Ask Paul: January 28 (Premium)

With my trip to Mexico winding down, here’s a new round of great reader questions to kick off our last weekend here a bit early.

Android apps on Windows 11

ggolcher asks:

Now that Microsoft is making the preview of Android App support on Windows 11 more broadly available, I was able to finally try it in the Release Preview ring. To my disappointment, I noticed that the offering of apps and games doesn’t seem to have meaningfully improved at all since it was first made available in the Dev channel. Ultimately, I found nothing of value to me and suspect that’ll be the case for many others.

After the simpler, more elegant user interface, Android app compatibility is the biggest change that Microsoft promised for Windows 11. But as you’ve noticed, the reality of this implementation has yet to match the promises.

When Microsoft first made Android app compatibility available to Insiders back in October, I immediately tested it to see how well it worked and was likewise disappointed. At least at that point, the experience was not at all seamless, and it basically required(s) you to download an Amazon Appstore for Android app from the Microsoft Store and then use the former to install and manage Android apps. (It wasn’t the “store within a store” that Microsoft promised.)

Worse, the app selection was both small—50 apps total—and largely of little interest. Most of the apps were games, and I only found 5 apps in the lot that were of any interest: Yahoo Mail, United Airlines, Kindle for Android, Alaska Airlines, and The Washington Post. I haven’t yet tried the presumably updated version that’s available in Release Preview, but my understanding is that there are now fewer apps, not more. Ugh.

Do you think Microsoft will be able to make this feature more compelling or will it become the next Windows Store?

It feels cynical, but it’s fair to point out that most of what we’ve gotten so far with Windows 11 is disappointing in the sense that it falls short of the initial promises. And that, so far at least, the Android stuff is falling in line with that. I’ve long felt that we won’t get the “real” 1.0 release of Windows 11 until the first feature update. But since this feature is going to be part of that, it needs to be a better experience than what we now see. Will it be better? That’s anyone’s guess. But it has to be.

Now that this trip is winding down, I’ll put this PC into the Release Preview channel and check it out again. My expectations are low.

GSuite changes

brothernod asks:

Having had GSuite host my vanity domain for over a decade, I realize I don’t understand the terminology of modern email hosting options (aliases?). Now that Google seems to be snubbing their free-tier G-Suite users and trying to charge them business rates, I and many others find themselves forced to find a new solution if they’d like to keep email/calendar tied to their own domain.

A couple of things here.

I haven’t written about the recent G Suite/Workspace news—I almost did yesterday, but I couldn’t find enough first-party information—but things are changing yet again. The short version is that Google has been supporting what it calls G Suite legacy free edition accounts, or what used to basically be free Gmail accounts with a custom domain, but it recently informed these folks that they would need to move to a paid Google Workspace account by May 1. The cheapest Workspace account is pretty reasonable, honestly—$6 per month—but whatever, it costs more than free.

What’s changed is Google is now allowing legacy G Suite customers migrate to free Gmail accounts. There are serious caveats to this, however:

“In the coming months, we’ll provide an option for you to move your non-Google Workspace paid content and most of your data to a no-cost option,” it explains. “This new option won’t include premium features like custom email or multi-account management. You’ll be able to evaluate this option prior to July 1, 2022 and prior to account suspension. We’ll update this article with details in the coming months.”

In other words, the new option will basically just be a normal Google/Gmail account (*@gmail.com) with no custom domain. So if you want to keep using a custom domain, you’ll need to either pay Google ($6 per month and up) or switch your domain to a new provider, after exporting all of your data (which Google does document).

With regards to the terminology, you can use whatever email hosting service (Google/Gmail, Microsoft account, Microsoft 365 commercial/Azure AD, many third parties) you want, of course. And some offer the option to use a custom domain. But generally speaking, adding a custom domain requires you to pay.

For example, Microsoft accounts are free to start (you can pay more for extra storage), but if you want a custom domain (*@thurrott.com or whatever instead of *@outlook.com) you will need a paid Microsoft 365 consumer account (Family, Personal). Or you can pay for a Microsoft 365 commercial account, all of which support custom domains and are priced like Google Workspace.

I use three custom domains. One is for thurrott.com, which is hosted through Google Workspace because that’s what my company uses. One for thurrott.net, which is attached to my Microsoft account (an old Hotmail account from 2001); I pay for Microsoft 365 Family to get that. And one is for paulthurrott.com, which I use via a Microsoft 365 commercial account for testing purposes.

