Ask Paul: June 5 (Premium)

Happy Friday! We have a metric ton of questions this week, and that seems like a fine way to kick off the weekend.

Store apps automatically reinstalling

SherlockHolmes asks:

I have a weird problem with the Microsoft Store and how it behaves after an Update. after an Update, it reinstalls UWP Apps I uninstalled from my machine. And that happens only to the build-in Microsoft Apps. Thats the main reason I blocked the Store on my Win 10 Enterprise machine. Do you have any idea if this is wanted by Microsoft or is it just me? Thanks.

I used to have this problem all the time: You’d uninstall the silly Candy Crush games only to have them reappear later when the Store silently did app updates in the background. But I haven’t had this happen in a long time, and I assume you’re referring to more substantial apps (Mail, Calendar, whatever). But it’s definitely not supposed to work like that. I always assumed this was related to a bug where there was an update pending for an app you deleted and that was the cause of it reappearing.

Given that I’m not sure what’s causing this, you could try disabling automatic app updates in the Store app, I guess (In the app, See more (“…”) > Settings > App updates.) That said, I suspect that upgrading to a new Windows 10 version (like 2004) might cause them to be reinstalled at that point too.

Windows Phone alternate future

sabertooth920 asks:

Do you think things could have been different for Windows Phone had it been first or second to market?

For Microsoft to have out-done Android, it would have needed to make some decisions that the Microsoft of 2007-2008 was incapable of making. At that time, it was still operating on the delusion that its licensing strategy for Windows on the PC could be adapted successfully to mobile when what it really needed to do was just make it available to hardware makers for free. But there’s so much more to it than that. Windows Mobile had kind of stalled regardless because Microsoft allowed hardware partners to ship any kinds of devices they wanted, and the sheer variety of hardware out there fragmented the market, making it impossible to deliver upgrades/updates. And Microsoft’s initial iPhone response was to evolve the surface layers of Windows Mobile for touch without making sweeping changes across the platform, most of which was still optimized for tiny styluses. They lost years because of this.

To understand what Microsoft should have done, it’s helpful to read up on what Google did do. Google was just about to release Android at that time, and the version they initially created looked a lot like Windows Mobile and ran on devices that, at that time, would have been familiar to anyone with a Treo, Blackjack, Blackberry, or similar phone, where the front was half screen and half hardware keyboard. But seeing the iPhone launch, Google stopped that from happening and created a fully multi-touch based system instead, something that looked and worked like iPhone but would be available to any hardware maker and wireless carrier (iPhone was initially AT&T-only). It created what is essentially an open system. I don’t think Microsoft was capable of doing that at that time.

Major League Baseball

sabertooth920 asks:

Do you think MLB will actually have a season this year?

Yeah, and I think we can look to the NBA and what they’re doing as a guide. I could see empty stadiums at first, and then some system where they space out seating and only allow for 25 percent capacity (or whatever) at first and then move that up if things go well over time. I can’t see this not happening.

Windows 10 version 2004 rollout

madthinus asks:

Windows 10 2004 rollout  … If you don’t get the “machine is blocked” message, is it safe to upgrade manually?

My stock answer to that is, if you have to ask, then no, it’s not safe. I think most people reading Thurrott.com, however, don’t fall into that category. I’ve been using Windows 10 version 2004 for several months across a wide variety of hardware and I’ve never had any issues, nor have I heard of any widespread issues anywhere. But Microsoft is being conservative, and given what’s happened in the past, I can’t fault them for that.

Why this semi transparent process?

See, this I can fault them for. There is no excuse for the level and quality of communications around this topic.

I like that they have the firm block message in place, but why the extreme limited seeker rollout?

I suspect this is more of a legal issue than anything else, honestly, and that if you were to ask any rank and file Microsoft engineer about the risks, they’d be confused this and wouldn’t think there are big issues. That and, hey, it’s the Coronavirus. And the last thing Microsoft needs now is how an automatic Windows update bricked PCs for people working from home or whatever.

What is the sources saying? What is official channel saying? When do you think they will ramp it up? To many questions…

The official stance here is that they promised to do this deliberately and they are doing so. Honestly, there’s no rush.

But yeah, I get the complaint. Microsoft’s communications are as terrible as ever. It’s inexcusable that none of the several blockers we now know about came up during testing. And it’s laughable that Microsoft’s own Surface PCs aren’t getting this update on day one. It just doesn’t make any sense.

U.S. tech vs. U.S.

christian.hvid asks:

I don’t want to wade too far into politics, but I think it’s fairly undisputed that America’s international relations and reputation have taken a hit in recent years. If this continues after November, U.S. tech companies may find themselves in a pickle, for two reasons: they depend on their ability to attract young talent from across the globe, and they depend on people and organizations abroad feeling comfortable about placing their data and services under U.S. jurisdiction. Do you think any of the tech giants are considering moving their headquarters to somewhere less turbulent (after all, two of them are already located within spitting distance of Vancouver)? And if so, what would that mean for the U.S. tech sector?

So, two things here.

First, I don’t understand the sensitivity that many have about this kind of thing, which isn’t always really about politics. If I write that our president is an idiot, which he is, and that he’s made some terrible decisions, which he has, that’s not a reflection of my politics, whatever you think they are. And no, I’m not some hyper-liberal, as some seem to believe. I’m a registered independent, and that means that here in the great state of Pennsylvania, my vote gets repressed: In Massachusetts, I could vote Democrat or Republican in the primaries if I wanted to, but here I am not allowed to vote at all.

Anyway, where some try to politicize everything, I feel that simply doing what I always do, regardless of the topic, is what makes sense. And I don’t mind taking on topics like this at all.

Second, no, I don’t see any big tech companies moving out of the United States. I base this on two things: The experience of what happened to Microsoft during its U.S. antitrust trial, during which the company never actually considered such a step even though it was going to be broken up, and how these companies are really treated here today. For example, Amazon literally doesn’t pay taxes. If this company is forced to make some behavioral changes, great, that will benefit competitors and consumers alike. But it’s still not going to pay taxes. Why move the headquarters?

To tie these two things together, remember that things change. We’re having an election in a few months. Any concerns, personal or corporate, about the impact of our government will vary wildly depending on which party/people are running the show. I remain optimistic that we’ll do the right thing.

Excel inking

jt5 asks:

Do you have any update on the Excel ink to text feature that was demoed last year? The last I heard is that it would be coming this spring…

No, and I don’t even see it on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. So I just asked about this.

Outlook Spaces

mrhnet asks:

Do you have any new information on Outlook Spaces, which is now available in beta for Windows Insiders, but only for Outlook.com? It was available in beta for business users for a few days in February until it switched to “under construction”. Is Microsoft still going to make this available to business users again, too?

That’s a good question. I’m not sure Microsoft ever discussed this feature publicly, but I will ask about that as well.

Recording login

hrlngrv asks:

This is a bit Catch-22. I submitted feedback about a problem I’m having with the latest Insider build at login. Feedback Hub wanted me to include a recording of the issue, BUT IT HAPPENS AT LOGIN. Is there any way to start a recording before ANYTHING else at login? Maybe login scripts set through group policy? I’ve tried that sort of thing before, but there seems to be no way to ensure such scripts run before Registry Run values, Startup folder items or Task Scheduler items tied to login.

No, not that I can think of.

If this is something visual, you could simply record a video with your phone or whatever, of course. But it’s not clear what the problem is.

Windows 8 key for Windows 10

Kenneth_Burns asks:

Back in January 2013 I took advantage of Microsoft’s discount program and, for $14.99, upgraded to Windows 8 a new PC running OEM Windows 7. That machine is long out of commission. Is this a retail Windows 8 license that I’m free to install on another device, assuming I have deactivated it on the old PC?

It’s not clear if that is technically a retail key, but I don’t see why this can’t work. Worse case, you would have to go through the phone activation process. But I’d give it a shot regardless.

Related question. A couple years later I paid $9.99 to enable Windows Media Center on that PC. I got a receipt for something called Windows 8.1 Media Center Pack with its own 25-character product key. Is this a separate retail Windows 8 license that I could install on another machine? Am I the proud owner of two retail Windows 8 licenses?

