Details, Details (Premium)

We all have our specific complaints about Windows. But many of my complaints are tied to a simple fact many can relate to: Microsoft will announce some feature, and deliver on it to some degree, but completely fail in the details. And then it will move on to the next thing and never clean up its mess.

There are many examples of this–one might view Microsoft's inability to obsolete and remove Control Panel as a classic–but I came across a more typical example in updating the Windows 11 Field Guide recently. And this kind of problem is all over Windows. It's all about not being detail-oriented.

We're in Mexico City as I write this, and for this trip, I did something I don't usually do and created a to-do list–actually, a few different to-do lists–of tasks I wanted to complete while we were here. Some of the items on this list concern the book: I wanted to figure out a strategy for screenshots in an era in which Microsoft arbitrarily changes the UI too frequently, as if on whim, for example.

I got that one done, as it turns out. But there are other items on that part of the list. Some are big picture things–figuring out how to handle 24H2 and Copilot+ PC functionality–and some are specific. And among the latter, I wanted to use my Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra to update the Phone Link chapter because Phone Link provides users of some flagship Samsung phones (and, oddly, some other phones) with some unique capabilities (which I assume are tied to the phone maker bundling Link to Windows capabilities on the device).

And the Phone Link chapter needs to be updated anyway: This app has evolved over time, and now there's a new Mobile Devices interface in Windows 11 Settings, and I was thinking about reorganizing the chapter anyway to better cover the differences between linking an iPhone, Android phone, and Samsung flagship on-boarding and capabilities. And I ran into some typical blockers, something I've been thinking about writing up separately. Long story short, I set out to do something that feels finite and doable, and then I get bogged down when things don't work.

Part of the complexity of writing this book is that I need to test things in different ways: It's not enough to accomplish some task successfully once, I have to repeat it. And Windows 11 makes this difficult. I've written in the past about how it's often not possible to say, "if you do this, this will happen." Now it's like a flowchart. You may see this. Or ... you may see this.

Adding to the complexity, I use multiple accounts and account types, looking for differences. And with something like Phone Link, I've linked various phones to various Microsoft accounts (MSA), and I've paired various phones to various PCs. Sometimes I need to tear it all down and start from scratch. Sometimes ... I can't.

Today's Phone Link involves multiple pieces. There's the Phone Link app, of course. The Link to Windows mobile app for iPhone and Android (which is sometimes an in...