Satya Nadella’s closing Windows 11 remarks were a direct shot across Apple’s bow

Dieter Bohn Jun 24, 2021 at 13:29 At the end of a surprisingly eventful, exciting presentation of Windows 11, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella came on the video feed to deliver some closing remarks. He laid out his vision for Windows 11 as a “platform for platform creators,” and in doing so, he issued a subtle but nonetheless stinging critique of Apple.

Nadella’s speech was almost entirely about building a case that Windows would be a better platform for creators than either macOS or (especially) iOS. He argued that “there is no personal computing without personal agency,” insisting that users should be more in control of their computers.

Nadella called out the changes Microsoft is making to its app store rules, allowing more types of apps, Android apps, and — most importantly — allowing apps to use their own payment systems if they so choose. He said, “A platform can only serve society if its rules allow for this foundational innovation and category creation.” That rhetoric sounds vaguely nice and inspiring out of context, but in the specific context of the current debates, lawsuits, and legislation over app store rules, it’s a sharp and direct critique.

More than anything, though, Nadella and Microsoft are putting their finger on an emerging trend in the debate about app store policies: how they affect individual creators. Alluding to Ben Thompson’s recent article about “sovereign writers,” Nadella says, “Windows has always stood for sovereignty for creators and agency for consumers.” Microsoft even went so far as to build a direct tipping feature for creators into Windows 11.

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It’s fair to call this critique opportunistic. After all, Microsoft itself tried to build an app store ecosystem for Windows that utterly failed to match the level of success we’ve seen for the iPhone (or Android, for that matter). It’s a truism that, in tech, the underdog always calls for openness until they’re the top dog — and Microsoft’s app store is definitely the underdog. But just because a critique is opportunistic doesn’t mean it’s not correct.

Nadella ends by alluding to this quote from Arthur Schopenhauer (without naming him, likely because he was [very problematic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer#Women)):

Authors can be divided into meteors, planets and fixed stars. The meteors produce a loud momentary effect; we look up, shout ‘see there!’ and then they are gone for ever. The planets and comets last for a much longer time. ... The fixed stars alone are constant and unalterable; their position in the firmament is fixed; they have their own light and are at all times active, because they do not alter their appearance through a change in our standpoint, for they have no parallax. Unlike the others, they do not belong to one system (nation) alone, but to the world. But just because they are situated so high, their light usually requires many years before it becomes visible to the inhabitants of earth.

That’s a long way of pointing out that despite the short-term incentives, Nadella is playing a very long game with Windows 11. Just as Google and Apple build their companies around their business models, so does Microsoft. But Microsoft’s business model has nothing to do with selling Windows or even getting a cut of app sales anymore. It’s about Microsoft 365, Azure, and enterprise services.

When Nadella says Windows is “a platform for platform creators,” Microsoft’s other services are some of those other platforms — that happen to work well on Windows. For the time being, Nadella’s argument is that Windows 11 is big enough and broad enough to make room for others, too — and that other platforms are not.

Nadella’s full remarks are below. And just as this story was published, Nadella himself tweeted the core part of his speech:

Windows has always stood for sovereignty for creators and agency for consumers, and with Windows 11 we have a renewed sense of Windows’ role in the world. pic.twitter.com/xHldf38B8d

— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) June 24, 2021

I’m really excited to be here with you all. Today marks a major milestone in the history of Windows. It’s the beginning of a new generation. I’m excited by what we have shown you today and how we are reimagining everything from the operating system itself to the browser to the store and the feed.

And I want to reflect briefly on how we got here. Throughout its history, Windows has been a democratizing force for the world. Windows has created entirely new categories for both consumers and businesses. It’s led to many of the world’s most successful software categories, from communications and productivity to design and business applications, each of which has created their own ecosystems. The web itself was born and grew up on Windows. It’s driven silicon innovation device innovation. It’s enabled so many people — including hobbyists, developers, and entrepreneurs — to all dream big; turn their ideas into reality; and monetize their creation.

Windows has always stood for sovereignty for creators and agency for consumers.

With Windows, you can consume apps and build apps. You can play games and design games. You can buy a PC and build a PC. You can join your community and create your community. You can buy from a business and start your own business. With Windows 11, we have a renewed sense of Windows’ role in the world. As I look ahead, I see three clear opportunities.

First, Windows recognizes that there is no personal computing without personal agency. Personal computing requires choice, and we need to nurture and grow our own agency over computing itself. We want to remove the barriers that too often exist today and provide real choice and connection.

We need to be empowered to choose the applications we run, the content we consume, the people we connect to, and even how we allocate our own attention. Operating systems and devices should mold to our needs, not the other way around. That’s why we are making it easier for you to connect with the people you want, the content you want, the apps you want across all devices you want.

Second, Windows is the stage for the world’s creation. As a creator, every time you pick up a Windows device, it becomes a stage for your inspiration, so you can dream big and create something profound and lasting. Creation is going through a sea change as the balance between consumption and creation changes.

With this new generation of Windows, we are unleashing the innovation and ingenuity inherent in each of us. We want to foster these virtuous loops between content, consumption, and commerce — driven by communities for everyone. These cycles should flow freely, giving people frictionless access to apps, files, games, movies, shows, content, and communities that matter to them. We want to empower you to produce and inspire you to create. It’s why we’re introducing a complete new user experience in helping you be more productive.

And finally, Windows isn’t just an operating system; it’s a platform for platform creators. It allows for the broadest of design spaces, enabling people to build their own businesses and communities.

Today, the world needs a more open platform, one that allows apps to become platforms in their own right. Windows is a platform where things that are bigger than Windows can be born, like the web. That’s our aspiration with Windows 11, to be the platform for the next web, the next transformational software category, the next personalized content business.

A platform can only serve society if its rules allow for this foundational innovation and category creation. It’s why we’re introducing new store commerce models and policies, and creating new opportunities for local publishers, and supporting even more apps with Android apps on Windows.

This is the first version of a new era of Windows. We’re building for the next decade and beyond. And when I reflect on those chapters to come, I’m reminded of an analogy from a 19th century philosopher who compared creators to objects in our Solar System. He wrote about meteors that flash but fade away. Planets that burned longer, but whose energy is confined to their own orbit — and compared them to stars that are constant and light the path of their own.

That’s our ambition with Windows: to help other stars and entire constellations to be born and thrive. I am incredibly proud of what Windows has achieved and how it is fostered lasting opportunity for others. And I look forward to seeing what you achieve with Windows 11 and how it’ll unlock enduring opportunity for people in the world.

Thank you all very, very much.

Source: "Satya Nadella’s closing Windows 11 remarks were a direct shot across Apple’s bow"

"Microsoft comes for the creators"

By Casey Newton ''

Programming note: As I noted a couple weeks back, Platformer is on vacation next week. Your support allows me to take a little time off each year to relax, think big thoughts, and ponder what else I might be able to do for you around here, and I can’t thank you enough for it. See you back in your inbox on Tuesday, July 6.

$Windows 11 shown on a group of laptops. $Microsoft$$ Windows 11 (Microsoft)

There was a time when the CEO of Microsoft could gain a measure of fame by clapping and chanting “developers.” Nowadays, the chant ringing out from every major tech platform is “creators,” and on Thursday Microsoft’s current CEO added his voice to the chorus.

