Windows Weekly (Audio)

By TWiT

Windows Weekly is about more than Windows. Veteran Microsoft insiders Paul Thurrott and Richard Campbell join Leo for a deep dive into the most valuable company in the world. From consumer to enterpri... more

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Windows Weekly (Audio) episodes:

August 27, 2025WW 947: Hallucinated Clown Shoes - Microsoft v. protesters, round 3. Or 4. Or something
Protesters take over Microsoft's Building 34, objecting to the company's technology being allegedly used by Israel. Is it more than simply cybersecurity usage, and how is Microsoft handling employee activism? In other news, Gemini suddenly vaults to the front of AI image editing capability, and the OG Gears of War has been remastered at least twice (but now it's cross-platform).
Windows 11
Resume from your (Android) phone in testing in Dev and Beta channels

Copilot app gets semantic search and new home page across all Insider channels

25H2 feature focus: Administrator Protection probably works but it's more disruptive than even UAC was

Windows 11 gets a nice Bluetooth quality update

Parallels Desktop 26 for Mac is out, but it's a minor update for individuals
Microsoft 365
Microsoft to fix one of the biggest issues with Word

Reminder: OneNote for Windows 10 hits EOL in October
AI
Apple's AI floundering continues as it considers a Perplexity or Mistral acquisition

And tests a Gemini AI model for Siri in-house

Perplexity offers a $5 per month Comet Plus subscription that pays content makers

Anthropic sort of brings Claude extension to Chrome

NotebookLM audio and video overviews are now available in over 80 languages

And AI Mode is now available in Search in over 180 countries

Norton's AI web browser gets off to a rough start

Proton Lumo gets a big update

Rant: The real problem with the Windows 2030 talk, and why everyone (on both sides) is wrong about AI
Dev
Microsoft lets Visual Studio devs tune-down GitHub Copilot, finally

Microsoft makes some progress with improving Windows App SDK, supposedly
Xbox and gaming
Xbox Cloud Gaming expands to Xbox Game Pass Core Standard, adds PC games for the first time

Steam and other stores come to Xbox app on PC

Activision says it will reverse some of the stupidity it introduced in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

Nintendo invented the 30 percent fee that's still common today in digital app/game stores, but when it did so, the fee actually made sense... and it still does today, but only for the videogame industry
Tips & Picks
Tip of the week: Edit images with Gemini

Tip of the week: Subscribe to Chris's new newsletter, The Windows ReadMe

App pick of the week: Gears of War

App pick of the week: NVIDIA Broadcast app

Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott

Guest: Chris Hoffman

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
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2h 49min
August 20, 2025WW 946: Backing up the Intel Truck - Microsoft's gamescom 2025 reveals
Leo, Paul, and Richard break down Google's Pixel 10 launch spectacle, poking fun at celebrity overkill and asking whether anyone actually cares about new phones anymore. Plus, they dig into Lenovo's record-breaking quarter, surprising shifts in the PC market, and the ongoing struggle between innovation and copycatting in the AI arms race. Also, Notion has finally added basic offline support, which should make it stickier than ever.
You got your AI in my Windows
Pavan Davuluri discusses how AI will impact the Windows user experience

Not the same video series as the previous "vision" video

Davuluri leads Windows and Surface, so his words matter

Changing: Interactions, business models, experiences

Multimodal - in this case, meaning adding natural language interactions and vision to keyboard, mouse, touch, pen, etc. - "experience diversity"

Powerful AI models running on-device are "transformational"

Predictably, the Chicken Littles are losing their s#%t yet again. Guys. Come on.
Windows 11
Semantic search and new Copilot home page for all Insiders

Click to Do selection modes, minor improvements in Beta and Dev

Recall and other Copilot+ PC features FINALLY come to Canary

A few minor additions to Canary, nothing new to everyone else

Notepad is getting an updated context menu and the Chicken Littles are losing their s#%t yet again. Guys. Come on!

