Ask Paul: September 27 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Let’s close out September, and the week, with another great round of reader questions.

Amazon tsunami of products

madthinus asks:

Any of the Amazon announcements that has caught your eye?

Yes, but the most impressive thing about this week’s Amazon press conference was the sheer scope of its announcements; it was a real tsunami of new and improved products, demonstrating once again how serious is about this market and how it intends to retain its leadership role. That kind of thing alone makes me consider jumping ship.

The one product I’m most interested in is the Echo Studio, which I’d consider using in a stereo pair. I’m currently using Chromecast for whole-house audio as some may know, but this would be an interesting home theater choice with my smart TV and a Fire TV. The Echo Studio comes with a 24-bit DAC, meaning it can actually output Amazon Music HD songs in their original quality. And because it has line-in, I could add a Chromecast and make it part of the whole house solution.

I may wait for the reviews before I go in this direction but I’m thinking about it.

Amazon Voice Interoperability

skippu asks:

What’s your take on Amazon’s Voice Interoperability Initiative? Is this an anti-trust defensive play or a true value play for consumers? Given the list of participants, it seems like they are trolling the bottom feeders to funnel them into the Alexa ecosystem. For ambient computing to really make sense, don’t you think this is just what the doctor ordered?

I think it’s both. My knee-jerk reaction was that this was antitrust-related; after all, why would the market leader suggest opening up devices to support competing assistants? But regardless of the impetus, it’s still a huge win for consumers. And Amazon did already open up Alexa to interoperate with Cortana. I’m guessing that the ponderous way in which we currently have to use the two together was indeed part of the inspiration behind this new initiative. Which, yes, does appear to be a better way to access multiple assistants from a single device.

Better NUC cooling

wright_is asks:

Have you looked at something like the Akasa Turing for the making the NUC silent?

Not exactly, but I did coincidentally watch a YouTube video recently about a more powerful Raspberry Pi-like single-board computer called the Rock Pi, and the cooling solution I saw there made me think about the NUC. And it looks like the Akasa Turing case is similar, with silent passive cooling techniques. Obviously, part of the appeal of the NUC is the small form factor. But yeah, I am thinking about this now, thanks for the suggestion.

Is silence worth $140? Yeah. I bet it is.

Third-party utilities

hrlngrv asks:

Perhaps an odd tangent, but what 3rd party utility software do you use? FWIW, without naming it, I use a 3rd party file/directory comparison program which has saved me a helluva lot of headaches over the years. Also, where I work group policy sets a 5 minute inactivity delay for invoking the screensaver and locking the PC, so I also use a utility which simulates pressing the keyboard every minute. I know how to press [Win]+L when I want to/should lock the PC.

I used to have a long list of system utilities that I used, but as Windows added ISO mounting, ZIP compatibility, and more over the years, that’s kind of gone by the wayside. Today, it’s pretty minimal. I use a registry file to disable the CAPS LOCK key. (There are lots of versions online.) And I use and strongly recommend Greenshot for screenshots. But that’s about it as far as things I install routinely on every single PC I use.

Microsoft and digital assistants

bellbm asks:

Amazon Alexa has had an official Xbox skill for some time now. So, with the announcement on Thursday of Google Assistant support on the Xbox, does this signify a prioritization from Microsoft of Google Assistant, or do you think both voice assistants will have a place on the Xbox platform going forward?

No, I think Microsoft is just embracing third-party digital personal assistants and that this will continue, not just on Xbox, but also on Windows. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an Assistant choice appear in Default apps in Windows 10, for example, alongside Email, Photo viewer, Web browser, and the other choices.

Programming Windows, the book

helix2301 asks:

Have you made a decision on how the new book with be distributed? Any chance some of us that want one could pay for a signed copy?

Not yet, sorry. There’s still a lot up in the air with the book, including the final name. I’ve divided my working files in two, in line with how the two books will be divided. So right now there are two folders in my To-do folder, “Programming Windows 1985-2000” and “Programming Windows 2000-2015.” But that could/probably will change. I may not even be able to use the name Programming Windows, and will need to check on that.

