In last few days, you might have heard about 'WannaCry' or 'WannaCrypt' ransomware which spread affected many systems across the globe. This was spread like a worm by using the Windows SMB vulnerability, which was patched in March.
You might become a victim, if you are not running Windows 10 and not yet patched your system with all the security updates that Microsoft released.
During //BUILD/2017 event, Microsoft announced the next wave of their innovations for Windows 10 ecosystem. They announced that the next feature update, which is now known as 'Redstone 3', will be called 'Windows 10 Fall Creators Update'.
It's expected to release in later this year, probably in September. Read further to know more about the new features which are expected to release with that.
Microsoft has released a new update for Visual Studio 2017, which pushed the version to 15.2 with a build no: 26430.04. If you are using Visual Studio 2017, check for the update notification.
In this post, sharing the list of new improvements and fixes available in this build. Checkout the known issues before downloading.
After the release of Windows 10 Redstone 3 build 16184 last week, Windows Insiders in the fast ring got their next preview build 16188 for PC today along with Mobile build 15210. This PC build includes a lot many new features and enhancements that you want to try.
Before going to download the new preview build from Redstone 3 development branch, don't forget to checkout the 'Known Issues'.
When you try to open any office file documents created with an earlier version of Office applications like Word 95, Word 6.0 or Word 2, the file will open in 'Protected View' by default and the editing functions will be disabled.
Though it is not recommended, but if you face such issue and still want to open the document for editing, you can follow the steps mentioned here.
Microsoft has announced a new insider preview build 16184 for PCs in the fast ring Windows Insiders. It contains a couple of new features, which people are waiting for a long time. Apart from the new features, a set of improvements and fixes are also available in this build.
Check out this post to know what's new in this build, what has been changed and fixed. Don't forget to read the known issues before downloading it.
Microsoft is now rolling out Windows 10 Cumulative Update (KB4016240) for the devices running Windows 10 Creators Update. If you are running version 1703, check for updates. If you installed earlier updates, only the new fixes will get downloaded.
This is a non-security update and includes quality improvements and no new features are being introduced. Checkout to know the improvements and fixes part of this update.
Microsoft officially announced that, the next major feature update (code named: 'Redstone 3') will be targeted for release in the month of September 2017. They have also announced that the company will release two major feature upgrades of Windows 10 every year.
To know more about the release plan of the next major feature upgrades of Windows 10, continue reading the post.
Windows 10 Creators Update can allow you to configure the system to automatically free up space by getting rid of files that you don't need. These are the files that resides in the temporary folder and in your recycle bin.
In this blog post, we are going to see how to configure your system to automatically free up those files. Continue reading more to learn it.
Corporates some time needs to disable/hide few settings pages to block the users from changing the system settings. Windows 10 Creators Update provides the system admins to show/hide specific settings pages by tuning them in the Windows Group Policy Settings.
In this post, we will learn how to control the visibility of the pages. Before proceeding, make sure that you are an admin user.
Along with the announcement of 'Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16176', Microsoft officially announced that only a set of few Windows 10 Mobile devices will get the Creators Update and future insiders build.
If you are already in latest insider preview build on old devices, you won't get the feature update but will receive cumulative updates.
The light we generally see is a combination of different colors and among which the blue light has the maximum energy that can put more strain to eyes while working on a computer for long during the night. With the 'Windows 10 Creators Update', you can now control it.
In this blog post, we are going to see how we can configure it to lower the emission of blue light and ask Windows to show warmer colors to make it easier to sleep at night.
Windows Insiders in the fast ring on PC gets their first Windows 10 Preview build 16170 from the Redstone 3 branch. Dona Sarkar, in her blog post, announced the availability of build 16170 for the Windows Insiders.
Though there are no new major changes in this build, but has some one core related changes and refactoring done for restructuring for the next branch work.
Microsoft opened up the door of Windows Store for the developers who are willing to target their UWP (Universal Windows Platform) apps for Windows 10 Creators Update. They have now officially released the RTM version of the SDK Tools.
In order to use the latest UWP APIs of the SDK, you must upgrade your system to Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703) and use Visual Studio 2017 (version 15.1).
You would like to build an application/addin that reads outlook mail and notify the user or would like to do some other operations based on your business need. For this, you will need to use the Microsoft Outlook APIs.
Today we are going to see, how this can be done using the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.dll to read the email from Outlook context and extract the data.
While working with Microsoft Office Interoperability, you may face the following exception that states: "COMException (0x80080005): Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID failed due to the following error: 80080005".
This issue happens when Outlook is already running and you are trying to access it's mailbox from Visual Studio environment. Let's discuss more about the issue.
Microsoft today officially announced that Windows 10 Creators Update will start rolling out on 11th April 2017. As we already know, it will come as a 'Free Upgrade' to all the customers who are currently running Windows 10 on their system.
The new upgrade will come with lots of new features and enhancements. If you are a Windows Insider, you might have already experienced the same.
