Thurrott Daily: February 25

Thurrott Daily: February 25
“Game over, man. Game over.”

A few tidbits from around the web.

2/25/2016 11:23:30 AM

Buying a game at Windows Store vs. buying the same game at Steam

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An anonymous reader sent me an interesting How-To Geek post about why they feel no one should ever buy blockbuster game titles at Windows Store. There are some good points here, but they don’t really apply to the general public: Windows Store isn’t for hard-core gamers, it’s for normal people who want a console-like good experience only.

“Store apps,” as Microsoft called them back in Windows 8.1, are limited in some important ways. This doesn’t normally matter for simple apps or casual games, but it’s very noticeable for PC games.

A list on Reddit explains the differences: No SLI or Crossfire support, always-on Vsync, no modding, no overlays, and a bunch of other stuff that will never matter to normal people.

Are OneDrive placeholders returning?

Citing the ever-reliable @WalkingCat, Neowin posits that OneDrive placeholders are coming back to Windows 10.

While it’s clear that it has something to do with cloud storage and with something called “Placeholder”, that is quite literally all we know for sure.

Um. You don’t even know that. The word “placeholder” means placeholder. It doesn’t mean that placeholders are coming back. 🙂

That said, Microsoft is working on a OneDrive universal app.

This is something we are actively working on.

Microsoft chimes in on “Windows cleaners”

I get a lot of questions about Windows/registry cleaner apps (like CCleaner or whatever). Apparently, Microsoft does too.

There are many programs that purport to clean up and optimize system performance. While Microsoft does not endorse the use of these tools with Windows, we do not view them as unwanted or malicious.

Our criteria states that you must be able to expect that the actions a system maintenance or optimization program takes towards system performance are actually beneficial. Unwanted behaviors include displaying exaggerated claims about the system’s health.

Accordingly, to be compliant with our objective criteria, programs must provide details that back up their claims, so that you have the ability to assess what the program found and deems to be errors, and determine if you’d like to take the program’s recommended actions.

Microsoft security products, such as Windows Defender for Windows 10, will continue to classify optimization programs that do not provide details as unwanted software, detect and remove them.

To be clear, Windows doesn’t slow down over time any more, Microsoft fixed that years ago. But cleaner apps (like CCleaner) certainly have their place because there are maintenance tasks that are not exposed in the stock UI or are well hidden.

Voice dictation comes to Google Docs

Google announced this week that it has added voice dictation to Google Docs.

We launched Voice typing in Docs to help you capture ideas, compose a letter, or even write the next great novel—all without touching your keyboard. Starting today, you can also edit and format your documents with your voice.

To get started, select “Voice typing” in the “Tools” menu when you’re using Docs in Chrome. Say what comes to mind—then start editing and formatting with commands like “copy,” “insert table,” and “highlight.”

Very interesting. Here’s a video.

 

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