In this episode of Microsoft Weekly, we look at irritating OneDrive updates (and subsequent damage control from Microsoft), Copilot coming to Windows 10, Office 2024 leaks, fresh Canary and Dev builds with interesting changes, plenty of app updates, 40 years of Windows, 20 years of Patch Tuesday, and weird-looking game controllers.
Table of contents:
- Windows 11 news
- Updates are available
- Gaming news
- A blast from Microsoft's past
- Random fact about Microsoft
Windows 11 and 10
Here we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And of course, you may find a word or two about older but still supported versions.
Although Windows 11 continues gaining more customers, it is still far behind Windows 10, the dominant PC operating system. Microsoft understands that Windows 10's 1 billion+ device base is nothing to scoff at, so the company plans to backport Copilot to Windows 10. Having Copilot on more than 1.4 billion devices will make it easier for Microsoft to convince third-party developers to create plugins for it.
Speaking of Copilot, Windows 11 users with two or more monitors should beware of Microsoft's newest AI assistant messing with desktop icons. The company has confirmed that the recently released Windows 11 version 23H2 contains a bug causing Copilot to shift desktop icons on multi-monitor systems. A fix should arrive in a later update.
Last week, we noticed that Microsoft deprecated three services in Windows 10 and 11, one of which dates back to the MS-DOS era. It appeared that the company is not over with deprecating features—the Microsoft Tips joined the list of features that are no longer in active development. Although the app is still available in Windows 11, including the latest 23H2 version, Microsoft will remove it from the operating system at some point in the near future.
Windows Insider Program
This week, Microsoft released the following preview builds:
- Canary Channel: 25922 with SMB changes and Snipping Tool improvements. The latter now works better on systems with HDR monitors.
- Dev Channel: 23585 with minor changes and the ability to uninstall more inbox applications, such as the Camera app, Cortana, Photos, People, and Remote Desktop (MSTCS).
Shortly after pushing out the latest Dev and Canary builds, Microsoft updated their changelogs to include info about archive-related improvements. The latest Windows 11 preview builds let you compress files and folders into 7Z and TAR archives. The stable Windows 11 version only supports ZIP.
Another interesting change, albeit hidden, lets you reposition the Copilot icon. You can use a feature ID to put Copilot in the notification area next to the tray clock.
Updates are available
This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties.
OneDrive is a great cloud storage solution, especially for Microsoft 365 subscribers. However, its Windows client's latest update contains a rather mind-boggling change: the app now asks you to explain why you are trying to close it. And the worst part is that you cannot proceed without answering. It is similar to the recently spotted poll targeting Edge users trying to download Chrome. However, the latter can be easily ignored, while this one is mandatory.
Luckily, the controversy forced Microsoft to backtrack and undo the questionable change. The company said the new "Quit OneDrive" UI was only available to "a subset of OneDrive customers." The prompt is no longer there, and you can close the app without being forced into giving Microsoft feedback.
If you have upgraded your computer to the recently launched Windows 11 version 23H2, you already know how slow and buggy File Explorer is. You can mitigate that using the Files app, a popular third-party file manager. This week, the program received a big update to version 3.0 with a redesigned UI, modern copy-paste dialogs, Office documents preview, and more.
If you are not shy of deeper Windows customizations, check out the Windhawk app and its latest update. It is a repository of useful and convenient Windows mods for improving your Windows 11 experience. StartAllBack is another app for "fixing" Windows 11, and it also received an update with version 23H2 support. Finally, Stardock's Start11 v2 is out of beta with a rounded taskbar and other great features replacing the stock and underwhelming Start menu.
Other notable app updates released this week include the following:
- Microsoft Office 2024 images leaked. Although those screenshots do not contain much, they confirm that Microsoft is working on another single-purchase Office release (perpetual). Following the leak, Microsoft's official Windows Insider X account confirmed that "the future is bright," assuming great things are coming to customers in 2024.
- A picture preview feature for Microsoft Edge Canary called "Magnify image." It lets you enlarge an image on a webpage without leaving your current tab or opening a new browser window.
- Excel integration in Bing Chat. You can now ask Microsoft's AI assistant to generate spreadsheets and then edit those spreadsheets in Excel or Excel for the Web.
- Meeting Details improvements in OneNote with a dedicated panel containing additional meeting info.
- Extended security protections in Microsoft Authenticator to ensure users do not receive authentication notifications from suspicious locations or containing another anomaly. Microsoft says this approach "significantly reduces user inconvenience by eliminating irrelevant authentication promts."
- Surface Pro 9 with Intel processors received the November 2023 firmware update. It fixes the "battery not genuine" error, resolves bugs with screen rotation, improves external monitor support, and more.
- Finally, we have updated our guide detailing how to create a Windows 11 install USB using Rufus. Check it out if you plan to clean-install Windows 11 version 23H2 or another version.
Microsoft also published a word about the new Outlook app, namely about its lackluster feature set. The company provided a list of capabilities it is working on, promising customers to resolve missing features, such as auto-capitalization, conditional formatting, EML support, Offline support, Outbox, local file sharing, folder reordering, inking, drag and drop, etc.
