WW 905: Regulated Goods Content - Astroturfing, Microsoft FY25 Q1 Earnings, Notion Mail

Microsoft shakes up Windows Update with third-party app integration while AI features flood into Paint, Notepad, and Snipping Tool. Plus, the browser wars heat up as Arc pivots to agentic AI and Opera launches Neon, while Richard calls in from Cape Town with whiskey wisdom. Windows 11 It's Week D! Microsoft issues preview updates for 23H2/22H2 - Windows Key + C for Copilot, Drag tray, FAQs in Settings, Lock screen widget customization, IT admin controls for Taskbar Windows Insider Program Canary - Microsoft adds support for asymmetrical key encryption that won't be vulnerable to quantum computing attacks Beta (24H2) - New Microsoft 365 text actions in Click to Do, Lock screen widget customization, multiple dashboards in Widgets, App recommendations in Open with dialog, PC to PC migration experience in Windows Backup New Paint, Notepad, and Snipping Tool features in Canary and Dev - Paint sticker generator and Object select tool, Snipping Tool perfect screenshot and color picker, Notepad writing tools (draft from prompt, rewrite text, etc.) Now Windows Update is going to update third-party apps too. Thoughts? Many misunderstand this to negatively impact the Microsoft Store. As promised last week, Notion is now available in the Microsoft Store Signal will explicitly prevent Recall from screenshotting the app Related: Why is Lenovo doing so well financially? Also related: IDC predicts 4.1 percent growth in PC market this year to 274 million units AI and Web Browsers, Oh My Browsers go agentic The Browser Company says it will no longer offer functional updates to Arc as it focuses on Dia Opera announces Neon, its agentic AI web browser Hand-wringing as OpenAI buys Jony Ive's newish company Duck.ai if you ask it nicely (and use the right model) Yes, Google is going to put ads in Search AI Mode Vivaldi 7.4 arrives for desktop and for mobile Firefox 139 is a minor update - maybe it's time to move to a 6 week schedule? Xbox and Games Xbox's Copilot for Gaming Launches on iOS and Android in Beta FTC drops its bid to unwind Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard Sony discounts PS5 and peripherals temporary to undercut Switch 2 Tips and Picks Tip of the Week: 'Fear and Loathing in Seattle' and 'More Fear and Loathing in Seattle' App Pick of the Week: Instapaper Plus: Fences 6 is GA on Windows 11 RunAs Radio This Week: How to Talk to Security with Sarah Young Brown Liquor Pick of the Week: Aerstone 10 Sea Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: Melissa.com/twit cachefly.com/twit

Agentic AI is the theme of the show this year, and this time its multi-agent with orchestration! But first, we need to discuss the protestors. Paul and Richard have stories. So many stories! Build 2025 New Microsoft 365 Copilot features are rolling out now because it's a day that ends in y Tuning is the unexpected Build Bingo center square term - rolling out to agents GitHub Copilot is open source in VS Code, more Win32 app support improvements, no more fees in Microsoft Store A shift in making Windows 11 the best place for developers - some things said, some left unsaid Edge gets new AI features too of course New native app capabilities in Windows App SDK, React Native And, pre-Build, 50 million Visual Studio users Copilot for consumers does image generation now. Fun tip: You can Minecraft-ize photos OpenAI has a coding agent too, obviously And OpenAI is buying Jony Ive! Windows Administrator Protection is coming soon - And not just for businesses. This feels very much like the firewall in XP SP2, it's going to be disruptive New 24H2 features in Release Preview: New text actions in Click to Do, a lot more New 24H2 features in Dev and Beta: AI actions in File Explorer, Advanced Settings, Search improvements, more New 23H2 features, Windows 10 features in Release Preview Surface Laptop Studio RIP Calendar companion app for Windows 11/M365 Microsoft may finally put the Teams antitrust issue in the EU behind Xbox Fortnite returns to the Apple App Store Apple blocked it first, Epic complained to judge And Microsoft files a legal motion against Apple and for Epic Games Qualcomm job listing confirms Xbox plans to some degree What happens when you combine Qualcomm NPU with Nvidia GPU? Xbox May Update arrives and it's a big one Retro Classic Games for Xbox Game Pass Game Bar updates, Edge Game Assist, GeForce now etc. on PC Custom Xbox gift cards More streaming of your own games Hellblade II is coming from Xbox to PS5 Many more games coming to Xbox Game Pass across platforms Tips and Picks App pick of the week: You can try Microsoft's command line editor now Game pick of the week: Doom: The Dark Ages RunAs Radio this week: PowerShell 7.5 and DSC 3.0.0 with Jason Helmick Brown liquor pick of the week: Tamnavulin Sherry Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: spaceship.com/twit uscloud.com

