What Is Windows 10 Creators Update

Review: Windows 10 Creators Update is here and worth the download (with video)

The latest version of Microsoft'southward operating system improves the Start menu, lets you control updates, and makes some interesting improvements.

Preston Gralla By

Contributing Editor, Computerworld |

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Windows 10 Creators Update, the first major update to Microsoft'due south operating system since last summertime's Windows 10 Anniversary Update, is finally here.

As ever, Microsoft will make much of its new version -- to the point that it's announced that impatient users can download the Creators Update today, a week before the official April 11th roll-out appointment. But is information technology as big a deal every bit Microsoft wants you to believe? Or is information technology much ado about nothing?

I've been using the Creators Update in its diverse builds for months, and have put the last version through its paces. Hither's the lowdown.

Outset carte du jour folders

I note before I brainstorm: Ignore the proper name "Creators Update." This newest upgrade to Windows 10 has very piffling to practise with creating things apart from a few relatively pocket-sized features that I'll describe later.

In fact, the simply significant interface change in the Creators Update has to do with the Commencement carte -- and fifty-fifty then, information technology'due south non particularly noticeable at first glance. Just if you're a fan of the Start menu and you utilise it to run applications, you'll discover this update extremely useful, because information technology helps clean up some of the clutter.

With the Creators Update, y'all tin can now place multiple tiles into a binder on the Showtime menu. It's simple: You just drag one tile onto another. This automatically creates a binder with both tiles inside information technology. You can and then drag whatsoever other tiles you want into the binder.

Folders look similar tiles and display small-scale thumbnail icons of all the apps they contain. Click a folder and it opens, with each app appearing every bit an individual tile. You can and so click any tile to run the app. Click the folder again and all the tiles slide back inside.

Windows 10 Creators Update - folder closed — Y'all tin can now create folders in the Outset bill of fare, each of which can contain tiles for multiple apps (see the third tile downwards in the "Play and explore" section).

You tin resize the folder tile if you need to by correct-clicking it and selecting Modest, Medium, Wide or Big. But although this changes the size of the folder tile, the icon thumbnails within don't change -- they stay small-scale no matter how big you make the binder tile. Y'all simply come across more thumbnails.

How useful you'll discover these folders depends on how much you lot rely on the Start menu to run applications and how many applications you run. In my case, I pivot my most-used applications to the taskbar and run them from in that location; otherwise, I type the apps' names into Cortana and run them that mode. Because I rarely rely on the Start menu to run applications, this feature is a dainty-to-have rather than a must-take for me. Your mileage may vary.

I practise have a small nit to option with the way the characteristic is designed. Other tiles on the Beginning menu have text labels underneath them -- Post, Calendar, Microsoft Edge and so on. But folders don't, which makes it hard for yous to identify the purpose of each folder and what'southward in it. You accept to peer closely at its small thumbnails to figure out what's in each. It would have been much improve if Microsoft let you lot characterization each folder.

More control over Windows updates

Many people take complained nearly the unyielding mode that Windows updates itself -- you tin't featherbed an update, and yous have to do information technology on a schedule set by Microsoft. In the Creators Update you lot go some control over the process, depending on which version of Windows you lot utilize. Windows Dwelling users become less flexibility than those with Windows Pro, Windows Enterprise or Windows Education editions.

Dwelling house users will no longer be blindsided when Windows interrupts their work to do an update. They'll be notified when an update is available, and given the choice of either installing it immediately, scheduling it for a specific time or putting information technology off past clicking "Snooze."

Windows 10 Creator Update - update notification — Users now become an alert when an update is available and have the pick of installing it immediately, choosing a specific fourth dimension or putting it off by clicking "Snooze."

Clicking "Option a fourth dimension" brings up a dialog box that lets you lot schedule the precise mean solar day and fourth dimension the update runs. Clicking Snooze puts off the update for three days. Three days later another notification appears with the same three options. If you want, you lot can click Snooze again. You can keep doing this to indefinitely put off the update.

Windows 10 Creators Update restart — When you pick a time to update, you tin can now choose a specific day and time.

Users with Windows Pro, Windows Enterprise or Windows Education editions take much more control over how Windows updates. Before, users who wanted to delay their cumulative updates had to use a complicated workaround that required changing several settings and using either the Grouping Policy Editor or Registry Editor. They could delay "feature updates" (which add new features to Windows) past upwards to 180 days.

With the Creators Update, users can now automatically delay cumulative monthly updates for up to 30 days, and can delay characteristic updates by up to 365 days.

A sharper Border

The latest figures from NetMarketShare bear witness the Microsoft Border browser with a market place share of under six%, far behind Chrome, which has more than 58%, and even Microsoft'southward legacy browser, Internet Explorer, which has virtually 19%. So with every Windows upgrade, Microsoft spends considerable fourth dimension improving Edge in hopes of closing the gap with Chrome and weaning users off IE.

