Window 10 review

Microsoft claim that window 10 is best OS ever..

• Pros
  Built-in Cortana voice-responsive digital assistant. Fast startup. Rich software and device ecosystem. Free upgrade. Familiar interface with Start menu. Better gaming features. Included music, news, and video apps.
  
  
  • Cons
    Less touch-friendly than Windows 8 Browser lacks extensions.
    
    
    • Bottom Line
      Windows 10 is a free upgrade that takes the features of Windows 7 and 8 and blends them into a fast, feature-loaded operating system with excellent touch support and the Cortana digital assistant. The latest update adds yet more polish.
      
      
      Getting Windows 10Getting Window 10 for free is a simple matter of clicking the Taskbar icon with the new Windows logo and reserving a copy. You have until July 29, 2016 to make the move. (Brand new PCs will, of course, ship with the new OS in place.) The icon launches a program that checks your system and software for compatibility, and you're notified when the update is ready to install. The 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.
      
      
      Windows 10 is available to most individuals 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. 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 users. Unsurprisingly, if you update 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'll get Pro. If you're a DIY PC builder, you can buy installation software on USB sticks for the same prices of previous Windows versions, $119.99 for Home and $199.99 for Pro. Your data and programs come along for the ride when you update, though it's always a good idea to back up before an OS update.
      
      
      With the latest update, activating an existing Windows license gets easier. With the original launch of Windows 10, you could only go through the update process on a PC with a valid Windows 10 license, but now you can simply enter a Windows 7 or 8 license key to do a clean installation if you'd rather not upgrade an existing installation. If you don't have your license key, you can still simply upgrade a valid machine. I tested the Windows 10 on a Surface Pro 3 with a Core i5-4300U CPU and 8GB RAM.
      
      
      
      
      
      
      InterfaceDespite the backlash it inspired, Windows 8 had a profound effect on the design language of interfaces. The clean, flat, 2D, sans serif look even made the jump to Apple's iOS mobile operating system and later into Android's Material Design. Windows 10 continues this simplicity and clarity, and there's no better place to see it than in the Settings app.
      
      There are still two settings dialogs: The traditional desktop Control Panel and this newer Settings app. Most users will find that the newer tool serves most of their needs, while power users will want the detailed options in the Control Panel.
      It bears reiterating that, with Windows 10, Microsoft reemphasizes desktop/laptop use over tablet use, while still maintaining touch-tablet functionality. In Windows 8, the desktop is just another app, while in Windows 10, there's no desktop tile on the Start button, even in tablet mode. This can make it a tad harder to get to the desktop on a tablet if you're in a full-screen modern app.
      The latest update of Windows 10 includes interface refinements like more-consistent right-click context menus and window title bars filled with color rather than the flat white of the original release. The color of the title bar (like that of the Taskbar) is picked up from your choice in Settings' Personalization page. When the window doesn't have the focus, the title bar returns to white.
      
      
      The Start MenuIn keeping with the familiar-yet-fresh mantra, the Start menu is truly back, but it's amplified with Windows 8-like live tiles. You can enlarge or shrink the tile area to taste. These live tiles can serve a few purposes: They can give more prominence to your most-used apps and programs (yes, tiles can run traditional desktop applications as well as modern, touch-centric apps). They can show live information such as weather, news, email subjects, and tweets from modern apps. And if you happen to have a touch screen, they make running apps easier.
      The update increases the number of tiles you can have in a group to four midsize square tiles instead of three. Just head to Settings/Personalization/Start and enable the Show more tiles option. The update also lets you include more tiles—up to 2048 from 512—and the resizing icons have been updated.
      
      
      
      The Start menu also shows your most-used apps at the top of its left column, followed by recently added apps, the File Explorer, power button, and the all-apps view. I actually miss Windows 8's full-screen all-apps view, which didn't require you to scroll down a deep list as the new view does. But as with the Start menu of several previous Windows versions, you can simply start typing a program or app name, and no matter how deep in the list it is, it will pop up to the top of the start menu, just a tap or press of Enter away. You can also tap a letter of the alphabet to quickly get to the list of apps that start with that letter.
      
      CortanaAs well as being a character in the Halo game series, she's probably the highest-profile single feature of Window 10. Cortana is your voice-responsive personal digital assistant. You can set her up to respond to "Hey Cortana," similar to Google Now's "OK Google" wake-up call. Cortana serves several functions. It replaces search on the PC, whether that's for apps or documents on the disk or info in the cloud or Web.
      Cortana combines the personality of Apple's Siri with Google Now's predictions of your needs. You can let her sift through your email to see if notifications concerning travel plans, deliveries, or your commute are warranted. But unlike Google Now and Siri, you have control over what Cortana knows about your interests and activities, in what's called Cortana's Notebook. The list includes entries for your food and drink preferences, taste in entertainment, sports, and news. If you tap the Cortana circle icon, you'll see your Daily Glance, showing weather, sports scores, and news headlines.
      
      Cortana's also good for things like opening apps with your voice, creating emails and reminders, or just having the time spoken aloud. The latter can be based on location, as well as time and contact. Cortana's personality extends to levity: You can say "Hey Cortana, tell me a joke," and she'll respond with one from her extensive repertoire ranging from pretty corny to fairly droll. Apple has yet to include its personal assistant, Siri, in Mac OS X, so this one is a win for Windows.
      In the latest update, Cortana becomes available to users who prefer not to sign into their PCs with a Microsoft account, and can remind you about movies you've booked online and handle Uber reservations. She also now can work within PDF pages in Edge. Finally, she can detect dates and locations in notes you write with a stylus in digital ink.
      