The occasion was the unveiling of Windows 11, and Satya Nadella used the moment to make the case that Microsoft’s platform is becoming more hospitable to builders than anybody else’s. It was, as Dieter Bohn notes at The Verge, a direct shot at Apple and its increasingly controversial 30 percent revenue tax, which has greatly enriched the company while also becoming a magnet for lawsuits and regulatory pressure. Bohn writes:

Nadella’s speech was almost entirely about building a case that Windows would be a better platform for creators than either macOS or (especially) iOS. He argued that “there is no personal computing without personal agency,” insisting that users should be more in control of their computers.

Nadella called out the changes Microsoft is making to its app store rules, allowing more types of apps, Android apps, and — most importantly — allowing apps to use their own payment systems if they so choose. He said, “A platform can only serve society if its rules allow for this foundational innovation and category creation.” That rhetoric sounds vaguely nice and inspiring out of context, but in the specific context of the current debates, lawsuits, and legislation over app store rules, it’s a sharp and direct critique.

Indeed. This turn against Apple isn’t totally new, and at times Microsoft has made its criticisms more explicit — as when an executive testified against Apple this year in the ongoing Epic Games lawsuit. What makes today’s news different is that Microsoft is backing up its criticisms with real product and policy changes that are indeed much friendlier to developers and creators than what came before. The ability to use your own payments system and give Microsoft none of the revenue feels like a legitimate step forward for competition, and particularly for smaller players.

These changes are enabled in part by a nothing-to-lose spirit that comes from the fact that Microsoft’s app store for Windows has struggled to gain significant traction, particularly compared to the app stores for mobile phones run by Apple and Google. Giving up a 0 percent cut of not-very-much won’t sting a company like Microsoft, which has a $2 trillion market capitalization and can more than afford to subsidize what amounts to a marketing campaign for Windows.

But that campaign is likely to pique the attention of developers, for whom the question of whether to build for Windows just got significantly easier. Platforms live and die by the quality of the software that gets built for them, and Microsoft just offered a powerful incentive. (Notably, games — the most profitable software sold on any platform — aren’t part of this sweetheart deal; they’ll have to pay Microsoft a still-reasonable 12 percent of revenues.)

Moreover, from Microsoft’s perspective, every new developer on the platform is another opportunity to sell other Microsoft software: cloud services, Office, Windows, and so on. There’s a very plausible scenario in which the new Microsoft Store simply becomes a loss leader for selling the cloud and other subscriptions to developers.

Of course, using monopoly profits to subsidize attacks on rivals is exactly the sort of thing that some members of Congress have spent this week trying to legislate away. Depending on your perspective, you can choose to see Microsoft’s move as a pro-competitive move to help accelerate the growth of smaller developers — or an anti-competitive move to maintain its dominance by giving away valuable services for free.

It’s the split you see everywhere in the current antitrust debate: is the problem that there’s not enough competition, or is the problem that the companies are just too damn big? The House Democrats’ bills adopt the language of the former position, but their heart seems to be in the latter one, and I can’t help but wonder what they might have to say about Microsoft’s moves today if their bills become law.

Particularly because, as Dina Bass notes as Bloomberg, Windows 11 sees Microsoft running another play straight out of its late-90s playbook: bundling software together to make it more difficult for upstarts to gain traction. Bass writes:

Microsoft said it will bundle its Slack-killer, the Teams conferencing and communications software, directly into Windows, accessible with one button on the bottom of a user’s screen. Teams, introduced in 2017, started out years behind popular office-chat upstart Slack Technologies Inc., and has been catching up in recent years partly because the program is already included in Microsoft’s top-selling Office suite of productivity programs like Word and Excel. The move to integrate a burgeoning product into an established one looks like a throwback to the 1990s, when the software maker built its dominance — and hobbled rivals — by bundling other products into Windows, which came free and pre-installed on almost every PC shipped.

Even as they announced Teams would be built into the new Windows — creating a captive audience of millions of PC users that might otherwise have skipped the product — Microsoft executives on Thursday mentioned their desire to make Windows an open platform multiple times. The framing of Windows 11 is set against the backdrop of increased antitrust activity in the U.S., including a series of proposed bills introduced in Congress that aim to regulate Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon — but are murky on whether Microsoft would be covered, too. In the current regulatory climate, the release of a product as significant as Windows, and with as much market share, has to be viewed through the lens of potential antitrust implications.

I suspect it will be, even if this doesn’t strike me as a particularly compelling case. On one hand, Microsoft’s bundling Teams with Office has been essential to it coming to dominate the work-chat space; on the other, Slack’s core product has been so slow to improve over the past five years that I hesitate to blame anyone else for its failures. (The concurrent, stratospheric rise of Discord during this time would seem to offer a good rebuttal to the idea that there’s no room left for competition in desktop group chat software.)

If you think there’s not enough competition in tech, I think you should be cheered by Microsoft’s moves today. I take the company at its word when it says it wants to be “platform for platform creators,” and I like a lot of what Microsoft is doing in this regard. (One grace note I liked: Windows 11 will include widgets that let you tip publications or even individual creators after reading their stories.)

But if you worry that the tech giants are only becoming more gigantic, Windows 11’s open payments system looks more like a light reshuffling of assets on the corporate balance sheet — all of which are in Microsoft’s long-term interests. For a long time now, that kind of thing has passed without comment. With antitrust legislation making its way through the House, though, that may no longer be the case.

The antitrust bills pass out of committee

And speaking of antitrust legislation … given Democrats’ thin margins in Congress, I’ve expected that their slate of bills intended to regulate Big Tech would struggle to move forward. Well, by Thursday they had all moved forward!

Here are Cecilia Kang and David McCabe in the New York Times:

In a marathon session of debate and voting that started Wednesday morning and continued into Thursday, the Judiciary Committee advanced the suite of bills, which are meant to weaken the dominance of Big Tech. The bills would bulk up antitrust agencies, make it harder to acquire potential rivals and prevent platforms from selling or promoting their own products to disadvantage competitors. […]

The committee’s passage of the bills kicks off a much harder process. Eight Democratic lawmakers have asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has tremendous sway over when bills are taken up in the full House, to slow the process. The lawmakers repeated arguments made by companies like Apple that the bills could open up security and privacy vulnerabilities for customers.

Let me not undersell the moment: these six bills would reshape large parts of the internet economy, for better and for worse, and the fact that they passed out of committee with bipartisan support should absolutely hearten folks who have been begging Congress to address competition issues in the marketplace. (The bills should also send a shiver down the spine of every tech executive who spent the past decade writing big checks to lawmakers and lobbyists in hopes this day would never come.)

But as the Times and others have noted, it remains a hard road ahead. One extremely basic thing that needs to happen is for the Senate to introduce five companion bills; Sen. Amy Klobuchar says they are on their way. (A companion for the sixth, which would boost funding for the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, has already been introduced.) And the package has the support of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi — who represents San Francisco, and whose constituents may be affected by these changes as much or more than any other member of Congress.

That said, Pelosi was coy about her next steps. Will she bring these bills to the floor in their current form? She wouldn’t say. So it still feels like anything could happen.

