Microsoft’s vision for a metaverse differs in distinct ways from Facebooks, but also includes perhaps the most accessible form of public acceptance by incorporating gaming.

With Microsoft Teams metaverse now becoming a thing, CEO Satya Nadella is spinning off separate metaverse concepts the company plans to back soon and among them is “gaming for the metaverse with Xbox.”

In a post Ignite 2021 keynote interview with Bloomberg TV, Nadella confirms something he hinted at during the opening of the company’s cloud-based developers conference earlier today.

You can absolutely expect us to do things in gaming. If you take Halo as a game, it is a metaverse. Minecraft is a metaverse, and so is Flight Sim. In some sense, they’re 2D today, and the question is can you now take that to a full 3D world, and we absolutely plan to do so.

Turning the Xbox platform into a conduit into Microsoft’s ultimate metaverse vision may be among one of the simpler undertakings in its entire effort. Properties such as Minecraft and Flight Sim are already built-out and robust worlds teeming with detail and communities ripe for a metaverse migration.

Nadella also hinted at somehow turning its famed Halo franchise into a metaverse destination, where again, the company could leverage decades of community engagement and vast environments to expand the concept of a parallel online world.

Perhaps, the most complicated issue with Microsoft’s proposed Xbox-related metaverse comes in the practical application. While many connect to properties such as Flight Sim, Minecraft and Halo through keyboards and controllers, they don’t necessarily make use of synthetic avatar bridges most iconic in both Facebook and Microsoft’s metaverse vision.

Microsoft highlighted its partner AltspaceVR and its work with social networking 3D avatars, as well as its own Teams mesh avatars, but the Xbox 3d avatars are not tied to the physical movement of a user like the other two are through AR and VR hardware.

The seemingly easiest solution is to bring down the price of its own HoloLens hardware while building more consumer-friendly accessibility features that tie into the platforms recently refreshed 3D avatars, but we’ll have to wait and see how Nadella and company implement their gaming metaverse vision.

Microsoft’s OneDrive sync client for Windows and macOS is soon getting native support for ARM-based devices. At its Ignite conference this morning, the company announced that Office Insiders with ARM-based Windows devices will be able to opt in for the ARM preview of OneDrive “by end of this year.”

For Mac users, the OneDrive sync client is also getting native M1 support later this year. A first preview will be available for Office Insiders in December, and the new M1 version is expected to be generally available early next year. These new native versions of OneDrive for Windows on ARM PCs and M1 Macs should perform better than the existing clients for Intel-based devices.

With Apple expecting to transition its whole Mac line to Apple Silicon by 2022, app developers have a good incentive to recompile their apps for M1-powered Macs. The Office for Mac apps have been natively compiled for M1 Macs since last year, and a native version of the OneDrive sync client had been announced back in June.

It seems like things are moving a bit slower on the Windows on ARM side, though. Microsoft released a 64-bit preview version of Office for Windows 11 on ARM testers back in July, which offers significant performance improvements compared to the emulated version that’s still available for Windows 10 on ARM users. That’s thanks to Windows 11’s ARM64EC technology, which makes it possible for developers to build apps for Windows 11 on ARM that still rely on x64 code.

Thanks in large part to Facebook taking the preverbal industry leap to invoke the phrase metaverse for its vision of a connected social online construct, other companies are now free to offer their own conceptualizations and Microsoft’s metaverse contains a whole lot of Teams.

While Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees the metaverse as an interconnected sprawl of various social media experiences via new augmented and virtual reality hardware, Microsoft just tossed out its own vision that puts Teams at the center of its hybrid vision. In addition to Teams utilizing the vast array of cloud hybrid solutions, Microsoft also talked at length during Ignite 2021 about how it plans to make hybrid work environments more accessible through its communication, cross-functional fusion teams support, data visualization and deeper developer APIs for cloud management.

Meta might be trying to extract the links between its Big Blue app and its metaverse, Microsoft seems more than content to allow Teams and Azure to anchor its own productivity metaverse.

Leveraging solutions such as Mesh for Microsoft Teams to advance 2D and 3D meeting experiences, new collaborative apps, and platform tools such as Power Virtual Agents to embed in new virtual experiences for customers and linking Microsoft Cloud for Health with virtual waiting rooms for patients to offer a customized virtual experience similar to in-person, are just a handful of announcements Microsoft and partners discussed today at Ignite.

