Windows Weekly (Audio‪)‬ Windows Weekly

In this episode, Paul seems to be sitting in a familiar room! Could this be a sign that a game-changing enhancement to Notepad is rolling out? That's not all, as OneDrive seems to be undergoing some behavioral changes in a positive direction. After 3 weeks since the Copilot+ PC launch (2 weeks since Paul got his 1st model), the future of Intel and x86 may not be as dire as some think. Plus, Affinity announced that its award-winning Photo, Designer, and Publisher apps are now free for 6 months with no obligation to buy!

The Morning After

The end of Intel and the x86 era? You guys are cute
Comparing the HP, Lenovo, and Microsoft entries: A few differentiators, but these things are very, very similar. There's a reason why
IDC throws cold water on the AI PC/Copilot+ PC parade
We still need official Windows 11 on Arm ISOs, Microsoft. Until then, there are workarounds.
Windows 11

GAME CHANGER: Notepad FINALLY supports spell-checking and auto-correct!
ACTUAL GAME CHANGER: Microsoft is apparently stepping back some of the OneDrive terribleness in Windows 11 version 24H2
Patch Tuesday: BIG deal for Windows 11 22H2, 23H2 with 24H2 features
Nothing to speak of for 24H2, as predicted - just security updates
It's nice when things happen as expected for a change
Canary: Lock screen widget changes
Paul put the Windows 11 Field Guide on a diet - and then the other books too
PDF went from 377 MB to 107 MB, EPUB went from 344 MB to just 86 MB (!)
Similar gains for Windows Everywhere, Windows 10 Field Guide
Updated the Win10 add-in that comes with the Windows 11 Field Guide too
Surface

Surface Laptop 7 and Pro 11 get second firmware updates
AI

The OpenAI drama consumes Microsoft
Opera brings Aria AI features to its GX gaming browser too
Xbox

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gets a price hike
Xbox Cloud Gaming is now available on newer Fire TV Sticks. Also, free Fortnite!
Tips and Tricks

Tip of the week: Get all three Affinity apps on all three platforms for free for six months!
App pick of the week: Firefox 128 and Vivaldi 6.8
RunAs Radio this week: The Hardware of Azure with Rani Borkar
Brown liquor pick of the week: Raasay Single Malt
Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Guest: Mary Jo Foley

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

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The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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It's only been one week, but it's really been 14 years, and Paul is calling: Microsoft and Qualcomm have finally made Windows 11 on Arm both viable and desirable. Nothing is perfect, but this platform is pretty incredible. Some notes from the past week:

Mission Accomplished

As a reminder, Paul finally got the Yoga Slim 7x last week and updated on app compatibility, hardware compatibility, gaming, and in-box AI experiences in time for WW - only found one non-working app, Google Drive. Then...
More app and game compatibility testing. Since then, played a lot more DOOM (2016), ran into one issue that's surely WOA-related (note beta graphics driver, though)
Video encoding performance: Snapdragon X vs Snapdragon X vs Core Ultra 9 H-series vs MacBook Air M3
Initial thoughts on battery life and then More thoughts on battery life. The Yoga Slim 9x and Surface Laptop both get about 10 hours of real-world battery life (so far), compared to 15 hours for the MacBook Air 15-inch M3.
Hardware compatibility update: Only one of my devices doesn't work, the Focusrite.
Surface Laptop 7 first impressions and second impressions
HP Elitebook Ultra first impressions
Windows 11

After skipping Week D last Tuesday, Microsoft belatedly delivers a Week D preview update for Windows 11 version 24H2
No new features, so next Patch Tuesday will be light for 24H2
22H2 and 23H2 got a big Week D update last Tuesday, so Patch Tuesday will be meaningful
As of July's Patch Tuesday, 22H2, 23H2, and 24H2 will all provide the same basic feature set
Canary, Dev, Beta (last Friday): nothing exciting, a few small features or changes
AI & Microsoft 365

European Commission "shifts" investigation of Microsoft/OpenAI partnership. Is Ken Starr in charge of this thing?
Microsoft highlights new Copilot features coming to Microsoft 365 in July
Copilot in OneNote can now recognize handwritten text. It's 2002 all over again!
Pixel 9 family will promote unique "Google AI" features
Brave introduces a BYOM plan for its web browser
Thanks to AI, Google Translate now supports 110 new languages
Xbox

Xbox Cloud Gaming Fire Sticks it to Amazon
Another two weeks of Xbox Game Pass
Forza Horizon 4 (from 2018) to be delisted December 15. Why?
Tips and Picks

Tip of the week: Get $10 off Tony Redmond's Office 365 for IT Pros 11th Edition
App pick of the week: Docs in Proton Drive
RunAs Radio this week: NGINX as a Service with Buu Lam
Brown liquor pick of the week: Jack Daniels Old No. 7
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.

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We're one week into the Copilot+ PC, and the feedback is positive with caution! Key takeaways so far: Much improved performance and reliability, AI features mostly stink, but there is still uncertainty each time you install/do anything.