I expect frantic behind-the-scenes lobbying for the next several days at least. And then? On one hand, the passage of all six bills still strikes me as unlikely; on the other, it all seems likelier than it did at the start of this week.

Governing

⭐ Seven months later, the false belief that Joe Biden “stole” the presidential election isn’t going anywhere, according to new polling. The Big Lie continues to percolate; what can be done? Here’s Philip Bump at the Washington Post:

On Monday, Monmouth University released polling showing about a third of Americans think Biden won only because of voter fraud — the same fraction of the electorate that held that view in Monmouth’s polling in March, in January and in November. […]

That’s driven by Republicans, as you might expect. Six in 10 Republicans think Biden won only because of fraud. That number is down from January, but Monmouth’s pollsters explain the apparent drop is largely a function of more respondents identifying themselves as Republican-leaning independents. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, about two-thirds have consistently said they think Biden won only because of fraud.

Related: Rudy Giuliani’s law license got suspended in New York for lying continuously about the election. Consequences? For lying? In America? (Nicole Hong, William K. Rashbaum and Ben Protess / New York Times)

A cache of emails obtained by CNN reveals just how frustrated Biden campaign officials got with Facebook as they watched misinformation spread on the platform during the election. The complaints continued even after Election Day. (Donie O'Sullivan and Dan Merica / CNN)

A look at the removal of the YouTube channel Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights, which has documented testimony from the families of Uyghurs imprisoned in internment camps in Xinjiang. The channel was taken down amid doxxing concerns, because videos showed identifying information about people giving testimonials. It was later restored. (Eileen Guo / MIT Technology Review)

Four former executives of the French spyware firm Nexta Technologies were indicted for being complicit in torture and war crimes amid allegations Nexta sold surveillance tech to authoritarian regimes in Libya and Egypt. Now this is a story about platform executives being arrested that I can get behind. (Sidney Fussell / Wired)

Industry

⭐ Google delayed the implementation of its FLoC advertising standard for at least two years following massive regulatory and industry pressure. I wrote about the FLoC flop earlier this month. Here’s Stephen Shankland at CNET:

On Thursday, Google pushed that move out by nearly two years, allowing itself more time to develop and test privacy-preserving alternatives to third-party cookies, and for websites to adopt the changes. The company said it had delayed the change, part of a collection of adjustments to what Google calls its Privacy Sandbox, to chart a better course for advertisers and everyone else on the web.

"We need to move at a responsible pace, allowing sufficient time for public discussion on the right solutions and for publishers and the advertising industry to migrate their services," Chrome Engineering Director Vinay Goel said in a blog post. "This is important to avoid jeopardizing the business models of many web publishers which support freely available content."

Amazon bought the podcast hosting and monetization platform Art19. Get those acquisitions in while they’re still legal! (Ashley Carman / The Verge)

Snap signed a deal with Universal Music Group to bring its artists to the platform. The move means popular artists’ music can now be used in Spotlight, the company’s TikTok-rival. (Ashley Carman / The Verge)

You can now upload to Instagram from the web. A useful feature particularly for video creators, who will not longer have to shuttle large files from desktop to mobile. (Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac)

Black TikTok creators are on “strike” from creating dances to Megan Thee Stallion’s latest hit song in protest of the way their dances have historically been co-opted (and monetized) by white creators. A spontaneous, self-organized platform labor movement? This one is fascinating.

Those good tweets

once I stop people-pleasing it's over for you bitches if that's ok with you, no worries if not!

“can you explain this gap in your employment history?” oh sure that’s the only time i’ve been happy in my entire life

[Laughed at “Apple really conditioned an entire generation of people to discriminate based on the color of a text bubble.” https://t.co/yjISJshI5p

TIZZ @YoTizzler

Apple really conditioned an entire generation of people to discriminate based on the color of a text bubble.

](https://twitter.com/_rey_j/status/1407444095744761862?s=21)

this sent me into a coughing fit

Talk to me

Send me tips, comments, questions, and tips directly from Windows 11: casey@platformer.news.

Source: "Microsoft comes for the creators"

"Microsoft Opens Windows, But Reverts to Old Competitive Playbook"

By Dina Bass 'Jun 24, 2021 at 16:46'

Business

Windows 11

Source: Microsoft Inc.

Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 11, the latest iteration of its 35-year-old personal computer operating system, boasts loads of new of features meant to position the software giant as the polite child in a classroom full of big bad technology bullies. The update also has at least one change that hearkens back to the days of Microsoft’s own anticompetitive behavior.

At the software’s Thursday debut, Microsoft touted developers’ choices to avoid app commissions, emphasized the ability to use outside app stores to download rival programs, and said it’s offering promotions and financial rewards to small and local news creators. All these points served to let Microsoft shine a light on how it’s different than some of its rivals — Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc.

IPhone maker Apple is fighting off a lawsuit over commissions charged in its App Store, with Microsoft backing plaintiff Epic Games Inc., and Google and Facebook have fought against Australian rules requiring them to compensate creators for news articles appearing on their ubiquitous search and social-media platforms. All three, along with Amazon.com Inc., are under intensifying scrutiny from global regulators over their gargantuan market power.

In criticizing competitors in these cases, Microsoft has held up its own behavior as a contrast — and the new Windows ups the ante. The company’s new Windows Store will let app developers use their own commerce platform, meaning they’ll pay Microsoft no fee, where Apple requires use of its tools and levies a 30% commission on any app that made more than $1 million in the past year. The new PC operating system also builds in graphical widgets that pull news from the web, with an initial focus on local news providers, and will give readers the option to tip the publication or author for their content.

“Windows isn’t just an operating system — it’s a platform for platform creators. It allows for the brightest of design spaces enabling people to build their own businesses and communities,” said Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella at the Windows virtual event. “Today the world needs a more open platform, one that allows apps to become platforms in their own right.”

But one key addition to Windows 11 seems to undermine the company’s image of openness. Microsoft said it will bundle its Slack-killer, the Teams conferencing and communications software, directly into Windows, accessible with one button on the bottom of a user’s screen. Teams, introduced in 2017, started out years behind popular office-chat upstart Slack Technologies Inc., and has been catching up in recent years partly because the program is already included in Microsoft’s top-selling Office suite of productivity programs like Word and Excel. The move to integrate a burgeoning product into an established one looks like a throwback to the 1990s, when the software maker built its dominance — and hobbled rivals — by bundling other products into Windows, which came free and pre-installed on almost every PC shipped.

Even as they announced Teams would be built into the new Windows — creating a captive audience of millions of PC users that might otherwise have skipped the product — Microsoft executives on Thursday mentioned their desire to make Windows an open platform multiple times. The framing of Windows 11 is set against the backdrop of increased antitrust activity in the U.S., including a series of proposed bills introduced in Congress that aim to regulate Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon — but are murky on whether Microsoft would be covered, too. In the current regulatory climate, the release of a product as significant as Windows, and with as much market share, has to be viewed through the lens of potential antitrust implications.

While Slack acknowledged that Windows will continue give users options, it also noted that the bundling of Team means that the playing field may not be even. “Choice is better than lock-in, open is better than closed, and fair competition is best of all,” the company said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Microsoft has never seen it that way.”

