The world is being rapidly transformed with big trends such as the cloud, big data, and social media. These are all technology transformation accelerator agents that will change the business world forever. Mobility is also an important transformation accelerator agent in the evolution of the technology as a whole. Because of the growth of mobility, work is no longer a place, but a compilation of experiences that follows us through various devices, applications, and data.
Most professionals—and not just IT professionals—are working physically from two or three different locations. This concept extends to devices, apps, and Big Data. You probably work from two or three different devices, not including your personal devices. You might use four or five or more apps to perform your work activities on a daily basis.
The future is about more than the mobility of the device; the mobility of the experience will be an important factor to the technology industry. Windows 10 will help you to take advantage of these trends and be ready for the challenges ahead.
When it comes to mobility and operating systems and devices, the main concerns for most enterprises focus on security, user application accessibility, and the problems of having big complex deployments. Windows 10 attempts to address all of these valid concerns by providing a familiar and productive experience, regardless of the device type. For enterprises, one platform means using one management paradigm and security model across all devices.
Windows universal apps run on all Windows-based device types (or they can be limited to specific devices). Windows universal apps make it possible for the user interface (UI) to scale seamlessly from phone to tablet and beyond.
What is new in Windows 10:
The Welcome experience
The Windows 10 experience is designed to be as simple as possible. The Welcome experience, or the out-of-box experience (OOBE), helps you to understand the different steps you need to perform when starting a Windows device for the first time.
User interface
After 17 years of the Windows Start menu, Microsoft introduced the Start screen in Windows 8, which was the first menu designed for both touch and nontouch devices. The user interface (UI) was easy to use for touch devices, but some users missed the small Startup menu when using a keyboard and mouse.
Switching between PC mode and Tablet mode
You can switch easily between Desktop and Tablet modes in the Action Center. For example, if you are in Desktop mode and want to switch to Tablet mode, on the taskbar, click the Action Center button, and then click Tablet Mode. While in Desktop mode, the user experience is optimized for use with a keyboard and mouse. This does not mean that you cannot use touch gestures if your device supports it, but it is optimized for interacting by using a mouse and keyboard. In Tablet mode, the user experience dynamically changes to be a more touch-friendly one, including the taskbar. You can still use a mouse and keyboard, but the layout is optimized for touch-based interaction.
Virtual desktops
Windows 10 adds support for using virtual desktops so that you can keep your open apps better organized. For example, you can begin using a personal app for a personal event such as birthday party plans, create a second virtual desktop that contains the required app or apps to work on the birthday plans, and use yet another virtual desktop for your work-related activities.
Snap
Windows 7 introduced a feature called Snap, which you can use to “snap” apps to the side, top, or bottom of a window. Windows 10 includes enhancements to Snap that make it even easier to manipulate the layout of opened windows on the desktop. Snap Assist opens when two or more apps are snapped to help you find the opened apps on your system.
Using Snap Assist, you can display apps side by side when you snap an app to the left or right. Snap Assist displays thumbnails of your other open app. Tap or click one of the thumbnails to snap it to the other half of the screen.
Cortana
Cortana is the Microsoft digital assistant; it uses the Bing engine in the background to help you to quickly and easily carry out searches and locate the information you want. Cortana was first introduced on Windows Phone devices and now is officially part of the new Windows operating systems.
Cortana is assuming control of many operating system (OS) search features, such as searching the local device for files, utilities, or applications, searches on OneDrive accounts, or even on your local network. You access Cortana on the taskbar, and you can manage it via either natural voice queries or by text.
When accessing Cortana through a voice command, no touch is required. It is just a matter of saying “Hey Cortana” to get started. You can speak your command without looking at your device, making it possible to get what you need without taking your eyes off the task in front of you.
Startup changes
Imaging Format (WIM) is a way to start the OS in a configuration for which the payload of files resides within a compressed file. It is useful for imaging devices with limited storage support, such as low-cost tablets.
Windows 10 includes tools to help you use less drive space. The Compact OS feature facilitates the reuse of the compression support from WIM. As a result, Compact OS offers comparable performance and resource usage to that of WIM while supporting the ability to service individual objects as needed without losing space. Compact OS is supported on both UEFI-based and BIOS-based devices.
Unlike WIM Boot, because the files are no longer combined into a single WIM file, Windows Update can replace or remove individual files as needed to help maintain the drive footprint size over time.
Microsoft Edge
Computing has changed and user expectations have changed, too. Browsers can no longer support only PCs and mobile devices. Today, we need web browsers for all kinds of devices, such as Xbox consoles, Surface Hub, HoloLens, wearables, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
The newest browser from Microsoft, Microsoft Edge, addresses modern standards such as HTML5, SVG, ES5, ES6, and CSS3. Microsoft Edge provides a clean interface with easy-to-configure settings. In addition, Internet Explorer 11 is still supported for backward compatibility and interoperability to maintain support for many existing applications. Using Internet Explorer might still be necessary when using legacy applications that use ActiveX controls, VBScript, and Browser Helper Objects. It is possible to set an Enterprise Site list to be opened by Internet Explorer 11 when using the Enterprise Mode Site List tool and Group Policy Objects (GPOs).
Security
Online security presents many challenges. With password theft being an ongoing problem, password security continues to be at the top of the list of those challenges. According to an article published by the BBC (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28654613), it is estimated that hackers have stolen more than 1.2 billion user names and passwords across the globe.
Enterprises continue to educate users on the need for password security and to establish and enforce password policies. Basic safeguards such as using unique passwords need to be encouraged. For example, if you use the same user name and password on all your websites, and one website is compromised, it is likely that all your websites will be compromised.
Pass the Hash (PtH) is a hacking technique by which an attacker can authenticate to a remote server or service by using the Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) authentication protocol or LanMan hash of a user password. A typical PtH attack starts with one end point being compromised by malware, which then manages to gain administrator-level access. With this access, the malware can steal the user’s derived credentials and impersonate the user on other devices. As the attacker moves laterally across the network and finds additional devices to which the user has access, the malware can steal the derived credentials from other users who previously signed in to those devices.
Over time, an attacker can typically gain access to more and more derived credentials that have increased levels of network access. Eventually, it is likely that domain administrator accounts can be compromised, and then the consequences can be even worse.
Here are the Microsoft features that address password and PtH attacks in Windows 10:
- Microsoft Passport
- Windows Hello
- Isolated User Mode
The Windows 10 upgrade process
The first question that always comes after a new OS release is “Why upgrade?” This section addresses this question and also describes the upgrade process and its improvements in Windows 10.
Despite all the logistics and costs involved when upgrading to a new OS, using the wipe-and-load method, enterprises previously had to develop their own methods to upgrade their operating systems because there was no control or predictability provided by the upgrade process. Now that releases are continuously rolling out instead of arriving in somewhat predictable cycles every two or three years, enterprises demand a continuous flow of productivity in their businesses. But, rolling upgrades cannot hamper productivity.
Microsoft developed a meaningful in-place upgrade process internally with Microsoft IT that has become the deployment method offered to all customers, including enterprises and consumers.
In Windows 10, the recommended deployment is the in-place upgrade for the existing devices, such as Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1. Windows 10 does all of the work for you by preserving all data, settings, applications, drivers, and so on. The other methods, such as wipe-and-load provisioning, are still there.
There are four primary phases within the OS upgrade process from the architecture perspective: Down Level, Windows Recovery Environment, First Boot, and Second Boot. Chapter 2 contains detailed descriptions for each of these phases.
Source: Deploying Windows 10 Press Book