The Creators Update is no different. For a outset, Flash is now disabled in Border by default, although you're given the option of allowing it on a site-by-site basis, either on a one-fourth dimension basis or permanently. (In the previous version of Edge, only non-essential Wink content, similar advertising, was blocked.) Microsoft is disabling Flash to amend security, operation and battery life. When a website also uses HTML5 to deliver ads or other multimedia content, Border uses HTML5 instead of Wink.

Windows 10 Creators Update - block flash — Microsoft Edge at present blocks Flash content, although you have the option to run it when you desire, on a site-by-site basis.

Possibly more of import than blocking Wink is the addition of some very useful tab-handling features. If you've ever been frustrated by not being able to quickly locate the tab y'all want to switch to, you lot'll appreciate this.

You can see a thumbnail of every open tab by clicking a downwards arrow to the correct of the Add together Tab button at the superlative of the screen. That lets you rapidly scan all the currently open sites. Click the thumbnail of the tab you want to switch to, and y'all get sent immediately to that tab. I frequently continue many tabs open, and I found this characteristic a great help in getting me fast to the tab I wanted to find. Over the course of a mean solar day of browsing, I institute it a tremendous time-saver.

Windows 10 Creators Update - edge tabs — Microsoft Border's most useful new feature is the ability to run across thumbnails of all open tabs.

Should you make up one's mind to close all your open tabs, but think you might want to revisit them after, click a push to their left to put them aside as a group. When you want to open the group again, click a button to the left of that i, and they all open up. Y'all can recall the tab group fifty-fifty after you've closed Edge -- in fact, even afterward y'all've logged out of Windows.

What makes this characteristic even more useful is that you can practise this to multiple groups of tabs. For case, over the form of several hours I visited several museum websites, news sites, and sites with medical information. I grouped and closed each session, and was able to hands revisit them later.

However, while this is a useful feature, it does feel similar a offset step. Information technology would be much more than useful if you could label each group -- for example, Museums, News and Medical -- and add together and remove tabs once a group was created.

Windows 10 Creators Update - tab groups — With the new Edge, you can reopen groups of tabs you've previously visited.

Also new in Edge is that you tin can read books and other content in ePub and PDF formats. Edge will as well read their text aloud. This includes the usual e-reading features, such as the ability to continue reading where y'all had previously left off, change text size and and then on.

You can find books to read in the Microsoft Store. Just given the Kindle's dominance as an eastward-reader, information technology'due south unlikely this feature will come across much employ, especially because Microsoft has no dedicated e-reader device. I tin can't meet myself lugging my laptop to the beach and pulling it out to read a book on Border. (Of form, those with a Surface or other Windows ten convertible may appreciate it more.)

In that location are a diversity of other improvements to Edge, including the power to play Netflix at 4K resolution, nether-the-hood security improvements, and being able to import favorites from other browsers. However, 1 of Edge's biggest drawbacks -- a serious lack of extensions -- hasn't been fixed. Only 25 are available, compared to the tens of thousands available for Chrome.

Microsoft says that it has released more than extension APIs for developers and is working with developers to become more extensions congenital. But it's been well-nigh eight months since Border was given the ability to use extensions, and Microsoft has only managed to become 25 of them written. It looks unlikely that Edge volition ever come remotely close to competing with Chrome in this arena.

The outcome? Despite some improvements, Edge is nonetheless not a specially compelling browser, and this latest iteration is non probable to convince many people to switch from Chrome or any other browser.

A step into 3D

Microsoft is betting big on virtual reality and 3D. In fact, 3D and virtual reality are probable the reasons Microsoft calls this version Creators Update.

With the update, Windows 10 tin can run HoloLens virtual reality and mixed reality apps for the first time. Additionally, Microsoft is highlighting a variety of hardware devices in concert with the Bone update.

Microsoft is likewise hoping that y'all'll exist a creator -- not only a consumer -- of 3D content, and so the update includes the Paint 3D app. (The original Pigment is included every bit well.) The app includes a variety of tools for creating 3D drawings, including 3D objects, brush tools, text, effects and more. Even if you're non an artist or take no artistic talent (similar me), you lot'll be able to easily create and edit 3D objects, by starting off with models and objects included in the app. You can fifty-fifty putter in 3D -- use a mouse or compatible pen to draw, and the program converts your doodle into a 3D object.

Windows 10 Creators Update - paint 3d — Paint 3D lets yous create 3D objects.

Better still, join Microsoft'due south Remix3D.com community, which has many 3D objects and models built by other Paint 3D users. You can browse and import them from right within Paint 3D, and then customize them. Yous can upload your creations to the customs likewise.