Windows Weekly 962: Peak Bloat

Leo, Richard, and Paul discuss the final Patch Tuesday of 2025, Windows 11, a Microsoft 365 price increase, AI, Xbox and games, and more.

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It’s the final Patch Tuesday of 2025

It’s a big one, ‘Lizabeth. Most important updates:

  • Major dark mode updates (with a fix for the “flashbang” problem)
  • AI Agent in Settings, Click to Do, Windows Studio Effects, and Search improvements for Copilot+ PCs
  • Many other improvements: FSE, Share, Settings, Widgets, more

More Windows 11

Windows Insider Program

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 is getting a lot more expensive in mid-2026. You didn’t think all those free AI updates were free, did you?

AI

When AI works

  • Note: Paul has been talking about “programmatic” apps and services because he wasn’t sure of a term for this type of interaction. But there is a term for this: Semantic. As in semantic web. And there you go.

Microsoft is one of 1,000 companies partnering on Agentic AI Foundation because you’re getting agents whether they work or not

Gartner says NO to AI web browsers

The New York Times is suing Perplexity for all the obvious reasons

Opera for Android gets a big AI update

Google Workspace Studio brings code-free agent creation to business users – automation is a solid AI use case

Xbox and gaming

Xbox Series X|S notably absent during Black Friday sales

Call of Duty won’t repeat the mistakes of the past anymore since it didn’t work out twice now

MS Flight Simulator 2024 is now available on PS5

Red Dead Redemption comes to mobile for the first time, free with a Netflix account\

Tips and picks

Tip and app(s) of the week: De-enshittify Windows 11

Tiny11 Builder for a clean install – Or, Win11Debloat for an existing install. Then …

  • Rufus to create installation media without the forced Microsoft account (MSA) sign-in or hardware requirement checks
  • MSEdgeDirect to use my default web browser for stories from Widgets, web-based search results, etc.
  • ExplorerPatcher to fix the performance and reliability issues in File Explorer

RunAs Radio this week: Incident Management and the Crowdstrike Event with Liam Westley

https://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/1014

Brown liquor pick of the week: Old Farm Pennsylvania Straight Rye Whiskey

https://www.hiddenstillspirits.com/shop-online#!/OLD-FARM-PA-RYE-WHISKEY/p/386915415

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