WW 913: The Best of 2024 - Windows Weekly's 2024 Highlights

We heard you missed us. We're back. Windows Microsoft declares 2025 the "year of the Windows 11 PC refresh." As likely as "year of the Linux desktop" The theory: Windows 10 EOL, AI PCs, lingering security fears from CrowdStrike The issue: Windows 10 has 63 usage share right now. At this point in time, Windows 7 had only 25 percent usage share (and was in second place, not first) Intel joins in on this fever dream but we've stopped listening More interesting: AMD is kicking ass and taking names. And we thought the existing chips were good (they are). Related to this, PC makers are embracing AMD like never before. Check out HP's workstations (including laptops) Microsoft is blocking the 24H2 update on PCs with Auto HDR enabled New Canary and Beta builds ring in the New Year Not that it matters, but Windows 11 almost had Vista Ultimate Extras-like dynamic wallpapers Dell kills XPS and all its other PC brands because Dell is stupid and doesn't know what it had Arm & PCs Qualcomm defeated Arm Holdings in licensing dispute court case. And, yes, it won big time, contrary to Arm's nonsense Qualcomm announces an even lower-end Snapdragon X chip for $600 PCs, so ASUS announces an $1100 laptop that uses it Snapdragon Dev Kit update Part 2 of Paul's history of Windows on Arm is up New Arm PCs announced, including desktops. Ahead of CES, Geekom jumped the gun and said it was coming out with a Snapdragon X-based NUC. Lenovo has a NUC/SFF NVIDIA and MediaTek confirm partnership on Arm chips for PCs Microsoft 365 First, GitHub Copilot, but now Microsoft 365 Copilot will allegedly stop using OpenAI exclusively Microsoft reveals (confirms) it will spend $80 billion on AI infrastructure in FY 2025 as it suckles up to Trump like the rest of the tech industry Microsoft and OpenAI allegedly tied AGI milestone to profits, not intelligence Xbox & Gaming Microsoft discusses a console-like experience for Windows handheld gaming. Tied to that, a new generation of handheld gaming PCs is on the way Xbox Game Pass says Happy New Year with a full slate of Activision Blizzard titles. Just kidding NVIDIA announces new graphics cards for PCs No one wants this, but Xbox is coming to LG smart TVs Xbox Rewards shuffles the deck chairs, hopes no one notices it's worse now Tips & Picks Tip of the week: Spend a little, upgrade to Windows 11 App pick of the week: Microsoft PowerToys RunAs Radio this week: Least Privilege in 2025 with Bailey Bercik Brown liquor pick of the week: Kilbeggan Irish Whiskey 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: uscloud.com zscaler.com/security

Real-time translation, AI steak video, The Great Circle Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell For full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/912 Sponsors: uscloud.com cachefly.com/twit

Recall impressions, Copilot Vision preview, x86's future Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell For full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/911 Sponsors: threatlocker.com uscloud.com

BLOCKBUSTER NEWS FROM INTEL Intel announces Arc B-series GPUs!!! CEO Pat Gelsinger "retires," but was really forced out by the board of directors Why? Theories include too-slow progress, major partner bailing on foundry, disagreements over keeping x86 design and foundry, etc. Windows All Quiet on the Windows Front No Insider builds last week. Thanks Thanksgiving! Today, a new Canary build with Win32 app updating in the Store Patch Tuesday is next week - this will be a big one The rest of December will be quiet too Microsoft: TPM 2.0 is "non-negotiable" in Windows And now, a long-threatened change: Watermark on the desktop of unsupported PCs PC sales slid 1.5 percent in Q3 after two quarters of "growth"/flat sales Samsung is killing DeX Phone Link is the new Dex. Interesting, given the partnership with Microsoft Plus, Google is FINALLY adding desktop capabilities to Android. This should have always come from the platform maker AI, Cloud FTC is investigating Microsoft for cloud licensing too - And about 16 other things apparently Microsoft: SHE HIT ME FIRST! Spotify Wrapped 2024 uses Notebook LM to create a personalized podcast for each customer OpenAI is solving the biggest problem with AI... its lack of advertising! The Browser Company's next browser is called Dia and it's all about AI. Does it have a chance? Xbox Xbox Year in Review is live Indiana Jones and more is coming to Game Pass in the first half of December Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is getting big reliability updates. Hopefully, Boeing is helping out here For some reason, Sony announces that it sold 160 million PlayStation 2 consoles Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Get out of the basement App pick of the week: Google Drive RunAs Radio this week: A SysAdmin Christmas with Rick Claus and Joey Snow Brown liquor pick of the week: Dewar's 8 Year Old Caribbean Smooth Rum Cask Finish 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: 1password.com/windowsweekly Melissa.com/twit veeam.com uscloud.com

Spreading light, MSFS 2024 issues, Recall (Preview) Windows Recall and Click to Do arrive in Preview and the world doesn't implode. Sorry, haters Snapdragon X Copilot+ PCs only - and dear God, please follow Paul's advice Look at how facile the complaints are now This week in 24H2, unreliability problems. Certain Ubisoft games are causing issues Beta: New taskbar-based continuity features Microsoft is getting rid of ONE OneDrive folder backup nag. The beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning? HP and Dell earnings The PC refresh cycle keeps getting delayed, now to second half of 2025 Google will reportedly merge Chrome OS into Android. Complexity won. Is this a good idea? Microsoft 365 Big outage kept customers off Microsoft 365 for better part of a day this week AI, antitrust, corporate Microsoft debunks reports that it is using customer data in Microsoft 365 to train AI This kind of thing keeps happening. There were reports a month ago about Microsoft secretly enabling Recall on PCs that was complete BS Amazon expands Anthropic investment to $8 billion, or 73 percent of MSFT/OpenAI Brave Search adds a chat mode to ask follow-ups to AI results DOJ, Google make final arguments in Google ad monopoly case in US Google testing changes to search to meet DMA needs Intel secures $7.6 billion in CHIPS funding. Qualcomm is apparently no longer interested Xbox Flight Simulator 2024 is a cluster$%^@ so Xbox is issuing fixes Microsoft is adding a mini Edge browser to Game Bar Xbox gamers can make private Discord calls now Microsoft is shutting down Xbox Avatar Editor because no one uses it Like Microsoft, PlayStation is looking at mobile gaming hardware again, still years away Tips and Picks Tip of the week: We live in a new era of misinformation App pick of the week: Opera GX is almost all-new, Firefox goes to 133 RunAs Radio this week: Incident Response with Mandi Walls Brown liquor pick of the week: Kavalan Solist Vinho Barrique 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: uscloud.com e-e.com/twit flashpoint.io