MICROSOFT has pushed-out its second blockbuster update to Windows 10. But can these improvements convince those who have yet to pull the trigger on the next-generation operating system to upgrade their PC?
EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS- Pros – Start Menu Gets A Welcome Tweak, Stylish User Interface, Works Great With Traditional Keyboard And Mouse Set-Up, Universal Apps Work Well On Hybrid Devices, Windows Ink Is An Incredibly Useful New Feature
- Cons – Some Microsoft Desktop Apps Have Yet To Be Updated For Use With A Touchscreen, Expensive For Those Who Aren’t Eligible For The Free Upgrade, Still Feels Unfinished
Microsoft has enjoyed enormous success with Windows 10.
It has the fastest adoption rate of any Microsoft operating system, and now powers more than 350 million devices across the globe.
That makes it more popular than the ill-judged Windows 8, although it still lags well behind the trusted and reliable Windows 7.
Anniversary Update is the second major update to the next-generation operating system,following the release of Windows 10 Threshold in November last year.
Express.co.uk praised Windows 10 after its initial release, stating that it "feels like a natural evolution of Windows 7" and "manages to right many of the wrongs committed by Windows 8."
However, now that Windows 10 is no longer a free upgrade for users running Windows 7 or Windows 8, does the Anniversary Update offer enough to justify the £99 price tag? And should those already running Windows 10 rush to upgrade their system to this latest iteration?
Review –
Anniversary Update is not seismically different to its predecessor. Out of the box, you could easily be forgiven for not noticing that the update had succeeded.
That’s not a criticism.
Windows 10 is a good-looking operating system, brilliantly blending the tablet-focused aesthetics of Windows 8 with the unbeaten mouse-and-keyboard utility of Windows 7.
With Anniversary Update, Microsoft has doubled-down on the headline features of its latest operating system – adding new features to Cortana, Microsoft Edge and the redesigned Start Menu.
If you didn’t like the direction Microsoft took with Windows 10, there’s little in the Anniversary Update to win you round.
But if you have been enjoying Windows 10 for the last year, you’ll be very pleased with the advances made here.
MICROSOFTCortana
We weren’t completely sold on Cortana last year.
In Windows 10, the proactive voice assistant lives in the task-bar – as well as your Edge browser – and chips in with usual information, calendar appointments, reminders, prompts and more.
With Anniversary Update, PC owners can also summon the talkative virtual assistant from the lockscreen. Cortana can also search within documents – not just the titles, which means you don’t have to be quite so specific when looking for a file. We never really got used to chatting to our desktop with a cheery "Hey Cortana”.
Honestly, it really didn’t feel natural – and when you’re sat in-front of a perfectly-good keyboard – it’s also not any quicker.
That being said, on those few occasions we did decide to converse with our computer, Cortana managed to accurately pick-out what we were saying.
Setting reminders via Cortana worked flawlessly, as did the assistant's proactive prompts to hurry us out the office to make our next appointment.
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Unfortunately Cortana would often throw us to Bing searches – for queries she should really be able to parse and execute, like checking what appointments we had in our calendar, and booking a taxi via Uber. For more complex requests, that response would be understandable. But when Apple's Siri and Google Now are both capable of returning answers without a web search, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Any information Cortana learns about you is automatically synced across your Windows 10 devices, as well as your iOS and Android gadgets too – thanks to the release of the Cortana app. This also lets you reply to text messages sent to your Android smartphone from the Action Centre shade.
And if you use a Windows 10 Mobile device, Microsoft will send a notification to your desktop whenever your battery starts to dwindle.
Cortana is undoubtedly useful, for example, pasting a flight number into the search box shows the plane’s progress immediately. But too often, the assistant will stumble over your spoken request. And when you’re sat in-front of a perfectly good keyboard, it is often better to revert to this tried-and-tested method, rather than barking orders at your laptop which, one year on, still feels very unnatural.
MICROSOFTWindows Ink, Sticky Notes
One of the biggest new features in Anniversary Update is Windows Ink.
This makes it impossibly easy to jot down a quick note, screenshot your display and annotate the grab with handwritten notes or doodles.
If you’re running Windows 10 on a traditional desktop set-up, you won’t notice any of these brilliant new additions since they require a touchscreen and a stylus. But if you use a convertible two-in-one device, like the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 or a Windows 10 machine with a touchscreen, like the Surface Book, this is an invaluable addition and well worth the upgrade.
Microsoft has housed this new functionality in the Windows Ink Workspace – a menu found in the right-hand corner of the task bar. Tapping this launches a panel with quick access to the Sticky Notes, SketchPad and Screen Sketch features.
Sticky Notes float around the desktop, letting you quickly scrawl down an aide–mémoire. With Cortana enabled, these should spring to life and become actionable – so if you jot down the date and time of an upcoming phone interview, Cortana will be able to add the reminder to your calendar with a quick tap.