Lenovo earnings up 22 percent, best PC market share ever, number one in AI PCs too
AI
Google Chrome takes the subtle approach

Brave found a major security vulnerability in Comet

Like my wife, Gemini remembers everything I ever said now

Duck.ai gets GPT-5 Mini access, web search results

Grammarly announces CODA-based editor, several AI agents
Xbox and games
Another stunning Windows on Arm development

The Xbox app actually works now on Windows 11 on Arm, meaning not just game streaming but also downloads. Except, of course, that it mostly doesn't work

Heretic/Hexen installs and runs great

Asus ROG Xbox Ally handhelds to launch on October 16

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 with four-player co-op campaign

Indiana Jones coming to the Switch 2

Gears of War: Reloaded, more coming to Game Pass in late August

To help Xbox, Sony raises prices on the PS5

GeForce Now gets more powerful cloud GPUs
Tips & picks
Tip of the week: Windows 11 Field Guide, 25H2 Edition is on the way

App pick of the week: Notion

RunAs Radio this week: Data Governance for AI with Martina Grom

Brown liquor pick of the week: Chichibu Ichiro's Malt & Grain 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.

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:
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2h 5min
August 13, 2025WW 945: Vermont? Seriously? - GitHub CEO resigns as CoreAI takes over
Patch Tuesday was yesterday, so find out what's new! Plus, two of the best-ever Doom engine games are now available in remastered form (4K/120 FPS, new episodes, cross-play, multiplayer, more) on Game Pass, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC (Windows), PS4, PS5, Switch, Steam, GOG, and various cloud streaming services. It's a free update if you already own either game. Also, if you have a local library, you should use it. If only for Libby by Overdrive free audiobooks and free access to periodicals. But then be surprised by all the services they offer!
Windows 11
Copilot+ PCs: Recall comes to the EU, Recall Reset, Click to Do improvements, AI agent in Settings

All: Quick Machine Recovery, black screen of death, Snap layouts improvements, Gamepad layout for Windows Touch Keyboard

Blender is now native on Windows 11 on Arm

Search settings consolidation in Canary

Mobile device companion sidebar for Start gets a new layout in Dev

More Control Panel settings move to Settings app in Dev and Beta
Windows 10
Consumer ESU licenses will support up to 10 PCs

Microsoft will support Edge on Windows 10 through October 2028 (as expected)
AI
OpenAI releases GPT-5 but not everyone loves it

Quickly brought back GPT-4o

And now the model picker is back, for now

Microsoft is adding it everywhere, of course, and Apple says it will add to Apple Intelligence - And Bing just added support for GPT-4o image creation

Perplexity makes unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google Chrome

Comet - New tab page with Chat, can choose a Google Search as you type, Assistant in a sidebar, Summarize webpage/document, voice dictation, voice mode, big feature is website interactivity

Microsoft Edge in Copilot Mode - most evolutionary update, new New Tab page, Quick assist with Copilot button location change, Simple task handoff (which needs work), Voice navigation

But some bigger UI changes are on the way

Dia (Mac only for now) - Also, there's a Pro subscription - New Tab page with chat and an attempt at orchestration, @mentions for tabs, Skills (built-in, can edit, can make you're own), and personalization

Next up: Opera Neon - And what is Google doing with Chrome?

Copilot 3D can turn images into 3D models - It's a "Creators Update"!

Microsoft is EOLing the Lens app - use Microsoft Copilot 365 app instead
Microsoft/Surface
GitHub CEO is leaving, Microsoft is rolling GitHub into its Core AI organization

Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 get firmware update to add battery charging modes
Xbox and games
Sony sold 2.5 million PS5s in quarter, now over 80 million cumulatively

Microsoft rumored to have sold only 21 to 29 million Xbox Series X|S consoles

Big Windows 11 on Arm updates!

