Windows 10’s October 2018 Update, also known as version 1809 and codenamed Redstone 5 during its development process, arrived on October 2, 2018. This major upgrade includes a clipboard history that syncs between your devices and a long-awaited dark theme for File Explorer. It was initially set to bring tabs to all your applications, but that feature didn’t make the cut.
Text From Your PC With the “Your Phone” App
Windows 10 now includes a “Your Phone” app that will bring Windows 10’s smartphone integration features together and make them easier to set up. Microsoft even put a shortcut to this app on the default desktop.
For Android phone users running Android 7.0 or newer, the Your Phone app lets you text from your PC and instantly access photos from your phone on your PC. In the future, Microsoft plans to add syncing notifications from your Android phone. This is already available in the Cortana app, but Microsoft wants to make them easier to discover.
Fewer features are available to iPhone users because of Apple’s platform restrictions. However, the “Continue on PC” feature is available for both iPhone and Android users. This feature lets you use your smartphone’s share sheet to send a link you’re viewing on your phone to your PC, quickly going from the small screen to the big screen. This feature already existed on Windows 10, but the Your Phone app makes these features easier to discover and set up.
RELATED:All the Ways Windows 10 Works With Android or iPhone
Clipboard History and Sync
The October 2018 Update gains some powerful new clipboard features. There’s now a clipboard history that you can access by pressing Windows+V. You can optionally synchronize this clipboard history between your devices, giving you a clipboard that synchronizes itself between your PCs. You also can sync manually by clicking an icon in the clipboard popup, preventing Windows from synchronizing potentially sensitive data like passwords and credit card numbers.
In the future, Microsoft will add support for the cloud clipboard to its SwiftKey keyboard for Android, iPhone, and iPad. You’ll be able to copy and paste between your phone or tablet and your Windows PC.
RELATED:Using Windows 10’s New Clipboard: History and Cloud Sync
A Dark Theme for File Explorer
Windows 10 now includes a dark theme for File Explorer. It is enabled automatically if you so that a system-wide dark theme from Settings > Personalization > Colors.
Microsoft has added dark theme support to the File Explorer context menus, including the context menu that appears when you right-click your desktop. There’s also a new dark theme for the standard Open and Save file dialog windows.
RELATED:Microsoft Adds a Dark Theme to File Explorer in the Latest Windows 10 Update
SwiftKey Comes to Windows 10
Microsoft purchased the SwiftKey keyboard back in 2016. SwiftKey is still available for Android phones, iPhones, and iPads, and now it’s coming to Windows 10.
The built-in touch keyboard is now “powered by” SwiftKey. Currently, this is only available when typing in English (United States), English (United Kingdom), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Spanish (Spain), Portuguese (Brazil), and Russian.
As Microsoft puts it, “SwiftKey gives you more accurate autocorrections and predictions by learning your writing style.” It also offers swipe-to-type support, letting you type by swiping your finger from letter to letter rather than tapping each letter.
Delayed: “Sets” Brings Tabs to Every App
The new Sets feature was the most significant change in the Insider builds of Redstone 5. Almost every window on your desktop now had a tab bar, and you could combine tabs from multiple different applications in the same window.
This means Windows finally had File Explorer tabs, but Sets offered a lot more than that. For example, you could have a window containing a Microsoft Word document, a Microsoft Edge web page, and a File Explorer tab. You could drag and drop these tabs between windows, and there are keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+Windows+Tab for switching between them.
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Sets works with almost every traditional desktop application, every universal application, and even Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Desktop applications that have their own custom title bars don’t support Sets. For example, applications like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, iTunes, and Steam don’t have Sets tabs.
Unfortunately, this feature was removed from build 17704, which was released on June 27, 2018. Microsoft wants more time to polish Sets and says it will return in a future update. Expect to see it in the next version of Windows 10, codenamed Windows 10 19H1, which will likely be released in Spring, 2019.
RELATED:How to Use Sets in Windows 10 to Organize Apps Into Tabs
Delayed: Alt+Tab Now Shows Tabs, Too
Along with the introduction of the Sets feature, Microsoft also changed the way Alt+Tab works. Sets tabs and even Microsoft Edge browser tabs appear alongside your open windows when you press Alt+Tab. You can restore the old Alt+Tab behavior if you want to see only windows when you Alt+Tab.
This change doesn’t affect applications like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, which use their own custom type of tab. However, if Chrome and Firefox ever enable support for Sets tabs, their tabs would appear in the Alt+Tab switcher, too.
As Sets has been removed, for the time being, Alt+Tab will no longer show tabs until it returns.
RELATED:Windows 10 is Changing How Alt+Tab Works, Here’s What You Need to Know
Search Previews in the Start Menu
The Start menu’s search feature, also known as the Cortana search feature, now has search previews. When you start typing to search for something, Windows now shows you a preview pane with more information about your result.
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Windows Fall Creators Update 2018
For example, if the Start menu decides a web search is the best result for your search, you’ll see Bing search results right there in the Start menu. If you search for an application, you’ll see options like “Pin to Start” for that application. You’ll also see a document preview if Windows decides a particular document on your PC is the best result.
When you search for an application, you’ll see a “Go To Download” button in the search preview pane that will take you straight to its download page.
Along with this change, it’s no longer possible to disable web search in the Start menu via Group Policy.
A New Screenshot Utility With Annotation Tools
Windows 10 now has a slick new screen clipping tool. You can use it to take a screenshot of a section of your screen, a single window, or your entire screen. Once you’ve taken a screenshot, the new Snip & Sketch tool lets you draw on it and add annotations, including arrows and highlights.
This clipping tool appears when you press Windows+Shift+S to open it. However, there’s a setting under Settings > Ease of Access > Keyboard that makes the new tool appear when you press the Print Screen key on your keyboard.
If you launch the old Snipping Tool instead, you’ll see a message saying the “Snipping Tool will be removed in a future update.” Microsoft has not removed the Snipping Tool from the October 2018 Update, but it may be removed in the next version of Windows 10, Windows 10 19H1.
RELATED:Using Windows 10’s New Screenshot Tool: Clips and Annotations
Microsoft Edge Browser Updates
Microsoft has done a bunch of work on Edge, too. Edge’s “…” menu and Settings page have been redesigned. The new menu gives common commands like “New Tab” and “New Window” larger buttons, and the new Settings page is broken up into categories so it’s easier to find specific settings.
Edge now features a “Media Autoplay” option under Settings > Advanced, as well. You can control which websites are allowed to play videos automatically. “Allow” is the default, and lets websites play videos when you view a tab. “Limit” only lets sites play muted videos so you won’t be surprised by the sound. “Block” blocks autoplaying videos on sites until you interact with the media content.
There’s also a way to control media autoplay on a per-site basis. Click the lock or “i” icon the left of the website’s address in the location bar, click “Manage Permissions,” and you can choose whether a website can autoplay media.
The Edge browser interface gets some other useful features, too. You can now see your top sites in the “jump list” that appears when you right-click the Edge shortcut on your taskbar or in your Start menu. In the “Tabs you’ve set aside” view, accessible by clicking the button at the top left corner of the Edge window, you can now assign labels to groups of saved tabs. In the download pane, you can right-click downloads to find options like “Show in folder” and “Copy link.”
Web Authentication support has come to Edge, which will allow the use of FIDO U2F security keys and other authentication hardware while signing into websites. Hopefully, these will one day be able to eliminate passwords.
Edge has also been updated with more “fluent design” touches, and now features a tweaked tab bar with a new depth effect. When you use Edge as your default PDF viewer, you’ll also see a new icon for PDF files in File Explorer. The new icon just has a red “PDF” logo on it and doesn’t include a blue Edge logo, as the previous one did.
While in Reading View, Books, or the PDF viewer, you can now select a word and Edge will automatically display a dictionary definition for that word. You can also click the speaker icon here to hear the word spoken aloud with the correct pronunciation.
In Reading View, you can now choose different page theme colors and pick which ones your eyes like the best. There’s also a new “Line focus” tool that will highlight sets of one, three, or five lines as you read to help you focus.
