Ask Paul: October 8 (Premium) (Updated)

With the release of Windows 11 and new Surface PCs this week, we can enjoy an epic set of reader questions and an early start to the weekend.

Surface Pro 8

crunchyfrog asks:

I know that you’re currently evaluating the new Surface Pro 8 for a lengthier review at some point soon. I would very much like to hear how this new SP8 performs with its ability to wake up from varying amounts of sleep as a test.

So far, no issues.

The reasoning is that nearly every Surface device I have owned has been plagued by weird sleep/wakeup anomalies that are not always consistent but are persistently a problem. As a for instance; I closed my Surface Pro X the other day for 10 minutes and it did not wake up when I opened the keyboard like it should have. I have many more examples but would like to hear from you if perhaps these have been addressed at all.

I will pay attention to this over the next few weeks, for sure. I’ve also had weird sleep/wake issues on many Surface PCs. It’s been inconsistent.

Windows 11 bugs

madthinus asks:

A couple of days in and some of the bugs in Windows 11 is already making way to much noise. Why was this release so hell bend on shipping.

Microsoft will never admit to the real reasons for this, of course, and as I’ve written elsewhere, it is unprecedented for the firm to publicly test a major new release of Windows for just three months before dumping it on the public. The consensus is that Microsoft did this for the PC makers and, more broadly, for the PC market in general.

But there are many indications that the pandemic-era PC buying boom is over, and a pretty, simple new version of Windows at least gives PC makers something else to sell (in addition to new models). I don’t think that will amount to much, but that appears to be the rationale, with the added justification that Microsoft’s new updating system lets them keep fixing problems and adding features to Windows without having to wait for Windows 11 2.0 (or 22H2 or whatever it will be called).

And to be fair to Microsoft, it almost doesn’t matter how long it tests a new Windows version since the public release always unmasks new bugs, or bugs that didn’t seem all that important during the beta. So I’m not surprised that we’re seeing those issues now, of course we are. It’s just on Microsoft now to fix them quickly and prove that this new updating system works. Honestly, the most surprising thing to me is that we didn’t see a Day 1 Windows 11 update. Each day now, I expect to see something.

New Microsoft Store (and other Windows 11 features) on Windows 10

madthinus asks:

Do we know when the new Microsoft store is launching on Windows 10?

When Windows 11 launched earlier this week, Microsoft published several blog posts, among them one about the “new” Microsoft Store. In that post, it says that “we’re happy to share that it will be available to Windows 10 customers in the coming months, too” and that it will “be sharing more details about that soon.” That’s all I know, sorry.

Or any of the cross Windows 10 / 11 features for that matter? I am still curious to know if we now wait a year for these features to arrive or are they being rolled out month to month and then the baseline just shifts a year from now.

Above, I mentioned Microsoft’s new updating system, and it’s easy to forget that it’s not just for Windows 11; Windows 10 can be updated in exactly the same ways. So I expect Windows 11 features—whether they’re apps, system features like DirectStorage, or whatever—to appear in Windows 10 over time, and that we could/should see at least something new on a monthly basis. It’s reasonable to assume that Microsoft doesn’t want to take the spotlight off Windows 11 right away, of course, so perhaps it will wait until 2022 to start doing that. But it’s not hard to imagine a “Windows 11 first” policy for a lot of this stuff, with Windows 10 getting certain features at a later point. And then not at all over time as well.

Task Manager and the meaning of life

hrlngrv asks:

Whipping a dead horse: launching Task Manager.

I totally get it. 🙂

If simplification is good, and complexity is due in part to having too many ways to launch something, then simplicity requires reducing the number of ways launch something. Shouldn’t the decision on which launch method to scrap be based on what the least number of users use?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately for obvious reasons. The general criticism here is that Windows often gives us too many ways to do the same thing, whereas, say, macOS only provides one way per task. That is an oversimplification, but whatever. It’s a useful generalization.

As for which way is “best” or “most common” and whether those two things are the same or not, etc., I don’t know. Even basic features like ALT + TAB (which was briefly called Windows Flip) are unknown to most Windows users. So does that mean we get rid of that keyboards shortcut because most people use the mouse? You can go down some dark alleys here. (Or you can argue that keyboard shortcuts sit outside of this conversation, as I think I would.)

