Ask Paul: February 12 (Premium)

Happy Friday, and Happy (early) Valentine’s Day. Here’s a new edition of Ask Paul to kick off the holiday weekend a bit early…

ErichK asks:

Hi Paul. My question today is, what type of balance do you think Microsoft should take with Windows as far as making it accessible to users on the entire spectrum? That is, normal, every-day people, and techies and power users. For example, something like a terminal or command line (in any OS, not just Windows) needs to be there for those people that need it, but I assure you it would scare the hell out of people like my mother.

This is the double-edged sword of Windows: Because it has such a large and diverse user base, the story goes, Microsoft has to design multiple ways to accomplish different tasks. We’ve kind of just accepted that on faith over the years, and back when Windows was 95 percent of personal computing, it was kind of hard to argue otherwise.

Except that even Microsoft discovered this wasn’t true. Very early on, Microsoft adapted all of its major Office desktop applications to have nearly identical toolbars and menus when possible, the theory being that a user who mastered one app (Word, perhaps) would more easily adapt to another (like Excel). This, too, was taken on faith. But when Microsoft finally did so usability studies on this topic, what they found was that users were smarter than they were credited for. They could easily adapt to app-specific UIs. Making the menus/toolbars (and later the ribbons) very similar didn’t really help all that much.

But we now have other large and non-Microsoft platforms that prove these points. Apple has been very aggressive about moving forward with new features and UIs, and in dropping old features and UIs. And there are now over 1 billion iPhone users worldwide and a total installed base of 1.65 billion people. And none of Apple’s platforms provide two ways to do anything (for the most part, and via the GUI). If a feature exists, Apple provides one way to use it. So Windows could too.

(Yes, Apple has made its platform more visually similar in recent years too. But this is more about look and feel than it is about muscle memory.)

And also, how do these differences get manifested feature-wise? I’d like to think normal people understand the basics of using a GUI by now, but I’m always surprised by things that people don’t know. For example, there was one time I was helping my mom’s friend with her laptop, and I showed her how you can drag an item with the mouse to the recycle bin. She had no idea that could be done. Are we only going to reach parity when we have a Star Trek world where you can interact with the computer with natural language and it understands everything we say like a sentient being?

Sure, but we won’t be using traditional form factor PCs when that happens. 🙂

As to how Microsoft might solve this problem in Windows … I don’t feel that they will. Microsoft is a lot of things, but one of them is that it’s overly accommodating to its customers, and that’s true whether they’re developers, enterprises, or individuals. And your example with your mom’s friend kind of proves the point: If Microsoft only allowed users to delete items by graphically dragging them to a Recycle Bin on the desktop, then many users wouldn’t ever figure out. I mean, think about it: Here we are in 2021, and Windows 10 has only recently added a Task Viewer button to the taskbar because Microsoft finally figured out that most users aren’t even aware of ALT + TAB or WINKEY + TAB. The first of those shortcuts dates back to 1985.

EA Play on Xbox Game Pass for PC

rbwatson0 asks:

Any word on the delay of EA Play for PC Game Pass? They haven’t updated a date for release or offered any reason for the delay that I know of. Is this because of a technical glitch, or did someone at XBOX decide they wanted more exclusivity time? Or is this just Microsoft being Microsoft and are unable to communicate anything. Clearly. AT ALL. (See dead horse. Beat. Repeat.)

No, sorry. (And we are about to hit the two-month mark on the delay announcement.) And while I don’t know that Microsoft ever came clean on the reasons for the delay, I suspect it must have something to do with the fact that there’s an EA Play client on the PC already and these things need to integrate together somehow.

Note, too, that Microsoft just scheduled its first gaming briefing of 2021, which will occur in late February. Maybe we’ll get an announcement then.

Windows Update and preview .NET updates

Splat126 asks:

Why does checking for Windows updates manually on non-Insider builds of Windows 10 cause you to get current preview versions of the cumulative updates for .NET?

My understanding is that that’s not supposed to happen. Update previews are supposed to segregated into an “Optional Updates available” section in Windows Update (which I think actually leads to a different page in at least version 20H2).

But I think Woody Leonard discovered the “why” of this event: He found that .NET updates are among those updates that are still delivered by the legacy Windows Update service, and that newer update types (like quality updates and feature updates) are handled by the modern version of the service, which handles different types of updates differently.

Why is useful. But how—as in, how to fix this—is the bigger issue to my mind. And there, I’m just not sure. It appears that there may be Registry- and policy-based methods of blocking these types of updates. But this is something that Microsoft should just fix in Windows Update, obviously.

To Surface Pro X or not to Surface Pro X

crunchyfrog asks:

I find the Surface Pro X strangely alluring but I can’t bring myself to buy it because I know that you and others have roundly criticized it for being an unfinished product.

I completely understand the attraction: The Surface Pro X form factor is amazing. I’d be happy to use it myself.

But yeah, the problem isn’t the form factor, it’s the underlying system, which consists of a Snapdragon-derived chipset and Windows 10 on ARM and all of the resulting performance and compatibility issues.

That said, what would you see as a change in the hardware and software that would define a green light on consumers actually buying this device or is it too fundamentally flawed to be considered?

There are two ways this machine could go over the top.

The first would be the expected improvements in both the chipset and the operating system, both of which could/should happen this year.

The second would be to release an Intel- or AMD-powered Surface Pro X. Short-term, this is my preference, even if the processor needed to be somewhat throttled because of the thinness of the enclosure. I’d love to see such a PC.

