It's time for Windows weekly with Paul Thurrott and Mary-Jo Foley. Microsoft wants you for life, and their ready to kill the nag screen. Paul is excited for the new Xbox and Mary-Jo talks about Microsoft's bad cloud day. Window's Weekly is next. (Pulse wave sounds) This is Twit Bandwidth for Windows Weekly is provided by CacheFly at cachefly.com This is Window's Weekly with Paul Thurrott and Mary-Jo Foley. Episode 484, recorded September 21, 2016 Microsoft for life! Window's Weekly is literately brought to you by Sonic, with 10 gig fiber internet service provider. Join Sonic's internet revolution as they bring fast affordable internet phone and TV to homes and businesses all over California. Visit www.sonic.com/twit to sign up for services and receive your first month free. And by Audible.com to download a free audio book of your choice go to www.audible.com/windows And by Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans Rocket Mortgage brings the mortgage process into the 21st century with a fast, easy and completely online process. Check out Rocket Mortgage today at www.quickenloans.com/windows It's time for Windows weekly with Paul Thurrott and Mary-Jo Foley. I'm Father Robert Ballecer in for Leo Laporte who is currently looking for the answers to life, the universe and everything acrossed the pond. Of course Paul Thurrott is the guru behind Thurrott.com the previewer of news, reviews and analyzes for tech enthusiasts. Mary-Jo Foley the mastermind behind ZDnet All About Microsoft blog. Together their here to bring a light to the deep cave of Microsoft news, like a over charged light bulb battery exploding in the darkness. Paul, Mary-Jo so good to have ya. (Mary-Jo) thanks for having (Paul) It's like your introducing Bond villains there. (Mary-Jo) I know I was like Wow! The masterminds. (Paul) Master of Disaster Mary-Jo Foley. (Father Ballecer) Do you have a cat? and can you do this with your fingers? - I think I need that on a business card. If I still used business cards I would. That is one of those strange things. At these conventions that we go to these shows we all do the business card thing and I've even got down the whole Asian thing of handing like this and a bit of a bow. But, um, those collect dust afterwards, I almost never use them. - No, No! I don't even have one. - I was going to say I think I have some, but I've never brought them anywhere. -Wait!, You two go to shows, don't you? It's kind of a thing, it's how you say hello, right? -Well now people just say, "where can I find you?" and I just day "All About Microsoft" - Mary-Jo and I just bump our phones together and say "Power twins activate." (Mary-Jo laughs) - No, I don't know every once in a while someone will hand me a business cards and I have a momentary bit of confusion, like I don't have one of these things, or I don't have it with me. You know I feel, it's like a weird moment. I feel like I need to give them something in return, it's like someone comes over with a gift and you don't have anything to give them. -Yeah, that's what it is. I know I'm handing out cards like they are candy, but it's just because I want to give you something. It's like thank you very much for your time, uh, here's something, and stop talking to me now. (laughing) yes, right! (Paul) I've met the social obligation (Father Ballencer) And if you actually want to see where this is gonna be put up you can contact ma at this other wise I'm just gonna assume that you just don't care (Mary-Jo) Yep (laughter) (Paul) I needed a resume for something, you know, like a year ago or more, I. . . Thurrott.com, what do you mean I...? (laughing) I don't keep track of my accomplishments, I'm not even sure what I would do with that. (Father Ballencer) Our Field producer, Colene Goldstein, she's actually really good LinkedIn. Before she hands over her card, she'll just say can I find you on LinkedIn and she's just building up this huge network of all these people that she's connected to and she says that's far more efficient than trying to take a card and then remember where it came from and who they represented six weeks ago. Because remember a lot of the people you meet don't actually work for that company they work for a PR company that represents the company that you are talking to. (Paul) Right. and you won't remember who that is unless you actually write it on the back of that card and even then sometimes you don't remember - I have to look at the lower third to remember Mary-jo's name. (laughing) you know I'm really not good at that kind of thing. (Mary-Jo) He's bad at this thing. (Fa. Ballencer) I have to look down here If I don't see that? (Paul) Hi! I'm Fr. Rob, What does that say? (laughing) Sir Foley, no let's not do that. I'll right let's get away from social convention cuz we've got some pretty spectacular windows news who's got this first one, because eventually Microsoft has finally "oh! that's right we're not offering the free version anymore, maybe we should kill that nag screen" Mary-Jo - Yeah I can start it off a bit. Um, Yesterday, the 20th, Microsoft put out a KB article that said "Hey we're finally going to push through Windows update, an update that takes away the Windows, get Windows 10 app. So if you remember July 29th was the actual day the offer to get a free Windows 10 ended. And at that time they said it might take us a little while to faze this out because we've so thoroughly inundated everyone with this app and the promotion. So actually the real day when this ended at least when the app ended was yesterday. And it's starting to roll through the Windows update. It replaces the get Windows 10 app and it goes away. But the weird complication not complication but the weird kind of coincidence is you can actually still get Windows 10 as free upgrade You just have to use your existing Windows 7 or 8.1 product key and you can still unlock the free upgrade, which is something Microsoft is not actively advertising, but Paul has been verifying it daily. (Paul) well weekly (Mary-Jo) I've been asking him is it still up (Fa. Bellencer) Cuz, I was told that if you do the get Windows 10 thing and then you roll it back you're always set you can always re-download it (Paul) Oh! yeah, yeah this is for new installs. In other words you have never done this before you have a key you can do a clean Windows 10 right now and it would still work. (Fa. Bellencer) Wait! What? That's not how it's suppose to work. (Mary-jo) Yep (Paul) I know, and by the way one day it won't, I mean maybe this weekend or the weekend after that, someday, I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna test it and it's not gonna work you know it's just.. It's going to happen eventually. But, um, I wrote an article about this not working probably a month ago in anticipation of it not working and it's just kept working the things been sitting here at my desktop since August. (Fa Ballencer) So you just try and do an update everyday just to make sure it still goes? (Paul) not everyday and least once a week. - Now does this (Mary-Jo) Yesterday, I said to him can you still do it? And he's like, Yep you can! -So does this now increase the value of the Windows 10 upgrade, because now you can't get it except maybe if you know this super secret, now do people actually want it? (Paul) I.. No.. I suppose.. I think the issue is.. Well if you wanted to save some money I suppose you could go buy Windows 8.1 product key and you know, well you wouldn't actually buy Windows 8.1 I should say, it's possibly you can buy a copy of it somewhere cheaper because nobody wants it anymore and than you could upgrade now for less money than buying Windows 10. Or maybe you just had keys for some reason, maybe a company that has keys allotted or you bought the package version at some point, maybe you bought the Windows 7 family pack back in the day and you only used two of the three keys and you've got an extra one sitting around for what ever reason. If you have a key, it will work. MSDN keys work got them from TechNet that will work. um, and someday it won't. So, we'll see. -Microsoft won't say when they think it will no longer work in fact they aren't really publicly saying that it still works if you ask them, they just don't answer when you ask about this. And I assume it's the same thing that they said about the get Window 10 app that it might take some time for them to shut it off. But the other theory is they are just leaving it open for those laggers who didn't get around to updating by July 29th and they can say to them "You know what, psst by the way." - It doesn't hurt anybody, I think that's the point that if they are people out there in the world with Windows 7 install that they've never done Microsoft would much rather see them be on Windows 10, if they're going to do a new Windows install. Why wouldn't they want that. - I can also see this heading off a lot of complaints from people who said "oh man I tried to upgrade and I totally forgot and I did it in August and it didn't work anymore" No that's not actually a valid excuse. -Well that argument would work on Aug 20. You know September 21st, October 21st, It's starting to get to the point where you can't pretend you've been procrastinating and than just forgot I mean, You know at some point it's just. . . Their just leaving it open, its fine. I have no problem with this. - This is actually a huge opportunity for us because I know Alex has been trying to update the Tri caster to Windows 10 (Person in background) Actually Padre, Let me correct you you shouldn't run Windows update on the Tri caster, New Tech doesn't say you should So I really hope that nothing. . . Oh Crap! (Laughing) - This is what happens, You get a nag screen in the middle of Windows weekly that's oddly blocking me out entirely, that's different (Mary-Jo) It is You know we're going to have to live with this for the next 20 -30 minutes because unfortunately, click the initiated and it'll take that much time to install and uninstall it. (Mary-Jo) They'll see us though we're off to the sides. Not when you zoom on us, but the big picture you can see us. (Paul) How do I know that this graphic hasn't been used more gleefully on Macbreak weekly and whatever morning show I'm sure you do? (Fa Ballencer) Uh, this weeks it's Google, I think this is actually the new title card for Floss Weekly. Um Floss Weekly will never reserve your copy. - Let me just try... - Ops there you see Do either of you still have Windows 7, 8 & 10 Machines in your environment? (Mary-Jo) Yes, I have 7, (Fa Ballencer) So no 10 at all? (Mary-Jo) Yeah I have 10 and 7, but no 8 (Fa Ballencer) Really? I have 7, 8.1 and 10 (Mary-Jo) You have all of them. (Fa Ballencer) Well because I mean 10 does still kill some of my USB devices so my production machines have to stay 8 and I have one laptop and that just works better at 7. (Mary-Jo) I just have the desktop I still use because it's just an older machine, the Dell that I've had for awhile I just left it on 7, cuz I'm like Eh, when I need to replace the machine Ill just get Windows 10 machine. (Paul) But what about all those gotta have it apps you can't run? -Um?! (Fa Ballencer) Now a quick question, this really did hurt Microsoft's reputation, right? I mean Yes, That number of how many deployments they have of Windows 10 is forever going to be asterisk. People said "Well how many of those were accidental upgrades or how many of those were installs and then rollbacks almost immediately. This. . Will people forget this or will Windows 10 upgrade nag screen be the butt of jokes for the next two decades. (Paul) Honestly I think they've irreparably harmed their reputation with this and not just Microsoft generally but the reputation of Windows as well. The forced upgrade thing was a huge mistake on their part and a very risky gamble and the recent people aren't going to forget it is because they came out and said we're going to hit a billion within two to three years and then right before Windows the windows ten free upgrade ended they said you know what we're not going to make that goal and so even though they did that they were unable to you know meet this reasonable goal, I thought, of reaching a billion users in that timeframe. - You know Mary Jo there's two ways to look at this. There's one way and this would, I think this is where Paul lines up, there was an executive or some marketing person who said you know what we want to hit a billion because it sounds like a great number. So let's just force this on people. The other way to think of this is that some engineers said you know what people will like ten if they just try it if we just get it on the machine they will understand what all the hoopla is about. Which of those do you fall with? - So I also, like Paul, think this was a big mistake and the part that really kind of riled me the most was when Microsoft was taking the tack of saying it's for users own good that were doing this and you know I was like wait this is so paternalistic How can you say what's for my good or my mother's good who accidently got Windows ten and like flipped out when she got it you know I just think that argument didn't work. I'm happy. They made a free upgrade available very easily to people but I don't think they should have rammed it down people's throat. But it's also, I don’t know if it qualifies as ironic but, You know one of the kind of contracts you enter into with Microsoft when you do install or get Windows 10 is you're accepting a constant stream of upgrades and you really can't do anything as an individual to prevent that from happening. Least not elegantly or easily and your introduction to this new world is Microsoft seamlessly and inelegantly jamming Windows 10 down your throat you know it's it's kind of a nasty preview of what the future holds for you when you do this and it's just the wrong first step you know to resent, it was a terrible mistake - Yeah and then the hiding of the way that you would actually accept the upgrade where people were closing the window. That was really bad. That made like a bad situation worse. So yeah not a good look. - In writing about this topic today I decided not to go back and hit on every single little milestone in this because frankly it's kind of depressing. You know, when you go back to look at the sheer amount of stuff that both of us I'm sure have written about this get Windows 10 thing since last year and the various ways they changed it silently some Windows Update, or group of Windows Updates would go out, some of them would prevent the blockers from, you know or the un-blockers I guess from you know working. some of them would change the way the dialog looked or worked. You know in the past when you close the window, it would just go away but at one point when you close the window you