What’s New in Windows 10 Build 9926 – Part 2?

Along with Cortana and Project Spartan, Build 9226 offers some key new features in the areas of applications and gaming.

Universal applications:

New office applications are being released to incorporate the tablet touch experience. You can create MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents without mouse and keyboard, and you can annotate with a new “inking” feature. Also the mail, calendar, picture and video apps have been redesigned to offer a consistent experience from device to device.

Xbox Integration:

Xbox Live and Xbox app are now integrated and offered on Windows 10 PC desktops along with Xbox One. There are improvements to graphics drivers and performance which facilitate the gaming experience from the PC desktop.

Two new devices are supported now with Windows 10:

The Microsoft Surface Hub and the Microsoft HoloLens. The Surface Hub supports large display devices (up to 84”) which facilitates group meetings and team interactions. Hub includes customized versions of Skye and OneNote which also enhance the team productivity features. HoloLens is Microsoft’s first offering to include a holographic computing platform. It comes with a set of APIs to access and leverage the holographic features, and it enables the user to experience holograms in HD and surround sound. Remind you of Star Trek – Next Generation?

Amid all the happy buzz of new functionality, I did notice some changes in system requirements with this build. In my small Hyper-V VM running Windows 10, I can no longer run the 64-bit version with 1GB RAM. This build requires 2GB RAM as a minimum instead of the previous minimum of 1GB, so if you created your test VM with less memory assigned, the upgrade will fail to apply until you shutdown your VM and adjust the settings. This requirement is detailed in the system requirements and is a change to only the 64-bit version of Windows 10, but it isn’t highlighted in the marketing materials.

Check Out my First Post on What’s New in Build 9926