Using Windows 10

1/7/2016

Contents

An overview of the Windows 10 user experience
Navigating Windows 10
Using Windows 10 on a touchscreen device
Managing and arranging windows
Cortana and search

This chapter from Windows 10 Inside Out covers things you tap, click, drag, and drop to make Windows do your bidding. Some, like the taskbar and notification icons, are similar enough to their predecessors that you might miss subtle but significant changes. It also includes a section on the unique ways to interact with a tablet running Windows 10. And, of course, it covers Cortana, the first Windows feature that can literally speak for itself.

Regardless of your upgrade path—from Windows 7 or from Windows 8.1—your day-to-day experience changes significantly with Windows 10.

The things you expect Windows to do on your behalf—launching programs, arranging windows on the screen, switching between tasks, finding files, setting notifications, interacting with cloud services, communicating with other people—are basically the same. But the steps you take to accomplish those tasks are different.

The change is more striking if you’re moving from a conventional PC or laptop to a touchscreen device. Even if you still have access to a keyboard and mouse or trackpad, the addition of touch fundamentally changes how you interact with Windows and with apps. With a phone or small tablet added to the mix, you have still more options to explore.

In this chapter, we look at the things you tap, click, drag, and drop to make Windows do your bidding. Some, like the taskbar and notification icons, are similar enough to their predecessors that you might miss subtle but significant changes.

Our coverage also includes a section on the unique ways to interact with a tablet running Windows 10. And, of course, we introduce Cortana, the first Windows feature that can literally speak for itself.

A disclaimer, right up front: in this chapter, we are writing about a user experience that is evolving from month to month and that will continue to do so even after the initial release of Windows 10 on July 29, 2015. The screen shots and step-by-step instructions you see here are based on that initial release. It’s not only possible, but practically certain, that some of the features we describe here will change in the months after we send this book to the printer as Microsoft delivers on its promise of “Windows as a service.”

If you see subtle differences between what’s on these pages and what’s on your screen, that’s the likely reason. We hope our descriptions make it possible to incorporate those changes into your learning.

An overview of the Windows 10 user experience

Before we dive into detailed descriptions of individual features, please join us for a brief tour of Windows 10. Our goal is to introduce the different parts of Windows, new and old, so that we can be sure you’re on the same page . . . or at least looking at the same arrangement of pixels.

Figure 3-1 shows the basic building blocks of Windows 10 and offers a hint of its signature visual style.

Figure 3-1 The Start menu and Action Center are at the core of the Windows 10 experience, with the familiar desktop front and center for conventional PCs.

When you first start up a conventional PC running Windows 10, you see the familiar Windows 7–style desktop and taskbar. Clicking the Start button—the Windows logo in the lower left corner—opens the Start menu, which is conceptually similar to its predecessor but differs dramatically in the details.

How the cloud changes your experience

One noteworthy difference between the initial Windows 10 experience and the traditional Windows experience that reached its zenith with Windows 7 is the amount of personalization you see when you sign in on a new PC or device. If you use a Microsoft account you’ve already used on a different device, the customized settings saved with your account appear automatically on the new device, making it feel familiar right away.

On a clean install or a refresh, you can create a local account, which gives you the standard default layout and themes, as defined by Microsoft. If you sign in to a corporate network, your personalized settings roam according to policies defined by your network administrator. (If your organization allows you to, you can attach a Microsoft account to your domain account, and both your personal and work settings roam together as you switch between devices.)

When you allow your Microsoft account to sync settings between devices, you don’t have to go through a tedious process of tweaking the default settings to match those preferences; instead, your visual themes, browser settings, and saved Wi-Fi passwords appear exactly as you expect. If your Microsoft account is connected to OneDrive, your online files, photos, and music collection will be available too. We discuss these features in more detail in Chapter 5, “Networking essentials.”

A click on the right side of the taskbar opens Action Center, which is also shown in Figure 3-1. This pane, which uses the full height of your display, contains notifications from apps and services as well as action buttons that allow quick access to settings.

As with previous versions, Windows 10 offers multiple ways to switch between tasks. The Task View button, a new addition to the Windows 10 taskbar, produces the view shown in Figure 3-2, which also illustrates another new feature: virtual desktops. We discuss both features in more detail later in this chapter.