You’d think that when it made patches pretty much inescapable, Microsoft would have made darn sure those patches were problem-free. But you’d be wrong.

Windows tech support scammers have fleeced an unbelievable number of people out of their hard-earned cash. One geeky vigilante decided to turn the tables. Now, plenty of tech-savvy folks have had a little fun at the expense of these fraudsters. Generally they play along and waste as much of the caller’s time as possible and watch them harmlessly fiddle with a virtual machine. This guy took things to the next level.

Microsoft leaked the golden keys that unlock Windows-powered tablets, phones and other devices sealed by Secure Boot – and is now scrambling to undo the blunder. These skeleton keys can be used to install non-Redmond operating systems on locked-down computers. In other words, on devices that do not allow you to disable Secure Boot even if you have administrator rights – such as ARM-based Windows RT tablets – it is now possible to sidestep this block and run, say, GNU/Linux or Android.

No, it’s not only you—some user interfaces today intentionally want to confuse and enroll. By Yael Grauer.

We are committed to delivering continuous innovation to you: including features that bring Windows Ink and Cortana to the mainstream; a faster, more accessible and more power-efficient Microsoft Ed…

Microsoft’s Windows 10 message hasn’t always been clear. They’ve declared the Windows 10 upgrade will be free for the first year and that going forward they’ll be pushing “Windows 10 as a service.

Instead of buying Windows, you may soon be subscribing to it — that’s how much Microsoft wants you off of Windows 7.

In this guide, we'll walk you through the steps to re-activate Windows 10 after you made hardware changes that no longer let activate your version of Windows using the Activation Troubleshooter tool.

This is one of the best scamming the scammer jokes I've ever seen. It's long,but funny.

Microsoft is killing off its web portal in China. The tech giant said its MSN website in China -- which provides news and lifestyle content as well as a search function -- will be shut down on June 7. Microsoft remains "deeply committed to China," the company said in a statement, noting that the country hosts its biggest R&D facility outside the U.S. and is a market for products like Windows 10 and cloud computing services.

The Windows Registry is mystifying to many users. What does it do, and are Registry "errors" really a problem?

With a 520 MHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage, the Apple Watch packs a lot of computing horsepower into a very small package. On paper, its processor alone is about twenty-five times faster than the average 386, and 512 MB was the size of a hard drive in the mid nineties, not memory. As a result, I was feeling confident that the Apple Watch had the ability to run one of the most revered desktop operating systems Redmond has ever produced.

Sure, cybercriminals are always improving their wares, but nothing has changed about how our machines actually get infected.

Curious about what the new Linux subsystem in Windows 10 can and can't do? Here's what we've learned about its first release.

Pure Douglas Adams from Redmond. By Chris Merriman.

Transmission, one of the most used BitTorrent clients, is now available for Windows. The community driven application has had a dominant presence on OS X and Linux distributions for more than a decade, and brings a "fast, easy and free" experience to the Windows platform with its first official release.

The key question is: "What do you want to use Linux for?" Once you know that, everything else is easy.

Windows 98 Machine Specs: (I forgot most of the specs and say the wrong things in the video a lot so use this as the proper guide):

I've been a Linux and open-source software user since the early days. I'm writing this story using LibreOffice 5.1 on a Linux Mint 17.3 desktop. And I don't just believe -- I know -- that Microsoft has changed its anti-open-source ways. Look at Microsoft's leadership. In 2014, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shouted that Microsoft loves Linux. Even former Microsoft CEO Steve "Linux is a cancer" Ballmer, now thinks Microsoft working with open-source software is a good idea.

It's pretty rare these days for games older than a few years to receive further patches and updates. However, Blizzard Entertainment is still committed to keeping their most popular titles working on modern hardware, which is why they've released a new patch for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Warcraft III is now 14 years old after it launched in July 2002, supporting operating systems from Windows 98 to Windows XP. Now that most...