This episode features Paul, Richard, and Leo discussing Microsoft's new "checkpoint cumulative updates" and HP's announcement of its AMD-based AI PC. Afterward, Paul goes over his review of the Yoga Slim 7x laptop, which features a 14.5-inch OLED display. Other topics include the hiring of Inflection staff, Microsoft's settlement with the Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe, Leo's ZDTV hat, .NET 9 Preview 6, OS/2 Warp, the Xbox Game Pass mess, Amazon Prime Day, and a controller designed by Deadpool!

Windows

• Windows 11 version 24H2 introduces a new way to update Windows because WTF Microsoft
• HP announces an AMD-based AI PC that is/is not a Copilot+ PC - lots going on here
• AMD comes clean on the new chips, which ship at the end of July
• With a Snapdragon X-based ThinkPad on the way, Paul reviews the Yoga Slim 7xp
• Windows 11 Photos app now integrates with Microsoft Designer
• Dev (last week): Testing/deployment of new features resumes after long pause
• Beta (last week): More changes to the home page in File Explorer
• Release Preview (last week): Duplicate a File Explorer tab, drag and drop to pin from Start to Taskbar, more. Also a Windows 10 build (hooray?)

AI/Antitrust

• UK CMA investigates Microsoft for its Inflection AI hirings
• Microsoft settles with (most of) CISPE on cloud licensing in EU
• iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia public betas arrive, but with no Apple Intelligence features
• Opera beta on iPhone and iPad has new UI, some AI

Dev

• .NET 9 Preview 6 arrives
• Paul makes massive progress on Windows 11 port of .NETpad with the updated WPF. Plus a neat third-party add-on that might put this project over the top
• Google is bringing Android Studio to the web

Xbox

• Xbox controversy of the month, but this one is real: Microsoft ensh*ttifies Xbox Game Pass - more info now that the dust has settled, but still no announcement from Microsoft
• Microsoft, you HAVE to announce what's going on with AB and Game Pass
• Now that Microsoft owns Call of Duty, Xbox gamers are getting next beta on day one - well, Game Pass members anyway
• Microsoft offers a cheap Xbox streaming bundle on Amazon
• The Deadpool Xbox wireless controller is priceless
• Microsoft announces three day-one titles for Game Pass, none from AB

Tips and picks

• Tip of the week: Amazon Prime Day is here
• App pick of the week: Proton Pass
• RunAs Radio this week: The Power of Data in the Cloud with Arun Ulag
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Crown Royal Blender's Mash

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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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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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Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

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

Sponsors:

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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

Bing outage, NVIDIA's record Q1 FY25, WPF's rebirth

Windows 11

• A quick look back at the Copilot+ PC launch
• Paul did end up making a video of each MacBook Air reference during last week's launch
• The Copilot+ PC event was also notable for its many references to the past: Paul counted at least 7 in the first 7 minutes alone
• After some soul-searching, Paul went all-in on Surface Laptop by canceling the first preorder and bulking it up with more RAM and storage
• Release Preview (last week): 24H2 comes to RP, suggesting it hits stable on Tuesday, June 11 (in preview), one week before the first Copilot+ PCs arrive with this build preinstalled
• Beta (last week): 23H2 build with no new features (arriving after 24H2 in Release Preview, of course)
• Microsoft Edge is getting more responsive thanks to a "WebUI 2.0" initiative
• Lenovo earnings up 9 percent in quarter, down 8 percent for the year. The future? AI PCs, duh

AI

• There was a massive Bing outage late last week. Press hold on all the obvious jokes, this impacted Copilot everywhere, DuckDuckGo, other services
• Cue the Chicken Little "this is why I'll never use AI" crowd, which used to be the "this is why I'll never use the cloud" crowd
• Copilot comes to Telegram for some reason
• Google goes live with AI overviews in Search and the world grinds to a halt
• Google adds Gemini to Chromebook Plus, gives one free year of Google One AI Premium to new device buyers
• WWDC is coming soon and we're seeing hints of how Apple will add more AI to its products
• Opera partners with Google Cloud on Gemini in Aria AI and image understanding/image generation in browser
• And it now plans to make 2000 SLMs available in the browser
• NVIDIA revenues were a record in Q1, up 262 percent YOY

Dev

• Last week, we learned that WPF is making a comeback. This week, Paul revived his .NETpad project and is going to modernize it using the new features

Xbox

• We finally have some news about Activision Blizzard games and Game Pass!!! But it's only one game, and it doesn't happen until November
• Atari buys the Intellivision brand. I wish we knew more about this

Tips & Picks

• Tip of the week: Beware the dark patterns
• App pick of the week: Windows 11 version 24H2
• RunAs Radio this week: PowerApp Extensibility with Christina Wheeler
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Glen Garioch 1797 Founder's Reserve

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
• GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT - code TWIT100