STOP USING THESE PROGRAMS – WINDOWS 10 IS BETTER
Windows 10 can now perform a lot of tasks that previously required an installable program.
Up until Windows 10, programs like Classic Shell ( www.classicshell.net) improved Windows’ usability and were pretty much essential if you wanted a sensible way to navigate Windows 8. But once Microsoft put the Start menu back and included handy new features, such as Live Tiles and folders, it became far less necessary to have an alternative installed.
As Microsoft expands Windows 10’s abilities through regular updates, it’s gradually making more outside tools redundant. For example, if you use Pushbullet ( www.pushbullet.com) to share notifications and other data between your devices, you may be able to remove it and use a similar feature that Microsoft introduced in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update last year.
On your PC, click in the taskbar Search box, then click the cog (settings) icon and under Notifications, check that ‘Send notifications between devices’ is switched on (see screenshot above right). Now install the Cortana app on your phone (Android www.snipca.com/25893; IOS www.snipca.com/ 25894), sign in with your Microsoft account and grant the app the permissions it requests.
This works brilliantly on Android phones, not least by letting you send text messages from your PC – simply type text John, for example, into the Search box. Features are somewhat limited if you’re using the iphone app, which currently only syncs Reminders and calendar events.
Virtual desktops and PDF conversion
If you liked to work with multiple virtual desktops previously you required a tool such as Dexpot ( www.dexpot.de), but the Windows 10 Anniversary Update introduced a simple equivalent of its own. Click the Task View button next to the taskbar Search box, then click ‘New desktop’.
You no longer need a program like CUTEPDF ( www.cutepdf.com) to convert documents to PDF. Just click File, Print and select ‘Microsoft Print to PDF’ from the list of printers.
More recently, April’s Creators Update introduced a Night Light feature (click Start, Settings, System, Display, then switch ‘Night light’ on - see screenshot below left), which basically puts f.lux ( https://justgetflux.com) out of a job.
Next year’s major update, codenamed Redstone 4 and due in March, could banish the need for tools like Roamit ( www.snipca.com/25871), as Microsoft is planning to introduce a built-in Cloud Clipboard feature that lets you copy and paste between devices.
It’s true that non-microsoft tools tend to have more features than Windows 10’s built-in replacements. Classic Shell, for example, offers many ways to tweak Windows’ interface beyond its Start menu. But there are often benefits from using Windows 10’s built-in functions. They are usually easy to use and don’t require you to change many settings to work. And crucially you don’t have to worry about keeping them up to date because Microsoft updates all its tools automatically.