It's go time: The biggest Patch Tuesday of 2025 sets the stage for 2025! Microsoft has finally revealed whether it will further extend Windows 10 support past October (it won't). Also, Microsoft designed notifications in Windows 11 to be annoying and pointless, so Paul has some advice. Plus, Proton Drive gets a long awaited albums feature, and more on the way.Windows 11 Recall (preview) and Click to Do (preview) come to stable for the first time Let's give Microsoft a bit of credit for this one non-reported behavior Also: Improvements to Settings, Narrator, Start, Phone Link, Widgets, File Explorer You knew this was coming: Microsoft now testing a "Hey, Copilot" feature It's opt-in and an alternative to holding down Alt + Spacebar for two seconds Microsoft discusses the new Start design and it's not a s#$t show like it was three years ago No builds for the second Friday in a row Improvements to Settings AI agent, intelligent text actions in Click to Do, a few small changes come to 24H2 in Dev and Beta channels Copilot Vision gets Highlights and 2-App Support across all channels Google's big Android reveal includes Material Expressive, big Wear OS update. Android, like Windows 11 (and iOS) is just being updated all the time now Windows 10 Extended support program Will support Microsoft 365 on Windows 10 through October 2028 Those time frames are identical So what about those Surface PCs that can't upgrade to Windows 11? Microsoft has an answer (for all unsupported PCs) and it's not as cynical as you think Microsoft quietly discontinued entry-level 13.8-inch Surface Laptop and 13-inch Surface Pro when it introduced those smaller new models last week Layoffs Microsoft just made $70 billion, so naturally it's laying off employees. How to explain this? The FTC's losing streak against Microsoft continues A proposal for solving the "Mozilla problem" in U.S. v. Google Fortnite could return to the iPhone App Store as soon as today AI OH MY GOD IS THERE NO AI NEWS FOR ONCE. OK, three small items OpenAI brings OneDrive and SharePoint integration with ChatGPT for paid business customers "AI mode" could replace "I'm feeling lucky" on the Google home page Spotify's AI DJ keeps improving Dev Build is next week in Seattle, a few thoughts .NET 10 Preview 4 is out Xbox & Games Today's the day: DOOM: The Dark Ages goes live at 8:00 ET tonight! Xbox Insiders can now play cloud-enabled games with mouse and keyboard Paul reviews the Backbone Pro controller Nintendo revenues slide big ahead of Switch 2 - 15m consoles expected in first year Sony sold 18.5 million PS5s in the most recent fiscal year, down 11 percent YOY Tips & Picks Tip of the week: Windows 11 notifications make iOS look sophisticated App pick of the week: Proton Drive RunAs Radio this week: Active Directory in 2025 with Liz Tesch Brown liquor pick of the week: Limeburners Albany Tawny Cask These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/932 Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Sponsors: 1password.com/windowsweekly threatlocker.com/twit uscloud.com