Game downloading is coming to Xbox app on Windows 11 on Arm

Epic Games and Qualcomm bring Easy Anti-Cheat to Windows 11 on Arm/Snapdragon X

Apple and Google have illegal mobile app store monopolies in Australia, so Fortnite is coming back to the iPhone there via Epic Games Store

Microsoft is updating Xbox Dashboard and app to show game trials and demos in "Free with Xbox" section

Microsoft has paused the production of Contraband

Steam for Chromebooks Beta will never leave beta, discontinuing in January instead
Tips & Picks
Tip of the week: Go to the library

App pick of the week: Heretic and Hexen

These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/945

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell
Sponsors:
bitwarden.com/twit
helixsleep.com/twit
threatlocker.com/twit
...more
2h 54min
August 06, 2025WW 944: Shakin' the Treats - Microsoft becomes a $4 trillion company
Microsoft's fiscal year ended on a high note, assuming you didn't just get laid off. WinSAT's formal assessment will give you some interesting PC performance information, similar to the old WEI score from Windows Vista. And Proton finally makes a standalone authenticator app; How to transition from whatever you're currently using and why you'll need to keep using Microsoft Authenticator too.
Microsoft Earning
Quarterly: net income of $27.2 billion on revenues of $76.4 billion. Those figures represent gains of 24 percent and 18 percent, respectively, year-over-year (YOY)

Annual: a net income of $101.8 billion (up 16 percent YOY) on revenues of $281.7 billion (up 15 percent)

Another look at layoffs, which are nothing new under Satya Nadella - Over 17,000 in CY 2025 so far, despite over $100 billion in profits in FY

Headcount "unchanged" YOY

Big announcements below were likely made to avoid Qs about layoffs and it almost worked

AI spending in FY was about $85 billion, higher than promised

AI spending in this quarter will jump to $30 billion (!!!!)

Azure earned $75 billion in revenues in FY, its first-ever disclosure of this number - Fun with math, that means $56 billion in revenues in previous FY. How far back can we go?

Microsoft's market cap exceeded $4 trillion after earnings release

"Copilot" has over 100 million MAUs, really M365 Copilot, which even Nadella thinks is a new M365 tier

GitHub Copilot has over 20 million MAUs, probably most are free

HUGE gains in Microsoft Gaming/Xbox, discussed below
Windows 11
But first, something completely different: Microsoft's "vision" for Windows in 2030

David Weston a curious choice for this video, first in a series - he's in security

Daily work life changes thanks to AI - less toil work, less eyes and more talking, multimodal interactions

Security - customers want appliance-level security, "it just works" security -

Degenerates into a general security discussion

Back to AI, reclaiming our lives

Windows 11 SE, RIP - We hardly knew you. Literally.

Insider: Changes to Home view in File Explorer for Work and School sign-ins, Settings app changes in Dev (25H2) and Beta (24H2)
More earnings
AMD - HUGE gains in its PC businesses!

Qualcomm up 10%

Apple up 9.6%

Amazon up 13%
AI & dev
OpenAI releases its first open-weight reasoning models and Microsoft gives them away for free

Apple is trying to Sherlock ChatGPT

Of course Alexa+ will get ads

Dev: Microsoft has a native app problem on Windows

Microsoft says it will fix Windows App SDK

Paul just switched .NETpad to the Windows App SDK and can confirm it's a nightmare

WPF is half-assed... and last year, it took Microsoft over 9 months to deliver the first Windows Copilot Runtime capabilities to devs, but you still can't use this in production. Also, it's not called that anymore
Xbox & games
Microsoft Gaming has over 500 million MAUs - More fun with math

COD has 50 million MAUs

Microsoft has nearly 40 games in development

Xbox Game Pass has $5 billion in revenues in FY, over 500 million hours played in FY

Gaming Copilot (Beta) is available on Game Bar for Windows PC for Xbox Insiders enrolled in the PC Gaming Preview

Assassin's Creed Mirage and more coming to Game Pass this month

OG Switch models now cost more thanks to tariffs
Tips & Picks
Tip of the week:

