Rich Hay and the 1909 Windows Update, Surface Hardware and Xbox – HGG423

Rich Hay joins us this week in his regular semi-annual rotation and is back from both the Microsoft Surface Event and Microsoft Ignite! Rich catches us up on the Windows 1909 Update and we get a trick to upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10 ahead of the January 14th end of support event. We look at some new Surface hardware and the new Surface Laptop that Rich picked up at the event. We also talk a little Xbox and see a nifty new phone holder for the Xbox controller that will sure to be a hit!  I think you will enjoy the show.

Full show notes, transcriptions, audio and video at http://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg423

Join Jim Collison / @jcollison and Mike Wieger / @WiegerTech for show #423 of Home Gadget Geeks brought to you by the Average Guy Network.

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Show Transcript

Jim Collison  [0:00] 
This is The Average Guy Network and you have found Home Gadget Geeks show number 422 recorded on November 14 2019.

Jim Collison  [0:22] 
Here on Home Gadget Geeks we cover all your favorite tech gadgets that find their way into your home news reviews product updates and conversation. All for the average tech guy. I’m your host Jim Collison broadcasting live from the average guy TV Studios here in Mike it was fall for like three days and then winter and now fall is back so I think we’re in that weird phase. Rich is in Florida he doesn’t it’s summer all year long.

Rich Hay  [0:43] 
It got down to 38 degrees the other day

Mike Wieger  [0:45] 
That’s actually low

Jim Collison  [0:46] 
Did you cover the orange trees?

Rich Hay  [0:48] 
I don’t have orange tree

Jim Collison  [0:50] 
I always just know that it’s a big deal right in Florida

Rich Hay  [0:53] 
Down there they spray them with water and set the flames they burn the burners to keep the heat up. I’m Yeah, they do. No I don’t live in water and then I know it’s a big

Jim Collison  [1:03] 
it’s a big deal here we just turn on the deck heaters and smoke cigars. That’s what we do here in Nebraska. Right Mike? Yes. When you’re not out hunting, how was hunting We missed you at some point because you were you were doing some stuff but how was hunting last weekend you went out and set up a blind and

Mike Wieger  [1:18] 
well we said the blind hunting opens rifle season opens Saturday. And so I might be able to get down Sunday this weekend. But next weekend, it’s one week one week for rifle. So you really got to get down there so we’re gonna get down to the farm hopefully Sunday and then next weekend as well. And yeah, so I’m like, amped up it’s all I’ve been thinking about cuz you said the blind and you had to wait a week to even use it.

Jim Collison  [1:39] 
You you taken ham a ham radio out there at all.

Mike Wieger  [1:42] 
Yeah, I am. I’m taking set a set of ham radios. Just to communicate back and forth. We got a few people going with us and sometimes you know cell service my buddy’s got sprint there’s no sprint down the farm where it’s at so the radios will be the way will communicate.

Jim Collison  [1:55] 
Rich. Have you gotten into ham radio or were you ever at any you

Rich Hay  [1:59] 
know, I was When I was in the Navy one of my assignments one of my extra collateral duties was I was the Mars operators. So the Mars Mars was a system kind of ham radio ish, right? We could, I could tune up a transmitter and receiver in Radio Shack, and I would make calls. So we had this guy in Virginia Beach who would always connect with late at night when we were in the med. And so he what we would do is he would patch the calls to a local phone number from his gear, where he sat, and then the guy I could patch the phone calls on the ship down to the mess decks. And there was a phone on the mess deck so the guys would sit down, I’d know they tell me who was down there. Give me the info they were looking for. We patch the call, and then they would be able to have the conversation. It was manual, though. So the guy on the other end and I had the monitor, right to push the transmit button and they people had to say over in order to release the button. So it was kind of a normal conversation but but it was pretty fun. You got that guy we ended up giving a really, after our Med Cruz in 1990. We ended up getting him a really nice ships plaque and I came up with some nice gear for the deployment.

Jim Collison  [3:08] 
Yeah, that was in those days too. We were just starting to get some satellite stuff. Yeah, that satellite communication I got deployed this would have been first gulf war for so early night. So 90 I think we got deployed down right in the National Training Center and at one point we so we

Rich Hay  [3:24] 
ramped up at the end of 90 we were finishing

Jim Collison  [3:26] 
Yeah, August of 90 I think I want to say or something like that. Yeah. Something I think is when saddam went in and we went to a center we were at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin and they brought us in this big room and I can only imagine how expensive like today we do all that stuff, right? The internet for nothing, right? But in those days, I can only imagine pure satellite, a delay maybe a two or three second delay right.

Rich Hay  [3:50] 
Operator though you always got to call home because you operated the gear. So I was able to call home about a week now my last deployment know so that was 90, 17 years later. On my final med cruise deployment, I had a phone on my desk I can pick up and down. Yeah, well ask anybody permission.

Jim Collison  [4:07] 
And you know, in 03. So my, my nephew is an army tech engineer guy, and he went in and set up networks for, you know, they would deploy and he would set up a network for a platoon or for a company that was in and so they would get Satellite Internet access, probably some of the first thing and I could call him, and we did mostly messaging, but he was in Iraq, and they were doing, you know, they were doing what they were doing in 2003 in Iraq and Afghanistan. And although that was not quite yet, but they so I talked to him more when he was deployed in the Middle East than I did when he was here in the United States because he was in a tight you know, he was in a, he was in a talk somewhere, right, trying to get things up and running and or, or they had it up and running and he was the overnight guy. And so it’s just very, very interesting to go you know, from from 19 satellite communication only and shoot when I was in when I was in Germany in the 80s, the late 80s 8687 8889. A phone was all you had, and it was a was a buck a minute, right? We went from that to 2003 doing ICQ or, you know, instant messaging. And I talked to my brother in he was in downtown Baghdad, because he just made that run in with the third Armored Division. And I was aboard the lists out at sea, and we spoke to each other once he got settled in Baghdad. Yeah, yeah, it was just, it was in an IP, and a lot of ways. And so it was just crazy to me how we had gone how far in a decade we had gone, of course, with technology. So Well, let me remind everyone, of course, you can listen to the show on our app. Speaking of easy ways to do things, it’s sometimes it’s hard to find. Maybe you don’t have a podcast app or maybe you just want to listen on the road. You don’t have a stream you don’t want to find it. Streaming is sometimes a hard thing to do. When you’re doing that the app does it like in two button pushes. So Home Gadget Geeks com Download the app Android iPhone either way get you in there, it’s free. You want to thank our Patreon subscribers for that easy way to do it. Join us on discord, the average guy.tv slash discord, Facebook the average guy.tv slash Facebook rich Hey is with us tonight rich has been a while since we’ve seen you not that long but welcome back.

Rich Hay  [6:17] 
Thank you appreciate it.

Jim Collison  [6:18] 
You know you’ve been you’ve been staying busy on the Microsoft side. I’ve been a lot of things going on and you’re back from Ignite, you’ve you went to the Surface event we’re going to talk about both of those. Let me Let’s start by this though. Last night. I think it was last night I started checking my computer here 1909 it was ready to go, so there was about there was a cumulative update. There was a malware tool update and there was a.net update. Yeah, those things took 15 – 20 minutes. Let’s just say to get those done.

Rich Hay  [6:52] 
Just to  go through the whole process. That’s check, download, install, reboot and

Jim Collison  [6:56] 
be 20 to 25 minutes for those and then 1909 was there I was like, oh, okay, this is gonna be another 30 minutes, no five, five minutes,

Rich Hay  [7:05] 
If you read the the the blog posts they put out this week, so something about 1909. So normally, we’ve always seen these great big feature updates, right three to four gigabytes dependent and that’s what came down to your system. And that would take a really long time with 1909. It’s basically a cumulative update to 1903 that was released earlier this year. The interesting part is though, they actually dropped the bits for 1909 on consumer devices last month. They were sitting there dormant waiting, and then this month that update that pop for 1909 was simply an enablement package that flipped the switch and turned it all on and gave you the reboot. Now, we the big question will be this is the first time Microsoft’s done a major feature update in the spring and a small kind of cumulative update in the fall. We don’t know how that’s going to continue, right. We don’t know if that’s going to be the cycle. I think we all believe that that would be the case but if rumors are true, there are some rumors out there that we’re going to see 20H1 in December, or it’ll finalized and then we’ll see it in early in the year. Right. And then what would be the next one would be 20H2, which we’re not seeing. We don’t see any builds up right now that we would see sometime later because they just, they just moved Windows to Azure update cycle to get in sync with the Azure team? Yeah. So it’ll be interesting to kind of watch what happened.

Jim Collison  [8:25] 
You have any reservations on this? I mean, the last three have been kind of not necessarily great.

Rich Hay  [8:32] 
No, and I think 1909 is going to do okay, it was it was waiting for me on I mean, I was on and on most devices, but I had the Surface laptop because it was new, I just left on 1903 and because I knew it was going to pop. But cumulative updates are always lower risk than a full blown feature update, right? It’s got to do a major migration of your because what we I don’t know if people understand when you install a feature update with Microsoft Windows 10. It’s basically migrating all your data away from the current instance. All installing the update and then migrating that data back and putting everything back in place, including your apps, your programs, your settings, everything. So it does a pretty significant amount of stuff in that timeframe. Part of the reason why it takes along with the cumulative update, everything’s in place really, it’s just a few small bits that get updated to push you over to 1909 and it did get a little handful of update but nothing crazy major or anything like that. I haven’t heard of any issues, but I haven’t checked the update History page lately to see if there’s any blocks.

