Windows Weekly 781: The Balloon Store

Leo, Mary Jo, and Paul discuss the ongoing problems with the Windows Insider Program, new builds, Visual Studio on Arm, and lots of Xbox news.

Stream this episode and subscribe

Enjoy Windows Weekly on YouTube

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Tips and picks

Tip of the week: Save big on games

The Xbox Deals Unlocked sale offers up to 80 percent off key game titles. Sub-tip: You can sort the games list by “percent off,” “price: low to high,” and more.

App pick of the week: Firefox

Mozilla has enabled Total Cookie Protection in Firefox by default, making it “the world’s safest web browser.”

Also: Vivaldi Mail is now available!

Enterprise pick of the week: Windows Admin Center comes to the Azure portal

The Windows Admin Center server management tool is now available in preview in Azure. This new capability enables seamless and granular management of your Windows Server Azure IaaS virtual machines (VMs) from within the Azure portal. Windows Admin Center in the Azure portal is available to all Windows Server customers on Azure running Windows Server 2016 or higher virtual machines in the public cloud.

Codename pick of the week: Gibraltar

I’ve been part of the preview for the version of Windows Defender that is designed to protect a user’s family of devices that was codenamed “Gibraltar.” Over the past week, I’ve gotten notices from Microsoft that the preview is coming to an end, so I guess it should be launching soon ™.

Beer pick of the week: Wild East Brewing Alfresco Cucumber

Alfresco Cucumber is a Kolsch ale conditioned on cucumbers. I personally hate watermelon in beer, but cucumber is much nicer. It’s light, low ABV (5 percent), and not TOO cucumbery.

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation 2 comments

  • navarac

    16 June, 2022 - 2:50 pm

    <p>Thank you for the "rant" about A/B Testing. Microsoft really needs to take note (not that they will). It is certainly the reason I quit Insider Builds and to a lesser extent, reduced usage of Windows as well. It’s a shame, as I was an avid fan.</p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    16 June, 2022 - 8:50 pm

    <p>Re <em>touch doesn’t hurt you</em>, if there are lots of NONTOUCH alternatives, certainly NBD. However, if there are FEW NONTOUCH alternatives and touch screens mean higher prices, then touch screens DO hurt those who have no intention of using touch by making laptops more expensive. As for Windows itself, if touch capabilities add to the amount of storage Windows itself needs, it also imposes a cost. And if there are services running to support touch which can’t be stopped, so always eat RAM and processor cycles, that imposes another cost.</p><p><br></p><p>If it were as easy to flush away all touch components as it is to remove all bundled games or other optional components which can be removed though Programs and Features, then fine. More work setting up such machines, but NBD having the default include as many features as possible. Without the ability to eliminate all touch components, those components ARE BAD for anyone with nontouch hardware and no intention ever willingly to use touch.</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2023 Thurrott LLC