Ask Paul: April 17 (Premium)

Happy Friday! And yes, while the days all do blend together, it is Friday. Here’s the latest installment of Ask Paul to start the weekend…

Windows 10 version 2004

simont asks:

What do you think the chances are that Microsoft could release 2004 as an optional update (for seekers only) for now and then push it out to all machines at a later date?

Based on last night’s announcement, it appears that Microsoft is instead going to release it normally, albeit later than expected and in an even more measured way than they had done in the past. Windows 10 version 1903 was most notable for its steady, slow deployment to the public, but with this new version, Microsoft is applying that methodology to the Windows Insider program too. Not only did it arrive late to both the Slow ring and the Release Preview ring, but they are taking the unprecedented step of pushing it out to only a subset of Release Preview testers too.

I’m not entirely sure what all the caution is about, given the success it had last year. But Microsoft knows how few people are actually active in the Insider program, and how little feedback they explicitly provide. And I suspect that is the root cause for this.

I wonder if your question is related to this note in the Microsoft post:

Please note that the May 2020 Update will only get pushed automatically to a subset of Windows Insiders in the Release Preview ring at first. Everyone else can manually go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and manually check for updates and choose to install the May 2020 Update.

That is, that they might take a similar approach with the public release? Honestly, it’s probably the reverse: As annoying as this is to Insiders, this system mimics how things already work in the real world where a subset of users gets the release at first, and they must manually choose to install feature updates anyway.

Anyway, that’s my guess. We’ll see what happens.

Binge-watching in the apocalypse

Simard57 asks:

What are you binge watching while being stay-at-home?

We watched the latest seasons of Narcos and Ozark recently on Netflix, and both of those are excellent. When we finished those, we signed up for Showtime Now to watch the last seasons of both The Affair (which is honestly pretty bad) and Homeland. They have a 30 day trial, so we probably will just cancel and never pay. We’re kind of going back and forth between those right now, but when we’re done, we will likely move on to HBO whatever to watch the current season of Westworld.

Between this, we’re watching more movies than usual, maybe 2-3 a week, and my daughter joins us for that. We’ve watched some that we’ve seen in the past and liked that we think she’d like as well, like A Fish Called Wanda, So I Married an Axe Murderer, Amelie, and The Thomas Crown Affair (the more recent version), plus Doctor Sleep, because our daughter liked The Shining.

Surface Laptop 3 screen cracking

anderb asks:

Any official update from Microsoft on the Surface Laptop 3 screen-cracking issue? There are multiple customers on the Microsoft forums that received a replacement device only to have the screen on that crack as well. There are also customers who received a replacement device that was a different colour and finish to the model they originally purchased! i.e. they bought the metal-finish and received an alcantara replacement!

Interesting, but no. That seems to have dried up pretty quickly, which is probably attributed primarily to the fact that this is a very low volume device by sales; everyone who really wanted one jumped on it immediately.

I find it unlikely that Microsoft got on top of this already. And I asked Mary Jo about this, but she’s not heard anything either. Anecdotally, I just don’t see a lot of chatter about this as I did for bigger/more widespread problems like with the Surface Book and the Pixel 2 XL.

Time

Tiny asks:

Kind of a personal curiosity question. I won’t feel bad if you don’t reply. In a month, I would estimate you write more than 180 articles, 28 podcasts and untold hours despamming your website. You’ve mention that your wife and you often binge watch TV programs. You exercise (daily I assume). You make several trips a year. I couldn’t guess how many meetings you have to attend. How do you find the time to do it all?

Hey, you left out the hours of video games I play each day!

So, the first thing to understand is that I’m a writer, and that’s kind of a specialized thing. It’s not like being a doctor, or a lawyer, or anyone who has to be somewhere at a specific time and do some thing for x number of hours each day. Also, for whatever reason—and this is luck, not a skill of any kind—I’m “good” at writing in the sense that I can churn out words quickly. Everyone suffers from writer’s block, or whatever, sometimes. But that’s rare for me.

I’ve written a bit about my schedule, but it sort of breaks done like this.

I do technically work 7 days a week, but I don’t work all day every day, and the weekends, especially, are looser. Monday through Friday, I block off what I call “deep work” time, generally from 8 to 12, during which I mostly write, hopefully uninterrupted. But I am interrupted: Except on Friday, Brad and I record First Ring Daily from 9 to 9:15ish, so it’s short. And I had been working out six days a week before the pandemic, but now that’s more like 3 days a week plus walking, which can happen anytime. Plus, it’s short now, too. (I used to be gone for an hour.)

I also often start before 8, though the first half hour or more is catching up on what happened and going through the comments to catch any spam. And there is always spam.

My afternoons vary depending on the day. Since last October or so, I’ve tried to spend at least a few hours a day on programming for those .NETpad projects, and I will write about that progress as it makes sense to do so. Monday is my best day, in the sense that I’m free all afternoon. So I can write/program as the mood or need strikes. Tuesday, I usually record What the Tech, but that’s been more occasional lately, so it’s often free too. Wednesday is Windows Weekly, which pretty much ends that day. Thursday, I have my only regularly scheduled work meeting, which I insist on because my work is not improved by wasting time in meetings. (Sometimes we’ll reschedule What the Tech for Thursday if Tuesday isn’t working for Andrew.) And Friday afternoon is First Ring Daily (1 pm) and then usually Ask Paul, and then whatever I want after that.