These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/944

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell
Sponsors:
1password.com/windowsweekly
uscloud.com
...more
2h 34min
July 30, 2025WW 943: Five Paperclips - Looking back at 10 Years of Windows 10
Ten years ago yesterday, Microsoft released Windows 10, fixing the issues with Windows 8.x and giving Windows 7 users a solid upgrade. One historical curiosity: It was the first Windows release without a major launch event. In other news, Microsoft publishes a Nadella email to the troops about the layoffs, but he never really addresses the layoffs.
Windows 10 turns 10
The Bad: Its legacy is mixed, as this is when the enshittification of Windows began, really

Windows as a Service

Ads, crapware, and telemetry — plus some made-up privacy issues

Terry Myerson gaff about one billion users

Universal apps/One Windows was a bust, with Windows Phone and HoloLens failures

Windows 10's launch was a missed opportunity to make the Store matter

The Good: Windows Subsystem for Linux was huge

WinGet was also huge, but is underappreciated and underutilized to this day

It did reverse the mistakes of Windows 8, and in time it got more stable as Microsoft figured out WaaS (and then went on to abuse it)

Oh, and the Windows 10 Field Guide is free to celebrate the anniversary
Windows 11
Microsoft is using Rust for Surface drivers, and it wants all Windows drivers to switch to Rust too

The Link to Windows app is getting a nice upgrade on Android

Dev (25H2) and Beta (24H2): Settings agent for x86, SCOOBE changes, Click to Do improvements, Windows Search improvements

Canary: Just a couple of bug fixes (Actually, two builds, one today also with no features)

Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, and Media Encoder are Now Native on Windows 11 on Arm in beta

Opera files antitrust case against Microsoft in Brazil for Windows 11/Edge behaviors

Another app blocking Recall in a slow-drop of negative Recall-related AI privacy news for Microsoft.

Rant: More importantly, Recall is boring and not useful given the hype around it.

Intel earnings are flat, but more layoffs are on the way

Lenovo rollable laptop in action! (ThinkBook Plus Gen 6)

Lenovo makes a lot of weird laptops now (like the dual-screen Yoga Book 9i Paul reviewed last year) — apparently they didn't get the message after Microsoft cancelled the Surface Neo and Windows 10X.

Does the average modern Windows laptop really need a touchscreen? Is this a relic of the Windows 8 era?
AI & Microsoft 365
Perplexity Comet is real and it shows the way forward for AI web browsers

Coincidentally, Microsoft suddenly launches Copilot mode for Microsoft Edge. (But I've played with Copilot Mode, and it's no Comet or Dia.)

Copilot is getting real-time expressions. It's the return of Clippy!

Microsoft's long-term Copilot plans are a lot wilder than you might expect

Google earned $96.4 billion in one quarter. This shows that it has not been impacted by other AIs yet
Xbox & gaming
Xbox is coming to Gamerscom in Germany in August, and it's bringing the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds

The July Xbox Update is here and it's all about the PC

Paul reviewed the Lenovo Legion Go S, and the Windows experience was so bad. Also, PC OEMs are having trouble competing with the Steam Deck's pricing on gaming handhelds.
Tips & picks
Tips of the week: Chris and Paul are partnering on his new newsletter

App pick of the week: Perplexity Pro

Beer pick of the week: Alesong Rhino Suit

These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/943

Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott

Guest: Chris Hoffman
Sponsor:
cachefly.com/twit
...more
2h 48min
July 23, 2025WW 942: A World of Wonder - The weakness of Copilot's branding
Microsoft finally kills Movies & TV show service in the Microsoft Store. This was the final vestigial minder of Zune that remained. There was Groove Video and Xbox Video, too. Microsoft previously killed eBook (2019) and music (2017) sales. At this point, you would have to be insane to buy content from Microsoft, sorry... but you can get to some of your content on other services via Movies Anywhere - and use the Movies & TV app for now in Windows, which is no longer bundled.
Windows 11
It's Week D and you can't tell your Copilot+ PC features from your Windows 11 features without a scorecard

A peek at next month's Patch Tuesday - Also, preview updates for 23H2, Windows 10

Copilot+ PCs only: Settings agent, Click to Do improvements, Photo relight in Photos app, Sticker generator and Object select in Paint

