Category: Software

We do not know much about Windows AI PCs, AI Explorer, or other plans of Microsoft to bake more AI into its operating system.

The only thing we do know is that the upcoming feature update for Windows 11 will focus strongly on AI. At least some of these AI features may require special hardware, a neural processing unit to be precise.

The latest feature that may be introduced in Windows 11 2024 Update, also known as Windows 11 version 24H2, is AI Explorer.

Windows Central posted about AI Explorer citing unnamed sources at Microsoft. According to the site, AI Explorer is an “advanced Copilot” feature that separates AI PCs from non-AI PCs.

The feature tracks what a user does on the PC, everywhere, including in third-party apps, and makes all of this searchable using natural language.

One example: you could ask the AI to find all restaurants that a specific person liked. It will then go ahead and try to retrieve the information using the data that it collected in the past.

You could also ask the AI to return everything about dinosaurs, and it will return text, images, websites and pretty much anything else that matches the query.

That is the theory at least.

Privacy nightmare in the making?

This feature is unconfirmed. Windows Central is usually well informed, but things may change before an official release.

Microsoft declined to comment, which also means that we know little about the feature. How is the data collected? Do users get options to block data collecting in apps? Where it is stored? Does it require an active Internet connection? Is data submitted to Microsoft?

AI Explorer could be an interesting feature if everything is processed and stored locally. It could also be a privacy nightmare, if data is processed and/or stored remotely.

Would you trust a company with access to everything that you do on your computer?

The NPU requirement could mean that everything is handled locally on the system. If true, it could fizzle out the privacy fears of many users. Who knows, Microsoft might even turn Windows Copilot into a useful tool by enabling local processing of Windows-specific tasks and commands.

Not so fast

These AI features will be introduced in development builds before the final release. The integration will provide answers to some of the questions.

Microsoft is extremely tight lipped about its vision for AI PCs. First Surface devices that are AI PCs will become available later this month. These won’t include the functionality yet, as this will come later this year in the 2024 update for Windows 11.

In other words, you get an AI PC that works similarly to non-AI PCs for the time being.

Now You: what is your take on AI Explorer?

Automatic Super Resolution is a new Windows graphics feature that is currently in development. The main idea behind it is to use artificial intelligence to “play games more smoothly with enhanced details” according to Microsoft.

Modern PC games may tax a system’s hardware. If the system is older, users may notice slowdowns or reduced graphics details. One way of dealing with this is to reduce the resolution of the game or its graphics details.

While that may improve frames per seconds, it also reduces the visual quality of the game.

Super Resolution

Automatic Super Resolution is a new feature that is in testing right now. The experimental feature was spotted by Twitter user PhantomOcean3.

The support page returns a 404 error at the moment, which is why we know little about the actual functionality of the feature. What we know is that Windows may use AI to improve the performance and visual quality of games.

It is unclear if this is marketing-speak for upscaling, a technology that has been around for a long time.

A second screenshot shows some of the available options. Besides on and off toggles, Super Resolution supports enabling the feature while keeping the display resolution and configuring the feature for individual games and apps.

Super Resolutions everywhere

Several companies announced similar features in the past. Qualcomm announced Game Super Resolution back in April 2023, which, as Qualcomm put it, promises “increased battery life, higher resolutions and improved frame rates on mobile devices”.

Qualcomm’s solution uses upscaling to achieve this; the company avoided the term AI entirely during the announcement.

NVIDIA’s RTX Super Resolution technology is designed specifically for videos. It upscales videos up to 4K, but requires modern NVIDIA video cards for that.

Microsoft introduced Turing Image Super Resolution back in 2022 in Microsoft Edge. The company cut the “Turing Image” part of the name later that year. It too promises to upscale low resolution images to higher resolutions.

Closing Words

Playing games smoothly at higher resolutions is something that most gamers will be interested in. The main question is how effective Microsoft’s solution is. Another, if it requires certain hardware features to work.

While it is not possible to upscale games beyond the supported resolution of the monitor, Super Resolution could help gamers on older devices especially. If, and that is a big if, the feature does not require specific hardware.

The functionality may also be of interest for classic computer games. Older games may support resolutions of 800×600 or even lower only. These do not look good on modern displays with 1080p or 4k resolutions, usually.

If Microsoft gets this right, it could give certain older PC games a much needed visual boost.

As for when Super Resolution lands. The most likely target is the 2024 feature update for Windows 11.

Now You: would you use the feature to play games on your devices?

Last year, rumors began to emerge about a new version of Windows that would focus heavily on AI. Microsoft had just begun its AI push, adding Copilots everywhere. Panos Panay, then leader of Surface and Windows teams, left the company in the same year. Panay was replaced by Yusuf Mehdi.

Windows 12, the name that Microsoft never confirmed officially, was said to focus heavily on AI. This went hand-in-hand with the AI PCs for Windows. One of the requirements of these PCs was an integrated chip, neural processing unit, to speed up AI processing on these devices.

The leadership change and the success of AI products at Microsoft may have played a role in Microsoft’s decision to postpone the release of Windows 12.

The company released a new build to the Insider channel this week. This build introduced a few new features, including sudo.

The release notes include confirmation that the 2024 update for Windows 11 will be Windows 11 version 24H2.

Here is what Microsoft reveals in the release notes:

Starting with Build 26-xx today, Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels will see the versioning updated under Settings > System > About (and winver) to version 24H2. This denotes that Windows 11, version 24H2 will be this year’s annual feature update. As mentioned here, Windows 11 will have an annual feature update cadence that releases in the second half of the calendar year.

While this does not include confirmation that Windows 12 won’t be released this year, there is no indication that Microsoft is preparing another operating system release in 2024. It is possible that Microsoft’s initial plans were to release the functionality of the feature update as Windows 12, but that it changed its mind.

Windows 11 version 24H2

Windows 11 version 24H2 is the feature update for Windows 11 in 2024. It is still assumed that the update will focus heavily on AI, but recent changelogs reveal little about the functionality that Microsoft plans to add.

Rumors suggest that Microsoft could launch an improved version of Copilot on Windows. The current iteration lacks any meaningful Windows-specific functionality, which is why users disable Windows Copilot on their devices. This could change, but Microsoft has not released the updated version for testing yet. For now, Copilot on Windows is more or less identical in functionality to Copilot on the Web.

Microsoft has a few months left before the release in the second half of 2024. It is possible that main AI improvements and tools are tested internally only at this time. Microsoft would have to integrate them into preview versions eventually though. This has to happen in the coming months.

AI PCs may have specific requirements, including an NPU. It seems highly unlikely that Windows 11 version 24H2 will only be available to devices with such a chip. It would block updates for the vast majority of systems and fragment the userbase even further.

More likely is that certain features are limited to devices with a NPU or work a lot better on these PCs.

Closing Words

As it stands, there will be a single major Windows release in 2024. It won’t be Windows 12, but Windows 11 version 24H2. Windows 12 may not be off the table though.

Next year will be interesting. It is the year that support for Windows 10 ends officially. While customers may extend support for several years, for a price, it may also be the perfect year for a Windows 12 release.

After all, with Windows 10 gone, there is only Windows 11 and hundreds of millions of Windows 10 devices that cannot be upgraded to the new operating system.

Now You: what do you expect from Windows 11 version 24H2?

I never really liked the Home page of the Settings app that Microsoft introduced last year in Windows 11. Back then, I described it as half promotion half pointless.

Windows 11 users who open the Settings app see the home page by default. It features a mix of quick settings, which Microsoft calls recommended, account information, and, in some cases, promotions.

These promotions focused on OneDrive cloud storage and Microsoft 365 up until now. One ad unit displays “Try Microsoft 365” to the user, if no Microsoft 365 is detected.

Microsoft 365 is a subscription service that unlocks additional cloud storage and gives users access to the most recent versions of Microsoft Office. A subscription includes other benefits, such as premium templates or a dedicated Microsoft Defender app.

Now it appears that Microsoft is adding another ad unit to the home page. Discovered by Twitter user PhantomOcean3, the new unit promotes the Microsoft Copilot Pro subscription.

Microsoft Copilot is part of Windows. Operating system users may launch it with a click on the Copilot icon on the taskbar or the keyboard shortcut Windows-C. Soon, they may also use the dedicated Copilot key on keyboards of select devices to do so.

Those who do not require Windows Copilot may disable it.

Get Copilot Pro

The new unit is not enabled by default at this time. It was spotted in development builds and it is unclear if and when it lands in stable versions. My guess is that it will land this year in Windows 11, maybe even as part of the upcoming Moment update.

The unit advertises Microsoft Copilot Pro. The subscription gives users priority access to Microsoft’s Copilot AI. It is available for $20 per month in select regions at the time of writing.

Copilot Pro gives users priority access to the AI. Apart from that, it gives users 100 boosts for Designer per day. Designer is an AI image creator and boosts prioritize requests. While boosts are not required to use Designer, using the tool without boosts may take longer.

The Settings home page

The Settings home page has the following sections:

• Recommended Settings — displays recent and commonly used settings.
• Cloud Storage — lists used and available cloud storage, powered by OneDrive.
• Bluetooth devices — manage, add, and remove Bluetooth devices.
• Personalize your device — option to change the color mode and a link to personalization.
• Microsoft 365 — an advert to try Microsoft 365. Subscribed users see options to manage their subscription.
• Microsoft Copilot Pro — an advert for the Copilot Pro subscription.

If you don’t count the Cloud Storage unit as an ad, you get two units on the page. This means that 1/3 of the page is used for advertisement. If you add OneDrive to it, you get 1/2 that is used for ads.

The non-ad units are not that useful. Recommended settings displays dynamic options. While these appear limited, most options are just a click or two away anyway on the system.

Hiding the home page in Settings

Windows users may hide the Windows 11 Settings home page. There is no toggle, though. To hide it, Windows 11 users need to add an entry to the Registry.

Here is how that is done:

1. Open the Start Menu.
2. Type regedit.exe and press the Enter-key.
3. Confirm the UAC prompt.
4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
   • Note: If one of the keys does not exist, create it with a right-click on the previous key and the selection of New > Key. Name it accordingly.
5. Right-click on Explorer and select New > String Value.
6. Name it SettingsPageVisibility.
7. Double-click on the new entry and set hide:home as the value.
8. Close the Registry Editor.
9. Restart the system.

The home page of the Settings app is gone. Windows 11 opens the System page instead, which it used to in the past.

You may undo the change at any time by deleting the Registry key again.

Closing Words

The idea of a Settings home page is not bad in itself. It could display popular and often used preferences to the user. Customization options could further expand the usefulness of the Settings page.

It seems unlikely that this functionality is introduced in future versions of Windows.

Now You: do you use the home page of the Settings app?