Dark side of Microsoft’s anniversary update, broken millions of webcams

Anniversary update, the most searched term and the hotest news of the month, by Microsoft. Many, users got delighted through this because they got a free update of their Windows. And many added functionalities too, which bribed many users to do the update. But, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, as we all know. So, in this case reaction of the action is that, a number of different webcams have become inoperable. In other words, the new update which was being launched on August 2, is now preventing the use of webcams in applications such as Skype and Open Broadcaster Software(OBS). This has also rendered the use of extremely popular devices like Logitech’s C920 and C930e cameras when they are used along Microsoft’s Skype.

Microsoft also gave a statement to Gizmodo which said that “Windows 10 continues to have the highest customer satisfaction of any version of Windows. we have seen a small number of reports of unexpected behaviors following the Windows 10 anniversary update. Engineering and customer support are investigating these on a case by case basis and offering trouble-shooting tips as necessary. If a customer has any issues, we offer customer support at www.microsoft.com/support.”

Basically, the problem is arising or you may say revolving around handelling of Windows 10 USB webcams following the anniversary update. Since, Windows 10 is not allowing MJPEG or H264 encoded streams, which is blocking the use of Webcams. Instead of it Microsoft’s new Windows is only allowing YUY2 encoding stream. Microsoft did this because, they thought allowing many technologies at a same time may degrade the performance. So, they blocked some services. Hence, any user who is trying any two of the above codecs will hang, freeze or generally not allow their cam to work properly.

This may be a big issue to those firms who mostly rely on Webcams for YouTube broadcasting, Facebook Live etc. But, at the same time Microsoft said that hopefully they may launch a new update in September, which may fix all the development issues. And it also said that, users who couldn’t wait till September may use the trick provide by the software engineer named Rafael River. Who on his Twitter account made a statement “HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft Media Foundation\Platform, add DWORD “EnableFrameServerMode” and set to 0.” So, guys worry not till the update arrives you may use your smartphones for your further works.