Ask Paul: April 2 (Premium)

Happy Friday, and Happy Easter if you’re celebrating. Let’s get the weekend off to an early start with the first Ask Paul for April 2021.

Microsoft’s gaming strategy

Vladimir asks:

I have a somewhat provocative question about microsoft and gaming. I definitevely prefer Microsoft over any other big tech company, but I am starting to get a bit concerned about microsoft buying everything in the gaming world and adding everything to gamepass. Can this become a monoculture and lack of competition be bad for gaming in general?

This is a great question and it’s something I’ve internally debated.

As an Xbox fan, I was long burned by the platform exclusives strategy championed by Sony and Nintendo, and I felt that this unfairly punished gamers for picking a particular console or ecosystem. Microsoft’s approach, I thought, was platform-agnostic and friendlier to gamers, and those few games that were “exclusives” were exclusive to Xbox the platform, not a particular console version.

When the Xbox One failed out of the gate in 2013, Microsoft had to rethink how it did things and the result is what I think of as the single-best videogame platform there is. There’s a lot that goes into that, but one of the key pieces is backward compatibility: Not only does the Xbox Series X|S play all Xbox One games, and improve them in some way while doing so, it can also play a lot of Xbox 360 games and some OG Xbox games. And now they’re pushing backward compatible games to Xbox Game Streaming (xCloud), further enhancing our investments in this ecosystem.

Microsoft’s more recent shift to snapping up game studios and, most recently, in revealing that some future Bethesda games will be Xbox exclusives, can be seen as both the next logical step in this broader strategy of making Xbox great and, conversely, as a troubling move to do what Sony and Nintendo are doing and limiting some games from appearing on other platforms.

I see both sides of this, and while the latter is still troubling to me, I think the benefits outweigh the negatives, especially from the perspective of someone who has made big investments in time and money in the Xbox platform. This is Microsoft showing us that it’s serious about Xbox.

Ultimately, I think we’re going to continue to see a combination of cross-platform and Xbox-only games from Microsoft’s studios. And thanks to the broader reach of Xbox, now and in the future, even those Xbox exclusives will be playable across many platforms, including Xbox consoles, Windows 10 PCs, and, via streaming, Android devices (today) and the web, Windows, iPhone, and iPad (in the near future). When Sony releases an exclusive in 2021 or going forward, by comparison, it will only work on PlayStation 5. That’s it.

All this said, I do still feel that being open, which in this case means being heterogenous, wins the day. But even PS5 users could conceivably someday play Xbox exclusives via xCloud, either through a native app or the web. So you never know.

Windows vs. PC makers

crunchyfrog asks:

I recently bought and returned a brand new Lenovo X1 Nano due to several issues with that model, but the biggest problem I had was with sudden and frequent BSoD’s. Looking into this on my own I discovered that Microsoft had released an update sometime late last year that was causing a conflict with Lenovo hardware. The only short term fix was to disable security in the BIOS which is something even Lenovo warned against doing. So far, there is no fix, even running 20H2.

Interesting. I have a review unit X1 Nano arriving today, I believe, and I know that Mary Jo is looking at this PC right now and is really happy with it.

Also, and just recently, Microsoft released an update that is causing BSoD’s on numerous systems including mine when we went to send jobs to the printers we own. This issue is so pervasive that Microsoft had to release an emergency patch that has to be manually downloaded and installed to rectify the issue.

Yep. Classic Microsoft, sadly.

I am a long time user of Windows and tend to be forgiving with these things because of the immense task (or burden) Microsoft carries having to create and maintain an OS that can run across a seemingly infinite hardware landscape. In your opinion though, is this just sloppy work not being fully vetted before a release or just honest mistakes? What can Microsoft do to mitigate these issues before releasing updates to its users?

This is the type of thing where I can imagine Microsoft and the PC maker both pointing fingers at the other and placing the blame elsewhere. (I often reference a friend of mine who used to work at Microsoft noting that, in this case, Dell and Microsoft “deserved each other.”)

The printer issue was pretty clearly Microsoft’s fault. The Lenovo problem is a bit more unclear since we don’t have enough data, and I don’t think either company would publicly point out it was the other’s fault unless things escalated. (As happened between Microsoft and Intel with Skylake.) But it’s fair to say that both companies contributed to this problem in the sense that both have a vested interest in not shipping updates that cause BSoDs on specific hardware configurations.