The toolbar in Edge’s PDF viewer has been improved, too. It now features text descriptions to make it easier to understand, and new options like “Add Notes” are included on the toolbar. While viewing PDFs, you can now hover at the top of the page to open the PDF toolbar. And, while the toolbar is open, you can click the pin icon on the right side of the toolbar to pin it to the top of your screen and prevent it from being automatically hidden.
Finally, the Edge browser now has a new “Beta” logo in Insider builds of Windows 10, calling attention to the fact that you’re using an unstable version of Edge.
Easy HDR Setup
There’s a new “Windows HD Color” page available under Settings > System > Display. This page tells you whether your hardware is compatible with high dynamic range (HDR) and wide color gamut (WCG) content. These features are becoming more common on higher-end 4K displays.
In addition to providing information about your system’s HDR and WCG capabilities, this page lets you configure HDR features on your system. It also shows you HDR content, such as photos, videos, games, and apps, on your system.
These features can only be used if you have an HDR-capable display connected to your PC.
Mobile Broadband Improvements
Microsoft is transitioning to a new “Net Adapter” driver framework in Windows. This will improve connection reliability for PCs with mobile broadband (LTE), whether they use a SIM card or USB modem.
This new driver is now the default driver as of build 17677, improving how Windows handles mobile data Internet connections.
For PCs with a cellular data connection, the Settings > Network & Internet > Data usage screen now shows the amount of data you’ve used while roaming, too. This doesn’t require the new driver.
Hidden Window Borders and More Acrylic Design
Microsoft is now downplaying Windows 10’s window borders. Instead of colored window borders, you’ll now see gray window borders that fade gracefully into each window’s shadows. However, you can still re-enable colored window borders if you want a bit more color.
RELATED:How to Customize Window Borders and Shadows on Windows 10
Many modern popup menus, such as the context menu you see when you right-click in Microsoft Edge, now have shadows around them to add depth.
These visual changes are part of Microsoft’s new “fluent design” graphical style, which it has been slowly implementing throughout Windows 10 since the Fall Creators Update. You’ll see more acrylic-style Fluent design throughout Windows, including in the Windows Security application, in the Timeline, and on the Sets tab bar.
Windows 10 Minios 2018 Fall Creators 2017Windows Defender Becomes Windows Security
The Windows Defender Security Center application is now named simply “Windows Security.” Under Virus & Threat Protection, the “Current Threats” section now shows all the potential threats that need action, if any do.
Under Windows Security > Virus & Threat Protection > Manage Settings, you can now enable a “Block Suspicious Behaviors” option. Microsoft says this will enable the Windows Defender Exploit Guard “attack surface reduction technology,” which will help protect your PC from exploits.
It’s now easier to enable Windows Defender Application Guard, which runs the Edge browser in an isolated, virtualized container for a more secure browsing experience. Head to Windows Security > App & Browser Control and click “Install Windows Defender Application Guard” under Isolated Browsing. You can also configure its settings from here. If you’re on a PC managed by an organization, you can view the settings your organization has configured here.
If you use the Controlled Folder Access feature to protect your files from ransomware, it’s now easier to allow recently blocked apps access to your data. Head to Windows Security > Virus & Threat Protection > Manage Settings > Ransomware Protection > Allow an App Through Controlled Folder Access > Recently Blocked Apps to see recently blocked apps and quickly give them access.
There’s also a new page that will show you other antivirus, antimalware, firewall, and security apps on your device. Head to Windows Security > Settings > Manage Providers to see them. From here, you can easily open their associated apps or view information about reported problems.
RELATED:What is the New “Block Suspicious Behaviors” Feature in Windows 10?
Font Installation for Everyone
Older versions of Windows only let users with administrative privileges install fonts, and those fonts were then installed for all users system-wide. Windows 10’s October 2018 Update improves on this and gives everyone the ability to install fonts. When you right-click a font file in File Explorer, you can select either “Install” to install it just for your user account or “Install for All Users” to install it for all users on the system. Only the latter option requires Administrator permission.
While viewing a font file’s preview after double-clicking it, the “Install” button will now install the font only for the current user.