Everyone: Copilot Vision (U.S. only) in Copilot, Edge Game Assist, Quick Machine Recovery

Microsoft explains how PC transfer feature will work in Windows Backup later this year

Describe image action for Click to Do (for AMD/Intel), image descriptions in Narrator (AMD/Intel), performance log improvements (!), Click to Do search bar test, Lock screen improvements, privacy improvements head to Dev and Beta channels

Bug fixes in Canary, back to the usual waste of time

Brave will automatically block Recall

WhatsApp is going PWA, killing UWP app

Focusrite finally releases drivers for Windows 11 on Arm/Snapdragon X, removing the final major compatibility issue on that platform

Linux (sort of) crosses the 5 percent usage milestone
Surface/Copilot+ PC
Copilot+ PC is a failure as a brand because Microsoft focused on negligible on-device AI features

It should have pushed reliability, performance, efficiency and battery life

All Copilot+ PC features should come to at least those with GPUs, but really all customers

Microsoft failed at AI, and failed with consumers, and so now it's going to tell us what consumers want from AI - a comedy

Microsoft announces Surface Laptop for Business with 5G but the real "with" is Intel Inside

Intel layoffs are even worse than expected and more are coming

Microsoft has a problem and it starts with "C" and ends with "opilot"

Microsoft SharePoint has a notably bad security flaw

DuckDuckGo adds some neat customization features to Duck.ai and DuckDuckGo lets you hide all AI from search
Xbox and gaming
The Xbox platform unification continues: Xbox now testing cross-device play history - Not just console games on console, PC games on PC

Just kidding! The Outer Worlds will cost $69.99, not $79.99
Tips & Picks
Tip of the week: You hate Big Tech, but who can you trust?

App pick of the week: Proton Lumo

RunAs Radio this week: Copilot Studio with April Dunnam

Brown liquor pick of the week: Benromach 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
Sponsors:
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...more
2h 48min
July 16, 2025WW 941: K... and Q - The AI factor in those Microsoft layoffs
Microsoft just made a major change to the Windows 11 install media, and you're not going to believe what happens next! Plus, the AI spelling and grammar checking app/service that Paul relies on. And yes, he does pay for it.
Windows 11
Copilot Vision gets full Desktop support, Voice integration across all Insider channels

Click to Do gets a "Describe image" action, Administrator protection, App permission dialog changes in Dev (25H2) and Beta (24H2)

Canary finally gets the features everyone else has had for a while now

Also, Microsoft quietly killed the simplified date/time in the Windows 11 Taskbar because no one liked it

PC sales grew 5 percent in Q2 but there is a BIG caveat

Semi-related: Google is "combining" ChromeOS and Android

ChromeOS will build on Android going forward, smart

Even less related: HMD quietly pulls Nokia out of the U.S. market, the dream is over
Microsoft 365, AI
Microsoft layoffs directly attributed to AI

Microsoft scuttled OpenAI's acquisition of Windsurf and all hell broke loose

Google snapped up key execs and engineers and licensed Windsurf for $2.4 billion

All's well that ends well: Cognition acquires Windsurf

Microsoft keeps changing the terms of the deal: Microsoft 365 apps will be updated on Windows 10 only through August 2026

Microsoft 365 Copilot is finally getting a Memory

OpenAI is going to war with Microsoft and the world

It's working on a web browser

It's also working on an office productivity suite of sorts

Google NotebookLM gets curated featured notebooks. This is emerging as one of the more useful AI tools
Xbox and Gaming
Xbox app for Windows 11 gets "Stream your own game" functionality

Grounded 2, more coming to Game Pass in second half of July

Cyberpunk 2077 is coming to the Mac for some reason
Tips & Picks
Tip of the week: Save big on PCs, go refurbished

