Hey You
It’s a wonderful Friday and I hope your week was as wonderful as was mine. I’m sure it was.
Last Tuesday Microsoft “streamed” Windows Powers the Future of Hybrid Work. I put streamed between quotation marks because you would expect it to be live but it wasn’t. It was prerecorded but that doesn’t matter.
What does matter is what was it all about? There are a couple of key features that are important/relevant for me so I will point them out.
The Workplace Dudes (which is our podcast show) will discuss this as well coming Monday so stay tuned for that as well.
Hybrid
That was the main topic wasn’t it. Being hybrid. This stream showed that Microsoft is going to a home-office workplace with Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD).
The first question that was asked was “Windows 10 was going to be the final windows? What happened” and their answer was “The pandemic happened”. The last 2+ years showed that we can actually work at home and we can even be more productive at home. Which to some might be a big surprise.
But working at home comes with some challenges especially as an System Engineer (and also as a user) which is why Microsoft came with a lot of new concepts. Here are a few that I found important or interesting:
- Passwordless sign in
- File explorer tabs
- Remote Help
- Windows 365
1. Passwordless working
I am not a big fan of passwords. I have a lot of passwords because for every website that I am a member of I have a different passwords (which you should have as well!!!). They’re inconvenient and they are a primary target for attackers.
Because working at home will not go away Microsoft already announced some time ago that you can completely remove the password from your Microsoft account. You can use Microsoft Authenticator app, Windows hello, a security key or a verification code which you can sent to your phone, email or whatever.
Microsoft now allows you to securely single sign-on into your Azure Active Directory (AAD). Of course this isn’t that unique for Windows 11 because the option does exist with Windows 10 but this is going to be very interesting.
2. File explorer tabs
This will be a new feature in Windows 11. You can now add tabs into your file explorer and now only just need 1. Remember back in Windows 95 when every time you opened a folder it opened a new file explorer? That changed in Windows 98 when it just used the same window to navigate. That was a HUGE step.
I truly believe this also will be very huge. I mean why not? We already love tabs in our browser. This reminds me: I wrote a blog discussing which browser is the best. Microsoft Edge vs Google Chrome | Battle of the ages. Go check it out.
However. As much as I love Windows 11 there are some flaws in it and the biggest flaw that I personally have is with the drag and drop. I cannot drag a file from one file explorer to another if they are both maximized. Not to sound old (even though I just did talking about Windows 95) but in the old days you could just drag a file to the taskbar, wait a couple of seconds and you would get the option to drag your file to the other folder. Why would you disable that Microsoft? WHY?
That is what I’m asking Microsoft right now. Bring back drag and drop and make it a big feature in the new folder tabs. That is going to be a big win.
3. Remote help
There is not much I can say about this tool. I mean the screenshot says enough. The user-friendly design does say it all. Do you need help? Give me the security code which will expire in 10 minutes.
If you haven’t seen it in action you’re not probably going to miss something out. It really is as straight forward as you see it on the screenshot.
HOWEVER! I had a small discussion with my colleagues in the Workplace Dudes. You see, apparently the Remote Help will not be a feature that you can get in your Microsoft 365 E3 or Microsoft 365 E5 license. This Remote Help tool is going to be an Add On which has it’s own price.
I am going to be honest, this was a little bit of a shock to me. Why wouldn’t you want to add it to the Microsoft 365 licenses? As mentioned I have discussed this with my colleagues because I thought that maybe it was the price for the engineers that would use this tool. So if you have a Service Desk which has 5 professionals working you only would need 5 license. Apparently that is not the case.
For every member in your Azure AD you will need a Remote Help Add On license. That means that if you have 1000+ users you need to pay €3000+ every month.
The full details of this is not out yet but if this is true you will see a lot of companies switching to 3rd party software which is much cheaper. We will see what happens next.
4. Windows 365
This is just nitpicking but Windows 365? I know the name has been announced some time ago but Windows 365?
You had Office 365, then you had Microsoft 365 and now you’re going to Windows 365? What’s next? X-Box 365? Azure 365?
It is a good name though so do change all your products to “Product” 365. I love it.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Engin Soysal