Power Usage Details in the Task Manager
The Windows Task Manager now includes two new columns on the main Processes tab. These columns are designed to help you understand which apps and services on your system are consuming the most power. They take into account CPU, GPU, and disk usage activity to estimate how much power each process is using, which will tell you how bad each process is for your battery life.
The “Power Usage” column shows a process’s current power usage at this moment. The “Power Usage Trend” column shows power usage over the last two minutes so you can see processes that use a lot of power, even if they aren’t using it at the moment. You can sort by each column to see your most power-hungry processes.
Make Text Bigger
Windows 10 lets you increase text size across the entire system, including in the Start menu, File Explorer, and in the Settings app.
To do so, head to Settings > Ease of Access > Display. Adjust the “Make everything bigger” slider to increase text to your desired size.
Windows Update Will Predict the Best Time to Restart
Windows 10 now uses machine learning to avoid restarting your PC while you’re using it.
In older versions of Windows 10, Windows Update won’t restart your PC to install an update if you’re actively using your PC. But, if you step away for a coffee, Windows might decide you’re not using your PC and initiate the restart.
Windows 10 now uses a machine learning model to predict the right time to restart your PC when you’re not actively using it. In other words, Windows will try to predict whether you actually stepped away from your PC for a while, or if you just ran to get a coffee and you’ll be right back.
This is useful, but you can already prevent Windows from restarting your PC while you’re using it with Active Hours. This feature lets you set up to 18 hours of the day as “active hours,” and Windows will only restart your PC for updates outside of these hours. But, even outside of your configured active hours, Windows Update will now try to be more respectful about rebooting.
New Game Bar Features
The Game Bar, which was redesigned in the April 2018 Update, has some useful new features. It contains built-in audio controls that let you choose your default audio output device or control the volume of other applications on your system.
It also offers performance visualization features so that you can see your game’s frames per second (FPS), CPU usage, GPU VRAM usage, and system RAM usage over time.
There’s also a “Dedicate resources” toggle in the Game Bar. This enables a new Game Mode option that will improve game performance on PCs with many background tasks running.
You can open the game bar by pressing Windows+G anywhere, and a shortcut to the Game Bar is now also available in the Start menu.
Wireless Projection Controls
While projecting your screen wirelessly, you’ll now see a bar at the top of your screen—just like when using Remote Desktop. This bar shows that you’re connected and provides an easy way to disconnect or reconnect.
Windows has several “modes” you can enable while wirelessly projecting, too. In “Game” mode, screen latency is minimized to make for an improved gaming experience while wirelessly projecting. In “Video” mode, screen latency is increased to ensure the video plays back smoothly. “Productivity” mode is the default, and provides a balance of latency to ensure typing appears responsive and that there aren’t too many graphical glitches while playing videos.
More Emoji
Unicode 11 includes 157 new emoji, and they’re all available in Windows 10. You can type emoji in any app by holding the Windows key and pressing period (Windows+.) to open the emoji panel.
New emoji include everything from superheroes and animals to a teddy bear, tooth, baseball, cupcake, test tube, and DNA strand.
RELATED:Secret Hotkey Opens Windows 10’s New Emoji Picker in Any App
Cancelled: Mail Ignores Your Selected Browser by Default
Microsoft was “testing a change” that makes the Mail app open links in the Microsoft Edge browser, even if you’ve made Chrome, Firefox, or another web browser instead of the default browser you choose.
Thankfully, Microsoft backed off. Instead, Microsoft announced that Mail would use Edge by default and you would have to disable an “Open links in Microsoft Edge” option to use your preferred web browser.
However, even this change was cancelled. We tested Mail in the final version and it opens our default web browser without any additional configuration.
This is just part of a larger trend that sees Microsoft pushing Edge throughout Windows. For example, links you click in the Start menu’s search feature already always open in Microsoft Edge. You have to use third-party software to trick Windows into opening Chrome or another browser instead. And Microsoft tested browser warnings to scare you away from installing Chrome or Firefox.