App pick of the week: LanguageTool for Desktop

RunAs Radio this week: Fabric in 2025 with Arun Ulag

Brown liquor pick of the week: Slane Triple Casked Blend

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:
helixsleep.com/twit
bitwarden.com/twit
uscloud.com
...more
2h 39min
July 09, 2025WW 940: The Donkey Always Wins - Windows 11 usage surpasses Windows 10
It's been a big year for Windows 11 updates. This month is at least semi-manageable! Also, a few more bits from the layoffs. Plus, Amiga Forever 11 and C64 11 Forever help you live in the past!
Patch Tuesday
Copilot+ PC only: Ask Copilot action for Click to Do

24H2 only: Show smaller Taskbar icons. Screen curtain feature in Narrator. Settings home page for commercial customer

23H2 and 24H2: Windows Share shows preview when sharing web content. Beginning of PC migration feature in Windows Backup. More changes for EU users to meet DMA requirements, mostly Edge related

Windows 10: EU/DMA updates as above
More Windows 11
WE DID IT! Windows 11 is now in use on more PCs than Windows 10. It's time for Windows 12!

No new Insider features but some bug fixes in Canary

Microsoft Edge keeps getting more responsive
Microsoft 365 and AI
Teams gets threading in Channels about three years later than needed

Google brought its Veo 3 video generation model to all AI Pro subscribers last week, and now it's bringing that and two other big AI features to Pixel

Perplexity just launched its AI web browser
Xbox and gaming
No, Phil Spencer is not retiring

Romero Games forced to cancel Xbox shooter, lay off 100 employees

Warcraft Rumble Mobile won't get any more updates

Xbox angst in the wake of last week's layoffs is mostly undeserved

Xbox fans keep finding new ways to complain - Most of the game/studio closures we know about were well-deserved. If anything, Microsoft let these things continue for too long with no viable deliverables

But what is Xbox? Looking at the platform and what Microsoft has done under Phil Spencer paints a very different picture than all the moaning we see on social media

Game Pass was key to getting Satya Nadella to keep Xbox going, but after the Activision acquisition, the day and date promise was unworkable. After the changes and price hikes, it's possible that Game Pass has peaked.

Microsoft uploaded an out of date version of Call of Duty: WWII to the Store and hilarity ensues

Sony to publish a game for Xbox for the first time

Epic Games quietly settled with Samsung ahead of today's Unpacked event - but not with Google
Tips and picks
Tip of the week: Office 365 for IT Pros 2026 Edition is now available

App pick of the week: Microsoft Edge

RunAs Radio this week: Building Real Software using PowerApps with Luise Freese

Brown liquor pick of the week: Bolster Road Maple Rye Whiskey

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:
1password.com/windowsweekly
threatlocker.com/twit
...more
2h 42min
July 02, 2025WW 939: The House Hippo - Microsoft Lays Off 9,000 While Worth $3.7 Trillion
Microsoft's latest round of layoffs hits Xbox Gaming hard as the company cuts approximately 9,000 jobs despite record profits. This week, Paul Thurrott and Richard Campbell discuss the impact of these layoffs, Windows 11's new version naming, Microsoft Copilot coming to Mac, and dive deep into passkey security.

LAYOFFS
As expected, Microsoft began a massive round of layoffs across Xbox/Microsoft Gaming on Wednesday.
The fiscal year started on Tuesday.

These were originally going to happen a week or two earlier.

9,000 employees impacted across Microsoft - about 4 percent of workforce, Xbox/MSGaming was NOT hit hardest, Microsoft now says (on top of 6,000 in May).

10 percent of King being laid off.

Carefully worded email from Phil Spencer requires some parsing.

It's Finally Official: 25H2 Is Next!
Microsoft finally admits that the Dev channel is testing Windows 11 version 25H2, which will arrive, as expected, around October
This news came as part of another set of commingled Dev and Beta channel builds.

25H2 will be delivered as an enablement package, so it's a minor release technically.

Dev and Beta are linked because 25H2 and 24H2 are linked: Each will get the same features, as started with 22H2/23H2 in late 2023.

Windows 11
Last week was Week D, but we didn't get preview updates per usual before WW
That finally happened last Thursday - new preview updates for 24H2 and 23H2/22H2

24H2: Click to Do improvements, start of PC migration in Windows Backup, small icons in Taskbar, more.

