SoftMaker’s FreeOffice 2018 has received a major revision. Possibly borrowing from Microsoft, the July 2019 release is called the Anniversary update. A few years ago, Windows 10 got an ‘Anniversary’ update. Anniversary of what was never made clear and didn’t seem to matter. Some of the interesting features in FreeOffice Anniversary update are: TextMaker, PlanMaker […]
Microsoft has never been great about documenting patches and bug fixes but this month they have sunk to a new low. Maybe it’s a delayed April Fool’s prank with Microsoft ‘taking the Mickey‘ or treating Office customers with contempt? Sustained Engineering isn’t sustained Maintaining Office software is the thankless job of the Office Sustained Engineering […]
One of the first major Word viruses, the Melissa virus, is 20 years old. It’s amazing to see how much and how little has changed over two decades. Office viruses today follow much the same pattern as they did back in the 20th Century. Melissa was a Word macro virus which infected computers then spread […]
Thanks to everyone who tried out Microsoft Forms by filling out our example survey. Here are the results. Our form was mainly an example of what’s possible in Microsoft Forms as part of Microsoft Forms – a quick look and sample We took the opportunity to get a better idea of what Office software our […]
We’re delighted to announce something new at the Office Watch bookstore. Beating Bots, Spies & Cock-ups is all about safely and securely sending files and documents. Keeping your personal and business information private on the Internet. suits Windows and Mac, Office 365, Office 2019, Office 2016 and earlier We all send personal information over the Internet. […]
An embarrassingly simple security breach in Microsoft account logins (including Office 365) has been fixed but it took Microsoft way too long to do anything. It was possible for someone to take over the logins of Microsoft account users to get login details including passwords. There’s over 400 million Microsoft accounts including anyone with Office […]
The latest ebook from Office-Watch.com is a little different, it’s a heartfelt ‘Thank You’ to our Office Watch donors. Peter Deegan has been quite astonished and humbled by the generosity of readers to our first ever reader appeal. Both the money and kind remarks have been a considerable morale boost quite beyond the practical help […]
If you do enjoy the stuff we do here at Office Watch we’d really appreciate it if you’d chuck a few dollars at our first ever fundraising drive. We won’t bore you about how hard it is to stay afloat in the modern media (though it’s very true). The financial support of readers is the […]
Microsoft has re-released the October 2018 update to Windows 10 after (hopefully) fixing the bug which deleted some customers vital files. The October 2018 update problem was caused by changes to Known Folder Redirection or KFR which we’ll explain below. Windows 10 October 2018 update – take two The Windows 10 October 2018 update is […]
New Zealand is getting some unfair bad publicity after a change in their laws which allows Customs officials to ask for the passwords to access computers or devices brought into the country. Customs officials all over the world can usually search anything you bring in and that includes password protected Office documents, hard drives, USB […]
Microsoft’s Project Natick now has two live camera feeds showing fish around their underwater data centers. One of the big problems for server farms is heat. All those computers generate a lot of heat that must be dissipated somehow. Microsoft’s servers store your OneDrive files, Azure data, run Office cloud features and a lot more. […]
A North Carolina woman and her son are accused of sharing their discounted Microsoft Office access with her ex-husband, a clear breach of the Home Use Program. Source: WLOS, “your Western Carolina News Leader” We’ve been talking about the Home Use Program for many years. It’s a heavily discounted Microsoft Office available to employees of […]
Microsoft’s second quarter 2018 results came out with some pleasant surprises for the financial analysts. Both earnings per share and overall revenue beat market predictions. No wonder MSFT stock price went up 4 percent after the results went public. Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 10% mostly driven by Office 365 commercial revenue […]
A faulty Microsoft Windows security update not only didn’t fix the bug in VBScript, it opened another way for hackers to access a computer. Patching software is a complex thing, but this blunder is unforgivably bad and the delays make it even worse. It undermines confidence in Microsoft security testing and their willingness to fully […]
The Information is reporting that Facebook is considering moving from Office 365 to Google Apps for their 27,000 employees. The report from two sources would mean a “180” by Facebook which moved away from Google to Microsoft Office 365 only two years ago. Follow us on Facebook, it just takes a moment. At the time, […]
When you first go into Teams it’s a confusing jungle of terms and options. As usual, Microsoft assumes we’ve all been born knowing how their software is arranged. It’s not as difficult as it looks … once you get the structure or logic of Microsoft Teams. Wrap your head around Microsoft Teams with this article […]
Office 2016 for Windows or Mac has an inconsistent set of privacy and diagnostic data options depending on exactly which Office variant you have, your ‘Insider’ choice and even the toss of a coin! Microsoft’s intention is clear … they want more information about how you use Word, Excel and Powerpoint to the extent that […]
You’ve been getting a lot of special emails from companies about the data and emails they send you. That’s all because of GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation that comes into force on 25 May 2018. We’ll explain a little about GDPR below but first we’ll explain what will change at Office Watch. No change, […]
The Microsoft Build conference has many promises and announcements of future technologies. They aren’t things you can use right now and some of them are familiar from Microsoft conferences in years and decades past. The demos are very impressive and looks really easy. The reality of development and use is often a lot harder and […]
Talk about being behind the times. Google is reportedly about to release an SMS Replacement called Chat. Chat is an attempt to modernize SMS beyond simple text messaging. It will have group texts, videos and images, typing indicators and read receipts. Chat isn’t an app, it’s part of the Android operating system replacing the current […]