Because I’m a writer and work from home, I extend my schedule into the early evening. So we’ll eat at whatever time (between 5 and 6:30, it varies) and then my wife and I have an understanding that we’re each on our own until 8 pm. Pre-pandemic, she would have events on some nights (food shopping, teaching an English class, etc.) but these days she does things around the house. I write and/or work on the programming stuff.

During the week (Sunday night to Thursday night), we watch TV from 8 pm to 10-10:30, generally, about enough time for two one hour shows. We used to go out Friday and most Saturdays, but obviously we don’t do that anymore, so we get take-out on one of the two. One of those nights is always a music night in the sunroom, the other is usually a movie.

I don’t know what that all adds up to, hour-wise, but it’s how I keep busy. As comedian Bill Burr once observed, “any job you can do in your pajamas is not hard work.” It’s not like I’m digging ditches.

My wife is also a writer and she also works from home. So we interact throughout the day as needed and we eat lunch together every day. (And watch a 30 minute sitcom while doing so.) If we were gone at offices each day, and if our kids were younger, it’s possible our night schedules would be different. But our youngest child is 18, and our 22-year-old son is away at college. So that all plays a role in the schedule, too.

As an aside, I like my home swap schedule a lot and think it will be a good one for the future, whether it’s semi-retirement or a reduced schedule, or whatever. But I usually get up, work a few hours (catch up on email, etc.), and then head out into whatever area we’re visiting. When we’re in Europe, I’ll get home by 3:00 or so (which is 9 am ET) and work for a few more hours, then eat, then work for an hour or so, and be done for the day.

Teams, part one

wright_is asks:

AFAIK, you tried using Microsoft 365 and Teams a while back and you use, AFAIK, Google’s Gsuite for email etc.

Yes, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. When I joined BWW, I was at the time (semi-randomly) using my Thurrott.com email address with G Suite, and they were already on G Suite, so it made sense to just stick with that. We partner with a company called The Heed Group, and they were also on G Suite, but are now migrating to Microsoft 365. So we’re in the first steps of planning for that change as well. Separately to all that, I have my own Office 365/Microsoft 365 commercial account, mostly for testing purposes. And our more recent experiments with Teams have been a lot more positive than in the past, because it’s improved a lot since then.

We are in a similar situation, we are using M365 and starting to use Teams, but our email is still over on-site exchange. The problem with that is, when we want to invite external people to Teams meetings, that goes over the Exchange Online account associated with the M365 tenant (E.g. [email protected]), not the local Exchange (E.g. [email protected]). That means that the recipient receives an invitation from an, to him, unknown domain. Likewise, if we receive Teams invitations to our normal mail accounts, we can’t use Teams to take part in the meeting, we have to use the link in a web browser. Did you find a way around this, or did you use the secondary email address associated with the M365 tenant? Or did you not use Teams back then for external conferences?

I’m not sure if our experiences are exactly the same, since on-prem Exchange was never a concern. But I’ve been able to use Teams between various organizations (Heed/my own, my own/a friend from Microsoft) without any issues. I’m no expert in this area, but I’m guessing what you’re describing is a basic permissions issue. Perhaps someone with more Teams experience can help.

Teams, part two

chrishilton1 asks:

Any idea when iOS and Teams apps will be updated to match the desktop capabilities, as they seem to lag behind by quite a distance when it comes to functions and features?

No, but given the emphasis that Microsoft is putting on Teams these days, I assume that rapidly evolving the mobile client is suddenly more important as well.

Microsoft Edge mobile

chrishilton1 also asks:

Do you have any details on Microsoft’s plans for Chromium based Edge for iOS and Android?

I was under the impression that Microsoft wasn’t planning on changing Edge on mobile because there was no need to: The mobile client syncs fine with the new Edge on desktop, of course, and using the underlying rendering engines on each platform—Safari on iOS and Chrome on Android–seems to be in-line with the entire point of the new Edge strategy, where they just go with the rendering standard and focus on UX.

But I’m not sure Microsoft has ever officially addressed this. I’m also not sure if my understanding of what’s possible with mobile browsers is still correct, that is, that one needs to use Safari on iOS and Chrome on Android. And if it is possible to not use those rendering engines, I suppose there might be some advantage.

That said, it’s far more likely that Edge’s tiny usage share on mobile would preclude that work, which would be difficult and ongoing. And that using the native rendering engine on each platform is what makes the most sense.

Intel NUC

simont asks:

Are you still planning to do a follow up article for the Intel NUC 10 you got from Intel?

Funny, I just mentioned this to Brad. Yes, but the weird thing about the NUC, and it’s a good thing, is that there’s just not that much to say. It just works. It’s fine. It’s never had any problems, never caused any drama. I wish there was a second full-sized USB port on the front because of my peculiar needs, but that’s about it.