[German]The data protection activists from Austrian noyb have filed complaints in European countries against the Chinese companies TikTok, AliExpress, SHEIN, Temu, WeChat and Xiaomi. The issue is the unlawful transfer of user data to China, which the companies openly admit.
[German]On January 16, 2025, Microsoft decided to open the floodgates for the feature upgrade of Windows 11 machines to version 24H2. This means that more users will suddenly be offered the feature update and their system will be upgraded to the new version. This may not be to the benefit of users in all cases, as 24H2 still has a number of bugs.
[German]Private users of Microsoft's subscription products can look forward to a hefty price increase for the Microsoft 365 Personal and Family products. This "no-alternative" software is now being enhanced by Microsoft with Copilot, and that costs money. The subscriptions for private users will become significantly more expensive (thanks to the reader for pointing this out).
[German]German blog reader Martin contacted me by e-mail this week because a new HP consumer notebook (HP 15s-fq0318ng) came across his desk. Windows 11 24H2 was pre-installed on this system. The experienced supporter can guess what's coming: Martin tried to set up the device for the user and ran into all sorts of "messes", which I outline below.
[German]An unpleasant observation that is being discussed in the Virtualbox community. Virtualbox only works under Windows 11 if Hyper-V has been removed as a platform (and other virtualization functions). Apparently the hypervisors (still) collide. But removing Hyper-V and the other virtualization functions under Windows 11 is not at all trivial and has side effects.
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The maintainers of Linux Mint have released version 22.1 (Xia). Linux Mint 22.1 is a version with long-term support until 2029 and brings updated software packages, some refinements and many new features. The release notes with known issues can be found here, the installation instructions can be found here and the ISO files can be downloaded here.
[German]Take care when installing the Windows updates from January 2025 in Citrix environments. Administrators must ensure that the Session Recordings (SR), if installed, are switched off before the update installation. There is a support article from Citrix with some advices on this problem. There are workarounds to install the January 2025 updates. Continue reading
[German]After Microsoft released security updates for Windows on January 14, 2025, there is some feedback on problems. Some systems fail with an installation error, on other systems the update is not offered due to missing SSUs. And there are some problems after installation. Here is a brief summary of what I have encountered.
[German]Microsoft has distributed the security update KB5049981 for Windows 10 21H2-22H2 for the January 2025 Patchday (14.1.2025). After installing this update, administrators notice that the SgrmBroker service (broker for runtime monitoring of system monitoring) no longer starts. Administrators also notice the same behavior under Windows Server 2022. I will summarize the information I have in this regard.
[German]On January 14, 2025 (second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft Patchday), Microsoft released several security-related updates for Microsoft Office 2016, as well as the C2R variants (Office 2016-2021 and 365) and other products. Non-security updates were released on January 7, 2025. Below you will find an overview of the available updates.
MVP:
2013 – 2016
WIMVP:
2017 – 2020
