From the Editor’s Desk: Slog (Premium)

We’ve been in Mexico City for almost seven weeks, our longest trip yet. I came here with two big items on my to-do list, both book-related: Get the Windows 11 Field Guide updated for Windows 11 version 24H2 and publish at least a preview of the new book I’m writing with my wife, Eternal Spring: Our Guide to Mexico City. And I can’t say I’ve been successful with either, despite literally working on both projects every single day.

You’ve at least seen the progress I’ve made on the Field Guide: To date, I’ve published 28 chapter updates to the book since we got here, which I will admit is rather incredible. But here’s what you probably don’t know. Every one of those chapters includes new content, and while the amount of new content isn’t always profound, some of those updates are quite good from a new material perspective.

Here’s one example. I’m particularly happy with the work I’ve done with local accounts over the past few weeks. This involved resetting several of the PCs I have here, starting over from scratch with local account-only configurations to determine whether doing this will alleviate some of the enshittification in Windows 11, most notably the forced OneDrive Folder backup behavior. Most recently–two days ago, I guess, I reset my Surface Laptop 7, too, and am now using it this way. And … so far, so good.

But even if this work doesn’t “solve” the OneDrive Folder backup problem–and it kind of doesn’t, since you could easily screw it up in any number of ways, for example by running a backup with Windows Backup–this was a good experience for me. It helped me dramatically expand the Local accounts and Device encryption chapters in the book, and I now fully understand what it means when Microsoft says that it “enables” device encryption by default in 24H2: This is both a dramatic change from before and no change at all, depending on how you configure the PC. (I’m working on an update to the Windows backup chapter now as a result.)

These book updates remind me of the security rabbit hole I went down at the end of 23H2: Microsoft had added passkey “management” support in Windows 11 version 23H2 and in trying to figure out what that meant, I learned a lot. One, the passkey management capabilities in Windows 11 are a joke. Two, passkey support in the Microsoft account is even more of a joke (is, in fact, half-assed). Three, that both of these things are getting better, though both have a long way to go. Four, that Microsoft had long ago based its support for online account sign-ins and Windows Hello on the FIDO-based foundations of passkeys, and now that passkeys are “real,” it is making Windows 11 fully compliant with that as passkeys get portable. And there’s more, but whatever. All I wanted to do was write a short new chapter for the book and I ended up learning more than I ever wanted to about online account security. It was worth it.

And that’s what this October/November was like. A lot of work. Some output that you saw or can see. Worth it to whatever degree, I learned a lot. But there’s more going on in there, and I feel like most aren’t paying attention to it. For example, most people seeing that I updated the File Explorer chapter probably ignored it, but that update has new info about removing Gallery and customizing how removable drives appear, both of which involve the Registry and are useful. The Task Manager chapter has a killer tip about pausing the display from updating so you can right-click on a process or other item without it moving before you do. And while Microsoft has worked to limit the workarounds in Windows 11 Setup, my chapter about overcoming those limitations is nicely up-to-date and includes those methods that still work just fine. There are little bits everywhere like that, and it’s never clear how to call them out.

And for all the updates, there’s still so much more to do. It’s this weight hanging over me that I’ll never get out from under. The Windows 11 Field Guide is now over 1160 pages long, and it will only get longer. And … then I need to figure something out. Something different for 25H2 or Windows 12 or whatever the next thing is called. Something more concise. Something that won’t hide the best bits of information that I know most of you are missing right now.

But that’s for the future. I had two big projects to work on during this trip, as if I was trying to refute the reality I presented in One (Premium). And that second project, the new Eternal Spring book was–still is–even more problematic. There’s a lot to unpack here, and this isn’t the time or place. It’s not there yet. But perhaps a short version will suffice. I do have some ideas about expanding on this later, perhaps, of explaining how hard it is to get something like this off the ground. But whatever. It’s been months. I’ve started different versions of this book multiple times, scrapped them, started over, and time goes by.

One difficulty is that this is a collaboration with my wife. I mean, that’s good on so many levels too, and we really do want to share our love of this place with others. Like me, she’s an award-winning writer, and like me, she perhaps takes her work a little too seriously, something that can get in the way because of credibility and integrity, and a very real desire that what we create matters. This isn’t an issue with the typical blogger or YouTuber–I see the headlines from unprofessional publications like Neowin and I want to cry–but it’s an issue for us. We’re old school. We actually care about getting it right.

