Windows 10 New 2017 Review.

Windows 10 review

 It took Microsoft 30 years, but the new Start menu, Edge browser, apps and Cortana make Windows 10 the best Windows yet | Creators Update coming Spring 2017
It took Microsoft 30 years, but the new Start menu, Edge browser, apps and Cortana make Windows 10 the best Windows yet. Windows 10 offers plenty of new features and apps. We explore the new features and explain why they're worth having in our Windows 10 review.

By Matt Egan | 14 Nov 16
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EXPERT'S RATING
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PRICE WHEN REVIEWED
£99.99 (Home), £189.99 (Pro), US$119.99 (Home), $199.99 (Pro)
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: THE BEST WINDOWS OS YET
Windows 10 has a new Start Menu, Edge Browser, Cortana integration and apps, among many other new features. Here we go through Microsoft's operating system and provide you with an in-depth look at Windows 10. See also: How to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 10 and Windows Cloud rumours.
You can also check out our How to upgrade to Windows 10 guide and quick fixes for common problems after upgrading.
Updated 14 November with pricing information and a general update; 2 November 2016: Windows 10 will soon be the only option for new PCs, with Microsoft stopping sales of Windows 7 Pro and Windows 8.1 to PC makers on 31 October. OEMs can still use up any licences they may still hold, but once they run out it will be Windows 10 or Windows 10.
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: WINDOWS 10 NEWS & UPDATES
Since Windows 10 was released and we wrote our original review there have been several feature updates from Microsoft, with many more new features planned. The Creators Update follows the Anniversary Update as the next big update to Windows 10. Expected in Spring 2017, it will add new tools for 3D and gaming - see our dedicated article on the Creators Update.
Looking at the Anniversary Update (which was released in August 2016), certain number of new features were featured, including changes to Cortana that became a lot smarter and has a lot more added capabilities. And if you have a Surface tablet with a Surface Pen, you're able to do a whole lot more with it. As well as scribbling reminders in the sticky notes app, you can draw more easily thanks to a virtual ruler that's much like the one Apple added to its Notes app back in iOS 9.
Microsoft has also demonstrated the ability to pick two points on a map with the Pen and quickly see the distance between them, plus directions. You can also annotate maps and share them with friends. Your annotated route will "stick" to the map when you change to a 3D view.
The "ink workspace" offers a dedicated place on the desktop where you'll see a list of recent as well as suggested pen-enabled apps in the Windows Store.
And talking of the store, the Anniversary Update is also available to the Xbox One, so you'll now see just one app store across PCs and consoles, and it will bring desktop apps to the Xbox. Better still, you can play games and save game progress between Xbox and Windows 10.
(On the subject of Xbox, at Gamescom 2016, which was held a little later in August, Aaron Greenberg announced that Xbox Game Preview is coming to Windows 10 soon. The first game will be Everspace, but there will be "many more to come". It's Microsoft's answer to Steam Early Access and lets gamers on Windows 10 try out unfinished games (even buy them) and offer feedback to improve them before they're officially released. Titles including ReCore, Forza Horizon 3, We Happy Few, Cuphead, Gears of War 4, and Halo Wars 2 will also be coming to Windows 10 in the next 12 months and all were available to play on PCs at Gamescom.)
Windows Hello already lets you log into your PC with your face or your fingerprint, but Hello support has now been added to Edge, allowing you to log into websites the same way: no more remembering which email address, username or password you need for each site.
Even before the Anniversary Update we saw feature changes. On 11 May Microsoft delivered two new updates to Windows 10, which change the user experience. One is linked to Wi-Fi Sense being axed, the other to Edge browser finally receiving its much needed extensions. Also see: How to upgrade to Windows 10.
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: WHAT IS WINDOWS 10?
Microsoft in late 2014 took the wraps off the Technical Preview of its next Windows operating system, and in doing so it took everyone by surprise. We expected the next generation of Windows: we just didn't expect it to be called Windows 10. None the less here is Windows 10: the next Windows OS for PCs and laptops, smartphones and tablets. And, indeed, an OS for servers and all points inbetween.
Microsoft said that Windows 10 is built from the ground up for a world in which mobile- and cloud computing are key. Execs from the company said it was committed to making Windows 10 friendly for the enterprise, ideal for keyboard and mouse users, but also optimised for touch. Oh, and Windows 10 will put the same interface on devices with displays ranging in size from 4in to 80in. 'One product family, one platform, one store,' said Microsoft.
Given the lukewarm reaction to compromised Windows 8, these seem like bold claims. They are necessary, though. Also necessary is Microsoft's decision to make Windows 10 the most beta-tested product it has ever released. Windows 10 was tested by over 4 million people around the world before its launch.
That doesn't mean it's perfect - indeed some people won't like the privacy issues (see far below) or the forced updates. Others won't like the new Start menu or the fact that there's now both a Control Panel and separate Settings app. But these won't be issues for most people - minor gripes at worst - and the improvements, new apps and new features make it well worth upgrading. For more detail on this, see: Should I upgrade to Windows 10?
In early 2016, Microsoft has announced it will acquire Xamarin. You've probably never heard of that company, but it's important because it will allow developers to more easily produce apps which will run on Windows (and Windows 10 mobile) in addition to iOS and Android. Back in 2014, Microsoft boasted of the Universal Windows Platform which meant apps would run on everything from a phone to a full-size PC (and beyond - including the Xbox One). However, that's hardly universal if you're a developer writing apps for iOS and Android.
The death knell has been sounding for Windows phone for a while now, but several Windows 10 mobile devices were launched at MWC so the platform isn't dead just yet.
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: WHAT'S NEW
Critically the Start Menu is back. It contains standard Windows software and Windows apps. Modern UI apps, as they used to be called. Or Metro apps, if you want to go right back to the beginning.
But this time the Start menu is improved, and it may even make Windows apps useful. Look to the left and you'll see a list of your most-used apps, just as in Windows 7. At the bottom we see an 'All apps' shortcut, plus shortcuts to File Explorer, Settings and – conveniently – shut down and standby.
Windows 10 review
And Microsoft has retained the functionality of the Windows 8 Start screen over on the right, with resizable Live Tiles so that you can immediately check unread mail or Calendar appointments. The Start Menu is customisable - you can resize it, and rearrange the tiles, create groups of tiles, and you can also revert to the Windows 8 Start Screen, should you wish to.
The full-screen start menu is really meant for tablet use, where it makes most sense, but you can choose to use it on a PC or laptop without a touchscreen if you like.
We're fans of the tile concept, if not the inelegance with which they're currently presented. As with Windows Phone, it's what you can pin that matters. Instead of merely adding shortcuts to apps, you can pin tiles which are shortcuts to specific functions or features within apps.
This makes life a lot more convenient when you begin pinning the right stuff. For example, you could pin a particular email or conversation thread from Mail or Facebook, or pin a certain journey (your commute, typically) in a travel app. It saves a lot of time, believe us.
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: SEARCH AND CORTANA
Instead of placing a search box in the Start menu, or hiding it completely as is the case in Windows 8, Windows 10 sticks it front and centre on the Taskbar. This is a smart move, as it’s always there ready to serve up whatever you need to find or what to know.
The first time you click on the box, you’ll see a prompt to enable Cortana. That’s because Cortana and search are pretty much one and the same in Windows 10. In fact, search is just part of the virtual assistant’s remit.
If you’ve ever used a phone running Windows Phone 8, you’ll probably know Cortana already. The beauty is that you can type or talk to her and it’s the same in Windows 10. It’s much faster to tap the microphone button (or even say, “Hey Cortana”) and reel off your request than to type it.
Windows 10 review
Sticking with search for a minute, you can type in a single word and Windows 10 will return a list of matching apps, settings and files, plus apps in the Windows store. It will also show a list of web results.
But there’s lots more you can do, as all the features from Windows Phone are now in Windows 10. So you can type or ask, “What’s the weather going to be like this weekend?” and Cortana will display a forecast.
You can also say “Remind me to fill in my tax return tomorrow night” and you’ll get a reminder at the appropriate time. Reminders go even further, as Cortana can tie them to people and places. So you can also say “Remind me to ask James about that money he owes me” and Cortana will ask whether you want to be reminded at a specific time or place.
For places, you can say “Remind me to get milk and bread when I get to Tesco” or “Remind me to water the plants when I get home”.
Cortana will show the top news stories, identify music playing and has a ‘Daily Glance’ which displays a summary of your meetings, today’s weather, information about your daily commute, sports scores and more. If you allow it, Cortana can access information from emails, such as flight numbers and warn you if there’s a delay or if there’s heavy traffic on the way to the airport and you need to leave earlier than you might have.
If Cortana can’t answer a question directly, it will launch the new Edge browser and display search results.
Finally, Cortana can set alarms, record notes, play specific music, launch apps and give you directions on a map. We think Cortana is great, and one of Windows 10’s biggest draws. Learn how to use her capabilities, and you’ll sure to be more productive.
Returning to search and staying with the productivity theme, Windows 10 makes it easier to find your recently used files and frequently visited folders. This is because File Explorer replaces the Favourites section in the left-hand pane with Quick Access.
This makes finding files you've worked on faster and easier, without having to manually pin things to the Taskbar or add folders to the Favourites section manually. It also means you don't have to use the 'last modified' column to sort and find that file you just downloaded or edited yesterday.
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: TASK VIEW, VIRTUAL DESKTOPS, ALT-TAB
To the right of the search box you’ll notice an unfamiliar icon. Click it and Task View will open. It’s a lot like the view you get in Windows 7 or 8 when you press Alt+Tab. You can still use Alt+Tab in Windows 10 but the shortcut for Task View is Win+Tab.
Along the bottom of the screen, beneath the app thumbnails is a new bar showing virtual desktops. This is a feature many Windows users have hankered after, but been forced to resort to third-party software such as Dexpot in previous versions of the OS.
Now in Windows 10, you can create virtual desktops right out of the box. It’s a simple case of clicking the Add desktop button and you’ve got a new, blank desktop on which to launch apps.
Windows 10 review
Then you can quickly flip between desktops using Ctrl+Win+left cursor or Ctrl+Win+right cursor. This is much faster than using Alt+Tab and trying to find one Word document from 20 open windows.
