.
Now available for purchase is the Dell 27 Video Conferencing Monitor S2722DZ. This new monitor takes a lot of the basics from the Teams certified monitor, but makes it more mainstream for everyday people or even businesses. We were sent one for review by Dell, and think it is a monitor that raises the bar for conferencing productivity. Here’s more on why.
Specs & Price
The Dell 27 Video Conferencing Monitor (S2722DZ) retails for $600 on Dell.com, but you can find it on sale for $450 on most days. For that price, you’re getting QHD resolution (2560 x 1440) with a 75 Hz refresh rate. The panel onboard the display features IPS technology as well as AMD Freesync technology. As for input options, you’re getting 1 USB-C port, 1 Display Port, 1 HDMI port, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 downstream port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 downstream port, and a 3.5 mm audio line out. Note that the monitor also sports an anti-glare coating, and has a 4ms response time. As for the pop-up webcam and integrated speakers, the webcam comes in at 5 megapixels and supports Windows Hello. The speakers come in at 5 watts, and there are two, along the left and right front of the monitor.
Design
Dell’s monitors have always been sleek and clean and at the top of the industry when it comes to design. The new Dell 27 Video Conferencing Monitor (S2722DZ) is no exception. Setup is simple and easy. All I needed to do is attach the included riser to the base by turning a handle, and then slide some tabs to the back of the display. No tools are required.
Once I set the monitor up, I could not help but enjoy its aesthetics. Most monitors might be black, bulky, and ugly, but this one fits right in with my desk and my setup. The white-silver-colored back sports a textured finish that blends in with the looks of the sleek stand. The stand, meanwhile, has a cable management slot to slide cables through.
As for the front of the display, it still has a bottom “chin” with the Dell logo, but the bezels on the top, left, and right are quite slim and on par with that from the XPS lineup. The top of the display, meanwhile, has a textured black finish. It’s where the pop-up webcam lives. Tap the center, and the webcam appears. It’s even curved a bit and angled downwards, so it better captures your face.
In terms of movement and adjustability, you can tilt it from -5 degrees to 21 degrees. Swivels can happen from -30 degrees to 30 degrees. Pivots are rated for -90 degrees to 90 degrees, and the height can be adjusted up to 110 mm. These are relatively standard numbers for all Dell monitors.
Ports & buttons
We touched on the ports at the top of this review. The selection includes 1 USB-C port, 1 DisplayPort, 1 HDMI port, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 downstream port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 downstream port, and a 3.5 mm audio line out. Note that the USB-C port supports power delivery of up to 65 watts, and it’s how the pop-up webcam gets power. If you opt to connect your PC via HDMI or DisplayPort, you’ll need to use the USB-C end to use the camera.
Anyway, the port selection is quite nice here. USB-C allows you to use one cable for everything, so you have less of a mess on your desk. HDMI and DisplayPort are also appreciated, as not every device has made the move to USB-C, especially on gaming PCs or laptops. I used USB-C to connect my Surface Pro 8 to the monitor, and also my Surface Duo phone. As for HDMI, it’s how I connected my PS4 to the monitor for gaming.
The buttons, meanwhile, are found on the bottom right side of the screen. The power button is let up in white when the monitor is on. Four other buttons are for menu controls. I do wish that Dell had included a joystick controls-like it had on the Teams monitor, as it makes menu navigation easier. However, seeing as though this monitor is cheaper, I can see the reasoning behind the omission. Mute and unmute buttons, though, are appreciated. The shortcuts keys can be used to mute the microphone when not wanted.
Webcam & sound quality
The webcam and speakers are the signature feature on this monitor, and both do not disappoint. The 5-megapixel webcam has a wide-angle, so it can fit more in the frame and more people in the shot. There are also noise-canceling microphones built-in, too. I tested the webcam on a Teams call with my mom, and I was pleased to see all the details in her face, from her freshly colored hair, to the nail polish on her hands. Note that the webcam has a 60-degree vertical field of view and a forward tilt of 13 degrees. I found that this is ideal for keeping your face and body in the frame when looking at the webcam itself.
As far as sound quality goes, this monitor falls in line with the many others in Dell’s lineup with integrated speakers. You won’t exactly be grooving out to the latest tunes on this monitor, as the speakers aren’t the strongest. I’ve found the speakers handle voice better than music. Integrated speakers are a nice feature to have, though, which means you can spare yourself the AUX jack if you plan on using this monitor for just video conferencing.
Display quality
The Dell 27 Video Conferencing Monitor S2722DZ is a 1440p monitor. It’s better than FHD as it gives you a bit more pixels. That means that image quality is better than most other monitors, including the sister monitor, the Dell 24 Video Conferencing Monitor the S2422HZ.
To test image quality, I watched episodes of National Geographic’s Chasing Ice. In this show, where brightness and contrast are important for showcasing the spectacular colors of glaciers and the arctic skies, everything looked alive and vibrant. It’s no surprise, either. When our colorimeter measured brightness, color gamut, and contrast ratio, the monitor performed well. It netted 350 nits of brightness, 99% of Adobe sRGB, and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio.
As far as AMD Freesync support, I hooked up an AMD laptop to the monitor and played Fortnite. I’m not the best at those games, but when Freesync, I did notice that I was able to stay in the action a bit more, with less lag and faster response times. The 75Hz refresh rate is an amazing bonus for a productivity monitor.
Extras
I’ll end this review by touching on extras. The monitor has support for Dell EasyArrange. With the technology, you can keep your windows organized between applications and windows. This is controlled via drivers and software on Windows. It’s a lot like Fancy Zones on Windows 10 and Windows 11.
A solid monitor for productivity
The Dell 27 Video Conferencing Monitor S2722DZ is a solid monitor for productivity. From its built-in webcam microphone, and speakers, as well as its good image quality, it is a monitor that impresses especially if you’re always on Skype, Zoom, and Teams calls.
Microsoft just held a quick unveiling of its newest new attempt to stem the surge of Chromebook usage in education with Windows 11 SE and longtime OEM partner Dynabook has answered the company’s rallying call with a new affordable laptop.
According to Microsoft, Windows 11 SE is a new take on Windows 11 that is optimized for K-8 students to deliver a simplified cloud-based computing experience and while the company showcased its own Surface Laptop SE as a reference laptop, OEM partner Dynabook is shifting is professional grade tooling processes to produce its own take on a Windows 11 SE powered notebook.
Introducing the Dynabook E10-S which comes in at 11.6-inches, weighs 2.5 pounds (1.15kg) and is just 0.78 inches (19.9mm) thin. For all of the talk of the fit and finish of Microsoft’s Surface line, Dynabook’s E10-S arguably outshines its Redmond counterpart. The E10-S is both lightweight and compact while also providing slip resistant design elements, fan-less construction and seamlessly blends rubber bumpers to encase the entire laptop to protect from accidental drops and impacts that occur in the classroom.
In addition to its child-friendly outer construction, the E10-S also houses an 11.6-inch anti-glare HD display, spill-resistant keyboard, mechanically anchored keys, multi-touch trackpad, 802.11 ac WiFi connectivity, HD webcam, stereo speakers, dual beam-forming microphones with noise suppression, full HDMI, USB-A, USB-C, and LAN ports.
We have more than thirty years of experience in the education sector and are proud that Microsoft has recognized the Dynabook E10-S as a launch device for Windows 11 SE, further underlining the strong education credentials of this unique laptop and throughout our product portfolio,” said James Robbins, General Manager, Dynabook Americas, Inc. “The Dynabook E10-S has been carefully engineered with the challenges of today’s classroom in mind, so that teachers and students alike know they can rely on it to support successful, uninterrupted learning. Like our other Education focused devices, the Dynabook E10-S is also available with Windows 11 Pro Education preloaded – so our education customers can choose a device that best fits their device management strategy.
Perhaps the most important part is that the Dynabook can be configured via Microsoft’s Intune for Education, which appears to be an integral part of Microsoft’s new competitive feature against ChromeOS and Chromebooks.
Windows 11 SE mostly looks and feels like Windows proper but leveraging Microsoft Intune for Education is where the company will attempt to address the pain-points of Windows use in schools for IT Admins by including Windows Autopilot management. Including Windows Autopilot will allow “IT education administrators to preconfigure, maintain, and even retire student and teacher laptops with little to no infrastructure.”
The Dynabook E10-S will be available globally in the first quarter of 2022 via its website or network of resellers starting at $289.99. While slightly more than the Surface Laptop SE, the Dynabook price tag also includes a year of Dynabook’s +Care Service Warranty With On-Site.
Forza Horizon 5, the latest entry in the popular open-world Forza spin-off video game series, is now live on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Windows PCs.
The racing game features cross-buy between Xbox consoles and Windows PC which means that buying Forza Horizon 5 on one platform will unlock it on the others. Forza Horizon 5 also supports cross-play between platforms, is playable for free for all Xbox Game Pass subscribers, and is fully available to via Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft’s game streaming service which is now available in a growing number of markets.
Forza Horizon 5 is one of the biggest Xbox video game releases of 2021 and, as expected, is generating a lot of buzz from players and the media this week. The Xbox social media channels have also been pushing Forza Horizon 5’s release quite a bit with the Xbox Australia marketing team once again being a standout by literally tossing a Forza Horizon 5-themed car out of a helicopter.
You can check out the wild promo video below.
Our Laurent Giret conducted a full review of Forza Horizon 5 earlier this week and described it as “the best game in the series and another essential release from PlayGround Games.” Make sure to give his full review a read here.
Thanks to the recently released bug in the new Windows 11 build, users can now charge their laptop’s battery beyond the 100% mark. Microsoft has confirmed that the bug does exist and has actually been in place even in the past Dev channel builds.
Users have reported that their laptops are now able to charge beyond the 100% mark. However, the real charging level cannot surpass the actual 100%, it feels weird as the battery levels seem to be exaggerated and unnatural.
Dev channel builds
Microsoft has stepped up and acknowledged the complaints, the issue is predominantly experienced by users using the dev channel builds.
According to Microsoft, there’s no information suggesting that the bug is also present in Windows 11 public build releases that have been made so far. It is important to note that builds in the Dev channel come from a different release channel than the public release one.
It is a bug and not a feature, the users lodging the complaints against the bug did not disclose the model they are using. However, one of the users happened to mention that they were using the OS build 22483. 1000.
The bug is quite different in comparison to the complaints that have been made before, especially when it comes to the gadget’s battery life.
Cons of the bug
The complaints revolve around the inability of the laptop’s battery to charge to a certain level, some users are also unable to see how much battery they have used up. The problem emerged ever since they made the upgrade to Windows 11.
Clean ISO install
As such, there are recommendations coming in from users suggesting that one should try out a clean ISO install for all those experiencing these bugs. The issues and bugs come from using the upgrade option rather than initiating a clean ISO install.
Have you experienced any of these bugs? Share your thoughts and experiences with us in the comment section below.
Windows 11 is Microsoft’s latest OS, the first stable version was actually released in October. That being said, there are a couple of users lodging complaints indicating that some of the key features are not working efficiently.
The snipping tool specifically needs to be fixed. In the latest version, users are able to take screenshots and make annotations in real time.
Once the users made the update to Windows 11, they were not able to make use of the snipping tool properly.
What’s new
There were many tools integrated into the new Windows update. Users can now be able to make use of the snipping tool in two ways, the first one is using the icon or by pressing a combination of specific keys that help launch the snipping tool.
Despite these efforts, users are yet to access the application. All these efforts have been rendered futile. Users indicate that when they try launching the app using the icon, the app crashes.
Users have not been successful using the key combination to launch the application, the tool refuses to open yet again.
Identified setbacks
Therefore, users that made the Windows 11 update are not able to capture any screenshots using the tool. This issue hinders people from running their daily activities both at school and work.
Microsoft has identified the issues facing the users who made the update to Windows 11, specifically when it comes to the snipping tool.
According to Microsoft, there is an issue with the Microsoft digital certificate. As such, Microsoft has plans underway to ensure that they are able to remedy the situation. However, they have not placed a timestamp on when they intend to make this release.
Plausible alternatives
But in the meantime, Microsoft has recommended a workaround to ensure that the users are fully accommodated. The hack is to make use of the Print Screen Key on the keyboard and paste the screenshot on the document.
Users can also paste it into the Paint to select and copy the item to the desired section. Users are urged to wait on the new developments by Microsoft.
The workaround
On November 8, Microsoft confirmed that the issue is now a thing of the past thanks to the out-of-band KB5008295 update. Update to this version to be able to bypass this issue!
Have you experienced this issue before? Let us know how it has affected you in the comment section below.
Visual Studio 2022 has finally reached general availability. This latest release comes with a ton of new features and improvements, including .NET 6. There is lots to talk about, so let’s jump right in!
Performance
One the most important changes is that Visual Studio is finally 64-bit. This means you can now take advantage of modern hardware and more memory to load even the most demanding projects in seconds instead of minutes while effortlessly navigating your projects and solutions with greater ease.
Productivity
Visual Studio 2022 comes with huge improvements to tried and true developer aids like IntelliCode. This AI-powered developer co-pilot enables you to focus on the solution and not so much on the syntax or implementation. It catches mistakes and even helps you write more efficient and performant code.
Debugging
Hot Reload has gotten a lot of love in this release as well, it works more often and greatly cuts down on the need to redeploy your applications while you edit code on the fly.
Git
Git integration has been in the works for quite some time, however its not until Visual Studio 2022 where its finally presented as a seamless and streamlined experience. It has never been easier to create, clone, and open your Git repositories. Everything from committing, pulling and pushing changes to your code has been improved as well.
The improvements are vast, and they all come together to help developers make the most of their time.
Watch the Launch Event
There are a ton of features being shipped with Visual Studio 2022. To see what the fuss is all about, check out the launch event stream.