Unfortunately we were never able to get the feature to work properly. Windows 10 Anniversary Update would repeatedly fail to recognise our handwritten flight numbers, URLs, appointments and reminders.
Sticky Notes alone are useful, but nothing new. The ability to draw on the power of Cortana to siphon the most important information from your notes would’ve been a huge win for the latest update. And the fact that it never worked as advertised was a crushing disappointment.
Screen Sketch is the most useful new addition – and worked flawlessly for us.
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The new feature, which can be activated by a quick double-tap of the stylus, takes a screenshot of whatever you have on-screen and then lets you doodle, annotate and highlight over the screengrab. This can then be quickly shared via email, or saved to the desktop. Quickly highlighting passages of text to forward onto a colleague is fast and fun with Screen Sketch – a brilliantly convenient new feature that will makes your convertible two-in-one device work even harder for you.
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft’s minimalist web browser sees some bumper improvements in Windows 10 Anniversary Update. The app, which lacked a number of key features you’d expect from a modern web browser when it shipped with Windows 10, is now a viable replacement for the infamous Internet Explorer.
The US technology firm has worked hard to ensure its in-built browser ekes as much battery life from your device as possible. Microsoft claims it’s now up to 70 per cent more efficient than competitors.
And finally, one year after it first launched, extensions are now baked into Edge.
Pinterest Pin It Button, Mouse Gestures, Evernote Web Clipper, Save to Pocket, Reddit Enhancement Suite, Amazon Assistant, and LastPass are amongst those that launched alongside Anniversary Update. That’s a big deal.
Anyone who relies on a password manager, wants to use an ad-blocker, or save articles to a third-party read-later client, now has the option of using Microsoft Edge. Something that – for the past year – was not possible.
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Microsoft has added some other useful tweaks, like the addition of a “Paste and Search” option when you right-click in the address bar, something Chrome users have enjoyed for years. You can now tell Edge to erase your web history every time the app is closed, which is useful. And Microsoft Edge is the only browser that natively supports biometrics – so you can login with a quick scan of your face via Windows Hello – useful if your bank or favourite online service is one of the few that has built-in support for the feature.
Thanks to these updates, Microsoft Edge is now a viable replacement for Internet Explorer. But there’s nothing here that’ll convince you to ditch your current app, which statistically, is probably Google Chrome.
During our time with Anniversary Update, Edge was less stable than rival browsers, forcing us to hammer the infamous control, alt, delete key combination more than a few times. And the recent introduction of the system-wide Screen Sketch feature means you can enjoy Edge’s stand-out feature – the ability to annotate webpages – in rival browsers.
Small Improvements, Minor Tweaks
Microsoft reportedly ditched a number of headline new features planned for Anniversary Update months before its release to focus on stability and under-the-bonnet improvements across the operating system.
As a result, Windows 10 Anniversary Update feels familiar, but more refined.
Microsoft has improved the Start Menu, including the list of all installed apps as soon as you launch the menu. It’s a small change, but one you’ll appreciate every day. Elsewhere, tapping on a Live Tile will now take you directly to the content featured in the preview, rather than simply launching the app.
Why this functionality wasn’t included in the initial Windows 10 release back in July 2015 is a little baffling, but it’s a welcome addition to Anniversary Update nonetheless.
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Dark Mode, which reigns in the bright-white colour palette used across the operating system and replaces it with deep blacks. It’s easier on the eye, and can even save you battery life with some display technologies.
Unfortunately, despite two major updates in the last year, Windows 10 still suffers from a number of the same issues we experienced after its initial release.
Across Windows 10 Anniversary Update, you will still notice icons that haven’t been updated to the new flatter design. One year after its release, and with the update now set to cost some PC users £100, these inconsistencies leaves a very bad taste in the mouth – like Windows 10 is still unfinished. That feeling is only compounded by the fact that Microsoft has yet to merge its system preferences into one coherent app – instead of being spread between the Settings and the Control Panel app. Anniversary Update should have been the final lick of paint for these year-old rough edges.
Disappointingly, it’s not.
EXPRESS NEWSPAPERSFinal Verdict
If you’re already running Windows 10, you should upgrade to Anniversary Update immediately. The free upgrade is not revolutionary by any means, but includes a number of refinements and tweaks, like those to the Start Menu, that enhance many of the standout features that made Windows 10 such a success last year.
However those who are faced with a £100 bill to make the jump to Windows 10 Anniversary Update might struggle to justify the upgrade. Windows Ink is incredibly useful, but only benefits those who use a touchscreen device. Microsoft Edge gets a solid upgrade with Anniversary Update – but who is still using Edge?
Anniversary Update is the best version of Windows 10 yet.
Those who are not yet sold on Microsoft’s vision of the future of its iconic operating system will not be won round by this latest iteration. But those who are already on-board will benefit from a number of evolutionary upgrades.