But even Windows 11, with all its simplifications, has many redundancies. The most obvious is Search. You can launch Search by…

• Clicking the Search button in the Taskbar
• Opening Start and typing
• Opening Start and selecting the Search bar and typing
• Typing WINKEY + S
• Opening the Quick Access menu (right-click Start or type WINKEY + X) and choose “Search”)

Why are there so many ways? And if none of them “get in the way” or whatever, does it even matter? (And am I missing any? Probably.)

Since Task Manager is just an EXE, it should always be possible to launch it like any other EXE by typing TASKMAN in the Run dialog, command line, etc. Can’t scrap that. Since LNK shortcuts can be created to point to any EXE, can’t scrap that (note: this includes the entry in the [Win]+X menu). Given what Task Manager does/is for, it’d be a very bad idea to remove it from the menu Windows displays after pressing [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Delete]. Which leaves only the [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Esc] keystroke combination and (Windows 10 and prior) the taskbar context menu. Could MSFT’s telemetry data show that more users launch Task Manager using that keystroke combination than via the taskbar context menu? If so, wouldn’t the best option have been to simplify Windows by removing Task Manager from the taskbar context menu?

Here’s the thing. There is volume and there is quality. And yeah, I agree that the data shows that the vast majority of people who do access Task Manager probably don’t do so by right-clicking the Taskbar. But I would also assume that the vast majority of people who use Windows don’t even know about it either. And that at least in a right-click menu, it’s semi-discoverable. And that, as a support person, it’s easier to ask a user to right-click anywhere in the Taskbar to get to it than to access it in other ways. At least a little bit easier.

You’ve raised this several times. You may launch Task Manager most often from that menu, but what if you’re in the minority of users? Simplification is a zero-sum game. Are you OK being on the losing end from time to time?

Sure. This is the hard decisions thing: I credit Microsoft for taking some tough steps here because simplifying removes functionality. But this most impacts power users, and these people can adapt. Task Manager is still there, after all, and it’s not a huge stretch to ask a technical person who is used to this action to right-click Start and then choose Task Manager from the Quick Access menu instead. It’s not a huge transition.

It’s likely simplifying Windows is going to disappoint or annoy tens of millions of users while doing little or nothing to make other users more productive. Serious question: what features could MSFT remove from Windows which would make you more productive?

Removing features doesn’t make me more productive. There are huge swaths of Windows I never even use, and their presence somewhere in the system doesn’t hurt me. The Start menu is an obvious example: I never use it for anything. What I do, sometimes, is open Start, type the first few letters of an app or whatever that’s not pinned to my Taskbar, and then run it that way. That’s it. So customizing Start, or worrying about the new version in Windows 11, is not important to me personally. I do that here because I’m trying to think of the other 1.3 billion people using this thing, and how it might impact them. And Start in Windows 11 today is horribly incomplete. It just doesn’t affect me personally in the slightest.

So what’s the point of simplifying things? Simple: this will have a positive effect on most people. Those who don’t know about options that are now missing won’t miss them, those that do need them can work around that, and the system overall is simpler, and that literally makes it more attractive and calmer for everyone. It’s a good thing overall. And you might argue that, in doing so, Microsoft has made Windows 11 more productive overall as well. Since we can focus better on what matters.

Which is the marketing, right?

Office Refresh availability

lewk asks:

I’m just curious if Microsoft announced when the new Windows 11 UI refresh is coming to Office 365 users? I made the assumption that it would be released the same day as Windows 11, but I’m now guessing my assumption is wrong. I’ve been checking for office updates since the launch of Windows 11 but haven’t received any updates. I still only have the old UI.

When I first read this, what went through my mind was, I’ve been using this for months. But I also immediately enroll Office in the Office Insider Program as part of my Day 1 prep (where I also configure certain Word features explicitly), and that’s why I get the refresh. And … I have no idea why this isn’t available yet. It’s been in public testing since July, and while I assumed it would ship on October 5 alongside Windows 11, that didn’t happen.

Looking back at the original post, I see that Microsoft never mentioned even a rough availability date. I asked Microsoft and am awaiting their response. But I also asked Mary Jo, who said that it’s available now in the standalone Office 2021 that it’s now rolling out via Microsoft 365. But that these things happen in waves over time, so many aren’t seeing it yet.

UPDATE: Microsoft finally responded with:

The Office visual refresh is currently rolling out to users on an ongoing basis.

Surface laptop Studio

helix2301 asks:

Will we at some point get a full surface studio laptop review?