What’s important to note is that unlike in Windows 8.1 you can use the new-style apps from within the Desktop area. This removes some of the pointless division in Windows on X86 systems. It also helps Microsoft make good on its claim that Windows 10 will feel familiar to Windows 7 users.
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: SNAP ASSIST AND WINDOWED APPS
Unlike in Windows 8 - where a snapped app takes up half the screen - with Windows 10 up to four apps can be snapped per screen, each occupying a quarter. When you’ve snapped an app, Snap Assist will display an Al+Tab view of some of the remaining open apps so you can quickly fill the entire screen.
You can still snap apps to fill the whole screen, or the left- or right-hand side, and the same shortcuts apply as with Windows 7 and 8.
Windows 10 review
(See also: Latest Windows 10 screenshots)
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: NOTIFICATIONS
Although Windows 8 had pop-up notifications, things are much better in Windows 10. There’s the equivalent of Windows Phone 8’s Action Centre, complete with toggle buttons for common settings.
If you miss a pop-up notification – they appear in the bottom-right corner – you can swipe in from the right on a touchscreen to display the Notifications bar. Like most similar systems, it divides notifications by app and you can clear them individually or in one fell swoop, the latter being one feature frustratingly absent in iOS.
Buttons at the bottom of the bar include toggles for tablet and desktop mode, brightness, battery saver mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, rotation lock, location, flight mode and more. You can expand or collapse the menu depending on how much room you want it to occupy.
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: APPS
Microsoft Edge
There's a new web browser in Windows 10, and it offers some unique features. As well as the reading mode you may already be familiar with from other browsers, which strips away page furniture so you can focus on the content, there's a new annotation feature which lets you highlight things and add notes and crop to a certain area of the page before sending them to others.
Having these capabilities natively in the browser is a compelling reason to use it over Google Chrome or Firefox. It has also been a decent performer in our testing.
Edge has been designed to have a minimal interface, leaving as much screen real estate as possible for web pages: the whole reason you’re using a browser is to view them, of course.
With the Anniversary Update in August 2016, Microsoft enabled extensions in Edge browser - a feature that's long been needed. Now to install extensions you won't have to go through a tedious process to have it included in your browser. The update also brought web notifications to Windows 10, meaning you can now have Facebook notify you through the Action Center if you've received a new message.
Windows 10 preview review
Windows Media Centre - gone
Some may mourn the loss of Windows Media Centre in Windows 10, which was the built-in application for video, music and photos. It could handle built-in TV tuners and play DVDs, but these days few laptops (and no tablets) come with optical drives for playing video discs anyway.
If you have a media centre PC which relies on Media Centre for watching and recording TV, then you're probably best off sticking with Windows 7 or 8. This affects so few people, though, that it's not a major black mark for Windows 10
Music, Movies & TV
You do get media playback apps, of course. Instead of the Xbox branding which proved a little confusing in Windows 8, the apps are simply called Music and Movies & TV.
The Music app combines your local music with any stored online in your OneDrive Music folder. Plus, it also integrates Microsoft’s music streaming service called Groove – formerly Xbox Music - which you can access by buying a Music Pass. This (currently) costs £8.99 per month, or £89.90 for an annual subscription, making it a bit cheaper than the Apple and Spotify alternatives.
Windows 10 review
The Movies & TV app lets you buy or rent videos from the new Microsoft Store but, like Apple, Microsoft currently lacks a streaming service to rival Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video. The app is split into three sections: Movies, TV and Videos, the latter of which monitors your Videos folder and shows them in the same easy-to-use interface.
Windows 10 review
Photos
Photos has been updated but will be familiar to Windows 8 users. The old Windows Photo Viewer is still there if you prefer, and you’re prompted to choose a default app the first time you open a JPEG. It’s worth using the Photos app, however, as in addition to a decent viewing interface, it also lets you edit photos and pulls in photos from your OneDrive.
Windows 10 review
Skype
It's a surprise that Skype isn't pre-installed, now that it’s owned by Microsoft. Instead there's a Skype advert in the start menu which takes you to the store where you can download it for free.
Mail + Calendar
While Office isn’t included – it was only ever bundled with Windows RT – you do get the Mail and Calendar apps.
Mail is a clean-looking email client which has the ability to handle multiple emails accounts including Outlook.com, Google, iCloud and Exchange (plus pretty much anything else, as long as you can configure the settings yourself).
Windows 10 review
OneNote
OneNote is also part of Windows 10. If you haven’t used it, you should certainly try it out. It’s a powerful Evernote-style app which lets you create notes that are a mixture of text, lists, images, maps and more. Again, OneDrive integration means that you can access your stuff from other devices – even if it’s an Android or iPhone.
Maps
Maps has been improved too. Microsoft has added Streetside – the equivalent of Google’s Street View – so you can take virtual tours of places, as well as getting directions and finding nearby places of interest. For directions, you can choose driving, walking or public transport.
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: THE BAD STUFF
Settings / Control Panel
We like the new simplified Settings app, but we had hoped it would replace Control Panel. Confusingly, both are present in Windows 10 and it isn't always obvious which one you need to use to access or change a particular setting or feature. It would be far better if all of Control Panel's features could be migrated the Settings app.
Forced updates
It's hard not to think of the release version of Windows 10 as the final and finished version. But it isn't. It's really the first version. Microsoft will issue regular updates just as it always has. Only this time it's different. You won't find an option in Windows 10 Home, for example, to turn off updates. That's right: updates are now mandatory.
Updates contain drivers as well as security (and non-security-related) patches, which worries some people. A broken Nvidia driver has already caused problems for some users running the Insider version of Windows prior to 29 July. No doubt Microsoft will figure out the best way to deal with this, as it won't want millions upon millions of Windows users complaining when an update breaks all their machines in one fell swoop.
There are benefits to forced updates, though. Vulnerabilities and security holes will be addressed and patched on all Windows 10 machines (aside from Enterprise versions) at the same time, and people won't be running vulnerable 6-year-old versions of Internet Explorer.
Privacy
Update 12 May 2016: Wi-Fi sense was a cool little feature which allowed you to share your Wi-Fi passwords with your contacts. The feature wasn't fully adopted by Windows 10 users and also caused some people to worry about their computer's security. Microsoft and thus cut-off the feature completely, as it wasn't used by many and cost quite a lot to maintain.
Much has been made of the 'spyware' and privacy issues in Windows 10, and rightly so. Windows 10 is the most connected, cloud-focused OS Microsoft has released and - for the most part - this is a good thing. Using a Microsoft account instead of a local account, for example, means your settings, wallpaper, start menu configuration and other things can be synced across all your devices - even to your Windows phone.
Cortana, one of the best new features, needs to access personal data - emails, location etc - if you want to use its full capabilities. Plus, OneDrive integration means your files are accessible from any computer, tablet or phone.
But negating these advantages is the issue of privacy. In Microsoft's 12,000-word EULA is the following:
"Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to: 1.comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies; 2.protect our customers, for example to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of the services, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone; 3.operate and maintain the security of our services, including to prevent or stop an attack on our computer systems or networks; or 4.protect the rights or property of Microsoft, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services – however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer’s private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement."
That may sound worrying, but the good news is that you can opt out of most features and keep your privacy in Windows 10. To do this, fire up the Settings app and go to Privacy and trawl through all the settings, turning off anything you don't like. Disabling Cortana is a bit more extreme but is a quick way to boost privacy and you don't have to use OneDrive - decline the prompts to set it up when you see them.
You can choose to use a local account instead of a Microsoft account, and if you use Microsoft Edge, you can set privacy options online to disable personalised ads and ad tracking.
We'd prefer all these settings to be off by default, of course.
WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: ANNIVERSARY UPDATE
On 2 August 2016, Microsoft slowly rolled out the free update to everyone on Windows 10. Microsoft's operating system will receive a few updates which will change a few key features, here's a list of the key changes:
Windows Ink: Greater emphasis on using a pen to handwrite notes or quickly take a screenshot of your work. The functionality also integrates with Cortana, whereby you can handwrite an appointment note, and Cortana can provide you with the option to set it as a reminder
Windows Hello: Now works with compatible apps which have it integrated
Windows Defender: You can now schedule scans and be provided with notifications
Cortana: You can now use voice activation to set reminders directly from the lock screen. You'll also be able to use Cortana to provide you with more information within web-based searches. Unfortunately, Microsoft has decided to forcefully keep Cortana-based searches. You can disable the option, but you won't be able to fully remove it as you were able to prior to the Anniversary Update.
Microsoft Edge: The browser now has extensions, web notifications and the option to clear your browsing history on exit, among other smaller changes
Windows Store: Xbox Play Anywhere games will now be made compatible on Windows 10 - games are set to release in late 2016
Tablet mode: You'll now see the All Apps list displayed in fullscreen view. Making it easier to navigate through your apps.
Start Menu: Live-tiles now take you to what is being displayed, rather than to the app's home page. The All Apps list is now the default view when opening the Start Menu, meaning a removal of the extra option; this also changes the positioning of the power button, which now resides in the left-hand corner
Action Centre: Has received an update allowing you to customise the tiles and add 14 Quick Action tiles
Dark Mode: There is an option to turn your Windows settings and Edge browser to have a dark theme by default. This also applies for apps like Mail, Calendar and the Windows Store
Emjoji keyboard: You've now got fun emojis and figures you can choose from
The Anniversary Update is a good step forward by Microsoft, where its emphasis is on Cortana, Windows Ink and small tweaks to the user interface. Let us know in the comments below what you think of the update.
SPECS