Now let us move from app updates to drivers. Although we did not get new drivers this week, AMD confirmed that GCN-based graphics cards (Polaris and Vega) are now getting reduced driver support. Those GPUs have yet to move to the list of legacy products, but customers should no longer expect feature parity with newer products. According to AMD, Polaris and Vega are "mature" products that no longer benefit from regular software tuning.
As usual, we finish the update section with the latest addition to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. They include a new feature to explore your organization using Outlook and a walkie-talkie feature for Microsoft Teams on iOS and Android.
On the gaming side
Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts and more.
The biggest gaming news of this week comes from Rockstar Games. The studio confirmed it would reveal the first Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer in December 2023. With GTA V recently turning ten, it is time for Rockstar Games to show the much-anticipated sequel to one of the most popular open-world games spanning three generations of consoles and multiple generations of PC hardware.
Playground Games announced the next series of updates for its racing franchise. Forza Horizon 5's next update will focus on American car manufacturers and bring several new vehicles, such as the 2024 Lucid Air Sapphire, the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06, and more. Besides, gamers can spend $4.99 on the new four-car DLC pack.
As for the recently launched Forza Motorsport, its second update will bring stability fixes, multiplayer improvements, car patches, and more. Content-wise, look for four new cars and the Yas Marina Circuit.
Cities Skylines II is another game that desperately needs some fixes and patches. The situation is so bad it forced developers to put all DLCs on hold and focus solely on fixing performance issues. Mariina Hallikainen, Colossal Order CEO, announced that "no new paid content is planned" until the studio gets Cities Skylines II to the proper performance level.
Microsoft Flight Simulator moves us from new and unpolished titles to more mature releases. The game's latest update focuses on Nordic countries and Greenland, offering pilots 90 hand-made points of interest, 10 highly detailed cities, 5 hand-crafted airports, high-resolution geographic updates, and fresh aerial imagery. Update XV is now available for free on Xbox consoles and PCs.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is a demanding game, but you do not need an overpowered computer to play the latest releases. NVIDIA's GeForce NOW cloud streaming service is a solid and affordable option, assuming you are okay with the downsides of cloud gaming. This week, the service received 16 new titles: The Invincible, Roboquest, Airport CEO, Car Mechanic Simulator 2021, and more. Just remember that GeForce NOW is a "bring your own games" kind of service—it only provides you with hardware to run the titles you own.
Deals and Freebies
The Epic Games Store is giving away an indie horror game called Golden Light. It is a mix of first-person shooters, survival horrors, and roguelike elements.
In addition, our Weekend PC Deals series brings you a plethora of discounted games of different scales. Humble Bundle is offering an eight-game collection for one fixed price. In addition, you can build your own Bethesda bundle at Fanatical and get three games for $5.99, five for $8.99, or seven for $11.99. Other deals include discounts on Mafia II: Definitive Edition, Pillars of Eternity, Nioh: Complete Edition, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and more.
Let us finish the gaming section with the news about a new head of Xbox Game Studios. This part of Microsoft is now run by Alan Hartman, who replaced Matt Booty (now President of Game Content and Studios at Microsoft). Alan Hartman has been working for Microsoft since 2001 and has extensive experience in the gaming industry.
A blast from Microsoft's past
John Callaham's weekly "Look back" series provides throwbacks into the past, detailing the company's products, partnerships, mishaps, and successes from years ago.
Last week, we remembered a quirky gamepad duo Microsoft released in the late nineties, a few years before the release of the original Xbox. This week's look-back article is also about a gamepad, albeit not from Microsoft. Meet The Frag Master from Thrustmaster, released in 1998. This odd-looking contraption was aimed at first-person shooters, promising gamers "more frags in your next deathmatch." You were supposed to place the controller on your desk, hold it with two hands, and move it in four axes. The idea was to give PC gamers a controller easier to use than a conventional keyboard and mouse combo, but it failed miserably.
Some people say this odd-looking thing resembles a duck. Do you agree?
On November 10, 2023, Windows marked its 40th anniversary. To celebrate the original Windows 1.0 release, we published a look-back story detailing how Microsoft wanted to create a more affordable operating system with lower hardware requirements than its competitors (Apple Lisa with its whopping $10,000 price tag).
Finally, we have another look-back article from Microsoft itself. The company published a blog post detailing the history of Patch Tuesday. Microsoft launched the first Windows cumulative update 20 years ago, in October 2003. Check out this article to learn more about what inspired Microsoft to create its iconic update program.
Random fact about Microsoft
And here is a randomly selected piece of trivia about the company, Windows, and other Microsoft-made things.
Did you know that Microsoft once launched a service later classified as a military weapon? In 1996, the software giant launched WebTV, an affordable alternative to a standard PC capable of checking emails, browsing the internet, reading news, chatrooms, weather reports, and more.
Although nothing of that sounds like weapon-related stuff, the United States government flagged WebTV as "munitions" due to the 128-bit encryption used by the service. As a result, it was banned from export from the United States. It took Microsoft two years to receive a special permit to export WebTV to other countries.
Microsoft closed WebTV (MSN TV) in 2013.
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