Jim Collison  [9:32] 
I’ve got back them. I’ve got 20H1 in festering running on my Surface Pro 3.

Rich Hay  [9:39] 
That’s now in the slow ring. They released that to the slow ring

Jim Collison  [9:41] 
they did so slow and faster. The same thing, right?

Rich Hay  [9:44] 
It’s not the same build. Okay, it’s a build behind so slow just got 1901 three on the same day that happened later that day they released 1901 Oh, no. Yeah, 19 023 came out for fast ring

Jim Collison  [9:59] 
it keep it up with this Weiger. You’re are you?

Mike Wieger  [10:01] 
Yes. Yes. All of it.

Jim Collison  [10:03] 
Do you care Mike? are you tracking at all any of the windows builds in anything you’re doing?

Mike Wieger  [10:09] 
Well you know I used to a ton especially when I was running. You know, because I had this MAC dual booted and I would use Windows for a lot when I was live streaming things like that. It really was a daily driver for me. The only windows box I have running 24/7 now besides special uses is my site hound box that I use for video surveillance, just a little box sitting over there in the rack so I’ve kind of fallen out of of needing to be in the know of when these releases are coming out what they’re going to do should I be upgrading Should I not? It hasn’t been as much of a thing for me since I get out of using the windows side of this machine every day.

Jim Collison  [10:44] 
Rich I get this feeling that for most update, folks, those who watch it’s going to get really boring for the next six months I don’t think was kind of stable.

Rich Hay  [10:54] 
When you think about it. We’ve been testing 20H1 since like the beginning of this year, they put it in skip ahead And kind of freaked everybody out that they did that, right because it was out of sequence. So we’ve had I forget the count, but we’re up over 35 builds, I think for 20H1 in the course of the last 11 months. So it’s certainly getting extensive testing. You know, I think I have bigger concerns around the insider program and the testing and stuff like that, because the claim is 16 million insiders. I don’t think there’s even close to that testing. insider builds, you know, I just

Jim Collison  [11:28] 
like me, I have it on I’m not actively testing, right. I mean, it’s there. They’re getting telemetry from me, they’re getting whatever, I run some stuff on it, but you can see it right, right behind my right shoulder here. It’s there. I’m, you know, I run some stuff. And I don’t say I don’t say actively testing, there has been a lot to actively test just to be honest.

Rich Hay  [11:47] 
It’s kind of idea we’ve settled into a routine I guess three and a half years after the initial release of Windows 10. And I think maybe it’s just lost some of that well as around having early access.

Jim Collison  [12:00] 
Yeah, well, here’s what I think. Right? They tried to be fast. And we had three disasters built or three disasters upgrades right with that. And yeah, we had insiders and it was exciting to be an insider and you’re getting new stuff all the time and there was stuff to test and then that kind of like, maybe you gotta back this stuff down a little bit like it was well, that’s not as exciting for insiders and I think after a while you kind of I mean, the insider the the hub used to have challenges and points and I’m not saying those aren’t there anymore. It’s just they don’t refresh very much because there’s just not all activity now. That being said, there’s been I think, a ton of fit and finish under the hood, as they’re, you know, doing some things because they just took it on the chin right.

Rich Hay  [12:43] 
Well, especially with the cumulative update. That’s a great chance to work on that under the hood stuff.

Jim Collison  [12:47] 
Yeah, no, I just think they’ve they spent some time kind of making some things stable but stable is boring. like yeah, if you’re if you’re so it really you’re really battling two different worlds, right? You have a bunch of enthusiasts who are like Throw crap at us so we can complain about it right? And then, right then you have the rest of the world who’s like, could you just stop changing? Right?

Rich Hay  [13:07] 
Right? That’s an enterprise. Those of your enterprise customers, they don’t like that change. They don’t like the shuffle. It’s one of the reasons why Microsoft made the fall update good for 30 months for enterprise, the Windows 10 Enterprise Edition in Education. We know as consumers still have an 18 month window, but you got to give them credit right with 1903 was the first time they introduced some more controls at the user level. Right now, updates just don’t automatically show up when you hit send and receive or at send and recieve, Windows Update, they now pop up in a little box underneath and says it’s here. If you want it, you can ignore it. Driver updates are going into a separate section of Windows Update. So you can choose to install those things. You don’t have to install, what Windows Update thinks you need, so that they’re giving back a little bit of that control to the end users, especially the enthusiast end user.

Jim Collison  [13:55] 
Yeah, I can’t ask this question. Let me let me bring it up here since I can do that. Oh no, it hasn’t had it. Yeah, no, no, not that one yet. Kendall his second he basically says, What about advice for anyone? Still?

Rich Hay  [14:11] 
You mean windows 10

Jim Collison  [14:12] 
would know I’m his question goes back to Oh, here it is right here. Can we cover upgrade options for those still stacked in who runs? Who runs Windows seven so who slacked? Sorry? who slept in other words, rich you’re on Windows seven right now. I know you’re No I’m not. No, but this say you are?

Rich Hay  [14:29] 
Right. Yeah. Okay.

Jim Collison  [14:30] 
January 14, yep. January 14th 2020. goes away are their options?

Rich Hay  [14:37] 
There actually are some there. It Ed bought rights has a post a blog thing that he keeps up to date. And right now you can still use a Windows seven key to activate windows 10 on a device. So if you have a Windows seven key, a retail key laying around, if you have a device that was installed with Windows seven, it’s got the stick On the bottom right the the old certificate of authenticity. Most of those are still working. Even if you have windows seven on device that the the serial key is locked in the BIOS. They are still working in Mike it’s never shut off. Nobody you know, it’s kind of that it’s kind of the elephant in the room for the upgrade, right? It’s there. Nobody everybody knows it’s there, but nobody’s doing anything about it to stop it. And I think that whether that’s intentional or not, I don’t know.

Jim Collison  [15:27] 
It’s good, sir. Yes, I think it was the right thing to do.

Rich Hay  [15:29] 
Yeah, sure. Leave it there and available. And it’s the one last way to do it. So yeah, I believe it’s still working. Last I checked Ed’s

Jim Collison  [15:36] 
update on that would require a fresh install of Windows 10 though right to make this happen. You can’t I do

Rich Hay  [15:42] 
not believe you can do windows seven director windows 10 anymore. I think that was possible in those early in the the initial release of Windows 10. But I’d have to go look to be 100% sure, Joe,

Jim Collison  [15:52] 
Joe is saying in place upgrade still. Oh said There you go. So down Park download and run the media creation and we’ll give you the

Rich Hay  [15:58] 
best way to do it. If you’re Windows seven go to the website create your the media creation tool page you don’t have to create media you can or you can just download and do an in place upgrade right from that page.

Jim Collison  [16:10] 
Yeah, so I think those are the Joe also still works with 1909 tools Well, I think those are your options now that takes away I think a lot the only reason listeners to this show are still on Windows seven is because we’re using media center. Let’s just be I mean that’s going to be most that’s me. Still, I mean, we’re in that boat as well I’m not you know, and you can’t you can upgrade to eight to keep Media Center if you got the right pack.

Rich Hay  [16:34] 
Got a little bit more life left on it,

Jim Collison  [16:36] 
does it you know, so, you know for most folks to make that jump to 10 they’re kind of hosed at this point. Mike and I By the way, if you’re a regular listener and you haven’t you missed last week, Mike and I talked a bunch about that about some of what I’m doing to counteract that with through Plex and through Nvidia Shield. So you can go back and kind of listen to that as well. Rich. You also spent some time at the Surface Pro event and Mike and I talked about that briefly right afterwards. But give us your kind of brief synopsis. What was it like what you see you picked up some hardware? Let’s talk a little bit.

