Revised Windows Update October 10, 2018: Few Improvements Make All the Difference

Six months have elapsed since the public release of the latest Windows 10 feature update, which means we have to wait for a big new one. In the next two weeks, the Windows 10 October 2018 update will begin to be released around the world, bringing new features, enhancements and more to millions of Windows 10 PCs.

Microsoft has managed to make so that these latest news updates do not change much on the surface, ensuring that users will not be frightened by huge new changes once the update is installed. The changes will not become apparent until you start digging a little bit. On this note, we have done some research to find the main changes and features available in the update of October 2018.

It should be noted that it is about the setting day that you probably saw in the news recently and that deleted user files during the update. install. It's not great, and Microsoft is well aware that it has messed up. Today, this issue has been resolved, which means that when the update reaches you, you will no longer have to worry about losing your files when the update installs by the after.

You do not read what you do? Check out our detailed video solution featuring all the news and notable changes from the October 2018 update.

The Office and Windows 10 File Explorer

Starting the update From October 2018, you can now name active folders. in the Start menu. Previously, you could not name the folders you had created in Start. It works as if you name a group of tiles, you drag one tile onto another, you create the folder, and a text box at the top of the folder gives you an opportunity to name it.

There is also a new context menu that appears in some applications and text boxes. This is the best taken in a context menu that Microsoft has never put in Windows, but it is unfortunately not the only context menu available in the operating system. The dilemma of the Microsoft context menu still exists, which means that you will find different context menu designs in the system and in different applications.

The new pop-up menu is animated and has acrylic blur effects that make it look good when it's open. The other interesting design change with these context menus is that they also feature icons next to all the listed options. I also love the way this context-sensitive design provides formatting options when it's opened in a text field where the text supports formatting. So, instead of remembering the different keyboard combinations to make the text bold or italic, you can now right-click and press a button to do it for you.

Microsoft has also updated the file explorer with a new dark-mode user interface, which puts it online with other integrated system applications that support dark mode. This is a change you will enjoy if you use your PC late at night and you do not want your retinas to be severely burned by opening File Explorer to grab a file. It also makes the desktop context menus dark, which is nice to touch.

It is true that the new dark mode of the file explorer is not perfect. I think it looks nice on the surface, but many have expressed dislike for the different shades of gray used to get the dark looks. Some do not like the appearance of icons when dark mode is turned on. I do not have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is that the dark mode is not uniform in all Inbox applications and, most importantly, it's not applied to the ###. ### ### ##################################################################### 39, set of file explorer.

You will notice that even if dark mode is on; several parts of File Explorer are just not dark. The copy dialog box, for example, is always blindingly white, just like the file properties window. None of these areas has been designed to match the dark mode, which makes them even more jarring when you are having fun in the file explorer with dark mode enabled. I hope that Microsoft would have spent more time to thematize each part of the file explorer in dark mode.

The new context menu is excellent, but it's only used a little throughout the operating system. The dark mode of the file explorer is a promising start, but Microsoft must deploy more effort to "complete" it.

Windows 10 Cortana and Search

The search user interface is now much broader and focuses on research done over Cortana. a personal badistant. In the previous update of Windows 10, Microsoft had outright removed the "overview" feature of Cortana, which was focusing on the virtual badistant side of Cortana when searching. In the October 2018 update, Microsoft continues to steer Cortana toward research.

Now, Cortana's user interface is much broader and offers the user the ability to search for specific categories in the operating system. Thus, when opening the search, you will find five large areas that highlight the search in Windows. You will not even see the Cortana icon anymore; it's now a research glyph. During the search, a user interface divided into two will be presented. on the left, the results of your search and on the right, additional information about your file or Web result.

I love the new search interface, but it does not solve the problem of inconsistent Windows 10 search, which sees users looking for something but have other results instead. For example, the user can sometimes search for an application, but instead of this application being the first result, a similar application will be the best result. Microsoft is aware of this problem and is working on improving the search in a future update.

Below the search categories from the homepage of Cortana, the focus is more on the timeline. You will see your last three activities on the timeline, which will allow you to pick up where you left off directly from the search instead of opening Timeline to do it. Below, Cortana offers commands that you can request in one click. There is currently no Cortana user interface in Windows 10, which is strange. For the moment, however, Cortana's presence in the research is very minimal, and rightly so, many not enjoying Cortana's dominance anyway in the research area.

