Top 10 New Features We Love About Windows 10

 

1. Start Menu Returns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The full-screen Start screen of Windows 8 is back to being a Start menu in Windows 10 that tries to combine the best of both options. You get a scrolling Start menu that’s restricted to a single column, with jump lists and fly-out menus for extra options, divided into frequently used and recently installed programs, with the option to switch to a scrolling view of all your applications, sorted alphabetically.

But you also get an extra pane where you can pin Windows 8-style tiles, complete with ‘rotating 3D cube’ animations of live tiles. You can drag the Start menu to be a larger size or even set it to be full screen.

 

2. Cortana On Desktop

Being lazy just got a lot easier. Windows 10 will bring Microsoft’s voice-controlled digital assistant Cortana to desktop computers, to make it easier for you to interact with your device without lifting a finger. You will be able to search your hard drive for specific files, pull up photos from specific dates, or launch PowerPoint presentations just by telling your PC to do so. You can even get Cortana to send an email while you’re working on a spreadsheet, making multi-tasking much easier.

 

3. Xbox App

 

 

 

 

 

 

You will soon be able to play any Xbox One game on your PC or tablet, with the Xbox app for Windows 10. The new operating system will support Xbox game streaming (through your home network), with improved speed and graphics performance thanks to DirectX 12 support. The app also lets you record, edit and share your fragging victories with the Game DVR feature, which lets you grab the previous 30 seconds of your game so you don’t miss unexpected wins. You’ll also be able to join your friends in games across Windows 10 or the Xbox platforms, and see your friends’ activity via Xbox Live.

 

4. The New Edge Browser

 

 

 

 

 

 

To catch up with fast-moving browsers like Chrome and Firefox, Microsoft took its browser back to basics, ripping out years of code that didn’t fit with web standards and making a lean, fast browser.

It’s a work in progress – it won’t get support for things like ad-blocking extensions until a while after Windows 10 launches – but you can do plenty of neat things here. For example, you can scribble notes on a web page to send to a friend (if you’re trying to decide what hotel to stay in on holiday, for example) and Edge has Cortana built in to pull useful information out of web pages, like the phone number of a restaurant, or the opening hours.
Sites like Medium that didn’t work properly with IE should look better and have more features in Edge.

 

5. Improved Multitasking

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new Multiple Desktops feature lets you run another set of windows as if on another screen, but without the physical monitor. This is similar to Apple’s Spaces feature on OS X, and helps you manage your multitude of open windows and apps. Instead of having multiple windows open on top of each other on one desktop, you can set up a whole other virtual desktop for those programs to reside in. Set up one specifically for home and leave your apps such as Netflix and Amazon open, and create another desktop for work on which you keep Word, Excel and Internet Explorer open.

With the new desktops comes a new way to keep track of your open apps on Windows 10. On the new operating system, you can either hit the new Task View button on the task bar or swipe in from the left edge of the screen to pull up a one-page view of all your open apps and files. It’s not much different from using the Alt-Tab combination shortcut on your keyboard, but this presents a convenient way for touch-oriented users to get an overview of what’s running.

 

6. Action Center

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’ve used Windows Phone 8.1 (or Android and/or iOS), you’re used to a notification centre you can drag down from the top of the screen. Windows 10 puts that on the right of the screen, where the charms bar was in Windows 8, with notifications from various apps at the top and your choice of various settings buttons at the bottom for quick access.

 

7. Office Apps Get Touch Support

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new version of Office apps Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook will provide a touch-first interface across phones, tablets and PCs. The persistent function ribbon at the top of the apps is now an app bar that shows up only when you need it. In Outlook, you’ll now be able to delete messages from your inbox by swiping each entry to the left. Swiping to the right flags that message. The apps will look and perform the same way on a PC as they do on a mobile device for a more coherent experience.

 

8. Continuum

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the rise of hybrid laptop-tablet devices, Microsoft wants to make it easier to switch between either modes. The system will detect if you’ve plugged in a keyboard or mouse and switch modes for more convenient interaction. If you remove the keyboard/mouse, a notification will pop up from the task bar at the bottom, asking if you want to activate Tablet mode. When you do, you are greeted with the more touch-friendly profile. Dock your tablet into the keyboard again, and you’ll receive the same prompt, this time asking if you want to exit Tablet mode.

 

9. Universal Apps – Including Office

 

 

 

 

 

 

Windows 10 gets a new Windows Store, where you can download desktop programs as well as modern Windows apps. Many of those apps will be universal apps that are the same code on a PC, a Windows phone, an Xbox One and even on HoloLens, with the interface changing to suit the different screen sizes. The Office for Windows apps like Word and Excel are universal apps, as are the Outlook Mail and Calendar apps.

 

10. Say Hello To Your PC

 

 

 

 

 

 

As well as the usual fingerprint scanning support, Windows 10 can use your face or your iris to log you on to your PC. Windows Hello will work with existing fingerprint readers, but it needs a new 3D infrared camera in your PC to use your face – it needs the infrared to know that you’re alive and the 3D camera to get the contours of your face, so it doesn’t work if someone holds up a photo or wears a mask.

So far there are only a few notebooks from Asus, HP, and Dell that have the right camera, and an all-in-one PC from Lenovo. Once you log in with Hello, Windows can do secure authentication with sites and apps that use the FIDO standard (and with Azure Active Directory) instead of you typing in a password.