RELATED:Windows 10 Tries to Push Firefox and Chrome Over the Edge
Skype Gets a Big Update
The Skype for Windows 10 application gets a big update, including customizable themes, a new layout for your contacts, and the ability to customize the group call “canvas,” dragging people around to choose who you want to see on the screen. Microsoft has also made it easier to start sharing your screen during calls.
Notepad Supports Linux and Mac Line Endings
Notepad finally supports UNIX-style end of line (EOL) characters. Specifically, Notepad now supports UNIX/Linux line endings (LF) and Mac line endings (CR.) This means you can take a text file created on Linux or Mac and open it in Notepad—and it will actually look like it’s supposed to! Previously, the file would look all jumbled up, instead.
You can even edit the file in Notepad and save it, and Notepad will automatically use the appropriate line endings the file originally had. Notepad will still create files with the Windows line ending (CRLF) by default. The status bar shows which type of line endings are used for the current file if you enable it by clicking View>Status Bar.
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Lots of Improvements to Notepad
Notepad is getting many more new features, too. Notepad now has a “Wrap Around” option for the Find and Replace dialogs, letting you find and replace in an entire document without first positioning your cursor at the top or bottom.
There’s a new zoom feature, too. Just click View > Zoom and use the options to zoom in and out. You can also hold down Ctrl and press the plus sign (+), minus sign (-), or zero (0) keys to zoom in, zoom out, or reset to the default zoom level. You can also rotate your mouse wheel while holding the Ctrl key down to zoom in and out.
Other useful features include line and column numbers while Word Wrap is enabled, the status bar enabled by default, and support for the common Ctrl+Backspace keyboard shortcut to delete previous words. Microsoft has also improved Notepad’s performance while opening large files.
Notepad is even getting a “Search with Bing” feature—why not? To use it, select some text in a Notepad document, and then either click Edit > Search With Bing or press Ctrl+B.
RELATED:Everything New in Notepad in Windows 10’s October 2018 Update
Copy and Paste Keyboard Shortcuts for Bash
The Windows Subsystem for Linux runs Bash and other command-line Linux shell environments based on Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, and Debian on Windows. If you use Bash on Windows, you’re getting a feature many people have been asking for: keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste.
You can now right-click a console window’s title bar and select “Properties” to find an option that enables Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V for copy and paste. These keyboard shortcuts are disabled by default for compatibility reasons.
These keyboard shortcuts are available in all console environments, but they’re particularly useful in Linux-based shell environments where the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V shortcuts are mapped to other functions and don’t function like copy and paste.
RELATED:How to Enable Copy and Paste Keyboard Shortcuts in Windows 10’s Bash Shell
Launch a Linux Shell From File Explorer
You can now directly launch a Linux shell in a specific folder from File Explorer. To do so, hold down the Shift key, and then right-click a folder inside File Explorer. You’ll see an “Open Linux shell here” option next to the standard “Open PowerShell window here” option.
Diagnostic Data Viewer Improvements
Microsoft first introduced the Diagnostic Data Viewer in Windows 10’s April 2018 Update. It must be installed through the Microsoft Store, but shows exactly what diagnostic and telemetry data Windows 10 is sending to Microsoft’s servers.
In this update, the Diagnostic Data Viewer now also shows “Problem Reports.” These are generated when applications crash or experience another issue, and give Microsoft—or the application’s developer—information they might need to fix the problem. You can see information about when the problem report was created, when it was sent, and what application caused the problem.
The Diagnostic Data Viewer application now has some additional filtering features you can use to sort through the diagnostic data, too.
RELATED:How to See What Data Windows 10 is Sending to Microsoft
Kiosk Mode Improvements
There’s a new kiosk setup wizard that makes it easier to set up a PC as a public kiosk or digital sign. This uses the existing Assigned Access feature but makes it easier to set up. Head to Settings > Accounts > Family and Other Users and look for the “Set up a kiosk” section to use the new setup experience.
Microsoft Edge now supports Assigned Access kiosk mode, too. For example, in single-app Assigned Access mode, you can set up Edge to always display a specific website in full-screen mode (for use on a digital sign) or set up a public browsing mode with minimal features available (for a public browsing kiosk).