No, that’s just a license for that software, sorry. I think they had a similar DVD playback pack as well.

Backward compatibility

Vladimir asks:

What do you think will be the effect on sales of the back-compatibility policy for Xbox series X? It’s of course great for users but I wonder how many are not going to upgrade to series X for this reason. I am thinking about it and I am not sure if I will upgrade on day 1, having a perfectly working Xbox X. Are you going to buy series X on day 1?

Yes, I am going to.

This feature provides users with a clear upgrade path because they know they can replace an older console with a newer one and that not only will everything just work, but everything will be better in some way too, and sometimes dramatically. Whether this helps life Xbox Series X on day one is unclear. Those with an Xbox One X might not be ideal upgrade candidates at first. But there must be tens of millions of users with older Xbox 360/Xbox Ones out in the world that could take advantage of this. And I assume Microsoft is counting on this.

Looking back, I think the big issue for Microsoft with the Xbox One launch was pricing, and that they’ll avoid that this time. But they didn’t have a great compatibility story at launch either. I think success for this generation is keeping sales competitive with PlayStation. I still don’t understand why the Xbox One fell so hard.

Behind the scenes at Build

wbaggerly asks:

Now that Build is a couple of weeks behind us, I was wondering if you could give us a behind the scenes peak about your experience being a part of the virtual event. (Assuming you are allowed.) For instance, what program did you use locally to send your video for the Azure and Microsoft 365 Recap with Mary Jo and Dona? Was it Teams, Skype or some other program? What was the return video to you in the meeting app? And how did they que you up so that you knew when you would be live?

Mary Jo and I have been lucky to have been invited to appear on the Microsoft live feed at the past few Ignite keynotes, but this was the first time we did so for Build, albeit it virtually. As you might imagine, the process is quite different going from live/in-person to virtual. And that Microsoft is really good at this kind of thing regardless.

After agreeing to join the broadcast, we had a quick round of emails about the expectations, but given our experiences in the past, this was light and uneventful. We had one quick video meeting with one of the engineers at Channel 9 to make sure our audio and video were acceptable, and that, too, was a non-event, since we both record podcasts every week.

For that test and for the live show, we used Microsoft Teams. They pinged us 60 minutes before we went live and kept us up to date on the timing, since it was running a little late. We connected via video about 20 minutes before we went live and caught up with Dona a bit while whatever session was happening. (We were originally going to go on with Seth as before, but it was changed to Dona without any real explanation to us.) We didn’t discuss what we’d talk about beforehand and just did it live.

For us, it was just like any Teams meeting: What we were looking at was essentially the live feed the world saw. The whole thing was handled ably and professionally, and it was over more quickly than I had expected. (For some reason I thought we had 30 minutes, but it was closer to 15.)

Teams vs. Slack vs. Zoom

helix2301 asks:

I noticed your story on AWS and Slack and I guess my question is when you think about Slack and Teams while they are competitors isn’t the real competitor Zoom. They have much bigger market share then anyone with this Covid-19 stuff. Every late night show and news company is using Zoom. So I guess I am confused as to why Slack is so obsessed with Teams. FYI my company is using Google Meets we may be the only ones 😉 The joke around the office is we use “Google Meets” everyone says “I never heard of it”

For all the commentary and joking about this stuff, each of these solutions—Teams, Slack, Zoom, whatever else—will simply continue to coexist. Whether Zoom has more active users than the others doesn’t really matter since none of these things are literally identical. Looking at just Teams and Slack, for example, yeah, Teams has chat-based collaboration and, yeah, Slack has video calling, but the reality is that they’re very different products now. Teams is a huge platform and Slack is more of a streamlined offering, and each will appeal to different types of companies.

Microsoft focuses on Slack because they are the perceived leader in the market that really matters to Microsoft: Managed companies/enterprises with lots of employees. Zoom’s biggest use cases are with consumers/individuals and small businesses.

Ham radio

proftheory asks:

Have you ever thought of getting an Amateur Radio License like Leo?

No, I’ve never been interested in ham radio for whatever reason.