Epic games and many more coming in Win store

New Apple's upscaling technology called MetalFX will place iOS and macOS devices back into the gaming world. Apple had great games back in the old days and some all-time hits like the prince of Persia have been made first for apple but along the way, it just lost it.

Same as NVIDIA's DLSS and Intel's XeSS systems, Apple MetalFX also uses AI algorithms to upscale the resolution of output game frames. So, for example, the GPU inside your MAC might render the game at 1080p, but through MetalFX and AI upscaling it will look like a 4K image but have a good frame rate since it is rendered in base resolution.

The ability to make AI strike a good balance between performance and image quality is a key to technology in today's modern gaming and having this technology will help developers a ton to be able to achieve great results on Apple hardware.

The First MetalFX Games

So far three official games that will use this technology and be released natively for Appl hardware are Resident Evil 8 Village, GRID legends, and No Man's Sky. All three games have been confirmed and Resident Evil 8 Village is already sent for review people are impressed since the game can run smoothly on all Apple devices, even ones with an M1 CPU.

Apple is back into gaming

When you say Apple gaming is probably the last thing that comes to your mind but truth be told Apple makes more money from games than Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony combined. Also, Apple itself was a big player once regarding computer games as well, Myst and Prince of Persia are games that were made and have been released for Apple first. Bungie was also founded by Apple developers and Halo was originally announced as a Mac game.

Apple has been trying and pushing gaming on its platform since it kind of died down. Today all Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft controllers work without any issues with all Apple products. Apple also has its own gaming subscription service, Apple Arcade, and its Apple TV is packed with GPU that can rival Xbox ones.

MetalFX API ties and brings it all together, it is designed to get the most performance from the hardware by minimizing overhead.

Now, computers and laptops do not hold any large numbers if we look at the user base, and that could deter developers but if we look at iPad and iPhone things are different there, much different. How same CPU power these devices and how MetalFX is available across all products it is clear that there is a market for games there. No Man's Sky is coming to iPad using these technologies and bringing full computer experience to tablets.

Reddit is one of the most popular websites in the world and how Microsoft is opening doors to everyone in its new store Reddit took a logical step and made a Progressive web application and placed it in it. Being a Progressive web app makes it more familiar and feels like a home experience using it for a lot of Reddit users. Reddit itself has a large community and active topics discussions all the time about anything. Bringing it to Windows as an application is, in my opinion, a great move since as an application it is independent, more light-weighted, and offering some other advantages specifically tied to being a standalone windows application. Everyone familiar with and using the Reddit website will feel right at home in this app and you can start using it right away.

A lot of users complain about low storage space each time a Windows Feature update is released as well as to complain about not being able to download the updates, slow update experience, and many other complaints. The main issue is that many users do not have enough storage space available on their PCs. And now to make sure that none of the updates gets stuck because of low storage space, Microsoft presented the Reserved Storage feature which comes preinstalled with v1903 or those where v1903 was clean installed. This guide will be showing you how you can enable or disable the Reserved Storage in your Windows 10 computer. As you know, the Windows Update process should have enough space so that it can download, extract and apply the update on the computer. Usually, the size of the Reserved Storage is around 7GB which gives enough space for the update, temporary files, system caches, apps, and many more. And according to Microsoft, the size of the Reserved Storage space will vary from time to time and will depend on how you use your computer.

Explanation

The Reserved Storage space feature is enabled by default on devices that come preinstalled with the May 2019 update or after performing a clean installation of the Windows 10 OS. To check if your computer has this feature, you need to go to Settings > System > Storage and from there click on the “Show more categories” link and then click on the “System & reserved” option. However, if you can’t find the Reserved Storage from the list, then it’s probably because your computer has limited space on the hard disk or it is not a fresh or new install. On the other hand, if you have this feature but have no use for it and want to disable it instead, then read on as this post will also show you how it’s done.

Solution

Keep in mind that when you disable the Reserved Storage feature, chances are, you might be unable to enable it back so you need to make sure that it’s really what you want to do before you disable it permanently. So if you really want to disable Reserved Storage, you can do so using the Registry Editor. Before you proceed, you have to create a System Restore point first and then carry out the following steps.

• Tap the Win + R keys to launch the Run utility and type “Regedit” in the field and then tap Enter to open the Registry Editor.
• Next, navigate to this registry path: ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionReserveManager
• From there, double click on the DWORD named “ShippedWithReserves” and set its value to “1”.
• Once you’re done, restart your computer and see if the Reserved Storage feature is now gone.

On the other hand, if you want to reduce the Reserved Storage space, there are two ways you can do that. First, you can go to Settings > Apps > Apps & features > Manage optional features and from there, uninstall the optional features that you do not use. The second one is you have to go to Settings > Time & Language > Language and then uninstall the languages and their add-on which you don’t use. Note: The Reserved Storage feature is also used by system processes and apps to create temporary files and once the Reserved Storage space fills up, Windows 10 will delete them automatically. It is undeniable a useful feature so disabling it is not recommended but if you are running on low storage space and don’t have much choice, then you may disable it at your own risk.