OUR VERDICT
For the majority of home users, Windows 10 costs £99.99 to purchase, where prior to 29 July 2016, was a free upgrade for those on Windows 7 and above. Despite the cost, Windows 10 combines the familiarity of Windows 7 with the performance gains found in Windows 8/8.1, which result in a very attractive OS. It’s even better if you have several devices which can run Windows 10 – particularly a phone – as the tight integration means you can set reminders on the go and pick them up on your PC, say, when you get home or into the office. That’s just one tiny example, of course. If you use OneDrive to store your music, photos, videos, notes and documents, you’ll be able to easily access them from anywhere: the online web app has improved a lot since the early days. The bottom line is that Windows 10 is a great operating system. Indeed it’s fair to say that it’s the best Windows yet - as it brings a familiar design that works both in terms of performance and aesthetics. If you're on Windows XP or below, Win10 brings a much sleeker interface and is a more efficient operating system. If you're on Windows 7 and want a faster Windows experience - such as the performance gains found in Windows 8/8.1, then Win10 is an ideal upgrade. If you're on Windows 8 or 8.1, the newer operating system will provide you with a similar feel to previous Windows builds - meaning you no longer have to force yourself to like the Metro UI. Windows 10 is the best operating system Microsoft has come out with, but it's up to you to work out if it's worth the investment.
Windows 10 holds the lead in innovation when it comes to desktop operating systems. Consider, for example, that the voice-activated digital assistant Cortana showed up a full year before Apple added Siri to macOS, that only Windows Hello lets you log in with your face, and that only Windows offers full touch-screen support. What's more, last summer's Anniversary Update added rich digital-inking capabilities, lock-screen Cortana and music controls, better security, and improvements to the interface and Edge web browser. Yet even with all its forward-looking features, the OS manages to remain familiar to longtime Windows users. For this, Windows 10 joins macOS as a PCMag Editors' Choice for desktop operating systems.

Microsoft's latest operating system is a much bigger hit than its ill-fated predecessor, Windows 8. In the year and a half since launch, Windows 10 has attained a 25 percent desktop operating system share, with more than 400 million copies installed—a faster adoption rate than any previous version of Windows. By comparison, all versions of Apple's operating system account for just 7 percent of worldwide computers, according to data from NetMarketShare.

Microsoft bills the operating system as a "service," meaning it's continually updated via the cloud. A case in point is last summer's Anniversary Update, which added impressive new features like digital ink support, as well as some helpful design improvements, many of which were prompted by the vast amounts of user feedback Microsoft has collected. In October the company announced that the Windows 10 Creators Update would arrive in "early 2017." This will add a 3D-capable version of Paint (more on that below), and game broadcasting. More productivity, creativity, security and gaming features are on the way, too, according to Microsoft. The previously announced My People unified communication feature announced for Creators Update has been postponed to the next major update.

In between those major updates, Windows 10 users have received a completely updated version of the Photos app, new Cortana capabilities, and new features in the built-in Maps app. The most recent feature news between major updates comes in the Windows Mail and Calendar apps. Below, you'll find more on all of these.

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How to Get Windows 10
If you didn't move up from Windows 7 or 8 during the year it was free, you can still get Windows 10, but you have to pay for it. You can get the software via download or on USB sticks for the same prices as previous Windows versions; that is, $119.99 list for Home and $199.99 for Pro. Your data and programs come along for the ride when you update from previous versions, though it's always a good idea to back up before an OS upgrade.


Windows 10's minimum system requirements are surprisingly low: a 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of hard drive space. The 64-bit version of Windows 10 increases the RAM requirement to 2GB and the disk space to 20GB. You'll also need a DirectX 9-capable graphics card and a display with at least 800-by-600 resolution. You can find out whether your system is up to snuff by reading Can My PC Run Windows 10?

Microsoft Windows 10 Anniversary Update Start Screen
Windows 10 is available to most users in just two editions: Home and Pro (with 32-bit and 64-bit options for each), but all of the major features appear in both versions. Pro adds business-y things like network domain joining, Hyper-V virtualization, group policy management, and BitLocker encryption. That last one may be of interest to security-conscious personal users, too. Unsurprisingly, if you upgrade from Home levels of Windows 7 or 8, you get Windows 10 Home, and if you update from the professional versions of 7 or 8, you get Pro.

There are, of course, other editions of Windows 10 for special use cases: Enterprise is still an option for large organizations that want bulk licensing deals. Anniversary Update introduced two new Education versions for K-12 institutions: Windows 10 Pro Education and Windows 10 Education. Neither includes Cortana, for now. And let's not forget the lightweight edition that powers Internet-of-things devices and the Raspberry Pi: Windows 10 IoT Core.