Microsoft said Windows 11 users may remove the button linking to Teams should they wish to, and the version in Windows 11 will be a consumer-grade Teams, rather than the corporate one included as part of Office.

The bundling is especially notable because Microsoft’s past efforts to integrate its own apps into Windows as a way to compete with rival products formed the basis of a landmark U.S. government antitrust lawsuit against the software maker in the late 1990s. It was a period when Bill Gates’s Microsoft was seen as an evil empire that crushed rivals by relying on Windows’ near-complete control of the PC market.

When Microsoft missed the internet boom and felt behind the Netscape Navigator browser, the company clawed its way back by creating Internet Explorer and tying it to Windows, while signing licenses with computer makers that restricted competition. Ultimately, the courts found Microsoft guilty of a related antitrust charge stemming from the browser issue — illegally defending its Windows monopoly — and didn’t settle the question of whether it was acceptable to bundle Internet Explorer into Windows. European regulators did find the tying behavior to be a violation of its laws.

Some Microsoft executives have said the case and the resulting distraction set the software maker back, causing it to fall behind in emerging markets like mobile computing and search. In recent years, the company has roared back with its cloud-computing businesses and successfully shifted sales of its dominant Office software toward internet-based versions while expanding into new categories of productivity apps. At the same time, Nadella, who took over as CEO in 2014, has cleaned up the company’s reputation, boosting the interoperability of its products and striking partnerships with former rivals. Partly because of its rehabbed image, and partly because it lacks strong businesses in some of the areas most in the spotlight like social media, e-commerce and internet advertising, Microsoft has so far evaded the level of scrutiny given to Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook.

The day's biggest storiesGet caught up with the Evening Briefing.

There are signs that some lawmakers are taking notice of Microsoft’s absence from the list of Tech’s Most Wanted. Less than 24 hours before Microsoft took the wraps off Windows 11, which goes into test next week and will be released later this year, Republican members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee raised questions about why the software maker appears to be largely exempt from the antitrust bills proposed by their Democratic colleagues. It isn’t clear that Microsoft is exempt — the company has said it expects to be covered by aspects of the legislation, and some of the bills’ authors have provided differing interpretations.

During the hearing on Wednesday, Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky challenged his colleagues on the committee to explain why Microsoft wouldn’t fall under the measures.

“I’m trying to figure out why one of the biggest offenders, of Big Tech, has mysteriously avoided the scrutiny of this committee and this broad swath of bills that seek to radically rewrite our antitrust law,” Massie said, waving a draft of the bill that he said was shared with Microsoft before it was public. “I’m talking about Microsoft.”

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, for its part, said Windows 11 will showcase rival products like those from Slack and Zoom Video Communications Inc., particularly in new features like one that lets users snap multiple apps into a single-screen layout to see several tools at once.

“Any of those apps — Zoom, Slack — they’re going to run great and they can take advantage of all of the new features in Windows 11,” Yusuf Mehdi, a Microsoft vice president, said in an interview. “Our success is predicated on them being able to have success on our platform. If we limit those things, we believe that hurts the opportunity for Windows 11.”

Slack, which is being acquired by Microsoft cloud-computing rival Salesforce.com Inc., already complained to European regulators in July 2020 about Microsoft’s integration of Teams into Office. That prime positioning and Microsoft’s focus on teleconferencing, an area where Slack lagged, put Teams in a strong place when the pandemic forced employees and schoolchildren to connect from home. Teams has more than 145 million daily active users, Microsoft said in April.

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Microsoft Gives Windows New Design, Builds in Conferencing Tool

-"Microsoft Opens Windows, But Reverts to Old Competitive Playbook"

"Input"

By Evan Rodgers ''

Windows 11 logo

Microsoft just announced Windows 11, the first full version update in six years. In addition to some much-needed visual updates, this new version of Windows introduces new functionality like Snap Layouts, which will quickly rearrange your windows, and the ability to get Android apps directly from the Microsoft Store. I’m personally interested in trying some of the new tablet features on an old Surface.

Here’s the rub: you’ll have to wait until next week to get it. You’ll be able to download Windows 11 via the Insider program, which is Microsoft’s mechanism for pushing out various tiers of beta software to developers and testers via Windows Update. These builds were typically going out on Wednesdays until Microsoft put them on pause a couple of weeks ago, so we might see a build sometime in the middle of next week.

Windows 11’s visual updates include a new Start Menu, widgets, and softer corners.

Windows 11’s visual updates include a new Start Menu, widgets, and softer corners.Microsoft

However, before you register for Insider builds (which you can do here) keep in mind that this is the very first version of this new OS, meaning that it’s bound to be a little buggy. Do you have a backup? According to Microsoft’s memo to Insiders you’ll have to use the company’s media creation tool to go back to Windows 10, strongly implying that you’ll have to do a fresh install if something doesn’t work.

While you wait, you confirm that your PC actually has the specs to _support _Windows 11 with Microsoft’s PC Health Check app. Sadly I didn’t find the app to be very helpful because, as you can see in the screenshot below, my system isn’t supported. This surprised me because I have a Ryzen 3600 CPU in an Asrock B450 Pro4 motherboard with 32GB of RAM. I assume my weird Nvidia Quadro card is throwing it off, but clicking “Learn more” doesn’t actually show what’s incompatible in my system. Typical Windows!

-"Input"

Talking Windows 11 with Chief Product Officer Panos Panay | Same Brain Episode 44

"What enterprise needs to know about Windows 11 | Computerworld"

By Gregg Keizer 'Jun 25, 2021 at 06:28'

Gregg Keizer By

Windows 11 start

So much for that promise.

You know, the one Microsoft made six years ago when it told customers that Windows 10 was "the last version of Windows" they'd see.

Instead, Windows 10 will end — also as promised by Microsoft, hence our confusion over the contradictory claims — in late 2025, its 10-year lifecycle the same as its OS antecedents, replaced by the next-in-line numeral and numeric label. Hail Windows 11.

Windows is dead. Long live Windows. Or put another way, same as it ever was.

Though, not quite. Although details remain somewhat sketchy, Windows 11 won't be an exact copy of Windows 10, renamed. Or renumbered.

We've collected some of the salient points about Windows 11, the ones enterprise IT admins will most need to know. Later, we'll be back with more about Windows 11, Windows 10 and their commercial customers.

Peaceful coexistence?

Microsoft may have implied it previously, but it's now confirmed: For a time, both Windows 10 and Windows 11 will be in play. "As you make the move to Windows 11, we will continue to support you as you use Windows 10," wrote Wangui McKelvey, general manager with the Microsoft 365 team, in a June 24 post to a company blog.

In other words, as Windows 7 was to Windows 10, so will Windows 10 be to Windows 11. Both will receive monthly security updates, the hallmark of Microsoft's support policies.

Need more proof? "Windows 10 and Windows 11 are designed to coexist," Microsoft said Thursday in its opening documentation on Windows 11.

Windows 10, here until 2025

As Microsoft said before, Windows 10 will exit support Oct. 14, 2025, or in four years, three months and change.

There will be a feature upgrade later in the year, Microsoft said, labeling it 21H2. It will come with the standard 30 months of support on devices running Windows 10 Enterprise or Windows 10 Education (but only 18 months for all others). Windows 10 21H2, then, will retire in the spring of 2024 on Enterprise/Education but a year earlier on Home/Pro.

