Windows Weekly (Audio)

WW 996: Security Through Lack of Features - MV3 in Edge, Quake Turns 30, & AltTabby

Microsoft's AI investments reveal a bizarre financial loop where billions pour into infrastructure, yet profits remain elusive. The hosts break down why the industry's most hyped tech might just be a high-stakes game of circular accounting. Plus, a developer has resurrected Microsoft Word for Windows 1.1a to run natively on Windows 11! Lastly, Stardock's latest utility replaces Alt + Tab for $7.99. Windows 25H2: new touchpad gestures, Windows Hello ESS improvements, Widgets improvements, Windows Search improvements, more 26H1: Windows Update calendar-based pausing, Picture Password EOL, Point in time restore, multi-camera support, user folder customization in Setup, etc. Over 420 bug fixes, but that's over 200 less than last month Follow-up on Microsoft's AI spending. It's much worse than we knew - And also much worse than we know now Yes, Microsoft Edge is going all-in on Manifest V3 Proton Drive - Now with a CLI and business features, and it's coming soon to Linux A developer ported Word for Windows 1.1 to x64 AI Gemini now has one billion users. But how many pay? - Plus the new Pixel phones are one step sideways, one step back OpenAI brings ChatGPT to Linux (!) Xbox and gaming A new Xbox Elite Series 3 controller leak shows it will have a mini display Microsoft tests new console features with Xbox Insiders Id Software brings a new episode to Quake to mark 30th anniversary! Minecraft is coming to Switch 2 Here comes GTA VI A Valve partner was hacked, Steam Machine customers warned Nintendo revenues decline 9.5 percent to ¥518 billion Tips and picks Tip of the week: View Git status directly in File Explorer App pick of the week: AltTabby RunAs Radio this week: The Content Management System Landscape with Matt Garrepy Brown liquor pick of the week: Sideshow Lincoln Straight Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: helixsleep.com/windows cirasync.com/Windows cachefly.com/twit

WW 995: The Greatest Depression - Microsoft Reports $90 Billion in Revenue for FY26 Q4

Behind the headlines about skyrocketing revenues and AI investments, the actual costs and future risks for Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are shrouded in strategic accounting moves. Plus, Paul finished rewriting and adding new chapters to the Windows 11 Field Guide - mostly just clean-up now, and then whatever new monthly features. Lastly, The Document Foundation issues a friendly reminder about the Office 2021 EOL and how that never happens with their software Microsoft earnings Microsoft earnings up 18 percent to $90 billion Analysis: Microsoft finds a new way to not account for AI costs Windows Pavan Davuluri says he's "energized" about what's happening to Windows in 2026. OK. But what's really happened so far? When will the biggest changes land? And when, if ever, will you address the real enshittification in Windows 11? Windows Insider Program: Five new builds - New Taskbar comes to Beta channel This leads to questions of timing, and here, WIP is not all that transparent still Another antitrust win: Apple to allow Copy and Paste between Windows and iPhone AMD revenues up 50 percent to $11.5 billion, but it's all AI datacenter Amazon: up 20 percent to $200 billion Apple: up 16 percent to $109 billion AI Satya Nadella mentions AI super app again, not clear why anyone cares about this Proton Lumo can do data visualization now Xbox and gaming Asha Sharma details the priorities for XBOX in the next year and number 5 will shock you XBOX console prices going up in the EU and UK Thanks, Caption Obvious: Yes, Backward Compatibility on PC will support Xbox 360 games too XBOX plans new FanFest tour dates - there's SO much to celebrate! Gears of War: E-Day leads the charge for new Game Pass titles in August XBOX Insiders is testing new console features XBOX app comes to Hisense and VIDDA TVs EA goes private for $55 billion in cash, but also some debt Sony has sold 95.3 million PS5s Sony responds to concerns about no more discs (with "pffffftttt") Tips and picks Tip of the week: It's done! App pick of the week: LibreOffice RunAs Radio this week: Ransomware Readiness with Heather Renze Brown liquor pick of the week: Frey Ranch Straight Bourbon Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: cirasync.com/Windows threatlocker.com/twit

WW 994: The Best Kind of Correct - Can Windows Survive the 8GB RAM Comeback?

