Windows Archive
Windows Terminal is getting an optional feature – ChatGPT-powered “AI chat” on Windows 11. ChatGPT integration is now available in Terminal (Canary), a new development channel to test experimental features ahead of a wider rollout. With ChatGPT AI Chat in Terminal, you can use AI to generate commands, explain errors, and get recommendations. Microsoft wants Terminal to use the natural language AI to explain commands, such as “DISM”, or errors you might get when running commands. Similarly, it can suggest actions, like an alternate command when the original one doesn’t work. When Microsoft said it wants to shove “AI” into every aspect of Windows, they weren’t kidding.
Shortly after announcing the end of three services, one of which is as old as MS-DOS, Microsoft deprecated the Tips app. Now, another utility is about to get the axe: Microsoft has updated its Windows documentation again, detailing the end of the story for Steps Recorder (psr.exe). Steps Recorder is an old utility from the Windows 7 era that lets you, as the name implies, record your steps while doing something in Windows. Although long abandoned, Steps Recorder is a handy tool for describing to your grandma how to perform specific actions in Windows, troubleshoot apps, or report bugs. Steps Recorder is simple and very effective, and you can launch it by pressing Win + R and typing psr. With Windows being as massively popular as it is, even removals of weird, obscure utilities and services that small percentages of Windows users used, still means hundreds of thousands of people can be affected. So, let’s pour one out for psr.
In order to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act, Microsoft is planning a number of changes to Windows to comply with this new legislation. Ars sums them up nicely: All of the above will be exclusive to the EU/EEA, so Windows users elsewhere are out of luck.
“Microsoft steals access data” – When the well-known German IT portal “Heise Online” uses such drastic words in its headline, then something is up. If Microsoft has its way, all Windows users will have to switch to the latest version of Microsoft Outlook. But: Not only can the IMAP and SMTP access data of your e-mail account be transferred to Microsoft, but all e-mails in the INBOX can also be copied to the Microsoft servers, even if you have your mailbox with a completely different provider such as mailbox.org. They’re going to use it for AI, I’m assuming. In any event, don’t use the new Outlook – it’s a web app anyway and there’s better clients for Windows. I think. I’m not sure people are still developing e-mail clients for Windows.
The year was 1983. Microsoft was slowly becoming a well-known tech company in the PC space. Two years before, in 1981, Its MS-DOS operating system would be installed in the first IBM PC. It launched its first-word processing program, Word, earlier in 1983, along with its first Microsoft Mouse product. It even made Mac and PC hardware expansion cards. However, 40 years ago today, on November 10, 1983 at a press event in New York City, Microsoft first revealed its plans to launch an all-new graphical user interface-based PC operating system. The company called the OS Windows. If you’ve ever used Windows 1.0 – either because you’re old and remember it as new, or in a VM – you’ll know just how limited and useless Windows 1.0 really was. Still, it set the stage for one of the most successful tech products of all time, and few products in tech can boast about being on the market for four decades. That being said, I’m not exactly sad Windows seems to be in its twilight years.
A few weeks ago, we reported an odd discovery in Microsoft Edge: a poll asking users to explain their decision to download Chrome. A similar thing is now haunting OneDrive users on Windows, demanding to answer why they are closing the app. And demanding is a correct word here because Windows will not let you quit OneDrive without answering first. The beatings will continue until morale improves.
WinRAR has a massive security hole that’s still being actively exploited, and it’s one of many Windows applications that do not auto-update. The developer boasts of more than 500 million WinRAR installations around the world, so it’s likely that hundreds of millions of PCs are vulnerable to malicious ZIP files today. How is it that, in 2023, the world’s most popular desktop operating system doesn’t provide an easy way to update your installed applications? It baffles me that Windows and macOS users still have to manually keep track of and update each and every one of their applications individually, like it’s 1997 or something. Stay safe. It’s the wild west out there for some of you.
We’ve already covered the end of life of Windows CE, but Ars has a short but interesting look back at the history of this undeservedly unloved operating system. It was a proto-netbook, it was a palmtop, it was a PDA, it was Windows Phone 7 but not Windows Phone 8, and then it was an embedded ghost. It parents never seemed to know what to do with it after it grew up, beyond offer it up for anybody to shape in their own image. And then, earlier this month, with little notice, Windows CE was no more, at least as a supported operating system. I will never forget Windows CE.
Microsoft is starting to roll out new changes to Windows Ink that let you write anywhere you can type in Windows 11. After months of previewing the changes, the handwriting-to-text conversion now works inside search boxes and other elements of Windows 11 where you’d normally type your input. Microsoft has started rolling out the KB5031455 non-security update as a preview to Windows 11 users yesterday. You simply have to head to Windows Update and toggle the “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available” setting to get this update before it’s available fully in the coming weeks. While my handwriting is not great and I never use it for any computing tasks, stuff like this has always been pretty cool. Microsoft has been working on this since Windows 3.1 for Pen Computing 1.0 from 1992, and the recognition is actually very, very good. Being able to input handwriting straight into text fields will be a boon for artists and note-takers who use Windows on tablets, though, so it’s definitely worth installing this update if you belong to that group.
Virtualization of Microsoft Windows 9x systems is a bit problematic due to 2 major bugs: TLB invalidation bug and CPU speed limit bug. This program contains a set of patches to fix these bugs, and can be booted from a floppy on a virtual machine. It either applies the patch to the installed system, or it patches the installation files in order to create (relatively) bug-free installation media. A must-have for your Windows 95/98/ME virtual machines.
Last weekend, we noticed that an attempt to download Google Chrome using Microsoft Edge results in the latter opening its sidebar with a poll, asking you to explain to Microsoft how you could dare try downloading Google Chrome. Of course, the exact wording is more tame, but you get the idea. Now, besides dismissing several banners and a full-size ad injected on the Chrome website, Edge wants you to answer a questionnaire with the following options. Frequently bought together.
Dave Cutler is a seminal figure in computer science, renowned for his contributions to operating systems. Born in 1942, he played pivotal roles in the development of several OSes, most notably VMS for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Windows NT for Microsoft. Cutler’s design principles emphasize performance, reliability, and scalability. His work on Windows NT laid the foundation for many subsequent Windows versions, solidifying its place in enterprise and personal computing. A stickler for detail and a rigorous engineer, Cutler’s influence is evident in modern OS design and architecture. He’s a recipient of the Computer History Museum’s Fellow Award for his unparalleled contributions. I don’t often link to videos, but when I do, it’s a good one.
At midnight US Pacific Time tomorrow, Windows Embedded Compact 2013 – or perhaps better colloquially referred to as Windows CE 8.0 – will slip from history as it exits is Extended Support Phase with Microsoft and it, as well as the entire history of Windows CE, becomes an unsupported, retired former product. Windows CE 8.0 was released on 11th August 2013 and slipped into the end of its mainstream support on 9th October 2018. Yet few even noticed either occurrence. As a product CE 8.0 release failed to gain much of any traction or fanfare. Even here in the Windows CE community, most people disregard Windows Embedded Compact 2013 as a complete non-starter. As with Windows CE 7.0 before it. Few, if any devices were ever released on the platform and as a result most people – myself included – have never even seen a physical CE 8 device. I’ve used and own a lot of Windows CE-based devices over the years, and contrary to most people’s opinions, I absolutely adore Windows CE. Back when Apple was still busy not dying, and Android was barely a blip on anyone’s radar, Windows CE-based devices were incredibly powerful, versatile, and capable. Platforms like PocketPC and Windows Mobile may not have been the most graceful platforms, but they were so far ahead of anyone else when it came to pure functionality and capabilities it wasn’t even close. I was streaming Futurama episodes from my Windows XP machine to my PocketPC, while checking my email and browsing with Pocket IE – in the early 2000s. No other platform could do this in a PDA form factor – not even Palm OS. I hope, against my own better judgment, that Microsoft will do the right thing and publish the source code to Windows CE on Github. The number of Windows CE devices out there is immense, and giving the community the option of supporting them going forward would save a lot of them from the trash heap.
There are few things more frustrating than paying for high-speed PC components and then leaving performance on the table because software slows your system down. Unfortunately, a default setting in Windows 11 Pro, having its software BitLocker encryption enabled, could rob as much as 45 percent of the speed from your SSD as it forces your processor to encrypt and decrypt everything. According to our tests, random writes and reads — which affect the overall performance of your PC — get hurt the most, but even large sequential transfers are affected. While many SSDs come with hardware-based encryption, which does all the processing directly on the drive, Windows 11 Pro force-enables the software version of BitLocker during installation, without providing a clear way to opt out. (You can circumvent this with tools like Rufus, if you want, though that’s obviously not an official solution as it allows users to bypass the Microsoft’s intent.) If you bought a prebuilt PC with Windows 11 Pro, there’s a good chance software BitLocker is enabled on it right now. Windows 11 Home doesn’t support BitLocker so you won’t have encryption enabled there. Nothing like buying a brand new PC and realising you’re losing a ton of performance for something you might not even need on a home PC.
We’re excited to announce that Windows has taken a significant step forward in accessibility by supporting the use of hearing aids equipped with the latest Bluetooth® Low Energy Audio (LE Audio) technology. Customers who use these new hearing aids are now able to directly pair, stream audio, and take calls on their Windows PCs with LE Audio support. This feature is available on Windows devices with our recently announced Bluetooth® LE Audio support, which will be a growing market of devices in the coming months. In upcoming flights, we will be introducing additional capabilities to the hearing aids experience on Windows, such as controlling audio presets directly within Windows settings. Stay tuned for more details about these new capabilities as they roll out. Excellent news for people who manage their hearing problems with hearing aids. The fact it’s taken the industry this long to realise the potential of connecting hearing aides to computers and phones is surprising, but regulation and Bluetooth’s reputation probably played a role in that. Regardless, this is a great step by Microsoft, and I hope other platforms follow suit.
This is wild.
Many developers believe creating apps for Windows on Arm is difficult, but developing for Arm is easier than you think, and Microsoft is here to help! It is my pleasure to announce a new App Assure Arm Advisory Service to help developers build Arm-optimized apps. This service is in addition to our existing promise: your apps will run on Windows on Arm, and if you encounter any issues, Microsoft will help you remediate them. Most apps just work under emulation, and developers can port their apps to run natively with minimal effort. Anything to increase the adoption of ARM by Windows so that we finally get the ARM laptops Linux OEMs seem incapable or unwilling to make.
In certain versions of Windows 10, you may receive a notification with a warning about Microsoft-verified apps when you run the Firefox installer. This is just so transparently anti-user.
In the release notes for the latest Windows 11 Insider Build, there’s more notes about how Windows in the EU/EEA is diverging more and more from Windows for the rest of the world. In the European Economic Area (EEA), Windows will now require consent to share data between Windows and other signed-in Microsoft services. You will see some Windows features start to check for consent now, with more being added in future builds. Without consent to share data between Windows and other signed-in Microsoft services, some functionality in Windows features may be unavailable, for example certain types of file recommendations under “Recommended” on the Start menu. No recommendations in the Start menu. O, woe is me.
Microsoft has announced it’s removing VBScript from future Windows releases. VBScript is being deprecated. In future releases of Windows, VBScript will be available as a feature on demand before its removal from the operating system. VBScript has been part of Windows for almost 30 years, first shipping in 1996. VBScript has a long history of serving as a vector for malware, which probably explains its removal from Windows.