Microsoft has announced Windows 365, a new cloud-based operating system aimed mainly at businesses of all sizes. Just after Windows 11 announcement and presentation, we are seeing another Windows announcement from Microsoft. Dive into the following text in order to find out what exactly is new Windows 365, its role in today's IT world, and do you need it?

What is Windows 365 and when it is coming out?

Windows 365 is planned to be released this year (2021) on August 2^nd. It is the first Microsoft cloud-based operating system meaning that OS itself will be installed on the cloud server and it will be accessed by the user via a web browser. Essentially you are accessing a remote PC with Windows on it, you can install whatever Windows application you want and use it as it was on your computer. When you disconnect from the cloud computing and reconnect again from the same or another device you will continue exactly where you left off. Cloud PC will remember the state it was left off and will greet you in that same state once it is awakened again. This of course offers some great benefits like moving from laptop to desktop and continuing exactly where you left off.

How can I access Windows 365?

Any device which has a web browser will be able to access Windows 365 making it a really great solution for business on the move or for anyone who switches devices during the day. That being said it is clear to see that Windows 365 can be accessed via Linux, macOS, iOS, Android, or any other operating system on any computer, tablet or phone.

Who is this OS made for?

Microsoft’s general idea is that Windows 365 is primarily made for business which in their minds can benefit most out of it. So far it is not made for a single user although there is a possibility that even a one-man business can subscribe and create accounts for it.

Price and technical characteristic

Microsoft will bill Windows 365 on a per-user, per-month basis. In other words, businesses will pay a fixed amount per employee every month. There will be two tiers: Windows 365 Business and Windows 365 Enterprise. Microsoft also said it will offer different performance tiers. Businesses can choose to pay for more CPU, RAM, and storage resources for certain cloud PCs depending on their needs. Microsoft told me the smallest configuration would be one CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage. The largest will be eight CPUs, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. After a business has chosen its plan tier and performance options, that business will pay a fixed amount every month. This is unlike Azure Virtual Desktop, which Windows 365 is built on. With Azure Virtual Desktop, companies pay on a usage model, depending on how much the remote system is used every month.

Conclusion

Windows 365 is around the corner and if you are a business no matter small or large with the need for software on the go, Windows 365 might be a worthwhile investment and a great asset to your business.

As you know, each one of the applications that you use in your Windows 10 computer has its own set of permissions by default. These applications either allows or denies the interactions between a few other applications, depending on their own needs. This is why you might suddenly encounter a message that says,

“This app wants to access your pictures” or “This app wants to access your account info”

both of which are followed by two buttons that will ask you to Allow or Deny the action. You can always click on any of the given options. This will determine the permission of the application. Users in Windows 10 are given the option to either allow or deny applications in accessing their account information like name, picture and other account information. Thus, in this post, you will be guided on how you can change the Privacy settings of these apps to allow or deny them permission to access not just your account info but for all users, as well as specific apps in Windows 10. The user account information is part of the Privacy data in Windows 10 that you can control easily using the Settings app. In fact, you can revoke or grant access permission for your account information, all the users and specific applications to do that, follow each one of the instructions provided below carefully.

Allow or deny apps permission to account info for yourself:

Step_1: The first thing you have to do is open Settings. From there, select Privacy. Step_2: After that, scroll and look for Account info and select it. Step_3: Now turn off the toggle button for the “Allow apps to access your account info” option if you want to deny apps permission to your account info. But if you want to allow them access, simply turn the toggle button on. Keep in mind that when you allow access or permission, you can select which apps can access your picture, name, and other account info by simply using the settings on the page you’re currently in.

Now if you want to allow or deny apps to access your account info for all the users, here’s what you have to do:

Step_1: First, open Settings and click on the icon for Privacy. Step_2: Next, scroll down until you see the Account info located on the left side and then click on it. Step_3: After that, click on the Change button under the “Allow access to account info on this device” section. If you want to deny account info access for all other users, then turn the toggle button off. Doing so will automatically disable not just the account info access for all users but also for all the apps as well.

On the other hand, if you want to allow or deny account info access to specific apps, you can do so by following these steps:

Step_1: As you did earlier, go to Settings and click on the Privacy icon. Step_2: After that, scroll down and select Account info located on the left side. Step_3: Now turn on or off the toggle button under the “Choose which apps can access your account info” section if you want to deny or allow specific apps permission to access Account Info. If you’ve turned on the toggle button under the “Allow apps to access your account info”, all the apps get access permissions by default.

