Welcome back guys. After we did the installation on Windows 10 Professional 64-bit, now is the time to see what Microsoft has installed for us in their latest version of windows.
If you missed my post on the Windows 10 installation, you can have a look at it by clicking here. The installation was a direct upgrade from Windows 7. So, all my files and settings are intact, plus few other eye candies.
As you can see from the screenshot that I’ve attached in this post and from other previous Windows 10 related post, the interface has been changed a bit.
Starting from Windows 95, microsoft has introduced the START button where all the magic happens. Search for files or run a program, all starts with the START button, on the task bar at the bottom of the screen. This small little button has helped a lot of user do things and they are really “attached” to it. It continues in Windows 98 and up until Windows 7.
Then comes Windows 8, where the “START” was totally “reformatted”. Logging in to Windows and you will see all the START screem with icons fill up the screen. Provided that you have a touch screen monitor, this format of START screen is in your advantage. Since people are so used to smartphones and tablets, that’s why microsoft create this sort of START screen. Well, lots of people like the changes. But then, many people do hate it. It’s a new learning curve for them. They cannot find what they are looking for. All the installed apps are “hidden” somewhere.
You do get to go to your Desktop, where you can see some “familiar faces” You can see all the small icons, plus the task bar. But, earlier version of Windows 8 doesn’t come with a start button at the task bar. It only comes into place when Windows 8.1 was launch which puts the start button back in it’s place. But the start button in Windows 8 does not act like your normal Windows 7 start button. When you click on on, it will go to the START screen, which fill up you screens with all the shortcut that you have set for your apps. This does not go well with some users. That’s why some genius out there have come out with a tweak that makes the start button in Windows 8 to work like a start button in Windows 7.
I think microsoft heard what all their users were talking about, and seems like they’ve listened. They have bring back the start button that users are so familiar with, plus some portion of the “start screen” from Windows 8.
If you have used a Windows Phone before, You will notice that the menu is somewhat similar. Your most used programs are listed at the top. While on the right side, you can pin your favorite applications there.
There are also few default applications that comes preloaded with Windows 10. Most of it were ported from previous Windows 8 such as Microsoft Store, Mail and Calendar.
Microsoft has introduced a new web browser for Windows 10. Previously in Windows Insider Preview, it was code named Project Spartan. Now, the final product has been given a new name. Now, the “Internet Explorer” that you used to know in your computer life, is no longer there. It has been replaced with an new (and improved) Microsoft Edge.
When you first run Microsoft Edge, the introduction page came up. It shows you what you can do with your new browser. If you are using Microsoft Surface, or a have a touch screen monitor, you can make a web note directly on the screen. But since my laptop don’t have that capability, I cannot try it out or show it to you.
The home screen will show your news feed which powered by MSN. You can read all the latest news or the recent Premier League fixtures right on your screen. (Who needs Yahoo! news anymore?) You can customize the “Top Sites” based on your preference. Something like your favorites bar.
Aahhh… my messy desktop. As I mentioned earlier, My Windows 10 installation was done via update. So I got all my messy icons and applications back. So far, all applications are compatible. All drivers are working. Colleague informed me that he has an issue with a Toshiba laptop, where the wifi driver was incompatible. Hope microsoft will come out with a new driver or patch soon.
This is what my current laptop specs looks like. Just a normal intel Core i5 processor with an 8GB ram. It’s enough to run Windows 10 smoothly. The start-up time is fast. But from the “Ctrl-Alt-Del” page to the logon page took about 10 seconds to appear.
More screenshot of the systems. Here is the task manager which shows the usage by the CPU, Ram, Disk and network. It’s not so bad if you can see here. By the way, I’m using a Dell Latitude E6430s.
The original specs comes with a 2.8GHz Core-i5 processor, 4 GB Ram and 500 GB hard disk. Ram was upgraded to 8 GB to cater for my “heavy workload” 🙂 hehehehe…
Here you can see the resources used by each running applications. You can even see whether it’s using your network or not. This is a good feature if you’re using a tablet, running windows 10, connecting to the internet using your mobile data. So now you will know which culprits who are eating your bandwidth and used up all your tiny 1 GB mobile data.
Since Windows 8, microsoft has joined Apple and Android by introducing the Microsoft Store. Here, users can find and download applications or games to their computer much like what Apple Apps Store and Google Play Store.
Well, that’s all for now. Still got lots of thing to explore with this Windows 10. Only managed to try the basic things only. Do subscribe to my blog to get updates on my latest post.
Cheers…!!