There's been so much drama over what options Microsoft will allow for the Copilot key. But you don't have to wait for a future Windows update; you can remap any key with Microsoft's own Keyboard Manager PowerToy. More people should take advantage of this. Also, Paul just finished his major 2026 rewrite of the Windows 11 Field Guide! Every single chapter was rewritten or consolidated, with several new chapters added. Lastly, the OG Halo remake is a great reminder of how good this series was in the beginning. And it looks and plays terrific. Windows Week D updates arrive on time this month Windows Hello ESS support for external fingerprint readers, many small improvements Experimental (Future Platforms) finally gets an update, but it's just the features we saw elsewhere first Several in-box app updates for July, nothing major Microsoft convinces LG to drop the McAfee ads, but HP's Bing ads are A-OK Chris tested Windows 11 with 8GB of RAM and the experience is not great Paul has a Wildcat-based laptop waiting for him in PA Microsoft is testing a "Do nothing" option for the Copilot key Your Windows 11 PC now has a OneDrive Photos app for some reason Opera One gets vertical tabs, deeper Google Lens integration Earnings Google/Alphabet - net income of $28 billion on $120 billion in revenues, but negative cash flow for the first time in the company's history Intel - net loss of $11 million, no Foundry customers leaves Wall Street swooning for some reason AI Microsoft begins shifting to its own MAI models, but the forward progress is minimal NVIDIA, Microsoft, more team up for AI empire, er, Alliance Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5 Xbox and gaming Halo: Campaign Evolved is here XBOX went down for the count for most of the day on Monday. But disc-based games still worked XBOX begins testing ad-supported Cloud Gaming Ubisoft game purchases on Xbox now carry over to PC for free Luna comes to Prime Video app Tips and picks Tip of the week: Remap keys with PowerToys Keyboard Manager App pick of the week: Halo Campaign Evolved Chris's pick of the week: His new newsletter! Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Guest: Chris Hoffman Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit-biz cirasync.com/Windows canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT

WW 993: The Columnist Savant - Reflecting on John C. Dvorak's Influence & Impact

As the tech world catches its breath from AI whiplash and retro gaming returns to the PC, Microsoft quietly kills underused tools and tries to double down on what actually works. This episode blends the excitement of tech and entertainment (like Xbox classics landing on Windows 11) with a poignant look back at the life and legacy of legendary columnist John C. Dvorak. Windows Five new Insider builds released on Monday; the new Start menu comes to the Beta channel Experimental (26H1) a day later with no interesting new features The Whiteboard app is apparently being retired AI Microsoft expands partnership with Mistral to improve EU AI infrastructure Copilot for consumers is losing Podcasts and Deep research features soon U.S. judge approves Anthropic $1.5 billion settlement with authors it stole from 1Password partners with Anthropic to make AI access to password-protected websites secure Google renames NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook Google's next big AI models are delayed, but we got Gemini 3.6 Flash, Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber to tide us over XBOX and gaming Microsoft brings XBOX Backward Compatibility to PC!! Here comes Halo: Campaign Evolved, along with more Game Pass titles for the end of July Bethesda announces Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters, and Fallout 5 is entering pre-production Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 in Early Access on August 21, Open Beta on August 27 XBOX July update adds support for longer gamertags, new library customization options, and more XBOX teams with Meta to bring Game Pass Starter Edition to Meta Horizon+ subscribers Valve says the component crisis dogging Steam Machine pricing will only get worse Tips and picks Tip of the week: Windows Package Manager for bulk app installs App (game) of the week: Doom: The Dark Ages RunAs Radio this week: Security Begins at Procurement with Jessie Schofer Brown liquor pick of the week: Loup River Nebraska Straight Bourbon Whiskey Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: arcticwolf.com/trends zscaler.com/security cirasync.com/Windows

WW 992: Gassy Jack - Largest Patch Tuesday in Microsoft History!

Microsoft's July 2026 Patch Tuesday just shattered records with hundreds of bug fixes, and AI is the force behind the surge. Are we witnessing the beginning of a safer Windows, or is this flood of vulnerabilities the new normal? Plus, Tony Redmond's epic book has a new name (was Office 365 for IT Pros) and is now a bundle of four books. Windows Patch Tuesday is here! Point in Time Restore, quieter Widgets, Windows Update improvements, Screen tint, and more The biggest Patch Tuesday in history, by far: a record 570 fixes for security flaws, and a huge 3X increase from the then-record flaws fixed last month. (Some say the number is 622. Math is hard.) And this is on top of 468 Microsoft Edge/Chromium flaws that were fixed by Google this month too. Yikes. Microsoft discusses how it's improving Windows security with AI Windows Insider Program: Improved Windows Search is next on the docket, heading out to Experimental this week. Question: When do these things hit stable? Microsoft releases Snapdragon X2 versions of its Surface for Business Pro and Laptop models AI Apple sues OpenAI for stealing trade secrets Surprised there was no talk of "thermonuclear war" OpenAI's response is hilarious, and it is already prepping its first hardware device OpenAI just announced the rumored super app, which is a combination of ChatGPT, Work, Codex, and an in-app web browser, which replaces the standalone Atlas web browser. Also, GPT-5.6. In keeping with recent history, Anthropic announced its in-app web browser for Claude less than 24 hours later Reminder that Microsoft acknowledged that it, too, is working on an AI super app at Build Apple releases public betas of its OS 27 releases and, shocker, Siri is really good Now Spotify has an AI chatbot so I can tell it how much I hate Spotify Xbox and gaming Obsidian is working on a new Fallout game, duh. A quiet time after last week's terribleness Tips and picks Tip of the week: Microsoft 365 for IT Pros (2027 edition) is here! App pick of the week: MusicBee RunAs Radio this week: Finding Security Vulnerabilities using AI with Sami Laiho Brown liquor pick of the week: Sanctuary Single Malt Whisky Reserve Edition Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: blackhat.com/us-26 and use code TWIT helixsleep.com/windows