The Best Hidden Features In Windows 10’s Major Update

Megalith

Megalith

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Better app snapping, find my device, and automatic time zones are just a few of the new but less conspicuous features introduced in the new Windows 10 update that you may find useful.

Microsoft's first major Windows 10 update debuted yesterday with some new features and changes. Most of the additions are obvious, but there are a few hidden away. Here are several Windows 10 features you might not have discovered yet.
 
All three I really don't care about, I just want them to fix homegroups so my 5 window 10 PC's stop forgetting them
 
I have come up with a nick name for this major release. The Candy Crush Edition. Because I did not want it.
 
ShamisOMally said:
All three I really don't care about, I just want them to fix homegroups so my 5 window 10 PC's stop forgetting them
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I did have this problem with Homegroups up until about a month or so ago but I don't think I've it since. The window snapping is actually a pretty nice feature and snapping on interior edges of monitors works better now, the snapping is less aggressive so when moving a window via mouse to another monitor the snapping is less disruptive.

My favorite tweak in this build though is probably jumplists on tiles now.
 
I'm still waiting to hear the best unhidden features? "Enhancements to Edge". Really?
 
Wolf_Tech said:
I have come up with a nick name for this major release. The Candy Crush Edition. Because I did not want it.
Click to expand...

While I understand your contempt for an OS that comes with 3rd party bloat natively (and I would also add Office trial notifications etc)...

It's not really that hard to search for it in your start menu and right click and select uninstall...

Again, I agree that its pretty lame the OS itself is now coming with bloat, but at least it is VERY easy to remove. I would guess that is the price of a free OS upgrade...
 
The "Cast to media device" isn't a new feature. Prior to the November update it was simply called "Play to" A 6+ year old feature that first appeared in Windows 7.
 
"Features" are not typically hidden. I'm sticking with Win7 until MS pulls it's head out of it's collective as*. I used classic shell to "fix" windows 8 on my kids computer. I'll wait until I can fix win10 as well. I looked at it and from what I can see they simply took all the tile metro crap from the win8 start and crammed it into the start menu. My PC is not a freaking tablet... No thanks... Not even for "free"... :rolleyes:
 
Evil Scooter said:
"Features" are not typically hidden. I'm sticking with Win7 until MS pulls it's head out of it's collective as*. I used classic shell to "fix" windows 8 on my kids computer. I'll wait until I can fix win10 as well. I looked at it and from what I can see they simply took all the tile metro crap from the win8 start and crammed it into the start menu. My PC is not a freaking tablet... No thanks... Not even for "free"... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

First I know everyone is different but in my experience if you forever try and "fix" things the way they used to be done, you will ultimately just be piling on more work and holding yourself (and your family members) back.

I came to this conclusion back in XP, the "bubble gum" UI. At first I performed numerous tweaks and edits to make it work/look like is "should be" on top of a lot of performance tweaks.

Then I rebuilt my computer and forgot half the tweaks I did or had to dig around and find my documentation that I spent time creating. There was also a time or two where the tweaks I made conflicted with applications or hardware and it took a good amount of time to figure out the issue was due to my own "I know best" strategy.

As hardware got better I soon found myself skipping said changes just cause it wasn't needed but also because I just didn't want to be bothered. It was easier for me to learn to use the new features than it was to investigate, change, and document (or automate). Sometimes this was on purpose but mostly it was "I gotta get my computer up and running will do the customization later..." which never happened and I found that change wasn't as bad or horrible as I thought it would be.

Your kids could also be somewhat harmed by your methods. They will be used to the customized approach and could actually be behind the curve out in the real world just because they don't know how to use a default config.

I am not saying what MS is doing is "better" or that you should never customize. I just want to point out that there is a cost of customization and that should be taken into account.

I personally have come to the conclusion that customization is very rarely worth the time and effort. Sure delete all the annoying live tiles, change folders to detailed view, show file extensions but that is about my limit.

Where I work we are coming to the same conclusion. All the customization costs support time, expertise and less flexibility/agility. For good or bad the computing world is moving faster and requiring even more flexibility, customization is hindering our efforts more than helping.

I personally think being stuck your ways is going to cost more and more as time goes by. Windows 10 is expected to basically upgrade every 3 months. That means you start menu customization might break every 3 months.
 