Windows 10 presents almost no learning curve for longtime Windows users, while managing to incorporate many of the advances of Windows 8—faster startup, tablet capability, better notifications, and an app store. Its windowing prowess remains unmatched, letting you easily show the desktop and snap windows to the sides and corner quadrants of the screen. The newest Windows still runs the vast majority of the millions of Windows programs in the wild. Yes, that means it still uses the much-derided Registry to maintain configuration settings, but on today's fast hardware that no longer presents issues. (Microsoft recommends against using any third-party registry-optimizing software for Windows 10.)

When setting up a Windows 10 account, you can log in to a local account, without the need for a Microsoft account (macOS, by comparison, requires an Apple account), but you'll lose many of the OS's best features if you do so. A lot of critics have nevertheless called out Microsoft for harvesting usage data by default, so if you're the paranoid type, you shouldn't set up the PC using Express Settings, which enable anonymous usage data collection. For details, read Windows 10: How to Protect Your Privacy.

Interface
Aside from the improvements to headliner features, such as Cortana, Hello, and Ink, the Anniversary Update makes some subtle, but useful, improvements to the desktop interface. For example, the Start menu has been updated: Now it shows the All Apps list without a second button press, and it also shows most used and newly installed apps. I've often found clicking the date in the Taskbar useful, since it pops up a calendar; now you can also see your appointments in that view.

Live tiles have also been updated in a way that makes more sense than before. Now, when you click on a live tile, you'll go to the content highlighted there, rather than just to the app. For example, you'll go directly to the news story or the email or the photo showing on the live tile.

The Windows Store also gets another redesign, this time with features designed to appeal to gamers, in particular. It's aligned more closely with the Xbox Store, and it now offers game bundles and subscriptions. For everyone else, the new design does make it a bit easier to get to the top apps, music, and movies. The Store's download progress indicator is now bigger and clearer, too. One other tweak is that the Action Center (see below) icon now is all the way at the right of the Taskbar, making it easier reach. And one final new interface option, Dark mode, shows apps with black window backgrounds, which can be gentler on the eyes—as well as just looking cool.

Dark Mode in Microsoft Windows 10 Anniversary Update
Another interface feature I've really started to cherish is File Explorer's Quick Access section. This lets you easily find whatever file you were last working on in whatever application you were using. So, if you edit an image and want to add it to another app, it's right at the top of the Quick Access list. You never have to remember where you just saved a file to find it.

Overlap between the Settings App and Control Panel still remains an interface legacy of Windows 8, but really, it's no longer such an issue. For simple system settings, you use the Settings app, for deep, technical system options, you go to the Control Panel.

Cortana Tricks
Cortana, Windows' voice-responsive AI digital assistant, may be Windows 10's highest-profile feature. The intelligent voice assistant predates Apple's Siri on the Mac by over a year. I should note that you can no longer completely disable Cortana in the Update, but you can prevent her from accessing your location, email, contacts, and browsing history, and communications. You can also turn off her listening for "Hey Cortana." Cortana is, however, the search function in the OS, but you can hide the search bar if you never want to use it.
You can now use Cortana from the lock screen. This is useful for things like playing a particular music playlist, asking about today's weather, or asking for information. Speaking of music, the Cortana panel now has a musical note button that serves a Shazam-like function to identify songs in range of your PC's mic. Intel also has new wake-on-voice technology that means you could say "Hey Cortana!" and have the PC respond even if it's in sleep mode. It's sort of like an Amazon Echo, without the need for a separate device.

Cortana on the Lock Screen
Cortana Notebook, which is where you specify your interests so that you'll be notified about what matters to you, has added a few more categories, including On the Go, which pops up suggestions for when you arrive at work or home. Unlike Siri or Google Now, with Cortana, you specify exactly what the assistant knows about you—interests, important people, locations—and you choose whether to have her respond to your spoken "Hey Cortana," or whether you want to use the feature at all.

One improvement to Cortana Reminders is the removal of the Place, Person, or Time requirement: Sometimes you just want to be reminded of something without having to specify any of those. With the previous version, I sometimes tried to set a reminder but gave up because I didn't have a time or place in mind. This simple tweak makes the tool a whole lot more useful.

Cortana Reminders

Cortana Reminders is now a share target; when you hit the share button in a Universal Windows App (UWA), you can set a reminder that's richer than before. For example, if you're in the Edge Web browser, you can hit the Share button, choose Cortana Reminders, and attach the site URL to the reminder. If you do this from the Photos app, the picture is included in the reminder.

A recent Cortana reminder feature can scan your Outlook.com or Office 365 email for phrases like "I'll get you the report by the end of the day," and pop a reminder automatically at the end of your workday. It's a completely opt-in feature, and you have to add Outlook.com or Office 365 as a connected service in Cortana's Notebook.

Cortana in Windows 10 now interacts more tightly with Cortana apps on other devices, such as Android phones and iPhones. You can enable notifications from the phone, including things like low-battery warnings, to show up on Cortana on Windows. You also see messages from WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS from the phone. With all of these improvements, Windows 10 is edging towards the tight integration between mobile and desktop that you find in macOS, though it still doesn't let you reply, except to Skype messages.

The integration also works more fully with Android devices than with iOS devices, since the latter restrict access to some system capabilities. Of course, it works best with phones running Windows 10 Mobile, but while they're still available, and even with new models like the HP Elite x3 coming out, the platform has failed to make significant inroads into the smartphone market.

Windows Ink
Touch and pen input support is a major differentiator between Windows 10 and Apple's macOS. Apple sticks with Steve Job's edict that touch screens don't make sense on laptops and desktops. But a touch screen is the most intuitive interface type possible. You see something you want to interact with, such as a button, you press it with your finger. In using a Surface Pro 4 and an Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IC all-in-one PC (both of which have touch screens) for the past year or so, I've gotten to the point of trying to tap buttons on computers with non-touch screens out of habit.

Windows' digital ink capabilities allow stylus input to work just like a pen or pencil, converting it to text. This is a technologically cool feature, but it will only be of interest to owners of tablets and convertibles like the Surface Pro 4, the Surface Book or the Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 700. The new Windows Ink Workspace offers sticky notes (with extra smarts), as well as Sketchpad and Screen Sketch options. It also shows recent apps you've penned in and suggests pen-friendly apps in the Store. You can turn off the feature's icon if you don't expect to use it.

Windows Ink Workspace

This new Ink Workspace can be summoned by clicking a stylus button. You can also take advantage of some Cortana smarts in the new sticky notes. For example, if you write "Wednesday," the text is turned to a blue link, and clicking this gives you the option to set a Cortana reminder. I actually had better luck getting Cortana to notice flight information when I typed it in the note, rather than penning it, however. Info on flight status for such notes appears at the bottom of the sticky.

Sketchpad offers ballpoint pen, pencil, highlighter, eraser, ruler, and touch writing tools. Sketchpad resembles the whiteboard app on the Surface Hub. It also lets you crop the image, copy it, and share it to any Universal Windows app in the share sidebar. A ruler tool lets you draw perfectly straight lines, and even includes a compass. Double-clicking the pen button or choosing Screen Sketch from the Ink Workspace snaps a screenshot of your desktop and opens it in Sketchpad so you can annotate and draw on top of it with any of the aforementioned tools.

One of the coolest inking capabilities is the pen keyboard. You switch to this mode from the standard on-screen keyboard. Start writing on the line there, and text predictions show up. Hit enter, and your writing turns into text in whatever text area you're writing in. It does surprisingly well with even poor penmanship, and striking through your writing deletes it easily.

Edge Web Browser Gets More Capable
The Edge Web browser that comes with Windows 10 is fast and compatible, and it offers unique tools like Web Notes that let you mark up and share webpages, a clean (ad-free) Reading view, and built-in Cortana information. Until now, however, it has lacked a feature that power users insist on: Extensions.

