Microsoft Weekly: Game Pass on PC, patches not so many, and the surfacing of new patents

With E3 just around the corner, a number of gaming-related news tidbits have come to the fore, including but not limited to the availability of Xbox Game Pass on PC. Beyond that there are a couple of patches for various Windows 10 versions, and some interesting Surface-related patents. I can’t spoil everything in the first paragraph, so be sure to check out the rest of the news below, plus the usual bit extra, in your Microsoft digest for the week of May 25-31.

Game Pass on PC

I think it’s obvious that we should start with one of the biggest bits of gaming news coming out of Redmond – at least pre-E3 -, and that is the arrival in the near future of Xbox Game Pass on PC. Though some folks with this subscription on the Xbox can play certain titles on PC already – titles which are Play Anywhere -, the new offering is more PC-centric. Microsoft name dropped publishers like Bethesda, Deep Silver, Devolver, Paradox, and SEGA among the 75 it is working with. Of course, first-party titles will be available day one as always, and Xbox head Phil Spencer has announced that Win32 games are welcome in the Microsoft Store. No pricing details have been revealed, but with the Xbox Briefing at E3 basically a week away, we’ll probably get more details there.

On a related note, the upcoming Gears 5, plus the definitive editions of Age of Empires I, II, and III are all heading to Steam. This of course comes after the announcement that Halo: The Master Chief Collection would also be coming to PC, both via the Microsoft Store and Steam. In fact, the first title to be released as part of said collection, Halo: Reach, was shown off on PC for the first time a couple of days ago. Public testing will most likely kick off during E3 week.

Said E3 week should be quite interesting, as Microsoft plans to show 14 first-party games, the most it’s ever shown at the event. In regards to the PC availability of Halo MCC and Gears 5, plus presumably others, Phil Spencer did stress that while Steam and the Microsoft Store are currently the only stores on which these titles are available, the company is working to bring them to other digital distributors on PC.

If you’re planning on watching the Xbox E3 briefing via Mixer, the MixPot program will return this year. A limited quantity of games and DLC are being offered to viewers, so only a few will be able to take advantage of these gifts. However, you’ll also be able to earn these kinds of rewards during the Sea of Thieves: Mixer Invitational that takes place June 10.

Getting back to the Xbox for a little bit, Insider build 18362.4036 should already be available to both Alpha and Beta rings. This is from the 19H2 branch, even though it still carries the 19H1 major build number, and it brings with it the ability to watch streams from a Mixer Twist full-screen. For those unfamiliar with it, a ‘Twist’ is the scrolling promo element on your console Dashboard.

If you have an Xbox Live Gold subscription, four new games for the month of June are now free to claim. First off there’s EA Sports NHL 19 (Xbox One, can be claimed between June 1-30), Rivals of Aether (Xbox One, can be claimed between June 16-July 15), Portal: Still Alive (Xbox One, Xbox 360, can be claimed between June 1-15), and Earth Defense Force 2017 (Xbox 360, Xbox One, can be claimed between June 16-30). Be sure to grab EA Sports NHL 19 and Portal: Still Alive as they’re now free, and remember that claimed Xbox One titles require an active subscription to be playable, while Xbox 360 ones are playable even if the subscription runs out.

There may be updates

Due to the release of the May 2019 Update (version 1903) being so recent and well past Patch Tuesday, this week has been a little quieter in terms of patches pushed out. That said, both of the 2017 versions of Windows 10 got some attention:

• Fall Creators Update (1709): KB4499147, build 16299.1182 – addresses the looping redirect bug between Edge and IE, updates wininet.dll to prevent the re-creation of FTP control sessions, addresses a bug whereby other icons aren’t loaded if the OS encounters an icon in a bad format, fixes the “Incorrect Username or password” error when using an empty or null password and Windows Defender Credential Guard, and more.
  • Known issue: Operations like rename may fail when performed on files or folders within a Cluster Shared Volume (STATUS_BAD_IMPERSONATION_LEVEL 0xC00000A5).
• Creators Update (1703): KB4499162, build 15063.1839 – pretty much identical changelog to the Fall Creators Update.
  • Known issue: Operations like rename may fail when performed on files or folders within a Cluster Shared Volume (STATUS_BAD_IMPERSONATION_LEVEL 0xC00000A5).

Now we mentioned 1903 a few sentences previous to this, and rather interestingly, it’s already gotten its first patch post-GA:

• May 2019 Update (1903): KB4497935, build 18362.145 – addresses the Custom URI Schemes bug in IE, as well as issues with Night light turning off, the bug which prevented users from installing 1903 if there was an SD card or external USB attached, some Direct3D apps and games not entering full-screen if the display’s orientation is something other than the default, and more.
  • Known issues: When opening games with BattlEye anti-cheat software, you may get the “Failed to start BattlEye Service” or “Failed to initialize BattlEye Service” errors, with some games that uses older variants of BattlEye anti-cheat being incompatible with this version of Windows; Windows Sandbox may fail to start with “ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND (0x800700002)” if you change the OS language on your device during the install process of 1903.

