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121-645: Windows Update is a Microsoft service for the Windows 9x and Windows NT families of the Microsoft Windows operating system, which automates downloading and installing Microsoft Windows software updates over the Internet . The service delivers software updates for Windows, as well as the various Microsoft antivirus products , including Windows Defender and Microsoft Security Essentials . Since its inception, Microsoft has introduced two extensions of

242-647: A BASIC interpreter for the device. Gates called MITS and claimed that he had a working interpreter, and MITS requested a demonstration. Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter, and it worked flawlessly when they demonstrated it to MITS in March 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico . MITS agreed to distribute it, marketing it as Altair BASIC . Gates and Allen established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as CEO, and Allen suggested

363-488: A Windows service for transferring files in the background without user interaction. As a system component, it is capable of monitoring the user's Internet usage, and throttling its own bandwidth usage in order to prioritize user-initiated activities. The Automatic Updates client for these operating systems was updated to use this system service. Automatic Updates in Windows XP gained notoriety for repeatedly interrupting

484-408: A server computer on which it is running and redistributes them to the computers within the organization over a local area network (LAN). One of the benefits of this method is a reduction in the consumption of Internet bandwidth, equal to (N-1)×S , where N is the number of computers in the organization and S is the size made by the updates. Additionally, WSUS permits administrators to test updates on

605-528: A Microsoft operating system or a non-Microsoft operating system. In effect, the royalty payment to Microsoft when no Microsoft product is being used acts as a penalty, or tax, on the OEM's use of a competing PC operating system. Since 1988, Microsoft's use of per processor licenses has increased." Following Bill Gates's internal "Internet Tidal Wave memo" on May 26, 1995, Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into computer networking and

726-423: A Windows installation. In case of the former, Windows Update Agent ( wusa.exe ) can install these files. In case of the latter, Microsoft deployment utilities such as DISM , WADK and MDT can consume these packages. Microsoft offers System Center Configuration Manager for very complex deployment and servicing scenarios. The product integrates with all of the aforesaid tools (WSUS, DISM, WADK, MDT) to automate

847-448: A call must verify on their respective ends. On October 7, Microsoft acquired Ally.io, a software service that measures companies' progress against OKRs . Microsoft plans to incorporate Ally.io into its Viva family of employee experience products. On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced the acquisition of American video game developer and holding company Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth $ 68.7 billion. Activision Blizzard

968-523: A chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009, the first retail Microsoft Store opened in Scottsdale, Arizona ; the same day Windows 7 was officially released to the public. Windows 7's focus was on refining Vista with ease-of-use features and performance enhancements, rather than an extensive reworking of Windows. As the smartphone industry boomed in the late 2000s, Microsoft had struggled to keep up with its rivals in providing

1089-722: A combination of AI, high-performance computing and quantum computing . The service includes Copilot, a GPT-4 based large language model tool to query and visualize data, write code, initiate simulations, and educate researchers. At a November 2023 developer conference, Microsoft announced two new custom-designed computing chips: The Maia chip, designed to run large language models, and Cobalt CPU, designed to power general cloud services on Azure. On November 20, 2023, Satya Nadella announced that Sam Altman , who had been ousted as CEO of OpenAI just days earlier, and Greg Brockman , who had resigned as president, would join Microsoft to lead

1210-525: A completely new user interface with a novel start button , and 32-bit compatibility; similar to NT, it provided the Win32 API. Windows 95 came bundled with the online service MSN , which was at first intended to be a competitor to the Internet, and (for OEMs) Internet Explorer , a Web browser . Internet Explorer has not bundled with the retail Windows 95 boxes, because the boxes were printed before

1331-527: A computer's CPU capacity for extended periods of time (between ten minutes to two hours), making affected computers unusable. According to Woody Leonhart of InfoWorld , early reports of this issue could be seen in Microsoft TechNet forums in late May 2013, although Microsoft first received large number of complaints about this issue in September 2013. The cause was an exponential algorithm in

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1452-456: A day after hosting a Sting concert for 50 people, including Microsoft executives, in Davos , Switzerland. On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a new multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment deal with ChatGPT developer OpenAI . In June 2023, Microsoft released Azure Quantum Elements to run molecular simulations and calculations in computational chemistry and materials science using

1573-881: A decade, the primary client component of the service was the Windows Update web app that could only be run on Internet Explorer . Starting with Windows Vista , the primary client component became Windows Update Agent, an integral component of the operating system. The service provides several kinds of updates. Security updates or critical updates mitigate vulnerabilities and security exploits in Microsoft Windows. Cumulative updates are updates that bundle multiple updates, both new and previously released updates. Cumulative updates were introduced with Windows 10 and only some been backported to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 . Windows 11 24H2 also introduced checkpoint cumulative updates and updates with Hotpatch capable in

1694-551: A deluxe version for $ 399.99. Increasingly present in the hardware business following Xbox, Microsoft 2006 released the Zune series of digital media players, a successor of its previous software platform Portable Media Center . These expanded on previous hardware commitments from Microsoft following its original Microsoft Mouse in 1983; as of 2007 the company sold the best-selling wired keyboard ( Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 ), mouse ( IntelliMouse ), and desktop webcam ( LifeCam ) in

