Windows Weekly 416 (Transcript)

Leo Laporte: It´s time for Windows Weekly. Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley are here and we´re going to spend some time talking about this Windows 10 update thing, the little flag in your system tray, all of that, what it means, how you´re going to get it, when you´re going to get it, oh you´re going to get it, Windows 10 is coming up next on Windows Weekly.

Netcasts you love from people you trust, this is TWiT! Bandwidth for Windows Weekly is provided by Cachefly at c-a-c-h-e-f-l-y.com.

This is Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley, Episode 416 recorded June 3, 2015.

Oh, You´re Going to Get It

Windows Weekly is brought to you by Harry’s, for guys who want a great shave experience for a fraction of what you’re paying now, go to harrys.com. Get $5 off your first purchase by entering the code “WINDOWS” when you check out.

And by Lynda.com. The online learning platform with over 3,000 on demand videos courses to help you strengthen your business, technology and creative skills. For a free 10 day trial visit Lynda.com /Windows, that's l-y-n-d-a.com/windows.

Leo: It´s time for Windows Weekly, the show where we cover hey Windows hey Weekly. Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley are here, Mary Jo Foley with the ZDNet blog All about Microsoft.com she is the know all, tell all, be all.

Paul Thurrott: I often call her the know it all.

Mary Jo Foley: The know it all!

Leo: The know it all, the Hadoop Queen, we have many names for her. Welcome Mary Jo. The queen of Hadoop. Paul Thurrott is also here, he´s at Thurrott.com, he´s written many a book on Windows and Windows phone, he´s the expert in all of that. And we´re here as we are every Wednesday, around about 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Easter and 18:00 UTC to talk Winders and I guess Microsoft has blown the lid off the secret, it´s a go for July 29th.

Paul: Isn´t this typically kind of the quiet time of the year?

Leo: It is, which is why they´re smart to release it in the middle of summer.

Paul: This is really strange.

Leo: I guess the first thing I would ask is it going to be ready for release on July 29th?

Paul: It doesn´t matter Leo, this is hell or high-water.

Leo: This is the new Agile, this is Agile right?

Paul: You´re getting it, shut up.

Leo: Release it and fix it, break things fast and fix them fast.

Paul: Yep.

Leo: That´s a new kind of way of thinking for the state old Microsoft, kind of modern.

Paul: Although this is probably out of order in fact it´s certainly out of order but the other day when they announced this I went back and looked because what was it like for the previous version of Windows right? Previous version of Windows they announced the RTM of it on August 1st, 2012 and then the product shipped on October 26, alongside new hardware, the retail boxes and all that stuff.

Leo: This is Windows 8 you´re talking about.

Paul: Windows 8. So 3 years later, if you look at the delta but we don´t know when it´s going to RTM, there´s still, right now there´s less time until the release of Windows 10 than there was between the RTM of Windows 8 and the release of Windows 8. So whenever they do finalize it with the air quotes, it´s still going to be half or one third the amount of time between that milestone and the actual release to the public. Which I think says a lot about how things have changed.

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Although I remember that October date being kind of, just an artificial date in a way right, it was like they wanted to have a big launch with new hardware, have something very orchestrated so if they don´t care about doing that this time, which is what we think, right, they don´t really need that.

Paul: Yes, although, by the way the other it´s interesting that you bring that up I just wrote about this, I turned a story that was going to be about here´s what the new Windows 10 PCs look like into something that was completely different which is, you know frankly there´s not a lot new going on here, in other words, you know PCs have evolved and they´re getting thinner and lighter and they have no bezels or whatever, but when you look at the new hardware stuff that Windows 10 can take advantage of, it´s not really that much of a big bomb like it was for Windows 8, Windows 8 when we got like the first actual tablets and 2 in 1 PCs and PC makers were experimenting with designs, some things worked and somethings didn´t and it took I think those 3 years for that to kind of mature into okay here´s the PC market as we now understand it. And then for Windows 10 it´s like well, Windows hello, you know it´s a little easier to sign into your computer, but that stuff´s really been around, I mean people with Lenovo PCs have been able to use a camera to log into their computers already, fingerprint scanners have been around for a long time, you know DirectX Gaming what else is there? Continuum is just an evolution of what we already had, i mean it´s not.

Mary Jo: Cortana. Well how about the start menu?

Paul: Well I mean, I´m sorry, I mean Windows.

Leo: That´s just pure cosmetics.

Paul: Well no, I mean, but, Windows 10 features that expose themselves.

Leo: If that´s all you want, you could do that by pushing a button.

Paul: Well that´s what I mean, in other words, these are features that would impact the hardware.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: In other words, why would I want to buy a new PC? Why would I wait for Windows 10 PC right? Maybe it has a camera that does Windows hello, maybe it has a fingerprint scanner, maybe it has a detachable screen and Continuum works. You know none of it´s actually super new, it´s just a little bit evolved I would say for Windows 10 and maybe that´s part of the reason why. It might be just to make it come out a little earlier so they can artificially make some kind of back to school season or something.

Mary Jo: Yeah, well we used to say this and I still think it´s true. We used to say Windows 10 is to Windows 8 what Windows 7 was to Vista right, it´s the fix. It´s Microsoft fixing what they screwed up.

Paul: Yes.

Leo: Well according to Fabio Pintos on the MSDN blog it´s just Windows 1.0, they´re going back.

Paul: That´s it, wait, wait, wait, when is this from?

Leo: This is April 15th 2015.

Paul: Why does he say that, because it has Windows?

Leo: I don´t know, I just think it´s funny.

Paul: Oh because it has a little hamburger menu?

Leo: Oh does it? No, yes! Windows 1.0 invented the hamburger.

Paul: Sure.

Mary Jo: Everybody was saying that, yeah.

Leo: What! Crazy.

Mary Jo: Back to the future.

Leo: Back to the future.

Paul: They should patent that.

Mary Jo: They should.

Paul: There´s a lot going on here, I don´t know how we´re going to get through all this stuff or make sense of it.

Leo: How much under the hood new is there? Lots?

Paul: Seven.

Leo: 7?

Paul: I don´t know, I mean.

Leo: That´s good, just stick with that Paul I like it.

Paul: I don´t even remember anymore but at some point one of the big things that Microsoft started doing was that componentization stuff right, so that´s happened, that´s been going on for a long time, there´s more of that in Windows 10 and when they talk about one Windows and the ability to run Windows 10 on all these different systems honestly it´s just an evolution of that stuff.

Leo: Is the driver model the same?

Paul: Yep.

Leo: Have they updated, remember they rewrote the TCP/IP stack for Windows 7 have they done anything like that?

Mary Jo: Well they have the whole new Windows Universal underline model and there´s a Windows Universal driver model.

Paul: Okay but see I don´t actually think those are new, I would say that those are lightly evolved you know. They´re trying to draw this distinction with universal apps in particular but they´re really just the latest version of what used to be called metro modern app.

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: But it´s one Windows in the sense that you develop universally right? We´ve has XAML for a while.

Paul: But that´s also just an evolution, you´re literally not creating a single exe that runs on multiple platforms.

Mary Jo: Right, you´re not.

Leo: Oh you´re just cross compiling.

Paul: Again, it is better than it was, it´s not completely new.

Leo: That´s the nature of life it all gets better.

Paul: Actually that´s not the nature of life, but it should be the nature of technology.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Technology is like life in reverse.

Mary Jo: You know for us, we´re feeling like there´s not a lot new because it´s our job to cover these things in great detail but if you´re somebody who´s on Windows 7 and there´s a lot of those people who have not upgraded to Windows 8, it´s going to look pretty new to you and there´s going to be a lot of new things. I mean you´re going to get a different start menu, you´re going to get capabilities with security, a lot of under the hood stuff that you didn´t get with Windows 8 because you never went to Windows 8. And for us it doesn´t look crazy new but I think for the, however installed base, what´s the install base of Windows 7?

Paul: Several hundred thousand, it´s several hundred million people, I don´t remember the exact number, seven hundred million something like that.

Leo: If you think it looks new then, wait until Windows XP users see it.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: I mean you can always say that if you haven´t looked at Windows, if you´ve never used Windows before it´s going to look very new.

Paul: If you´ve been hibernating for the past 7 years, by the way you might´ve seen my Windows 95 tweets today I´m going to write something about this tomorrow I think but it is striking to me and I´ve made this observation before in the podcast about newer versions of Windows, you go back all the way to Windows 95 and you run this thing and it´s a start button and a start menu, it´s a task bar and there´s a tray area and there´s a browser and there´s applications and Office, frankly the experience is very familiar and not just because I knew it very well back in the day, 20 years ago. But it´s somewhat striking how little has changed really in 20 years, I mean, there´s something interesting to that so yeah, you´re right, it certainly is a good upgrade and if you´re still running a pc from 6,8,9 years ago that stuff that I just described as being fairly evolutionary is going to be amazing to you.

Mary Jo: Yeah, exactly. But lets talk about what we learned this week right, because we did actually learn some new things this week and we´re guessing some new things starting this week.

Paul: Yep, okay.

Mary Jo: So we know July 29th is the date that was rumored but we know it for sure now, that´s the day that Microsoft´s going to start rolling out Windows 10 to people who have Windows 7 service pack 1 and Windows 8.1, they´re going to start rolling it out on that day.

Paul: And?

Mary Jo: And.

Paul: The other thing, there´s one more thing happening that day.

Mary Jo: It´ll be installed on new PCs that come out starting that day.

Paul: Some PCs, yeah. Starting that day supposedly there will be some.

Mary Jo: Right. Now.

Paul: So what´s missing? What´s missing from that day?

Mary Jo: There´s a lot of things missing.

Paul: A lot of stuff.

Mary Jo: Because we don´t know.

Paul: Just from that day, in other words you just said Windows 10 will be available to upgraders electronically and on some new PCs.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: So what won´t be happening on that day? What about all the retail boxes?

Mary Jo: Right, will retail boxes be available that day? We do not believe so.

Paul: Doesn´t say.

Mary Jo: Doesn´t say. Will MSDN, Technet, DreamSpark, all those people get it starting that day? We don´t know.

Paul: Volume license customers, typically get it early

Mary Jo: Enterprise users under volume license? We don´t know. So the only thing we know for sure is that upgrade free, upgrade for a year right?

Paul: There´s more than that though, what about Windows 10 insiders?

Mary Jo: I think they, okay, so you and I were talking about this, so here´s what we do know, we know if you´re in the Windows 10 insider program you are going to automatically get Windows 10 for free. We believe you´re going to get it on July 29th because I saw Gabe Aul tweet the insiders will be the start of the line. So there´s a fictitious line right?

Paul: I love that there´s a line.

Mary Jo: People are lining up.

Paul: It´s like an Apple store event.

Mary Jo: Yeah but you´re going to get it we think starting the 29th.

Paul: What about the people who haven´t gotten this little icon in their tray for some reason? When are they going to get it?

Mary Jo: So if you have not seen that icon show up in your tray, you may or may not get it starting on the 29th.

Paul: What if you really want it on the 29th? I mean, I´m sorry to keep interrupting, here´s another one though.

Mary Jo: No, there are these weird cases right?

Paul: They´re not even that weird. What about, I did get the icon and I do want it on the 29th but I don´t want to do an upgrade, I want to do a clean install, now they have said after questioning that there will be a clean install capabilities however on July 29th will I be able to download an ISO file and make a bootable USB media with it and clean install from there, will that work?

Mary Jo: I don´t know.

Paul: I don´t know.

Mary Jo: Another one of those I don´t knows is people who are on domain joint PCs who don´t see the icon because the way it works is if you´re on a domain joint pc you´re not supposed to see that icon, your admon is supposed to make the choice for you when you´re going to get Windows 10, so can you get it that day if you don´t see it that way?

Paul: What about businesses that use Windows Intune to loosely manage an environment that they don´t have a domain but they do manage those PCs? Do those PCs see the icon? Will they get it on July 29th? And what if, what if that business doesn´t want them to get it? Is there a policy in place? There´s all kinds of questions, we could do this for an hour. It is amazing to me how many things they left hanging you know. I think what they wanted was for everyone to just kind of high five them as they ran by, but what they forgot was everybody. They just, they addressed a potion and it´s an important portion, but there´s so many things, they have a FAQ, like a Q&A page that answers some questions, but none of the ones that we just raised.

Leo: Can I ask some questions?

Paul: Please do.

Mary Jo: We won't know the answers but go ahead.

Paul: The new confirm or deny.

Leo: So most people who are eligible for the Windows 10 upgrade got that little, weird, white Windows icon in their task bar.

Paul: Yeah, most? I don´t know most.

Mary Jo: We don´t know if it was most.

Leo: Seems like everybody but I don´t know, anyway some large number, I got it, you got it, everybody I know got it. If you click it, it´s kind of odd you get the chance to say yes, I would like it. It´s pretty clear that you could, in fact they even say, change your mind so it´s not forcing that. It will stay in your system tray.

Paul: Yes, it will.

Leo: Which is odd, but I guess that´s to remind you and you can remove it but you have to do it by removing the program that´s running it. My guess is, but I was wondering if you know, by removing the program you´re also removing the automatic downloader that´s going to check the clock and download.

Paul: So, no you´re not.

Leo: Ah okay, that´s one question you had the answers.

Paul: Oh I´m sorry, I´m sorry, the automatic downloader.

Leo: Yeah, Well I´m just saying if you want to get rid of the system tray icon.

Paul: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mary Jo: There is a way.

Paul: That´s not clear.

Mary Jo: I can tell you how.

Leo: Okay.

Mary Jo: Go to customize in your system tray.

Leo: Oh yeah, you could do it that way.

Paul: Well that´s just hiding it. I guess what he´s saying, in other words.

Leo: I just dragged it into the extra icons one.

Paul: Right, so you just don´t see it.

Leo: But it´s still running and it´s still presumably using memory and cpu cycles, I don´t know what it´s doing, if I do, I can install it but if I do what happens to my invitation?

Paul: Right, my understanding is that your reservation doesn´t go away, that your computer has already been marked, as if for the apocalypse or something, as being part of the reservation system. I honestly believe that I think part of this is a PR thing where they want to show some number of people have been so excited to get Windows 10 that X number of million people have signed up to reserve Windows 10 which is a hilarious term because obviously Windows 10 is a restaurant with a limited number of tables and if you want to eat on July 29th you got to get in there an open table or whatever. That´s got to be the thing but I don´t think that by, if you accept this and then you go and uninstall that Windows update you´re still in so if you were to somehow download this update again, which by the way you would, if you didn´t then first go to Windows update and hide it from Windows update, you would just be in automatically, I don´t think you´d have to accept it anymore.

Mary Jo: Yep. Then we should say it, what is the reserved thing do for you? So we´re joking like it does nothing but there is one thing it does do, it´s going to put the bits on your system before July 29th.

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Mary Jo: And then, on July 29th they´ll turn on, so this is meant to make it so you´ll get them really fast, you won´t have to sit there and wait.

Paul: By the way, if you do want it that way, that´s very valuable. You can do that with modern video game systems when you preorder a game it will download it, encrypt it or whatever to your hard drive overtime, I always kind of joke about this, it´s like drizzle versus dribble, it´s I guess what we could call a drizzle download, not a dribble download, where it´s using minimal bandwidth over some period of time. But this speaks to the thing I brought up front, which is the RTM date right, that´s not happening now, Windows 10 is not complete. So, you know, June 15th? July 1st? Who knows? Someday in the future they will RTM Windows 10, they might not call it that but they´ll do it and that will trigger the delivery of these bits to your pc so that on July 29th we´re not all fighting each other and the Microsoft servers to get the bits so that we can install it, we´ll already have them so we can just install in then.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Okay, that´s good, no, no, no, you´re very helpful this way.

