Windows Weekly

CRACKGATE Uh-oh, Microsoft has another Surface reliability issue on its hands. Hopefully, this one is not an endemic hardware problem like Surfacegate was in 2016. Related: Microsoft set to unveil Surface Book 3, Surface Go 2 in the Spring. Microsoft Edge Microsoft updates its roadmap for Edge, giving us a nice look at what to expect---and when---in 2020. Extension sync is happening this month, starting in Canary Related: A little lesson in tracking protection. Windows 10 Windows 10 version 2004 should arrive soon. Anything worth talking about? Your Phone is getting RCS Messaging support Break out the Patch Tuesday cocktails: Microsoft's latest patches wreaking havoc for some users One is hiding users' profiles and data Another connected to UEFI has been pulled by Microsoft Office/Microsoft 365 Microsoft is bringing a new Spaces feature to Outlook this year. Related: Microsoft: Over 25 percent of Office 365 licenses now sold through Microsoft 365 Mo' Microsoft AWS wins one in court, Microsoft must pause work on JEDI Xbox Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary begins public testing on the PC! Microsoft announces the remaining new Game Pass games for February Tips and picks Tip of the week: Discover the incredible Microsoft learning resources on EdX. EdX.org hosts an amazing array of free online courses for Microsoft products, services, and technologies. App pick of the week: Office for Android and iOS. It's available for everyone now on both platforms. Why is there a new notes experience? Enterprise pick of the week: More Dynamics 365 apps are coming. Woohoo! Dynamics fans, rejoice (or lament): Dynamics 365 Project Operations and Dynamics 365 Finance Insights are now on the Dynamics 365 roadmap. Codename pick of the week: Union. The new Office mobile app for iOS and Android had a fitting codename: Union. It's a mashup – or a "union," one could say -- of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Beer pick of the week: Aslin Master of Oranges. Not all DIPAs are created equal. Some are not too hoppy, not too sweet and smell/taste of nicely bitter orange peel. Meet Aslin's "Master of Oranges." Brewed by Aslin Brewing in Herndon, Va. (a tribute to the JEDI contract!) Hosts: Download or subscribe to this show at Check out Paul's blog at Check out Mary Jo's blog at The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of . Sponsors:

MWC 2020 cancelled, Windows 10X Revealed Hosts: For full show notes, visit Sponsors:

This Week's Stories: Panos Is Wumped (Windows plus Pumped) Panos is running a new combined Windows and Devices team. JoeB is going to OXO What will PC OEMs do? Key takeaway: This is good for Windows and for Microsoft Related: More reorg news of the day. Teper is going to run Teams. And Jeff Weiner is out as CEO of LinkedIn. Microsoft controversies of the week! #1 Surface Hub 2X: What's happening After a leak claimed that Microsoft was delaying or even canceling Surface Hub 2X, Microsoft revised its plans (again, remember this is the second major delay/issue). What the heck is going on with Surface? #2 Microsoft Store/UWP on the decline Another nail in the coffin: Microsoft is shutting down the ad-based monetization of UWP apps in the Store. But which coffin? This probably says more about Microsoft Store than UWP. #3 BingJacked: The sequel? Windows Search is down for many this morning. It's back now (but you probably need a reboot or 3) Microsoft at MWC Microsoft will show off some stuff at MWC, but nothing like last year. Looks like Paul is staying home. Microsoft earnings We're a week late and a dollar short, but let's talk about Microsoft's earnings. Microsoft earned $11.6 billion on revenues of $36.9 billion in the quarter ending December 31. Windows had a larger than expected contribution Paul's business-by-business analysis Xbox There's a new System Update (2002, of course) coming in February Microsoft launches a new Xbox Bounty Program Picks of the Week Tip of the week: Give Game Pass for PC a shot App pick of the week: Outlook ... on mobile, not the PC Enterprise pick of the week: System Center 2019 Update Rollup 1 is out Codename pick of the week: Aruba Beer pick of the week: Allagash Tripel Hosts: Download or subscribe to this show at Check out Paul's blog at Check out Mary Jo's blog at The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of . Sponsor:

Thinking more about Surface Neo and Duo Last week, Microsoft released the SDK and emulator for the Android-based Duo; ones for Neo coming soon The Duo SDK for Mac developers also is now available (as of this week) - So let's think ahead about why Microsoft is calling these devices "a new category" Who is the intended audience? It's not creatives (who were big targets of the Surface tablets/PCs) Are these going to be positioned as PCs? Tablets? Is Apple still a primary competitive target for these devices? What kinds of software and services will be preloaded? What are the hardware, M365/O365 and Edge/MSN/Bing teams contributing? (they supposedly develop these new devices together) New launcher, unified search, stuff like Collections? Will developers find these dual-screen devices interesting enough to target? Or not till the UI comes to "regular" PCs? Will Neo and Duo attract users who don't see a need for a PC anymore? Does MS think they could be users' sole (or maybe secondary) devices? Thinking more about search Last week, Microsoft made a bad move: Deciding to hijack the Chrome browsers of O365 ProPlus users and switch their search engine to Bing So far, Microsoft has not claimed "based on user feedback" that they're undoing this move The real reason for this: Microsoft is starting to push Bing as an Intranet search engine (see MS Search in Bing; Project Cortex, the new Office app experience) Implications of this - Microsoft will lose the moral high-ground if it doesn't do the right thing Windows 10 Windows version 1909 usage share hits 15 percent New Insider build, no more Insider PWA app New CU fixes at least some File Explorer problems for 1903/1909 users Related: Microsoft to bring Edge tab management feature to Chrome Semi-related: A major USB-C bug has hit virtually all modern ThinkPads. Not really related, but still worth a mention: Premium Outlook.com users are losing personalized email addresses at end of Feb. (unless you subscribe to O365) Windows 7! FSF wants Microsoft to open-source Windows. They're nuts. And yet... Microsoft has one more security update coming for Windows 7 Xbox New Games with Gold for February Tips and picks Tip of the week: Help me pick the next programming project .NETpad (Visual Basic/Windows Forms/.NET Framework) is winding down, so the next one will be a C#/WPF/.NET Framework/Core project. And I need some ideas. App pick of the week: Surface Duo Emulator Enterprise pick of the week: Dynamics 365 Wave 1 2020 Enterprise pick No. 2: Beware the LDAP signing apocalypse in March Beer pick of the week: Perennial Abraxas Hosts: Download or subscribe to this show at Check out Paul's blog at Check out Mary Jo's blog at The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of . Sponsors:

Microsoft 2020 Predictions Hosts: For full show notes, visit Sponsors: