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Microsoft’s virtual desktops are one of the of the more unique features of Windows 10—a quick way to organize “screens” of apps that you can switch to back and forth. Rearranging them has always been a pain, but a new drag-and-drop feature, hopefully that problem will go away. Microsoft said it's expedited the ability to drag and drop windows between virtual desktops, eliminating the clunky keyboard shortcuts that Windows 10 currently forces one to use. Why this matters: Virtual desktops are handy tools for those with just a single monitor. If you have more than one monitor, you might have...

Although Microsoft has said its Windows 10 preview program has some 2.8 million participants, just over half of those are using the early version on a regular basis, according to Web metrics estimates. For March, U.S.-based analytics company Net Applications pegged Windows 10's user share, a rough projection of the fraction of online users running the OS, at 0.09%, or nine PC users out of every 10,000. That represented 0.1% of all Windows PC users, the slight difference due to the fact that Windows does not account for all personal computer operating systems, but instead about 91%. Windows 10's user...

Late last month a mysterious patch suddenly appeared as an Optional entry in the Windows Automatic Update chute. At the time I wrote: Conjecture at this point: It's somehow related to the ability to upgrade directly from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10. But of course, the official documentation doesn't say anything of the sort. The crows have come home to roost and, thanks to a German researcher named Gerard Himmelein at heise.de, we now have a more thorough understanding of exactly what Microsoft's dishing out (a Google English translation of the post is available). Yesterday Jan Willem Aldershoff...

Could Microsoft's open source advocacy ever result in the company offering its cash cow Windows OS up to open source? It's possible, according to one Microsoft official, though his comments Wednesday should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt. During a technology panel session in Silicon Valley, Microsoft's Mark Russinovich, CTO for the company's Azure cloud platform, did what Microsoft officials have been prone to doing in recent years: Preach Microsoft's conversion from open source skeptic to proponent. Open source, Russinovich said at the Chef Conf 2015 conference, was "no longer taboo" at the commercial software giant, pointing to...

Every now and then, it's nice to break out of your bubble, to really get outside your comfort zone and see how things are "on the other side of the fence."I love Chinese food. Could eat Chinese food every day of the week. But, once in a while, it's a good idea to mix things up. You know. And order a pizza. This is that time for me. Only instead of Chinese food, it's Linux. Instead of pizza, Windows 10 (Technical Preview). That's right. I'm a full time Linux user, and I just spent a few days trying to live...

First look. Microsoft has released the first public preview build of Windows 10 to include Project Spartan, its new web browser. Is Project Spartan really new? The browser engine, called EdgeHTML, is a fork of the Internet Explorer (IE) web engine, called Trident, though with a key difference: EdgeHTML has no compatibility modes and will simply render the latest web standards Microsoft is able to deliver. The user interface is new but is really the successor to “Modern IE”, the Windows 8 web browser that runs in the don’t-call-it-Metro environment. Users will perceive Project Spartan as new though, since it...

Full Title:Microsoft's Project Spartan browser is HERE (unless you build apps or run VMs, that is) Devs might be wise to skip latest Windows 10 build Microsoft has shipped a new build of Windows 10 that offers a first look at its much-hyped Project Spartan web browser, but the software giant has cautioned that developers may want to hold off upgrading. In a Monday blog post, Redmond man Gabe Aul said Project Spartan is the main feature of Windows 10 Build 10049, which is rolling out now to testers on the Fast release ring of the Windows Insider program. But...

At the Windows Hardware Engineering Community (WinHEC) event in Shenzhen, China, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 will be available this summer in 190 countries and 111 languages. Windows is currently used by over 1.5 billion users around the world. Windows 10 will be offered as a free upgrade to customers who have Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 for the first year after it is released. Microsoft Windows head Terry Myerson told Reuters that the free upgrade to Windows 10 is available for all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine. Microsoft has partnered with Lenovo , Tencent and Qihu...

Microsoft has already said that Windows 10 will work on a PC, tablet or phone. Now it wants to put Windows on every other gadget you might want to connect to the Internet. On Monday, Microsoft unveiled Windows 10 IoT (short for the idiotically named "Internet of Things"). It's essentially a tool to let your connected thermostat to talk to your connected car, or for a bank's connected ATM to talk to its network hub. And if all those things run Windows, they'll play nicely (in theory) with your Windows PC or phone. That means you should be able to...

I was a Windows user for most of my life. My family's first computer, which we got in 1991, ran Windows 3.0 and didn't come with a modem. (I remember helping my dad install one a few months later. We signed up for a Prodigy account, and I spent countless hours playing MadMaze after that.) From then on we were a Windows family. In 1995 we bought a PC with Windows 95 and AOL. In 2000 we got a Dell that we'd eventually upgrade to Windows XP. It wasn't until I joined the school paper my sophomore year in high...

Microsoft sure does like to change the way things are named! Windows CE gave way to Handheld PC and Palm PC, then to Palm-Sized PC, then Pocket PC was replaced by Windows Mobile Standard, Professional, and Classic. Windows Phone came along when Microsoft rebooted the platform in the wake of competition from Apple and Android. Windows Phone 7 was followed by Windows Phone 7.5, then 8.0, and most recently 8.1. Did I miss any? Are you confused yet? Then again, one could argue whether or not Microsoft’s naming has been more or less confusing than Android’s “sweet tooth” classification (it...

Microsoft gathered a bunch of reporters together in its Redmond, Washington, headquarters Wednesday to show off the next version of Windows, Windows 10, which is expected to come out later this year. You can check out our live blog of the event at the bottom of this page, but here were the highlights: * Holograms. The coolest thing was a set of new products that will let people see holographic images. The hardware is called Microsoft HoloLens and looks a lot like Google Glass. There are also software tools within Windows 10 that will let programmers create apps that use...

At Microsoft’s Windows 10 event today, the company shared that all Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users will be able to upgrade to Windows 10, for free. Microsoft said that the free upgrade will be valid for the first year immediately after the release. Those on Windows Phone 8.1 will also get the update. Terry Myerson, VP of Windows at Microsoft said that the company wanted to make it a “seamless upgrade” for those users when Windows 10 is released.

Microsoft's head of Windows Insider program, Gabriel Aul, has confirmed that Windows 10 will require a fresh install on Windows devices older than Windows 7.Revealed in a reply from his Twitter account, Aul wrote that there won't be any full upgrade paths as these will be solely available for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users.It makes sense given that some of them might be on older filesystems (e.g. FAT32). That's also assuming that Windows 10 will run on these systems, which although they may have enough resources (RAM/CPU) to power Microsoft's newest OS, may well run into compatibility issues with...

Microsoft is enjoying a considerable effort on the part of testers for Windows 10, who are reporting a considerable number of bugs and helping push the new operating system along quickly.Gabe Aul, engineering general manager for the Operating Systems Group at Microsoft, made his December blog update on Windows all about fixes and improvements, and there are a lot. He said that more 1.5 million registered Windows Insiders are banging away at Windows 10, about 450,000 of whom are considered "highly active." This is much higher than any previous public beta for Windows.Microsoft has been receiving feedback from the Windows...

Microsoft launched the Windows Insider Program in early October to provide users with access to the newest technical previews of Windows 10, and until now, this particular campaign has proven to be quite a successful effort. New statistics provided by Gabriel Aul, head of the Windows Insider Program, reveal that no less than 1.5 million people have actually installed Windows 10 through this program, but the number of those who have actually given the technical preview a try could be even bigger if we take into consideration the number of ISO downloads as well. Out of the 1.5 million users...

SEATTLE: Microsoft expects to have its new Windows 10 operating system on the market by autumn 2015, slightly later than previous comments had suggested. Chief operating officer Kevin Turner told Japanese news service Nikkei on Wednesday that the new system would be released "early next fall." Microsoft has not publicly set a firm timetable for the release of Windows 10, but only last week suggested the possibility of an earlier release. "By next late summer and early fall we'll be able to bring out this particular OS (operating system). That's the current plan of record," Turner told the Credit Suisse...

Windows 10 is still in development at Microsoft, but Redmond’s partners claim that interest in new PCs has increased lately, especially after the software giant released the very first Windows 10 Technical Preview for testers. What’s more, millions of PCs are waiting right now for Windows 10, as the new operating system is already seen as a breath of fresh air for the collapsing PC industry which has suffered from dropping figures in the last couple of years. Windows 8 didn’t help, many said, so Windows 10 could definitely boost shipments, Intel’s executives explained during a recent press conference. Renee...

In addition to several changes in terms of looks and features, Windows 10 will also bring an important improvement under the hood, as Microsoft is working to update the kernel version from 6.4 to 10.0. As we reported to you last week, the kernel update was already spotted in leaked builds of Windows 10, but Microsoft has finally confirmed in some official documents for developers that app makers should start updating as well to make sure that no software compatibilities are found. “Developers preparing for Windows 10 should note that the Windows NT value in the UA string will change...

With Windows 10, Microsoft is trying to address many of the annoyances in Windows 8, so the new operating system will not only bring back traditional and very popular features, but will also try to better tackle user needs with the help of feedback platforms. With this in mind, it appears that Microsoft is heading in the right direction, Dell says, explaining that company customers have already expressed their interest in the new operating system. In a statement for ComputerWorld, Neil Hand, vice president of tablets at Dell, explained that features implemented in Windows 10 that would allow users...