Mary Jo: Yeah, so we don´t know the RTM date, people are continuing to ask us that, I mean it´s obviously going to RTM before July 29th right?

Paul: Right. Fair to say.

Mary Jo: But when? Don´t know because you know if Microsoft is saying there will be some PCs out on July 29th with this preloaded, they have to give it to them, to the OEMs some number of weeks usually before.

Paul: Yeah they´re not going to be installing it in Best Buy the night before.

Mary Jo: Let´s hope not. And then you know, as we brought up, whenever they do decide this is our time to RTM there may be a situation where you will, on July 29th, get Windows 10 and then you´ll get a whole bunch of updates that day too, just like what happened with Windows 8.1.

Paul: Guaranteed.

Mary Jo: Yeah, so the RTM date is kind of arbitrary to be honest.

Paul: Kind of, but like you said, it needs to be far enough in advance that the PC makers can get it shipped through warehouses and distribution systems on boats and planes, trucks to whatever they do and into stores. That takes some amount of time.

Mary Jo: Yep, right.

Paul: You know. I wouldn´t be surprised if the availability of actual PCs on July 29th is constrained.

Leo: Can I start a really nasty rumor?

Paul: Sure.

Leo: So it´s a 3 gigabyte download they tell you that, I think Microsoft is setting up a massive peer to peer bit torrent network using our leaders.

Paul: Actually it´s funny you say that because they actually are.

Mary Jo: Are they really?

Paul: One of the features of Windows 10 is that it can do peer to peer downloading of, wait for it, Windows updates.

Leo: If you had to download, I´ll let you do the math, 3 million say 20 million, 50 million 3 gigabyte files you would be interested in a way to distribute that load a little bit, at least not do it all on the 29th.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: So here´s the problem, they can´t actually enable this system until actual, until Windows 10 is actually on peoples computers but the benefit of having Windows 10 on peoples computers at all like in other words you, I have a household of, actually I probably have like 20 computers but let´s pretend everyone in the house just has 1 computer, 4 or 5 or whatever computers in the house, that would be 3, I can´t do simple math, that would be 4 or 5 three gigabyte downloads if we all had to download separately, but use this peer to peer system that I´m talking about if one of us got it early, installed it and then the others got it on July 29th or July 30th or whatever, they could conceivably take advantage of the fact that the bits are already on you pc. Well actually could they because they´re all still running Windows 8.1?

Mary Jo: I know, I wonder.

Paul: I don´t think so, so I think this is something that really can´t be fulfilled until after Windows 10 is out in the world, it´s kind of a chicken-egg thing isn´t it?

Mary Jo: Yes.

Paul: Unless, that´s what they´ll get Windows 10 update really is. So this is a really good conspiracy theory.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: I like it because all you need to do for instance let´s say today, you push out 100 megabyte file, that´s a part of the whole, you concede it then to everybody else.

Paul: You´re describing like use net new groups or like a torrent site.

Leo: That´s how BitTorrent works. In BitTorrent you would need to have at least one seeding site as the full copy, but then everybody else can have a partial copy and share it with everybody else. So you could in theory push out everything but the last bit and then Microsoft has the one final version and everybody can get a copy from one another in a bit torrent mesh network and then everyone has to go to Microsoft for the final bit and it´s done.

Paul: So, I don´t believe that that is going to happen.

Leo: They´d have to tell people.

Paul: In Windows 8.1 exactly. The ability to do peer to peer updating is a feature Windows 10 but I think what that means is that its´s October or whatever and some big bunch of updates comes out on some Patch Tuesday and on my desktop computer with the hard wire connection I bolt them all down really quickly but then the other computers in the home network get it from me instead of using that bandwidth or whatever. It´s basically the system they had for branch offices but applied to consumers.

Mary Jo: Yeah, right, right. I mean my question is how many people really will want it on the very first day?

Leo: Me, me, me.

Mary Jo: Everybody who´s listening to this show will but there are a lot of people who will not right.

Paul: I actually want it before that date and I think that´s another interesting question. For example why couldn´t Windows insiders get it on the day it RTMs? It´s just electronic software it´s not going to break the internet, why not just give it away early?

Mary Jo: Maybe that´ll be a present like hey thanks for helping us beta test Windows 10.

Paul: I would think so.

Mary Jo: Yeah, that would be nice, that would be a nice gesture right.

Leo: I just want the finished bits.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Sure.

Leo: I´d be willing to wait til August 1st, I just want the finished bits when they´re really feeling good about it, I feel strong, this is it, this is the one. I like the idea of me not having to go out and download, part of the problem is, if you´re in a business or you know like here, I don´t want everybody in the business to download a 3 gigabyte file.

Paul: Why do you have other things going on that maybe would impact?

Leo: I would like to download it put it on a usb key and in an orderly fashion have our IT department install it one by one. We certainly won´t, you know we´re running Windows 8 on our editor´s machine, you know what I should just run back and talk amongst yourselves I´m going to run back and see if the editors have it because we could have a problem here, because if they do and they reserve it.

Paul: When you say Windows 8 do you mean 8.1?

Leo: Yeah, well I don´t, whatever, we bought these Dell editing boxes, actually here comes Alex to tell me. We control Windows update, and they don´t see the little thing? Yeah we´re using app locker right, or something like app locker.

Paul: Are you on a domain?

Leo: We have a Windows update server, yes. Are you on a domain Alex? Yes, we are. What´s the name of the domain Alex? Leo´s house.

Paul: Wow.

Leo: No, I guess we are.

Paul: Well humorous aside.

Leo: I had no idea we were so sophisticated. We do control updates for the main reason.

Paul: But the domain is the reason that you don´t.

Leo: Yeah and we do use app locker I think, we got app locker.

Paul: The way you could have through policy, even with like a mobile management solution, blocked that update that delivers the software, that would´ve done that.

Leo: I´m sure that we´ve done that.

Paul: I don´t know that you would´ve even known about it. I mean honestly until now.

Leo: That´s a good thing.

Paul: Until today, knowing know that this happened you might retroactively go.

Leo: Alex says none of the editors have been bothered by anything remotely looking like life itself because they get to stay in a sealed booth all day.

Paul: Are they the Morlocks?

Leo: They´re Morlocks. No, they have not been bothered by the little pop up, which brings up the other, which you kind of, but, I know I´m going to get lots of calls on the radio show, lots of people thought this was a virus because we´ve trained them.

Paul: By the way, this is what makes me crazy about Microsoft’s inability to communicate everything about this, because, we already, look people like us, all 3 of us are kind of a front line of sorts of support, we´re going to get these questions, Microsoft must get these questions times a million. If the answer which is there, at least we could, you know it´ll still be a little bit of a pain but we could explain it.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: And actually Mary Jo I´ll ask you this question, we never talked about this but knowing that Monday they were going to announce the date and that it was almost certainly going to be July 29th you kind of, I do, I should say I had this idea in my head about the type of thing that I might write and the thing that I wanted to write or the thing that I sort of thought was the story was that Microsoft is going to release Windows 10 on July 29th, that´s the story. But you know what the story really is, you have a stupid icon on your computer and here´s why. And I didn´t write that story and it really bothers me because even right now I´m getting emails from people who are like did you know that this is happening, and they put a little picture of their tray with a little flag and it´s like I wrote this story on Monday but I didn´t really because what I wrote about was the release of Windows 10 and in that story it says oh by the way you´re going to see this tray icon thing. But of course, you don´t think the, I didn´t, I don´t know about you but I didn´t think this through and the real story, because this is freaking people out, is you´re going to see this icon and here´s what it means.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Did you write that story? I don´t mean to put you on the spot but I didn´t think around it.

Mary Jo: No, I did not.

Leo: Because she´s not sensationalistic.

Paul: No, no, no.

Mary Jo: No, but you know what I thought, I thought we would get some information but not all because the strategy as it always is with anything about Windows is trickle things out as long as possible and just give drips of information over time right.

Paul: Dribbles.

Mary Jo: So there´s never going to be a day I don´t think when we know all because they want us to keep coming back to the well for more.

Paul: That day of great epiphany. I await this day.

Mary Jo: I think, if I were them and I mean, they have whole teams for doing this I´m just putting this out there, I would´ve maybe taken over the Microsoft.com home page and put a thing out that said hey if you got this thing on your computer today don´t panic, this is what this is. Because how many normal people know to go to blogs.windows.com?

Paul: Or to go to Twitter and get an answer from Gabe Aul personally?

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: Yeah but nobody does that.

Paul: That´s what I mean.

Leo: Most people they call Leo on The Tech Guy on Saturday.

Paul: The other thing is, I´m not a sensationalist, you know I´m not a conspiracy theory kind of guy or whatever but I just spend a lot of time criticizing companies like Google and Facebook in particular for their kind of privacy invasions, real or imagined and it´s hard to look at this and there´s no chance to get rid of it you know, for a normal human being like no one normal would ever know that you could get rid of it or you might do it, I have a problem with that because there are people out there that don´t want this thing.

Leo: It´s not as if they pushed a U2 album on my hard drive or anything.

Paul: By the way it´s a little bigger than a U2 album.

Leo: I think in companies in increasing arrogance, companies don´t understand this is my computer, it´s the same thing with smartphones and everything else, this is my hardware not yours.

Paul: I was just going to say that, except this is an ugly reminder that it´s not.

Leo: It isn´t, I know.

Paul: It is your hardware but this thing that we´re all looking at, this Windows thing.

Leo: We´re borrowing it.

Paul: You´re borrowing it, just like you´re borrowing the air, you don´t really own it.

Leo: Yeah, but it would behoove companies, yes that´s the legal truth to pretend otherwise, pretend, maintain the fiction that this is my computer please.

Paul: It is shitty to be reminded of this.

Mary Jo: I feel like things are changing, expectations are changing now and so people who have been doing this a long time like us, we have this set of expectations of how we´re going to get an update to anything, a browser, an operating system, but the people who have not been using Windows for 20 years or whatever.

Leo: They don´t know.

Mary Jo: They think hey it´s awesome if I get updates all the time and I don´t really need to know about that.

Leo: Well you know the other side to that is 90% of people in their homes never bought a copy of Windows in their life. Windows to them, goes with the thing, with the machine and that´s that.

Paul: All these people think Office is part of Windows, but then why would they need to know? It´s like, I thought the steering wheel came with the car.

Leo: It´s like you got a pop up on your windscreen that said your new steering wheel is almost ready would you like to reserve it today? What?

Paul: Right. Mary Jo, actually both of you have met my wife, she´s really smart, she doesn´t care about technology at all, I´ll go up to her office occasionally, I hate doing this because it´s always so disappointing but I´ll look at her computer and she´s been getting these pop ups, you got to do something with Windows, you got to install these upgrades, you got to do whatever and she bunches them down in the corner so she can´t see them anymore you know and it´s like okay, so I can only imagine, I haven´t asked her about this I should ask what she thinks about this. To me that´s kind of a normal person´s reaction because she uses the computer as a tool, she´s trying to get work done, Windows is bothering her, she doesn´t care what it wants, she´s trying to get work done you know and I just, I don´t think they thought through the various reactions that people were going to have to this, not to mention the reactions of the people who didn´t get this that really want to have this you know, which is interesting too.

Mary Jo: Yeah, the other thing to point out again because we´ve said this a few times but just so people know, if you take this one year free deal and you sign up and you reserve, it means you´re going to get everything from Microsoft, I believe it means you´re going to get from Microsoft through Windows update all your security fixes, your new features, everything, pushed to you automatically and I don´t believe that you can delay that.

Paul: Let me add a nuanced addition to that I guess, which is if you look at the, where did I see this, I think it was in the matrix of updates, they mentioned that with Windows 10 home it is not possible to differ those updates, and remember when they first announced free Windows 10 and we were talking to these guys after the show and they said, one of us asked does this mean that you´re going to basically require them to accept these updates and they said yes. That version, Windows 10 is that version explicitly.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Windows 10 Pro and then Enterprise, both which can be managed by businesses, have the ability to differ updates, differ doesn´t mean say no, it means say no for a little while, postpone, yeah. I think that with, if you´re on Windows 10 pro like I will be on all of my machines, I would have the ability, I don´t know what it´s going to look like, but I think there would be the ability to certainly ignore optional updates and even just choose not to install some critical updates, but then over time they would have to come, yeah. I think that´s what this means.

Mary Jo: I think so too, although again this is another one of those gray areas they haven´t explained. That´s around those servicing branches right, there´s current branch which means you take everything automatically, and then there´s the current branch for business which means you´re going to have some ability to postpone but we don´t know for how long but it´s definitely not forever.

Paul: Oh so actually it´s what you just said.

Mary Jo: The only ones who can postpone for 10 years is Enterprise customers who have access to long term servicing branch.

Paul: The way that you just said that makes me wonder now if I as an individual can in fact differ that maybe you have to in fact be a business to get on the business what did you call it?

Mary Jo: The current branch for business thing?

Paul: Business branch.

Mary Jo: I think, I think anybody who has Pro is going to be able to, but again, when I´ve asked that question I haven´t gotten a straight answer.

Paul: I mean, these answers have to be out there somewhere, why don´t they.

Mary Jo: Yeah, they´re out there somewhere.

Paul: And we´ve all asked, we´ve asked right?

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: All of us, not just Mary Jo and I.

Leo: I guess what I´d like to know and what I´d like to be able to tell people who are less sophisticated than the people who listen to Windows Weekly, should they say yes? Should they update? Because that´s what basically you´re saying yes to, I want to update the minute it´s available.

Paul: So that answer is actually easy to answer, the answer is yes. It depends, and I will say this in defense of Microsoft and Windows 10, this is going to be the easiest upgrade and probably the most reliable upgrade that they´ve ever done to a new version of Windows.

Leo: That´s good to, I want to hear that, so you feel that way. You really feel like this, nothing could possibly go wrong.

Paul: Yeah, I can prove it but obviously things can go wrong, the problem with Windows is that there are a billion different hardware combinations in the world and there´s all kinds of things that can go wrong. But the reason that we know that this one is different and is better than the previous versions of Windows is that for the first time ever Microsoft is the one handling the updates. Remember, if you go back to Windows 8 or Windows 7 or whatever, and let´s say it was 3 months before the new version of Windows came out.

Leo: Wait a minute, did you say, I´m sorry, the reason you donut have to worry is because Microsoft is handling this?

Paul: Yes, hold on, no, let me explain what that means. Not because Microsoft is more capable right?

Leo: Okay, yeah.

Paul: But because Microsoft is confident enough to take on that responsibility, in the past, PC makers were the ones that had to handle this and that´s why you used to see these things. HP would say, HP or Dell, I´m using HP as an example but any PC maker would say obviously you can go to a store and buy an update but because you bought the computer from us in a certain time frame, we´re going to give you a free or low cost upgrade package and it would typically be delivered as like a disk you get in the mail but maybe in recent years you get like an electronic version and the PC maker would support that and in order to support that they would have to do all the testing to make sure that every driver worked you know fine and it would work. Now that doesn´t preclude the owner of a PC from doing something screwy to it that they don´t know about and something could go wrong but when that happened the support would go to the PC maker not to Microsoft, that was always the relationship, the support relationship

Leo: Right, this is the first time this changed.

