Windows Weekly (Audio)

On this episode of Windows Weekly, the show has a new yet similar look (as Leo tries to read chyrons that may be a tad tiny). Microsoft announces its quarterly (and annual) financial results. They're doing OK. The company also expands on what it has done and will do, with Windows security in the wake of the CrowdStrike outage. Finally, Paul advises that the password manager in a browser isn't enough, as secure users need more capabilities like 2FA code generation, dark web monitoring, passkey storage, and more.

Earnings

• Microsoft announces its quarterly (and annual) financial results. They're doing OK.
• Microsoft's FY24: a net income of $88.1 billion on revenues of $245.1 billion, up 22 percent and 16 percent
• Windows - Barely mentioned, another solid $10 billion+ in revenues, no gain from Copilot+ PC
• Office - Solid growth, mostly commercial
• Surface - Flush twice, it's a long way to New Mexico
• Xbox - Problematic, propped up mostly by Activision, but there are huge costs there too
• AI - Huge investments, Microsoft can afford it. $19 billion (!) in infrastructure costs in this quarter, and it's going up next year ... when/how does AI pay off?
• Microsoft to give employees a one-time cash award on top of bonuses
• TikTok was paying Microsoft $20 million per month through at least March for OpenAI on Azure, close to 25 percent of Microsoft's total revenues for that business
• AMD revenues - the next NVIDIA?

Windows

• Windows 11 versions 22H2/23H2 get theirs a few days late, features we saw in Release Preview a few weeks ago
• Nothing for 24H2, but a new Release Preview build is almost certainly its equivalent, meaning we'll see these features in stable in August
• All channels: Support for Android file system navigation in File Explorer
• Beta channel (last week): Widgets is about to get third party feeds
• It's not a dud, but the HP EliteBook Ultra doesn't measure up
• Qualcomm and AMD have spoken, now Intel is delivering Lunar Lake on September 3

Microsoft 365 and AI

• No more ads in Skype! Cue the Skype jokes from all the jerks
• OpenAI announces SearchGPT, search features it will add later to ChatGPT - and just today, more natural advanced voice mode voices for ChapGPT
• Apple ships some Apple Intelligence in Beta. it's pretty good! But it's also delayed to iOS 18.1 etc
• Canva buys Leonardo for its AI
• X (Twitter) is using your posts to train Grok (its AI). You can disable it. But these names all suck

Xbox

• Xbox is getting new Discord and streaming features in a coming update
• With Xbox in the toilet, some thoughts about gaming PCs to go
• RIP, Xbox 360. We had a good run

Tips and Picks

• Tip of the week: What to look for in a password manager
• App pick of the week: Password managers - 1Password, Dashlane/Proton Pass, and Bitwarden
• RunAs Radio this week: Microsoft Cloud PKI with Richard Hicks
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Laird of the Fintry BSV Pipe Finish
  

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:

• Melissa.com/twit
• 1password.com/windowsweekly
• bigid.com/windows

On this episode, Paul, Richard, and Mikah talk AI developments, Windows 10 (yes, 10), Azure egress, and even VR gaming! Is the new Microsoft AI organization an "acquisition" in disguise? How did NVIDIA's recent GTC keynote go? Plus, why it makes sense for Apple to partner with Google for Gemini on iPhone.

AI Reorg

• Microsoft has created a new Microsoft AI "organization" that reports directly to Satya Nadella
• Led by former Inflection co-founders and staffed in part by several ex-Inflection employees
• Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, who orchestrated Microsoft's OpenAI partnership, will continue forward in his other role as executive vice president of AI and will remain responsible for Microsoft's overall AI strategy
• Mikhail Parakhin and the entire team responsible for Copilot, Bing, and Edge, plus Misha Bilenko and the GenAI team, will move into Microsoft AI.
• Rajesh Jha will continue as executive vice president of Experiences & Devices and will "partner closely with Mustafa and team" on Copilot for Microsoft 365.
• What does this mean for Windows? (Paul's guess: Not much. Windows is still presumably under Jha)

Windows

• Windows 10 (Yes, 10, not 11) is getting new Sports, Traffic, and Finance cards on the lock screen for some reason
• No new Insider builds since last week! WHAAAAAT?

Microsoft 365

• No AI for you! Microsoft announces perpetual Office 2024 and Office 2024 LTSC for late 2024
• AI for you! Microsoft 365 web apps now support Copilot Pro users
• Better AI for you! Free Copilot gets ChatGPT-4 Turbo (previously a paid feature)
• Microsoft follows Google and AWS, ends Azure egress fees - the other European Big Tech battleground

AI

• Apple is almost certainly going to (try to) partner with Google on AI for iPhone
• How the F is Microsoft not part of this?
• Google I/O is set for May 14, Apple WWDC will be in June, both to focus on AI (duh)
• Microsoft to host "AI and Surface event" right before Build 2024 in May
• Nvidia is determined to not just ride the AI wave, but win it
• In the wake of a subtle rebranding, Google is bringing generative AI to Fitbit
• Amazon is bringing generative AI for product pages to sellers

