Microsoft Windows-10 (Features and Prices)

With Windows 10 given a launch, latest stable released on March 18-2015, the new OS is coming along nicely. What's new; Microsoft' unlocks 'Achievements'

With Windows 8 and now Windows 8.1(Also known as Windows 9), Microsoft tried – not entirely successfully – to make tablets part of a continuum through all-in-one touchscreen media systems and thin-and light notebooks down to slender touch tablets.

The general consensus is that it still has a long way to go to produce a unified OS. Recently, Microsoft publicly made the first steps to doing just that, with Windows 10. Skipping the Windows 9 name entirely,

Microsoft's Windows 10 Technical Preview is available through its Windows Insider Program website. You'll need a Microsoft account to get it, and it's worth bearing in mind that it's not the finished product, so it will be a bit rough around the edges.

When is it out? As early as June 2015, but definitely summer
What will it cost? For Windows 7 and 8.1 users, it will be free for one year

Microsoft's Terry Myerson shows off some impressive numbers

How much will it cost?

Confirming recent reports, Microsoft's Terry Myerson announced that Windows 10 will be free for Windows 8.1 users for its first year. While there's no word on pricing for users still on Windows 7 or an older version, Microsoft confirmed a while ago that the two most recent Windows versions will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 directly.

Microsoft's chief blogger Brandon LeBlanc also confirmed that Microsoft will support those who scored a free upgrade to Windows 10 with security and system updates for the lifetime of those Windows 8.1 devices.

What's to come in Technical Preview

The latest WTP build available for all testers is Build #10041. The update brings with it a slew of new features and fixes, namely streamlining the Virtual Desktop experience and giving the Photos app some much-needed functionality.

Of course, the build comes with a number of known issues, too. (However, it's now much more stable after moving to the "Slow" ring.) The most notable issues include a lack of login fields!

Bill Gates's not-so-little secret

The co-founder and long-time former CEO of Microsoft has been working on a secret project for Microsoft known internally as the "Personal Agent," Gates revealed in his third Ask Me Anything on Reddit recently. This Personal Agent is a piece of software designed to remember everything you do on a PC and provide guidance for how to prioritize and assistance in interacting with those apps and files.

"One project I am working on with Microsoft is the Personal Agent which will remember everything and help you go back and find things and help you pick what things to pay attention to," Gates disclosed on Reddit. "The idea that you have to find applications and pick them and they each are trying to tell you what is new is just not the efficient model - the agent will help solve this. It will work across all your devices."

Microsoft reveals something huge

Like, 84 inches huge. Microsoft has developed an entirely new device to showcase the features and capabilities of Windows 10, called the Surface Hub. Redmond team members revealed and demoed the device during its January 21 reveal event.

The device is an 84-inch, 4K touchscreen that is designed for enterprise users – generally meeting rooms. The Hub also features stylus support similar to the Surface Pro 3 with a pen specifically made for the device.

The device is designed to offer a holistic solution for meetings from web conferencing to whiteboarding and document sharing. No word on price or release date was given.

This is where Microsoft thinks the PC is headed

something intangible

During its January 21 event, Microsoft revealed Windows Holographic and Microsoft HoloLens, a brand new headset and hologram system designed to blow the concept of augmented reality wide open. Every Windows 10 device will support holographic computing APIs.

Windows Holographic is Microsoft holographic computing platform, while HoloLens is the proof-of-concept for the firm's holographic computing initiative. The company built a brand new holographic processing unit (HPU) to process terabytes of data from every sensor packed into the HoloLens.

Through the HPU, HoloLens can run completely independent of any other device. Microsoft demonstrated the technology on stage, creating a 3D model using holograms and later 3D printing that exact specification. There was no word on when HoloLens will launch and how much it will cost, but Microsoft promised that it will be ready for the public launch of Windows 10.

Yes, that includes the Internet of Things

CEO Satya Nadella's recent comments in October 2014,

"Windows 10 is a very important step for us." Nadella said on stage. "It's the first step in a new generation of Windows as opposed to just another release after Windows 8. General purpose computing is going to run on 200 plus billion sensors. We've architected Windows where it can run on everything."

