After months of speculation and plenty of leaks, Microsoft has given the world its first official look at the next version of Windows. The biggest surprise is its name - Windows 10. While some of the new features are predictable, others come as surprises. It's clear that Microsoft has gone back to the drawing board after enduring endless criticism of its bold Windows 8 strategy and redesign. The reinvented Windows tries to combine the best of both worlds.

1. Windows 10 will be designed to appeal to office workers 

After years of dealing with complaints that Windows 8 was too different to roll out in large-scale corporate environments and would require massive resources to be spent on retraining users, Microsoft has decided to appeal to that crowd by incorporating familiar elements and hiding features that won't be applicable. The new Start menu is a prime example of this. 

2. ...and corporate IT managers

On the management side, Windows 10 promises better security, easier manageability, and improved capabilities for dealing with today's security threats. There will also be improved methods of installing and dealing with volume licenses, making the upgrade process easier. Custom app stores will help corporate environments to deal with software deployments and permissions. There is still a huge install base of Windows XP machines in office environments which work just fine, but Microsoft's new features might be tempting enough for managers to finally decide that an upgrade is worthwhile.

3. Windows 10 will scale from small smartphones to giant data centres

The Windows 10 name will apply to future versions of Windows Phone as well as Windows on tablets, desktop PCs and hybrid portable devices. The same experience will carry over to the Xbox One console and potentially other devices as well. Users will see an interface suited to their device type, screen size and input methods, so for example, the full-screen Start UI will not necessarily be a part of the desktop usage experience, but will appear for touch-first tablet users. There will even be a way for users to switch between the two modes, especially if they use tablets with detachable or foldable keyboards.

4. The new Start menu will combine Windows 7's usability with Windows 8's tiles

While a lot might change between now and the final release of Windows 10, previews indicate a two-column Start menu with old-style icons for pinned or recent programs on the left, and live tiles on the right displaying updates and information. The tiles will be customisable, though at their smallest size they will be functionally identical to pinned shortcuts.

5. Modern apps will run in windows on the desktop

Desktop users will be able to run Modern apps (downloaded from the Windows store) on the desktop just like other apps. They will be resizable and can be pinned to the taskbar. Important functions will be accessible through a context menu.

6. Virtual Desktops are finally coming to Windows

A mainstay of OS X and most Linux distributions for years, virtual desktops have remained a niche feature on Windows. In another move aimed at appeasing hardcore desktop users, virtual desktops are now baked right in. A new Task View will let you see an overview of all running apps and arrange them between desktops. 

7. Snap has also been improved

You can now quickly tile four apps at once on the Windows 10 desktop just by dragging them to the corners of your screen. You'll see suggestions for filling up your screen so that you don't have to deal with overlapping windows. Desktop users with large monitors will rejoice. 

8. Search and power user features will be improved

The new search feature combines local and Web results. You can begin searching just by typing when the Start menu is open, which means you can continue to hit the Start button and just start typing exactly like in Windows 8. Microsoft has another treat for power users - finally, you can use a simple Ctrl+V shortcut to paste text into the Command Prompt. 

9. The Charms bar isn't going anywhere

Just like with the Start screen, Microsoft isn't completely removing all vestiges of Windows 8. The Charms bar remains, though most probably only visible to users of touch-first devices. It will be improved, and those Windows 8 users who are familiar with it can continue to use it.

10. There's much more to come

Microsoft has teased that there are plenty of good reasons for its decision to skip a Windows 9 and jump two version numbers ahead. We hope to see many more improvements and refinements of the concepts that have been demonstrated so far. With public beta releases not too far away, it's going to be an eventful year leading up to the final release of Windows 10.

Microsoft did something very...er... interesting in October 2012. It launched Windows 8, the operating system that would "unify" Microsoft's platforms across PCs, phones and tablets. Except, there was a fairly large flaw in the plan.

Microsoft's vision of unification wasn't just from an engineering perspective. The company also wanted a unified user interface across all its devices.

Now let's think about that for a second. Traditional PC users (both desktop and laptop) were used to mice and keyboards. They had been using these two devices pretty much since the advent of the PC. Various companies had also managed to add support for other input devices over the years, but no one was really using a touchscreen on the desktop.

