Whether you’re using your voice, gesturing on a touch screen, writing with a digital pen, building a 3D model, or playing a AAA PC game, Windows 10 offers a wealth of choices. The platform is available on the most form factors, too, from the tiny Raspberry Pi to massive gaming PCs to the large Surface Studio to the giant Surface Hub. Add to those completely new Windows devices like HoloLens and Mixed Reality headsets.
Since it’s release in 2015, there have been major updates and even a couple of new operating systems from Microsoft, but the pre-installed champ remains at the top of the mountain for now. It’s easy to keep track of your open apps on Windows 10. You can either hit the new Task View button on the taskbar or swipe in from the left edge of the screen to pull up a one-page view of all your open apps and files. It’s not much different from using the Alt-Tab combination shortcut on your keyboard, but this presents a convenient way for touch-oriented users to get an overview of what’s running. MS Windows version 1.0 was considered buggy, crude, and slow. Its rough start was made worse by a threatened lawsuit from Apple Co.
Microsoft ditches Windows 10 S in favor of new ‘S Mode’
I don’t understand why the button you click to see more of your apps is so small, or why Microsoft didn’t make it more customizable on the whole. Don’t upgrade to Windows 11 if you have old/incompatible hardware — Unless you’re an enthusiast who knows what they’re doing, you should hold off on this update for now. Older hardware may be able to run Windows 11 via workarounds. However, it may lead to some functionality being partially or completely broken. That is not something you want on your primary system. Not to forget, you’ll lose access to Windows Update if you update unofficially.
- About an hour into the new update, everything on my system started hanging/freezing for minutes at a time.
- Press the Windows logo key + Z or hover over the window’s maximize button to open and organize Windows apps.
- He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later.
However, apps and windows you have open on one desktop aren’t duplicated on other desktops, and each desktop can also have its own custom cosmetics like wallpaper and theme. Notably, there’s a new Desktops feature that helps you set up and manage multiple iterations of your desktop. There’s a new Task View button alongside the Start button which looks like two contrasting windows overlapping one another. Hover your pointer over it, and you’ll see a small preview of all the desktops you have open, as well as the option to set up a new one. Perhaps the most important thing to know about the release of Windows 11 is that we should expect it to change significantly try this dell driver over the next few years.
Click on This PC and then the Computer tab
Microsoft has stated that extended support for Windows 10 editions which are not in the Long-Term Servicing Channel will end on October 14, 2025. One of the biggest risks when updating to a new operating system is that something could go wrong during the process, leaving your computer in an unusable state. This is why it’s always a good idea to create a backup of your data before proceeding with any major update.
How to Use Installation Media to Force an Upgrade
As impressed as I am by the design changes, a part of me feels constrained by the new OS. No matter where you place your taskbar icons, for example, you won’t be able to see app labels anymore. Microsoft has been pushing an icon-focused taskbar since Windows 7, but you always had the option to turn on labels, so you could see what was in an app window before you clicked on it. Dealing with that loss is the single biggest hurdle I had with Windows 11. I can’t imagine average consumers trying to figure out command line prompts without wanting to throw their PCs out the window.