Windows 11

Week D arrives with preview updates for Windows 11 versions 22H2 and 23H2 only
The second Patch Tuesday in a row with no 24H2 update (on the day)
This preview update adds 24H2 features to 22H2/23H2 as predicted
Beta channel (last week): Bizarre Start menu extension for Phone Link users
Release preview channel (last week): The 22H2/23H2 builds and features that shipped to stable as a preview update on Tuesday
Canary channel (last week): After pausing the previous build (hint: Recall code), new build arrives with drag-and-drop address bar in File Explorer, notification tweaks
Copilot+ PC

Paul finally got a Copilot+ PC to test, a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x 14"
App compatibility scorecard: Excellent, but with familiar Arm uncertainties
Hardware compatibility: Excellent, but with the same person-by-person caveat
Gaming: Lots of fiddling, but if you can find a compatible game, some great perf and visual quality. Still better than the Mac, and better than any x64 Ultrabook. But not a gaming PC. No Xbox Game Pass support?? COME ON
In-box AI capabilities: With Recall out, there's almost nothing to see here
Plus, Intel and AMD are gunning for Qualcomm
iFixit reports that Surface Laptop 7/Pro 11 repairability is "astonishingly" good. Granted, the bar was low
Microsoft brings Surface Flex Keyboard to Surface Pro 8, 9, and 11
Microsoft releases recovery images for Surface Pro 11/Laptop 7
Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-In Security (ESS) is one of several Copilot+ PC protections that rendered those security researcher complaints about Recall moot. But Paul now has two PCs that use this feature, and it's even more impressive than you think
The Windows 11 decoder ring
Antitrust

As expected, the European Commission announced preliminary charges against Microsoft for Office/Teams bundling
This is antitrust, not DMA (like Apple)
The EU has not explained WHAT Microsoft can do to fix this (unlike with Apple)
This is based on a complaint from Slack, which was created 7 years after Microsoft first offered this type of app/service
Xbox

-Hot off a terrific Xbox Games Showcase event, Xbox promises its "biggest-ever" booth at Gamescom 2024 (which is now the biggest trade show in Europe, apparently)

-Microsoft details how Auto SR and Prism work in WOA11 to make gaming both possible and decent

-Steam Deck LCD models are on sale

Tips and Picks

-App pick of the week #1: New browser upgrades

-App pick of the week: Proton Drive

-RunAs Radio this week: The Hard Part of Machine Learning with Lynn Langit

-Brown liquor pick of the week: Cragganmore 12

Hosts: Paul Thurrott, Richard Campbell, and Mikah Sargent

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.

Sponsor:
1password.com/windowsweekly

Copilot+ PC Launch Chaos, Recall Delay, Windows 11 Updates

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

For full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/886

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Recall to be opt-in, Auto SR, new Xbox Series models

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

For full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/885

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Recall debate, orchestration, Bing turns 15

Attack of the Copilot+ PCs

Nvidia: GeForce RTX AI PCs will get Copilot+ PC status ... some day
AMD: Ryzen AI 300 series (laptops) and AMD Ryzen 9000 series (desktops) have 50 TOPS NPUs and an on-stage apology, er, admission, from Microsoft
Intel: Lunar Lake delivers 48 TOPS NPU, new GPU
Qualcomm - Don't forget us! We're going to go after every PC form factor there is
Thinking about AI, NPUs, and local workloads - Is an orchestrator in our future?
Microsoft needs to address the Recall controversies
Framework Laptop 13 is coming with Intel Core Ultra chips
HP earnings - PC business up 3 percent in Q
Dell earnings - PC business is flat
Windows 11

Microsoft delivers its Week D preview update a day late
If you're on 24H2 like I recommended last week, you get ... wait for it ... Copilot as an app
Canary: Copilot as an app, Emoji 15.1 support
Dev: Copilot as an app
Microsoft adds a Windows 10 Insider Preview Beta channel to test new features
Microsoft

Bing is 15 years old. What can we possibly celebrate?
More Microsoft layoffs, this time in Mixed Reality and Azure
AI

Apple reportedly partnering with OpenAI. Microsoft reportedly pissed about Apple partnering with OpenAI
Google is fixing its AI overviews in Search
And if anyone still trusts Google AI for some reason, Google Gemini 1.5 Pro and 1.5 Flash are now GA
Amazon brings AI search, and to Fire TV for some reason
When Raspberry Pi 5 can do AI is AI just everywhere now?
Xbox

Asus announces ROG Ally X gaming handheld - are these to gaming what 8.1-inch tablets were to Windows 8.1?
PlayStation VR2 adapter for PC is $60
Tips & Picks

App pick of the week: Opera
RunAs Radio this week: Apple and Microsoft Entra with Michael Epping
Brown liquor pick of the week: Nikka "From the Barrel"


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:
kolide.com/ww
HP.com - WW - https://bit.ly/4adilko