 After months of testing Windows 10 very publicly, it's finally officially here. It's a free upgrade for most people too. But should you upgrade? Windows 10 is the realisation of Microsoft's big dream to have a single Windows that runs across PCs, tablets, phones and even the company's Xbox One console. Right now, Windows 10 is mostly about fixing the mess that Microsoft created with Windows 8. One of the first signs of that is the return of the Start Menu you know and love. It's not just the regular one from Windows 7. Instead, Microsoft has combined the best aspects of the last two versions of Windows to create a redesigned Start Menu. The live tiles from Windows 8 remain, but you're no longer booted into an entirely different full screen interface. There's a traditional list of apps, easy access to power options and settings and the ability to resize the menu freely. Windows 10 has a nice dark theme and it blends in well against laptop screens that usually have black bezels. If you're not a fan of the darkness, then there are plenty of colour options to change the look of the Start Menu and Taskbar. There's even little transparency effects that finish off the look and feel. Navigating around Windows 8 was painful with a laptop or PC and Windows 10 has improved massively. The annoying hot corners of Windows 8 are gone and Microsoft has removed the weird Charms bar. In its place is a new Action Centre that works as a notification centre to collect any alerts from apps and provide quick access to a bunch of settings. Snapping apps has been a popular feature of Windows and Microsoft has tweaked it slightly here. There's a new Snap Assist feature that makes it a lot easier to find what apps are open to snap them side by side. There's also a new Task View feature that's a lot like Mission Control on the Mac. It displays all your open windows on a single screen and you can find what you're looking for quickly. It's also a gateway to a new Virtual Desktop feature. Yes, you can finally create separate virtual desktops without having to install a third party app. It's mainly a power of the user feature but it's useful if you want to separate apps on a laptop where you don't have a lot of screen space. One of the biggest additions to Windows 10 is Microsoft's virtual assistant, Cortana. It's designed to look and feel like an extension to the Start Menu. Just like the Windows Phone equivalent you can use your voice to search or type in queries manually. There's even an option to enable a Hey Cortana feature that lets you simply holler questions at your laptop. It's perfect if you're leaning back in an office chair and want to fire off emails with your voice but I found I mostly use it to demonstrate Cortana to friends and family. Cortana also has a helpful overview of your day mixed in with interests like weather, news and local restaurants. Cortana also has a powerful local search to find your documents on your local hard drive or from the OneDrive cloud storage service. With a new version of Windows comes a new browser called Edge. It might be designed to succeed Internet Explorer but it sticks to the past in a number of ways. Edge's taskbar icon is barely different from Internet Explorer in an effort to keep it similar for the millions of diverse Windows users. Edge is simplified, clean and performs well in most cases but there's a few things missing and the lack of features you might expect from a modern browser. Snapping tabs into separate Windows is messy, downloads start automatically with no choice of folder and there's no saved target as. Microsoft really started from scratch with Edge and it shows. Microsoft has still included a copy of Internet Explorer in Windows 10 for this very reason. Edge does have some interesting new features. You could draw all over web pages and send a copy to friends and Cortana appears to provide you useful information in clever little ways. If you search for something in the address bar like weather then it will immediately show the weather nearby. On some restaurant websites it will even appear to provide you directions or opening hours. It's not just a neat little trick but it's actually useful when you don't have to search for this basic information. Microsoft's Xbox app for Windows 10 might be my favourite new feature. You can stream Xbox One games to a laptop and just plug in a controller to play. It works surprisingly well with no lag even over a WiFi network. You can only use it at home on a local network but it's fun if you want to play Xbox games in another room where you don't have a TV. The Xbox app also has access to Xbox Live and the ability to create party chats from your PC to talk to Xbox One friends. A nice little surprise feature of the Xbox app is screen recording. You can use it to create game clips or even just record regular apps that aren't games at all. That's really useful if you want to create screen tutorials and it saves time to buy an expensive fur party app to do it. The Mail and Calendar apps both support Google accounts so they're easy to use without