Rich Hay  [17:08] 
Yeah. So I attend at the cell, I had two invites to this event, I had my normal media invite that I always get, but I also got invited as a surface fan, they’re trying to revive this kind of enthusiastic environment around the hardware. So they invited us so I opted to go with the surface fan approach because the email revealed that was going to be a pretty good deal. And in fact, it was the so they they put us up in a hotel. We had an reception upstairs with Yusuf Mehdi, some other Microsoft folks, the two football players that do the cupcakes, right, you’ve seen the commercials for surface with the two football players, they were there. They were awesome. That cupcakes everywhere to eat. And you know, so as we left that night, the head to our rooms to him to set a surface headphones. They’re awesome. Okay, surface fans that the mandatory hashtag that’s the cans you can version right it’s the yeah it’s not the buds they did announce the buds at that event, but there I almost wore these tonight but I decided not to. But they’re awesome. I mean I tried them out when they were launched and they were superb and I they’re just awesome to us and flying home with them and all that kind of stuff. I took a cab from Manhattan to JFK and I warm the whole way and just all that road noise was gone. They’re really solid for noise cancellation. They may not be down Bose or Sony or somebody like that but they’re good. And there’s adjustments on the can for how much of the outside environment comes in. You can actually turn that off or maximize the noise cancer so that we did that the new like that dial Oh yeah, I do too. I like it. So that was the night before and then the morning of we had a breakfast down in the the downstairs of the the The hotel and Panos came in and talked to us for about five or six minutes just to kind of brief us on what was going to happen and where he was going with things and prepared thanked us for being there. And then they took us to the venue. Actually, the bus got lost on the way to the venue, we had to loop like two city blocks in Manhattan in rush hour, which is like two hours. That’s like crazy. So so you might have remember reading some complaints from some of the folks that were there as media about it was a really small venue, right? It was this really long venue when you were in there. You didn’t see it because you were looking at the stage on the live stream. But it was this really long, skinny venue and very short depth from the stage to the back, right. So they brought all us in and there were a bunch of reserve seats already from Microsoft execs and stuff like that. In fact, I had Joe Belfiore sitting right back off my right shoulder in Frank Shaw, the big the media com bike rights president was their former Marine and then I had Yusuf Mehdi that was there and of course Ralph grown was there from the surface team. Turns out he was holding the duo in his bag the whole time during the event, but anyway, so we were there to be enthusiast. And so there was a couple very, we were labeled idiots by one journalist. Yeah, the idiots that were some to that effect, but we were there to clap and make noise. And we did. And well, yeah, I think I did a little bit but, but it was still a fun event. So we had great seats, right? We were there in the midst of things watching them go through that process. So it’s pretty straightforward, right? Most of that stuff leaked surface laptop three, Surface Pro seven. I even think the Pro X stuff had leaked, right? We kind of knew about that ahead of time. So that was your main hardware. So Surface Pro seven, surface laptop three, the earbuds right the the earbuds that they announced and and they announced some other little peripheral stuff and then they Surface Pro wax. And then that was what led into Panos announcing the surface duo and then surface Neo. And those were just I mean, those were cool you couldn’t get near them at the event because they had him in this little like roped off. It wasn’t really roped off but use of Maddie was on a little this boxing ring kind of setup and you had to be scheduled with an appointment and then you would get it to go up in there and talk about him and get some time to take pictures. I don’t remember seeing anybody handle them though. So

Rich Hay  [21:35] 
and but so that so as a surface fan, so as the event ended, they let the media go in that room. They took us to lunch, a couple blocks about a block away. And we had this really nice lunch on the roof there in New York City was beautiful day. And that’s when we learned that one of the the bonus gifts we were going to be given was our choice between a surface laptop three or a Surface Pro seven with a pizza board the thousand dollar one from Intel not the AMD one because this was Intel was sponsoring the gifting of that. So I chose to surface laptop three and I chose the silver what we didn’t have a choice. It’s the I five eight gig 128 It’s a great device it runs so well. I mean it’s probably going to become my primary traveler instead of Surface Book too. Sure. Pretty pretty light, very light battery, I’ve tested it it’s got this fast charged feature all the new surfaces this year, you can get to 80% charge on your battery within an hour. And I tested that and validated that works. So it’s it’s it’s it’s got the news. I almost used it for this tonight. I was gonna say let me try the studio mics because it’s got each of these new surfaces have studio mics on them now, instead of that kind of single D field mine. But but they really did a good job with it. I mean, I posted a video on Reddit, of me doing the one finger open test right because of the Balance of this thing is so good now you can actually open it this is not a good example but you can actually open the lid with one finger and it doesn’t move on you and I posted this on Twitter and then I put it on Reddit and it got like it’s the most viral thing I’ve ever posted on Reddit but it’s they’ve done a really good job with it the the the Alcantara is a different kind of got a different surfacing to it. It’s not coffee, if that makes sense. If you’ve used the Alcantara before and of course the bigger trackpad the trackpad is massive. And it’s the same kind of keyboard so it’s the same great feel for typing and stuff like that. But they they’ve really done a good job of this is the silver one the cobalt blue, simply beautiful. I just love cobalt blue. And they saw I think you know that they’ll the Surface Pro X is out. I got to see a couple of those last week because a few people had a medic night. And then of course you’ve seen all the reviews have come out in the you know the early reviews of that. Lot of people don’t understand what an arm devices what an arm device doesn’t doesn’t do. One reviewer today posted their review and complain that it didn’t have Thunderbolt three. Now, you know the problem there, right? Thunderbolt three is an Intel technology. This is a Qualcomm chip. Aren’t doesn’t do Intel. Yeah, right. So they’re complaining of it. That’s a horrible embarrassment that it’s not on there. It can’t be right because of the device. Right. I was sitting with rich Woods last week at Ignite in the press room. And he had a Huawei Mate eight or something like that one of their own devices, because he still didn’t have a Surface Pro X. And so so the arm stuff will run 32 bit apps in emulation. So even though it’s an ARM processor, it will run a 32 bit app and an emulation later later. And what happens is, is on certain browsers don’t do this, but most other normal Programs 32 bit programs that it gets kind of coated down right into arm operational stuff and then that’s cached. And that’s what runs when you run the the 32 bit app. He I watched him open a browser and it was the most slow is the slowest thing I’ve ever seen. And then he just got the canary arm build for edge. And he so he was running edge Canarian emulation, and I saw it really chunky. Then he got the update for the canary arm build and that thing open like that. So if you understand the the system it’s not Surface RT again, right? Surface RT wouldn’t do emulation. When it came out you could only do apps from the store that were compiled for you know arm and in fact, if I remember right wasn’t Surface RT like system on chip or something like that? I don’t even know if it was a normal one running right here. I’ll do you.

Jim Collison  [25:55] 
Runs my it’s my weather station. Michael. Gotcha. You’re gonna ask a question, Mike.

Rich Hay  [25:59] 
Yeah, well

Mike Wieger  [26:00] 
I was going to jump in and say has so on the Mac side you started getting a 32 bit 64 bit on Catalina, which is Max latest operating system, they have completely eliminated support for 32 bit apps. And it wasn’t playing whole completely. You cannot run a 32 bit app in Catalina News’s big thing they’ve started in the last operating system that they released last year, they started giving you warnings saying this is not gonna be compatible in the next operating system morning’s warnings. And for the most part, every app now is 64 bit but there are a lot of like, legacy apps or little tiny tools that were used for very specific purposes that were still in 32 bit. I didn’t know you started into that has windows talked about moving in that direction, whereas Hey, we’re only going to support 64 bit. Are they still very? We don’t care?

Rich Hay  [26:45] 
No, I don’t think they formally said their intent. In fact, news broke earlier this week that it looks like they’re going to they’re going to support emulation of 64 bit apps in arm sometime late next year. That was a story ritual. It’s from Neil and right now Microsoft has not come out and said 32 bit apps are going away I agree with you more and more apps are moving that direction. Yeah, right. People are just I think 64 bit apps are just better on the system memory all that you know, although it’s more efficient than 32 bit apps so but they haven’t come out with I don’t even remember hearing about that. Apple talking about Catalina and that

Mike Wieger  [27:24] 
Yeah, they have and so a lot of people are having to run you know, either dual boot into Windows or run some like parallels and run Windows there. Right. Or you can even run parallels and run you know, Mojave on Mac right? Which still allowed 33 bit you have the previous version. We Africa Catalina It was kind of a bigger deal and a lot of people who were just kind of following the upgrade path, but in weren’t techies, they upgraded and then one of their labor little early. It Yeah, didn’t work. All your major apps right, your Adobe Suite, you’re at 64 bit yeah, it was that they use for thing, right? And it kind of broke some of those. And for the most part because Apple announced it so far ahead of time, even the little utilities that had development behind them were upgraded. But it was the utilities that haven’t been developed in years that people were still using for something those are the ones that kind of struggled But hey, you know what, some of those little utilities are actually the things that people rely on on a day to day basis. And they’re still using an older version with well

Rich Hay  [28:24] 
and that’s the big argument around windows seven right that people still argue about staying on Windows seven because of legacy though or or I’ve got something old, right things like that. I just saw Joe just chat mentioned in chat about the default installation of offices 32 bit and that’s correct. You have to go in and change that if you want the 64 bit but he also said Windows Home server the into support for our 2008 or two and Windows some servers in January alone with Windows seven. We don’t talk a lot about those as we talk about Windows seven but man Windows Home server was the was the stuff

Jim Collison  [28:59] 
I know I I know is good when I

Rich Hay  [29:01] 
loved running that OS,

Jim Collison  [29:03] 
when that that in this audience you know, I would say,

Rich Hay  [29:06] 
if I was to say the majority these guys are from those days, right the window,

Jim Collison  [29:10] 
I’d be like nobody runs that. But then in this audience now there’s a good chance there’s still a bunch of home servers running out there, rich. You know, I’m, I’m not gonna lie, you know, one of the things I never expected in 2019 to still be talking about 32 and 64 bit applications like, Hi thought we were done, you know, when we made the jump to 64 and, and on the Intel side anyways. And I just thought, finally, you know, where everything’s at, that’s done. That’s a done deal and moving forward. And really, you know, with the advent of the arm processing, which has struggled to get there with this, right,

Rich Hay  [29:51] 
and it still is, it’s still not in the

Jim Collison  [29:53] 
dream, you know, it’s dead, it’s still not great and I kind of think we need to think through the complete archive Everything from scratch and some some regards is kind of like, you know, we are still trying to bolt on stuff to 30 year old operating systems and and I really do think it kind of is going to take a rethinking of our devices now. I think that rethinking is on the phone. right i mean i think when we think of Android in iOS I don’t you know, I know Mac is doing well is Apple’s doing a lot of things to bring the Mac operating system together by the way, I think they found out that’s just as hard as Microsoft trying to co founded that. Yeah. its own phones this you know, phone OS and such, but, man, I just did not see a struggling it. I think it’s worse today. Understand now, operating systems just work today so people don’t struggle with them. I think as much as they used to 9597 windows.

