Flash to be stopped in Office 365

If you are one of the few Office 365 users who embeds Silverlight, Shockwave, or Flash content in your documents, your pastime will soon be a thing of the past. Over a week ago, Microsoft announced that Office 365 would completely block said media by January 2019.

Microsoft recently announced plans to eventually stop the activation of Silverlight, Shockwave, and Flash content in Office 365. This is not just the developers disabling bugs with an option to click a link or button to look at content. Within a few months’ time, Flash will be gone from Office 365 for good.

What media will be affected once this is implemented?

Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash or Shockwave content that uses Microsoft’s OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) platform and the “Insert Object” feature will be blocked. However, media that uses the “Insert Online Video” control via an Internet Explorer browser frame will not be affected by this change.

The following timeline shows the various changes that will take full effect by January 2019:

• Controls in the Office 365 Monthly Channel will be blocked beginning June 2018.
• Controls in the Office 365 Semi-Annual Targeted (SAT) Channel will be blocked beginning September 2018.
• Controls in the Office 365 Semi-Annual Channel will be blocked beginning January 2019.

Why did the developers choose to take out the embedded content?

Microsoft pointed out various reasons for making their decision. It cited that malware authors have been exploiting systems through Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files with embedded content, and that most Office 365 users did not use or rarely use the controls anyway.

Aside from this, the developers at Microsoft decided to take action after Adobe announced that Flash would reach its end-of-life cycle by 2020. Silverlight was discontinued in 2016, where enterprise customers would have support for the medium until 2021.

For businesses that still need to look at or embed Silverlight- or Flash-based content in an Office 365 document, Microsoft has provided a support page to guide users on re-activating the controls.

As more websites are transitioning away from Flash in favor of HTML5, Microsoft’s once-popular platform has experienced a steady decline over the years. According to Google, Chrome users who loaded a single web page per day that has Flash media had gone down from an estimated 80% during 2014 to below 8% in early 2018.

For more information about utilizing Office 365 features and other IT related concerns, feel free to get in touch with us today!

Little-known Windows 10 tips and tricks

Are you making the most out of your Windows 10 computer? If you haven’t tried adjusting system and battery performance, silenced notifications, or used the night light function, then you’re missing out on minor but useful features.

Performance/Power slider

There are two kinds of computer users: those who value battery longevity and those who prefer optimized system performance. The Performance/Power slider in Windows 10 lets you easily toggle between the ‘Best battery life’ (when you’re trying to save battery) and the ‘Best performance’ (when you need your system to perform optimally), or set a balanced battery and system performance setting.

Just click the battery icon in the taskbar and adjust the slider based on your preference.

Night Light

Those who use computers late at night can turn on Night Light to reduce the amount of blue light emitted from the screen. This feature substitutes the blue light with warmer colors, which reduces eye strain and helps you sleep easily.

Night Light is disabled by default, so you need to enable it by following these steps:

• Click the Start Menu
• Click the Settings app (or press WIN + I to quickly open Settings)
• Click the System icon>Display
• Set Night light to ‘On’ or ‘Off’

Taskbar pin

It takes only a few seconds to open a browser and type a website’s address or click Bookmarks and choose from a list of websites you frequently visit. But Windows 10 offers an even quicker way to access your go-to sites by allowing you to pin websites on the Windows 10 taskbar.

Simply click “Pin this page to the taskbar” on the Microsoft Edge menu, and the site’s icon will appear on the taskbar for easy perusal.

Drag to pin windows

Need to organize your screen but can’t help having many open windows? Reduce screen clutter by dragging any window to a corner so it can take a quarter of the screen. For multiple screens, drag a window to any border and wait for the prompt that tells you to put the window in the selected corner.

Focus Assist

Notifications can be distracting, but Windows 10’s Focus Assist feature can manage the notifications you receive from contacts and applications. This function also lets you customize the list of notifications you wish to prioritize.

To enable Focus Assist, go to:

• Settings
• System
• Focus Assist
• Adjust the notifications settings based on your preference

If you wish to disable it and receive all notifications, click ‘Off.’

The features we’ve included here are just some of the many Windows 10 functions that save time and add value to business-users’ lives. For more software and productivity recommendations, give our IT consultants a call today.