Windows Sandbox 2.0., Live Captions, and More
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Paul Throt
Coming up next on Hands on Windows, we're going to take a look at five more new features for Windows 11 that we haven't discussed yet.
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Paul Throt
This is twit. Hello everybody and welcome back to Hands on Windows. I'm Paul Throt and as always, I guess we're going to be talking about Windows 11 and more specifically, five new features for Windows 11 that are coming this year. Depending on where you're at and where we're at in time. When you see this video, they might have already arrived. But these are five features I don't believe we've discussed yet. So hopefully this will be new information. The first one is called Windows Sandbox. So that has been a feature of Windows 11 for at least a couple years. But sometime in the past five, six months, Microsoft has started testing a brand new 2.0 version of this tool. It is available now in 24H2. So if you have Windows 11, 24H2, you should be seeing this now already. It's basically a lightweight virtual machine that is based on the hardware that's in your computer. So it's designed for testing, software development, debugging, you know, maybe you want to download an app, you're not sure if it's safe, etc. So you want to put it in this kind of safe sandboxed environment, hence the name. And the beauty of this thing is that it doesn't retain anything, right? So I can't actually put a new file on the desktop because this doesn't come with anything, but I can't put a new folder. So I can just put that new folder there and if I close this and takes a second, gives you a little warning there, run this again. What will come up again, I'll just throw in the surprise is a pristine new Windows 11 environment, right? And that's the point. It's a fresh start every single time. Earlier today I was playing around with this. I installed a browser, we downloaded some files, killed it came back, it was all gone. I'm not going to go through that because it takes a long time, but basically a stripped down version of Windows. You don't get all of the built in apps. In fact, you don't get too many at all. You don't need like Notepad, like I said earlier, not part of it, Paint, not part of it, etc. But you can run Microsoft Edge, which I won't do. So you don't have to see that terrible home screen that they have by default. And for this version 2, which is still in preview, but in Windows 11, I should say the way that you install this is a little different from a lot lot of apps. You have to go to this old school Windows feature Control panel. I've already. That's not it. Where is it? It's in here. So it's already. It's grayed out for some reason. Oh, because I'm doing it inside the sandbox. That's hilarious. You just have to check Windows Sandbox, click ok, it will install. Can't have Sandbox in the sandbox, apparently. And the difference, the big difference between this and the original version is this little menu here. So in addition to going full screen, you can share a folder on your from your local computer. I will in fact choose the Pictures folder and that will appear on the desktop as a shortcut here. And that's opening the Pictures folder that's actually on the underlying computer. Now again, when I close this down, that goes away. That does not persist. Clipboard redirection, audio input and video input, meaning it will take those things from the underlying hardware. So those are all new features. So for example, actually I guess I'm going to have to run Edge so you can see this. But this is on the local computer. If I run Notepad and I type in something that is grammatically incorrect like that and then go back into this environment and I apologize for what's about to happen. But if you thought this thing was terrible in English, wait till you'll see it in Spanish. This is the clipboard output right from the underlying computer. So nice. Right. I think a lot of people don't know about this, but like I said, this is really good for downloading something from the Internet, seeing if it triggers a security alarm of any kind and just playing around with software before you put it on your local computer. So I think it's a, it's most people probably don't know about, but can be super useful in certain circumstances. So for the second one, it's actually here, right here. That's a little iconic down in the bottom. But I need to bring up something, well, something better than that actually. So let me bring up Notepad again and if you are using any app in Windows and you type windows key +period, you get this emoji and more pop up. So if you want to do something like clown car like as you can see, I do fairly often. Let me make that font a little bit bigger, maybe make it a lot bigger actually so you can see it. That's how you can get this stuff into text of any, anywhere you can put text. You can bring up. Sorry. You can bring up this emoji and more shortcut and this little pane appears. You know, you have a cocktail, whatever. You can search for terms if you haven't used this, etc. Okay. Pretty basic. The problem is it's not really discoverable. Right. You need to know this keyboard shortcut. It doesn't appear anywhere in a UI anywhere. And so what they've done Microsoft is added it to the taskbar system tray area and now you can just bring it up this way so you can just click on it if you want it to come up. So kind of nice. Not a big deal. But if you use this a lot, I'm starting to use emojis more than I thought I would at my age. But you know, if you find yourself needing them or using them, a much easier way to do that or a.