1815-469: A graphical extension for MS-DOS , despite having begun jointly developing OS/2 with IBM that August. Microsoft moved its headquarters from Bellevue to Redmond, Washington , on February 26, 1986, and went public on March 13, with the resulting rise in stock making an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987. In 1990,

1936-586: A handful of command line tools to install windows updates. A very common tool which already works under Windows 7 and has no external dependencies is for example: wuinstall.exe. It can push windows updates to a computer (wuinstall.exe /install). Office Update is a free online service that allows users to detect and install updates for certain Microsoft Office products. The original update service supported Office 2000 , Office XP , Office 2003 and Office 2007 . On 1 August 2009 Microsoft decommissioned

2057-471: A joint venture with NBC since 1996. On October 1, Microsoft announced its intention to launch a news operation, part of a new-look MSN , with Windows 8 later in the month. On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launched Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface . Three days later, Windows Phone 8 was launched. To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened

2178-530: A major target of the controversy, will leave the company after the acquisition is finalized. The deal was closed on October 13, 2023. In December 2022, Microsoft announced a new 10-year deal with the London Stock Exchange Group for products including Microsoft Azure; Microsoft acquired around 4% of LSEG as part of the deal. In January 2023, CEO Satya Nadella announced Microsoft would lay off some 10,000 employees. The announcement came

2299-622: A mode for the Windows operating system rather than a separate and unique operating system. In March the company also established guidelines that censor users of Office 365 from using profanity in private documents. In April 2018, Microsoft released the source code for Windows File Manager under the MIT License to celebrate the program's 20th anniversary. In April the company further expressed willingness to embrace open source initiatives by announcing Azure Sphere as its own derivative of

2420-567: A modern smartphone operating system, falling behind Apple and Google -sponsored Android in the United States. As a result, in 2010 Microsoft revamped their aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile , replacing it with the new Windows Phone OS that was released in October that year. It used a new user interface design language, codenamed "Metro", which prominently used simple shapes, typography, and iconography, utilizing

2541-587: A motion-sensing input device made by Microsoft and designed as a video game controller , first introduced in November 2010, was upgraded for the 2013 release of the Xbox One video game console. Kinect's capabilities were revealed in May 2013: an ultra-wide 1080p camera, function in the dark due to an infrared sensor, higher-end processing power and new software, the ability to distinguish between fine movements (such as

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2662-605: A new 24/7 cable news channel, MSNBC . Microsoft created Windows CE 1.0 , a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints, such as personal digital assistants . In October 1997, the Justice Department filed a motion in the Federal District Court , stating that Microsoft violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. On January 13, 2000, Bill Gates handed over

2783-418: A new advanced AI research team. However, the plan was short-lived, as Altman was subsequently reinstated as OpenAI's CEO and Brockman rejoined the company amid pressure from OpenAI's employees and investors on its board. In March 2024, Inflection AI 's cofounders Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan announced their departure from the company in order to start Microsoft AI, with Microsoft acqui-hiring nearly

2904-646: A number of "holiday stores" across the U.S. to complement the increasing number of "bricks-and-mortar" Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012. On March 29, 2013, Microsoft launched a Patent Tracker. In August 2012, the New York City Police Department announced a partnership with Microsoft for the development of the Domain Awareness System which is used for Police surveillance in New York City . The Kinect ,

3025-410: A portion if it were to go through. On August 5, 2020, Microsoft stopped its xCloud game streaming test for iOS devices. According to Microsoft, the future of xCloud on iOS remains unclear and potentially out of Microsoft's hands. Apple has imposed a strict limit on " remote desktop clients " which means applications are only allowed to connect to a user-owned host device or gaming console owned by

3146-601: A publishing division named Microsoft Press . Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkin's lymphoma . Allen claimed in Idea Man: A Memoir by the co-founder of Microsoft that Gates wanted to dilute his share in the company when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease because he did not think that he was working hard enough. Allen later invested in low-tech sectors, sports teams, commercial real estate, neuroscience, private space flight, and more. Microsoft released Windows 1.0 on November 20, 1985, as

3267-452: A record profit in 2007. The European Union imposed another fine of €899 million ($ 1.4 billion) for Microsoft's lack of compliance with the March 2004 judgment on February 27, 2008, saying that the company charged rivals unreasonable prices for key information about its workgroup and backoffice servers. Microsoft stated that it was in compliance and that "these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved". 2007 also saw

3388-443: A rudimentary computer to track and analyze automobile traffic data. Gates enrolled at Harvard University while Allen pursued a degree in computer science at Washington State University , though he later dropped out to work at Honeywell . The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems 's (MITS) Altair 8800 microcomputer, which inspired Allen to suggest that they could program

3509-511: A slow or unreliable network connection, or the same updates may be needed for more than one machine. AutoPatcher , WSUS Offline Update, PortableUpdate, and Windows Updates Downloader are examples of such tools. Third-party services exist for obtaining updates from Windows Update for older Windows versions. These include Legacy Update, which is a community-driven third party replacement for the Windows Update servers for unsupported versions of Windows from Windows 2000 onward. Windows Update Restored

3630-567: A small group of test computers before deploying them to all systems, in order to ensure that business continuity is not disrupted because of the changes of the updates. For very large organizations, multiple WSUS servers can be chained together hierarchically. Only one server in this hierarchy downloads from the Internet. Update packages distributed via the Windows Update service can be individually downloaded from Microsoft Update Catalog . These updates can be installed on computers without internet access (e.g. via USB flash drive) or slipstreamed with