Similar to Meta, Microsoft’s metaverse does incorporate a hardware element to tie its vision together and the company not only looks to leverage its own HoloLens AR headset but team up with industry leaders such as AltSpaceVR to expand the accessibility of a future of meeting and device advancements for both developers and customers. AltSpaceVR has been in the Microsoft Store for a quick minute now, but the two are using Ignite 2021 to help expand the technologies towards training and improving developer platforms for the various collaboration apps and tools that take advantage of the cloud.

At the end of the day, Microsoft’s metaverse vision is distinctly divergent from Zuckerberg and Meta, but share the same core principles, bringing people and experiences closer online. As usual, Microsoft is leaning heavily on its investments in the cloud and the industry shift toward hybrid or full cloud migration of data, sensor information and automation. Facebook on the other hand appears poised to bring forth the second coming of 2nd Life for those ready to go on that ride.

While the Facebook metaverse may have more impact in our consumption of social media from day to day, Microsoft’s vision of a meshed interconnected hybrid work environment led by virtual assistants, 3D conferencing technologies and data visualizations may have more practical effects on lives, touching everything from coordinating global supply chains to hosting new ways to experience virtual sporting events.

When you think of Microsoft Teams, you probably think of something that you use at school or work. Even with the new “Teams for Consumers” chat app in Windows 11, though, Teams isn’t quite as mainstream in the personal space compared to chat apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. Well, Microsoft is taking the raw power of Teams for consumers and just crossed the lines a bit with Teams for business and enterprise.

At Ignite 2021, Microsoft announced that by the end of 2021 it will be allowing Teams users to chat with team members outside their work network with a Teams personal account. This means teams enterprise users will be able to invite any Teams users to chat using an email address or phone number, while still reaching the security compliances of their organization.

Such a move might seem small in the long run, but for organizations, it’s an important one. Seeing as though not all of a business’ clients might be using Teams, this lets Microsoft and organizations spread Teams to external users without creating security risks or the hassle of guest accounts. After all, Microsoft did find that employees already connect with customers and vendors, during work, leading to using different collaboration or even personal apps.

For the popularity of Teams, it’s even more important. Seeing as though Skype for Business is already in use by many organizations, it’s huge to see that Microsoft picked Teams for Consumer, instead of Skype for this interoperability.  In the long run, this also shows how much of a platform Teams has become since it was first introduced.

Much like what it did with its Windows operating system, Microsoft has created the Teams platform and is able to tap into it to solve common problems. Using Teams for the consumer in enterprise to chat with external users is one of those, and Microsoft Mesh is another. We covered it in a separate post, but Mesh combines the work Microsoft has done in Mixed Reality with the work done with collaboration on Teams to let users communicate, collaborate and share with a personal virtual presence.

Microsoft is kicking off its Inspire November 2021 conference this morning, and the Redmond giant has announced some exciting updates for Microsoft Teams. The popular collaboration service is getting a slew of new features and capabilities focused on improving chat, meetings, webinars, and other experiences.

New Chat features

In early 2022, Microsoft plans to launch some new chat features to support asynchronous collaboration within organizations. Just like Outlook, Microsoft Teams will let users schedule a message in a chat, something that wasn’t possible before. The app will soon support new search results UI and over 800 3D emoji chat reactions. Meanwhile, a new Chat density feature will let users customize the number of messages displayed in the chat window.

New Webinar features and broadcasting capabilities

For meeting organizers, Microsoft Teams has released new webinar and broadcasting capabilities to help deliver more professional and engaging live events. A new Q&A experience is now in public preview, and it will allow presenters and organizers to moderate and dismiss questions, pin posts, filter responses, and more.

A new Co-organizer role is also coming to Teams later this year and will provide an option to assign up to 10 organizers to meetings and webinars. Additionally, Microsoft Teams is getting a new integration with Cvent, a popular third-party events & hospitality management platform that should make it easier for organizers to manage registration and agendas.

New Meetings features and Shared channels

The software giant is also announcing some enhancements coming to the Teams meeting experience: Meeting organizers will now be able to assign roles while scheduling the meeting as well as track the order in which virtual hands were raised by the participants. The Teams mobile app will also get an updated overflow menu that will help users to access the most frequently used actions.

