Get with the program: six years on, Microsoft ready to unveil Windows 10 successor

Microsoft this week will announce a successor to the Windows 10 operating system that for six years has driven desktops, laptops and tablets.

Is this image a hint that Microsoft's next Windows is Window 11. Some say the light caste through the Window in this image is a give-away.

Microsoft this week will announce a successor to the Windows 10 operating system that for six years has driven desktops, laptops and tablets.

When Microsoft announced Windows 10 in 2016, it said it would be the last Windows version it produced, with regular incremental updates offering new features and security fixes, rather than another Windows.

The new Windows represents a departure from this policy. We don’t know if users will pay afresh for Windows, what it will cost, or what the transition from Windows 10 will be.

Microsoft had not announced the name of the new Windows, but the recent leak of an .ISO file has all but confirmed it will be Windows 11.

Microsoft then sought to get a copyright takedown of the leak. Microsoft earlier had hinted at Windows 11 with a shadow in the shape of ‘‘11’’ seen through a paned window on a Microsoft-supplied image.

There’s a belief the new Windows will be based on ‘‘Windows Sun Valley’’, the internal Microsoft name for updates base don appearance changes that were previously touted for Windows 10. There’s also the belief it will adopt some features of the discontinued Windows 10X.

If you go by the contents of the leaked .ISO, the new Windows will have a new start menu, better touch controls, new animations, more ways of visually handling multitasking when you split the screen, new sounds including a new start-up sound, rounded corners on windows, more attractive icons, an expansion of available widgets, and a dark mode.

That’s good cosmetic stuff. After six years there is certainly a need for a Windows overhaul. The question is how deep will Microsoft’s surgery go. From a marketing perspective, you’d expect design changes and for Microsoft to bake in its Teams, Edge and Office systems as indispensable parts of its operating system.

However, Windows deserves a more thorough overhaul. Those who use Windows computers regularly may observe how machines slow down as you load more software, with more background processes running and memory management problems.

Third-party applications installed in Windows in the traditional way can drag in third party coding libraries that add to bloatware, with related files stored all over the place. It‘s easy to lose track of where program information is installed and artefacts can remain on disk after you’ve removed an application. The same applies to driver files.

Windows’ file system is a rabbit warren with functionality duplication all over the place. There‘s the old fashioned Control Panel side-by-side with the newer Settings app, for example.

After time, you might run Microsoft’s ‘refresh’ option which removes programs and lets you start again with a fresh Windows system. But running this is tedious and time-consuming.

I spend more time tinkering with my Windows systems loading utilities to keep the computer running smoothly when compared to a Mac.

In fairness to Microsoft, Mac computers don’t offer the flexibility of a Windows system, but do you want to spend your time doing system repairs or doing your work?

That’s why I’d like to see a deep overhaul of Windows, with better application and memory management, with better security and more in-built resistance to malware and ransomware.

We’ll see the totality of what Microsoft offers when it delivers its keynote in the early hours of Friday. Support for Windows 10 ends in October, 2025.