3751-459: A third-party web browser that supports the ActiveX technology. The earliest version of the web app, version 3, does not send any personally-identifiable information to Microsoft. Instead, the app downloads a full list of every available update and chooses which one to download and install. But the list grew so large that the performance impact of processing became a concern. Arie Slob, writing for

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3872-453: A thumb movement), and determining a user's heart rate by looking at their face. Microsoft filed a patent application in 2011 that suggests that the corporation may use the Kinect camera system to monitor the behavior of television viewers as part of a plan to make the viewing experience more interactive. On July 19, 2013, Microsoft stocks suffered their biggest one-day percentage sell-off since

3993-407: A timely manner. An analysis done by security researcher H. D. Moore in early 1999 was critical of this approach, describing it as "horribly inefficient" and susceptible to attacks. In a posting to BugTraq , he explained that, "every single Windows 98 computer that wishes to get an update has to rely on a single host for the security. If that one server got compromised one day, or an attacker cracks

4114-505: Is US$ 500,000 per year. Some analysts deemed this unthinkable ten years prior, however, as in 2001 then-CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux "cancer". Microsoft planned to launch a preview of Intune for Education "in the coming weeks", with general availability scheduled for spring 2017, priced at $ 30 per device, or through volume licensing agreements. In January 2018, Microsoft patched Windows 10 to account for CPU problems related to Intel's Meltdown security breach . The patch led to issues with

4235-410: Is a background process that checks the Windows Update web site on a regular schedule for new updates that have been marked as "Critical". It was released shortly after Windows 98. By default, this check occurs every five minutes, plus when Internet Explorer starts; however, the user could configure the next check to occur only at certain times of the day or on certain days of the week. The tool queries

4356-484: Is a term for a set of features in the Pro, Enterprise and Education editions of Windows 10 , intended to ease the administration of Windows across organizations. It enables IT pros to: These features were added in Windows 10 version 1511. They are intended for large organizations with many computers, so they can logically group their computers for gradual deployment. Microsoft recommends a small set of pilot computers to receive

4477-488: Is also used for random-access memory capacity, such as main memory and CPU cache size, due to the prevalent binary addressing of memory. The binary meaning of the kilobyte for 1024 bytes typically uses the symbol KB, with an uppercase letter K . The B is sometimes omitted in informal use. For example, a processor with 65,536 bytes of cache memory might be said to have "64 K" of cache. In this convention, one thousand and twenty-four kilobytes (1024 KB)

4598-621: Is another community-driven third-party replacement for Windows Update on older versions of Windows designed to replicate the functionality of older Windows Update versions, which also includes the old updates for all Windows 9x releases and Windows NT 4.0. At the beginning of 2005, Windows Update was being accessed by about 150 million people, with about 112 million of those using Automatic Updates. As of 2008, Windows Update had about 500 million clients, processed about 350 million unique scans per day, and maintained an average of 1.5 million simultaneous connections to client machines. On Patch Tuesday ,

4719-595: Is best known for producing franchises, including but not limited to Warcraft , Diablo , Call of Duty , StarCraft , Candy Crush Saga , Crash Bandicoot , Spyro , Tony Hawk's , Guitar Hero , and Overwatch . Activision and Microsoft each released statements saying the acquisition was to benefit their businesses in the metaverse , many saw Microsoft's acquisition of video game studios as an attempt to compete against Meta Platforms , with TheStreet referring to Microsoft wanting to become "the Disney of

4840-549: Is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet , Amazon , Apple , and Meta . However it has been criticized for its monopolistic practices and the company's software has been criticized for problems with ease of use , robustness , and security . Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen sought to make a business using their skills in computer programming . In 1972, they founded Traf-O-Data , which sold

4961-432: Is equal to one megabyte (1 MB), where 1 MB is one million bytes. The term 'kilobyte' has traditionally been used to refer to 1024 bytes (2  B). The usage of the metric prefix kilo for binary multiples arose as a convenience, because 1024 is approximately 1000. The binary interpretation of metric prefixes is still prominently used by the Microsoft Windows operating system. Binary interpretation

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5082-553: Is equal to one megabyte (1 MB), where 1 MB is 1024  bytes. In December 1998, the IEC addressed such multiple usages and definitions by creating prefixes such as kibi, mebi, gibi, etc., to unambiguously denote powers of 1024. Thus the kibibyte, symbol KiB, represents 2  bytes = 1024 bytes. These prefixes are now part of IEC 80000-13. The IEC further specified that the kilobyte should only be used to refer to 1000 bytes. The International System of Units restricts

5203-509: Is in charge of downloading and installing software update from Windows Update, as well as the on-premises servers of Windows Server Updates Services or System Center Configuration Manager . Windows Update Agent can be managed through a Control Panel applet, as well as Group Policy , Microsoft Intune and Windows PowerShell . It can also be set to automatically download and install both important and recommended updates. In prior versions of Windows, such updates were only available through

5324-509: Is the successor of the Critical Update Notification Utility. It was released in 2000, along with Windows Me . It supports Windows 2000 SP3 as well. Unlike its predecessor, Automatic Updates can download and install updates. Instead of the five-minute schedule used by its predecessor, Automatic Updates checks the Windows Update servers once a day. After Windows Me is installed, a notification balloon prompts

