Windows Weekly (Audio)

It's Microsoft Ignite and we are totally not there One word summary: Agentic A wave two for Copilot, essentially Agents that work on your behalf autonomously The Snapdragon Dev Box was such a success that Microsoft is offering more hardware Copilot+ PCs are getting new AI capabilities. Eventually Copilot Actions brings, um, actions to Microsoft 365 Windows 11 Microsoft FINALLY releases Windows 11 on Arm ISO - Here's some advice When you think about Windows, we're guessing security and resiliency aren't what comes to mind. So why is Microsoft pushing this so hard at Ignite?? Google Drive is now available in Beta for Windows 11 on Arm. Paul's national nightmare is over! Here's what's coming to Windows 11 SOON - a new Release Preview channel build shows that 24H2 was just the start of this coming year's updates Canary: Mostly bug fixes, no clear vision for this channel we can see - new Canary build today with the new Hello experience, new Taskbar thumbnail previews Beta: Jump list sharing and other features no one has ever, ever, ever asked for Microsoft is shutting down Beta channel for Windows 10, just months after it revived it Lenovo revenues surge, PC sales only up slightly but it sees big growth in the coming quarters AI, antitrust, more DOJ reportedly wants Google to sell off Chrome - How does this compare to the previous Microsoft breakup attempt? Some thoughts about Uno Platform Studio and a re-do of last week's .NET news now that Richard is back A WPF on .NET 9 update Xbox Phil Spencer speaks: Portable Xbox hardware, mobile store, more Microsoft's new Xbox ad triggers PTSD or celebration, depending on your views You can now play (50) games you own on Xbox Cloud Gaming! It's been a while, but this is a killer month for Game Pass Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is now available Avowed is an Xbox console exclusive and it's coming in February Warcraft 1 and 2 Remasters arrive alongside Warcraft 3: Reforged 2.0 - celebrating the 20th anniversary Valve celebrates the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2! The OG Unreal and Unreal Tournament are now free, and they run on modern PCs too Sony PlayStation Portal can now stream some PS Plus games Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Get 1 TB of additional Xbox storage for just $99 App pick of the week: ChatGPT for Windows and Mac RunAs Radio this week: Testing Databases with Dan Mallott Brown liquor pick of the week: Haavaldsen Sledgehammer 2024 Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: threatlocker.com uscloud.com cachefly.com/twit

Edge's data trick, Outlook's AI Themes, .NET 9, and more! Windows 11 The 24H2 quality issues continue, like a parade with no end. Patch Tuesday arrives Windows team says no Preview update in December... but what about November? Reminder of the Canary build last week with Prism emulator improvements. WHERE ARE THE ARM ISOs??? Most recent episode of Run as Radio is worth discussing again here Dev and Beta: Nice new "run as admin" shortcut in Dev, minor changes in Beta Canary: Mostly bug fixes Microsoft Edge is using a new trick to steal Chrome data It's dead, Jim: Microsoft reminds world that Outlook will replace Mail, Calendar, People If you pay for Copilot (dummy) you can make custom Outlook themes now for some reason Quick laptop update: AMD Zen 5 vs. Intel Lunar Lake vs. Snapdragon X Still more earnings Arm: $844 million, but disappointing. Also, Qualcomm legal battle looms Qualcomm: $10.24 billion in revenues, up 19 percent AMD to lay off 4 percent of (26,000 employee) workforce globally, focus on AI Dev Microsoft releases .NET 9 That means WPF support for Windows 11 theming is live But there's a surprise: Microsoft added one of the features we need .NET Conf is happening as we speak - Thursday is third-party day, and I am curious about Avalon and Uno announcements Qualcomm has a webinar tomorrow for AI developers and Snapdragon X Xbox Surprise! Death Stranding comes to Xbox three years later to the day Phil Spencer talks PS5, mobile devices, more in a new interview MAJOR NEW ACTIVISION RELEASE ON GAME PASS Just kidding, it's some stupid purple dragon Friend requests now available (again) to all Xbox users Paying GeForce Now customers get monthly usage caps NVIDIA app replaces GeForce Experience, no need to sign in anymore Sony has sold 65 million PS5 consoles ... it needs 20+ million more to surpass PS3 Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Quick Windows 11 Field Guide update App pick of the week: Stardock DesktopGPT App pick of the week #2: Quick Share Cocktail of the week: Salmoncito Ingredients 1 oz. tonic water, plus more for topping 1½ oz. London dry gin ¼ oz. Campari ¼ oz. fresh grapefruit juice Grapefruit twist and grapefruit supreme (for serving) Preparation Fill a highball glass with ice. Add 1 oz. tonic water, then pour in 1½ oz. London dry gin, ¼ oz. Campari, and ¼ oz. fresh grapefruit juice. Top off with more tonic water and stir gently with a bar spoon. Express oil of a grapefruit twist over cocktail and discard. Garnish with a grapefruit supreme. Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: uscloud.com veeam.com