For other customers using Microsoft Teams Room devices, the direct guest join feature will support joining BlueJeans and GoToMeeting meetings in the first half of 2022. Microsoft also announced today new Teams-certified devices including Yealink deskVision AIO24 and Logitech Tap Scheduler.

Another important update coming to Microsoft Teams is support for Shared channels, which will allow Teams users to collaborate with external partners and clients across multiple organizations. In Shared channels, employees will be able to use apps, meetings, chat, 1:1 calls, share content, and co-author documents with external users in real-time. Microsoft plans to release this feature in public preview in early 2021.

Microsoft Viva and other updates

Microsoft Viva, the company’s new employee experience platform within Teams is now generally available. That includes the four Viva modules (Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Topics, and Viva Learning), which can now be purchased with just one plan, the Microsoft Viva Suite available at a promotional price of $9 per user per month. Early adopters will also get access next year to Ally.io, a new module that should make it easier for employees to manage their goals management.

This integration will be in addition to the existing Insights, Learning, and Topics modules. Microsoft has also announced the general availability of Viva Learning as well as 21 new partner integrations in Viva, including SAP SuccessFactors and ServiceNow. Microsoft’s Ignite 2021 conference is just getting started, and the Redmond giant also announced big updates for its Microsoft 365 apps and Azure this morning.

The November edition of Microsoft Ignite is here and Ignite has always been about IT professionals, so Azure is front and center. Topics include Azure AI, Data, Dev & Ecosystem, Hybrid, Infra, IoT, MIgration, Mixed Reality, Networking, and Resilience. We got you covered with a recap of everything Microsoft announced for Azure.

Azure AI

We start with Azure AI. On this front, Microsoft announced two major things. The first is that Azure Cognitive Search now supports more languages, for a total of more than 50. Microsoft says that advanced machine learning techniques help understand user intent and contextually rank the most relevant search results.

Secondly, Azure Cognitive Services now offers a preview of Azure OpenAI Service. This provides Microsoft customers access to OpenAI’s GPT-3 models with enterprise capabilities.

Azure Data

Azure Data saw five major announcements at Ignite 2021. First up, Azure Cosmos DV got a set of new features that make it easier for developers to build and maintain cost-effective application databases. Secondly, Azure Synapse got updated features. These include new database templates, real-time analytics for telemetry, and Event Hubs Premium hitting GA.

Third up, there was the news that the Flexible Server deployment option for Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL hit generally available this month. Also included was the news that Azure SQL Managed Instance now has significant new investments and feature updates to enhance performance and security for apps modernizing on Azure
SQL.

The final Azure Data story is SQL Server 2022 hitting preview. Microsoft is calling this the most cloud-connected release of SQL Server yet. This release should enable customers to drive deeper insights, predictions, and governance from their data at scale.

Azure Dev & Ecosystem

Azure Dev & Ecosystem saw a total of 9 different announcements at Ignite 2021. Azure Communication Services released two improvements designed to enhance customer experiences across multiple platforms.  Azure Container Apps hit preview and Azure Logics Apps got some updates. In addition, Azure Service Bus large message support hit GA, as well as Azure Web PubSub service. Other Azure Dec & Ecosystem announcements are below.

• New solutions for running Java EE applications on Azure
  container platforms now available
• Open Service Mesh add-on for Azure Kubernetes Service
  now generally available
• Two major updates and enhancements to Azure DevOps

We’ll end by mentioning that Azure APU management has also been updated. There are three new features in the update and you can learn more here and here.

Azure Hybrid &Azure Infra

Azure Hybrid got 4 major updates at Ignite 2021. This includes new tools for IT pros in Azure Stack HCI, new Azure Arc releases, new Azure Virtual Desktop features, and some updates for Windows Server on Azure.

When it comes to Azure Infra, there are 5 major announcements coming out of Ignite. The first of those is the new Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets. Second up is new Azure Virtual Machines for better price performance, Third up is enhanced support and capabilities with
Azure Monitor. Fourth up is the Azure Disk Storage updates hitting GA, and finally, a new Azure Virtual Machines selector.

