Windows Weekly 910: Intel Outside

Leo, Richard, and Paul discuss Pat Gelsinger’s ouster from Intel, Windows 11, FTC v. Microsoft, AI, Xbox, and much more.

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BLOCKBUSTER NEWS FROM INTEL

Intel announces Arc B-series GPUs!!!

Just kidding … CEO Pat Gelsinger “retires,” but was really forced out by the board of directors

• Why? Theories include too-slow progress, major partner bailing on foundry, disagreements over keeping x86 design and foundry, etc.

Windows

All Quiet on the Windows Front

• No Insider builds last week- Thanks Thanksgiving! But here’s a post about the changes we made to the Store this past year – And, today, a new Canary build with Win32 app updating in the Store
• Patch Tuesday is next week – this will be a big one
• The rest of December will be quiet too

Microsoft: TPM 2.0 is “non-negotiable” in Windows

• And now, a long-threatened change: Watermark on the desktop of unsupported PCs

PC sales slid 1.5 percent in Q3 after two quarters of “growth”/flat sales … rebound is delayed to late 2025 now

Related: Samsung is killing Dex

• Phone Link is the new Dex – interesting, given the partnership with Microsoft
• Plus, Google is FINALLY adding desktop capabilities to Android – this should have always come from the platform maker

FTC is investigating Microsoft for cloud licensing too – And about 16 other things apparently

• Microsoft: SHE HIT ME FIRST!
• What’s up with Microsoft these days?

Spotify Wrapped 2024 uses Notebook LM to create a personalized podcast for each customer

OpenAI is solving the biggest problem with AI … its lack of advertising!

The Browser Company’s next browser is called Dia and it’s all about AI – does it have a chance?

Xbox

Xbox Year in Review is live! – Just kidding

Indiana Jones and more is coming to Game Pass in the first half of December

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is getting big reliability updates – Hopefully Boeing is helping out here

For some reason, Sony announces that it sold 160 million PlayStation 2 consoles

• FU, Nintendo Switch
• But also … highlights how lackluster it’s done since then

Tips and picks

Tip of the week: Get out of the basement

You know who you are

App pick of the week: Google Drive

Now that it’s on Arm—and available to Workspace users, too—I can move back to the more reliable cloud storage service. You should, too: Unlike OneDrive, Google Drive will never make configuration changes behind your back.

RunAs Radio this week: A SysAdmin Christmas with Rick Claus and Joey Snow

https://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/961

Brown liquor pick of the week: Dewar’s 8 Year Old Caribbean Smooth Rum Cask Finish

https://www.dewars.com/double-aged-whiskies/dewars-caribbean-smooth-whisky/