Paul: That´s what I mean, not because I think that Microsoft is more credible or more able to support this.

Leo: Well maybe they are.

Paul: But the very fact that they´re taking it on tells me that they feel strongly that this is going to work really well and if anyone´s, look we´ve had all kinds of screwy experiences during the beta and everything but when this thing goes out the door the goal is to have this thing tested on as many hardware configurations as possible, more than any before, to have drivers that are tailored for that particular configuration that we´re all getting generic Intel drivers, generic Radeon drivers, generic whatever drivers, that you´re going to get the drivers that are specific to your machine through Windows update not through the PC maker but through Windows update. I´m not saying, listen all kinds of things are going to go wrong, of course, but it´s going to be the best and most reliable upgrade cycle ever.

Leo: Okay, and everybody who listens to this show or watches the show, those are the people that will be asked by friends and family well what should I do? So this is for all of us, normally we would say wait, wait, you may have, you know an old version of Roxio CD creator that crashes and you won´t be able to use or worse that Windows crashes because of it. We won´t know that on day 1.

Paul: I don´t actually think there´s going to be a lot of that, I really don´t, and the reason is it´s not a major platform change, I don´t, there are not a lot of stories of you know Photoshop element 7.0 just doesn´t work for some reason on Windows 10 or whatever, you don´t really hear that, I don´t think that´s going the be a big problem, it doesn´t mean it´s not going to happen.

Leo: It has a very extensive public beta, presumably, virtually every piece of software has been tested on it.

Paul: So here´s the thing though, what do you, what´s the advantage of it? In other words are you going to go through the, it´s not the owners hardship it used to be but it´s still, you know, if you´re being pragmatic about it you should be backing up and making sure you can recover from this.

Leo: Yeah, there´s no opportunity to do that.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: You can, no, no, you can as an individual do that.

Leo: But they´re not telling people that, they´re just saying hey good new you´re going to get it.

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: I´m sure the day they send you the notice and say hey it´s coming there probably will be some things in there that I would think like back up you know, be ready.

Paul: It´s also the first version of Windows that supports the ability to roll back to the previous version.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: I´m going to predict something, I bet you they won´t say back up and be ready because that would imply.

Mary Jo: Do you really?

Leo: Yeah, remember what is the goal here? The reason they did this stupid, I think, as it was, is because they want to get everybody to install Windows 10 as absolutely quickly as possible. So anything that´s a speed bump including.

Paul: I´ll take this a step further, I think they want to announce on July 30th that more people have already upgraded to Windows 10 than are using an iPhone or something you know. They want some number that they can match to some number of users over here and say more people on day 1 are already here than there. Whatever it is. I think that´s what.

Leo: So the last thing they want to do is to give people any trepidation at all.

Paul: But you have to have confidence that this is going to work, you´re not going to, you know, you can´t do that unless the underlining system has evolved over the past several versions which it has, to you know, remember Windows updates, Windows upgrades used to take hours, a clean install in Windows used to take hours, it was an all-day fare to get all your apps installed and all that stuff. You know, you could go from Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 in about 20 minutes and for the most part, again no promises here but for the most part if that thing doesn´t work for some reason you can then roll back to the previous version.

Mary Jo: I don´t know, I think I would still be, I hear you on saying this is going to be the smoothest and the easiest at least in theory, update of any Windows release but, I don´t know, if I were going to upgrade somebody else´s PC like a family member who didn´t have technical support, I think I would wait, I do.

Paul: That´s what I mean, in other words the question is why? Why would you do this?

Mary Jo: Why? Because the first wave of people

Paul: No, not why, I mean why would.

Mary Jo: I was going to say the first wave of people who get it are going to be the guinea pigs and they going to work out a lot of the bugs.

Paul: I meant the opposite, in other words, why would you as the person thinking about upgrading, why would you do this? What is it going to give you that you don´t already have?

Mary Jo: Right, you should wait, you should wait.

Paul: Yeah, at least a month I mean see how it goes, enjoy the horror stories on the local news when everyone loses all their data.

Leo: What happens if you decline? Does that icon go away? The answer, Paul, is you can´t decline.

Mary Jo: I know, you can´t.

Paul: I was going to say I don´t recall that being an option.

Leo: You cannot decline.

Mary Jo: You just shut that off or hide it.

Leo: Well you have to know enough to uninstall it or hide it, but it does not go away, there´s no way to say no, I don´t want it.

Paul: Right.

Leo: That´s telling!

Paul: They´re going to give you an offer you can´t refuse Leo.

Leo: That´s exactly right.

Paul: It really is.

Leo: We would like to make sure that you and everyone you know install Windows 10.

Paul: If you have a Hololens an actual hand with a ring will come out toward you and you can kiss it.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: I don´t understand, I really, there is a certain arrogance of this application that I have a hard time reconciling, especially because I feel like Microsoft, over the past several years specially has done a really good job compared to Google or Facebook in respecting people´s privacy, in fact being a little bit annoying about it. Little too many times, yes, yes, yes, I know, I know, yeah, locations, got it, you know like, you have to really explicitly tell it that it´s okay to do everything so the phone just works or the PC just works, and then they put this stuff on your computer.

Leo: Let me recontextualize this, it might make it crystal clear.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: I´m sitting here and my Windows got a little pop up that says hey good news the next version of Candy Crush comes out July 29th, would you like to reserve it? And that´s it.

Paul: It´s like one of those joke applications where you, it says this new thing is coming would you like it and then there´s only one box and it says yes.

Leo: Yes, it´s exactly like that.

Paul: And you´re like, uh, okay.

Leo: And by the way, I am going to willy nilly get the new version of Candy Crush on my PC aren´t I?

Paul: Oh yes, you are.

Leo: See, right there.

Paul: I know.

Leo: You see.

Paul: I don´t like that one either.

Leo: I don´t want it.

Paul: Sure, I don´t like the fact that they´re advertising new apps in the start menu, I get that it´s, you know, some people will like it.

Leo: This is an advertisement, there´s no way around it, this is an advertisement.

Paul: I agree.

Mary Jo: Yeah, I think they would even agree.

Paul: Actually it´s not an advertisement, this is like when you join that Columbia record club and if you forgot to send back the thing, they would just send you the tape or whatever, so like Vanilla Ice arrives in the mail and you´re like I didn´t order this but you didn´t say no either so what is this thing? I didn´t want this, it´s, it´s, I don´t like that. There´s, I don´t know what you call this, but it´s not a positive thing, you know whatever that word is.

Mary Jo: I think it´s reflecting like I said the changing set of expectations about what people are going to get and how they´re going to get these updates, new releases.

Paul: Okay listen, I´m kind of a devil´s advocate thing, I´m just trying to think this thing through because one of the comparisons I´ve always made in the past when we talk about Windows phone and getting updates and everything is it´s every day, we update apps and no one thinks anything about that but Microsoft can´t ship like a security update or whatever, when Apple updates iOS you get a prompt and you install it, and I think you can put it off but I think eventually I mean I guess you could just keep putting it off, but they kind of bother you about it.

Leo: No, the way it works is initially the only way you would know is if you went into the update section of your settings.

Paul: Yeah there´s like a little, it actually says.

Leo: But it waits for some time, a considerable amount of time before it gives you a notification.

Paul: But eventually you do have to install it or not?

Leo: No.

Paul: So you never actually have to install it?

Leo: Never have to and I think, and the chatroom fill me in, but I think you do get a notification to make it a little bit more in your face and I think that if you swipe that away, if you say okay got it and you don´t do it, that´s it.

Paul: But, okay so I´m glad they don´t force it on you but it´s fair to say.

Lao: They encourage it.

Paul: But Apple has always talked about how a huge percentage of their users upgrades to the newest version every single time.

Leo: That´s how their users are, they want the new version, they don´t have to coerce them.

Paul: That´s what I´m saying, in other words, we´re kind of defending the every man here in saying that this is kind of own and that some people certainly won´t like this but I think it´s fair to say on mobile platforms that people are fairly accepting of it right?

Leo: They´re a little more used to it and they want it.

Paul: Yeah, and they want it, yeah, yeah, so I mean, is this, are we making something out of nothing here? Or is this in fact a serious issue? Based on that.

Mary Jo: It´s a change right and people get nervous around change.

Paul: Is that the problem just because it´s different we´re freaking out about it.

Mary Jo: I think so. I mean the part I´m the most freaked out about on behalf of the common man as you say.

Paul: We are all commoners after all.

Mary Jo: How long can you differ updates? I´m very curious about that and if it´s a month, is that enough for IT? For everyday home users? Oh well you´re just going to have to take them, that´s it. You´re going to get them whether you want them or not, whether you´re ready or not here they come.

Paul: There´s no pleasant way to say that is there?

Leo: Yeah and I guess my only real concern, again, anybody who listens to this show knows what´s going on.

Paul: I tend to hear from people that are more concerned that they´re not going to get it right? Because a lot of the people, I write for tech enthusiasts where people want, you know we want this thing and so a lot of my emails from people freaking out because they don´t see this icon and they see everyone else is getting it and why have I been excluded and what does it mean and when or how can I get it? I mean I do, I think we all do right try to think about how does this impact normal people?

Leo: Where´s my vuvuzela? I got to play the fanfare for the common man.

Paul: Is it like a King Crimson song or something?

Leo: No, come on! This is good stuff. I´m sorry, that´s silly, I should just stop right now. She said, Mary Jo said the common man and I though, well, just an excuse to play a little Mussorgsky or whatever this is. Alright so moving on, we´ve talked enough about the bad, the button, we know we´re going to get it, we´re going to get it.

Paul: Oh you´re going to get it! You´re not going to escape just like that guy from FIFA is not going to escape.

Leo: Yes, think of yourself all as the the Sepp Blatter of.

Paul: Yep. This is our role in the world, without the money.

Leo: People are asking, remember we had, the only reason I did it because Microsoft sent us a kit and everything on Windows 7 launch party, remember that with the cards and the balloons. Are they going to do that? I would have a party if they send me balloons I´ll do it.

Paul: No, I think this time around they chose the stuck net approach they´re just going to jam it in there.

Leo: It´s going to happen, you don´t get a choice.

Paul: Then they´re going to release a press release telling all the people that upgraded. You´re going to wake up one day and just have it. What the hell happened to my computer? By the way there are going to be people who don´t even notice.

Leo: That´s the question, what would you see, you´ll see the new notifications center instead of the charms.

Paul: Will you? You really have to go out of your way to even find that thing.

Leo: What happens if you do Windows CE? Nothing? It goes away?

Paul: Actually that brings up the Cortana.

Leo: Okay so you want to shut down your PC, you´ve been trained after some years that you do Windows CE.

Paul: I suppose you can tell Cortana to shut down your computer.

Leo: And then your machine instead of putting up a charms bar it´s going to say yes Leo. That could be scary.

Paul: And you know what the first reaction to that is going to be?

Leo: What?

Paul: I think I got a virus.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Actually Cortana unfortunately does not go yes Leo, Cortana says I would like you to configure me now so you can use me and you go through a multistep process before you can even use her. But then she´ll say yes Leo, or in my case yes boss because I like that.

Paul: You don´t use El Jefe?

Leo: El Jefe? Oh I might now, yes El Jefe, El Patron. Yeah, there´s a lot of things, you know that´s fun to teach Cortana to call you something else.

Paul: Right.

Leo: Okay.

Paul: What else can we beat to death today?

Leo: Yeah well we beat this one to death, that´s nice.

Paul: Well that was line 1.

Leo: This is a multiline document and you said we´ll have lots of time for questions later.

Mary Jo: We´re definitely going to let people ask live questions.

Leo: I got a question, you want to do it now or we could do it later.

Mary Jo: I don´t know, what do you think?

Paul: It doesn´t matter.

Leo: I´ll tell you what I´l keep on eye.

Paul: We´re not going to have any answers anyway.

Leo: Here´s a question, I´ll pretend it´s from the chatroom, Tech potato asks in the chatroom, what if my machine really isn´t up to par for Windows 10, I guess it is because anything that runs Windows 7 and 8 will run Windows 10 right? What is I don´t have 3 gigabytes free?

Paul: You´re going to have to get them.

Leo: Find them.

Mary Jo: Go get some.

Paul: So actually that´s going to be a concern with some of the mini tablets specially that have come out in the last year, there was talk at some time that they were going to enable the server sd and I´ve not heard about that so I don´t know if that´s going to be automatic or how that´s going to work but I would assume that´s the case I mean a lot of these tablets just default configuration don´t have 3 gigs free.

Leo: It´s anything under 1024x600 will have problems right?

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: Nice guy says in the chatroom.

Paul: Yeah that´s the minimum res.

Leo: So you wouldn´t get that pop up, so my WinBook which I can´t even install updates, isn´t going to go to Windows 10.

Paul: Sure, I mean are there, I don´t think they´ve sold any in the past year or so that have.

Leo: Oh yeah this was the one remember that we were all talking about, the $59 dollar tablet.

Paul Yeah but I think that was one with 1024x600.

Leo: Oh maybe it is.

Paul: I think so

Leo: So, okay. You know what, I´m going to boot it up and I´ll let you know.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: This is going to be the most widely distributed virus ever made.

Leo: If somebody hasn´t yet written that article they will.

Mary Jo: There is a check, a checking tool there that tells you if you have enough space and the right system requirements.

Paul: Yeah, and that´s the thing that Leo, he said that it flashes by really quick, it is hilarious.

Leo: Is that what it is, because I couldn´t read it.

Mary Jo: Doesn´t it send you an email though?

Paul: I can tell you how to get back to it because, I don´t know why it works the way it does, it´s just broken but where is this thing? So if you go to, right click on that, choose, it doesn´t matter what you choose, check your upgrade, you´ll see it will flash and it disappears, now click on the hamburger menu, I know it´s so stupid, yeah click on that and then check your, oh it just says, that´s interesting.

Leo: It tells me I´m an expert, I like that.

Paul: No, skip that, go to your PC is ready.

Leo: Your PC is ready.

Paul: And it tells you, yeah, you don´t have any issues.

Leo: Is that the screen that goes by so fast that I don´t.

Paul: Yes, that´s the same screen.

Leo: Microsoft, did they not test this?

Paul: This is just an early indication of the quality you can expect when Windows 10 comes out.

Leo: Because seriously I´ve done this on several machines and in no case did I, could I read it.

Paul: If you had any issues that item would have said check your PC and on my computer and I find this to be very strange, there is one device that has a problem, that is not fully compatible with Windows 10 and it is my AMD Radeon HD 7570 which has to be the most common video card ever made so I don´t actually think there´s a problem with it, in fact, I think this was, remember they said in the last build that edge had a problem with certain Radeon cards and there was a fix, I think this is all that is but, anyway that´s the screen that flashes.

Leo: How do I close this window? I can´t get it closed. Apparently I´ve made it big.

Paul: Oh you´re probably in tap, oh, I see oh, just right click in the task bar, just right click on the flag, no not that, the big, over in the middle of the screen, on the bottom.

Leo: Sorry, I´m making you crazy.

Paul: The application button that looks like a flag, it´s in the middle of the screen, no, no, not in there.

Leo: This one?

Paul: On the task bar Leo.

Leo: Oh this one?

Paul: Yes. Does it not? No?