5445-520: The Altair 8800 . It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Windows. The company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO) and subsequent rise in its share price created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market. Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000 which would see

5566-460: The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division filed a competitive impact statement that said: "Beginning in 1988 and continuing until July 15, 1994, Microsoft induced many OEMs to execute anti-competitive 'per processor licenses. Under a per-processor license, an OEM pays Microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular microprocessor, whether the OEM sells the computer with

5687-599: The Linux operating system. In May 2018, Microsoft partnered with 17 American intelligence agencies to develop cloud computing products. The project is dubbed "Azure Government" and has ties to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) surveillance program. On June 4, 2018, Microsoft officially announced the acquisition of GitHub for $ 7.5 billion, a deal that closed on October 26, 2018. On July 10, 2018, Microsoft revealed

5808-470: The Microsoft Azure virtual machines reliant on Intel's CPU architecture. On January 12, Microsoft released PowerShell Core 6.0 for the macOS and Linux operating systems. In February 2018, Microsoft killed notification support for their Windows Phone devices which effectively ended firmware updates for the discontinued devices. In March 2018, Microsoft recalled Windows 10 S to change it to

5929-580: The Open Networking Foundation started on March 23, 2011. Fellow founders were Google , HPE Networking , Yahoo! , Verizon Communications , Deutsche Telekom and 17 other companies. This nonprofit organization is focused on providing support for a cloud computing initiative called Software-Defined Networking. The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers, and other networking areas. Following

6050-515: The Surface Go platform to the public. Later in the month, it converted Microsoft Teams to gratis . In August 2018, Microsoft released two projects called Microsoft AccountGuard and Defending Democracy. It also unveiled Snapdragon 850 compatibility for Windows 10 on the ARM architecture . In August 2018, Toyota Tsusho began a partnership with Microsoft to create fish farming tools using

6171-604: The World Wide Web . With a few exceptions of new companies, like Netscape , Microsoft was the only major and established company that acted fast enough to be a part of the World Wide Web practically from the start. Other companies like Borland , WordPerfect , Novell , IBM and Lotus , being much slower to adapt to the new situation, would give Microsoft market dominance. The company released Windows 95 on August 24, 1995, featuring pre-emptive multitasking ,

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6292-495: The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles. In February 2021, Microsoft released Azure Quantum for public preview.  The public cloud computing platform provides access to quantum software and quantum hardware including  trapped ion ,  neutral atom , and  superconducting  systems. In April 2021, Microsoft announced it would buy Nuance Communications for approximately $ 16 billion. The acquisition of Nuance

6413-818: The 1990s. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems , the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications, the Azure cloud computing platform, and the Edge web browser. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Other consumer and enterprise software it produces include Internet search with Bing ; digital services through MSN ; mixed reality through HoloLens ; cloud computing with Azure ; and software development through Visual Studio . Today, Microsoft

6534-574: The CEO position to Steve Ballmer , an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, while creating a new position for himself as Chief Software Architect . Various companies including Microsoft formed the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance in October 1999 to (among other things) increase security and protect intellectual property through identifying changes in hardware and software. Critics decried

6655-662: The Federal Trade Commission examined Microsoft for possible collusion due to the partnership with IBM, marking the beginning of more than a decade of legal clashes with the government. Meanwhile, the company was at work on Microsoft Windows NT , which was heavily based on their copy of the OS/2 code. It shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new modular kernel and the 32-bit Win32 application programming interface (API), making it easier to port from 16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows. Microsoft informed IBM of Windows NT, and

6776-484: The Microsoft Azure application suite for Internet of things (IoT) technologies related to water management. Developed in part by researchers from Kindai University , the water pump mechanisms use artificial intelligence to count the number of fish on a conveyor belt , analyze the number of fish, and deduce the effectiveness of water flow from the data the fish provide. The specific computer programs used in

6897-461: The Microsoft server for a file called " cucif.cab ", which contained a list of all the critical updates released for the operating system. The tool then compares this list with the list of installed updates on its machine and displays an update availability notification. Once the check is executed, any custom schedule defined by the user is reverted to the default. Microsoft stated that this ensures that users received notification of critical updates in

7018-554: The OS/2 partnership deteriorated. In 1990, Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Office suite which bundled separate applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel . On May 22, Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 , featuring streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor, and both Office and Windows became dominant in their respective areas. On July 27, 1994,

7139-657: The Office Update service, merging it with Microsoft Update. Microsoft Update supported all versions of Microsoft Office up to Office 2007 and later, however it does not support Office 2000. With the introduction of the Office 365 licensing program, however, Microsoft once again activated a separate Office update service. Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington . Founded in 1975,

7260-543: The U.S. smartphone market in January 2016 was 2.7%. During the summer of 2015 the company lost $ 7.6 billion related to its mobile-phone business, firing 7,800 employees. In 2015, the construction of a data center in Mecklenburg County , Virginia led to the destruction of a historic African American cemetery despite archeological recommendations for preservation. On March 1, 2016, Microsoft announced

7381-517: The United States. That year the company also launched the Surface "digital table", later renamed PixelSense . Released in January 2007, the next version of Windows, Vista , focused on features, security and a redesigned user interface dubbed Aero . Microsoft Office 2007 , released at the same time, featured a " Ribbon " user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors. Relatively strong sales of both products helped to produce

