Hands on with Windows 10's new features

This post was originally published on Mashable.

Microsoft unveiled Windows 10, the long-awaited follow-up to Windows 8 earlier this week.

The latest version of Windows walks back some of the more jarring changes of Windows 8, including the return of the Start menu and improvements to how apps are displayed, while also adding multitasking enhancements that will appeal to those who use touchscreen devices as well as PCs.

Microsoft's Joe Belifore shows off the first preview of Windows 10 in San Francisco, Photo: Mashable

But while Windows 10 will be a welcome change to those users who were turned off by the "mobile first" approach of Windows 8, the latest version of Windows hardly feels like a step backward.

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With Windows 10, Microsoft has managed to preserve some of Windows 8's Metro touches while also adding new multitasking features and other usability enhancements likely to bring enterprise and desktop power users back to the Windows fold.

We got a chance to demo some of Windows 10's new features, and here's our first impressions of what we saw.

The Start menu is back

Yes, the Start menu so many missed in Windows 8 has returned (hopefully for good). Though Microsoft first announced the return of the Start menu earlier this year at Build, the company's annual conference, the longstanding (and previously much-missed) menu was undoubtedly the star of Tuesday's event.

It will be present on both touch devices and more traditional "mouse and keyboard" setups. The left column looks much like the traditional Windows 7 Start menu— complete with jump menus— and contains your most frequently used apps, including Windows desktop apps and Windows Store apps.

The right column houses customisable live tiles. You can add any app's live tile to that column at any time by simply dragging it over, although apps that don't have live tile functionality will be a shortcut rather than a fully functional live tile. Alternatively, those who don't like the Metro look of the live tiles can forgo them altogether.

The Start menu itself can also be resized endlessly and you can add as many live tiles as you want. In Windows 10, the size of the Start menu is really only limited to the size of your monitor. The demo we saw was surprisingly fast and the menu was responsive, even when dozens of live tiles were added at once.

Additionally, the bottom of the menu has a spotlight-style search tool that will search locally for apps and files on your machine but will also search the web via Microsoft's Bing search engine. The same search tool also lives in the task bar.

Multitasking

With Windows 10, Microsoft is introducing some truly powerful multitasking features that will be a big draw to enterprise and average consumers alike.

The biggest addition is Task View, a new multitasking feature for easily switching between apps and desktops. Task View, which will look familiar to those accustomed to Mission Control in OS X, can be activated with the new Task View button on the task bar or by swiping left when using a touchscreen device.

While in Task View, the size and orientation of windows is preserved, so you can preview how windows are positioned in different desktops. You can also add new desktops or toggle between apps with the alt + tab command while in Task View.

In our limited testing, Task View worked seamlessly and we were able to quickly and easily switch between multiple applications. While the addition of multiple desktops will certainly be appealing to power users who use two or more monitors, anyone can use multiple desktops at once.

New windows

To further aid with multitasking, Microsoft has also rolled out several improvements to how the windows themselves work. One of the biggest complaints with Windows 8 was the inability to resize apps from the Windows Store, which ran in full screen, regardless of what kind of device you were using.

In Windows 10, apps from the Windows Store open in resizable windows that can be closed or minimised to the task bar with the familiar title bars.

Additionally, Microsoft has added handy shortcuts for resizing windows. Dragging a window up to the top of the screen will snap it to full size, while dragging it to one side will snap it to that half of the display. You can have up to four applications snapped to the same window at once

What's Next

While we saw many appealing Windows 10 features in our preview, there are still many more features we haven't seen yet. And, given that this was just the first preview build, it's hard to know exactly what the final version of Windows 10 (expected in 2015) will look like.

But the features we have seen are quite promising, particularly for those who were unsatisfied with Windows 8's emphasis on touchscreen devices. Microsoft has undoubtedly shown they are willing to listen to what their users want

Those who are okay with taking the risks preview software entails can sign up for the opportunity to be part of Microsoft's Insider program and be among the first group to get their hands on Windows 10.

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