Your Free Windows 10 Upgrade is Here

So are you ready yet to upgrade. Personally I can’t wait but I will be cautious about upgrading my work PC. Of course that’s a company decision. But I will be upgrading the laptops at home. Just have to pry them out of the hands of the owners first.

Of course I will promise them that I won’t break it with the upgrade. Please Microsoft don’t let me down I will never hear the end of it.  At least there is a rollback option but a time limit of 30 days. Why a time limit at all. Guess Microsoft doesn’t want you to go back and I’m pretty sure that I will stick with Windows 10. The preview has been very interesting and much more like the windows that people are used to but with a lot more added bells and whistles.

Should be fun trying to convince the family. But you never know they may want to upgrade anyway. Hopefully.

Here are a few links from the BBC about what they think of Windows 10 and an interview with Satya Nadella.

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Thanks for open sourcing .NET say Point of Sale villains

VXers say Microsoft’s good intentions let them brew truly evil malware

Trend Micro researcher Jay Yaneza says Point of Sale malware has begun using Microsoft .NET, following its release as open source last year.

Yaneza found the new so-called GamaPoS malware being distributed to US organisations including credit unions, developers, and pet care businesses through the resurgent Andromeda botnet. He says the use of .NET as a platform to build point of sales malware is unique and likely to be adopted by the criminal underground.

“GamaPoS holds the distinction of being a .NET scraper — something unseen in prior PoS threats,” Yaneza says .

“We can attribute this development to the fact that it is easier to create malware in the .NET platform and, now that Microsoft made it available as an open-source platform, more developers are expected to use it for their applications.

“This makes .NET a viable platform to use for attacks.”

Yaneza says GamaPoS uses Andromeda’s back doors to spread in a shotgun fashion further infecting about four percent of the botnet’s existing victims.

The malware combines two malicious features including PsExec, which hackers used to help pop retailer Target last year, and the Mimikatz hack tool that is considered one of the best vacuumers of Windows credentials.

That combination grants attackers a high degree of capability to move laterally inside breached networks.

Andromedia infections.

Victims are targeted using phishing scams that masquerade as would-be guidance on Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) or as information on installing Oracle’s MICROS, a popular payment operating system which it can also compromise.

GamaPoS will siphon Visa and Discover cards to its command and control servers over HTTPS.

The attack campaign organisers are thought to be also spreading the NitLovePoS payment operating system malware found in May.

“Using an old botnet as a shotgun method to cast a wide net for targets has its merits,” Yaneza says.

“Using spam and exploit kits to establish a large mass of bots enables operators to steal information from specific targets, some of which can be resold to other threat actors.”

 

Source: Thanks for open sourcing .NET say Point of Sale villains • The Register

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What You Got Then and What You Get Now – It’s Not Like It Used To Be

Blu-Tack-new-and-old“It’s not like it used to be.” You hear it said quite often, especially by those old folk (like us). This used to describe such things as the food we eat, people’s manners and buses being on time. Well people’s taste buds change more often than they think, yes people are getting ruder and more ignorant. Especially when I’m driving and they just don’t get out of my way. Idiots.  How dare they? Oh and buses are actually still pretty much on time. Well it can’t all be bad.

Another thing people gripe about is the size of things. Such comments as: –

“I remember when Wagon Wheels (the chocolate biscuit) were as big as your head when I was a kid.”

Well they could have been, you were a lot smaller then and so was your head. I know with some people it’s hard to imagine their head being smaller than it is now. Perhaps that’s just my opinion.

Recently I was confronted with absolute proof that things aren’t as big as they used to be. Blu Tack. Yes that magical stuff is handy in all sorts of situations and I remember half of my bedroom being held together with the stuff when I was much much younger. For a long time now I’ve had my comic and art book collection in storage. It was well overdue for being sorted and to see just what kind of state they were in since I saw them last. Which was before I got married. Yes that was sometime ago.

