Microsoft Windows 7 is still seeing around a 23% install base, and upgrades from the now unsupported OS to Windows 10 have slowed down significantly. Amy Hood, CFO for Microsoft, has indicated that China’s health situation and a chip shortage could be contributing factors.

I think, in general, these cycles tend to look similar. But what I would say is this one is certainly more complicated by a number of things that I’ll talk about in a second. What is different about this is there still remains quite a bit of opportunity more than we saw at this point in the prior cycle. A lot of that exists where you would expect it to exist, which is small and medium business segment. Not unusual, but it means that we do have some room to continue to grow and likely means that the curve will look different than last time in terms of its shape.

Now, then you add to it two complicating factors, one of which you brought up, which have been chip supply, which has impacted some of the growth rates over the past bit. And then, the second one which is the supply chain currently in China in terms of bindings and productions. And so those will — and as we’ve talked about, will impact the quarterly results. And so I’m not sure it’ll look like the exact same curve in terms of the prior cycle, not just because we have a little bit more left to go than we have had in prior cycles, but also because it’s been a bit more volatile due to those two issues as we work through them.

Microsoft has announced a new Microsoft 365 feature – Universal Print. This allows your printers to be added to Microsoft 365 cloud, removing the need for on-premise print servers. As this is a new service, it’s going to be missing some key features that on-premise servers would have vs. this model.

Universal Print moves key Windows Server print functionality to the Microsoft 365 cloud, so organizations no longer need on-premises print servers and do not need to install printer drivers on devices. In addition, Universal Print adds key functionality like security groups for printer access, location-based printer discovery, and a rich administrator experience.

For those Insiders in the Fast Ring, build 18965 has been released. An updated feature that allows you to have your apps restart when you reboot your PC. Now, it’s easy to get back to work where you left off by having Windows auto-start your applications you were working on.

Be sure to check out the known issues for anything that may stop you or if you come up with one of these issues know that it’s already known and being addressed:

Known issues

• Insiders may notice a new “Cloud download” option in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) under “Reset this PC.” This feature is not working quite yet. We’ll let you know once it is, so you can try it out!

• There has been an issue with older versions of anti-cheat software used with games where after updating to the latest 19H1 Insider Preview builds may cause PCs to experience crashes. We are working with partners on getting their software updated with a fix, and most games have released patches to prevent PCs from experiencing this issue. To minimize the chance of running into this issue, please make sure you are running the latest version of your games before attempting to update the operating system. We are also working with anti-cheat and game developers to resolve similar issues that may arise with the 20H1 Insider Preview builds and will work to minimize the likelihood of these issues in the future.

• Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly. We are investigating the issue.

• We’re working on a fix for an issue resulting in the minimize, maximize, and close title bar buttons not working for certain apps. If you’re using an impacted app, Alt+F4 should work as expected to close the app if needed.

• Some WSL distros will not load (Issue #4371).

• We’re investigating reports that DWM is using unexpectedly high system resources for some Insiders.

• There’s an issue impacting a small number of Insiders which started on the previous flight, involving a lsass.exe crash and resulting in a message saying, “Windows ran into a problem and needs to restart.” We’re working on a fix and appreciate your patience.

The Windows Insider team released a new fast ring build to the Insiders, 18963. This brings a few needed features and quite a bit of fixes. We finally get a GPU temperature reading in Task Manager. This has been a request in the Insider Feedback for a long time, and I’ve been bringing it up as much as possible. This is definitely something that was long needed for PC enthusiasts. The search function has gotten some improvements, as well, which makes me happy as sometimes my search results are very awkward and off topic.

• Insiders may notice a new “Cloud download” option in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) under “Reset this PC”. This feature is not working quite yet. We’ll let you know once it is, so you can try it out!

The Insiders Team released a new build – 18956 – to the fast ring today. A new Network and Internet status page in settings. I really like this new view, giving me more information at a glance. Check your Windows Updates to grab this latest build!

A redesigned Network Status page in Settings  

Based on your feedback, we’re revamping the Network & Internet landing page in Settings to provide more information at a glance about your device’s connectivity, combining several pages to give you one clear view of how you are connected to the internet.

• New view of active connections: We now show all available connection interfaces on the Status page, so you can quickly see what is connected and view and change properties as needed. If you have multiple connections, only one will be used for internet connectivity at a time, and that one is still shown in the Status diagram at the top of the page.

