Windows Weekly (Audio)

Can Microsoft's push for cloud PCs and AI-powered agents redefine where and how we work? If you keep to the defaults, Windows 11 is secure. Copilot+ PC is even more secure. But you can take additional steps to secure it either way, and you should. Plus, Paul's been trying to play different types of games, and Resident Evil Requiem is better (in his opinion) than Silent Hill f and Silent Hill 2 remake... if you want a horror game. Also, there's a cheaper new Audible plan thanks to Spotify!

Windows 11

Shenanigans? If you use a third-party AI client in Edge Canary... you will not be amused.

Bitwarden (TWiT sponsor) is (possibly the 1st?) third-party password manager to support passkey sign-ins on Windows 11

New Canary, Dev, and Beta builds last Friday- Canary is more of the same, Dev/Beta get shared audio improvements, narrator improvements, new IT policies

ASUS and Dell will soon sell Windows 365 Cloud PCs

Google is moving Chrome to a two-week dev schedule. Should we assume Microsoft will follow suit with Edge?

Dell is up 39 percent, but because of AI servers not PCs

NVIDIA revenues up 73 percent to $68.1 billion

AI/dev

OpenAI closes $110 billion funding round as the AI circle jerk continues

Microsoft brings Copilot Tasks to consumer Copilot

Google introduces AppFunctions for Android, it's way to make mobile apps work like MCP (be semantic), similar to what Microsoft is doing in Windows

Windows App Development CLI updated to 0.02 with Store CLI integration and .NET project support

Build 2026 is in San Francisco, as expected, but in June - overlap with WWDC?

Xbox and gaming

Here come the first Game Pass titles of March

Microsoft highlights some indie games to consider

Xbox ROG Ally gets AI-based game recaps

Legion Go Fold is the star of the new PCs at MWC

Sony might be backtracking on its PC games plans

Developing: Epic/Google settlement was approved

Tips & picks

App pick of the week: Resident Evil Requiem

Tip of the week: Secure your Windows 11 PC

RunAs Radio this week: Hiring in 2026 with Suzi Edwards-Alexander

Brown liquor pick of the week: St. Augustine Florida Straight Bourbon

Hosts: Paul Thurrott, Richard Campbell, and Mikah Sargent

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.

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Just last week, we asked about Phil Spencer and why he's been so quiet lately. Now we know why! Also, OneDrive for the Mac is finally going to look like it belongs on the Mac. And Google Chrome finally picks up a split view like the rest of the planet, plus a few other new features.

PHIL SPENCER OUT AT XBOX

Phil Spencer has retired from Microsoft and his heir-apparent, Sarah Bond, left Microsoft as well

Report details the Xbox reorg

Ex-Xbox executive issues an old guy shouting at sky assessment

New Microsoft Gaming CEO discusses "return to Xbox"

Hot-take: This person seems unqualified to run Xbox/MS Gaming, but let's give her a chance

Alternative hot-take: She is literally here to wind down this business, which makes no sense... unless there's a spin-off

Windows

WSJ report sheds some light, and adds a lot of confusion, to Nvidia's Windows PC plans

Week D arrived on time this month

Preview of March Patch Tuesday updates

Network speed test, pan and tilt in Camera settings, sysmon, RSAT improvements, Quick Machine Recovery improvements, WEBP background image support, Emoji 16.0

And you thought the Canary channel was weird already

New builds for Canary, Dev, and Beta. Canary gets features we already saw elsewhere, Dev and Beta get context menu, settings, and Taskbar improvements

Paul has published (an incomplete version of) De-Enshittify Windows 11

De-enshittifying Copilot and AI is doable but not yet automated

What about the alternatives?

Next step: Security and Apps chapters

HP revenues up 6.9 percent to $14.4 billion but RAM warning is more dire than expected

Apple to add multitouch to MacBook Pro lineup in late 2026. Oh the irony

AI

Xbox February update brings 1440p streaming to Xbox consoles, updates for Xbox ROG Ally, more

Xbox app is delivering post-game recaps on Windows 11 for Insiders

EA had the most game downloads on PC and console in 2025, thanks to having the three most popular AAA games of the year (BF6, EA Sports FC 25, and EA Sports FC 26). Microsoft was number two, followed by Take-Two, Ubisoft, and Sony. Fortnite is somehow still the biggest game overall on console, and Counter-Strike 2 (!!!!) is the biggest on PC. 20 million Fortnite players on PS, 15 million on Xbox

Tips and picks

Tip of the week: OneDrive for the Mac

App pick of the week: Google Chrome

RunAs Radio this week: SaaS on Multiple Clouds with Steve Buchanan

Brown liquor pick of the week: Sons of Vancouver Wheated Rye Whisky

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.

