Windows 10, which Microsoft had said would be available to consumers this summer, has revealed the exact date of its release – 29 July. Making announcement on its blog, Microsoft’s is going all guns blazing for the latest iteration of its new OS. The company now will have less than two months to fix the issues and the bugs along with finalizing all the issues at hand currently in its preview builds.
Explaining the upgrade availability, Microsoft states:
On July 29, people can get Windows 10 for PCs and tablets by taking advantage of the free upgrade offer, or on new Windows 10 devices. New Windows 8.1 devices will also easily upgrade to Windows 10, and many retail stores will help upgrade new devices. Starting today, people can reserve their free upgrade if they choose.
Announced late last year, Microsoft brings back the Start bar with a range of other features. This was mainly done to control the damage done by Windows 8 which was lacking the user friendly interface of Windows 7.
This also marks the beginning of ‘Windows as a service’ where the company wants to the operating system to be just one product which can be updated on a regular basis rather than release newer versions with similar functionalities. The new OS will work across devices be it Microsoft’s mobile phones, consoles or any other device. Microsoft said in its announcement that once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, Microsoft will continue to update it for the supported lifetime of the device – free of cost.
Microsoft will also debut the new web browser, Edge along with a new Office 2016 suite with World, Excel, and PowerPoint; Xbox Live and an integrated Xbox app. This will allow tasked to be started on one device and continued on another which has been previously been done by Apple with its Continuity feature.
The desktop version of the operating system will arrive in summer; the mobile phones running on Windows 10 will have till later this year.