      Action CenterAnother 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 notification 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.
      
      
      
      Touch
      Touch support is a major differentiator between the recent versions of Windows, including Windows 10, and Apple's Mac OS X El Capitan. Apple sticks with Steve Job's edict that touch screens don't make sense on anything larger than a 9.7-inch iPad. But a touch screen is the most intuitive interface type possible: You see something you want to interact with, you touch it. In using PCs with touch screens for the past year or so, I've gotten to the point of trying to tap my old, work-issued ThinkPad's screen out of habit from using a Surface Pro 3 and a Lenovo Horizon 2s all-in-one PC.
      And it's not just me: Microsoft's Principal Program Manager Lead for Windows 10, Chaitanya Sareen, told me that Windows 8 on touch-enabled PCs actually had the highest customer satisfaction of any version of Windows, based on a commissioned independent study. He also noted that when Windows 8 shipped, only 4 percent of PCs on the market had touch input capability, whereas today that number has gone up to about 25 percent.
      
      Store and Universal AppsIf you never upgraded to Windows 8 or 8.1, you don't know what it is to have an app store on your 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 also gives you access on all your PCs (and Windows Phones) to apps you've bought. With the update, you can now install apps to external memory—something tablet users will appreciate.
      
       Edge Web BrowserThe fast, standards-compatible new browser that comes with Windows 10, Microsoft Edge, may get the most updates with the recent release of Windows 10, but it disappointingly still lacks extension support. This is a key issue for those of us who like to use password managers such as LastPass and privacy protections such as the Privacy Badger extension available for Mozilla Firefox. The Mac's included browser, Safari, boasts a full assortment of extensions.
      
      
      Included Apps—Office Mobile, Mail, Calendar, PhotosYou 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 also you get Microsoft Office. You heard that right, though it sounds like Microsoft is giving away the farm by including one of its most profitable products.
      
      
      
      
      Gaming
      Finally, the Xbox app for Windows 10 gives gamers new options. Not only does it let them see an activity feed, but it also includes game DVR and even lets you stream games from an Xbox One to your PC. PCMag's game maven Will Greenwald has taken Windows 10's Xbox gaming app out for a spin; read his takeaways at the link. But beyond the Xbox app, Windows 10 updates its 3D video engine to DirectX 12, which according to some game developers, will open up a whole new level of reality to games.
      
      
      
      OneDrive and SkypeMicrosoft's two cloud services—OneDrive for 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 Mac OS X: 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—work that I have no doubt of happening over the next few months. 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 gets a boost with the update of the OS. Three new included apps serve Skype functions: Phone, Messaging, and Skype Video. The last two of these bring Windows parity to OS X's Messaging and Facetime apps, while Phone both serves Window 10 Mobile devices and offers a way to call regular phones and mobiles from a PC. 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 VoIP solution, while the Mac is just hooking into the iPhone's mobile connection via Wi-Fi.
      
      Security and BusinessThe very first reveal of Windows 10 last fall was targeted to business users. The OS maintains Windows position as the way to go for organizations that need to deploy and manage systems for large workforces. While maintaining support for Active Directory and System Center, Windows 10 adds new mobile device management (MDM) capabilities, mobile data protection, and simplified deployment options. A key point for business users, though, is that it doesn't require new habits the way Windows 8 did—it will be familiar.
      But businesses and everyone else can now get at least one security benefit that debuted in Windows 8: Secure Boot. With this approach, only code with an encrypted signature from a verified source can load the PC's operating system. This way, rootkits can't interpose themselves at system startup.
      Windows Hello is security feature new with Windows 10. Hello enables logging into a PC using biometric means such as facial or fingerprint recognition. Hello requires supported hardware like infrared cameras or fingerprint scanners, but PCs that support it are already available. Hello works together with Microsoft Passport, which other apps and websites can use to authenticate you.
      Another security advance comes compliments of the new Edge Web browser. According to PCMag security expert Neil Rubenking, Edge "eliminates many IE features that made the previous browser so prone to exploitation." Eliminating ActiveX or Java, toolbars, or browser helper objects reduces the browser's attack surface significantly.
      
      A New Day for WindowsThe mantra of the new Microsoft under Satya Nadella seems to be "give 'em what they want!" The users cry out for the return of the Start menu, and Microsoft now says "sure, you got it!" People want iPad apps for Office, and now they're available. You think your operating system should be free? Here you go, get your new Windows version without paying a cent.
      There are two key differentiators between Mac OS X El Capitan and Windows 10. First, Microsoft's offerings are open—anyone can make the hardware, which leads to far more choices, and the cloud services run on all platforms, whereas with Apple, it's either iOS or OS X, for the most part. Second, Windows 10 embraces touch interactions with computers, whereas Apple reserves touch for its mobile devices.
      My strong recommendation is for Windows users to take advantage of this free upgrade. There's a lot to gain in features and performance, and really nothing to lose. Our Editors' Choice desktop operating system Mac OS X, however, is at this point more polished and offers better integration with Apple's own very popular devices, so if you're in that ecosystem you may as well stick with it.