Leo: No.

Paul: Wow.

Leo: I guess it´s a one way, maybe I can right click and close Windows, there we are! Ah thank you, thank God! Don´t you love it kids? I do this to amuse the children, it´s like a little, it´s like a birthday party act. Uncle Leo´s going to show you how stupid he is now.

Paul: It´s a good thing my Microsoft band doesn´t have a blood pressure measurement. I want to drink some orange juice.

Leo: This is when you need a Microsoft bob, WJKO says you seem frustrated, have you considered Linux?

Paul: You seem frustrated, would you like to write a threatening letter?

Leo: We have a thought for that. What gets, this is actually a line that you have in here that we really should cover, when I do this and it looks like willy nilly I´m doing it, what is there anything going away like I´m going to lose Mine sweeper or something? What goes away when I install?

Paul: Well the big one, well I don´t know the big one but the one that caused the most consternation even though we knew this, was Windows Media Center, so if you have Windows 7.

Leo: Did they remove it?

Paul: Or Windows 8.1 with Media Center Pro, it will actually be removed, yeah.

Leo: Wow, Because it won´t run so they have to remove it.

Paul: Actually it runs fine, which is part of the problem about this but they don´t want to support it I think is the real issue.

Leo: That´s now they´re going too far, that is really a problem.

Paul: Well this is an application that has not been updated in several years right, I suspect it really is a support issue which I sort of understand, it got kind of a Mulligan in Windows 8 and 8.1, where they left it out there for people who wanted it, but when you think back in time, this goes back, Sinofsky did this and they did this with Windows 10, you know when people complain about Media Center, Microsoft has this way of giving you like the harsh reality. Sinofsky at one point, I don´t remember the numbers but it was like some tiny percentage of people than run Windows ever ran Media Center and 9 out of 10 times that they did it was a miss-click, you know like they ran it by mistake right?

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: That was the first little screw you that the Media Center people got from Microsoft, and then with Windows 10 what they said, I think it might´ve been Gabe who wrote about this, mentioned that the vast majority of people who use Media Center only use it to play DVDs, it´s not that traditional Media Center record TV stuff, and so what they´re going to do for Media Center people is that they will give you, I have no idea what form this takes, we´ve never seen it, I don´t know what this is but Microsoft says it will provide a free DVD playback app in Windows 10 for Media Center users. So they´re going to address it that way.

Leo: And they´re going to replace Solitaire and Mine sweeper.

Paul: Hover and Purple Palace and Pinball whatever that was called.

Leo: With Candy Crush saga.

Paul: Well that´s not preinstalled, you will get it but it´s not preinstalled.

Leo: That´s nice because that´s a big game so that´s not downloading I have to say I want it.

Paul: No, it is downloading, you´re going to have to download it separately, you´re going to get it.

Leo: By the way, let me just right this down, that´s the title of this show, oh you´re going to get it!

Paul: There are new versions of Solitaire and Mine Sweeper in Windows 10.

Leo: Oh there are?

Paul: They´ve been around for some while, they were available to Windows 8 users.

Leo: Right. But you have to download it separately.

Paul: They´re nice, they´re actually, they´re good games.

Leo: Will Clippy come back? Someone wants to know.

Mary Jo: No Clippy. Desktop gadgets, how about that? Some people really love them.

Leo: Oh that´s gone, right? We know that´s gone.

Paul: That´s another thing right, it was a Windows 7 era technology that was at that time supported, actually that one was from Windows Vista and in Windows 7 they kind of kept it around and it´s gone right in Windows 8 it´s gone.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: But you could upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 so what happens then they get it.

Leo: That´s who is going to be really disoriented, a Windows 7 user, because that´s the biggest, I mean that´s a big change.

Paul: It´s the biggest audience too.

Leo: Right, but again you have to proactively click that box and conform your reservation,

Paul: Yep, none of this should be a surprise, it will tell you this during set up, it´s not going to just, you know you´re not going to just boot into Windows 10 and then say hey what happened to those things I use every single day, like, they´ll tell you this.

Leo: What will happen, chatroom wants to know, Dallas wants to know, will there be significant differences in the Windows Live Mail client?

Paul: Well, okay, so the Windows Live Mail Client doesn’t ship as part of Windows.

Leo: That’s a separate download, right? So it would stay the…

Paul: So, you can still run it and it still works fine. If you have it installed they’re going to replace the OneDrive App with Sync Engine that comes in Windows 10, obviously. And then Windows 10 comes with its own mail, contacts, calendar apps, which are those universal apps.

Leo: And they’re quite good.

Paul: Yea, I mean actually, yea, I mean Mary Jo could…

Leo: If you’re using Windows, if you’re using the live client, you’ll like this.

Paul: Well, Windows Live Mail is like an Outlook type app, desktop application, it’s fairly, I don’t want to say complex, but there’s a lot, you know, a lot going on there. The mail app…

Leo: Sophisticated. Sophisticated!

Paul: There you go. I don’t write or speak for a living, so… I can’t think of words.

Leo: (laughing) I need words!

Paul: But the mail app that’s in Windows 8 or 8.1 or this new mail app that will be in Windows 10 is simpler. Although it’s getting pretty sophisticated. The version in Windows 10 uses Word, you know, for the rendering engine, for you know, you get a little Word toolbar and stuff. It’s pretty cool.

Leo: NT asks in the chatroom, “What will happen to people with hardware that’s only Windows 7, they’re only on Windows 7 drivers. What’s, will they automatically get Windows 10 drivers, will the stuff keep working, or is there going to be,” well, as you said, the compatibility of …

Paul: It will, it will work. I mean, the thing is, obviously you always want the latest version of drivers and the ones that are specifically designed for the OS version that you’re using. But if you have Windows 10 and there are only Windows 7 drivers for some piece of hardware, Windows 8 whatever drivers, they will work.

Leo: Yea. Okay. So it’s not going to be too disorienting for most people.

Paul: Oh no, it’s going to be horribly disorientating. I mean, I think, you know, like the Windows 7 audience is the big one. I think the nice thing there is, it’s a familiar desktop interface, you boot into it, task bar, start button, tray. You bring up a start menu. Windows run in Windows, not in full screen, which I think confused some. And that’s all good, it’s all fine. I think the new start menu is going to be different enough that people are going to pause on it, and maybe need to wrap their heads around it. They’re not going to understand the tiles, especially, I will, I mean, it’s goofy, but if you want to you can actually get rid of all that stuff and it will look a little bit more like Windows 7. And maybe some people will want to do that. I’m actually semi-surprised there isn’t a switch in settings that says…

Leo: Make it easy, yea.

Paul: …turn off the tiles. Just to, and I think that do a lot to help people coming from Windows 7.

Leo: It’s not too late. It’s getting close, but it’s not too late.

Mary Jo Foley: Getting close, yea.

Leo: You know, and I should be clear. I’m really excited about it. I immediately accepted on all my PCs and I want Windows 10.

Paul: Saying yes to an upgrade as quick as you can has never hurt anyone.

Leo: (laughing) well, I’m that guy. But you know, this Dell, the new XPS13, which I love, and by the way we’re going to talk a little bit about a sister version of that coming up.

Paul: Yep.

Leo: But, I love this. And it’s my, it’s Windows 8.1, it’s my Windows machine that I use most of the time. And I can’t wait. Of course I’ll upgrade immediately. I have resisted putting the BETA on here. I’ve only used the BETA in a VM. But which, by the way, somebody else just had the same problem. It broke my VM. I have to reinstall with the latest update. Seems like the VM is very confused.

Paul: Which VM are you using?

Leo: VMware Fusion on the Mac. And it just says, “uh, did you, what happened to this, did you copy it?” And then I say, “Yes.” And it says I can’t run it. I have to reinstall the ISO. That’s some weird thing. Windows 10 on the hardware that I’ve installed it on still is good. But I kept this machine pristine because it’s the production machine, so.

Paul: My biggest issue with Windows 10 remains and will not be fixed, and that’s just that the OneDrive Sync Client from Windows 8.1 is so awesome. I just can’t get over it. And there is no fix for this. There’s nothing you can do that makes it acceptable to me, like it’s just not as good.

Leo: What happened? What did they do wrong?

Paul: Well, remember they had placeholder files in 8.1. That means that from the file explorer you could see your entire, everything you have in OneDrive. And I have terabytes of stuff in One Drive. I can go back into my archives dating back 15 years. And if I want to, I can arbitrarily select folders or files and say make this available off-line. And if I’m on a plane or not connected in whatever way, they’re still available to me. And Windows 10 works like Windows 7 or Windows 8.0 or the Mac where you get a kind of a pop-up wizard and it says, you go down the little tree, select the stuff you want to see off-line, and it syncs it. But when you visit OneDrive and File Explorer or the finder, you only see the stuff you synced. You can’t see everything. And I hate that. I just hate it.

Leo: Oh.

Mary Jo: But they’ve said that’ll be coming before the end of this calendar year. The replacement for whatever placeholders is.

Paul: Yea, but so is Christmas. I mean, that’s you know, it’s not going to help me on July 29^th, or you know, help me today.

Mary Jo: No, it’s not. It’s not.

Leo: So, this is my OneDrive, and you know, so, okay. I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m sure it will make sense.

Paul: Well, by the way, so on that particular system, it’s likely that you don’t have enough stuff in OneDrive that matters.

Leo: I don’t. I haven’t done anything.

Paul: So you can sync the whole thing and not even think about it.

Leo: Right.

Paul: See, when you have as much stuff in OneDrive as I do…

Leo: Oh, I see, you’re not syncing it all. I am, I hear what you’re saying, right, right.

Paul: I can’t. I mean, I can’t. On my, on a Windows, if I install Windows 10 on any computer, it will say, it throws up a little warning, “We can’t sync all of this. So you need to tell us what you want to sync.” That’s a monotonous product, you know, project, going in and expanding folders and figuring out exactly the little bits that are important to you. And then, you know the nice thing about this current system I’m using, I’m still using 8.1 on my desktop, is, arbitrarily today I could be researching something, going through the folder, you know whatever folders, I did a bunch of stuff about Windows 95. I could go back to 1995, find some stuff I wrote about Windows 95 back then. And it’s just available to me. If I wanted to do that in Windows 10, I would have to open the Sync Client, choose those folders, sync it down.

Leo: That’s not good.

Paul: It’s garbage. It’s a problem. And I sort of understand, respect is the wrong word.

Leo: No, no, no, no. I don’t understand and I don’t respect. Because it takes no space to show you a stub.

Paul: Well, actually that’s the problem, it does take some space.

Leo: Well, a little bit, it’s not a huge amount.

Paul: Well, when you ship devices that have, what if I bought a device that had 16GB of storage? And I put Windows on it, and Office, and have zero bytes free or whatever, OneDrive couldn’t even sync. It couldn’t even show placeholders. That’s one of the reasons they had to change it, by the way. Because of all you cheap bastards out there buying these stupid little computers, ruining it for the rest of us.

Leo: But it’s a consequence of offering unlimited storage on OneDrive. And they didn’t, I guess they didn’t figure out, “Well, now what do we do about representing it on the hard drive?”

Paul: Oh, were you actually going to use that storage? How dare you?

Leo: So what that means is, yea they, you know Apple’s addressed this a little bit, because that’s what they do with photos. And then they put, what they, unless you specifically say I want originals…

Paul: They kind of expire them, don’t they, eventually? I mean…

Leo: What they do now, with the iCloud Drive which is this new thing they just introduced, is they, unless you specifically say, “I want the originals on my device,” they’ll put thumbnails, basically.

Paul: So you get placeholders. Same thing.

Leo: Essentially, yea. They’re bigger than just like a name, though, I mean you get the thumbprint, the thumbnail.

Paul: Well, yes, because it has to, by the way, that’s OneDrive in 8.1 Windows as well. It has to give you enough information to render a thumbnail in whatever size thumbnail you choose.

Leo: So what is, what is the flip over, I mean, I guess you made it, you had to do it manually and say “Don’t sync that folder anymore.” Because you put all your music in there for instance.

Paul: Yea, I mean, in my case, so in other words I get a laptop. And it has 128GB or 256GB of storage. I install Windows 10 on it. And nothing else is on it. OneDrive will have a little X on it, a little icon, and it will pop up a notification, “Configure OneDrive.” And I’ll get a little wizard. And it will say, “Choose the folders you want to sync.” And one of the choices is choose all the folders. And it will say, “Nope, we can’t do that.” Because I have whatever number of terabytes of storage used. It can’t, it can’t work. So, in this case there were no placeholders, it’s just syncing. So it’s going to get the actual files. And so I can go and check off, well maybe I want My Documents folder or something, even though that’s most of the storage, and maybe that’s 100GB or something, and so it would sync that. But when I, when I look at OneDrive in File Explorer, what I see is a Documents folder. What I don’t see is a music folder, a videos folder, a photos, a pictures folder or whatever, an OneDrive Camera Roll folder, whatever I might have in there. I can’t see it. And I can’t access that stuff. It’s just not available. Even though it’s up in the cloud. It’s kind of a tough, it’s a tough kind of compromise.

Mary Jo: That’s the end. They did it, sorry guys.

Paul: Oh, you’re getting it.

Mary Jo: You’re getting it.

Paul: Yep.

Mary Jo: And we talked about this last show. There are some people who are going to stay on Windows 8 because they can’t go without the placeholders.

Paul: Because of this.

Leo: Yea, yea. It’s just annoying because they’re going to continue to see that little icon nudging them, come on, you know you want to, come on, Windows 10, come on.

Mary Jo: Just hide it, just hide it.

Paul: And one of the things – yea, just hide it.

Leo: Do we know how much space it takes up, how much memory? It is one of those hot fix update files. You can uninstall it if you wish.

Paul: You can.

Mary Jo: Yea, you can.

Leo: And there’s information on the…

Paul: I mean I haven’t really thought, it’s funny, I don’t even know how to find this thing, it’s going to be…

Leo: It’s the latest hot fix, it’s in there. I can tell you the number.

Paul: Oh, no it is. You can see it. GWX of course. It takes up .4MB of memory.

Leo: Well, that’s not a lot, that’s not a lot now-a-days. God, in the old days, when you had 4MB of memory, that would be a significant amount. That’s not a lot.

Paul: It’s 372K of RAM.

Leo: 372, that’s not bad.

Paul: Private workspace.

Leo: But it’s just annoying, because it doesn’t do anything, it just sits there. It’s not really…

Paul: It’s like my son.

Leo: Yea, it’s like my son. A teenager.

Paul: It’s just taking up resources.

Mary Jo: Just hide it guys, hide it.

Leo: How-to Geek has an article.

Paul: Well, I wrote an article about getting rid of those file names.

Leo: Yea.

Mary Jo: Yea.

Leo: There are some – Zendrum in the chatroom is saying, “Oh, yea, there’s a Windows Registry Key that you can…” I think probably don’t do that. Do not disable GWX, and H key local software machine policies Microsoft Windows GWX.

Paul: I have no problem doing that.

Leo: That might have side effects, unknown side effects.

Paul: It is really small, it’s… I mean, there aren’t many things running on my computer that are this small.

Leo: Well, it should be small. What’s it doing? Nothing. It’s putting an icon on my system.

Mary Jo: Guys, let it go, let it go.

Leo: You know what, it’s a form of almost OCD, where I don’t want something running that, you know, I just don’t want it there.