Windows 10: The Start Menu Strikes Back

The Start menu: bigger, better, stronger

The return of the Start menu that Microsoft teased during its Build 2014 conference earlier in 2014 was shown off in full force at the September 30, 2014 event. Replete with a merging of the traditional Windows 7-style interface and Windows 8 Live Tiles, the new Start menu is designed to please both camps: touch and mouse users.

"They don't have to learn any new way to drive," Belfiore said, referring to Windows 7 business users. That said, customization will also be featured throughout, first with the ability to resizing the Start menu itself along with the Live Tiles within.

The Start menu features empowered search capabilities as well, able to crawl your entire machine, not to mention web results. (Through Bing and not Google, we'd imagine.)

Click on through for a detailed look at the rumors and leaks leading up to the first and second Windows 10 announcements. On the third page, we projected what Windows 9 – err – Windows 10 would be like, or at least what we had hoped. Read on to see how much we got right.

Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

When you purchase Windows 7 from Microsoft Store, you have the option to download an ISO file or compressed files. The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool allows you to create a copy of your Windows 7 ISO file on a USB flash drive or a DVD. To create a bootable DVD or USB flash drive, download the ISO file and then run the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool. Once this is done, you can install Windows 7 directly from the USB flash drive or DVD.

The ISO file contains all the Windows 7 installation files combined into a single uncompressed file. When you download the ISO file, you need to copy it to some medium in order to install Windows 7. This tool allows you to create a copy of the ISO file to a USB flash drive or a DVD. To install Windows 7 from your USB flash drive or DVD, all you need to do is insert the USB flash drive into your USB port or insert your DVD into your DVD drive and run Setup.exe from the root folder on the drive.

Note: You cannot install Windows 7 from the ISO file until you copy it to a USB flash drive or DVD with the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool and install from there.

The copy of the ISO file that the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool creates is bootable. Bootable media allows you to install Windows 7 without having to first run an existing operating system on your machine. If you change the boot order of drives in your computer's BIOS, you can run the Windows 7 installation directly from your USB flash drive or DVD when you turn on your computer. Please see the documentation for your computer for information on how to change the BIOS boot order of drives.

You may make one copy of the ISO file on a disc, USB flash drive or other media in order to install the software on a computer. Once you have installed the software on a computer, the license terms that accompany the software apply to your use of the software and replace these terms. The license terms for Windows 7, once accepted, permit you to make one copy of the software as a back-up copy for reinstallation on the licensed computer. If you do not delete the copy of the ISO file you made to install the software on your computer, then the copy of the ISO file constitutes your back-up copy.

Click to download this free tool

Games in Windows 8

Solitaire
Good old Solitaire

Flow
A puzzle game where you have to connect dots of the same color on a grid. The basic 5×5 grid levels get repetitive fairly fast. You can switch larger grids instead which makes the game somewhat more challenging and fun to play.

Cut The Rope

The objective of the game is to maneuver candy into the mouth of Om Nom. The candy is connected to ropes which need to be cut in the right order to collect all the stars in the level and feed Om Nom. The game is best played with a mouse or touch screen, and not with a laptop’s touchpad.

FlipSaw

A flipsaw puzzle game. Can be played with both the mouse or on a touch screen.

Hive Mind

In this puzzle game, you have to fill the letters of the so called hive word into cells on the screen. The hive has seven “flowers” which all need to be filled with the seven letters of the hive word. The game offers clues that help you place the letters correctly on the screen.

Jazz Trump’s Journey

A jump and run, and music adventure mix with nice ideas and great presentation.

Jopii

A set of games including Memo and a painting game. Looks to be suitable for smaller children as well.

Pew Pew

An arcade style game where you control your space ship with a stick on the right side. It is again best placed on touch devices, as it is rather difficulty to control with the mouse or a touchpad.

Pirates Love Daisies

A pirate themed Tower Defense game.

Puzzle Touch

A puzzle game that is best played on touch screens.