silently have accepted the upgrade and that's purposefully evil. It's terrible. -For me I think that hurt more than anything else because I understand wanting to force out the update. Especially since they believe it's going to be much more secure, it's going to be much more feature rich. But the fact that they kept playing cat and mouse with people who just didn't want to be nagged anymore. That's the reputation strike it's like ok if I went to the trouble of removing that nag screen then obviously I'm a savvy user if I can do that. So the fact that you're trying to work around what I did. Now I feel as if we're playing Microsoft nanny state. -Right -Yeah, yeah A lot of times you know they keep saying you know what, we're letting people get around it, if they go in and edit the registry settings. I'm like, wait a second hold on, that's not something most people should do. In fact, probably very few should do it. And so when that was like “Hey were giving you an alternative to get out of it. I was like uh, that's not a good option. -That's not an alternative. –No - I mean the funny thing they get looking back over a year of articles for this topic. What I reminded myself of was in late June one month before the free offer ended. They finally added something to that box that said I don't want this please stop asking me. It took them eleven of the twelve months to get to that point. That's how it should have been on day one. You know it's just uh, you just can't recover from this. We don't know, we may never know the psychological impact that had on what may or may not have been very good to Microsoft customers that day, who upon looking for a new computer at some time in the future may decide they need, they are going to get a pro book instead or a mac book or well probably not a Linux computer that's crazy. But you know what I'm saying. That they're going to look at an iPad even or something, whatever. And just make that decision because they don't want to be harassed which is a completely reasonable request. You know. -Let's close the book on this bad chapter. –Yeah, yeah I think so. It's not a mulligan but it's since you say OK you know what, you kind of hit some of the numbers you wanted not the big one but now actually show us that our faith in you is not misplaced. But to be fair, we could look at other companies in the industry, like Google that are doing the same sort of strong arm tactics. Google right now is making a big push for HTTPS, they want everything to be encypted end to end on the internet, that's a good goal, but some people feel that their approach is heavy handed. Now, the new updates to Chrome are going to automatically mark any site that doesn't have HTTPS built into it as insecure so that little icon is going to pop up, warning people that maybe they shouldn't visit the site. People think that's heavy handed, but those looking at it say, "well this is ultimately going to lead to a better internet." you could make the same call here. You could say "Look, this was heavy handed, this was Microsoft being the worst of the nannies, but a more secure OS ultimately is a better experience." -All of the goals that Microsoft had for this were valid right. Even the self-serving ones you know, the notion that we would all be better off if more of us run the very latest version of the O. S. and we're always updated to be on that version would make us all more secure because it's less work for Microsoft to do to fix the problems you know, are going to occur down the road Everyone benefits from that there's no. . you can't really dispute it. But the problem is when they say oh good, everyone agrees? Good! Now you're all getting the new upgrade is like whoa whoa hold on a second, you know, you mention for example that you have U.S.B. devices that don't work on Windows 10. I'm sure anyone. listening to this has some examples of some things whatever might be, uh… that don't work you know or some reason whatever it may be that they couldn't upgrade. I mean you can't. . . I don't believe you can I mean they tried you can't really just jam this kind of thing down people's throats. -And for our few fruit flans in the chat room right now. Why is it that Microsoft trying to force Windows 10 on people was a boondoggle. Whereas another company's decision to remove a standard port was brave? (Mary-Jo laughs) Courage (Paul) Good marketing. (Fa. Ballencer) Maybe this was just Microsoft’s courage, and we’re all just misunderstanding it. -Uhm –Ok (Laughter) -Well OK (Paul) It was courageous of them to attempt. (Fa. Ballencer) It was, it was. Although I will say something I really don't like is the fact that they've disabled something from 8 because if you do Windows stacked side by side it's pretty seamless but if you do one on top of the other there's always a hard break as you move between screens. In 8 you used to be able to disable that sticky window, you just move right through it. You can do the same registry edit in 10 but it doesn't fix it. That never goes away and that's why I don't understand that, Go figure. All right. When we come back. We need to talk about something a bit more cheery because we've we've been hammering on Microsoft so rather than talking about a forced Windows 10 update I think maybe we should talk about some Layoffs -Yeah. (laughter) -Oh boy! –Yay let’s get pumped. But first let's go ahead and take a moment to thank the first sponsor of this episode of Windows weekly. Hey folks do you worry about bandwidth because we don't because here at the new Eastside studio. We've got 10gig. Yeah exactly 10gig provided to us by Sonic. Sonics 10gig fiber internet service is what we use to get out to the Internet and in other words some sponsors we say the show was brought to you by them. This was literally brought to you by Sonic if you're watching the show right now. You're watching us over a sonic connection because well we just love them. The Internet infrastructure in the United States needs fixing and Sonic understands that they're not just a company that wants to sell you something every month. 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OK this is one of these stories that it almost feels as if a continuation of stories that we've already covered but who wants to talk about the bad news for pink slips over at Microsoft. (Mary-Jo) Oh wait, can we talk about the Skype thing first. (Fa Bellencer) OK sure. OK You know what that's hold off on the super awesome (Mary-Jo) I mean it's related but we can we could kind of mix it up a little. -The people getting pink slips got them over Skype. (laughter) (Mary-Jo) That would have been interesting (Paul) Which explains why some of them have been home. Some of them got it seventeen times. (laughing) (Mary-Jo) Burn, burn (Fa Bellencer) ok Skype, let’s do Skype. -Ok so this um, Paul should the S.M.S. relate because you, I think you've actually looked at it, right? -No, well not exactly, so, Err, how do I explain this, but earlier this year Microsoft announced a feature that was going to come in the Windows 10 anniversary update called messaging everywhere and the idea is that you have a Windows Phone or an Android phone and you can use your computer to send text messages and receive text messages right like you can do in a Mac if you have an iPhone as well. And everyone was really excited about it, some insiders started testing it and then very late in the game they said you know what. Actually we're not going to put this in Windows 10. This makes more sense for Skype we'll put it in the Skype preview app but sometime later in the year they yanked it out of Windows 10 some people were disappointed you know because they were using it but you know I think we can agree that a messaging feature makes more sense for Microsoft's messaging solution than it does for Windows specifically so it's going to be part of Skype. So in the most recent Windows insider build which was released last week I think Microsoft's added this feature in for the first time and now they're calling it S.M.S. relay actually been calling about for some time but it's a slightly more technical and less interesting name and the functionality is supposed to work the same way in this initial version however you need to have the latest fast ring version of Windows 10 from windows insiders. I think 14 9 23 or something like that. And you also need to have that same build on Windows 10 mobile it only works on those two systems so I have both of these things but I couldn't get it. I'm not seeing it on my phone I don't know why. but the idea again is that you can from the Skype preview app on Windows 10 for P.C.'s send and receive text messages and so if your phone is over the corner charging somebody sends you a text message you get a notification on your P.C. click on it you can reply to it right there. It sends out over your phone as you would expect so it's coming. And it will come as part of Skype, right? So we won't have to wait for the next major version of Windows 10 to get it. Which by the way is another one of the advantages of putting it on Skype. -You know what's weird though I think I messaged you about this that I have an Android phone. I have a Windows 10 P.C. and I am seeing my text messages from my phone show up on my Windows 10 P.C. and I'm not on the insider program right! –Which is really interesting. -Yeah, So I think it's because of Cortana though because I have Cortana on both and I believe that also gives you some of that functionality but that then I'm like OK So is this in the future going to be taken out of Cortana? -Yes so, right. Actually it's kind of confusing because this is hum, I wrote a book about Windows 10 that I'm still updating for the anniversary update and one of the things I put off literally to the very end that I will wrote right in the last of all the new content is phone integration because it's actually a little convoluted there are three ways right now that you can get information back and forth from your phone through Windows 10 as I understand it. One is this new S.M.S. relay feature in the Skype preview. One is the thing you're seeing which is the Cortana integration but there's also like a Windows phone integration I will get Windows Phone notifications in Action Center on Windows 10 that are notifications that came from Windows 10 in the phone and so they could be about anything it will be like Facebook updates. You know different things from different apps on the phone and those things will actually surface in Windows 10 of my P.C. as well. So I'm still trying to kind of.. where and how all these things happen and why you know it's interesting I have three different phones, so I have and Android phone like you do and I have the Windows Phone and also an iPhone So the iPhone doesn't really do anything but the expectation is that you'll have a pretty decent level of functionality through Android if you have Windows 10 and then obviously if you have Windows 10 mobile you would have the best experience because those two things would be tightly integrated. -You know that's something in a feature I actually would really like something in Windows that shows me how the various services integrate because it's always an crapshoot for me about what notifications I get on what devices like you I've got I.O.'s devices I've got Windows devices I've got Android I think Windows Mobile and it always, I’m never really sure what is syncing and what's not -It's like a roulette wheel and I just was speaking Skype specifically, this morning I was chatting with Brad on Skype & we're you know we're texting back and forth he writes, I write you know five minutes goes by, 15 minutes and all of a sudden one of my three phones in this case it was my iPhone the screen lights up and I look over and it's a Skype notification of something. Brad had written me on Skype about two minutes earlier. And so for some reason that one version of the app on that one phone lit up. It was like all my devices or weight are in the back and one of those are like I got it. I got it, and it just kind of like I'm having an active conversation in Skype on Windows. You know why? Why would these other things? You know how it is, if I go to my Android phone and I turn them on right now and I go into Skype. You know thus waking it up which is a mistake. It's like Jason from Friday the 13th or something but if I do wake it up briefly it will flash those one two three conversations that are marked unread the conversations I had earlier with Brad actually this one from Twit and the conversations I had with Mary Jo according to this version of the app these conversations are unread. -I know, that happens to me too. Yet when I when I've had my Windows 10 laptop off for a while I turn on you know they all the messages filtered through but then some show up as unread and some show up as read. -Yep. -So I'm not sure what makes both of those things happen. -Yeah I ended up going into Windows 10 notification I just turning off everything because I was so tired of receiving the same notifications 15 times -Yep -Actually there's something else that I do love the syncing across accounts that actually does work nicely except for the fact that at home. I've got this monster set up with two 4K. monitors and a bunch of little monitors around the periphery and it tries to import those preferences into my laptop and it doesn't matter how many times I tell it not to do that it. There's always an update in the, the switch gets turned back on & suddenly all the text on my laptop is tiny. Because it's adjusting with what it thinks I want to the desktop, which that's again I want some sort of central control panel that shows all my devices and which settings are moving between which devices. It sounds like that's an absolute necessity now with all the different devices that we use. And with all the syncing that Microsoft trying to build into the products. That's a necessity. -Yeah you know obviously Microsoft doesn't have a big presence slash any presence in Mobile and so one of the concerns that they have that maybe Apple doesn't have and Google only has to a lesser extent say with IOS Devices is the cross-platform stuff you know Bart W on Twitter's ask Mary-Jo and I if S.M.S. relay is coming to the Skype apps on IOS and Android as well and it's a reasonable expectation that it would but you know of course on Android you have a Microsoft has a much easier way of getting into the system and making this more seamless whereas in IOS, if you think about how Cortana works you kind of have to go in and run the app for some things to happen. You know it's never going to be as. . even though it can you know, it can sort of run in the background a little bit you can never be sure that it will always be there. This is more easily