Ask Paul: January 17 (Premium)

Happy Friday. Here’s another great set of reader questions to get the weekend started.

Installing updates on Windows 7

anderb asks:

Have Microsoft indicated when it will be no longer possible to apply any updates to a brand new installation of Windows 7?

I was just thinking about this, in part because I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to install Windows Vista in a virtual machine. Will it get all of the available updates, or does Microsoft turn that off? Every time a version of Windows exits support, Microsoft publishes a note explaining that it will “no longer receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content updates from Microsoft” (or similar). But what about existing fixes? Will those always be available?

Short version, I don’t. If Microsoft does actually turn off the ability to get the existing updates, I’d imagine that it will be years down the road, many years in Windows 7’s case, given its popularity. It would be dangerous to customers to do otherwise.

Does anyone else know what the policy (if any) is here? I will try and find out myself.

Windows wireless adapters

will asks:

Do you have any experience or advice on the best wireless display adapter to use with Windows? I know Microsoft has one and I have had mixed results with the v2 units and was looking for something to use in conference rooms.

I’ve only used the Microsoft adapters now for the past several years, sorry. They seem to work … OK. But I don’t need them regularly, thankfully. Any wired connection is, of course, much more reliable (and less convenient).

Windows Insider Program confusion

Daishi asks:

My memory of hearing you describe the new Inside rings system was essentially just that new additions introduced to the Fast Ring are under active feature and UX development and they stay in that ring until they are considered finished. This can take as much or as little time as necessary and may mean that features they can’t get to a place they are happy with never graduate past this stage. Once ready they are shifted to the Slow Ring for testing on a broader array of hardware and then at the end of each June and December whatever has made it this far is rolled up to be the next public release.

Some of that is right, but Microsoft has never described the roll that the Slow ring will play in this new system. Previously, each ring (except Release Preview) and the Skip ahead option all applied to a specific version of Windows, each of which had its own low-level changes, new features, and new app versions.

To me this seems like a perfectly straight forward and sensible approach for them to take, but I’m regularly hearing you, Brad and MJF complain about it.

Right. Because it’s not really straightforward or sensible, nor is it compatible with the way Windows has been developed to date, at least not as explained.

If the low-level systems in Windows never changed, you could make an argument for testing individual features in a ring of some kind and then moving those features that are deemed acceptable to another ring that at that point does map to some Windows version.

But that’s not how Windows is built. It’s a combination of low-level components, features, and apps. So it’s not clear what we’re testing when we’re in the Fast ring. It’s a future version of Windows, sort of. It has features that may or may not be in the next version, or the one after that. And the cut-off where things are moved to the Slow ring and stabilized or whatever has not been explained (though I’m sure it’s something like that).

Basically, the issue isn’t necessarily the process. It’s that Microsoft has never really explained what it’s doing properly, or why it’s making such a major change.

See below. There’s another question on this topic that hints at some of the how and why, I think.

Pixel 4 XL update

Daninbusiness asks:

Still happy with the Pixel 4 XL? You have been quiet so I guess it must be doing its job and staying out of the way.

Yes, no major issues. I may grab a Galaxy S20 if the cameras are worth reviewing, and I’m curious about the Pixel 4a. But I like it quite a bit. It’s nice to be able to say that after a rough couple of years of Pixel releases.

Graphing calculator

Jltuv asks:

Will graphic calculator made it in fall release?

I assume you mean the graphing mode for Calculator that Microsoft finally started testing this past day in the latest Fast ring build? If so, yes, I assume so. In fact, I don’t see why they can’t just bring to every Windows 10 version before then.

Office 365 commercial vs. consumer

SherlockHolmes asks:

The company I work for recently moved away from the Google cloud to the Microsoft cloud. We started to use Sharepoint and Teams and so far I like it. I am thinking of doing the same for private Backup options. I have two questions about it:

1) Is the Sharepoint service reliability higher then the OneDrive reliability and is there a Sharepoint app or do I need to use the Onedrive app?

They evolved differently, and SharePoint is a much bigger and more full-featured platform with many additional features and services. But the document storage functionality is the same back-end now, and you use the same client, at least on Windows. (There is a SharePoint mobile app on both Android and iOS still, and those can be used to access both your documents and other files and other SharePoint features.)