On Halloween, the last day of October, Microsoft delayed Recall again. It was supposed to preview in October, this is the third delay. No clear reason why. December now, supposedly. Plus, Paul gives an earnings recap that he didn't get to dive into much last week. Windows New 24H2 bug More features coming to Prism emulator in Windows 11 on Arm (!) New generative AI features are coming to Paint, Photos, and Notepad Beta channel: Here's the new Windows Hello experience, with explicit references to passkeys Proton VPN is native on Windows 11 on Arm Windows Server 2025 is GA (and some are being mistakenly force-upgraded. This is what you get when you share a codebase with Windows 11, apparently) Google shifts Android development cycle - Major update each Q2, minor update each Q4, monthly feature/quality updates A Tale of 2 Chips Paul reviewed the AMD Zen 5-based HP OmniBook Ultra, it's awesome. Paul is also reviewing an Intel Lunar Lake laptop, and it is not awesome Early glee around Lunar Lake was misplaced Laptop reviewers all report what Paul is seeing (for once), that the performance is horrific. You need to switch to "Best performance" power management mode for reasonable performance, but this hasn't solved all the issues COD: Black Ops 6. Average FPS under Zen 5 is 90 to 120 at native resolution/medium graphics, single and multi-player. Lunar Lake? 40 FPS with all graphics settings on low/very low Intel now says Lunar Lake is a one-off too (Meteor Lake was likewise a one-off, architecturally). It will no longer package RAM with processors because of margins. Lunar Lake rushed to market and was key contributor to recent financial issues More Earnings Learnings Amazon: $159 billion in revenues, $27.5 billion for AW Apple: $95 billion in revenues, a small uptick in iPhone revenues Microsoft 365/AI Some curious/confusing moves with Microsoft 365 for consumers: subscribers in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand are getting Copilot Pro credits with base subscription (Word, Excel, etc.), Designer, ... and the long-overdue and dreaded price increase This must be a test for the U.S. and western Europe. Feels inevitable OpenAI launches ChatGPT Search. This is not the Google Search replacement you're looking for Xbox It's November, so here's the incredible list of Activision Blizzard games now coming to Game Pass! Just kidding, but we are getting Flight Sim 2024 Microsoft introduced an AI-powered support virtual agent to Xbox because something something AI Switch sales drop off a cliff, Nintendo will announce backward-compatible successor before the end of March Sony launches the PS5 Pro to meh Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Windows 11 minus the MSA App pick of the week: Docs in Proton Drive RunAs Radio this week: Software-Defined Networking using Azure Firewall with Aidan Finn Brown liquor MOVIE pick of the week: Whisky Galore Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: Melissa.com/twit 1password.com/windowsweekly lookout.com threatlocker.com

