PC makers are shaking up CES with wild designs and next-gen chips, but the real story is Microsoft's bold software moves, AI's hardware hunger, and a candid debate over whether any tech company still puts users first. Come for the Windows updates, stay for the whisky warnings and robot bathroom assistants.

CES 2026 is here with the 4K hummingbird feeder of your dreams

• New PCs and more from HP consumers/commercial, HP gamers, Lenovo, others
• The first official Copilot+ PC desktops
• Snapdragon X2 Plus joins X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme
• Intel Panther Lake has meaningful CPU and graphics performance gains, but predictable reliability issues
• AMD Ryzen AI 400 series is a minor bump

Windows

• Paul was the first to report that Microsoft is refactoring it all with Rust
• A Microsoft distinguished engineer wrote about his desire to refactor all C/C++ code in the company with Rust by 2030
• Some mistook this to mean "rewriting Windows with Rust,ˮ so he had to issue a clarification. But I never wrote that.
• Heads-up: That will happen, but this is really about Azure first and the core underlying code in Microsoftʼs most important platforms
• Microsoft released hardware-accelerated BitLocker in late 2025 and never told anyone. It requires the latest PC CPUs
• Copilot app update that adds text editing actions to Copilot Vision across channels
• Dev and Beta got first previews of AI agents on the Taskbar, starting with the Researcher agent, plus underlying Agent Launchers experience
• IDC says the global memory shortage (thanks, AI!) could screw up PC and smartphone growth this year

AI

• ChatGPT now has an app store, but it has a ways to go
• Mozilla Firefox will have a "killswitchˮ for AI
• Our national nightmare will soon be over, LG will let users remove Copilot app from their smart TVs

Xbox and gaming

• First Xbox Game Pass releases of 2026 include Resident Evil Village and Star Wars Outlaws
• Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to Hisense smart TVs and to the latest Fire TV smart TVs
• GOG goes independent, will continue DRM-free push
• "Have a blastˮ and other FPS throwbacks from the 1990s
• Valve quietly killed the LCD Steam Deck model

Tips and picks

• Tip of the week: Itʼs time to give Little AI a look
• App pick of the week: Bonjourr
• RunAs Radio this week: What AI can do for SysAdmins in 2026 with Cecilia Wiren
• Brown liquor pick of the week: The Singleton of Dufftown 12

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

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This isn't your usual Windows Weekly. Pour a glass and settle in as Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell ditch the headlines for whisky-soaked tech stories, behind-the-scenes Microsoft confessions, and the unexpected joys (and disasters) of vintage hardware. These are the tales you only hear when the mics are (almost) off.

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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We were inundated with new Windows features in 2025, but which ones actually moved the needle? Fortnite isn't just back on iPhone and Android, it's available on Windows 11 on Arm, and it works great! Plus, 2 big mobile wins for Epic Games and some thoughts on the "right" way to roll out AI features.

Windows 11

• Best Windows 11 updates of 2025, in no particular order...
• Dark mode improvements to File Explorer
• Widgets major overhaul with separate widgets and Discovery feed
• Xbox Full Screen experience - especially good on handhelds, of course, but also any PC you use for gaming with a controller
• Click to Do (Copilot+ PC only)
• External fingerprint reader support for Windows Hello ESS
  
  -External/USB webcams supported by Windows Studio Effects (Copilot+ PC only)
• Quick Machine Recovery is the tip of a wave of new foundational features like Admin Protection, Smart App Control (updates), and more that go beyond surface-level look and feel
• Redesigned Start menu isn't perfect but it's a nice improvement
• Copilot Vision, though this type of thing may make more sense on phones
• AI features in Paint, Photos, Notepad, and Snipping Tool
• Natural language interactions like the agent in Settings, file search, and more (mostly Copilot+ PC only, but you can do this in Copilot as well)
• Bluetooth LE support for improved audio quality in game chat, voice calls
• Gaming on Windows 11 on Arm and Snapdragon X: Major steps forward, but the same issue as always
• Looking ahead to 2026: 26H1, Agentic features that work, potential Windows 12, and AI PCs

AI

• An extensive new interview with Mustafa Suleyman confirms why this guy is special and how confusing it is that Copilot is so disrespected
• Microsoft Copilot is auto-installing on LG smart TVs and there's no way to remove it
• GPT-5.2 is OpenAI's answer to Gemini 3
• ChatGPT Images is OpenAI's answer to Nano Banana Pro
• Disney invests $1 billion OpenAI, sues Google
• Opera Neon is now generally available for $20 per month
• AI is moving quick as we all know but the bigger issue may be the incessant marketing about features like agents that don't even work now
• Microsoft is getting pushback on forced Copilot usage, price hikes
• Google is expanding its use of "experiments" outside of mainstream products with things like NotebookLM, Mixboard, CC, and much more. Maybe this is the better approach: Test separately and then integrate it into existing products
• Oddly enough, Microsoft does have a Windows AI Lab for this kind of experimentation
• Many small models vs. one big LLM in the cloud

Mobile

• Fortnite is back in the Google Play Store in the U.S. as Google plays nice
• Apple loses its contempt appeal, the end of "junk fees" (Apple Tax) is in sight

Xbox and gaming

• Xbox December Update has one big update for the mobile app and one big update for Xbox Wireless Headphones
• There's a new Xbox Developer Direct coming in January
• Half-Life 3 may really be happening, but it will be a Steam Machine launch title so it could be a while

Tips & picks

• Tip of the year: De-enshittify Windows 11
• App pick of the year: Fortnite
• RunAs Radio this week: Zero Trust in 2026 with Michele Bustamante
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Lark Symphony No. 1

These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/963

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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December 2025's Patch Tuesday brought major shifts, but the real action is in Microsoft's pricing, privacy battles, and the arms race to control AI-enabled browsers. Plus, Paul recommends Tiny11 Builder for a clean install, or Win11Debloat for an existing install. Then, Rufus to create installation media without the forced Microsoft account (MSA) sign-in or hardware requirement checks. Use MSEdgeDirect to use the default web browser for stories from Widgets, web-based search results, etc. And ExplorerPatcher can fix the performance and reliability issues in File Explorer.

It's the final Patch Tuesday of 2025

• Major dark mode updates (with a fix for the "flashbang" problem)
• AI Agent in Settings, Click to Do, Windows Studio Effects, and Search improvements for Copilot+ PCs
• Many other improvements: FSE, Share, Settings, Widgets, more

More Windows 11

• New 25H2 preview build on Beta/Dev adds MCP public preview, Quick Machine Recovery auto-enabled, Unified Update Orchestration Platform, Windows MIDI services

Microsoft 365

• Microsoft 365 is getting a lot more expensive in mid-2026. You didn't think all those free AI updates were free, did you?

AI

• Paul has been talking about "programmatic" apps and services because he wasn't sure of a term for this type of interaction. But there is a term for this: Semantic. As in semantic web. And there you go
• Microsoft one of 1,000 companies partnering on Agentic AI Foundation because you're getting agents whether they work or not
• Gartner says NO to AI web browsers
• The New York Times is suing Perplexity for all the obvious reasons
• After a big win in the legal battle with OpenAI
• Opera for Android gets a big AI update
• Google Workspace Studio brings code-free agent creation to business users - automation is a solid AI use case

Xbox

• Xbox Series X|S notably absent during Black Friday sales
• Call of Duty won't repeat the mistakes of the past anymore since it didn't work out twice now
• MS Flight Simulator 2024 is now available on PS5
• Red Dead Redemption comes to mobile for the first time, free with a Netflix account

Tips & Picks

• Tip and app(s) of the week: De-enshittify Windows 11
• RunAs Radio this week: Incident Management and the Crowdstrike Event with Liam Westley
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Old Farm Pennsylvania Straight Rye Whiskey

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

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The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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Can the AI boom survive its own hype? This episode takes on the future of OpenAI, tech's subscription fatigue, and why "Made with AI" labels might be the new scarlet letter. Plus, Microsoft's ugly sweaters are back for some reason.

Windows 11

• Week D comes a week late and in the wrong month, but it's a big one, and a preview of what to expect next week in Patch Tuesday
• More pervasive dark mode
• Copilot+ PC exclusives: Improvements to Click to Do, Windows Search, Windows Studio Effects, Agent in Settings
• Expansion of FSE availability
• Improvements across Settings, Share, File Explorer, Desktop Spotlight, more
• Aluminium OS is the name of the ChromeOS/Android Frankenstein that will take on Windows
• Android 16 QPR2 is here with about 1,000 new features and maybe a saner approach to OS updating than what we see on Windows

AI

• AI slop is no enshittification: Human error is still a much bigger issue
• Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is right: The "Made with AI" label is silly and needs to go
• OpenAI declares a "code red" after Google finally figured out AI
• Opera quietly does an about-face on AI in its browsers
• Opera Neon gets one-minute deep research, Gemini 3, and Nano Banana

Xbox and gaming

• Mortal Kombat 1, more coming to Game Pass in first half of December
• Valve is quietly bringing SteamOS, Windows games to Arm

Tips & picks

• Tip of the week: Time to cull
• Tip of the week #2: Time to look back
• RunAs Radio this week: The M365 Copilot Data Readiness Checklist with Nikki Chapple
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Stumbras Starka

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

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The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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Pavan Davuluri only spoke at one Ignite 2025 session, and it did not deserve the hate he got. But what did he really say?

• Copilot is a front-end for apps and cloud AI services, agents are background processes.
• Apps in Windows need to become programmatic so AI and agents can control them.
• You are in control. You being IT and the user. These experiences are off by default, opt-in, and optional. This is the end of whatever BS argument anyone has about this stuff.
• Copilot Voice because AI is better when you babble and is often more natural than typing
  • Key concept: Apps, CLIs, etc. expect exact commands, AI is all about intent, just do what I want, not exactly what I say. This is why, yes, people WILL want to talk to their PCs (and other devices)
• UIs for these new features will look/feel natural in Windows
  • Search box in Taskbar is getting updated to orchestrate between local/web search and Copilot capabilities, including agents
  • Agents will appear as app icons in Taskbar when fired, can be check in on, can post notifications for you to attend to
  • Integration of M365 Copilot capabilities with Windows - Better together story, with things like Writing Assistance for every text box
  • Accessibility updates thanks to AI - Fluid Dictation, which is what makes Copilot Voice make so much sense
• All the security, privacy, and IT management the audience expects

Windows Insider Program

• Dev and Beta builds include Full Screen Experience on all PCs, new Notepad app, more

Hardware - Earnings

• Lenovo PC business up 12 percent to $15.1 billion, 25.6 percent unit share
• HP up 4 percent to $14.6 billion, but job cuts for AI are coming
• Dell PC business up 3 percent to $1.41 billion

AI and Stuff

• Microsoft releases local Fara-7B agentic model for computer use
• ChatGPT's new coding model is optimized for Windows
• Dear God, you must see Nano Banana Pro to understand Google's lead
• Google is bringing AirDrop to Android, starting with Pixel. This is what happens when regulators "force design changes on OS makers."

Xbox and Gaming

• Xbox Cloud Gaming usage is up 45 percent YOY. Sure. What's 45 percent of 3 people?
• Xbox Cloud Gaming is adding per-game resolution settings, to 1440p for Game Pass Ultimate customers
• ROG Xbox Ally is getting default game profiles, in preview for 40 titles now
• Microsoft open sources the source code for Zork, Zork II, and Zork III
• New Chromebook buyers get one year of Nvidia GeForce NOW with Fast Pass

Tips and Picks

• Tip of the week: Finding experts is more important than ever
• We live in the age of stupid. Find the smart and never let go
• Also, Xbox is having a good Black Friday sale
• App pick of the week: Copilot Mode in Microsoft Edge
• Also: Perplexity Comet on Android

RunAs Radio this week: Christmas Gifts for SysAdmins with Joey Snow and Rick Claus

• https://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/1012

Brown liquor pick of the week: Sidetrack Stone Whisky

• https://www.huskdistillers.com/shop/sidetrack-stone-whisky

These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/960

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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Ahead of Microsoft Ignite 2025, Windows boss Pavan Davuluri tweeted an innocuous post about nothing, and all hell broke loose. We are broken as a community and it's time to cull the herd.

Ignite 2025

• Fun aside: Google could have announced Gemini 3 at any time, but they chose the opening day of Ignite. Who's dancing now?
• No Satya and suddenly the keynote is watchable again
• Microsoft brings Anthropic models to Foundry along with Nvidia architecture
• MCP comes to Windows 11 in public preview for developers
• New Microsoft 365 Copilot agents for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
• Agent 365 is the obvious name of an AI agent management service
• Windows 11 is getting agents on the Taskbar because it isn't annoying enough already

Windows 11

• Two new Release Preview builds, a new Canary build, and the first release of Copilot Actions
• The RP builds are a preview of Patch Tuesday in December, it's bigger than expected
• Dev/Beta build with experimental AI agent capabilities, more

AI

• OpenAI released ChatGPT 5.1 and it's like no one noticed
• Mozilla announces AI window for Firefox, with immediate backlash

Xbox and gaming

• Qualcomm JUST announced a new control panel for Snapdragon X gaming
• Hands-on with the Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE) for Windows 11
• FSE Transforms a gaming handheld PC into a device-like experience
• Frame rates see a dramatic jump in FSE Call of Duty, which was surprising
• Fortnite is coming to the Xbox app in Windows, adding Xbox Play Anywhere support
• Xbox announces a new set of titles coming to Game Pass across platforms
• Xbox Partner Preview event is set for November 20
• As predicted, Steam Machine is the "Xbox Microsoft wanted to make." Yes, it's a good idea now that someone else is doing it

Tips and picks

• Tip of the week: Tiny11 Builder, again
• Hardware pick of the week: Lenovo Legion Go 2
• RunAs Radio this week: Azure SRE Agents with Deepthi Chelupati
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve 2007

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.

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Windows 11 just got its most noticeable Start menu revamp in a while, but is it a productivity boost or just more Microsoft meddling? The team digs into Patch Tuesday's big surprises and whether generative tools are transformative essentials or just a passing fad.

Windows 11

• Patch Tuesday was yesterday, your new Start menu is right where Microsoft left it
• Copilot+ PCs: Improvements to Click to Do, File Explorer, Voice access, and Windows Search
• All PCs, eventually: Taskbar improvements, Administrator Protection (off by default), Quality updates
• Heading into Ignite next week, Microsoft cites recent security wins in Windows 11 and Surface
• First 26H1 build comes to Canary to prove that there will be nothing new in it, ever
• Qualcomm takes a one-time $5.7 billion hit thanks to Big Stupid Bill but still nails it in quarterly earnings

Microsoft

• WSJ continues its Microsoft financial accountability criticisms
• Also reports that internal documents state OpenAI expects to lose $74 billion in 2028, the year Anthropic will break even
• If Paul starts a business and it loses money for three years in a row, it becomes a hobby. So WTF is OpenAI exactly?

AI

• Microsoft AI creates a Superintelligence team as a sort-of alternative to AGI
• Microsoft launched .NET 10 at .NET Conf on Tuesday - Plus, Visual Studio 2026 with a new monthly release schedule and Insider versions going forward
• Double-digit performance improvements again, somehow
• Uno announced Uno Platform Studio 2.0 with a fun surprise for Paul: They upgraded the original WPF version of .NETpad into a cross platform app in 3 minutes! There will be a demo on Thursday
• .NETpad is transitioning to WinUIpad with the Windows App SDK rewrite. It is going poorly because Windows App SDK is terrible, cannot be open sourced quickly enough

Xbox

• Steam announces a new videogame console, the Steam Machine!
• Backbone Pro Xbox Edition is now available
• Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition is here with with Xbox Play Anywhere support, Creations
• Halo: Campaign Evolved is coming, so Halo: Infinite becomes a lot more finite
• Call of Duty Black Ops 6 player on PC? Hope you enjoyed that 180 GB "update" you had to install before playing a year-old game (also got a 6.7 GB update Wednesday. For the love of God)
• GTA VI has been delayed yet again as it edges into Duke Nukem Forever territory
• Sony has now sold over 84 million PS5 consoles, meaning it has outsold every Xbox generation ever made
• Sony is selling a 27-inch gaming display in the U.S. and Japan

Tips & picks

• Tip of the week: Solving the problem over identifying the problem
• App pick of the week: Tiny11 Builder
• RunAs Radio this week: Azure Resiliency with Chris Ayers
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Kyoto Whisky Kuro-Obi Black Belt Blended

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.

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We've heard that Microsoft will go off script this year with a 26H1 release of Windows 11 specifically aimed at Snapdragon X2-based PCs, as it did with the early release of 24H2 last year for the first-generation Snapdragon X. Also, Microsoft's latest earnings call left analysts baffled as execs dodged questions about multibillion-dollar AI losses and the real story behind OpenAI's ballooning deficit.

26H1!

• Now confirmed by the release notes of a Windows Update
• And the Dev channel will soon switch over to 26H1 testing, with Beta moving to 25H2 (from 24H2)
• Expectations? All three versions will be functionally identical except for some Copilot+ PC-specific features that may be briefly only on Snapdragon X2. And then there will be a 26H2 for everyone

More Windows 11

• Microsoft (over) simplifies its Windows Update naming scheme, and then has to backtrack a bit because of admin/IT backlash
• October Preview Update screwed up Task Manager a little bit
• Dev/Beta update noted above included a new build with Ask Copilot in the Taskbar, Full-screen experience for Xbox gaming handhelds, Shared audio over Bluetooth LE in preview, and improvements to the WOA Prism emulator (which partially explains the expectations bit above)
• Microsoft Edge password manager can now save and sync passkeys, but you should still use a third-party password/identity manager
• Microsoft Store gets a bulk installer but only on the web

Earnings learnings

• Microsoft earnings: Revenues up 18 percent to $77.7 billion but cost of AI is spiraling out of control and will only get bigger this FY
• Productivity and Business Processes revenues up 17 percent YOY to $33 billion
• Intelligent Cloud revenues of $30.9 billion, a gain of 28 percent YOY
• More Personal Computing delivered $13.8 billion in revenues, up 4 percent YOY.
• CapEx/AI infrastructure build-out costs are $34.9 billion (vs. $20 billion one year ago), plus a $4.1 billion loss attributed to OpenAI that was mentioned in a 10-Q (SEC) filing but not in its earnings reports
• Paul's analysis sticks mostly to Wall Street complicity in Microsoft's earnings non-transparency shenanigans. This is getting weird, given the amounts of money we're now talking about
• This isn't a first, but Spotify's earnings announcements includes a few BS sleights of hand too
• AMD: 36 percent revenue growth isn't enough for Wall Street
• Alphabet/Google: Up 16 percent to $102.3 billion, ads are 72.5 percent of revenues
• Amazon: Up 13 percent to $180 billion in revenues, $30 from AWS
• Apple: Up 8 percent to $102.5 billion, this quarter will be its best ever

