Home windows 10’s tenth birthday is simply across the nook, and so is its finish of assist date. The OS launched on July 29, 2015, and though it confronted a rocky begin, it will definitely discovered its footing and went on to be put in on over a billion PCs inside a number of years. As we strategy a decade of Home windows 10, we thought it will be an fascinating thought to take a stroll down reminiscence lane and take a look at 10 options within the OS that simply by no means took off for one motive or the opposite. Please remember that the checklist beneath just isn’t in any specific order, so it isn’t numbered:

Cortana

Let’s begin with the obvious one: Cortana. This digital assistant – sharing its title with a well-liked AI character from the Halo collection – was rumored again in 2013, and though it first got here to Home windows Telephone 8.1 (R.I.P.) in 2014, Home windows 10 was the primary desktop working system to incorporate it as a function in 2015.

Though Microsoft publicized it closely as a private assistant with a persona to match towards cellular opponents like Siri, prospects simply weren’t a fan of the concept of speaking to an AI mannequin on their PCs at the moment. Coupled with the restricted capabilities of the assistant (particularly its deal with U.S. prospects whereas just about ignoring everybody else) and Microsoft’s frequent pivots in technique, curiosity in Cortana simply started to fizz out by 2019, resulting in its loss of life in 2023.

Groove

Microsoft launched Groove in Home windows 10 as a competitor to iTunes and Spotify, and a substitute for Xbox Music. On the floor, it did precisely what it mentioned on the tin, however that additionally turned its downfall since there was no differentiating issue. It was an excessive amount of of a trouble for individuals who had been well-entrenched of their music ecosystem emigrate their present libraries to an entire new service only for the heck of it, regardless of Microsoft doing common giveaways and big reductions. Ultimately, Groove Music sung its swansong on the finish of 2017, with prospects being migrated to Spotify.

Units

Now that is an fascinating one. In 2017, Microsoft revealed that Units had been coming to Home windows 10. This was meant to be a brand new interface for UWP apps (initially) permitting a number of situations of an app to be open in a single window, much like an online browser. The corporate started testing this UX in Insider builds, however might by no means get it good. Ultimately, it was silently killed off with out ever being launched. That mentioned, no less than a few of that imaginative and prescient survived with tabbed File Explorer in Home windows 11.

Home windows Timeline

Home windows Timeline was pitched as a revolutionary continuity function in Home windows 10 again in 2017. The thought behind it was that Home windows would keep an exercise historical past of every part you do in your PC, after which allow two further capabilities. One was to “return in time” to a earlier exercise, and the opposite concerned syncing your exercise to a different machine so you may choose up from the place you left off, no matter your {hardware}. Nevertheless, this function by no means fairly hit its desired degree of recognition and Microsoft finally disabled its headlining synchronization capabilities. Though Timeline continues to be part of Home windows 10 (launch it via the Win + Tab combo), it is a scaled down model that solely maintains native historical past.

Dwell Tiles in Begin menu

Dwell Tiles have at all times had a controversial historical past, some adore it whereas others completely hate it. You will need to be aware that Dwell Tiles is not an idea that was launched in Home windows 10; actually, they had been first launched in Home windows Telephone 7, earlier than making their solution to Home windows Telephone 8, Home windows Telephone 8.1, Home windows 8, Home windows 8.1, and Home windows 10.

Nevertheless, what we’ll be specializing in is the implementation of Dwell Tiles within the Begin menu of Home windows 10, which mainly mixed the basic Begin menu with this UX to appease each classes of consumers. You’d assume that Microsoft would achieve success in making each teams comfortable, however the problem was that Dwell Tiles weren’t actively supported by builders and most simply ignored it. In fact, followers of the interface nonetheless loved them, but it surely’s clear that they weren’t within the majority since Microsoft utterly did away with Dwell Tiles in Home windows 11.

