Windows 10 is Microsoft’s finest operating system for a long time. It is a shape-shifter that varies the interface depending on whether a standard or a touch-based device is used. It fixes the damage incurred by Windows 8 by deleting the embarrassing Charms bar and getting the long-held Start Menu back.
Far more has improved with the default browser Edge, the launch of Cortana’s digital assistant, access to Microsoft’s file-based OneDrive cloud storage, and much more.
Search and Cortana
Windows 10 is adding Microsoft’s Siri-like Cortana automated assistant. (It first appeared on Windows Phones in 2014.) Over the years, Cortana’s has undergone considerable improvements. It was first tightly incorporated with the Windows search and the results were displayed in the search box. It has also been able to do a number of things as varied as playing music and monitoring smart appliances in your house.
But the days are gone. Microsoft has severely reduced Cortana’s functionalities, and it is no longer deeply linked to Windows and Windows Search. Now, Cortana is its own program that functions like every other Windows 10 software, including a resized window to be transferred across the screen.
The Start menu
The biggest complaint that windows users had about Windows 8 was the death of the Start menu. It’s back with vengeance in Windows 10. On your monitor or laptop, when you use Windows 10, you boot straight into the desktop. To start the Start menu — the key command for typical PC users, press the Start button on the bottom left of the desktop. (the users of Windows 10 on a tablet would see a Start screen.
Handling Windows updates
After years of concerns, in the spring of 2019 Microsoft actually gave several consumers what they’d been calling for since Windows 10 was launched — the option to control whether to install the twice-yearly feature upgrades Microsoft launches for Windows. Previously, Windows 10 Pro, Business and Education licenses could postpone upgrades, but Windows 10 Home users could not avoid them unless they used sneaky workarounds (none of them ideal). And even those that were able to postpone installations were unable to set them off indefinitely.
The Edge browser
With Windows 10, eventually, Microsoft is abandoning Internet Explorer — almost. You still find it, but it is not the default browser, and it has mainly stopped development work. Today and tomorrow’s browser is Edge.
Using Windows 10 on a tablet or 2-in-1
One of the main drawbacks of Windows 8 is that it pushed users with personal computers to use a tablet GUI. In Windows 10, Microsoft adjusts the function called Continuum which automatically detects the computer you use and switches the GUI to Windows 10 — Windows 8-like Start screen for tablets and the Start menu for desktops.
Adaptively, Continuum operates. If you’re using a tablet with a keyboard connected, such as a Microsoft Surface, it shows the laptop interface, so if you remove the keyboard, it checks if you want to move to tablet mode, which uses the Start screen interface.
