Suddenly, Windows 10 Doesn’t Suck (Premium)

There has always been a lot to like about Windows 10. But the nagging issues we’ve had are all suddenly falling by the wayside.

I have my theories about why these changes are happening, and why they are happening almost all at once.

They involve a change of regime, the pending Windows 7 upgrade apocalypse, and the surprisingly overwhelmingly negative feedback that Microsoft has gotten regularly about Windows 10 since 2015 but, shocker, never thought to share publicly. But for those of us, like me, who always needed to add an asterisk to our love of a system that, quite frankly, should have always been a no-brainer, this all collectively very good news indeed.

Before getting to the key changes we’re now seeing in the final build of Windows 10 version 1903, let’s step back in a time a bit and reflect on how important it was that Microsoft get Windows 10 right from the get-go, and how easy doing so was. Mirroring the move from Windows Vista (reviled) to Windows 7 (beloved), Windows 10 had to right the wrongs of Windows 8, a release that was so disastrous and so poorly-timed that it undermined the Windows platform, setting up several years of decline.

Windows 10, as envisioned and then shipped in mid-2015, was not perfect. But as I noted in my review, that initial version of Windows 10 was superior to its predecessors and combined the best of Windows 7 with the best of Windows 8.1.

Windows 10 marked the welcome return to PC-centricity in Windows. Yes, Microsoft has been trying to replace the term “PC” with “devices” for years---in fact, the firm still uses this term---despite the fact that 100 percent of Windows 10 devices used worldwide are PCs. But there are no non-PC Windows 10 devices. (And no, Xbox One, HoloLens, Surface Hub, various IoT devices, and phones do not count, as they run platforms that are derived from, but are not the same as, Windows 10.) And Windows 10 has respected that fact from the beginning, by pivoting away from the terrible “touch-first” nonsense in Windows 8 that benefitted nobody and alienated everybody.

PC-centricity comes with its complexities, for sure. But the trade-off with complexity is power and functionality, and Windows 10 introduced power user features like virtual desktops, advanced new command line capabilities, Linux compatibility, and more.

But again, it was not perfect. And was not made to be more perfect over the intervening years as Microsoft tried to excite a moribund user base into believing that a legacy desktop platform could in some way, in any way, be as exciting and interesting as a smartphone. Windows 10 included a slightly evolved and rebranded version of the mobile apps platform and store that first debuted, largely unnoticed, in Windows 8. It introduced other mobile features, like a notifications system, a voice-activated digital personal assistant, and a controversial upgrade schedule called Windows as a Service (WaaS), most of which were subsequent...

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