This book has provided us with an interesting new opportunity to argue, which has been fun. It’s provided me with an interesting new opportunity to learn–and relearn and relearn–how to do things like make maps, or organize content in new ways. I’ve written about 30 books over the years, I’m good at this. But my wife has a different writing style, and she shows me things for the book and my immediate reaction is no, no, no, this is all wrong. And sometimes we fight. Again, it’s a lot of fun.

But it’s getting there. I think I referenced this recently, but about four weeks ago, I was struggling to sleep because I was wrestling with the weight of this book and how we were ever going to get it out into the world. And in a weird dream state, I suddenly saw a path forward. This was so strong an idea that I just woke up. It was 3:30 am. And rather than fight it, I got dressed, walked out into the dark living room, opened up the laptop, and got to work. I started the book over. A new way to organize the content, perhaps the fifth or sixth. A more modular approach that would help us get this thing out in some preview form and then let us build on that over time, much as I’d done with recent Field Guide books. It made sense. And as I moved things around and added back content, I could see that this idea would work. I had figured it out. About four months later than I had hoped for. But it happened.

When Stephanie got up at a more normal time, about four hours later, I showed her what I had done. And she saw it, too. This was it. This was how we could move forward. And so we kept working. I had done most of the writing before the trip, but she’s done more–and has done more for our website, which is a Substack now–than me because I’ve done the rote work my stupid brain is optimized for. Those maps, now in a great place. The organization, both of the book in general and each chapter. The style, which is evolving, and so different from the Field Guides, and kind of cool now. The format of our reviews, some long, some short, this modular approach we will only build on.

But it’s still not available publicly yet. And this kills me. And us. We need to get past that hurdle, need to put our fears and egos and credibility aside, and just get the damn thing out. We had hoped for mid-October for a first limited preview. And then the end of October. And now before we fly home. But I don’t know. It will come down to the wire. It’s difficult to let go, to let this new thing out into the world where it can be scrutinized and criticized and perhaps found to be inadequate. Which it is. It’s not done yet. It will get there. I just don’t know when.

But there’s more. There’s always more.

Closer to home in a Thurrott.com sense, I came to Mexico with three laptops, two of which–the HP OmniBook Ultra and the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid–are review units. And I arrived here to find a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i 15 Aura Edition waiting for me. So I had six weeks–which we extended to 7 after I decided to bail on going to Chicago for Ignite because Microsoft stalled on inviting the press until the last minute–to review three laptops. No problem. Except that everything is a problem, right?

To date, one of those reviews is up, for the HP OmniBook Ultra. The other two are … complicated. I pushed the Yoga Slim 7i review ahead of the ThinkBook, out of order, because I need to ship it back before we fly home. And because this is my first Lunar Lake laptop experience, and I really want to focus on that. And that has not paid off. I spent–wasted–weeks trying to work around some horrific performance, reliability, and battery life issues with that device until I discovered that on this I was not alone. There’s something wrong with Lunar Lake, there have been firmware updates, and there is a weird workaround I’m not sure if I’d have ever tried unless I’d heard about it from another reviewer. And the short version is that it’s working better now, though battery life remains a disappointment. I had hoped to get that review out last weekend, but it will happen soon. I mean, I had hoped to get it done weeks ago. That’s how this trip has gone, I guess. Always behind.

Anyway. There are different ways to respond to pressure, and it’s easy to feel defeated when you don’t see the progress you want. I am often reminded of the pill bug–which I referenced in One (Premium), come to think of it–and its response to danger, and I joke about rolling up in a fetal position on the floor sometimes because humor is an escape valve. But it’s no joke. There is work to do, every day, there are problems that arise unwanted at all the wrong times, and life doesn’t just get out of the way because I want to get something done. And the clock ticks, and time goes by, and we’re suddenly on the verge of heading back home. Where we will face a back-to-back list of chores and tasks that includes not just the three big holidays and all the associated scheduling with our kids, family, and friends, but also my daughter’s long-awaited college graduation, us moving her stuff to Virginia, where she’ll continue her education, and finding her a place to live. And it is … overwhelming.

So I plod along, and I try to get through the slog, see some light out there signaling an end. But I also try not to think too far ahead, to focus on the day and what can, and has to, happen during those hours that seem to slip by alarmingly fast. And then we eat, and we sleep, and I Groundhog Day my way forward. Rinse, wash, repeat. Has there been progress? I guess so. Has it been the success I hoped for? Not even close. Will it ever get better? I can’t even imagine such a thing anymore. I hope so. But there is no evidence of it.

Seven weeks. So much to show for it. And yet so little to show for it. Worth it? I guess so. But I can’t believe it’s almost over.