Windows 10 May 2022 Update review: Microsoft boosts Linux and Your Phone, but Cortana slips hard - pannellcapent
Cross Hachman / IDG
At a Glint
Expert's Rating
Pros
- Free, suchlike other Windows 10 releases
- Your Phone provides a useful link betwixt phone and PC for nearly everyone
- Linux within Windows become more powerful, yet still convenient
- New icons English hawthorn signal an oddment to a tile-based world
Cons
- Cortana shows a immoral lack of functionality in places
- Ongoing refine and improvements mean itty-bitty is ever in truth done
Our Verdict
Microsoft's spring 2020 update nearly polishes off the Your Earpiece app and boosts Linux, also signaling a release to a new UI in the work on. Only some functional weaknesses in Cortana within reason sour the feel for.
Update, 05/27/2020: Microsoft launched the May 2020 update on May 27, through manual download first, operating theater you behind simply wait for Microsoft to agitate IT to your PC.
Our review of Microsoft's Windows 10 20H1 update—also known as version 2004, or the Windows 10 May 2020 Update—shows an OS focused primarily on building out existing features, rather than launching new ones. Some scaffolding is still apparent in tweaks to Your Phone, and especially Cortana. Microsoft has encourage polished Task Manager, Settings, and Game Bar, however, and ISN't afraid to serve ecological niche audiences with upgrades to the Windows Subsystem for Linux and the related Terminal app.
As in the past, we've based our review on the Insider builds of the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, beginning with the stellar features and working through to its minor additions. Though Microsoft essentially signaled that the May 2020 Update release was finished past January, we waited until the end of February to dead our tests. We'll revisit the review at launch to see if anything's changed.
Meet the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2, and Terminal
When Microsoft introduced the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) as part of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update in 2016, it was a shock to see Microsoft embrace Linux after opposing it for so many old age. But the seminal Windows Subsystem for Linux was hobbled by the fact that it wasn't running a real Linux kernel. Certain kernel modules, such A gimmick drivers, were unable to run.
With WSL2, Linux now runs on its own kernel, in what's basically a virtual machine. If you use Linux, you'll also be able to put your Linux files within the Linux root data file system, and access them via Windows File Explorer inside the Linux virtual hard phonograph recording. Consequently, carrying out is expected to improve, one of the nam upgrades for WSL2 over WSL1.
Mark Hachman / IDG You'ray relinquish to utilisation Smash to open up something comparable the emacs school tex editor in chief within Ubuntu…
To set down it up, you'll need to enable Windows' Linux capabilities manually via the "Turn Windows features on and off" panel. Linux is free, conveniently easy from the Microsoft Store as one of a bi of downloadable distributions including Ubuntu and Debian, and relatively easy to ready. (Converting your existing distro terminated from WSL1 to WSL2 is relatively pandurate, too: Just type
wsl —ordered-version <Distro> 2 into the raw Fatal app.)
And yes, there's a new Windows Last app. The Command Line served as a State Department shell for old age, allowing you to sail Windows and run various commands. Now Terminal stands in as a statement-line interface for DOS, PowerShell, and Linux, with multiple configurable tabs to run any of them side away slope. You're still free to run a BASH shell from within a Linux lotion the likes of Ubuntu, but Terminal's premeditated to glucinium the preferred way to run Linux within Windows.
Check Hachman / IDG That's because Linux subordinate WSL2 is mostly text-based. While there are methods to enable a Linux GUI, most require some interaction between WSL2 and Windows 10, and a remote connection 'tween the deuce. Mostly, WSL2 is designed for schoolbook-redaction apps like vim and emacs, accordant to Microsoft employees impermanent on WSL2. as well arsenic schoolbook-based "apps" like Nethack, as Microsoft's own tutorial shows off.
Terminal's clean, modern, pleasing to use, and doesn't get in your way—altogether prerequisites for a text editor. But IT's non perfect, either: For one thing, how functions are split between PowerShell, the Compel Prompt, and Linux is confusing. Why does enabling the paned view below call for the control to be entered into the Command Line box, rather than PowerShell? It may be self-evident to an forward-looking user, merely not to one who's new to the environment.
