All about Windows 10
Post by: max
A surprise from Microsoft: While eagerly waiting for the next windows, the company revealed they decided to skip the 9 and named it 10 instead. A closer look reveals that Microsoft pushed hard with touch on Windows 8, Windows 10 is the complete opposite. If you mouse into the corners to find the tricky Charms Bar they no longer trigger and frustrate. Instead, you're greeted with the familiar Windows desktop and Start Menu from the moment you use Windows 10. It's Windows 7 right now and very early in its development, but it has some interesting improvements waiting inside.
Also the most obvious addition is the start menu. Similar to windows 7 and other versions before it the Start Menu largely acts in the same way. Microsoft has done a u-turn here, but it's also considered the way it can modernize its Start Menu and it appears to have paid off. It's customizable enough that you can resize it, pin traditional and modern apps, or simply have it match the color of your desktop wallpaper. These hints of Windows 8 shine through directly in the Windows 10 Start Menu, and although the overall interface feels like the Windows desktop, the Start Menu feels truly new and yet familiar at the same time.
A nice user interface feature is a new Task View button that sits on the taskbar. It looks fairly innocuous, but when you trigger it you're thrown into a multitasking view that's very similar to Apple's OS X Expose feature. Multiple desktops are available from here, and you can switch between them with ease to manage multiple apps across different workspaces. It's the feature Windows has always needed, and Microsoft has borrowed elements from rival operating systems like OS X and Linux / Unix to really introduce this in Windows 10. One thing to notice is that if you have apps running in a separate desktop space then it can get confusing to bring them to a different active desktop space, but this is an early build of Windows 10 and there's a long way to go until it's ready late next year.
Windows 10 might be fairly basic right now, but the signs are there that Microsoft understands its audience of Windows users. Microsoft's Joe Belfiore took the time to demonstrate a command prompt refresh that finally brings the ability to copy and paste directories with the keyboard. It's the most minor and geeky feature you'd ever expect in a Microsoft keynote, but it demonstrates that the company appears to be serious about overhauling Windows fully with Windows 10. With regular updates planned over the coming months before release, expect to see Windows 10 change in unexpected and welcomed ways.