Rich Hay  [30:57] 
You had to really know how to do things better. files and yeah, you know,

Jim Collison  [31:02] 
but I think there’s more confusion today about what can and can’t happen. And I’ve got this and what can I do? And what can I do? Can I run these things and cannot run them and drive a truck or a car? You know, it’s just it’s super confusing. I think the consumer is kind of tired of having to figure some of that stuff out.

Rich Hay  [31:19] 
I ok, so my label of everyday users, right people who just turn on their computer and use it like an appliance. I think the reason why this is becoming more obvious is things like what Mike just mentioned, right? So apple in Catalina has decided to drop 32 bit apps, as we see more ARM processors coming out, because at the moment, Intel’s arm stuff only emulates 32 bit apps, it doesn’t emulate 64 bit. So if you tried, in fact, at least they’ve taken a step now in the Microsoft Store and the Windows Store on Windows 10 to mark apps now that won’t work on that system. And and kind of the jury’s still out on Microsoft First arm based windows truly our Surface RT was on base surface two was arm based surface three was arm based, right the surface Yeah, no surface three moved to Intel just just

Jim Collison  [32:11] 
a just a surface right the surface three the surface three, not Surface Pro, but then under

Rich Hay  [32:16] 
no surface three. That wasn’t an arm that was the first Intel. Right? Because RT and surface to his arm based. Yeah, yeah, if I remember right, so so. And those were locked to the Windows Store. So you couldn’t put outside apps on there. The closest we’ve gotten to that in the recent few years is Windows 10 s or an S mode, right? Where you can install stuff from outside the store. Although they’ve now implemented a group policy, that if you want to run Windows 10 s, you can have a setting that you push out via group policy that will allow the install of a you know, apps out you designated though you’re doing that through your deployment systems. But but so we’re seeing our first real I mean, there’s Been other windows 10 on ARM devices while we’d like the made eight or I think it’s the made eight that rich showed me last week. But we’re just really getting into this using arm as a day to day driver for Windows for Windows 10. And if they truly bring the 64 bit emulation in I don’t know if it’s more efficient than 32 bit because 32 bit impatient looks horrible, right? You have this chunky, you gotta wait on it. It’s just got these obvious delays compared to a native app compiled for that device. So and you can even see it in some of the reviews. A lot of people don’t understand exactly what the Surface Pro X is and what it’s supposed to be able to do or not do. I saw another reviewer that wrote because there’s no Thunderbolt three which there can’t be. They can’t plug in and external graphics card. They tried to run a game on it. It wouldn’t run the game very well. But these devices aren’t built for that. These devices are built for road warriors right now. Internet books

Rich Hay  [33:58] 
is the modern version of a netbook in the sense from the perspective there, they’re supposed to be good on battery. So low power requirements in that sense. LTE this one comes LT capable day one so the chip it’s right there, upgradeable that’s the other big thing that came out of the October surface event surface laptop three and Surface Pro X can both have their hard drives upgraded. So they didn’t glue the lid down on the surface laptop three this time. It’s actually four feet with the special screw and the magnets hold the deck down and you can get in there and change the the SSD on the Surface Pro X. It’s all on the back under the kickstand, one little push of a of a sim tool pops open. There’s a slot for the Sam and there’s the SS nice one screw holding it in. Nice. Well. I think that will be your future Surface Pro line. Yeah, that’s kind of instead of having to take the lid off, you would be able to get upgrade the hard drive. I’ve already saw one guy on Reddit who’s done it. He’s posted The instructions, he bought the 128 unit, and he and he installed either to 56 or 512. So he he sourced the SSD, the right kind of SSD. And did that upgrade himself.

Jim Collison  [35:11] 
Now rich, you said yourself you picked up that Surface Pro, or the surface laptop top 33 and you said you’re going to make it. I think this is going to be my daily drive. Yeah, I think so Intel based, right? Yes. And pretty traditional, like Yes, very much. It’s the most traditional way to run Windows. And I still think like we’re doing all these gyrations Microsoft’s doing all these gyrations to try and get arm working and figuring out some other things. And yet, I still think you know, I picked up a new laptop and a new Lenovo laptop at work. And we’ve switched we’ve got a MD on those. And I asked I asked them really like really?

Rich Hay  [35:49] 
Yeah, always struggled on top.

Jim Collison  [35:51] 
I know

Rich Hay  [35:52] 
I know. And I surface laptop, three reviews of the 15 inch with AMD. Were not very not good.

Jim Collison  [35:57] 
Like this has always been those things reserved. There’s always been this promise of competition with MD, you know? Yeah, if we can just get a MD and they’re in there half the price and you know, blah, blah, blah. And then the performance has just never lived up to it. So I asked him as our tech support, you know, support guys like, well, how’s that going? And they’re like, well, in the beginning, tons of driving problems, right? Because the hardware is all completely different from what they were used to kind of working not all but a lot. And they said once we get the driver issues worked out, they’ve been running pretty well. And I’ve been running mine for just a couple days, three, four days, man, I don’t notice a big difference between between my Intel laptop and my AMV laptop now, we’ll see we’ll see how it goes. I’m not a I’m not a performance guy. We’ll come back here in a second. probably forgot to plug in his laptop, the mic drop down if you’re listening to the audio version of this. So I may be rich. I may be on my first AMD laptop that actually is comparable to what it was on the On the Intel side but I still struggle a little bit to kind of think like, Is it him D ever gonna real I mean they crying right

Rich Hay  [37:09] 
yeah they keep trying and you know every desktop system I build I build a MD yeah because I can get that little bit more bang for the dollar here the Intel in the thread

Jim Collison  [37:20] 
Yeah no,

Rich Hay  [37:20] 
no no. And so I choose to build a MD systems and in fact I’ve got 123 of them in here running right I kind of cycle them around from my main desktop to my this podcaster to Margo and they kind of make their way around the room but and I do a build probably every two to three years and I always build myself in and upgrades generally right a little kind of incremental, but I on desktop, I’ve never you know, but I was surprised at how poorly it looked. It performed in surface laptop three. And, and possibly this exists because Microsoft just wants Intel to know we’re capable of building hardware without your chips. Yeah, for sure all calm Otter sure the arm I built we are releasing and building some arm or some AMD based computers. But and like I said AMD laptops, they’ve never quite broken into that market. The Intel has own that. I know

Jim Collison  [38:17] 
I had a I had an hp hp. Oh Andrew talked me into buying this years ago and it was an AMD based processor and just never really it was kind of in those netbook days and it was a little underperformer, but it was cheap.

Rich Hay  [38:32] 
like yeah, that thing was that real save on if you’re willing to give up a little bit on the platform. I have been and this is the chip in the surface laptop there is the 10th generation Intel ice like right? It really five iPhone eight gigs of RAM and I’m telling you this thing. It doesn’t quite beat Surface Book too because the Surface Book to I have is a nice seven eight Jen. I think those were eight Jen. So but it I mean, I had this original surface laptop and this thing just smokes it. I mean it really efficient and runs down.

Jim Collison  [39:07] 
Yeah. Well, I think that goes to say, you know, you’ve got a pretty tried and tested you know Intel Intel based system and a an operating system that has been built for 25 years. Yeah, to do that. And I just think it’s it’s tough today. There’s wishful thinking, but I think it’s tough today to beat an Intel based especially the laptop Now, the problem is the battery life so he’s terrible, right? That’s Intel just you know, you’re going to get four hours. That’s kind of that’s kind of what it boils down to is for but you’re so that surface laptop three, you’re really liking it and very much so. And what do you think what’s the retail on that is retail

Rich Hay  [39:52] 
this in this spec is 999. Yeah, that was kind of the limitation they put on us for the gift that they gave us. The Surface Pro seven with the keyboard was was in that ballpark as well. So that was our choice. So this Yeah, I believe the retail on this in this configuration is one is 990. Still not

Jim Collison  [40:11] 
bad. And I think they’ll probably be some deals at Christmas time. Oh,

Rich Hay  [40:14] 
yeah. And there, I think Black Friday and Christmas time and stuff like that. I mean, today, Microsoft had their big Xbox Expo 19 event launch over in London, and they’ve already pre shown off their Black Friday deals. I mean, there’s a there’s a deal for the digital Xbox One is for $150. Yeah,

Jim Collison  [40:34] 
yeah. Yeah, I think it is. Now it’s time to watch. I just, you know, I when I switch laptops, Gallup has a deal which is great. You can buy your, your old device for 50 bucks. But that does two things. One, it’s great for the employee, like you think, okay, I’m getting a three year old piece of equipment that I took care of, for 50 bucks and it essentially to take care of it right? I mean, because you’re like Do I want to get to the end of this thing and have a piece of it left to be able to do it? So I’ll probably move that over to Sarah. And that worked out pretty well. But But you were also at Ignite, you know, and give me your impressions, you know, ignite little more developer focus this year.

