Ask Paul: July 23 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Once again, let’s kick off the weekend a bit early with another great set of Windows questions.

Intel NUC

bschnatt asks:

I’m thinking of buying a NUC for the first time. They seem overpriced to me. Have you had fewer / same / more problems with them compared to your desktops over the years? Are there any off-brands (non-Intel) that you can recommend?

I’ve owned three Intel NUCs and I love them. My favorite NUC, the NUC 10, was destroyed by a lightning strike in August 2020, unfortunately, and I was going to replace it with a newer-generation NUC earlier this year, but HP sent me a small form factor (SFF) workstation to test, so I’ve been using that instead for now. But I will definitely be buying another NUC for myself. I can’t recommend them enough.

Part of the appeal of a NUC is that it’s basically an appliance. Yes, you can make upgrades, and not just RAM and SSD: I added a replacement lid to my first NUC, which I still have, that added two more USB ports, for example. But it’s really just a plug-and-go thing, and since I have no need of expansion cards or whatever, it’s a nice minimalist set-up.

As for issues, I’ve only had one, really, and only with one NUC: I switched back to my second NUC, which I think of as a NUC 8, after losing the NUC 10, and was reminded of a long-standing issue that never went away: It won’t go to sleep, no matter what I do. But that’s the only issue I’ve ever had, I believe. The NUC 10 was just about perfect. I’d still be using it now if I could be.

Was I buying a new NUC right now, I’d probably get an Intel NUC Pro Kit with a Core i5 processor and then either reutilize RAM and storage (16 GB/256 GB) I already have or buy that separately if needed. (I saved the RAM and M.2 SSD from the NUC 10 just in case they weren’t fried.) That kit is about $600, which seems reasonable to me.

Alternative eBook readers

bschnatt also asks:

Do you have experience with eBook readers NOT called Kindle? I’ve thought about getting a Nook (mainly for the Google Play compatibility), but one thing I like about my (now ancient) Kindle is that I never have to re-enter my credentials if I go a span of time without using a given app, unlike on my Android phones. I find that REALLY irritating! Thoughts?

I did own one Nook, but that was several years ago. And I’ve owned many, many Kindles, from the very first version on. But I don’t use an eReader now because there’s no one device that works with everything. Even a Kindle can’t display all of the content that Amazon provides through the Kindle Store. So I long ago switched to an iPad for reading: It supports everything, from Kindle to Nook to Google Play Books to whatever.

The only way I’d even consider another Kindle would be if it supported color … and all of the content. But using an iPad eliminates what, to me, is a redundant and necessary device (an eReader), which is just another thing to manage, charge, etc.

Steam Deck

crunchyfrog asks:

The huge buzz this week has been over the announced Steam Deck from Valve and the inevitable barrage of comparisons to Nintendo’s Switch. As a sucker for gadgets of all kinds, I plunked down my $5 for the reservation after a horrible 90 minute experience trying to checkout. I believe that you are more of an Xbox gamer, however the Steam Deck looks flexible enough that it can be setup any number of ways however the user sees fit and may be able to run other game services beyond just Steam. My question is do you find this is a device of interest to you personally and if you have reserved one or plan to purchase one to use or do a review at some point around the release date which is likely next year.

I’ve always been fascinated by portable gaming. Over 30 years ago, I bought an Atari Lynx, an early color portable videogame system, so I could play games on the flights for our honeymoon. (I ended up returning it after we got home.) I recall playing Quake on a Dell PC running Windows NT on a plane in the mid-to-late 1990s, and having the woman next to me ask, “Is that artificial reality??” And I’ve gone through a number of mobile games in more recent years, from Angry Birds on the phone to Telltale’s original The Walking Dead game, which I completed on an iPad.

But now that I’m in my mid-50s and have tested various gaming streaming services on mobile devices, I know that playing a game designed for a console (or in the case of Steam Deck, a PC) on a small screen is problematic. And while I’m super-interested in the Steam Deck—and have always wanted a true Xbox portable gaming system—I also know that this device just isn’t for me. I will follow how this goes, of course, and am curious about putting Windows on it and using it as a portable Xbox of course. But I will be doing that from afar. I won’t be buying one.

Why?

jchampeau asks:

Why do you think Microsoft has never created a “Power User Mode” in Windows? Since Windows is intended for use by everyone from tech-averse people to power users and enthusiasts to IT administrators, it makes sense to me to ship Windows on new devices in “easy mode” with simpler GUI menus and provide a switch in Settings to expose all the stuff people like you and me want to see. Aero Shake is a perfect example of something that would be turned off in easy mode but turned on in power user mode.

It’s hard to answer “why” questions. And in this case, even if I could come up with a good reason why this never happened, it wouldn’t matter because … it never happened. I’ve always felt that Windows could handle multiple user interfaces, though, and have argued in the past that Windows Home could have one (simpler) UI while Windows Pro could have the more complex legacy UI. Microsoft almost moved to this model with Windows 10X, and I guess you could argue they’ll be temporarily doing so, sort of, with Windows 11, since Windows 10 will be supported and around for at least five more years.

