10 Things you need to know about Windows 10

Microsoft already shown the first look of  Windows 10 operating system on Tuesday at San Francisco. Microsoft promised an OS that will be more intuitive for the millions of workers still on Windows 7 and older OSes. It will span all hardware from PCs to phones and try to address the ills that have dogged Windows 8.

Here are 10 things you need to know about Windows 10

1. Why Windows 10?

The natural name would have been Windows 9, but Microsoft is eager to suggest a break with the past. “We’re not building an incremental product,” said Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s Operating Systems Group.

Microsoft considered the name “Windows One,” he said, to match products like OneNote and OneDrive and its “One Microsoft” business strategy. But he noted the name was snagged a long time ago, by a young Bill Gates.
Perhaps Microsoft didn’t like the idea of being numerically one step behind Apple’s OS X. Whatever the reason, Windows 10 it will be.

“When you see the product in its fullness, I think you’ll agree it’s an appropriate name for the breadth of the product family that’s coming,” Myerson said.

2. What devices will it run on?

All of them. Microsoft demonstrated only the desktop version Tuesday, but Windows 10 will be for tablets, smartphones and embedded products, too.

3. Is there a start menu?

There is, and it tries to combine the familiarity of Windows 7 with the modern interface of Windows 8. That means the menu is split: On the left, apps are displayed in the familiar Windows 7 style, while on the right are more colorful “live tiles” that open the modern, Windows 8-style apps.

The start menu is customizable, so you can resize the tiles and move them around, and make the start menu tall and thin or long and flat.

4. Is there a Command Prompt?

You’re kidding, right? Well, actually there is. Microsoft showed how it now supports shortcuts like CTRL+C and CTRL+V so you can paste in a directory listing from another app, for instance. Belfiore called it a “niche, geeky feature” but said he wanted to show the diverse range of users the OS is trying to support.

5. What car does it resemble?

Microsoft came up with a car analogy. It wants you to think of Windows 10 as a Tesla.

“Yesterday, they were driving a first-gen Prius, and when they got Windows 10 they didn’t have to learn to drive something new, but it was as if we got them a Tesla,” Myerson said.

“It will run on the broadest types of devices ever, from the smallest ‘Internet of things’ device to enterprise data centers worldwide,” Myerson said. “Some of these devices have 4-inch screens, and some will have 80-inch screens. And some don’t have any screen at all.”

6. Will I still toggle between two distinct app environments?

Apparently not. In Windows 8, when you launch a modern-style app, it takes you into that modern UI, and when you launch a Win32-style app, it launches to the traditional desktop environment.

In Windows 10, “we don’t want that duality,” said Joe Belfiore, a corporate vice president with the OS group. “We want users on PCs with mice and keyboards to have their familiar desktop UI—a task bar and a start menu. And regardless of how an app was written or distributed to your machine, it works the way you expect.”

7. So how does it look now?

If you launched one of the new-style apps in Windows 8, it filled the whole screen and there weren’t many options to resize it. With Windows 10, the familiar “windows” metaphor is back; you’ll be able to resize the new-style apps and drag them around the screen like an old Win32 app. Conversely, if you’re using an older Win32-style app, it will be able to “snap into place” and fill all the available screen space just like the modern apps.

8. What else is new?

Some users have been confused by the Windows 8 interface and can’t figure out what’s open on their screen or how to get back to an app. Windows 10 has a feature like OS X’s Mission Control that lets you zoom out and see everything that’s open on a PC, then select any app to enter it.

You can also have multiple desktop configurations open and switch between them. So if you have two apps on the screen for a particular task, sized just how you want them, and then you change to some other apps, you’ll be able to get back to those first apps easily without having to resize them again. You can navigate through several of these desktop displays at the bottom of the screen.

9. Will it still be touch-enabled?

Yes. “We’re not giving up on touch,” Belfiore said. That means you’ll still be able to use touch to do things like scroll and pinch-to-zoom on laptops and desktops.

There’s also a new feature, tentatively called “continuum,” for people using two-in-one PCs. When you detach the keyboard from a Windows 10 hybrid, it will ask if you want to go into tablet mode. If you say yes, the UI changes to better match a tablet. The app expands to full screen, for instance, and the start menu switches into a larger-icon mode.

10. When will it be released and How will it be priced?

The OS will launch around the middle of next year, after Microsoft’s Build conference. Before that, a select group of “Windows insiders” will receive a “technical preview build” for laptops and desktops on Wednesday this week, followed “soon after” by a preview for servers. Previews of other device categories will follow later.

30 thoughts on “10 Things you need to know about Windows 10”

    • What sort of idiot are you?
      Turbo C++ was made ages ago for 16-bit computers!
      If you use 32-bit machine, it might run. Not on 64-bit machines. And what it’s got nothing to do with Win10?