I had two problems with 10 that were really getting on my nerves.

One, the start menu and search button (I use the button instead of the text field) would quit working at random. Also, the time it would take for either one to come up was completely random--even if I had just clicked on it and closed it. I also had to fight with the search button because the tooltip would pop-up and prevent it from being clicked. All this has been fixed (so far). Both the start menu and search menu are much more responsive and consistent now.

The second problem was that autohide for the taskbar would quit working. The only way to fix it was to go into task manager and restart explorer.exe (disabling autohide and re-enabling it made it turn invisible). This is also fixed (so far).

So yeah, this update wasn't just about added features, there are some bug fixes as well.

I have a feeling more bugs will come up though. This new update model doesn't seem to work too well. Office is buggier than it's ever been (well, the 64-bit version is buggy) and I suspect Windows is going to be the same way.
 
Spidey329 said:
Beat feature of the update? Color. No more damn white title bars.
Click to expand...

I'm going to have to agree with this. Everything else that was added is useless to me.

There was a hack to get color on the title bars before the update but it was a pain in the ass.
 
One new feature with Windows 10 that really pissed me off. The default of "Suggested Apps" being on for the start menu. Essentially, advertising in the OS. Thankfully you can turn it off, but having my OS solicit me is NOT acceptable to me.
 
dandirk said:
First I know everyone is different but in my experience if you forever try and "fix" things the way they used to be done, you will ultimately just be piling on more work and holding yourself (and your family members) back.

I came to this conclusion back in XP, the "bubble gum" UI. At first I performed numerous tweaks and edits to make it work/look like is "should be" on top of a lot of performance tweaks.

Then I rebuilt my computer and forgot half the tweaks I did or had to dig around and find my documentation that I spent time creating. There was also a time or two where the tweaks I made conflicted with applications or hardware and it took a good amount of time to figure out the issue was due to my own "I know best" strategy.

As hardware got better I soon found myself skipping said changes just cause it wasn't needed but also because I just didn't want to be bothered. It was easier for me to learn to use the new features than it was to investigate, change, and document (or automate). Sometimes this was on purpose but mostly it was "I gotta get my computer up and running will do the customization later..." which never happened and I found that change wasn't as bad or horrible as I thought it would be.

Your kids could also be somewhat harmed by your methods. They will be used to the customized approach and could actually be behind the curve out in the real world just because they don't know how to use a default config.

I am not saying what MS is doing is "better" or that you should never customize. I just want to point out that there is a cost of customization and that should be taken into account.

I personally have come to the conclusion that customization is very rarely worth the time and effort. Sure delete all the annoying live tiles, change folders to detailed view, show file extensions but that is about my limit.

Where I work we are coming to the same conclusion. All the customization costs support time, expertise and less flexibility/agility. For good or bad the computing world is moving faster and requiring even more flexibility, customization is hindering our efforts more than helping.

I personally think being stuck your ways is going to cost more and more as time goes by. Windows 10 is expected to basically upgrade every 3 months. That means you start menu customization might break every 3 months.
Click to expand...

+1 agree with this statement
 
prime2515102 said:
I have a feeling more bugs will come up though. This new update model doesn't seem to work too well. Office is buggier than it's ever been (well, the 64-bit version is buggy) and I suspect Windows is going to be the same way.
Click to expand...

It doesn't bode well that MS can't deliver bugfixes and a new kernel version without requiring an entire in-place upgrade reinstall of the OS. And they say they're going to deliver these 'upgrades' multiple times per year. With all the complaints about the 1151 failing for people, it's going to be a bumpy ride going forward.

Oh how I miss service packs.
 
My update is working fine except that it reset my privacy settings (easy fix I suppose) and my wifi adapter driver wasnt installed. I used the "search for driver" option which installed it from the c: drive. Only other thing was that it uninstalled my CPUID software because it wasnt compatible. Told me to contact the developer.
 
Aratech said:
My update is working fine except that it reset my privacy settings (easy fix I suppose) and my wifi adapter driver wasnt installed. I used the "search for driver" option which installed it from the c: drive. Only other thing was that it uninstalled my CPUID software because it wasnt compatible. Told me to contact the developer.
Click to expand...