Edge Web Browser
Edge's new Extensions menu option links to the Windows app store, from which you can finally get Edge extensions. I tested by installing one I consider essential—LastPass. There are also extensions for Amazon, Evernote, Microsoft Translator, OneNote, Pinterest, Pocket, and others. Though it's not a long list yet, those are some heavy hitters that will make the browser appealing to more demanding users. Of course, it's just a start, and there are only 23 extensions at time of writing, compared with thousands for Firefox and Chrome. Microsoft representatives told me that the reason for this is that the Edge team is being very careful in vetting extensions, not wanting another ActiveX-type security nightmare. They're also still building out the API; we should see a lot more extensions when Creators Update rolls out. Coding for IE's extensions uses the same Web technologies as Chrome does (HTML and JavaScript), however, and Microsoft says converting existing Chrome extensions will be trivial. In fact, the W3C is coming out with a Browser Extension standard, which Microsoft aims to support.

Extensions for Edge
After downloading the LastPass extension in the store, I hit the Launch button on its store page, and then saw a message in the top-right corner of the browser notifying me that a new extension was available and offering to turn it on. I then had to log in to my LastPass account on a webpage. (I also use Duo Mobile for two-factor authentication, which I allowed from my iPhone).

Unlike most browsers' extensions, Edge's appear by default in the overflow menu rather than next to the address bar, but you can add their icons to the toolbar with a Settings option. The LastPass extension worked just as in other browsers. LastPass's on-page features, such as automatic password fill-in, also worked well via the extension.


Edge now gets 460 out of a possible 555 points in my testing on the HTML5Test.com site, making it highly compatible with modern Web standards compared with IE, which scores 312. Firefox, by comparison, gets 466, Opera comes in at 504, and Chrome still leads with 507. Edge's low battery drain on portable PCs and tablets, is another feather it its cap (see my review linked below). I also did a quick speed test using the JetStream benchmark on a Surface Book with an Intel Core i5 and 8GB RAM. The benchmark runs three times through a bank of 38 tests. Bigger scores are better. Firefox got a score of 142, Chrome achieved 168, and Edge came in at 196. That's not so surprising: Earlier Edge versions even beat Chrome on Google's own Octane benchmark.

Tablet and touch-screen users will like Edge's new swipe gestures, which let you go back and forth in history, and desktop users will appreciate that the back button now drops down tab history, as most browsers do. I also appreciate that Edge, like other browsers, now offers a Paste-and-go option and the ability to pin tabs. Unfortunately, there's still no full-screen browser view and you can't set an image as your desktop background from the browser. For an in-depth look, read my full review of Microsoft Edge.

Windows Hello and Improved Security
One focus of the Anniversary Update is security, including Windows Hello biometric authentication. Hello is not only supported on Surface Pros and Books, but you can also use third-party biometric login devices, such as the Eidon Mini fingerprint reader, Intel's RealSense cameras, and a wristband from Nymi that identifies you by your unique heartbeat signature.

And on the software side, Windows Universal Apps and websites you browse in Edge can also use Hello for authentication, similar to identifying yourself on an iPhone or Apple Watch with Apple's TouchID. Apps that support Hello now include Dropbox and iHeartRadio.

WIndows Hello in Dropbox
In more security news, the included anti-malware software, Windows Defender, adds the ability to schedule regular system scans and new notifications about threats. Enterprise security feature adds include two major new features: Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, which detects and resolves advanced network threats; and Windows Information Protection, which isolates corporate data from personal data on work PCs. Though our security expert, Neil Rubenking, found the pre-Anniversary version of Defender showed some improved scores on independent lab tests, it still trails most third-party antivirus.

Action Center
A Windows 10 feature with roots in mobile operating systems is the Action Center. While previous versions of Windows included something also called Action Center, the new feature is more like a smartphone's notifications plus quick action features. In fact, that's exactly what it is. Windows 8 had notifications, but they were ephemeral—if you missed one, whether it was a Facebook message or a severe weather alert, it was gone after a brief appearance.

Windows 10 Action Cente

The Windows 10 Action Center, similar to Apple macOS Sierra's Notification Center, keeps those messages available in a right-side panel. You open Windows 10's Action Center panel from a taskbar button, or on touch screens with a swipe in from the right edge of the screen. The panel also offers frequently needed functions like power, settings, networking, and screen brightness and rotation. One of these actions, Connect, is pretty neat, in that it lets you project your screen onto another one on your network. I was able to display my Surface Pro 3's screen on a big Samsung TV with no setup aside from choosing OK on the TV—pretty nifty.

Store and Universal Windows Apps
If you never upgraded to Windows 8 or 8.1, you don't know what it is to have an app store on your PC desktop. Why do you need an app store on your PC? Mac users have had one for several years, and it offers the advantages of automatic updating and a single source for finding programs you need. It gives you access on all your PCs (and Windows Phones) to apps you've bought. Acceptance to the Windows Store also means an app has been vetted by Microsoft for security. You can also install apps to external memory—something tablet users will appreciate.

For Windows 10, there are even more advantages for these modern apps: They can tie in with the notifications and share panels. For example, if you use the Facebook app rather than going to the Facebook website, you can see notifications for new messages and you can send shareable content via the app.

Store Collections in Microsoft Windows 10 Anniversary Update
Windows 10 Store apps are called Universal Windows apps, meaning they can run on desktops, tablets, phones, the Surface Hub, and eventually on the Xbox and Microsoft HoloLens reality-augmentation 3D headset. Underneath these apps is Windows 10's OneCore platform, a common base that underlies all these device types and allows not only apps, but also device drivers to work with them. UWAs have one more benefit: They run within containers so that they don't mess with the rest of your system.

Continuum and Tablet Mode
Continuum refers to switching among desktop, smartphone, and tablet modes. The idea is that the single OS can automatically reformat itself to work best with the form factor at hand. It's most impressive on smartphones, where Continuum lets you use the small handheld device to power a large screen along with a mouse and keyboard, for a desktop-like experience. That's been the idea of the future for several years: A world in which your only computer fits in your pocket.


You can either use the Microsoft Display Dock for this or connect over Wi-Fi using a Miracast-supporting HDTV or set-top box. It's brilliantly done, and pretty impressive when you first see it. The phone turns into a trackpad and keyboard when needed, yet you can still use it as a phone while it's displaying Windows on the big screen. One drawback: Continuum only allows the phone to display one full-size modern Store app (including Office apps) at a time. Another issue is that it only works with the latest Windows Phone models, such as the Lumia 950.
Tablet mode is no longer considered a Continuum feature, but is simply referred to as Tablet mode. This is a trimmed down, more touch-friendly version of the OS, with a full-screen tile-based Start screen. After you pull off the keyboard from a tablet, such as the Surface Pro 4, or convert a convertible laptop to tablet mode (often by bending the screen backwards), Windows pops up a message asking if you want to switch to Tablet mode, in which the Start menu and modern apps become full screen. Touch gestures like closing an app by swiping down from the top of the screen work in this mode. For Anniversary, the All Apps view stretches across the screen with large tiles, making it easier to get to any app on the PC.

Continuum and tablet mode should not be confused with Apple's Continuity, which is all about switching from one device to another while continuing an activity, whether you are sending an SMS text or editing a document. Windows 10 actually does have an option for using Bluetooth to continue app experiences from one device to another, however.

Included Apps—Office Mobile, Mail, Calendar, Photos
You get a surprisingly full kit of apps with Windows 10. Not only do you get the modern information apps that came with Windows 8—Maps, Money, News, Sports, Food & Drink, Health & Fitness, and so on—but you also can get Microsoft Office from the Windows app store. You heard that right, but there's a catch: Unless you have an Office 365 subscription, you can only read, not edit, documents with these productivity apps.

The version of Office you get with Windows 10 is equivalent to the iPad version of Office, called Office Mobile. It's capable of most word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation needs, but pros who need to dig into Excel pivot tables and Word advanced formatting will want the Office 365 version.