an Outlook account. You'll also notice that these apps no longer run full screen by default anymore. Microsoft has changed that with Windows 10 so you can now window these apps and move them around freely. That makes them a lot more usable. The most impressive additions are the new stripped down touch based Office apps. Word, Excel, PowerPoint are all available for free and they're a delight to use. They're speedy and simple with just enough features for basic editing and none of the bloat of the full desktop Office apps. The new and improved Windows Store has finally combined apps, games, music, movies and TV but there's still a lack of quality apps. While most of Windows 10's improvements are focused on the mouse and keyboard, Microsoft hasn't forgotten about the good touch work that went into Windows 8. A new tablet mode in Windows 10 aims to bridge the full screen world of Windows 8 with the traditional way you use a Windows PC. It's perfect for 2 in 1 convertible laptops and prompts allow you to switch easily between using a mouse and keyboard and flipping the hardware into a tablet mode. So should you upgrade? If you can deal with a few oddities here and there and you're frustrated with Windows 8 then by all means upgrade now. But if you depend on your Windows computer on a daily basis and it's working fine for you, you should probably hold off until everything's a little bit more polished. I've run into a variety of issues where my download folder takes 30 seconds to load, my audio stops working or apps like Mail just randomly break and crash. Some of the problems aren't critical but they can certainly be frustrating. I like the direction Microsoft is taking with Windows 10, excepted feedback and ideas from it's customers are on the way. It feels like the best way to shape Windows into something that people enjoy using rather than that they have to use. Windows 10 is a great fix to the problems of Windows 8 and it's clearly the version of Windows we'll all be using for many many years. As Microsoft moves to regular updates instead of major versions every few years, it feels like the cycle of good and bad versions of Windows could finally be over. Microsoft might have just pulled that off. Windows 10 is good and it's here to stay and that's very exciting.
 After months of testing Windows 10 very publicly, it's finally officially here. It's a free
 upgrade for most people too. But should you upgrade?
 Windows 10 is the realisation of Microsoft's big dream to have a single Windows that runs
 across PCs, tablets, phones and even the company's Xbox One console. Right now, Windows 10 is
 mostly about fixing the mess that Microsoft created with Windows 8. One of the first signs
 of that is the return of the Start Menu you know and love. It's not just the regular one
 from Windows 7. Instead, Microsoft has combined the best aspects of the last two versions
 of Windows to create a redesigned Start Menu. The live tiles from Windows 8 remain, but
 you're no longer booted into an entirely different full screen interface. There's
 a traditional list of apps, easy access to power options and settings and the ability
 to resize the menu freely.
 Windows 10 has a nice dark theme and it blends in well against laptop screens that usually
 have black bezels. If you're not a fan of the darkness, then there are plenty of colour
 options to change the look of the Start Menu and Taskbar. There's even little transparency
 effects that finish off the look and feel.
 Navigating around Windows 8 was painful with a laptop or PC and Windows 10 has improved
 massively. The annoying hot corners of Windows 8 are gone and Microsoft has removed the weird
 Charms bar. In its place is a new Action Centre that works as a notification centre to collect
 any alerts from apps and provide quick access to a bunch of settings.
 Snapping apps has been a popular feature of Windows and Microsoft has tweaked it slightly
 here. There's a new Snap Assist feature that makes it a lot easier to find what apps
 are open to snap them side by side. There's also a new Task View feature that's a lot
 like Mission Control on the Mac. It displays all your open windows on a single screen and
 you can find what you're looking for quickly. It's also a gateway to a new Virtual Desktop
 feature. Yes, you can finally create separate virtual desktops without having to install
 a third party app. It's mainly a power of the user feature but it's useful if you want
 to separate apps on a laptop where you don't have a lot of screen space.
 One of the biggest additions to Windows 10 is Microsoft's virtual assistant, Cortana.
 It's designed to look and feel like an extension to the Start Menu. Just like the Windows Phone
 equivalent you can use your voice to search or type in queries manually. There's even
 an option to enable a Hey Cortana feature that lets you simply holler questions at your
 laptop. It's perfect if you're leaning back in an office chair and want to fire off emails
 with your voice but I found I mostly use it to demonstrate Cortana to friends and family.
