• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, June 1, 2015

Microsoft this morning revealed that Windows 10 will be released on July 29 and it is encouraging Windows 7 and 8.1 users to reserve the free upgrade with a pop-up notification that launches a slideshow touting features such as quicker start-up, better security, a new browser, a “one-stop Windows Store” and “the world’s first truly personal digital assistant” named Cortana.

A longer, 7:20 YouTube video featuring Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s corporate VP, operating systems group, begins with his reassurance that the new OS “feels really familiar. There’s the desktop and the taskbar and, of course, the Start menu is back.” After mentioning the retrogressions, Belfiore walks viewers through all of the innovations.

Windows 8 and its updates were so roundly criticized, you may recall, that it skipped a version 9 — some said just to put as much distance between it and 8 as possible. “Windows 8 has ‘perhaps destroyed the most successful software franchise of all time,’” reads the hed on a BGR story by Brad Reed In February 2014.

Microsoft, of course, feels otherwise.

“The new operating system is not only a big deal for Microsoft, but the entire PC industry whose momentum has long since been snatched by mobile,” writes Edward C. Baig for USA Today. “The software is coming to 190 countries. Windows is currently used by 1.5 billion people globally.”

“The success or failure of Windows 10 could come down to a single button,” writes David Goldman for CNN Money in a piece that tracks the evolution of the Start button over its iterations. He concludes that although the new menu “is a major improvement over Windows 8 … it doesn't feel quite polished,” citing a few things that seem confusing. “Still, Microsoft should be lauded for listening to customer feedback and rapidly making changes.”

But Microsoft has more in mind than basic customer relations management. “The most important aspect of Windows 10,” writes Nick Statt for Cnet, “is the company's philosophy powering it: one Windows to rule them all.”

It still has 90% of the world PC market, Statt points out, and with the new OS it “is making a big gamble that its Windows software can power a web of devices, attracting customers to own computers, tablets and smartphones all powered by one company's software. It's a gamble that's worked for Apple, whose iPhones, iPads and Macs are well regarded for working well with one another.”

“The July 29 timing is very aggressive, especially when you consider that the RTM (the final version that will be sent to OEMs) would need to be distributed in the next few weeks,” points out Sebastian Anthony on Ars Technica UK. “As we reported last week, it should still be a stable, production-ready build of Windows 10 — but it could lack some features that will be patched in later, via Microsoft's new rolling ‘Windows as a service’ updates.”

ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, in fact, wrote in January that “the most important announcement at Microsoft's Windows 10 demo in Redmond the other day … was these four words: Windows as a Service.” It is, he explains, the idea “that Windows will transition away from being a monolithic product that sees periodic major releases to a product that's continually being updated and tweaked in the background” like Google's Chrome or Gmail.

Windows 10 will also have new feature called Continuum, reports Rhiannon Williams for the Telegraph. “People using Windows 10 with a mouse and keyboard will see the new system in a classic desktop mode, but switching to a tablet or smartphone will see it transform into touchscreen mode.” 

And the new Microsoft Edge browser will allow users to annotate pages or save them to read later.

The upgrade is free for a year for those who are eligible. For those who are not, the release date for the DVDs of Windows 10 and Windows 10 Professional is apparently Aug. 31, thanks to a slip by online retailer Newegg, writes Hannah Francis in the Sydney Morning Herald, which published the information on its website. Windows 10 is listed $109.99; Windows 10 Professional at $149.99. 

“Microsoft has not confirmed or denied the published release date and pricing, telling PC World it would be available ‘this summer.’” Francis reports.