23 January 2015, 12:00 pm AEDT / Updated: 2 June 2015, 8:00 am AEST
The end is in sight: Windows 10 will be released on July 29 as a free download for anyone runningWindows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1; the free update will be available for a year.
If you aren't eligible for the free upgrade (perhaps one of the many still running Windows XP) you can also pick up individual licenses. Windows 10 Home will set you back $119, and Windows 10 Pro will cost you $199. There isn't any word on international pricing, but those prices are identical to Windows 8 pricing, and convert to £78 / AU$156 and £131 / AU$262 for the Home and Pro versions, respectively.
The Windows 10 Technical Preview has come a long way over the last nine or so months, but there's still plenty left to iron out before the next generation of Windows is humming along on our PCs, tabletsand phones. To that end, the latest build of Windows 10 (Build 10130) is all about bug fixes and cosmetic tweaks.
The Microsoft Edge browser is still called Project Spartan in this Technical Preview, and features like the Reading view and video playback should function as expected on more devices. Microsoft's virtual assistant Cortana can now be reached by a handy shortcut key -- Windows Key + "C" -- so you can quickly perform a search, or set a reminder. And if you've been following Windows 10's development from the start you'll also find spiffy new icons and a refined design for many of the existing menus.
There's still quite a bit missing. Windows 10 Mobile, for example, doesn't feel nearly as complete as its desk and tablet incarnation. We've also hadn't had a chance to see the Windows Hello biometric security features in action, though that will admittedly require new products from device manufacturers.
A fresh start
Windows 8 was a bold reimagining of Microsoft's operating system, but the Start screen proved contentious. The colorful Live Tiles offered useful notifications and information, but they were designed with touchscreen devices in mind: much of the work we do in Windows involves keyboards, mice and large displays chock-full of windows and apps. Windows 8's Modern apps demand a full screen's attention, oblivious of our need to multitask. The Windows 10 Start menu gives us the best of both worlds.
Boot up a PC running the Windows 10, and you'll be dropped off at the oh-so-familiar desktop. The Taskbar and its icons sit on the bottom, and the recycle bin sits in the upper-left corner. It looks, at first blush, like Windows 8 all over again.
But press the Start button, and you'll be greeted by the return of the Start menu. It's a proper Start menu, too, with your most frequently used apps are stacked in a column. Press the All Apps button and you'll find the endless column of nested folders we've all been scrolling through since Windows 95, though they're now grouped alphabetically. Sitting alongside that column are Windows 8's animated Live Tiles, endlessly serving up news bites and social-network updates.
The menu has evolved since the early builds. The Live Tiles can be arranged into separate groups, and those can be labeled (just like in Windows 8). You can also press the maximize button to get a full-screen version of the Start menu.
What's old is new again
Click or press the Live Tile shortcuts, and the Modern apps introduced in Windows 8 open as classic windowed apps. This is a welcome change, allowing you to sample the new aesthetic Microsoft is pushing for the next generation of Windows without sacrificing the entire display. You can now drag these Modern apps around, snap them to half of your display, or minimize and maximize them at will.
Windows 10 lets you work smarter, too. Click the Task view button, and you'll get a quick glimpse of all of your open apps and windows. If you prefer keyboard shortcuts you can press Windows key + "Tab," or swipe in from the left side of your display on a device with a touchscreen.
However you get there, a black box running along the bottom of the display prompts you to create a virtual desktop: that's a sort of private island that keeps everything you open there as an independent work space. You can, for example, create one desktop for all of the applications you use for work, another for browsing gaming forums or sites like Reddit and yet another for games or whatever you want.
You can also organize the apps you're working with easily: right-click an app when you're in Task view to select a specific desktop to move it to, or just drag it wherever you'd like. Of course we've had virtual desktops on Linux and Mac machines for years (and on Windows, from third-party apps), but it's nice to see Microsoft catching up here.
Rethinking the browser
Internet Explorer has long been my favorite browser to download other browsers with. And in keeping with the theme of completely refreshing the Windows experience, that venerable browser is being replaced with Microsoft Edge, which still bears the code name Project Spartan.
The Edge browser experience revolves around a brand-new rendering engine that speeds up performance, and offers new, sharing-centric functionality. Cortana is built right into the browser, and it'll chime in as you're performing searches or browsing the Web. If you're at a restaurant's website, for example, it'll be able to track down directions in a sidebar, so you can easily get the information you need. The most striking feature is the ability to annotate Web pages directly: you can draw right on Web pages, type notes and clip sections of interest to OneNote, share them via email or pass things along to friends on your social networks.
The Edge experience has improved considerably since its first iteration, particularly on the Surface Pro 3 I've been using as one of my testbeds. It's still a little sluggish to respond at times, but the Web-annotation feature has been much improved with the latest build.
