During the Connect() developer event, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2017 RC (Release Candidate). The said post contains all the Microsoft server links to download the public build, which is a web installer and you need to connect to internet while installing.

In case you need an offline installer to download once and install in multiple systems, here's the post to generate the offline installer. Continue reading the know more about it.

During Connect() developer event on 16th November 2016, Microsoft announced the Release Candidate (RC) bits of next major version of Visual Studio named as 'Visual Studio 2017', which is already known to us as 'Visual Studio 15'.

In this post, I am going to share the direct download links of different editions of Visual Studio 2017 RC from Microsoft servers.

Do you know that, Microsoft has opened up the Skype software on web for everyone who wants to connect with the other and above all, you don't have to create any account, no need of separate download of the software.

By joining Skype as a Guest, you can quickly chat, do a voice call or video call without any hassle. It's going to be perfect if you’re new to Skype and don't have the time to create any account.

Microsoft Azure MVP Bootcamp, organized by Miracle Software Systems and Vizag Microsoft User Group (VzMUG), happened on 12th November 2016. I was one of the speaker of this event, invited by Miracle Software Systems to speak on Azure Platform.

I have given a 90 minutes session on 'Azure App Services and Overview to UWP', demonstrated in front of 100+ audiences. Here I am sharing my slides and few snaps from the event.

Is your Visual Studio instance returning error code MSB3073 while executing the post build event? If you faced such error message and already spent time on investigating the root cause, you came to a proper landing page.

Recently, I too faced it and later noticed the cause which I am going to document here to save your further investigation time. Hope that helps.

Microsoft today announced the new insiders program for Skype. This will allow enthusiastic community members to test it and provide feedback to shape and enhance the Skype experience. This will be currently available for Windows, iOS, Mac and Android platform.

If you are such a community user, you can sign-up for it. You can also request for other platforms like Xbox and Microsoft will get back to you soon.

Earlier we learnt how to fetch, pull and push the changes. We also learnt how to stash and clean your current working tree. But what if we want to reset the current HEAD to the original state and start from the beginning?

Today we are going to discuss how to do this with the ‘git reset’ command. Continue learning more about Git on my ‘Git Tutorial’ page.

Microsoft released a new Windows 10 insider preview build 14959 for mobile and PC. Dona Sarkar, in an official blog post, announced the availability of the new build for fast ring Windows 10 users. Checkout the post to know what’s new and improved in this build.

Read the known issues before downloading this build. If you are stuck at 0% downloading build 14951, wait for the timeout to happen before attempting to downloading this build.

I hope that, you are finding my posts on Git Basics/Git Tutorial helpful. In the last post on this series, we learned "How to stash the changes in a dirty working directory?". Today we are going to discuss how to remove untracked files.

Everyone needs to clean the working tree when some job is done or want to reset the directory. Let's learn how to do this using the command "git clean".

During the big event on 26th October 2016, Microsoft made the announcement of it’s next major release of Windows 10. They named it as ‘Windows 10 Creators Update’, which we already know as ‘Redstone 2’ update. This release is going to be more focused on 3D, mixed reality and more.

Though the giant company didn’t announce the release date, but it’s planned to release sometime in Spring 2017 as free update.

Windows 10’s registry editor finally receives an update with the Insiders Preview build 14942 aired on 7th October for the Windows 10 Insiders in fast ring. It will give added value to the power users while navigating through the registry paths.

In this blog post, we are going to see the changes part of the Registry Editor on Windows 10 which may come with the next big update.

I hope that, you are finding my articles on Git Tutorials helpful. Till now, as part of the Git Tutorial Series we learned about the changes, the commit to the staging area, viewing the working tree status and pushing the changes to the remote repository.

In this part of the tutorial series, we will learn how to stash the changes of a working directory and pop it where/when require. Lets start discussing about “git stash” command and it’s parameters.

As of now, as part of the Git Tutorial Series we learned about the changes, the commit to the staging area and viewing the working tree status. Once we are fine with the local branch changes, we need to push it to remote repository.

In this part of the tutorial, we will learn how to push these commits/changes to remote. Lets start discussing about the “git push” command and it’s various parameters.

The Visual Studio LightSwitch team, in a blog post, announced an important update about the LightSwitch tool that was used to accelerate the development of line-of-business apps. They are going to draw a line to end this tool from the future versions of Visual Studio.

If you are developing apps using LightSwitch, it’s time for you to think and start planning for a smooth migration. Continue to read more about it.

In the last two posts of the "Git Basics" series, we learned how to stage changes and save/commit to Git remote repository. I hope, that was clear and easy to understand. Today we are going to see how to show the working tree status.

Let's continue learning the "git status" command today with the parameters that you need to know. Stay tuned to read more posts on Git Basics.

Microsoft released the ISO image of the Windows 10 Insiders Preview build 14931, which can be downloaded from the Microsoft server by generating the temporary link. Standard, Enterprise, Education and Home editions are available for download.

