Ask Paul: July 30 (Premium)

Happy Friday! If you’re interested in kicking off the weekend a bit early, here’s a notably long episode of Ask Paul to pass the time.
Windows in the cloud
crunchyfrog asks:

My main company laptop has been acting up so I resorted to using a personal device to get by and I tried something that I knew about and never bothered to test before. I am running Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint with the cloud versions using my corporate login on Microsoft Edge, and you know what? It runs great! I don't even know why I'd bother with the hassle of local installs again, assuming I have connectivity, which I do. I have been aware of these being available in the cloud for some time but assumed it would be pared back in some serious way and the UX might be clunky. I am certain that some obscure features might not be there and some menus are different but beyond that it runs smooth and all of my stuff is there. I believe that this is the direction Microsoft ultimately wants us all to go in and would like to know your feedback and if you have been doing this to any extent or run this regularly at all.

I think we’re still in a place in time where the ability to run Windows---or, even better, specific Windows apps---from the cloud, be it Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, or whatever third-party solution, is one of several options. And that, from Microsoft’s perspective, the goal here is really just to keep people and businesses in its ecosystem, which is really Microsoft 365, and not just Windows. So this is one way to accomplish that, and it’s a good one because it will benefit companies that want to keep their data safe and individuals, like you, who are concerned about the separation of home and work.

Even in the often-insipid marketing materials that Microsoft has created for testing Windows 11 in the Insider Program, there is a telling comment by a Microsoft product manager in an article about the new Windows 11 look and feel that skirts around this issue. “The purpose of an operating system is not to exist by itself, it's to be that stage for the things you want to get done, says product manager Tom Alphin. Right. Put more simply, the point of Windows isn’t Windows itself, it’s the apps and services you rely on every day. And if you can make those apps and services more broadly available, all the better. For everyone involved.

I happen to prefer Windows to macOS or whatever else, and I love that that’s even more true with Windows 11. But not everyone has the same Windows fixation I do, and they want to get work done no matter which device they prefer. But even in my experience, I can sign in to individual apps with my work account (which I do for Teams) and choose to let that organization manage only that app and not the entire PC. I do this sometimes as well with my Microsoft 365 commercial account, where I can choose between signing into Windows with that account, or just to the Office apps, including OneDri...