The Windows 10 operating system utilizes a variety of measures in order to track your app launches so that it can boost both your start and search results. It can personalize the start menu based on the apps that you use the most on the Start menu as well as the search results. This way, the App Launch Tracking is definitely useful especially when you want to access your favorite and frequently used apps quickly in the Start menu and search results on your Windows 10 computer. On the other hand, Windows 10 provides users with the ability to control their privacy settings in order to protect the privacy of users. Windows 10 users can either opt to enable the app launch tracking to improve the start menu and search menu or opt to disable the app launch tracking in order to prevent the Windows operating system from tracking that you open if you really value your privacy that much. Whichever setting you prefer, you need to change the privacy control settings as well as make some tweaks in the Windows Registry in order to turn on or turn off the app launch tracking feature.

Option 1 – Turn off or turn on app launch tracking via Settings

• Go to Settings and click on Privacy.
• After that, toggle On the “Let Windows track app launches to improve Start and search results” option on the right side of the page under the General Settings to enable the app launch tracking feature.
• And of course, if you wish to disable the app launch tracking feature, simply toggle Off the “Let Windows track app launches to improve Start and search results” option on the very same page under General Settings.
• After that, close the Settings window.

Note: Keep in mind that when you disable the app launch tracking feature, the “Show most used app” setting will either be grayed out or labeled as “Disable” on your Windows 10 computer. Thus, if you want to keep viewing the most used apps, just re-enable the app launch tracking feature if you have disabled it.

Option 2 – Turn off or turn on app launch tracking via Windows Registry

Before you proceed, make sure to create a System Restore point

• Tap the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box.
• Then type “Regedit” in the field and hit Enter or click OK to open the Registry Editor.
• Next, navigate to the following path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced

• After that, right-click on the Advanced folder and then click on New to create a new 32-bit DWORD value.
• Name the newly created DWORD as “Start TrackProgs” and set its value to “1” to enable the app launch tracking feature.
• If you want to disable the app launch feature, set “0” as the value instead of 1.
• Now click OK and restart your computer.

Take note that you still have to create a 32-bit DWORD value even if you are using a 64-bit Windows computer.

If you wish to continue where you have left off when you signed out of Windows follow this guide and learn how to continue your work after signing in, restart apps in your Windows. You can set Windows 10 to Automatically save your restartable apps when you sign out and restart them after you sign in. Here’s how:

1. Right-click on the Windows logo to open the secret menu
2. Select Settings
3. Click open Accounts
4. From the left side, select Sign-in options
5. Scroll down till you see Restart apps setting
6. Toggle the Automatically save your restartable apps when you sign out and restart them after you sign in setting to On position

Internal Error 2324 - What is it?

Internal Error 2324 occurs when you try to upgrade Firefox on your Windows 7 PC. The program fails to install and run successfully. The following error message is displayed:

‘The installer encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2324.’

Solution

Error Causes

This error may occur due to different reasons. These include:

• Viral infection
• Bad registry entries (cookies or traces of old version of Firefox program)
• Other programs running on your PC during Firefox program installation
• Installation was not performed from the Administrator account

To use the Firefox web browser successfully on your PC, you first need to resolve error 2324 on your system.

Further Information and Manual Repair

To repair error 2324, try the following methods:

Method 1 - Perform a Clean Reinstall.

This means to remove the Firefox program completely from your PC and then reinstall it. To do this, remove the Firefox installation folder saved in one of the locations by default: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox Now download the latest Firefox version on your PC and save the setup file on your computer. After that double click, the downloaded installation file and follow the steps illustrated in the wizard to install Firefox on your PC.

Method 2

Sometimes Firefox installation may fail because of the interference from other programs running on your PC. Therefore, it is advisable to close all programs running in the background when upgrading the Firefox program. You can also disable programs like Logitech QuickCam and Spybot Tea Timer.  These are some of the many programs that are notorious for interfering with Firefox updates.

Method 3 - Scan for viruses to resolve.

Viruses are malicious programs that often enter computers through files downloads from unreliable websites and phishing emails. These programs then hide in your PC and infect it. You may often experience problems during program installation if your PC is infected by viruses. To fix the issue and ensure smooth Firefox program installation on your system, simply run an antivirus. Antivirus scans and detects all viruses in a few minutes. Upon detection, remove them right away to ensure your PC is free from such malicious programs. Now try updating Firefox on your system again. If it is updated smoothly, then the error is resolved.

Method 4

The registry of your system stores all the activities performed on your PC. You may have uninstalled the old Firefox version from the Control Panel but the traces of the uninstalled program may still remain in the registry as bad entries. These bad entries may be causing error 2324 to pop up on your PC. To resolve, you need to remove these entries from the registry. For quick removal, download Restoro. It is a user-friendly PC Fixer with a registry cleaner that scans and removes all obsolete files stored in the registry such as incorrect registry keys, bad entries, cookies, and junk files. Click here to download Restoro.

