Microsoft is closing down its Azure Blockchain Service
Microsoft has announced that its Azure Blockchain Service is to close down this fall. The end date for the complete closure is September 10, but the company has already put a stop on new deployments and signups.
No big announcement has been made about the closure of the service which has been around since 2015 when Microsoft partnered with ConsenSys. The decision leaves existing users with just four months to find an alternative home for their ledgers.
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Microsoft has not given any reason for shutting down Azure Blockchain which will inevitably lead to speculation. Until the company does offer up an explanation any requests for details have garnered no response – we can only assume that the decision stems from a lack of customers, increasing costs, or general streamlining.
Microsoft withdraws AMD driver that causes INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE error in Windows 10
Microsoft has pulled an AMD SCSI driver from Windows Update after it was found to cause boot problems for numerous people.
Reports came from many users who experienced boot problems, BSoDs, INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE errors bricked systems after installing the troublesome driver. The driver Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. - SCSIAdapter - 9.3.0.221 has now been withdrawn, but anyone who has already updated will need to manually uninstall it.
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While the driver will only have been installed on system with the associated hardware, the fact that it was an automatically installed update left users affected by boot issues wondering what on Earth was going on. Over on Reddit as well as the Microsoft support forums, complaints about inaccessible boot device flooded in. Many of those complaining have Gigabyte motherboards.
Microsoft is working towards running Linux as ARM64 Hyper-V guest
Microsoft s love affair with Linux has been developing in recent years, and has now reached the stage of being a serious relationship. Such is Microsoft s commitment that the company is now actively involved in contributing to the Linux kernel.
One of the latest updates sees the company shifting its focus slightly when it comes to Hyper-V. Its virtualization tool has thus far been largely fixated with x86 64, but now there is a move towards running Linux as ARM64 Hyper-V guest .
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The news was noticed and shared by Michael Larabel of Phoronix, who says: While Microsoft s Hyper-V virtualization hypervisor and their Azure cloud has largely been x86 64 focused, with the Linux 5.13 kernel they are moving further for supporting Linux as a ARM64 Hyper-V guest .
Winget: Microsoft updates Windows 10 s Linux-style package manager to enable software removal
Microsoft has launched a new preview version of Winget Windows 10. Taking inspiration from AppGet, Winget is a Linux-style package manager that allows for command line control of software.
With the latest release, Winget 0.3, Microsoft has added a number of new features to the tool, including the ability to use it to uninstall software. While this is unlikely to tempt the majority of people away from using Settings or the Control Panel, it is extremely handy for anyone looking to uninstall software using scripts.
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Winget has come a long way since Microsoft introduced the utility last year, and new features are available to try out in the most recent preview version. The latest release sees the addition of the list option which can be used to view lists of everything that is installed on a system, in addition to uninstall which can be used to remove unwanted items. The comman