This is what was going through my mind when I was at the Windows 10 teaser event earlier this week. While the event was focused on IT, much of what they actually presented were user benefits for the new platform and if you have been aggravated by Windows 8 and a lot of folks are aggravated by Windows 8, you may imagine voices of angels singing at the first try of Windows 10. There are some interesting things about this product to possibly fall in love with.
User Interface
The massive Windows start screen that plastered live tiles and didn’t connect to anything you really wanted to do is pretty much gone. Yes, that wonderful experience when you first boot up Windows 8 only to see a huge bunch of colored boxes you have no apparent use for is history. You now boot back into an interface much like you had with Windows 7 and XP.
Remember the ‘Start’ button? Well it kind of came back with Windows 8.1 but it then just took you to the massive page of live tiles again. With Windows 10, you get jump menus and the live tiles are on the side as an added extra - not a replacement. Here they actually make sense because they will help you see applications that need attention (Facebook (News - Alert) updates, new email etc.) and a replacement for the jump menus that frankly worked better.
Now, the tiles did work reasonably well if you were using a tablet or a phone, like on a PC, and you will get more of the tile interface if you are in touch mode. This is so much better than moving between the touch and the non-touch interfaces based on how old the applications were. That just got confusing. If you remove or fold up the keyboard in a 2in1 device (also called hybrids that change from tablet to laptop) you get a better interface for touch and if you are using a mouse and keyboard you get a better interface for that. This is so much better.
Passwords Suck
So you may not have to use them anymore. Windows 10 will come with enhanced support for biometrics so your fingerprint, face, or even your eyeball could become your digital password. While this could lead to some unfortunate plot lines for TV and movies where folks swipe these things in order to gain access. For the rest of us though, it will be far more secure and should be far easier than what we currently have.
Though I think it would be cool to have an eyeball scanner that motored out of your laptop, tablet or phone, the technology will likely just make better use of the ever higher resolution cameras that continue to be attached to these devices already.
Your Boss Will Love It
There is the trend called BYOD where you are allowed to bring your own laptop to work and folks have been using their work PCs for personal stuff since they were invented. With Windows 10, you can better interweave your work and personal stuff and keep it separate. It used to be that folks wanted to take your PC and erase everything on it when you quit and now they’ll be able to just erase there stuff leaving your kids pictures and taxes which weren’t supposed to be on that machine before intact.
Migration
If you’ve moved between Windows 8 boxes you’ll see a small improvement, but if you have been moving between older versions of Windows you may not have realized how easy it is to migrate to a new machine once you are on a current version. Basically you just log in and most of the stuff you spent hours setting up before, flows down from OneDrive and in a few short minutes it is all set up. The browsers remember your passwords and favorites, even your wallpaper migrates from machine to machine. Your apps are either installed or waiting for your approval and, with Windows 10, I’m expecting that even Office will finally behave.
Wrapping Up: It Is Seriously Better
I think you’ll be surprised at how much better Windows 10 is than Windows 8. Much like Windows 7 was a huge improvement over Vista and Windows XP was a massive improvement over Windows ME (which was so bad it was nearly legendary for the wrong reasons). You’ll like this one. I expect you’ll like it a lot actually. From improvements in the user interface reflecting our increasingly mobile world, to security and how well it works at work - this one will be a keeper, I think. There is even a Windows Insider program that can give you an early view. Check it out and, if you are a Windows user, let me know if you love it as much as I think you will.