Spending a large amount of time working or gaming in front of the computer can take a toll on your health. And as someone who indeed spends a large amount of time in front of the computer, I would like to share some insights about how can you be happy and healthy at the same time by incorporating some practices and habits.

Get good chair

This is first on the list because it matters the most. A proper sitting chair is essential for back health. If your budget allows it, do yourself a favor and get an anatomic sitting chair or gaming chair with lumbar support. It costs but it is worth it.

Learn to sit properly

As the important chair is, sitting properly is also as important as much. Your spine believe it or not is a very important part of your body and you need to take care of it. Sadly long periods of sitting sessions are bad for muscles around the spine that could reflect on the spine itself. Keep your back straight and keep your head not down nor up, place it in a position like when you are walking so the spine that is going from your head is in line with the spine on your back.

Stretch

By medical standards, each hour of sitting should be accompanied by a stretch session since sitting itself is placing too much pressure on certain muscles and blood circulation is lowered. Changing leg position and doing just a little stretch each hour can be really beneficial for your health in long run.

Take breaks

Yes, playing games is fun and most of the time we do not want to stop playing, especially if we are winning but taking breaks is essential for your personal health. Old saying goes that overdoing anything is bad and this applies true even to things that we do for pleasure and relaxation. Take periodic breaks to stretch, stand up and maybe even walk just a little.

Drink water

During long work hours or long gaming sessions, it is not uncommon that we are so focused on our activity that we forget to take our water intake. Approximately 2liters of water per day is needed for an adult person to function properly during that day and if you spend long times in front of a PC do not forget to drink water.

Do not neglect your daily tasks

As enjoyable as it is gaming can make us forget about our daily tasks, do not neglect your life and your tasks. Remember, gaming is only OK if it does not interfere with the daily things that you need to do. Do not postpone going for groceries because of gaming, do not switch shower for another level in the game. Do all of the things you must do first and then sit and game.

Take care of yourself mentally

Having mental health is as important as having a physical one. Playing games is fun, but playing games with someone is even better, do not forget to socialize and invite some friends so you can share some fun times together. Also, detach yourself from outcomes that will come because of gaming, this is very important for gamers that do a lot of PVP games and get annoyed and angry when they lose or when some other player is talking trash. Remember, gaming is for you to relax and enjoy, not to stress you.

What is error code 0x80070103?

When visiting the Windows Update Website or the Microsoft Update Website to download the latest update for hardware drives, you could possibly receive Error Code 0x80070103 when clicking on the update driver. This error code occurs when Windows tries to download a piece of identical hardware for a second time. It could also occur when Windows tries to update a currently installed driver to an unsuitable version of that driver.

Solution

Further Information and Manual Repair

There aren’t many ways to handle this issue. Below are two methods of fixing Error Code 0x80070103.

Method 1:

• Visit the Microsoft Update Website
• After the "scan for updates" is complete, click the Welcome or Custom page.
• Next, click Hardware, in the navigation panel, and then on the tab for "optional hardware Updates", the Update client will display the available updates.
• For the graphics card, scan the second update after which you'll click to select the option that says "do not show this update again".
• Hit the "Review and install updates" button.
• Confirm that the second update for the graphics card is not present, then move on the installing the updates.
• Click on the start button, go to All Programs, and then click on Windows Update.
• Hit the "Check for updates" tab.
• After the "scan for updates" is over, click the"Optional updates" link.
• In the "Select the updates you want to install" section, right-click the update that is not needed and hide them.
• Hit the OK button.
• To install any additional updates that are selected, click "Install Updates". Close Windows Update if no other updates are selected,
• For touch screens, swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Search (or point to the upper-right corner of the screen if you're using a mouse, moving the pointer down, before clicking Search). Enter "Windows Updates" in the search box, click Settings, and then click "Check for updates".
• After the scan is complete, click the"Optional updates are available" link.
• Right-click or Tap and hold the update you want to hide, select"Hide update", and then select OK.
• If any other updates are available, save all work in "other programs", then restart the computer to the install updates; otherwise, opt out of the Windows Update window.

Open the search window and type “Windows Update” in the search box.

Method 2:

When trying to repair error code 0x80070103, if you find method one hard to follow, can contact Microsoft directly. Call up the help center number listed on their website, and a technician will be able to walk you through the process of ensuring the updater is not attempting to download multiple copies of hardware or trying to install unusable updates on your computer. Because the Windows Updater is set to a generic method of searching for updates, it may not be set to optimize the personal computer's settings. This is why you must select all of the optional update options and why this process is so long. It may be made easier by having a computer repairs technician walk you through it. However, if you want to automate the process of getting that problem solved, you can use a powerful tool to get the job done.