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When enterprises with heavy investments in Microsoft infrastructure consider moving to the cloud, their choice often boils down to a challenging and costly dilemma: sticking with Microsoft Azure or facing significant financial penalties when running Microsoft software on rival clouds like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This issue arises mainly due to Microsoft's cloud licensing practices introduced around 2019, which have created a complex and arguably...

AWS claims that Microsoft's licensing practices for Windows Server and other software create a competitive barrier, making it up to four times more expensive to run such workloads on AWS, Google Cloud, or Alibaba compared to Microsoft Azure. AWS estimates that about half of the workloads Microsoft enterprise customers run on Azure would migrate to other clouds if not for these prohibitive licensing costs and restrictions. This has led to complaints to regulators like the UK's Competition and...

Microsoft's Classic Outlook client has recently been causing significant headaches for users, with reports surfacing since late 2024 about mysterious spikes in CPU usage that degrade system performance markedly. The issue, now acknowledged by Microsoft, sees the application consuming between 30 to 50 percent of CPU resources during even light workloads such as typing emails. This has understandably stirred frustration, especially among enterprises where Outlook remains a critical tool for...

Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday on March 11, 2025, delivered a broad array of bug fixes across its Windows ecosystem, notably including a vulnerability that had been underestimated in its exploitation potential. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2025-24054, concerns a critical security gap within the Windows NTLM authentication process—a hash-leaking vulnerability that Microsoft initially rated as “less likely” to be exploited. However, the threat materialized swiftly, with attackers weaponizing this flaw...

As Microsoft prepares to end mainstream support for Windows 10 in October 2025, the millions of users still running this operating system face a crossroads. While the natural progression would be to upgrade to Windows 11, this transition is not straightforward for everyone. Many existing PCs lack the hardware specifications mandated by Microsoft for Windows 11, pushing users and organizations toward difficult choices. However, there is a lesser-known, cost-effective alternative that can...

Microsoft’s recent Windows 11 24H2 updates have continued the company’s mixed tradition of releasing patches that bring both essential security enhancements and frustrating new issues. The April 2025 cumulative update KB5055523 and the March preview update KB5053656 are currently causing significant stability problems on affected machines, most notably triggering blue screen crashes (BSODs) with the error code 0x18B, indicating a SECURE_KERNEL_ERROR. Despite the severity of these issues...

When undertaking a fresh or clean installation of Windows—such as when transitioning to the LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel) edition—users face the considerable task of reinstalling and configuring their essential applications and runtimes. This can be a time-consuming process involving manually downloading, installing, activating, and updating multiple software pieces, many of which are critical for daily productivity, communication, media consumption, and development. Enter Ninite, a...

The cloud computing market, particularly in the UK, is under intense scrutiny due to allegations that Microsoft's licensing practices are creating anti-competitive barriers that harm rivals such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud. AWS has notably claimed that around half of the workloads that Microsoft's enterprise customers currently run on Azure would migrate away if not for prohibitively high licensing costs on alternative clouds. This assertion comes amid a wider investigation...

Microsoft's April 2025 cumulative Windows update, notably identified as KB5055523 for Windows 11 24H2, has stirred significant discussion in the tech community due to an unexpected and somewhat mysterious change: the automatic creation of an empty folder named "inetpub" on the system drive (usually C:). This folder—which has long been associated exclusively with Internet Information Services (IIS), Microsoft's web server software—is now appearing by default, even on systems without IIS...

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday rollout on March 11, 2025, unleashed a diverse set of fixes addressing vulnerabilities across Windows platforms, illustrating yet again the complex and ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity threats confronting Windows users and administrators. Among the patches was CVE-2025-24054, a vulnerability centered on the NTLM authentication protocol, which, despite Microsoft's initial assessment as "less likely" to be exploited, rapidly became the target of active...

Microsoft's recent enforcement update on its C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code (VS Code) has stirred considerable unrest within the developer community, particularly among users of derivative products such as VS Codium and Cursor. This change, marked notably in the release of version 1.24.5 in April 2025, effectively restricts the extension's functionality—and by extension, the development workflow—in non-Microsoft VS Code variants, thereby illuminating significant tensions in software...

Windows 10 support ends in October 2025, and for users who are content with Windows 10 but cannot upgrade to Windows 11 due to hardware incompatibility, this presents a dilemma. Buying new hardware to run Windows 11 is expensive, while alternative solutions are not always well known. One major alternative is the use of Windows 10 Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) editions, designed for enterprise environments where stability and long-term maintenance are prioritized over frequent feature...

Microsoft has officially resolved a notable bug that caused Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) sessions to freeze on certain Windows systems, specifically affecting Windows 11 version 24H2 and Windows Server 2025. This issue, which emerged after Microsoft’s February 2025 patch updates, rendered Remote Desktop sessions unresponsive to mouse and keyboard input, forcing users into a frustrating cycle of disconnecting and reconnecting to restore functionality. The Origin and Impact of the Remote...

When dealing with a fresh installation of Windows, especially when adopting specialized editions like the Windows LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel), one often faces the laborious task of reinstalling and updating a multitude of applications essential for productivity and daily use. This daunting prospect is where Ninite shines as a remarkably efficient and user-friendly tool, automating both the installation and updating processes for a customized set of Windows applications. Simplifying...

Microsoft's recent Windows 11 April 2025 update has caused a stir not because of an exciting new feature, but due to the unexpected reappearance of an empty folder called "inetpub" on users’ system drives. This curious development has sparked confusion and concern in the Windows community, prompting investigations and discussions on forums and among IT professionals. The Background of the inetpub Folder Historically, "inetpub" is a folder closely linked to Microsoft’s Internet Information...

Microsoft's recent move to restrict the use of its C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code (VS Code) exclusively to its own software ecosystem marks a significant shift in the developer tooling landscape, provoking strong reactions from the community and raising critical issues around software freedom, competition, and ecosystem control. Impact on VS Code Forks like VSCodium and Cursor Since early April 2025, users of VS Code derivatives such as VSCodium—an open-source fork—and Cursor, an...

Microsoft’s recent update woes in 2025 have highlighted a particularly frustrating and widespread problem affecting Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) users on Windows Server 2025 and Windows 11 24H2. A security patch released in February 2025, specifically KB5051987, introduced a significant bug causing Remote Desktop sessions to freeze. After connecting, sessions become unresponsive to mouse and keyboard inputs, forcing users to disconnect and reconnect repeatedly just to regain control. This...

The recent introduction of the "inetpub" folder in Windows 11's April 2025 cumulative update has sparked considerable discussion within the Windows community, raising critical questions about system security and update strategies. While some users initially perceived the folder as an innocuous or even redundant artifact linked to IIS (Internet Information Services), deeper investigation reveals that it is a deliberate security feature designed to mitigate a subtle yet serious vulnerability...

The recent appearance of the "inetpub" folder on Windows 11 systems has raised eyebrows and stirred discussion within the Windows community, largely due to its mysterious nature and seemingly unverifiable purpose. Traditionally, "inetpub" is a folder associated exclusively with Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS), used for hosting websites and related resources on Windows servers. However, starting with the April 2025 cumulative update for Windows 11, every system—even those that...

Windows 11 continues its evolution with the release of Insider Preview Build 26200.5570, pushed to the Dev Channel. This update brings a mix of user-focused features, productivity enhancements, and accessibility improvements, alongside a raft of traditional bug fixes. Among the most notable changes is the addition of a profanity filter toggle for voice typing, signaling Microsoft’s ongoing push to balance user autonomy, practicality, and context-aware computing. Profanity Filter in Voice...