Enjoy Leo's many hats in this fun and silly edition of Windows Weekly. Happy Halloween! Windows 11 Yes, Windows 11 version 24H2 got its preview update for October too, a few days late as expected 24H2 was a surprisingly big platform shift - no enablement updates - faster updates going forward Dev and Beta get new builds, minor changes in each Microsoft 365/AI/dev Teams is... getting weird Microsoft 365 apps get Handoff support on Apple devices Notion Mail - a light alternatives to Google Workspace and M365? GitHub Copilot goes multi-LLM Apple Intelligence wave one arrives, mostly to indifference. Wave two in December. EU is getting it in the Spring New Macs this week with M4. But the big news? 16 GB of RAM, minimum. Finally. The Browser Company can't realize its vision for the future with Arc Earnings/Corporate Microsoft and Google duke it out over Cloud licensing - This one is getting ugly Google - $88.3 billion in revenues AMD - OK, but dominated by Intel on PCs and NVIDIA in AI/datacenter Xbox More games, more people, more devices, Microsoft says Less emphasis on console but what might a next-gen console look like? Arm? Mobile? Third-party hardware makers? Cloud Gaming is limited to the most expensive Game Pass tier - that has to change, and what about a standalone tier? Mobile app stores are coming - but what about native mobile games? Call of Duty Black Ops 6 lands on PC Game Pass, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and Cloud Gaming - Paul puts aside his grudge and gives it a shot Microsoft previews new Home experience for Xbox app on Windows Tips and Picks Tip of the week: It might be time to look at the Raspberry Pi again App pick of the week: My God, it's full of web browsers RunAs Radio this week: Updating Windows on ARM with Aria Hanson Brown liquor pick of the week: Laird of the Fintry Black Label Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: 1password.com/windowsweekly uscloud.com threatlocker.com Melissa.com/twit

In case you missed it You didn't. But Qualcomm canceled that Snapdragon Dev Box, will refund customers Qualcomm picked the wrong company for this Also, there are plenty of Copilot+ PCs and does it make more sense to develop against the type of PC your customers will use? Windows 11 23H2 gets a preview update, as expected Copilot key customization, Gamepad for virtual keyboard, notification suggestions, etc. Qualcomm and Microsoft solve Paul's only hardware issue with Arm, more Qualcomm brings Oryon cores to the phone, comes out firing against Intel, and is sued by Arm Dev channel: That Gamepad virtual kb thing Canary: That Copilot key customization thing Photos app gets Super Resolution feature - Microsoft says in preview, but Paul sees it in stable Microsoft Store is getting "immersive trailers" because ADHD Microsoft 365, AI, more Report details mounting tensions between Microsoft and OpenAI. Worst partnership ever? Several months after releasing Mac and iPhone ChatGPT apps, OpenAI delivers a comicly-named "early version" of it for Windows. Thanks guys, don't hurt yourselves. Microsoft announces first AI agents for commercial space, DIY in AI Studio AI in phases? Copilot is phase one, this thing that works beside you (app, essentially) Agents is phase two, this thing that works on your behalf away from you (service, essentially) Copilot comes to OneNote for Mac, iPad in beta Two years behind in AI, Apple has figured out the right quips and marketing messages As expected, Google gets a stay of execution (pardon the pun) in Epic case (also, pardon the pun) WTF is happening with smartphones? Did Apple and Google look at the 2024 Windows 11 Mess and say, we want us some of that? Apple Intelligence to roll out over at least four major iOS 18 updates and then forever Google rushes Android 15 dev to meet new August deadline for Pixel 9 series, whiffs it, and then delivers it 2 months late ... But at least it's jam-packed with AI Xbox Age of Empires goes mobile In the wake of Xbox/Halo adopting Unreal Engine, Unity ships Unity 6 Engine Netflix shuts down AAA game studio - I could've saved you guys a lot of money New Xbox Wireless Headset more battery, better Bluetooth, new voice isolation Tips & Picks Tip of the week: Scott and Mark, sitting in a tree... App pick of the week: Affinity Photos 2.6 Beta RunAs Radio this week: Securing Data using Azure Virtual Desktop with Jim Duffy Brown liquor pick of the week: Glenmorangie Nectar D'Or Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: uscloud.com flashpoint.io veeam.com e-e.com/twit