Xbox

• New games across Game Pass for the second half of March - including, for the first time, an Activision Blizzard title, Diablo IV
• Microsoft is killing the Microsoft Rewards app on Xbox... though there is a Rewards tab on your Profile page.
• LinkedIn is experimenting with games because everything has to suck now
• Sony halts PSVR2 production because no one wants to pay $550 for VR on PS5

Tips and Picks

• Tip of the week: Steam Sale goes through tomorrow (March 21)
• App picks of the week: Stardock ObjectDock 3, Proton Mail native app, Firefox 124
• RunAs Radio this week: From SysAdmin to Platform Engineer with Steve Buchanan
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Bull Run Oregon Single Malt Whiskey

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.

Sponsors:

• zscaler.com/zerotrustAI
• Melissa.com/twit

Windows 11

• Patch Tuesday
• Windows 11 gets those stupid lock screen widgets
• Snipping Tool is being updated with emojis and QR code scanning
• Microsoft is testing widgets in the Windows 11 Start menu
• New Dev and Beta builds
• Dell PCs based on Snapdragon X leak
• Microsoft 365
• Microsoft Word gets a long-overdue overhaul to default paste

AI

• OpenAI kicks off the week with its Spring Update
• Google I/O follows up with a Microsoft-style keynote

Xbox

• Microsoft to launch Xbox mobile games store in July
• Xbox consoles will support game update pre-loads, finally
• Microsoft discounts Xbox 360 titles ahead of Store closure
• We have another round of Game Pass titles and you're never going to believe what we didn't get, again
• Starfield May Update is here with 60 fps support on Series X
• Xbox Cloud Gaming supports keyboard and mouse with 26 games
• Xbox app gets more improvements tied to handheld gaming PCs
• Sony has now sold almost 60 million PS5s, roughly even with PS4 at this point in
  time

Tips and picks

• Tip of the week: Remote Desktop is another feature semi-broken by MSA sign-ins
• App pick of the week: VMWare Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro are free
• RunAs Radio this week: MLOps + DevOps + Kubernetes with Annie Talvasto
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Lagavulin 16

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:

• HP.com - WW - https://bit.ly/4adilko
• Melissa.com/twit
• GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT - code TWIT100

Leo, Paul, and Richard steer towards the performance race as they speculate about how Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite/Plus PCs will compare to Apple Silicon MacBooks. What makes a laptop truly user-friendly? System reliability, UI consistency, battery life? Plus, the recent Fallout TV series, the practicality of using winget for browser installations, and how the ARM chipset switch is revving up the PC market.

ARMed & ready

• Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon X Plus and confirms Paul's report that the Snapdragon X Elite will have three SKUs (product editions)
• All four SKUs outperform Apple M3, Intel Core Ultra 7/9, AMD Ryzen 9 7940/8945HS on most benchmarks
• Why? PC makers asked Qualcomm for familiar choices
• Previously, an X Plus-based Surface Pro 10 and an X Elite-based ThinkPad T40s leaked. Paul can now confirm from a source that Surface Laptop 6 (13 and 15-inch) and Surface Pro will all be on X (something}
• Vivaldi is bringing its browser to Windows on Arm too

Windows 11

• The April 2024 Week D preview update is here: Recommended apps and frequently used apps in Start, Widgets icon updates, Lock screen widgets improvements
• Canary: Moves off 24H2 train to build 26200, no more switch to Dev, minor changes to the Widgets board and Taskbar (no new build for Dev)
• Beta: New Widgets design with navigation bar, new account manager in Start, Gmail in Share, MSA recovery advertisement, and new Game Pass recommendation card in Settings
• Microsoft Store app downloads from the web get simpler, more sophisticated
• After yet another Quest 2 Headset price cut, and mounting problems for Apple's Vision Pro, Meta opens up Horizon OS, Microsoft is sort-of on board

Microsoft 365/Dev

• Office LTSC 2024 commercial is now available in preview
• Classic Teams rides off into the sunset on July 1
• Dropbox offers deeper Microsoft 365 integration
• GitHub sees success in 2FA push

AI

• The European Commission will not formally investigate Microsoft/OpenAI partnership
• Microsoft released a new SLM
• Microsoft gives a sneak peek of VASA-1, a crazy and scary "talking faces" AI tool
• Google copies Microsoft again, announces massive AI reorg - that has Pixel fans worried
• Adobe's generative AI image capabilities are predictably fantastic

Xbox

• Get an Xbox Mastercard in the US, if you're a tool
• Microsoft announces IGN x ID@Xbox digital showcase - indie games

Tips & Picks

• Tip of the week: Have you heard the one joke about the one time you need to use Edge?
• App pick of the week: Tiny11 Builder
• RunAs Radio this week: PowerShell 7.4 with Sydney Smith
• Brown liquor pick of the week: GlenKinchie 12

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
• GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT - code TWIT30