Ask Paul: December 14 (Premium)

Happy Friday! With the holidays bearing down on us again, here’s another week-ending edition of Ask Paul.

Next Xbox Elite Controller v2?

Suberungoer asks:

Have you heard any more about the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller 2? My original is in tatters.

Only that it’s happening. Every time an Xbox or industry event goes by with no mention of this, it’s confusing. This is so overdue.

And my own Elite controller is likewise in tatters. Come on, Microsoft. Here’s my $150 already.

All I want for Christmas is …

StevenLayton asks:

What is on Paul Thurrott’s letter to Santa?

I’m happy to say that I have (for the most part) convinced my wife, immediate family, extended family, and close circle of friends to stop buying presents for everyone each Christmas. Not entirely, of course; we’re doing a White Elephant-type thing with our PA relatives this year, for example. This is easier when the kids get older, but I’ve always felt that all this gift-buying was wrong-headed.

More to the point, I literally don’t need anything, by which I mean “any thing.” I have plenty of things. Too many things, really. Way too many.

Privately with my wife, we’ve determined that we do a lot together, including international and domestic travel, and that these experiences are what matters and where we should spend money. We will buy each other small items for the stockings this year (mostly because my daughter was horrified when we literally bought each other nothing a few years back).

Note-taking

simont asks:

What are your requirements for “Paul’s Perfect Note Taking Software?”

Honestly, I’m not sure. I guess it’s evolving. If I extrapolate what I did with writing, which was to move from Microsoft Word to a much simpler Markdown-based text editor, it may be something much simpler than what I’m now using.

I’m not trying to be evasive here, sorry. But I’m actively thinking about and researching this. And I will be speaking to the OneNote team about this as well.

Interviews

christian.hvid asks:

This might be more of a request than a question, but here goes. One of the things that sets you apart as a blogger and tech writer is that you actually know a lot of the people behind the names, particularly at Microsoft. This adds more depth to your opinion pieces, and it’s honestly a lot more fun to read a scathing takedown of Steven Sinofsky than a review of some random HP laptop (although the latter is probably more useful). Anyway, I would love to see you write a series of portraits or short biographies of various luminaries that you know personally (and I demand that you begin with our common hero Anders Hejlsberg).

This is an excellent idea. I’m vaguely plotting a campus visit (see the above question). I will see what I can pull together.

ARM going mainstream in the PC market

jimchamplin asks:

If ARM is to have a place in the PC world, I’m of the belief that beefier systems will be needed. Compact desktops, all-in-ones, perhaps even workstations. ARM servers are already a thing. Do you think that ARM PCs built by the wide variety of builders – and DIY components for self-build – is likely to become a thing, or is this going to be pretty much limited to portables? I’d never count on Qualcomm to develop those CPUs, but other fabs can. I think it would be wonderful to see something come of that possibility.

I think such a thing is possible, but that’s not what’s immediately necessary. Qualcomm, Microsoft, and the PC makers that support this platform are correctly going for the sweet spot of mobility and connectivity to establish a beachhead in this market. If this is successful, I do expect ARM to expand to other parts of the PC market. But the DIY world is a not a growth market. And is thus not a priority.

Edge/Chromium’s impact on Android

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

Do you think that changing Edge to use Chromium, along with Microsoft’s general embrace of Android, will help with the concept of a less privacy invading Android handset? Or does it just change the collector of information?

This is an interesting way of looking at this: To date, my attention has been firmly on how this will impact Microsoft and Windows more broadly. But yeah, that makes sense. If you accept that there is a market and a need for a version of Chrome with no Google tracking, then it’s not such a leap to a version of Android with no Google tracking too.

The timing for this is good on a number of levels: The EU has literally determined that Google’s Android licensing is illegal, and that should allow handset makers to ship versions of Android with more privacy and tracking controls than Google currently allows.

In fact, this would have more dramatic repercussions than just a browser offering this functionality. In the scope of “everything is now possible,” this points to an excellent possible future.

When will the new Microsoft Edge ship publicly?

anderb asks:

When do you think the Edge ‘Chromium wrapper’ will be rolled out to the general public: 2020, 2021, 2022, or after forking Chromium, because those Chromium gatekeepers funded by Google are jerks.

I would be surprised if we didn’t see at least broad pre-release availability across Windows and macOS by the end of 2019. But … yeah. This is just a guess. Each milestone we encounter along the way—including whether Google embraces, ignores, or actively fights Microsoft’s involvement—will impact the schedule.

3:2 laptops

hrlngrv asks:

Semi-serious: will 2019 become the year of 3:2-monitor laptop choices from all OEMs?

No, sadly. But I continue my one-man crusade to make this happen. Where we have seen some progress is with tablet/2-in-1s where even HP has finally seen the light. But I don’t see this happening quickly.

I was literally just thinking that I’d trade-in my 27-inch 16:9 4K display for a similar-height 3:2 version if I could. The areas to the left and right pretty much go unused.

