Windows 10: The 10 best new features to try first - angellounto

The best of what's unprecedented

Let's not circumvent more or less the George Bush: Windows 10 is wonderful. It's head-and-shoulders better than Windows 8.1, at to the lowest degree for conventional PC users. The fact that it banishes wide-blind apps and the Metro Start screen, focusing instead happening the dependable-and-true desktop, should be reason sufficient to nominate PC purists smile. The massive Windows 10 Anniversary Update free on August 2, 2022, added even more features, functionality, and polish.

The obvious screen background improvements are just the bung of the iceberg, though. If you're fresh to Windows 10, these are the unemotional new features you'll need to cheque first.

Editor's note: This article has been updated several multiplication to reflect newly capabilities as major Windows 10 updates wind come out of the closet.

Windows 10 atones for ane of Windows 8's superior sins by returning the Start menu to its rightful spot in the lower left-hand corner of the desktop. But rather than focusing on desktop apps alone, the Windows 10 Start menu mixes in a dash of the Metro Start screen's functionality, sparge Live Tiles of Windows 8-style apps next to shortcuts to more traditional PC software.

You can turn out that Live Roofing tile functionality if you'd like, and even unpin all the Metro apps from the Start card, returning it to strictly desktop-focused glory. Or you can choose to have the Pop menu expand to the full screen door, and resize Metro apps to recreate a to a greater extent Windows 8-like experience. The choice is yours.

The Windows 10 Day of remembrance Update tweaks the Start menu's layout, shifting king and settings options to a new left-hand rail and ditching the "Wholly apps" button in favor a all-night, scrolling list of all your apps in alphabetical order underneath your untested and most-used apps.

Windowed Windows Store apps

Equally you might have caught onto by now, those reviled Windows Put in apps from Windows 8 harbor't been eradicated—only they have been remolded to fit desktop sensibilities. In Windows 10, launching a Windows app happening your Personal computer opens it in a desktop windowpane, rather than dumping you into a full-screen app. The windowed apps have a mouse-friendly toolbar of options across the top, and even change their user interface to Sunday-go-to-meeting fit the size of the window. Nifty.

I ne'er utilised Metro apps in Windows 8, but Windows 10's windowed Windows Store apps (whew!) have coaxed me into victimization them on a daily basis, especially Mail, Calendar, and Photos.

Cortana

Cortana, Microsoft's clever digital assistant happening Windows Phone 8.1, makes the jump to PCs with Windows 10, where she assumes operate of the operating system's search functions. Cortana will want to access your personal information, and so use that info along with her Bing-supercharged mist smarts to intelligently surface information you're looking for and perform early helpful tasks.

Cortana can assist you notic whol sorts of online information via natural language queries you ask using text or voice commands. Cortana can also apply those instinctive language smarts to look for your disc drive, OneDrive, and business network for files that meet predestinate filters, same "Find pictures from June."

The extremity assistant can also play music, create reminders, set alarms, and even out fracture jokes; the Day of remembrance Update adds more contextual awareness for Cortana across various apps, and adds the digital assistant to your PC's lock screen. Read PCWorld's ultimate Cortana guide for the full lowdown.

The Edge browser

Forget Internet Explorer. Fountainhead, don't forget IT only—it's still tucked away in a corner of Windows 10 for bequest compatibility purposes. But the star of the internet show in Microsoft's new OS is clearly Edge, a spick-and-span browser built from the ground awake for speed, slickness, and trawling the modern web.

Edge uses Microsoft's novel rendering locomotive engine—which isn't included in IE in Windows 10—and packs some nifty extras. Cortana pops up with supplementary information while you search the web, such American Samoa Yelp reviews and Bing Maps directions when you're viewing a restaurant internet site, or coupons when you'rhenium shopping online. Digital inking tools Lashkar-e-Taiba you easily mark up a website and share it with others. Finally, Edge also includes an impressive clutter-stripping Reading View, and allows you to hoard articles in the complementary Meter reading List app for later perusal.

Edge is still a little bare-bones compared to Chrome or Firefox, but it's making great strides. IT's the lone web browser that nates swarm Netflix at 1080p, and minor initial extension support was added in the Day of remembrance Update. Check out PCWorld's guide to Edge for all the info you need.

Virtual desktops / Tax View

It's time to stop begging, enthusiasts: Virtual desktops have finally come to Windows. The in straitened circumstances man's multimonitor frame-up allows you to move on back and forth betwixt either open apps operating theatre multiple virtual "desktops" of apps, reorganised how you like them.

Task Opinion, as Windows 10's realistic background implementation is called, won't appeal to everybody but it provides deep new functionality for power users. (The integration with windows snapping is particularly W. C. Handy!) Be sure to check retired PCWorld's Windows 10 Task View guide to learn nigh wholly its nooks and crannies.

Action Center

Notifications are unrivaled of the coolest features of modern in operation systems, with pop-ups reminding you of all sorts of effective info. Windows 8 had them, but those notifications disappeared forever as presently as they washy from your projection screen—an issue if you weren't actively sitting in front of your PC when unmatchable popped up.

