Tuesday, October 31st 2023
Microsoft Windows 11 23H2 Major Update Begins Rolling Out, Bets Big on Generative AI
Microsoft on Tuesday began rolling out Windows 11 23H2, the year's major update to its PC operating system. This release sees a major integration of AI into several features across the OS. To begin with, Microsoft Copilot, which made its debut with 365 and Office, is getting integrated with Windows. Powered by Bing Chat, Copilot is a GPT-based chatbot that not just gathers information from web-search, but can also be made to do a variety of OS level functions. For example, you can ask it to pair a Bluetooth device, or find something on your machine, find stuff within the files of your machine. The WIN+C key now brings up Copilot. Next up, Microsoft Paint gets its biggest feature update, with the generative AI-based Paint Cocreator feature. Not only will Paint assist your brush-strokes, in getting the shapes and contents right, but much like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, Paint now has a prompt-based image generation feature. For now, Paint Cocreator is being released as a preview feature.
Microsoft Clipchamp, the video editor included with Windows, now has a set of generative AI enhancements of its own, with tools such as Auto Compose, which assists in building a movie with scenes, getting the sequence of clips and transitions right, getting the effects and filters right; and audio features such as narration and background score. Clipchamp also has integration with social platforms including Tik Tok, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Snipping Tool, the screengrab application of Windows, now gets a couple of AI enhancements too, such as scanning an image to extract and redact information. Photos gets AI-accelerated image recognition and categorization. Much like Google Photos, you can look for a picture by describing what you're looking for. As with each such annual major release, Microsoft will be releasing 23H2 in a phased manner through Windows Update, but if you're impatient and want to immediately update, or perform a clean installation, visit the link below.
DOWNLOAD: Windows 11 23H2 (Installation Assistant, Media Creator, ISOs)
Microsoft Clipchamp, the video editor included with Windows, now has a set of generative AI enhancements of its own, with tools such as Auto Compose, which assists in building a movie with scenes, getting the sequence of clips and transitions right, getting the effects and filters right; and audio features such as narration and background score. Clipchamp also has integration with social platforms including Tik Tok, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Snipping Tool, the screengrab application of Windows, now gets a couple of AI enhancements too, such as scanning an image to extract and redact information. Photos gets AI-accelerated image recognition and categorization. Much like Google Photos, you can look for a picture by describing what you're looking for. As with each such annual major release, Microsoft will be releasing 23H2 in a phased manner through Windows Update, but if you're impatient and want to immediately update, or perform a clean installation, visit the link below.
DOWNLOAD: Windows 11 23H2 (Installation Assistant, Media Creator, ISOs)
84 Comments on Microsoft Windows 11 23H2 Major Update Begins Rolling Out, Bets Big on Generative AI
It's a chatbot that can do little things like pair your bluetooth thingy to your PC.
i feel windows 11 is like a testing platform with ai starting integrated into it..
i have a feeling once more ai stuff gets into windows 11 its gonna have some sort of performance impact...
and frankly my systems are aging...
Personally i don't mind win 11 and am already on 23H2
No Cortana, no online search, no Bing integration.
Then, and only then, the start menu/search box can reliably find stuff on your PC. Too often, Cortana or Bing are interfering with the results and generating gibberish, and that's if Cortana's even working because she breaks sometimes; I cannot recommend anyone ever use either Cortana or Bing search.
"AI" just means more web requests from Bing in the cloud, so no thank you - not with Microsoft's track record of failure to execute.
The fact it's still essentially useless and broken for the user after 8 years of patches and updates is proof that it's not about providing a product to help the user, but about providing user data to help Microsoft.
Case in point - I have a W11 VM that's had no regedits by me and is entirely out-of-the box, the way MS intends it, default firewall and security rules. It has PuTTY on it. The .exe is in the downloads folder. There is a pin on the taskbar to a copy of the file that I put in Program Files x86, I have launched it from all three locations dozens of times.
If I dare to type "putty" into the start menu, the two "best matches" are a Bing result which rudely opens in the Edge, ignoring the FTC and UEC legally-mandated requirement for Microsoft to respect a users choice of browser, and a suggestion to download it (again, in Edge via Bing, not Firefox via DDG) from an unofficial source! Not even the correct web result which is very obviously "putty.org"....
The rest of the start menu search results are filled up with "AI suggestions", including putty knifes for sale, putty pads, where to buy putty locally (with Bing ad affiliate links, no doubt). That's advertising, misuse of my location, and potential junk/erroneous data for paying advertisers that I am now "interested" in various types of modelling putty and craft/DIY products, FFS! Nowhere at all in the "start-your-program-from-this-start-button" button, is the f***ing program I have in multiple, indexed locations on my PC with multiple previous executions and history in my "recent" list. It's a goddamn disgrace!
/rant.
For example, the Start Menu works perfectly fine without an internet connection, and prioritises installed apps, settings and local documents before web terms.
If you used W11 on launch and haven't used it since, have another look, its really come quite far since launch with a lot of improvements that I would miss rolling back to 10.