Ready to build something great?
If you are ready to get your hands on Visual Studio 2022 head over to the official page. Happy coding!
Microsoft’s famous developer video platform Channel 9 will be ending soon, and its spiritual successor will join the Microsoft Learn brand.
According to a blog post on the Docs Team blog from corporate vp of developer relations Jeff Sandquist at Microsoft, Channel 9’s last appearance was last week during the company’s cloud developer conference Ignite 2021.
Later this month, you’ll find thousands of hours of current technical knowledge that you’ve come to expect from Channel 9 in its new home alongside our hugely popular documentation and Microsoft Learn content.
As for Channel 9 content and its new home, Sandquist assures fans that Microsoft Lean will remain committed to providing free learning content in the same spiritual fashion as did Channel 9.
Moreover, similar content should be found on Microsoft Learn such as:
Azure Fridays. Scott Hanselman, Donovan Brown, and Lara Rubbelke host the engineers who build Azure, demo it, answer questions, and share insights.
Ask the Expert. Here’s your chance to ask Microsoft experts your questions—live.
Learn Live. These episodes deep dive into a Microsoft Learn module, complete with guest experts. Join for behind-the-scenes info and live Q&A.
Code Stories. This series showcases local Cloud Advocates, Most Valuable Professionals, Product Managers, and Community Leaders from around the world.
Hello World. Every Wednesday and Thursday, Hello World broadcasts 60-minute live shows made up of special guests, quick demos, and live Q&A. Hello World is fun and educational for those who are interested in Microsoft products and our events.
Inside Azure for IT. Keep up to date with the latest Azure tips, demos, and technical skill-building resources and stay on the forefront of key insights, tools, and best practices for optimizing your infrastructure for performance, cost efficiency, security, and reliability on Azure.
On .NET. This show looks at the ever-expanding .NET universe, including APIs, tooling, and interesting projects being created in the .NET ecosystem.
Tabs vs Spaces. If you develop on a Windows machine to create for Windows, iOS, Android, the Web, or to manage containers and services in the cloud, tune into Tabs vs Spaces to stay current.
New: MS Archives. Some things just never age, like videos of Bill Gates talking about the future, or Jason Zander when he was a product unit manager talking about the .NET CLR —and other classics you’ve come to love over the years. You’ll find them in the MS Archives.
Fans can join Learn TV starting today, alongside the release of Visual Studio 2022 at VS 2022 or tomorrow November 9, 2021, during Microsoft’s .NET Conference 2021.
As for the full migration picture, Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet spoke with officials who assured that production teams from Channel 9 will remain in place for the time being and that, “content published on or after November 1, 2017, will be automatically migrated to the new platform.”
Broken registry items in Windows 11 can slow down your PC, cause errors, and affect overall performance. These entries often remain after uninstalling software or due to system crashes and malware. While newer systems may not need fixing, older laptops and desktops should regularly clean or repair the registry. You can use built-in Windows tools or manually edit the registry with the Registry Editor to remove broken entries and improve stability.
The detailed guide below can help you run effective Command Prompt commands in order to identify the issues with your Registry files.
1. First, click the Search utility’s taskbar button.
2. Typecmdin the search text box to find theCommand Prompt.
3. Click the Run as administrator option for the Command Prompt.
4. Now input this command within the Prompt’s window and hit Enter: DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
5. When the first scan has finished, input this system file command and press Enter: sfc /scannow
6. Wait for the system file scan to reach 100 percent and display an outcome message. Then you can close the Command Prompt’s window.
2. Run the Disk Cleanup tool
Right-click the Start button on the taskbar to bring up the menu below.
Select Run on that menu.
Type the following command in Run’s Open box: cleanmgr.exe
Click OK to open the Disk Clean-up window.
Press the Clean up system files button on that window.
Select all the file checkboxes in Disk Clean-up.
Click the OK button to open the dialog box.
Press the Delete Files button on that dialog box.
3. Use Startup Repair
Click Start on the taskbar.
Then click the Power button on the Start menu.
Press and hold the Shift key and click Restart.
Next, select Troubleshoot on the Choose an option menu that opens.
Click the Advancedoptions button.
Select Startup Repair on the Advanced options menu.
Choose an account to apply the startup repair to, and then enter the password for it.
Press the Continue button.
4. Roll back Windows with System Restore
Right-click Start on the taskbar to select the Run shortcut.
Now type this text in Run’s window and click OK: rstrui
Select the Choose a different restore point radio button if the System Restore utility displays it.
Press the Next option to open the window that you can see below.
If the Show more restore points option is available, select that checkbox.
Then choose the restore point that goes the furthest back, which will fix the most broken registry items.
Click Next to proceed to the confirmation step.
Select the Finish option to confirm your chosen restore point.
Rolling Windows back to a restore point will remove software installed after its specified date. You’ll probably have to reinstall some software if you implement this method. Click Scan for affected changes in System Restore to check what software a restore point removes.
This will restore a snapshot of your PC’s registry for a chosen restore point date. By doing so, it will remove broken registry items that emerged after the specified date.
5. Reset your PC
NOTE
Keep in mind that you’ll need to reinstall the software that didn’t come preinstalled after applying the below procedure, therefore a backup is recommended.
First, click Start and Settings to bring up the tab that you can see below.
Then select Recovery on that tab.
Press the Reset PC button.
Select the Keep my files option in the Reset this PC window.
Next, select either Cloud download or Local reinstall according to your preference.
Click Reset to confirm.
How can I back up the registry?
Backing up the registry won’t fix any broken items that already exist. However, restoring a backup copy of it can resolve registry issues that might arise from corrupted entries in the future.
You can manually back up the registry via Registry Editor as follows:
Bring up the search box by clicking the magnifying glass taskbar icon in Windows 11.
Type regedit within the search box.
Click Registry Editor in the search results to open its window.
Right-click the Computer icon at the top of the registry hierarchy to select Export.
Type Registry Backup in the File name box.
Choose a folder to save the Registry Backup file in.
Click the Save button.
Thereafter, you can restore the registry backup by clicking File, then Import in the Registry Editor. Select your backup file in the window that opens. Then click Open to restore it.
Put on your sweatpants and clear out the living room, because Just Dance 2022 is here and it’s time to get groovy! The arrival of a new Just Dance game is always an event to look forward to in our household as we always take the time to explore the game together.
I’m hands down the biggest gamer in the family but Just Dance succeeds where other games fail and draws my wife and kids to the TV set so we can take turns shaking to the beat.
#JustDance2022 never fails to bring my family to the dance floor.
— BloodyGoodReviews™ | Pirate PR ?☠️ (@BloodyGoodRev) November 4, 2021
My daughter Fé is probably the biggest fan though. She’ll be joining me for this review and weighing in with her opinions, giving a unique child’s eye perspective on things. It’s become somewhat of a yearly tradition.
New to Just Dance?
If you’re not yet familiar with the series, Just Dance is a game where you mirror the dance moves of the on-screen character(s) and you try to get as high a score as possible. It usually offers a mix of popular and lesser-known songs to shake your extremities to.
Shake it!
A new version launches every year and introduces new songs that come with the game, as well as some alternative choreographies, and I’m happy to report that this year’s tracklist is a lot better than what we got in Just Dance 2021. Though I’m fully aware musical tastes are very personal.
Fé: I actually thought last year had more fun songs, like Dance Monkey and there was even a song from K3. Daddy’s Note: K3 is a local Belgian girls band that is very popular, it’s great that they include local songs like this!
Like I said, it’s very much up to personal preference. I’ll share the 40 new official tracks here, so you can make up your own mind:
My personal favourite is by far Believer by Imagine Dragons, there is a raw power that comes from dancing to this song and the visual backdrop they’ve added only adds more weight to it.
Fé: My favourite is Good 4 U. It’s really fun to dance to and has a lot of jumping! (Olivia Rodrigo)
Just Dance Unlimited
While the above 40 songs come with the game, arguably the best reason to get Just Dance is when you also have access to…
BUY JUST DANCE UNLIMITED!
I’m sorry. Seems like a Just Dance Unlimited advertisement snuck into the review, I promise it won’t happen ag…
BUY NOW!
Yeah, that’s not a very pleasant experience, is it? The thing is, the game does this as well. In a game you pay for, you’re getting advertisements in image and video form to subscribe to their subscription.
You can’t skip the video when it appears and it defaults to the “buy now” option so you should be extra careful when trying to spam a button to exit it.
Fé: When I have the main controller, daddy makes sure to take it from me when the pop-up happens so I don’t accidentally activate it.
The good news: You get a free month alongside the game so you can try it out. The bad news: It feels extremely limiting to go back to your selection of 40 songs when you’ve had access to 700+.
Boombayah!
So how much does it cost for a 1-year subscription to Just Dance Unlimited? We’ll, surprisingly little at $24.99. If you already own a previous version of Just Dance, I’d actually wager it’s a better deal to buy a year’s worth of Just Dance Unlimited instead of buying the new edition. Heck, since the new version usually costs around $49.99, you’ll usually be better off finding an older version to combine with the subscription, as the actual game does not differ that much year after year.
Fé: But I always look forward to the new songs! and I heard there is a new K3 song on the way!
That is true and with the holidays coming up soon, I expect a lot of gift-wrapped Just Dance 2022 copies ending up under Christmas trees all over the world.
Amazing collaborations
Speaking of Christmas, there were a few songs in Just Dance 2022 that really popped. Even more than usual. And I bring this up now because one of them has a Christmas theme and even though we’re still at the start of November, it already got me in the holiday spirit.
Fé: Does that mean we’ll put up our Christmas tree already? Me: NO. Not until December!
There were a lot of fantastic collaborations this year, one of which was for Daði Freyr‘s Think About Things. The band has become well-known thanks to their participation in the Eurovision song festival (and if the 2020 edition hadn’t been cancelled, I’m sure they would have won) and Neels Studio made a wonderful 3D animation to accompany the song in Just Dance 2022.
Fé: Stop telling them about it and just show the video, dad!
And this wasn’t even the only such collaboration between a visually creative team, Ubisoft’s programmers and well-known artists. Trizz Studio made a great-looking video for Sia‘s Chandelier and one of my absolute favourites this year is the claymation version of Mr Blue Sky:
Year after year, these animations get better and better and it gives me high hopes for the series’ longevity. But that’s not to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows…
Fé: Oh oh...
Stripped down
In Just Dance 2020 there was a single-player campaign to celebrate the 10-year existence of the Just Dance series and I’ve missed a similar feature ever since. Even though it was nothing more than a linear list of songs to play, the fact they were laid out and presented through a coherent theme added some extra value.
Now in this year’s version, they also removed another mainstay: the sticker album. While you can still collect avatars, backgrounds and taglines from the lottery machine (which is ever addictive), they removed the sticker sheets that you could fill out through playing songs over and over again for points.
Gotta get them addicted to gambling young!
It doesn’t sound like much, but small things like these can give players motivation to go the extra mile.
Also of note was that the Kids Playlist had only received 3 new songs, while Just Dance 2021 had an entire list of new tracks for the youngest players. My 3-year-old son Lio was especially disappointed by this.
Lio: Yeah. I wanna play new songs! Fé: Don’t worry, daddy will activate the 3 months Just Dance Unlimited that came with his review copy soon!
A positive change though: some of the songs have bleeped out curse words for the youngest ears. I found it annoying in Just Dance 2021 that it was removed by a scratch sound or by plain muting the entire song (even the instruments) and this time they’ve correctly solved it by only muting the vocals.
Lingering technical issues
One thing that has plagued the series for some time now, is that at the start of each song, the visuals are often blurry. Now, I’d understand this if we’re playing the streamed versions of online songs, but for the ones included with the game, you’d expect the videos to be pre-rendered
Fé: Yeah, it takes a while before the picture is sharp every time.
Pretend this is a song by Blur, as that would fit perfectly…
Another frequent issue is the tracking of the controllers. While the Joycons on the Nintendo Switch are usually pretty accurate, you can also use your smartphone but it often tends to lose the connection or doesn’t register your movements. (+ it also adds the risk of tossing your phone halfway through the living room)
Time to wrap this up
Just Dance 2022 is a great way to introduce some physical activity in your gaming lineup and it’s so easy to pick up that even your youngest family members can join in on the fun.
As per usual I’m asking the kids for feedback. I’d personally give this three and a half stars, mostly because it’s a lot of fun but the new editions don’t add any new features and instead only seem to strip things every year.
Fé: I’d give it 5 stars. It’s fun and it lets us have dance parties in the living room. Lio: Uhhh. Four? Is four more than five?
Let’s split things down the middle and set it at four then, but that’s mostly keeping in mind that you’ll probably end up paying for the Just Dance Unlimited offer at some point and that opens up A LOT of content.
Final thoughts on Just Dance 2022
Pros
Amazing tracklist this year with 40 new songs and variations
Some of the new tracks have fantastic animations thanks to collaborations with other studios
Accessible to even the youngest gamers
Cons
Blurry videos at the start of a song
Just Dance Unlimited advertisements
FINAL SCORE: 4/5
Just Dance 2022 is a fantastic game to play with the entire family. I’d mostly recommend picking this up if you don’t already own a previous version. It’s one of the most accessible titles imaginable and you’re sure to have a blast. Just keep in mind that the included songs will quickly outstay their welcome and you’ll kind of be forced to check out the Just Dance Unlimited subscription to keep the party going.
Just Dance 2022 costs around $49.99 and is available on Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles, Playstation 4 and Playstation 5 consoles and also on Google Stadia. Keep in mind that all platforms except the Nintendo Switch will require you to have a compatible smartphone with motion sensors (gyroscope).
*Disclaimer: Reviewed on Nintendo Switch. Review copy provided by Ubisoft.