The included Mail app (which is called Outlook on the mobile version of Windows 10) is getting smarter too, with Focused Inbox rolling out even before Creators Update. This is a great feature that's already implemented in the Outlook for iPhone and Android apps. It filters out all the newsletters and promotions, and only shows you mail from those with whom you regularly correspond, or that is=s in some other way deemed important by the service. You can of course still see everything else at the tap of a tab, and turn off this focusing for mail you don't want highlighted. You can now also use @ signs in an email body to add them to the conversation. Still, the app isn't as powerful as the Office 365 desktop version, though I must admit that it's now good enough to be my everyday work email client.

The Mail app is integrated with Calendar and Contact apps, available from buttons along the bottom of Mail. Calendar does a presentable job of handling multiple calendars, appointments, and views. Recent additions to the Calendar include color-coding for event categories, public calendar subscriptions for shows and sports, and cards for deliveries and travel reservations. The cards for travel reservations even include links to online check-in services.

Focused Inbox in Windows Mail
In addition to the Office apps, you get the Groove Music app, which you can use either to simply play music sitting on your hard drive or in your OneDrive cloud storage or with its paid ($9.99 per month) ad-free, on-demand streaming service. The latter offers a huge library, though it has limitations compared with the Mac's iTunes and Apple Music. Another included app is Movies & TV, which also offers a content store as well as the ability to play your own videos.

You still get lots of utility-type apps, too, including a scanner app, alarms, a calculator, a camera, a reader (for viewing PDFs and several other document formats), and a voice recorder. There's even a Phone Companion app that works with iOS and Android mobiles as well as with Windows phones.

Windows 10 Maps
The impressive Maps app recently has been updated with support for Windows Ink, meaning you can mark up a map using a stylus or your finger on a touch-screen PC. But that's not all: You can calculate the distance of a line you draw on a map and get directions for two points you tap. If you don't have a touch screen, the same functionality is possible with a mouse. You can also use a virtual on-screen ruler to make your lines straight.

Windows Photos Update
Of special note is the updated Photos app, which lets you organize your photos into albums, apply fixes like red-eye correction, lighting, and color, and effects like selective focus and Instagram-like filters. The app has recently been updated with a completely new interface that uses slider bars instead of wheels, adds more filters, and gives the ability to draw on photos. Photos even creates automatic galleries for you based on photos taken at a similar time and place, picking the best of similar photos to include. But again, at this point in its evolution, it still slightly trails the macOS counterpart, Photos, which adds face recognition. And an entry-level video-editing app like the old Windows Movie Maker or Apple's iMovie is completely AWOL from Windows 10.

Though the reappearance of a video editing is a matter of speculation, we have heard about an old standby, Paint, taking on forward-looking new 3D capabilities. See my preview of Paint 3D, which will launch next spring in the Creators Update. Not only does it let you create, customize, and decorate 3D objects, but you can also share them with the Remix3D.com online community.

OneDrive and Skype
Two of Microsoft's cloud services—OneDrive for online storage and syncing and for communication—will play an increasingly important role in Windows 10. There's an important distinction between these and Apple's analogous iCloud for macOS: They can be used on any platform. So there are Skype and OneDrive apps for Macs, Androids, and iOS devices, as well as for PCs and Windows phones.

While OneDrive does a great job syncing Office documents and personalization settings, and Skype is a very rich communication tool, there's still some work for Microsoft to do in integrating them with Windows 10. For example, when using the Photos app, you can tap the Share icon to send selected images to Mail, Facebook, Twitter, or any other app that accepts sharing of that file type—but not to OneDrive.

Skype integration in Windows 10 is also somewhat in flux. In fact, the service's Universal Windows App is still called Skype Preview, which now supports chat bots. Windows has the potential for parity to macOS's Messaging and Facetime apps, but it's not there yet. The Action Center now shows Skype messages, but still not missed calls. You can now directly reply to messages inside the panel just as on the Mac. The Mac solution here is still more seamless, but Windows 10 is getting closer. Also keep in mind that Skype is a full, standalone VoIP solution that can call standard phones, while the Mac is just hooking into the iPhone's mobile connection. And like OneDrive, Skype works on all major platforms, not just one.

Gaming
Microsoft continues to make the Window 10 proposition sweeter for gamers. The Xbox app for Windows 10 not only lets them see an activity feed, but it also includes game DVR and can even stream games from an Xbox One to the PC. PCMag's game maven Jeff Wilson has taken a good look at Windows 10's Xbox gaming app. While he found that game streaming and the DVR feature worked well, he was less impressed with the game selection—it can't compete with Steam's. He was also disappointed that you can't buy games right from the app, but instead have to switch to the Windows Store app. He also found the interface somewhat cluttered.

On the plus side, the Xbox and Windows 10 Stores have been unified, and the Play Anywhere initiative means you can buy games for one platform and play them either on the console or the PC. Game progress stays in sync between platforms. Play Anywhere games have begun to appear, but the list is still quite short: At the moment, only three full-fledged games are Play Anywhere-compatible—Gears of War 4, Forza Horizon 3, and ReCore—but about a dozen more are available in preview form. You can keep up with the list on the Xbox Play Anywhere page.


Xbox (for PC)
Beyond the Xbox app, Windows 10's 3D video engine is now DirectX 12, which, according to some game developers, could open up a whole new level of realism to games. And Windows 10 was recently enhanced with the ability to turn off VSync and instead enable AMD's Freesync and Nvidia's G-Sync in Universal Windows Platform (UWP) games and apps. The same update also unlocked frame rates for UWP games. Microsoft's own Gears of War: UE game will soon be updated with those features, as will Forza Motorsport 6: Apex (free).

You can read more about what Freesync, G-Sync and unlocked frame rates mean for Windows 10 on our sister site, Extreme Tech. All of this adds up to one more reason it's never been a better time to be a PC gamer. If you have doubts about that, you should check out all the first-rate titles in our Best PC Games of 2016 feature.

The Creators Update will add built-in game broadcasting capability and will also let users create their own Arena gamer tournaments on Xbox Live.

Windows of Opportunity
Windows 10 Anniversary Update offers more ways to interact with your desktop PC than any competitor, along with more third-party hardware and software options. Whether it's using your voice with Cortana, gesturing on a touch screen, or writing with a digital pen, Windows is the OS of choices. It's the platform that offers the most choice in form factor, from the smallest tablets to massive gaming PCs and the giant Surface Hub. Its only device-based weakness is the flagging Windows Phone ecosystem, despite impressive new Windows phone models, such as the Alcatel Idol 4S occasionally showing up, and Microsoft's rumored Surface Phone).

Windows is a desktop and tablet operating system that's familiar, innovative, and adaptable to the size and capabilities of the hardware on which it's running. For managing to include so much new technology, while remaining intuitive to use, Windows 10 earns a PCMag Editors' Choice for desktop operating systems, an honor it shares with the polished and impressive macOS.
WINDOWS 10 CREATORS UPDATE INCOMING

After doubling down on touch screens in the Anniversary Update (see below), the next major update to Windows will focus on 3D content. The Creators update is due to ship ‘early next year’ and will add several new features that vary wildly in usefulness depending on how you use windows.

A major new piece of software is coming to Windows 10 in the form of Paint 3D. This free program can import 3D objects and create full 3D scenes that can be shared on websites such as Facebook. So you actually have some content to play with, Microsoft has also launched its Remix3D service that allows users to download 3D objects to place into their scenes. You’ll also be able to import objects you’ve created in Minecraft.

3D is also coming to Microsoft Office, so you can add animated 3D objects to your presentations and… spreadsheets?

Elsewhere, and somewhat related to the creators theme, you’ll soon be able to broadcast games via the Beam platform without any extra software. Simply broadcast from the game menu pop-up.

Completely away from the Creators theme, the new Windows MyPeople function allows you to pin contacts to your taskbar and drag files directly to them via whichever messaging platform (email, SMS, Skype etc) is most suitable. You can also chat directly from those pinned icons. Windows MyPeople

There will be other minor additions we’ll hear about closer to launch date, but for now most of them are limited to the Insider Previews, which you can sign up to if you want an early look at some new features.

WINDOWS 10 ANNIVERSARY UPDATE REVIEW: MICROSOFT DOUBLES DOWN ON TOUCHSCREENS


Anniversary Update review by Michael Passingham

Microsoft’s Anniversary update to Windows 10 is likely to be the first of many feature updates to the company’s showpiece operating system.

