Happy Friday, and Happy Leap Year! Here’s a new Ask Paul to start off the weekend, and that extra day of February.

Living with…

Dan1986ist asks:

Any plans to do a living in Windows 10X series whenever actual hardware with Windows 10X is available?

Yes! I wish I could try this right now. Maybe Microsoft will begin testing the 10X UI in Windows 10 version 20H2, though I’ve heard that they’re waiting to see how well it does with 10X before even thinking about porting it over.

And simont asks:

Are you still planning on doing a living with iPad only series?

I wasn’t, but with the news that Apple is allegedly planning on releasing a keyboard cover with a trackpad for the next iPad Pro, I’m suddenly interested again. I would buy such a device immediately to test that, yes.

Surface Pro X

paulkbiba asks:

90% of my needs are fulfilled by a Chromebook Go. However it would be nice to have a more rounded device. Leaving price aside, what do you think of using a Surface Pro X as a “souped up” chromebook. The form factor is appealing and the inclusion of cellular is, for me, a big plus in my particular situation. I am concerned, however, with Microsoft’s continual buggy updates and that makes me think that I should stay away from the Windows platform altogether. Thoughts?

I don’t have any issues with Windows as a platform, I assume that’s obvious. And I like the Surface Pro X as a form factor, it’s more modern and sleek than the older Surface Pro 7-style design. That said, those devices are tablets, and I don’t think they meet most people’s needs. A “normal” Windows 10 laptop or convertible makes a lot more sense to me. A lot more.

The biggest issue I have with Surface Pro X is that it utilizes Windows 10 on ARM, which is increasingly pointless in my view because of its compatibility problems, which will never be fully solved, certainly not anytime soon, and its lingering performance issues. And the Surface Pro X, in particular, doesn’t even benefit from the great battery life of other ARM-based PCs. There are many, many Intel-based notebooks/convertibles that are 100 percent compatible with everything, have normal to superior performance, and have the same or better battery life than the Pro X. And they are no more expensive. I cannot recommend that device to anybody.

I’ve not yet published my review, but I took an HP Spectre x360 13 to New York this week, and I was impressed by its performance, battery life (9+ hours so far on average), and portability. This PC starts at just $1099, compared to $1299 for a Pro X with the same configuration, though, no, the HP doesn’t have cellular. Just connect your phone: One of the hidden gotchas of cellular connectivity—including the Pro X, and I just talked to someone about this yesterday, is that disabling it entirely will improve battery life by about an hour.

Office 365 PWAs

will asks:

Do you know how the process is going, if it is going, with turning the Office 365 apps into PWA versions? I have tried using Outlook as a PWA with the new Edge recently, but found the experience to be buggy. I would like to be able to use the web version of Outlook as it has several features not in the desktop version, and a PWA would be great, but I was not sure what the roadmap for this was?

Microsoft has never spoken about this publicly, and I’ve not heard anything privately about a schedule or roadmap, sorry. I was surprised to see Outlook.com and Outlook on the Web be converted into (very basic) PWAs recently, but that’s obviously a good first step.

What I’d also like to see, of course, is the core web apps—Word, Excel, PowerPoint for web—converted as well, and for them to support offline usage. I don’t mean to suggest that doing that would be easy, but I’m pretty sure the Outlook conversions basically amounted to Microsoft creating a manifest file and little less. Offline support is more complicated, as is adding other native functionality like notifications. But … this is Microsoft. I don’t understand why this didn’t just happen already.

Package managers on Windows

hrlngrv asks:

Have you ever used Chocolatey on one of your PCs? MSFT’s own app store is meant to be a central software repository, but it can be useful to compare alternatives.

Yes, though I used Ninite a lot more for a time. Obviously, I get the appeal of this kind of thing, since I’m continually bringing up new PCs or reinstalling Windows on existing PCs, and one of the more time-consuming tasks is getting my default set of applications installs.

The problem is that the apps I use have evolved, and there’s some combination of web apps, Store apps, and traditional desktop apps, and they come from different sources. I get Office 365 from Microsoft directly, I download Edge and install some web apps. I get Photoshop Elements from the Microsoft Store. I even have some app installs (like for MarkdownPad, which is no longer updated or supported) synced via OneDrive.

