What Features We’re Most Excited for in Windows 10 On July 29th

Windows 10 hit final version on Thursday and has gotten a lot of people excited about the upcoming Windows 10. Tech enthusiasts are just excited to try out a new operating system on their PCs. However, there are also people out there excited to get rid of Windows 8.1 an upgrade to Windows 10 which brings back a lot of features and things that people loved about the original Windows versions. Today, we wanted to talk about which of those features we are most excited for. With the release date being July 29th and many people having been allowed to upgrade for free, it’s definitely a day that a lot of Windows owners are waiting for. So let’s get into what features we’re most excited for in Windows 10 on July 29th.

Cortana

One of the highlights of the Windows Mobile platform is certainly the incredibly intelligent Cortana assistant that works similarly to Google Now or Siri on their respective mobile platforms. With the voice assistant being so popular on mobile, Microsoft have brought it into Windows 10, making her super powerful and actually genuinely useful. Cortana essentially replaces your universal search in the bottom left from Windows 7 and makes her incredibly intelligent. Not only can she simply search for files but she can use smart language such as “PDFs that Matt Smith sent me” and it will show said emails.

Cortana will also work in the likes of the Edge browser to bring you additional information on the website that you’re on such as restaurant bookings or possible downloads on the page (to save you scrolling) or phone numbers for the company and so much more.

Xbox App

The Xbox One is still a thriving console. It currently offers far more bang for your buck than the PS4, despite it’s lower graphical potential. Therefore, Microsoft are working hard to bring a synergy between their two platforms and the first of this work is the Xbox App that will come with Windows 10. At its heart, the XBox App will essentially just work like the XBox Smartglass application you can get on your phone, allowing you to view stats, achievements, message friends and such via your PC (similar to Steam?) But what makes this a really exciting addition is the ability to play your Xbox games on your PC. This opens up the potential for people who own an XBox One already but don’t want to pay $1000 to buy a gaming PC to maybe stream with or such.

The Return Of The Start Menu

The start menu missing from Windows 8 was something that confused a lot of people. Suddenly your universal search was missing, your access to documents, computer and control panel was missing and you could no longer search incredibly deep in your folders for Solitaire. However, with Windows 10 we see a massive revival of the Start Menu and it’s better than ever. Not only does it not contain Siri and all the original features you knew before but you can see open applications, recently used applications and more with it too – thank you Microsoft!

Microsoft Edge Browser

Internet Explorer for such a long time was lauded as a joke of a browser. It didn’t offer many internet standards today, it was by far the slowest browser of the top 4 and the design was dated and needed a refresh. Microsoft have worked hard over the past few years and brought around ‘Edge’, diverting from the original name and bringing a whole new, more powerful and much faster browser. Microsoft claims their browser is the fastest but then all browsers do. As long as it is as fast as Safari or Chrome then that’s fine by us. Additionally, Edge will bring extensions, support for annotations on web pages and much more to really make it a current-gen browser finally.

Snap Assist

Something that a lot of people were frustrated within Windows 8 was the awkward snapping of your applications to different sides of the screen. They miss the days when you could have a desktop with free-flowing windows to move around wherever you wish. Windows 10 brings back the free-flowing windows on the desktop but also a snap assist feature which allows you to ping them to the right, the left or even into quarters if you’re working on a high-resolution larger display. This shows forward-thinking from Microsoft on the 4k monitors that are definitely here to stay.

Action Center

Action Center is something that will bring a lot of happiness to people who use their PC as a bit more of a productivity machine or an office machine. Action Center is essentially your notifications pane, allowing you to see emails, tweets, facebook notifications and likely any third-party offerings you want to. It’s a simple one line of notifications that can be slid out from the right-hand side and will hopefully help people manage their different notifications from different applications. Unlike Windows 8 which currently just shows them pop up to the right and allows you to jump to that app and that’s about it.