Windows 10: Most Important Features You Need to Know

Microsoft was announced by Windows 10 and it focused on making a strong step towards its goal of One Microsoft by looking forward to connect all the Windows devices more effortlessly.

Windows 10 was the major feature of the event. Let’s take a look at the most important Windows 10 features and announcements related to Microsoft’s OS:

Return of the Start Menu:

Microsoft tried hard to make a single operating system for desktop PCs and touch devices with Windows 8 but the absence of the classic start menu wasn’t welcomed. With Windows 10, Microsoft has brought the start menu back. The start menu has undergone drastic visual change and it expands to a full-screen view.

As I’ve written in earlier posts, Microsoft has designed a special feature called Continuum for the convertible devices. There is an action center which provides fast access to settings like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc.

Cortana meets PC:

Microsoft has brought the power of voice search assistance to the Desktop. Cortana has got her own place very next to the start button on the taskbar and can perform basic tricks as seen in Windows Phone.
Cortana can be used via voice queries or text. At the event, Microsoft showed off some handy commands like “Play my music” to launch the music app and “Please be quiet” to silence the music. Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore showed off the power of Cortana by asking few more questions and it worked pretty well.

Edge Browser is a reality:

Brand-new Microsoft Edge will be arriving both on PCs and Windows Phone when Windows 10 will ship from July 29. Microsoft has decided to launch a cleaner web-browser with new features in Windows 10.
As I’ve written in earlier posts, Spartan (Edge) has some of the most advanced features ever for a web browser. These features include web-page annotation, brand new way to group tabs together etc.

Cloud is more prominent with OneDrive:

Microsoft wants to make OneDrive a larger contributor when it comes to Windows 10. It will be used for syncing data like music and photos.

Xbox meets PC:

Microsoft has decided to launch the Xbox app for each kind of device running on Windows 10. Microsoft has a prominent presence in the gaming market and it is looking forward to make PC gaming Network Windows Live more playable.
With Xbox app, users will be able to stream games from Xbox One on PC and this is definitely an exciting addition.

Windows 10 for phones:

Unifying the devices of all shapes and sizes, Microsoft’s Windows 10 will come for phones too. There is a special version of the OS which made of the devices smaller than 8 inches. The notifications and information will be syncing in real-time between the desktop and mobile device.

Universal apps:

Microsoft announced that universal apps will be coming to the Windows ecosystem.
With Windows RunTime coming to Windows Phone 8.1, developers can now write the app using a common code and it’ll work across phones, tablets, PCs and even the Xbox One.
With the universal apps, Windows 10 can fulfill the dearth of apps because mobile and desktops will be able to support each other.
Microsoft has made some bold and risky moves in the announcement and is trying to leave the failures of Windows 8 and Windows Phone behind. It showed believe in cloud and the goal to achieve a unified operating system for all devices. To ensure its success, Microsoft will have to show the customers the superiority of Windows 10 over Windows 8.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 Features You Will Miss After Windows 10 Upgrade

As the July 29 release of Windows 10 comes closer, new features and functions are making their appearance each day. But there are some features from your Windows 7 and Windows 8 PC that will no longer work when you’ll upgrade your PC to Windows 10.
In this article, we try to mention some of the worst sacrifices that you’ll be making with Windows 10.

Take a quick look at them:

There is a huge possibility that you won’t be able to choose the timings and parts of the updates you want to install in Windows 10. Microsoft wants to be in-charge of this department and you may not like it.

If you are going to upgrade your PC to Windows 10, you won’t be able to use Windows Media Center anymore. Currently Windows Media Center is available in Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, and Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center.

Windows 10 won’t be having Solitaire, Minesweeper and Hearts Game that are pre-installed on Windows 7.

If you use floppy drive, it won’t be supported out of the box by Windows 10. You will have to download the latest drivers using the manufacturer’s website or Windows update.

To run DVDs, you will need a third-party software in Windows 10.