On the first page of the review I focus on the new Anniversary Update and its features; from page 2 onwards you'll find the original Windows 10 review. The latter will be revisited once I've used used the final version of Windows 10 Anniversary Update for a few weeks.

We’ve all known what was going to be in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update for the best part of five months, so there aren’t many surprises here.

Related: Best laptops to buy

WINDOWS INK

Windows Ink is the most important update for those who use 2-in-1 devices with a stylus. This part of the update is all about future-proofing and ensuring that Windows 10 is ready for the next generation of 2-in-1s, including the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S, Huawei MateBook, Asus Transformer Pro 3, Acer Switch Alpha 12 and the Microsoft Surface Pro 5.

Perhaps more importantly, with this improved stylus support Microsoft hopes to be able to steer buyers away from the iPad Pro.

With Windows 10 Microsoft has created an opportunity to move the 2-in-1 form factor from being a nice-to-have to a must-have. Windows Ink could be game changing with the right piece of hardware.Ruler

To find all the new goodies, open up the Windows Ink Workspace. On a Surface Pro 4, this can be done by clicking the button on the end of your Surface Pen – on other devices this will vary. Popping open the Workspace will reveal three brand-new features: Sticky Notes, Sketchpad and Screen sketch.

Oddly, the key application here is the humble Sticky Notes. It made its debut in Vista’s Gadgets interface 10 years ago, and since then it’s been a staple of Windows. However, it’s only now that Microsoft has allowed you to actually write onto the notes with a stylus.

But they’re functionality doesn't end there. If your writing is neat enough, Microsoft’s patchy personal assistant Cortana will read your notes and suggest you turn them into a reminder. This function appears to trigger only if the note includes a time frame, such as “call Michael tomorrow”, so your notes will need to be fairly precise in their description.

You can also note down phone numbers and flight numbers, which Cortana will highlight in blue. This allows you to take an action, such as saving the number to your contacts or tracking the flight you just wrote down. Windows Ink workspace

I'm a huge fan of Sticky Notes’ ability to turn your scribbles into an actual list. Draw a dash before each list item and Windows should recognise it as an individual list item, which can then be dragged up and down the note to alter its priority level. You can then draw a line through it to mark it as done. The feature is superb for those who want to commit to a paperless workflow. The ability to draw tickboxes and add other, more advanced features to my notes would have been welcome, but it’s appears to be a good start nonetheless.


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Note that the above impressions of the Sticky Notes feature are based on a demonstration by a Microsoft representative last week, since the device supplied to me by Microsoft didn’t have the new Sticky Notes installed.

Next up in the Ink Workspace is Sketchpad. Sketchpad sits between Paint and OneNote as a drawing pad, allowing to you create quick doodles without faffing around with OneNote’s more advanced features. Its one notable feature is the interactive ruler, which lets you draw perfectly straight lines with ease. You can snap the ruler to certain angles, and move it around as you please. It isn't perfect, though: you can’t accurately rotate it around a specific point, so you can forget about drawing inch-perfect pie charts or bicycle spokes.

The third new feature is Screen Sketch. This is essentially Sketchpad, but instead of a blank canvas, you're able to draw over or add notes to a screen capture or a photo, and play with the ruler again.

It’s a weird hybrid between pressing Print Screen, and using the Snipping Tool and OneNote. It’s also rather like taking a Snap in Microsoft Edge. It does rather feel like feature creep and, for a lot of people, will surely be quite confusing. It’s not convenient; it’s bad UI design. I don’t understand why Microsoft didn’t roll this all into OneNote, which comes pre-installed on every Windows 10 PC.

At a base level, Windows Ink and the Workspace are good additions, but their success will rely on greater third-party app support. For now, this feels like a mish-mash of useful and duplicate features.

CORTANA AND NOTIFICATIONS

Microsoft’s digital assistant has also benefited from some tweaks, with some new functions that include the ability to perform commands while your device is locked.

It works reliably – I was able to set reminders, check my appointments for the day, send emails, look up pictures of dogs, find nearby restaurants and check flight status information, all without having to log into my machine. It’s handy if you’re about to dash away from your desk and need to check where your next meeting is without having to log back in. But it’s only good for at-a-glance information; if you want to interact with any of the information displayed, you’ll need to log in.

Cortana now hooks into Universal Apps in more detail than ever before, with Microsoft often using the example of takeaway-ordering app Just Eat. It's able to access your calendar and take note of the fact you have a lunchtime meeting booked in. It will suggest a greasy meal to nosh over as you thrash out exactly how you plan to improve inter-departmental synergy. Windows 10 Anniversary udpate 3

It's a great concept, but I’ve yet to see any particularly compelling integrations that don’t result in an expanding waistline. This is another one for the future.

Related: How to use Cortana

Cortana is now also able to handle cross-platform notifications, showing missed calls, SMS notifications and other alerts from your Windows and Android smartphone. Cortana isn’t available for Android in the UK – and there’s no word on its release – so I wasn’t able to test this with my main phone.

However, I was able to put it to use on a Microsoft Lumia 950, and it did successfully notify me of a missed call. The best part of this is that you can tap the notification and send an SMS reply from within Windows, so you don’t even need to pick up your phone to deal with it.

The big downside here is that it isn't quick enough to notify you if your phone is actually ringing, so if your phone is in silent mode then you're unlikely to catch the call. In my tests, it took at least 30 seconds for these notifications to fire, which is far too slow.

Microsoft is playing catch-up with Apple’s iOS/MacOS Handover function, and while I’m sure there will be plenty of features for Windows 10 Mobile users, I doubt many Android app developers will bother trying to hook their app into Cortana and Windows 10, so Windows is unlikely to catch Apple here.

WINDOWS HELLO INTEGRATION

Microsoft has opened up Windows 10’s Hello security API to allow third-party apps to hook into it. This only applies to devices that are certified by Microsoft and are limited to depth-sensing cameras and fingerprint readers for now. But as Hello becomes more common and fingerprint readers and cameras are integrated into more devices, this will become more important.

The only app I was able to find to actually support this is Dropbox, but I managed to log into my Dropbox account through the Windows app via the face-detection hardware in my Surface Pro 4 without a hitch.

This will also be integrated into Microsoft Edge, although I've yet to stumble across any websites that support it.

EDGE EXTENSIONS

This is a biggie for die-hard Edge users – if such folk exist – with Microsoft finally opening up its browser to third-party extensions. These can be found in the Windows Store. Prior to the Anniversary Update launch, there were 13 extensions available from the likes of Pinterest, Amazon, Evernote, Pocket and AdBlock (sigh). I hope to see more following the launch of the Anniversary Update. Windows 10 Anniversary udpate 1

Edge’s extension integration is well thought out, with each extension initially hidden in the More menu on the top-right of the screen. If you like an extension enough to have it display next to the Edge address bar, you can move it there by right-clicking on it.

It will be interesting to see how deep Microsoft will let extensions delve into the inner workings of Edge.

DARK MODE

You can now set Windows to run apps in a Dark mode. This is great for a few Windows Store apps, but common tools such as File Explorer completely ignore it, continuing to display in blinding white. Next.

START MENU

There have been some small but useful changes to the Start menu, which most people will appreciate. It now lists all your programs in a vertical list, which means you don't have to poke through folders to find what you're looking for. Recently added applications are right at the top, with Most Used sitting just beneath them. Windows 10 Anniversary udpate 4

There's a noticeable increase in the number of "Suggested" apps, with Microsoft still appearing to believe that ads in what's now a paid-for operating system is still the way to go.

BASH

The Linux-based Bash command line is in Windows for the first time ever. For the general consumer this will mean nothing, but this is a big deal for developers.

Bash and Windows have never played nicely together before, but with this official integration, worked on by both Microsoft and Ubuntu’s parent company Canonical, developers can expect to have a much easier time when developing scripts for multiple platforms. By most accounts it’s a work in progress, but it’s better than no movement at all.


