Mar 4th 2020
Windows Weekly 662
Moving to Montana Soon
Coronavirus Cancellations, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
Records live every Wednesday at 2:00pm Eastern / 11:00am Pacific / 18:00 UTC.
Don't call it the Cortanavirus!
- What's Microsoft's conference calendar looking like, post COVID-19 cancellations?
- We're just waiting for the nearly-inevitable Build cancellation.
- MVP Summit: In-person event canceled; online only
- GitHub Satellite Conference in May: Online only
- Expected NYC hardware event in April/May: Looking unlikely, we'd say
- Google I/O canceled. Plus lots of other events
- Is this a big deal, in terms of how MS communicates with press, customers?
- What does it say about the future of big events for Microsoft?
- What about Ignite? It's early this year.
- Speaking of cancellations: Microsoft is dropping 3 major certifications. Goodbye, MCSD, MCSA, MCSE. It's a role-based (and cloud-centric world).
Windows 10
- Less emphasis on Live Tiles; cuter icons? (I guess)
- This is one time where what MJ notices or doesn't is dead-on: There is nothing to see here.
- How might Microsoft meaningfully fix the Start menu? The answer is right in front of us all.
- Related: Speaking of Win 10, will we see Win 10 2004 start rolling out next week on Patch Tuesday? Possibly
- We just got a slow ring-only CU this past week.
- Microsoft begins testing automatic rollout of the new Edge.
- Cortana's retreat from the consumer space continues. Microsoft is whittling away at Cortana's consumer skills and beefing up its productivity focus (as expected).
Microsoft 365
- Hands-on with the Fluid Framework. WTH is this thing?
Teams!
- Teams picks up Outlook sharing, chat improvements
- Microsoft is giving away Teams paid features because of COVID-19
- Thanks to Microsoft, the NFL now has two kinds of Teams!
Xbox
- Xbox Series X will let gamers resume game after a reboot
- Microsoft adds more colors to its transparent controllers
- Google Stadia is failing because of Google
Tips and picks
- App of the week: FalconX. FalconX lets you center your taskbar icons, like macOS, and add transparency effects too.
- Game pick of the week: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. After just two weeks of testing, Microsoft has released the remastered Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary on the PC. Yeah, you want it.
- Enterprise pick of the week: PowerShell 7 is here. PowerShell 7, or PowerShell Core 7: Whatever you call it, the latest version is here and available for Windows, macOS and Linux.
- Codename pick of the week: Monad. A blast from the codenames of the past. Monad was the original PowerShell codename. It first made its debut around 2002/2003. Also sometimes was called the Microsoft Shell or MSH.
- Beer pick of the week: Schlafly Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout. I haven't had this yet, but hoping to this week in St. Louis. This is a bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout from Schlafly, an excellent craft brewery in St. Louis. 10.2%! But I'm sure totally worth it https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/583/33894/
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Check out Mary Jo's blog at AllAboutMicrosoft.com
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Links
- MVP Summit: In-person event cancelled; online only
- GitHub Satellite Conference in May: Online only
- Google I/O cancelled. Plus lots of other events
- Goodbye, MCSD, MCSA, MCSE.
- Less emphasis on Live Tiles; cuter icons
- Related: Speaking of Win 10, will we see Win 10 2004 start rolling out next week on Patch Tuesday? Possibly...
- Microsoft begins testing automatic rollout of the new Edge
- Microsoft is whittling away at Cortana's consumer skills and beefing up its productivity focus
- Hands-on with the Fluid Framework. WTH is this thing?
- Teams picks up Outlook sharing, chat improvements
- Microsoft is giving away Teams paid features because of COVID-19
- Thanks to Microsoft, the NFL now has two kinds of Teams!
- Xbox Series X will let gamers resume game after a reboot
- Microsoft adds more colors to its transparent controllers
- Google Stadia is failing because of Google
- App of the week: FalconX
- Game pick of the week: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
- Enterprise pick of the week: PowerShell 7 is here
- Codename pick of the week: Monad
- Beer pick of the week: Schlafly Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout