Windows 10

[7/29/15] So the day is finally here. Microsoft today launched Windows 10 giving the millions of people who own Windows 7 and 8 computers a chance to obtain for free to the company’s latest operating system.

The reason that the decision to take the plunge and swap operating systems is more difficult with Windows 10, is that Microsoft is offering Windows 10 for free to anyone owning a computer currently running Windows 7 or 8. In the past the company always charged a fee, generally around $100, for its latest operating system. That alone, along with the complexity of personally handling the upgrade, scared off many people and they simply stuck with the software that came with their computer.

However, with Win 10 being a freebie more people will seriously consider making the change even if they are not particularly tech savvy. The good news is the upgrade process is painless and can be completed by even a computer novice.

Microsoft is hyping a few key features it believes will sway people to upgrade. Primarily that 10 will work across all hardware platforms computer, tablet, smart phone and even Xbox One. So if a consumer owns a tablet or phone running Windows, as opposed to Android or iOS, he or she will be able to seamlessly move between devices.

Microsoft has also resurrected its famous Start button and the desktop interface itself is a mix between Windows 7, which is much beloved by its users, and Windows 8, which is basically despised by many of its users. This gives those who decided against moving up to Windows 8 an additional reason to give Windows 10 a try.

There is also a new browser, dubbed Edge, in Win 10 that offers the neat trick of being able to annotate a web page directly and then share it with another person. In addition, Microsoft has moved Cortana, its version of Siri or Google Now, to desktops and tablets. It has been available on Windows Phone for over a year.

[10/1/14] Today, Microsoft took the wraps off the next version of Windows. You’ll be able to install a free, unfinished “technical preview” version this week, or get it in final form sometime next year. It’s called Windows 10.

(Why is it Windows 10? What happened to 9? Making sense of the Windows naming sequence is like solving one of those Mensa “What’s the pattern?” puzzles. So far, we have this: Windows 1, 2, 3, 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10. OK, whatever.)

Windows 8, as the world now knows, was a superimposed mishmash of two operating systems. There was the touchscreen-friendly TileWorld interface, as I called it. (Microsoft, at various times, called it Modern or Metro; it has officially retired both of those terms and replaced them with nothing.)

And, underneath, there was the regular desktop:

They are quite separate, these two environments. Each has its own Help system, its own Web browser, its own email program, its own control panel, its own conventions and gestures. Worse, each runs its own kind of programs. Regular Windows programs open at the desktop, as always — but TileWorld apps open in TileWorld, with no menus overlapping windows. Like iPad apps.

Microsoft believed at the time (2012) that the world was going touchscreen crazy. That, sooner or later, every PC would have a touchscreen.

It bet wrong. Most computers still don’t have touchscreens. Windows 8 was a massive flop with critics.

Windows 8 was a massive flop with consumers, too. Today, 51 percent of desktop PCs still run Windows 7; only 13 percent have “upgraded” to Windows 8 or 8.1, according to Net Applications.

And at the Windows 10 announcement, you would not have believed the words coming out of Microsoft’s mouth.

“In Windows 8, when users launched a Modern [TileWorld] app, it sort of had a different environment,” OS Group VP Joe Belfiore said in his demo. “We don’t want that duality.”

Now, when I wrote exactly that in The New York Times, Microsoft PR descended on me like the beasts of hell.

The answer has always been screamingly obvious: Split up the two halves of Windows 8. Or, as a wise man once wrote, “Put TileWorld and its universe of new touchscreen apps on tablets. Put Windows 8 on mouse-and-keyboard PCs.” (OK, it was me.)

Anyway, here’s the big news: In Windows 10, Microsoft has done just that.