No, not unless Microsoft offers me one for review.

RV vs. trailer

bschnatt asks:

I’m a little ignorant of terminology here, but if you had to pick between living in a RV (self-driving) and a large, luxurious trailer (requiring a beefy Ford F-150 to tow around), what would you pick? If I were in unfamiliar territory, I wouldn’t want to leave my home sitting around somewhere while I went off to the grocery store, but driving a large RV to Walmart and struggling to find a parking spot doesn’t fill me with joy either 😉 (Besides, I’m not sure that would be any safer anyway…)

I spent months researching this during the pandemic and there is a wide variety of trailers, RVs, and camper vans, and it’s all very confusing, with various advantages and disadvantages to each. My wife’s parents were really into this stuff for much of their lives and would regularly alternate between an RV and a fifth wheel, which is a type of RV that must be pulled by a very large truck. There’s no one right answer.

When I was thinking about doing this, I also went back and forth over the type of design I’d prefer. There are various types of camper vans which seemed interesting very briefly, as they’re just a single vehicle that you could bring basically anywhere. Or a large RV where you’d tow a tiny car for local access. Or the fifth wheel where you could detach the truck and use that locally. And … yeah. I don’t know. They’re all impractical in their own way.

Overall, what I eventually landed at was that none of these things were right for us, even temporarily. Plus, as I get older, I don’t like driving long distances. And doing so in a bus-sized vehicle would be horrible (to me).

In-box Windows apps

alimaggs asks:

Hi Paul! I’d be curious to know whether you think that the renewed focus on Windows will lead to regular updates to the inbox apps with new functionality and improvements, or whether they’ll simply get refreshed/updated for Windows 11 and then left to rot, which is pretty much what happened after Windows 10. For example, with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update there was a big push on updating the Photos app, but it’s pretty much remained unchanged since, until recently. And don’t even mention Maps, News, Mail and Calendar. It feels like they would have to in order to make Windows appealing to consumers? And, right now, Microsoft updates their Android and iOS apps more often, and with more substance, than their Windows counterparts.

I feel like history is our guide here. The paltry in-box app updates we got at the launch won’t be it, and I do expect to see more apps getting at least semi-meaningful updates over the next year (and these will all work in Windows 10 too). The big ones, to me, are Mail and Calendar, but we know that big updates are coming, they’re just waiting on a broader revamp of all Outlook clients called “Project Monarch” or One Outlook. Which I’ve not really written about, I guess, beyond this one article:

“On Windows, the new client is codenamed Project Monarch, so I assume that its designers consider the current Outlook desktop experience to be some ugly pupae that will soon transform into something beautiful. It can’t happen soon enough: Today’s experiences are either childishly amateurish—like Windows 10 Mail, which doesn’t even let users set a default zoom level for text—or overly big and complex, like Outlook for Windows, which was originally designed for the days before Internet email and has more in common with a Boeing 747’s dashboard than it does with an efficient productivity tool.”

Anyway, that release isn’t expected until sometime in 2022. And this is part of the reason why I usually target mid-2022 for when Windows 11 will be “done,” or at least in a true 1.0 state. There are so many apps that need to be updated and features that need to be added, and it won’t be until then that most of that has happened.

eGPU testing?

vernonlvincent asks:

What are your plans for evaluating eGPU hubs? Now that Thunderbolt 4 is more or less ubiquitous across the Surface line and given your transition to a laptop device for work – I’m very interested in how well an eGPU can serve as the base for a desktop-like experience.

I have an eGPU in-house and have been eyeing it, but with my transition to more mobile, laptop-based computing, the time has come. I will be writing about that as part of my More Mobile series. (It is funny to me—really, perceptive on your parts—that two people have asked questions this week about things I’ve been planning to write about in that series. Your head is in the right place. It’s coming.)

Also – having followed you since the mid-to-late 90s – I wanted to say again how much I appreciate your perspective. It seems like too many bloggers have difficulty putting themselves in the position of the typical or average user, and I know you’ve worked hard to make sure that point of view is represented every bit as much as the ‘power-user’. Thank you for all of the hard work you do.

So, thanks. I do try to always keep that kind of thing in mind. (And that, too, came up above, in the question about simplifying Windows 11.) I’m sure there are some people who have needs similar to mine, but I try to think a bit more broadly.  It’s not always effective.