Microsoft is holding a OneDrive digital event on October 8th that will cover the “latest innovations in AI across Microsoft 365 and OneDrive.” It’s the second annual event after Microsoft held a similar stream last year to introduce a big new design update for the cloud storage service, AI Copilot integration, and lots more.

This year, Microsoft is promising to announce “what’s coming for Copilot in OneDrive,” alongside enhancements to the OneDrive mobile app and an “improved photos experience.” The event will also cover OneDrive features across work and personal accounts.

The OneDrive digital event will be hosted on Microsoft Teams and will include the ability to ask the OneDrive product team questions about the cloud storage service. It follows a special Copilot event on September 16th, where Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and vice president of AI at work Jared Spataro will focus on what’s next for Microsoft’s AI assistant.

Microsoft is expected to announce a subtle rebranding of its business-focused Copilot assistant and introduce new Copilot features for Microsoft 365 that will try to tempt more businesses to sign up for the $30 per user per month service.

The Verge

As we wait for this fall's Windows 11 24H2 update to be released to the general public, work continues on other new features that could be part of other future Windows updates. A new Canary channel Windows Insider build released yesterday fixes a decades-old and arbitrary limitation that restricted new FAT32 partitions to 32GB in size, even though the filesystem itself has a maximum supported size of 2TB (and Windows can read and recognize 2TB FAT32 partitions without an issue).

For now, this limit is only being lifted for the command-line formatting tools in Windows. The disk formatting UI, which looks more or less the same now as it did when it was introduced in Windows NT 4.0 almost 30 years ago, still has the arbitrary 32GB capacity restriction.

The 32GB limit can allegedly be pinned on former Microsoft programmer Dave Plummer, who occasionally shares stories about his time working on Windows in the 1990s and early 2000s. Plummer says that he wrote the file format dialog, intending it as a "temporary" solution, and arbitrarily chose 32GB as a size limit for disks, likely because it seemed big enough at the time (Windows NT 4.0 required 110MB of disk space).

There aren't a ton of reasons to actually use a FAT32 disk in 2024, and it's been replaced by other filesystems for just about everything. As a filesystem for your main OS drive, it was replaced by NTFS decades ago; as a widely compatible filesystem for external drives that can be read from and written to by many operating systems, you'd probably want to use exFAT instead. FAT32 still has a 4GB limit on the size of individual files.

But if you're formatting a disk to use with an old version of Windows, or with some older device that can only work with FAT32 disks, this tweak could make Windows a tiny bit more useful for you.

Ars Technica

Paint 3D, once Microsoft’s biggest update to its Paint app, is being removed from the Microsoft Store later this year and no longer supported. The app was originally released as part of Microsoft’s focus on creators with Windows 10 and was even set to replace the original MS Paint at one point.

“Paint 3D is deprecated and will be removed from the Microsoft Store on November 4th, 2024,” reads a support note from Microsoft. Users of the app will also see a banner inside the app warning them about the end of support. Microsoft is recommending Windows users install its 3D Viewer app if they need to view 3D content.

Microsoft has now put most of its focus on the existing Paint app within Windows 11 instead, adding some of Photoshop’s best features to the app and even updating it with AI-powered features.

Paint 3D is the latest victim of Microsoft’s varied Windows features and apps that eventually get removed and discontinued. Windows Mixed Reality suffered a similar fate last year, alongside Microsoft Teams integration being removed from Windows 11. Microsoft is also ending its Android apps support for Windows 11 next year.

The Verge

TikTok is rolling out some direct message updates, including "highly requested" group chats. Owner ByteDance notes that group chats aren't available everywhere just yet, but those who do have access to the feature will be able to chat in groups of up to 32 people.

You can start a group chat in a couple of ways. From your inbox, you can tap the Chat button at the top of the screen or a name in the messages list and then the "More options..." button. You can then choose which friends you want to include and then tap "Start group chat."

The other method to start a group chat is by sharing a post with a bunch of people. When you have a video you'd like to chat about with more than one person, tap the Share button, then select "Create group chat." Pick the friends you want to send it to, add a message if you like, then start chatting with your buds about the video.

You can accept any group chat invites you receive via your inbox. You can only invite people you mutually follow to a group chat. As with regular DMs, group chats are not available to users aged between 13 and 15. As for 16- and 17-year-olds, they'll only be able to join a group chat if they have at least one mutual friend in there. If they create a group chat, they'll have to review and manually approve anyone new who joins.

TikTok is also bringing stickers to DMs. That gives folks another way to engage with each other visually. You can create and upload custom stickers for anyone to use.

Engadget

If you're still using Skype, there's some good news. With an update that's rolling out now, Microsoft is making its video-conferencing platform ad-free.

"Our latest update removes all ads from Skype channels and the entire Skype platform, ensuring a smoother, decluttered, and more enjoyable user experience," Skype product manager Irene Namuganyi said in a blog post.

According to Microsoft, removing ads will enable users to focus on chats without distractions and allow uninterrupted browsing across channels.

The update (Skype 8.125.76.201) also revamps the AI Image Creation tool for Skype Desktop and adds OneAuth integration for the iOS app.

PCMag

Spotify users who don't pay for a subscription can once again see lyrics for any song they listen to on the service. Back in May, the company began a wider rollout of a test that it initiated last fall, requiring a paid subscription to see lyrics to any track. Free users could still follow along with the words, but only for three songs a month. Now, Spotify is removing the restriction so free users can see all the lyrics they need to with no cap on viewing them.

“At Spotify, we’re always testing and iterating. This means availability of our features can vary across tiers and between markets and devices," a Spotify spokesperson told Engadget. "Over the coming weeks, we’ll be expanding Lyrics availability for Spotify Free users so more people can enjoy viewing more lyrics, globally.”

The initial move to cap access to lyrics for free users drew backlash earlier this year. Perhaps Spotify thought doing so was a way to push people to its revised subscription tiers that start at $11 a month for music streaming. CEO Daniel Ek explained during the company's most recent earnings call this month that plans were in motion to improve what's offered to free users. It seems that list of updates included bringing back full access to lyrics.

"We are prioritizing enhancements in our free product pipeline that based on existing performance in certain markets," Ek said on the call. "Further additional improvements will be integrated into our free experience in the coming months."

Engadget