If your current PC has Windows Live Essentials installed, the OneDrive version will be removes and replaced with inbox version of OneDrive.

Windows 7 desktop gadgets won’t be a part of Windows 10.

Even though some of these changes might affect you, upgrading to Windows 10 isn’t a bad choice given the fact that it is available free of cost if upgraded within one year.
To the features that won’t be continued in Windows 10, there are many free and efficient alternatives available.
For more queries, comment below.

Recommended:  NO Yearly Fee for Windows 10 Support After Upgrade Within One Year, Microsoft Clarifies

NO Yearly Fee for Windows 10 Support After Upgrade Within One Year, Microsoft Clarifies

After all the confusion surrounding the Windows 10 upgrade paths, Microsoft has tried to clear this issue of yearly upgrade fee. It is already confirmed that Windows 10 will arrive as a free upgrade for one year to Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users. So the question that remains: Will Microsoft charge yearly subscription free for Windows 10 after one year?
In a staging site for Microsoft, spotted first on Neowin, Microsoft recently published this clarification:

Once a qualified Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it up to date for the supported lifetime of the device, keeping it more secure, and introducing new features and functionality over time – for no additional charge.

So, right now it seems as if you will NOT be paying yearly fee to keep the Windows 10 OS running on your PC after one year completion. All you need to do is to upgrade your Windows 7 or 8.1 PC within one year. This means that you will keep on getting Windows 10 updates for your PC for free.

I guess this settles down this confusion that Microsoft is going to make money with yearly updates. However it’s not clear how much the Windows OS maker is going to charge if you upgrade after one year.
This confirmation comes in the wake of the fact that the company has shown some sign in the past that show its drift from the conventional way of charging the users. With Office 365 for home users, Microsoft charges an annual fee for access to the Office Suite. This has also fueled the rumors in the past that Windows 10 could be released on a yearly subscription basis.
So, I hope this kind of clears the fact that if you upgrade your Windows , 8 or 8.1 within one year of the launch, you won’t have to pay for the future Redstone and the updates following that.

So, stop worrying about the subscription fee and wait patiently for the Windows 10 launch.
With inputs from Neowin and PCWorld


Recommended: What Will Happen if You Upgrade a Pirated Windows to Windows 10


 

What Will Happen if You Upgrade a Pirated Windows to Windows 10

The people running pirated copies of Windows will be getting Windows 10 for free? This question has been floating in the air for a while and vague statements from Microsoft has fueled this confusion. Back in March, Windows chief Terry Myerson reportedly said that the free Windows 10 upgrade offer will be extended to the pirated copies. After numerous explanations, Facebook has issued a full clarification.
If you have a pirated copy of Windows and you upgrade to Windows 10, you will see a watermark placed on your computer screen. In the previous version of Windows, Microsoft tells the users by displaying the message “This is not a genuine copy of Windows.” If you buy Windows 10 computer and you come across this message on your desktop, you should return the system.

However, in another statement Microsoft said: “While our free offer to upgrade to Windows 10 will not apply to Non-Genuine Windows devices, and as we’ve always done, we will continue to offer Windows 10 to customers running devices in a Non-Genuine state.”
This means that your Windows 10 copy will continue to work on pirated machines. Microsoft wants you to run a non-genuine copy and nag you continuously about the upgrade.
Microsoft says that it is planning to bring some very attractive Windows 10 upgrade offers to the users that will encourage people to move the pirated copies to an official one. More details haven’t been yet announced, but more information is expected to drop by soon as the expected summer release comes nearer.

In Windows 7, users with pirated installs are displayed occasional messages about the illegal upgrade. Such users have only access to critical updates and they are barred from the optional ones. Windows 10 too is expected to run with such stipulations.