Mary Jo: I like seeing the little Windows flag on my toolbar.

Leo: It’s reassuring, isn’t it?

Mary Jo: It is.

Paul: I can’t have enough of those flags.

Mary Jo: It reminds me that I’m running Windows.

Leo: Yea, is this a Mac? Oh, no, it’s Windows, yea.

Paul: Oh, thank God.

Mary Jo: I’m serious, I guess I don’t care. I never really…

Leo: No, and you’re probably like most people. Who cares? Okay. But we have now shown that at least Paul and I care. An hour and a half worth of caring.

Mary Jo: Yes (laughing).

Paul: When caring is scary.

Leo: We care way too much. Let’s take a break. I want to shave. I’ve got my Harry’s! You like your Harry’s, Paul? You use Harry’s right?

Paul: Yep.

Leo: Love it. Harry’s is a relatively new company, they send you, well the idea is you buy razors and blades direct. Harry’s is kind of special in some respects though, because they don’t, they make their own blades. So, you know, you’re buying, I guess what I should say is that you’re buying from the factory. Factory direct. This all started when the guys who started Harry’s, you know, startup guys, right? They always, they wanted, how is it done right now? And how do we make that better? They inquired around and they say, “Well, who makes the best blades? Where would we get them?” And they said, “Well there’s only two factories; they’re in Germany.” So they bought one. That’s the kind of thinking I like. They just said, “Well, good, we’ll take it. Wrap it up, we’ll take it home.” So now they own the factory that makes them. So they can say to the factory, you know, “We want these blades to be sharp. We want to design them for ultimate performance. And they’re going to sell them direct to you so they’re about half the cost of the drugstore blades. And they’re great. You start with a Harry’s kit. This is the Truman kit I’m playing with right now. That’s… different colored handles. With every kit – Truman Kit, $15.00, by the way. You get the handle that you’re going to keep using, three Harry’s blades. You get the blade cover which is great for travel. You get your choice of foaming shave gel or the Harry’s cream, which comes in a tube. And then you can subscribe and you can keep getting updated on the shaving cream and the blades every month or so, whatever you want. I think the default was every other month. I just it’s just, these are great blades. And $15.00 is a great deal. I’m going to make it even less. When you go to harrys.com and use the offer code WINDOWS and you’re going to get five bucks off, which makes this $10.00 for the kit, for the whole thing. And it’s not like it’s a sample size of the shave cream, it’s a full size tube or jar, tube or aerosol can or whatever they call that. I’m really a fan of Harry’s, the shave I get is amazing. And I think if you look at the Twitter, and I know I get plenty of tweets from Harry’s users who found out about this on our shows, who say, “You’re right. Best shave I’ve ever had.” A great shave. Quality craftsmanship, simple design, convenience because of the internet. And by the way, Father’s Day is coming, they have a special Father’s Day kit that includes of course the razor, but also this really nice cast aluminum razor holder. It’s very heavy, it’s nice, you get it monogrammed for dad. I am just a fan. I want you to try it. Harrys.com. Take a look. They also have a metal handle, the Winston Set. That’s the one I use. And I love, every month I get my Harry’s box. And I just know that I’m always going to have a fresh blade because I don’t have to worry about that anymore. And you know, that’s nice. You’ll get a better shave every day if you change your blade once a week. And with Harry’s, that’s easy and affordable, too. H-A-R-R-Y-S, harrys.com. And don’t forget, please use the offer code WINDOWS to take five bucks off your first order. Harrys.com. Paul Thurrott, Mary Jo Foley and we are taking Windows 10. July 29^th. Paul says it’s okay, go ahead, confirm your reservation today.

Paul: You’re paraphrasing there, but.

Leo: (laughing) get first in line.

Paul: Yea, don’t be such a wimp, just do it.

Leo: It’s funny, Gabe Aul says, “If you’re a Windows Insider, you’ll be first in line.” But don’t we all get it at the same time, I mean, is there?

Paul: Yea, but you know being first in line doesn’t help when they’re letting people in the front door that aren’t in line, you know what I’m saying?

Leo: Yea, there’s no velvet rope, folks. Just get in there. Do we know, they haven’t said really, will it be staged or anything? I mean, is it all going to happen the same time, or?

Mary Jo: We don’t know.

Leo: I know I keep asking questions for which there is no…

Mary Jo: We’ll just keep saying we don’t know.

Leo: We don’t know. Well let’s move on to Computex, shall we?

Mary Jo: Yea.

Paul: Please.

Leo: The big Taiwan show. Have you ever gone?

Mary Jo: No. Have you?

Paul: No, no.

Leo: No. Ryan Shrout goes every year from our This Week In Computer Hardware.

Paul: I’ve thought about it.

Leo: It looks like fun. And …

Paul: I wish it was in, you know, Iowa instead of Taipei.

Leo: It’s in Taipei, yea. But I saw Dell, some nice new machines. I have the, this is my favorite Windows machine right now, the XPS13. They’ve done a 15” bezel-less. But as you were saying, Paul, before the show, the only problem with having no bezels, there’s nowhere to put a camera. So, the camera for your Skype is down here at the bottom.

Paul: There’s plenty of bezel on the bottom of that thing, just add another quarter inch at the top and put in a camera. Why do they have to be so cute about it?

Leo: I guess you’re right. They could do it that way, huh?

Paul: It’s so strange.

Leo: Yea. Because the camera looks up your nose a little bit right now.

Paul: Yea, nobody wants to look at my jowls, you know.

Leo: I should open, open Skype. By the way, you probably have it in here. You might want to update your Skype.

Mary Jo: Oh, yea, we do have it in there.

Paul: Oh, yea, yea, yea.

Leo: Don’t open Skype until you made sure you have the latest version because there’s a little something-something going on. Skype vs. Skype Wi-Fi. Oh no, that’s the free Wi-Fi stuff, all right.

Paul: We’re never going to get to any of this stuff.

Leo: Okay.

Paul: I don’t know how we’re going to do this.

Leo: What kind of exclusives will Microsoft offer Windows 10 Enterprise users? I don’t know. New Windows 10 PCs out of Computex. What’s really new? I don’t know. You want to pick some, Paul, that you want to…

Paul: No, no, no. This is the thing I was talking about earlier. Honestly, you know, like the XPS15. Beautiful machine, it’s a laptop. You know, so, there aren’t crazy new form factors coming. It’s going to be more of the same of all nicer, thinner, lighter, better, better light. Windows Hello! Cameras on some, Windows Hello! Fingerprints on others.

Leo: Oh yea, we should, we’ve talked about those before. Is there enough difference in the Windows 8 machines or the Windows 10 machines that you really want to get a Windows 10 machine?

Paul: No. I think the basic device always remains which is if you need it, buy it. And if you don’t, don’t worry about it.

Leo: If you need it, buy it. Here’s what you can expect from new Windows 10 PCs. What? They look nice. I like that Acer all-in-one, that’s pretty.

Mary Jo: I like that weird plug one. Quanta Compute.

Paul: Yea, yea.

Leo: It fits in a plug?

Paul: Yea, you’ll see a picture of it.

Leo: This red one is an HP. Is that a stream, is there updated stream?

Mary Jo: There it is.

Leo: What? It looks like a USB dongle.

Paul: Well, you know, it’s like the Intel Compute Stick. Sure.

Leo: That’s a computer?

Paul: Sure.

Leo: What do you mean, sure? What do you mean, sure?

Paul: A Raspberry Pi 3 is a computer. An Intel Compute Stick is a computer

Leo: And this is running… What is this running?

Paul: Windows 10.

Leo: This is like, ok, ok, ok. And it’s called the Quanta Compute Plug. What it would be suitable for? I see it has an HDMI port, two USB3 ports. It’s plugged into the wall so it doesn’t need a power supply. It is the power supply.

Paul: Yep. It is, right.

Leo: It’s probably cheap, right?

Paul: You could also probably use it to charge an iPhone, so it’s not completely worthless.

Leo: That’s hysterical. But, I mean, seriously, could I run a web server on it? What am I doing with it?

Paul: It’s Windows. You can do whatever you want on it. I mean you could plug the HDMI into a monitor, mouse and keyboard.

Leo: Does it have USB, I mean Bluetooth?

Paul: I do not know, but I bet it does.

Leo: Sure, why not? It’s free. Raspberry Pi has Bluetooth, doesn’t it? Yea.

Paul: Does it?

Leo: That’s wild. We live in amazing times, Paul. This is more powerful than the ten thousand dollar Deck computer I had with a Pentium 90 in it.

Paul: And yet, we’re awfully cynical about it.

Leo: I know, you, you… this is amazing. Do you understand? This is amazing.

Paul: I know.

Leo: It plugs, it’s a…

Paul: Here’s the problem, Leo. The longer you’ve been on the planet, the more cynical you tend to get.

Leo: I love this. It’s cute. The Raspberry Pi does not have integrated Wi-Fi or Bluetooth yet. Okay. So I don’t know what this has. Who knows? No one knows because Paul just has a picture of it. Is it a gaming PC (laughing)?

Paul: No, we know that. We can say with some certainty, it’s not a gaming PC.

Mary Jo: It’s probably not, yea.

Leo: Is it ARM? Or is it, no, that would be Intel.

Paul: No, that would be like an Atom type thing.

Leo: Oh, it is, it’s an Atom. All right. Anything else, there’s lots of… that’s it.

Paul: I don’t see any point in putting up a bunch of pictures of PCs and talking about specs. They’re PCs. You know, they’re, there’s no surprises here.

Leo: Paul, this is your business, is doing, what… you sound like you’re burnt out now on this stuff.

Paul: No, I care about Windows, I don’t, this stuff to me is like, whatever.

Leo: Monetized products, huh?

Paul: Yea.

Mary Jo: Here’s how they describe it. Compute Plug is a mini-PC power adapter. Can be plugged into any outlet and connected to a TV to turn it into a smart computer that can be controlled using Cortana via a Bluetooth remote or headset.

Leo: Bluetooth works.

Mary Jo: Bluetooth.

Leo: Bluetooth works.

Mary Jo: Bluetooth. It’s in there.

Leo: Wow.

Paul: Makes a Roku look like the piece of junk that it is.

Leo: Wow.

Mary Jo: At Computex, what Microsoft did was they got up on stage, they showed a whole ton of new form factors and said, “You know, what, all of these are going to run Windows 10.” And there’s going to be even more. I think they said something like there’ll be 300 devices running Windows 10 right out of the gate, or something. So, they’re ready, this time, with some new PCs. Where’s the Surface Pro 4?

Paul: But that’s the point. There isn’t any new shocking hardware necessity.

Leo: Oh yea, where is the Surface Pro 4?

Mary Jo: We don’t know about the Surface Pro 4.

Leo: They didn’t announce it at Computex, that’s all we know.

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: Nor was it expected to be.

Paul: That’s true.

Leo: Okay.

Mary Jo: But you know, like Paul’s saying, right now they’re just like, “Yea, more two in ones, more this, more that.” We’re waiting to see something really crazy, new, different. That’s something you’d say, “Okay, that’s a really different, new Windows 10 PC or at least a Surface Pro 4,” and we haven’t been seeing those yet.

Leo: Haven’t seen them.

Mary Jo: Or the next Microsoft band, by the way, which we don’t know if it will run Windows 10. Maybe someday the Microsoft band will run a version of Windows 10, but right now it’s just running firmware and we don’t know if that will change.

Leo: Just running firmware.

Mary Jo: In two.

Paul: It’s Linux for all we know.

Leo: Just running firmware.

Mary Jo: It’s not, it’s not like Windows 10 embedded or Windows 10 IOT. Right not the band does not run Windows.

Leo: Ah.

Paul: Yep.

Leo: That’s cool.

Mary Jo: Yep. Lots of new stuff.

Paul: It’s fairly telling that there’s so much going on this week that one of the things we should skip over is the new build that was released last week, because it’s really not that interesting.

Leo: I think that’s the one though that clobbered my VMs. I don’t know.

Paul: It could be. It could be. But let’s not worry about that one. Instead, I think, Mary Jo, maybe you could talk a bit about pricing, because I think that’s going to be important to people.

Mary Jo: Yep. We should talk about that.

Leo: OEM pricing.

Paul: Both.

Mary Jo: Both, actually.

Leo: Oh, okay.

Mary Jo: So originally Microsoft was not going to talk about Windows 10 pricing this week. This was not the game plan. Then New Egg accidentally posted some pricing that turned out to be the pricing for the OEM versions of Windows 10. We think.

Leo: But that’s the problem. You know, a lot of times retailers put dummy pages up.

Mary Jo: I know, right. And I wondered if…

Leo: So I wasn’t willing to really assume anything from that post.

Mary Jo: Me either. I wasn’t here, but.

Paul: Well, one thing though. I will say this. I actually, now that we know the retail pricing for Windows 10, I think the pricing for OEM is going to be basically what they say. It’s ten dollars off Windows 8 OEM pricing, I think it’s…

Mary Jo: It is.

Paul: That’s about right, yea.

Mary Jo: So yea, what New Egg said was, “Windows 10 Home for OEMs and systems builders would be $110 and Windows 10 Pro $150 per copy.” Then Microsoft changed their minds, I guess, and decided that they would tell us the retail pricing for Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro for fully packaged product as they call that. So Windows 10 Home and Pro will be priced exactly like what they were priced with Windows 8.1, which is $119 for Home and $199 per copy for pro. So these fully packaged products are for people who can’t qualify for that first year free deal among others. Some people want the fully packaged product because they want to be able to install the operating system on multiple machines, which I don’t think you’re legally supposed to do, but I’m not…

Paul: Not at the same time.

Mary Jo: Right. Not at the same time. But you can do it. But with the Windows 10 free first year deal, you’re going to be able to re-install Windows 10 on the same machine but not install that exact same copy on multiple machines. So the pricing is the same for the fully packaged product. It again, it’s $119 for Home and $199 for Pro. And that is verified by Microsoft. They did give us those prices. The New Egg prices for system builders, we don’t know if that’s correct. And the other interesting thing was New Egg said system builders would not get that until August 31^st. So that’s a whole different date than July 29^th.

Leo: Wow. That’s a lot later.

Paul: Oh, that’s new. That’s interesting.

Leo: That’s a month later.

Mary Jo: Yep. We didn’t know, but we don’t know if that’s correct, or again, was a placeholder.

Paul: Oh, I’m sorry, you’re talking about, yea, yea, yea…

Leo: That page on New Egg is still up.

Paul: I think that actually, I’m sorry. I think that data is a placeholder. The whole thing is a placeholder.

Leo: They left the page up, right?

Mary Jo: Yea they did.

Paul: No I think it’s real. They’re obviously going to sell this thing, and they can change the price and availability, it doesn’t matter.

Mary Jo: Right, they could. You could order it and they’ll ship it to you when…

Paul: It’s something that’s going to happen. They’ll adjust the price if they have to.

Leo: And the date, you know, when it went up at first we didn’t have a date. And the date was right, so, maybe…

Mary Jo: Yea, we don’t know.

Leo: We don’t know.

Mary Jo: Another one. We don’t know.

Leo: Well, I think, I remember about Ed Bott said, “This is, now we know.” And I thought, “But Ed, we’ve seen this happen before where it’s just bogus.”

Paul: I think it’s, look, they’re going to sell this thing, it’s going to be roughly that price, it’s going to come out something this summer.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: There you have it.

Mary Jo: There you have it.

