Windows 10

When Windows 10 arrived on the scene, much was made of the Metro (or Modern) look of the apps. This was Microsoft's design language of the time and now it's time to throw out the old and usher in the new. We've heard a bit about Project NEON in recent months, and this has now evolved in to the Fluent Design System.

This is the new design language for Windows, and it will be making an appearance in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update -- although you can already see glimpses of it in the Redstone 3 builds if you are a Windows Insider. Microsoft describes it as "an eloquent design system for a complex world," and introduces five main building blocks: Light, Depth, Motion, Material and Scale. But just what is it going to mean for the future of Windows 10?

Two-hundred-and-thirty 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.

Microsoft revealed during the keynote speech at the Build 2017 developer conference that Windows 10 is installed on 500 million active devices, and that iTunes will make an appearance in the Windows Store later this year.

It’s been another very busy day for Microsoft today. At Build, the software giant announced that the next big update of its new operating system will be called Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, and now we have a new build of that for Windows Insiders.

Build 16193 introduces some of the new features that Terry Myerson announced on stage at Build, including the new Story Remix app and Power Throttling.

Yes, you did read that correctly. Today at Build Microsoft announces that iTunes is going to appear in the Windows Store by the end of the year. Apple and Microsoft playing ball together like this is a pretty rare occurrence.

With the recently announced Windows 10 S, the timing is interesting, and in embracing the iPhone, Microsoft is sending out yet another message that Windows Phone is dead -- it's iPhone and Android smartphones that matter.

Microsoft has been working on its vision of mixed reality for a while. It first showed off its HoloLens headset two years ago, and then debuted a developer edition last August, but sales weren’t great, not least because it came with a $3,000 price tag.

Microsoft said at the time that the best, and cheapest, HoloLens VR headsets would not be made by itself, but by third-party hardware developers, and today at Build it announced the first of these headsets, as well as Windows mixed reality motion controllers -- no markers required. If you’ve been excited to try Microsoft's implementation of augmented reality for yourself, the wait is nearly over.

Microsoft’s Build developer conference got under way yesterday, revealing interesting information, such as Windows 10 is now on 500 million active devices, and the software giant has developed a wearable for Parkinson’s disease suffers.

Today’s keynote will be exiting for anyone interested in Windows, as Terry Myerson, Microsoft EVP of the Windows and Devices Group, will be taking to the stage.

Microsoft has faced a lot of criticism regarding privacy in Windows 10, and rightfully so. Look, even if the company has good intentions for its use of telemetry, users are wise to question how their data is being used. Make no mistake, it is the user's data that is being transmitted to Microsoft's servers.

Today, however, at the 2017 Build developer conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella makes a shocking statement -- he is fearful of technology taking humanity down a dangerous path. He even mentions George Orwell's classic novel 1984 where "big brother" is always watching.

During the Build developer conference keynote in 2015, Microsoft said that it expected over 1 billion Windows 10 devices to be in consumers hands within 2-3 years.

Two years have passed since then, and at this year’s Build conference Microsoft announced that Windows 10 is now on 500 million Windows 10 devices, active monthly. That’s an impressive number, even if it’s only half of the original projection.

Windows 10 S, Microsoft’s new education-focused operating system, has a lot of restrictions in place. The main one, of course, being that it only allows you to install apps from the Windows Store. If you want to install programs from outside its ecosystem, you’ll need to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.

Edge is the default browser in Windows 10 S, and Bing the default search engine, and unlike in Windows 10 itself, you can’t change these. That might be something of a deal breaker for any browser-makers interested in bringing their product to Windows 10 S, but that’s not the only issue they’ll face.

While we've heard about the HomeHub feature of Windows 10 before, we've not seen what it might look like in practice. Now, thanks to a series of leaked images, that all changes, and it shows that Microsoft is ready to take on Google Home and Amazon Echo with its own devices.

Like the Amazon Echo Show, the leaked images depict a device with a screen. It's running Windows 10, supports voice-activated Cortana commands, and it's something that Microsoft clearly wants to be at the center of future smart homes.

Windows 10 has changed quite a lot since its original release in July 2015. Microsoft has rolled out three major updates to its new OS since then -- the November Update, the Anniversary Update, and most recently, the Creators Update. All three introduced new features and major changes, making it a much better and more rounded OS.

But the problem with having different versions of what is essentially the same operating system is that supporting multiple branches isn’t feasible.

Anyone using Microsoft Edge to "print to PDF" is advised to double-check their files after a strange bug was detected. The problem is reminiscent of a bug that afflicted Xerox photocopiers a couple of years ago, and sees the browser displaying one set of numbers and printing another.

Microsoft has confirmed the existence of the bug which has the potential to cause serious issues with mission-critical data. The person who originally reported the problem cites an example in which Windows 10's default web browser "displays 123456 in PDF but prints 114447."

Microsoft has made much of its UWP (Universal Windows Platform) so it should come as little surprise that there's a UWP version of File Explorer. What is a little surprising, however, is that the app is hidden and can only be unlocked using a specially-crafted shortcut.

You need to be running Windows 10 Creators Update and you can try out the app which is somewhat reminiscent of the Windows 10 Mobile version of File Explorer. It's not clear how close to the final version of the app this is, but it's interesting to try out, and certainly something to keep an eye on.

Microsoft this week introduced a new version of Windows 10 aimed primarily at users in education, and designed as an alternative to Google’s Chrome OS.

The main difference between Windows 10 S, and Windows 10 Home/Pro is it only runs apps from the Windows Store. You can’t install programs from elsewhere, and this includes Chrome. This mean users can only install Microsoft-verified software which, the software giant says, will result in better security and superior performance. You don’t need to buy or install Windows 10 S to get this feature though, you can simply lock down an existing version of Windows 10.

Two-hundred-and-twenty-nine 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.

Microsoft revealed the new Windows 10 S edition officially this week, and along with it a new Surface laptop that runs it.