Azure IOT

Microsoft shared some news around Azure IoT at Ignite. It says that IoT is seeing 90% adoption globally. Microsoft hopes its IoT Signals product can help boost IoT adoption. It put our a report about it here.

Azure Migration and Azure Mixed Reality

With Azure Migration and Azure Mixed Reality, there’s a couple of different announcements you need to know about. Microsoft shared updates around Azure Migration. And, in Azure Mixed Reality, Microsoft is announcing a HoloLens 2 promotional offer where the headset is 15% off,  Of course, we can’t forget Mesh in Teams, either.

Azure Networking & Azure Resilience

Ending with Azure Networking & Resilience, there are just a few things here. In Azure Networking, Azure Gateway Load Balancer now enables the insertion of third-party network virtual appliances into a network path. In addition, Azure Network Function Manager became generally available, There are also new features for Express Route, and updates for Azure network security.

When it comes to Azure Resilience, there’s a new Azure Chaos Studio. This should give Azure customers more ways to find gaps in their apps, and help plan mitigations to avoid end-user disruption.

While most normal people may equate the cloud to the vast void of store family photos and tax documents, Microsoft is busy hosting keynotes at its Ignite 2021 conference that speak to verticals that include Health, Finance, Manufacturing, and even non-profits and new extensibilities that can help automated a slew of processes.

First up is Microsoft’s Cloud for Financial Services which is now generally available for use and brings a set of extension meant to seamlessly integrate with Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform. The new features will help extend the core functions of Cloud for Financial Services which includes Risk Analytics, Remote Sales and Services, Unified Customer Profiles, Loan Management software, security, Fraud protection and other automated processes.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft also has updates for its first ever Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing that will expand its end-to-end manufacturing solutions that rolled out in February of this year as preview but is now generally available.

Supply chain and manufacturing disruptions are here to stay, bringing with them an intensified need for innovation and evolution. Manufacturers across industries are asking for help accelerating the transformation of all aspects of their end-to-end business. These are areas where Microsoft can help connect experiences across customer operations, workforce, design and engineering processes, customer engagements and the end-to-end value chain with Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing.

As previously mentioned, Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing marks the first time the company is offering an end-to-end, manufacturing industry-specific cloud tool. As with most Microsoft effort, customers can rely on a robust 3rd party partner stable to tie into this manufacturing cloud solution that includes PTC, Rockwell Automation, Siemens, ABB, Annata 365, Ansys, and many more.

Non-profits can also benefit from Microsoft’s push into expanding Industry Cloud solutions. Organizations already making use of Microsoft 365, Azure or Dynamics 365 can now gain additional collaboration tools for fundraising, volunteer, and program management, as well engagement accelerant through Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit.

At the core of the experience is you guessed it, Teams, which helps both communication and collaboration among volunteers and program managers. With many non-profits handling delicate information, Microsoft for Nonprofit also relies heavily on AccountGuard which the company launched back in 2018 and subsequently expanded to include AccountGuard for Healthcare, AccountGuard for Human Rights Organization and AccountGuard for Journalists.

Speaking of Healthcare, Microsoft also talked up its Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare which is now general available. As the name would imply, it’s a pretty straightforward solution for the healthcare industry that offers

• Enhanced patient engagement: Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare offers
  an enhanced patient view that allows providers to associate one patient
  record with other patient records and easily navigate between them for
  faster access (in preview). The new Waiting Room in Microsoft Teams
  helps patients know they’ve taken the right steps to connect to their
  appointment (in preview). Integration of Microsoft
  Forms with Microsoft Bookings helps with data collection from a
  patient’s prior visit to a virtual visit (in preview). A new mobile browser
  join function allows a patient to join a virtual visit from a mobile device
  (generally available).
• Improved clinical and operational insights: Microsoft Cloud for
  Healthcare offers better modeling of healthcare data in dataverse,
  allowing partners to define the process and experience for their
  customers (generally available). Improved ingestion of healthcare data
  allows customers to select how much data is copied between systems,
  minimizing duplication and saving space (in preview).
• Increased health team collaboration: Microsoft Teams Electronic
  Health Record (EHR) Connector – Cerner allows visits to be launched
  from within EHR system patient or provider portals (in preview). A
  scheduled queue for virtual visits in Microsoft Bookings offers a
  dashboard-like view of the day and real-time appointment updates (in
  preview). Virtual Visits Manager, a standalone Teams app, simplifies the
  data analytics process through reporting and actionable insights about
  virtual consults (in preview).