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Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

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Microsoft might finally give power users what they've been demanding: the ability to move the Windows 11 taskbar wherever they want. Plus, 3 major new chapters in Paul's next book, and a strange pick that solves his big issue with Windows Spotlight.



Windows 11

Potentially good news for the 13 people who want to move the Taskbar to a different screen side

Beta (but not Dev) with one new "feature"

Release Preview for 24H2/25H2 with emoji 16.0, QMR improvements, network speed test, pan and tilt controls for compatible cameras, widgets improvements, more

Lenovo revenues up 18% to $22.2 billion

AI/Dev

Google announces 30-second audio generation

Google sets a date for I/O 2026, but where in the Carmen Diego is Build 2026?

Android 17 Beta is here with an even shorter runway

With '26.3 out, Apple releases '26.4 Beta 1s

Xbox and gaming

Phil Spencer is always in the spotlight, but he's been on the down-low for months

Some hints for the future coming GDC 2026

Kingdom Come Deliverance II, Witcher 3, more coming to Xbox Game Pass

Avowed comes to the PlayStation 5 along with the Anniversary Update

Microsoft is retiring user-created Xbox social clubs

NVIDIA GeForce Now comes to Amazon Fire TV 4K Sticks

Tips & picks

Tip of the week: Major progress on De-Enshittify Windows 11, the book

App pick of the week: Bing Wallpaper

RunAs Radio this week: Hacking using AI with Erica Burgess

Brown liquor pick of the week: Lot 40 100% Pot Still Rye

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 audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

After years of ignoring and maligning Windows, Microsoft has finally woken up and is making some happy noises. Last week, we discussed how Microsoft plans to improve the quality of Windows and that there are already many signs of that work in various security features and new OneDrive Folder Backup changes - plus those two new direct reports to Nadella. Then, Microsoft announced its Windows Baseline Security Mode and User Transparency and Consent initiatives with questions about the timing. And now, Microsoft just explained Windows 11 version 26H1, and it's not like 24H2 at all despite being tied to Snapdragon X2 silicon.Something happened ... and that something is tied to 26H1

26H1: Only for Snapdragon X2, a "scoped release," based on a "different core" from 24H2 and 25H2

You cannot upgrade 24H2 or 25H2 to 26H1

You cannot upgrade 26H1 to 26H2 (!) - instead, those on 26H1 "will have a path to update in a future Windows release." - Is that future Windows release Windows 12? Probably

24H2, 25H2, and 26H1 will all have the same user-facing features, this has been the case with all support Windows (11) versions for 2+ years

(Remember, this is not what happened with 24H2. Shipped early on Snapdragon X1, but was made available to all Windows 11 PCs later that year)

So why is this happening now? Fortune 500/corporate customer pushback on AI is one guess

This is GOOD news, however it all unfolds

More Windows 11

Yesterday was Patch Tuesday, so get to work. Updates this month include: Agent in Settings (Copilot+ PCs only) improvements. Settings improvements, cross-device Resume improvements, Windows MIDI Services improvements, Narrator improvements, Smart App Control improvements, Windows Hello New ESS improvements, and File Explorer improvements

Somewhat related to the quality/security push noted above, Microsoft is rolling out new Secure Boot certificates this year for older (pre-2024/25) PCs

Microsoft announces a Store CLI that does (almost) nothing new compared to winget

New Dev and Beta builds with minor changes: Emoji 16.0, camera improvements, various fixes

More earnings

Amazon hits $213.4 billion in revenues, will spend $200 billion CAPEX/AI infrastructure this fiscal year, more than Google ($175/$185 billion) or Microsoft (estimated $150+ billion)

Qualcomm $12.25 billion in revenues, up 5 percent

Alphabet/Google - Up 18 percent (!) to $113.8 billion - 750 million MAUs on Gemini, 74 percent of revenues come from advertising

Spotify - somehow has over 750 million MAUs now

AI and dev

OpenAI and Anthropic release dueling agentic AI coding models that do more than agentic AI coding within minutes of each other

Ads appear in ChatGPT Free and Go as threatened

Duck.ai adds private, anonymous real-time AI voice chat

NET 11 Preview 1 arrives, but there's nothing major here

Xbox & games

Microsoft announces the 2025 Xbox Excellence Awards

Celebrate 35 years of Id Software - Castle Wolfenstein 3D was a wake-up call for PC gaming, but DOOM was a miracle, and Quake was a real WTF moment

Sony sold 8 million PlayStation 5s (down 16 percent YOY) in the holiday quarter, 92 million (!) overall

Valve predictably delays the vaporware Steam Machine

Epic Games is having a winter sale - for example, Silent Hill 2, GTA V Enhanced are 50 percentR



These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/970
Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell


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Microsoft is burning through billions on AI, but Wall Street is finally demanding to see where the payoff is. The earnings announcement triggered a $357 billion valuation wipe-out, the largest in Microsoft's history and the second-largest in history overall (Nvidia managed to lose $593 billion in value in the wake of DeepSeek in early 2025).Windows

Windows 11 has over one billion users - and, surprise, it got their faster than Windows 10 without any of the shenanigans

Microsoft to address the quality issues in Windows 11 in 2026

There is already evidence that Microsoft is trying to make Windows 11 suck less: Recent OneDrive changes that address a key ensh*ttification, and let's not forget all those security advances

What did Microsoft really promise? Not much

Microsoft has new EVPs for Security and Quality

Microsoft belatedly delivered the January Week D update last Thursday, a preview of this month's Patch Tuesday

Dev and Beta builds both deliver Mark Russinovich's sysmon tool

Microsoft earnings deep dive

Microsoft reported a net income of $38.5 billion on revenues of $81.3 billion in the quarter ending December 31. Those figures represent gains of 60 percent and 17 percent, respectively, year-over-year

Earnings analysis: All eyes are on AI and no one is happy

Microsoft spent $37.5 billion on AI infrastructure (capex) in the quarter, up 66 percent YOY, and it's on track to spend $150+ billion in the fiscal year

Every single question was about this and how it will ever recoup the costs

There are now 15 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats out of 450+ million Microsoft 365 seats

OpenAI is Microsoft's biggest Azure customer, but it's unclear if there is any real money there because of accounting tricks

Windows, Edge, and Bing all "gained share," PC maker revenues were up just 1 percent, the Windows 10 upgrade cycle was mostly a bust (it's likely that most of it was tied to RAM pricing fears, too)

Xbox fell off a cliff with content and services revenues down 5 percent in a holiday quarter somehow and Xbox hardware revenue declined an astonishing 32 percent YOY

Standalone Office 2025 suite was a surprise hit, Hood is curious if that continues

Microsoft 365 "cost of business" up 10 percent YOY because of AI costs

AMD revenues up 34 percent to $10.3 billion

Apple delivers record revenues of $143.8 billion; iPhone made more revenues by itself than all of Microsoft

AI

Microsoft is going to basically make an app store for content makers who wish to be paid for use by AI

Anthropic advertises that Claude will be advertising-free, unlike ChatGPT

The next Firefox will include the promised AI kill switch and Vivaldi "extends the middle fingerˮ to AI

Xbox and games

AMD reveals next Xbox console in 2027

We're getting a solid collection of Xbox Game Pass titles for the beginning of February

Battlefield 6 was the best-selling shooter of 2025 and EA made $1.9 billion in Q4

Epic Games has big plans for its PC launcher/store

Nintendo has now sold 17 million Switch 2s as OG Switch hits 155 million units

Tips and picks

Tip of the week: Make OneDrive Folder Backup work for you

App pick of the week: Bitwarden (TWiT sponsor)

RunAs Radio this week: Getting Started using Purview with Erica Toelle

Brown liquor pick of the week: Glendronach Ode to


These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/969
Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell


Sponsor:
zscaler.com/security