Windows 10X Might Change The Way You Use Your PC

The dual-screen OS could bring some tasty updates to Microsoft's OS

By
Rob LeFebvre
Rob LeFebvre
Writer, Editor
Rob LeFebvre has been a freelance technology writer for 10 years and an educator for 20. His articles have appeared in 148Apps, Cult of Mac, Engadget, and many others.
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Rob LeFebvre
Updated February 13, 2020

What: New details on Microsoft's dual-screen Windows 10X emerged at Microsoft's Developer Days event.

How: Updates will take much less time, the OS will be more secure, and will support legacy apps.

Why Do You Care: While most of the new features of Windows 10x will apply to dual screen devices, this could be a preview of things to come in Windows 10 in general.

Microsoft's Surface Duo
Lifewire / Lance Ulanoff 

Windows 10X, slated for release in late 2020, is ostensibly a "flavor" of Windows 10 that will have extra features for dual-screen devices like Microsoft's upcoming Surface Neo. New details emerged at the company's Developer Days event that show the promise of Windows 10x.

The new OS will remove familiar features like the Start menu, Live Tiles, and Windows 10's Tablet Mode, but will include some under-the-hood improvements that would make any PC a bit better.

First, updates will now be incremental, meaning that apps and the OS itself will only update bits of code that have changed. That promises super fast update times, perhaps as fast as 90 seconds, according to PC World.

In addition, Windows 32-bit apps will run on 10X, too, via a special "container" that can safely run the code of older, legacy apps.

Windows 10X should also be a lot more secure, perhaps not even needing security software like Windows Defender. That's because only apps that are "trusted" will be able to run. Unlike Windows 10 S, however, 10X will allow trusted apps from more than just the Microsoft store.

Of course, it's early days in the execution of this upcoming operating system, and we'll most likely hear even more details in May at the Microsoft Build conference. Still, all these features sound like they'd benefit all of us, whether or not we're using a dual-screen Windows PC.