It’s not every day that an operating system retires. Windows 7 reaching end of support status on January 14 has been very much the biggest news story in technology this year. The deadline had users finally saying goodbye to the classic OS and upgrading to Windows 10, companies rushing out to buy new hardware, and people speaking their minds about how they felt about leaving their favorite platform behind — Windows 7 was even trending on social media! But perhaps the most surprising voices are the ones demanding Microsoft to open-source Windows 7 and release the OS as free software, allowing the community to maintain it. With one of the most popular versions of Windows has reached the end of life, it is only logical that users have a strong attachment to it. After all, Windows 7 still works perfectly fine on older hardware and has that near perfect balance of performance, features and looks that these users require. This very much is the opinion of the Free Software Foundation. Founded by Richard Stallman in 1985, FSF has a history of agitating against Microsoft and its use of proprietary software licenses. In fact, at the launch of Windows 7, the organization urged customers to ditch the OS and hop onto free operating systems. They even started this controversial campaign called Windows 7 Sins. It accused the company of poisoning education, invading privacy, monopolistic behavior, vendor lock-in, abusing standards, enforcing DRM and even threatening user security. Stallman retired from FSF last year, but the organization continues to fault the Redmond based technology giant of way too many wrongdoings with Windows 7. Now, on the eve of the Windows 7 retirement, the organization is back, saying there is a chance for Microsoft to make amends. The FSF gang wants to persuade Microsoft to make Windows 7 open source for the community. It asks for Microsoft to open source Windows 7 under a free license like the GNU Public License (GPL), which Stallman created. This, they say, will enable the community to study and improve the operating system, and keep it updated with new features and security fixes. They point out that the company has nothing to lose if they release the source code of the operating system as it has reached the end of life. The campaign set a modest goal of 7,777 signatures, which it whizzed by really, really quick. As of this writing, more than twelve thousand people have signed it, even as we have no official response from Microsoft.Even with Microsoft embracing open source and Linux recently, releasing the source code of something as complex as Windows 7 borders on the impossible at least in the medium term. This may change in the future, but the company is unlikely to cave in to these demands now. There is so much more posted on OUR FORUM.

Microsoft is currently working on new features designed to block malicious content in Office 365 regardless of the custom configurations set up by administrators or users unless manually overridden. This change was prompted by the fact that some settings allow for Office 365 Exchange Online Protection/Advanced Threat Protection detonation verdicts to be bypassed and inadvertently allow malicious content to reach the customers' inboxes. Once the new features will be enabled, Office 365 will automatically honor EOP/ATP detonation — malware analysis — verdicts to block known malicious files and URLs regardless of custom configurations. The domain allows and transport rules are the ones most commonly responsible for content flagged by Office 365 EoP or ATP as malicious still being delivered to the end-users. "We’re updating our filters to ensure that malicious files and URLs are not delivered regardless of configuration unless manually overridden," says the features' entry on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. The "Office 365 ATP, Secure by Default" update is currently under active development according to the roadmap and comes with an estimated release date set for February 2020, to be generally available in all environments. Microsoft previously warned Office 365 admins and users against bypassing the built-in spam filters in June 2019, as part of a support document that also provides guidelines for cases when this can't be avoided. As Redmond says, Office 365 end-users should avoid enabling Allow or Block lists within the Spam Filter policies, as well as skipping Transport Rules scanning. Microsoft also urges Outlook or Outlook on the Web users and admins not to toggle on Safe and Blocked senders. "We recommend that you do not use these features because they may override the verdict that is set by Office 365 spam filters," says Microsoft. Microsoft recommends Office 365 customers to report junk email messages using the Microsoft Junk Email Reporting Add-in "to help reduce the number and effect of future junk email messages," while Outlook users can employ the Report Message add-in to report junk email. "If you have to set bypassing, you should do this carefully because Microsoft will honor your configuration request and potentially let harmful messages pass through," the support document says. "Additionally, bypassing should be done only on a temporary basis. This is because spam filters can evolve, and verdicts could improve over time." Further details can be found on OUR FORUM.