Windows Insider Preview: Those Dev/Beta builds noted above have the first implementation of third-party passkey. Microsoft Edge 138 is a pretty big update, with AI-enhanced history search and Copilot integration into the search box and new tab page.
AI
Microsoft 365 Copilot is available on the Mac.

Apple may cave and adopt Anthropic Claude and/or OpenAI ChatGPT for Apple Intelligence.

After Coda's acquisition and $1 billion in funding, Grammarly acquires Superhuman to build an "AI-native" productivity suite that will take on Big Tech (Microsoft, Google) and Little Tech (Notion, Proton) alike.
Xbox and Gaming
Xbox 360 dashboard is getting its first update in years.

Halo Studios teases an October tease of the next Halo from the studio.

New Game Pass titles for the first half of July - plus, COD: WWII turns up in Game Pass for the first time.

Cursor sort of comes to the web and mobile - like Adobe Firefly on mobile, but for devs when "the mood strikes".
Tips and Picks
Tip/App picks of the week: Cure Mac envy.
The Mac is about to get even prettier. But Windows 11 can rise to this challenge.
The PC matters: Paul recommends Surface Laptop 7 as a MacBook Air alternative.
Software? It's all free.
Full screen apps: Hide the Taskbar and touchpad gestures - also, use DS Clock if you need to see the time.

Transparent system menu? You can make the Taskbar transparent too.

Want Spotlight? No problem, we have Command Palette (an updated, more extensible PowerToys Run) in PowerToys.

Bonus app pick: Inoreader for RSS feeds (and read later if you want).

RunAs Radio This Week: More Azure Innovations with Mark Russinovich

Brown Liquor Pick of the Week: Alberta Distillers 23 Year Old Rare Batch No. 1

These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/939

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell
Sponsor:
uscloud.com
...more
2h 35min
June 25, 2025WW 938: When Will Then Be Now? - Copilot's struggles against ChatGPT
Windows 10 EOL update
Microsoft confirms that Windows 10 EOL is a go for October. But...

Consumers can now get a free year of extra security updates instead of paying(!)

Businesses can now enroll in extended security updates program

Microsoft 365 apps on Windows 10 to get security updates through October 2028
Windows 11
A few new features via the Insider Program

Recall gets a new home page and some nice updates to hardware indicators in Dev and Beta

We know there's a Settings AI agent coming to Windows 11. Apparently, it needs its own local AI model. And why this might be problematic

Canary gets features we've seen elsewhere, plus an ISO - plus a new 24H2 build in Release Preview with features we can expect on June 8, Patch Tuesday

Microsoft launches AI-powered learning app for Copilot+ PCs

First Arm-based Chromebook Plus arrives with 50+ TOPS NPU, local AI features - using the chip that would make for a nice Copilot+ PC. But what's going on with Chrome OS?
Microsoft 365
Microsoft Ignite registration is open

Android users can now open shared Office documents without a Microsoft account
AI
Copilot is struggling against ChatGPT, even in the enterprise

Alexa+ is now available to over one million testers in the U.S. - but have you met even one of them?

Android Studio gets Gemini-based Agent Mode in preview
Xbox and games
First, the bad news: Yes, there are massive layoffs coming to Xbox next week - this is in addition to the sales org-related layoffs that are also coming, and probably more

It's happening! Microsoft begins testing Steam integration with the Xbox app on Windows 11

AMD expands a bit on the news that it's working with Microsoft on next-gen Xbox silicon

June Xbox update arrives with more home screen customization, more mouse and keyboard support for more games, more "Stream your own games" titles (over 200 now)

There's a limited edition Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition - move quick if you want one

Hellblade II: Senua's Saga Enhanced arrives on PlayStation on August 12 - but there's more going on here, including "Xbox on PC" language
Tips and Picks
Tip of the week: Don't pay for Windows 10 extended security

App pick of the week: Discord for Windows 11 on Arm

RunAs Radio this week: Getting More from GitHub with April Yoho

Brown liquor pick of the week: Drayman's Highveld

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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