But forced to guess, I have to assume that the real reason this never happened is that it would be too complex to implement and support, in part because of the very nature of Windows, which is some amalgamation of multiple generations of technology. And not just what we see—like the Control Panel and old icons that everyone is always so freaked about—but also the literal foundational technologies that make this thing work. In other words, it’s easier to add multiple actions for the same tasks in a single UI than it is have multiple UIs.

That’s my guess. But I think you can look at Windows 10 and Windows 11 as the closest we’ll ever get to “legacy mode” and “easy mode,” respectively. Assuming, of course, that Microsoft doesn’t muck up Windows 11 by caving to the whims of every one of its users, all of which have different and conflicting needs.

Where are we going with Windows 11?

ggolcher asks:

Windows 11 was announced this month, and the changes made in the various Insider builds since then have ranged from underwhelming to flat out bad from my perspective (looking at you search bar on the Start menu). I’m looking ahead now to the much-suggested October launch for Windows 11. If that date turns out to be true, Windows 11 should be feature-frozen at some point in early September. That means that we’d have at most 1.5 months for Insider feedback to be incorporated, which is not a lot of time — especially considering that major features like Android apps have not even appeared at all.

Windows 11 is already feature-frozen, or what we used to call feature-complete. But that’s sort of a meaningless term these days: Windows 11 can/will be updated with new features every month going forward, thanks to the new updating system. So most if not all of the Insider feedback will be applied post-RTM (again, outdated term), though I’m sure we’ll see little changes here and there that we can celebrate even though they were most likely previously planned anyway.

Is it fair to say that Windows 11 is already baked at this point?

Yes.

What’s the point of Insider feedback then? If so, what does that say about the role of the Insider program for Windows now? Are we returning to a Sinofksy-style attitude of opaqueness with the Windows org?

It does seem like we’ve shifted a bit in that direction, and that’s the natural ebb and flow, where a new leader comes in and pushes back at the way things were done by their predecessor. But I don’t see Windows returning to the dark days of Steven Sinofsky. And honestly, whatever anyone thinks of Panos Panay, his impact on Windows has very clearly been positive overall.

The point of Insider feedback to Windows 11 is tied to that new updating system, and the fact that Microsoft will be adding features all the time going forward and not just once or twice per year. We may not be impacting Windows 11 1.0 (or whatever), but the feedback will impact future updates. Not a year later, but some number of months later.

The worry is that one year from now, Windows 11 will be just as busy and confused as Windows 10 because all that feedback will slowly bring back every single feature that people miss from the past. I hope Microsoft can resist its urge to please everyone.

Zoom, zoom

will asks:

If Zoom buys a company for 14.7 billion, does anyone notice? This past week Zoom announced its intent to purchase Five9 for 14.7 billion, and that is the second-largest tech purchase this year. The CEO said that he wants to shift Zoom from a video conferencing company to a platform company. So I am curious about your thoughts on this and if it is more of a target toward Microsoft/Teams or SalesForce or something else?

Zoom naturally wants to capitalize on its pandemic-era growth and better compete with companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple in this space. But video conferencing, to me, has become like the web browser in that it is now just a non-controversial feature of the platforms we do use, like Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. And that, for most people, you just use what’s easiest and/or what’s there. That’s why Microsoft is adding a Chat icon to Windows 11. It’s why most Apple users use Messages and Facetime. It’s why Google has whatever the hell it’s called Meet this month. Etc.

There’s obviously plenty of room for third-party chat/conferencing solutions like Zoom. (Indeed, it’s probably the market leader depending on how you view these things.). But I wonder if their fate will ultimately be similar to that of eFax, a company we sort of remember but forget why we ever needed.

More Windows 11 issues

hrlngrv asks:

Which will happen first: Control Panel using dark themes, or MSFT deprecating Control Panel?

Well, Control Panel is arguably deprecated now, in the sense that it’s been replaced by Settings and is a king of a legacy throwback. I don’t see it ever getting Dark mode/theme support, however, for that reason. Some legacy UIs that are still commonly used, like Task Manager, could and should.

More serious question, also based on spending way too much time on reddit, will MSFT bring back drag-and-drop onto program icons pinned to the taskbar? If so, by 22H2 or later? That’s beginning to be the biggest complaint in /r/Windows11.

Publicly, Microsoft has described this regression as the intended behavior and not as a bug. But it has also said that it will listen to the feedback about this issue, and I can’t imagine they don’t bring this back. It is, to me, the single-biggest usability issue in Windows 11.

My workaround is to drag the file(s) I wish to open and, while holding the file(s) with the mouse, use the keyboard to Alt + Tab to the app I want and then drop the file(s) onto that app. This is a silly contortion to make, but it’s better than it not working at all, I guess.