Everyone has been eagerly waiting for this remastered version of Diablo 2 to come out, and now that it has, it’s easy to see why.
We can relive all of our favorite adventures but in a much more pleasant and eye-catching HD environment. However, impatient die-hard fans of the game never stopped playing it in the first place.
But now that we have this enhanced version of the game, another important question seems to be on everybody’s minds. Can we actually crossplay Diablo 2 Resurrected?
There is no cross platform multiplayer in Diablo 2 Resurrected
Obviously, the way we traditionally view crossplay, or cross-platform play, in games these days is the ability to play with people on other platforms.
As much as we hate to be the bearers of ad news, we have to inform you that there is no chance for you to get together with your online buddies in Diablo 2 Resurrected if they play on different platforms.
This highly requested feature is not a part of Diablo 2 Resurrected at this time and we’re not sure if there ever will be one.
Developers said it wasn’t possible to implement because there are different UIs and control schemes between Nintendo Switch and PC compared to PlayStation and Xbox.
So if you have a friend you want to party up with but they are on the PlayStation and you are on your PC, well there is no party to be had which is a bit of a shame.
But, if we think about it, other massive games such as Apex Legends, for example, didn’t have crossplay at launch and it actually took a couple of years to implement.
And while we can’t rule the possibility out completely, don’t make it your life goal to wait for it, because you might be disappointed.
Diablo 2 Resurrected does have cross-progression.
Since we already shared the bad news, let us sweeten the pot with some news you will actually enjoy. Although you can’t team up with buddies playing on other devices, you can cross-progress in Diablo 2 Resurrected.
This is a huge success for Blizzard, as everyone will surely love to continue their progression in the game in whatever format they have handy.
That means that if you enjoyed playing Diablo 2 Resurrected until late last night on your PC, you can still play it on the go the next day, on your Nintendo Switch, for example.
Yes, you’ve heard correctly. And all you need in order to achieve this is your BattleNet account and also the version of the game for the specific gadget you are planning to use it on.
Thus, if you bought this title for PlayStation 4 or 5, Xbox One, or Series X/S/One, Nintendo Switch, and PC, you can continue your progression across all these devices, provided you have access to the BattleNet account.
This is still amazing news, considering that this versatility will ensure that people will be able to enjoy their favorite game, no matter where or on what they play it.
We’ll still keep an eye out for any news regarding crossplay, but as we said, don’t get your hopes up just yet.
Blizzard is currently working on many games, including Diablo IV since we were on this topic, so don’t expect this to become available anytime soon if it will at all.
What’s your take on this whole cross-platform situation? Share your opinion with us in the comments section below.
If you ask yourself how to fix the most common WordPress hosting issues, you are in luck today. In this article, we will explore exactly that.
Even though using WordPress is very intuitive, from time to time, you will encounter different errors that can make you feel that you don’t understand how to use it properly.
The developer teams that deal with WordPress fix any issues you might encounter, so you shouldn’t worry too much.
In this article, we will discuss the solutions to some of the most common problems found in WordPress. Please read on to find out more about this subject.
What are the main WordPress hosting issues that can occur?
Unfortunately, even if WordPress grew a lot in security, tools, and features, the hosting service can turn things into the worst scenario in seconds.
Here are the main reasons for issues spawn from hosting problems that can occur:
➡ Low-quality server – Sharing services and resources with other clients can be a bad omen for everyone involved, so it’s better to find a decent deal for a dedicated web server.
➡ Slow loading pages – Even if you have a dedicated server, if it’s a low-end machine running on HDDs and not SSDs can affect the loading times a lot.
➡ Security breaches – Try to find a hosting service that focuses on security and backup. At least if your website gets hacked, you can put it back together with a fast response in no time.
Now that you know what you’re facing, let’s see how we can help you fix the most common WordPress hosting problems.
How can I fix common WordPress errors in no time?
1. The White Screen of Death error
Navigate to the Administration Screens and go to the Plugins section.
Deactivate each of the plugins and reactivate them one by one to see which of them is faulty.
Use an FTP client like FileZilla and locate the wp-content/plugins folder.
Rename the folder to plugins_old.
The WSOD error can be caused both by a database, and also a PHP error so disabling your plugins can sort this problem out.
This issue can also be caused by your database meeting its quota or if the server is down. To check this, you will need to contact your hosting provider.
If your database has the correct information and is not shut down, the issue might be caused by your site being compromised, so you should scan your site with Sucuri SiteCheck and if the results are bad, learn what to do if your site was hacked.
Seeing this error means that there is an issue with your site’s connection to the database. This may have a lot of causes, and the most unpleasant one is that your site was hacked.
If this actually happened, you should seriously consider a different hosting service like Bluehost that provides extensive security features.
3. Failed auto-upgrade
If your WordPress auto-upgrade features have failed, you might see a blank white screen, a warning telling you the update failed, or a PHP error message.
This error happens because of a glitch in the server connection with the main WordPress files, a problem with your Internet connection during an upgrade, or incorrect File Permissions.
Although this built-in OS feature is pretty good already, even though it has the occasional fail, as all software do, the tech giant decided its time for some improvements.
We all know that Windows 11’s flagship multitasking feature is support for Snap Groups which is based on the windows snap capability of the operating system.
Snap Groups is arguably the biggest change to Snap since Windows 8.1, and its a really trustworthy and useful feature.
New integration coming to the Windows 11 Snap Groups
Creating a snap layout is done by launching two or more apps on the desktop, and theb choosing the window you want to snap to one half of the screen, and then drag it to the edge.
Or you can also hover your mouse over the maximize button and snap your open windows. Pretty easy, right?
Microsoft really listened to the feedback it received and its working on a series of improvements based upon Snap groups.
Starting with Windows 11 Build 22494, Redmond developers are now testing snap groups integration in the Alt + Tab and Task View.
Its all going to get wasier and even more practical, as snap groups are simply displayed in the Alt + Tab UI, similar to how these apps appear when hovering over the taskbar.
Thanks to this new change, you can now directly switch to app groups instead of opening these apps one by one, which makes multitasking difficult.
But, of course, no one is forcing you to use it, it just comes activated by default. If you don’t want the Snap groups to appear in Alt + Tab or when hovering over taskbar icons, you can always turn off the integration from Settings.
It is worth noting that Microsoft is testing snap groups in ALT + TAB and Task View with some Windows Insiders.
This isn’t available to everyone and Microsoft could make more changes to the feature before pushing it out to everyone.
What’s your opinion on this new integration for snap groups in Windows 11? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
Email still is one of the most frequently used mediums for businesses and consumers as well having more than one billion users throughout the whole world.
Because email is such a useful tool for communication, the demand for email hosting has constantly increased.
There are lots of email hosting services for Windows, and we chose five of the best along with their sets of features just to make your choice much more manageable.
Why do I need email hosting?
First of all, emails are the number one source of data leakage for businesses so you definitely make sure that your messages are properly encrypted and their contents are safe.
An email hosting service does just that. Even more, some of the offers include dedicated clients and extra security features.
It’s up to you and your needs on what features you go for but don’t treat this task lightly if you need to host the accounts of your customers or clients.
Bluehost is an excellent email hosting service that provides an email size of at least 100 MB per each account and at least five email accounts.
When you want to build a website, you can start at Bluehost because the shared service delivers quite a robust platform that will turn out to be ideal for hosting your websites.
Bluehost automatically creates daily, weekly, and monthly backups of the entire account so that you will be able to easily restore your complete data with the single click of a mouse.
Best of all, this service can be controlled from one cPannel that is extremely friendly to use without any training or prior knowledge.
It’s good to know that each server is custom-built and that allows you to upgrade performance over time if your requirements grow in time.
Bluehost offers three plans according to users’ needs: Basic, Plus, and Prime. All are very competitive and offer great benefits.
You can check out the whole set of features that are packed in Bluehost and start using the service from its official website.
Check out the best features provided by this service:
The Basic plan offers five email accounts with 100 MB per each account
Both the Plus plan and the Prime plan provide an unlimited number of email accounts with unlimited email storage
The domain manager makes it easy to track, update and transfer, purchase, and administer all of your domains in a single place
You will be able to create and manage unlimited email accounts, and the advanced features include forwarding rules and account filters
You can also benefit from third-party compatibility, spam protection, and unique user account controls.
Bluehost
Profession and affordable email hosting service, with domain registration, site builder, and security included.
SiteGround is an email hosting service for Windows that comes with a limited email size and unlimited email accounts. This web hosting service is crafted for a high-quality experience.
With SiteGround, the unique email hosting solution can be used to create and manage an unlimited number of personalized email accounts based on your website.
The service makes sure that both your website and email run smoothly on the servers and that your website will be safer than anywhere else.
SiteGround offers users three plans for their needs: StartUp which is created for a great web start, GrowBig that is ideal for users’ web growth, and GoGeek, a plan that is crafted for real web geeks.
The service also provides free website migration and the experts from SiteGround can migrate one existing website effortlessly and quickly at no cost.
Check out the best features of SiteGround:
This service has the fastest setup, and with just three clicks you can set up a new site
With the simple drag and drop website builder, you will be able to create the coolest website real quick
The StartUp Plan offers all the essential hosting features that you need to accommodate a beginner’s website, and this works great for smaller online shops
For more resources and premium features, besides the basic ones, the perfect choice is the GrowBig plan which is ideal for a heavily-trafficked website
The GoGeek Plan is best suited for an extremely heavily-trafficked website
SiteGround
All-in-one web, cloud, and WordPress hosting, with a built-in antispam efficient solution.
HostGator is a great email hosting service for Windows that offers a limited email size and unlimited email accounts. Using this service, you will be able to enjoy robust web hosting at affordable prices.
HostGator also provides cloud hosting, WordPress hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, application hosting, and all its services come with their own plans.
You will have webmail access, not to mention that you will be able to receive your emails on your phone via IMAP Support.
HostGator provides three hosting plans: the Hatchling Plan, the Baby Plan, and the Business Plan.
Check out the best features the HostGator offers its users:
All HostGator’s plans include email marketing services
The email features included in Windows hosting provide unlimited POP3 email accounts with SMTP
You will be able to prevent spam with SpamAssassin
Access the emails directly on your phone
You will get unlimited autoresponders, email aliases, mail forwards, 25 mailing lists, and more
HostGator
Get one of the best webmail and WordPress hosting at competitive pricing with HostGator.
Hosting your website with iPage will go beyond unlimited disk space, unlimited email addresses, and a free domain name. The service’s tools and training help users launch the entire web presence above the competitors.
The advanced email solutions provided by iPage include email, calendar, contacts, and task management, virus and spam protection.
The recommended email services are the Premium Spam Filter with more control over the spam filters and the Larger Mailbox Storage with increased storage and mail count limits.
It also includes a security suite that comes with business verification, malware scanning, a highly secure data center, and network scanning.
The experts from iPage are available by chat and phone anytime you need them, and they will assist you with any questions or issues that you might have.
Check out the best features of iPage below:
Sturdy website builder and a large selection of templates
Marketing tools and dedicated support
Secure webmail access
Chat and phone assistance
The SiteLock security software will keep your website and your customers safe
iPage
Get unlimited email addresses at your own domain and many more with this great tool.
Verio provides Windows hosting with a few email features. For instance, using Verio, you will be able to create unlimited email accounts.
The hosting plans include website creation tools, Google Webmaster tools, disk space, bandwidth and email, and more.
Besides email, you will also get commerce features, marketing, and promotion, hosting utilities and settings, multimedia options, website reports and statistics, and more.
Customer support includes an extensive help center, tutorials, and 24/7 support. You can check out the complete set of features and plans of the Verio service on the official website.
Check out the best functionalities included in Verio below:
Forwarding accounts and Autoresponder
Spam email filtering and browser-based email or webmail
Email hosting provides a great way to create addresses that are connected to your own domain, and this will definitely add credibility to your services and communications.
Using email hosting services, you will also get additional resources and enhanced availability for your customers.
Having the ability to access your inbox and the related features anytime will offer users peace of mind.
These email hosting services for Windows come with great sets of features so make sure to check them all out and choose the ideal software for your needs.
We recommend that you visit these services’ official websites where you can also see their available plans and pricing.
Just Dance 2022 supports Xbox’s Smart Delivery feature which essentially means that the same version of the game will play the same across both current and last-gen Xbox consoles and that buying it on one platform will unlock it for free on the other.
All players on Xbox One and Xbox Series X consoles are able to use the free Just Dance smartphone app to turn their iPhone or Android smartphone into a motion tracking tool.
Just Dance 2022 supports local multiplayer for up to six players though appears to lack any form of online multiplayer which will likely disappoint fans of the various online modes introduced in previous releases.
Here’s the official game description:
Just Dance® 2022, the ultimate dance game, is back with new universes and 40 hot new tracks from chart-topping hits like “Believer” by Imagine Dragons, “Level Up” by Ciara, and more!
Looking for the perfect game to dance to the latest hits and share some fun with friends and family? Just Dance 2022 is for you!
Exercise while having fun and start your own routine with Sweat mode. Keep yourself motivated, track the calories burnt and your time spent dancing.
Team up with your friends and rule the dance floor in Co-op mode.
Join more than 138 million players around the world and Just Dance It Out!
This game leverages Smart Delivery allowing access to both the Xbox One title and the Xbox Series X|S title
Just Dance 2022 is available in both a Standard Edition that includes the base game and a Deluxe Edition that comes with the game and four free months of the Just Dance Unlimited subscription service which unlocks more songs and routines.
The Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Warhammer: Vermintide 2, and Street Power Soccer video games are now free to play on both Xbox One and Xbox Series X console generations for all players with an active Xbox Live Gold subscription.
The free play promotion will run until Sunday, November 7 at 11:59 p.m. PST and, like previous Free Play Days, will allow participants to download each game and play them fully as if they own them outright.