It’s hard to know how Microsoft can fix this kind of problem since this happens so frequently. A lot of people will point to the years-ago incident in which the firm laid off a lot of internal testers, or to the fact that a lot of Windows Insider feedback is ignored or downplayed. And, honestly, both certainly contribute to this problem, for sure. But I also feel like either issue could/should have been found by the automated testing that Microsoft does do. And that this is something Lenovo could/should have escalated more quickly.

We’ve been in a whack-a-mole era ever since Windows 10 arrived where Microsoft will always fix some quality/reliability problem after the fact, but we’ll just possibly experience a new but similar problem every time there’s a new feature update or, God forbid, a monthly cumulative update. It’s the dark underbelly of this Windows as a Service nonsense. It’s like security at the airport: We’ve only solved the previous issue, not the next one.

Touch-capable displays

hrlngrv asks:

Given the latest version of File Explorer which now needs one to select compact mode to return to the screen density of previous versions, it seems MSFT still expects lots of Windows users to use touch screens. Maybe on laptops, but do you have any info about how common touch-capable desktop monitors are? Where I work and at all the (not that many) client sites I visit, I haven’s seen any.

Microsoft is in kind of a no-win situation when it comes to multitouch and Windows. They’ve long seen that the future was mobile and thus touch-based, but the Windows userbase is largely getting work done or more traditional PCs that often don’t have multitouch capabilities. Windows 8 was an overreaction to the mobile/touch wave, at least for most users. But as Microsoft refocused on traditional desktop scenarios, those that did embrace the Windows 8-style touch features felt burned when Windows 10 tuned that down a bit.

Personally, I like where Windows 10 is now with regards to touch because it’s optimizing for the most frequent use cases—traditional productivity tasks on traditional PC hardware—while still offering what I think of as acceptable multitouch capabilities that support true Tablet PCs as well as convertibles/2-in-1s. And I view that coming File Explorer change as a concession to touch fans that doesn’t harm traditional desktop users. It’s nice to have the option at least.

Are touch-capable desktop monitors more common among home users? Do you use a touch-capable desktop monitor?

No, and I don’t think that touch makes much sense on a traditional desktop PC system, because reaching up to the touch the screen over that distance would be tiring and non-intuitive. But there are hybrid desktop systems, like Surface Studio, where you can move and angle the screen and use both touch and smartpen.

For me it’s enough of a pain to have to reach for my desktop mouse when I need it. I’m still waiting for a desktop keyboard with a joystick mouse nestled between G and H keys with mouse buttons ‘below’ the space bar which also includes all the standard 104 keys.

I don’t use this because it’s not ergonomic, but Lenovo does make an excellent ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard that you might consider. (I have the previous version.) It doesn’t have an integrated touchpad—it should—but it does have an integrated TrackPoint “nubbin” pointer between the G, H, and B keys, and the buttons are below the keyboard.

Project Moca

mrhnet asks:

What do you think the chances are for Project Moca (formerly Outlook Spaces) to move from “preview” to becoming a full feature in M365 for business/enterprise customers? I’ve been using it with my M365 Business Standard subscription for the past three months. While it has some quirks and shortcomings, I’ve grown to really like it as a hub or virtual pinboard for my client projects. I would love to see it move out of preview but, given Microsoft’s history of “squirrel syndrome” with project/task management services, I am wondering whether this will soon be another abandoned idea. Have you heard anything about it from your Microsoft sources?

First, welcome to the black hole that is “Microsoft 365 features that were announced or released in preview and then ignored for months.” This problem is so big—seriously, the firm announces dozens if not hundreds of new Microsoft 365 features every month—that we created a tracker called The Unofficial M365 Changelog in an attempt to keep track of this stuff. But (hilariously) neither “Moca” nor “Outlook Spaces” appears there, however.

I’ve not heard anything about it since it entered preview in August 2020. And I wonder now if this isn’t a feature/app that should be in Teams. But that said, I do expect to see this feature finalized, yes. Compared to some other Microsoft 365 features, this kind of delay/schedule is sadly common.

ASM, MASM, and you

ErichK asks:

Paul, have you dabbled in assembly language much? I’ve been studying it lately, and I’m amazed because compared to when I was much more of a youngster, I’m able to absorb it now better than I ever was. In fact, okay maybe I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s actually “easy,” but let me tell you I think it matters a great deal if you have a good book that explains it in an understandable way, and just take it step by step.

I’ve dabbled in assembly from time to time, but I never came anywhere close to mastering it.

You have, however, triggered a memory, and I’ll type this name before I look him up: Jeff Duntemann.