Read more to know further about the insiders build and grab the links to download the said ISO image (both 32-bit and 64-bit editions) from secure Microsoft servers.

In the last post of the series, we covered "Git Add" command to stage changes. Today we are going to discuss "How to commit that staging changes to Git repository", which you will need to perform every time working with it.

Let's continue learning about the command "git commit" today with the parameters that you need to learn. Stay tuned to read more and more posts on Git basic series.

In the last article, we covered "Git Fetch and Git Pull". Today we are going to discuss another topic on the Git Basics tutorial series i.e. "How to stage your changes to Git repository", which you will find useful while working in Git.

Let's continue learning about the command "git add" today with the parameters that you need to know. Stay tuned to read more and more posts on Git basic topics.

In the last article, we discussed about "Git Tags". Today we are going to discuss another topic "Git Fetch" and "Git Pull", which I hope, will help you to easily work with Git Bash commands to download code from repository.

Let's continue learning about "git fetch" and "git pull" today with the commands that you need to know. Stay tuned to read more and more posts on this topic.

I hope that the last post on "Git Branches" from my "Tutorials on Git Basics" was easy for you to understand. Today we are going to discuss on another topic "Git Tags", which I hope, will help you to easily work with Git Bash commands.

Let's continue learning this today with the commands that you need to know. Stay tuned to get more posts on this topic.

It’s a big day of life when you receive Microsoft MVP Award and it becomes a golden moment when the giant company reward you for the 7th consecutive year. Yes, I have been re-awarded for the 7th time as a Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional.

This time also I have been awarded in the “Windows Development” category for my contributions toward the vast developer community.

Continuing the on going series on "Git Basics", we will today learn on "remote connections". I hope, you are enjoying reading this series and read the last post "How to create, move, delete, list Git branches?". Bookmark it for future references.

Today in this post, we will cover how to create, list, rename and delete a remote connection on local Git repository. We will learn all the related commands.

Git is now a common tool in software development, for version controlling. In the last post, we described about "How to rename a Git branch?". Today we are going to learn more about Git branches and it's commands.

Continue reading to know how to create/rename/move/delete/list Git branches. Also, don't forget to check other posts on Git Basics/Git Cheat sheets.

These days, Git is one of the most popular version control systems available for software development. Git was created by Linus Torvalds in 2005 for development of the Linux kernel and gradually used as a free software distributed under GNU General Public License version 2.

Though there are many UI tools available for Git, but sometimes working with Git command is very tricky. Today in this post, we will learn the basics on renaming a Git branch.

Not many of us wants to work in the designer view of Visual Studio while working with the XAML files. This could be due to no requirements of changing the UI layout rather than few data bindings. By default, Visual Studio loads the XAML designer view.

In this post we are going to learn how to disable the designer view and/or change the way it loads the default document view.

It’s now a connected world and the applications that you use these days should run in multiple devices. Thus needs a smooth synchronization of it’s data. Visual Studio 2015 provides a way to synchronize it’s settings to multiple connected devices through One Drive.

In this blog post, we will learn how to synchronize the Visual Studio settings so that, you can have the same settings in all devices that you use.

Microsoft released a new patch for Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, pushing the IDE build version no. to: 14.0.25431.01. This is the fifth cumulative update for VS2015 Update 3 covering fixes for high-impact bugs noticed by product team and the community.

If you are using Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, you should download this patch (optional) and install it on your development environment to have a smooth IDE experience.

Everything in this world has an expiration, similar with Windows 10 Insiders Preview builds. Dona Sarkar, the chief of Windows 10 Insiders division in a blog post warned about it to the insiders running very old preview builds.

If you are running older builds, it’s time to upgrade to latest stable builds or to the latest insiders build in order to stop getting the expiration notifications and forced reboots.

Microsoft released new updates for Windows 10 eco system targeting both initial OS build 10240, 10586 and Anniversary Update build 14393. If you are using any of the above OS builds, check for Windows updates to download the latest patch.

This post will cover the list of fixes pushed in this update as per September patches. Continue reading to know more about all the fixes.

Setting the environment variables are sometime a necessary part of the developers and the system administrators. This some time screws up our life, mostly when working with the path variables separating by commas (‘,’).

In Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Microsoft provided a simple UI playing with these environment variables, which we are going to discuss today.

Xamarin Dev Days provide attendees with an intense, hands-on learning experience. Like the other parts of the world, we (the Kolkata Geeks team) arranged the whole day community program on Xamarin, bundled with multiple sessions and hands-on lab.

More about the event, session photos and slides is going to be publish in this blog post time to time. Stay tuned for all the updates.

As the technology growing current days, we cannot even think of a day without internet connection. If you are experiencing slower internet connection speed after upgrading to Windows 10 Anniversary Update, you may want to fix it.

To do so, you can try a small trick and see if that works or not. Here I am going to show the steps, which worked for me. Hope, this will work for you too.