Lastly, Microsoft’s future leaning Cloud sector solution Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability just moved into preview for select customers. As more businesses look to reduce their carbon footprint and optimize their use of servers, Microsoft is now testing its cloud solution which should help efforts to measure sustainability goals, better record and report carbon emissions reduction paths, and meet regulatory and reporting requirements.

Once again, Microsoft’s cloud investments are paying dividends for the company as it spins up specific Industry Cloud Solutions that already tie into other sustained efforts by the company that include its decades long involvement in government, healthcare, manufacturing, finance, science, and research.

Microsoft’s fall version of the Ignite conference for IT Pros kicks off this morning at 8am Pacific Time, and is once again an all-virtual, free event. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will kick off the event with a keynote focused on the emerging trends and the Microsoft Cloud, and we’ll be hearing a lot about Azure, Office, and Teams. We’ll have a full slate of coverage beginning at 8 am, and you can watch the keynotes here:

Stay tuned to OnMSFT for all the news coming out of Ignite, and enjoy the show!

While Forza Horizon 5 and some other video games are coming to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass subscription service this month, several others are being removed from the library.

On November 15th, six titles will exit Xbox Game Pass which means that those looking to continue playing one of these video games on their Xbox One or Xbox Series X console and Windows PC will need to purchase it outright.

These titles are Final Fantasy VIII HD, The Gardens Between, Planet Coaster, River City Girls, Star Renegades, and Streets of Rogue.

With the exception of Final Fantasy VIII HD, all of the above games are currently playable via Xbox Cloud Gaming. When they leave Xbox Game Pass, however, they will also be removed as playable titles from Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Are you a fan of any of these video games? Let us know what you’re going to do in the comments below and then follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more Xbox news.

Welcome back to our Windows news recap, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Microsoft’s flagship operating system.

Microsoft starts rolling out Windows 11 to more eligible devices

More PCs are receiving the upgrade to Windows 11, as Microsoft continues to roll out the OS to an increasing set of eligible devices.

The availability of Windows 11 has been increased as we are leveraging our latest generation machine learning model to offer the upgrade to an expanded set of eligible devices. More information can be found on the Windows release health dashboard. https://t.co/hw6FkgJ03j

— Windows Update (@WindowsUpdate) October 28, 2021

Sony creates new PlayStation PC label for its exclusive games launching on Windows

Sony has created a new PlayStation PC label for its exclusive games that it is bringing to Windows. This has resulted in a change from the games being registered against PlayStation Mobile, Inc, to PlayStation PC LLC. So far, there has been no information on what this new brand could mean for Sony’s games on PC.

PowerToys 0.49 brings new Find My Mouse tool and modern Windows 11 UI

A new update for PowerToys, version 0.49, has brought a new Find My Mouse feature, making it easier to find the location of your mouse pointer on the screen. A design refresh has also brought in a Windows 11-style UI.

AdDuplex sees Windows 11 already running on over 5% of surveyed PCs in October

Nearly a month since the launch of Windows 11, the latest data from AdDuplex suggests that just over 5% of surveyed PCs are running Windows 11 as of October.

That’s it for this week. We’ll be back next week with more Windows news.

Microsoft news recap is a weekly feature highlighting the top Microsoft news stories of the past week. Sit back, grab some coffee, and enjoy the read!

Microsoft slips past Apple to become the World’s Most Valuable Company

As Apple failed to meet analysts’ expectations on its earnings, it allowed Microsoft to surpass the company to become the world’s most valuable company, reaching a $2.47 trillion market cap, whilst Apple sat at $2.42 trillion.

GitHub points to early successes for AI programming tool Copilot

Copilot, GitHub’s automated code writing assistant in preview, has received support for new languages, including C, C++, C#, and Java.

Microsoft acquires Xbox, Minecraft, MSN content moderation provider Two Hat

Content moderation provider, Two Hat, has been acquired by Microsoft. The company provides moderation services for Xbox, MSN, and Minecraft. Under Microsoft, the two will aim to bolster its moderation technology to keep online communities safe and clean.