Rich Hay  [41:17] 
I would say yeah, okay, well, PR aspects as well. But there was some consumer things to latch on to the, I guess I, I, they, they officially launched the general availability of HoloLens too. So that that I think it was Wednesday of last week that became available for those that are purchasing it. Edge was in the news quite a bit the new edge edge based chromium on chromium, and it’s, it’s in it’s out of preview and all that other stuff, right, not out of preview now. Okay, so we still so this is going to continue to be developed through a just like Chrome does, right. So Chrome, there’s a canary channel. Yeah, that’s a daily build. Then there’s the dev channel. That’s updated. Weekly, then there’s a beta channel that’s updated about every six weeks and then there will be a stable build, they have they formally announced that the target for general availability is the 15th of January of next next year. So here in about, I don’t know, that’s about two months away. So they have released what they are labeling a release candidate that’s in the beta channel. So it’s kind of its beta, but its release candidate. So that’s the channel because the normal process will be once this goes ga is that they’ll always be Canary for testing. They’ll always be deaf for testing. And then there’s beta and those are supposed to be kind of from Canary being a little less reliable, Dev a little more reliable and in beta even more so and then stable Of course, so stable and beta will both release about every six weeks. If you ever take dev weekly. I’ve been running this stuff since April, as the different channels have come out. I run them all I have them all installed on my devices and they run great. I haven’t had any major issues with it. And of course if you were paying attention last week the new logo was released for edge. Yeah, the kind of the kind of

Jim Collison  [43:11] 
separate it and it’s kind of

Rich Hay  [43:12] 
separated right stepping away from the edge smart. What was the original edge that came with Windows? 10? Did you try streaming on edge? edge Canary, okay. Oh, no, I’m an edge. Well, okay. So I mentioned there was edge Canary edge definite beta, right. But there was an accessible build. That is an unbranded not branded Canary Dev. It’s, it’s the stable channel. Yeah, that link was I think I have numbers. Yeah, the link was on Microsoft servers. And when you install this, it basically hides away the original edge. It’s still on your system can still be accessed. In fact, they give enterprises instructions on how they can still access it. But it basically takes over you can make any of your default, but so I’m in that one. So I am running Beta build of edge and I’m doing streaming art net and it’s running fine. Good. competitor wise it’s all there, right? Yeah, because it’s Chrome. So edge Microsoft’s got their own library of extensions that have been updated for edge chromium, but you can go to the Chrome Web Store and install with one button changes setting you can install extensions from the store. Yeah,

Jim Collison  [44:21] 
yeah. When you think about the future, like okay, you know, you mentioned HoloLens and I VR and AR is I were in a lol with those a I don’t think it’s found its footing you know, I don’t think it has when you when you’re thinking right now is going into the Christmas season. What do you get excited about what kinds of what kinds of things What are you excited about technology wise right now? Wieger words you think about that rich? Where’s your ups dude? That’s the story

Mike Wieger  [44:48] 
is a story. Okay, so we had a power blip that’s why I went out and the I that’s exactly what I did. Jim, my computer shut off the mic. Because the lights you know, they did this thing. I’m like, okay, I look down why I just messed with everything and I had plugged the power strip that’s all my my essentials is good I found out tonight. Yeah, my essentials power strip was plugged into the right side of the UPS which is just ServiceNow battery. So my Xbox, all that stuff was on the wrong line and then so my Mac so I’m not even on coming coming to you from the same computer I had to go running grab my laptop, because my Mac decided that hey, I’m rebooting. Why don’t I do that update that I’ve been waiting to do?

Rich Hay  [45:28] 
Hey, man, hang on, Hang Hang on, hang on. Now people complain about Windows doing that stuff. That doesn’t happen in the Macworld.

Mike Wieger  [45:36] 
It does when you click the button, update next time

Unknown Speaker  [45:39] 
now update next time. Alright.

Mike Wieger  [45:41] 
Sounds like hey, you restarted. I think you want to install what it was you told it to do? Yeah. So I essentially I told Jim it’d be a few minutes I’d run up a grab the laptop and luckily I was able to switch some USB port so it shouldn’t look or sound any different. But now you’re fine.

Jim Collison  [45:54] 
totally different. I had just asked rich right before he came in. He given us a little bit of Ignite. So he’s been through a hardware and a software event. And I was kind of so I was asking him, what’s he excited about? We’re coming up on, you know, the retail moment in America and really around the world. And as we think about what we get excited about our technology rich, what, what might you want to add to that?

Mike Wieger  [46:19] 
Well, there was one question I was waiting to ask, actually, you know, you mentioned rich the Surface Book, I think, is the, the new product you have right in front

Rich Hay  [46:25] 
of a surface laptop three, surface laptop three. Yeah.

Mike Wieger  [46:28] 
So as I’m thinking about that, so explain to the, you know, the three of us in this audience, who are not Microsoft guys, that laptop, right is the Microsoft branded the laptop when I’m looking to getting a new if I’m getting into the Microsoft space? I think there are right now I’ve talked to a lot of people who are typical Mac people who are like, Hey, now we’re open to a lot of things, right? I mean, I’m seeing kind of a mass like, hey, everything’s good now. Is that laptop Really? Would you call that the go to laptop for someone who’s looking to now get into Microsoft space,

Rich Hay  [47:01] 
it wouldn’t be a bad way to if you don’t want to go with the the Surface tablet style.

Mike Wieger  [47:06] 
And a lot of my people aren’t actually because they don’t want to get that. rack doesn’t. They’re like clam shell. Yeah, they want a clam shell. They want a powerful laptop they can use for editing for basic browsing, things like that.

Rich Hay  [47:19] 
Well, this this is the low end, right? This is the high five, eight gig of ram 128 gig and it’s performing well but it comes in and I seven model, right and you can bump up the RAM, you can bump up the storage. And of course that’s going to take your this is a $999 device. You’re talking to a Mac guy he’s used to overpaying for everything.

Mike Wieger  [47:39] 
That’s great. So

Rich Hay  [47:39] 
this is $1,000

Mike Wieger  [47:42] 
I’m used to paying for the same hardware

Rich Hay  [47:44] 
or I five

Unknown Speaker  [47:46] 
I’m it’s a joke, but

Mike Wieger  [47:48] 
the apple tax is a real thing.

Rich Hay  [47:50] 
Right? And and there’s a little bit of a surface tax, okay, because there’s an eye I can go get an eye five, eight gig with 128 gig SSD, probably in the Five to $600 ballpark to get a really nice laptop Windows laptop. But again that so there is a bit of a surface tax when it comes to this hardware as well. But like I said the top end on the show, you can go to an i seven, I think you can get up I forget how high the ram goes in the storage. So there are powerful options for this. I think for what I do because this isn’t a gaming machine. It’s not built that way. So if you want portability, pretty decent battery life, decent performance for doing your day to day kind of you know you’re not going to be doing Photoshop, a heavy duty Photoshop or video editing. But I think it could be that entry point to kind of because it is that typical clamshell and the big difference this time with surface laptop three is you now have options for an all metal device you can get away from the outcome Tara if you want to And like I mentioned the outcome Tara does have a different coating on it. So it and they change the coloring right on all the keyboards. They’re a little darker now. So they were kind of modeled a little bit more in order to pick to kind of hide some of that, that stuff that comes on them. But if you compare, but this is that surface layer is just got in fact Ralph grown told me at a surface event either earlier this year or last year he explained this to me because they started doing it on on those that that launch its intended to repel the hand oils and things that we tend to have on our hands at the time. So but now with the option of metal decks you know, you can you can they had a they called it sandstone I think it’s basically rose gold. They had a version of that. And I again, the colors in the sizing is because they did release a 15 inch surface laptop three. So there are configurations that come with a 15 inch. If you want 15 inch, I think it’s only AMD unless you go by the business version, which is possible. Okay. Yeah, that’s a nice seven

Mike Wieger  [49:59] 
because that home New Line I think if you haven’t kept up with Microsoft can be a little bit confusing when you get into the okay there’s their Surface Book there’s the surface there’s all this like what if I if I just want to get into it I think the biggest complaint from people from the Mac side who are looking to switch was with the services well that keyboard it collapses and I said I don’t know there’s a new line out there. The Surface Book line right what’s this that rigid classic clam shell

Rich Hay  [50:21] 
well the Surface Book is the one with the detachable clipboard the detachable screen Yes. That is not where I would go. So you have you have your surface pros right that Surface Pro line with the kickstand and the catchable keyboard Yeah. Then you surface laptop This is third generation a surface laptop so and and then you have Surface Book One Surface Book to KC so

Jim Collison  [50:45] 
it was a laptop is what you allow top is what you’re looking at nice.

Mike Wieger  [50:50] 
That’s not a bad target. Convert Who? comparable version? Yeah,

Rich Hay  [50:55] 
because when it comes down to kind of the weight You know, like a MacBook Air is really what it looks like it isn’t far off of that look. I mean yeah, it’s it’s pretty thin up there for the screen. Yep, it’s got the one set of vents back here for the fan but it fan hardly ever kicks on when I’m using it. Yeah. And so they’ve done real good job and these isolate these Intel is like chips are really good performers. So I was I was a little worried kind of, I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I was happy to get it. But I was thinking I five I’d really like to have and I seven there. But it’s actually turned out to be a pretty good device.

Jim Collison  [51:32] 
So feel feels good in the hand. Like it was great. carrying around

Rich Hay  [51:37] 
it. They like I said that for me. You know, just a simple ability to be able to do that. Yeah, one finger. Yeah. If you do that with the original surface laptop that sucker sliding across the desk.