Microsoft Insiders Team has released a new build of Windows 10 to the fast ring, bringing us to 18950 (20H1). Not a lot of feature updates, with the Japanese IME and Snip & Sketch improvements being the biggest. Grab it if you need it, and take a look at the known issues in case there is something that might affect you before you update.

Microsoft has announced the retirement of Skype for Business for July 31, 2021. This impacts Skype for Business Online only, not Skype for Business Server or Skype for consumers. The replacement will be Microsoft Teams, which is touted as an upgrade from Skype. Using Microsoft Teams at work, I feel that the replacement is a wise choice. Between now and the retirement date, Skype for Business will continue to operate as usual, with no disruptions in service.

Why are we making this announcement now?

In 2017 we launched Microsoft Teams as “the hub for teamwork” in Microsoft 365. Teams combines chat, video, calling, and document collaboration into a single, integrated app – and enables an entirely new way of working. Over the last two years, we’ve worked closely with customers to refine Teams, and we now feel we’re at the point that we can confidently recommend it as an upgrade to all Skype for Business Online customers. Customers who have already made the move tell us that Teams not only has helped them improve collaboration generally, it has also provided a rare opportunity to rethink the way work gets done in their organizations. Using Teams, companies across the world are becoming more agile, shortening cycle times, improving the efficiency of key workflows, and cutting out unnecessary overhead. Teams isn’t just an upgrade for Skype for Business Online, it’s a powerful tool that opens the door to an entirely new way of doing business. But don’t take our word for it! Learn more about the potential benefits of Teams for your organization with the recently published Forrester white paper “The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Teams.”

A new build has been released to Fast Ring Insiders for Windows 10. This time, it’s build 18945. If you got the accidentally released build 18947 build earlier this week, it’s best to rollback to the previous build and then install this one. What’s new in this build? A new Cortana experience, Windows Subsystem for Linux improvements, updated file explorer search, and more.

Be sure to check out the known issues in case there is a show stopper for you.

Known Issues

• There has been an issue with older versions of anti-cheat software used with games where after updating to the latest 19H1 Insider Preview builds may cause PCs to experience crashes. We are working with partners on getting their software updated with a fix, and most games have released patches to prevent PCs from experiencing this issue. To minimize the chance of running into this issue, please make sure you are running the latest version of your games before attempting to update the operating system. We are also working with anti-cheat and game developers to resolve similar issues that may arise with the 20H1 Insider Preview builds and will work to minimize the likelihood of these issues in the future.
• Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly. We are investigating the issue.
• Tamper Protection may be turned off in Windows Security after updating to this build. You can turn it back on. In August, Tamper Protection will return to being on by default for all Insiders.
• Occasionally, the candidate selection in prediction candidate window for the Japanese IME doesn’t match with the composition string. We are investigating the issue.
• Insiders may notice some changes in Magnifier with today’s build. These aren’t quite ready yet for you to try, but we’ll let you know once they are in an upcoming flight.

For those in the fast ring on Windows 10 Insiders program, build 18936 has just been released. The Your Phone app has been made more available to other Surface devices. A new Quick Event Create from the taskbar (Open calendar, add an event or reminder straight from the flyout!). And, finally, a way to go passwordless with Windows Hello, Fingerprint, or PIN with a Microsoft account. Several fixes and a few known issues.

Do you ever open the clock and calendar flyout to help organize your thoughts while making plans? We’ve been working on making it easier to create new events and reminders, and are happy to announce that as of today, all Insiders in the Fast ring should see this when you click on the date in the taskbar:

Microsoft’s patch Tuesday had a lot of fixes this week, a couple patches for zero day updates, and more – a total of 78 CVE’s and two advisories. The biggest zero day is CVE-2019-1132, with a good write up from ESET here, which can lead to a local privilege escalation within Windows.

Before you patch, either with Windows Update or manually, be sure to grab KB4509096, which is a servicing stack update that according to Microsoft “Addresses an issue with a Secure Boot feature update that may cause BitLocker to go into recovery mode because of a race condition.”. This is recommended to be installed before the cumulative updates that Microsoft has released as part of Patch Tuesday’s group of updates.

A good overview of the patches released this round of updates is available at Zero Day Initiative.