Also like previous Free Play Days, each title has also had their digital price reduced for several days to encourage Xbox console owners to pick them up after playing them for free.
The Sound Blaster Z soundcard from Creative is one of the most powerful and qualitative sound cards available on the market, and people appreciate it for a variety of reasons.
The fact that this soundcard can reach 116 dB when it comes to signal-to-noise ratio implies that it can reproduce sounds with a 99.99% clarity, making any normal cards sound faulty in comparison.
The Sound Blaster Z soundcard has some other amazing features which are worth mentioning:
SBX Pro Studio technologies – ensure amazing 3D sorround sound
CrystalVoice – perfect for online gaming and videocalls – optimizes your voice to be heard clearely
Microphone extension – using a beamforming technology, it captures your voice perfectly and cancels any other noises in your surroundings
Sound Core3D audio processor – built with a quad-core CPU capable of processing all features optimally
Even though this soundcard was not designed specifically with gaming in mind, pairing this with a powerful gaming PC will ensure an amazingly-immersive experience.
The features included in this amazing soundcard from Creative were tested in games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and other similar shooters, and the results were impressive. Besides having a good gaming PC, it is also very important to invest in a great mousepad for FPS games.
You can easily and identify the direction of your opponents just by the sound of their steps, and this technology is helped even more by using high-quality headphones.
Even though this soundcard is an amazing option for both headphones and speaker systems, today we will focus on the best headphone options to explore immersive virtual worlds from the comfort of your PC.
How we chose the best headphones for a Sound Blaster Z card
Our team of expert testers, with a combined experience of 15 years, has tackled a variety of testing tasks for any device you could imagine.
Their experience comes into play as a very important element when choosing the products we described in this guide, and a large variety of factors have been taken into consideration.
The options that have been chosen offer great quality and cover the entire spectrum of price ranges, thus enabling everybody to find something that fits their needs both financially and otherwise.
The Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones are our top pick for the best headphones to match with the powerful Sound Blaster Z card from Creative.
This amazingly-comfortable device uses a powerful Dual Noise Sensor technology to reduce ambient sound no matter how intense it is, and the great built-in pads also physically isolate your ears from any exterior disturbances.
The combination of these two elements ensures that you won’t be distracted by any sounds while playing games or listening to your favorite music.
When it comes to music-related optimization, the Sony WH-1000XM4 uses Edge-AI, which is a feature developed with the help of Sony Music Studios Tokyo. This ensures that the full sound spectrum produced by your powerful soundcard will be hitting your eardrum in exactly the right way.
Being wireless headphones, the battery life is another important aspect, and these headphones pass the test with flying colors, enabling you to use to for up to 30 hours with one charge. To ensure that you can always use them, they also come with a feature that allows 5 hours of playback with just a 10-minute charge.
The Sony WH1000XM2 is the previous model of the first option in this list, making them some amazing headphones for the Sound Blaster Z soundcard as well.
Coming at a more affordable price than the previously-mentioned model, this device also uses digital noise-canceling which will protect your listening experience from any exterior disturbances, with some great customization options for atmospheric pressure.
These headphones are extremely portable, and allow freedom of movement with the use of a wireless connection through Bluetooth, and also NFC.
Even more, the headphones can automatically detect the level and pitch of the ambient sound, and then optimize the noise-canceling process to deal with the sounds effectively, giving you an immersive experience no matter if you’re listening to music or playing your favorite games.
Using some high-quality audio codecs like DSEE HX, S-Master HX, and LDAC ensures that the quality of the sound emitted by your Creative Sound Blaster Z soundcard can be appreciated in full effect.
No top 5 headphones list would be complete without having a Bose headphone set included, and in this case, we chose the QuietComfort 35 II model.
As the name suggests, this set of headphones is one of the most comfortable we tried for this list, and the number of features included makes it a very good fit for the Sound Blaster Z soundcard from Creative.
This amazing device comes with great noise cancellation features, allowing 3 different levels which will fit almost any environment you find yourself in. No matter if you’re listening to your favorite music next to a construction site, or you’re simply at home with family playing games, you will not be bothered by anything happening around you.
As these headphones are Alexa-enabled, you can use voice commands to control any other connected devices, and the dual-microphone system ensures that all the commands and even your voice during calls come in clear and crisp.
Even though it comes with a 12-inch USB cable for charging, these headphones work easily with Bluetooth pairing, and the settings for all these elements can be controlled by using the Bose Connect application.
The Sennheiser HD 280 Pro is another amazing headphone set that will be able to maximize the quality and crispness of the sound produced by the Sound Blaster Z, while also ensuring an acceptable price and great comfort.
With a constant sound pressure of 113 dB, and a nominal impedance of 64 Ohm, this model offers you an unbelievable sound reproduction capability, producing warm and natural sounds with great overall clarity.
As opposed to the other models we presented in this guide, this set of headphones has a cable, which, even though limits movement at some level, ensures enough space to move by being 3.3 to 9.8 feet, because of its coils.
The around the ear padded cups offer dynamic sounds and provide a reduction of outside noise of up to 32 dB. Even though it doesn’t use any sort of noise-canceling technology, the design is what makes it feel like it does.
Even more, the HD 280 Pro ear pads and headband, and the audio cord can be easily replaced, thus ensuring a long-lasting Sennheiser experience.
The WHCH710N from Sony is our top pick for an affordable set of headphones that work perfectly with the Sound Blaster Z, and besides the good price, they also come with a wide range of very useful features.
To start with, this wireless headphone model uses noise cancellation to remove any outside perturbance when listening to music or playing games, and uses a Dual Noise Sensor technology to identify what sort of environment you are in, and thus automatically adapt the features.
One charge can last up to 35 hours, and also supports quick charging, to ensure that no matter how much time you want to use them, they are ready to provide you with a qualitative sound experience.
Besides this, the WHCH710N also offers NFC streaming and offers the full hands-free capability to take calls or use your device’s voice assistant. To top it off, these headphones come with two 30 mm driver units, which will be more than enough volume power even for the most demanding users.
Bottom runners
Even though our top 5 list includes some of the best options on the market, during our tests some other products stood out from the crowd, which are worth mentioning:
As you can see, our list includes a variety of headphones with which make a good companion for the powerful Sound Blaster Z soundcard, as we included both wireless and wired devices with a variety of prices.
Choosing the right fit both when it comes to your feature preferences and the money you’re willing to spend just got much easier.
Feel free to share your thoughts with us by using the comment section below.
The tech giant is bringing a lot of new changes, besides the plethora already added, to their flagship communications app.
Even more, since the Redmond company decided to bundle Teams with their latest operating system. During this year’s Ignite conference, a new awesome, futuristic feature was announced.
Mesh for Microsoft Teams will create new options for digital meetups with personalized avatars and 3-D environments.
Mesh for Microsoft Teams introduces a new generation of 2D and 3D meeting experiences with personalized avatars and immersive spaces to bridge the gap between physical and digital worlds. With personalized avatars, you can feel presence in meetings without turning on cameras.
This is pretty exciting so let’s cut to the chase and see exactly what the future has in store for us.
Microsoft aims to enhance the Teams virtual meeting spaces
According to Microsoft, users will have more options to join meeting rooms and virtual collaboration spaces using redesigned avatars that will move and react based on your speech without needing a camera or virtual headset.
This latest announcement comes just days after Facebook unveiled its similar virtual avatar technology that will be available in its Meta social media platform relaunch.
The tech giant stated that users will not only be able to come together in new virtual reality rooms but will be able to collaborate and share documents stored in Microsoft 365.
Furthermore, users can join a Mesh room from their PC, smartphone, or mixed reality device, which is pretty accessible.
The new feature came about through a multiyear collaboration between Microsoft and mega-partner Accenture, an Ireland-based IT services firm that is known for virtual conference and meeting technologies.
Mesh for Microsoft Teams will start its rollout process in 2022, as a preview, and will initially launch with a set of prebuilt immersive spaces.
Organizations will have options to create their own custom spaces to be added as time goes on. Pretty neat, right?
Lots of other new features coming to Teams
Besides the Mesh announcement, the company unveiled a lot more features currently rolling out to its collaboration and communication platform.
The inclusion of a virtual green room to enhance webinars and large meetings is another feature worth mentioning.
This will allow organizers and guest speakers to interact in a second virtual space to collaborate on presentation content, monitor chat, and socialize. Redmond officials said this feature will be available in preview in early 2022.
Microsoft is also looking to help IT keep a handle on securing shared documents with a new feature planned for 2022 called Teams Connect.
It will allow for Teams channels to be shared with outside individuals and organizations, with IT retaining control on how and what documents can be shared.
Teams Chat is getting upgraded over the coming months. One new enhancement will permit individuals in a Teams organization to use their personal Teams account to chat and collaborate.
Another is the ability to chat with yourself, which Microsoft said will be useful for personal organization and keeping memos stored in one place.
Microsoft has updated its Authenticator app for iOS and Android today, and the new bits bring a refreshed icon and new account management features for enterprise users. The old app icon used a white lockpick over a blue background, and the new logo reverses the color palette with a blue lockpick over a white background.
The Microsoft Authenticator already lets users manage MSA accounts within the app, and with this latest update users with Azure AD school accounts will get the same capabilities. The account management options include changing passwords, updating your work or school account’s authentication methods, and reviewing your recent activity.
For users who have yet to add their work or school accounts in Microsoft Authenticator, this latest update also makes this experience more seamless. Now, users can sign in with their credentials in Microsoft Authenticator without needing to scan a QR Code from another screen.
If you’re not seeing the new app icon on your iOS and Android devices yet, Microsoft says that it will roll out gradually throughout the month. Microsoft Authenticator is a very useful app for consumers and enterprise users living in the Microsoft ecosystem, and you can get it from the download links below.
Microsoft has announced a new Script buttons feature that is coming soon to Excel on the web. This has been a top-requested feature from users, who will be able to create and add script buttons to a workbook and easily share their Office Scripts with colleagues.
For those unfamiliar, Office scripts allow users to automate their repetitive day-to-day tasks or workflows. Scripts lets Excel users record their actions within a workbook and save them to be used later or shared with others.
To add a new script button to a workbook, you will need to navigate to the Automate tab and choose your desired script. Click the More options (…) menu available in the All Scripts pane, and choose the Add button option. Once done, you will see a button in the workbook that runs the associated script.
Microsoft says the Script buttons feature is currently rolling out in preview to all Microsoft 365 commercial or educational subscribers on the web. To get started with Office scripts, we invite you to check out the samples and scenarios Microsoft shared on this support page.
Microsoft Teams is adding a new option to disable all in-app notifications during meetings. This new feature should help meeting participants pay attention to the speaker rather than being distracted by private messages and mentions.
Once the feature rolls out, users will be able to enable an option to turn off notifications before starting a meeting. Microsoft notes that those who find notifications distracting will also have the option to completely disable them for all meetings.
Currently, Microsoft Teams users who want to disable notifications can either turn them off in settings, change their status to “Do not Disturb,” or use system-level features such as Focus Assist on Windows. Microsoft Teams is about to finally simplify this, and the ability to mute notification during meetings is coming to the desktop and web apps later this month, according to the Microsoft 365 roadmap.
Encrypting PDF files enables you to keep them protected against unauthorized access. Electronic documents can be accessed by hackers when vital information is at risk.
Taking into consideration the fact that they can be easily hacked, you need to act fast. One of the ways to avoid this is by using PDF encryption software that better suits your needs.
There are plenty of options to choose from, so make sure to check out our recommendations.
How can PDF encryption help you?
Nowadays, most important documents are created, stored, and delivered in PDF format because they have many options to encrypt and limit access to their different options.
For instance, you can block the user from opening the file altogether with a password or you can restrict him from performing modifications on the file.
The document is protected with a password
Some of the tools in our list can prevent users from editing it in any way or even copying or printing it. So there is a lot of flexibility on the limitations.
That’s why, PDF encryption not only safeguards your documents but can also give you a range of options when it comes to file management.
That being said, let’s see what are the best PDF encryption software for your device and pick the one that suits your needs best:
Soda PDF is a full-featured PDF solution and among the most secure software that allows you to easily edit PDFs.
This software lets you encrypt files with password protection, thus preventing unauthorized access.
You just have to choose a PDF, enter the password to confirm the encryption, and make sure that this password is the one you want to be set.
It is as simple as that! Password protection prevents anyone without that key from opening your PDF file.
With Soda PDF you can have control of permissions that include editing, copying, and printing your files.
So, you can prevent people from making further modifications or any unwanted changes to your PDF with the advanced security tools of Soda PDF.
If you are unsure about using the password, you can only remove it by using the original password that was used the first time.
Soda PDF is the perfect alternative to Adobe Acrobat due to its easy-to-use PDF tools that help you create, convert, split, annotate, merge, fill forms, set file permissions, and even E-Sign your PDFs by adding your legally electronic signature.
Key features you are about to enjoy:
Create or convert multiple PDFs at once
Add page watermarks
Bates numbering & secure permissions to multiple folders
OCR Edit to search, recognize, and modify text
You may add page numbers
Soda PDF
That’s your chance to keep your information safe and secure and all with just a few clicks!
People who work with sensitive information can effectively use this software. This tool enables you to create and edit PDFs.
The software has an interface adapted for a desktop display as for a smartphone one, so reviewing, sharing, and adding comments to documents is easier than ever.
Adobe Acrobat Pro can restrict access to your documents, so another user won’t be able to print or edit the document.
The restrictions can be set at the opening of the document or when a person wants to copy, edit, scan or print the information from the PDF, so you have to be sure that your file is secured.
However, the PDF file can be copied to the laptop of another user or on an external drive without any problems.
