Windows 10 Unveiled - Microsoft Users In The Next Era Of Windows By Skipping 9

Microsoft unveiled Windows 10 at an event in San Francisco today, lifting the lid off the highly anticipated Windows upgrade, though not under its expected name, before a gathered group of journalists and analysts.

Microsoft's Terry Myerson said the new Windows needed to be built from the ground up for a "mobile-first, cloud-first world," the mantra Microsoft has adopted ever since CEO Satya Nadella took over.

To that end, Windows 10 will run on more types of devices than ever before, and Microsoft will bring forth a single application platform, complete with one integrated Store, to deliver Windows experiences across devices.

Myerson called Windows 10 "our most comprehensive platform ever." Windows 10 is scalable across devices big and small, and developers can create across platforms using a "core common code."

You may notice Microsoft jumped straight from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, leapfrogging the expected Windows 9 release. Myerson maintained that when users get their hands on the new OS, they'll see "Windows 10" is more fitting than "Windows 9."

Beginning tomorrow, Microsoft is launching a Windows Insider Program. A preview of Windows 10 is due out next week, and Microsoft expects to ship the OS later in 2015.

Windows 9 ... er 10 ... for enterprise

The event was billed as an enterprise-focused affair, and Myerson wasted no time getting into the business side of things.

According to Microsoft, Windows 10 offers a modern management platform that provides familiar, compatible and productive service.

Enterprises will get a chance to try an early version of Windows 10 before anyone else. The new OS will be able to run all of Microsoft's legacy Windows enterprise apps.

IT managers will be able to create customized internal app stores for employees to access, and managing Windows 10 should be a streamlined breeze as it will be accessible on phones, tablets, PCs and more.

Windows 10 features

By design, Windows 10 has some clear hark-backs to Windows 7.

The company wanted to give users something familiar to work with, a complaint that plagued the jarring Windows 8.

For example, the traditional Windows 7 Snap View works in classic and universal apps on Windows 10.

Microsoft also wanted to make its OS more novice-friendly to help them multitask better on the platform.

A button called "task view" is now present on the task bar, and launching task view will pull up all the apps users have running. Multiple desktops live along the bottom of the screen, and users can jump from desktop to desktop while keeping all their apps running.

A new Snap Assist UI lets users grab apps from various desktops, pulling them onto their screen in one full-screen view. You can have Bing search along the bottom, a Word doc on top, a PowerPoint to the side and your finder open below it.

In a simple fix - one that should have been added long ago - users can now Crtl+V to paste a command prompt.

While lending plenty of time to Windows power users, Microsoft also addressed the touch-first crowd it tried to attract with Windows 8. The Charms bar isn't going away in Windows 10, though Joe Belfiore said he expects it to change over time.

Swiping to the left on a touch-enabled Windows 10 device will pull up task view, complete with larger buttons for a more finger-friendly experience. Swiping to the right pulls up the settings menu.

A new design feature called Continuum lets the Windows 10 UI change depending on what device someone is using. Clicking away on a mouse and keyboard? Windows 10 will show in classic desktop mode. Jump to a tablet or a 2-in-1, and you're in tablet mode.The idea behind Continuum seems to be a consistent yet device-optimized design to give users the best Windows 10 experience, no matter.

Myerson said there will be more to share on the consumer side of Windows 10 early next year, and the Build 2015 conference will feature talk on Universal apps.

src:in.techradar.com

Windows 9 changes and new features:

Microsoft is all set to officially unveil Windows 9 at a special event on September 30 — and so we thought it would be a good time to run through everything that we already know about Microsoft’s new operating system. Most of these features and changes are reliably sourced from people close to the development of Windows 9 or from leaked builds of the Windows 9 Technical Preview. We’ll also update this story with an official list of Windows 9 features when Microsoft starts releasing public beta builds next week. In short, if you want to find out about Windows 9, this is the place to be.

After the very poor response to Windows 8, and the bitter taste it left in the mouths of millions of users, Windows 9 is a very important release for Microsoft. On the one hand, it needs to rectify Windows 8′s wrongs and offer normal PC users a reason to upgrade from Windows XP or 7. On the other hand, Microsoft continues to lose ground in the mobile sector as well. Windows 9 will actually have to be the jack of all trades, rather than Windows 8′s rather ignominious status as the master of none. How will Microsoft do this? Well, let’s take a look.

Windows 9 for desktop and laptop users

The Start menu returns. After a few years of claiming that the Metro-style Start screen was just as good for mouse-and-keyboard use as touchscreen use, Microsoft has finally backed down. Windows 9 will have a Start menu on the Desktop; the left side will look a lot like the standard Windows 7 Start menu, but the right side will have the option of being populated with Metro-style live tiles. The left side of the menu will adopt a new Metro-like look, too — though you may be able to configure it to look like the good ol’ Windows 7 Start menu.

Virtual desktops. In Windows 9, you will have the option of using virtual desktops. Right now you just have one desktop per monitor — but with virtual desktops, you can switch between as many desktops as you like. This is a popular power user feature that has been present on some Linux window managers and via third-party Windows tools for years — but now it’ll be native in Windows 9.

Metro apps on the Desktop. Rather than forcing you into the full-screen Metro interface, Windows 9 will let you run Metro apps on the Desktop in a window. In theory this will mean that mouse-and-keyboard users might now actually use Metro apps, which in turn might kickstart the arrival of some better apps in the Windows Store. Or not.

Windows 9 Desktop, showing a new, very flat Explorer (note the new icon too)

Desktop interface overhaul. It’s not entirely clear yet, but it seems the Windows 9 Desktop will receive a graphical overhaul, to make it even flatter. The leaked Windows 9 Technical Preview shows some flatter icons and thinner window borders — and I suspect we’ll see some further UI changes in later preview builds. (If you recall, the first Windows 8 Developer Preview still looked a lot like Windows 7, and became more flat and less opaque as the development process went on.) Curiously, there does appear to be a drop shadow behind the Explorer window in the Windows 9 screenshot above — Windows 8 got rid of a lot of shadows, so it would be interesting if they made a return.

The Metro interface may be removed. In the last few months, there has been rumblings from Redmond that the Windows 9 experience might be formally split in two: A Metro-only experience for touchscreen/tablet users, and a Desktop-only experience for mouse-and-keyboard users. One of the biggest complaints of Windows 8 is the way it forces you into the Metro interface when you’re using a mouse and keyboard, and the Desktop interface when you’re using a touchscreen. It isn’t clear if the Metro interface will be removed entirely from “Windows 9 for the Desktop” — more realistically, to cater for users of hybrids and touchscreen laptops, there’ll just be a check box somewhere for “never show me the Metro interface.”

Lots of other tweaks to the Windows 9 Desktop. In addition to all of the above, the Charms bar is also being removed (from the Desktop interface at least; it might hang around on touchscreen devices). The Technical Preview has a Notifications panel that pops up from the bottom right corner (video above), though I don’t think this is its final format or placement. There will also likely be tweaks for multi-monitor and high-res (hi-dpi) setups, too.

src:extremetech.com