Tag Hachman / IDG Another look up to at Terminal, this time in a split-paned view that you can enable aside typing in the instruction in the upper outside pane. Note the semi-thin "acrylic" effect through the Terminal windowpane, too.
If you're willing to dig into the multitude of tips, guides, and else corroboration around the Web, WSL2 is fairly elementary to use. (Just remember that Linux commands and files aren't segregated from Windows in the way Windows Sandbox is, so follow elaborated.) All told, the compounding of WSL2 and the new Closing app spruces up the interface and delivers a minute Thomas More power under the hood.
Cortana dumbs down as she becomes an app
Recall last year, when Microsoft separated Windows Search and Cortana, erstwhile co-located within the same search corner, into two separate functions? At present, Cortana's unexpended entirely. Cortana is now a windowed app that can follow undocked, moved or so your background, and resized at will. Microsoft has also returned Cortana's power to receive requests via text besides as voice.
Mark Hachman / IDG Integrating information as healed as images into the resizeable, undockable Cortana window is a overnice touch, just a true conversation betwixt user and assistant isn't something Microsoft has achieved heretofore.
This convert has pluses and minuses. When Cortana was integrated with the taskbar, the supporter had a tendency to disappear when you returned focus to another window. This made sense in certain cases, but when you hollered a question at her, you had to copy down the answer before doing anything else. Currently, Cortana seems to disappear as a window if she's along your primary screen and you begin interacting with another windowpane. On a secondary proctor, though, the windowpane remains.
Cortana now allows you to specify whether you'd like to talk to Cortana or simply type responses in its in-app Settings menu. That's somewhat handy, although at that repoint Cortana becomes less of an assistant and just other search box. Microsoft also says its changed the "fire up word" to just "Cortana." The distinction is largely pedantic: Connected my build, Cortana didn't respond to a awaken word at all, even subsequently double-checking that the mic was decently set up. Clicking the mic button (or the Advance+C shortcut) did spark off Cortana, however, and the talking to acknowledgement was normally quite a genuine.
Mark Hachman / IDG Once BFFs, Amazon's Alexa is now apparently dead where Cortana is obsessed.
Cortana's functionality has suffered. There's no Windows 10 Settings area that controls the app, just general speech controls. While Windows can be governed by a personal accountand connect to a business account, there's No obvious way to practice that with Cortana—you have to pick one or the other, which is kind of awkward. Flatbottom worse, Cortana can't evening handle basic math problems equally I was testing it. (Update 3/4: Just after we publicized this story, Cortana's ability to perform mathematics returned.)
On my test build, Cortana was unable to launch Virago's Alexa in-app, as IT's done antecedently. (We have it off now on that point wish be an enormous loss of Cortana functionality, including IoT controls like-minded the Harman Conjure, Spotify controls, and more. The calculator functions and opposite skills have been added posterior, in time for the windows 10 Crataegus laevigata 2020 Update to send to users.)
At some point, Cortana is supposed to evolve into a "colloquial" assistant, like the Google Assistant. If I ask Google the height of the Eiffel Tower, then follow prepared by asking "where is it," Google understands that I mean the same predominate. Cortana doesn't.
Mark Hachman / IDG It's a good matter I don't need Cortana to perform basic math.
On the other hand, if I ask Cortana to station an emailed note to my married woman, Cortana will postulate for confirmation in front IT's sent. Replying "no" prompted her to ask me what I wanted to change: the recipient, the message, Oregon something else. That's the sort of colloquial interaction Microsoft seems to be shooting for, but examples of this appear to be few and far between. Cortana's ability to understand is besides improving, as information technology parsed "What did the Dow Jones do today?" correctly.
While I know separating Cortana into its own app allows for improvements to be made independently and at their own pace, our topical examination shows (and Microsoft confirms) that Cortana is flunk to meet the fundamental requirements of a digital low-level.
Impudent newfound Windows 10 icons signal the time to come
I've always been of two minds on cosmetic updates: I tend to powerfully party favor function over form, but I contemn Brutalist architecture. Aesthetics does play a role.
Mark Hachman / IDG Here are a few of the new, updated icons inside the Windows 10 2004 Start carte du jour. Note that both the Office icons as well as the general-purpose Windows apps are getting a facelift.
Microsoft's begun rolling tabu a stable of updated icons to the Windows 10 May 2020 Update. They provide a new, cohesive excogitation language to Windows 10, and it looks like they'll beryllium a unifying element for Windows 10X and maybe subsequent versions of Windows 10.
Whatever new icon updates have the reward of looking fresh, and they're consistent with Microsoft's Fluent Design principles. (For more, see Microsoft's blog post.) It's very likely that we'Ra seeing the end of the route for Microsoft's tiled interface, and a return to a more picture-motivated UI.
Mark Hachman / IDG A Microsoft-authored collection of the new Windows 10 icons in the Windows 10 May 2020 Update (20H1) feature update.
New emoji and kaomoji, as well!
Yet though it's not forced upon you, the emoji/kaomoji keyboard that's come-at-able via the Win + ; shortcut is one of the more useful additions to Windows over the past few feature releases. Right away, there are a few new additions to the pane, courtesy of Emoji 12, with icons that admit an otter, a laziness, ballet shoes, and more.
Microsoft The rising Emoji 12 emoji admit this ice cube, which can be W. C. Handy in discussions of… climate change?
Kaomoji—more complex representations of various symbols that combine punctuation marks— have been enhanced as well. So while the basic kaomoji include representations of the "shruggie," , ¯_(ツ)_/¯ on that point's also been some new additions including the adept (∩^o^)⊃━☆ and whatever this is: ಠ_ರೃ. The emoji toolbar still disappears when you're not exploitation it, though. It would be nice to have a on/off switch where it could stay on your screen at all multiplication.
Keep reading to se about Your Phone, Xbox Plot Bar and more.
Your Phone is straight off (just about) fully operational
The Windows 10 Your Phone app has been slowly adding additional functionality across different Windows feature releases, and it's arguably nearing completion. But the see is nonetheless fragmented among various devices.
With the right combination of phone and PC, the Your Phone app along Windows can now show Holocene photos scene with the phone, view and send SMS messages, be alerted with the phone's notifications, see the speech sound's barrage life, view and interact with the phone screen and apps, and smooth work calls. (Phones require the Your Phone Companion app to lay down the connection.) It's worth version our earlier Your Phone tutorial to learn how each feature works.
Mark Hachman / IDG The majority of users should be able to take on advantage of the Windows 10 Your Sound app's basic functionality, which includes late SMS text messages.
Subtle UI touches have crept in, such as indicators for unread messages or notifications, and reinforced-in GIF and picture musical accompaniment within the Messages component. Some aspects could use any polishing: I still can sustain spare notifications from both Windows as well as Your Phone if someone messages me, e.g..
Microsoft The Messages text interface is now richer than ever, too, with big-boned GIF and image support. (We've used a Microsoft-supplied image here, for privacy's sake.) Messages can also be replied to from a notification.
The reality, however, is that Your Phone's functionality allay varies by device, PC, and connection. With a OnePlus 6T coupled to a Surface Laptop 3 spouting a Windows 10 20H1 construct, my Your Phone app included all of the functionality listed above, save for my ability to interact with my phone's screen. Ditto for a Google Pixel 3XL.
Mark Hachman / IDG While I rattling like the fact that GIFs are now integrated within the Messages window in Your Phone, the GIF picker necessarily to be enlarged. GIF text can be too minor to read atomic number 3 currently implemented.
The ability to interact with the smartphone screen door under Your Phone too depends on whether you own a PC with Bluetooth that supports a low-energy peripheral role, look-alike the Surface Book 2 I used to make the Your Call up tutorial. Desktop PCs often preceptor't have Bluetooth. Meanwhile, Samsung phones require their own app, known as Link to Windows, to build a joining. Oh, and Apple iPhones? They'Re pretty much out of the loop entirely.
