The first major Windows 10 update, ‘Threshold 2’, has landed, bringing with it a bunch of tweaks, performance improvements and new features. It’s free to download right now, and here’s what you’ll get with it.
Cortana’s Learning Quickly
If you have a tablet or touch-enabled computer, you’ll quite like Cortana’s new tricks. The digital assistant will now recognise and understand your handwriting, so you can scribble down an email address or phone number on your screen and rely on Big C to store it for you. She’s also been given the power to keep track of events and movie tickets and, like a loving parent, can remind you to arrive on time and book an Uber to get you around. Better still, she’ll keep track of valid coupons for the sites you visit in the Edge browser (if you use it).
Edge is Getting Sexier
If that wasn’t incentive enough to ditch Chrome or Firefox for Internet Explorer Mark II, maybe the new Tab Preview feature will convince you. It allows you to get a sneak peek of a website when you hover your cursor over tabs, which will save you a few precious seconds here and there.
Easy Activation With Your Windows 7 and 8 Keys
You can now activate Windows 10 with your Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 product key, which cuts out a lot of the faff you had to deal with before. You no longer need to go through the pain of updating and re-installing from scratch when you want to bump your Windows 7- or 8-running machine up to Microsoft’s latest OS, which is nice.
The Start Menu’s Changed, Again
Microsoft’s super-sized it. You can now stretch columns to squeeze in up to four tiles side-by-side if you want, and the Start Menu as a whole can hold an impressive 2,048 tiles. However, there’s also something you probably won’t like. It will now recommend apps for you, which may come in handy occasionally, but definitely not all the time. Fortunately, it’s easy to turn this feature off.
The Return of Colourful Title Bars
Windows 10 has provided the option to choose the colour of your Start Menu and taskbar right from the start, but the title bars of windows stayed white no matter what. Through the Colours section of the Settings menu, you can now inject some life into your desktop. The simple things, eh.
‘Find My Device’ is Here
If you’re ever unfortunate enough to lose you laptop or have it pinched, Windows 10 will help you track it down. A new ‘Find My Device’ feature has been added to the software, which should help you out in your darkest hour.
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