Leo: Don’t let me slow you down, if you know what you want to talk about. I’ve lost my way.

Mary Jo: I think we’re done with Windows 10. What do you think?

Leo: We’re done. Done.

Mary Jo: I think we’ve said enough about Windows 10.

Paul: For today, yes.

Mary Jo: For today.

Paul: You think an hour and forty five minutes is enough?

Mary Jo: I think it’s enough. We have a couple other stories we should mention.

Leo: I am really pleased that Microsoft has now bought every gosh darn iOS app I use, including Wunderlist.

Mary Jo: Wunderlist.

Leo: Wunderlist.

Mary Jo: From 6wunderkinder.

Paul: I don’t understand this purchase at all. Can I be open about that?

Leo: So they bought Acompli and they got e-mail, an iOS e-mail…

Paul: Ok, first of all, they bought Acompli and what they got was a mobile version of Outlook that runs in iOS and Android. Huge.

Leo: Huge.

Paul: Huge.

Leo: They bought Sunrise, Ditto Calendar.

Paul: Calendar, I don’t know about that one. We don’t know how much they spent on Sunrise.

Leo: By the way, Acompli has a calendar in it, so maybe they didn’t really need that.

Paul: Yep. But seriously, a to-do app? I mean, seriously.

Leo: Well, I use it. It’s by the way, it’s a cross-platform to-do app, that’s why I use it.

Paul: But they have this functionality in Outlook, they have it in OneNote, they have it. I mean, I don’t understand.

Leo: But OneNote’s overkill for to-do, though.

Mary Jo: It is.

Paul: Okay, but the person who wrote the blog post announcing they bought it was from what group, Mary Jo?

Mary Jo: OneNote. Which makes you wonder, what are they going to do with it, right? What are they going to do with Wunderlist? Are they going to make it a subset of Outlook, are they going to keep it separate and take the to-do functionality out of OneNote?

Leo: I think this an acknowledgment that everybody does everything in mobile. And in some cases, mobile first. So, I don’t want to run…

Mary Jo: Yea, but OneNote runs on every mobile.

Leo: Yea, but I don’t want to run OneNote for my to-do list.

Paul: I hear what you’re saying. OneNote’s on Apple Watch. It’s on Android-ware. I just don’t get it, I think there’s going to be a backlash to this. I think Microsoft is going to have 127 mobile apps, all of which do one thing, and it’s just going to be… we’re going to spend the rest of our lives documenting every stupid minor update to every stupid mobile app, and I just don’t understand the strategy here.

Mary Jo: Well so, I think one reason Microsoft bought them was because they wanted – well, first, they want to spend overseas cash. These guys are based in Berlin. Second, they wanted to get into, a foothold into the Berlin start-up scene which is quite active, right? And they didn’t really have any presence there to speak of. So I think they’ve got that now. But yea, to your point…

Leo: And Satya Nadella wanted to be able to say, “Ich bain ein Berliner.”

Paul: Yep.

Mary Jo: Exactly. Now he can. So, yea.

Leo: I mean, I have used every to-do list app there is, and I ended up with Wunderlist because – there’s even a Chrome extension for it. There is, you know, when I hit tab in my Chrome in every platform including my Chromebook, there’s my to-do list. It works, yes, it works on the watches. And in a better way than Outlook. I mean if you wanted to use Outlook as a to-do list, having, the fact that you can do it on your watch, but it’s not, it’s a OneNote, you just want a to-do list.

Paul: Well, I guess what I’m saying is, it wouldn’t be hard for Microsoft to put a to-do list …

Leo: And extract that. No, they’re buying users, they’re not buying the app.

Paul: I think it’s brand than users, but…

Leo: They’re buying the brand, the users, maybe…

Paul: But what the theory, I mean, how much do you suppose they spent on this thing?

Leo: Between a hundred and two hundred million dollars (laughing).

Paul: I have a news flash – for developers listening to this show right now, here’s an idea. First of all, stop developing for Windows, obviously. And port your productivity apps to iOS and Android and hope Microsoft buys you.

Leo: Guess what, Paul? They’ve known that for a while. The day Instagram sold for a billion dollars, every college kid in the world changed their major to iOS app development.

Paul: But what I’m saying is, for Microsoft specific people, that’s where the action is. They’re buying…

Leo: A lot of kids that were learning, you know, Visual Studio and C#, quickly changed their tune.

Paul: It just makes me want to cry.

Leo: It’s the future, Paul.

Mary Jo: The future…

Paul: I don’t like the future.

Leo: Well, we knew that.

Paul: I like the past.

Mary Jo: Ok, think of... I was thinking about this today. Microsoft used to have, and really bet their whole business on products that did everything. Like SharePoint is a great example.

Leo: Yes, Omnibus, Omnibus program.

Paul: Integration over… What do you call it when you have apps that do one thing? What’s that called?

Mary Jo: Now their strategy… Their strategy now is let’s get a bunch of apps that do one thing.

Leo: There should be a name for it.

Paul: What do you call that? It’s the opposite of integrated experiences. It’s stand-alone experiences.

Leo: It’s how computing began. Remember, that’s what the benefit of UNIX was, a lot of simple applications that did one thing well, sed, awk and grep, and you would chain them one to the other.

Paul: The history of our industry is really a history of, I have Lotus 1-2-3 over here, I have Word Perfect over here, how do I get these things to talk to each other?

Leo: Yea. I know, I understand, we solved a problem.

Paul: I mean, and this could be some future Microsoft regime, are they going to be like… I have it, I have it. Why don’t we take our e-mail app, right, work with me on this one.

Leo: Chop it up into pieces.

Paul: And we’ll combine it with a to-do list over here, and the calendar list over here, and we’ll call it something. And then it will be just like one thing.

Leo: That’s one of the reasons I always hated Outlook. It put everything into a giant hairball PST file. I always hated Outlook, it tried to do too much. You could make the argument that Microsoft Word became the most bloated piece of software because it had every check box on the feature list that you could imagine. And all of a sudden, Microsoft says, “Wait a minute, nobody knows what this thing does, we have to reinvent the UI so that people can find functionality. This is…”

Mary Jo: You guys know I am not a fan of OneNote at all because I think it does too much. And I think it’s really confusing to use it.

Leo: Exactly.

Paul: OneNote, you think OneNote does too much?

Mary Jo: I think OneNote does way too many things. I think …

Leo: People don’t even know that it does to-do lists, I betcha.

Mary Jo: Guys, Notepad. Just leaving it there.

Paul: You’re both betraying me today.

Leo: (laughing) You sound, Paul, you sound like the guy Dvorak who said, “I don’t want to do this could thing, it’s back to the old days of client-server computing. I don’t like it. I don’t want to do cloud.” We are in a way coming back to the way it used to be with cloud, aren’t we?

Mary Jo: Yes.

Leo: This is more of the same. It turns out UNIX had everything right. We’ve had a horrible three decades.

Paul: Leo, I gotta go do cron job, I’ll be right back.

Leo: Exactly! Get your command line on. I guarantee you the next version of Windows will be command line based.

Paul: There’s a thing… well, I don’t want to ruin your thing. No, no you’ve got something about this.

Leo: I’m just saying, Paul, keep the rights to the Delphi 3 Super Bible. It may come back.

Paul: I would give anything for Pascal… Could you imagine what the world would be like, how awesome it would be, you know. I’d be the happiest guy. I would be a different human being.

Leo: I can promise you, the Skype Messaging flaw, the, Apple had exactly the same flaw.

Paul: Actually, wasn’t Skype written in Pascal for a while?

Mary Jo: Was it really?

Leo: But I think both of the flaws…

Paul: I think it was. I think Skype until fairly recently was.

Leo …were buffer overflows that would have been eliminated by strong typing.

Paul: Eliminated? They would never have happened.

Leo: Right.

Paul: Right.

Leo: Because you can’t do a buffer overflow in Pascal. It won’t let you. No, I don’t think…

Paul: This world stinks.

Leo: Are you wanted to malik that? No, I think that…

Paul: Malik?

Leo: Yea, no malik-ing.

Paul: Are you going to alac or malik?

Leo: Yea, no malik-ing. Stern copy? Not on my watch!

Paul: Oh, boy.

Leo: I’m sorry, I’ve lost my head.

Paul: You’re killing me.

Leo: It’s a little geeky here. So…

Paul: All right, anyway, I’m sure Objective-C has its nuances.

Leo: No, no, no, no. We’re not going back to Objective-C, I promise you.

Paul: All right.

Leo: We might be going back to assembly language though, that would be a bitch.

Paul: That would be… talk to Steve Gibson.

Leo: There you go.

Paul: Actually the only thing smaller than this Windows App would be a Steve Gibson app. You know?

Leo: That’s right. Steve could have written this in five bytes, I promise you.

Paul: And there would have been a no option too.

Leo: Microsoft Wi-Fi, I just saw Skype Wi-Fi and I was very confused by it. You saw that. It happened live on this show.

Mary Jo: Oh, yea?

Leo: Because I saw, I hit the Window key, typed “Skype” and then I said, “What’s Skype, Skype WiFii? What is that?”

Paul: Skype Wi-Fi is something that everyone sees by mistake.

Leo: Yes.

Paul: Right? You’re in a new place, you’re trying to get online, and all of a sudden Skype pops up. Hey, I can help with this. And you’re like, “I don’t use you for this, go away. What is this?” Like, it is kind of a weird thing. Anyway, Mary Jo, I’m sorry.

Mary Jo: It’s all right. You need to rant. You ranted.

Leo: They’re re-naming it though, right?

Mary Jo: They’re re-naming it, right, so.

Paul: I’m going to grab a copy of my Delphi book and just rock in the corner in the fetal position.

Mary Jo: Skype Wi-Fi, you know, it’s a service that lets you get on hotspots all over the world, whether you’re in restaurants, in airports, whatever. And now, Microsoft’s going to rename this Microsoft Wi-Fi, and possibly add…

Paul: So to be clear, I’m sorry to interrupt, so be clear though. It’s not designed, I supposed it could connect to free Wi-Fi hotspots. It’s not like that feature you get in phones, you know, connect to free spots.

Mary Jo: Right, no.

Paul: You have credit with Skype, and you pay…

Mary: Right, you use Skype credits, correct. You pay for it.

Paul: It’s a pay as you go kind of thing.

Leo: Anybody in the chatroom use this?

Paul: Does anyone actually use this? I mean, it’s amazing how often I see it.

Mary Jo: There are people somewhere who use this.

Leo: I thought of it briefly.

Paul: I think we’ve considered it. Nice. I think we’ve all considered it briefly. A reading from the chapter, TObject.

Mary Jo: Yea, but now, there aren’t that many of, comparatively speaking, not that many hotspots that are Skype Wi-Fi hotspots. But when Microsoft rebrands this to Microsoft Wi-Fi, they are going to expand it substantially it looks like, from the leaked sites that went up. It’s going to now be over ten million Wi-Fi hotspots all over the world. They’re going to make it available to Office 365 Enterprise Subscribers, and it’s not clear if that’s going to be paid or free. They’re going to make it available…

Paul: So I take that to mean that the organization could establish a pool and policies for this that could, maybe you get a certain amount of money per month you can apply towards these, you know, hotspots or whatever. That kind of thing.

Mary Jo: Yes. And Microsoft Work and Play Bundle will get that, you know, which is the bundle of services. Right now they offer Skype International Calling as one of those things in the Work and Play Bundle. But they, it sounds like they’re going to add this new Microsoft Wi-Fi. And so the question is, why are they doing the rebranding? I think part of it is, well, I think the real reason is probably because of the whole One Microsoft push. And we know that they are trying to now use Microsoft as a brand as we’ve seen on Surfaces, for example.

Paul: Totally agree. And just by the way, the fact that we’ve all been confused by Skype Wi-Fi, I think also says a lot. You know, if this Microsoft Wi-Fi thing popped up in windows, I think most people would say, “Oh, ok, cool.” Were as Skype does it and you’re like, “What’s that?”

Mary Jo: Yep. They’ll be apps, you know, there’ll be the Android app and the Windows Phone app and Windows App, and it will all let you connect to the new Microsoft Wi-Fi service at some point. So Microsoft’s acknowledging, yes, this is happening. They just say they are not ready to announce it officially, and they aren’t giving us any more details yet. But it’s coming. There you go.

Paul: Yep.

Leo: There you have it.

Paul: There’ll be pre-paid cards as well.

Leo: Oh, nice.

Mary Jo: Yes.

Paul: You can give them as gifts; throw them in a Christmas stocking or something. Who knows?

Leo: You know we were talking about that messaging bug. I thought that was very interesting. Apple still has not to my knowledge patched their messaging bug, more than a week later.

Paul: Right. Microsoft did it really quick through Skype.

Leo: How quickly did that get back? Like hours.

Paul: Three or four hours. Yea.

Leo: Nice job. Same idea though, you could send over Skype Chat a malformed message. It’s clear that hackers are looking at overflows in these messages, and by doing so I think you could make it so Skype couldn’t launch at all, right?

Paul: Actually you know, it’s funny. We were talking about one of the primary issues of our age was, you know, how do apps communicate with each other. That’s also one of the primary ways you attack a system, is those places where apps talk to each other. Whatever, I mean, it’s maybe not surprising.

Leo: You have to sanitize your inputs. And you have to make sure there’s no buffer overruns. But they did, they fixed it right away. Which doesn’t necessarily they’re better, nicer people. It might be that…

Paul: No, it doe literally mean that, but go on.

Leo: It might mean that it was less tightly integrated into the, you know, for instance, Apple’s using Core Text, which is a fundamental kind of object. It’s like a TObject, Paul, to put it to terms that you might understand.

Paul: I do now understand what you’re saying. Although TObject is the fundamental object.

Leo: Yea, it is the object. That’s what the T stands for, the. But because it’s Core Text it might be that that’s more than just patching, you know, a little bit of this or a little bit of that.

Paul: I don’t think we need to give Apple an out. Microsoft did it quick, and Apple didn’t . Let’s just leave it at that.

Leo: I know, I like it. I know, Apple still, we’re still waiting. And the problem is, these are really nasty little pranky kind of things. All it takes is cut and paste.

Paul: Sure. It explains why so many people tried to friend me this week on Skype. It’s like, “Applelover would like to friend you.”

Leo: By the way, it didn’t affect Macintosh Skype, just Windows and Android and iOS. I think iOS Skype was affected.

Paul: Oh, does it, was it?

Leo: I can’t remember anything, it doesn’t matter, it’s fixed.

Paul: Not surprisingly there are a bunch of new Skype versions released this week.

Leo: Yea, update your Skype. Now’s the time.

Paul: It updated.

Leo: Microsoft is going to hike by 13% its user client-access license prices as of August 1^st. Thanks for that story. Microsoft…

Paul: I think we could do that for all four of the remaining stories.

Leo: Mary Jo, I’ll give Mary Jo a chance to say it.

Mary Jo: That’s all I’ll say about that. So Microsoft hasn’t publically said this yet, but if you are somebody who uses user-cals, which are licenses for a lot of the Microsoft Enterprise products like Lync and Project Server and System Center and Windows Server. You should know that the prices of these are about to go up by 13%, which is a pretty hefty price hike. So, if you can renew now, before August 1^st, you might want to look into doing that. That’s it. That’s all I’m going to say on that. The end.

