New Teams app for Windows hits preview; GA slated for June

I suggest you read Mary Jo Foley’s analysis. She is always on top of things. My own findings:

  • The Windows client is a complete rewrite. Users will be able to switch back and forth, for a while.
  • The new Teams up looks akin to the consumer version of Teams, that already has been made available in GA.
  • Microsoft claims twice the speed and half the memory requirements. Here is your incentive to move soon.
  • The rewrite moves the architecture from Custom HTML/JS on top of Angular on top of Electron to a new stack based on Microsoft WebView2. It contains three layers: Fluent, React, and a client data layer.
  • There is now a multitude of for-pay options like Teams Premium, or a Teams Copilot. You can make it as expensive as Microsoft desires. I see some contract work coming up.
  • Not important for most users, but a must-have for almost all IT guys: multi-tenant login with notifications from all tenants. Hooray.

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Ctrl-Shift-V in Microsoft Word

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just copy and paste text from a website into your document and have it look good? Imagine not having to manually remove the source formatting like font size, type, or background color.

You might be familiar with this shortcut Ctrl + Shift + V (Cmd + Shift + V on Mac) — it’s also called “keep text only” or “paste plain text”—because of its popularity in other applications like Microsoft Teams, Word for the web, Google, and Gmail. No matter what you call it, the Paste Text Only shortcut is now available in Word for Windows and Word Mac.

What took you so long, Microsoft?

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Bing Chat coming to mobile Bing, Edge, Skype apps

In this spirit of learning and continuing to build new capabilities, we’re excited to share today the preview release of the new Bing and Edge mobile apps.  We’re beginning to roll out the incredible capabilities of the new Bing and Edge on your smartphone along with some exciting new features, such as voice input. In addition, we are creating a new chat experience, beginning with Skype, to enhance your social communications with your friends and family.

Coming today, but only if you are already off the waitlist. This is exciting stuff. I use both Edge and Skype, the latter because it has transparent translation, which I rely on for people who speak none of my languages.

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Microsoft overstepping with Edge & Bing

I have been a happy Edge user for a few years, but more recently the experience is degrading for me. Microsoft dumped a few useful features like the good epub reader that used to be built in. And it keeps altering settings while pretending to make my browsing experience better. One recent example is how they quietly disabled the DuckDuckGo extension I had previously installed. What does it do? It changes the default search engine to DuckDuckGo.

This is what I want to see when I search for something:

This is what Microsoft wants to show me instead:

I also fought very hard against Microsoft to make this my opening page in Edge:

I like a clean desk, a clean desktop, and I need focus. Continue to distract me, and I will dump Edge for this reason alone.

Changes at Microsoft

Geekwire is citing a memo from Satya Nadella. Here is something that caught my eye:

we are taking a $1.2B charge in Q2 related to severance costs, changes to our hardware portfolio, and the cost of lease consolidation as we create higher density across our workspaces.

Microsoft is removing some 10,000 jobs while realigning the company. They are putting $1.2 billion on their balance sheet to offset costs for this change. Severance cost is money paid out to fired employees, cost of lease consolidation is money paid to get out of lease contracts and to move to fewer and smaller office spaces, but changes to our hardware portfolio is the interesting one.

There will not be any press statements about which products Microsoft is dropping. Your guess is as good as mine. You will have to watch what disappears from the Microsoft Store.

Update: Meanwhile somebody wrote a comment (disqualified by refusing to leave his full name) which had a good suggestion:

Update: This was a good call. CNET reports that Microsoft is shutting down Altspace VR on March, 10.

I was invited to an event at the beginning of February where Microsoft is demonstrating a teleporting service, which is most likely built on the cloud-based AR/VR platform Mesh.

Changing the scroll wheel direction in Windows 11

Microsoft has removed a setting from the system settings that would allow you to change the scroll direction on the mouse wheel. The default is now to roll the window over the document, while Apple has long ago set the default to scroll the document itself. Windows has the old way, Apple the new way. Some people prefer the old way, some the new way. But you need to able to set it.

Your only option is to change one parameter in the Windows Registry, which of course requires admin privileges. Two steps:

  1. Find the HID device path in device manager.
  2. Set FlipFlopWheel from 0 (Windows) to 1 (Mac) in regedit and reboot.

If you have a Logitech mouse you can set the scroll direction in Options+.

Ein paar Gedanken zum Microsoft Event

Microsoft hat heute ein 35 Minuten langes Feuerwerk abgebrannt und ich empfehle jedem, das mal komplett anzuschauen und nicht etwa die “See Europe in 5 days”-Zusammenschnitte. Hier geht es lang >

Ich will die News nur vorher ein bisschen einordnen, damit Ihr wisst, worauf Ihr achten solltet. Das wird manchem Reviewer entgehen:

  • Surface Laptop 5 ist das beliebteste Surface-Gerät. Zugleich ist es auch das langweiligste. Klassischer Laptop mit Touchscreen, sehr cleanes Design ohne Firlefanz. Jetzt mit der Intel Evo 12 Platform und einem Thunderbolt Port in USB-C Form. Dazu gibt es dankenswerter Weise immer noch einen USB-A Port.
  • Surface Studio 2+mit neueren Innereien aber immer noch mit Evo 11. Ich gehe darüber genauso schnell weg wie Panos Panay.
  • Surface Pro 9 vereinigt Surface Pro 8, nun mit Evo 12, und Surface Pro X, nun mit SD3, dem Snapdragon Chipset, den Qualcomm für Microsoft fertigt. Das sind zwei sehr unterschiedliche Geräte mit dem gleichen Namen: Surface Pro 9, wobei die Snapdragon-Version einfach Surface Pro 9 5G heißt.

Die ganz coolen Sachen in der Präsentation laufen alle auf diesem Surface Pro 9 5G und nicht auf der Intel-Version. Das wird mit kleinen Untertiteln verkündet, die einem gerne entgehen. Ich kenne einiges schon von meinem Surface Pro X mit SD1, etwa die Manipulation der Webcam, die einen Blickkontakt simuliert, weil die Augen leicht korrigiert sind, als ob man in die Kamera über dem Screen und nicht auf den Screen geschaut hätte.

Ich habe keine Zweifel, dass die Zukunft ARM gehört, wie man bei Apple sehr schön sehen. Das Microsoft-Problem ist, dass sie von Qualcomm abhängen und dass sie keine Transition machen können wie Apple. Windows wird auf lange Zeit auf Intel laufen müssen. Und bei meinem Surface Pro X läuft noch nicht alles rund.

Viel spannender als die neuen Surface-Geräte fand ich den Software-Teil, wo Microsoft demonstrierte, wie Creator Tools wie create.microsoft.com und designer.microsoft.com. Microsoft wird das allen in Microsoft 365 integrieren und ich hoffe mal, meine Family Edition befähigt mich dazu. Mit Clipchamp funktioniert das bereits. Für mich ist das alles ein Heimspiel, weil Microsoft mich nicht für Edge oder Bing begeistern muss.

Für Apple User gab es auch drei Neuigkeiten. Apple Music und Apple TV+ kommen auf Windows. Ich kann es kaum erwarten, iTunes zu kicken. Und iCloud Photo Library wird ebenfalls integriert, so dass man einfacher an seine Apple Fotos kommen kann.

Mir gefällt das alles sehr, was Microsoft da veranstaltet. Das Surface Pro 9 5G ist dabei die größte Wette. Ich würde es nicht gegen mein Surface Pro 8 tauschen, aber gerne daneben stellen.