There's an ongoing narrative that Windows is worse than ever today and people are leaving in droves. Paul does not see that, and will simply point to Windows 8 and remind folks that it can be (and was) worse. Also, PowerToys 0.98 adds a major new feature to Command Palette, big changes to Keyboard Manager and CursorWrap, and about 100 other updates. This is a big one. Plus, Mozilla Firefox is staging a comeback and may be worth another look.
Windows
- Rajesh Jha is retiring and Microsoft is reorging its Experiences + Devices team
- Release Preview: A peek at next week's Week D update (and April's Patch Tuesday) shows we're getting improvements to Narrator, Settings, Smart App Control, Pen settings, Display, File Explorer, and the Windows Recovery Environment (WRE). The trend continues!
- New Canary, Dev, and Beta builds - Nothing new in Canary. Dev/Beta: Drag Tray is being renamed to Drop Tray, you can change the user folder name during Setup, Restore points are getting a modern update finally
- Intel goes nuts with new "Arrow Lake refresh" processors; these are not Copilot+ PC capable and it's unclear what the Panther Lake comparison looks like
- IDC now expects 11.3 percent decline in PC market in 2026, 7.6 percent decline for tablets
AI
- Microsoft may sue OpenAI for contract breach - the best Microsoft divorce since IBM
- Major reorg in Microsoft's AI businesses
- Former Snap exec in charge of consolidated Copilot offerings across consumer and commercial
- Mustafa Suleyman to focus on Microsoft's foundational models
- There has been a lot of retiring and a lot of outside hires for top-level executive positions in Microsoft over the past year or more. Curious.
- Rumors vs. reality in Microsoft scaling back AI ambitions in Windows
- Rumor: Microsoft is backtracking on some Copilot features
- Reality: Microsoft is not backtracking on its AI ambitions, it's just going to try to do a better job with branding and positioning
- Microsoft launches Copilot Health in the U.S.
- Google Personal Intelligence ships in the U.S.
- OpenAI releases GPT-5.4 mini and nano models
- GPT-5 mini is available as a reasoning model on Duck.ai
Xbox and gaming
- Rumor vs. reality in Xbox strategy
- Rumor: Microsoft removed "This is an Xbox" messaging from website so it must be focusing on consoles again
- Reality: Literally nothing has changed
- Xbox Insiders is testing per-game Quick Resume toggle
- Also more groups on Home, custom colors, profile badges in guide
- Big half month for Game Pass, with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, more coming
- Starfield is coming to PS5 on April 7
- NVIDIA launches DLSS 5, changes existing games, people are freaking out
Tips and picks
- Tip of the week: The grass is always greener
- App pick of the week: PowerToys 0.98
- RunAs Radio this week: Sustainable AI with Darshna Shah
- Brown liquor pick of the week: Teeling Small Batch Whiskey
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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