Windows Weekly 657

Thinking more about Surface Neo and Duo

• Last week, Microsoft released the SDK and emulator for the Android-based Duo; ones for Neo coming soon
• The Duo SDK for Mac developers also is now available (as of this week) - So let's think ahead about why Microsoft is calling these devices "a new category"
• Who is the intended audience? It's not creatives (who were big targets of the Surface tablets/PCs)
• Are these going to be positioned as PCs? Tablets? Is Apple still a primary competitive target for these devices?
• What kinds of software and services will be preloaded?
• What are the hardware, M365/O365 and Edge/MSN/Bing teams contributing? (they supposedly develop these new devices together) New launcher, unified search, stuff like Collections?
• Will developers find these dual-screen devices interesting enough to target? Or not till the UI comes to "regular" PCs?
• Will Neo and Duo attract users who don't see a need for a PC anymore? Does MS think they could be users' sole (or maybe secondary) devices?

Thinking more about search

• Last week, Microsoft made a bad move: Deciding to hijack the Chrome browsers of O365 ProPlus users and switch their search engine to Bing
• So far, Microsoft has not claimed "based on user feedback" that they're undoing this move
• The real reason for this: Microsoft is starting to push Bing as an Intranet search engine (see MS Search in Bing; Project Cortex, the new Office app experience)
• Implications of this - Microsoft will lose the moral high-ground if it doesn't do the right thing

Windows 10

• Windows version 1909 usage share hits 15 percent
• New Insider build, no more Insider PWA app
• New CU fixes at least some File Explorer problems for 1903/1909 users
• Related: Microsoft to bring Edge tab management feature to Chrome
• Semi-related: A major USB-C bug has hit virtually all modern ThinkPads.
• Not really related, but still worth a mention: Premium Outlook.com users are losing personalized email addresses at end of Feb. (unless you subscribe to O365)

Windows 7!

• FSF wants Microsoft to open-source Windows. They're nuts. And yet…
• Microsoft has one more security update coming for Windows 7

Xbox

• New Games with Gold for February

Tips and picks

• Tip of the week: Help me pick the next programming project
• .NETpad (Visual Basic/Windows Forms/.NET Framework) is winding down, so the next one will be a C#/WPF/.NET Framework/Core project. And I need some ideas.
• App pick of the week: Surface Duo Emulator
• Enterprise pick of the week: Dynamics 365 Wave 1 2020
• Enterprise pick No. 2: Beware the LDAP signing apocalypse in March
• Beer pick of the week: Perennial Abraxas

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Links

• Last week, Microsoft released the SDK and emulator for the Android-based Duo; ones for Neo coming soon
• The Duo SDK for Mac developers also is now available (as of this week)
• Last week, Microsoft made a bad move..
• Microsoft is starting to push Bing as an Intranet search engine (see MS Search in Bing..
• Windows version 1909 usage share hits 15 percent
• New Insider build, no more Insider PWA app
• New CU fixes at least some File Explorer problems for 1903/1909 users
• Related: Microsoft to bring Edge tab management feature to Chrome
• Semi-related: A major USB-C bug has hit virtually all modern ThinkPads.
• Not really related, but still worth a mention: Premium Outlook.com users are losing personalized email addresses at end of Feb.
• FSF wants Microsoft to open-source Windows. They're nuts. And yet…
• Microsoft has one more security update coming for Windows 7
• New Games with Gold for February
• App pick of the week: Surface Duo Emulator
• Enterprise pick of the week: Dynamics 365 Wave 1 2020
• Enterprise pick No. 2: Beware the LDAP-signing apocalypse in March
• Beer pick of the week: Perennial Abraxas