Besides keeping the confidentiality of your information, Adobe Acrobat Pro DC has a lot more outstanding features to take into consideration.
Main Adobe Acrobat Pro DC key features you are about to enjoy:
Access to your data can be controlled by using passwords
Team protection which makes it suitable for personal use and organizations alike
Unmatched document security
Compatible with Windows 10
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
Looking for the best PDF encryption software? Install Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and you won’t regret your decision.
Forget about passwords, certificates, JavaScript, or plugins. Protect PDF documents, and stop leakage, unauthorized sharing, and theft using Locklizard.
Locklizard Safeguard PDF Security software takes PDF file protection to the next level, stopping users from sharing or pirating PDF files.
Unlike passwords and restrictions that can be easily removed, Safeguard uses a transparent key licensing system with encryption and DRM controls for persistent protection.
In other words, after creating a secure PDF file, you issue users with a license that controls access to files. The DRM controls applied to the PDF restrict the user from copying, editing, printing, or sharing the file.
You can even set PDF files to expire automatically, or instantly revoke them so they can no longer be accessed.
Although it’s a comprehensive solution that perfectly safeguards your documents, Locklizard is simple to use and doesn’t require a complicated setup to work.
You can create secure PDFs manually or batch-protect them using command-line encryption.
Locklizard provides a web-based administration system where you create user accounts, change expiry dates, and revoke secure PDF documents.
Let’s see what are its best features:
Stops PDF editing and modifying (including form fields)
Prevents copy and paste
Stops screen grabbers
Locks PDF files to devices to prevent sharing
Locks PDF files to IP and country locations
Disables printing or you can limit prints
Expire PDF files on a set date, after a number of days, opens or prints
Revoke PDF access
Add dynamic watermarks that cannot be removed
Track PDF use – log views and prints
Locklizard
Seamlessly protect your documents with DRM and encryption and prevent any unauthorized intervention.
PDFelement is an ideal software for securing PDF files. All you need to do is click on the Protect tab and select the option that best suits your needs.
This software makes use of passwords in order to prevent unauthorized users from accessing or changing sensitive PDFs.
Another great feature is its PDF convertor to a lot of other possible formats like Word, Powerpoint, or Excel among others.
You will be able to create excellent documents using a pretty big library of free templates that will enhance your work.
PDFelement will be great for personal use but you can also create bulk tasks so it will fit for higher productivity office jobs.
Its familiar-looking interface will certainly help you get the hang out of all the features really easily if you’ve used other document processing software.
The tool allows you to easily edit, organize, and transform PDFs and it has a competitive price.
Take a look at its most important features:
It can convert PDF to Word/PowerPoint/Excel/HTML/RTF/EPUB
Edit and fill out PDF forms
Advanced annotation; Conversation bubbles, highlighters, shapes, Sticky notes, etc.
It has a lot of templates and many great features
You can add watermarks easily
PDFelement
Edit your PDF files and secure them with this reliable tool.
WinZip isn’t only one of the best compression software tools, but also one that allows password protecting your PDFs with ease.
Adding a password to your files in WinZip is extremely intuitive, and it takes mere seconds. And be sure of the fact that encrypting your Zip files isn’t the last thing that you can do.
All you need to do is to turn the Encrypt option on from the right pane and drag your PDF file in the center window.
You will be prompted to enter the desired password and repeat it for protection. Just remember to also communicate the password when you send the file to someone.
The file will be encrypted so without that key, the recipient won’t be able to access its contents.
Of course, another great feature is that you can manage or send your PDFs straight from WinZip right away.
Probably you already know that but we remind you that this tool can also be used for backing up your data securely and freeing some space on your drive in the process.
Great key features that WinZip brings to the table:
Easy to install
Intuitive interface
Advanced compression tools
Repair Zip File features
Banking-level encryption
WinZip
If you want advanced PDF encryption software, WinZip is clearly up for the task! Ready to enjoy it?
If you are looking for a tool that will make your life easier when it comes to editing, then we recommend that you try the Icecream PDF Editor.
This software can be installed on your Windows device easily, and it’s also compatible with Mac so you can pretty much use it on any machine.
If you want to create a PDF document from scratch or add a stamp, it can be easily done with the Icecream PDF Editor.
Splitting and merging PDF files is another great function this software comes with, and it will save you a lot of time searching for other ways to do that.
And yes, it also does a great job protecting your documents with a password or limiting the editing and copying rights of the users.
You can search for words in your PDF, make annotations, edit and rotate objects, or simply draw, all to personalize your work in style.
The interface is lighter, intuitive, and it has amazing features that you can use to get professional results.
Let’s review its best features:
Edit text and manage pages with ease
Password protects your documents and limits their editing and copying rights
Complete built-in forms within PDF documents
Search and annotation features
Combine or extract pages from a document
Icecream PDF Editor
Icecream PDF Editor is an all-in-one software that allows you to efficiently encrypt your PDFs. Ready to try it?
PDF Converter Pro for Windows by Wondershare allows you to use passwords to enable restrictions in functions.
This software is among the most advanced version of Wondershare products; it comes with improved security and features that suit every user’s needs.
It’s also great that the tool is fully compatible with Excel, Word, PowerPoint, HTML, and image formats so you can export your documents conveniently.
If you’ve scanned some important PDF documents, you can easily turn them back to their digital form by using the Wondershare PDF Converter Pro OCR feature.
With the latest technology, the solution will detect all elements from the image to create perfectly editable documents in a lot of possible formats.
Do you have any PDF forms to fill out? No problem, not only you can use this tool but you can also make your own forms in seconds.
Let’s go through its best features:
It uses password protection to generate encryption
Without the password, documents will not open which makes modifying your content impossible to achieve
Advanced file conversion features
Compatible with Windows 10/ Vista/ XP
It can successfully compete with any other software that supports bulk conversions
PDF Converter Pro for Windows
With this excellent app, your PDFs will not open without your password.
Foxit PDF Security Suite is very important; it integrates Microsoft Rights Management Services environments. With this software, you can reliably share confidential documents.
It enables you to do more than open and edit a document. It has a lot of mechanisms and security systems installed, which suits enterprise needs.
This tool is supported on Windows, macOS, Online, iOS, and Android so it basically works on every platform you want to use.
That means that you can edit and manage all your documents whenever and wherever you have an Internet connection on your device.
Not only that, but being based on a Cloud platform, you can also collaborate with your teammates on the documents and initiate shared reviews for feedback.
You can merge and split documents, drag and drop pages within a file or from a document to another, add stamps, watermarks, headers, footers, and a lot more content.
Let’s see some of its most important features:
It offers the necessary features users need to print, copy, view, and annotate PDF files
Audit logs, screenshot prevention, and printer restriction
For the encryption of PDF files, it makes use Foxit add-ins
It is very effective for businesses and corporate organizations
PDF Studio is a PDF editing application worthy of your attention. Not only because you can protect and encrypt your documents, but also because it’s great for filling forms.
This tool comes with a Free Trial version but there are also Standard and Pro versions that unlock many features. For instance, only the Pro version comes with OCR scanning.
Even so, the software comes with pretty competitive pricing compared to other software with the same features.
And it’s compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux so you can install it on pretty much any machine you’re working on.
Take a look at some of its most interesting features:
PDF Studio can be used for converting PDF files, editing PDF files, encrypting PDF files, decrypting PDF files and opening of DOC and DOCX files
It is very important to secure your PDF files; this will prevent hackers from accessing your files. Aside from that, you can create documents, edit them, organize your files, etc.
We hope that you found the best PDF encryption software for your needs and now you can keep your documents safe.
Individuals, small businesses, and organizations cannot do without this software. Do share with us your experience in using any of the programs we mentioned above.
Forza Horizon 5, one of the most anticipated games of the holiday season will be released next week on November 9, and it marks the comeback of one of Microsoft’s most popular game franchises. This is the first new Forza game since the release of the critically-acclaimed Forza Horizon 4 back in 2018, and it’s also the first Forza Horizon game to be released since Microsoft acquired UK-based developer PlayGround Games back in 2018.
Until the release of Forza Horizon 4 three years ago, Playground Games and Turn 10 Studios used to alternate with a new Forza Motorsport and a new Forza Horizon game every year. However, the transition to a new console generation has affected this well-oiled release cycle. As a result, Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox Series X and Series S consoles only had two “next-gen” racing games at launch, an updated version of Forza Horizon 4 and Codemasters’ Dirt 5, which I personally found quite disappointing.
Just like Forza Horizon 4, Forza Horizon 5 is a cross-gen game that is also being released on Xbox One consoles, but it’s still a big leap forward for the open-world racing franchise. It’s definitely one of the best-looking games you can play on Xbox Series X|S consoles today, featuring the largest open world ever seen in a Forza game. It’s also an excellent casual game for players who aren’t really into racing games, and it remains far more accessible than the pretty demanding Forza Motorsport series.
Every Forza Horizon game is set in a brand new location, and Forza Horizon 5 moves the action from Great Britain to sunny Mexico. This destination is a great choice and a nice homage to one of the rare markets outside of the US where the Xbox brand is very popular. Forza Horizon 5 will launch day one on Xbox Game Pass for Console and PC on November 9, and it will be the last blockbuster Xbox exclusive of 2021 until the release of Halo Infinite on December 8.
Welcome to Mexico
If Forza Horizon 4’s Great Britain was quite a departure from Forza Horizon 3’s sunny Australia, Forza Horizon 5 marks the return to a more exotic location. Playground Games’ fictional representation of Mexico features 11 different biomes including deserts, jungles, a mountain with a volcano, as well as beautifully-recreated historic cities. Once again, the Forza Horizon developer really deserves credit for its attention to detail, and the 3 years gap between Forza Horizon 4 and Horizon 5 clearly wasn’t for nothing.
The large open world in Forza Horizon 5 uses a dynamic weather system with a night and day cycle, and the different seasons introduced in Forza Horizon 4 are also coming back. I only got to see the Summer season during the review period, but seasons changes will once again kick off every Thursdays alongside some new limited-time challenges. Seasons will affect the different Mexican biomes in various ways, though again, I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen with the first season change happening later today.
Playground Games has already announced two DLCs for Forza Horizon 5, though there are no details yet. Forza Horizon 3 and 4 had excellent Hot Wheels and Lego-themed DLCs, and I hope that PlayGround Games will once again surprise us with new adventures all types of gamers can enjoy. In the meantime, the Forza Horizon 5 campaign already offers a lot of content, and I feel like I only scratched after playing the game for 20+ hours.
True next-gen graphics on Xbox Series X
Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Series S consoles launched without killer exclusive games last year, and I feel like the company has finally started to deliver this year. The updated version of Forza Horizon 4 was a very nice upgrade with a 4K at 60FPS performance target on Xbox Series X, but Forza Horizon 5 has once again showcased PlayGround Games’ real talent for creating immersive and photorealistic open worlds.
I played Forza Horizon 5 on both my Xbox Series X and Series S consoles over the past week, and I’m happy to report that performance is excellent on both consoles. Players get to choose between Quality and Performance modes, and I think that Forza Horizon 5 is one of the rare racing games that don’t feel too uncomfortable playing at 30FPS.
On Xbox Series X, both the Quality and Performance modes target a 4K resolution, but you get 30FPS experience in Quality Mode and a smoother 60FPS in Performance mode. Xbox Series S offers the same performance targets choices at a reduced 1080p resolution, though Quality mode will bump the resolution to 1440p at launch on November 9.
I didn’t get the chance the play Forza Horizon 5 on Xbox One consoles, but the game targets 1080p at 30FPS on Xbox One S and 4K at 30FPS on Xbox One X. Unfortunately, there’s no 1080p/60FPS option on the latter even though Forza Horizon 4 had that. We’re probably going to see fewer and fewer games being truly optimized for the Xbox One X going forward, and this is probably going to make the Xbox Series S an increasingly interesting upgrade for gamers still on last-gen Xbox consoles.
So far, Forza Horizon 5 is one of the current-gen Xbox games that impressed me the most alongside Microsoft Flight Simulator. You do lose some details and clarity when moving from the Xbox Series X to the Series S, but the latter still impresses for a $300 machine. This is quite anecdotal, but both the Series X and the Series S also support ray-tracing in the game’s “Forzavista” vehicle viewer mode, which you can access at the different Festival sites or homes you can purchase in the game.
A refined open-world experience
If you’ve played previous Forza Horizon games before, Forza Horizon 5 will feel instantly familiar. Following a blockbuster introduction sequence, you’ll reach the first Horizon Festival site and you’ll be able to freely explore the game’s open-world soon after. The progression system in Forza Horizon 5 is based on Accolade points, which you can earn by doing literally everything in the game including discovering new locations, smashing objects in the environment, participating in races, and obtaining new cars.
Speaking of cars, Forza Horizon 5 offers over 500 cars at launch, and the game uses the Mercedes-AMG One and 2021 Ford Bronco Badlands as its cover cars. You can also earn exclusive vehicles such as the iconic DeLorean DMC-12 by completing weekly challenges, and you may also want to look for the 14 cars hidden in barns in the Mexican open world. Some of these “Barn finds” have a unique vintage charm such as the old Ford F-100 pickup truck from 1956, or the first-gen Chevrolet Corvette from 1953.
Every car in Forza Horizon 5 can be customized with body kits, wheels, paint options, and more. There’s some good fan service for Halo fans as well with the classic Warthog armored fighting vehicle being available for purchase in the game. By default, damage in Forza Horizon 5 is only cosmetic and it’s really fun to smash your vehicle into various things or jump off from massive cliffs without completely destroying your car. Driving in Forza Horizon 5 is pretty easy, and you can still hit the rewind button anytime when you want to avoid an obstacle or improve your trajectory.
On Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, loading times are almost instantaneous, which is really convenient when you want to use the map to teleport yourself to another location. Compared to Forza Horizon 4, the game’s menus have also been simplified and it’s now easier to browse your car collection or check your progression in the game. It’s also easier to see the other online players on your server, though you can still opt for the “Horizon Solo” experience and play the game offline.
As you’ll gain more Accolade points in Forza Horizon 5, you’ll unlock new Horizon outposts and activities, and I have yet to complete everything the game has to offer: Between all the different types of races, seasonal events, showcases, and expeditions, there’s really a lot to do in the open world, and you can also use the game’s Eventlab to create custom races, challenges, and stunts. The matchmaking mode also offers pretty much the same options as Forza Horizon 4, and the Battle Royale Eliminator mode has made its comeback. However, the competitive ranked races are gone, which will probably be disappointing for hardcore gamers.
A bigger focus on storytelling
Forza Horizon 5 is PlayGround Games’ most ambitious Forza game, and it’s pretty clear that the studio spent a lot of time crafting a faithful recreation of Mexico. In many ways, Forza Horizon 5 also puts a bigger emphasis on storytelling, with more dialogues and secondary characters. For the first time in the series, your character gets its own voice and dialogue lines, though I still find it hard to care about this fictional Horizon festival and what its participants have to say.
Some of the missions in Forza Horizon 5 do a pretty good job at showcasing the Mexican culture, giving players the opportunity to explore Mexican ruins and other landmarks. Just like on Forza Horizon 4, there are also some “Stories” missions with different chapters involving secondary characters. Some of them are really good, but I’ve often found the interactions with secondary characters quite forgettable, with the dialogues sometimes being not far from being cringeworthy.
If there’s one area where I think PlayGround Games still has some room for improvement, this is probably storytelling. You can safely ignore all the dialogues in Forza Horizon 5 if you want to, though I can’t help but think that this beautiful open-world is missing something that would make it feel more real. I definitely enjoyed my time with Forza Horizon 5 so far, but I’d like to see the studio take a bit more narrative risks in future episodes.
Another blockbuster release from Xbox Game Studios
Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios division has been on a roll these past couple of months and the company’s game roadmap has never looked better. We recently had critically-acclaimed exclusives with Microsoft Flight Simulator and Psychonauts 2, and I expect Forza Horizon 5 to be in a lot of GOTY conversations this holiday season. Forza Horizon 5 is the best game in the series and another essential release from PlayGround Games, and it sets a pretty high bar for the upcoming Forza Motorsport 8 from Turn 10 Studios.
In many ways, Forza Horizon 5 can feel like more of the same, but the graphics are truly stunning on Xbox Series X and the gameplay is still just as addictive as ever. Playground Games has definitely cemented its place as one of the best studios Microsoft acquired in recent years, though I’d love to see the studio try something a bit different with its future games.
As you may know, the British studio is currently working on a reboot of Fable, the cult-classic RPG series created by the defunct Lionhead Studios. The reboot was announced last year with a short cinematic trailer, and it will be interesting to see what a studio with no prior RPG experience can do to revive this franchise. I haven’t been impressed by Playground Games’ attempts at storytelling in Forza Horizon 5, though the excellent gameplay ultimately makes that pretty easy to forgive.
Forza Horizon 5 will be released on November 9 on Xbox consoles, PC, and Xbox Game Pass, and the game is already available for pre-loading on the Microsoft Store. If you don’t want to wait, early access starts tomorrow for those of you who purchase the game’s Premium Add-ons bundle. The $49.99 package ($45 for Xbox Game Pass members) includes the Welcome Pack, Car Pass, VIP Membership, and access to the game’s two DLCs when they become available.
Microsoft has posted on its education blog about an upcoming event. Set for November 9 at 9:00 AM PST, and titled “Reimagine” Microsoft is planning to use this as a moment to discuss what’s next in education from the company.
Microsoft says this 45-minute event should “address gaps widened by the pandemic.” More interestingly, it also mentions that the event will talk about “ways to tackle challenges with innovative technology, and share best practices to support inclusive learning.” The webpage for the event suggests that IT, School leaders, and educators should attend.
According to the blog post, other topics Microsoft expects to discuss at this event include “new and existing solutions from Microsoft Education.” As usual with Microsoft events, there also will be industry influencers, educators, and special guests speaking. Even Grammy and Academy Award-winning artist, actor, author, and activist Common will be in attendance.
When it comes to Microsoft employees speaking at the event, you can expect to see Paige Johnson, VP of Education Marketing at Microsoft, as well as Deirdre Quarnstrom, Vice President, Education Experiences at Microsoft. Mike Tholfsen, Joe Cicero, Corey Lee, and Rachel Williams are other Microsoft employees mentioned as speakers for the event.
It will be interesting to see if Microsoft could use this event to reveal the rumored 11-inch low-cost laptop for education customers. A new Windows 11 SE version, as reported by Windows Central, could also be something Microsoft might possibly announce at the event, too.
We’ll be following the news closely next week so be sure to stay tuned to OnMSFT for more. In the meantime, you can add the event to your calendar.
The Lenovo Yoga line has grown into the consumer facing product offering that mirrors the company’s flagship ThinkPad computers in many ways but at more accessible price points generally.
Where a ThinkPad X1 Carbon could run at $1,500 for a base model the same feature for feature Yoga would normally start at $699, and the Yoga 6 continues that gracious trend this year.
With a starting price of $619 (or $949.99 for the review model), the folding 2-in-1 is the ideal computer for 90 percent of computer users.
Spoiler Alert: I have a lot of wonderful things to say about the Yoga 6, but it does suffer from a poorly lit screen, subpar speakers, 720 potato webcam and fan noise. If any of those are deal breakers, I hope I saved you some time.
Lenovo Yoga 6 Ryzen 7
Processor
AMD Ryzen™ 7 5700U Processor (1.80 GHz, up to 4.30 GHz Max Boost, 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 8 MB Cache)
AMD Ryzen™ 5 5500U Processor (2.10 GHz, up to 4.00 GHz Max Boost, 6 Cores, 12 Threads, 8 MB Cache)
AMD Ryzen™ 5 4500U Processor (2.30 GHz, up to 4.00 GHz Max Boost, 6 Cores, 6 Threads, 8 MB Cache)
Graphics
Integrated AMD Radeon™ Graphics
Operating System
Windows 10 Home
Windows 11 Home
Display
13.3″ FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS, touchscreen, 300 nits
Storage
Up to 1 TB SSD PCIe
Camera
720p HD
Memory
Up to 16 GB DDR4 3200MHz
Dimensions
Starting at 206.4mm x 308mm x 17 – 18.2mm / 8.12″ x 12.13″ x .67″ – 0.72 ”
Starting at 1.32 kg / 2.91lbs
Audio
Stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos®
Battery
Up to 18 hours*
60Wh Lithium-ion polymer
*All battery life claims are approximate and based on 1080p video playback on the latest update of Windows 10 (with 150 nits brightness and default volume level). Actual battery life will vary and depends on many factors such as product configuration and usage, software use, wireless functionality, power management settings, and screen brightness. The maximum capacity of the battery will decrease with time and use.
Color
Abyss Blue
Ports/Slots
2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 11 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 (DisplayPort™ & power delivery)
1 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 (DisplayPort™)
Headphone / mic combo
** The actual transfer speed of the USB 3.2 [Gen 1] will vary and, depending on many factors, such as the processing capability of host and peripheral devices, file attributes and other factors related to system configuration and your operating environments, will be slower than a speed of [5 Gbit/s].
I won’t spend too much time on the look and feel of the Yoga 6 but to say that the model I tested came with a fabric incased lid. The feel of a woven 13.3-inch 16:9 lid is surprisingly nice and became preferred to the cold and seemingly lifeless touch of aluminum or even carbon fiber.
The touch of fabric on the lid is reminiscent of the Alcantar keyboard Microsoft tries to push with its Surface Laptops and 2-in-1’s. While I’ve gotten used to the feel under my palm rest, I may argue for durability purposes, incorporating the woven fabric on the lid of Surface device might be a new direction the company would want to follow.
Moving beyond the lid, the device itself feels and looks very much like its predecessors. The tapered bottom, 2.9lbs and polycarbonate bottom cover are all there and just as reassuring as they have been for this line of PCs over the past four years.
As for the screen, it’s a 13.3-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS panel with touch and pen support, nothing too spectacular at this point in hardware offerings. Colors are punchy but the brightness leaves something to be desired at 320 nits and automatic diming can be frustrating when outdoors.
Lenovo has seemingly moved away from its jeweled watch hinge design and settled on the dual 360 metal hinge design for all of its convertible 2-in-1’s and the Yoga 6 is no different.
As for your flex peepers, there is little found in the lid or keyboard deck.
As for the more functional look of the Yoga 6, Lenovo is sticking with a remarkably familiar port layout that includes a headphone and mic combo, 2 USB-A, USB-C and USB-C enabled power connector.
The U-Shaped chicklet keys on the keyboard feel every bit as comfortable as any other Lenovo computer. The key travel is nice, and the press is clicky and centered, there is no wobble to the edges of the keys which can be found on other devices such as an Acer or Asus, and often lead to accidental brushed keystrokes for users with larger fingers or who slam the keys.
Performance
I was gifted the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (1.8 Ghz) and AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 graphics paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage.
To put things in perspective, other devices in similar price and feature ranges include the Dell XPS 13, Acer Spin 3, IdeaPad Flex 5, and HP Envy x360.
The Yoga 6 isn’t a super powerful machine designed for creators but does offer some of the lower hanging fruit for novice looking to begin on their first machine in high school or college.
For Adobe Photoshop users, the screen will cover about 72 percent of the color gamut and 99 percent of the standard sRGB.
With that said, you’ll need a CPU and GPU combo equipped enough to handle performance for the suite of Adobe programs and the Yoga 6 with AMD can handle midrange projects such as limited layers of effects in Photoshop and moderate number of clips in Premiere with its 8-core Ryzen 7 5700U Zen 2 chipset.
However, it may be the Lenovo Vantage software or some other monitoring program that limits the Ryzen 7 performance on this laptop as it performs a few ticks behind a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 or other laptops equipped with the same chip.
Even more disappointing is that despite the advances in GPU performance AMD has made this particular model still trails Intel’s Iris Xe supported devices which leaves the Dell XPS the better choice for more “creative” tasks.
When it comes to simple, real world use cases though the configured Western Digital SN730 SSD combined with the Realtek Wi-Fi 6 module made surfing and downloading content a breeze. I rarely had to wait to engage with documents, videos, or images from either the storage or from the web.
I should hope this is understood, that the Yoga 6 or most laptops that don’t specifically have gaming or NVIDIA listed in their spec sheets, are not gaming devices. While it can play some causal RPG’s, simulation and low-res FPS titles, the Yoga 6 does not perform well for the majority of gaming desires.
During a test of Far Cry 5 (it’s what I could afford at the time of this test), it managed to maintain about 30 fps which puts it in the 80th percentile of devices that can play the game at 1280×720 resolution. The fps drops again at the higher 1920×1080 resolution, to 11 fps.
Speaking of stressing the system with gaming, the Yoga 6 can get hot on occasion reaching temps of up to 89 C however, for the most part the system stayed within the 35-45 C during most operations.
Last up is the battery life. The Ryzen 7 version runs about an hour shorter than its 5-series cousin but still outputs about 7 hours of steady use and can get up to 12 hours in moderate use. I define moderate as triaging email, checking some websites and watching YouTube videos off and on for 30 mins to an hour at a time, anything beyond that will start to significantly eat into that number. Things like streaming music, watching videos from unoptimized media players, or even turning the brightness up beyond 60 percent will cut into about one-half of the power consumption per minute.
Summary
Since getting the Yoga 6 for review the number of satisfied customers on the Best Buy review page has only increased. It would seem the Yoga 6 offers a lot for its price point and sits comfortably at the new mid-range point for PCs.
While many of the readers here covet the $1,000 and up devices for their power, brand association and hard to get specs, there is a much larger market that sits just below.
Customers are mostly content with a vivid touchscreen, enough power to do averagely well in most categories and a piece of hardware light enough to carry from the class, office, or the coffee shop and back home.
The Lenovo Yoga 6 does all the above and with a unique style the blends premium with a novel design that stands out against the sea of aluminum clad casings.
In short, the Lenovo Yoga 6 isn’t a power device, it isn’t necessarily the cheapest, but the AMD model does offer customers a taste of both at a reasonable asking price.
Network problems are common in Windows 10, and in this article, we’re going to show you how to solve one strange network problem, a problem with a limited internet connection in Windows 10.
So, if you’re facing this issue, I hope these solutions will help you.
Limited Internet connection messages can cause problems and prevent you from accessing certain websites. Speaking of this message, users reported the following problems as well:
Limited access WiFi (Windows 10) – This message can occur if you’re using a wireless connection. If that happens, make sure that your drivers are up to date.
Limited internet connection on laptop, WiFi, unidentified network, getting disconnected frequently, keeps dropping – There are various problems that can occur due to this message, and if you’re having any of them, be sure to try some of our solutions.
Limited internet access Ethernet, VPN – Sometimes this problem can occur while using an Ethernet connection or VPN. If this happens, be sure to check your network settings.
Limited internet access yellow triangle, LAN – This is a relatively common problem on many PCs, but in order to fix it, you need to run a network troubleshooter.
How do I fix problems with limited connection in Windows 10?
1. Restart your modem or WiFi adapter
Press Windows Key + X and select Device Manager from the list.
Find your networking device, right-click on it, and click Disable.
Restart your computer.
Go to Device Manager again, and enable the networking device the same way you disabled it.
2. Update your drivers
If you’re getting Limited Internet connection message on your PC, the problem might be your drivers. Outdated drivers can cause this problem to appear, and in order to fix it, it’s advised to update your drivers.