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7502-696: The Windows Update service was also affected, however Microsoft has provided SHA-2 patches that allowed Windows 7 and Server 2008 to continue receiving updates. At the February 2005 RSA Conference , Microsoft announced the first beta of Microsoft Update , an optional replacement for Windows Update that provides security patches, service packs and other updates for both Windows and other Microsoft software. The initial release in June 2005 provided support for Microsoft Office 2003 , Exchange 2003 , and SQL Server 2000 , running on Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003. Over time,

7623-491: The Windows Update web site. Additionally, Windows Update in Windows Vista supports downloading Windows Ultimate Extras , optional software for Windows Vista Ultimate Edition. Unlike Automatic Updates in Windows XP, Windows Update Agent in Windows Vista and Windows 7 allows the user to postpone the mandatory restart (required for the update process to complete) for up to four hours. The revised dialog box that prompts for

7744-590: The Windows-help.net newsletter in March 2003, noted that the size of the update list had exceeded 400 KB , which caused delays of more than a minute for dial-up users. Windows Update v4, released in 2001 in conjunction with Windows XP , changed this. This version of the app makes an inventory of the system's hardware and Microsoft software and sends them to the service, thus offloading the processing burden to Microsoft servers . Critical Update Notification Utility (initially Critical Update Notification Tool )

7865-418: The [Microsoft] DNS server again, there could be millions of users installing trojans every hour. The scope of this attack is big enough to attract crackers who actually know what they are doing..." Microsoft continued to promote the tool through 1999 and the first half of 2000. Initial releases of Windows 2000 shipped with the tool. The tool did not support Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0. Automatic Updates

7986-499: The ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy." In November 2018, Microsoft introduced Azure Multi-Factor Authentication for Microsoft Azure. In December 2018, Microsoft announced Project Mu , an open source release of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) core used in Microsoft Surface and Hyper-V products. The project promotes the idea of Firmware as a Service . In

8107-400: The alliance as a way to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use software, and over how computers behave, and as a form of digital rights management : for example, the scenario where a computer is not only secured for its owner but also secured against its owner as well. On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v. Microsoft Corp. , calling

8228-432: The capacities of most storage media , particularly hard disk drives , flash -based storage, and DVDs . It is also consistent with the other uses of the metric prefixes in computing, such as CPU clock speeds or measures of performance . The international standard IEC 80000-13 uses the term "byte" to mean eight bits (1 B = 8 bit). Therefore, 1 kB = 8000 bit. One thousand kilobytes (1000 kB)

8349-774: The coincidence that 2 differs from 10 by less than 2.5%. A kibibyte is 1024 bytes. In the International System of Units (SI) the metric prefix kilo means 1,000 (10 ); therefore, one kilobyte is 1000 bytes. The unit symbol is kB. This is the definition recommended by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). This definition, and the related definitions of the prefixes mega ( 1,000,000 ), giga ( 1,000,000,000 ), etc., are most commonly used for data transfer rates in computer networks , internal bus, hard drive and flash media transfer speeds, and for

8470-488: The company , citing it abused its dominance with the Windows OS, resulting in a judgment of €497 million ($ 613 million) and requiring Microsoft to produce new versions of Windows XP without Windows Media Player : Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N. In November 2005, the company's second video game console, the Xbox 360 , was released. There were two versions, a basic version for $ 299.99 and

8591-541: The company an "abusive monopoly." Microsoft later settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004. On October 25, 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP , unifying the mainstream and NT lines of OS under the NT codebase. The company released the Xbox later that year, entering the video game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo . In March 2004 the European Union brought antitrust legal action against

8712-606: The company announced it was laying off 1,850 workers, and taking an impairment and restructuring charge of $ 950 million. In June 2016, Microsoft announced a project named Microsoft Azure Information Protection. It aims to help enterprises protect their data as it moves between servers and devices. In November 2016, Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member during Microsoft's Connect(); developer event in New York. The cost of each Platinum membership

8833-461: The company became highly influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows , and the company has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing , video gaming and other fields. Microsoft is the largest software maker , one of the most valuable public U.S. companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for

8954-601: The company has also expanded its video gaming business to support the Xbox brand, establishing the Microsoft Gaming division in 2022, which is currently the third-largest gaming company in the world by revenue, following the 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $ 68.7 billion. Microsoft has been market-dominant in the IBM PC–compatible operating system market and the office software suite market since

9075-633: The company's war profiteering from a $ 480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army . On March 26, 2020, Microsoft announced it was acquiring Affirmed Networks for about $ 1.35 billion. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , Microsoft closed all of its retail stores indefinitely due to health concerns. On July 22, 2020, Microsoft announced plans to close its Mixer service, planning to move existing partners to Facebook Gaming . On July 31, 2020, it

9196-400: The computer has an Internet connection. In Windows 10 and Windows 11 , the use of Windows Update is mandatory, however, the software agreement states that users may stop receiving updates on their device by disconnecting their device from the Internet. There also exist C and D updates, that users enroll in when they click the update button. Windows Update was introduced as a web app with

9317-468: The concept of minimalism. Microsoft implemented a new strategy for the software industry, providing a consistent user experience across all smartphones using the Windows Phone OS. It launched an alliance with Nokia in 2011 and Microsoft worked closely with the company to co-develop Windows Phone, but remained partners with long-time Windows Mobile OEM HTC . Microsoft is a founding member of