To this point, Microsoft has not altered the Windows 10 support lifecycle, so the 18- and 30-month periods remain in place. Microsoft's changed the support timeline for individual feature upgrades before — it lengthened several during the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance — and could do so again.

However, Microsoft did not say whether additional Windows 10 feature upgrades will be offered after 21H2. As [Computerworld explained earlier this month](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3622410/microsoft-all-things-must-end-even-windows-10.html), Microsoft will probably have to issue additional refreshes after the one this fall. Depending on how Microsoft tweaks support for these final feature upgrades, or whether it monkeys with the lifecycles at all, the firm may need to issue several upgrades to 10, perhaps up to and including 24H1 for Home and Pro, and up to 22H2 for Enterprise and Education.

The alternative? Stretching Enterprise/Education support on, say, 21H2 by an extra 18 months so that its end date matches the Oct. 14, 2025, demise of Windows 10 overall.

More of what counts ... support

Over the last six years, Windows 10 changed support more often than a toddler changed its mind. So it was no surprise when Microsoft messed with support as it introduced Windows 11.

But it did so in a good way.

Windows 11 Home and Windows 11 Pro will be supported for 24 months, up from 18.
Windows 11 Enterprise and Windows 11 Education will receive support for 36 months, up from 30.

This change will do several things. First, the demise of year-and-a-half (18 months) and two-and-a-half-years (30 months) of support will make it easier to figure out when that support ends. Secondly, the added support should let more customers run a given upgrade longer, meaning fewer disruptive upgrades overall.

Finally, Windows is annual

At the same time, Microsoft will drop Windows 10's twice-a-year upgrade cadence and replace it with a once-yearly tempo for Windows 11. The sole feature upgrade will launch in each year's second half. Figure somewhere between mid-October and early November, the general release window for 10's second-half upgrade.

"We've also heard from many of you that an annual update works best for you, and a simplified servicing plan makes it easier to deploy," contended McKelvey.

Absolutely. Too bad it took years of complaining before Microsoft woke up and smelled that coffee.

64-bit only

Windows 11 will come only in a 64-bit edition, unlike Windows 10, which has been available in both 32- and 64-bit versions.

32-bit applications will continue to run and work on Windows 11, but devices with a 32-bit processor will not be able to install the operating system. That shouldn't be much of a burden, seeing that those CPUs fell by the wayside a decade and more ago.

Free

Customers running Windows 10 under a legal license can move to Windows 11 free of charge. As far as Microsoft's concerned, Windows 11 is simply another feature upgrade for Windows 10.

"Microsoft 365 licenses that include Windows 10 licenses will permit you to run Windows 11 on supported devices," Microsoft said on its support site. "If you have a volume license, it will equally cover Windows 11 and Windows 10 devices before and after upgrade."

Unlike the free Windows 7-to-10 upgrade offer Microsoft extended in 2015, there is no time limit on the 10-to-11 deal, at least at the outset. (These qualifiers are tiresome, but necessary; Microsoft seems to change the tune more often than most large software developers.)

Same servicing tools

"Upgrading to Windows 11 is similar to taking a Windows 10 feature update," asserted Microsoft's McKelvey. "The familiar management experiences you have in place today — like Microsoft Endpoint Manager, cloud configuration, Windows Update for Business ... — will support your environment of tomorrow as you integrate Windows 11 into your estate."

Current servicing tools will work with 11 just as they do 10, the company pledged. Windows 10 Home and unmanaged Windows 10 Pro devices will draw monthly updates through Windows Update. Enterprise IT administrators can call on Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Windows Update for Business (WUfB), Endpoint Manager's Configuration Manager, Microsoft's Intune and other deployment and maintenance software and services. (Exceptions and caveats have already been posted here.)

Similarly, Windows Insider will be the source of early access to Windows 11, with the first release slated for next week from the program's Dev channel. A Beta channel release will follow, Microsoft said, "later this summer."

Senior Reporter Gregg Keizer covers Windows, Office, Apple/enterprise, web browsers and web apps for Computerworld.

-"What enterprise needs to know about Windows 11 | Computerworld"

"Announcing the first Insider Preview for Windows 11"

28-06-2021 12:40

Hello Windows Insiders, we are excited to release the first Windows 11 Insider Preview build to the Dev Channel, Build 22000.51! As we finalize the product over the coming months, we will work with you to validate the experience. You will get to tr Written By published June 28, 2021

Hello Windows Insiders, we are excited to release the first Windows 11 Insider Preview build to the Dev Channel, Build 22000.51! As we finalize the product over the coming months, we will work with you to validate the experience. You will get to try many, but not all, of the new features we showed last week in this early preview. We will bring more features such as Chat with Microsoft Teams and Android apps in the Microsoft Store over the coming months as they are ready for you – we are just getting started on this journey together!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to read our blog post on how the Windows 11 hardware requirements may impact flighting on your PC and your options to get started.

We look forward to your feedback on what you love and could love more to help make Windows 11 work best for how you work, learn, and play.

Beautiful, fresh, calm visuals and sounds

From rounded corners to the centering of content and new animations, this new visual design extends across multiple areas of Windows 11. Here are some key highlights that you will see after installing this build:

Start with pinned apps and cloud-powered “Recommendations”.

Start: Start puts everything you need on your PC at the center with a set of pinned apps and a cloud powered “Recommended” section that shows your recently opened files from both your PC and across your devices like your smartphone with OneDrive.
Taskbar: Taskbar is also centered with beautiful new animations. Try pinning, launching, switching, minimizing, and rearranging your apps on Taskbar to see the beautiful new animations.
Notification Center & Quick Settings**:** The lower right corner of Taskbar has a button for Notification Center (WIN + N) and Quick Settings (WIN + A). Notification Center is the home for all your notifications in the OS and a full-month calendar view. Quick Settings is the place for you to manage common PC settings quickly and easily like Volume, Brightness, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Focus Assist. Directly above your Quick Settings, you will see media playback controls when playing music or videos in Microsoft Edge or streaming music in apps like Spotify.
File Explorer: We made File Explorer modern with a clean look and brand-new command bar. We have also introduced beautifully designed context menus when right-clicking in File Explorer or on your desktop. App developers will be able to extend the new context menus. We are working to publish documentation for app developers on how to do this with their apps soon.
Themes: In addition to brand new default themes for Windows 11 for both dark and light mode, it also includes four additional themes so you can make Windows feel the way you want it to. All the new themes were designed to complement the centered Taskbar. We have also added new contrast themes for people with visual impairments such as light sensitivity. To change your theme, just right-click on your desktop and choose “Personalize”.
Sounds: The sounds in Windows 11 have been designed to be lighter and more atmospheric. They are also slightly different depending on whether your Windows theme is in dark mode or light mode. The startup sound for Windows also makes its return in which you’ll hear when your PC boots up to the Lock screen and is ready to go for you to login.

Widgets

Widgets bring you closer to information you both want and need. Just click on the widgets icon on the Taskbar, swipe from the left using touch, or hit WIN + W on your keyboard, and your widgets slide out from the left over your desktop. You can personalize your experience by adding or removing widgets, re-arranging, resizing, and customizing the content. The set of widgets we provide currently focus on your calendar, weather, local traffic, your Microsoft To Do lists, your photos from OneDrive, sports and esports, your stock watchlist, and tips.

Widgets in Windows 11.

In addition to your Widgets, you can stay up to date with an integrated feed of personalized news with the latest content from over 4,500 global brands like, The New York Times or BBC. The news feed will adapt to show stories of interest to you, and you can tune it to see more of the content you care about.

Multitasking

Increase your productivity and creativity with these new multitasking features:

Animated gif showing Snap layouts with 3 app windows.

Snap layouts: Just hover your mouse over a window’s maximize button to see available snap layouts, then click on a zone to snap the window. You’ll then be guided to snap windows to the rest of the zones within the layout with guided snap assist. For smaller screens, you’ll be offered a set of 4 snap layouts. You can also invoke the snap layouts flyout with the WIN + Z keyboard shortcut.
Snap groups: Snap groups are a way to easily switch back to your snapped windows. To try this out, snap together at least 2 app windows on your screen. Hover over one of these open apps on the Taskbar to find the snap group and click to quickly switch back.
Desktops: Access your Desktops via Task View (WIN + Tab) on the Taskbar. You can reorder and customize the backgrounds for each of your Desktops. You can also mouse-over Task View on the Taskbar for quick access to your existing Desktops or to create a new one!

The new Microsoft Store

With today’s build, you will be able to try out an early preview of the new Microsoft Store. We’ll continue to build and refine the Store. This build reveals a first look at the Store’s all-new design; in the coming months you’ll see us add other features detailed in last week’s blog post from Giorgio Sardo, GM for Microsoft Store.

Microsoft Store Preview on Windows 11.

Docking

When you undock your laptop, the windows on your external monitor will be minimized. When you re-dock your computer to your monitor, Windows puts everything back exactly where you had it before! You can find the settings for these features under System > Display > Multiple Displays.

Animated gif showing the docking/undocking experience in Windows 11.

Input (touch, inking and voice)

Touch Keyboard personalization: To personalize your Windows experience, we have designed 13 new themes for the touch keyboard including three hardware matching themes that match the Surface colors. We have also built in a brand-new theme engine that allows you to create a fully customized theme including background images. Based on your feedback we have also introduced a setting to resize the touch keyboard.

Custom theme on Windows 11’s touch keyboard.

Voice typing launcher: Our new voice typing launcher is a quick and easy way for you to start voice typing in a selected text field. It is off by default, but you can turn it on within the voice typing settings (WIN + H to start voice typing) and then place it anywhere you would like on your screen.
Improved Touch Gestures: Check out these new on-screen touch gestures for you to easily switch among apps and desktops with smooth transitions. The gestures are like the touchpad gestures but have thoughtful improvements designed specifically for touch. Here’s a list you can try:

Three-finger gestures:

1. Swiping left/right – quickly switch to the last used app window.
2. Swiping down – go back to the desktop (if you follow it with a swiping up, you can restore the app windows).
3. Swiping up – open Task View to browse all app windows and desktops.

Four-finger gestures:

1. Swiping left/right – switch to the previous/next desktop
2. Swiping up/down – (same with three-finger ones).

Pen menu: If you’re using a digital pen, you can open pen menu by clicking the pen icon at the lower right on your Taskbar. (If the pen icon isn’t there, you can enable it by right-clicking on Taskbar and going to Taskbar settings to enable it. By default, it contains two apps which can be customized by clicking the gear button and selecting “edit pen menu”. In the flyout, you can add up to four of your favorite drawing or writing apps in the pen menu, to open them quickly when you’re using your pen.
Language/Input switcher: You can quickly switch between additional languages and keyboards via a switcher a switcher will show up at the lower right on your taskbar next to Quick Settings. You can also use the keyboard shortcut WIN + [Spacebar] to toggle between input methods. To add additional languages and keyboards, go to Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region.

Display improvements

Dynamic Refresh Rate: Dynamic Refresh Rate allows your PC to automatically boost the refresh rate when you’re inking or scrolling (which means you’ll get a smoother experience) and lower when you don’t need it so that your laptop can save power. You can try out DRR on your laptop via Settings > System > Display > Advanced display, and under “Choose a refresh rat**e**” select a “Dynamic” refresh rate. DRR is being rolled out to select laptops running the latest Windows 11 Insider Preview builds and only on laptops with the right display hardware and graphics driver will have the feature available. For more details, check out this blog post.
Other display improvements coming in Windows 11: Auto HDR, Content adaptive brightness control (CABC) disabling, HDR support to color managed apps, and HDR certification.

Settings

We designed Settings to be beautiful, easy to use and inclusive of all your Microsoft experiences in Windows 11. Settings has left-handed navigation that persists between pages, and we have added breadcrumbs as you navigate deeper into Settings to help you know where you are and not lose your place. Settings pages are also all new, with new hero controls at the top that highlight key information and frequently used settings for you to adjust as you need. These new hero controls span across several category pages like System, Bluetooth & devices, Network & Internet, Personalization, Accounts, and Windows Update. We also have added expandable boxes for pages with a lot of settings.

The new Power & battery settings page showing battery usage patterns.

The new Windows 11 setup experience

The Windows 11 setup experience (often referred to as the “out of box experience” or OOBE for short) has been redesigned with brand new colorful animated iconography and more modern light theme. This new setup experience is designed to build excitement for Windows 11 right from the moment you first turn on a new Windows 11 PC for the very first time. Based on your feedback, we have added the ability to name your PC during the setup experience.

The beginning of the setup experience for Windows 11.

After running through the setup experience, the Get Started app is a new first run experience app that will help you quickly get setup on a new PC. Currently, Get Started has a limited number of pages but over time, we plan to add in more content to further educate and assist people new to Windows 11.

The new Get Started app will help you get started with a new PC.

For Insiders wanting to go the extra mile and try this experience out, you can reset your PC by navigating to Settings > System > Recovery > Reset this PC and choose to “Remove everything”. This will wipe your machine, so we recommend you back up your files before resetting your device.

Wi-Fi 6E Support

We’re excited to bring Wi-Fi 6E to the Windows ecosystem, enabling our Windows OEMs, Wireless IHVs and ecosystem partners to deliver leading edge Wi-Fi on new Windows PCs. Wi-Fi 6E is a revolutionary advancement that enables up to 3x more Wi-Fi bandwidth and will transform Wi-Fi experiences through faster speeds, greater capacity, reduced latency, and better security. Many OEMs are already shipping Wi-Fi 6E capable Windows PCs and the first Wi-Fi 6E capable access points and mesh devices are also commercially available.

Once you’re on this Insider Preview build with a Wi-Fi 6E capable PC and driver, along with a capable Wi-Fi router, it’ll just work.

You’ll need a PC that’s equipped with a Wi-Fi 6E device such as the Intel AX210™ and a capable driver. To obtain the latest driver from Intel, see the following guidance: How to Enable Wi-Fi 6E/ 6GHz Band Using Intel® Wi-Fi 6E AX210…

You’ll also need a Wi-Fi 6E capable router, such as one of these:

Once you’re connected to your Wi-Fi 6E router, go to Windows Settings / Network & Internet / Wi-Fi and choose Adapter properties to see if you’re connected to the 6GHz network band. You can also find the Band from the command line by entering: “netsh wlan show int”.

Note that if you use the mobile hotspot in Windows or Wi-Fi Direct, these features continue to support Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) only.

Windows 11 + Office

Coinciding with the release of today’s Windows 11 Insider Preview build, the Office Team is releasing a preview for Office Insiders of their Office apps with a new design that will shine on Windows 11! Designed based on your feedback, the new design gives you a natural and coherent experience across all your Office apps. Learn how to be an Office Insider and try the more intuitive Office here.

The new visual design of Office on Windows 11.

Additionally, for Windows Insiders on ARM PCs – you can also try out the 64-bit version of Office for Windows on ARM. For details, see this blog post here.

Inviting you to our Inside Windows 11 website

We are bringing you behind the scenes to learn about why and how we built Windows 11. You will be able to meet our makers from Engineering, Design and Research to share their insights and unique perspectives throughout this journey. We will be posting new inside stories on a bi-weekly basis to share how we made Windows 11 happen.

Watch one of the stories we have that shows how Windows 11 was crafted to feel completely new, yet immediately familiar.

Visit Inside Windows 11.

For developers

You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk. View the top 10 things you can do to make your app great on Windows 11 including ensuring support for rounded corners in your apps.

You can also use the latest Windows Insider SDK to build apps for Windows 11 on ARM using ARM64EC.

Changes and Improvements

We are providing estimates for how long a restart for updates would take. When your PC is pending reboot for a quality update, you will be able to see estimates on your power menu under Start, in restart notifications, on the Windows Update Settings page and inside the Windows Update icon that shows up at the lower right of Taskbar. This feature is rolling out to a subset of Insiders in the Dev Channel at first so not everyone will see this right away.
Some Insiders will have the ability to right click on ‘Recommended’ on Start to refresh the content. This is rolling out to a subset of Insiders at first. If you get this experience, let us know what you think.

Important Insider Links

You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here, including a list of all the new features and updates released in builds so far. Are you not seeing any of the features listed for this build? Check your Windows Insider Settings to make sure you’re in the Dev Channel, and see the list of builds available in the Flight Hub. Submit feedback here to let us know if things weren’t working the way you expected.

Known issues with Build 2200.51

When upgrading to Windows 11 from Windows 10 or when installing an update to Windows 11, some features may be deprecated or removed. See details here.
Taskbar:
- Taskbar will not be shown across multiple monitors but will return in an upcoming build.
- The preview window may not display the entire window when hovering over Task View on the taskbar.
Settings:
- When upgrading a device with multiple user accounts to Windows 11, Settings will fail to launch.
- A small set of Settings legacy pages as well as fit and finish bugs will be addressed in future releases.
- The ‘Power mode’ setting does not show up on the Power & battery page.
- When launching the Settings app, a brief green flash may appear.
- When using Quick Settings to modify Accessibility settings, the settings UI may not save the selected state.
Start:
- In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the taskbar. If you experience the issue, press Win + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.
- We’re working on fixing an issue that’s preventing unpinning apps from Start, making the command bar in File Explorer disappear, or hiding snap. To work around these, restart your PC.
Search:
- App icons in the Search panel may do not load, and instead appear as gray squares.
- When hovering your mouse over the Search icon on the taskbar, the third recent search does not load and remains blank.
- After clicking the Search icon taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.
- When you hover your mouse over the Search icon on the taskbar, recent searches may not be displayed. To work around the issue, restart your device.
- Search panel might appear as black and not display any content below the search box.
Widgets:
- System text scaling will scale all widgets proportionally and may result in cropped widgets.
- Launching links from the widgets board may not invoke apps to the foreground.
- When using screen reader/Narrator in widgets may not properly announce content
- Widgets board may appear empty. To work around the issue, you can sign out and then sign back in again.
- When using the Outlook client with a Microsoft account, Calendar, and To Do changes may not sync to the widgets in real time.
- Widgets may be displayed in the wrong size on external monitors. If you encounter this, you can launch the widgets via touch or WIN + W shortcut on your actual device monitor first and then launch on your secondary monitors.
- After adding multiple widgets quickly from the widgets settings, some of the widgets may not be visible on the board.
Store:
- The install button might not be functional yet in some limited scenarios.
- Rating and reviews are not available for some apps.

We are so excited to share this and future Windows 11 Insider Previews with our Windows Insiders as we finalize the product.

We look forward to your feedback on what you love and could love more to help make Windows 11 work best for how you work, learn, and play.

Thanks,
Amanda & Brandon

==18739== Words

Announcing the first Insider Preview for Windows 11 | Windows Insider Blog

"Windows 11 has a new 'Widgets' panel that replaces News & Interests"

07-07-2021 13:30

Microsoft's new Windows 11 OS features a brand new "Widgets" panel that's pinned to the Taskbar by default. This Widgets panel is essentially just the Windows 10 "News & Interests" taskbar flyout, but housed in a slightly different UI. It connects to the same MSN service, and offers the same news, weather, sports, and finance updates. Source: Windows Central

What you need to know

Windows 11 features a new Widgets panel that slides out from the left.
It houses the same News & Interests content as found on Windows 10.
Unfortunately, it's not very customizable. At least not yet.

Microsoft's new Windows 11 OS features a brand new "Widgets" panel that's pinned to the Taskbar by default. This Widgets panel is essentially just the Windows 10 "News & Interests" taskbar flyout, but housed in a slightly different UI. It connects to the same MSN service, and offers the same news, weather, sports, and finance updates.

Windows 11 Widgets Dashboard Ui

The Widget panel can be accessed either via the dedicated Widget button on the Taskbar, via a swipe in from the left of the display, or via the keyboard shortcut Win+W. The panel sits on the left, and cannot be moved around or resized. Along the top of the panel is the current time, along with a drop down menu for customizing what kind of topics and interests show up inside the panel.

Beneath that is your grid of interests, spanning from the latest news to sports leaderboards. All of this information can be customized and tuned to your liking via the MSN website. Frustratingly, none of the boxes can be moved around or rearranged, and clicking on anything will open in Microsoft Edge, even if your browser default isn't the Edge browser.

Since this is still pre-release software, we're not going to judge its quality or feature set. That said, having everything open in the web browser and now directly inside the Widgets panel is incredibly frustrating, and I hope Microsoft is able to improve this so clicking on things like "see full forecast" just expands the widget so I can see more, instead of taking me out of the panel entirely.

Unfortunately, the most useful part of the old News & Interests feature on Windows 10 is gone on Windows 11. The ability to see the current Weather directly on the Taskbar was nice, but that heads-up display has been replaced with an animated Widgets logo which doesn't display any Weather information at all. Too bad.

It also doesn't look like this Widgets panel is developer accessible, meaning it's only for Microsoft's MSN service and not for third-party developers to build their own Widgets. Finally, it bizarrely requires you to be signed in with a Microsoft Account for any of it to function. If you're not, you'll just get an error asking you to sign-in. I also find it interesting that in this error, the Widgets panel calls itself the "Windows Dashboard."