As Windows 10 Anniversary Update has already been released, in this post we are going to see one of the key feature of this updates. Whenever we try to download something using Microsoft Edge, the file gets downloaded in the default download folder, if we ourself do not mention the path.

As one of the key features of Windows 10 Anniversary Update, you can now change the default download folder as your desire. You can follow the below mentioned steps to do so.

If you are using Windows 10, you must already aware of the new lightweight browser "Microsoft Edge" and had already experienced it. Windows 10 Anniversary Update brought many new features and enhancements to it, which you don't want to miss.

In this short post, we will learn about a cool but old feature by which you can open any web page from Microsoft Edge onto Internet Explorer. Continue to know more about it.

If you are a web developer, many time you need to view the source code of a web page and/or use the inspect element feature of a browser to find out a specific code section. If you are using Microsoft Edge on Windows 10, you will not find these options by default.

To enable these features, you need to set some parameters to Microsoft Edge browser. Today we will learn how to do the changes in this blog post.

Sometime when using NuGet packages, it may need additional packages as a reference. During installation of the main package, if it’s unable to install the dependent packages, Visual Studio 2015 allows you to auto download missing packages.

In this small blog post, we will learn how to enable this settings to retrieve the missing packages in various conditions. Continue reading to know more.

It’s the time for hustling. The Windows Insider Chief, Dona Sarkar, in a blog post announces the availability of Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14905 for both PC and Mobile users running in fast ring. If you are one of them, check for updates.

This post will note down all the things that you want to know about this new build. Do note that, it’s the first insider build for mobile after the Anniversary Update released.

A new Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been rolled out with build no: 10.0.14393.82, for the insiders who are currently in "Release Preview" ring. If you are in Fast ring or Slow ring, will not get this update as it is being delivered from the current branch.

Though it is still unclear about the changes in this build, but hopefully they are some critical bug fixes and performance improvements.

Some updates require you to reboot your system and sign-in to Windows in order to complete the installation process. This blocks you to use the system until the update process completes. Windows 10 helps you to prevent this by auto login to complete the update.

In this post we are going to learn, how to enable/disable this feature in Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Continue reading to know more about it.

Microsoft, in their Skype FAQ page updated that, the Skype app will continue to work on Windows Phone 8.x and Windows RT devices until early 2017. This also includes some Android, Mac and iOS devices running older version of the OS.

It’s because of their move towards transitioning Skype experience on cloud. Skype for other systems will not have any impact.

After the release of Windows 10 Anniversary Update followed by couple of fixes as cumulative updates, Microsoft now started pushing new insiders build from the development branch for fast ring Windows Insiders. Initially, this will have no big features, but some structural code changes.

As it is going to be serve from development branch, will have bugs. Find what's new coming with this build and the issues already known to Microsoft.

Now as the Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been rolled out, Microsoft started preparing for the next major build targeting the year 2017 as the next major release milestone. Those who are already part of the Windows Insiders program, here's the question: "Should I still be part of it?".

This question has been asked to me recently by many people. Thus thought to put the answer in this blog post, so that, it can help the others too who are not directly connected with me.

How many times it happened that, while writing code, you misspelled a type name? This is most common and this kind of typos can happen with everyone. Visual Studio 2015 provides a way to correct such spelling mistakes using “fuzzy matching” direct from the light bulb.

Today we are going to discuss on this topic and see how it can help you. Continue reading this post and don’t forget to check my other posts on Visual Studio 2015 Tips & Tricks.

Windows 10 Anniversary Update was released by Microsoft on 2nd August. You might have already received the new upgrade notification. If you are looking for the offline installer image or the ISO/DVD image, you came to the right page.

Here I will show you how to get the DVD/ISO image of Windows 10 Anniversary Update directly from Microsoft download servers.

Some Windows 10 editions let you defer upgrades to your system. When you defer upgrades, new Windows features won't be downloaded or installed for several months. If you are running Windows 10 and don’t want to upgrade to anniversary updates, you can temporarily defer it.

In this quick post we will learn how to defer the Windows 10 Anniversary Updates for next few months. Deferring upgrades will not affect getting any security updates.

Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been already released on 2nd August 2016, as expected. You can either download it using Media Creation Tool, from MSDN subscription page or from the Windows Update settings page based on availability for your system and region.

In case you didn't get the update via Windows Update, you can force your system to receive this update. In this post, we are going to see the process.

Microsoft released another patch for Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, pushing the IDE release version no. to: 14.0.25425.01. This is the fourth cumulative update for VS2015 Update 3 covering fixes for high-impact bugs noticed by product team and the community.

If you are using Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, you should download this patch and install in your development environment to have a smooth IDE experience.

Debugging a piece of code is always difficult and it is more difficult when you are debugging on someone else’s code. In all such cases, you will need to set the breakpoints and check the values that it returns before proceeding next.

Visual Studio 2015 makes it easier by providing you an option to call a specific method once you reach the breakpoint and based on requirement, print something on the output stream.

