Page 12 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Introduction

Microsoft’s challenge, in writing Windows 10, was to come up with a single

operating system that handles two radically different kinds of computers:
touchscreen tablets and keyboard-and-mouse machines. One requires big,
fat finger-friendly buttons and controls; the other can pack more onto the

screen, because you have a more precise pointing device.

With luck, you missed the company’s first attempt, a monstrosity called
Windows 8. It was two operating systems superimposed: a touchscreen

world and a traditional mouse world. The result was two web browsers, two
Control Panels, two email programs, two ways of doing everything. Most
people couldn’t stand it.

In hopes of getting as far from Windows 8 as possible, Microsoft skipped
Windows 9 entirely; there never was an operating system called Windows
9.

Windows 10, though, nails it: It manages to accommodate both worlds of
computers—touchscreen and not—with equal elegance.

A Short History of Windows 10

Originally, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would be a perpetual
work in progress—a continuously improved, living blob of software. There

would be no more periodic service packs—megalithic chunks of updates
and patches; instead, Microsoft said it would add features continuously via
quiet, automatic software releases.

In practice, though, Microsoft has updated Windows 10 with big,
megalithic chunks of updates about every six months, just as it always has:

July 2015: Windows 10.

November 2015: November Update.