Windows Weekly 521: CShell by the Seashore!

Comin up on Windows Weekly, Mary Jo

explains CShell to those of us, me

included, who don't know what it is, yet.

Plus Apple is trying to become more like Microsoft

while Microsoft is trying to become more like

Apple. We talk about squiggles and stickers

in Skype and a whole lot more Windows news.

Stay tuned.

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This is TWiT. Bandwidth for Windows Weekly

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[music]

This is Windows Weekly, episode 521, recorded

Wednesday June 7, 2017.

CShell by the Seashore

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Welcome to Windows Weekly, this is the show

where we talk all things Windows.

Leo Laport is on vacation this week, so you've

got me. But of course you've got your regulars

Mary Jo Foley and Paul Thorot. Thank you

so much for coming and sharing your

Windows wisdom, Mary Jo and Paul.

--Wow. Wit and wisdom.
--Windows, wisdom! That's W,w,w,w.

Yes, wit and wisdom and Mary Jo, you just

got back from Japan
-- I did.

-- you posted some lovely pictures, how was

it?

It was really good. I had a great time.

I barely worked which was unusual

for me on a vacation.So that was good.

--What devices did you bring?

I brought the HP laptop that I've been

using. And my Android phone, my Nexus 6P

and that's it. No other devices.

And those both worked ok?

-- Yep.

Awesome.

-- Yeah I was using - Paul had talked up

GoogleFi which is a network service

you can use overseas and not pay exorbitant

charges for, and so I used that with

Google Translate and it was really great.

Both made the trip way easier.

And Paul held down the fort for you.
-- He did.

--Yep.
Did you have a lot of jealousy at all

of the Instagram pictures, Paul?

Well, yeah, I actually - I think I said this

to Mary Jo last week but you know the big

difference for me, because she went to

Japan before and she's been to what, like

Thailand or Vietnam, sorry
--Cambodia.

Yeah. You know because she can get online

now she can post photos, so when she

goes to these awesome places that I want

to see it's like, well "take some pictures"

And it's just great that she was able to

post them. So I had to live vicariously

but...
--They were perfect.

And there wasn't the kind of annoying

#LoveMyLife, hashtag [laughs]

--Yeah not like she totally does.

-- Yeah I do that a lot, super annoying

Alright, we should get into the Windows

news. Let's start with Windows 10 and
CShell, Mary Jo, you wanted to talk about

CShell and I'm sure everyone watching this except me

knows what CShell is so in case there's other people

who don't know what CShell is, maybe you can

tell us first what it is.

--Well I'm not sure everybody does know

because it's kind of a new concept

There's been a lot of back and forth
about it on the Web

over the past few months, I guess.

I think it was Windows Central who wrote
the first story about it

but CShell stands for Composable Shell.

At first some of us thought that it was
Cloud Shell, but no.

It's Composable Shell and it's basically

an evolution of the Windows shell.

So, the Windows Shell as probably
everybody listening

to this podcast knows is the part of Windows

that handles a lot of the systems
management parts of the

operating system, so things like
the Start, Activity Center, Settings

so that's what Shell is. So composable
shell is this new version of

the shell that Microsoft's been building
that is going to make it easier

for them to have a consistent shell across
all the different flavors of Windows 10.

You know, we know that Windows 10
has the common core right now

across all the different versions, like
the Xbox version, the HoloLens version

Windows Phone version but what it
doesn't have is the common shell

across all of those. And this is what

this CShell effort is all about

The reason it's interesting - there's a

couple reasons it's interesting.

One is Continuum as Microsoft's described

it with Windows Phone doesn't really work

that well right now. But based on some

of the recent leaks from Leaked Builds,

it looks like Continuum is going to get

a lot better because of CShell

CShell's gonna let you have more consistent

things like context menus across all the

difference versions of Windows now

which I guess you don't have right now

if you have Windows phone.

Fast App Switching, so a lot of
the things that Windows Phone

has been missing, are going to be
coming to it thanks to CShell.

And if you've been following along
with all the rumors about what

Surface Phone, or whatever the
next Microsoft mobile platform

is going to be - CShell is one of the
pieces of this that's going to make

it possible. So we don't really know what
the operating system flavor is going to

be in whatever's next for Microsoft.
My speculation is Windows 10 on