Microsoft announces big changes to Windows 11: New Start menu, Phone Companion on Start, AI actions in File Explorer, Notepad and other updates. Plus, new Copilot+ PC features: Click to Do actions, AI agent in Search for some reason, new Photos, Paint, and Snipping Tool features, and more.

Windows 11

• Microsoft announces new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models after teasing the announcement last week
• Recall improvements, Taskbar improvements, HDR improvements, more come to Beta and Dev
• Windows 11 Enterprise 24H2 to start on hotpatching, same schedule as Windows Server 2025
• A moment of silence for Skype, we didn't know what we had until you ensh*ttified and then killed it
• Google is secretly working on two major changes for Android 16+ - We need something like this for 25H2

Antitrust

• Apple is slapped down hard by Judge in Epic v. Apple
• Spotify, Amazon, Proton and many other change apps to avoid Apple Tax
• The walls are finally tumbling down for Big Tech
• US v. Google (ads) has a remedy hearing set for September, that should go well

AI

• Open AI: just kidding about that for-profit thing. Did Microsoft squelch this plan?
• Google's Little Language Lessons looks like a neat use of AI
• GitHub Copilot now has over 15 million users

Xbox & gaming

• FTC may have suffered its final defeat in trying to end Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard
• Xbox/ASUS portable gaming device leaks
• Good news! Xbox consoles are more expensive now! Wait.
• New DOOM game and more are coming to Game Pass this month
• Gears of War Remastered coming to Xbox, PS5, PC, Game Pass in August
• Minecraft drops VR/MR support
• GTA VI delayed until 2026
• Backbone Pro works with phones directly but also tablets, PCs, and more wirelessly

Tips and Picks

• Tip of the week: Go passwordless
• App pick of the week: Microsoft Authenticator
• RunAs Radio this week: Building a Career in Cybersecurity with Yuri Diogenes
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Jura 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.

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YOU ARE THE PRODUCT! But... are you? In Russia, Windows 11 uses you! Plus, something happened to Paul on the way to dual-booting Ubuntu 25.04 on Surface Laptop 7, but all is well! Also, you should be using Brave. But if you don't like/trust Chromium, Firefox 138 finally added profile management support.

Windows

• Windows 11 24H2 preview update for April finally arrives
• Now we know why Microsoft waited: It wanted to announce the "general availability" of Recall, Click to Do, and "improved Windows Search" (we're still struggling with a name for that one)
• Dev and Beta (24H2) builds add a profanity filter, a Pen shortcut for Click to Do, improved Windows Search for work and school accounts, Accessibility flyout in Quick settings
• Microsoft (sort of) explains why Windows Insider Preview channels don't follow a logical order anymore
• Microsoft deprecates Map app in Windows 11
• That makes sense. But also VBS Enclaves in pre-24H2 versions, which is interesting

Corporate

• Microsoft says it will defend EU companies against US government
• Alphabet/Google is doing just great, thanks
• Intel earnings are flat, and that's as good as that news gets
• Samsung posts record revenues on strong S25 series sales

Dev

• Build and Google I/O are coming in hot
• Google is holding a separate Android event for the first time, ahead of I/O
• What about Surface? At Build last year, the company announced Copilot+ PC

AI

• Microsoft has an OpenAI problem - duh and/or hello
• Microsoft is part of an AI unholy quaternity on new Moto phones
• Duolingo announces controversial "AI first" strategy - And then announces 148 new AI-based courses
• Apple on Apple Intelligence: Just kidding!
• OpenAI on GPT-4o: Just kidding!
• ChatGPT goes shopping and OpenAI improves Deep Research
• Google updates NotebookLM audio overviews with support for over 50 languages
• YouTube starts testing AI overviews for videos - and Spotify is using AI for playlists
• Adobe updates Firefly models, adds third party support
• DuckDuckGo's Duck.ai now supports real-time model switching
• Meta launches a standalone AI app that no one should want

Xbox

• Xbox-exclusive game Towerborne is here in preview on Xbox, PC, and Game Pass

Tips and Picks

• Tip of the week: Be prepared
• App pick of the week: Firefox 138
• RunAs Radio this week: Modern Work in 2025 with Karoliina Kettukari
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Highwayman Whisky Abbey 2024

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!
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It's Week D, do you know where your preview update is? 23H2 is out - 24H2, not so much! No surprises in the new features list, but are more new features on the way?

Windows

• New text actions in Click to Do - Practice in Reading Coach and Read with Immersive Reader - in Dev and Beta (24H2)
• Find cloud-based (OneDrive-based) photos using Semantic search - Comes to EEA, Snapdragon X only for now, Dev and Beta
• Voice access improvements - add words to custom dictionary - Dev and Beta
• Updated green screen UI - latest Canary build, from today
• Minor update to the Beta/23H2 channel, no new features
• Ubuntu 25.04 is out and there's a native Arm64 ISO (!) and BitLocker support
• Hands-on with WSL (which is stuck at 24.xx) and in Hyper-V on a Copilot+ PC
• Is dual-boot even possible on Arm? (Yet)
• Friday night update to identity caused accounts to be marked as leaked for 50,000 partner accounts

AI

• We're in a new wave: Microsoft 365 Copilot updated, new Agent Store and more on the way
• Copilot Vision is now free for everyone in Microsoft Edge
• Google is giving Gemini Advanced/Google One AI Premium away for free to US college students
• Google estimates its Gemini AI chatbot had 35M DAUs and 350M MAUs worldwide as of last month while ChatGPT had 160M DAUs and 600M MAUs (Erin Woo/The Information)
• Perplexity is coming to Samsung and Motorola phones - and Microsoft is apparently coming to Motorola too

Antitrust

• It's getting real - 20 years after US v. Microsoft, Big Tech is finally getting a reckoning
• Google has now lost two major US antitrust cases in less than a year
• US v. Google (search): DOJ wants Judge to break up Google
• US v. Google (ads): Google found to have another illegal monopoly
• What's the "right" outcome for Chrome and Google's ad businesses?
• OpenAI says it would be happy to buy Chrome from Google- hilarious
• Google just killed Privacy Sandbox, cites regulatory climate
• Apple, Meta fined by EU for not conforming to the DMA
• Apple Intelligence is no longer "available now" (Siri: Is it raining?)

Xbox/gaming

• Elder Scrolls IV Remastered lands on Xbox, PC, PS5 and Game Pass
• Xbox app arrives on LG smart TVs
• It's (back) on: Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders rescheduled to April 24 with no price change
• And the demand is higher than expected, Nintendo says

Tips and Picks

• Tip of the week: It's time to look at Google Fi again
• HARDWARE pick of the week: Microsoft keyboards and mice are back, baby
• RunAs Radio this week: Agentic AI for IT Pros with Tim Warner
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Dark Harmony No. 3 Black IPA Cask

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:

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