Windows 10 Anniversary Update: The Road To Redstone

Final Words

There’s a lot to like with the Anniversary Update, and as the first major update since Windows 10 shipped, it’s a good start for Microsoft on their new track of Windows as a Service. We’d already seen a couple of smaller updates since launch, fixing several outstanding items, but the Anniversary Update adds a lot more functionality to the operating system.

With the new Skype, Mail, and other Universal Windows Apps, Microsoft finally has a platform which works across all of their systems. It really has been a long dream, and only with the update to the Xbox One do we really have a universal platform. This should pay dividends going forward, with any app updates being available to all systems. For developers, there’s an opportunity to reach all of Microsoft’s platforms with a single app. Project Centennial should assist with those trying to bring older Win32 apps forward as well.

The updated tablet mode is all about small changes. Using Windows 10 in a purely touch environment is definitely a better experience. Windows 8.1 was pretty good here, but the app selection was weak at best, so Windows 10 is now a superior platform for touch on the Windows side.

The Bash shell was a pretty big surprise at Build, but it makes a lot of sense with the new Microsoft. They’ve embraced open source in a way that didn’t seem possible a few years ago, and their strive to bring developers to the platform has been the driving factor in the addition of a Linux system to Windows. They even call it Bash on Ubuntu on Windows.

Windows Ink is a better way to use the pen. Cortana has improved. But I think the biggest update was to Edge, which really needed extensions to even have a chance of getting use by many users. Edge has always rendered text very well, but it’s lack of extensions made it difficult to use daily. With this update, that should no longer be a problem.

Microsoft made thousands of changes to Windows 10, and there’s no way to go into all of them in a single article, but Windows as a Service has started out pretty well so far. The Anniversary Update really polishes a lot of the aspects of Windows 10, which didn’t necessarily feel rushed, but wasn’t exactly finished either. This update has helped out on a lot of the edges.

The Windows Insider Program has been the driving factor in the development, and it doesn’t appear to be ending any time soon. Microsoft has found a way to tap into millions of people’s feedback and ideas to improve their product. It’s been an interesting road to Redstone, and now that Redstone 1 has shipped we should start to see the new features coming to Redstone over the next several months. For now, the Windows 10 Anniversary Update will start rolling out in waves today, so check your Windows Update.