Windows 10 Reviews Are In—And People Love It

I’ve been testing Windows 10 for three months on these computers and even on my everyday work laptop. It’s the best PC experience I’ve had since Windows XP. Here’s why: it’s familiar. The Start menu is back, and all your apps launch in your standard desktop view. Basically, if you know how to use Windows XP, you’ll have no problems with Windows 10. But even though it’s familiar, it’s also fresh… With Windows 10, your PC is actually useful again.

Windows 10 is hugely exciting. I rarely touch my MacBook Air anymore as I find the combination of some good hardware (like the Dell XPS 13) and Windows 10 is a joy to use. I like the direction Microsoft is taking with Windows 10, accepting feedback and ideas from its customers along the way. It feels like the best way to shape Windows into something people enjoy using, rather than something they have to use… The best part of Windows 10 is that it ends the cycle of good and bad in favor of something great.

The best thing about Windows 10 is that it’s simply Windows, through and through. It’s as if Microsoft realized that devaluing the desktop in Windows 8 was akin to sacrilege, and Windows 10 is its penance. At its core, it’s a union of the best qualities of Windows 7 and Windows 8 – the desktop features of the former with some of the touch-friendly aspects of the latter. It’s no wonder Microsoft is calling it an operating system that’s both fresh and familiar.

Before we go any further, let’s get this out of the way: You should upgrade to Windows 10. If you’re using Windows 8, 7, XP, ME, or 3.1, you should upgrade. Maybe wait a couple of weeks for the biggest bugs to be squashed, but do it. Why wouldn’t you? It’s free, it’s easy, and it’s a huge improvement on whatever version you’re using.

The near-final build I’ve been testing proved surprisingly buggy. In particular, I had trouble with Windows 10’s sexiest new feature, the voice-controlled Cortana intelligent assistant — Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s Siri — which has migrated from Windows Phones to the PC. Still, some of the new features are promising, the balance between old and new styles seems right this time, and — if the bugs get erased — Windows 10 would be a good choice for Windows devotees.

You really are going to love Windows 10. You’ll almost certainly want to upgrade your computers to it, especially since it’s free. But you might not want to do that tomorrow. I’d suggest you wait six weeks. By then, Microsoft will have swatted most of the bugs, and many of your favorite software companies will have released Windows 10-compatible versions.

Combine the early bugs with the spottiness of Cortana and the fact that third-party app developers are still updating their Windows apps for Windows 10, and the operating system still has a little ways to go before it becomes a solid all-around upgrade. But the improvements to security, along with the familiar user interface, should be reasons to grab this upgrade sooner than later.

Windows 10 is a reflection of a company at a crossroads. Microsoft desperately needs to drag Windows into the future (as a service or OS) and make it an integral part of both PCs and mobile devices. Microsoft clearly went too far for most users with Windows 8 and addressed many of the complaints with Windows 8.1, but more work was needed.