Mark Hachman / IDG More advanced functions, such American Samoa remotely viewing the screen of your Android phones, is still restricted to a subset of available devices.
I Don't want to deal Your Phone short—there's quite a lot there. Like many Windows apps, Your Sound isn't a necessary part of your workflow, but a convenience that allows you to interact with texts and notifications easy, without breaking your workflow to get out your call. It's true, too, that the basic photos/messages/notifications/calls functionality should follow in play for a absolute majority of Humanoid users as the 20H1 release rolls out. But there's still oeuvre to be done to establish a uniform Your Telephone experience for everyone.
Monitoring your gaming with Windows 10 Xbox Game Bar / GPU temps
I prefer a clean, uncluttered windowpane when I game, so I usually don't devolve on Windows' Xbox Game Bar (using theWin+G shortcut) for much few seconds. An update that's rolling forbidden as part of the Windows 10 May 2020 Update release, though, may compel you to think other than: a frame-rate indicator. (A secondly, related Xbox Achievement overlay is also part of this release.)
Mark Hachman / IDG Microsoft's Xbox Unfit Bar can show you how well—or in my character, how poorly—a game is operative.
FPS counters, which you can memory access via Steamer and other GPU tools, provide a handy mode of nonchalantly tracking how well your PC's ironware is meeting the game's demands. Dip also furthermost down, and you Crataegus laevigata deficiency to dial back a setting or two to preserve a smooth experience. With the on-going FPS counter (which tracks FPS over the last 60 seconds) you hold an in-Windows creature to monitor your gameplay. Note that the Game Bar already allows you to track CPU and GPU usance, and take screenshots—capabilities that Microsoft added previously.
Mark Hachman / IDG Windows 10's Task Manager clean keeps on adding more information. Notation the GPU temp, merely also the device type (SSD) in the Reposition section, too.
In that location's another metric Microsoft has added to Windows 10 20H1 that you may find useful: Task Manager's new ability to monitor your GPU temperature. Information technology's non specially convenient—there's no ability to supervise the temperature over time, or alert you if information technology exceeds a bound threshold —but it's a data point that Crataegus laevigata prove expedient. The Task Director now reveals what type of memory device you're using, to a fault.
Smaller, in-chief features under the hood
Windows Sandbox forges closer ties to the PC: I really wish Windows Sandpile, and its isolated container for difficult unstylish new apps and Web sites. Microsoft has added optional young conveniences: the ability to enable networking and your PC's GPU within Sandbox and even a mutual folder betwixt Sandbox and your PC's desktop. Be heedful, however: while complete three features improve Sandbox's ease of use, all three increase the attack come up for potential malware, too.
DirectX Raytracing / DirectX Ultimate support: Microsoft began talking about DirectX Raytracing early in 20H1's development, but it wasn't clear that information technology would follow included in the concluding release. But the technology, immediately called DirectX Ultimate, appears to cost a croak. My confrere Brad Chacos tells me that Nvidia is starting to seed drivers to developers. It sounds like it's complete aimed at providing a consistent experience for games like Minecraft's RTX version, specially when the Xbox Series X launches by the end of the year.
Readjust your PC from the fog:When you readjust your PC, the image that your PC installs and boots from is pulled from the image already residing on your PC. That's fine, but extracting that image can take meter and can actually fail entirely if your PC's disk drive is significantly corrupted. Enter Cloud Reset: As the name suggests, your Microcomputer can optionally download a new, clean image from Microsoft's servers.
Mark Hachman / IDG Microsoft's Windows 10 20H1 update adds this option when you prefer to reset your PC.
Yes, downloading information technology will take some time, and cost you 4GB close to against your bandwidth crownwork. But you'll Be able to download the image directly to your PC (no more USB installation key necessary). If you have a expedited Internet connection, facility could actually execute in fewer time than a normal reset.
Expanded lyric support in SwiftKey, bidding: Microsoft has distended the compass of its language prevision, especially in tablet mode and shapewriting, a.k.a. natural philosophy inking. Cardinal new languages are founded, from Afrikaans to Uzbek.
If you prefer speaking instead, you can try Windows' built-in dictation (Win+H), which now supports English (Canada), European nation (United Kingdom), English (Australia), English (India), French (France), French (Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Spanish (Spain), Spanish people (Mexico), Portuguese (Brazil), and Taiwanese (Simplified, People's Republic of China). I've been pretty impressed with how the Office app for Android handles dictation, too.
Spic-and-span pad of paper experience for 2-in-1 PCs: We tin can't guarantee that this will be in the Windows 10 20H1 release until it rolls out, as a 2-in-1 International Relations and Security Network't among our test machines. But those World Health Organization use the Superficial Professional 7 or related devices should see a new twist on the desktop patc in pad of paper mode, that preserves the look and feel of the desktop while devising IT easier to navigate with fat fingers. Microsoft's example should excuse:
Microsoft / IDG Improve meshing, update management: Those of you in geographical area areas or with slow connections belik don't deficiency to block your sane browsing or Internet gameplay with a annoying Windows update downloading in the background. Microsoft now has more coarse tools for managing this, including special bandwidth settings.
Mark Hachman / IDG Windows 10 still allows you to control how much of your bandwidth is being applied to updates, but it's offer many options in response to user feedback. AttendSettings > Windows Update > Delivery Optimization > Advanced options for this menu.
Likewise, Microsoft also cleaned up its Network &ere; Internet status page, giving it a face-lift and consolidating more information finished front. Pay attention to the "data usage" push: It's a reminder that you can still check which apps are suction raised your bandwidth, and readiness limits if you so choose. (The data usage functionality was present in previous feature updates.)
Mark Hachman / IDG It's not revolutionary, only it's observably bettor.
PIN options in Safe Mode: Microsoft's made several efforts to eliminate unmanageable passwords in past releases, and it's made some other tweak present: If you involve additionally into Safe Mode for whatever reason, you can in real time wont a PIN atomic number 3 anti to your password.
Rename your virtual desktops: Task Sentiment doesn't get the love that Microsoft probably hoped it would, but information technology's not forgotten. You can now rename your virtual desktops to help you remember what they're being used for.
Mark Hachman / IDG You hindquarters also purpose emoji to rename your essential desktops within Tax View, if that's your matter.
FancyZones gets multi-proctor support:Technically, this has nothing to do with Windows 10. But this Microsoft-authored PowerToys utility is basically a super-powered version of Windows' own Snap function. FancyZones added multi-monitor hold up during 20H1's development cycle, eliminating its alone major shortcoming.
Else conveniences: Microsoft is making a number of small changes hind end the scenes. Spell fudge factor in Apps and Settings has improved, so that Windows will infer you better. If you change your account picture, it will now quickly and consistently propagate across Windows. There's a new cursor-speed setting within the Mouse settings, to a fault. And if your PC crashes or you reboot, UWP apps like Mail will straightaway restart in the same State you leftist them in.
Conclusion: A little something for everyone
Theoretically, Microsoft's Windows 10 May 2020 Update (20H1) represents a in good order drive, signaling what appears to embody an evolution toward a Windows 10X-like user interface. For wholly of our kvetching more or less Your Speech sound's need to come up toall of Windows' substance abuser base, it's absolutely lawful that the app has evolved into a practicable link between a Windows PC and an Android smartphone. Linux, too, is available, free, and ready to roll within Windows Subsystem for Linux 2.
Right now, though, Cortana perfectly must be stationary. While Cortana's independent ontogeny path whitethorn allow this to happen quickly, the assistant's current inability to plow unsophisticated math, among other flaws, invites ridicule and sours the otherwise simple, practical upgrades Microsoft's included crossways the remainder of Windows 10 20H1.
After the relational dearth of new content in either of the 2019 feature releases, the variety of all-embracing improvements Microsoft's Windows 10 English hawthorn 2020 Update is a welcome change. It justifies digging in and learning what information technology can do for you.
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As PCWorld's elderly editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft news program and chip at applied science, among other beats. He has formerly typewritten for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/398761/windows-10-20h1-review-microsoft-boosts-linux-and-your-phone-but-cortana-slips-hard.html
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