Hands-On Windows (Audio)

Windows has never been without its controversies. There have been dark years of doubt and uncertainty, of Microsoft putting its corporate interests ahead of the needs of its customers. But it's fair to say that this type of behavior, which we now call enshittification, has escalated dramatically in recent years. And that Windows 11, in particular, has victimized its users with a steadily growing list of affronts, big and small, changes to the product that ignore the explicit choices and configurations we make, changes to behaviors that run contrary to decency and common sense, and changes to functionality that undermines the reasons we use Windows in the first place.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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Winbdows 11 comes with a lot of Microsoft apps. This week, Paul runs through the 5 apps you should think about replacing or uninstalling completely.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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With the arrival of the Moment 5 Update to Windows 11, Microsoft has added some multitasking features to help boost your productivity.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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With Windows 11 24H2 build 26080, Microsoft is once again flighting the same bits to Insiders on both channels, and the biggest changes include a unified Teams client and a new undocked mode for Copilot. The new built-in Copilot capabilities let you use the assistant to turn on accessibility features such as Narrator or Live Captions, enable battery saver, show available Wi-Fi networks, or empty the recycle bin.

https://copilot.microsoft.com/

Host: Paul Thurrott

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In keeping with its Week D preview release cadence, Microsoft today issued Moment 5 for Windows 11 versions 22H2 and 23H2. Of course, Moment 5 is an internal name. To the outside world, today's release is named KB5035942, and it's described as a Cumulative Update Preview. Those with who install this update on Windows 11 version 22H2 will see the system updated to build 22621.3374, while those on Windows 11 version 23H2 will go to build 23621.3374. Moment 5 includes a long list of new features, most minor.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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Windows 11 includes a Widgets feature that consists of a Widgets button on the left end of the Taskbar and a pop-up widget board that displays notifications for important news and events, widgets, and a Microsoft Start news and general interests feed. This feature can be annoying in its default configuration, depending on your needs. But it's also highly customizable: You can disable the notifications that appear over the Widgets Taskbar button and on top of the widget board, choose and arrange the widgets it displays, and personalize or hide the feed.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold 16 improves on its predecessor and undercuts the price of the HP Spectre Foldable PC dramatically, depending on the configuration. That latter fact alone helps bring us one step closer to a future in which foldable PCs rule the premium portable PC market. But the X1 Fold also brings a few design compromises of its own that somewhat undermine the experience.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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In addition to letting you sign in to your PC with Microsoft accounts, work or school accounts, and local accounts, Windows 11 also lets you configure other online accounts within a sign-in account that can be used by other apps. These can be apps that ship with Windows 11 or third-party apps you install from the Microsoft Store.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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Windows 11 offers several different methods by which you can create a screenshot, a still image that represents the contents of your PC's display. It also includes an app that let you create video recordings of what's happening on-screen.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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This Week, Paul shows off some new hardware in the form of the AI PC, computers that have neural processing units that aid in the processing of AI operations.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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