Frank wants to know more about Google Photos and how he can create animations and collages. Leo says to "heart" them, and then go into creations and see where Google Photos has automatically created a viewing show. Then share that online.
This week, Microsoft had a Surface event, announcing new products including the Surface Pro 8, Surface Pro Laptop, and the Surface Duo. The Duo is like a book, with two screens that share the OS. This is the second generation of the Duo, and it'll be interesting to see if Microsoft addressed the issues that prompted Leo to return the first-gen Duo.
Don works at home, and he says that the office life has forever changed, and he's happy to keep working from home. Dan has a two-year-old Dell laptop and wants to know if it's worth upgrading to Windows 11. Leo says that under the hood, Windows is bascially the same. The changes are largely cosmetic. You will be able to use Android apps, but that's about it. Leo says that while Microsoft said that Windows 10 was the last Windows iteration, he thinks they went to Windows 11 for the computer manufacturers, so people will have an excuse to buy a new computer.
The latest build of Microsoft Windows 11 is crashing, and the culprit is that the company is putting ads in the start bar. There is a registry fix, but Leo says that Microsoft will fix it in the next update. Still, putting ads in a paid operating system is rather tacky.
Microsoft has kind of backed down from prohibiting older computers from installing Windows 11. But there is a catch. Users will have to install Windows 11 natively rather than going through the upgrade process. They will also not have access to security updates. But Leo has a hunch that the caveat will change.
Microsoft seems to be allowing users to install the Windows 11 operating system, regardless of how old the computer is. However, they will not recommend it and users may not get Windows updates. Users will likely also have to install Windows 11 from scratch, rather than updating from Windows 10 directly.
John is getting a message asking for his BitLocker key. He's never turned it on. Leo says that BitLocker is a Windows encryption app, and it uses certificates to unlock and lock it. It sounds like John may have turned it on during setup without realizing it. If he didn't make a backup copy of the certificate, and he loses it, he may be in trouble. But it does offer to save the certificate to a Microsoft account, so look there to see if the cert is there.
Tim upgraded his Windows 10 OS, but now he's lost access to the administrator account. It won't let him update anything. Leo says it sounds like Windows broke UAC (user account control), which gives that option. Look in there and see if it's been turned off. He can also check to see if the user name has administrator permissions. Outside of that, Tim needs to look at all the accounts and see which one is set up as an admin, and figure out the password. Tim may also be able to find a Windows 10 password cracking app.
Although Microsoft never really said that Windows 10 was the final version of Windows (explicitly), some people are confused that Windows 11 was recently announced. Regardless, the new operating system will presumably not run on many older computers due to certain requirements. You may even be able to run it virtually through a Mac! But if your current machine is over 5 years old, it's probably time to upgrade to a more modern device that can get along with Microsoft's fresh OS.
Kenny has a few Windows computers and was sold the notion that Windows 10 was the last version we would get. Leo says that officially, Microsoft has never really said that, though it's attributed to them. It was a tech analyst who stated it and the media ran with it. But then again, Microsoft didn't correct the record until the announcement of Windows 11. And it's causing an uproar that it won't be supported on anything but the most recent computers. Most are going to be left behind if they don't buy a new computer. But one way to go is a Mac, that will run Windows virtually.