Consult the Microsoft Edge Kiosk Mode guide for more information on setting this up.
More Useful Features and Interesting Changes
As usual, Microsoft has made a quite a few smaller changes, improvements, and fixes to Windows 10. Here are some of the most interesting ones:
Other Geeky Changes
Here are some other improvements that only geeks, developers, and system administrators will need to know about:
We’ve heard rumors that Microsoft would allow any Windows 10 user to switch in and out of Windows 10’s S Mode in this version of Windows 10, but that feature never appeared.
RELATED:What is Windows 10 in S Mode?
Microsoft is simplifying the naming process even more next time around. The next update won’t be codenamed Redstone 6 during its development. It will be called “Windows 19H1,” which means it’s the first update of 2019. Future updates will be named “19H2,” “20H1,” “20H2,” and so on.
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The fourth major update to Windows 10 has arrived, promising to deliver new features big and small to Windows desktops.
Rolled out from October 17th, the headline features in the free Fall Creators Update are changes to how Windows 10 handles cloud storage, easier sharing with friends and family, better security, longer battery life, and a more intuitive design for the OS and its apps.
As with previous updates, however, don't expect massive leaps forward, more general tinkering around the edges.
SEE: All of TechRepublic's smart person's guides and cheat sheets
The essentials
How do I get the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update? The release should now have been rolled out to the vast majority of Windows 10 users.
What's in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update? A variety of improvements, with standout features including streamlined cloud storage and a new social hub, as well as better security for business.
What's missing from the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update? Unfortunately some of the most interesting features, ranging from the ability to pick up where you left off using Timeline to a cross-device cloud clipboard.
Can I block the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update? Not really, but there are ways to defer it for a long time.
Can my computer run the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update? If it can run Windows 10, then it likely can run the Fall Creators Update, although taking advantage of some of the VR- and AR-enabled features will need a moderately powerful graphics card.
What are the new features?OneDrive Files On-Demand
The most eagerly anticipated change for those who used Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage is 'Files On-Demand'.
More about Windows
The feature will let users see all their files stored on OneDrive from within Windows 10's File Explorer, without having to first download these files. It basically marks the return of Windows 8.1's OneDrive smart files.
Users will be able to see all their files, whether they are stored locally, are only on OneDrive, or stored on both. They can choose to download OneDrive files and folders to the device and to keep their local drive in sync with OneDrive. Files and folders stored solely on OneDrive will be tagged with a cloud icon.
Check out our step-by-step guide on how to enable and use OneDrive Files On-Demand.
SEE: Toolkit: 21 useful Active Directory scripts for Windows (Tech Pro Research)
One-click communication
The People hub is designed to make it simpler to stay in touch with friends and family.
SEE: How to turn on One-click Communication in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update
The taskbar will have a People icon, which will provide quick access to your contacts, as well as to communication apps. Users will also be able to pin their three favorite contacts to the right-hand side of the taskbar. Clicking on a pinned contact's face will bring up email or Skype messages from that person, and files can be dragged to that person's face for quick sharing. Pinned contacts can also trigger pop-ups of animated emoji when they send you messages.
More control over updates
Users will be able to set what percentage of the available network bandwidth is used to download updates in the background, and, if applicable, is available to upload updates to other PCs.
SEE: How to throttle peer-to-peer updating bandwidth use in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update
This option will be available via Update & Security > Windows Update > Advanced Options > Delivery Optimization.
Alongside, Microsoft is also providing an activity monitor, which displays how much data has been downloaded and uploaded to the PC, including the size of Windows updates downloaded.
Better battery life
Batteries on laptops and tablets should last longer when running Windows 10, due to the new Power Throttling feature.
The performance of less important software will be squeezed to reduce battery drain, with Microsoft claiming the feature has lowered CPU power consumption by 'up to 11%'. The system will throttle programs running in the background and prioritize the performance of apps the user is engaging with in the foreground, for example, devoting more resources to a video player being used to watch a movie.
Users will be able to control how aggressively performance is throttled using a power slider, which is accessible by clicking the battery icon on the taskbar.
