Windows Weekly 850: Emotional Support Whiskey

Leo, Richard, and Paul discuss a Snapdragon X tease, Windows 11, Microsoft 365, lots of AI, dev, Xbox, and so much more.

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Windows 11

Windows 11 on Arm: Is it finally happening? Qualcomm teases the Snapdragon X

Patch Tuesday was yesterday

• Microsoft pushes new monthly cumulative update as always. This should have been the stable version of the September Week D preview update as per the normal schedule.
• It is not that. Instead, it looks like it’s just a normal security update with no new features
• And that preview update is still optional. This is literally unprecedented
• Also unprecedented: With this update, Windows 11 version 21H1 (OG version) is no longer supported. So the only supported Windows 11 version right now is 22H2
• 23H2 is available in preview in the Release Preview channel as before. Unclear now what the release timing is of this and/or that September feature update in stable. (Promised by end of year.)

Insider:

• New Dev build just landed – new Copilot icon, Windows Spotlight as new default wallpaper
• Beta channel moves from two builds to one build with CFRs, so the same thing. No new features.
• Canary build (late last week) adds an updated Quick settings UI with Start-like scrolling. And it’s renaming Xbox Game Bar to Game Bar. Interesting?

Microsoft 365

UK CMA announces investigation of Microsoft (and Amazon) cloud licensing – This should be hilarious

Google is advertising its push for a password-less future with passkeys and people are falling for it. Um. Microsoft has been doing this for years. And it STILL does it better (meaning literally no password required).

Microsoft steps back from the OneDrive photo storage cliff – There is a lesson here, and we don’t discuss it enough

Microsoft Store gets a big redesign. On the web

AI

GitHub Copilot loses $20 per user per month. Shocker! AI is expensive?

HP says that AI will transform the PC into a “personal companion,” drive biggest upgrade spike since the Internet

• But … If everything is AI, then how will AI save the PC?

Adobe pushes major Firefly advances across its entire product line

Dropbox is expanding its use of AI

Dev

C# Dev Kit for Visual Studio Code is now GA

Xbox

Call of Duty Modern Warfare III and Diablo IV will NOT be on Game Pass this year when the acquisition goes through (as soon as Friday per reports) – Speaking of which ….

But Diablo IV is coming to Steam, on October 17

Forza Motorsport arrives across the Xbox ecosystem

Sony announces a “smaller” PS5 with an optional optical drive. But it’s not at all small, and it’s $50 more expensive. Guess who isn’t feeling any competitive pressure?

And … Sony to launch PS5 cloud streaming this year

Tips and picks

Tip of the week: Deal with OneDrive’s forced folder backup push

OneDrive is getting even more grabby in Windows 11 version 23H2 and I’ve seen some terrible new behaviors. Here’s how you can workaround the worst of OneDrive.

• Windows 11 now requires an MSA during Setup (which auto-configures OneDrive)
• OneDrive Folder Backup is becoming mandatory for all users during Windows 11 Setup
• Microsoft is silently enabling OneDrive Folder Backup even after you say no in 23H2 (!!!!) Hopefully a bug
• OneDrive file system integration is putting “Backup now” ads everywhere. Including in the Settings app (!) in Personalization > Background. Why? “F#$k you, that’s why

And here’s what I finally did. – Or, switch: Google Drive works just as well, gives you more storage

App pick of the week: Microsoft Teams (New)

The new Microsoft Teams app is here. If you do use Teams, my apologies. But this is a big update that fixes lots of problems, so you want to upgrade immediately. (I wish I could say the same for the new Outlook app, which is only a viable upgrade for consumers using Mail/Calendar and lacks some basic features like offline usage.)

RunAs Radio this week: Security Chaos Engineering with Kelly Shortridge

https://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/901

Brown liquor pick of the week: Pappy Van Winkle

https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/our-brands/van-winkle.html