Windows 11 Cumulative update released with fixes, new features

Windows 11 Cumulative update released with fixes, new features

Microsoft has released a new update for Windows 11 23H2 called KB5041585. This update, part of August 2024’s Patch Tuesday, includes improvements like the ability to drag apps directly from the Start menu to the taskbar.

Since this update includes important security fixes, it’s required to install.

To get the update, go to Start > Settings > Windows Update and click ‘Check for Updates’. You can also download it manually from the Microsoft Update Catalog.

If you don’t check for updates manually, Windows will automatically download and install the update when your computer isn’t in use.

Microsoft is also alerting users that Windows 11 22H2 will stop receiving support on October 8, 2024. To keep getting security updates, you should upgrade to Windows 11 23H2 before that date.

If you don’t check for updates manually, Windows will automatically download and install the update when your computer isn’t in use.

Microsoft is also alerting users that Windows 11 22H2 will stop receiving support on October 8, 2024. To keep getting security updates, you should upgrade to Windows 11 23H2 before that date.

What's new in the Windows 11 KB5041585 update

Installing the KB5041585 update will change the build number for Windows 11 22H2 to 22621.4037 and for Windows 11 23H2 to 22631.4037.

The KB5041585 update includes several improvements, such as a new feature that lets you duplicate a tab in File Explorer by right-clicking it.

Here’s the full list of changes. Keep in mind that some of these improvements and fixes will be rolled out gradually:

[Lock screen]

This update fixes the security issue CVE-2024-38143. As a result, the “Use my Windows user account” checkbox is no longer available on the lock screen for connecting to Wi-Fi.

[File Explorer]

Here are the issues and changes addressed by the update:

  • Right-Click Tabs: You can now right-click a tab to choose to duplicate it.
  • Memory Leak: Interacting with archive folders may cause a memory leak.
  • File Explorer Not Responding: File Explorer may stop responding while browsing.
  • Search from Home: You might not get any results when searching from Home for the first time.
  • Address Bar Dropdown: The address bar dropdown menu might appear unexpectedly.
  • Save Dialog Error: Saving a file to Gallery through the Save dialog now saves it to the Pictures library instead due to an error.
  • Search Box Issue: The search box may not show the correct folder name when in Gallery.
  • Blank Area in File Explorer: A blank area might appear at the top of File Explorer.
  • Mouse Buttons: The back and forward mouse buttons may not work when hovering over the Recommended Files section of Home.
  • Image Flashing: Images might flash when viewed in the Gallery.

[FIX: BitLocker (known issue)]

To unlock your drive, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Device encryption. Windows might ask you to enter the recovery key from your Microsoft account.

[Desktop Icons]

The spacing between items might become very wide.

[Start Menu Pinned Apps]

You can now drag apps from the Pinned section of the Start menu and pin them directly to the taskbar.

[Taskbar & End Task]

When the taskbar has keyboard focus (using WIN + T), you can press a letter to jump to the app whose name starts with that letter. Pressing the letter multiple times will cycle through apps that start with the same letter. This only works if there are multiple pinned or open apps with names starting with that letter.

For an uncombined taskbar, pressing a letter will take you to the window whose name starts with that letter. Additionally, pressing Home and End will move the keyboard focus to the first and last items on the taskbar.

The End task option no longer shows a “not responding” dialog before stopping a task. This option can be enabled by going to Settings > System > For Developers and turning on End task.

[Notification for Windows Share in China]

For Nearby Sharing to work, both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth need to be turned on. If they’re off when you enable Nearby Sharing, Windows will prompt you to turn them on.

[Secure Boot Advanced Targeting (SBAT) and Linux Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI)]

[NetJoinLegacyAccountReuse]

This update removes this registry key.

Article Reference

You can find the full changelog for the KB5041585 update on Microsoft’s support website.

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Major Microsoft Outage! Azure and 365 Services Down

Major Microsoft Outage! Azure and 365 Services Down

Microsoft is investigating an ongoing global outage blocking access to some Microsoft 365 and Azure services.

According to DownDetector, which tracks IT Outages Globally, Minecraft, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Azure are among the affected services.

Microsoft confirmed that the outage has impacted the following services:

Impacted Services Not Impacted Services
Microsoft 365 admin center SharePoint Online
Intune OneDrive for Business
Entra Microsoft Teams
Power Platform services Exchange Online

Microsoft shared that the incident resulted from a buggy configuration change deployed by Azure backend workloads as Redmond explained:

“A backend cluster management workflow deployed a configuration change causing backend access to be blocked between a subset of Azure Storage clusters and compute resources in the Central US region,”

“This resulted in the compute resources automatically restarting when connectivity was lost to virtual disks.”

“Users who can access the impacted Microsoft 365 services may experience latency or degraded feature performance,” Microsoft explains on the service health status page.

“We’re analyzing traffic patterns within a section of a networking infrastructure to assist our investigations. Additionally, we’re reviewing mitigation options, including potential failovers, to provide relief.”

