WW 923: The Bouche is Amused - Remote Desktop outrage, GroupMe, RIP Woody

03/12/25 • 156 min

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Your Patch Tuesday is showing. Paul Thurrott, Richard Campbell, and Leo Laporte go over the latest features for Windows 11 with the KB5053598 update. Also, the hosts discuss Press to Talk for Insiders, the Windows app replacing Remote Desktop, the agentic future of browsers, Copilot integration in GroupMe, Gemma 3, issues with Xbox Wireless Controller 5.23.5.0 firmware, Pocket Casts Web Player, and the "vibe coding" era. Plus, Fences 6 is now in Beta, on sale!

Woody Leonhard, RIP

Like Jerry Pournelle, a major influence on Paul's career and writing style
He had a mysterious life in latter years, not clear what happened

Windows 11

Windows 11 gets all the features we've discussed recently
Are we heading towards something bigger this year? Or just more of the same?
New Canary and Beta (23H2) builds
New Dev and Beta (24H2) builds
Copilot in Windows 11 is getting Press to Talk
Microsoft follows through on threat, kills Remote Desktop App - our latest outrage
Arc crashed and burned but we can still evolve web browsers
What about sidebar apps as a UX baby step forward?
Does Edge need to restart every three days now to install updates?

Microsoft 365

Google promotes ChromeOS/Chromebooks as the right client ... for Microsoft 365

Dev

Build 2025 registration is now open

It's Microsoft's 50th anniversary, so it's going to announce AI something something
Paul has agreed to attend this, from Mexico
Also, report that Microsoft's in-house models now rival OpenAI is a hint
Microsoft improves Think Deeper in Copilot using OpenAI o3-mini
Google secretly owns 14-15 percent of Anthropic
WTF is going on with Big Tech and regulatory evasion?
On that note, CMA clears Microsoft + OpenAI specifically because of change to partnership
Also, Google launches Gemma 3
The Siripocalypse - AI is a hard computer science problem and Siri is the dumb blond in this space
Amazon will use AI to dub movies and TV series because obviously

Xbox

Rumor: Third-party portable Xbox gaming handheld this year, console resets in two years
You could have cobbled this together solely based on what Microsoft has said publicly
Xbox controller firmware, we have a problem

Tips and Picks

Tip of the week: Code with AI
App pick of the week: Fences
RunAs Radio this week: Strong Certificate Mapping in Active Directory with Richard Hicks
Brown liquor pick of the week: Ardbeg 10

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!
Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsor:

1password.com/windowsweekly

Woody Leonhard, RIP

Like Jerry Pournelle, a major influence on Paul's career and writing style
He had a mysterious life in latter years, not clear what happened

Windows 11

Windows 11 gets all the features we've discussed recently
Are we heading towards something bigger this year? Or just more of the same?
New Canary and Beta (23H2) builds
New Dev and Beta (24H2) builds
Copilot in Windows 11 is getting Press to Talk
Microsoft follows through on threat, kills Remote Desktop App - our latest outrage
Arc crashed and burned but we can still evolve web browsers
What about sidebar apps as a UX baby step forward?
Does Edge need to restart every three days now to install updates?

Microsoft 365

Google promotes ChromeOS/Chromebooks as the right client ... for Microsoft 365

Dev

Build 2025 registration is now open

It's Microsoft's 50th anniversary, so it's going to announce AI something something
Paul has agreed to attend this, from Mexico
Also, report that Microsoft's in-house models now rival OpenAI is a hint
Microsoft improves Think Deeper in Copilot using OpenAI o3-mini
Google secretly owns 14-15 percent of Anthropic
WTF is going on with Big Tech and regulatory evasion?
On that note, CMA clears Microsoft + OpenAI specifically because of change to partnership
Also, Google launches Gemma 3
The Siripocalypse - AI is a hard computer science problem and Siri is the dumb blond in this space
Amazon will use AI to dub movies and TV series because obviously

Xbox

Rumor: Third-party portable Xbox gaming handheld this year, console resets in two years
You could have cobbled this together solely based on what Microsoft has said publicly
Xbox controller firmware, we have a problem

Tips and Picks

Tip of the week: Code with AI
App pick of the week: Fences
RunAs Radio this week: Strong Certificate Mapping in Active Directory with Richard Hicks
Brown liquor pick of the week: Ardbeg 10

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!
Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsor:

1password.com/windowsweekly

Previous Episode

WW 922: There's Never a "Not OK" Button - End of Skype, MWC25, Rust-inovich

Skype to EOL in May, replaced by the consumer Teams client, which is surprisingly good now. There are three possible responses to this:

"They still make Skype?"
The 13 people who rely on Skype for calling landlines come out of the woodwork.
"Come on, Microsoft telegraphed this two years ago"

Plus, Opera previews what an AI agent in a browser can be used for. Firefox 136 now comes with vertical tabs (again), updated sidebar, AI chatbots, and more. And a Google-related tip that lets one see what it's like to live in the EU, minus the universal health care and other social safety nets.