done on Android and Windows Phone So if you… Mary-Jo do you know off the top you head has Microsoft ever spoke to S.M.S relay on IOS Android? -I don't remember them saying that. –It seems like it would have to the right? (Mary-Jo) I know it does seemed like it would have to -What would be the point of S.M.S relay to Windows 10 mobile? -Right. - Mary Jo I've got an enterprise question for you. Do we know how many versions of messaging Windows has.. uh Microsoft has because you've got Skype. You've got Skype for business. You've got Skype for broadcast and then you've got the link stuff which was actually supposed to take over for the Skype stuff but then that seems to be flipped. Now that we've got the Dela do you see what's in the strategy going forward or we just keep getting fractured off into different types of Skype and do they still have that artificial delineation between consumer and enterprise? -They do. They still have the delineation there is still Skype consumer and Skype for business are not the same product even though they're both called Skype and you're right. Link is still kind of hanging around for some on premises stuff but ultimately Link, the Link name will totally go away and link will be completely superseded by Skype for business that will happen. -Because that was going the other way. I mean Skype was going to go to go away and they were going to keep Link and so now they've reversed on that. - Yes So I think they're being pretty consistent on length being supplanted by Skype for business. -OK. -I think next week which is Microsoft ignite we might hear some new things about Skype for business and kind of where that's going because every time we ask Microsoft about Skype they'll answer Skype consumer questions but they won't talk at all about Skype for business. And I think next week's show because it's a very IT pro focus show we probably will hear some new things about Skype for business and hopefully about how it's going to be syncing soon with OneDrive and OneDrive for business. That's something people are really waiting anxiously for and last we heard that was going to happen in the final calendar quarter of this year. So we're almost in the final calendar quarter. Seems like we should get some new News on that next week. - Wait Skype for business will sync with OneDrive? -With OneDrive for business, yes! -How does that.. Wait what is it syncing? - They’ll be integration. Sorry. Am I saying OneDrive business or am I thinking Share Point. I’m thinking about Share Point. -OK, OK that makes sense -Sorry I'm thinking about Share Point when I'm saying OneDrive for business but um, it may, Microsoft talked about Share Point and OneDrive business being able to actually have better sync across those two products and they said that was going to counter Q four and I think that's what we might hear about next week. But yeah you know every time we ask about Skype. You know we've heard recently that Skype is moving to this new kind of universal next generation client and when I asked Microsoft you know does that also mean Skype for businesses is going to be on that same universal client. They said we're not really talking about Skype for Business. -You're like whoa. -Don't get ahead of yourself here. - And don't forget the upcoming Skype for Web R.T.C. because I mean that's also another universal client and universal, universal. -But we should talk about this thing that surfaced this week called Skype for life. Speaking of . -Oh good I was just hoping we would have another Skype. - Speaking of Jason from Friday the 13th. (laughing) -OK what is Skype For Life? -OK So ARS Technica Dr Pizza over there got a tip from one of his sources or maybe multiple sources that Microsoft was working on a product called Skype For Life and he and a lot of us have first kind of thought maybe this was a name for the universal Skype client that would work across all different platforms that would be kind of like what Microsoft has described as the universal Windows platform equivalent but for the other platforms like IOS and Android. But then Paul dug around a little and thought it through and he says no but that is not what that it is. -No! No I mean I talked to Peter about it. Skype, ironically. And I don't doubt that he was told this and I don't doubt that the person who told him saw this and thought that they understood what they were seeing but you know I talked to the Skype guys back in June or July about the strategy Mary Jo just discussed where they're moving to a new generation clients they have updated their back end infrastructure they temporarily have to maintain the old P.D.P. infrastructure for certain applications or services but that's going to be going away. The combination of these two back end services explains the Skype reliability issues that we've all seen over the past you know several months I was told. And I thought you know, Skype For Life and making yet again new, some new client that would somehow run across all those platforms didn't make any sense to me and if you look at that next to their previously stated strategy it's clear to me that Skype For Life is just a marketing term and what they're describing internally I think is the culmination of that previous existing strategy that the new infrastructures switched over to their new clients are all available. They all interact and all have the new features and it's not that it's one client's I mean obviously Windows will have P.W.P. clients, IOS and Android will have native apps there, Linux will have what they have and there will be the web version as well. And these things will have some baseline of functionality that works across all of them on this new infrastructure that's the point of it. -You know what I'm going to still be a doubter here. OK I don't think, I think the more I think about this the more I think you're right that it isn't a new totally new Skype client. I think that would just be crazy and kind of going back to what they just got away from but I think Skype For Life is something else and the reason I'm thinking that it's a marketing slogan but, maybe it's something like you know they call Skype translator a feature of Skype like that. That's how they brand that and Skype for teams which is what they're going to be doing to compete with Slack. I also think they'll call that a feature of Skype. I don't think they'll call of a new version of Skype. So I'm thinking Skype For Life might be something like using Skype to improve your life in some way. So maybe it's like I don't know I'm just I'm totally reaching here but Skype like maybe Skype and the Microsoft Health platforms somehow connected or you know Skype being used for some specific thing that's more about health and welfare and maybe a very specific almost like a vertical I'm just guessing here again but I think it's something else. -I mean that seems very far reaching. It might be simpler that you know it's funny we were just kind of joking around and slash complaining about how you know Skype will ring on various devices and whatever because we have various devices because we're nerds and so Skype For Life could be as simple as what I think of a Skype everywhere this this feature you know that a normal person with a computer and a phone or a tablet and a phone would want to get messages everywhere and that's the For Life. In other words. Whatever your life is whatever your habits are whatever devices you choose to use Skype will be there. You know. -That could be -I just you know regardless of what it is I mean I think it's mostly a marketing term. Right. Not so much a product. And it's almost just a way to describe functionality to normal people. -I'd be down with the marketing term. I spoke with a rep a Microsoft rep over at IFA in Berlin last month and or no this month and of course didn't want to talk about it but what he was describing was that this is Skype UC this is the unified communication promised the idea of we don't want Skype to be an app. It shouldn't be something you start up it should be something that is just everywhere. They're using Microsoft products. You should be able to say Cortana call Paul Thurrott and it will automatically kick out Skype and it doesn't even call a Skype it just connects. Hum, and I can see that I mean that UC promises has been something that's been around for ten years maybe this is Microsoft finally saying let's do. - Or saying we finally have enough pieces in place for it makes sense right. I mean even the things like integrating Skype into Outlook.com and OneDrive.com on the web or the Outlook 2016 Mail clients in office 2016 which you know depending on your view of things you might find incredibly useful or incredibly annoying because it certainly on the web, they don't do a good job with that but I think that these things are all part of … how do you describe a bunch of little things? It's a.. what's the theme? You know universal communications is how we would say it in the enterprise and maybe Skype For Life is how they want to say it to people. -You know what Padre just gave me a crazy idea another crazy idea. -Oh good -What if Skype For Life is a bot? -Oh -Now they’re intergrading more bots into Skype right and there's been all this talk about a concierge bot that Bing was working on for a while to be kind of like your personal assistant for life. You know somebody who you could say hey what movies are playing can you get me some tickets. Maybe this is Skype For Life? -But then Skype for life would have to fight Cortana to the death. -I know. Yeah. BOTS and Cortana they... I think they're siblings I think they're friends but yeah -Their twins, Skype For Life is the twin they kept in the closet until he was a teenager so he’s a little stunted. We've actually got people in the chat room, we've got ‘hey it's Todd’ who suggested that Skype For Life is actually the name of a new form of judicial punishment and then you see the really really bad, you only get to use Skype (Laughing) -It sounds like a big punishment. -And a guy could be like oh I’ve been Skyped. -Should it just be Skype 10? I mean, cause that was the whole idea of Windows 10. It is the last Windows you will ever own is this Skype 10 is it like look it will always be this way. -And what you're supposed to do everything to ensure it. That’s windows. God bless -The ultimate Skype. -Honestly Windows 10 is a terrible name right. That should have just been Windows I don't think we need to go 10 I think if anything we should be stripping the numbers off of the products that still have numbers. -Maybe they really want it to be Windows X. -Apple's doing that right? Apple's changing back -They've kind of moved to the right because they still have version numbers obviously you have to have the stuff behind the scenes but you know they talk about the new version MacOS as Sierra. You know and they've been doing that for years. I guess but they really they emphasize that you know it's a friendly name and I think that's a nicer approach than some godly book like H.P. product names or version or just not version numbers because numbers or even using the version number the name is just it's just it's I think that's just old fashioned -Yeah -Yeah it's kind of I mean because you have to… -I know especially if its the last right last version of something, supposedly -It should have just been Windows ultimate, Oh wait, we've already used that. Never mind! -Calling something the last version of this product is like the worst way to market something ever invented. You know this is the last version we're ever going to make a Windows. Oh know we’re gonna keep updating it, but this is the last one. –There’ll be some serious updates to it but no, this is it. -So it really is just not smart mart. (Sigh) I'm going to be… I'm going to change my name to Padre 10. I will be the last Padre, you’ll ever know -Actually if you can change it to 10.01. -There'll be updates to Padre, but this is really the final version. (Paul) There will always be that little hidden miss. (Mary-Jo) Padre Hena-versary. -Don't we… the Padre anniversary edition. It's ten pounds lighter but has all the features. (laughing) All right, we're going to bog down a bit too much and it is a fun story, but there is one more story that has so much fun it has to be dispelled. Paul. There were people screaming all over the Internet that Microsoft is being the big bad by trying to lock Linux out of new P.C.'s Is this true? –No! And that's all we need to say about that. If I could somehow make a career out of just debunking stupidity. Right. I mean I just… you get into these conversations of people on Twitter who see these stories and they.. I think it's the way conspiracy theories work right. It's.. it hits on your internal beliefs and so you instantly throw common sense to the wind and say oh course their doing this. Microsoft is evil. It's like guys it's not 1998 anymore it could be maybe upgrade the way we think about Microsoft and their relationship with Linux in particular. The topic and if you don't know what it is I guess we should probably step back a second and say that somebody had discovered that a Lenovo P.C. bought from the Microsoft store so it's a signature P.C. and thus is running something called Windows 10 signature edition which doesn't exist. Somehow has the magic capability of preventing Linux from ever being installed in that computer. That's not a capability of an operating system that’s something that would have to be built into the firmware I guess of the computer I mean I obviously there's always going to be some way to brute stall anything on there but you know, read it happens. There’s one of the guys from ZD Net wrote a very calm and collected article but anyway I appreciated that. But here's the thing, signature P.C. is as I describe it. I think the smallest province of the windows empire that exists in Microsoft. They have no power at all the very notion that they could require a P.C. maker to do anything is ludicrous. Let alone the world's number one P.C. maker. Microsoft is not the business of blocking Linux. They never really were. But it's one of those things like a lot of people kind of like want to believe is the case. Some guy supposedly from Lenovo got into a support forum somewhere and said Yeah. This might this is part of our agreement with Microsoft. That's not true. By the way because Lenovo came out with a statement and said no that's not what's happening. It's one of those things like you don't actually have to know the answer to know the answer. It's a little bit like the Skype For Life thing like if you think it through. It's like this is not what's happening and so I ... I'm not the one that got the statement so I think it's Tech Republic. They've got the statement but I did a