Related: Best Linux distros for old laptops and more

WINDOWS 10 ANNIVERSARY UPDATE: EARLY VERDICT

Windows 10 Anniversary Update adds a few new features to the OS that, right now, don't appear particularly significant and which most people probably won’t use. However, they're making Windows 10 ready for the future.

With biometric-style logins with Hello, good stylus support and handwriting recognition through Sticky Notes and Cortana, Bash integration and cross-platform notifications, Windows 10 is doing just enough to keep its head above water in the multi-platform battle against Google and Apple.

It’s also positive for the Windows ecosystem as a whole. Microsoft has shown clear intent to add handy features to Windows 10 on a regular basis, and perhaps in the future we’ll get as excited about Windows 10 feature additions as we do with new versions of iOS and Android. Maybe.

You don’t really have any choice about installing the Anniversary Update; it will be downloaded to your computer and if you want to continue receiving Windows 10 updates then it's essential. For those who aren't bothered about the new features, then all you really need to know is that the update doesn’t make things any worse
A year after it was first launched, Windows 10 continues to evolve. Now, as the product moves from its “free to everyone” model, the company has released the Anniversary Update. This builds on Windows 10’s most successful features while significantly changing those that users have found to be annoying, irritating or just plain missing.

Back at release, it became obvious that Windows 10 is the last big monolithic update to Microsoft’s key operating system. This will be the last time users will have to undergo the upheaval of reinstalling a major version of Windows. The last time they’ll have to worry about backwards-compatibility, just to keep up with the bleeding edge. The last time they’ll have to make a decision over whether to install this version or wait until the next one in the hope that things will get better. There will be no Windows 11.

This means upgrading to Windows 10 – which you should have done by now – was something of a leap of faith. So does the Anniversary Update justify that faith?

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What’s new in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update?

Microsoft has scattered tweaks throughout Windows 10 for the Anniversary Update, but there are three areas it has concentrated heavily on: Edge; Cortana; and ink support.

Microsoft Edge: The best browser around

When it was first released, many people claimed Edge was too simple, but it’s always been responsive and easy to use. Now it’s gained support for extensions, too. There aren’t many of these about yet – yes, AdBlock is there, but please whitelist us if you’re using it – but we’d expect this to grow over time.

Extensions are installed through the Windows Store, as you’d expect, and there’s no option to install extensions independently of the store. There isn’t much to say about extensions at this point, except to say that they work, and that there’s so few of them at this point that we were able to try out every single available one.

Edge keeps the nice-but-not-vital features it had at launch, including an annotation feature that lets you scribble with a stylus onto a web page, or type into sticky notes, and save or share your markup for future reference – and across Windows 10 devices.

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There’s Cortana integration. Visit a restaurant’s website and you’ll see a Cortana prompt in the address bar: “I’ve got directions, hours and more.” Click and the details appear in a pop-up pane at the side of the window.

The browser is more secure than the old Internet Explorer, benefitting from the sandboxing built into the Universal app framework. As a result, it’s far less vulnerable to hackers and drive-by downloads. So confident is Microsoft in the robustness of its new browser that it’s offering a “bug bounty” of up to $15,000 for anyone who manages to expose a security vulnerability.

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Edge’s biggest advantage over Chrome, however, remains its parsimonious approach to your battery, and this is an area Microsoft claims to have pushed even further in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

Edge’s advantage is partly down to the appalling state of memory management in Chrome, but Microsoft should be applauded in realising this is a priority for users and giving it some focus. As a test, I installed Chrome and did my regular work for a day, then did the same using Edge. Our workflow is heavily web-based, as all of our content originates in Google Drive and we use Google for calendar and mail. We also use other apps, including Trello and Slack, which are web-native.

The difference between the two browsers was huge. I got a full hour and a half more battery life out of the Surface Pro 4 with Edge compared with using Chrome. Unless you’re plugged in all the time, that will make a big difference to your working day.

Cortana's new features

Cortana, Microsoft’s voice-driven digital assistant, was one of the flagship features for Windows 10. You can invoke it by hitting the Windows key and typing (as it understands type-written commands as well as voice), or with a three-fingered tap on your touchpad (assuming your touchpad supports multitouch gestures). You can also optionally set up Cortana to appear whenever you say “hey, Cortana” – and this is where the biggest change in Anniversary Update comes in.

You can now invoke Cortana when your computer is locked. Turn on the option, and you don’t even need to log in to do things such as adding reminders, checking appointments and even sending emails.

This is obviously a useful feature, although if you want to do anything with the information it gives you, you’ll still need to log in. The biggest problem is actually training yourself not to automatically reach for the on switch to wake your computer up. Several times I caught my hand heading to the keyboard when I could have used Cortana to check something from the lockscreen.

And that “cultural” issue remains Cortana’s biggest issue. Speaking to a computer in the average open-plan office will still turn heads, and that’s assuming that the overall hubbub doesn’t confuse the speech recognition. Cortana is a great piece of technology, but for corporate users it’s likely to get less use than it should, at least in speech-recognition mode.


As with previous Cortana releases, the system finds programs and documents, but it can now also respond to other types of request: type in a calculation or a phrase such as “weather Sheffield” and results will pop up directly from your taskbar.

It’s a clever way to dissuade people from going to Google for simple errands, but it’s not yet smart enough: after a few requests such as “show me bus times” yielded only dumb Bing searches, I found myself falling back on the browser.

The Anniversary Update sees Cortana get a little smarter in other areas, however. For example, it (I can’t call it “she”) can now save and recall useful information such as your frequent flier numbers, and you can add photos to reminders to make them more visual.

Reminders are now synced across devices, too, so if you’re away from your desk, your Windows Phone will tell you about a reminder you set from your laptop. If you’re in the US, you can also use the Cortana app for Android or iOS to get reminders – but Microsoft has yet to bring out the app outside the US.

Inking: The future of Windows?

Microsoft must look at the sales of the iPad Pro – particularly into enterprise – and experience pangs of jealousy. Although Bill Gates didn’t invent pen-based computing, the company championed it throughout the early 2000s, and even through the Tablet PC years when, to be honest, the technology hadn’t quite caught up with the vision. Then Johnny-come-lately Apple appears with its Pencil and everyone acts like no-one has created a stylus before.

The truth is that Windows has had pen support for a long, long time, and in the 24 years since it released the first pen-supporting version, Microsoft has become really rather good at pen interfaces. The problem it has faced is twofold: not enough pen devices out in the wild, and not enough developer support for those devices.

The Windows 10 Anniversary Update can’t fix either of these issues on its own, but it can at least improve the pen experience for those who use it, and find ways to encourage users to use the pen more often.

To that end, it’s created the Windows Ink Workspace, a little icon on the taskbar which reveals three new features: Sticky Notes, Sketchpad and Screen Sketch.

I can already hear you mumbling about Sticky Notes. “That’s not new,” you’re saying, “and who uses them anyway?” The answer to the latter is “lots of people” – just take a trip around the average office and count the number of little yellow bits of paper around people’s screens.


And these Sticky Notes are more than just yellow blobs on your screen. You can, for the first time, ink on them as well as typing. And thanks to Cortana, they’re actually smart. Write “Call Bill tomorrow” and Cortana parses the writing and colours it. You then tap on it to create a reminder. It also works with certain kinds of information, for example flight numbers or phone numbers. If Cortana recognises something, it colours the text, and tapping on it lets you take actions, such as adding the phone number to your contacts.

In theory, this is great. In practice, I couldn’t get it to work. At present, this smart ink recognition feature only works with US English, with other languages to follow.

The other apps did work as expected, though. Sketchpad is a reasonably full-featured drawing application, which lets you draw with pen, pencil and highlighter tools. It also has a ruler you can draw lines against, and which you move around and rotate using multitouch. If that sounds familiar, it should: it’s borrowed directly from Apple’s iPad Pro Notes application and Adobe’s earlier Sketch app. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it certainly made me smile.

Screen Sketch is probably my favourite application in Ink Workspace. All it does is capture the screen and let you crop it, annotate it, and share it to other applications. I did this constantly, and found Screen Sketch incredibly smooth. It’s one of the small applications that ties together different parts of Windows – Ink, the Share charm – and makes something work really smoothly.

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