Mike Wieger  [51:51] 
He’s using his pointer finger for the for those of you in audio.

Rich Hay  [51:56] 
Yeah. So they really enjoy Mary Jo Foley who is as famous for her laughable right thing, she bought the surface laptop through yourself and I think she bought the AMD the 15 inch but she loves it because of the balance because of you know that’s just opening the lid but that means they have placed all the weight in the base in a manner that really sets it securely so that’s on your lap or on your death. It feels a lot more balanced. You got the spring right you got the balance right you got the waiting right i mean it’s weird I mean you got to get the components in there and yet there’s there’s a finite amount of components plus where do they go so it takes some really good engineering it has the surface Kinect so it still has surface connect on it but on they did add Let me see Yeah, there you go. So you SBC USB a and then I think that’s the headphone jack Yeah, the headphone jack but so they did add C to it. So you can actually charge via that seaport if you wanted to. But the fast charging, usually Is the surface connect and it has to be closed? You don’t fast charge when you’re using it.

Jim Collison  [53:05] 
Okay. So yeah, that I’ve never liked that surface Connect. port. It was kind of like they had bigger plans in the beginning. They did. Yeah. And then it just never

Rich Hay  [53:15] 
went there for compatibility. Yeah,

Jim Collison  [53:17] 
yeah, yeah, no. Okay. So back to my question now that Wieger has distract into is we think about, I think we’re going to the holiday season and you think about, you know, what do you get excited about this? And it can be anything, it doesn’t have to be any Microsoft stuff or whatever. But what do you what are you excited about?

Rich Hay  [53:35] 
Well, you know,

Rich Hay  [53:38] 
I sat and watch that Xbox event today, right? You know, hardware is hardware, right? You’re going to find there’s going to be great deals on hardware, no matter what, you know, if you’re running an older windows seven piece of hardware, I actually wouldn’t be paying a whole lot of attention to upgrading a Windows seven device, I’d go buy me a new windows 10 device. There’s really good deals out there and especially over Thanksgiving in the holidays. So if you’ve got to upgrade before January why not go do some shopping and take an opportunity? I don’t know if surface laptop is your target or but there’s plenty of great deals out there. From a gamers perspective, right Microsoft today had their big Xbox unveils for tons of stuff. And I am currently set and waiting for access. I am crazy excited for Microsoft simulator. Flight Simulator 2020. If you saw the preview trailer for that from EA three they just released a new trailer today. They announced some of the the airplanes that are going to be part of the package their partners there. It has been absolutely beautiful watching it and we’re waiting on tech alpha access. They had event A few weeks ago in Redmond where they took people to an airport in a hangar they had system set up with proper you know yolks and pedals and everything. And so they showed people the game got them flying a little bit doing take offs and controller and in in the air and then they put them in a real airplane. Pilot instructor took off and handed them the controls. Wow. And people were flying after having flown the game. Wow. That’s great. I was unable to be there. That would have been awesome.

Jim Collison  [55:13] 
I wouldn’t have gotten in that plane

Rich Hay  [55:16] 
as an instructor pilot, yeah, no. So but I’m a weenie. Xbox. Like I mentioned, one of the deals that got for black friday i think is an Xbox One is digital, which is HDR compatible. So if you’re on a 4k TV, you get the HDR piece. It’s $150

Mike Wieger  [55:33] 
for that’s the way to go.

Rich Hay  [55:35] 
Like, I have an Xbox One S and that was so I had the original Xbox One, right? Xbox One, not the x. And then I went when I finally got my 4k TV. I then got the air I traded in the Xbox One got the S now I got HDR and HDR makes a massive difference in the gaming experience. Microsoft also announced their What do they call them that Thing x Xbox, oh, Xbox all access. So this is basically your ability to buy a console with two years of Xbox game pass, which includes now Xbox Live. And what’s the other thing?

Rich Hay  [56:16] 
So it’s like a two year purchase, right? every

Jim Collison  [56:19] 
command you get all that

Mike Wieger  [56:20] 
anybody doing now they let you upgrade to the new Xbox is coming out next year

Rich Hay  [56:26] 
Scarlet right? At the end of December you only have to pay in 12 months on this console that you get and then you you’re eligible to bump up to the Scarlet next year when it comes

Mike Wieger  [56:36] 
to now it doesn’t and one the question I had was okay, so do I get 12 months of credit of payment towards that new and no you have to restart your base what you do is you don’t have to finish out that you don’t have to finish so you got 12

Rich Hay  [56:47] 
months out of that console you have you still got your you’re still going to have your Xbox game pass and game passes groans anybody who owns an xbox one if you don’t have game pass you are Losing right it was Yeah, I agree. I haven’t had to mess around with buying games for so long. Xbox so basically took the Xbox Live Gold took this library subscription of games and melded them right so now you get your Xbox Live in there you get all these games, Xbox studio announcements for first party games day one in Xbox game pass. So that means for so horizon for was in there day one. Today they announced that Halo Reach the first version of Halo that will be on PC is coming out on December 3, day one Xbox game pass day one. So and every associate thieves any anything built by Microsoft and their game studios, which they’re growing will be day one available through game pass at no extra cost. Such a deal. So your last game past customer right now. It’s $1 for three months. Yeah, they’re doing another $1 deal. If you sign up So so the deals are out there, if you’re an enthusiast or something like that, I think there’s going to be great computer deals. I think there might be some companies looking at the windows seven thing and maybe trying but I think most consumers beyond an audience like yours, Jim, you know, or enthusiasts who know what they’re doing. I the vast majority of of consumers everyday users are probably on Windows 10 By now, you know, or they’ve replaced a piece of hardware or something like that. So you know, the gaming stuff, the hardware stuff, ar VR and I’m not so sure everybody wants to do something their spectacles and you know, all that kind of thing, but I don’t know I just my my, my Acer 3d. What would it What were they called in those days? The what we call those for Windows 10. augmented? Yeah, augmented reality. My AR headset sits in the corner collecting dust somewhere.

Jim Collison  [58:55] 
Yeah, haven’t had it. Not a lot of applications for it. You know, there’s not they’re kind of funding For kind of a gimmick while you’re doing it and maybe over weekend you play it and then you’re kind of like numb. I don’t know Mike, what about you? What do you what do you what do you get excited about as you look ahead?

Mike Wieger  [59:10] 
The thing I get excited about is I know that you know, Windows 10 and Xbox haven’t coming together as far as gaming right across both. Man what I really love to see is I have you know, call of duty as a game to me that’s an intelligent because that was obviously back from my high school days when I was in college with my roommates and we had three TVs in the dorm. That is the game to me that we all played and I’ve ignored the last probably three or four versions because then it just hasn’t been the same Call of Duty. This year, they came out with Call of Duty that was kind of back to the basics, which is why I bought it first version I bought in a while and my buddy actually was in town. My college roommate was in town from California. So we bought it that weekend we played but really you know bringing it back to the tech angle of this is one of the first games that has implemented cross platform in such a good way some Call of Duty the Modern Warfare the new version. The way the cross platform works is you can play with guys if I want an Xbox, the Xbox One S and I can play with ps4 guys and console guys. And but the great part about it is the implementation when I’m in a lobby I see exactly who I’m playing with I see Xbox, I see a TV icon, a third different console, so ps4 or a tower if their PC. But the great part about it is, is that as long as everyone in my party is on a controller, it’s only going to pair me with other controller players because the big discrepancy here is hey, I don’t want to see you guys are on a keyboard mouse. Exactly. It’ll put me with PC guys as long as they’re on an Xbox controller, but it won’t put me with them. Unless if I have someone in my party who’s also on a PC keyboard mouse then it’s then it’s the Wild West then hey, you get parents anyone. But the implementation has been so smooth. And the fact that you have the Activision account in the background so I can have a friends list in Call of Duty that is cross platform. So me and my buddy who Has he has, he’s been a lifelong friend of mine since we were, you know, three years old. He has always been a ps4 guy. I’ve always been Xbox. This is the first time we’ve ever been able to play together. And it’s glorious, but it is just one of the best experiences. And I found that even the PC guys because you’re getting paired based off your control input has been great. So I love seeing the cross platform aspect of all this and I know that Xbox and and PC have been working really well together as far as you buy a game, maybe you it counts for both. The Xbox app on Microsoft is great. On sorry, on Windows is great. I’ve used that app a bunch whenever doing streaming to get a party. So it’s just an exciting time for gaming, I think because of all this cross platform play. And but it wasn’t the way I thought it would be. I thought it would be Microsoft and Sony kind of getting together and playing nice together. It’s been the game developers who have done on their own they said hey, we can take this will have our own friends list. That’s the only downside is that really Your friends list is game by game not some sort of massive cross platform console based system. But I don’t really care because I you know, there’s only a few games I’m gonna play cross platform and and Call of Duty I think just knocked it out of the park when it came to this is how it’s supposed to be. And more of it’s coming they announced I forget which game it was today but they specifically mentioned cross platform day one. So so obviously it is becoming more and more to focus. You mentioned streaming. Let’s talk about a little bit about Project X cloud.