After acknowledging the outage Microsoft 365 Stated on social media:

“We’re currently investigating access issues and degraded performance with multiple Microsoft 365 services and features. More information can be found under MO842351 in the admin center,”

The last update at 18:13 UTC, a subset of customers may have experienced issues connecting to Microsoft services globally

“We are investigating reports of issues connecting to Microsoft services globally. Customers may experience timeouts connecting to Azure services,” Redmond says on the Azure status page.

“We have multiple engineering teams engaged to diagnose and resolve the issue. More details will be provided as soon as possible.”

Microsoft 365 customers experienced another severe outages in last week after a faulty CrowdStrike Falcon update also caused a widespread Windows outage, crashing systems with blue screen of death (BSOD) errors and impacting many organizations and services worldwide, including banks, airlines, airports, TV stations, and hospitals.

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Apple iOS 18.1 Beta: A New Era with Apple Intelligence

Apple iOS 18.1 Beta: A New Era with Apple Intelligence

Apple has released the iOS 18.1 Beta to developers, giving them early access to test the new AI-powered features of Apple Intelligence before they are made available in public previews.

Unveiled at Apple’s 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple Intelligence marks a significant step in the company’s AI strategy for future devices.

Apple Intelligence Features:

Following features includes Apple Intelligence shared in their website:

WRITING TOOLS

This new AI feature can proofread your text, offer different rewrites, and summarize it for you.

NEW SIRI

Siri will get additional features, including hundreds of new actions that can be taken on your behalf. Equipped with awareness of your personal context, the ability to act in and across apps, and product knowledge about your devices’ features and settings, Siri will be able to assist you like never before.

Reduce Interruptions

A new Focus feature that only displays notifications that are considered urgent, such as receiving a text about an emergency or other required, but not necessarily, planned activity.

Transcriptions

The ability to record, transcribe, and summarize audio.

NEW PHOTOS

Enhanced search for photos and videos and the ability to create a photo story based on an inputted description.

NEW MAIL

Apple Intelligence can also summarize emails for you and create AI-generated replies that even answer questions in an email.

Apple Intelligence Compatible Devices

Apple Intelligence is compatible with these devices coming in beta this fall while some features, additional languages will be coming over the next year:

iPhone 15 Pro Max A17 Pro
iPhone 15 Pro A17 Pro
iPad Pro M1 and Later
iPad Air M1 and Later
MacBook Air M1 and Later
MacBook Pro M1 and Later
iMac M1 and Later
Mac Mini M1 and Later
Mac Studio M1 Max and Later
Mac Pro M2 Ultra

ChatGPT Integrated

With ChatGPT now integrated with Siri and Writing Tools, you can get help right where you’re working, without switching apps. Siri can use ChatGPT to answer questions about your photos or documents, and Writing Tools’ Compose feature helps you create and illustrate content from scratch.

Discover an even more capable, integrated, personal Siri

  • Siri even more deeply integrated into the system experience with a glowing light that wraps around the edge of your screen.
  • With a double tap on the bottom of your iPhone or iPad screen, you can type to Siri from anywhere in the system when you don’t want to speak out loud.
  • Tap into Siri, you can ask questions when you’re learning how to do something new on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and Siri can give you step-by-step directions in a flash.
  • Siri communicating even more natural with better language understanding and voice. Siri knows what you’re talking about.
  • Apple Intelligence empowers Siri with onscreen awareness, so it can understand and take action with things on your screen.

To use the iOS 18.1 Beta and Apple Intelligence, you need an active paid developer account and must sign up for the AI feature in your iOS settings.

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OOPS, THEY DID IT AGAIN! 2010 & 2024 IT GLITCH HAVE CONNECTION

OOPS, THEY DID IT AGAIN! 2010 & 2024 IT GLITCH HAVE CONNECTION

Do you know that the McAfee PC Meltdown and the Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage have a Connection??

we will go back to 2010 - mcafee

McAfee released an antivirus update that mistakenly deleted a key Windows XP file, which caused the follwing issues: 

  • Endless Reboots
  • No Network Access 

What Exactly Happened that time?

  • A false positive marked a regular Windows file, “svchost. exe,” as a virus.
  • Systems showed Blue Screens and endless Shut Down.
  • The problem spread quickly through a network tool called “ePolicyOrchestrator.”

solution:

  • McAfee removed the Faulty update.
  • McAfee provided a new definition of the virus to fix it.

Now in 2024 - crowdstrike

As Reported – Crowdstrike update contained a bug which caused the sensor to conflict with the Windows OS.

This resulted in the infamous ‘Blue Screen of Death’.

Solution:

Interesting fact:

  • George Kurtz, now CEO of CrowdStrike, was McAfee’s CTO during this 2010 glitch.
  • The incident was so costly that Intel bought McAfee in 2011.

Tech issues happen, but it’s all about how we handle them. 

