PCWorld June 2017

Tech and trends that will affect you today and beyond. AMD'S RYZEN THREADRIPPER could very well be the most powerful consumer CPU ever introduced. With 16 cores and 32 threads, it gives the high-performance Intel products currently dominating the same space something to worry about. The CPU is so new, hard information is scant, but we've gathered the most solid stuff here. The specs we know Core count: 16 Thread count: 32 Release date: Summer of 2017 Yup, that's it. If you've read anything else on Threadripper or "Ryzen 9," it's nothing but rumor and speculation at this point. You may say the leaks look good, but we'll point out that they didn't even seem to get the name right, so you gotta wonder. What will it be called? AMD's Jim Anderson introduced the new CPU as "Ryzen Threadripper"…

MICROSOFT’S ANNUAL BUILD conference is ostensibly aimed at developers, but it’s always the stage for a slew of consumer-focused product announcements as well—and Build 2017 was no exception. From the future of Windows to Cortana everywhere to an app that uses machine learning and mixed realities to make your movies awesome, these are the biggest reveals from Build 2017 that everyday users should care about. 500 million Windows 10 devices Let’s get the flashy numbers out of the way first. Microsoft says there are half a billion Windows 10 devices in the wild—far off the adoption pace Microsoft originally envisioned for the operating system, but still a staggering number. Of those, 141 million devices use the Cortana digital assistant monthly. That’s a big number too, but with Cortana being the tip of Microsoft’s AI…

USERS OF OLD Windows systems can now download a patch to protect them from the May 12th massive ransomware attack. In a rare step, Microsoft published a patch for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 8—all of them operating systems for which it no longer provides mainstream support. Users can download and find more information about the patches in Microsoft’s blog post (go.pcworld.com/msrcwcrypt) about the recent attack from the WannaCry ransomware. The ransomware, which has spread globally (go.pcworld.com/rwareatk), has been infecting computers by exploiting a Windows vulnerability involving the Server Message Block protocol, a file-sharing feature. Computers infected with WannaCry will have their data encrypted, and display a ransom note demanding $300 or $600 in bitcoin to free the files. Fortunately, Windows 10 customers were not targeted in the most recent attack. In March,…

IF YOU OWN a Windows XP or Windows 7 PC that's been hit by the WannaCry ransomware, there's good news: French researchers have created a software utility called wanawiki that can potentially unlock an infected PC. Matt Suiche, the founder of CloudVolumes and Comae, published a blog post (go.pcworld.com/wwikidem) that describes how Benjamin Delpy's wanawiki tool works: It sniffs out the prime numbers used by the ransomware to reconstruct the key used to encrypt your PC. Once the wanawiki tool (go.pcworld.com/wwiki) is run, the software can basically generate the key, and the tool will then unlock the encypted files. Experts have warned, however, that WannaCry itself isn’t that sophisticated, and further exploitswill spread using a vulnerability released by a group calling themselves the Shadow Brokers. There's a catch: To give the tool a…

Make smart purchases, stay safe online. Watch the video at go.pcworld.com/wdcu MICROSOFT MADE SOME much needed changes to Windows Defender with the Creators Update (go.pcworld.com/cu). The built-in antivirus app is renamed the Windows Defender Security Center, and as that name suggests, it’s a more fleshed-out security suite. It’s not that Windows Defender has any new features. What Microsoft has done for the most part is bring together a number of security settings in Windows 10 that were scattered throughout the system. The old Defender was a very bare-bones utility. The Home tab showed a confirmation that it was active, whether virus and spyware definitions were up-to-date, and when the last scan was. There were also tabs to manually retrieve updates to spyware definitions and to view your Defender history. Other than that there was a…

WE’VE ALREADY LOOKED at how to turn off location services (go.pcworld.com/ls) in the Windows 10 Creators Update. But the operating system isn’t the only way your location gets used. Your browser can also serve up your location, though by default most browsers ask your permission before doing so. If you don’t wish to get those requests, here’s how to turn off location requests in the major browsers on Windows. Microsoft Edge Let’s start with the easy one. Because Edge is built on the Windows Store platform, stopping it from asking for your location is simple. Open the Settings app and go to Privacy > Location. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen until you see the heading Choose Apps That Can Use Your Precise Location. Now just turn the slider next to…