Leo: The end. Don’t forget about Games for Gold. What’s new, Paul Thurrott, on our Games for Gold? Paul Thurrott has the story. Xbox, Paul, I’m talking Xbox.

Paul: No, I know. There’s some new games, as you would imagine. Actually I think the bigger deal this week, this month, isn’t so much the free stuff, although that’s important, this is kind of a reminder. As the, I don’t talk about this as much but there’s a Deals for Gold program as well, where people who are on Xbox Live Gold get to buy certain games for often steep price reductions. And a bunch of the Call of Duty games are available. And that’s kind of a big deal for me because I bring the console around and play Call of Duty up the street with some guys, and I hate, you know, it’s always like one of the disks is scratched, and how do you do this, my son has his console, we only have one disk. So a bunch of these Call of Duty games are all like half price right now. So I actually just bought a bunch of them again, but in digital form so now they can sit on the hard drive and I don’t have to worry about disks. So, you should check out both. Make sure you look at Games for Gold as well as Deals for Gold.

Leo: I do. Every month I go, “What do I get today?”

Paul: Deals for Gold is more frequent. I don’t know if it’s every two weeks, or I think it’s more than once a month.

Leo: So I bought Master Chief Collection, but it did not include Halo 3 ODST, is that right? I thought it was everything.

Paul: It was all the Master Chief games. So Halo 3 ODST came out between Halo 3 and Halo 4. It was a side story to Halo 3, does not involve Master Chief, so they didn’t put it in the collection. But now they’ve re-mastered that for Xbox One, they’ve made it part of the collection for people who bought it before Christmas basically. I think the date was December 26^th or something of last year. If you bought it before that time, you’ll get it for free. You’ll get a code in your Xbox Messages. You can, you know, enter the code to redeem it, you’ll download that and have it. If you bought Halo Master Chief Collection after that date, you can buy it through the store for $5.00.

Leo: Got it.

Paul: It’s a good game.

Leo: Yea. Well, it’s, you should have everything. That’s why God made Halo.

Paul: So next, this coming Christmas or holiday season, we’re going to be able to go through this Gears of War. They’re going, there’s going to be a Gears of War Collection.

Leo: Oh really?

Paul: Yep. I can’t wait for the new Call of Duty Collection.

Leo: They never released Gear of War for the One did they? That’s right.

Paul: No, so this is the, we’ll be able to get all four games basically.

Leo: The classic Xbox game. That’s a great game. But wait, come on, really, now that you have Call of Duty, you don’t care about Gears of War anymore, do you?

Paul: You know, there are certain games, Halo falls in this category and Gear of War falls in this category, where I just like the single player game.

Leo: The classics.

Paul: Like I’ll play through them. They’re good.

Leo: I think of it as Call of Duty Brown.

Paul: (laughing) I think of it as Call of Duty with men wearing giant diapers and I can’t jump or go under the 2^nd floor of a building. They just…

Leo: You mean you can’t climb that wall?

Paul: They just run around, you know, run around on the ground.

Leo: I’m going to have to stay on the ground.

Paul: It’s good, though. It’s graphically good. I don’t like the, I’m not a big fan of the multi-player game. That’s what it looks like to me, I don’t know.

Leo: (laughing) I’m sorry. Did we get, chatroom, did we get everything you care about deeply answered in the extended segment on the Windows 10 update button?

Mary Jo: Or not answered.

Paul: Is there any… I think the question is, is there anything else we can’t answer for you?

Mary Jo: Exactly.

Leo: There you go. There you have it. Somebody says, “The Windows 10 discussion. 2 hours. Must stop watching.” Okay, there you go. “I just realized I just lost 2 hours of my life that I’ll never get back,” says Textpotato.

Paul: Listen, nothing would make me happier than to wake up tomorrow to a 25,000 word Microsoft post that explains every single question we have and completely obviates the conversation we just had. I would be so happy.

Leo: Please, Microsoft, please, please. We still don’t know when 10 will hit the phone, that’s one of the questions. But they said shortly thereafter, implying, you said, a few weeks.

Mary Jo: Later, later this year.

Paul: It will be this year, I think.

Leo: This year, oh ok.

Mary Jo: That’s all we know.

Leo: This year.

Paul: I would expect that all the Windows 10 variants that we know about, HoloLens, Surface Hub, Xbox – Xbox may be in preview – Windows Phone. I think they happen this calendar year in some capacity. IOT. I do think it will be this year. I don’t think it will be August 15^th or something. I think it’s going to be a little later than that.

Leo: Battlecam says, “Please ask Paul about Windows 10 clean install. I saw something saying you have to upgrade then install from scratch. How do you do a clean install?”

Paul: Yea, we don’t know that. So, we don’t know. Microsoft has told me that there will be a product key that gets associated with your account and your computer, so you can later do a clean install. They have verified twice that they will do, they will support a clean install. What they haven’t said is, “We’re going to let you download an ISO,” like they do for Windows 8.1. My expectation is that that is fact how that works. When that happens, if it’s going to be July 29^th or later, I don’t know.

Leo: If you, we kind of skirted the who gets what discussion, but somebody – this is a legit question – if you have Windows 7 Starter Edition, what do you get?

Paul: Yep. Windows 10 Home.

Mary Jo: 10 Home, yep.

Leo: Home. So really, there’s only Home and Pro.

Paul: For the free upgraders, yea.

Leo: For the free upgraders. And so everybody will get home who doesn’t have Windows 8, 7 Pro.

Paul: Or Ultimate.

Mary Jo: Or.

Leo: Oh, Ultimate goes to Pro, ok. Anything… you know, you know what you get. Come on, knock it off.

Paul: I think most of that’s pretty straight forward. I don’t think it’s going to… Windows 8

Leo: But the starter was, the starter was like the Net Book version.

Paul: Yea, well Windows 8 went with Bing in that version in some ways. All of them.

Leo: But you get home, which is nice. There’s no Windows 10 with Bing.

Mary Jo: There is.

Leo: Oh.

Paul: Well, Windows, I mean, well, actually, you know what, though? I’m not 100% sure that that’s true.

Leo: I’m sorry I asked.

Mary Jo: Really?

Paul: I think that’s intel.

Mary Jo: It makes sense for them to have it, why not?

Paul: Because why?

Mary Jo: It’s not an end-user SKU. It’s an OEM SKU, right? And the reason they made it available was to make it, to make it so that people who aren’t getting Windows 10 for free as OEMs will still be able to get it very cheaply, right. So.

Paul: I mean, rather than inventing completely new version of Windows, all they have to do is just give them that license for free. Is this too simple? I don’t know.

Mary Jo: Yea, but…

Paul: I don’t understand, ok. It’s dumb enough that it makes sense. I hear ya.

Mary Jo: We saw a reference today in an intel road map saying there is a Windows 10 with Bing SQU. But Microsoft has not said that that exists.

Paul: Right. I think there’s a 50% chance that’s projection on his part.

Mary Jo: Oh, and by the way, I saw this question too. And I finally get the answer to this today. If you are one of those people who are running those K or N versions of Windows 8, which were required because of anti-trust actions in various countries, yes, there will be Windows 10 K and KNs.

Paul: Well, are you sure there will be K versions?

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: And N versions? Are you sure?

Mary Jo: Yes. Yep. I asked today.

Paul: Because I thought it was, I thought they were just going to get the standard version of whatever was the equivalent.

Mary Jo: No.

Paul: No?

Mary Jo: I found out today.

Paul: Why would they make special versions for this case?

Mary Jo: Because they have to legally.

Paul: But they don’t have to anymore. That’s the thing, it’s expired.

Mary Jo: I think they do in Korea and a couple of other countries, and that’s what those are.

Paul: Wow.

Mary Jo: Yep. Sorry guys.

Paul: That is so dumb. I mean they’re not going to get Windows Media Player?

Mary Jo: Yep, most people won’t see those. Most people will never see those. Unless you’re in countries where you have to.

Paul: Right, they didn’t sell well in Europe, I’m sure. I know they were massacred.

Mary Jo: K and KN. Yea.

Leo: All right. Is there a version of Windows Home Pro? NT swears in the chatroom, “I have Windows Home Pro.”

Paul: No, he has Windows Home Premium.

Mary Jo: Yea, Premium.

Paul: Windows 7 Home Premium.

Leo: Oh, what does that turn into?

Paul: Home, I believe.

Leo: Home? So if the word Home is in it, you get Home, if the word Pro is in it you get Pro.

Paul: Yea, so the starter… In Windows 7 there’s starter Home Basic and Home Premium. This is the one where they went nuts. Professional, Ultimate, Enterprise.

Leo: That’s so sad.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: That is so, so, so sad. All right, now. Does it matter, by the way, is there a big difference between Home and Pro Windows 10?

Paul: The big, well, yea. I mean, well, domain support, BitLocker.

Leo: Ok, well nobody needs that.

Paul: Well, BitLocker.

Leo: BitLocker, you don’t get BitLocker in Home, that’s too bad because that’s nice.

Paul: Hyper-V.

Leo: Ok, nobody needs that.

Paul: Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head that are important. There’s also..

Mary Jo: We don’t have the matrix yet with all the features. So.

Leo: So we don’t know exactly yet.

Mary Jo: There may be more features that are different between the two, but we don’t know.

Paul: Yea, I right. Those are the big ones that I can think of.

Leo: We don’t know what we don’t know what we don’t know. So I don’t know.

Mary Jo: Sorry, guys.

Leo: Let’s take a break, then the back of the book. Paul Thurrott, Mary Jo Foley. I’m Fred Barnes. And this is the show where we talk so much about Windows that perhaps you thought, “I would like to learn more about Office, Excel.” I don’t know, I wonder if Lynda has a Windows 10 course. I bet they’re working on it right now. Nope, just Windows 8.1. But you know they’re going to have a Windows 10 course before Windows 10 comes out. That’s how Lynda works. Lynda’s amazing. I think the human being is a learning machine and I think Lynda is the fountain of youth for the human brain. You want, you love to learn, I know you do. And Lynda.com is for you. It’s for problem solvers, it’s for the curious, for people that want to make things happen. Maybe you want to develop an app. I don’t know, a lot of people do. Developer training at Lynda.com is amazing whether you’re completely a novice or you know everything there is to know. 106 course on programming languages alone. 134 on web development. 58 on mobile apps. There’s a total of 3000 courses on Lynda.com. Courses that are done beautifully. They’re really, they’re designed to be easy to ingest, not just on your desktop but on your tablet or on your phone. The written transcripts mean you can immediately surf to the part of the course that you want. Click right there. They’ve got business courses too. Taking, you know, Master Excel. Or hobby course, like taking better photos, sharpening your photo… I wonder, you know, it would be kind of fun. I bet they don’t have any Delphi courses. Wouldn’t that be funny, Paul, if they did?

Paul: That would be awesome is what that would be.

Leo: No, they probably retired those. I’m sure they did. What they do have is great business courses. Fantastic business courses. Including advanced Microsoft Project, FileMaker Pro 14 Essential Training, The Foundations of Business Analytics. That would be a great way to get a great job, wouldn’t it? Operations Management Fundamentals, there’s even a course on Asking for a Raise. I want to take that course. Asking for a Raise. L-Y-N-D-A.com. Actually, I’ve been doing, I do the photography courses because that’s my favorite hobby, and they’ve got Bury Monroy, they’ve got some of the best photographers in the world. One of the things that’s really cool about Lynda.com is the teachers, like this guy here, Ben Long, who’s been on our shows many times, is a good friend of mine, they know their stuff. They know what they’re doing, but they’re also great teachers. It’s a very nice combination. If you’re interested, here’s what I would suggest. Go to Lynda.com/windows. We’re going to give you ten days to watch anything you want. 3000 courses. You could probably take more than a few in ten days if you’re really ambitious. Whether you’re learning to become and expert, you’re passionate about a hobby, or you just want to learn something new, visit Lynda. L-Y-N-D-A.com/windows. Sign up for your free ten day trial. Just, it’s food for your brain. Lynda. L-Y-N-D-A.com/windows. Try it today, I think you’re going to love it. Paul Thurrott, Mary Jo Foley, it’s time for the part we love the most. At least, I do. I call it the back of the book. It’s the fun stuff, the tidbits, the cool stuff. The tips, the beer. You know. Paul’s got a little tip for us. Paul, go ahead.

Paul: Yea, after I previously told everyone to stop learning how to develop for Windows, I will now recommend an incredible and lengthy series of videos that will teach you how to learn to develop for Windows 10.

Leo: Oh, neat.

Paul: And it’s hosted by Andy Wigley. He was one half of that jump-start team that did a similar video series I think, I think going back to Windows Phone 8 if not earlier. And also for Windows 8 and 8.1. And then Jerry Nixon, both of whom are developer evangelists for Microsoft. And it is a really comprehensive series as these things always are. It was originally delivered live over three days about two weeks ago. And now you can just download the videos from… actually it’s not Channel 9, it’s from…

Leo: Microsoft Virtual Academy.

Paul: Yea, Virtual Academy.

Leo: So, this would be for somebody who is a developer obviously.

Paul: Yea, in other words, you’re a developer and you want to learn how to develop for Windows 10, specifically what’s new.

Leo: And what’s unique about Windows 10.

Paul: Yea, all the new stuff. Awesome. Really, really awesome.

Leo: Nicely done. Microsoft’s smart to give these things away. That’s great.

Paul: Yep.

Leo: And, do you have a little software thing you like?

Paul: I do, and this one’s going to be a little strange for people, so you might want to sit down and maybe take a stiff drink. But, so my software pick this week is Google Photos. Which you may note is not available in native form. Actually it is in Windows, I should say, but not on Windows Phones.

Leo: On the Web, on the web it’s not on Window’s Phone.

Paul: No, there’s a, there’s a Windows application. And this is the reason I am recommending it. I thought that Google Photos got an outsized amount of attention from Google IO, given the amazing platform stuff they were talking about for Android and everything. And I kind of, I put it aside as something to write about and days went by and I sort of… you know, the more I thought about it the less interesting it seemed to me. But then I finally decided to look at it a little more deeply. And as it turns out, in addition to it doing all of those things you would expect on mobile devices, you can get OneDrive or Dropbox or the built in stuff that each of the platform makers has to back up your photos automatically from the phone, which is great and a very useful capability. But they also have a Windows application. And the Windows application is just a utility that sits in the tray and you point it at whatever folders have your photos. It will monitor those photos and it will sync them up to the cloud. And when you compare, and, I’m sorry, when you combine that with the fact that they’re basically offering unlimited storage for people that don’t mind there being a limit to the quality of the photos, that limit being 14 megapixels, right. And then 1080P video. And so if you have video or photos that are above those limits, they’ll be scaled down to match that limit. Which for me is actually not a problem. I think photos are one of those things where I think it’s important to have multiple places where they are, you know, in case something happens. What, having one of those places be a place that has unlimited storage is fantastic and is free. Fantastic. The only thing that’s missing for potential listeners here is the fact that on your Windows Phone handset there is no way to configure this to work. You need a Windows desktop PC. So you would have to sync your stuff down to the PC. But the thing that’s most, I still think it’s worth the effort, by the way. It can still, because you know, I think most of us do that anyway in some capacity, for the important photos certainly. But I was able to point this thing at my file share on my home network and it’s still doing it. It’s uploading my photos. It’s going to take a while because there’s, you know, lots and lots of them. But when you go to the site, is the other part of this thing that I think is really impressive. And there are different ways that you can look at your collection. You can look at, well they have collections, but… and they have albums, and they have all that kind of junk. But if you look at your photos, you can look for, it organizes them by people, by location, and obviously it does the awesome search stuff. It organizes them by things that are found in the photos. So Mary Jo and I both would have like, there’s one called Beer. Because I took a lot of pictures of beer for some reason, and there’s a whole beer collection in there. I find their ability to organize photos…

Leo: I have a lot of wine. I searched for beer and I got olive oil and wine. I don’t have any beer.