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Microsoft Releases the Recovery Tool

Microsoft Releases the Recovery Tool

I had posted earlier regarding the issue resolved so continueing the same, I am sharing the details how to fix the issue signed methods of Microsoft. We are providing and merging authentic details from Microsoft and Crowdstrike on one platform to help expedite the repair process. Microsoft has released an updated recovery tool with two major repair options.  Microsoft Recovery Tool can be found in Download centre.

We will share here the complete recovery steps for the Windows client, Servers, and OS’s hosted on Hyper-V. The two repair options are as follows:

  • Recover from WinPE – Using bootable media that will facilitate the device repair and to create bootable media can be used Recover from WinPE.
  • Recover from safe mode – Impacted devices can boot into safe mode. The user can then login using an account with local admin privileges and run the remediation steps.

Prerequisites to create the boot media

  1. A Windows 64-bit client with at least 8GB of free space from which the tool can be run to create the bootable USB drive.
  2. Administrative privileges on the Windows client from prerequisite #1.
  3. A USB drive with max of 32GB. USB will be wiped and will be formatted automatically to FAT32.

Generate the WinPE recovery media

Following steps on the 64-bit Windows to generate WinPE Recovery Media:

    1. Download the Microsoft Recovery Tool from the Microsoft Download Centre.
    2. Extract the PowerShell script.
    3. Run MsftRecoveryToolForCSv2.ps1 from an elevated PowerShell prompt.
    4. The ADK will download, and media creation will start. It may take several minutes to complete.
    5. Choose one of the two options mentioned above for recovering affected devices.
    6. Optionally select a directory that contains driver files to import into the recovery image.
    7. Select the option to either generate an ISO or USB drive and specify drive letter.

Method-I: Recovery from WinPE media

  1. Insert the USB media into an impacted device and reboot it.
  2. During restart, press F8/F12/Dell (or follow manufacturer-specific instructions for booting to BIOS).
  3. From the BIOS boot menu, select Boot from USB and continue.
  4. If BitLocker is enabled, the user will be prompted for the BitLocker recovery key including the dashes. The recovery key options are provided here. For third-party device encryption solutions, follow any steps provided by the vendor to gain access to the drive.
  5. The tool will run the issue-remediation scripts as recommended by CrowdStrike.
  6. Once complete, remove the USB drive and reboot the device normally.

Method-II: Safe Boot media

Follow the below steps if you have access to the Local Administrator Account and want to fix the impacted device without using the Bitlocker Recovery Key:

    1. Insert the USB key into an impacted device and reboot it.
    2. During restart, press F8/F12/Dell (or follow manufacturer-specific instructions for booting to BIOS).
    3. From the BIOS boot menu, select Boot from USB and continue.
    4. The following message appears: “This tool will configure this machine to boot in safe mode. WARNING: In some cases, you may need to enter a BitLocker recovery key after running.”
    5. Press any key to continue.
    6. The following message appears: “Your PC is configured to boot to Safe Mode now.”
    7. Press any key to continue.
    8. The machine reboots into safe mode.
    9. The user runs repair.cmd from the root of the media/USB drive. The script will run the remediation steps as recommended by CrowdStrike.
    10. The following message appears: “This tool will remove impacted files and restore normal boot configuration. WARNING: You may need BitLocker recovery key in some cases. WARNING: This script must be run in an elevated command prompt.”
    11. Press any key to continue.
    12. The user repair will run and the normal boot flow will be restored.
    13. Once successful, the user will see the following message: “Success. System will now reboot.”
    14. Press any key to continue. The device will reboot normally.

References from the Microsoft/Crowdstrike

CrowdStrike Falcon issue impacting Windows clients and servers, please check below different references from Microsoft Blogs and Crowdstrike Blog:

We’ll continue to provide information to the issues as needed. 

Crowdstrike Technical Glitch

Crowdstrike Technical Glitch

A wide IT outage that spanned thousands of companies and individuals took place on Friday after a software glitch at CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm whose services are used by many organizations.

This resulted in “Blue Screen Death” error in  several Microsoft Windows devices leading to system crashes across businesses such as airlines, banks, retailers, media companies and stock markets, to name a few

CrowdStrike has acknowledged the problem and is working on a solution. While some systems have reportedly recovered, the full extent of the damage and recovery timeline remains unknown.

What is CrowdStrike and caused Outage?

CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity technology company founded in 2011. The company offers solutions like cloud workload protection, endpoint security, threat intelligence and cyberattack response services.

The outage is primarily attributed to a malfunctioning update from CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor, a component of their endpoint security software, designed to protect devices from cyber threats.

According to reports, the latest update contained a bug that caused the sensor to conflict with the Windows operating system. This resulted in the infamous ‘blue screen of death’.

Cybersecurity experts have warned the ongoing outage highlights a “critical” weakness threatening the operations of many organizations across the globe.

Crowdstrike users are urged not to download and install any update from the software until the issue is resolved.

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