Microsoft really needs to build this feature out more if it wants anyone to properly use it, as right now, it's a glorified MSN.com viewer, and I don't think there's much of a market for that. What are your thoughts on the new Widgets panel? Let us know in the comments.

[

Don't have TPM support? Try one of these motherboard modules.

](https://www.windowscentral.com/best-trusted-platform-modules-tpm)

Secure Windows

Don't have TPM support? Try one of these motherboard modules.

If your PC somehow does not have trusted platform module (TPM) support through firmware and your UEFI BIOS, we'd recommend checking your motherboard manual for a TPM header. If you have one present, you can try to see if one of these will be compatible to get you ready for Windows 11.

==3157== Words

Windows 11: This is the new 'Widgets' panel with news, weather, and more | Windows Central

"Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.176"

02-09-2021 12:26

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.176 to the Beta Channels!

We are also making Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.176 available to commercial PCs in the Release Preview Channel. Written By published September 2, 2021

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.176 to the Beta Channels!

We are also making Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.176 available to commercial PCs in the Release Preview Channel. Please see this blog post for all the details.

Changes and Improvements

People want to get closer to the things they love, faster. This is why commonly used experiences like Search, Task View, Widgets and Chat are pinned to the Taskbar in Windows 11. To manage which of these icons are pinned to the Taskbar in one place, simply right-click on the Taskbar and select “Taskbar settings” to open the Taskbar Settings page and choose which system icon to hide. If you hid any of these system icons previously and want to unhide them – you can do this via the Taskbar Settings page.

Fixes

[General]

We fixed an issue with paired Bluetooth LE devices that was causing an increase in Bluetooth reliability issues and bugchecks after resume from hibernate or when Bluetooth was turned off.
We mitigated an issue that was resulting some users hitting in an unexpected error when trying to take pictures with certain USB cameras.
When setting up Windows Hello in OOBE, we’ve added a new link to learn more about Windows Hello.

[Chat from Microsoft Teams]

Arabic and Hebrew languages will now allow changing Teams Settings.
We fixed the issue where if you were making an outgoing call, there was no ring tone, but the user interface would show that the call is getting connected.

[Microsoft Store]

The following issues were fixed in the most recent Store updates:

We fixed the issue where the install button might not be functional in limited scenarios.
We also fixed an issue where rating and reviews were not available for some apps.

Known issues

[General]

We’re investigating reports from Insiders in the Beta Channel where after upgrading to Windows 11, they are not seeing the new Taskbar and the Start menu doesn’t work. To workaround this if you are impacted, please try going to Windows Update > Update history, uninstalling the latest cumulative update for Windows, and the reinstall it by checking for updates.
We’re working on a fix for an issue that is causing some Surface Pro X devices to bug check with a WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR.

[Start]

In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.
System and Windows Terminal is missing when right-clicking on the Start button (WIN + X).

[Taskbar]

The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.

[Search]

After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.
Search panel might appear as black and not display any content below the search box.

[Widgets]

The widgets board may appear empty. To work around the issue, you can sign out and then sign back in again.
Widgets may be displayed in the wrong size on external monitors. If you encounter this, you can launch the widgets via touch or WIN + W shortcut on your actual PC display first and then launch on your secondary monitors.

[Microsoft Store]

We continue to work to improve search relevance in the Store.

[Windows Sandbox]

Within Windows Sandbox, the language input switcher does not launch after clicking the switcher icon on the Taskbar. As a workaround, users can switch their input language via any of the following hardware keyboard shortcuts: Alt + Shift, Ctrl + Shift, or Win + Space (the third option is available only if Sandbox is full-screened).
Within Windows Sandbox, the IME context menu does not launch after clicking the IME icon in the Taskbar. As workarounds, users can access the functionalities of the IME context menu with either of following methods:
- Accessing the IME settings via Settings > Time & language > Language & region >
  (e.g. Japanese) three dots > Language options >
  (e.g. Microsoft IME) three dots > Keyboard options.
  - Optionally, you may also enable the IME toolbar, an alternative UI to quickly invoke specific IME functions. Continuing from above, navigate to Keyboard options > Appearance > Use IME toolbar.
- Using the unique set of hardware keyboard shortcuts associated with each IME-supported language. (See: Japanese IME Shortcuts, Traditional Chinese IME Shortcuts).

[Localization]

There is an issue where some Insiders may be some missing translations from their user experience for a small subset of languages running the latest Insider Preview builds. To confirm if you have been impacted, please visit this Answers forum post and follow the steps for remediation.

Microsoft Store

We are rolling out an update for Store (version 22108.1401.11.0) to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel that includes the following improvements:

A complete visual overhaul of the Library UI, with simpler navigation and better performance to boot.

The new visual overhaul of the Library page in the Microsoft Store.

We updated our Spotlight design for promoted products in the Microsoft Store app. Hover over an option to get a sneak peak of what’s inside.

You can now hover over items in Spotlight in the Microsoft Store to see more details.

For developers

You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk. The Windows Insider SDK will be continuously flighting with corresponding Windows 11 Insider Preview builds, and the latest Windows Insider SDK for Build 22000.176 is now available.

Important Insider Links

To learn how we made Windows 11, click here. You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here, including a list of all the new features and updates released in builds so far. Are you not seeing any of the features listed for this build? Check your Windows Insider Settings to make sure you’re in the Dev Channel. Submit feedback here to let us know if things weren’t working the way you expected.

If you want a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel, head over to Flight Hub. Please note, there will be a slight delay between when a build is flighted and when Flight Hub is updated.

Thanks,
Amanda & Brandon

==6537== Words

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.176 | Windows Insider Blog

extratone / bilge

░W░I░N░D░O░W░S░ ░1░1░ #167

Satya Nadella’s closing Windows 11 remarks were a direct shot across Apple’s bow

2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS: an electric S-Class with a 400-mile range

"Microsoft comes for the creators"

The antitrust bills pass out of committee

Governing

Industry

Those good tweets

Talk to me

"Microsoft Opens Windows, But Reverts to Old Competitive Playbook"

"Input"

Talking Windows 11 with Chief Product Officer Panos Panay | Same Brain Episode 44

"What enterprise needs to know about Windows 11 | Computerworld"

Peaceful coexistence?

Windows 10, here until 2025

More of what counts ... support

Finally, Windows is annual

64-bit only

Free

Same servicing tools

"Announcing the first Insider Preview for Windows 11"

Beautiful, fresh, calm visuals and sounds

Widgets

Multitasking

The new Microsoft Store

Docking

Input (touch, inking and voice)

Display improvements

Settings

The new Windows 11 setup experience

Wi-Fi 6E Support

Windows 11 + Office

Inviting you to our Inside Windows 11 website

For developers

Changes and Improvements

Important Insider Links

Known issues with Build 2200.51

LIVE: WINDOWS 11. FILE EXPLORER. AM I GOING TO SURVIVE TODAY?

"Windows 11 has a new 'Widgets' panel that replaces News & Interests"

What you need to know

Don't have TPM support? Try one of these motherboard modules.

Windows 11 is full of delightful detail - The Verge

"Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.176"

Changes and Improvements

Fixes

Known issues

Microsoft Store

For developers

Important Insider Links