Windows

While we have reported that the upcoming Windows 8.1 Update 1 will offer users better access to the OS with a keyboard and mouse configuration, there will apparently be some improvements for touchscreen-based PC owners as well. Winsupersite has found a revamped Disk Space feature in the recently leaked build of Update 1 that should make it easier for users to manage their Modern apps and storage space with a touch-oriented UI.

Microsoft will be able to silently reach into Windows XP PCs for more than a year after it stops patching the aged OS to clean malware-infected machines, sources close to the company confirmed Friday.

The Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) will continue to be updated and deployed via Windows Update through July 14, 2015, 15 months after the Redmond, Wash. company serves its final public security patches for XP on April 8 of this year.

While many of our young readers may associate Saturday Night Live with people like Andy Samburg, I remember a greater cast -- John Belushi, Jane Curtin and Bill Murray to name a few. One of my favorite sketches, was called "The Thing that Wouldn't Leave". In it, Murray and Curtin play a married couple, who want nothing more than for their guest, played by Belushi, to leave. The wife screams in agony as the guest keeps finding reasons to stay.

Information is beginning to leak about Windows 9, and the conversation has turned to how badly Microsoft has failed so far with Windows 8. It's being said that Microsoft is floundering, with Windows 8 even being compared to Vista. Some wonder how Windows 9 might turn things around, but that may be harder than Microsoft can manage. There's a big problem in the Windows ecosystem that a new version probably can't address.

In case the date hasn't already been burned into your brain, April 8, 2014 is the day on which Microsoft will cease providing any kind of patches or fixes, including security fixes, to its nearly 12-year-old Windows XP operating system.

Company officials continue to insist that there won't be any last-minute reprieves this time, despite the fact that market share for XP still hovers around 29 percent. Microsoft has given its partners their marching orders: Get XP users to move off the OS.

The Enterprise edition of Windows 8.x has a feature called Windows To Go that lets you create a working version of Microsoft's tiled operating system on a USB memory stick. You can boot into this and be instantly up and running in the new OS from any computer. Which is great -- provided you have the Enterprise edition of the OS and a "certified" USB drive. If you only have the standard version of Windows 8.x then the option isn't available to you.

The details around Windows 9---code named "Threshold"---are beginning to emerge, but the real action will go well beyond features and whether Microsoft can put Windows 8 in the rear view mirror. Microsoft's real challenge with Windows will be navigating a classic innovator's dilemma and how it can thread a needle between preserving a cash cow and ultimately give Windows away to hardware makers.

Give Windows away for free?!? What?!? How?!?

In an alternate universe, last week's CES was overflowing with Windows RT devices (and probably featured a keynote by a new Microsoft chief executive).

Alas, for Microsoft at least, in this universe, at CES it was the year Android desktops began to gain momentum — shaping up to be the first genuine threat to Windows' dominance of the desktop.

The PC industry isn't doing so well. Sales have dramatically slumped, despite the industry’s efforts to tempt consumers with Windows 8 tablets and transforming touchscreen laptops. But next week, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas may be the launching pad for a new push — a new brand of computer that runs both Windows and Android.

Microsoft is mum on the matter for the moment, but some analysts are hopeful that a security feature originally planned for Windows 8.1 -- code-named "Provable PC Health' -- will some day see the proverbial light of day.