Windows 10 Creators Update allows you to set custom colors to its background as well as its accent color. You can now modify it based on your mood, instead of just depending on the default color sets that comes with Windows 10.
In this post, we will discuss how to access the custom colors and assign them to Windows background and accent color.
Microsoft has released a new insiders preview build for fast ring PC and mobile users, after releasing couple of PC builds last week. If you are a Windows Insider in the fast ring, check for updates.
Build 15063 contains no new features other than improvements and fixes. Check the release notes and known issues before installing it.
As the big giant is planning to wave out the Windows 10 Creators Update in April 2017, most of the people are excited to get the updates as soon as it is available. But there are some people or corporates who does not want to install the update immediately.
This post details about how to delay installing the Creators Update at the beginning and temporarily push it to future for couple of months.
Microsoft is preparing for the next big update for Windows 10, that's the Creators Update from the Redstone 2 branch. If you are running Windows 10, you might have already started receiving the promotional message on your Windows Update page.
This message appears on the Windows Update page for the users who are running the latest version of the Windows 10 anniversary update.
There could be various reasons when you would like to amend your last commit. One of them is improper commit message and/or wrong committer information. In any of the case, you may like to change the previous commit.
In this small post, we will learn how to amend your last Git commit message as well as the committer information (username and email). Continue reading to know more.
Microsoft has recently released Visual Studio 2017 and you might be already started working in it. If you are using NuGet Package Manager Console, you may face an issue which prevents you to press the keyboard 'Enter' key.
If you faced this issue, which has been already logged, here is a workaround to resolve it for the time being while Microsoft is working on the fixes.
Microsoft has started a new program to provide early access to the Visual Studio Preview to try out the latest features, bug fixes incorporated to Visual Studio 2017 and help to shape the future by making the IDE even better.
Visual Studio Preview has the most recent code pushed with new features, bug fixes and can run side-by-side with stable version of the IDE. Read more to know about it and get the preview installer.
Going one more step towards the Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft released one more build for Windows Insiders in the fast ring. This build consists no new features other than the bug fixes. The build 15055 is available for both PC and Mobile devices.
A lot of issues have been fixed in this flight, also has few known issues. Before installing it, you should read them carefully.
Along with Visual Studio 2017, Microsoft also released the .NET Core Tools 1.0, which are supported on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems to build cross-platform applications. Though it is part of the Visual Studio 2017 installer, but you can also download them separately.
In this post, sharing the links to download the .NET Core SDK and .NET Core Runtime for different environment for easy access.
Microsoft released the final version of Visual Studio 2017 on 7th March 2017, which brought a set of new features and enhancements for the developers to build apps for any platform in any language. It comes in web installer only. No ISO/DVD images are available.
In case you need an offline installer, you can easily create that and customize it as per your need. Follow the steps mentioned below to create the installer.
Microsoft released the final version of Visual Studio 2017 and is currently available for download. This release brings a new lightweight and modular installation experience, that you will really love. This also brings a lot of new features to accelerate your development productivity.
Find the links below to download the latest version of the Visual Studio 2017, an IDE which every developer must need.
Recently we learnt how to read Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel document contents (text only) using the interop APIs exposed by Microsoft. Now, what about reading the text content from PowerPoint slides? This can be achievable using another interop assembly file.
Today we will discuss how to extract the texts available in PPT files using 'Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint.dll'. Code has been shared for your easy reference.
Along with Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 15042 for PC, Microsoft also released a new build for Windows Mobile. They numbered it as: 15043. If you are in the fast ring, check for updates. Though there are no major changes in this build, but has a set of fixes to the issues reported earlier.
Checkout to read what has been fixed in this build. This build also contains few known issues. Read them before installing this build.
A new insiders preview build has been aired by Microsoft. If you are running 64-bit version of Windows 10 in fast ring, check for Windows Update to get the new build 15042. Dona Sarkar in her blog post mentioned that, 32-bit version of Windows won't get this update due to a major bug.
As Microsoft is heading towards the final release, the build contains a bunch of changes, improvements and fixes. Read the known issues for PCs before installing this build.
There could be some situation when you tagged your code in local Git repository and pushed it to remote and later you decided to delete the tag. This is simple to delete the tag reference from local, but how to perform the same in remote?
Today we are going to see the bash command(s) by which you will be able to remove the tag information from Git. Let's see, how!
Recently, we learned how to read text contents of Microsoft Word document from a .NET application using the APIs exposed in 'Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.dll'. There may be a business requirement to read contents of Excel sheets too.
Today we are going to learn how to read Microsoft Excel documents. The complete source code has been shared for your easy reference.
Visual Studio 2017 is going to be release on 7th March 2017. Twenty years ago, on 28th January 1997, the first version of Visual Studio was launched. Over the years, it grew rapidly and became a first choice for the developers.