Windows 10 cures that ill with its Action at law Center. As notifications slide into view, they're archived here. Those notifications were listed in simple written record order in the initial Windows 10 expel, but the Anniversary Update overhauled the user interface to group notifications by app—a receive, a great deal more polished change. The Action Focus besides provides quick-action buttons for common functions, similar activating Bluetooth Beaver State copulative to a VPN, besides as an option for shifting the port to Tablet Musical mode.

The notification tracking carries over to the main Windows taskbar, too. Any Windows Store apps pinned to it will display a circular icon with the number of unread notifications when relevant, while the Action Center icon leave show your total number of unread notifications.

Revamped core apps

Windows 10 introduces overhauled Postal service and Calendar apps that are vastly better than their Windows 8 counterparts. Patc the Windows 8 apps were pokey, the Windows 10 variants are speedy and responsive, and they manage to fit much more info on the screen while still being friendly to mice cursors and fat fingers similar. The new apps also dynamically shift their interfaces to fit nicely into windows of every last shapes and sizes.

The Mail service app adds swipe gesture controls so you can quickly sort your inbox with just a some swipes—and what each swipe does is user-configurable, too. But more important for practicality, the revamped apps let in operative functionality that was missing in their Windows 8 predecessors: POP netmail backup in the Windows 10 Mail app, and Google Calendar support in Calendar.

The new Photos app is surprisingly cast-iron, American Samoa well.

The Xbox app

Windows 10's new Xbox app should feel deeply familiar to Xbox Combined fans: The center point is your Action Run, which is populated by your Xbox Live Friends' activities, such as unlocking an achievement or launching a Jerk stream. The right side of the app lists your friends; selecting one offers options to view their game clips, invite them to a political party, send an IM, and more. You can also view your possess achievements, manage your visibility, and more totally right within the app. You can yet stream your Xbox One games to a Windows 10 PC Oregon tablet.

We prat't help but feel that this app is more beneficial to console gamers who happen to have a PC than to straight Personal computer gamers, despite the Xbox app's Gimpy bar, a system-inaccurate tool around that lets you snag screenshots and video clips of your Microcomputer games (and more). But information technology's a really handy tool indeed if you fall into the former camp—and information technology wish to be sure derive more significance at one time Microsoft rolls out the Xbox Play Anyplace initiative, which will lease you buy games once and play them on Windows PCs operating room the Xbox Same, with cloud up saves and cross-platform multiplayer travel between the two.

The Anniversary Update also adds a dedicated hub for Windows 10 PC games in the Xbox app.

Continuum

Yes, Windows 10 is immensely improved on PCs, just Microsoft didn't forget almost touchscreen users. The operational system includes a handy "Continuum" feature film that dynamically switches the interface between the PC-friendly desktop and a Windows 8-like modality that's better suited for fingers (unreal above), depending connected how you'Ra victimisation the gimmick.

Windows tablets wish default option to the latter; PCs to the past. Hybrids will intelligently switch 'tween the two modes depending on whether you have a keyboard attached. Windows 10 Versatile phones testament even imitator a full-blown PC when they're contiguous to an outside proctor.

In tablet mood, the Start menu expands to fit the brimming screen, as fare Windows apps. If you'd similar to draw a switch, the new Accomplish Rivet has a dedicated "Tablet Mode" push button that you can enable or disable at will.

Another device-specific Windows 10 feature: Windows Hello, which uses biometric assay-mark to log you into your Microcomputer—if your PC packs computer hardware that's compatible with the unprecedented feature.

Windows Ink

The Day of remembrance Update added altogether sorts of polish and little extras to alive Windows 10 features, but information technology also introduced a new feature of its own: Windows Ink.

Windows Ink furthers Microsoft's focus along stylus support. Clicking the button on your styli operating theatre urgent the hot playpen icon in the taskbar pulls up the revolutionary Windows Ink dashboard. The dashboard includes a trio of native new inking apps, displays any inking apps you've recently used, and even makes suggestions for stylus-supporting apps you may enjoy, complete with a link to a curated section of the Windows Put in dedicated to Windows Ink.

The native Mucilaginous Notes app can understand your scrawl to automatically identify key info and intelligently create Cortana reminders or display in question info provided by Bing. In the future, Windows Ink will symmetric be able to do your mathematics homework.

But wait, there's more!

These 10 awful features are only the bung of what's late in Windows 10. Check out PCWorld's comprehensive reviews of some Windows 10 and the Windows 10 Anniversary Update for deep dives into the operating system, or our maneuver to the Windows 10 Day of remembrance Update's best unexampled features for a nidus strictly on what's new in Microsoft's latest adult update.

Look for more actionable info? Agree out our mammoth compilation of the top-grade Windows 10 tips and tricks for info on how to make the OS your personal. Once you're finished that, get even more farinaceous with 12 powerful Windows 10 tools PC enthusiasts will love, brand-new Windows 10 features that eliminate everyday hassles, and powerful new-to-you below-the-hood features if you've upgraded from Windows 7. There's also a handful of strong secrets lurking within the Anniversary Update.

Finally, one of Windows 10's most major changes can't be overtly seen whatsoever: The new DirectX 12 artwork engineering science promises to revolutionize PC gaming. Information technology's already protrusive to pay major performance dividends in side by side-gen games.

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• Windows
• Small and Medium Concern
• Windows 10

Brad Chacos spends his days digging done desktop PCs and tweeting too much.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/431450/windows-10-the-10-coolest-features-you-should-check-out-first.html

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