You can now stream PC games on Xbox consoles with GeForce Now

This week saw GeForce Now add support for the Microsoft Edge browser on Xbox consoles, making it possible to stream PC games to Xbox consoles via GeForce Now.

GeForce NOW working on the Xbox Series S Edge Browser and surprisingly smooth. Video will be up later covering the Edge browser support across PC and Console. #geforcenow #Xbox pic.twitter.com/AmmslJ43uj

— GameTechPlanet (@gametechplanet) October 25, 2021

That’s it for this week. We will be back next week with more Microsoft news.

Microsoft announced some big updates for Microsoft Whiteboard, its digital canvas that allows users to collaborate and share ideas with other people. This release brings a new Whiteboard experience to iOS and Windows, with personal account support coming to the Android and Web apps. There are also a few new features for all platforms.

New collaboration features for iOS and Windows

First off, the new Whiteboard experience brings several new collaboration features for Windows and iOS users that are already available on Teams, Android, as well as the web. The list includes over 40 new customizable templates, multiple shades of sticky notes & note grids, reactions support, as well as inking improvements. There is also the ability to add, reposition, and align images and shapes.

New OneDrive integration

Microsoft Whiteboard now integrates with OneDrive for Business, allowing users to add recent documents to Whiteboard directly from Microsoft Teams channels and OneDrive. It should make it easier for users to collaborate on PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, and other content as well. Other improvements include support for multiple images to make shared Whiteboard content more appealing and eye-catching for the audience.

Personal accounts support on Android and the web

The collaborative workspace already supports personal Microsoft accounts on iOS and Windows, and users can now add their consumer accounts to the web and Android versions of the app. It’s great to see that the Microsoft Whiteboard app now offers a more consistent experience across all platforms.

If you are using Microsoft Whiteboard on iOS, you can head to the Apple App Store to download the latest update. However, the new Whiteboard experience is gradually rolling out on Windows PCs via a Microsoft Store update, and it should hit general availability by the end of this year.

Download
QR-Code

‎Microsoft Whiteboard

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
Free

Download
QR-Code

Microsoft Whiteboard

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
Free

Microsoft has released a new set of animated Clippy stickers for Microsoft Teams. The company has announced on its feedback portal that it has revived its former Office assistant as a sticker pack, which is now available on the Teams desktop and web clients.

This new sticker pack includes more than 30 animated Clippy stickers to add some fun to the chat and channel conversations in Microsoft Teams. “Yes, it’s true – Clippy has agreed to come out of retirement! Whether you loved him or hated him, Clippy is back with a Retro Sticker Pack in Teams,” a Microsoft representative explained on the feedback portal for Microsoft Teams.

#MicrosoftTeams stickers: game over.#Clippy pic.twitter.com/LVLGr2GeCM

— Harri Mikkanen (@_haba) October 28, 2021

Clippy, the former Microsoft Office assistant, shipped first in Office 97 to help users by providing writing suggestions and tips for using the software. However, it was poorly received by most Office users and was eventually killed off in favor of new features in Office 2007 for Windows and Office 2008 for Mac.

In 2019, a group of employees released a Clippy sticker pack on GitHub, but it disappeared a day later. This time around, it looks like Clippy is here to stay for good in Microsoft Teams, and the company is also planning to replace the paperclip emoji with Clippy across all Microsoft 365 apps and services.

Have you spotted the fun animations included in the Clippy sticker pack in Microsoft Teams? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Microsoft officially released Windows 11 earlier this month, and the new OS has just started rolling out to a larger pool of eligible PCs. Due to stricter minimum hardware requirements, Windows 11 will likely leave many old PCs on the sidelines, and it’s a pretty similar story for Mac users.

If you were planning to use Apple’s Boot Camp tool to install Windows 11 on a separate partition on your Mac, you’re out of luck: Windows 11 isn’t supported on Intel-based Macs, as these machines don’t have the TPM 2.0 security chip and Secure Boot feature that the OS requires. As for Apple’s new M1-based Macs, Boot Camp is not supported at all on these machines, so you can’t install Windows 11 on ARM or even Windows 10 on ARM on a separate partition.