The giant company "Microsoft" released Windows 10 last year, on 29th July 2015, offering a free upgrade from genuine Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 systems. The free upgrade offer is going to end on 29th July 2016 and will have a charge of $119 for upgrades.

If you didn't yet upgrade to the new operating system, just few hours left before Microsoft stops this free upgrade and apply a nominal charge. Why to pay, when you can grab it for free?

Outlook 2016 brings a new set of features with the July update by which you can get someone's attention in the body of the email message or a meeting invite very easily. It will not only include their name highlighted in the body, but also add them to the “To” field.

This feature is currently available to Office Insiders and going to roll out soon. Let’s see brief about this new feature before it comes to public release.

If you are installing Visual Studio 2015 with Office Developer Tools and/or LightSwitch, you may encounter an issue saying "Microsoft Identity Extensions" package failed to install. Though the Visual Studio installation succeeds, you may get this warning message after the installation completes.

If you encounter this, there is an workaround to resolve the installation problem. Read more to know about the root cause behind this issue and the solution.

If you are using Visual Studio 2015 and want to change the existing installation from the Programs and Features item in Control Panel, you may see an error message "Failed to install setup update - Error code: -2147205120" after you accept an online update.

If you face this issue while modifying your existing installation, here is the simple solution for you as a workaround to proceed with. Read more to know about the solution.

Microsoft has released a cumulative update (patch) for Windows 10 preview build 14393, bumping the version to 14393.3. You can install this bits only if you are a Windows Insider in the fast ring and have installed the previous 14393 update.

The patch consists of minor bug fixes, improvements to stability and performances. We are expected to see few more patches before the final release of Windows 10 Anniversary Update, this August.

Visual Studio 2015 supports automatic updation of extensions. When the auto update extensions settings is enabled, the extensions will be automatically updated when a new update of the extension is available; that means, you don't have to perform any manual action.

Today we will discuss about it. In case it is disabled on your system, you will be able to reactivate it to get the auto update feature of extensions.

Microsoft released another build 14.0.25424.00 for Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, which is a patch under the KB article KB3165756. This patch builds are cumulative service updates and cover fixes for high-impact bugs noticed by product team and the community.

If you have Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, you should download and install these patch builds in order to work smooth with your favourite IDE installation.

The .NET Framework is a software development framework developed by Microsoft which runs primarily on Windows operating systems. But these days, it is used by millions of developers to create apps and services on any device and operating systems with amazing performance.

In this post, I am going to bookmark most of the .NET redistributables for references in future. Bookmark this for your future references too.

If you are a developer and using C# .NET to build your application, you may need to access the Application Data (AppData) folder of all the user accounts currently created in a specific system. The .NET framework exposes API to detect only the logged-in user's AppData folder.

To get the path for all the users of the system, you have to find it from the Windows Registry. Today we will discuss on that topic with a piece of code. Continue reading.

Today, Microsoft released a patch for Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, which was released on 27th June 2016. It is a cumulative update with fixes to the existing Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 installation. If you have installed Update 3, install the patch KB3165756 mentioned below.

Though it is not mandatory, but good to have install this patch as it addresses many fixes related to memory leaks, crash and other issues.

Sometime we need to retrieve the Visual Studio installation directory programmatically using the C#/.NET code and there’s no direct API call available to retrieve this information and also you don’t know the exact path where it has been installed.

Every installation of Visual Studio puts a specific registry path to keep track of the installation directory. If you know that, it’s easy to retrieve the information. Let’s discuss on this topic today.

It’s a weekend but the Microsoft Windows team is busy on releasing a new insiders preview build 14385 for fast ring users. This build is now available for both PC and Mobile devices, with a wide range of fixes that you might have waited for.

If you are a fast ring Windows Insider, check out for new update, try the bits and give your feedback to Microsoft. But before that, you would like to check for fixes available in this build.

Dona Sarkar, the new chief of Windows Insiders division, in a blog post announced the availability of new Windows Insiders build for both PC and Mobile devices. They numbered it as build 14383. Microsoft already started airing this build.

If you are a fast ring Windows Insiders, do check for updates to get the notification. But before that, you may want to check what got fixed and what not. Continue reading to know more.

Sometime we need to filter out a console command output and display only the portion that we want to show to the user. This could be based on any specific term or string that we want to include or exclude based on our requirement.

Today, here in this post, we are going to discuss on this and learn how to extract/filter the said information from the console command output.

Microsoft India is providing a free Azure trial pass of Rs. 50,000/- to organization entities to try out Azure from the India data center for 2 months. If you are from India and part of any organization, you just have to fill out an online application form to get started with.

Don’t miss this opportunity. Act now, grab your free trial and get started with Microsoft Cloud service in the Azure portal.

If you face the error message “An error occurred while validating. HRESULT = '8000000A'” while building Visual Studio setup project from command line in Visual Studio 2012 or above IDE environment, the reason is because the new IDEs do not support build outside the own process.

But there is a tweak which will help you to enable the same and you will now be allowed to build the MSI setup project from the command line itself.

Microsoft officially announced the release date of Windows 10 anniversary update. It’s going to be release on 2nd August 2016 and going to be the major update on Windows 10 platform with lot many new features, enhancements and fixes.

Over 350 million devices are currently running Windows 10 and will get this big update for free. Rest of the people either need to upgrade to it before 29th July or need to pay after that offer period ends.

On 27th June 2016, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2015 Update 3 along with .NET Core 1.0. This build focuses on fixes of issues already reported in earlier releases, including the memory consumption issue noticed in Update 2.

This build also has some known issues, which will be fixed in subsequent builds. In this post, sharing the links to download the web installer, ISO image for offline installation.

Microsoft .NET Framework is a programming infrastructure created by Microsoft for building, deploying and running applications & services that use .NET technologies, such as desktop applications, web applications and Web services.

In this post, I am going to list down the history of .NET Framework along with the key features which has been introduced with each version of the framework.

Dona Sarkar, the new chief of Windows Insiders Program, released a new Mobile insiders build 14371 for the fast ring users. After the bug bash last week, this build focuses mainly on the bug fixes along with a new feature and some known issues.

Though today’s build is for Mobile insiders, but we are going to see the corresponding PC build soon. This post will cover the new changes, fixes and known issues. Continue reading to know more.

If you are addin developer for any Microsoft product, you might have in need to find out the exact version no. of the office product. You can get it from the app version from the interop libraries, but that doesn't return the correct one to you.

So, how to retrieve it? Today in this small post, we will find out the way to get the correct version no. If you know any alternate way, will highly appreciate if you do share it with us.

Microsoft released a new update (Build 16.0.6965.2058) for Office 365 client aka. Office 2016 (Version 1605) on 14th June 2016. This includes one security fix and seven non-security related fixes. If you are using Office 2016, check for updates.

This post will cover the list of fixes part of this Microsoft Tuesday patch. Continue reading to further know about the changes.

Microsoft released a new cumulative build 10586.420 for Windows 10 version 1511 and a separate build 10240.16942 for Windows 10 initial version. If you are using the initial version or the 1511 version of Windows 10, you will get a update notification on your device.

This build is available for both PC and Mobile devices. Read more to know about the changes in both PC and Mobile build.

When you are more used to with some application software and if you use it daily on a high volume, it's sometime good to learn the keyboard shortcuts of the features that you perform regularly. Outlook exposes a lot of such shortcut keys for you to perform better.

It's not always possible to learn all of them, but good to have the list to learn/view time to time. Here I am listing all the shortcuts of Outlook 2010 - 2016, for your reference.

Sometime we work on a Visual Studio solution file that has a huge nos. of projects and folders. Keeping all of them in the Solution Explorer, makes it difficult to manage. Visual Studio provides a way to make it simpler and cleaner.

Though it is available since Visual Studio 2012, but if you are not aware of this feature, let's discuss on this. Continue reading the post to learn about it.

Microsoft released a new update (version: 16.0.6965.2053) for Office 365 client applications. This includes some new features with some non-security fixes. If you are using Office 365 client or Office 2016, check for office updates.

This post will cover the new changes and the list of fixes bundled with this build. Continue reading to know about it further.

Dona Sarkar, who has recently taken care the department of Windows Insiders Program after Gabe Aul moved to a new department, in a blog post announced the availability of new insider build 14356 for fast ring users of Windows 10 Mobile.

This build focuses more on the fixes on the issues reported to Microsoft along with some new enhancements to Cortana. Find more to know all these changes and the known issues.

Last Sunday (29th May 2016), we have organized an event in Kolkata, clubbed with topics on different technologies. This includes topics like C# 7.0 Concepts, Azure PowerShell, UWP (Universal Windows Platform), HoloLens with Unity 3D and IoT (Internet of Things).

I have given a session on building UWP apps using C# and XAML. Here I am sharing my slides for you to refer. Those who missed to join the event, check it out.

Microsoft released a new Windows 10 Insiders Preview build 14352 to it's fast ring Windows Insiders. If you are a insider and in the fast ring, check out for Windows Update to get the latest build to try before the final release and provide feedback to Microsoft.

Check out what has been improved, what has been fixed and the issues already known to Microsoft before upgrading to this build.

Microsoft released a new update on 23rd May for it’s entire set of Office 365 client applications, incrementing the version to 16.0.6868.2067. It’s the third update that they pushed in this month (May 2016) and contains all non-security updates.

Checkout this post to know about all the fixes they pushed in this build, though the folder pane visibility issue is still untouched.

This Saturday, on 21st May 2016, we organized an event in Kolkata Salt Lake City via c-sharpcorner Kolkata chapter on various topics like AngularJS, Xamarin, Entity Framework – Code First and Coding Horrors – How to improve your code quality with Refactoring.

In this event, I spoke on Coding Horrors and shared in-depth on improving quality of code with Code Refactoring. Those who didn’t make to join, sharing the slides (PPT) here to view.

