Windows Weekly (Audio)

This week, the hosts go deep on out-of-band updates, unwanted "innovations," and the uneasy cost of tech's latest gold rush. Plus, securing a Microsoft account is not as hard as some think, and neither are passkeys once you get past the jargon. And for developers, AI Dev Gallery offers a fascinating glimpse at what you can do for free with AI used against a CPU, GPU, or NPU.

Windows 11

Microsoft issues an emergency fix for a borked Windows Update. Right. A fix for a fix.

Hell freezes over, if only slightly: Microsoft quietly made some positive changes to forced OneDrive Folder Backup. Donʼt worry, itʼs still forced (and appears to be opt-in, but isnʼt). But you can back out more elegantly. So itʼs opt-out, not opt-in, but a step forward. Plus, a new behavior

Windows 11 on Arm PCs can now download games from the Xbox app (previously only through the Insider program)

Over 85 percent of Xbox games on PC work in WOA now

Prism emulator now supports AVX and AVX2 and Epic Anti-Cheat, and there is a new Windows Performance Fit feature offering guidance on which titles should play well.

Beta: New 25H2 build with account dialog modernization, Click to Do and desktop background improvements. Not for Dev, suggesting itʼs about to move to 26H1

Notepad and Paint get more features yet again. Notably, these updates are for Dev and Canary only, suggesting these might be 26Hx features (then again, versions don't matter, right?)

AI

Just say no: To AI, to Copilot, and to Satya Nadella

Our national nightmare is over: You can now (easily) hide Copilot in Microsoft Edge

ChatGPT Go is now available worldwide, ads are on the way because of course

Wikipedia partners with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, more on AI

Xbox & gaming

January Xbox Update brings Game Sync Indicator, more

Solid second half of January for Xbox Game Pass

Microsoft will likely introduce a free, ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming tier because of course

Tips & picks

Tip of the week: Secure your Microsoft account

App pick of the week: AI Dev Gallery

RunAs Radio this week: Ideation to Implementation with Amber Vandenburg

Liquor pick of the week: Estancia Raicilla

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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Satya Nadella gave up much of his CEO duties in 2025. Are we on the cusp of a new CEO? And does some money manager/political duo like Amy Hood and Brad Smith actually make more sense in this role than an engineer-type for the modern Microsoft?

Microsoft is trying to win our hearts and minds on AI

After spending three years trying to jam AI down our collective throats, Microsoft has only met resistance. Now, the real marketing begins

Governments and regulators: Microsoft will build out its AI infrastructure by actually paying for it and respecting the communities in which this happens

Customers: Satya Nadella is blogging, and he wants us to stop complaining about AI. He's the wrong messenger

Windows 11

First Patch Tuesday of 2026 brings security and bug fixes but no new features

First update of 2026 brings Copilot-powered image descriptions in Narrator, new IT policies for Copilot, other changes to Dev & Beta

Dev is about to switch to 26H1

IDC says that PC sales rose 8.1 percent in 2025, warns again about 2026

The good & bad of Paul's Panther Lake laptop

Dell doesn't sell any PCs to consumers so it obviously has opinions about why consumers don't buy PCs for AI

Microsoft will soon retire its Lens mobile app

AI

Apple predictably partners with Google to bring Gemini to Siri

Samsung correctly points out we're all using AI already so there's no reason to complain about it

We can't trust AI, so Microsoft is letting Copilot go shopping with our credit cards

We can't trust AI, so OpenAI is giving ChatGPT access to our private health data

Gmail is getting more AI because email is the low-hanging fruit of data collection

Xbox and gaming

Developer Direct returns on January 22 with Fable and Forza 6 gameplay

Microsoft to bring Avowed to PS5 in February

Tips and picks

Tip of the week: Kick off 2026 with a security checkup

App pick of the week: Microsoft Local Foundry

RunAs Radio this week: Azure in 2026 with Jeremy Winter

Brown liquor pick of the week: Don Julio 70

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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

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

New PCs and more from HP consumers/commercial, HP gamers, Lenovo, others

The first official Copilot+ PC desktops

Snapdragon X2 Plus joins X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme

Intel Panther Lake has meaningful CPU and graphics performance gains, but predictable reliability issues

AMD Ryzen AI 400 series is a minor bump

Windows

Paul was the first to report that Microsoft is refactoring it all with Rust

A Microsoft distinguished engineer wrote about his desire to refactor all C/C++ code in the company with Rust by 2030

Some mistook this to mean "rewriting Windows with Rust,ˮ so he had to issue a clarification. But I never wrote that.

Heads-up: That will happen, but this is really about Azure first and the core underlying code in Microsoftʼs most important platforms

Microsoft released hardware-accelerated BitLocker in late 2025 and never told anyone. It requires the latest PC CPUs

Copilot app update that adds text editing actions to Copilot Vision across channels

Dev and Beta got first previews of AI agents on the Taskbar, starting with the Researcher agent, plus underlying Agent Launchers experience

IDC says the global memory shortage (thanks, AI!) could screw up PC and smartphone growth this year

AI

ChatGPT now has an app store, but it has a ways to go

Mozilla Firefox will have a "killswitchˮ for AI

Our national nightmare will soon be over, LG will let users remove Copilot app from their smart TVs

Xbox and gaming

First Xbox Game Pass releases of 2026 include Resident Evil Village and Star Wars Outlaws

Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to Hisense smart TVs and to the latest Fire TV smart TVs

GOG goes independent, will continue DRM-free push

"Have a blastˮ and other FPS throwbacks from the 1990s

Valve quietly killed the LCD Steam Deck model

Tips and picks

Tip of the week: Itʼs time to give Little AI a look

App pick of the week: Bonjourr

RunAs Radio this week: What AI can do for SysAdmins in 2026 with Cecilia Wiren

Brown liquor pick of the week: The Singleton of Dufftown 12

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!

Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

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

Best Windows 11 updates of 2025, in no particular order...

Dark mode improvements to File Explorer

Widgets major overhaul with separate widgets and Discovery feed

Xbox Full Screen experience - especially good on handhelds, of course, but also any PC you use for gaming with a controller

Click to Do (Copilot+ PC only)

External fingerprint reader support for Windows Hello ESS

-External/USB webcams supported by Windows Studio Effects (Copilot+ PC only)

Quick Machine Recovery is the tip of a wave of new foundational features like Admin Protection, Smart App Control (updates), and more that go beyond surface-level look and feel

Redesigned Start menu isn't perfect but it's a nice improvement

Copilot Vision, though this type of thing may make more sense on phones

AI features in Paint, Photos, Notepad, and Snipping Tool

Natural language interactions like the agent in Settings, file search, and more (mostly Copilot+ PC only, but you can do this in Copilot as well)

Bluetooth LE support for improved audio quality in game chat, voice calls

Gaming on Windows 11 on Arm and Snapdragon X: Major steps forward, but the same issue as always

Looking ahead to 2026: 26H1, Agentic features that work, potential Windows 12, and AI PCs

AI

An extensive new interview with Mustafa Suleyman confirms why this guy is special and how confusing it is that Copilot is so disrespected

Microsoft Copilot is auto-installing on LG smart TVs and there's no way to remove it

GPT-5.2 is OpenAI's answer to Gemini 3

ChatGPT Images is OpenAI's answer to Nano Banana Pro

Disney invests $1 billion OpenAI, sues Google

Opera Neon is now generally available for $20 per month

AI is moving quick as we all know but the bigger issue may be the incessant marketing about features like agents that don't even work now

Microsoft is getting pushback on forced Copilot usage, price hikes

Google is expanding its use of "experiments" outside of mainstream products with things like NotebookLM, Mixboard, CC, and much more. Maybe this is the better approach: Test separately and then integrate it into existing products

Oddly enough, Microsoft does have a Windows AI Lab for this kind of experimentation

Many small models vs. one big LLM in the cloud

Mobile

Fortnite is back in the Google Play Store in the U.S. as Google plays nice

Apple loses its contempt appeal, the end of "junk fees" (Apple Tax) is in sight

Xbox and gaming

Xbox December Update has one big update for the mobile app and one big update for Xbox Wireless Headphones

There's a new Xbox Developer Direct coming in January

Half-Life 3 may really be happening, but it will be a Steam Machine launch title so it could be a while

Tips & picks

Tip of the year: De-enshittify Windows 11

App pick of the year: Fortnite

RunAs Radio this week: Zero Trust in 2026 with Michele Bustamante

Brown liquor pick of the week: Lark Symphony No. 1


These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/963
Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell


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