New Edge and Chrome extensions

hrlngrv also asks:

Edge is supposed to be able to use Chrome extensions (eventually). Will that work like it does for Opera, which has an extension named Install Chrome Extensions which allows one to browse the Chrome Web Store and replaces the install button with an Add to Opera button? That is, would adding Chrome extensions to Edge mean going to Google Chrome Web Store or will MSFT expect Chrome extension developers to put them into the MSFT Store?

There’s no way to know how this will work yet, sorry.

But I did report that Microsoft does plan to use Chrome (Chromium) extensions in the new Edge. All that was said, literally, was that Microsoft “[intends] to support existing Chrome extensions.” We’ll have to see what form that takes.

Open source Windows

Eric_Rasmussen asks:

You, Leo, and Mary Jo talked about open-sourcing Windows as a potential strategy for Microsoft in the distant future. You mentioned something that piqued my interest – what if Microsoft released something like a “Windows Subsystem for Linux”? Given Microsoft’s recent moves that have been fairly surprising, do you think there’s any chance Microsoft could start contributing to the Wine project or something similar? Wouldn’t it be ironic if Microsoft was the one to finally usher in the year of the Linux desktop?

I had the same idea, and I actually brought that up as a possibility before the notion of an open source Windows came up. You can find the impromptu discussion about this at the beginning of Windows Weekly episode 597; that triggered me writing What if Windows 10 isn’t the Future of Windows?(Premium).

I’ve used a variation of the phrase “a version of Windows that cannot run all Windows applications is not Windows” since then. And had the idea that if Microsoft could somehow come up with a version of Linux that could run all Windows applications, it would, in effect, be Windows.

Technically, this is probably difficult to impossible. Consider just hardware drivers as an obvious example, though I’ll point out that we did go through that very transition with NT earlier (and its hardware compatibility list, or HCL, which evolved over time). It may also be embarrassing for Microsoft to reveal the terribleness of the decades-old Windows source code, for all I know. But I agree it’s an intriguing notion.

Replacing Google Inbox

dcdevito asks:

Hey Paul, any update on your quest to replace Inbox by Gmail on mobile? How’s your move to Outlook.com going?

I still have over three months before this becomes an emergency. But yes, I am leaning towards Outlook Mobile on phones and Outlook.com on the PC. I’ve already made the switch to Outlook Mobile.

If and when I do make the switch to Outlook.com, I will write about it.

I switched to Outlook on Android but realized there was something else I missed from Inbox: missed/past due Reminders (and they’re automatically pinned). Does Outlook have this capability with something on the Microsoft side? I see a Wunderlist add on but it doesn’t sync with my MS To-Do app. Also, my Reminders show on Google calendar but obviously do not in Outlook.

It’s funny, I usually find those reminders more annoying than useful, but I do obviously understand the point and why many would find them useful. And … no, I don’t believe that Outlook.com has a similar feature. That said, I would be surprised if the new Tasks features in Outlook.com didn’t make its way to Outlook Mobile. Barring that, you could always use Microsoft To-Do. But not with the automatic reminder thing in email, I guess.

Microsoft keeps making Windows Update more complex

madthinus asks:

[Regarding Microsoft’s] Windows monthly security and quality updates overview blog post and this story, I was always under the impression that the updates that roll out in the last week of the month was the general fixes for everyone and that they were final. From the story and the blog this does not seem to be the case. You only get them if you manually seek for patches. This always been this way or is it a change?

It’s a change, and I’m not sure when this happened. Microsoft has gone off the rails when it comes to this kind of stuff, as that story suggests. It’s diabolical and stupid.

I love this line in the blog post: “The “D” release has proven popular for those “seeking” to validate the non-security content of the next “B” release.” No, I just want my computer up to date with fixes for the stuff you shipped broken.

Exactly. I will probably look at this nonsense more formally soon. It’s just infuriating.

Windows Home Server, RIP

chrishilton1 asks:

I’ve had a Windows Home Server for many years, and for the past 4/5 years it has been switched off. I’m wondering what you did with yours? Is it worth upgrading to a newer version of Windows Server? Is there a Home Server equivalent? Ideally I’d like to move most of the content to the cloud (Office365/Google/Amazon), but there are TB’s worth of data, from files to videos, photos, and software. Any advice please?

I moved from Windows Home Server to Windows Server Essentials and then finally to a more basic NAS, the WD My Cloud EX, in 2015. And I’ve been using that ever since.

I don’t recommend any version of Windows Server for individuals or families. And honestly, even a NAS is probably pointless for most. I’m really the only person who directly accesses our NAS.

But virtually everything that’s on the NAS is in the cloud, too. I have all of my work archives in OneDrive. And all of our photos (and home videos) in both OneDrive and Google Photos. I pay for additional storage on both. And with Google’s new Google One plan, you can scale it past 1 TB.

Also, I have my entire music collection in Google Play Music, and that’s free. I don’t have my old ripped DVDs in cloud storage anywhere. Those are on the NAS and are almost never accessed now anyway.