Beyond those on regular Window 10, Insiders in the Fast ring got an update too, as Microsoft made build 18908 available on Wednesday. The features it brings are related to Your Phone, which has gotten a bunch of accessibility improvements, messaging enhancements, new icons, support for more phone models – though only Samsung phones -, and the ability to sync over mobile data.

As far as fixes are concerned, Night light is now working fine on devices with fast startup enabled, a number of localization issues were resolved, new OneDrive icons are being rolled out, and Narrator is no longer causing Firefox to crash when navigating by header. Of course, there are other fixes included, which you can find by visiting the link in the previous sentence.

New patents surface

Since we expect a new Surface Pro to show up this year, tentatively called the Surface Pro 7, a number of patents and details relating to the device have started to be revealed. We did know that the Type Cover shipping alongside it will be a tad thinner, but what we didn’t know about was the use of a quad magnet arrangement in the palm rest.

As per a new patent, the cover will feature four magnets arranged horizontally, two on each side of the track pad. The back of the Pro 7 will also feature this arrangement, which means it’ll be used so the cover can magnetically snap to the back of the hybrid when not in use. In other words, the cover won’t get in the way when you’re trying to just use the tablet, and you won’t have to detach it either.

Of course, patents for new devices are numerous, as the company is seeking to make a fair few improvements to the new iteration. Such is the case with the upcoming hybrid from Microsoft, with a new patent showcasing a multi-functional Surface Pen. While the current Surface Pen has a button on the end which users can map to a certain application, the evolution shown in the patent goes beyond that. Not only can the eraser end be used as a button, but also as a sort of joystick so users can direct a pointer on a touch-enabled device – without the use of a mouse. Furthermore, an optical sensor that’s embedded would sense the pen’s proximity to the screen and automatically switch between transmitting data through the electrostatic or wireless channels.

The Surface Pro 7 is expected sometime this year, and if previous Microsoft hardware events are any indication, October is the month to look out for.

Finally, you won’t have to wait that long for the new Type Covers and skins for Surface PCs. Specifically, since June is Pride Month, the company has made rainbow-coloured skins for the Surface Pro 4, 5, and 6, as well as a pride Type Cover. The skin is available now for $14.99, while the cover can be pre-ordered for $159.99, with availability slated for June 27.

The Fast ring

• Dell’s new XPS 13 2-in-1 apparently comes with a version dubbed Windows 10 Home Ultra which Microsoft says doesn’t exist.
• Vattenfall and Microsoft have teamed up once again to build sustainable data centers.
• Microsoft 365 has received a number of updates in May, including Windows Terminal, and more.
• Office Insiders on Android have gotten a number of new features in Outlook, as well as new icons.
• There’s a new Intel DCH graphics driver for Windows 10, version 26.20.100.6890.
• Microsoft will open a flagship store in London on July 11.
• HTC’s Viveport VR store and Viveport Infinity subscription will arrive to Windows Mixed Reality on June 5.
• Skype for Web preview now supports screen sharing on Chrome – as well as the Chromium-based Edge.
• Starting July 1, Office mobile apps on Android will drop support for Android version 5 (Lollipop) and older.
• Office Insiders on Windows have gotten inking support in Outlook and improved link handling.

Hot corner

Hot corner is a section of The Fast ring dedicated to highlighting five Microsoft-related stories that haven’t been covered over here, but might be of interest.

• For those who were experiencing latency and data gaps issues in Azure Portal, the issue should now be solved.
• Azure Sphere 19.05 is now available.
• Adaptive network hardening in Azure Security Center has now hit its general availability phase.
• Azure IoT Hub message enrichment is now available.
• Azure App Configuration is now available in public preview.

Logging off

The end of this column brings a bit of news concerning Windows, as well as the advent of the weekly Edge Dev build.

Starting with Windows, according to AdDuplex, 61.1% of Windows 10 PCs are still on the April 2018 Update, or version 1803. The October 2018 Update or 1809 is now on 31.3% of PCs, up from last month’s 29.3%, while the newly released May 2019 Update sits at 1.4%.

Insiders have dropped from 0.8% to 0.2%, though with an RTM build available, that’s not too surprising.

What those on Edge Dev might’ve found surprising was that YouTube was forcing them to use the old version of the website. Google said it was a bug which it was working on a fix for, and all appears to be back to normal now.

If you are indeed running Edge Dev as your day-to-day browser, build 76.0.172.0 is now out, bringing fixes for a number of things like the browser sometimes crashing on launch or when viewing settings in InPrivate mode, as well as the horizontal scroll bar not appearing on certain sites.

Missed any of the previous columns? Be sure to have a look right here.