There are several ways to do it, but the easiest possible way is to use a dedicated professional solution like Outbyte Driver Updater.
It’s so easy to update your drivers automatically using this awesome solution that it only takes 3 steps:
An antivirus is important, but sometimes certain issues can occur due to your antivirus. Many users reported that the Limited Internet connection message can be caused by your antivirus and in order to fix that you need to change your settings.
Several users reported that their antivirus was the cause, and after adjusting a couple of settings the issue was resolved. If you can’t find the settings causing this issue, we advise you to disable your antivirus and check if that helps temporarily.
If the issue still persists, you’ll need to uninstall your antivirus completely and check if that solves the issue. If removing the antivirus solves the problem, you should consider switching to a different antivirus solution.
Before starting to tweak your old antivirus, we recommend switching to a security solution that doesn’t interfere with your system, and it has a very low impact on its resources.
4. Reset the TCP connection
Right-click on the Start Menu button and open Command Prompt (Admin)
Enter the following lines and press Enter after entering each one:
netsh int tcp set heuristics disabled
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled
Now enter this command to verify that the previous functions were disabled:
netsh int tcp show global
Close the Command Prompt window.
5. Run the Windows Networking Troubleshooter
Go to Search and type troubleshoot.
Choose Troubleshoot from the menu.
Select Network Adapter and click Run the troubleshooter.
Click the network icon in your Taskba and choose your network from the menu.
Now click on Change adapter options.
Locate your network connection, right-click it and choose Properties from the menu.
Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click on Properties.
Select Use the following IP address and set the following data:
IP address: 192.168.1.25
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway: 192.168.1.1 ClickOK to save changes.
Note: Keep in mind that these numbers might not work for you, so you’ll need to change your IP address according to the format of your Default gateway.
To find out what is the Default gateway on your PC, just check the network properties on your PC or on any other device that has Internet access.
If your IP address is set manually, select the Obtain IP address automatically option and check if that solves your problem.
7. Change your DNS
Follow steps 1-4 from the previous solution.
Select Use the following DNS server addresses and set these values:
Preferred DNS server: 8.8.8.8
Alternate DNS server: 8.8.4.4
Click OK to save changes.
Note: If you prefer OpenDNS you can use it instead of Google DNS. After switching your DNS, check if the problem is resolved. Keep in mind that this solution might slow down your network connection a bit.
If you are already using a custom DNS, select Obtain DNS server automatically option and save changes.
8. Reset your router
According to some users, the Limited Internet connection message can sometimes appear due to your router’s configuration.
Several users reported that they fixed this problem simply by resetting their router to default, so you might want to try that.
To reset your router, you need to access your router’s configuration page and choose the reset options from there. However, you can also reset your router by pressing the hidden reset button on your router.
For detailed instructions on how to reset your router, we advise you to check your router’s instruction manual. Remember that resetting your router will make your Wi-Fi network disabled, so you’ll have to set it up again.
9. Reset BIOS to default
Few users claim that they fixed this problem simply by resetting their BIOS to default. If you have a built-in network adapter, you might be able to configure it from BIOS.
Sometimes your BIOS settings might interfere with your network configuration, and in order to fix the problem, you need to reset your BIOS to default.
This is rather simple, and to see how to do it properly on your PC, we advise you to check your motherboard manual for detailed instructions. This is an unlikely solution, but few users claim that it works, so be sure to try it out.
If you don’t know how to access your BIOS, here’s an excellent guide to help you with that.
10. Rollback your network driver
Open Device Manager, locate your network adapter, and double click it to open its properties.
Go to the Driver tab and click the Roll Back Driver button. If this button isn’t available, click on Uninstall Device to remove the driver.
Once you uninstall the network driver, restart your PC, and Windows will install the missing driver automatically.
That would be all, I hope some of these solutions helped you with the limited internet connection problem. And before you leave, do check some quick tips to get back the cellular option in Windows 11.
If you have any comments, suggestions, or maybe some other solutions for this problem, reach out in the comment section below.
The Redmond tech giant is actually warning its users that, while on Windows 11, they might experience issues opening or using some built-in apps and features due to an expired digital certificate.
As you can imagine, this is disconcerting news, since everyone was starting to think that the waters are calming down and the new OS is becoming increasingly stable.
Snipping Tool and Touch Keypad may not work for all of us
UPDATE: There is a cumulative update (KB4006746) that will fix the touch keyboard, voice typing, emoji panel, and issues with the getting started and tips sections of Windows 11.
You’ll be able to find this patch by checking for updates in the Windows Update section of Settings in Windows 11.
Microsoft explained that starting on November 1, 2021, some users might be unable to open or use certain built-in Windows apps or parts of some built-in apps that have not installed KB5006746, released October 21, 2021.
This is caused by an issue with a Microsoft digital certificate, which expired on October 31, 2021. Devices running in S mode are more likely to be affected.
The complete list of apps and features potentially impacted by this Windows 11, version 21H2 known issue includes:
Snipping Tool
Accounts page and landing page in the Settings app (S mode only)
Touch Keyboard, Voice Typing, and Emoji Panel
Input Method Editor user interface (IME UI)
Getting started and Tips
Redmond officials also stated that affected Windows 11 users can install the KB5006746 release preview update.
This cumulative update was designed to resolve issues impacting the Touch Keyboard, the Voice Typing and Emoji Panel, the Input Method Editor user interface (IME UI), and the Getting Started and Tips feature.
Also, the company is currently working on a fix to address this new known issue which will be provided with a future update.
Roblox is a free online gaming platform and game creation system that allows users to create and publish games that can be played by others in the community.
The games are created by amateur game creators using simple tools, and although Roblox is targeted at children across different age groups, it is also played by teenagers and adults.
The platform is very popular and has seen a great surge in terms of usage, with more than 40 million daily active users worldwide.
In addition to positive reviews, Roblox has also received criticism for the nature of its content, chat filtration systems as well as microtransactions that make it easy for children to spend large sums of money without parents’ knowledge.
Roblox was banned in a few countries, including the UAE, so if you want to use the platform in the UAE, we’ll show you how to get around the ban. Just continue reading, and you’ll find how easy it is.
Why was Roblox banned in the UAE?
Roblox was banned in the UAE in 2018 by UAE’s attorney general Dr. Hamad Saif Al Shamsi. It wasn’t the only gaming platform banned, as others, including Blue Whale and Cloud Pets, were banned too.
Among the reasons invoked for the ban were the addictiveness that the gaming platform caused as well as alleged reports of parental control not working properly.
However, the Roblox developers ensured that the gaming platform had proper parental control established for children so that they would not be affected by the game in any manner.
Despite the clarification by Roblox officials, these reports resulted in the ban of the platform in the UAE, and questions like Is Roblox banned in the UAE in 2021? or Is Roblox still banned in the UAE? are lingering even today.
How can I play Roblox in the UAE?
1. Use a premium VPN service
If you want to play Roblox in the UAE without any limitations, then using a premium VPN service is a fool-proof solution that will allow you to enjoy the games on the platform carefree.
A VPN works by replacing your ISP-assigned IP address with another provided by the VPN provider. Anytime you connect to a different VPN server in a different location, you will get a new IP address.
Therefore, a VPN is a very effective solution for bypassing geo-blocking since you can easily access restricted content in your area by connecting to a VPN server in a region or country where that content is available.
Moreover, a VPN service also encrypts all of your traffic and data going in and out of your device by rerouting them through a secure VPN tunnel. This way, you can enjoy full protection and anonymity while surfing the web.
For example, you can do online banking transactions securely without worrying about hackers, and also you should no longer worry that another party – not even your ISP – will spy on you. In other words, no one will know where you’re going and what you’re doing online.
When choosing a VPN service, you need to make sure that you pick a well-reputed and reliable service, as not every service on the market will work 100% with Roblox in the UAE.
Private Internet Access (PIA) is our number one recommendation if you want to play Roblox in the UAE without worrying about any bans. We tested it and it works smoothly with Roblox, so you should confidently give it a shot.
PIA is based in the USA and is owned by Kape Technologies. With more than 15 million global users, this VPN is a household name on the VPN market. It is available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.
Private Internet Access uses AES-128 or AES-256 military-grade encryption and the OpenVPN and WireGuard VPN protocols. These will ensure the maximum level of online protection and privacy.
It also comes bundled with other great features, such as VPN Killswitch, PIA MACE (ads and malware blocker), Split Tunnel, Port forwarding, Connection Automation, and Dedicated IP.
More about PIA:
32,000+ servers in 101 locations across 78 countries.
No traffic or request logs.
Up to 10 simultaneous connections.
Risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee.
24/7 live chat customer support.
Private Internet Access
Try PIA to unblock Roblox in the UAE and enjoy it without any restrictions.
Once you’ve chosen a VPN product and purchased a subscription, you can easily set up the VPN client on all of your devices. This way, you can play Roblox on your PC, phone, or tablet depending on your choice.
Follow these steps to quickly set up your VPN. In this example, we show you how it’s done with Private Internet Access (PIA).
Download the VPN app from the official website, Play Store or App Store.
Install the client on your device and launch it.
Go to the available countries and select one where Roblox isn’t banned.
Connect to a server in that country.
Launch Roblox if you already have it installed and start playing.
3. Install Roblox and start playing
Depending on the device you want to play Roblox from, you can get the app from the Microsoft Store, Xbox Store, Google Play, App Store, or Amazon Appstore.
Here, we’ll show you how can you get Roblox from the Microsoft Store and install it on your Windows PC.
Go to the Roblox website and click on Get if from Microsoft.
Click on Get.
Open your Microsoft store and click on My Library.
Go to the All owned tab, find Roblox and click Install.
Go to the Installed tab, find Roblox and click Launch.
Is Roblox still banned in the UAE?
Although it is a fact that Roblox was banned in the UAE in 2018, there are speculations that the ban has been lifted recently. However, even though this may be true, there’s always the chance that the platform will be banned again.
The information received by the Gulf News was confirmed by a spokesperson for the aforementioned authority.
There are other online sources as well that mention that Roblox was unbanned in the UAE, so apparently, this is true – at least for the time being – if we take into account all the information available, some of which is certified by credible sources.
Nonetheless, since its future availability in the UAE is uncertain, you need to be cautious and use a VPN all the time while playing Roblox, as you might face interruptions or a complete ban anytime.
In conclusion, if you want to play Roblox in the UAE without getting stuck with any current or future potential ban, using a VPN service is by far the best available option that is guaranteed to work hassle-free.
Besides helping you circumvent the Roblox ban, a VPN will also ensure your online protection and privacy when browsing the web for other purposes.
Last but not least, make sure – for the best experience – to get a powerful and stable premium VPN service like the one recommended above (Private Internet Access). Keep in mind that free plans very often come with limitations, and also other unpopular products might not work properly with Roblox.
Riders Republic is Ubisoft’s response to the huge gap of extreme downhill racing in the videogames industry. While indies like Descenders and Lonely Mountains: Downhill have covered the downhill biking, Ubisoft also adds in snowboarding, jetpacks and wingsuits for anyone seeking that extreme sports rush in a AAA game.
We’ve been excited about this game ever since the closed beta (as you could tell from our preview) and now it’s finally here and ready to be played by the masses. And we do mean that literally as the mass events seem like a huge draw to the game with 64 players racing to the finish line. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and take this one slope at a time.
I wanted to go skiing, but things went downhill fast
Let’s first answer a simple question with a complicated response. What is Riders Republic? It’s what happens if Steep and The Crew 2 married and had a child with elements from both games showing up.
A massive open world to explore
While it has the large open-world Ubisoft games are known for, it’s not as massive as the entirety of the USA like what The Crew 2 tried to accomplish. Although it also tries to include elements from well-known biomes across the world, Riders Republic condenses them into a more manageable map.
You’ll have rocky mountains you can wingsuit through like threading a needle, snowy slopes to perform snowboard tricks on, and forest-like areas with tracks nearly as wide as your bike to race your BMX through.
What impresses the most is how smooth the transitioning from one type of gear to the next goes, allowing you to switch from a bike jump into a jet-pack on the fly and launch yourself to the next objective at blistering speeds.
— BloodyGoodReviews™ | Pirate PR ?☠️ (@BloodyGoodRev) October 28, 2021
Add into this the amazingly fast teleportation and you’ll never have to wait too long between events. It’s downright incredible how quickly you can get from one side of the map to the other by using the map and there is not a loading screen in sight on the Xbox Series X.
Next to an amazing amount of events, there is also a lot to explore. There are 23 stunts to perform, 45 landmarks to learn more about and 11 secrets to find which will each reward you with some brand new gear.
Cue the Lion King music
You also find up to 500 Riders Republic balloons that will reward you with some cash and a star for every five you find. Collecting them all will certainly take some time but the nice thing is that they are also visible during races. Because these do not appear on the map, however, you’ll need an external guide to locate them all.
There’s a story to tell?
Weirdly enough, Riders Republic decided to include a narrative element where you’re some kind of extreme sports prodigy who’s following into the footsteps of an older legend. The characters all try too hard to be cool, like a father trying to impress their kids, wanting to convince them that they are still young at heart.
I may not be much of a judge, as a 33-year-old father of two who often goes for the punny dad-jokes, but there were plenty of cringy moments that missed the mark for me. Experience may vary depending on what you find comical, but I just wanted the cutscenes to be over and get back to racing down dusty hills as soon as possible.
“How do you do, fellow kids?”
Luckily the deeper you get into the game, the less you’ll hear from them and the story elements take a backseat to the action, as it rightfully should be in games of this genre. You’ll only hear them check in every now and then through a phone call.
If you level each category enough by grinding for experience, you’ll unlock BOSS events. I was expecting these to have some kind of narrative pay-off at least but other than a short introduction over the phone about the brand that’s sponsoring the event, it doesn’t really lead to anything.
I feel conflicted about this because, on one hand, I didn’t like the characters all that much, but on the other hand, I was expecting some kind of closure that never happened. Perhaps when I’ve beaten ALL the boss events I’ll get a credits scene. If so, I’ll update it here.
Downhill thrills
No one is picking up a game like Riders Republic for the story. The only real questions here are how fun it is to play and how the sensation of speed will deliver us thrills. And boy, it does not disappoint in this department.
The game moves at breakneck speeds at all times and you can even switch to a first-person view whenever you want to increase the sensation. There’s nothing quite as exciting as biking down a narrow trail and dodging trees as your life depends on it.
This is especially impressive when you’re playing one of the mass events and you see 63 other players cannon-balling down the slopes, all looking to rank high in the triad of events.
Weeeeeeeeee!
Rider’s Republic is always focused on the fun factor, it leans into the silly things and comes out a better game because of it. There are wacky outfits like dinosaur costumes or giraffe masks, and special gear called Funkies that not only look awesome but can totally alter your playstyle.
This ranges from a plane wing replacing your jetpack, a cardboard plane instead of a wingsuit, or a pizza delivery bike that drops pizzas everywhere and has cringy Italian voice acting. But there are also some really cool ones, with my favorite being the rocket-powered skis that propel you up the slopes and make it very easy to get around.
— BloodyGoodReviews™ | Pirate PR ?☠️ (@BloodyGoodRev) October 28, 2021
Challenging but forgiving at the same time
Riders Republic isn’t an easy game if you’re playing on the pro difficulty or facing other players and it will constantly throw additional challenges at you that may seem impossible at first. But while all of these daunting options are available, they’re never enforced.
I often defaulted to the easiest difficulty (which results in just a bit less experience upon completing the event) and never bothered too much about falling or using the useful BACKTRACK feature.
Be Kind. Rewind.
Now, for players familiar with how Forza Horizon implements this, a fair warning: while the BACKTRACK feature can be activated at all times, it doesn’t affect other players, not even the offline versions. And if you’re playing an event where you have to beat the clock, it will not stop the clock while you are rewinding.
This wouldn’t be such an issue, but it IS very easy to miss certain checkpoints. Riders Republic always shows the next two checkpoints ahead, but if the second one is straight in front of you and the first one is just outside of your peripheral vision, you will have to backtrack and it will cost you time or even that optional challenge you were going for.
Flawless Victory!
Luckily Riders Republic is a big fan of playing the game is more important than winning with completing an event at any position will still reward you with plenty of experience to level up the current sports genre and you’ll get a gold star simply for trying. It goes without saying, however, that getting the secondary objectives will accelerate your progression by a large factor.
Impressive soundtrack
Before we dig into the visual aspect, I feel the need to bring up the excellent soundtrack. It’s not often that a licensed soundtrack makes me giddy with joy but Riders Republic managed to do just that on many occasions.
From perfectly matched serene music when skydiving between rocky canyons, to actually turning up the ROCK factor to eleven with The Offspring, one of my favorite bands ever.
— BloodyGoodReviews™ | Pirate PR ?☠️ (@BloodyGoodRev) October 31, 2021
While licensed music can play on the familiarity aspect and win players over, it also poses a risk. Youtubers will need to share in ad revenue on any content they provide and Twitch streamers could even risk getting banned if they get too many copyright strikes against them.
It’s a problem that has been rearing its ugly head more and more in the content creator world, but that’s a topic for a dedicated article I intend to write at a later point in time.
Pretty from afar, but far from pretty
Onwards to the visual feast. Other than what the header of this section may lead you to believe, Riders Republic can be a great-looking game, especially when you’re working with the built-in photo mode.
Pretty as a picture. Because it IS a picture.
But it’s still an online game with a massive amount of on-screen players from all over the world and some compensation was necessary to make that possible.
When you stop dead in your tracks, the world looks great. When you’re moving through it at 160 miles per hour, it will be too blurry to notice… But it’s between those two extremes that the game shows a few technical shortcomings, with textures loading in only a few meters ahead and foliage popping into existence a few times.
There is even some wildlife that populates the game and while it’s a step up from the cardboard cutouts used in The Crew 2, it’s still not something you’d like to catch in a close-up.
Plenty of things to customize
If you’re the creative type, you can design your own content in Riders Republic. Draw out paths down a mountain and set a time to beat or score to improve on and other people can participate in your custom events. It’s something that is always welcomed and provided infinite possibilities, but not something I’d dabble in myself.
What I do always appreciate are ways to express myself through my avatar’s design and clothing, and I’m glad to say there is some very cool gear to purchase and you don’t necessarily need to spend any additional real-life cash.
Just take a look at this awesome spider backpack that lights up in the dark. If you’ve got a good eye, you can even spot the Halloween-themed pumpkin helmet I have equipped.
When I see cool spider gear, I get arachneedy!
The variety is a bit lacking at the moment though, you have daily deals and weekly items to browse, but I was expecting a much larger choice of gear. Perhaps that will still improve as the game will be playable to the public for a longer period of time, but until then it’s at least good to know that the designs are as good-looking as this.
As for your gear itself, leveling up will reward you with new bikes and snowboards and such and if you complete certain optional elements like the sponsor contracts or the Shack Daddy Bandit quests, you can even earn time-limited unique stuff that looks mighty impressive.
Nanananana, Batman!
How long to beat and complete
There is not really a moment where you’ll see the credits roll and it will feel like you’ve beaten the main campaign of Riders Republic. But if you’re solely going for the five different Boss Events, I’d say it takes around 20 hours to beat the game.
If you’re looking to 100% the game or at least go for the 1000G worth of achievements, however, you can easily triple that amount of time. There are some very grindy achievements, like completing 50 Mass Events. And while you’d expect to get achievements for finding all landmarks and relics, you’ll need to find at least 150 of the 500 hidden RR balloons as well, which are hidden across the massive map.
It’s pine, I can do this…
Lastly, there may just be a skill barrier to overcome, as one achievement requires you to complete 20 out of 23 possible stunt events and I had to chicken out of 4 of them already.
Add into this the user-generated content and any DLC that may arrive at a later time, and you’re looking at a typical Ubisoft experience that will get you 100 hours of fun or more.
Final thoughts on Riders Republic
Pros
It's fun, it's fast and it's got content to last
The licensed soundtrack is absolutely killer
There is hardly a loading screen in sight. Smooth sailing all-around
Cons
Not the prettiest next-gen game, but not bad-looking by any means
Secondary objectives are often too difficult
Checkpoints can be hard to spot in certain events, causing unnecessary restarts
FINAL SCORE: 4/5
Riders Republic satisfies any need for speed you may have and fills the extreme sports void that the AAA industry has left vacant for way too long. It’s fun, it’s not afraid to be an actual game, and leans into the silly things that keep the experience fresh and it has dozens of hours worth of content.
The speed at which you can chain one event into the next one is nothing short of impressive and it’s one of the fastest loading open worlds I’ve ever had the joy of exploring. Add a killer soundtrack into the mix and you’ve got a success formula that is a few steps up from Ubisoft’s previous attempt at a similar game with Steep.
There’s no denying that Age of Empires 4, created by Relic Entertainment and World’s Edge, has been an absolute smash.
It has captured the attention of not only die-hard series fans that have been waiting for it for a long time but also of players that never heard of the game before.
It has eight playable civilizations, each unique in its own way, and the overall experience is one that you should definitely try for yourself.
How can I rotate buildings in AoE 4?
Lately, a new question emerged and fans are more and more curious as to what the answer to this question is.
A lot of people have been asking if it is possible to actually rotate the buildings we have available in the game.
If we really think about it, quite a few base-building RTS games actually allow you to rotate buildings in whatever way you see fit.
For example, for management and city-building games, rotating buildings is somewhat essential for optimal planning and placement.
However, going back to Age of Empires 4, it is currently not possible to rotate a building. The only thing you can do, which is slightly related to this, is to rotate the camera perspective.
This way, you will be able to see all four sides of any given structure and then some, but after you place it down on the ground, there’s nothing you can do but accept the pre-set rotation.
And yes, one might think this is a major step back but in truth, there is no real need for the feature to exist in the first place.
Creators have built each AoE map in a way where the landscape moulds itself to what you build, so the whole building rotation thing becomes kind of redundant.
Also, each of the buildings has a square base meaning there’s no risk of overlapping and the game simply won’t allow it and rotation wouldn’t fix the issue.
So, unfortunately, no rotation for us in Age of Empires 4 for the time being, But who’s to say that someone won’t come up with a mod that would allow you to do just that, in the future?
Especially now that so many have actually asked if such a thing is possible in the game. We’ll just have to wait and see if this will become a reality.
What other features that aren’t present in the game so far would you like to see in the future? Share your opinion with us in the comments section below.
Microsoft has announced some important updates for Project and Planner, its popular work management tools in Microsoft 365. If Planner and Project currently serve a slightly different audience, the company also plans to introduce a more seamless experience between the two apps in 2022.
“Planner helps you manage and monitor team tasks in a shared plan while Project takes managing your tasks and projects to the next level with more flexibility and power. Over the next year, our plan is to simplify and bring the experiences of these two apps closer together so that moving from one to the other is effortless,” the company explained in a blog post.
In the meantime, Microsoft plans to introduce a new feature that will let users schedule their frequent Planner tasks to occur at a regular interval. Microsoft Planner is also getting support for rich text and images, allowing users to insert bold, italicized, or underlined text and images into task notes. Microsoft says that its task management tool is also getting some new integrations with other Microsoft 365 apps, though the company has yet to share the details.
Microsoft Project is set to add new project management features in the coming months: The Project app in Microsoft Teams will enable users to start conversations on specific tasks with their colleagues and mention them. Project for the web will also allow Microsoft 365 users to view the progress of their assigned tasks and provide status updates. With Guest Access support in the Project web app, team leaders will be able to add guest users and assign tasks to them.
Microsoft keeps adding new features regularly to its project management tools, and the company will keep listening to feedback to improve the collaboration experience for employees. If you’re interested to learn more about these updates, we invite you to check out yesterday’s “Coming soon to work management tools in Microsoft 365” Ignite session.
Microsoft has teamed up with Adidas to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Xbox, and Xbox fans in the US and Canada will be able to purchase the first-ever Xbox-themed Adidas sneakers tomorrow, November 4. The limited-edition Adidas sneakers are named the “Xbox 360 Forum Mid,” and their design includes a lot of cool Easter eggs for Xbox fans.
“On the strap, you’ll note the Xbox 360 disc tray, along with the classic 360-era Xbox button design on the shoe’s outer side and the console’s air vents on the inner side. Additionally, the heel features references to the Xbox 360’s distinctive removable hard drive and memory unit slots. There are a myriad of details to discover and enjoy, including some hidden secrets for fans,” the Xbox team explained today.
The Adidas Xbox 360 Forum Mid will be available to purchase on adidas.com in the U.S. and Canada starting tomorrow, November 4 at 7:00 a.m. PT, though pricing details are not yet available as of this writing. Anyway, the box will include four pairs of laces in red, yellow, green, and blue, as a nice homage to the color of the ABXY buttons of Xbox controllers.
The Xbox 360 Forum Mid is actually the second pair of Adidas sneakers inspired by the Xbox brand: Microsoft previously revealed the Adidas Xbox 20th Forum Tech sneakers earlier this month, but those aren’t available for purchase. Microsoft plans to reveal a third and final Adidas sneaker inspired by Xbox Series X on November 15 during a special broadcast celebrating the 20th anniversary of Xbox and Halo, so watch this space if you’re a sneaker fan.
The Microsoft Edge Insider Dev channel has jumped to version 97 yesterday, with the first build 97.0.1060.2 bringing new PDF and password management features. Microsoft Edge is the default PDF reader on Windows 10 and Windows 11, and this new build improves the viewing and markup experience even further.
Microsoft Edge has also become a great password manager, and this new build makes it possible to create new website accounts or apply coupons and check out on shopping sites in a single click. You can find the full list of new features in the Edge Insider Dev build 97.0.1060.2 below:
Added the ability to draw arbitrary highlighting on PDFs.
Added an option to print even or odd pages.
Combined autofill and password generation on account sign-up webpages to be able to create new website accounts in a single click.
Combined personal info and payment info autofill on certain shopping websites to be able to apply coupons and checkout in a single click.
Enabled by default one-click password updating by adding a button to the leaked passwords Settings page that goes directly to the website’s password update page and then using password generation to automatically fill in a new password.
Added the Downloads button to windows opened with the –app command line flag.
Management policies (updates to documentation and administrative templates may not have occurred yet):
Added a policy to control if the Internet Explorer Mode Toolbar Button is Enabled.
Added a policy to control if the ability for Edge to automatically Enhance Images is Enabled.
Added a policy to control if Accessibility Image Labels are Enabled, which controls if a service can be used to generate descriptions for images that don’t already have them.
Developer:
Added an experimental WebView2 API to handle basic website authentication (Issue 120).
Added an experimental API to WebView2 apps to send and receive post web messages to iframes (Issue 139).
Added an API to WebView2 apps to query the user data folder location.
As usual, this new build also brings a couple of bug fixes, and you can learn more details on this page. With Edge 97 landing on the Dev channel this week, Edge 96 has also made its way to the Beta channel and should reach the Stable channel at the end of the month. If you’re using Linux, Microsoft Edge finally came out of beta this week and it supports all the major Linux variants.
![15 Best PDF Encryption Software [Windows & Mac]](https://windowsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/best-pdf-encryption-software.jpg)
![Internet connection is limited in Windows 10/11 [Full Guide]](https://windowsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Internet-connection-is-limited-in-Windows-10.jpg)