This is where virtualization software like Parallels Desktop for Mac comes to the rescue. Parallels Desktop 17, the latest version of the app released earlier this summer was a cornerstone release, bringing support for Windows 11 on both Intel and M1-based Macs.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been using Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac to run Windows 11 on ARM on an M1-based Mac Mini, and the experience has been pretty seamless so far. With Apple still in the process of transitioning its whole Mac line to Apple Silicon throughout 2022, Parallels had no choice but to optimize its software for Apple Silicon Macs and ARM versions of Windows. So far, the company did a very good job, but some important questions still remain.

What it’s like to run Windows 11 on an M1 Mac

Windows 11 on ARM pretty much flies on the M1 Mac Mini I have which has 16GB of unified memory. Windows 11 requires a two-core CPU and a minimum of 4GB of RAM, and Parallels Desktop can automatically choose the amount of RAM and CPU cores your Windows 11 VM needs. It’s still possible to manually choose your CPU and memory settings, but Parallels Desktop also offers different profiles (Productivity, Software testing, Gaming, etc.) with optimized settings.

Once you’ve downloaded a Windows 11 on ARM ISO from Microsoft’s website, installing Windows 11 on an M1 Mac is pretty straightforward. A recent Parallels Desktop update also enabled the new virtual TPM 2.0 chip by default to ensure that the minimum requirements for Windows 11 are met. You can activate Windows 11 on ARM with a regular Windows 11 key when the installation is done, though that’s not necessary.

Running Windows 11 on ARM on an M1 Mac via Parallels Desktop feels like a no-compromises experience, and Windows 11 really improved compatibility and performance with Windows apps that have yet to be recompiled for the ARM64 architecture. Playing games isn’t a great scenario, though, as Parallels Desktop 17 doesn’t support DirectX12. However, most DirectX11 games that don’t require a specific GPU should work just fine, as explained in the video below.

Macs have never been great for gaming, and the situation has gotten worse after Apple dropped support for all 32-bit apps and games with macOS Big Sur. Parallels Desktop improves the situation significantly for Mac gamers, and it’s quite fascinating to see Win32 games being emulated on Windows 11 on ARM, all running in a virtual machine on a Mac. You would imagine that there would be a significant performance cost, but a competitive multiplayer game like Overwatch runs just fine on an M1 Mac.

For me, Parallels Desktop’s killer feature remains Coherence Mode, which lets you completely hide the Windows VM and run Mac and Windows apps side by side on your main Mac desktop. This is especially important when the Windows version of an app has more features than its Mac counterpart. When in Coherence mode, you can even access the Windows 11 Start Menu from the macOS dock to quickly launch Windows apps right from your Mac.

Microsoft doesn’t officially support Windows 11 on M1 Macs

Thanks to Parallels Desktop 17, Windows 11 on ARM runs great on M1 Macs, there’s no question about it, though it’s important to keep in mind that this isn’t an officially supported scenario. Microsoft still isn’t selling Windows 10 or Windows 11 on ARM to consumers, so Parallels Desktop for Mac users are pretty much forced to run unlicensed Insider Preview versions of these operating systems.

In some ways, using Windows 11 on M1 Macs with Parallels Desktop is almost like running Windows 11 on an unsupported PC: It works fine for now and the virtual TPM 2.0 chip support in Parallels Desktop 17 makes Windows 11 believe that you’re running the OS on a supported PC, though there’s no guarantee that this will always be the case.

The lack of official support for Microsoft could pose a risk for Parallels, though the company doesn’t seem too worried about it. With Intel-based Macs soon going away, Parallels has no choice but to remain committed to serving its Mac customers the best it can during the Mac’s transition to Apple Silicon.

I asked the company to comment on the lack of official support for Windows 11 on M1 Macs, and I received the following statement:

Our Parallels team is focused on serving our customers with powerful tools that enable them to run any software on any device. More than 200,000 different Windows applications can be run using Parallels’ virtualization technology and we know just how mission critical our software is to so many people. Since 2006, millions of customers have relied on Parallels Desktop to run Windows on their Mac devices and our team is deeply committed to providing the best possible Windows experience on their favorite Mac hardware, whether it’s Intel or M1 based. And currently, our Parallels Desktop 17 (and update 17.0.1, which further enhances the user experience) can run Windows 11 on ARM Insider Preview on Apple M1 Mac computers with excellent performance.

While we can’t comment specifically on another company’s statement, it’s not unusual for software manufacturers to have policies regarding the hardware requirements and environments they officially support. And throughout the tech industry, there are many examples of software use cases and configurations that may not be officially supported, but remain very popular in both corporate and individual end user environments.

Could Windows 365 make virtualization software irrelevant?

If Parallels Desktop for Mac probably remains the best way to run Windows apps on a Mac, I’m starting to wonder if Windows 365, Microsoft’s new Cloud PC offering could soon beat running Windows in a virtual machine. With Windows 365, enterprise customers can pay a subscription to stream a Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC on any device, with the convenience of having personalized apps, content, and settings right from the go.

Microsoft launched Windows 365 earlier this year, and the company offers different tiers for SMBs and bigger enterprise customers. However, the ease of use of Windows 365 definitely comes at a cost, and a Cloud PC is also useless in rare cases when you don’t have an Internet connection. Parallels has its own remote working solution with Parallels Remote Application Server, which provides access to virtual apps and desktops anywhere, but Microsoft obviously has the scale to make a service Cloud PCs really ubiquitous with Windows 365.

I don’t believe that Parallels Desktop for Mac is going to lose Mac customers in the short term, and the app still supports macOS and Linux virtualization in addition to Windows. However, the deprecation of Boot Camp on Apple Silicon Macs and the lack of official support from Microsoft for running Windows 11 in Parallels Desktop for Mac aren’t really good signals. I’m sure that Parallels remains deeply invested in Parallels Desktop for Mac and I’ll continue to rely on it every day, though I can increasingly see the appeal of accessing a Windows 11 PC from a web browser, with zero maintenance necessary.

Microsoft has acquired Two Hat, which is a content moderation solution provider used to keep the online Xbox experience safe and clean. Together as one, the two companies are hoping to share advancements in moderation technology and also help protect diverse, global online communities.

Microsoft and Two Hat actually go way back, and this acquisition is a natural one for the Redmond giant. Two Hat’s technology has been used in Xbox, Minecraft, as well as MSN. Their technology helps users to decide what they are comfortable with and what they aren’t. In the case of Xbox, that includes text filters that hide potentially offensive messages.

Under the acquisition, Two Hat will continue to operate with its existing customers still in tow and Microsoft won’t stop supporting them. In the words of Dave McCarthy, Corporate Vice President, Xbox Product Services:

I’ve witnessed the impact they’ve had within Xbox, and we are thrilled that this acquisition will further accelerate our first-party content moderation solutions across gaming, within a broad range of Microsoft consumer services, and to build greater opportunity for our third-party partners and Two Hat’s existing clients’ use of these solutions.

So far in 2021, this is just the latest acquisition by Microsoft. It’s been a busy year, and despite failing to acquire big-name entities like TikTok, Discord, and Pinterest, Microsoft has picked up a lot of smaller companies in hopes of boosting Teams and its other services. For example, the list includes OKR company Ally.io, video stream company Peer5, and Spend Intelligence company Suplari.

Microsoft has released a new update for its PowerToys suite of tools for Windows. The version 0.49 includes a few new features and capabilities, Windows 11 inspired UI improvements, bug fixes, and more.

First of all, Microsoft has introduced a new Find My Mouse utility that helps users find the current location of their mouse pointer on the screen by pressing the left CTRL-key twice. “This is ideal for large, high-resolution displays and low-vision users, with additional features and enhancements planned for future releases,” the PowerToys team explained on GitHub. It’s possible for users to enable/disable this functionality in the PowerToys settings or prevent it from activating when playing games.

In addition to the Find My Mouse feature, the latest PowerToys update also brings the Video Conference Mute tool to the Stable builds. The feature has been available in preview since last year, and it enables users to mute their audio and video feeds in meetings globally with a keyboard shortcut.

Microsoft has also announced that the PowerRename tool is getting a new look that matches the design of the new Windows 11 OS. These UI improvements should make it easier for users to rename files in bulk on Windows PCs. Additionally, there are a few improvements and bug fixes for some other PowerToys utilities, including Color Picker, FancyZones, and PowerToys Awake.

As usual, new users can grab the PowerToys version 0.49 from the GitHub releases page, and those who are already using the app can check for updates by heading to the General tab. Moreover, Windows 11 users can also choose to download PowerToys from the Microsoft Store.