All that said, it would be interesting to see Microsoft develop a package manager for Windows, or support third party package managers, as a replacement of sorts for the Microsoft Store, similar to how many Linux distributions work.

Project xCloud preview timeline

Vladimir asks:

Do you have any info on when xCloud will be released in more countries in Europe? Here in Sweden we have access to Stadia, GeForce Now and PS Now but xCloud is not available yet, not even in beta. It would be nice to compare.

No, sorry. It would be nice to have this on more device types, as well, especially given how limiting iOS is right now. I’d love to see this expand to the PC and to smart TVs/set-top boxes, and to more countries, of course. But they’re proceeding on their own slow pace for now, it seems.

Surface Book issues

a_seeker asks:

What to do with a first gen Surface Book that has a swollen battery under the keyboard.

Two obvious things: Do not power it on, and contact Surface support—and/or visit a local Microsoft Store, if available—immediately.

Is build 19041 the final build of Windows 10 version 2004?

Eric_Rasmussen asks:

I’ve seen some recent news articles that Windows 10 20H1 19041 is the “RTM” build. It’s still downloaded as an insider preview ISO, so do you know if this is indeed the same version that will be offered to the public in April?

Yes, this is it. Microsoft first released build 19041 (19041.1, I believe) to Windows Insiders in December, and it has been updating it with cumulative updates that increment the minor part of the version number (after the “.”) rather than increment the build number itself. This week, for example, they released a cumulative update that revved the build number to 19041.113. Build 19041 is Windows 10 version 2014. Or, perhaps more properly, build 19041.xxx—where we’re not yet sure which will be considered “final”—is.

HoloLens futures

sabertooth920 asks:

Is HoloLens still a thing?

Sure. To be fair, this was always going to be kind of niche/vertical market kind of device, and for that reason it doesn’t get as much press or attention as consumer devices. But HoloLens 2 is a huge improvement over the original, and Microsoft’s customers and partners have found great use cases for it in multiple markets. The company originally planned some HoloLens-related announcements for Mobile World Congress, but that was scuttled by the Coronavirus stuff.

Renaming web apps in the new Edge

Finley asks:

Is there a way to rename web apps in the new Edge? The old edge had the option to set the name of the app as you were adding it but there is no option in the new edge.

Not exactly.

But if it’s a non-PWA, you can always delete it and then name it accordingly when you add the shortcut. If it’s a real PWA and you choose the Install option, you have to accept the name the app maker chose for now.

Here’s a workaround.

Install the PWA, open the Edge apps interface, right-click the app in question, and choose “Pin to.” Choose desktop; that creates a shortcut to that web app on the desktop. Rename that shortcut. And then pin that to the taskbar: The taskbar icon will use the name you chose.

Ads in Windows 10

SherlockHolmes asks:

I looked at the ad in the Windows 10 Mail App again. I tested it with my outlook.com Domain and with my G Suite account. When I use my outlook.com domain, the ad is gone. When I use it with my G Suite domain, the ad shows up again. Do you know how Microsoft will handle this in the future?

Sadly, I think what you’re seeing is how Microsoft intends to handle this: Passive-aggressively push its own offerings (or, in this case, just displaying ads) when it sees you using other products or services in Windows 10.

For all my complaining about ads in Windows 10, I don’t believe I’ve ever personally seen one in the Mail app, and I’m wondering if this is related to me having an Office 365 account or something.  (Or maybe it’s locale-related.) Regardless, my opinion on this hasn’t changed: Ads cheapen Windows, they make users consider alternatives, and they reflect badly on both Microsoft and its offerings. There is no such thing as an ad that makes sense—for Microsoft or its users—in Windows. You know they don’t generate any income. Why bother?

And speaking of useless, and I do know this is useless, Microsoft recommends that users who don’t like these ads provide feedback via the Feedback Hub. Good luck with that.

(More on feedback below.)

Future of Build … and other shows

scottkuhl asks:

Facebook just cancelled its F8 conference this May due to Coronavirus fears. Have you heard if Microsoft is considering cancelling Build?

Mary Jo and I were just debating that yesterday. Right now, the answer is no, and since Build is still two months out, and not this coming month as with F8, I’m sure they are taking a wait and see approach. I suspect that if this were in San Francisco, it might be a different story. And I could see them doing things like excluding attendees from certain countries and making it up with roadshows later, or even delaying the show to later in the year.

Google I/O is in May, too, and it’s in San Francisco. So I expect to hear about that first.

I hope it doesn’t need to be canceled. Build is my favorite show, and I love visiting Seattle and seeing my friends in the area.

Related to this, JustMe asks:

With the way coronavirus is affecting the tech industry, do you think we are in for a change in the way announcements are made in the tech industry as a whole (meaning, more virtual gatherings vice actual gatherings)? While it may be understandable that some conferences are canceled this year, do you think this will be the start of a long-term trend where conferences are fewer and further between? Or, will we get to the stage where conferences will be much smaller and held by specific vendors that want to make an announcement? How long do you think the virus outbreak has to last before companies start thinking about moving some of their operations out of China?

I’ve been wondering about the same things.

I only half-joked after MWC was canceled that the real victim here will be MWC, because so many companies will realize that the expense and effort of that show just aren’t worth it. CES falls into this category too. We will always need real-world meetings with real people, but maybe these massive singular events are just too much.

With regard to China, I feel like this will accelerate a movement that was already winding up where China as the go-to-place for low-cost labor is coming to an end thanks to the rise of other countries like India and Vietnam. (And the later, I’m sure to elsewhere. Latin America? Africa?) What China has, for now, is an abundance of manufacturing expertise, which the western world basically handed to them thanks to cost-cutters like Tim Cook and the others who followed his lead. But those skills are transferable. This will change.

I don’t see China ever not being a player, of course: The country is too big, and too well-populated, and not to be too cynical about it, just authoritarian enough to ensure that the low-cost labor pool continues. But the big learning here is something we’ve seen in other markets: Diversity is best, and in this case, that means diversity in suppliers and in manufacturing capabilities. Big companies that currently rely almost solely on China (Apple, many others) are discovering that having the ability to balance production between different geographic and geopolitical areas will be the best way forward.

Feedback

Lewk asks:

After 4 years of personally submitting around 20 feedback submissions, garnering 100’s of upvotes from people across the globe, tweeting and posting a forum thread, asking Microsoft to fix an issue they introduced with the creators update, they finally fixed it in this weeks optional Cumulative Update. I actually noticed they fixed it with the past 3 insider fast ring builds, but it’s now hit production with this update. Specifically the issue was, as Microsoft describe in the release notes:

“Addresses an issue that adds an unwanted keyboard layout as the default after an upgrade or migration even if you have already removed it.”

This issue was particularly infuriating as after every feature update, it’d add the US keyboard no matter what your language was or if you had previously deleted it.  I’m curious, what are the odds Microsoft didn’t fix this issue based on our insider feedback, but rather an important corporate partner complained and that’s why they fixed it? Lol

There is no evidence that Microsoft looks at the top feedback in the Feedback Hub and then works to implement the suggestions. Instead, it’s pretty clear that certain feedback is simply ignored, and that when some fix randomly appears, they often try to credit it to how much they listen to their customers. If anything, the Feedback Hub seems like hand-waving, a way to distract those who are actually interested in making Windows better. Look, we have achievements! And quests! See, we’re rewarding the people who love this stuff!

I don’t see that.

This isn’t true of all of Microsoft. Visual Studio, for example, is transparent about the feedback they get and what they’re working on. Edge just published a nice roadmap that includes things they won’t fix in addition to those they will or are at least considering. And Office, in particular, is racing forward adding new features at a crazy clip, many of which are feedback-driven.

Point being, feedback can absolutely work at Microsoft. But your experience is common, too common. And in this case, it is tied to a broader problem in Windows 10, where so-called feature updates—which are really version upgrades—reset a lot of default settings. That’s how you know they’re not just updates. They’re wiping out your PC and reinstalling. It’s crazy to me how Microsoft tries to hide that fact, and make users feel better about what’s happening.

Ah well.

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