PCWorld Aug-14

ON JULY 10, with the release of a Microsoft strategy memo (go.pcworld.com/nadellamemo), CEO Satya Nadella charted a new course focused on interconnectivity and productivity—one in which the standard-setting Office applications and other products and services could slowly blur together, becoming different modes of working with the same data. Right now, of course, you can still buy Windows, Office, Windows Phone, and other Microsoft products and services. But within the next decade, your interaction with Microsoft products could be radically different. Nadella’s strategy memo marks an evolution: Following Steve Ballmer’s “devices and services” strategy and Nadella’s own “mobile first, cloud first” concept, the plan now is to make Microsoft “the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world.” “Microsoft has a unique ability to harmonize the world’s devices, apps, docs, data and…

IN EARLY JULY, Microsoft reminded the world that it will stop providing “mainstream support” for Windows 7 (and a slew of other products; see go.pcworld.com/msftending for the full list) in January 2015. Immediately, a flood of fearmongering headlines and articles implied that Windows 7 is following Windows XP into the grave. It isn’t. The confusion stems from Microsoft’s maddeningly obtuse naming conventions. The end of Windows 7’s mainstream support means only that the operating system will no longer get new features or product tweaks, such as the forthcoming DirectX 12. Once a Windows desktop OS leaves mainstream support, it enters the extended support phase— the same phase that Windows XP resided in from early 2009 until its demise earlier this year. You’ll still receive critical security patches during extended support, so while…

ACCORDING TO RUSSIAN LEAKER WZOR, Microsoft plans to launch “Windows 9” this fall and back it with a substantial ad campaign. The Russian blogger also claims that accompanying the release will be a new distribution method keyed to the user’s PC and the online Microsoft Store, rather than an activation key that’s sold and/or distributed to an individual user. Wzor, who went silent in March after allegedly receiving leaked information (go.pcworld.com/msftleak) from former Microsoft employee Alex Kibkalo, resurfaced in early July, posting information to Russian bulletin boards (go.pcworld.com/win9leak). Wzor’s latest post as of this writing spends more time describing the new activation system than the Windows 9 campaign itself—but the activation system may very well end up being the more significant announcement. So far, Microsoft hasn’t indicated what its plans are regarding Windows.…

GET READY TO DRINK deep from the fountain of knowledge. As he has done in years past, Eric Ligman, Microsoft’s senior sales excellence manager, has collected a trove of free Microsoft ebooks and resources (go.pcworld.com/msftebooks), offering up nearly 300 gratis guides for your reading pleasure. To be fair, most of the items (which we first noticed thanks to BetaNews) are basic guides, sales materials, or deeply technical tomes delving into the arcane arts of, say, Azure, Microsoft Dynamics, and SharePoint. Valuable resources, sure, but maybe not consumer-friendly resources. That said, sifting through the bounty reveals some handy reference items that everyday folks will find interesting. The hefty “Windows 7 Power Users Guide” is up for grabs, and so too is “Introducing Windows 8.1 for IT Professionals,” which spans 139 pages. You’ll also…

IT SHOULD COME as no surprise in the era of Edward Snowden that the United States military is keeping an eye on your social media habits. But what you might not realize is that the Department of Defense is also funding Facebook-style behavioral experiments. The Guardian reported in early July that DARPA, the Defense Department’s research arm, has given millions of dollars (go.pcworld.com/darpa) to projects that examine activity on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Pinterest, and other popular social networks as part of its “Social Media in Strategic Communication” program. According to the newspaper, one of the studies involved sending messages to users to gauge their responses. DARPA even looked at the Twitter accounts of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber to determine how messages disseminate across that network. The military also examined…

IN EARLY JULY, one month after Sony representatives stood onstage at that company’s E3 press conference (go.pcworld.com/e3sony2014) and announced that Grim Fandango would be available for the first time in almost 15 years, we got confirmation that the beloved adventure game would be on the PC, too. (Oh, thank goodness.) Yes, despite the implication at E3 that the remastered version of the game would be exclusive to Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Vita, Grim Fandango will indeed be coming to its true and rightful PC home (go.pcworld.com/grimpc), as well as to Mac and Linux. This isn’t really a surprise, considering that Grim Fandango creator and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer tweeted about “other platforms” during E3, but still—nostalgic gamers can now heave a sigh of relief. And lest you blame Sony for making…