On a related note, the makeup of the remaining chapters I need to write for part one has evolved since I wrote my last progress report post, and I’ve been writing what’s left out of order. Right now, the final section of this part of the books looks like so:

Antitrust

Antitrust

Look and Feel – Apple v. Microsoft, including 1998

Findings of Fact

David vs. Goliath – Java

Five Words Apart

Happy Halloween

Fallout – Gates out as CEO, executive exodus

But the Java chapter may be unnecessary, and I’m sure there will be more changes. I’ll start thinking more about what the book will look like after I’ve completed the missing parts.  Plus, there are lots of side-topics that could be added.

Microsoft Launcher + Note 10+

cwfinn asks:

Microsoft Launcher on my Galaxy Note 10+ (which is the best phone I’ve used since my Lumia 1520 ‘died’), allows me to make desktop (screentop?) folders transparent but they keep reverting to colored and opaque. Is there any way to stop this unwanted behavior?

I’ve never tested this combination, sorry, so I’m not sure. I keep going back and forth on whether I should start testing third-party launchers now that my Note 10+ review is done, and Microsoft Launcher would be one of my first choices.

Perhaps someone who’s been using Microsoft Launcher can help.

B-teamers

christian.hvid asks:

You have on several occasions referred to the current Windows team at Microsoft as “B-teamers” or something to that effect. If these people are in fact less qualified or less skilled than developers in general, that has some pretty serious implications for a world that’s still very dependent on Windows. Is this allegation based on something you know, or is it just a conclusion you draw from the recent quality problems? I’m not disagreeing with your assessment, I just can’t figure out sometimes whether your statements are opinions or facts.

I try to differentiate opinions from facts, sorry.

When Steven Sinofsky took over Windows, he did what many new rulers do, which is replace many people from the previous regime with his own people. These people were not always “better” (more qualified, etc.) than the people they replaced, of course. But he also kept on those who were exceptionally qualified; there’s a reason so many old-timers from the Allchin era continued into the Sinofsky era and then outlasted him.

Whether they were forced out or left, sometimes because they were not fans of Sinofsky’s political style, those who did leave Windows ended up in different parts of the company. Some, including some friends, ended up in Windows Mobile/Phone. People like Charlie Kindel, Greg Sullivan, and others I’d known a long time. Those people were not B-teamers. Kindel, for example, couldn’t get Microsoft to buy into his idea for a personal digital assistant, so he left the company and brought it to Amazon. Which seems to be doing pretty well with it right now, by the way.

But that’s the problem with Windows phone: It started out with some of the best minds at the company, folks who had worked on Windows for many years in many cases. But as the platform stalled, all the good people left. The only people still working directly on Windows phone at the end were, largely, the B-teamers I refer to. Terry Myerson, as you may know, replaced the ultimate B-teamer, Andy Lees, when he took over that team; Lees didn’t know his own product particularly well, and I recall being astonished by this at the Windows Phone 8 launch in New York. Just a total bozo.

When Terry took over Windows, he did what Sinofsky had done by replacing key people with his own people; over time, virtually everyone who had previously relied on Sinofsky for their career successes, deserved or not, was out. (The one major exception? Panos Panay.) But by that point, all the key players from the old Windows days were gone. What Terry had was … B-teamers. And that’s what came to Windows. You can think of it as multiple levels of sifting, where less and less good is left by the end.

Obviously there are/were good people on Windows. But far fewer of them. And with testing destroyed and turned over, in time, to marketing rather than engineering through the Windows Insider Program, it just kept getting worse. I don’t know this bit for a fact, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that part of the reason that Gabe Aul, a true engineer who predated Sinofsky, left is because of this quality shift.

But remember that Windows just isn’t a huge priority at Microsoft anymore. I don’t think anyone in a position of power even cares about what happened there. That there is no one directly responsible for Windows on Satya Nadella’s Senior Leadership Team speaks volumes: Only A-players are on that team.

Also, do you ever get reactions from Microsoft employees who feel offended by characterizations like this one?