9438-526: The course of years for a certain product. Starting with Windows 10, however, all patches are delivered in cumulative packages. On 15 August 2016, Microsoft announced that effective October 2016, all future patches to Windows 7 and 8.1 would become cumulative as with Windows 10. The ability to download and install individual updates would be removed as existing updates are transitioned to this model. This has resulted in increasing download sizes of each monthly update. An analysis done by Computerworld determined that

9559-528: The creation of a multi-core unit at Microsoft, following the steps of server companies such as Sun and IBM. Gates retired from his role as Chief Software Architect on June 27, 2008, a decision announced in June 2006, while retaining other positions related to the company in addition to being an advisor for the company on key projects. Azure Services Platform , the company's entry into the cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008. On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open

9680-533: The day Microsoft typically releases new software updates, outbound traffic could exceed 500 gigabits per second. Approximately 90% of all clients used automatic updates to initiate software updates, with the remaining 10% using the Windows Update web site. The website is built using ASP.NET , and processes an average of 90,000 page requests per second. Traditionally, the service provided each patch in its own proprietary archive file. Occasionally, Microsoft released service packs which bundled all updates released over

9801-408: The download size for Windows 7 x64 has increased from 119.4MB in October 2016 to 203MB in October 2017. Initially, Microsoft was very vague about specific changes within each cumulative update package. However, since early 2016, Microsoft has begun releasing more detailed information on the specific changes. In 2011, the Windows Update service was decommissioned for Windows 98, 98 SE, Me and NT 4.0 and

9922-416: The entirety of its 70-person workforce. As part of the deal, Microsoft paid Inflection $ 650 million to license its technology. In January 2024, Microsoft became the most valued publicly traded company. Meanwhile, that month, the company announced a subscription offering of artificial intelligence for small businesses via Copilot Pro. Kilobyte The International System of Units (SI) defines

10043-481: The evaluation of superseded updates which had grown large over the decade following the release of Windows XP. Microsoft's attempts to fix the issue in October, November and December proved futile, causing the issue to be escalated to the top priority. Starting with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 , Windows Update Agent replaces both the Windows Update web app and the Automatic Updates client. It

10164-557: The full ramifications of the dual scan mode. As organizations continued to use more computers, the per-machine Windows Update clients started to become unwieldy and insufficient. In response to the need of organizations for deploying updates to many machines, Microsoft introduced Software Update Services (SUS), which was later renamed Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). A component of the Windows Server family of operating systems, WSUS downloads updates for Microsoft products to

10285-440: The last version of the operating system; set to be released in the third quarter of 2021. It was released to the general public on October 5, 2021. In September 2021, it was announced that the company had acquired Takelessons, an online platform that connects students and tutors in numerous subjects. The acquisition positioned Microsoft to grow its presence in the market of providing online education to large numbers of people. In

10406-402: The launch of Windows 98 and offered additional desktop themes , games , device driver updates, and optional components such as NetMeeting . Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 were retroactively given the ability to access the Windows Update website and download updates designed for those operating systems, starting with the release of Internet Explorer 4 . The initial focus of Windows Update

10527-423: The list has expanded to include other Microsoft products, such as Windows Live , Windows Defender , Visual Studio , runtimes and redistributables, Zune Software , Virtual PC and Virtual Server , CAPICOM , Microsoft Lync , Microsoft Expression Studio , and other server products. It also offers Silverlight and Windows Media Player as optional downloads if applicable to the operating system. There are only

10648-488: The login screen notifies them of the restart requirements. Windows Update Agent makes use of the Transactional NTFS feature introduced with Windows Vista to apply updates to Windows system files. This feature helps Windows recover cleanly in the event of an unexpected failure, as file changes are committed atomically . Windows 10 contains major changes to Windows Update Agent operations; it no longer allows

10769-546: The manual, selective installation of updates. All updates, regardless of type (this includes hardware drivers), are downloaded and installed automatically, and users are only given the option to choose whether their system would reboot automatically to install updates when the system is inactive, or be notified to schedule a reboot. Microsoft offers a diagnostic tool that can be used to hide troublesome device drivers and prevent them from being reinstalled, but only after they had been already installed, then uninstalled without rebooting

10890-525: The merger of its PC and Xbox divisions, with Phil Spencer announcing that Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps would be the focus for Microsoft's gaming in the future. On January 24, 2017, Microsoft showcased Intune for Education at the BETT 2017 education technology conference in London . Intune for Education is a new cloud-based application and device management service for the education sector. In May 2016,

11011-487: The metaverse". Microsoft also named Phil Spencer , head of the Xbox brand since 2014, the inaugural CEO of the newly established Microsoft Gaming division, which now houses the Xbox operations team and the three publishers in the company's portfolio (Xbox Game Studios, ZeniMax Media, Activision Blizzard). Microsoft has not released statements regarding Activision's recent legal controversies regarding employee abuse, but reports have alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick ,

11132-452: The name "Micro-Soft", short for micro-computer software. In August 1977, the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office of ASCII Microsoft . Microsoft moved its headquarters to Bellevue, Washington , in January 1979. Microsoft entered the operating system (OS) business in 1980 with its own version of Unix called Xenix , but it

11253-514: The name, where some of the updates no longer require reboot. Microsoft routinely releases updates on the second Tuesday of each month (known as the Patch Tuesday B updates), but can provide them whenever a new update is urgently required to prevent a newly discovered or prevalent exploit, so called out-of-band updates. System administrators can configure Windows Update to install critical updates for Microsoft Windows automatically, so long as

11374-474: The need for multiple restarts and reducing the number of downloads needed. KB00004 may also include other fixes with their own KB-number that were not separately released. A disadvantage of cumulative updates is that downloading and installing updates that fix individual problems is no longer possible. KB stands for knowledge base as in Microsoft Knowledge Base . Windows Update for Business

11495-535: The old updates for those systems were removed from its servers. On August 3, 2020, the update service was decommissioned for Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 and Vista due to Microsoft discontinuing SHA-1 updates. As of 2021, the old updates for 2000 through Vista are still available on the Microsoft Update Catalog . On the same day SHA-1 updates were discontinued for older Windows versions prior to 7 and Server 2008, updating Windows 7 and Server 2008 via

11616-459: The prefix kilo as a multiplication factor of 1000 (10 ); therefore, one kilobyte is 1000 bytes. The internationally recommended unit symbol for the kilobyte is kB . In some areas of information technology , particularly in reference to random-access memory capacity, kilobyte instead typically refers to 1024 (2 ) bytes. This arises from the prevalence of sizes that are powers of two in modern digital memory architectures, coupled with

11737-699: The process fall under the Azure Machine Learning and the Azure IoT Hub platforms. In September 2018, Microsoft discontinued Skype Classic . On October 10, 2018, Microsoft joined the Open Invention Network community despite holding more than 60,000 patents. In November 2018, Microsoft agreed to supply 100,000 Microsoft HoloLens headsets to the United States military in order to "increase lethality by enhancing

11858-452: The process. A number of tools have been created by independent software vendors which provide the ability for Windows updates to be automatically downloaded for, or added to, an online or offline system. One common use for offline updates is to ensure a system is fully patched against security vulnerabilities before being connected to the Internet or another network. A second use is that downloads can be very large, but may be dependent on

11979-521: The release of Windows Phone , Microsoft undertook a gradual rebranding of its product range throughout 2011 and 2012, with the corporation's logos, products, services, and websites adopting the principles and concepts of the Metro design language . Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 , an operating system designed to power both personal computers and tablet computers , in Taipei in June 2011. A developer preview

12100-644: The release of the IBM PC in August 1981. IBM had copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS , so other companies had to reverse engineer it for non-IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles , but no such restriction applied to the operating systems. Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor. The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with

12221-428: The restart appears under other windows, instead of on top of them. However, standard user accounts only have 15 minutes to respond to this dialog box. This was changed with Windows 8 : Users have 3 days (72 hours) before the computer reboots automatically after installing automatic updates that require a reboot. Windows 8 also consolidates the restart requests for non-critical updates into just one per month. Additionally,

12342-507: The role of CFO. On February 4, 2014, Steve Ballmer stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and was succeeded by Satya Nadella , who previously led Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise division. On the same day, John W. Thompson took on the role of chairman, in place of Bill Gates, who continued to participate as a technology advisor. Thompson became the second chairman in Microsoft's history. On April 25, 2014, Microsoft acquired Nokia Devices and Services for $ 7.2 billion. This new subsidiary

12463-407: The same month, Microsoft acquired Australia-based video editing software company Clipchamp . In October 2021, Microsoft announced that it began rolling out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) support for Microsoft Teams calls in order to secure business communication while using video conferencing software. Users can ensure that their calls are encrypted and can utilize a security code that both parties on

12584-927: The same month, Microsoft announced the open source implementation of Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which will allow for further movement of the company toward the transparent release of key frameworks used in developing Windows desktop applications and software. December also saw the company discontinue the Microsoft Edge project in favor of Chromium backends for their browsers. On February 20, 2019, Microsoft Corp said it will offer its cyber security service AccountGuard to 12 new markets in Europe including Germany, France and Spain, to close security gaps and protect customers in political space from hacking. In February 2019, hundreds of Microsoft employees protested

12705-440: The service: Microsoft Update and Windows Update for Business . The former expands the core service to include other Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Office and Microsoft Expression Studio . The latter is available to business editions of Windows 10 and permits postponing updates or receiving updates only after they have undergone rigorous testing. As the service has evolved over the years, so has its client software. For

12826-737: The system. Windows Update Agent on Windows 10 supports peer-to-peer distribution of updates; by default, systems' bandwidth is used to distribute previously downloaded updates to other users, in combination with Microsoft servers. Users may optionally change Windows Update to only perform peer-to-peer updates within their local area network . Windows 10 also introduced cumulative updates. For example, if Microsoft released updates KB00001 in July, KB00002 in August, and KB00003 in September, Microsoft would release cumulative update KB00004 which packs KB00001, KB00002, and KB00003 together. Installing KB00004 will also install KB00001, KB00002 and KB00003, mitigating

12947-467: The team finished the Web browser, and instead were included in the Windows 95 Plus! pack. Backed by a high-profile marketing campaign and what The New York Times called "the splashiest, most frenzied, most expensive introduction of a computer product in the industry's history," Windows 95 quickly became a success. Branching out into new markets in 1996, Microsoft and General Electric 's NBC unit created