Outlook has support to install add-ins from 3rd parties to extend the functionality or to do some additional works which outlook does not provide by default. But in some cases, it starts creating problem due to non-compatible version or bugs within the add-ins.

In such cases, if the outlook fails to start due to issues related to any installed add-ins, we need to boot outlook into safe mode to remove/disable those. Let’s continue learning, how to do this.

These days, most of us use Skype for voice call or chat to connect with relatives and friends. Also, this is used in many organizations as chat client to connect with the other team members. If you are using the free account and don’t have Skype credit, you will see ads from Microsoft in the client application.

Sometime this is annoying! Today in this small post, we will learn about a workaround to hide the Skype advertisements from load.

If you are using Microsoft Edge browser on Windows 10, you will find that the favorites bar is not visible in the browser. This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off the favorites bar to show in Microsoft Edge for your user account in Windows 10.

Continue reading to know about it and also learn how to import the favorites from other installed browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc.

Sometime it happens when malicious and potentially unwanted software including rootkits, installs themselves on your PC and make it difficult to remove even with an up-to-date antivirus program. Windows Defender Offline handles it by booting itself without loading the actual Windows OS.

Earlier, we had to manually install the Windows Defender Offline as a separate executable, but now with Anniversary Update of Windows 10 it will be quite easy. Let’s check what’s coming up next!

Microsoft released the latest preview build 14342 for PCs for Windows Insiders running on fast ring. This build focuses on new features/enhancements and a lot of bug fixes. As it is a preview build from development branch, it also has some known and unknown issues too.

This post lists down everything that you want to know about the Windows 10 Insiders Preview build 14342 for PC. Don’t forget to check the known issues before installing this build.

Another preview build for Windows 10 PC just aired by Microsoft, having the build no: 14342. This build is for the Windows Insiders who are in fast ring, running Windows 10 insiders preview. This new build focuses on new enhancements, features and bug fixes.

As it is a preview build from development branch, it also has some known and unknown issues. Checkout the issues listed in the post before downloading.

The Windows 10 spotlight images for the lockscreen are not new. You might have already experienced this, if you upgraded to the November Update (version 1511, build 10586). Spotlight images when set, downloads some beautiful images from the internet and shows on your lockscreen.

By default, the download location of the spotlight images is hidden but in case you want to copy those beautiful images and set them as wallpaper, you can do so by following the trick mentioned below.

Last year when Microsoft launched Windows 10, they announced a great offer to it’s millions of consumers with a free upgrade from Windows 7/8/8.1 for first year. Windows 10 is now running on 300 million active devices and you might be one of them.

If you didn’t yet upgrade to the new OS, here’s your last chance to upgrade for free. Otherwise you will blame yourself in future when you have to grab it for $119.

Microsoft released the ISO image of the Windows 10 Insiders Preview build 14322, which can be downloaded from the Microsoft server by generating the temporary links. Standard and Enterprise editions are only available for download at this point of time.

Read more to know further about the insiders build and grab the links to download the said ISO image (both 32-bit and 64-bit editions) from secure Microsoft servers.

If you are using Outlook 2016 or any prior version of it and facing issue related to the first pane/left pane/folder pane/navigation panel/navpane, which is frequently disappearing after outlook restart, this post will help you to resolve it.

Just follow the simple steps mentioned here in this post and let us know, if this solves the problem that you are looking for.

Windows provides a Wi-Fi security page, from where you can view the connected Wi-Fi connection’s password or network key. By default, the key remains hidden but you can view it anytime. There might be some reason when you want to retrieve or view the password.

Today in this blog post, we will learn how to retrieve it. For this to work, you must connected to that network at least once. Continue reading to know more.

If you are using Visual Studio 2015, you might have encountered this error “Internal error in the expression evaluator” while debugging your code; the debugger and the watch window will start throwing this error instead of returning the value.

If you encounter this issue and came to this page by searching online, just hold your breath. We will show you, how to fix this error and continue working with Visual Studio normally.

Windows 10 now provides you an easy way to create Wi-Fi hotspots. You don’t need any 3rd party software, you don’t need to write commands in the console. Everything is now just a few clicks away, in a complete GUI. This feature is going to come with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

Today in this blog post, I will show you the forthcoming feature in Windows 10. Have a glance on it and share us your view. If you are a Windows Insider, checkout the feature in latest build.

Along with Windows 10 PC Build 14328 for Windows Insiders, Microsoft improved the privacy of the user. The email address which was shown in the sign-in screen, will be by default hidden and if require, user can make it visible there.

Today in this small blog post, we will learn how to show or hide the user’s personal details like email address on Windows sign-in screen.

If you are using Windows 10 PC or any Mobile device, you might already know about the Quick Action buttons. In latest Windows 10 Mobile update for Windows Insiders, Microsoft added the functionality to customize the quick action panel as per your need.

