Microsoft's Windows 10X: A dozen ways it's cooler than just two screens

There’s a lot more under the hood than we expected.

- MARK HACHMAN

Before a recent developer event, all we really knew about Windows 10X was that it would be some flavor of Windows 10, optimized for dual-screen devices such as Microsoft’s own Surface Neo (go.pcworld.com/mneo) and an unknown number of third-party competitors by holiday 2020. Now we know much more, including what’s under the hood.

At the event, the company made a Windows 10X emulator available (go. pcworld.com/10xm)—though you’ll need to assign a fairly powerful PC to the task, and dedicate it to the Windows Insider program. Microsoft revealed several intriguing characteristics of the new OS as well, including lightning-fast updates, a special way of handling Win32 apps, and no apparent need for anti-malware apps.

Some have characterized Windows 10X as a new Windows 10 “experience,” in much the same way a movie might be re-released in a special director’s cut, with extras and in additional formats. But it’s more than that, as it will interact with files and other applications differently than Windows 10 does. Microsoft’s published enough separate documentation for us to start piecing together how Windows 10X will work. Here are a dozen intriguing features we’ve already learned about.

A SIMPLIFIED, PRETTIER WINDOWS SHELL