AI, antitrust, & dev

• Epic Games and Google announce settlement in Epic v. Google, a dramatic common-sense move that Apple should (but won't) emulate
• Regulatory filings tied to Microsoft earnings suggest OpenAI lost $12 billion in most recent quarter
• Freed from Microsoft, OpenAI immediately signs $38 billion infrastructure deal with AWS
• .NET 10 to launch next week at .NET Conf 2025

Xbox & games

• Xbox Game Pass getting Call of Duty Black Ops 7, five more Day One games in coming days (with an *)
• Xbox October Update rolls out with game shader preloading on Xbox Ally, new modules in Game Hubs on console, more games to stream on Xbox Cloud Gaming, more
• Nintendo Switch 2 is off to a blockbuster first year with

T

These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/957

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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Welp, Azure crashed on Microsoft's earnings day, the cloud's weakest link exposed just as AI investments hit mind-boggling numbers. And 2.5 years into the AI era, things are still moving quickly, and there are extreme opinions on both ends of the spectrum. But Paul finally found a source for a good way to evaluate AI and figure out where it works and where it does not. It came from an unexpected place.

Windows 11

• Week D arrives with a massive Preview Update for 24H2 and 25H2 - including the new Start menu, finally
• Copy & Search, Voice typing improvements, Proactive Memory Diagnostics, more in Dev and Beta
• Copilot Vision in Copilot app updated with text input and output across all Insider channels
• Intel earnings are great unless you understand how numbers work

Microsoft 365

• Australia regulator sues Microsoft over misleading Microsoft 365 consumer pricing
• Copilot is being integrated into the People, Files, and Calendar companion apps for Microsoft 365 commercial
• On the day Microsoft will report earnings, Microsoft 365 and Azure went down. Hilarious!

AI

• OpenAI completes its transition to a for-profit owned by a non-profit
• Microsoft's stake is 27 percent. A lot has changed in the Microsoft/OpenAI partnership agreement
• WSJ finally calls out Microsoft for its lack of financial reporting transparency. Paul's been complaining about that for over a decade - Big Tech has became a shell game. These companies are managing money they don't even have and actual products and services and "real" value be damned
• Big Copilot feature dump for consumers with a human touch: Mico, Copilot Groups, memory improvements, connectors, Proactive Actions in preview, Copilot for Health, Copilot in Edge improvements, and Copilot in Windows updates from last week
• Microsoft 365 Copilot is getting App Builder and Workflow agents
• GitHub Copilot to support third-party AI agents
• Grammarly rebrands as Superhuman

Xbox and gaming

• Credible report claims Microsoft requires Xbox/Microsoft Gaming to deliver 30 percent profit margin
• That is impossible and this is clearly coming from Amy Hood and has led to the ensh*ttification of Xbox as a platform
• As Microsoft launches first gaming handhelds, all anyone wants to talk about is the next-generation Xbox console. It started with Sarah Bond last week - "very premium" console with "curated" experience
• Phil Spencer discusses it this week, who implied Windows at the heart of console
• The rumor mill churns up - Will be Windows, as we've said, will drop multiplayer paywall that debuted in 2002
• Now Satya Nadella is commenting on the next console, confirms publisher focus for this business
• Halo: Campaign Evolved is coming in 2026, new features, new Unreal Engine graphics, new PS5 compatibility
• Also, The Outer Worlds 2 is now available. Yes, on PS5 too
• Amazon relaunches Luna, and the new Amazon layoffs point to a new focus on casual gaming

Tips and picks

• Tip of the week: Understand where AI works and where AI is just a marketing term used to hype something that doesn't work
• App pick of the week: Tiny11 Builder
• RunAs Radio this week: AI for DBAs with Grant Fritchey
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Redbreast Dream Casks

These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/956

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Sponsors:

• framer.com/design promo code WW
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