You can now add/remove any action button or rearrange them. In this quick blog post, we will discuss about it with a set of screenshots.

Along with the release of Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14328 for PC and Mobile, Microsoft also released an update for the Windows Messaging app. Now you will be able to sync your messages across Windows 10 devices that you use.

In this small post, we will learn how to activate/deactivate this feature in both PC devices and Mobile devices. Continue reading to learn more.

Microsoft released a major PC build 14328 for fast ring Windows Insiders, whereas the Mobile build is just a minor update to build 14327. Though there are no new features/enhancements in this mobile build, but a ton of new features/enhancements available in PC build.

In this post, I am just listing out all the new changes and fixes in this PC build with a list of known issues. Before downloading the update, don’t forget to read the known issues.

Microsoft announced the availability of Windows 10 Insiders preview build 14328 for the fast ring users. The build is now available via the Windows Update/Phone Update for both PC and Mobile devices. Only a few set of phone devices listed by Microsoft will get this build.

There are a lot of new features/enhancements available in this build along with fixes. As it’s a developer preview build, it also has some known issues. Continue reading to know more about it.

Microsoft released Windows 10 Mobile build 14327 to the Windows Insiders available in the fast ring. With this build, they introduced some changes/improvements for the insiders to test and provide feedback. Among those, one is the messaging app.

Now you will be able to easily delete the messages from the messaging app, just like what you are doing in Windows 10 PC build. Continue to read more about it.

Microsoft has now publicized the ISO image of the Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14295. You can now download both the offline editions (standard, enterprise, education, home single and home china editions) of the insiders build and install on your system.

Read more to know further about the insiders build and grab the link to download the said ISO image (both 32-bit and 64-bit editions).

Windows 10 provides you an easy way to reset your system. You can choose to thoroughly clean the system or can refresh it without effecting your personal files and folders. You can also choose whether to remove the files or wipe the whole drive making your files unrecoverable.

Today in this part of Windows 10 Tips & Tricks series, we will learn how to quickly reset your PC without effecting your personal files.

Microsoft has announced the availability of Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 14322 for fast ring Windows Insiders. This build is directly from the development branch and will be available only to a list of devices which are capable to receive this.

This build consists of new enhancements, bug fixes but also has some known issues, as it is a developer preview version. Continue reading to know more about it.

Visual Studio 2015 Update 2, released during //BUILD/2016 developer conference, provides an easy way to execute code directly on the Interactive Window inside the Visual Studio IDE. Along with that, the interactive window is now also capable of color highlighting.

Today in this blog post, we will learn how to execute code directly in the interactive window, in just a single click. Continue reading and let us know, how much you like this enhanced feature.

A new cumulative update for Windows 10 users just now rolled out by Microsoft. If you have version 1511, checkout Windows Update once, if you didn’t yet receive the upgrade notification. It’s a cumulative update for April 2016 and the build no. is 10586.218.

This update includes quality improvements and security fixes. No new operating system features are being introduced in this update. Continue reading to know details.

Along with Windows 10 insider preview build 14316, Microsoft added many new enhancements for the Windows Insiders to try first before it comes to general public along with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update coming in this summer.

In this build, they have added the ability to select which app notifications are more important to you in Action Center. Continue reading to learn more about it.

You might already know that, Windows 10 insiders build 14316 is already available for fast ring Windows Insiders. Along with the other new features and improvements, Microsoft also improved the upgrade experience and update settings.

Today, let’s see in this small post, what are the improvements that the giant company has made in update settings. The other improvements will follow in new posts.

Microsoft recently released Windows 10 Insiders Preview build: 14316 to it’s fast ring users. In this build, Microsoft added support to switch between dark and light themes universally. If you have installed this build or above, you will be able to change the theme of apps which responds to theme changes in the OS.

Continue reading to know about it with a easy to navigate video demonstration and at the end, share your feedback with Microsoft.

Microsoft gone one step ahead in order to release their Windows 10 Anniversary Update. This time they announced new insider preview build 14316 with many new exciting features. If you are a Windows Insider and configured your system to get fast ring updates, checkout for the new build.

If you want to know what has been newly introduced, what has been fixed and the known issues currently there in this preview build, continue reading while it downloads the updates.

Visual Studio "15" is an early preview build of the next major release of Visual Studio, which has been released by Microsoft on 30th March 2016, during //BUILD/2016 developer conference at San Fransisco. It provides early adopters to try out the new features and provide continuous feedback.

To know more about the preview release and to get the links of the web installer and/or the ISO image for offline installation, continue reading the post.

On 30th March, during Build Developer Conference 2016, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2015 Update 2. This release focuses on stability and more on the users feedback received on RTM and Update 1. Along with these, it also includes performance improvements and responsiveness to our favorite IDE.

This build also has some known issues, which will be fixed in subsequent builds. In this post, sharing the links to download the web installer, ISO image for offline installation.