13068-528: The then-largest of Microsoft's corporate acquisitions in Skype Technologies in 2011, and an increased focus on hardware that led to its first in-house PC line, the Surface, in 2012, and the formation of Microsoft Mobile through Nokia . Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has changed focus towards cloud computing , as well as its large acquisition of LinkedIn for $ 26.2 billion in 2016. Under Nadella's direction,

13189-458: The updates almost immediately, while the set of most critical computers to receive them after every other group has done so, and has experienced their effects. Other Microsoft update management solutions, such as Windows Server Update Services or System Center Configuration Manager , do not override Windows Update for Business. Rather, they force Windows 10 into the "dual scan mode". This can cause confusion for administrators who do not comprehend

13310-520: The user to configure the Automatic Updates client. The user can choose from three notification schemes: Being notified before downloading the update, being notified before installing the update, or both. If new updates are ready to be installed, the user may install them before turning off the computer. A shield icon will be displayed on the Shutdown button during this time. Windows XP and Windows 2000 SP3 include Background Intelligent Transfer Service ,

13431-522: The user while working on their computer. Every time an update requiring a reboot was installed, Automatic Updates would prompt the user with a dialog box that allowed the user to restart immediately or dismiss the dialog box, which would reappear in ten minutes; a behavior that Jeff Atwood described as "perhaps the naggiest dialog box ever." In 2013, it was observed that shortly after the startup process , Automatic Updates ( wuauclt.exe ) and Service Host ( svchost.exe ) in Windows XP would claim 100% of

13552-407: The user. On September 21, 2020, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire video game company ZeniMax Media , the parent company of Bethesda Softworks , for about $ 7.5 billion, with the deal expected to occur in the second half of 2021 fiscal year. On March 9, 2021, the acquisition was finalized and ZeniMax Media became part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios division. The total price of the deal

13673-607: The year 2000, after its fourth-quarter report raised concerns among investors on the poor showings of both Windows 8 and the Surface tablet. Microsoft suffered a loss of more than US$ 32 billion. In line with the maturing PC business, in July 2013, Microsoft announced that it would reorganize the business into four new business divisions, namely Operating systems, Apps, Cloud, and Devices. All previous divisions will be dissolved into new divisions without any workforce cuts. On September 3, 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy Nokia 's mobile unit for $ 7 billion, following Amy Hood taking

13794-542: Was MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance. IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M OS to be used in the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC). For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products which it branded as MS-DOS, although IBM rebranded it to IBM PC DOS . Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS following

13915-438: Was $ 8.1 billion. On September 22, 2020, Microsoft announced that it had an exclusive license to use OpenAI 's GPT-3 artificial intelligence language generator. The previous version of GPT-3 , called GPT-2 , made headlines for being "too dangerous to release" and had numerous capabilities, including designing websites, prescribing medication, answering questions, and penning articles. On November 10, 2020, Microsoft released

14036-468: Was completed in March 2022. In 2021, in part due to the strong quarterly earnings spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic , Microsoft's valuation came to nearly $ 2 trillion. The increased necessity for remote work and distance education drove demand for cloud computing and grew the company's gaming sales. On June 24, 2021, Microsoft announced Windows 11 during a Livestream. The announcement came with confusion after Microsoft announced Windows 10 would be

14157-598: Was free add-ons and new technologies for Windows. Security fixes for Outlook Express , Internet Explorer and other programs appeared later, as did access to beta versions of upcoming Microsoft software, e.g. Internet Explorer 5 . Fixes to Windows 98 to resolve the Year 2000 problem were distributed using Windows Update in December 1998. Microsoft attributed the sales success of Windows 98 in part to Windows Update. The Windows Update web app requires either Internet Explorer or

14278-693: Was released on September 13, which was subsequently replaced by a consumer preview on February 29, 2012, and released to the public in May. The Surface was unveiled on June 18, becoming the first computer in the company's history to have its hardware made by Microsoft. On June 25, Microsoft paid US$ 1.2 billion to buy the social network Yammer . On July 31, they launched the Outlook.com webmail service to compete with Gmail . On September 4, 2012, Microsoft released Windows Server 2012 . In July 2012, Microsoft sold its 50% stake in MSNBC, which it had run as

14399-535: Was released, with its server sibling, Windows Server 2016 , released in September 2016. In Q1 2015, Microsoft was the third-largest maker of mobile phones , selling 33 million units (7.2% of all). While a large majority (at least 75%) of them do not run any version of Windows Phone — those other phones are not categorized as smartphones by Gartner – in the same timeframe 8 million Windows smartphones (2.5% of all smartphones) were made by all manufacturers (mostly Microsoft). Microsoft's share of

14520-425: Was renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy. On September 15, 2014, Microsoft acquired the video game development company Mojang , best known for Minecraft , for $ 2.5 billion. On June 8, 2017, Microsoft acquired Hexadite , an Israeli security firm, for $ 100 million. On January 21, 2015, Microsoft announced the release of their first Interactive whiteboard , Microsoft Surface Hub . On July 29, 2015, Windows 10

14641-590: Was reported that Microsoft was in talks to acquire TikTok after the Trump administration ordered ByteDance to divest ownership of the application to the U.S. On August 3, 2020, after speculation on the deal, Donald Trump stated that Microsoft could buy the application, however, it should be completed by September 15, 2020, and that the United States Department of the Treasury should receive

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