Paul: I really, I find it amazing how good the organization is.

Leo: Look at this, I searched for wine, and look at this. It’s every… so I take, so I like a bottle of wine, I take a picture of the label. This is… thank you, Paul. I love this.

Paul: Yep, sure. As one would. It’s amazing. I thought nothing of this when it was announced. I was confused why people were so excited about it. And then when I started using it, I thought, wait a minute, this is something really impressive.

Leo: It even finds wine. These are wine bottles in these little, in these pictures. It even found that. I mean, this thing is amazing.

Paul: As I would, I clicked on my face as one of the people to see what pictures came up. And as you might expect, a bunch of them are recent stuff. But a bunch of them are from thirty years ago, are from when I was a child, you know, it’s… there’s no other way to say it, it’s amazing. It really is amazing.

Leo: You’re not alone. Almost universally people are hailing this as a huge breakthrough.

Paul: I just thought it was goofy and undeserved, you know? And then as I looked at it, it’s like, actually wow. I mean, one of my things is cats.

Leo: Yea.

Paul: So I have pictures of my cats, but as it turns out, as we travel around the world, there will be a cat in a window, cat on a street, pictures of cats. Cats in a dryer, cats on my wife.

Leo: There is one funny thing in my cats’ pictures if I could find it here. Michael was sitting wrapped in a fur blanket and apparently they think that’s a cat too.

Paul: That’s nice.

Leo: Yea, but you know what? I might make that mistake.

Paul: I just think this thing is…

Leo: It’s pretty amazing.

Paul: It is pretty amazing. It really is.

Leo: 16 megapixels is the limit. I think they do some…

Paul: 16.

Leo: Yea, 16. I think they do some compression even, you know, if it’s less than that, but it’s pretty good, I don’t notice any, you know, flaws.

Paul: I think most of us have some solution for backup. What I’m saying is…

Leo: Yea, you should save your originals anyway.

Paul: This is free.

Leo: Right.

Paul: Just run the utility in the tray, point to all your photos, let it get them all up there, and then as you import new photos, just let it do it.

Leo: Yea, that’s what I’m doing. And you may still use OneDrive. It doesn’t, it doesn’t preclude that.

Paul: Yea, it doesn’t stop, yep. I do that I guess on Android phones… on all of my phones I configured OneDrive to do the photo backup.

Leo: Yea, me too.

Paul: But I also leave whatever’s on there, on there. So on the Android one, it’s this, and it’s still there. It’s fine. They don’t like, hurt each other or whatever.

Leo: Oh, this is hysterical. So in my cats’ pictures there are a lot of cats. There’s also a woman named Cat Schwartz (laughing).

Paul: Yea, that’s awesome. Well it is, by the way, it did say cats.

Leo: It’s a cat. It’s not wrong. Yea, just for the categorization. They have, I presume they do this oin Windows, I think they do. They have an uploader.

Paul: That’s what, that’s what I’m talking about.

Leo: Yea, and I uploaded almost 60,000 photos. Every photo I have.

Paul: And I should, I should add, I’m sorry. I did look at it during the keynote. And I looked at it on the web. And there’s a way on the web to upload photos, I mean, it’s fine, whatever.

Leo: Right, individual photos.

Paul: I’m not going to upload 25 years of photos that way, that’s stupid. But they actually have this Windows application you can install and it just does it in the background. And it, and it, well I was impressed, because a lot of the utilities won’t do this. I pointed it at, this thing’s on the network, it’s not on my PC here. Doesn’t care. No problem. So it’s uploading my entire photo collection.

Leo: Yea. Every picture I’ve ever taken, or at least saved on my hard drive, is uploading.

Paul: That’s pretty good.

Leo: And then it does the automatic, kind of, fancify pictures and things that Google + did.

Paul: Yep, haven’t even got there yet. But I’m just… what I’ve seen so far, it’s like, there’s no way I’m not doing this.

Leo: If you look at the bottom they have a creations tab. You can see their latest creations based on pictures that you uploaded. And some of them are from old pictures. So they’re doing animations, they do panoramas, they do, I mean…

Paul: Yea, if you do that type of thing where you take like a burst shot, and it’s a bunch of shots in a row…

Leo: That’s what this is, yea.

Paul: They’ll make an animation out of it.

Leo: And animated .GIF out of it. They do panos, they do kind of collages. This is a picture of…

Paul: You can go, you can click on a link and just see every video you’ve taken.

Leo: Yea. Right.

Paul: I mean, that’s something.

Leo: I found a picture, it’s, I mean already there’s been huge benefits to me. I found a video I took in 2001 of my son reading for the first time when he was 6. I remember, I knew I had it, but I didn’t know where it was.

Paul: So, that’s actually the thing that’s coolest about it. This morning when I woke up, and this is the second day in a row that I’ve done this, I see the thing down in the tray, so I click on it. And you know, it’s at some number of backing up. So you can choose view uploaded photos. And what is there at the top is whatever it just uploaded. So you start there. And in this case, I’m looking at it right now, it is, whoops, sorry, pictures of my kids in Washington D.C. in 2008. So it’s from some time ago, they’re tiny, they’re like little kids. And you find, you lose yourself in it. You just start clicking through photos and are like, “Oh, look at that.” Like completely forgot about, “Oh, yea, yea, yea.” You’re like… It really is, it’s astonishing.

Leo: And I never go around to, you know I take so many pictures, I don’t ever get around to going through them all.

Paul: Yea.

Leo: So the fact that…

Paul: I could make a photo album of just my daughter making funny faces. She’s, there’s a million of them.

Leo: Here’s a fun animated .GIF it made. This is the dryer here. I don’t know why it burst…

Paul: Hopefully not with a cat in it.

Leo: Yea, no. Oh, no, there’s not a cat in it.

Paul: It wasn’t in the cat folder was it?

Leo: No. Pretty incredible. I think it, I’m pretty sure it does go through raw images. I have a ton of raw images on my hard drive. For instance, this I never converted to a .JPEG. Not only did it find all the raw images, it turned it into an animated .GIF. It won’t save any, if you save raw images, and there is a checkbox to do that…

Paul: What are we looking at here? What is that?

Leo: That is a group called Flaming Lips. Wayne Coyne performing with a baby doll synthesizer in his arms.

Paul: That’s nice.

Leo: You had to be there.

Paul: It’s made sense at the time.

Leo: If you, if you copy anything bigger than 16 megapixels or raw, it will save it if you say to. But it counts against your total storage. But, you know, I have more than a terabyte, so, I don’t mind that. This is awesome.

Paul: It really is. It’s great.

Leo: Okay, Mary Jo Foley, enough singing the praises of Google. Give us some Enterprise good news.

Mary Jo: Yea, all right, well, I’m actually going to talk about Linux in the Enterprise pick.

Leo: Ooooo.

Mary Jo: The Enterprise pick is SSH, which is Secure Shell.

Leo: Yes, this is so exciting. Yea. This is from the Power Shell Group.

Mary Jo: Also, some people call it Secure Socket Shell, right? So Secure Shell is a UNIX based command line interface that many people in LINUX use for getting access to remote computers. Microsoft, believe it or not, is going to be integrating support for open SSH into Windows and Power Shell. We don’t know exactly when this is going to happen. We just know they’re in the early planning phases. They wrote a blog post about it this week. But it is coming. And I thought this was really interesting in the blog post, they said, “This is actually the third time that the Power Shell team has attempted to support SSH.” And then they say, “Given our changes in leadership and culture, we decided to give this another try.”

Leo: Mm hmm. I read between the lines on that one.

Paul: I thought, I thought that was an odd thing to include in there. I mean…

Mary Jo: I did too.

Leo: I did too. They’ve been fighting this, but you know Steve Palmer said, “Not on my watch.” But you know, people who use Windows and many of us need SSH, will have to install Cygwin, a third party program…

Mary Jo: Yea, third party, yea, right.

Leo: And it’s a pain in the butt. PuTTY, I use PuTTY. To put this into Windows, hallelujah.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: Mac, Macintosh has had it since forever. So, and it’s just a huge, important thing, you’ve got to have this if you’re a real operating system, I think.

Mary Jo: Good to see. Good to see it coming.

Paul: Understood.

Mary Jo: I mean, I wonder if it’s the next version of Windows Server by, which would be by early next year, or…

Leo: Well, they say it’s a power shell, right? So what does that mean?

Mary Jo: Yea, I think open SSH for Windows and Power Shell. So I think it’s building this into Windows.

Paul: Right.

Leo: I’ll give you an example. When I log into my web server, I usually do it via SSH. And it’s the easiest way to do it. When I transfer files I use secure FTP, which is essentially a form of SSH, or SCP is what I use. It just seems like that’s an easy… that’s what you need to have. I’m, I’m thrilled, and it is shocking, frankly, that they were allowed to post that blog post and basically implicate Steve Palmer and possibly even Bill Gates.

Paul: I am blown away by that.

Mary Jo: Yea, it was, it was a very telling and interesting line to throw in there. So, that’s the pick, come back soon.

Leo: Well, it’s like, it’s like saying, “Our long national nightmare is over.”

Mary Jo: Kind of, yea.

Leo: But they put LINUX now, you know, Microsoft has embraced LINUX.

Mary Jo: They have. And you know, especially because of Azure and running LINUX in VMs on Azure, it’s time for them to do this. So. Yea.

Leo: Is it SSH server as well as an SSH client?

Mary Jo: You know, because of where this blog post was posted, I’m thinking it’s server, but I don’t know that for a fact.

Leo: Yea. It makes sense in a command line interface because basically it’s command line.

Mary Jo: Yea, yea.

Leo: So I could see why they wouldn’t feel compelled to put it in Windows Server. Is there a CLI for Windows? I know there is, but is that commonly used for Windows Server, or does… I don’t know, who knows.

Mary Jo: I do not know.

Leo: Cool.

Mary Jo: That’s the pick, though.

Leo: Good pick.

Mary Jo: Yea, SSH.

Leo: I like it. And your codename? I like your codename too.

Mary Jo: Yea, codename. I brought this up a show or two ago, that there was something codenamed Highlander from Microsoft? And I had had it described to me kind of like Project Server Lite. Now I found out what it is. It’s actually one of these new portals that Microsoft is building on top of the Office graph. You know, they have the Office 365 Video Portal, and they’ve got a new Knowledge Management Portal that they’re building. Well there’s another portal. It’s a planner. So, again, kind of related to to-do lists, project management. And this thing is going to be called Office 365 Planner and the code name is Highlander. It’s being used inside Microsoft right now among Office 365 users I heard. And when I asked for comment about this Microsoft had nothing more to say. So, probably coming pretty soon I would guess.

Leo: Don’t they say, what is it they say on Highlander? There can be only one.

Mary Jo: There can only be one.

Paul: There can be only one.

Mary Jo: There can be only one.

Paul: And yet there were bunches of Highlanders for some reason.

Leo: But one at a time.

Mary Jo: One at a time.

Leo: One at a time.

Mary Jo: Right, because they used the Highlander codename quite a bit at Microsoft before.

Leo: Well, that’s true to life.

Mary Jo: Yea.

Leo: That’s funny. There can only be one.

Mary Jo: So that’s what Highlander is. So that’s good, good to know.

Leo: Yea, exciting. And what do you want for some, let’s have some beer. I think we need some beer.

Mary Jo: Yea, let’s have some beer.

Leo: What do you say?

Mary Jo: Yes. My beer pick is a sour. I don’t think I’ve done one recently. Or maybe I have.

Leo: I don’t think so.

Mary Jo: It just feels like I’ve been drinking a lot of sours. And this one, Avery Raspberry Sour, is really good. It’s not too sour, and it really does smell and taste quite a bit like raspberries. But it kind of does the sweet and sour thing really well, offsets the sour with the sweet. Avery Brewing is in Colorado. I bet Paul’s been there on one of his field trips.

Paul: Oh, I was literally there just two months ago.

Leo: Nice.

Mary Jo: Were you really?

Leo: Very nice.

Paul: They have a brand new facility, it’s amazing.

Mary Jo: Oh, nice. Have you ever had this?

Paul: That might be my favorite brewery in the world.

Mary Jo: Paul? Have you ever had this one?

Paul: What’s the name of it, sorry?

Leo: The Raspberry Sour.

Mary Jo: Avery Raspberry Sour.

Paul: I’m not sure I have. But I’ve had a bunch of sours from that, from Avery.

Mary Jo: Yea. Really good. Very smooth, easy to drink, it’s 6.5.

Paul: Where did you, where do you find this?

Mary Jo: I had it on tap at Rattle and Hum. I’ve had it in bottles, also. Bottles are available now in various places. So if you see this, and you want to try a sour, and you’re a little scared it might be too sour, I’d say try this raspberry one. It’s very nice.

Paul: The Avery that you see very commonly is called White Rascal. It’s basically the, you know, like a white, Belgian white beer, you know, very kind of coriander, you know, whatever. But it’s very good.

Mary Jo: Yea. And then their Maharaja, if you love double IPAs, you’ve got to have that one because it’s such a killer beer. Very strong, very delicious.

Paul: You’re losing me.

Mary Jo: Sorry. Go back to the sour. Back to the sour.

Leo: Killer. Killer IPAs. Mary. Mary Jo Foley and Paul Thurrott are my personal heroes when it comes to Windows. There is no one better, and you probably listening to the show for the same, for the very same reason we do it. And we still do it live. And I want to say, I apologize. I threw a monkey wrench in everyone saying, “We’re not doing this live anymore.” I pulled a Bill O’Reilly. Actually it’s a reverse Bill O’Reilly. “We’re not going to do it live!”

Paul: You mean you weren’t at war but then you said you were?

Leo: Yea, that’s it. But we are going to continue live, with live production, it’s up to each individual host, but most are going to continue that way. Chatroom is as-is.

Paul: Well, wait, we can turn it off? Screw you guys, turn it off.

Leo: You could. You totally could. I leave it to you guys. It’s up to you.

Paul: I think live is a key part of what we do.

Leo: It’s nice. I like it.

Mary Jo: Stay with live.

Leo: Yea. And that means we’ll be here every Wednesday morning, 11:00 AM Pacific time, 2:00 PM Eastern time, 1800UTC. But on demand is always available. Because I know you got a life. And most people still listen to on demand, so that’s fine with me.

Paul: Do we, though? Do we?

Mary Jo: We don’t have a life, they might have a life.

Leo: I demand. TWIT.tv/ww is the website. People are asking about the new website. We are really close. We’re moving the certs. The certs, I’m going to install the certs as soon as I get off here. The production server is spun up. I think we probably will have a live BETA this weekend, and we’ll probably go live for real the next week. So just keep watching. You’ll know, it will be obvious (laughing). But still, TWIT.tv/ww will work for Windows Weekly. You can also find the show on Xbox Music, wherever you get your podcasts, the podcast app on your phone, your tablet, you know. We’re everywhere you want to be. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Mary Jo. We’ll see you next week on Windows Weekly!