82 TECH ADVISOR • MAY 2020
FEATURE
At a developer event in February, the company
made a Windows 10X emulator available – though
you’ll need to assign a fairly powerful PC to the task,
and dedicate it to the Windows Insider program.
Microsoft revealed several intriguing characteristics of
the new operating system as well, including lightning-
fast updates, a special way of handling Win32 apps,
and no apparent need for anti-malware apps.
Some have characterized Windows 10X as a new
Windows 10 ‘experience’, in much the same way a
movie might be re-released in a special director’s
cut,withextrasandin additionalformats.Butit’s
morethanthat, as it will interact with files and other
applications differently than Windows 10 does.
Microsoft’s published enough separate documentation
for us to start piecing together how Windows 10X
will work. Here are a dozen intriguing features we’ve
already learned about.
A simplified, prettier Windows shell
Windows 10X looks different. Most of what you expect
about Windows still works – various inputs, drag and
drop, the Clipboard, and more. But in Windows 10X,
there’s a small dock that incorporates elements of the
traditional Windows taskbar, as well as the ‘app drawer’
on smartphones. The Windows Start launcher moves
from the bottom left-hand corner of the screen toward
the centre. The way app icons are aligned on the screen
looks more like what you’d see on a traditional tablet
or phone than the Windows desktop. Even apps are
movedfromonescreentotheotherviatouch points
onthe bottom of the window, not the top.