Rich Hay  [1:02:30] 
Microsoft is that’s been in preview now for about a month. They said today during this event in London that more invites we’re going out tonight or today to people this you know for the next day or so. Basically the if you’ve not heard of this, it’s basically and they added 50 more games to the library so it was very limited in the first few weeks of the preview. Now there are over 50 titles including Madden 24 Tsar rise and for so all these titles have been added to this so that you basically connecting to the internet on your phone Phone paired to a Bluetooth controller gaming on your phone screen and from everybody that I talked to, and I’ve seen it done, it runs extremely well. If you’re on the I think all the channels in Xbox inside are now have console streaming. So that you can do actually within your house, right? That was always possible through windows 10. But that now works outside your home as well. So you can actually stream from your console. It’s kind of slick when you turn on your console when you’re streaming to your phone. It doesn’t turn on the power you know how that big bright button is? It doesn’t turn that on. So you can you can actually stream from your console I’m in that right now. I’m not an ex really I had no idea that was even an option. Yeah, I didn’t set anything I just I paired to my bluetooth controller I got so I got the little nifty thing right

Mike Wieger  [1:03:51] 
so that’s an Xbox controller was like an adapter to hold a phone

Rich Hay  [1:03:54] 
right my headphones

Rich Hay  [1:03:57] 
so you get the little controller Here, you pair it with that. And I, it’s really lagging on the home network. I’ll show it now that so you get the, you get the option here to. There’s an app that you download. you pair it with the Bluetooth controller. And it it automatically sets up. So it will it knows that I’m on my home network. So it asked me to connect. So I can connect to my device. And now I’m connected to my Xbox was, which is in the same on the same network. It’s in my living room. And so but if you were looking at my Xbox in the living room, the light wouldn’t be on. So it keeps that turned off when it’s doing this console streaming thing.

Mike Wieger  [1:04:43] 
I find the idea this existed rich this is this is great.

Rich Hay  [1:04:46] 
Yeah. And so project test cloud, it’s gotten all the attention. But the console streaming allows you to stream any game on your console kind of wait the way we were doing the windows 10 right. Yeah, so there’s my console. That’s my Collison Start screen. Yeah. And in fact they, so I can the game that I really test this with is actually I see I forget you use your controller, not the not the screen, not the screen, so and so this is loading up the game, a little game called race the sun, which is very low impact if I run for to rise and fall it goes choppy. So but Project X cloud, I’m told runs so much better on through this process, so it lets me sign in. Well, there you go.

Jim Collison  [1:05:36] 
You open your mic.

Rich Hay  [1:05:38] 
So literally, you’re on the inside or below if you’re on if you’re on alpha, beta or delta, I believe it’s at all of the levels now. So you can actually it’s really easy setup process using the app. You have to pair it with the Bluetooth controller for it to work. And so there’s the game loading up in I can I can fly.

Jim Collison  [1:06:02] 
How do I know rich? If I have the Bluetooth controller? That was their standard?

Rich Hay  [1:06:06] 
No, it’s not standard. I think if you get an xbox one s and beyond or an X, you probably because the Bluetooth controller came out later. So, so you’ll you’ll have to check that.

Jim Collison  [1:06:17] 
Just this was the one that came with my ass. Chances are,

Rich Hay  [1:06:21] 
that is Yeah. So yeah. So if you download the app, and if you’re on the preview builds, you’ll be able to run the app, go through the setup process and send you to your console to do a couple things and it will connect everything. So it what they’re trying to do here with the gaming is to get the gaming necessarily off the big screens, right, give it to you when you’re remote somewhere. So I for instance, you know, we travel for Thanksgiving, I usually take my Xbox with me because I have free time to be able to pay attention to some gaming. I don’t know that I’ll do that this year. I’m going to attempt this mode right. And especially if I get an X cloud invite in the next couple days working the system hard trying to find one. Because I really want to give that a shot because it’s supposed to be very, very good. So, but cool stuff. So think about it. Would you have ever thought that you could? I mean, I would remember being fascinated when we could stream from Xbox to our windows 10 device. Right? I was sitting in my office away from my, my Xbox streaming games to the computer. I mean, that was just kind of,

Jim Collison  [1:07:24] 
well, let’s be honest. So that’s to directly compete with Nintendo.

Rich Hay  [1:07:28] 
Oh, Nintendo. So the portable stuff. So like Nintendo Switch. I think it was not a mistake today. And I’m sure Microsoft had it in the plans to expand the library to 50 games. Because if you know if you’ve been paying attention the last week Google study it stadia is going to launch with like 14 games right in the library. So there was a little poke in the eye there by Microsoft today to say, well, we’re going to have 50 And oh, by the way, if you’re an Xbox game past subscriber, that is included at no extra cost. JX Cloud will be when it comes out GA. Yeah.

Jim Collison  [1:08:03] 
Well, it’s funny how we got here. I was gonna say I thought is we were talking about this, I really think games like, this is the this is the winter of games. And I like everybody Google’s got their thing. Microsoft’s got their thing. Nintendo, the Nintendo system is strong right now. I mean, they are doing some great stuff in games are just super easy, like, and they just kind of work for people. And I just, I think this is kind of the winner of gaming. And we’re going to spend a ton of time

Rich Hay  [1:08:33] 
that’s actually going to point you know, if we’re, you know, yeah, because of all this portability coming, you know,

Jim Collison  [1:08:40] 
yeah, no, I mean, just think about it. We all the you know, what Microsoft’s doing and the new the new hardware, the new equipment, we’ve got that we’ve got the cloud, Google’s going after Nintendo is going after it. Sony’s going after it. I just had we just if you’re not paying attention to the gaming space, now, I’m not a big gamer, but it’s actually It’s an interesting space. And it’s done some things I was talking, I was having this conversation about. Gaming is driving cloud

Rich Hay  [1:09:09] 
compute. Microsoft is putting these Xbox leads in their server and other data centers. That’s where it’s coming

Jim Collison  [1:09:14] 
from. It’s changing the way the data center works as far as being able to provide compute. And now there’s so much more GPU compute going in, because these games take this, who knows what kinds of you know, what kinds of additional innovations that’s going to drive as we get more compute in that space?

Rich Hay  [1:09:36] 
So because that’s what they’re doing again, Microsoft is big in the gaming stuff. It’s a good business for them. But they are gaining benefits from that for their enterprise work in there.

Jim Collison  [1:09:45] 
The other Yeah, no doubt. No, for sure, rich. We kept you long enough. Anything else we missed?

Rich Hay  [1:09:51] 
I know. You know, there’s a lot going on and in

Rich Hay  [1:09:58] 
the build up to January 14th in the end of windows seven, there’s still going to be folks on Windows seven, when that happens, I mean, there’s going to be circumstances that people, if you’re a consumer, you got to find a way to get out of it. Right. And like we mentioned earlier, somebody had asked you to still do the free upgrade, that possibility still exists. And you know, to be honest, Windows 10 runs pretty decently on old hardware. It doesn’t do bad. I remember pulling out an old laptop from like, 2004 maybe it wasn’t that old, maybe it was like 20 1020. But for 678 years old, and it ran windows, I upgraded it to Windows 10.

Jim Collison  [1:10:32] 
Yeah, it can run it. It’s just if you have less than four gig of memory,

Rich Hay  [1:10:35] 
I think a gig has become the new bottom it really kind

Jim Collison  [1:10:39] 
of has, is I’ve been monitoring and here in my systems, you know, 1632 16 eight are my systems. And you can really tell you know, when especially I’ve been watching resource utilization, we’ve been do some VM stuff by the way, there’s no need to do server anymore for the average person. Humor via right on Windows 10. You can just run Hyper V. Yeah. And it runs great. You know, and I’ve been I’ve been spinning up instances of on activated windows instances, and they give you I don’t know how long they give you on those things, but long enough that not that worried about it. I’ll tear them down and rebuild them if I need to, especially in the test space. And so that works out pretty well. You need to have a little bit of RAM for that and some hard drive space to kind of make that work. But it’s available in Windows 10. It’s pretty good. I don’t have to go to server anymore. to kind of get that done. Mike. Anything else you’d add?

Mike Wieger  [1:11:34] 
No. I mean, the gaming side is just some I’ve been so excited about. So it’s very, I liked hearing that update. But

Jim Collison  [1:11:41] 
yeah, no, I think we’re gonna and we’re not a big gaming podcast here. We talked about it from time to time, but I do think I do think rich, it’s just going to get it’s going to get bigger and better. Hey, okay, let’s get a quick update on you rich before you go. What show you’re doing some other things with the church, but you’re not podcasts. anymore. On Windows observer calm

Rich Hay  [1:12:03] 
today Windows Windows the server is still up and running. Well, technically it is up and running after four days of trying to get

Jim Collison  [1:12:08] 
my former host to get another story.

Rich Hay  [1:12:11] 
That’s a whole nother ball away. But yes, Windows observer is still up there when when OBS my wiki is still up there. And of course on Twitter, I am not actively podcasting at the moment I retired the observe tech podcast back in June after 317 episodes I am in development of another podcast in the just figuring out the kind of the the lay of the land for that and my plan for that and but I’m really close to being able to do my first kind of beta test of the format

Jim Collison  [1:12:39] 
when what can What can you talk about it when will come out how it

Rich Hay  [1:12:43] 
I’m not 100% sure it’ll be available through all the typical channels. So windows observer calm will be the home for it, just like it was for observe tech. And it’s going to be a podcast that I’m still going to talk tech, I’m still going to talk space stuff because that’s still very exciting things to me. But um, I’m the new podcast is going to be called faith tech and space. So I’m going to talk a little bit more about faith and its impact on technology and vice versa, right how technology impacts faith. Because I’m, I, myself am going through formation and studies right now from my own personal faith journey. So it’ll be a little bit of that. It’ll be talking tech and faith tech in space. And I, you know, me I live on the Florida coast, I get to watch rockets go up in the air all the time. So I’m still going to talk about tech. I’m still a Microsoft guy and still do my day job writing about enterprise technology. And this will just give me an opportunity to kind of expand that out a little bit good.