Having now looked him up, I can say that Jeff Duntemann, like Jerry Pournelle, is a science fiction writer who also writes about technology, and I know of him from his writing for the Coriolis Group, a technical publisher that shut down about 20 years ago, and elsewhere. He wrote various technical books over the years, chief among them a series on assembly language. I’ve owned at least a few of them, and the most recent edition, from 2011 (and which I don’t own), uses Linux (not Windows).

I bought the Microsoft assembly package, MASM, which didn’t really make the transition to the post-DOS world, and the Borland assembler back in the day. But I’m not even sure what tools one would use now. NASM? I feel like that kind of took over when MASM disappeared.

On a semi-related note, I asked Steve Gibson about how the move to ARM-based platforms would impact him, since he has long coded everything in x86 assembly language. He said he was learning C, since it was, in effect, “the new assembly language,” and of course C code can be cross-platform. But I feel like most uses for assembly today are likely for things like hardware drivers, and for optimizing performance in games or in operating systems, and not so much for creating new (or whole) apps.

You got your Stadia in my Xbox

sabertooth920 asks:

Do you plan to test things like Stadia on Xbox Edge? Having a console browser could be an exciting feature and differentiator for Xbox.

I wasn’t, but I will now. I’ve been waiting for Xbox Game Streaming to expand beyond Android, but maybe that will happen first.

Windows 10 version 21H2

madthinus asked:

Do we have a window yet for the coming out party for Windows 10 21H2? Do you think they will make a song and dance about it or is the little promo Twitter / Instagram videos from Panos it?

For those unfamiliar, I heard during Ignite last month that Microsoft had three events coming up: A gaming event for March, a Windows event, and a security event. But it’s not clear yet that any have happened; there was a Twitch/ID@Xbox event in late March, but I can’t imagine that was what I had heard about.

As for the Windows event, I suspect it will be tied to Build, which is happening in late May, and that it will be focused largely on 21H2. But I’ve not heard more on this topic.

Work/life balance

helix2301 asks:

I just had a question about coworking space. I know you are happy to work from home but myself I find myself needed to get out of the house and go somewhere. I have a home office I use but with 2 small kids sometimes it makes it hard sometimes to get silence during the day. While the space itself is cheap I was wondering if you ever had this issue in your working from home life when your kids were small or in general had any issues working from home. For example I know many people at the coworking space are there because their internet at their apartment or house is terrible and they need reliable internet. Or they have no room in their house for an office like you and me. Just wondering if you had any struggles and if you did was something like a coworking space needed.

Coworking spaces like WeWork are a fairly new development and they weren’t really a thing in the early 2000s when my kids were young. But I used to imagine having an office in Dedham Square or whatever, it’s just that it was impractical. Or building a large shed-type office in the backyard. But both were unnecessary: My kids always understood not to bother me when I was working, and if I closed the French doors to my office, it meant I was recording a podcast or on a phone call and that they should be quiet.

I’d love to chalk this up to good parenting but there wasn’t a pandemic back then either, so my kids went to daycare and then school during the day anyway, and that’s mostly when I was working. I’m not sure how we’d have handled the pandemic with little kids since my wife and I both worked from home already and have established schedules. But we have commented to each other how lucky we are that this wasn’t the case.

One related memory I have is when my son Mark was born in 1998. At that time, I was a few years into what became my career, but it was still tenuous in that the money wasn’t regular. My wife, however, had a full-time job with benefits, and when her maternity leave ran out, she had to go back to work. And that left me home alone with Mark, who was colicky and often miserable for much of that first year. It didn’t work out well: I’d spend a lot of time trying to get him to go to sleep—often rocking him with a hot water bottle on a little bouncy chair—and then try to get some work done, but he’d always wake up too quickly, interrupting me, and round and round we went. It was frustrating enough that I had days where I’d be rocking him in the chair and we were both crying. I couldn’t wait for my wife to get home from work. Which was probably unfair for her, given that she had just worked all day.

Eventually, we decided we needed to do something about this. We went through three separate nannies, each of which left suddenly and without warning, which was disruptive. (And was a bit bothersome to me, since me being around and working from home must have been at least part of the problem.) So we eventually put him in a daycare in Phoenix. Where he unfortunately contracted the sickness that turned into bacterial meningitis and almost killed him. (And, yeah, that obviously hangs over my head to this day.)

Anyway. Assuming it was convenient and affordable, yes, I could absolutely see going to a coworking space at least a few times per week if I had small children learning remotely from home and needed some peace and quiet. If that isn’t feasible maybe at least get a good pair of noise-canceling headphones and establish an equitable schedule with the spouse/partner.