Would you consider doing an article about what the best options are these days and what the modern email landscape looks like for families? I’ve heard home email boxes aren’t easy to manage due to spam rules blocking small domains…

Yes, I’ll look into this, though my experience is limited to the three services (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 Family, and Microsoft 365 commercial) I use. And I mostly write about consumer technologies, so work-related systems with multiple accounts are a bit trickier.

… and as many times as I’ve read it I cannot understand if domain email hosting is offered through my Microsoft Office 365 Family account.

It is. If you go to Outlook.com and sign-in with that account, you will see a diamond icon in the top toolbar for “Manage Premium.” Select that to display the premium Outlook.com features you get as part of your subscription. Among them is a “Personalized email address” option.

Back in the day everyone was pretty elitist about the phone syncing benefits of Exchange or GMail, but does that matter anymore? Are you really missing anything with free alternatives?

No, all of that stuff works everywhere now. I’m sure Exchange ActiveSync is still a thing, somehow, but you shouldn’t have any issues getting push email support with whatever services and clients you choose.

Honestly I would have gladly paid a flat rate to keep my 7 users with custom email addresses, but the per user fee just makes it too much expensive for a vanity domain. Based on the 100s of comments i’ve seen on articles about this i know I’m not the only one in a hard place by this.

When you have more than a single user, things do get more complicated and expensive. It’s possible that moving to a free Gmail or MSA-type system might be the right choice. Microsoft 365 Family, for example, supports up to six users only.

Thank you for your wisdom.

Not sure about that one. 🙂 But perhaps there are others here who know of some lower-cost options.

Future of gaming

sabertooth920 asks:

Asking you to look in your crystal ball. Microsoft owns Bethesda, soon Activision, has agreements with Ubisoft and EA. Once Xbox in the cloud becomes more ubiquitous, will I even need a console? Can Microsoft finally shed that money loser?

Game streaming to me is just another option, and there are already many ways in which to play games today, via PCs, consoles, mobile devices, and so on. If you go back 20 years, we would probably be having a similar conversation around the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and OG Xbox: will these consoles replace PCs for gaming? Ultimately, they did not. They were just another option.

But I feel like game streaming evolves to essentially replace consoles in the scheme of things, or at least surpass consoles from a usage/sales perspective: more people will eventually game via streaming than via consoles. Do consoles disappear? Maybe. Not immediately.

The other thing these options enable is multi-use scenarios. Maybe you split time in the same game between, say, a console and streaming to a mobile device. You can use the console when you’re home, and get whatever advantages that entails, but also use the mobile device when commuting, traveling, or otherwise away from home. I haven’t done much of that here in Mexico, but I did start playing Halo Infinite on an Xbox console at home, and I could continue that game via steaming to my laptop or iPad while I’m away. (I brought an Xbox controller for that reason.) Is it possible for me to just play Halo via streaming? Sure. But when I’m home, for now, I’ll stick with the console. This will/may change over time.

Windows 11 Field Guide

sabertooth920 also asks:

How is the Windows 11 book going?

Slowly, but it’s going. There are some basic issues related to timing and focus, and I’ve started over from scratch twice in trying to figure out what I want this book to be.

Here’s where I’m at.

The Windows 11 Field Guide will be a smaller book than it predecessor, at least at first. It will focus on what is new and different, and it has “where did it go?” sections throughout for Windows 10 upgraders. Those who pay for the book will get a free copy of the Windows 10 Field Guide since so much is the same between the two systems. And I don’t want to just regurgitate what I already wrote, yet again.

Over time, that may change. I may grow the Windows 11 book to include much or all of the previous content. But the issue is that Windows 11 itself is changing. Right now, it has all these legacy Windows 10 apps. In four or six months, or one or two years, it will all be different. Mail and Calendar will be replaced by the new Outlook app, etc. I don’t want to write and rewrite that content over and over again.

My plan right now is to deliver a first, incomplete version of the book in February. And then update it regularly going forward. I’m not sure on a support timeframe yet, but it most definitely won’t be the six years I gave to the previous book. This one will be less expensive as well.

More mouse clicks

justme asks:

Windows 11 question for you – like many of your readership, I am occasionally called on to be the “family IT guy”. Recently had an issue with a relative’s Windows 11 machine that required some effort to resolve. Is it my imagination, or does it simply take more mouse clicks to get to various settings within WIndows 11? This is more than just context menus – I felt like any time I had to go into Settings I was clicking more than I would on 10. You’ve covered the new UI in depth – but as this was my first serious troubleshooting issue with Windows 11, I did wonder if this was real or just a case of I set my own machines up vastly differently and am just not as familiar with the setup. (For reference, this particular machine is set to accept Microsoft defaults – and I run 10 or Linux on my own devices).

It’s not just you: Windows 11 very often requires more mouse clicks to complete the same tasks when compared to Windows 10. This is a byproduct of its UI simplification, and while I feel that some regressions will be fixed/added back over time, it’s most frustrating to those of us who are used to how things worked for so long.

I’m away so I don’t have a Windows 10 PC here to compare, but I run into these things all the time, and it’s hard to overcome muscle memory. I just tweeted about this issue, actually, in complaining about yet another problem with Windows.

Framework Laptop

agilefrog asks:

Wondered if you have had a look at the Framework PC and if so, what your thoughts are? Understanding that the PC market is a tough place for a start up to take a hold, nevertheless this looks to be a brilliant idea if they can pull it off!

I don’t have one, no, but I’ve been paying attention to this and will see if I can wrangle a review unit when I get back from Mexico. But it seems like the broader PC industry is finally getting the self-service upgradeability religion: ahead of CES, Dell announced a similar initiative, and other PC makers, even Microsoft, are starting to add more and more user-replaceable components to their PCs, in part because of legal or shareholder pressures. It’s possible that the industry will simply change in part because of Framework but that they may not survive because of that. Or perhaps they will continue because their products will be more radically upgradeable than mainstream PCs. Either way, things appear to be moving in the right direction.

King vs. serf

helix2301 asks:

I listen to Security now and many other of Leos shows. Leo, Steve and Stacey always talk about being in business for themselves all these years with GRC, TWIT and stacy on IOT. I was just wondering why when you left to do Thurrott.com why you became and employee and did not start your own thing like Leo, Steve or Stacy. I have been self employeed my entire life and I KNOW its not for everyone there are many days I wonder why I don’t just punch a clock. Just a question. I remember when you first started Thurrott.com I thought you were solo for a bit.

I think it comes down to a couple of things, like personality type (acceptance of risk), but also timing. I had been employed by a big company (Penton) for 15 years, had a no-questions-asked expense account, great pay, and great security. But when that company killed off most of my part of the business and was planning to keep only two of us on board, I knew I had to leave: my future was “secure” there but I didn’t want to work for that company. The problem was, I had two kids in high school and headed soon to college, with all those associated costs. And I wasn’t willing to take the risk that I couldn’t afford to make that happen.

My first idea was to go solo or start a very small company with one other former colleague. And armed with some traffic data that another former Penton employee gave me on the sly, I gave them an offer: just let me take the SuperSite for Windows, for free, and I’ll continue driving traffic to the Windows IT Pro site as I had before. And I would do that forever, effectively, just keep doing the same thing I’d always done. My boss thought this was a terrific idea, and so did her boss. But it was nixed at the vice president level, where it was observed that the SuperSite was a “corporate asset” and that I would need to pay them at least $1 million to take it. Ha!

So Plan B it was: hook up with another company and hopefully do similar work. I talked to a few companies, but Blue Whale Web appeared serendipitously thanks to yet another former co-worker and friend there who suggested to the owner that we talk. We did, and I signed on, creating Thurrott.com as a logical follow-up to the SuperSite. This was the safer bet than starting over from scratch. It is almost certainly the less lucrative option, given my now much lower pay, no expense account, and the lesser security of working for a smaller company trying to scrape by in this pandemic era. But acceptable and safer.

Today, one of my kids is done with college and one will complete her second year (the halfway point) this May. And so I have two more years of that yolk to worry about. So what changes after that?

Nothing.

Everyone around me seems obsessed with retirement, and I constantly get jabs about how I must want to retire or whatever. These people do not understand me. (And seriously, just look at all the work I’ve done while in Mexico while still having time to go out and explore the city almost every day.) If it’s my choice, nothing changes.

I still love what I do, and it’s not like I work in a mine: I can, and want to, write for the rest of my life. I like the company I’m at and the people I work with. I’d like to do that writing from some other place, maybe split my time between two places, wherever they are. But I’m in a good place. And while I do have schedule-related requirements, whatever. My schedule is fine, I have lots of free time, and can travel, and so on.

I don’t really wonder about what might have happened otherwise. But thinking about this now, my only real regret is that the Penton overlords didn’t understand the assets they had in the broader Windows IT Pro organization. We owned that space, and that site and the SuperSite were subsequently killed off by later corporate drones who spent more time in spreadsheets than dealing with reality. Idiots.

But the good news is that my current company is in place to take over those spaces with Petri and Thurrott.com. And that’s what we’re building together as a team at this smaller company. We have our own issues, of course. But I will take those over any of the headaches I experienced during the end of my Penton run. And I look forward to doing this for a long time.