Microsoft's presence in the tablet market was non-existent, for all intents and purposes. Very few "tablet PCs" existed, running full versions of Windows 7 with the lowest power Intel Core processors available at the time. They were heavy, didn't have great battery life, and only seemed to be useful for designers and artistic folk, who'd use a stylus to draw.

Most people were either using iOS or Android tablets, and few people were clamouring for a Windows equivalent of these two.

Finally, let's consider the phone market, where Microsoft had slight success with Windows Phone 7 and has since had a little more with Windows Phone 8 and 8.1. Its market share was fairly insignificant, and the company would have really needed something special to make things work out.

There were, at the time, around 1 billion Windows PCs in the world, 99 percent not using a touchscreen monitor. Less than 5 percent of smartphones ran any version of Windows Phone, and there were barely any tablet PCs. In that backdrop, Microsoft's decision to release an OS that was optimised for touch-screen devices, rather than traditional input methods, seems premature to say the least.

What's worse is that the UI was aesthetically, and in many cases functionally, seen as a regression from Windows 7, which is still the most popular PC operating system. Bringing back the Start Menu is an example that Microsoft is backing down from its aggressive way of teaching users new behaviour.

After two years of bug fixes, patches, question marks over the future of Windows RT, and an awkward operating system that was arguably a bigger flop than Vista in terms of adoption and user satisfaction (despite being technically more sound), Microsoft has slowly come around to accepting the reality.

September 30 is the speculated date for the "preview" version of Windows "Threshold", also informally called Windows 9 by most of the tech press. Sites have generously leaked videos and screenshots of a legit-looking preview build of Threshold.

Looking at the videos, you'll be able to see that the interface is still mostly flat and boring like Windows 8. I'm curious as to why they made an OS as pretty as Windows 7 and then went back to the flatness of the Windows 3.1 days, though that's down to personal taste.

Moving on, we see the return of the start menu , just with tiles thrown in. If you compare this start menu to the present one of Windows 7, it strikes me as less useful, as it simply links to fewer things. The entire right column is filled with tiles. What used to be in the right column (Control Panel, Documents, etc.) end up as pinned items, quite obviously taking up space used for pinned programs in Windows 7.

Of course, when compared to Windows 8, this is much better than making obscure "charm" gestures, or receiving a face full of that jarring start screen.

Metro (or Modern) UI apps can now be (mercifully) run in windowed mode, and can be minimised. While some may question the utility of these in the PC version of the OS, the main complaint with Windows 8.x was not having a choice, so I guess this is step in the right direction. The same goes for the existence of "PC Settings" when the Control Panel exists, and two different calculators, one for touch screens and the other being the old one we're used to on Windows 7. Of course these are still early days, and all this may yet be fixed before Windows 9 reaches the consumers.

We'll also most likely see virtual desktops, like on Linux systems and OS X. You can switch between different desktops, and have different windows on each. This would, in theory, allow you to switch between multiple workflows. The actual implementation looks a bit sketchy, however. I'm specifically talking about window management; the creation, removal and navigation of virtual desktops looks good enough.

Long story short, from whatever we've seen so far, Threshold seems like a mixed bag. It's sort of Microsoft saying, "Hey, we made really bad decision with that Modern UI stuff but here's a compromise." But it's clear that the company still hasn't quite let go of those tiles, which suggests the company is continuing to walk the tightrope between listening to user feedback and going ahead with what it believes is the future of Windows.

Microsoft must keep in mind that the function of a good operating system is to provide a stable and secure environment for applications and users to interact in, not sell itself as one giant overblown "app".

Unifying the interfaces of PCs, tablets and phones wasn't a good plan either, as Windows 8 proved. Three different type of devices and two different input models can't be fitted into one box. Even Apple and Google keep PC and mobile separate, so one wonders if Microsoft is on the right track with its one size fits all policy. Kernel code sharing doesn't mean having a common UI. And blindly sharing features is known as taking a shortcut.

Tablets, convertibles and 2-in-1s are devices that can benefit from both: ecosystem support and a touchscreen interface. Microsoft should focus on smoothening out the experience for these users while at the same time leaving the traditional PC market alone, as far as the interface is concerned.

After all, Sun Tzu did say, "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win".

Windows 8 was an example of Microsoft going to war and then seeking to win. It was also an attempt at besieging a walled city, while bafflingly leaving the gates to its own fort wide open. Windows 9 must change that.

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