Windows 10

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (aka Redstone 3) is nearly done. Microsoft is just working to kill all the bugs and stabilize the release now.

It won’t begin the official rollout for a while -- and if the speed of the Creators Update rollout is anything to go by you likely won’t get it for months anyway -- but the software giant is already looking to the future, and Redstone 4. Insiders who want to remain on the cutting edge at all times will be given the chance to 'skip ahead' and start receiving builds from that future branch if they wish.

A high number of organizations around the world have still not upgraded to Windows 10, despite the software being available for several years, new figures have said.

In a study marking two years since the release of Windows 10, networking firm Spiceworks found that only 60 percent of global organizations have upgraded to the newest platform in this time.

Yesterday, I wrote how Microsoft’s simple graphics program Paint was getting killed off after 32 years’ service, but it seems it’s not dead yet.

Microsoft is going to be retiring it from future versions of Windows 10, but you’ll still be able to get Paint from the Windows Store.

Among the list of features set to be removed or deprecated in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is Microsoft Paint, a fixture of Windows since the operating system’s first release back in 1985.

Microsoft doesn’t give any explanation as to why it’s being removed. Indeed, in the list of features being dropped it simply says "Microsoft Paint." Everything else in the list, including Outlook Express, has at least a one-line explanation. What a sad, inglorious ending.

Each new big update for Windows 10 introduces a wealth of new features. The forthcoming Fall Creators Update will be no different, delivering lots of improvements as well as new components like OneDrive Files On-Demand, and My People.

But when Microsoft giveth, it also taketh away, dropping various features and functionalities from its new build. In preparation for the release of the Fall Creators Update, Microsoft has released the full list of features that will be removed or deprecated from the new version.

Two-hundred-and-forty in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Windows Store in the past seven days.

We are just months away from the release of the next big update for Windows 10, the Fall Creators Update. Only 50 percent of all Windows 10 devices have received the current feature update -- the Creators Update -- so far, which makes it likely that some systems may go straight to the next release when it arrives.

Earlier in the week, I wrote about how the Windows 10 Creators Update was incompatible with certain PCs already running Windows 10. Devices powered by Intel’s Atom Clover Trail CPU couldn’t install the latest feature update, even though upgrading from Windows 8x to Windows 10, and the Anniversary Update, worked fine.

A post from Acer suggested that it was a temporary glitch and that Microsoft was working to address the incompatibility, providing a glimmer of hope for users of the affected devices, but it turns out that’s not the case.  Atom Clover Trail processors won’t be supported in the Creators Update or any future feature updates.

Calling the next big Windows 10 feature update the "Fall Creators Update" always seemed like a bit of an odd decision when countries outside of the USA and Canada use Autumn, and not Fall, to describe the season that follows summer.

So when it was reported, earlier in the week, that the update would be called the Autumn Creators Update for some parts of the world, we weren’t entirely surprised. The new name appeared on Microsoft’s regional pages, so it seemed pretty official. But, as it turns out, that’s not the case at all.

The Windows 10 Creators Update rollout began in April, but unless you took it upon yourself to manually update your PC, there’s a good chance you won’t have been offered it, especially if have an older system. In June, according to AdDuplex, just 35.7 percent of Windows 10 users were running the latest feature update.

AdDuplex has just updated its figures for July, and this shows that 50.1 percent of Windows 10 users now have the update. That might seem like a big jump forward, but to put the speed of the upgrade into context, three months after its rollout began, the Anniversary Update was already on 3/4 of all PCs.

Since Microsoft is working on making Windows 10 available on ARM devices, it was only a matter of time before questions arose on the possibility of the full-blown Windows 10 also making its way to smartphones.

After all, the ARM hardware that underpins the upcoming PCs is also available on smartphones. The first processor to power these devices is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835, which is found on Android flagships like Samsung's Galaxy S8 and HTC's U11. Previous chips in this line can be seen in Lumia handsets as well.

The Creators Update rollout is continuing at a glacial pace, with most Windows 10 users yet to be offered it. The reason for this is Microsoft wants to make sure the update is fully compatible with PCs before it’s pushed to them (you can, of course, download and install the update manually at any time).

However, it turns out there’s a whole class of PCs running Windows 10 that simply can’t be upgraded to the Creators Update. And these aren’t old PCs either.

You may not need an app to access LinkedIn from a Windows 10 PC, but the Microsoft-owned professional social network believes that it can offer users something that a browser cannot: a better user experience.

The LinkedIn app for Windows 10, which is rolling out now in Windows Store, promises to be "more engaging and fully integrated" with the operating system, thanks to features like real-time notifications and trending news.

Microsoft has been producing operating systems for decades, but it’s never been very good at naming them. Things started off well enough, with a straightforward numbering system -- Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0. Then the company opted for a year-based approach -- Windows 95, Windows 98 -- before switching to using letters -- Windows ME (Millennium Edition) and XP (eXPerience, eXtra Patches?).

Then we had Windows Vista, followed by a return to numbers -- Windows 7 and Windows 8, and a random jump to Windows 10. And now we’re getting twice yearly updates for that latest operating system, with rubbish names that appear to have been thought up by someone who hates their job.

The upcoming Redstone 3 release of Windows 10 has been known as the Fall Creators Update for some time now -- but in some parts of the world this name sounds nonsensical. While fall is the season that follows summer in many countries, it's not the case worldwide.

It is for this very reason that the update will bear a different name in a number of countries including the UK, Australia, New Zealand and India. Come September, Windows 10 users in these nations will be installing Windows 10 Autumn Update.

While Windows 10 is arguably successful from a market share perspective, it is still failing in one big way -- the user experience. Windows 8.x was an absolute disaster, and Microsoft's latest is certainly better than that, but it is still not an enjoyable experience. Quite frankly, the people clutching to Windows 7 aren't so crazy.

The most glaring issue is the privacy aspect, or lack thereof. Look, telemetry is a good thing for the development of the operating system, but users shouldn't be forced to participate. Hell, I don't even totally mind if it is opt out rather than opt in. But if a user wants to remove their computer entirely, that should be their right.