write up about it and uh debating it… -This is just secure boot on the UEFI right?. I mean that's all it is. -It's not exactly but it's that exact kind of topic yes but Lenovo has a one of, it's probably just one Lenovo computer actually but there is a Lenovo computer that has a very strange raid S.S.D. configuration and as people are discovering if they try to clean install Windows 10 on that computer it won't work either. It's. It's a very unique configuration. It's not part of a secret cabal with Microsoft to screw Linux users out of their new computer but you know I think I said this to Mary Jo privately or maybe Brad we were I was chatting with somebody earlier today and so consider the market out there for people who are going to buy a Windows based computer and install Linux on it right and there is some number it's a small number but the some group of people do that. And now let's consider the subset of those people who are going to drive to a Microsoft store pick it lovingly pick out their… you know favorite signature P.C. configuration from the store, buy it from Microsoft. You know their favorite company. And then put Linux on it. I mean like I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm not saying it's not going to happen but c'mon. I mean and this is Microsoft's. Path to world domination we're going to do it through the signature pieces that nobody even knows exists at the stores and you can't even find there where you live. It's just the whole thing is loaded it's just typical. Watching this cascade across the Internet today. It's just as depressing. That's just so typical. You know - It destroys your faith in humanity -Or reconfirms my belief that we're all idiots. I mean it's just it's sad. -And he thought Lenovo did show. I mean I can't remember what they call it it's like software services but then on boot up you actually get the option of what packages you want to install. So you could make it a signature… -You mean..? -All the crapware. -That’s interesting. So Lenovo not the only P.C. makers starting to do that kind of a thing and I really like this approach it's because it's something P.C. makers are not familiar with called customer centricity. You know H.P.’s newer machines will do the same thing and in the past you get a bunch of utilities and things running in the tray and whatever was. Now you have to seek out those applications and at the time that you run it. It says hey we have this tray thing we can put it and you want to use it and if you say no that's in the end of it you know and that's the way things should be you know don't you think. Yeah so. -Well it sure beats me having to spend the first thirty minutes of my new P.C.’s life uninstalling everything that came pre-installed. -Yes right. Actually we will never be deemed intelligent beings by future civilizations because of things like this. It's like when you buy an electronic device and spend the first thirty minutes updating the software or when you buy a smartphone and you install apps and you spend the next seven days removing or changing notifications or like what you just said you buy a new P.C. and the first thing you do is take things away from it. It's like this is so counter intuitive and counterproductive and yet we just sort of sort of accept that this is the way it is you know. -That's what makes me so sad that signature seems to be kind of not an emphasis anymore because I remember when I got my Acer S7 it came to me as a signature device and I didn't even know it was going to and it was such a different experience. -Oh yes by the way. So let's see four years ago this month. Microsoft opened their store in Boston and I bought the very first computer that was sold at that store which is a fifteen inch Samsung Ultra Book. It was one of the last Windows 7 computers they sold right because Windows 8 came out. Thirty or forty five days later and to this day when I restore that thing and it goes back to that clean Windows 7 signature edition thing with beautiful wallpaper and you know no crap anywhere it's still like this calming almost transcendental moment like you open the thing up And you’re like nice! You know and that's not the reaction typically happen with P.C. right? It's too bad -I mean seriously there is something about having to do a hard restore where you to go back to the factory disks and you know yeah when any time you do that there's going to be hours and hours if not days of updates it's going to have to go through round & round & round but that's not the infuriating part for me because that I can just leave off in the corner. The infuriating part is I know I'm already going to have an anti-virus it's going to take five restarts to fully get rid of because it just sticks in there and you have to do a little bit of registry editing to get rid of the stuff that doesn't uninstall at all. -I know we've talked about this on the pod cast whatever. You know some months ago but as part of the Windows 10 anniversary update there's a new tool it's not actually included in the O. S. but it's linked to from the O. S. And so I think people are probably familiar with the reset your P.C. functionality of that they viewed in Windows 8 also available in Windows 10. Thing is if you use that on a P.C. that came from a P.C. maker which is you know most P.C.'s. The P.C. maker can edit that image that's installed so the crap all comes back right when you reset the P.C. you get the crap. But there's a separate tool called refresh Windows it's linked to from the same place in the settings up in Windows 10 with the anniversary update. You download the tool it downloads Windows 10 it's a clean version of Windows 10 and then you can install that and then so instead of getting the crapware laden version you might get from say whatever peace maker Dell, HP, Lenovo whatever you get Microsoft's clean image right. And so the pro there is you don't get the stuff you're talking about like the Anti-Virus whatever stupid utilities people put on there. The minus side is you may not get the driver you know Lenovo, HPNO and probably Dell have decent utilities for keeping that particular machine up to date with drivers for example you don't get that thing. And so you might have to do a little bit of extra work if you want some of that stuff or if you need it you know if you look in device manager and some of your stuff hasn't been recognized you know you might find yourself going to the HP or Dell or Lenovo or whatever website and downloading the drivers but at least you have that option now. And so I think that's lot closer to a signature P.C. type experience except that it's not fine tuned for YOUR exact computer which was the point of signature. -If anyone wants an almost Signature Series just buy the retail version of the operating system and that's what you get and yeah it sounds stupid but it really there is something that is so nice about starting the P.C. and realizing the only thing on here is the bare O. S. everything that gets added on is my choice. -And that's by the way another thing I think we all do with these devices doesn't matter what you're talking about a phone, tablet, computer. That first day you install the things you know you need right Just the absolute necessity. -Yeah for example I need to install chrome. -Yes exactly which I believe it’s the only reason it exist. Over time as you use the device whatever it is you know P.C. tablet whatever you realize oh wait I need this thing too and it spirals right so over time you fill the thing up and you. You know there's a bunch of junk on there but those first couple days are wonderful. It's like the. You know the out of box thing is kind of like it should be. I mean it's not always with the P.C. If you get the wrong kind but you know that's what it is. And we kind of try to recapture that magic every once in a while. Let's reset it back a little. -But we do have to talk about the layoffs at some point because it is a big story and it's not it's not it's not totally unexpected right? –Right! -We saw this. -Yeah we did and you know I think a lot of people forgot but in July Microsoft announced during S.E.C. filing that they're going to be laying off. Almost 3,000 more people this fiscal year which is their fiscal 2017. Over the weekend there was a report by the Financial Times that Microsoft was closing Skype London and I saw some people report this says and laying off 400 people but actually the number that Microsoft is laying off is closer to 230, I think?! I called them and asked them how many people is it and they said it's about 230 and that's a combination of people who work for both Skype and Yammer in London. Some people be moved to the Paddington office some are just going to be let go. They also last week. Paul and I kinda were catching bits and pieces of this through Facebook because we saw different people we knew posting to Facebook that they had been cut but they cut another 300 people on top of that mostly from the Puget Sound Redmond area and a few people from other geographies around the world. These 500+ layoffs that happened last week are part of that 2850 that they announced in July. This isn't a new group of people who didn't you know who Microsoft said and we’re adding another 500. These are people all different divisions not all concentrated in one division. Except for the Skype and yammer part that are being let go across the company. Microsoft's definitely continuing to tighten, you know belt tight, doing belt tightening across the company getting rid of people before the layoffs were largely Windows phone related and Windows Mobile these new ones are not because they pretty much laid off all of those people originally it was a bunch of the Microsoft sales people because they had a sales reorg this year when Kevin Turner left. Now we're getting into the product areas some people in Windows, some in Office , people across different parts of the company. So if you hear about layoffs that happened recently that is what happened. -Yeah a lot of my Microsoft contacts are heads down right now. Not necessarily because they're fearing this round but because they realize you know what Microsoft is actually, they're not doing the cutthroat competition anymore but they are looking to the various departments and finding out “Do you have any personnel that have not really contributed anything in the last five years?” -I think the H.R. term for these people is dead wood?! -Yeah and it's always difficult to talk about someone like that but if you've been at a company for twenty years. And you haven't really been challenged or maybe you've become really really cynical it might be time to move on. I've seen that. -In over the past year or two as we talk about layoffs obviously there's the human side to it. It's always very tragic people to lose their jobs but looking at the company from sort of a Microsoft watching perspective I think Mary Jo would agree this is a very big and in some ways still bloated company with lots of levels of hierarchy and management so forth and… You know the people I know personally for Microsoft are to one very smart people they do want to change the world but I think the system they're in might be a little too big and complex. You know for things to happen so it's possible that the Dell is making these changes like many of the changes is made to speed response time make sure they're focusing on the right things and all that kind of stuff so. -SCR 1 in the chat room is saying how all their downsizing their way to success and I know it's very easy to see it that way but there's another view and if you take a step back. You can actually see it. I know Mary Jo and Paul you've both seen this is because you cover Microsoft so deeply but especially during the Bomber years. There were little fiefdoms that developed in Microsoft and the fiefdoms were all about how many employees were under your thumb and so you had these… (Paul) That was awesome wasn’t it? You had these little princes who are accumulating kingdoms not really caring about the productivity they were getting out of people they were just cared about how many people they were in charge of and .. -There's actually another side to this with power comes the ability to influence direction and I always think back to this one example. I'm not saying that this product would have been successful but at the time when Steven Sinofsky was running the Office group there was a project that came up from I don't remember what group it was but it was in Office but it was basically an attempt to put Office in the Cloud at the time they didn’t it called the cloud but it's called Net docs and he killed it because it competed with Office right and the theory here is that Microsoft might have come out with something that was Google Docs and all that stuff years earlier. If they just hadn't been so or if the people in power hadn't been so concerned about protecting their products. You know that you couldn't compete with something like Windows or Office if you did that you were out you had to support that right. Now, it's possible and probable that Net Docs was a joke that it was based on Active-X. that it was stupid. Whatever I don't know but you know but that's the type of thing that happens in that kind of organization. -Plus you know we've talked about this a lot but the emphasis of Microsoft these days is very different from the old Microsoft you know Windows was the main cash cow of Microsoft for years now everything has to be about the Cloud for them and the shareholders want that, The Wall Street analysts want that. So if you're working in a group that's Windows related. You know they're definitely kind of putting the squeeze to you. I think. And if you're doing something that's more Cloud focus Enterprise focused. Something that's about collaboration teamwork that kind of gives you an edge and I think it's also just about job kind of… not restructuring but more just like changing of the emphasis set at about what matters. And what's going to make the money for Microsoft right. So some of that's a play too. -You know I think we talked about this on Windows weekly. The notion you know the new newer surface devices say Microsoft on the right. And this one Microsoft notion that we're moving forward as one company not as the you know the guns pointed at each other all the little fiefdoms that we were just talking about you know it's a new way for Microsoft. You know a new way of doing things -Right and that's why I actually still I'm very bullish on Microsoft I love what Nadella has done that idea of taking down the ramparts and making the little princes actually work with one another. Yeah it doesn't work any other way. Although… (Paul) Change is hard though because you know externally. I agree with you right. I think this stuff is necessary. It's exciting for Microsoft as a company that in many ways to become so calcified you know for to see them reacting to things quickly and moving quickly as it it's very exciting in hitting that the right products and things but I know from personal experience with different people that this change is very hard for some of the people there's. And not just the ones who've been let go now. But just people who see projects just disappearing. -But then there's some other people who the opposites true like they've been chomping at the bit for ever to like work with teams across teams and they're like oh finally they're letting us talk to each other before and that wasn't really encouraged or even allowed right. So those people are really happy. - Not to hammer on Steven Sinofsky but what the heck. You know when they did Windows 8, right. They went to the Windows Phone team and said show us the Metro stuff and they say here you go and for the Windows Phone perspectives thought great! We're going to collaborate with these guys we're going to come out with this cohesive system. Nope they never talked again you know the Windows Phone guys are always the B. team to the Windows guys now in Windows 10 with him gone and you know different people in place that is what's happening but it happens. Three to five years too late. This is stuff that should have happened on day one. These thing should have evolved together. You know you could have made the case back in I guess we're talking 2010 -2011, 2012 certainly that Windows Phone had been in market at mature to some point. If you're going to go to market with an R. T. style tablet device. It should have been Windows Phone O.S. it was already there. It had to Apps. It was all there but no they started over from scratch. They created another Windows system that ran out arm. Instead of you know basing it on the thing they really had very strange. -About ten years ago I had a contact in the Xbox division and a contact in the Windows division and we had a weird exchange of the course of six weeks where basically they were using me as an intermediary to pass messages. I was like you work literally 400 yards away from each other What's going on here? -Oh by the way if they're still there and on same teams they all work for the same guy I know -Exactly, exactly. -That's one organization now. -That's why they were emailing through me. They're like we can't be seen to be emailing one another. Someone will see it and get really upset I was thinking that is so dysfunctional. That is the worst kind of triangulation ever. -Even you know like Ray Ozzie remember when he was the chief scientist or whatever to the chief software architect. You know he allowed teams to compete on you know file sync technologies and things like that and instead of determining you know that you're the best ideas from each group let's make one thing you know you allow this internal competition to occur and what happens on the outside is you see that they have three different file sync solutions at the time or four and which one do I take a bet on and why are there so many and doesn't the show a lack of leadership. You know and I'm sure there are management strategies or theories that this is a good way to do things but we know from experience with this particular subject that you know that didn't go very well. And eventually it all became OneDrive you know but for several years there were many, many different solutions. -There were. I remember when all those think engines were out there and it was like it was a time I should think you like which one are they talking about right now -I'm not going to remember all of them. -No there are a lot -I mean now there is Windows Live Sync, and uhh.. -There’s a Sequel one, Sequel team was doing a whole different sync thing. -You know it's like a mosh pits theory of management like let them fight it out -I prefer the days of active sync where there was active sync and then active sync for mobile and active scene for enterprise active sync for exchange because that really made it. You know very easy to understand. -What do you call it when you reuse an acronym? What is that called? Uh, You double it up or whatever it's like they did that with active sync was which is over used. You know as a term. -Someone just thought it sounded like a really cool name so they wanted to use it on as many products as possible and it took me a while to realize that two products that were called Active Sync actually had… it was no sharing of the code base between them -Those guys probably hated each other. -Yes. Well because it was the exchange side and then it was the mobile side and they didn't, I mean, they were competing with each other. -I remember the spinning green circle very well I still have nightmares about it. (Laughing) And that's what happens when you build a dysfunctional company. All right. When we come back. What's going to be? Wearables? Ignite?. What do we want to talk about? - Ignite? You mean like the Note 7? -Yeah (Laughing) It's too soon, too soon man. - I think, let's do wearables because everybody wants to know what's going on with the Band -Of course. So we'll be banding up in just a bit but first let's go and take another break. Because we need to thank another sponsor of Windows Weekly. Hey folks, do you read? Of course you read but you probably don't read as much as you want to. I know I don't. There came a time when my schedule just got so full that I don't have those free evenings to curl up with a book I can't do that hour of reading in the mid-day. I don't have the breaks. I'd like to, to pick up my favorite pieces of fiction and nonfiction. Well there's a new way to read with your ears. That's right, it's called Audible. Now I spend a lot of time in the car probably about two hours every day coming up and down from San Francisco to Petaluma and I spend a lot of time in the air in fact I just spent 27 hours in the air coming going to and from IFA in Berlin. I'm going to spend another 30 hours going over to Rome at the end of this month. It's nice to have my favorite books, the books that I want to read that are on my wish list ready to go with a touch of a button. Well that's exactly what you get with Audible. Audible is a leading provider of audio books across all types of literature including fiction nonfiction and periodicals they offer a language instruction in foreign language course in audio book format so you can always be improving yourself no matter what you're doing. No matter where you're going no matter how busy your schedule might be. For listeners of Windows Weekly Audible is offering a free audio book to give you a chance to try out their service. One audio book that I absolutely recommend, I recommended to everybody, in fact I've been recommending it since it first came out and that is The Martian by Andy Weir. This book is absolutely fantastic. If you liked the movie you will love the audio book. I'm actually addicted to this. I do a lot of trips over the last Vegas and this is just about the right length to get me from here to there. It's all about a man trying to survive on his own with nothing but his wits and his biology skills. If you want to find out what it's like to live on the red planet, if you want to listen to a premise that is fresh that is not based off of a comic book that is not based off of a series. You've got to try The Martian it's free. Because you're a listener of Windows Weekly. Now to download this audio book for free or another one of your choice you can go to audible.com/windows. That's audible.com/windows, of course, I don't want to give you just my pick. I know this is supposed to come later in the show but Paul, you're a big audio book listener as well, Yes? (Paul) Maybe?! (Fa Bellencer) Maybe?! You were teasing me with a pick that was going to change my life. -Well you know I liked, uh, I like personal tech industry picks from possible there really aren't that many really good ones. We talked about Masters of Doom, which is story about the ID software guys read by Wil Wheaton, which is fantastic. I had recommended that one sometime ago. Someone who listened to it loved it, and recommended one back to me, I bought it. I haven't actually started it yet but this is the next book it's called Console Wars. Sega, Nintendo and the battle that to find a generation and if you think back to the history of video games in particular I think the, I think, I mean maybe I'm wrong here but the Nintendo Sega stuff of the late 80’s, early 90's is kind of the second major generation of video games you know Atari, Odyssey, Intellivision, Coleco Vision, etc being the first generation. And so it's the story of these companies and you know how Nintendo and then eventually, uh, Sega and assume Sony you know kind of just changed things through the early 90’s. - Well there you have it. You've got an older fiction pick for me. You've got a nonfiction pick for Paul you can pretty much find everything in between at Audible.com. Now this offer works for one credit books there are very few that are two credit that won't work with the software but if you want to try out Paul's book, if you want to try out mine. You need to try Audible.com and we thank Audible for their support of Windows Weekly. OK, So we've got some Wearables I did see a few of these in Berlin and they looked, they looked wearable, they looked interesting. But should I be excited Mary Jo? - I you know I still I'm, I don't have a smart watch. I did use the Microsoft band for a bit of time and I thought it was OK, I use the band too but I'm I still haven't really seen any wearable device and I'm like, Yes, I would pay that, I would wear that. And now if you are a fan of Microsoft band. We talked last week on the show that we had heard some rumors that Microsoft may be no longer making the band after band two. Right after the show ended, a day later we found out that Microsoft was rebranding the Microsoft Health application to Band. So people who are downloading the Microsoft updates to the Microsoft Health application for IOS, Android and Windows, were seeing suddenly that it was called Band instead of Health. Microsoft hasn't really said what's going on with that but my sources said to me that what they think is that Microsoft's rebranding Health to Band because right now Microsoft, the Microsoft health app that exists really just is meant to sync with the Band. It's supposed to work with Microsoft band. I think what they're going to do is come out with another new app that will be called Microsoft Health. And that will work with the Microsoft Health Service on all different kinds of devices not just the Band. They'll be able to work with. Android devices different kinds of phone platforms and all, all different kinds of things and I think the reason they're doing this is Microsoft's priority going forward in the space is the health, the health service and the health applications and not so much the actual band hardware which has been something that a lot of people love but has had kind of mixed success. And in fact the Band 2 a lot of people have had problems with it splitting and they've had to return it and I just, I just think Microsoft's kind of in a place right now where maybe they're thinking about a new wearable at some point maybe it'll be another kind of a fitness band that'll be branded Surface someday but I think the Band line as we know it is done and now we're going to see them talk about how the health service and the help app and not so much the Band. (Fa Bellencer) I think are going to call it Band For Life. I think is… -No don't give them any ideas please. (Paul) How did you find out about our secret plans? -Actually, maybe Mary Jo is right. Maybe that Band is now called Skype For Life. You're going to wear Skype. Because that makes sense. Do either of you wear a band? I like the band, I did try it out. But do you wear it on a daily basis? (Mary Jo) No (Paul) I mean well I switched to Fit Bit three months ago ish. I mean you know I really I like the Microsoft Band for what it is I think it makes a great compromise. Compromise? Is the wrong phrase. It's a nice middle ground between an expensive and complex smartwatch and in a lower end kind of fitness tracker right it I think it's got the right mix of functionality. I think the thing that really kills it be on the reliability issues which you know came to light over time is just you looking at one day battery life. That's the problem with the Apple Watch, it's a problem with a lot of these devices. You know a FitBit, Ulta. I think is the one I have the thing lasts for seven or eight days on a charge it's incredible and. It accomplishes the same basic things that I like the most about wearables today which is somebody texts you and you can see what it is you get you know reminders to get up and move around. It's it does the fitness tracking kind of stuff so I think I think they just running into a marketing issue and on the one hand where you know no one even knew this thing existed they didn't do good job of selling it and just a battery life limitation you know an Apple. I know wanted to put solar kind of activity on the new Apple Watch and they didn't because of the battery life stuff there was no way to cram a thing in there make it work. Well let's, let's not say that because Samsung did. So Samsung’s got their new Gear S3, which does have a cell radio in it, and Bluetooth and WiFi and it runs for four days. So it’s posssible (Paul) What I meant was Apple couldn't do it. - Apple couldn’t do it, Right! - So uhm, one of the things that Microsoft did with the original Microsoft Band that was pretty impressive was just put that much in there in a sensor sense I think there were eleven sensors in the first device. You know the second one added one or two other sensors you know they were Barometer for altitude and so forth you know that kind of data collection is really exciting you know let's see what we can do with that, promise. They never really did much with it. You know and of course we don't do a good job of selling it and then as Mary Jo pointed out sadly the second one at the same exact reliability issues as the first and that's if there was this kind of the end of it right there. -They also at least at some point were at kind of contemplating the idea of putting Windows, some variant of Windows 10 inside the Band. The Bands, the Band on and two both had firmware inside. It was not Windows inside. And right before.. (Paul) It’s basically Linux by the way. -Is it really? (Paul) Yeah Um right before we get all these tips about Microsoft, maybe ceasing work on the Band I had heard from one of my contacts that they are the team that was put to try to get Windows 10 to work on the Band had been disbanded. So I think. So yeah I think I think you know that the idea was let's make this part of the Windows 10 family right. Like everything else has everything else is running what the core of Windows 10 the Common Core. So why not have the band do that too but for whatever reasons they decided that was going to work not feasible. And so maybe it's they go back to the drawing board. Now come up with a new wearable that is Windows 10 core from the get go. (Paul) Yeah I was thinking as you were talking about other wearables which Brad who I work with has heard as well. I was thinking you know they have to be looking at Window 10 this is the point you know the universal platform that they can add that to the list of targets you can have as a developer. I think that has to… (Mary Jo) Me too! - I'm just I'm still not really sold on the wearable tech and I've covered it extensively. I’ve had a bunch of really good pieces of tech in my lab but ultimately I don't want anything on my wrist in fact this is you mentioned battery life this is the problem with the technology that was generously donated by Leo Laporte. Basically because I waited for him to remove things from his office to go on the free table and I just followed ‘em and I got myself a modem 360. It's a fantastic piece of tech but because I take it off and because you have to charge it on that little awkward docking station. I sometimes forget it on my lap table. - So you were just saying do you have a band and I went upstairs and change I actually took the FitBit off and left it up to my bedroom. So I actually normally have it on but right now it's not. That's just a coincidence but the problem I have with that exact advice you're talking about. I have one as well. The Moto 360 or the Apple Watch is that these are you would get you would get used to it because if you just use the one device but it's as a kind of a strap that you have. Kind of connected everything it's a fairly you know you balance the thing on your wrist and you turn to try and not you know it it's because I test different devices like I sometimes don't spend enough time with any one device like the Fitbit is very simple to class the Apple Watch I find in the Moto 360. You know you have to get used to it right. It's kind of like tying shoes you have to do it a bunch of times you know so you can get good at it. -I have to think adventurously I would get used to it because I wore a watch for the first 20 years of my life but since then I just I don't want to hitting on my wrist it just feels weird even, even after a couple of hours of it being on my wrist I still feel it there. I still want to take it off. -I wear regular watch still and I feel weird when I don't have it. (Paul) What do you do with that? - I actually use it to tell time. I know what a thought. -And I thought watches only do things like give you really abbreviated versions of the text messages so that you have to reach in your pocket to take out your phone (Mary Jo) And that’s why I don’t need one - I used to, you know. When people got laptops and then smart phones. You know you get into that kind of meeting joke where like people are sitting there doing their own thing on their devices and not paying attention to whatever the person is speaking or saying. And that's considered rude it might be unprofessional whatever and so you know one of the big defenses about a wearable is like you know if you're a smart watch you can casually glance down at your watch it’s not as obvious or as terrible as looking at like a phone screen or tablet or a P.C. or whatever but you know I think nothing signals to the people you're talking to that your not attention more than when you do this kind of thing, like really. And now you know I mean it's just… - Or it looks like you're bored right and you're like ugh is this over yet? -We almost done here? We'll wrap this up soon. - I do. I love sitting at a table when someone's wearing a smartwatch and I think, you could tell they don't want to be rude but their eyes keep going down in their wrists like this, you know like I know what you're doing just take out your phone man. -You should just start asking Siri questions. (laughing) -Siri delete that e-mail. -Yeah. As my daughter once did she walked into my office and she said Xbox off. (laughing) -And actually across the Internet there are cries of anguish because people are watching Windows Weekly while playing Gears Of War. (Paul) Cortana, What’s the weather? (laughing) -Oh, no! You know, I don’t know. I understand that wearables have a bright future I understand that it's a big profit center. I understand it has to be a part of any cloud strategy because it's a great way to get data metrics but I'm still not completely sold. Go figure! Anything else about wearables or should move on to Cloud? (Paul) Sorry I was just looking at my smart watch I missed what you just said. (laughing) - That's about right. Are we done with wearables? -Yeah, let's talk cloud -Let's talk cloud because this actually is exciting interesting and worthy of a post-mortem. What happened?. Microsoft suffered a major cloud hic up and a few people picked up on it quickly and actually Mary Jo, you were one of the very first who was able to confirm that there was outages of various Azure services. What happened? - Yeah I didn't, it wasn't any kind of a great, great thing that I did. Also I came on Twitter last Thursday morning and everybody was tweeting to me like as Azure is down. It's a huge outage so I looked at the status page and they were having a giant D.M.S. outage for Azure So that took down ended up taking down like almost every Azure service or at least limiting service on it. I mean everything was going down as Azure media services, Azure search HDInsight, everything, everything was it was like a cascading thing and then there were no workarounds being posted and people were just saying I can’t do anything. I'm like totally stuck. I cannot do anything. I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs. So after a couple of hours. Microsoft got DNS back up but then in the central part of the United States. People were still having sequel outages. Then after everything seemed to be solved. I started getting people tweeting me about OneDrive being down and I don't know if the OneDrive part was connected to the original DNS outage because parts of OneDrive do run on Azure. I never could confirm that was connected but it seemed to be right around the same time and that outage hit a number of people in Europe and the US, I think also India for number, a number of hours and Microsoft wouldn't say anything about that one and I couldn't get anything just that we know some customers are experiencing problems and we're working on it. That's it. So if you if you want to know more about the specifics about what happened and what Microsoft saying they're going to do going forward to try to prevent this. If you go to the as Azure status page that you could you could just search for that as your status page and you look up in the history September 15th. You'll be able to see the whole poll postmortem and dissection of what went wrong and what they intend to do to try to sure that up going forward. It wasn't a good day. - It wasn't a good day and I think the official position was that it was a spike in Network traffic that brought down DNS which I mean suspiciously sounds like it's was attacked and that's what especially some people thought. -Some people thought that. Some people were like it must be a denial service? I’m like well I don't know if it is but they're not saying it that's what it is but who knows? - I'm with you at the far more interesting part of the story is not that there could have been a denial of service against Microsoft DNS because that could happen anywhere. The more interesting part is the services that are actually linked together by Azure. -Yeah -It does give you a sneak peek into some of the inner workings that Microsoft has been very recalcitrant to explain. (Mary Jo) Right. We know there are tons of services available on Azure if you go on at the Azure page you can see they have so many different products now working on Azure plus a bunch of other services that are parts of things like not all of Xbox Live runs on Azure but some pieces of it do to so when Azure has a major problem. It affects pretty much everything. Office 365. I mean they're connected in there too, so you know when you have something like a DNS outage pretty dire and something they needed to fix as quickly as possible. I will give them credit that they were giving people very regular updates but the updates weren't very encouraging. It's like yeah we know this is down and we're trying to fix it. That was kind of it. Least, at least they were acknowledging they knew and they were working on it because sometimes the health dashboard goes down to in Azure then you, it looks, when you look at it like everything's good. But nothing's working so at least this time. That was not the case. -Right and the thing about Azure is, it is a self healing network and it should be able to route around problems and the fact that it did come back up relatively quickly for such a large network that is a testament to the technology but there is no such thing as a network that cannot be brought down. There's always going to be and as long as it's using the networking protocols that we have today. You can take it down, if you want if you had enough resources but, but Paul let me ask you about this. There was a saying in the early days of cloud computing in the early days of say like the Google Chromebook that. Oh this sounds like a good idea to move everything into the cloud until you lose internet connectivity and then that one bad day makes the entire investment worthless. This was the bad day. This was business in the middle of the workday not being able to access Office 365, their OneDrive to different degrees. Does this, did this kill it, did this make it an incredibly bad day and now it makes the investment useless? -No I, you know the thing that's always lost in these discussions is that. Cloud computing is not an all or nothing affair when you talk about things like e-mail or obviously if it's cloud hosted I mean it is Cloud Hosted, even before we had a cloud. If that thing is down, its down. There’s nothing to do about that but you know your data should be synced to your client, your application should be running on your P.C. I mean as an Office 365 user you should have access to functionality and so it's not that it's not all or nothing. You know and I still think that the promise of the cloud is met by today's infrastructure you know but that it can only get better with more pervasive contact of it sort of course but I don't know. Honestly for all of the kind of Chicken Little stuff that goes on with cloud computing even today these things are kind of rare aren't they. I mean we don't really have weekly Office 365 or Gmail outages it doesn't really work that way. -No. I think one thing the bug a bunch of people in Europe about this one last week was the week before that there had been a pretty not, not as pervasive but another outage that affected Azure and people like wow twice and two weeks what the heck Microsoft you know come on. So I agree it isn't something happens every day and I don't think it's a reason to just abandon cloud computing or say oh that's why I'm not doing the cloud because you know your own company's servers go down to it if you're running your own servers. But I think I think the fact that those two things happen back to back got some of the people especially in Europe kind of agitated and understandably so. Yeah. -You know this is why you've got a company like VMware which has admittedly had some bad years as they've, as people been moving away from virtual machines into containers. But they're betting everything on their N S X platform and the NSX platform ensures a way for enterprises to be able to do hybrid deployment so On-Premise and not just On-Premise and cloud but On-Premise and in multi cloud in other words they want to make it as easy to run in Azure and AWS and Google Web services and the premise at the same time so that theoretically as long as your network is up has some sort of connectivity. You should still be able to continue working and I, you know I think we're going to see more of the big players including Microsoft who will take that that view of we will let you run your Azure services on another web service to give you that measure of security that you will always be able to get to it even if one of these services goes, goes down. I see that being becoming popular. Or no? -Yeah, I hadn’t heard about that actually so that's kind of an interesting thing something to listen for next week. See if Microsoft talks about that at Ignited at all. -Yeah it will be uh. It will be a brave, brave new world. Speaking of a brave new world. There was a story that we actually talked about the last time I stepped in for Leo I think it was back in June of Microsoft announcing a new Azure service that was in Germany and the big news about that was it would be entirely in Germany. So all the data would be stored in Germany they would never allow any of the data to go to a data center that was not in Germany because Germany has really good privacy laws and Microsoft is saying we will not even have access to it. We're going to give everything to a caretaker third party in Germany. -Can I say Ick bin ein Berliner -Ick bin ein.. yeah if you were a citizen of the cloud you were a citizen of Germany and I say to you, Ick bin ein Azurler. -Azulier (laughing) -But Paul what's…what’s this all about. It's finally out? - This is..oh I don't, I have no idea what this is. This is Mary -Yeah this is me. (Paul) I’ve heard of Germany -So right. You've heard of Germany. (Laughing) So today is the day that this new Microsoft region in Germany. There's two data centers that and that it actually was turned on an open for business. So um, yeah it's a big data sovereignty story like you just said Padre it's something you know Microsoft hasn't been able to completely block access to customer's data from governments when requested and that's what their whole Ireland case is about that they've been fighting there but they're trying to kind of get around this in different ways and this German data center idea where T. systems which is a Deutsche Telecom subsidiary is acting as the data trustee in this data center is coming to play. So if you, you can decide you want Microsoft to be the one accessing the data there or you can say no I don't even want Microsoft in here. I want, I want T systems to be my administration here in Germany. So any Azure service that can run in these