Reserve your copy of Windows 10
Microsoft recently issued a press release stating that their newest flagship product, Windows 10 will be released on July 29, 2015. Windows 8 turned out to be a massive flop among consumers and so Windows 8.1 was released to appease the disappointed gaming market. It took up less space, had better search capabilities, better multitasking, different size app tiles, automatic app updates and a host of other improvements. Hooray for Microsoft and hooray for consumers.
Here's what you need to know about Windows 10 upgrade:
It's official release date is July 29, 2015
The Start Menu is back in an extended form
It's easy to use
It has better security
Microsoft claims it starts fast and resumes fast. Depending on hardware, results may vary.
According to Microsoft's website, millions of people are already using Windows 10 through what's called the Windows Insider Program. It's a global community of Windows fans who work to help make it a better product. Insiders get to play with the product throughout its development process, and provide feedback to Microsoft in order to improve it. In essence, this is Microsoft's beta-testing program. You can learn how to be a Windows 10 insider by visiting the Microsoft.com website.
Along with Windows 10, Microsoft delivers to us a brand new web browser called Windows Edge. It's designed to work alongside Explorer. One of the cool new features, which I am personally looking forward to, is the new reading mode. This lets you read online articles free from the distractions of advertising and other animated features common on many websites today. It also lets you save your favorite reads for later. With Cortana enabled, (which I will talk about later), you get instant access to key actions—like making reservations or reading reviews—without leaving the page you’re on. This to me, is a huge win for Microsoft. Last but not least, Edge users will be able to annotate a web page for others to view. It sounds like an interesting concept, but to me it seems more like something only certain people will use. Then again, I could be wrong about that. Time will tell.
Remember multitasking? Well, we still have multitasking, but according to Microsoft's website, we now have what's called "Multi-doing". This feature lets you easily snap up to four apps in place and see all your open tasks in a single view. You can even create virtual desktops when you need more space or want to group things by project.
Next on our list of features will be the Windows Store. It's designed to be a one-stop shopping experience across every Windows 10 device, including your pc, phone and tablet which will let you easily purchase apps, games, music, TV shows and movies. It's basically Microsoft's answer to Itunes and Google Play. If you ask me Microsoft is a bit slow on the draw here. This was a long time coming.
Now we come to Cortana, Microsoft's new digital assistant. According to Microsoft, Cortana works across your day and your devices to help you get things done. Over time it learns and supposedly becomes more personal and useful to you. Cortana’s also best at reminders, delivering them at the right time and place so you forget less and can do more. As of this writing, I am reminded of clippy the paper-clip from Microsoft Office. This was something that seemed like it would be a useful thing, but turned out to be an annoyance that most people turned off. Let's hope Microsoft has learned from its past mistakes.
One of the biggest features, and the one I am most excited about, is that XBox Live is coming to Windows 10! It will let you play Xbox games through Windows 10, connect to XBox live, compete with XBox users, and play all your XBox games on your Windows 10 device. Pretty cool.
Here's how to reserve your copy of Windows 10. You may have already noticed the new Windows 10 icon in the notification area in your system tray. Click on this icon to reserve your copy of Windows 10. It may ask for your email address, (mine did not), and you should get a notification by email that your copy of Windows 10 has been reserved. According to the Windows 10 FAQ page there is an advantage to clicking the icon and reserving your copy today if you intend to upgrade. By reserving your copy, Microsoft will begin pre-loading your new operating system before July 29th, so you won't have to waste time downloading it. The pre-load requires 3GB of download space, so make sure you set aside some room for it.
For the first year after launch of Windows 10 on July 29, 2015, all copies of Windows 7 with the SP1 update, and Windows 8.1 updated devices are eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10.
Outstanding!