Microsoft in a blog post announced the release date, along with the 'Launch Event' (starting 8:00 AM PST on 7th March) to share the latest innovations from Visual Studio, .NET, Xamarin and Azure.
Microsoft announced the availability of Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 15031 for PCs. If you are a Windows Insiders in the fast ring, check for Windows Update to get the notification. It's one steps towards the release of Windows 10 Creators Update and contains few new features, bug fixes.
Before downloading the build, don't forget to check the fixes and most importantly the known issues currently available in this build.
There could be some possible business needs for your .NET application to read the text contents from a Microsoft Word document. This can be simply done using the APIs exposed in the dll named 'Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.dll'.
Let's have a quick look on how to do it using C#/.NET. Also find the complete source code shared here for your easy reference.
Microsoft released Windows 10 Insiders Preview Build 15019 for PCs. If you are an insider in the fast ring, check for updates to see the new update notification. It is a successor to build 15014, released last week. The new build focuses more on ‘Gaming Features’ which is going to come in Creators Update.
Checkout the new/enhanced features along with the known issues before installing this build. If you are not comfortable to install, give it a pause.
There are several instances when we need to make a comma separated text values from an excel column. There are different but pretty lengthy process that you can find, which will eat a no. of your valuable time to process the same.
So, what to do? Today we are going to learn a quick and easiest way to copy a column of data to a comma separated list. Continue reading to know more.
System Security is always a concern of PC users. Windows 10 provides you in-built protection from viruses and malware threats. In general, if you are using latest Windows 10 updates, you don't need to spend on another antivirus program for normal home usages.
Along with Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft is going one more step ahead to secure your PC further with a comprehensive dashboard 'Windows Defender Security Center'.
Microsoft announced a new preview build 15014 for fast ring Windows Insiders. This build has a ton of fixes and few enhancements for both PCs and Mobile devices. In a blog post today, Dona Sarkar, also announced the delay in releasing the 'My People' experience in Creators Update.
In this post, know about the key features/improvements that's part of this build. Also, checkout the other improvements and fixes, known issues etc. before installing it.
The Windows 10 Creators Update is going to bring a new feature to control the 'Blue Light' emission from your screen. This is going to help the people who use computers for a long time, especially during the night time.
In this post, we are going to learn how to change the Windows 10 settings to control the blue light of your screen in order to reduce the strain on your eyes.
Along with Windows 10 Insiders Preview build 15002, Microsoft added a new feature for Windows 10 Creators Update, that will allow you to group your start screen tiles to a folder. Tile folders are a way for you to organize and personal your tiles in Start.
In this post we will see how to group the tiles to a folder and access them. Continue reading my other posts on Windows 10 Creators Update to see what’s coming next.
It happened some time when a forced device driver update caused serious problems to Windows installation. This may happen when your device doesn’t support the driver updates that has been pushed and thus no simple way to block them.
With the Windows 10 creators update, Microsoft will allow you to include/exclude the driver updates during Windows update. Continue reading to know more.
As we are going towards the release date of Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft started pushing more builds with no. of new features and enhancements. Earlier this week, they released build 15002 for PC; accompanied by build 15007 for PC and Mobile.
Though the said two builds were released for fast ring insiders, instead of pushing it to slow ring Microsoft now published the ISO image for build 15002.
Just after 3 days of announcement of Windows 10 Insiders Preview Build 15002 for PCs, Microsoft announced one more build for fast ring users. The new build is numbered as 15007 and targeted for both PCs and Mobile devices. The new build has no. of new features/enhancements.
Before downloading the new build, check out the features list as well as the known issues currently available in this build. Continue reading to know further.
You may already know that, Microsoft has aired the Windows 10 Insiders Preview Build 15002 for PC. If you are a Windows Insider in the fast ring, you may have already received the first update of year 2017. This build has a number of new features and improvements.
Among all these, Microsoft had added option to temporarily pause Windows 10 update. In this blog post, we are going to discuss on this topic and the way to pause/resume it.
Recently in a blog post, we discussed, how to detect whether an assembly is digitally signed using the C# programming language and System.Management.Automation.dll from Microsoft. That was one way to get the status of the digital signing.
Today we will learn another method to detect the same without using any additional dll references in our project. I hope that, it will much more interesting to learn.
Dona Sarkar, the chief of Windows Insiders, in a blog post announced the availability of Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 15002 for PC with a bunch of new features and enhancements. It's a step towards releasing the 'Windows 10 Creative Update' in the month of April.
If you are a Windows Insider in the fast ring PC build, checkout this big update to experience it before the final public release. Make sure to checkout the bugs list before installing.
Digital signatures are the public-key primitives of message authentication. In common words, hand written signatures are defined to put authenticity of a file. In digital word, it’s the digital signature binds a person/entity to the digital data.
In this blog post, we will learn how to detect whether an assembly (.dll or .exe) is digitally signed. We will use .NET/C# to identify the same. Continue reading to know more on this topic.