2) Are there any benefits for using Outlook on the web rather than outlook.com?

For an individual? Not that I’m aware of, though Outlook on the web is, of course, managed by IT and could have restrictions in place.

Outlook on the web is essential Outlook.com for Office 365 commercial, or what used to be called Exchange Online. But as is the case with SharePoint and OneDrive, these previously separate products now share the same underpinnings as each other. And in this case, they are much more similar than they used to be.

This is interesting timing because I’m getting ready to do a series on Office 365 and will be comparing these things between consumer and commercial versions.

Google User Agent String deprecation

Lewk asks:

I wanted to ask about the news that a few sites reported on this week, with Google’s intention on depreciating the User Agent String in Chrome. Where Google claims that this change is for the better, clearing up website compatibility issues between browsers going forward. I’m not very clear on the technical side of this, but was wondering if you were? And if what Google is claiming holds true? That we’ll finally have proper website compatibility on other browsers like the new Edge? So far I’ve had some sites not play well with the new edge, even on mobile.

I hadn’t heard about this issue until I read your question—Google is also looking to remove third-party cookies from Chrome—but this could be a problem for Chromium-based browsers like Edge unless the web as a whole changes how it collectively tests for compatibility. You may have seen in December that Vivaldi decided it needed to spoof its User Agent String in order for certain sites—including Google’s—to work correctly. When it presents itself as Chrome, everything works fine.

It’s hard to trust Google on this one. And it’s worrisome to think about how Google could work now to undermine Edge.

Windows development

Lewk also asks:

With the vague changes announced (or unannounced) to Windows development, there’s been some speculation from all over about what maybe happening going forward. However, I haven’t seen the line of thinking that I personally came to the conclusion of, when I read the ambiguously worded insider post. And that is; that perhaps Microsoft is thinking that they’re one step closer to their goal of a true WaaS. That the bigger twice yearly updates shouldn’t be considered big feature updates anymore, but like service packs that contain only under the hood changes, support for new CPU’s and milestones that enterprise’s can tie licensing to. And perhaps the surface level/user facing features will be released at will, when they’re ready, via a monthly cumulative update. That means IT Admins can enable these if they wish, but don’t have to worry about the big updates going forward as they won’t have user facing features tied to them. I came to this line of thinking with the line in the insider blog post that reads “And we may deliver these new features and OS improvements as full OS build updates or servicing releases.” Perhaps meaning that individual features (like the new start menu for example) are on their own release schedule, and not tied to a specific feature update. I’ve always found the “Feature Updates” really scary, as they’re essentially an in place upgrade to a new OS where all sorts of things can, and have gone wrong. And maybe they’re trying to create a new approach that changes this going forward?

Obviously, this is related to the earlier question about the Insider program. And I have been trying to figure out—since they won’t explain this clearly—the what and the why of the changes. If you listen to Windows Weekly, you may have heard Mary Jo speak about how the Windows development schedule was changed in part to match that of Azure, since the same team works on both. And in the context of Microsoft’s enterprise support schedule, there’s this idea that releasing a major update in H1 each year, followed by a minor H2 release that is supported for a longer period of time, makes some sense.

Given both of these ideas, it would seem that Windows 10 version 20H2 should be a minor release and that its foundation will be identical to that of 20H1. And that the only question we have now is which features will make this release. And that the new system sort of maps to this pretty well. Fair enough.

Beyond this, of course, Microsoft will make a 21H1 release, and it should be a major release that potentially provides low-level, foundational changes. At that point, the current testing structure makes a lot less sense because so much could/will change.

If Windows 10 ever goes full legacy—where the foundational bits are barely if ever touched—the new testing regime starts to make a lot more sense. But I’m not sure we’ll ever really see that. Only time will tell.

Star Trek

StevenLayton asks:

I know you’re a Star Wars fan (have you seen the new film yet?), but what about Star Trek? Do you have any plans to watch the new Star Trek Picard series? Its on Amazon Prime in the UK, not sure about the US.