A new look
With the Fall Creators Update, Microsoft has started to rethink Windows 10's design.
Major components of the OS, from the Start Menu to the Action Center, will use Microsoft's new Fluent Design System.
This design language is aiming to provide app and OS interfaces that are more visually appealing and intuitive. Building on the touch-first ethos of Microsoft's earlier Project Neon, the Fluent Design System is geared towards creating an OS that works across all sorts of Windows devices, encompassing PCs, phones, tablets, and VR and AR headsets.
The overhaul will add light, depth, motion, and the quality of physical materials to Windows and its apps, with the aim of accentuating elements of the UI that are important to the user. UI elements will also scale to remain usable across different devices, whether displayed on a widescreen monitor or a pocket-sized phone.
You can see what it looks like here. Examples of how it will be used are scrollbars that recede into the side of a window when not used, a 'Reveal' glow being added to the cursor that highlights borders and other elements of interfaces, more animated interface elements, and a material dubbed 'Acrylic', which has the look of frosted plastic and can be used as a background or in menus.
Cross-device working
Working across multiple machines should be simpler, as Windows 10 now allows users to start editing Microsoft Office files, for example a Word doc, on Android or iPhones and hit a single button to continue editing them on a PC.
If you log into an Office application, such as Word, on your iPhone and Android using your Microsoft account, then you'll be able to resume working on the most recent file you were editing on your Windows 10 PC, providing this is also linked to your Microsoft account, by clicking the notification in the Windows 10 Action Center.
Microsoft Edge can talk to you
Microsoft's web browser gets various improvements, most notably gaining the ability to read web pages and e-books out loud.
Edge will be better suited to being used as an e-book reader, with improved PDF and EPUB support, including the ability to annotate documents in both these formats.
Reading progress will also be synced across devices, and websites will be able to be pinned to the taskbar.
SEE: Windows 10 S: A cheat sheet (TechRepublic)
Storage Sense improvements
Windows will gain the ability to manage more of your files, with Storage Sense able to automatically delete files from your Downloads folder after 30 days, as well as to remove previous versions of Windows once an upgrade has taken place.
SEE: 20 pro tips to make Windows 10 work the way you want (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
Insert 3D objects into Office files
Rotable 3D objects created in Paint 3D or downloaded from Remix 3D, an online store of user-created 3D models, can be inserted into Office files—such as PowerPoint presentations and Word documents.
Bigger and better Emojis with predictive text
The update introduces a new on-screen Emoji panel, with support for Emoji 5.0.
A new touchscreen keyboard on Windows 10 desktop also includes improved text prediction—with support for autocompleting phrases based on a single word—and the ability to transform single words into emojis in UWP apps. An alternative keyboard layout for one-handed typing will also be available, as will the option for controlling a Windows 10 PC using your eyes, using gaze-tracking hardware from Tobii.
A (slightly) smarter Cortana
The Cortana virtual assistant gets a minor bump to its abilities, and will be able to shut down, restart, and lock PCs, as well as sign out users.
More detailed system information
The About area in the Settings section has been redesigned to offer a wider range of information about the health of a system.
Elsewhere in the Settings section there is a new Video Playback page under Display, with options related to configuring video playback to maximize battery usage or video quality, alongside options related to High Dynamic Range within the Display settings, for those using HDR screens.
The Cortana virtual assistant also now has its own area in Settings.
Better security
A notable security improvement that could help in the battle against ransomware is Controlled Folder Access, which prevents applications from making any changes to files and folders in locations you specify.
SEE: How to protect your Windows 10 PC from ransomware with the Fall Creators Update
Microsoft will also improve how it handles threat detection and response for Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows Server users.
Most enhancements will be to Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)—Microsoft's threat detection and protection service that is part of Windows 10 Enterprise, and which bundles together Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG), Windows Defender Device Guard, and Windows Defender Antivirus.
WDAG is designed to help protect firms against online threats by adding container-based isolation to Windows 10's Edge browser, allowing it to safely contain malware so it can't spread within a company's network.