Microsoft's annual Build Developer Conference 2016 is going to happen in San Francisco from 30th March - 1st April. Microsoft has planned to live stream the Day 1 and Day 2 keynotes on it's Build site. All other sessions will be available for playback later next week.

Apart from the Microsoft Build site, you can also watch the same on my blog, streamed directly from Microsoft's server. Don't forget to watch it live from 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Pacific Time).

Microsoft recently released Windows 10 version 1511 build: 14291 to the fast ring Windows Insiders. This build features some new improvements. It includes support of extensions to Microsoft Edge browser too. Now you will be able to add extensions to the Edge browser and extend it’s functionalities.

In this post, we will discuss on this new feature and guide you to install extensions from Microsoft site. Continue reading and share your feedback to improve Windows 10.

If you have registered for the Windows insiders program and you are unable to receive the Windows 10 preview bits, this could be due to few issues related to configuration settings on your desktop. If you have configured your system properly but still the bits not shown in your available updates, you might have to change some settings manually.

In this post, I will show you the trick which will enable you to receive the bits. Do this changes with precautions. Continue reading more to learn about it.

Bing Rewards program can help you to earn credits for searching on Bing or trying new features from Bing or other Microsoft products and services, which can be redeemable for a variety of gifts and other rewards. If you are in India, now you can register for it (which is free) and start rewarding yourself by just searching on Bing.com.

If you are new to this, checkout the blog posts and register for this free program. Start searching on Bing, start earning some rewards just for your searches.

On 8th March 2016, Microsoft aired a new cumulative update (OS build: 10586.164) for #Windows 10 version 1511. Now they have published the ISO/Offline installer for the said build. This means, you will now be able to download the ISO of the security update once and install it in multiple devices.

Continue reading more to find out the link to download the ISO file of the March 2016 security updates for Window 10. It’s around 846 MB only.

Along with Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview build 14283, Microsoft also released a new update for Outlook Mail and Calendar app, having some new improvements. Among those, one cool new enhancement is the ability to turn ON/OFF the message preview in the message pane.

Though it is by default set to ON, but in case you want to hide it or make it visible in future, this small post will help you to configure the same, step-by-step. Continue reading.

Gabe Aul, the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Engineering Systems team, announced the availability of Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview build: 14283 for the fast ring Windows Insiders. Though this build is now limited to few devices, but will later expand to other devices.

This build focuses some new improvements and fixes. As it is an insider build, it also has some known issues. Continue reading the post to know what has been changed, along with the issues currently present.

Microsoft has released a new cumulative update (OS build: 10586.164) for Windows 10 version 1511 on 8th March 2016. If you are not part of Windows Insiders program and in the public release ring, you will get this update through the Windows 10 update service.

This updates includes improvements and security fixes only. No new features were introduced. This post will give you a basic overview of the key changes.

If you are building a custom installer of your own, you might want to compress the files inside a ZIP and extract them on need basis. You can easily do this by using some 3rd party libraries, among which some are free and some are paid versions. Why to use additional libraries if the .NET framework provides you the set of APIs?

You might be aware of this, but if you are unaware of it, let me tell you that, it was present since .NET 2.0. Let’s explore it in today’s quick blog tips & tricks. Continue reading and share the link in your network.

If you are using Outlook 2016 (version: 16.0.6568.2025) and configured the email client to download mails using POP3, you might face some issues which will delete all the emails from server inbox after outlook downloads those and/or create duplicate items of the downloaded messages.

Microsoft has shared an workaround to resolve this issue. If you are using that specific version of Outlook 2016, continue reading to know more details of the same and fix the issue temporarily while Microsoft is working on a permanent fix.

The giant company released the RC build (Release Candidate) of Visual Studio 2015 Update 2, focusing mainly on stability and user's feedback received via the Update 1 RTM channel. Microsoft marked this as "Go Live", though it is still under prerelease and has few known issues.

If you want to explore the new changes, read more to find the download links as well as the link towards release notes and a list of bug fixes, known issues.

If you are working with XML serialization in .NET/C#, you might have already encountered this and might have analyzed a lot why your data is not serializing though you have written proper code. The reason/solution might be simple but in case you are not aware of such common mistakes, you will definitely break your head finding the root cause.

In this quick post, we will learn about the common mistakes that may happen while declaring the properties of data class that you are going to serialize. Continue reading and let me know, if you find more points to be added here.

In most cases, we use XML files to serialize/de-serialize data from/to the app. To do this, we expose properties of known types and pass them to the serializer for the automatic serialization process. Sometimes, we don’t need to serialize all the properties and manually need to mark them from the serialization process.

In this small blog post, we are going to see the way, by which you can prevent a property from the XML serialization process. Continue reading to know more.

Not every system has the right folder permission set to all user account and hence, sometime we need special access to specific folder during installation or while executing the application. It is not possible to manually set it up by browsing the folder and hence an automation is mandatory.

If you are looking for a way to set the right permission to specific folder(s) using C# code, this post will help you. Continue reading to learn more about it and grab the code.