20 new features in Windows 10
This spring’s big update and a host of add-ons have brought a wealth of new features to Windows 10. Barry Collins reveals the key features to seek out
This year’s blockbuster update has brought a wealth of new tools and handy add-ons to the OS. Barry Collins reveals 20 of the best.
EVEN IN ITS CURRENT BETA STATE, IT’S ALREADY 99% MORE CONVENIENT THAN THE WINDOWS SEARCH BAR
The twice-yearly Windows 10 updates appear to be adopting Intel’s old tick-tock schedule – one is a big step forward, the next is a minor update. The May Update (version 2004) is a big tick, arriving with lots of new features.
The power user is well catered for with a series of updates to add-ons such as PowerToys. While these aren’t a core part of Windows, they add great new features to the operating system.
Over the next five pages, we’ll reveal 20 new features that have arrived in Windows 10, which will benefit everyone from novices who aren’t sure what they’re downloading (the kind of user we all end up supporting), right through to developers who are coding across different platforms. There really is something for everyone.
1W indows
Package Manager
If you’ve ever used a Linux distro, you’ll know that installing software can be as easy as typing a brief command into the package manager. Microsoft has belatedly taken a shine to that idea, creating the Windows Package Manager – a way to install many common Windows apps with a single line of code.
To be clear, this is not going to become the mainstream way of installing apps or a replacement for the beleaguered Windows Store. You will still be able to download EXE files from the web or donk a button to download apps in the Store.
This is squarely aimed at power users and admins who want to install known software packages without having to ferret around different sites or use other package managers, such as Ninite or Chocolatey, whose thunder Microsoft has pilfered.
Amongst the dozens of software packages included in the Windows Package Manager at the time of writing are utilities such as Speccy and CCleaner, business apps such as Slack and Zoom, and more leisure-oriented apps such as Spotify and Steam. Developers are well catered for with packages for Python, Ruby, FileZilla, Wireshark and others. Obviously, the apps have to be free because there’s no payment mechanism integrated in the Package Manager. You can search for available packages in the
Windows Package Manager with the show command, while installing an app is simply a matter of typing:
winget install
The Windows Package
Manager is compatible with all versions of Windows 10 going back to 2017’s Fall Creators
Update (1709). The biggest challenge for Microsoft is going to be making sure that all of the software delivered by the Package Manager is tested and safe. You can imagine the furore if an application installed via the Package Manager turns out to be fake or contains malware.
“We leverage SmartScreen, static analysis, SHA256 hash validation and a few other processes to reduce the likelihood of malicious software making its way into the repository and onto your machine,” Microsoft’s senior program manager, Demitrius Nelon, wrote of the Package Manager security on the Microsoft blog. Some might not take too much comfort from the phrase “reduce the likelihood”, but installing software via the Package Manager is surely going to be less risky than downloading EXE files from sites stuffed with ads.
The Package Manager is accessed via PowerShell ( see issue 310, p46).
2 PowerToys Run
If the Windows Package Manager borrowed an idea from Linux, then PowerToys Run was definitely inspired by macOS.
If you have ever used Spotlight search on a Mac, you’ll feel right at home. PowerToys Run is basically a system-wide search that’s instigated with the Alt+Spacebar shortcut, letting you search for installed apps, files, utilities and pretty much anything else on your system. Even in its current beta state (at the time of writing), it’s already 99% more convenient than the terrible Windows Search bar that’s been endlessly fiddled with and mangled since Windows 10 first appeared.
PowerToys Run is intended to eventually replace the long-neglected
Win+R shortcut, which you might traditionally have used to open a command prompt, for example. PowerToys Run will still support all those old commands, but offer much wider search functionality. In the longer term, PowerToys Run will add more features such as the ability to perform custom web searches.
By default, PowerToys Run returns only four results, but you can fiddle with that in its settings.
3K eyboard
Manager
Want to define your own keyboard shortcuts instead of having them predetermined by Windows? The new Keyboard Manager PowerToy will let you reassign shortcuts or even individual keys, if you wish. At least, that’s the theory.
Our attempts to remap the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V (copy and paste) shortcuts to Windows+C and Windows+V failed miserably, although that may be because the new shortcuts are already assigned to other tasks (clipboard history). Others worked fine.
PowerToys must be running in the