Windows Weekly (Audio)

WW 975: A Bubble of Knowledge - Microsoft Reorgs, OpenAI Drama, & Xbox's Next Move

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There's an ongoing narrative that Windows is worse than ever today and people are leaving in droves. Paul does not see that, and will simply point to Windows 8 and remind folks that it can be (and was) worse. Also, PowerToys 0.98 adds a major new feature to Command Palette, big changes to Keyboard Manager and CursorWrap, and about 100 other updates. This is a big one. Plus, Mozilla Firefox is staging a comeback and may be worth another look.

Windows

  • Rajesh Jha is retiring and Microsoft is reorging its Experiences + Devices team
  • Release Preview: A peek at next week's Week D update (and April's Patch Tuesday) shows we're getting improvements to Narrator, Settings, Smart App Control, Pen settings, Display, File Explorer, and the Windows Recovery Environment (WRE). The trend continues!
  • New Canary, Dev, and Beta builds - Nothing new in Canary. Dev/Beta: Drag Tray is being renamed to Drop Tray, you can change the user folder name during Setup, Restore points are getting a modern update finally
  • Intel goes nuts with new "Arrow Lake refresh" processors; these are not Copilot+ PC capable and it's unclear what the Panther Lake comparison looks like
  • IDC now expects 11.3 percent decline in PC market in 2026, 7.6 percent decline for tablets

    • AI

    • Microsoft may sue OpenAI for contract breach - the best Microsoft divorce since IBM
    • Major reorg in Microsoft's AI businesses
    • Former Snap exec in charge of consolidated Copilot offerings across consumer and commercial
    • Mustafa Suleyman to focus on Microsoft's foundational models
    • There has been a lot of retiring and a lot of outside hires for top-level executive positions in Microsoft over the past year or more. Curious.
    • Rumors vs. reality in Microsoft scaling back AI ambitions in Windows
    • Rumor: Microsoft is backtracking on some Copilot features
    • Reality: Microsoft is not backtracking on its AI ambitions, it's just going to try to do a better job with branding and positioning
    • Microsoft launches Copilot Health in the U.S.
    • Google Personal Intelligence ships in the U.S.
    • OpenAI releases GPT-5.4 mini and nano models
    • GPT-5 mini is available as a reasoning model on Duck.ai

      • Xbox and gaming

      • Rumor vs. reality in Xbox strategy
      • Rumor: Microsoft removed "This is an Xbox" messaging from website so it must be focusing on consoles again
      • Reality: Literally nothing has changed
      • Xbox Insiders is testing per-game Quick Resume toggle
      • Also more groups on Home, custom colors, profile badges in guide
      • Big half month for Game Pass, with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, more coming
      • Starfield is coming to PS5 on April 7
      • NVIDIA launches DLSS 5, changes existing games, people are freaking out

        • Tips and picks

        • Tip of the week: The grass is always greener
        • App pick of the week: PowerToys 0.98
        • RunAs Radio this week: Sustainable AI with Darshna Shah
        • Brown liquor pick of the week: Teeling Small Batch 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.

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