Microsoft announces big changes to Windows 11: New Start menu, Phone Companion on Start, AI actions in File Explorer, Notepad and other updates. Plus, new Copilot+ PC features: Click to Do actions, AI agent in Search for some reason, new Photos, Paint, and Snipping Tool features, and more. Windows 11 Microsoft announces new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models after teasing the announcement last week Recall improvements, Taskbar improvements, HDR improvements, more come to Beta and Dev Windows 11 Enterprise 24H2 to start on hotpatching, same schedule as Windows Server 2025 A moment of silence for Skype, we didn't know what we had until you ensh*ttified and then killed it Google is secretly working on two major changes for Android 16+ - We need something like this for 25H2 Antitrust Apple is slapped down hard by Judge in Epic v. Apple Spotify, Amazon, Proton and many other change apps to avoid Apple Tax The walls are finally tumbling down for Big Tech US v. Google (ads) has a remedy hearing set for September, that should go well AI Open AI: just kidding about that for-profit thing. Did Microsoft squelch this plan? Google's Little Language Lessons looks like a neat use of AI GitHub Copilot now has over 15 million users Xbox & gaming FTC may have suffered its final defeat in trying to end Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard Xbox/ASUS portable gaming device leaks Good news! Xbox consoles are more expensive now! Wait. New DOOM game and more are coming to Game Pass this month Gears of War Remastered coming to Xbox, PS5, PC, Game Pass in August Minecraft drops VR/MR support GTA VI delayed until 2026 Backbone Pro works with phones directly but also tablets, PCs, and more wirelessly Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Go passwordless App pick of the week: Microsoft Authenticator RunAs Radio this week: Building a Career in Cybersecurity with Yuri Diogenes Brown liquor pick of the week: Jura 10 Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsor: uscloud.com

YOU ARE THE PRODUCT! But... are you? In Russia, Windows 11 uses you! Plus, something happened to Paul on the way to dual-booting Ubuntu 25.04 on Surface Laptop 7, but all is well! Also, you should be using Brave. But if you don't like/trust Chromium, Firefox 138 finally added profile management support. Windows Windows 11 24H2 preview update for April finally arrives Now we know why Microsoft waited: It wanted to announce the "general availability" of Recall, Click to Do, and "improved Windows Search" (we're still struggling with a name for that one) Dev and Beta (24H2) builds add a profanity filter, a Pen shortcut for Click to Do, improved Windows Search for work and school accounts, Accessibility flyout in Quick settings Microsoft (sort of) explains why Windows Insider Preview channels don't follow a logical order anymore Microsoft deprecates Map app in Windows 11 That makes sense. But also VBS Enclaves in pre-24H2 versions, which is interesting Corporate Microsoft says it will defend EU companies against US government Alphabet/Google is doing just great, thanks Intel earnings are flat, and that's as good as that news gets Samsung posts record revenues on strong S25 series sales Dev Build and Google I/O are coming in hot Google is holding a separate Android event for the first time, ahead of I/O What about Surface? At Build last year, the company announced Copilot+ PC AI Microsoft has an OpenAI problem - duh and/or hello Microsoft is part of an AI unholy quaternity on new Moto phones Duolingo announces controversial "AI first" strategy - And then announces 148 new AI-based courses Apple on Apple Intelligence: Just kidding! OpenAI on GPT-4o: Just kidding! ChatGPT goes shopping and OpenAI improves Deep Research Google updates NotebookLM audio overviews with support for over 50 languages YouTube starts testing AI overviews for videos - and Spotify is using AI for playlists Adobe updates Firefly models, adds third party support DuckDuckGo's Duck.ai now supports real-time model switching Meta launches a standalone AI app that no one should want Xbox Xbox-exclusive game Towerborne is here in preview on Xbox, PC, and Game Pass Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Be prepared App pick of the week: Firefox 138 RunAs Radio this week: Modern Work in 2025 with Karoliina Kettukari Brown liquor pick of the week: Highwayman Whisky Abbey 2024 Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: uscloud.com cachefly.com/twit