While carefully digging through and reading the odd one of two. I was quite surprised to see that pretty much everything was still in good condition. Everything was still sealed in plastic bags. But between a couple of books was an old friend. A packet of Blu Tack and, only three-quarters used. What a find. Of course I had only just bought a pack a month or two before. Typical. But when I placed them side by side the difference was very clear.

I don’t know exactly how old the one on the right is, but the reference to Trim-phones places it in the early Eighties if not Seventies. Yes I’ve been holding onto that one for a while.

But the real measure of what you got then and what you get now can be found inside. Not only is the older one wider and taller but thicker as well. Yes OK I know talking about Blu Tack is more than a little strange, but in this case there’s a principal. It shows that companies have cut the size of things you used to remember of the products you used everyday. What a difference three decades makes.

If anybody else has anything like this, please let me know.

Blu-Tack-new-and-old-inside

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What’s the deal with Windows 10 for the Non-Technical Friend

The calls are starting to come in, as I, like you, Dear Reader, am the head of IT Support for my friends and family. You’d think my cell phone was an IT helpline, and my email is filled with Word documents with pasted in screenshots along with subject lines like “Is this safe?!?!?” and “What’s the deal with Windows 10?”.

Anyway, Window 10 is coming soon, and this little icon (the Windows icon) is stating to show up in folks’ taskbars. For the techies, it’s called GWX (Get Windows 10) and it’s there to prep your machine and possible download Windows 10 if you want to reserve a spot. It’s added by KB3035583.

image

If you click it, you’ll get this screen where you can add your email and when July comes around your system will start downloading Windows 10 automatically.

You may also see this in Windows Update if you run Windows Update manually as I do.

Windows 10 is coming soon

You get to decide when you want to install it, it’s not automatic.

Free Upgrade to Windows 10

The important part you and your non-technical friend should know and explore is the “Check your PC” section. Click the “hamburger” menu in the upper left corner, then click “Check your PC.” Here’s mine. Looks like I need to update or uninstall one program that isn’t yet compatible, but my devices (video, usb stuff, etc) are cool.

Windows 10 will work on this PC

There’s a great FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on Windows 10 here that you should check out.

Here’s my personal translation/take on the most important parts:

  • Windows 10 upgrades start July 29th and you can choose to upgrade for free until July 29, 2016 so no rush. If you want wait and see, you can.
  • The upgrade is free for that period (July 29th 2015 until 2016, a year later). Upgrading after July 29th, 2016 will cost something.
  • You can upgrade machines running 7 and 8.1.
  • You machine should have these specs, which are pretty low and reasonable. Most anyone with a running PC can upgrade.
  • Yes, Solitaire and Minesweeper and Hearts will be removed BUT you can download the new versions of Solitaire and Minesweeper free in the Windows Store. They are pretty nice versions.
  • You’ll move to either Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro, according to this table:
    What Windows 10 version will I get?
  • You apps will keep running. I’m running all sorts of apps, many quite old, on Windows 10 and I have had no issue. The Compatibility Wizard still exists, though, so you can “lie” to really old apps and tell them they are running on Windows 95, or whatever. Just right-click the App that isn’t working and click “Troubleshoot Compatibility,” or right-click, Properties, then Compatibility. I haven’t had to do this myself, yet, so consider this a rare thing.

So far it’s been pretty interesting and I think that if non-technical friend liked Windows 7 and tolerated Windows 8 that they will like Windows 10. I’ve been doing “Windows 10 Build to Build” upgrade videos over at my YouTube and I would love it if you’d subscribe to my YouTube as well.

It’s amazing that Windows 7 users and Windows 8 users will all be able to upgrade and come forward to a single version of Windows. As a developer (both web and apps) it’ll be nice to have people on an “evergreen” Windows where I can do things like Feature Detection and not think as much about versioning.

versioning.

Source: What’s the deal with Windows 10 for the Non-Technical Friend – Scott Hanselman

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