A step forward
We finally got a chance to see more of Windows 10's real game-changing potential: this will be one operating system to rule them all. It's all thanks to Continuum, a feature that serves up a device-specific interface that'll scale from desktops down to tablets. Consider a two-in-one convertible device like theSurface Pro 3: pop it off its keyboard base, and a little prompt will pop up asking if you'd like to switch to "tablet mode." Press it, and the apps on your desktop will instantly transform into their full-screen, tablet incarnations -- this includes traditional Windows desktop apps, too. In the latest build (Build 10130) Microsoft has added a toggle that will force Windows to remember your choice here -- the notification has proven to be a little too eager in the past, so I'm glad for the option to silence it for good.
You'll be able to use all of the gestures you're accustomed to on a Windows tablet, and can switch back to the desktop by popping the device back onto its keyboard, or by pressing the "tablet mode" toggle button in the Windows 10 Action Center.
The Action Center showed up in the October update to the Windows Technical Preview, and it's become a bit more useful. All of the notifications you receive are routed here, with the most recent events rising to the top. It can get a little cluttered -- Dropbox is especially chatty -- but you can turn off notifications with ease. There's also a new Settings app, which attempts to corral all of the various things you can tweak into a single, searchable menu.
Speaking of search: you may have noticed the little search bar sitting next to the Start button. Click the search bar, or tap the microphone, or just say, "Hey, Cortana" (once you've turned that feature on), and you'll be greeted by Cortana, Microsoft's virtual assistant. It's capable of searching for files on your PC, setting reminders and doing more mundane things like tracking a flight or keeping an eye on the weather.
Cortana isn't firing on all cylinders just yet -- this is still an early preview -- but the virtual assistant is an important part of Microsoft's plan to bring Windows 10 to all devices, everywhere. As you use Cortana on your phone, your tablet and your PC, it'll learn more about you and tuck relevant facts into a "Notebook." You can duck into this list of preferences and tweak things to your liking (much as with Google Now), while leaving some things off-limits to preserve your privacy. As Cortana gets to know you, you'll presumably find it more useful, and use it more often.
That last part is key. Cortana's ability to parse natural language will only improve as millions of people (Microsoft hopes) start chatting with Cortana on their PCs, thanks to their free Windows 10 upgrade. This will improve the virtual assistant's functionality, allowing "her" to handle increasingly complicated conversational queries, such as "Who is the President?", "What is his wife's name?" and "How old is he?" without tripping up.
Apps that run everywhere
Apps are going to be an instrumental part of getting Windows 10 working everywhere -- including on smartphones and devices such as gaming consoles. To that end, Microsoft is trumpeting universal apps that'll exist on PCs and mobile devices. The new Photos app scans your devices and OneDrive account for photos and arranges them into a giant collection. It'll work on mobile devices, too, though we'll have to wait to try that for ourselves.
The app will also automatically enhance all of the photos it finds, wrangling red eye and sorting out exposure levels. The process is completely optional, and works on raw files, too -- if you don't like a change, you can undo it without affecting the original file. You can also use the Photos app to make edits of your own -- it's not going to replace something like Adobe Lightroom, but if you're looking for a simple tool to manage your shots with, you'll do well here.
Microsoft has also added an Xbox app. It doesn't do all that much at present; you're able to see what your friends are doing and send them messages, check out achievements and look at game clips people have prerecorded.
Microsoft ultimately aims to bring the full Xbox Live experience to Windows 10 PCs, including enabling you to stream games from your Xbox One console directly to your PC. We'll have to wait until later this year to see the union between console and PC, however.
We still haven't seen much of Windows 10 on Windows Phones, but we did get a glimpse of universal apps like Mail, Calendar and the new Photos app running on both phones and PCs. There will need to be allowances based on particular devices -- a desktop without a camera has little need for a Camera app, for example. But this unified, universal experience should make things a lot easier for developers trying to spread their apps across as many platforms as possible, as well as opening up new opportunities.
Future-proofing
Windows 10 isn't going to fix everything, but these changes to Windows 8's most divisive elements have made a world of difference to the OS. And that's crucial to Windows' future, as Microsoft is still looking at the big picture: PCs are old news.
Desktops and laptops still handle most of our work and play, but tablets and smartphones have long since stolen the limelight; future operating systems will need to work to bridge that gap. We've seen steps in this direction from Apple, with OS X Yosemite's ability to hand off files and things like emails and calls from your phone or tablet. And some Android apps are making their way to Google's Chrome OS, an interesting sign of where Google might be headed.
Microsoft's vision of tomorrow's ideal operating system is grander still. The goal is to offer a unified experience across devices of all shapes and sizes, and one that will morph to make sense: icons to tap and home screens when you're on a phone or tablet, but windowed apps and nested folders when you're armed with a keyboard and mouse. And then there's Windows 10 on the Xbox One. We might not want to run Excel on our consoles (OK, I might), but the fact that Microsoft's console and PCs will be able to share apps puts quite a bit of power in the hands of developers.
Windows 8 dreamed of dragging us into that future, but we kicked and screamed at the inefficiency of its one-size-fits-all approach. With Windows 10, Microsoft seems to be getting it right.
Check out CNET's one-stop shop for Windows 10 for more information on running the operating system, and be sure to check back here for more updates!
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