Tag: Windows 10

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News Tech

Millions of Windows 10 Users are at Risk

The Black Hat security conference is coming to an end in Las Vegas, and the DEF CON hacker convention is about to begin. Critical warnings for Windows users emerged quickly, and this new problem puts at risk “all modern versions of Microsoft Windows”, which can compromise millions of Windows 10 systems.

What was found

The research concluded by finding a common design flaw within the hardware drivers from multiple sources, including Huawei, Intel, NVIDIA, Realtek Semiconductor, SuperMicro and Toshiba, including every major BIOS vendor.

Eclypsium’s research team were looking at how insecure drivers can be abused to attack a system and take advantage of it. “Drivers that provide access to system BIOS or system components for the purposes of updating firmware, running diagnostics, or customizing options on the component,” the researchers say “can allow attackers to turn the very tools used to manage a system into powerful threats that can escalate privileges and persist invisibly on the host.”

The Windows kernel at the very heart of the operating system is at risk.

Trusted drivers

Unfortunately, the problematic drivers weren’t “rogue” drivers, but official ones, all from verified vendors, signed by designated certificate authorities and certified by Microsoft.

The flawed drivers not only provide the leverage to make significant changes but also the privileges to do so.

Problem status

Mickey Shkatov, principal researcher at Eclypsium stated that some vendors like Intel and Huawei have already issued updates. Unfortunately, there is no universal mechanism to keep a Windows machine from loading one of these unknown corrupted drivers

Microsoft recommends the use of the Windows Defender Application Control to block known vulnerable software and drivers and also the usage of the Edge browser for the best protection.

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Games News Tech

How to Speed Up Windows PC for Gaming

Are you an avid gamer? Do you want to improve your gaming experience on PC? Follow through this tutorial.

To enjoy optimum gaming experience today, you need a powerful PC, with standard system specifications. However, irrespective of how standard your PC is, consoles are generally better.

Nevertheless, you can give your PC a facelift to obtain an almost similar experience (to consoles), particularly in the area of improved FPS rate and near-perfect graphical display.

Want to know more? Go to the next section.

How to Speed PC for Gaming

Basically, when we talk of PC gaming, graphics cards (GPU) are practically the most essential components. And irrespective of the sophistication of the tweaks/tricks applied. there is an attainable limit, depending on the build (specs) of your PC.

In any case, below are some of the tricks you can try to speed up your PC:

  1. Update Graphics Drivers

This is highly essential, as your graphics cards determine the frame-per-second (FPS) rate of your PC. And with updated graphics drivers, you get a significant FPS boost.

Graphics drivers can easily be updated from the manufacturer’s website. However, for some reasons, many computer users do not even know which graphics card(s) is on their respective PCs. To check, simply go to: Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Device Manager > Display adapters. The graphics cards would be displayed underneath.

Update NVIDIA drivers here, and AMD/ATI Radeon here.

  1. Disable Windows Superfetch and Prefetcher

These two features are primarily designed to improve performance on PCs. However, they tend to slow down the loading speed (and increase loading time) of high-end games and other apps. Hence, if you are a regular PC gamer, this features are better disabled.

Disable Superfetch:

  • Click on Start (Windows icon).
  • In the “Start” menu, select Control Panel.
  • Go to System and Security.
  • Select Administrative Tools
  • Click on Services.
  • Find and double click on Superfetch.
  • Select Disabled.
  • Click OK to apply changes.
  • Exit program.

Disable Prefetcher:

  • Open Registry Editor: click on “Windows + R” keys; type in “regedit” in the pop up dialog box and click “Enter”.
  • Go to the following registry entry:
  • ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementPrefetchParameters’.
  • Locate and double click on the ‘EnablePreFetcher’ entry.
  • Set its value to ‘0’ to disable it.

  1. Defragment HDD

You can run this procedure using the “Disk Defragmenter” tool: Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. And follow the prompt commands to finish the process. This will significantly improve the loading rate of your games.

For better performance, however, you can upgrade to a Solid State Drive (SSD), which reduces the loading time of games. And to further improve performance, you can “trim” the SSD.

Other Methods

  • Free up storage space.
  • Reduce background processes/running apps.
  • Supercharge graphics cards.
  • Allocate more RAM to favorite games.
  • And more.
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News Tech

Microsoft Has An Interesting Vision About The Future Windows 10 Versions

Microsoft shared its vision of a modern OS during a press conference which showcased a new set of Windows 10 versions for PCs. The Redmond-based tech giant believes that the computers of the future, which will use advanced silicon chips, will also need a modern OS system that should be able to offer the intense experience of contemporary operating systems and a selection of features that would help it to stand out. Below you can find the features which should be possessed by a modern OS, according to the company.

