Microsoft Windows 10 Light Theme Preview
Microsoft added a lot of features to its PC operating system—Windows 10—this year and shifted to planned biannual software update cycle. However, the quality of the software went down, and the software giant had to face a lot of problems. The software giant had to not only face criticism for buggy updates but also rollback its biggest software update releases: April 2018 Creators Update and October 2018 Update. Now, the company has started to take feedback from its users and trying to become more transparent about how it develops and tests software. Microsoft says that it will focus on improving the quality of its software.
Microsoft To Be More Transparent On Development & Testing Of Windows 10
Microsoft had to rollback the April 2018 Creators Update after a last-minute BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) issue cropped up, and the update was actually released in April. With the recent October 2018 update, many Windows 10 users complained about files getting deleted, and the company had to halt the update. A few days ago, a Microsoft engineer mistakenly made a licensing server change, leading to a lot of Windows 10 Pro machines suddenly getting their licenses deactivated.
Michael Fortin, Corporate Vice President of Windows, Microsoft, explained that since the company develops and tests Windows 10 updates for hundreds of millions of devices on a constant basis, it becomes really hard to release updated with zero bugs. He said, “With Windows 10 alone we work to deliver quality to over 700 million monthly active Windows 10 devices, over 35 million application titles with greater than 175 million application versions, and 16 million unique hardware/driver combinations, In addition, the ecosystem delivers new drivers, firmware, application updates and/or non-security updates daily.”
However, the company has been criticized on how it has shifted away from dedicated Software Test Engineers (who used to ensure Windows software quality) to developers testing their own code and feedback from Windows Insider Program. The company laid off hundreds of STEs in 2014, ahead of Windows 10 release. Now, Microsoft is planning to offer users a Windows status dashboard next year to document how well a software update is rolling out. Rather than adding more features, the company is now planning to focus on the quality of software, at least for the next year.
Windows 10 Light Theme To Bring A Fresh Look
Improved Action Centre/Image Credits: Windows Centralmore
Improved Windows Search/Image Credits: Windows Centralmore
The next big Windows 10 update is codenamed 19H1, which is likely to be rolled out in April 2019. The update will bring at least a few new features, including a light UI theme and an easier-to-use Action Centre. The Light Theme will also come with a brighter version of the current default Windows 10 wallpaper. From the looks of it, the new theme is good-looking. Whether or not there will be an option to automatically switch from light to dark theme and vice versa, depending on the time of the day, needs to be seen. If you didn’t know already, Apple‘s latest operating system version, macOS Mojave, brought automatic light/dark theme switch along with Dynamic Wallpapers.
Reportedly, Microsoft will also separate Cortana from Windows Search, which a lot of users will appreciate. Apparently, the company is focussing on improving Windows Search. Other upcoming features include wider use of Fluent Design in the UI, Cloud Clipboard(synced from other PCs and smartphones linked with the same Microsoft account), newer music controls interface in the system tray flyout and a new way to quickly customize quick setting toggles as well as a new screen brightness bar.
What do you think about Windows 10 as an operating system and how good is being Microsoft in rolling out new features as compared to what Google is doing with Chrome OS and Apple with its macOS operating system?
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