The new Windows 10 of your phone app

Since Microsoft has abandoned its own mobile platform, the company is obsessed with the badurance that Windows PCs are the best friends of Android and IOS. With the October 2018 update, this effort is taking a leap forward as Microsoft begins to integrate your phone into your PC with a new application called "Your Phone".

Microsoft has big ambitions for this app, with the ultimate goal of being able to control your Android phone directly from your PC. At the moment, this only works with Android phones, but Microsoft promises that the iPhone 's functionality will be available at some point, albeit in a limited state, because of the limitations of the iPhone. Apple on what third-party developers have access to iOS.

With the Phone app, Android users can connect their phone to their PC and share photos and SMS between devices. This means that you can start and reply to SMS messages that you have sent to your phone directly on your PC. The SMS synchronization functions work well, but it could be faster. Once the text has landed on your phone, it takes a few seconds for the messages to reach your phone's application. Sending an SMS with the help of the application Your phone can sometimes take up to five seconds, which makes things slow. 19659002] I have also noticed that sometimes, the application Your phone stopped sending notifications when new SMS messages arrived after a while, and that the notifications themselves, when they arrived, were not exploitable, which meant that I had to open the application to answer a text rather than just answer it directly from the notification. These are all issues that can be solved via application updates regardless of the operating system.

The other feature of Your currently operational phone is the ability to view and share the last 30 pictures taken on your phone, directly on your PC. The sync feature of your phone's photos works better than expected. Your photos will appear as if they were locally available on your device. You can edit them, share them between applications and even drag them out of your phone application to other applications or on the desktop. It works like magic and is very simple.

You no longer have to wait for photos to be uploaded to the cloud before you can download them to your PC, or to rely on a cable to connect them to your PC. to that. It should also be noted that the application has a nice user interface, with a simple presentation with the features of Your phone in the left sidebar and content taking over the rest of the application.

Your phone in the October 2018 update is a good start. Improvements are possible, which probably explains why Microsoft is still tagging the application as in the preview in some areas, but overall, the experience is satisfactory. I look forward to Microsoft relying on the fundamentals that it has established.

How to setup the application Your Phone

The new tool Snipping Windows 10

If you are a Windows 10 fan, Microsoft has reworked all this experience. the old capture tool is replaced by a new universal capture bar, accessible using the Windows, Shift and S keys. It simplifies the screen capture experience by proposing you three methods of screen capture: rectangular capture, free and complete form.

Once the screenshot is taken, Windows displays a notification that it has been automatically added to your clipboard, which means that you can paste it instantly into a social network, an application or a location. But if you click on the notification, you will get a dedicated screen capture application that will allow you to edit it further with ink.

This does not replace the simple WIN + PrtnScn key combination that takes a full screen capture and places it. on a folder dedicated to screenshots in your image area. But this replaces the WIN + Shift + S key combination that was used for the old capture application. You can configure the new capture experience by pressing the PrtScn key on your keyboard if you prefer, which I recommend to everyone, as it greatly simplifies the invocation of the new cutterbar.

The new Windows 10. Clipboard in the cloud

The new experience in the Microsoft clipboard in the October 2018 update is without doubt one most important new features of this version, even if it is disabled by default. Microsoft has integrated a new clipboard history feature into the operating system that, when enabled, saves everything you have copied into a session for later pasting. Thus, Windows will no longer forget the last thing you copied when you copy something new.

This new function of the clipboard is accessible at any time using the WIN + V key combination, and once called, you can scroll through the list. everything you copied during this session. In addition to simply remembering everything you've copied, it also offers the ability to sync this copied data to the cloud, allowing you to sync data from all your connected devices to the same Microsoft account.

The name "Cloud Clipboard" comes into play. If you enable synchronization features in addition to the history function, you can copy text and images to one device and paste them to another. Microsoft knows that some users might not like the idea of ​​syncing everything you copy to the cloud, which is why this feature is disabled by default.

Microsoft will also bring the Cloud Clipboard to SwiftKey on Android in the future, which means you can copy and paste content not only between Windows devices, but also your Android devices.

The clipboard only stores what you copied per session, which means that if you disconnect or restart your PC, the clipboard will be empty when you reconnect. There is a function that allows you to "lock" the copied contents to the clipboard, which saves it permanently until it is pinned again. Pinning something that you have copied will allow you to keep it on the clipboard, even after a reboot.