Microsoft Has An Interesting Vision About The Future Windows 10 Versions

Seamless Windows 10 updates

The first feature seems to be inspired by the negative feedback offered by Windows 10 users. Many complain about the update mechanic used by the OS, and Microsoft seems to believe that updates made in the background seem to be the perfect solution. They would deliver the best experience possible without annoying the end user by imposing a mandatory downtime until the update is installed.

Higher security levels

The new Windows 10 OS versions would be secure by default since the state will be separated from the OS, and the computation part will not be linked to the applications. Such a feature appears to require cloud power, and some users may not enjoy the idea of limiting their privacy for the sake of security.

Always online

In the future users will remain connected at all times with the help of powerful 5G and Wi-Fi networks. The devices owned by the user will be linked together to increase usability and comfort.

Superior performance

The experience of using a device should be seamless from the moment you pick it up, and maximum performance should be continuously offered.

The power of the cloud

The power of the cloud could be used to improve the user experience and make the device more useful. A built-in AI will anticipate the needs of the users and aim to deliver what he or she needs. These features appear to be quite significant, and Microsoft is already working on a future incarnation of Windows. It remains to be seen of some them will make an appearance in future Windows 10 versions.

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Markets News Tech

How to Increase Computer Speed on Windows 10 Computers

Are you wondering how to increase computer speed on Windows 10? Don’t worry! we have prepared this post just for you!

Windows 10, as the most advanced version of Windows, is significantly faster than Windows 8.1/8/7 and older. The interesting thing is; you can still tweak your Windows 10 PC to make it run even faster. And we’ll be showing you how to do this in this tutorial.

Tips to Increase Computer Speed Windows 10

Update OS and Drivers

For optimum performance, ensure your OS and software/hardware drivers are up-to-date. While some computer are auto-updated (when new updates are released), you can check for available updates once in a while.

Limit Startup Programs

If you have many programs that run on startup, you are bound to encounter system lag. Hence, allow only relevant programs to start up with your PC. This would reduce the resource usage of your PC, which consequently speeds it up.

Scan for Malwares

This is very vital towards improving system performance. If your system is somehow infected with malwares (viruses), you are bound to encounter reduced system function/performance.

To improve performance, in this case, you’d have to scan for malwares and clear them off. You can employ any standard antivirus program (like AVG) for this.

Free Up Disk Space

This is especially important if a system is congested or cluttered, in which case, you’d definitely experience system lag or reduced performance.

To resolve this, check your disk space/storage under System > Storage, and see if it’s low. If it is, free up space by clearing out Recycle Bin and other apps/files you don’t need.

Adjust Appearance in Performance Options

There is an option on Windows 10, which adjusts appearance (in Visual Effects) to improve system performance.

To enable this option:

  • Go to the Start menu;
  • Type in “performance” in the box; and press Enter;
  • Select Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows;
  • Go to the Visual Effects tab and select Adjust for best performance; and
  • Follow the prompt commands to finish up the process.

Run System Restore

This process would reverse recent changes made to your PC. By running system restore, recent apps, updates and drivers among others would be removed. However, your personal files would not be touched.

Other Tips

  • Moderate/adjust RAM usage
  • Open only few apps you need at a time.
  • Adjust power settings (to high performance)
  • Restart computer regularly
  • And more.

Hope you were able to improve your computer speed on Windows 10? Drop us a comment to let us know.

Categories
News Tech

Windows 10 Is Now Showing Your Phone Notifications Via ‘My Phone’ App

Coming after Microsoft’s announcement last month that the phone mirroring service has been made available to Windows Insiders users, the company is now developing the component to include Android notifications and cover more phones.

My Phone app beta versions have been accessible in limited structure ever since last August, and it was developed and expanded to Windows Insider users at the beginning of the month of March, however, only for owners of Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones.

Microsoft has now added phone screen support for some other models such as OnePlus 6, OnePlus 6T, Samsung Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, S10+, Samsung Galaxy Note 8, and Note 9. Other additional devices will be added to the agenda of supported devices over time, so it writes.

Windows 10 Is Now Showing Your Phone Notifications Via ‘My Phone’ App

The introduction of phone notifications to the My Phone application is, however, bigger news. Users of the memorable Pushbullet, which is one of our recommendation of the top five Chrome extensions you should be using, will be familiar with this characteristic. This feature shows your device’s notifications in Windows 10.

Microsoft claims that users will be enabled to see incoming phone notifications in real-time, to view all notifications in one corner, to customize which notifications they want to keep receiving, and to delete the notifications one by one or all at once.

The feature is slowly making its way to Insiders on 19H1 builds. If you want to give the My Phone notifications a shot, you will need an Android device with at least 1GB of RAM, and which is running a Nougat Android or later ones. It also asks for at least Windows 10 1803 (RS4).

This feature is one more illustration of the PC and smartphone becoming more deeply integrated. With a myriad of similar applications already accessible, and also the very convenient Android Messages for Web, of course, there are not so many reasons now to keep checking our phones when using a computer these days.

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