Jim Collison  [1:13:40] 
No, that’s good. It’ll be good to have the first of the year.

Rich Hay  [1:13:43] 
When I finally step up into it.

Jim Collison  [1:13:45] 
Yeah, but good to have another podcast from you to listen to. I miss it. I miss it. I miss your old podcast I think you’ve heard from

Rich Hay  [1:13:52] 
I miss it too. I’ve heard from others. I was at Ignite last week and I got Microsoft people walking up to me saying rich when you’re going to do another project Cast What’s going on? So it was kind of cool to get that. In fact, as I shared with you in the pre show, I had enough people coming forward right after I, I decided that I was closing out observe tech, though I almost resurrected it and brought it back. And I was like, and I got closer to doing it. And I was like, No, I know it’s not there anymore. And so there are times to move on. And, and that’s what I’ve done there. But more coming, no doubt. Appreciate it. No, I appreciate all the work that you do. Thanks for keeping us up to date with all the stuff that you’re doing. We’ve had you 90 minutes already. And I know you’re busy guy. So we’re going to cut you loose. So thanks for coming out. Richard. Appreciate it. Have a great day. And well hey, let us know when that podcaster you will

Jim Collison  [1:14:40] 
let us know when the podcast goes live and we’ll make sure we we talked a bunch about it. We’ll have you back on in the spring. Thanks for like later. Take care, man. Appreciate it. A couple reminders. As we’re on the way out of here. Why don’t we I think our Patreon subscribers for all that they do here and appreciate their work. Thanks. I guess I can just say it that way. You can support the show. They just say Thanks, Jim. Thanks. I say thanks. The average guy.tv slash Patreon gets it done as well want to thank Christian for his sponsorship and what he does with maple grove partners get secure reliable high speed hosting from people that you know and you trust plan started is 10 bucks a month. By the way. I mistakenly I didn’t do this on purpose. But if you’re a regular Home Gadget Geeks listener, you got Episode 58 in the stream because it’s been so long since I released an episode of cyber frontiers. I clicked all the homes, the all the home gadget geek boxes and so it by mistake, it came down. Nobody believes me but it was it was true. It just became down the channel. So somebody ping me on Twitter and was like, Hey, thanks for you know, thanks. Thanks for that. I was like Ah, so I fixed it. But many of you got a chance to listen to it and catch up with Christian we thank you for his sponsorship of the program. As well, we want to thank those who just you know, Mike, it’s it Thanksgiving is coming up here in the United States. Not next week but the week after Dwayne, by the way, Dwayne Robinson on next week, we’re going to get like a double dose of Microsoft over the next two weeks because Dwayne was at the events that rich was at and we’re going to get his opinion you know how doing this he’s gonna have a hot things to say, and probably break some NDA. So I’m just saying it’s, it’s it’s very hot. So we have mon for right. Yeah, no, right on I love it. When Duane comes on. He’s, he’s one of my favorite guys to interview. They’re all my favorites, just to be honest. But so Dwayne’s coming on and then Thanksgiving week, Sammy and I will record live on Friday night, so no Thursday night podcast, that’s Thanksgiving, be with your families do those kinds of things. Mike, what are your Thanksgiving plans? What do you guys do?

Mike Wieger  [1:16:50] 
We split it. That’s the hard part is we’re here for part of it. We have my family who lives in Omaha, and then we’ve got the farm. So usually at some point, we’re either here and then we’re The farm and we’ll do some sort of thanksgiving and each night is great because that means I get to awesome fattening Thanksgiving meals. Usually it’s the weekend after the close of deer season. So if we got a deer if we get a deer the last weekend of opening season that means we hung it and it’s waiting for us to stick to processing the weekend of Thanksgiving. So sometimes that means we take a deer in now I don’t know what that is.

Jim Collison  [1:17:25] 
So this is our Thanksgiving. This is what they’re saying. Just just to really get out of the mood for Thanksgiving, Jim. Just have to watch the video. describe this one for the for the audio listeners. So it’s a turkey. You know how you do a turducken. Right? It’s a turtle it’s a turkey and you jam a duck inside of it and Sure. I think there’s other things you can like a chicken inside the duck and then a squirrel inside the chickens. This is a this is what’s called a tour cracking

Mike Wieger  [1:17:54] 
which is disgusting looking thing you’ve ever seen.

Jim Collison  [1:18:00] 
For the what is that we octopus coming out the back of the turkey so why not? Why not? Why not? Yeah a

Mike Wieger  [1:18:08] 
lot of comments I have here but I’m the reserve all of them.

Jim Collison  [1:18:12] 
That came to me while we were doing the show tonight and I just thought that came from I thought

Mike Wieger  [1:18:16] 
of your plans. I know you always do the best bacon wrapped turkey you know you released the you gave me I think you gave everyone but I felt special. You gave me the recipe last year. Yeah. Which I’ve been thinking about trying this year if I get time.

Jim Collison  [1:18:30] 
super great. I just picked up the turkey I just picked up two pounds of bacon. It really isn’t hard. You make a little envelope with tin foil. And you don’t even have to do that but it kind of contains the very delicious Italian jesting that you put you know on top of this thing. So we now last year we weave the bacon. So you make a bacon weave and put that on top and then pour salad dressing on top of that, that makes like a nice oil base. And so while we don’t fry it, we smoke it that way kind of slow smoke it and that thing just stays moist the whole time and it’s just Super delicious. So looking forward to kind of thanksgiving that way the kids were back here at the house. So kids will be coming over this year. Hopefully we get some good weather. And then I say all that to say I just want to say as we get closer to Thanksgiving, thank you the listener who every week or whatever, whatever your schedule is, you listen in your car while you’re mowing the lawn or while you’re whatever walking the dog whatever you’re doing. Mike, there’s been some times it works been busy enough, this last eight weeks have been like, you know, we’re coming up on nine years. I say this about once a year. I think it’s this time every year to like, you know, do we want to start looking at schedule and like do I want to kind of have the time to bring it in at 250 or at 450 for a landing, you know, or for 23 I think today HGG 423 if you want to get the show notes on this one you know, but I appreciate and then I come out here and I got awesome guys like richer Think about any of the guests that join us it’s just it’s just awesome right?

Mike Wieger  [1:20:03] 
What and I’m the same way right like I’m at this point in my life where I’ve got two young boys they’re three and two and nighttime is craziness and I always take Jim like I’m we faced with message I messaged him last night like it’ll be 745 man the boys are like throwing a fit right now it’s not they’re not going down easy something like that. And but it literally is the community here that’s like I get so excited every Thursday to come back on so you guys really do bring us back and you keep us here and and we love you for it. So thanks for listening and even even all of you because you know we get so used to the names in the chat every Thursday the guys who are here live but we know there are thousands of you who are listening on audio so so thank you who are always consistently there with audio. I’m the same way with podcasts I listened to I can’t listen to him live. I’m just no audio listener who never writes in. So I know you guys are out there too. So thank you. Thank everyone

Jim Collison  [1:20:54] 
know right on my appreciate as well. We are live every Thursday 8pm Central nine Eastern out here for the average guy.tv live if I can say that I’m two beers in so it’s it’s a miracle I can even talk will be back I mentioned Duane is here Duane Duane Robinson is back next week Sammy the week after that. I will be in London the week after that still an opportunity if you’re in the London area you want to meet up with me on December 1 be great opportunity on that Sunday to get with you. Aaron Lawrence is back to talk about She’s got some good gadget GIFs coming up, Joel from live door is coming that’s going to be I’m really looking forward to that interview coming up and then it’s Christmas. So I think I’m gonna take Christmas off take that Christmas weekend off. And then during the show just a few minutes ago ping I was thinking you know, I haven’t heard from Paul Brand in a while. So I pinged him just a minute ago. Hey, Paul, time for you to be on the show. Question mark within a minute. Love to be so it’s funny, right? I mean, just just how connected we all are. And so he’s he’s a All ready to go. And we’ll get we get Jay back as well. We got a lot of great guests coming up in 2020. And Mike 2020 is a weird year. It has. So five Saturdays in February. It because we have a leap year and you never get that kind of because it’s only 28 days. And I mean five. No, no. Five Saturdays in February because we have 20 It’s a leap year. So we have 29 next year, Christmas, New Year’s Fridays. So you three day weekends, right? I love that.

Mike Wieger  [1:22:31] 
I saw that in a meme. And I was like that makes me so excited.

Jim Collison  [1:22:33] 
Yeah, no, I’m pretty great. pretty great. There’s one other there’s one other thing on that I think this December I think there’s five, three day, Saturdays in December something like that. So we get some weird dates coming up. What’s not we’re we’re live here every Thursday 8pm Central nine Eastern out here at the average guy.tv live. You join us live. Thanks stay around. I got a little short little crypto update that probably won’t make it onto Patreon but with that will say goodbye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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