An extended version of Microsoft's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit will be built into the Windows 10 core and called Windows Defender Exploit Guard. Exploit Guard will spot and neutralize potential threats and intrusions, including zero days, using intelligence from the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph. Windows Defender Antivirus will also pull information from analysis of the billions of data points available via Microsoft's Intelligent Security Graph to better identify threats and improve protection.
Admins will be able to more easily manage these features using Intune and System Center Configuration Manager, according to Microsoft, with these orchestration tools also being updated to make it easier for companies to audit the security configuration and patch status of devices across their IT estate.
Windows Mixed Reality
With the release of the Fall Creators Update, Windows 10 users who are lucky enough to own a VR headset will be able to try out Windows Mixed Reality.
The built-in VR and AR platform will give Windows users the chance to use VR headsets to navigate through a virtual 3D home, with applications situated in themed settings, for instance the Films & TV app located in a virtual cinema.
The new Mixed Reality Viewer will also allow users to see 3D objects superimposed onto their real-world surroundings through the camera on their Windows 10 device.
The Fall Creators Update will also coincide with the launch of Windows 'Mixed Reality' headsets—basically virtual reality headsets—from Asus, Acer, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, which start selling from $399.
Easier access to Linux
The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), a feature that lets users run a wide range of Linux software inside Windows 10, will be easier to access.
WSL, which lets users run the Bash command line on top of various Linux-based operating systems, will no longer require Developer Mode to be active in order to run. It supports various Linux-based OSes including Ubuntu and openSUSE, with Fedora due soon, and other distros due to be added over time.
SEE: Linux distribution comparison chart (Tech Pro Research)
Link your phone to your PC
Android phone owners will be able to link their phone to their Windows 10 PC, which will display notifications showing who's calling, with the option to decline the call or text the caller back from the PC, alongside missed calls.
iPhone and Android owners who link their phone to their PC will also be able to use their handset to open a site they are browsing on their phone in the Edge browser on their Windows PC, via the Share option in the phone's browser.
Story Remix
The Photos app will have a Story Remix section that allows users to create quick video clips, easily adding text, transitions, and music.
Start menu tinkering
The Start menu gets some minor changes, and will now use the Acrylic backdrop and allow users to resize it diagonally.
Action Center
The Action Center also undergoes various small alterations, with a new Action Center UI featuring Fluent Design, an Acrylic backdrop, and subtle tweaks to the look of Toast notifications.
IoT improvements
For the version of Windows 10 aimed at IoT devices, the Fall Creators Update introduced support for thousands of new application programming interfaces (APIs), added improved Ink support, and expanded Assigned Access support to allow multiple UWP and Win32 apps to be run on a locked-down/single-purpose devices, such as a kiosk.
Which features didn't make the cut?
Some particularly promising additions weren't ready for the Fall Creators Update, including the Timeline feature that builds a web browser-style History into Windows 10 and a snazzy tool for creating 2D-3D video mash-ups using Story Remix.
Getting the upgrade
The update rolled out to the vast majority of users in the months following its release. The Fall Creators Update was designated as ready for business-wide deployments in January 2018.
Following the rollout of the Fall Creators Update, Microsoft said it was the fastest Windows 10 release to reach 100 million devices.
How to delay upgrading to the Fall Creators Update
If the opposite is true and you want to steer clear of the Fall Creators for the time being, then you also have options.
Check out our how-to for business and home users on how to put off the upgrade.
Can my machine run the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update?
Microsoft lists the same official specs as for the base version of Windows 10:
However, Microsoft expert and ZDNet columnist Ed Bott recommends a minimum of a 4th generation Intel Core processor, 4 GB RAM and, for comfortable use, 128 GB of SSD storage. Taking advantage of the VR and AR features in the Mixed Reality platform will also require a powerful integrated GPU or modest discrete GPU.
Older budget laptops may also not be eligible to receive the updates, with affected PCs including those running on Intel Atom Z2760, Z2580, Z2560, and Z2520 processors, such as the HP Envy X2 laptop.
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Follow these steps to create installation media (USB flash drive or DVD) you can use to install a new copy of Windows 10, perform a clean installation, or reinstall Windows 10.
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Using the tool to create installation media:
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