 Cortana also has a helpful overview of your day mixed in with interests like weather,
 news and local restaurants. Cortana also has a powerful local search to find your documents
 on your local hard drive or from the OneDrive cloud storage service.
 With a new version of Windows comes a new browser called Edge. It might be designed
 to succeed Internet Explorer but it sticks to the past in a number of ways. Edge's taskbar
 icon is barely different from Internet Explorer in an effort to keep it similar for the millions
 of diverse Windows users. Edge is simplified, clean and performs well in most cases but
 there's a few things missing and the lack of features you might expect from a modern
 browser. Snapping tabs into separate Windows is messy, downloads start automatically with
 no choice of folder and there's no saved target as. Microsoft really started from scratch
 with Edge and it shows. Microsoft has still included a copy of Internet Explorer in Windows
 10 for this very reason. Edge does have some interesting new features. You could draw all
 over web pages and send a copy to friends and Cortana appears to provide you useful
 information in clever little ways. If you search for something in the address bar like
 weather then it will immediately show the weather nearby. On some restaurant websites
 it will even appear to provide you directions or opening hours. It's not just a neat little
 trick but it's actually useful when you don't have to search for this basic information.
 Microsoft's Xbox app for Windows 10 might be my favourite new feature. You can stream
 Xbox One games to a laptop and just plug in a controller to play. It works surprisingly
 well with no lag even over a WiFi network. You can only use it at home on a local network
 but it's fun if you want to play Xbox games in another room where you don't have a TV.
 The Xbox app also has access to Xbox Live and the ability to create party chats from
 your PC to talk to Xbox One friends. A nice little surprise feature of the Xbox app is
 screen recording. You can use it to create game clips or even just record regular apps
 that aren't games at all. That's really useful if you want to create screen tutorials
 and it saves time to buy an expensive fur party app to do it. The Mail and Calendar apps both
 support Google accounts so they're easy to use without an Outlook account. You'll also
 notice that these apps no longer run full screen by default anymore. Microsoft has changed
 that with Windows 10 so you can now window these apps and move them around freely. That
 makes them a lot more usable. The most impressive additions are the new stripped down touch
 based Office apps. Word, Excel, PowerPoint are all available for free and they're a
 delight to use. They're speedy and simple with just enough features for basic editing
 and none of the bloat of the full desktop Office apps. The new and improved Windows
 Store has finally combined apps, games, music, movies and TV but there's still a lack of
 quality apps. While most of Windows 10's improvements are focused on the mouse and keyboard, Microsoft
 hasn't forgotten about the good touch work that went into Windows 8. A new tablet mode
 in Windows 10 aims to bridge the full screen world of Windows 8 with the traditional way
 you use a Windows PC. It's perfect for 2 in 1 convertible laptops and prompts allow
 you to switch easily between using a mouse and keyboard and flipping the hardware into
 a tablet mode. So should you upgrade? If you can deal with a few oddities here and there
 and you're frustrated with Windows 8 then by all means upgrade now. But if you depend
 on your Windows computer on a daily basis and it's working fine for you, you should
 probably hold off until everything's a little bit more polished. I've run into a variety
 of issues where my download folder takes 30 seconds to load, my audio stops working or
 apps like Mail just randomly break and crash. Some of the problems aren't critical but
 they can certainly be frustrating. I like the direction Microsoft is taking with Windows
 10, excepted feedback and ideas from it's customers are on the way. It feels like the
 best way to shape Windows into something that people enjoy using rather than that they have
 to use. Windows 10 is a great fix to the problems of Windows 8 and it's clearly the version
 of Windows we'll all be using for many many years. As Microsoft moves to regular updates
 instead of major versions every few years, it feels like the cycle of good and bad versions
 of Windows could finally be over. Microsoft might have just pulled that off. Windows 10
 is good and it's here to stay and that's very exciting.