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Paul Throt
Race the sails. Race the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over Roger, wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution?
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Paul Throt
Most people probably know, or hopefully know about this quick Access menu where you right click the Start button and you can get these kind of power user system level apps and utilities. One of them says System that used to go to a control panel but now it goes to the Settings app. And this is like going to system and then scrolling down to the bottom and going to about. So this bit here is new and this was a fairly recent addition. If you haven't seen it by the time you see this, you will see this soon. And these are called top cards and there's not really a lot going on here now. But in the future, as more and more features of Windows require certain hardware, Microsoft is going to use this as a way to alert you to things that could be better. So this is a laptop I'm using. In fact, it's an ARM based laptop, so it's not like there's an external GPU or GPU card I could add. But if this wasn't good enough or wasn't reasonably modern or whatever the criteria will be in the future, they would actually warn you here to let you know, hey, you might want to upgrade to a better graphics card or whatever. So they're going to this is just the beginning of something a little new and kind of a clearer way of showing you the top level system components that you have in your computer. The fourth one of five I wanted to show you is Live Captions. Unfortunately this is having a fit on my computer here today, so every time I run it I get this. I can install English. Yes, please do. It says it's setting it up and then it will say it's all set. Eventually. Actually it's taking longer than usual. Maybe it's actually working this time, he says confidently. It says it's ready, but then if I run it again it will just go through the same process again. So I'm just going to cancel that and close it. But the point of this feature is that Live Captions itself isn't new. But if you have a Copilot plus PC, whether it's amd, intel or Snapdragon based, it can do real time language translation now. And this is something that should be coming out in stable for everybody in the March slash April timeframe. So by the time you see this, this will probably be available. Hopefully it will work on your computer better than it does on mine. But it's the type of thing I'm here in Mexico, I could watch a YouTube video in Spanish and it would produce live captions. It's not just to English. Whatever languages it supports, you can go back and forth in any direction. So that's actually kind of a cool feature that again, I wish I could show you Snipping Tool number five and I'll have a bonus because the I couldn't show you Live Captions but. So I guess technically there'll be six. But Snipping Tool is an app that I didn't originally believe needed to exist. I didn't quite understand what the point of it was. But as time has gone on, Microsoft has improved this quite a bit and we've talked about some of those improvements. So for example there are OCR capabilities. If I bring up a. See if I can find something actually has words on it like a screenshot here. If I bring this thing up it will give me this text or OCR capability which is image to text actually and we've talked about this before, you could just copy to the clipboard, make it a table, et cetera, et cetera. So that's a cool feature. It tried to just tell me there be a little pop up that you can also do things like draw on here with the mouse. And I get. Supposedly the way this works is if you hold it there you go. So it creates this, it straightens that out. There are already objects, you know, shape drawing things you can do here. But this is kind of a neat thing if you want to just do like a freehand style like I probably do a circle, it might work. You hold it there, turns into a circle and then you can edit it. Right. I don't use this kind of feature a lot but if you do kind of a cool idea. The other thing you can do with Snipping Tool, aside from the image stuff is record videos. And I'm not going to do this. I don't have a way to. I can open files, but I can't open a video file, unfortunately. But if you create a screen grab or screen recording of some kind, so it's of whatever length, the most common thing that you want to do with that is to trim the beginning and or the end of it off. And there's now a trim tool built in. So once you have a screen recording loaded in here, which again, I wish I could do, but I can't easily do, you'll just get a. You can, there'll be a trim option and then you'll get the ability to kind of move in on either side. And that actually works really well too. So this has become a kind of a neat thing. Under the. Well, actually, before we go, I should also do this. We could do Visual Search with Bing, which I don't recall if we have done yet, but this is loading over here in Chrome. So this loads the Microsoft Bing site, we might have shown this, I guess, but. And now we're searching for this image on Bing using the Visual Search tool that's built into that. So that's pretty cool too. One last feature that's coming is they're making a backend API, an application programming interface for snipping tools. So if you're a developer creating a Windows app, you can use features from this tool in your own apps. You don't have to use the whole app. You can say, I just want the OCR capability or I just want the, you know, the screen grab or whatever, whatever the feature may be. So in the future, I think we're going to see third party apps and probably some other Microsoft apps that will take advantage of some of the features they're adding here. So that's, that's pretty cool. Okay, so the bonus feature, because I couldn't get live captions to work is most people are probably at least a little bit familiar with Snap. So if I bring up two apps. So let's bring up, you know, no pad and pane, right? So you can use, I'm going to use keyboard shortcuts here, but Windows key plus left arrow to move it to the left and I get to choose the other one and use them side by side. This is the most common configuration, but it's not the only way you can do that. Right. So one of the other ways is you can mouse over the Restore Maximize button or you can drag an app toward the top of the screen and you get that little pop down that you just saw there. So in both cases, what Microsoft is doing is just providing some language here that tells you what the point of this thing is right, because this thing would pop up and I think it confused a lot of people. And so now, in addition to giving you the keyboard shortcut, that would also produce this little pane, it's telling you what it's doing, right? So as I move it to the top, it says, drag a window here to arrange it on your screen. If I keep dragging now, I can choose the layout. So it's just a little bit of user education. Not. Not a big deal. But as with this little emoji thing here in the corner, basically Microsoft acknowledging that we have these features that people aren't finding. So how can we help educate them that they exist? And that's honestly not a horrible way. So nothing monumental, I suppose. But we have been doing a lot of shows lately about new features in Windows 11, and it seems like every month, every two months, there's more. So there's five more. By the time you see this, you should see most of these, if not all of them on your computer. The exception is live captions. If you don't have a Copilot plus PC, you won't get live language translation. But then neither did I, so I guess that's not that unusual. All right, there you go. Hopefully you found this educational entertaining. We will have a new episode of Hands on Windows every Thursday. You can find out more at TWiT TV. HRW. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you especially to our Club Twit members. We love you. And if you're watching on YouTube and you're stuck with the ads, do consider joining Club twit. Please. You can find out more about that at TWIT tv. Club Twit. Thanks. See you next week.
Podcast Summary: Hands-On Windows 136: 5 More New Windows 11 Features
Release Date: April 17, 2025
Host: Paul Throt
Podcast: All TWiT.tv Shows (Audio)
Introduction
In the episode titled "Hands-On Windows 136: 5 More New Windows 11 Features," host Paul Throt delves into the latest additions to Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system. Aimed at both tech enthusiasts and everyday users, the discussion covers five new features that enhance user experience, security, and productivity. Throughout the episode, Paul provides insightful demonstrations, shares personal experiences, and offers practical advice on utilizing these features effectively.
1. Windows Sandbox 2.0
Timestamp: [02:44] - [05:30]
Paul begins by exploring the updated Windows Sandbox, a lightweight virtual environment designed for safely testing software and browsing potentially untrusted applications. The new Windows Sandbox 2.0, available in the Windows 11 24H2 update, introduces several enhancements that make it more versatile and user-friendly.
“It’s a lightweight virtual machine that is based on the hardware that's in your computer. So it’s designed for testing, software development, debugging...”
— Paul Throt [03:30]
Key Features:
Paul demonstrates installing a browser within the sandbox, illustrating how all changes revert upon closing the session. This feature is particularly beneficial for developers and security-conscious users who need to test applications without risking their main system.
2. Enhanced Emoji Picker
Timestamp: [05:30] - [08:14]
Next, Paul discusses the Emoji Picker enhancement in Windows 11. Previously accessible via the keyboard shortcut Windows key + period, the emoji interface lacked discoverability, making it underutilized by many users.
“You need to know this keyboard shortcut. It doesn’t appear anywhere in a UI anywhere.”
— Paul Throt [06:45]
Enhancements:
Paul highlights how this addition encourages more frequent use of emojis by making the feature more accessible, thereby enriching communication across various applications.
3. Quick Access Menu Enhancements
Timestamp: [08:14] - [10:18]
The discussion moves to improvements in the Quick Access Menu, accessible by right-clicking the Start button. Paul introduces the concept of Top Cards, a new feature that provides essential system information and notifications directly within the menu.
“These are called top cards and there's not really a lot going on here now. But in the future... they would actually warn you here to let you know, hey, you might want to upgrade...”
— Paul Throt [09:30]
Key Improvements:
Paul emphasizes that while the current implementation is basic, the groundwork laid by Top Cards promises significant usability enhancements in future Windows updates.
4. Live Captions with Real-Time Language Translation
Timestamp: [10:18] - [12:00]
Paul introduces Live Captions, a feature that generates real-time subtitles for any audio on the PC. Although he encounters technical issues during the demonstration, he explains the intended functionality and upcoming improvements.
“If you have a Copilot plus PC... it can do real time language translation now. And this is something that should be coming out in stable for everybody in the March/April timeframe.”
— Paul Throt [11:20]
Features:
Despite the technical hiccups, Paul underscores the potential of Live Captions to revolutionize how users interact with multimedia content, making it more inclusive and versatile.
5. Snipping Tool Enhancements
Timestamp: [12:00] - [15:00]
The final primary feature discussed is the revamped Snipping Tool, which has received significant upgrades to its functionality and integration within Windows 11.
“If you hold it, it turns into a circle and then you can edit it. Right. I don't use this kind of feature a lot but if you do kind of a cool idea.”
— Paul Throt [14:15]
New Capabilities:
Paul illustrates how these enhancements make the Snipping Tool a more powerful and versatile application, suitable for a wide range of tasks from simple screenshots to complex screen recordings and text extraction.
Bonus Feature: Snap Layout Improvements
Timestamp: [15:00] - [17:00]
As an additional highlight, Paul touches on improvements to the Snap Layouts feature, which assists in window management and multitasking.
“Microsoft acknowledging that we have these features that people aren't finding. So how can we help educate them that they exist?”
— Paul Throt [16:30]
Enhancements:
Paul demonstrates the improved Snap Layouts by arranging multiple windows, emphasizing how these changes make the feature more intuitive and user-friendly, thereby enhancing productivity.
Conclusion
Paul wraps up the episode by reiterating the continuous stream of updates and features Microsoft is rolling out for Windows 11. He encourages listeners to explore these new tools, highlighting their potential to significantly improve the Windows user experience. Paul also mentions the possibility of future episodes diving deeper into these and other Windows features, ensuring listeners stay informed about the latest developments.
“Hopefully you found this educational and entertaining. We will have a new episode of Hands on Windows every Thursday.”
— Paul Throt [16:55]
Final Thoughts
This episode of "Hands-On Windows" provides a comprehensive overview of the latest enhancements in Windows 11, presented in an engaging and informative manner. Paul's detailed explanations, combined with practical demonstrations, offer listeners valuable insights into leveraging these new features to enhance their computing experience. Whether you're a seasoned Windows user or new to the ecosystem, this episode equips you with the knowledge to make the most out of Windows 11's evolving capabilities.
Additional Resources
For more information on the discussed features and updates, listeners are encouraged to visit the TWiT.tv website and join the Club TWiT community for exclusive content and ad-free experiences.