data centers is going to have the same protection. So for example IOT. IOT is running in these data centers I believe Office 365 also so you'll still have that benefit an offer of having an external trustee be the one administering your data and the data will stay on premises there in Germany. So kind of cool, kind of like a workaround for Microsoft to try to say you know what we're taking your privacy seriously people and here's what we're trying to do to get to kind of. Not get around the law but find another creative way to ensure data sovereignty. - I don't think they're getting around the law. I think they're trying to fill in the void where the law has not caught up (Mary Jo) Exactly! - The great some very high profile cases involving Microsoft and data security that the most high profile of them would be the case in Ireland about whether or not a U.S. court could compel Microsoft to give them information that was stored on a server that was on the land of another sovereign country. And Ireland was a little bit iffy because they were going back and forth about what was allowed by treaty and what was not but with Germany. It's very clear. You cannot step onto German sovereign soil and demand something from a data center and that's why Microsoft's set this up. But who's going to, who's going to buy this? Who's, who's going to want the service? Who's going to demand the service? - I think a lot of customers in Europe, right? For sure. I've even had people asking me if I'm not based in Germany could I transfer my data from another data center to this one and I don't know the answer to that I think I did ask Microsoft that but I haven't heard back. So people, I think people are very interested and curious about how that's going to work. - I'd be surprised a lot. (Mary Jo) I would too but, yeah we’ll see - Actually P.S. chops in the chat room has an interesting point. He says as the law catches up. We could have a data privacy Cold War you have different countries saying well I mean if you let them into the data for our citizens we’ll let them into the data for your citizens. - Oh I would say right. It will also have a situation where who's going to be the Cayman Islands of or the Switzerland of you know data storage (Fa Bellencer) Data’s the new curtsey. –They not gonna let anyone in. -And then you'll have, you'll have the country saying well if we didn't do this. Another country would so we're just providing a service that's necessary . Wait did we just come up with a new data laundering scheme? -Yeah -I think we did -Will I have to declare my data for a, for tax purposes? Is this is how this is going to work? -They may. -I don't like this. All right. You know what we talked enough about enterprise I want to get into some gaming and only, if only there was a member of this panel who knew something about gaming. -I'm ready. Let's go. – Go, Mary Jo I understand you're a big uh, Gears of War fan right Mary Jo? - Oh yes I am -You're all about the shooting and what weapons do they have in Gears of War? I don't even know this game. (Paul) What weapons? -I'm assuming there's some guns and some knifes right? (Mary Jo) Cats. I think there are cats. -I get Cats. Cats are ultimate weapon. No but Paul... (Paul) And some chainsaws. -Can you tell me a little bit about the Xbox S and their Minecraft bundle because Microsoft has been conquering the world with Minecraft. -Mine.. Yes they are. You know since the Xbox One S. came out in early August they've been kind of bulking out the lineup with different bundles you know they have a Gears of War 4 bundle for example which is ridiculous looking but the Minecraft one looks really good actually. Especially if you haven't bought into this yet in the Microsoft ecosystem because it's no much. It's no more expensive than the normal console. But you get the game for free. Obviously an Xbox 1, you get the game for free on Windows 10 and then you get a bunch of favorites and builders packs just you know downloadable content that you normally would have to pay for. All bundled into this thing and so for $300 bucks I mean this is actually it's a great deals and then Minecraft is amazing and so if you've never experienced Minecraft I mean this is a great way to get into it. So that's kind of a cool one. And then the Gears of War 4 news is that the game was completed this week. So it's gone gold. It's being released in October and if you preorder it. You can play it. I think it's four days early so I believe it comes out on October 11th and those who preordered it. I don't know if probably digitally obviously. Can start playing it on the 7th and so this is a new kind of a rejiggering of the story you know so there was a trilogy of Gears of War games that came out on Xbox 360 was made by a third party developer Who, why can’t I think of the name of the company? That's crazy! It doesn't matter they sold it to Microsoft and so now Microsoft and using this. Say again? –Oh Mojang -No Gears of War – Oh Gears of War, Oh! Wasn’t that just 360 studios? –No it was the Cliff Bleszinski guys. Uh it kills me when I can’t think of stuff (Mary Jo) Bungee? –No, Bungee’s Halo –I’m just guessing. –Oh, um was it the same studio that did Bio Shock? - Nope. (laughing) this is embarrassing. So anyway whoever it was. (Mary Jo) Let’s just keep guessing. (Fa Bellencer) Atari? (Mary Jo) Epic games? (Paul) Wow! Epic Games. So they did the original trilogy on the 360, it was a 360 exclusive. Well it was a Microsoft, it's a, the first Gears of War game actually shipped on Windows and then they did the 360 version and so now on the Xbox 1, we have the original game is available remastered the other games are available backwards compatibility and now we're getting a new Forth game which takes place you know 20 years later there's you know, you know the story. All hell breaks loose etc, etc So it's a pretty big deal because you know exclusives kind of drive console sells and so forth so Microsoft has had Halo and Gears two and so Gears have a new series of Gears games coming out for the Xbox 1 is kind of a big deal. So we shall see. Someone included with us in software. Nope! - It's kind of interesting that's October 11th because that's also a big day for Dynamics 365. I’m just saying. -Yikes. Yeah I'm sure that's not coincidental. - I'm sure it's not. (laughing) -Well I mean dynamics is one of the most profitable division in Microsoft currently has. So, I mean naturally. ou You see the tie in, right? Well let me ask you this we're thinking about doing a little Gears of War thing here at the studio because Lee has got his Xbox. I've actually got an Xbox 1S on its way along with Gears of War when it comes out but I will be in Rome. So it's shipping to me in Rome. We're all going to have our little Kingston Gears of War branded headsets. I think we need a death match. -Yeah OK. I'm not great at death match I will say um.. Gears of War, those games, the single player stuff has been really good, a story has been good for the most part. The death match stuff, if you're really used to the fast moving kind of twitchy. You know Call of Duty type stuff it's a little more grounded. They've got it a little bit more vertical over the years but you know especially the first game, you kinda crouch low to the ground and that was pretty much where you stayed so I'm not I'm not great at it but. -Well I mean if you play with us. I'll try to get Pope Francis on the controller. I've heard that he can frag like nobody else. -I just want to hear him swear like a sailor. That will be the best part. -Gears of War is pretty good but the one that I was most impressed with at E3 and the one that I really, really want to play is Cup Head because that looks fantastic. And I know, I know Paul that you love that game. - Well actually I will say even Mary Jo is looking forward to it. - I was curious about that one, actually. - I kind of you know like forty style animation. Things like that. - It's steam boat Willy. –Yeah - There were a few. There was the ship of thieves or ship of, yeah ship of, Ship of Thieves or Sea of Thieves?! (Paul) I’m not sure. -There were a few at E3 that actually were kind of interesting. (Paul) -3D Realms. No it wasn't 3D Realms, sorry. (laughing) -Are we back to just naming off studios? –Yeah I don’t know -All right, well when we come back it's time for tips and picks to close out the show but first let's go ahead and thank another sponsor of this episode of Windows Weekly. Now let me ask a question. Do you need money? of course you need money. Everyone needs money maybe it's to buy a new house. Maybe it's to start a business and the way that you normally get that is by leveraging what you already own with a mortgage. 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Folks if you need to refinance your mortgage or buy a home check out Rocket Mortgage today at QuickenLoans.com/windows that's QuickenLoans.com/windows Equal Housing Lender, licensed in all 50 states NMLSconsumeraccess.org number 30 30 and we thank Rock Mortgage by Quicken Loans for their support of Windows Weekly. Alright. I always get confused by the Q. and A who's the Q. and who does the A.? - I don't even know if we need to do a Q. and A today because we have so much in the picks. - Oh yeah actually I love your picks this was an interesting one. I saw this and I was wondering where we were going to go with it but let’s just find out. D. Apple find your iPhone, I don't even know what that means. - Oh well let me explain. I'm a Microsoft guy obviously right? I’ve been writing about Microsoft technology products for 20 something years. I approached things from kind of a Microsoft standpoint but I think it's fair to say that in the mobile world. Things have gone in a slightly different direction and so like Microsoft itself you know we kind of have to adapt and you know before Microsoft shipped Windows Phone I was an iPhone user because Windows Mobile was so terrible. I used Windows phone for several years obviously things have kind of fallen apart over the past couple years and so I've spent a lot of time looking at Android and iPhone and I would say to people who are Microsoft people you know Microsoft fans, or Microsoft users, customers whatever. Android is probably the closest thing you're going to get to a Microsoft type experience but more important because the system can be, you know adapted and customize so much you can change the lock screen, the launcher screen. I mean it basically everything about it. It affords you the opportunity to have a real Microsoft experience because Microsoft makes lock screens and launchers and you know keyboards and all kinds of things for Android so you can have a real Microsoft experience on the internet but people who use iPhones do so for a reason. There are good reasons to own an iPhone you might get one from work, you might have to have one and so I've been using an iPhone for years really. In fact I've owned I've owned almost every iPhone model that Apple has ever ship I've only didn't purchase two of them but I've always worked very hard to kind of keep the distance from some of the Apple products and services. I don't use things like Apple music or iCloud or Siri or any of that kind of stuff and so I wrote an article about this but I've been doing a series of tips about using Android from kind of the perspective of a Microsoft guy. I have written a few articles like this for iPhone but not nearly as many and so recently I kind of summarized a bunch of thoughts around what it's like to use an iPhone from a Windows or Microsoft user perspective and you know again you can't, there's not much, you can't change the launcher screen, you can't, you know there's no Microsoft lock screen that you can install you kind of stuck with some aspects of it because that's you know what Apple does but actually iOS is open up you can change the keyboard you can do swift key which Microsoft owns you want to do that and Microsoft, all of Microsoft's high profile apps are on iPhone as well. And so the point of this is just that you don't have to give up your soul. Per se to use an iPhone. -No I think buying an iPhone you kind of gave it up already. But I’m just saying. -Actually, so by the way that's more fair than ever because with this version of the iPhone the availability was so limited that I had to get a gold version and uh I can tell you that was not a proud moment. -Rose gold or just plain gold? -No I didn’t go rose gold but I do end up buying gold. -Isn’t that actually part of the price? You do give your credit card and a piece of your soul. –And a piece of your soul, yeah I guess. Literally one pound you know. -How much does the human soul weigh? (Paul) One pound. – Is it one pound? Well good because I know I can give away a couple of grams and still be good. -Yeah mine's a little fatty. But it's good eating. -Actually I just got all my blood work back and I am surprisingly in good health and I didn't expect that. (Mary Jo) That's good. -Except for my triglycerides I guess pork rinds are really bad for you. (Paul) I'm somewhat surprised by that. Do you eat them in like a cheese bath or ? – No, I bathe in them. (Paul) Oh,yes! - I sleep in a bed of pork rinds. (laughing) (Paul) That's it's good for the skin. -It's for that fresh pork smell you know. All right so we've got a D. Apple find your iPhone. We've got an app pick of the week. Who's got fire watch? (Paul) I do. So, I have a bunch of epics. So the big one is yes fire watch. So fire watch is a game that ship like I think last year on PlayStation 4 and also in P.C. through Steam. I played through day one on Raphael’s PlayStation just to kind of give it a shot. I really, really enjoy this game and so just today. Literally it shipped on Xbox 1 you can get it now on Microsoft's platform and so same exact game it's a wonderful game it's kind of a it's kind of a like interactive adventure basically it is there's a mystery and it's got beautiful graphics and you know immersive sound and all that kind of stuff but it's I mention that when I talked about this on the podcast just a few weeks ago I said I'm going to try to get my wife and daughter to play this I think this is a game that would, is compelling to people who don't play video games in the same way that a you know a mystery series or something which is interesting to people I think people can get into this. So it's a great, great story. It's a really neat game and the Xbox One version has some unique stuff as an audio tour and when you finish the game you can actually free roam around the environment you can see the whole world that they created for the game. (Fa. Bellencer) This looks a little like mist. It's got, it's looks like it's got that same sort of artistic. (Paul) Don't ever compare this to mist again. (laughing) No