If you have not heard, Microsoft has discontinued the free upgrade to Windows 10.
For those of you that waited due to, “Oops, I forgot” I am sorry for your loss. Loss of $119 at least. For those of you that will never give up because of all the issues with Windows 10 — I am also sorry. Not for the $119 loss, since you knew that would come but sorry that you will not get to enjoy it…until you purchase a new PC.
Of course, you are not alone. MS shoots to have everyone on Windows 10 but the reality is different. Looking at all computers in use around the world, W10 is on 21.13% while Windows 7 is still in the lead with 47.01%. If you care, the breakdown continues as W8.x at 9.17%, XP is 10.34% and finally Mac is in last place of the big boys at 4.69%. The others that total to 100% are Linux and “Others” that are not used very often. So basically about one out of every five PCs are running Windows 10 as of August 1st.
All that being said on August 2nd, Microsoft began rolling out the “Windows 10 Anniversary Update”, woohoo! It is also known as the 1607 update (for the anniversary of 07/16). It included many changes most of which are on the backend where you will not notice much. There were some interface changes but minimal.
One change you will notice right off is that the Start Menu has changed. The entire list of applications now starts directly under the Recently Added and Suggested apps. From there you can scroll down or you may still click on one of the letter labels to choose the app you want.
The Action Center button has moved to the right side of the time in the Taskbar instead of being on the left as it was before…I have no idea why. An interesting change which I entirely approve of is if you have set up your email and calendar in Windows 10, including Gmail, when you click the time on the taskbar you will see your scheduled agenda under the time, date and calendar.
Also, if you are an Edge browser user there has been a major change. You can now add extensions like Google Chrome, Firefox and other browsers have had for a long time. Extensions allow you to do other things with your browser other than surf the net. Like Adblock, Evernote, Pinterest and others. Although, there are not many they are being created often now. When Windows 10 started a year ago there were basically none.
You will be invited to download and install the Anniversary Update when you have your next Windows update. Mine hit on August 4th so it installed it two days after the rollout. It was flawless but I would plan on a couple of hours to complete the download and installation, which includes several reboots. All of it is automatic once you start the first reboot.
Good luck for all you PC users out there whether XP, 7, 8.1 or 10. I hope no one is still dealing with Vista or Millennium!