Project Shield: Google Wants to Protect News and Human Rights Websites from DDOS Attack

DDOS aka Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources. Attacker target a wide variety of important resources and present a major challenge to making sure people can publish and access important information.
We have seen many DDOS attack in past few months which includes a long lasting attack on code repository service GitHub. Many sites providing controversial facts were affected by the attack and are still susceptible to attack at any time. Google has launched Project Shield to help protect small news and human rights websites from DDoS attacks.
Google Says –

Project Shield is an initiative launched by Google Ideas to use Google’s own Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack mitigation technology to protect free expression online. The service allows other websites to serve their content through Google’s infrastructure without having to move their hosting location. We are currently seeking new websites to try the service as trusted testers.

Websites need protection can apply for early invite at https://projectshield.withgoogle.com/public/#application-form. Once a website has been sent an invite to become a ‘trusted tester’, they will receive an invite to join the initiative and instructions on how to configure their website for the DDoS mitigation.
Though Google does not guarantees uptime or protection levels but still its an great initiative. Google has designed its infrastructure to defend itself and this initiative is aimed at extending free protection to third-party websites. After receiving an invite to sign up, there are a few steps required to set up the service. All the information web masters need will be emailed to them. A webmaster with admin privileges and basic technical knowledge (e.g. comfortable configuring a web-server and modifying DNS records) should be able to set up the service in about 10 minutes.

During the testing process, Project Shield will be free. Google might charge in the future, but participants will get 30-day notice. “We’re hoping to offer the service to charities and non-profits at a reduced fee or at no cost in the future, but this is still under development,” Google said.

Project Shield is built on Google’s PageSpeed service, a frontend tool that offers developers faster loading times. Sites hosted by Project Shield would sit behind PageSpeed’s infrastructure, allowing Google to pool resources if any one site fell victim to an attack. Unless an attack were strong enough to bring down all the PageSpeed sites, it wouldn’t be able to bring down any of them. It’s a similar model to existing DDoS services like Cloudflare, although the more recently launched PageSpeed service is working from a smaller base of sites.

Also Read: GitHub Facing Massive DDoS Attack From China

GitHub Facing Massive DDoS Attack From China

Update: GitHub is fully functional now.

GitHub is one the most popular websites among programmers and developers and is currently having 3.4 million users with 2.2 million active repositories. This software development web site used for collaborative projects is currently being hit by a massive and continuous DDoS (distributed denial) attack. It should be noted that earlier this week, China admitted that it is having an army of hackers.
THN writes that when GitHub users from outside countries come across advertisements and tracking codes served from Baidu, Chinese Internet giant, the Chinese attackers inject nasty JavaScript codes into those pages. This malicious code initiates the web browsers to connect to GitHub.com every 2 seconds without users’ permission. In turn, this drives a massive traffic to GitHub.

This was reported by a researcher who goes the name of Anthr@x from InsightLabs.org. This GitHub DDoS attack specifically targets two GitHub projects named GreatFire and CN-NYTimes. These are the censorship tools being used to help the people to Chine to dodge The Great Firewall of China. Chinese government is known to censor Internet access in China. In simpler words, people residing outside China are being targeted for accessing things that the Chinese government hates, like, freedom of speech and expression.

GitHub DDoS attack status messages

CN-NYTimes: The New York Times website is usually blocked in China, it’s a group hosting NYT mirror to ditch the ban.
GreatFire: It’s a very popular anti-censorship group on GitHub fighting against Chinese Internet censorship.
GitHub DDoS attack was reported as a service outage with following messages:

We’ve identified and mitigated a DoS attack that was impacting service. Service is recovering and we are monitoring the situation.

We’ve been under continuous DDoS attack for 24+ hours. The attack is evolving, and we’re all hands on deck mitigating.

We are continuing to defend GitHub against a very large DDoS attack.

The latest message on the GitHub website is:

The ongoing DDoS attack has shifted again to include Pages and assets. We are updating our defenses to match.

GitHub DDoS attack status messages

The researcher has analyzed the attack and came up with the infectious JavaScript code which is being injected for these GitHub DDoS attack. THN writes that the Chinese search engine titan Baidu has denied its intentional involvement in this GitHub DDoS attack and they are “are working together to get to the bottom of this.”