Windows 10 Is Here: QDaily's Release Notes

Microsoft says Windows 10 will feel familiar: "You're an expert from the start."

Windows 10 is finally here.

At midnight Beijing time on July 29, Microsoft began pushing the final Windows 10 installer to Windows users in 190 countries and regions. If you have already received the notification, congratulations: "You are part of the largest software upgrade in history."

Microsoft had already published the minimum requirements for running Windows 10:

• Processor: 1GHz or faster
• Operating system: Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1
• Disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• Display: 1024x600 resolution

In theory, any computer that can run Windows 7 or Windows 8 can install Windows 10. Apart from Windows RT, whose update may have to wait until September, Windows users can upgrade to the latest operating system for free starting today.

Join Windows Insider, and even pirated copies can "go legit"

Windows Insider is a membership program Microsoft launched last year for Windows 10. Members get preview builds of Windows 10 and report their experiences and problems in the forums. The program now has more than 5 million members.

At the end of June, Terry Myerson, the executive vice president in charge of operating systems, wrote in a blog post: "Starting on the 29th, we will open the final Windows 10 download to Windows Insiders, and then we will begin rolling it out gradually to everyone else."

So if you have already joined Windows Insider and installed a Windows 10 preview, it does not matter whether your old Windows was genuine or pirated, or whether it was Windows XP, Vista or Win 8: you can "go legit" right away.

Genuine Windows 7/8, fully updated: a few clicks to upgrade

As one of the few Windows users among QDaily's reporters, I found this notification in the lower right corner of my desktop when I turned on my computer this morning.

The Windows 10 upgrade notification

The Windows icon on the taskbar is an app built to simplify the upgrade; click it to start. If you are already a genuine Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 user, just click the "Reserve your free upgrade" button and leave the rest to the computer.

The installer is about 3GB. Once it finishes downloading in the background, you simply follow the prompts. The installer stays valid for a year, so you can upgrade whenever you like over the next 12 months.

If you can see a hidden folder named "$Windows.~BT" on your C drive, the installer has started downloading. The upgrade is not mandatory. A Windows.old folder should also appear on your system drive, so if the new system feels awkward after upgrading, you can still "happily roll back to the old version."

If you are a genuine Windows 7/8 user but not fully updated

If you have looked several times and still see no Windows icon in the lower right corner of the taskbar, stop looking.

It means your computer has at least fallen behind on the updates for Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1. First check Windows Update and bring your current system up to date.

Once that is done, as long as your hardware meets Windows 10's compatibility requirements, you can update to Windows 10.

If you are still on Windows XP

First, are you sure you want to upgrade this computer to Windows 10? Once you do, there is no going back to XP.

All right, if you are sure, joining the Windows Insider program will get you a free upgrade.

If what you want is a brand-new device, at least 200 devices running Windows 10 are on the way. Dell announced earlier that Windows PCs with Windows 10 began shipping on July 28.

In theory, you should already be able to buy one. The standalone Windows 10 software goes on sale on August 30, with the Chinese home edition priced at 888 yuan.

Now that the update is done, what can we expect?

The industry expects Microsoft to release no new operating system for at least five years, so Windows 10, officially released today, may stay with PC users for a long time. Ask a Microsoft salesperson why you should upgrade, and the answer will most likely be "Windows 10 feels familiar."

On its official website, Microsoft describes "the best Windows yet" this way: "Enjoy new features and a familiar experience. You're an expert from the start," and "Using Windows 7 or Windows 8 now? You'll love Windows 10!"

How badly must Windows 8 have failed for Windows 10 to be sold with slogans like these?

In its sales guide, Microsoft sums up its four official selling points: more familiar than ever, and better; the most personal and natural experience; use across platforms; more productivity.

For ordinary users, these may be the things worth looking forward to:

• First, the Start menu is back

The Start menu

If you need one reason to upgrade to Windows 10, it should be the Start menu. The Metro-style interface was one of the biggest selling points of Windows 8, but many users did not buy it. Ever since the rumored next version was still called "Windows 9," the return of the Start menu has been one of its most important features.

Users' common complaints, such as being thrown into jarring full-screen app switches, having no Start menu and being unable to find the shutdown button, will soon be settled by the new system. The new Start menu is split into two columns, merging the traditional Start menu with Metro's visual app interface, and users can customize its items.

• You can also say goodbye to Internet Explorer

Microsoft's new browser is called Microsoft Edge. Its earlier internal codename, Project Spartan, came from the Xbox game Halo.

Edge has the Cortana voice assistant built in. And for a better tablet experience, you can draw and write notes directly on web pages.

To suit the new environment, Edge uses a new rendering engine of the same name. As a browser built from scratch, it will be directly compatible with the rich set of extensions for Chrome and Firefox.

A new Spartan brand could wash away IE's image as "a PC web browser from the turn of the century," and the data confirm IE's decline: according to Net Applications, IE's market share has fallen from a peak of 90% to 58%. On mobile it is even worse, at just 2%.

• You can use the Cortana voice assistant on your computer

After upgrading to Windows 10, users can call up Cortana, Microsoft's personal voice assistant, on their computers to search and to handle voice requests, such as checking the weather or setting reminders.

PC makers clearly still have hopes for Windows 10, and Cortana is one source of them. Some have even turned Cortana into a physical key.

In June, Toshiba launched a new line of laptops, every one of which has a new key in the keyboard's function row called Cortana.

Lenovo has not changed its hardware, but REACHit, software it released last month, extends Cortana's search capabilities on PCs. It helps Windows 10 users search for pictures, email and music across platforms (PC, tablet and cloud services), for example finding content on another Lenovo laptop from a ThinkPad tablet.

• Multiple platforms, one system

Windows 10 is unlike any previous Microsoft operating system. It is Microsoft's first attempt to put phones, tablets, TVs, PCs, VR devices and game consoles on the same system and the same app store, uniting the fragmented Windows family so it can make money together.

For productivity, Windows 10 also improves multi-window snapping. With keyboard shortcuts, you can quickly resize windows.

Microsoft should have done this three years ago

Microsoft is selling this generation of Windows on "familiarity," not on "being different." As its recently updated sales guide puts it, "Windows 10 at least makes you feel at home."

More than 1.5 billion computers run Windows today. To push users to upgrade to Windows 10, Microsoft made the biggest pricing change in its history: updating your computer will cost nothing.

The reason Microsoft chose to give up this slice of its Windows profits is simple: it needs more people on Win10, and it needs them fast.

Microsoft's previous operating system, Win8, failed to rescue the company's market position. Its bold redesign of the interface only made things harder, and Microsoft lost many longtime Windows users after the switch. In the more than six months since the Windows 10 preview came out, users have rated it fairly well.

Unlike in the Windows 7 era, PCs in recent years have fallen far behind smartphones and tablets in momentum. According to Gartner, global PC sales fell 9.5 percentage points in the second quarter. Microsoft's competitors now are Apple and Android.

Compared with Windows 8, Windows 10 is the operating system that can lead Microsoft into its new battles. Mobile and PC systems, finally connected, may make software developers interested in Windows again. Still, it has arrived three years late.

And Mary Jo Foley, a veteran ZDNet reporter who has long covered Microsoft, advises "not to rush to upgrade." For now, the operating system still has features to finish, and it looks more like a half-finished product than a mature operating system.

Microsoft will add more features to Windows 10 this fall. Until then, upgrading is not an especially urgent item on your to-do list. You might wait until more devices with Windows 10 go on sale and then take another look.

Still, I upgraded right away. At the very least, it cannot be worse than Windows 8.

Can't stand another minute? Upgrade now.

Cover image from BusinessInsider