Not usually directly. Some passive-aggressive stuff on Twitter.

Look, I get it. No one likes to be told they’re not doing a good job. But my role, as I see it, isn’t to cozy up to people who I feel are undermining the platform that I care about the most. I will applaud Microsoft when they do right. But I will always call out bad behavior, poor communication, incorrect (as I see it) product decisions or whatever else when I see that. If it seems like there’s more complaining than cheering, that it’s because I don’t like what I’m seeing, not that I’m inherently negative. (I realize those sound like the same thing. Ah well.)

Chromebook and the future of Windows

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

Is living with a Chromebook giving you any insights in to how Microsoft might succeed with something like LiteOS and a “Chredgebook”?

Yes, and I’m kind of building towards that. So without undermining myself completely, I’ll just say that Chromebook by itself—just web apps, that is—is an incomplete solution. And while that may change if/when PWAs/web apps mature and become more pervasive, they’re not there yet. And so Google obviously saw this and realized it could add Android apps and then Linux apps to the platform. And solve some real problems. (And create some real problems too; I’ll be writing about that soon.)

Microsoft could very easily create an EdgeOS and Edgebooks that mimic the web part of Chromebook. But that would fail hard, both because of the web app maturity issue and because its previous attempts to create something that was Windows but didn’t run Windows applications have always failed. Remember, even Windows NT wasn’t viable until it was a full-on replacement for DOS-based Windows.

The problem for Microsoft is that it does not have its own successful platforms to slot in there, as Google did with Android in particular. It does have the Store, and Store apps, and there’s some value there. But it pales compared to Android.

It could add Android app compatibility, I think. But that’s a platform it doesn’t control. Maybe Microsoft simply doesn’t care about that anymore. I don’t know.

It’s obvious that just doing a Microsoft Chromebook isn’t enough. And what I keep turning to is that it needs some way to let customers run existing desktop applications—virtualized, perhaps, streamed from the cloud, whatever—before this platform makes any sense at all. You can’t transition from Windows until you have something that runs those apps.

I am really itching to know what they’re planning.

Edge RTM

Sarge asks:

Any prediction when the new Chrome Edge browser gets out of Beta and goes GA?

I feel like Ignite in November is the logical time for that announcement, and they could time the release to early December, the one-year anniversary of the original product announcement. However, know that Mary Jo Foley spoke with Joe Belfiore at the Beta launch and he implied that it wouldn’t happen until early 2020. So we’ll see. Perhaps Belfiore just wants to under-promise and over-deliver for a change.

Admin users on Windows 10

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

Setting up new computer for my daughter. Basic security procedure is that users should not have admin privilege, so why does the OOTB setup default to making the first user an admin. For normal people this is a horrible proposition. Just wondering why Microsoft thinks this is a good idea? Just because Windows 10 is the most secure version of Windows, it is still not secure.

The first user has to be an admin because you wouldn’t be able to create one later if you only had a standard user. But I hear you: You should be able to create a standard user account during Setup.

I think the issue there is that a one-person PC with multiple accounts is complex and that you’d need to remember a second password to get anything done. Obviously, they’ve added features like UAC to prompt users, like a third brake light on cars, when they’re doing something that requires escalated privileges.

Multiple OneDrives

3dsurfer asks:

Question about OneDrive. I use a laptop at college and have three PCs at home . I use one for graphics jobs, one for gaming/homework, and the last one is set up as a personal server. I would like to be able to setup Onedrive to backup all my files on the server, keep my graphics files backed up on the graphics PC, and syc/backup my files between the laptop and gaming PC. Does this sound insane?

It sounds complex. And OneDrive doesn’t support PC-to-PC sync, only PC-to-cloud sync.

But the default behavior today should still accommodate your needs, since you can see all of your OneDrive content on each Windows 10 PC by default (this is Files on Demand) but only sync those folders you want to sync on a PC-by-PC basis. So in that latter case where you’re looking to backup and sync files between two of the PCs, you could just set up backup/sync identically on both. I think OneDrive can basically do what you want.