Stadia misstep

BeckoningEagle asks:

I read an article in Ars Technica about Terraria’s Developer choosing not to support Stadia because a lockout of his google account created all sort of problems. It turns out that when Google bans you from let’s say, Youtube, it bans you for every other service as well. This seems to play into your comment on how Microsoft has more experience with these developers. What are your thoughts on this matter?

Yeah, I saw this story, and it’s kind of a mess. I get how the same Google account is used underneath so many services, but it’s hard to understand why a YouTube ban would delete all of your content in Google Workspaces. This would be like getting banned in Xbox and having all your Outlook.com emails and OneDrive-hosted documents deleted. It doesn’t make sense.

To be clear, I don’t think this event says anything about Stadia per se. But it says a lot about how unsophisticated some of the platform is. This kind of thing is inexcusable, and I have to assume it will drive some change.

Privacy and the future of ads

erich82 asks:

Happy Friday, Paul. How do you see the privacy feud ending between Apple, Google and Facebook?

Google and Facebook need Apple more than the reverse, so I expect them to do what Apple requires of them while they pursue legal and (what will be much less successful) public opinion options. The iPhone owns somewhere north of 60 percent of the U.S. market for smartphones as of the 4th quarter of 2020, and it’s just too large and lucrative of a market to ignore.

That said, this kind of thing raises concerns about Apple’s market power and how it can abuse its role as a gatekeeper to an audience of over 1 billion people. Few people would ever defend Google and Facebook’s tracking behavior—few people even understand it—but Apple’s ability to arbitrarily prevent them from conducting their normal course of business is something that does need to be challenged. But these things move slowly, and I don’t see either pulling an Epic.

Windows 10X on ARM

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

Do you know if Microsoft plans to bring Windows 10X to ARM? Given the pricing of Qualcomm chips, short of battery life, would it make any sense at all?

The official stance is still that 10X is Intel-only, but that’s months’ old information now. And the more you consider the shifting strategy on Windows 10X, the more porting to ARM makes sense. This system looks like something designed for devices, not traditional PCs, and by stripping out Win32 (effectively), it’s thin and light enough to make tons of sense on ARM.

Qualcomm pricing is always a concern. But there’s no reason 10X couldn’t run on many different types of devices/PCs from many different vendors.

Why no feature update?

jwpear asks:

How does one determine if Microsoft has a hold on a Windows update/release for a given device?

Right now, you can’t. But Microsoft announced recently that it’s looking at providing that information to users, and it can’t happen fast enough: Windows Update should be able to scan your system and say something like, “Windows 10 version [whatever] is now available but you can’t upgrade until you: [list of reasons].” Just common sense.

I purchased a used Surface Book 3 and it is stuck at 1909. I’ve been “seeking” 2004 or 20H2 for two weeks and I see nothing. I’ve checked the release health pages and really can’t make out whether the SB3 is on hold or not. I’ve seen some folks report they’ve been offered 2004 or 20H2 for their Surface Book 3. It feels like Microsoft could surface the hold info in Windows Update on machines that are blocked. I’m running the newest Surface and its stuck on a version of Windows from a year and a half ago. The 1909 health page says that release reaches end of service on May 11, 2021.

I don’t see a point at which you are suddenly using a brand new computer that is no longer supported. But given the date and the PC you’re using, I would just upgrade it manually from the Download Windows 10 site. If the Update Assistant option doesn’t work, just create Windows 10 installation media and upgrade it manually.

HDMI troubles

JustMe asks:

Regarding HDMI connections from a laptop to a TV on Windows 10 – do you know of a solution to get WIndows to re-recognize when the HDMI cable is plugged in to route audio through the TV? Recent laptop purchase (running Windows 10 Pro, 20H2, fully patched), for the first month or so, you’d plug the HDMI cable in and everything just worked. For some reason, it has stopped routing audio to the TV when the HDMI cable is plugged in. I manually fix this through Control Panel, but this is a pain.

I don’t, sorry. Are you saying that you plug-in an HDMI cable and video goes to the TV but not sound? It seems like that should be automatic, if so, though I’m not really an expert in this area. (For example, is there some way via HDMI to determine if the device you’re connected to supports both video and audio output? I don’t know.)

Hopefully someone else has a tip here.

Email

Phil_Adcock asks:

Paul since you have been looking at the M1 Mac lately and comparing it with Windows. A question of curiosity. What app/program do you use on Mac to manage email? On Windows which app/program do you use?

I don’t use an email application on Windows or the Mac. I use web clients, and I recently reconfigured all of my email accounts to go through a single account, which is a Google Workspace account tied to Thurrott.com. I use Outlook on Android and iPhone.

Surface Duo

madthinus asks:

Surface Duo at $999: Looking back, does this makes sense as a product?

No.

And I’m not trying to be funny. It makes no sense in its current form.

That said, given that Microsoft decided in 2020 to go to market with this device, I will say that $999 would have been the right starting price. People would have still complained it was too expensive given the kind of Galaxy or iPhone you can get for that price. But the dual-screens are a differentiator, and there must be some market for a device at a lower price than folding-screen phones.

Cryptocurrencies

bschnatt asks:

What are your thoughts about cryptocurrencies? Big banks are getting involved (and so is the government, which is always frightening)…

I don’t trust cryptocurrencies. That probably says more about where I am in life and my natural conservative leanings when it comes to money than it does about the technology. But that’s where I’m at.