Windows Weekly 942: World of Wonder

Leo, Richard, and Paul discuss a big Week D, Windows 11, new Surface PCs, the failures of Copilot and Copilot+ PC, AI, security, Xbox and gaming, and more.

Stream this episode and subscribe

Enjoy Windows Weekly on YouTube

Microsoft drama of the year of the week

Microsoft finally kills Movies & TV show service in the Microsoft Store

• This was the final vestigial reminder of Zune that remained – Was Groove Video, Xbox Video too
• Microsoft previously killed eBook (2019) and music (2017) sales
• You would have to be insane to buy content from Microsoft, sorry
• But you can get to some of your content on other services via Movies Anywhere – And use the Movies & TV app for now in Windows, which is no longer bundled

Windows 11

It’s Week D and you can’t tell your Copilot+ PC features from your Windows 11 features without a scorecard

• A peek at next month’s Patch Tuesday – Also, preview updates for 23H2, Windows 10
• Copilot+ PCs only: Settings agent, Click to Do improvements, Photo relight in Photos app, Sticker generator and Object select in Paint
• Everyone: Copilot Vision (U.S. only) in Copilot, Edge Game Assist, Quick Machine Recovery

Microsoft explains how PC transfer feature will work in Windows Backup later this year

Windows Insider Program

• Describe image action for Click to Do (for AMD/Intel), image descriptions in Narrator (AMD/Intel), performance log improvements (!), Click to Do search bar test, Lock screen improvements, privacy improvements head to Dev and Beta channels
• Bug fixes in Canary, back to the usual waste of time

AD BLOCK: 1Password

Windows apps:

• Brave will automatically block Recall
• WhatsApp is going PWA, killing UWP app

Hardware:

• Focusrite finally releases drivers for Windows 11 on Arm/Snapdragon X, removing the final major compatibility issue on that platform

Semi-related: Linux (sort of) crosses the 5 percent usage milestone

Surface/Copilot+ PC

Copilot+ PC is a failure as a brand because Microsoft focused on negligible on-device AI features

• It should have pushed reliability, performance, efficiency and battery life
• All Copilot+ PC features should come to at least those with GPUs, but really all customers

Microsoft failed at AI, and failed with consumers, and so now it’s going to tell us what consumers want from AI – a comedy

Microsoft announces Surface Laptop for Business with 5G but the real “with” is Intel Inside

Related: Intel layoffs are even worse than expected and more are coming

AD BLOCK: Pause

AI and security

Microsoft has a problem and it starts with “C” and ends with “opilot”

Microsoft SharePoint has a notably bad security flaw

DuckDuckGo adds some neat customization features to Duck.ai and DuckDuckGo lets you hide all AI from search

Xbox and gaming

The Xbox platform unification continues: Xbox now testing cross-device play history – Not just console games on console, PC games on PC

Just kidding! The Outer Worlds will cost $69.99, not $79.99

AD BLOCK: Club TWiT

Tips and picks

Tip of the week: You hate Big Tech, but who can you trust?

These guys. The big question: AI. And mobile, really.

App pick of the week: Proton Lumo

Proton announces Lumo private AI chatbot – And it has some sharp words for Apple

Three tiers: Free, those with accounts, subscription

RunAs Radio this week: Copilot Studio with April Dunnam

https://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/994

Brown liquor pick of the week: Benromach 10

https://www.benromach.com/whisky/aged-10-years