I’m a huge Star Wars fan, and I do really like Star Trek, but it’s not really the same thing to me. I won’t be watching Picard right away, but I eventually will do so. I still haven’t watched Star Trek Discovery, and I’d like to get started on that first.

I did really like The Next Generation (after the first 1.5 to 2 seasons), and the Borg movie, in particular, was very good. I only watched Deep Space Nine and Voyager occasionally. And Enterprise not at all.

EdgeBook?

PeterC asks:

Hi Paul. With your post yesterday on “MS partners bringing always connected PC’s for education” do you think this means the sometimes talked about concept of a dedicated MS “edgebook” mimicking a google hromebook is now a definite non-starter for MS? By that I mean theyre not going to produce millions of own brand hardware edgebook devices.

It would seem so.

Maybe it was never really going to happen: I believed an EdgeBook was possible, even required, for a variety of reasons: Chromebook was killing Windows in education. They were/are much cheaper than Windows PCs for acceptable configurations. They were/are much easier to manage, and don’t require IT staff. We saw numerous pre-release images of what is now Windows 10X and it looked very much like—almost identical to—Chrome OS. And then Microsoft announced that it was adopting Chromium for its own web browser. It all made so much sense.

But now that we know more about Windows 10X, we know that’s not happening. And after really confronting the limitations in ChromeOS this past Fall, I’m thinking now that maybe sticking with a more full-featured platform, even Windows 10X, might make more sense.

And might the “edgebook concept” be seen to be more geared towards the interface being openly tested with Microsoft Launcher v6, which maybe now seen as the software app that can be loaded onto any android phone, tablet and possibly chrome OS laptop/tablet, extending MS reach into these devices market share. It would be quite cute to see MS edge bring to chrome OS, what googles chrome browser bought to Windows all those years ago.

I feel like the Surface Duo is just the start of Microsoft’s Android efforts. It will be interesting to see how that evolves.

Regardless, Microsoft doesn’t have any good first-party PCs or devices for education right now. I don’t see why that can’t change.

Google Maps (really) offline

jwpear asks:

Paul, you’ve mentioned you prefer Google Maps for navigation. Does Google Maps support completely offline operation, including the lack of connectivity when you’re starting a new route?

It does let you make a route or area available offline (as you note). But virtually all Google Maps users will be online while navigating and will want the live traffic/etc. updates. That’s what makes it so useful. Your issue seems rather uncommon these days, at least in the US. It seems like a car-based nav system should at least handle the offline use case if needed. Sorry.

Windows 8.1 Extended Support Updates

evennotodd asks:

Just wanted to say I’m so glad your sharing the after EOL Windows 7 experience you’re having with us! Also, do you foresee Windows 8.1 getting ESUs in 2023 despite only having a 5% or less market share of Windows installations?

No, I don’t: Microsoft and its user base are very eager to move on from Windows 8, and I’m not aware of any major compatibility changes between 8.x and 10 that would necessitate such a thing. (It’s possible Windows 7 will get ESUs past that date if the usage stays too high, but Microsoft would prefer to avoid that, too, of course.)

Windows 10 on ARM

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

The article on always connected PCs got me thinking about Windows on ARM in general. Does it make sense at all? I imagine that it is pretty much the same management scheme as regular Windows, but with driver issues, and software compatibility as well. Not necessarily what I would want as a first experience for people that you are trying to make customers for life.

Yep.

The window for Windows 10 on ARM to succeed seems to be closing. There are so many great Intel-based laptops with tremendous battery life and always-on connectivity. I don’t see the point of the cost, compatibility or performance issues with ARM.

Windows 10X?

Will run on Intel. Thank God.

New Edge on Windows Update?

jt5 asks:

Do you know when the new edge will be available on Windows Update?

It’s available now for businesses, and Microsoft has said that it will make the new Edge available as part of some future Windows 10 version—I’m guessing 20H2—by default. But nothing on a schedule for making it available via Windows Update. I assume that will start sometime this year, perhaps after it is actually feature-complete.

Can the new Edge be uninstalled?

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

If the new Edge is installed, can it be uninstalled?

Yes.

If so, does the old Edge become available again?

If it’s the stable/release version, yes.