      Reply
    • All Windows since XP have been confusing, laborious, stupid unproductive toys for computer geeks. Regular people need simple useful tools. Not toys. Microsoft sucks! I will never buy another one of their products and I really loved my XP. I was good at it and I could be very productive with it.

      Its all Apple for me from now on!!!!!!!!!!

      Reply
  1. If it does not fully support DOS based BBS Software and doors then I am still not interested. Niche geeky feature? Thanks for screwing the 16 bit geeks AGAIN. Moving on…

    Reply
    • DOS box. Us old timers got screwed years ago. I was not done with the C128 when I was “forced” to upgrade to a PC and a Mac just to do what I was already doing on a 8 bit system with 10% of the ram. But only a few people could use my omniword or GEOS writer files. And I did not like the WordStar for C/PM. I am just happy I switched C++ before the upgrade or my programs would have never worked.

      Reply
      • Well, hell. Why don’t we throw in all the 6502 assembly games I wrote for the Atari 800! Awesome ANTIC graphics co-processor; way ahead of its time.

        Reply
  2. its nothing new, its kinda like vista to windows 7 type of thing. not allot of people like 8 and allot do, but since their was allot of people that didnt like win 8 they decided to change some things up, add new features but keep the programming the same. what they need to do is move from 64 bit to something like 128bit. if we had new software tech with 128bit hardware things will change. 64 bit has been around for a really really long time and i think it needs to be left behind as well 32bit. they also need to make a hole be file format system stay away from ntfs now. make some thing new better features and better support. i think we see the same tech over and over and over no matter what changes. just like apple products nothing ever really changes except 2 or 3 items. people buy them every year knowing what very little changes comes with it. we need better tech to progress into the future of tech, but we will never get their if we keep lingering on old tech.

    Reply
  3. Shouldn’t the new version of Windows be Windows 11?

    1 – Windows 1 (1985)
    2 – Windows 2 (1987)
    3 – Windows 3 (1990)
    4 – Windows 95 (1995)
    5 – Windows 98 (1998)
    6 – Windows ME (2000)
    7 – Windows XP (2001)
    8 – Windows Vista (2007)
    9 – Windows 7 (2009)
    10 – Windows 8 (2012)
    11 – Windows 10?????

    Reply
    • Ummm. That’s incorrect.
      Here is the history of MS Windows releases:
      Windows 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . Nov 20 1985
      Windows 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . Dec 9 1987
      Windows 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . May 22 1990
      Windows 4.0 (95) . . . . . . Aug 24 1995
      Windows 5.0 (98) . . . . . . Jun 25 1998
      Windows 6.0 (Vista) . . . . Jan 30 2007
      Windows 7.0 . . . . . . . . . . Oct 22 2009
      Windows 8.0 . . . . . . . . . . Oct 26 2012

      The complete list and other editions are in this link:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions

      Reply
    • You forgot to mention win 2000 and longhorn. But info aside, MS decided to call Windows ME as Win 5.5, 2000 with something else.. So, win 10 is actually just 9

      Reply
  4. Can WINDOWS 10 run on PC having following system features:
    Intel Dual Core Processor @1.60 Ghz
    RAM 2GB
    32Bit OS
    CRT MONITOR
    NO pen or touch input available
    Direct X 11

    Reply
  5. …Am afraid if my packages will run perfectly..you may not understand my statement.
    Some users of windows 8 marvelled at it. They tried to install some neccessary app software but to no avail.
    I hope windows 10 will smile at me. Basically windows 8 almost rejected app softwares…i want to know why”.

    Reply
  6. I liked the name Windows1. If they wanted to really break away from synchronous releases this would have been a good choice. it certainly would leave everybody wondering what the next one is called

    Reply
  7. Why not using ‘ext’ Filesystem ? Linux bas gained popularity since MS OS aren’t safe and stable ohhh wait, there’s something else Linux is free of charge and will always be…

    Reply
  8. I am more interested of what’s under the hood, not how they arranged the GUI. For example, no “tech” site seem to notice that Windows 10 has Powershell 5.0……..

    Reply
  9. I tried this new OS on both my laptops and unfortunately I couldn’t multitask…

    I usually work with 2 to three excel files at a time, pdf, word while producing reports, teamviewer, along with my web browser…while doing all of this my task of converting word into pdf freezes, like wise while doing it in excel.

    It really got my attention and tested it for two days only before downgrading to 8.1. Hope its just some glitches and nothing major.

    Great potentials just with the layout and tasking abilities.

    Wish for the best from this new OS.

    Belize

    Reply

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