it’s a.. OK well I guess what I would say is, you know mist for the day was seemed photo realistic I guess I'm sure we would look at the quite same way today. This obviously has a bit of a I don't want to say cartoon but it's clearly graphics like they don't attempt to pull you into thinking that this is you know real photograph quality graphics but that the graphics are beautiful. It's a beautiful game. You know really really well done the whole thing, the whole presentation is great . (Fa. Bellencer) It's not a horror game is it? (Paul ) No but this is a mystery. It's like, it's the type of thing where you know you show up at your new job out in the woods and you go investigate what's going on when you come back. Someone has ransacked the tower that you live in and you know the music kind of kicks in like tick, tick, tick, you know. You can tell it's like it's getting a little stressful like what's going on here. And so it's just it's a mystery that you uncover. (Fa Bellencer) As long as the Slender man doesn’t jump out. -Well it's sort of, sort of does. -Oh really? (Paul laughs) Not exactly. Just a few other things I want to throw out for apps because a bunch of stuff happened this week. I do an app race and mobile app pick of the week, and a Skype preview app. We’ve already talked about this but if you're on the insider program it's certainly worth looking at. I haven't gotten it to work but I know people have if you're interested in the SMS relay stuff that is available if you have both Windows 10 and Windows 10 mobile. Microsoft has also updated a bunch of its mobile apps on the Internet IOS and so on Android, Word, Excel and Power Point, the kind of the core apps have much simpler sharing capabilities now and also I can’t … here and collaboration features and in OneDrive. I don't actually, it's funny I read the description of the new OneDrive app on IOS and I don't think the graph. I don't think graphically looks any different. That they're calling it a file centric U.I. or whatever but it looks the same to me but there's a new me tab and a U.I. that lets you access all of your account information and a bunch of other stuff that was just hidden away before so that's kind of cool and then the new Outlook.com which by the way I still don't have I think I'm on what are we on the day 457 or something. If you have it. I know Mary Jo does. They've added integrated support for a Google Drive and Facebook photos meaning that if you're going to, if you're sending out an e-mail “Hey I just went on this great vacation. Here are some photos.” You can pull those photos in from other services now include you know the Google Drive and Facebook photo. I'd love to test that feature Microsoft. If you're listening. -They're calling it OneDrive For Life. -Yep. (laughing) (Mary Jo) You're going to be the last one the very, very last one to get the new Outlook. - Now that you've asked for it, that's how that works. Sorry it's a rule. (Mary Jo) Yep (Paul) I observed on Twitter, the other day that hearing that other people have the new Outlook.com is like when you're at war and you find out that the buddy you're in a foxhole with is going home and you're happy for him and in one way but you're also like you're really upset with him you know because he's leaving and you're not you know I mean it's the same kind of weird mixed feeling. -So what Paul is telling us is if any of you get the new outlook. He will (Paul and Fa Bellencer) Shoot you in the back. (Mary Jo) He wants to know immediately. -This is good. This is good to know good information. Mary Jo fully your enterprise picks of the week. -OK so my enterprise pick is going to be what to think about and look for next week at the Ignite show that Microsoft's having in Atlanta. Paul and I are going to be there a lot of other journalists will be there but looking ahead I'll tell you what I think we're going to hear a lot about. So it's very interesting to, at Ignite this year, there is only one day of keynotes. The morning keynote starts at 9:00 A.M. on Monday September 26th. It goes till 10:30. Microsoft's going to be webcasting that and then there's an afternoon keynote which is 4 to 5 on the same day. That's it for keynotes. So there's going to be a lot of recording of all the different sessions of Ignite and it'll be up on Channel Nine Microsoft Channel Nine. I think we're going to hear this is this is kind of a no brainer. A lot about Windows Server 2016 there because that's where Microsoft's going to quote launch the product. It won't be available that week, which is next week but right after it. I think you know first second week of October. You'll see it starting to be generally available. So expect a lot of Windows Server 2016 all the new stuff that's happening with containers in Windows 7 2016 we’ll hear a lot. We’ll probably also hear a lot about nano server which is a new role for a stripped down role in Windows 7 2016 next week. We're going to hear a lot about Azure stack. Azure stack is basically Azure that you can run in your own data center or that your club provider can run in their data center for you. I think maybe we'll hear about Technical Preview two of Azure stack next week it will be around the right time and Microsoft said recently that Azure stack won't actually be available until mid-2017. So it's running late. But I think, I think they do want to get the Technical Preview out there there's a lot of sessions about Azure stack. I think there's going to be some meet ups and they'll be a big representation for Azure stack. Also we haven't said this word on Windows Weekly lately, Data Lake's I know every wanted to hear it. So I think next week. Exactly. You're going to hear a lot about Data Lakes. Everyone drink! Data Lake is the big data repository technology that Microsoft had in previews since last September. I think maybe at Ignite we're going to hear them talk about Data Lake technologies being generally available so we'll hear a lot of big data talk a lot of Hadoop talk probably will be tied in with some of the data summit presentations that are happening simultaneously with that Ignite in Atlanta next week. More probably more about Microsoft's data scientists degree program which they gave a little sneak peek of at the world wide Partner Conference. I think the first class they graduated from that degree program is going to be announced or somehow represented at Ignite. That's my guess, because Microsoft said that that group of people would be graduating in September. So we're in September. Still I think that could happen next week and then there's a thing that I've talked about before in the show called open mind studio which I think is kind of like Visual Studio except for machine learning. I would be very surprised if we don't hear about that next week too. So all of these things and more. I'm sure. Probably a lot of office Content Officer 365, Office Crack, Share Point all your favorite Office topics will be there as well and we've said this before. Paul and I are doing Windows Weekly live next week with Padre from Ignite at our usual time 2:00 P.M. on September 28th, 2:00 P.M. Eastern and then we finally know a better meet up or meet up is going to be held on the 28th right after the show. It's going to be 5:00 to 8:00 P.M. It's at a bar craft beer bar called Argosy A R G O S Y in Atlanta. And I guess it's the Argosy East version of Argosy So if even if you aren't at Ignite and you don't have a badge you can still come to our meet up at 5:00 to 8:00 P.M We've tweeted out about it a couple times more about it. So definitely if you're an Atlanta or near. You can come and join us there. And while I'm talking about events. I want to throw one more Paul and I also are going to be in Las Vegas the last week of October. At a couple of shows that are held together called DEVintersection and IT intersection. We're going to be speaking there too and probably will have a meet up there. If you want to know more about that there's a lot of really good Microsoft speakers. Stephen Guggenheim is going to be there. Scott Hanselman and who else. Brad Anderson a lot of big Microsoft names plus a lot of the M.V.P.'s and big well known speakers in the community there. DVEintersection.com You can find out more there. So that's my mega enterprise pick for the week. - That is a lot of picks. Of course we've got Ignite coming up. So that's expected. And it close us out we've got the code name Pick of the week and the beer pick of the week which I'm actually looking forward to because we're going to be doing a beer episode of know how. I may not drink beer but I do like the smell. (laughing) OK so, should I do the code name now? -Do it -Code name pick of the week is Project Bletchley and yes it is named after that Bletchley if you know what I'm talking about here. Let's see the one in Bletchley Park in England. So this, what project Bletchley is… is Microsoft's code name for Azure block chain as a service middleware. So, since last year, Microsoft's been trying to work out a way to make Azure blocked, Azure block chain as a service be something that people might use in various industries not just for bitcoin mining and all but also in a lot of enterprises especially banking and finance because what is blocked chain it's actually a distributed Ledger technology so that makes sense in a lot of different enterprise type applications. What they decided to do was to try to use Azure technologies to make it easier for people to build applications that could take advantage of block chain as a service. So they came up with this idea of project Bletchley in July. They put out a white paper and said “This is how we think this might work.” This week they actually put out what they are calling version one of project Bletchley. What it is…is a template. So version one's just a template basically, but it's a pretty powerful template. It's a template that is made to help people figure out how to kind of on board into Project Bletchley. I wrote a blog post about this. I have a whole bunch of links with different things about The Cryptlets technology that's part of the Project Bletchley, how that works and architectural diagrams for people like that stuff. And Microsoft has a walk-through of how to use this template so if you want to just start kicking the tires now and seeing what is this thing as you're blotching as a service. You can start doing that now through this template that is available through the Azure Resource Manager portal. That's the code name. - Whoot, fantastic. And of course we got to do the beer pick of the week right? - Yeah so this is a very interesting bear pick. Stone Brewing, San Diego area, makes a lot of excellent beers of all kinds. They have a very famous series of beers that they've done called the Vertical Epic series. So every year like on February second. The second of February which is 2/2/2002 they put out a beer. That was called the Stone Vertical Epic series 2/22 they did one in 3/33, 4/44 and these are huge collector's items like people pay hundreds of dollars to try to get these old very rare beers from Stone so that they can have different taste from the Vertical Epic series so stone being the smart burgers that they are decided on their 20th anniversary to remake some of these famous beers that they've brewed over the years and one of the first that they remade is the 2/22 Vertical Epic. So they call this the stone 20th anniversary encore series this is 2/22 and 2/22 I've had it a couple of times I've had the original and I've also had this remake. It's really good Paul would love this. I know strong Belgian Golden Ale like all the things you love in a Belgian beer. It's almost like a strong wheat beer. (Paul) It’s pretty much all the things I love. Period. (Mary Jo) It is pretty much, right? Orange flavoring very effervescent, very it's not light like a lot of wheats because it's a strong Belgian but around 7%, really good really, really good and the remake I can tell you is equally good. So if you see this Vertical Epic. Series called The Encore Series, definitely give it a try and know 88/8 is also available now and I think will be others coming out. -There you have it. All the news that's worth having if you're a Microsoft fan. Paul Thurrott, Mary Jo Foley, thank you very much for making this an entertaining enjoyable and very informative two hours. Paul Thurrott of course again behind thurrott.com. Paul, what are you working on, what should people be heading over thurrott.com to find? (Paul) What am I working on? I can't tell you that. (laughing) (Fa Bellencer) Can you hint? (Paul) No I mean I… No. (laughing) (Fa Bellencer) Your silence says it all. (Paul) We’re in the middle of a… we're rolling out like a premium service on the site and so I've been a little preoccupied with a bunch of that stuff lately so it's coming soon. That's all I can say. (Fa Bellencer) So just go to thurrott.com and find everything there is to know about the man who writes the book. And that would be a slogan. If I were making slogans that would be the slogan I would come up for you. (Paul) Not quite as good as the Man With No Name but yeah. - A woman who does have a name is Mary Jo Foley of course of the “All About…” always say Android but it really is Windows “All About Windows” blog over at Z.D.Net. Mary Jo you always are my source for Microsoft happenings in the enterprise anything interesting going on your side that you're particularly jazzed about? -I'm just I'm like really jazzed about Ignite next week because I think they'll be some pretty cool enterprise announcements. And it's going to be great that we're right there on the ground with all the big guys like Mark Russinovich, and Snover all the who's who. So I think we'll have some really good news stories next week. -Fantastic! Again thank you for making my job that much easier by being absolutely brilliant and entertaining hosts. Don't forget that we do Windows Weekly here on Twit T.V. every Wednesday at 11:00 o'clock P.M. Pacific. 1:00, no 2:00 Eastern. I'm not good at this Leo does all the time zones. All I know is come to live.twit.tv and you can watch and as long as you're watching live why not jump into the chat room at irc.twit.tv It's a good way to talk to the host, talk to me and just enjoy the experiment that is Twit T.V. Also don't forget that you can find us at our show page twit.tv/ww In case you want to download some back episodes check the show notes or maybe even subscribe. If you want to support the show that really is the best way to do it. Of course you can also find Windows Weekly wherever fine podcasts are aggregated till next time and Father Robert Bellencer in for Leo Laporte we're going to be coming to you live from Microsoft Ignite next week but until then take your with Newsweek.