Train Titans

A train game. Nowhere near as complex as Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon but still a fun game. It comes with a puzzles mode in which you have to connect cities of the same color with each other, and single player mode that you can start playing after completing the first five puzzles that act as an introduction.

Wordament

It is a massively multiplayer word finding game where you compete against everyone else in a quest to become the champion. Best played with a touch screen. It is playable with the mouse as well.

Big Changes Comming in Windows8

Big Changes between Windows XP, Windows 20007 and Windows 8

Please share this graphic and page with your friends, colleagues and coworkers who want to know more about Windows 8.

Auto Reset and Re-install of Windows 8

One of the more interesting features in Windows 8, certainly from my perspective as the author of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” is the ability for Microsoft’s new operating system to self-repair and reinstall itself.  This isn’t actually as clever as it sounds but as a simplistic explanation it’ll do.

Microsoft have today though offered more insight into this process, called refresh and reset.  In a post on the Building Windows 8 blog they said “As we began planning for Windows 8, we asked ourselves: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you could just push a button and everything is fixed?’ We really wanted to focus on the concept of ‘push button’, which translated into a design goal that represents a simple to use, predictable, and fast solution.  The point of this is…

With Windows 8, there are a few key things that we set out to deliver:

• Provide a consistent experience to get the software on any Windows 8 PC back to a good and predictable state.
• Streamline the process so that getting a PC back to a good state with all the things customers care about can be done quickly instead of taking up the whole day.
• Make sure that customers don’t lose their data in the process.
• Provide a fully customizable approach for technical enthusiasts to do things their own way.

While this sounds like a wonderful solution to all your woes, it’s still not quite as wonderful as it sounds.  The two options will allow you to perform one of these tasks…

• Reset your PC – Remove all personal data, apps, and settings from the PC, and reinstall Windows.
• Refresh your PC – Keep all personal data, Metro style apps, and important settings from the PC, and reinstall Windows.

You’ll notice this says it will keep “Metro style apps” and doesn’t mention desktop apps.  This is because Microsoft will have a much tighter quality control on Metro apps and cite reasons in the blog including reinstalling bad apps and having little or no control over some installer types as the reason.  In fairness there probably are very good technical reasons why this is the case so there’s no need to disbelieve them here.

Windows 7 comes with an image backup system however in all editions that can be used with Startup Repair to restore your copy of Windows with all of your programs and settings intact.  Fortunately this hasn’t been forgotten and Microsoft have built it into the Rest options.

With this in mind, we’ve made it possible for you to establish your own baseline image via a command-line tool (recimg.exe). So when you get a Windows 8 PC, you will be able to do the following:

1. Go through the Windows first-run experience to configure basic settings.
2. Install your favorite desktop apps (or uninstall things you don’t want).
3. Configure the machine exactly as you would like it.
4. Use recimg.exe to capture and set your custom image of the system.

It’s not completely clear yet how this will work with the existing backup options, where a friendly wizard interface will walk you through the image backup process.  It is unlikely however that a command line will be the only way to do this.

So how long will it actually take to perform a refresh or a reset?  Microsoft timed the results on the machines they gave out to developers at their BUILD conference last september.

The refresh and restore options will also work from the new style Windows boot menu, should your copy of Windows be unable to start.

In Windows 8 Beta, there will also be a tool that you can use to create a bootable USB flash drive, in case even the copy of Windows RE on the hard drive won’t start. You’ll be able to start your PC with the USB drive, and fix problems by refreshing your PC or performing advanced troubleshooting. And if your PC comes with a hidden recovery partition, you’ll even have the option to remove it and reclaim disk space once you’ve created the USB drive.

It’s great that Microsoft are making these features more accessible and easier to use.  It is ironic however that the more stable and trouble-free Windows gets, the more troubleshooting and repair features are introduced.

Clearly these tools won’t suit everyone so I’m not concerned about whether there will be another edition of “Troubleshooting…”  I’ve also found on my own Windows tablet that the Developer Preview of the OS didn’t feel there was enough space to store all the rescue files and, as such when I went to try the tool it failed to work.  It might be that on some tablet devices where flash storage is at a premium, this may be the case in the future.