Since I use all the stuff that many complain about I leave all of the privacy settings on. If all of this stuff is going to lead to ruination I figure why not. Plus it's stuff I actually gain benefit from. There is one setting I have changed are the P2P updates on all of my mobile devices. None of those changed.

So what got reset for you?
 
The best feature of Windows 10 (Pro) is "downgrade" rights, even if it's misnamed.
 
dandirk said:
First I know everyone is different but in my experience if you forever try and "fix" things the way they used to be done, you will ultimately just be piling on more work and holding yourself (and your family members) back.

I came to this conclusion back in XP, the "bubble gum" UI. At first I performed numerous tweaks and edits to make it work/look like is "should be" on top of a lot of performance tweaks.

Then I rebuilt my computer and forgot half the tweaks I did or had to dig around and find my documentation that I spent time creating. There was also a time or two where the tweaks I made conflicted with applications or hardware and it took a good amount of time to figure out the issue was due to my own "I know best" strategy.

As hardware got better I soon found myself skipping said changes just cause it wasn't needed but also because I just didn't want to be bothered. It was easier for me to learn to use the new features than it was to investigate, change, and document (or automate). Sometimes this was on purpose but mostly it was "I gotta get my computer up and running will do the customization later..." which never happened and I found that change wasn't as bad or horrible as I thought it would be.

Your kids could also be somewhat harmed by your methods. They will be used to the customized approach and could actually be behind the curve out in the real world just because they don't know how to use a default config.

I am not saying what MS is doing is "better" or that you should never customize. I just want to point out that there is a cost of customization and that should be taken into account.

I personally have come to the conclusion that customization is very rarely worth the time and effort. Sure delete all the annoying live tiles, change folders to detailed view, show file extensions but that is about my limit.

Where I work we are coming to the same conclusion. All the customization costs support time, expertise and less flexibility/agility. For good or bad the computing world is moving faster and requiring even more flexibility, customization is hindering our efforts more than helping.

I personally think being stuck your ways is going to cost more and more as time goes by. Windows 10 is expected to basically upgrade every 3 months. That means you start menu customization might break every 3 months.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I knew people that like you didn't like windows xp and spent hours or more getting it all set back to be almost exactly like windows 2000. if they upgraded a computer for somebody they did the same to them as they didn't want them to be stuck having to learn the new things for windows xp and in most cases just broke things.

in time you need to just learn to deal with the new ways to do things.
 
Wolf_Tech said:
I have come up with a nick name for this major release. The Candy Crush Edition. Because I did not want it.
Click to expand...

So? Then do not install it. I do not have it on the computer at all but would have to install it from the store. :rolleyes:;)
 
DPI said:
It doesn't bode well that MS can't deliver bugfixes and a new kernel version without requiring an entire in-place upgrade reinstall of the OS. And they say they're going to deliver these 'upgrades' multiple times per year. With all the complaints about the 1151 failing for people, it's going to be a bumpy ride going forward.

Oh how I miss service packs.
Click to expand...

Windows 8.1 all over again. 3 hours one day just to update a win8 laptop that hadn't been used in awhile. Update win8 first then reinstall the OS with 8.1? Yay time wasters.
 
I didn't realize this was a complete in-place upgrade. I left to walk to the store when it started and it was done when I got back 15 minutes later, so I'm not sure how long it took, but I would have thought a complete upgrade would have taken a lot longer than that.
 
prime2515102 said:
I didn't realize this was a complete in-place upgrade. I left to walk to the store when it started and it was done when I got back 15 minutes later, so I'm not sure how long it took, but I would have thought a complete upgrade would have taken a lot longer than that.
Click to expand...

Get used to it... the "feature" updates which are planned about 3x a year will be a full OS upgrade.

This one is actually a new OS install, that just happens to upgrade. AKA the media it downloads is the full OS media.

About the only thing they have streamlined this attempt is skipping the initial timezone keyboard setup prompts.

Though at MMS last week they did say they plan on slimming it down more like a patch in the future both in media size and prompts.

Cool part is the iso will be updated every 4 months so less patches!!! I know our imaging team will be happy to have more up to date iso source.
 
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