The most important problem with this new feature is that it is quite untraceable unless you are aware of its existence. On the one hand, it is disabled by default, and the switch to activate it is buried in the application Settings. Even when it is activated, there is no obvious way to invoke it unless you know the key combination.

How to enable the new Clipboard feature in the cloud

Microsoft Edge

As always with a new Windows 10 feature update, Microsoft has added new features. and improvements to Microsoft Edge. Most of the improvements are under the hood, the only real differences being minor changes in the user interface and behavioral changes.

Users can finally customize the buttons that appear along the right side of the address bar. Previously, these buttons were inexplicably non-customizable, but you can now edit them. You can hide them or add others.

Microsoft has also updated the "Settings and more" menu with an improved user interface that also includes icons and revelation effects, which is very nice. The parameter zone itself has also been updated with the same user interface as the Hub zone, which means that both zones now have consistent designs that should make things less confusing.

Edge's novelty, with the update of October 2018, is the ability to: prevent websites from automatically playing audio or video content

You can now disable tabs before that audio playback does not begin, even if there is no audio element on the web page. Right-click on the tab and select Mute.

The PDF reader has been improved with minor modifications and the PDF icon has been updated with a much more aesthetic version. If you tried Edge when Windows 10 came out and you did not like it, try again. She has doubled since her debut.

Windows 10 Settings

There are more settings than ever before in the application Settings for Windows 10 update from October 2018. Microsoft has continued to add more than its legacy control panel in Settings, and this time, the audio settings are the last to be transferred. You can customize all the sound settings of your system directly in the Settings application, including setting your default audio source for input and output.

Microsoft has added a new "Typing Information" feature to the Settings app that records all your typing habits. and data, just like SwiftKey on iOS and Android. This option is disabled by default, but when enabled, you will see typing statistics such as auto-filled words, suggested words, recorded keystrokes, and spell-checks.

Windows Defender has been renamed to Windows Security in the Settings application, as well as Windows Security. Application settings now features Fluent Design in some areas. Microsoft has also awarded Delivery Optimization its own category under Windows Update. Previously, he was buried in the Windows update area.

Finally, Bluetooth devices will finally show you the percentage of their battery when they are connected to your device. This is something that was initially available in the Surface application, but it is now integrated with Windows 10 natively.

The Settings app also provides tips and tricks on its homepage and even suggests asking questions in the sidebar of specific categories, providing quick and easy answers to these questions.

Finally, and this is an important issue, Windows Update now uses machine learning to determine the best time to install a new update. Microsoft continues to try to improve the system under Windows Update so that it does not interrupt your workflow. The automatic learning should allow Windows Update to determine when you use the PC, and to warn you that an update is ready. This feature works in the background and is not configurable. As it is the first version to offer such a feature, it has not been tested yet. It is therefore too early to determine if Machine Learning really helps.

Miscellaneous Modifications, Enhancements and Remarkable Elements

The game bar has been updated with a new user interface, which looks much cleaner. You can still stream directly into Mixer and, in a future update, Microsoft will also add performance data to the gamebar.

The Skype integrated application for Windows 10 has been updated to the same version of Skype for desktop. This is version 8, which means that it comes with the new modern UI and more. In fact, you will find that the Windows 10 application is faster than the desktop application, thanks to the use of React Native.

The windows of the application no longer have a color accent around them by default. Now, the colored border is simply dark gray, which is the shadow effect behind the windows, which creates a sharper user interface. You can enable colored borders, but otherwise, the default behavior is no longer this one.

For unknown reasons, Timeline is still incredibly slow. The animations are not smooth, which makes use of this feature slow and interrupted even on the most sophisticated computers. I find that the offset is mainly present on devices with screen resolutions higher than 1080p. Microsoft really needs to solve this problem.

Update of October 2018 Final Thoughts

The update of October 2018 is not a major release. At this point, it's the same thing with regard to "Windows as a Service". This is an excellent update, however, as it contains many changes and enhancements that make using the operating system more enjoyable.

4.5
out of 5

As this should always be the case with a new version, the October 2018 update is the best version of Windows 10 so far. It's more refined and well set up. Microsoft has really made sure that these updates do not change all at once, users hating nothing more than going back to their PCs and finding that everything has changed.