Windows

Microsoft FINALLY updates the Copilot app in Windows 11 for the 127th time - What Microsoft didn't tell anyone. Arrives just after the release of a native Mac client
Three months of Recall, and it IS controversial, just not for the reasons you think
Dev and Beta (last week): lock screen widget customizing (finally), Windows Share updates (again), Task Manager CPU usage calculation change (seriously), more
It may be controversial at Linux, but not at Microsoft, which is all-in on Rust
Intel delays Ohio fabs until after the earth careens into the sun
Dell up 7 percent to $23.9 billion ($11.9 billion from PCs)
HP up 2.4 percent to $13.5 billion ($9.2 billion from PCs)
Intel brings Core Ultra Series 2 "Arrow Lake" chips to commercial market

Microsoft 365

Microsoft finally puts Skype out of its misery
A look back at 22 years of Skype
Outlook Mobile gets delivery and read receipts

USA! USA! USA! Microsoft makes AI export changes easy to understand for our stupid government
OpenAI announces GPT-4.5, its final non-reasoning model
Microsoft brings new local distilled DeepSeek models to Copilot+ PCs, starting with Snapdragon X - a little hands-on
Microsoft announces Dragon Copilot for clinical workflow
Stability AI + Arm Holdings = generative AI audio, more to come
Scam Detection in Messages for Pixel and Android
Gemini improvements including upcoming features
Apple's struggles with AI are real. Just ask Siri. Kidding, no one asks Siri anything

Xbox

New Game Pass titles for first half of March
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3+4 coming to all platforms including Game Pass on July 11
Sony slashes prices on VR2 months after it stopped building it

Tips & Picks

Tip of the week: Remove yourself from Google Search results
App pick of the week: Mo' browsers!
RunAs Radio this week: Secure by Design with Karinne Bessette
Brown liquor pick of the week: Knappogue Castle 16

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!
Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsors:

Next Episode

WW 924: No One Wants To Be Plumbing - Copilot for Gaming, Files, .NET Preview 2

Did Copilot uninstall from your computer recently? You're not alone. At least Microsoft is working on a fix. Plus, Satya Nadella has created a new Office of Strategy and Transformation to meet the rapidly evolving needs of the AI era. Discord finally has a Social SDK now, Copilot for Gaming is preparing for mobile testing, and a Call of Duty franchise sale that brings savings up to 67 percent off. Lastly, Paul's app pick is a free, open source, third-party File Explorer replacement that is beautiful and highly customizable. And it never badgers you to backup to OneDrive.

Windows

March security update hilariously removes Copilot app from Windows 11
New Canary build today
Release Preview (today): 24H2 ahead of Week D
Release Preview: 23H2 and Windows 10 ahead of Week D
Dev, Beta, Beta (23H3) - Voice access suggestions, File Explorer fix
Paint is getting new Cocreator features
New Notepad and Snipping Tool features for all

Microsoft

Microsoft announces vague transformation that could be important
FTC to move forward with Microsoft antitrust probe
Microsoft no longer includes power supply with Surface PCs sold in Europe

AI/Dev

Gemini adds Canvas and Audio Overview features
Plus, Gemini is replacing Assistant in Android (and Chromebook)
Zoom AI Companion is going agentic
Meta claims one billion downloads of Llama AI models
Microsoft ships .NET 10 Preview 2

Xbox

Microsoft is bringing Copilot to Xbox
Xbox Adaptive Joystick is now available for $29.99
Here are the new games heading to Game Pass in second half of March
Epic Games and Qualcomm partner on bringing games to WOA
Discord has an SDK now
Google Play Games for PC is adding native games

Tips and Picks

Tip of the week: Call of Duty titles are on sale in the Microsoft Store
App pick of the week: Files
RunAs Radio this week: Managing AI Costs with Sonia Cuff
Brown liquor pick of the week: Toki Suntory Whisky

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!
Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsors: