Windows Weekly #962: “Peak Bloat”

Date: December 10, 2025
Host: Leo Laporte
Panelists: Paul Thurrott, Richard Campbell
Location: Live from the Microsoft Office, Malvern, Pennsylvania

Episode Overview

In this holiday edition, the Windows Weekly crew gathers in-person at a Microsoft satellite office in Malvern, PA, for a spirited discussion of the final Patch Tuesday of 2025, major Windows and AI updates, the ongoing debates about AI’s impact on content and society, Xbox’s "peak bloat", and, as always, tips, picks, and a deep whiskey-and-history segment. The team also grapples with the ethical and economic dilemmas surrounding AI training and copyright, illustrating the complexities of modern technology.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Patch Tuesday & Windows Updates

Timestamp: 03:49

• Final Patch Tuesday of 2025: Considered a significant one, with many visible and under-the-hood changes rolling out.
  • Richard: “It’s been a big year for updates. I keep thinking it’s going to slow down and every month they surprise me.” [05:20]
• File Explorer Improvements:
  • Enhanced dark mode now extends to file copy progress, properties dialog, and sub-windows (previously caused a ‘flashbang’ effect).
  • Streamlined context menus—more use of submenus for common functions like OneDrive, Photos.
  • Paul: “Progress, not perfect.” [07:24]
• AI Agent and Copilot+:
  • New features for Copilot+ PCs, such as improved Studio Effects and semantic search, relying on local AI models and hardware NPUs.
  • Non-Copilot+ PCs get smaller updates, such as revamped Widgets board now hiding the “stupid Discover feed”… “it’s actually a little hidden, which I like.” [08:44]
• Settings – Advanced Page:
  • Power users should check for new advanced/system settings, developer options, addition of ‘sudo’ command for Windows (with attendant debates over security vs. usability). [10:40]
  • Richard: “If you have ‘end task’ in jump lists, you can crash an app without going into Task Manager.”
• Insider Previews for 25H2:
  • MCP (Model Context Protocol) public preview (to connect AIs with apps in standardized ways).
  • Unified Update Orchestration Platform: more updates can come through Windows Update.
  • Support for MIDI 2.0 via Windows MIDI Services.

2. Microsoft 365 & Copilot Pricing News

Timestamp: 13:22

• Price Hikes: Starting July 2026, nearly all Microsoft 365 commercial SKUs will increase—up to 33% more per month on some tiers.
  • Richard: "The company has been posting record profits every quarter for two straight years… and they need to raise prices.” [14:25]
• Copilot Premium Confusion: AI features are packaged unevenly; only account owners get full benefits on family plans, causing frustration.
• Negotiation & Real-World Impact: While enterprise bulk-buying negotiates discounts, smaller orgs and individuals will feel the brunt.
• Copilot Add-on: Stays at a $30/user/month “street price”—though most companies reportedly pay less in practice.
• Broader Trend: Bundling more AI features and justifying price hikes with “millions of new features” (most AI).

3. The State of AI: Good, Bad, Semantic & Real Use Cases

Timestamp: 22:27

• AI Hype vs. Reality:
  • Discussion of "agentic AI" (autonomous agents), noting that despite hype, most practical AI is not “agentic”, and actual real-world use cases are more limited but powerful.
  • Richard: “For all the marketing, for all the hype, there’s actually a bunch of stuff that does work well … none of it is agentic.” [23:08]
• Semantic Apps/Web:
  • Paul coins the term ‘semantic apps’ - applications with machine-readable interfaces to allow granular AI integrations, akin to the semantic web for websites.
• Meaningful AI Features:
  • Summarization (articles, meetings), question answering, visual search ("what is this?"), writing and brainstorming help, automation (natural-language IFTTT for the enterprise), and accessibility (translation and live captioning).
  • Paul: “AI is not a product, it’s a feature.” [26:41]
  • Richard: "Transformative … it’s about intent. In the past, you had to master the tool; now you just say what you want." [30:49]
• Software Dev Renaissance:
  • AI co-pilots dramatically accelerate coding, code review, and debugging—“it’s like having a programming partner” [43:55] (Leo).
• Real-Time Translation:
  • "Doing those things live, on the fly, is amazing… babelfish!" [33:10]
• Cultural Resistance:
  • Ongoing backlash (“AI is always the bad guy in sci-fi… it makes a good enemy” [47:12]), but panelists see parallels to every previous tech revolution (typewriter, PC, internet).
• AI Bubble or Lasting Change?:
  • Panelists agree the AI “bubble” (investment/funding) is likely to burst, but the underlying tech isn’t going anywhere: “No one is taking away spell and grammar checking because you think you can write better than anybody.” [49:06]

4. AI Security, Regulation, and Content Legal Debates

Timestamp: 56:01

• Agentic AI Foundation:
  • New Linux Foundation umbrella group for open standards for "agents" – companies like Microsoft, AWS, Google, OpenAI involved.
• Security Risks of AI Browsers:
  • Gartner warns AI browsers (Edge, Chrome soon) with agentic features = major, poorly understood security risks for orgs.
  • Recommendation: block these org-wide until further maturity/controls exist.
  • Paul: “A browser has so much privilege in a system… to have risks on that interface introduces a tremendous amount of risk.” [64:02]
• Copyright, Fair Use, and AI Training:
  • New York Times now suing not just OpenAI/Microsoft but also Perplexity over content ingestion.
  • Paul and Leo receive letters about settlement for past book copyright infringement by Anthropic—debate whether to take the money (“I did spend time writing it, it was a long time ago.” [78:48] – Paul), and whether this undermines the possibility of viable, up-to-date AI models.
  • The “moral conundrum” for creators: is it good or bad that all available content is scraped for AI? Is it analogous to Google indexing the web?
• Information Wants to Be Free vs. Creator Rights:
  • Leo: "I come from a hacker ethic… information wants to be free… that's the greater good of mankind."
  • Richard: “Anyone who’s created anything has run into this. I don’t understand not embracing technology that makes your life easier and better.” [46:59]
• AI & Public Content:
  • Perplexity AI controversy—how AI searches/summarizes/reports on content, and whether aggregating/summarizing is “theft”.

5. Xbox, Gaming, and “Peak Bloat”

Timestamp: 97:08

• Xbox Sales and Black Friday:
  • No discounts or deals, attributed to razor-thin margins and rising tariffs; Xbox did not make top 3 in November console sales.
• Call of Duty Bloat:
  • Call of Duty installs: Modern Warfare and Black Ops together now take up nearly 500GB (!), leading to the episode’s title, “Peak Bloat.”
  • Richard: “If you think Windows is a nightmare to update and maintain … Call of Duty makes it look like a Commodore 64 title from 1981.” [101:33]
• Fortnite on ARM:
  • Testing Fortnite on Windows 11 ARM yielded good results, again with large install size (~80GB).
• Flight Simulator 2024:
  • Now on PS5; literally massive (another “half-terabyte” game).
• Netflix Games:
  • Red Dead Redemption and other AAA games now available on iOS/Android via Netflix subscription, raising questions about the future of Netflix and movie/content distribution.

6. Tips, Apps, and Picks

Timestamp: 121:08

Paul’s Tip: De-‘Insurrectify’ Windows 11

• For users who want to “de-bloat” Windows 11 and make it behave more like it used to.
  • Tiny 11 Builder + Win11 DeBloat (PowerShell script) + ExplorerPatcher + MsEdgeRedirect
  • Paul: “Making a clean version of Win11. God help us. But it’s nice.” [128:04]
  • ExplorerPatcher: roll Explorer back to Windows 10 UI for speed and cleanliness.
  • Tweaks for power users, including getting rid of nags, default Edge usage, etc.

RunAs Radio Pick

• Richard: “A great storyteller… a deep dive on incident management from the CrowdStrike event, emphasizing how interconnected and delicate modern SaaS and cloud dependencies are. Even if you weren’t directly running the affected software, you were impacted.”

7. Whiskey & History – Old Farm Pennsylvania Rye

Timestamp: 132:31

• Old Farm Pennsylvania Straight Rye Whiskey:
  • Paul gives a deep historical tour through Pennsylvania’s colonial/whiskey roots—George Washington, the Whiskey Rebellion, and the legacy of Pennsylvania rye.
  • Discussion of the role rye played as America’s first whiskey, the economics of early distilling, and Prohibition’s impact on both products and methods (the three-chamber stills of yore).
  • Paul: “If you talk about the original names for Pennsylvania whiskey going back that far, you talk about a German immigrant named Heinrich Obelhartzer—anglicized to Henry Overholt. Overholt’s a very well-known name in whiskey.” [149:02]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I've had a few days in the Thorat household... You've learned you can tell when Paul's working. He's got four or five laptops going at once, and they're angry noises." — Richard [03:59]
• "AI is not a product, it's a feature. That's the future." — Paul [26:41]
• "Paul: Sudo, make your machine potentially more vulnerable, but you get to do what the cool Linux kids do." — [10:42]
• "There is a visceral reaction among people. Anti-AI reaction. Right. That's what I mean." — Leo [45:21]
• "If you think Windows is a nightmare to update and maintain… Call of Duty makes this thing look like a Commodore 64 title from 1981. It's the biggest, bloatiest piece of junk." — Richard [101:33]
• “If you have ‘end task’ in jump lists, you can crash an app without going into Task Manager.” — Richard [10:16]
• “I'm not saying what I'm doing is right or the best thing or the only thing… but I do the same thing. If you want to pay for it, you can… anyone can come and see it if they want.” — Paul [89:19]
• “Anyone who's created anything has run into this. I don't understand not embracing technology that makes your life easier and better.” — Richard [46:59]

Timestamps Reference for Key Segments

• Patch Tuesday & Windows Updates: 03:49–13:19
• Microsoft 365/Copilot Pricing Hikes: 13:22–21:47
• AI: Use Cases, Culture, Automation: 22:27–56:01
• AI Security & Copyright Battles: 56:01–91:09
• Xbox “Peak Bloat” & Gaming: 97:08–116:19
• Tips, Apps, RunAs Radio: 121:08–131:12
• Whiskey & History (Old Farm Rye): 132:31–160:00

Tone and Style Notes

• Lively, at times irreverent (“It was like a Sanford & Son reference!”), but also unafraid to dive into deep debates and roll up sleeves on complex moral/technical quandaries.
• In-person dynamic gave the show a more personal, festive feel, with playful teasing, detailed storytelling, and a bit more rambunctious energy.

Summary

This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in the intersection of Windows, enterprise software, and the seismic changes being wrought by AI. With detailed overviews of practical updates in Windows, behind-the-scenes revelations on Microsoft 365 pricing, hard questions about AI’s impact and future, and fun explorations into gaming bloat and American whiskey, it epitomizes the thought-provoking, sometimes contentious, always entertaining spirit of Windows Weekly.

For technical references and the latest in Paul's ongoing “make Windows sane again” crusade, see thurrott.com.