Paint 3D

Earlier than Microsoft went all in on AI, its fascination was 3D and Blended Actuality points in Home windows. To that finish, it launched Paint 3D in Home windows 10, hoping to fascinate everybody with 3D capabilities. Nevertheless, identical to we’ve within the present case with Copilot, there was a lukewarm reception to the concept. We do not actually have statistics relating to how many individuals really used it, however the quantity is probably going fairly low, which is why Microsoft ended up retiring the Home windows app simply final yr.

Home windows 10 in S mode

That is simply one thing that randomly got here to my thoughts final week and likewise served because the baseline for why I wished to jot down this text. Home windows 10 in S mode was introduced at an training occasion again in 2017 as “Home windows 10 S”, but it surely later acquired Enterprise and Professional SKUs too. This can be a locked down however performance-focused model of Home windows 10 the place you’ll be able to solely obtain software program from the Microsoft Retailer and might solely leverage Edge with Bing as a search engine.

Home windows 10 S was meant to be a competitor to Google’s ChromeOS and Microsoft marketed it fairly closely for a very long time, but it surely looks like it pale into the background over time. This is perhaps due to low curiosity resulting from complicated SKUs, a steep improve worth to change out of S mode, and simply too many restrictions. At that time, most organizations would slightly simply use Intune to handle their tenant gadgets. Home windows in S mode continues to be alive (there’s a Home windows 11 model too), however nobody talks about it anymore; the final article we wrote about this was again in 2019.

Legacy Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge just isn’t the preferred browser on the market, but it surely does have its fanbase. Nevertheless, Edge in its present state is far completely different than what was provided via Home windows 10, no less than from an infrastructure perspective. Edge initially launched with Microsoft’s in-house EdgeHTML rendering engine, however in 2018, Redmond determined to ditch its personal implementations in favor of Google’s Chromium initiative. This was very controversial firstly as there have been professionals and cons to each approaches, but it surely did emphasize that Microsoft had not been in a position to seize the Home windows 10 consumer base regardless of its greatest efforts.

The Chromium-based browser formally launched in 2020, and Microsoft has caught with it since then, which suggests that the corporate made the suitable choice.

Continuum

Continuum was on the heart of Microsoft’s advertising push for Home windows 10, when the corporate nonetheless had a cellular OS. For these of you who’re new to Redmond’s world, this was Microsoft’s initiative to “convert” a Home windows telephone right into a desktop PC via a bodily dock. The corporate launched the Lumia 950/950 XL in India with a free Continuum dock and even had HP take part on the enjoyable. However this by no means fairly turned mainstream because of the low market share of Home windows telephones usually, and the service died a quiet loss of life together with Microsoft’s cellular efforts.

Univeral Home windows Platform (UWP)

In 2014, previous to the launch of Home windows 10, Microsoft had this grand imaginative and prescient of enabling builders to construct an app as soon as solely, and have it run throughout completely different platforms together with Home windows, Home windows telephone, and Xbox. The corporate made some tangible headway on this space when it introduced Home windows 10 and the concept of getting a single app retailer for all its merchandise, powered by the Common Home windows Platform (UWP).

Microsoft did handle to onboard some builders and even constructed instruments emigrate apps constructed for different working methods on to Home windows, but it surely didn’t persuade the overwhelming majority of builders. Curiosity within the know-how started to wane additional alongside the years as builders realized that the flexibility to construct one app for a number of merchandise and type elements wasn’t as simple as Microsoft had made it appear. The tech agency itself revealed steering in 2021 about how you can migrate from UWP to the Home windows App SDK. Proper now, curiosity in UWP is at an all-time low, and as we found yesterday, even WhatsApp is ditching UWP in favor of a Progressive Internet App (PWA).

That is the primary story in our new “10 Years of Home windows 10” assortment, in celebration of the working system’s tenth anniversary, falling on July 29, 2025. Over the subsequent few days and weeks, you’ll discover extra content material on this subject in our devoted part obtainable right here.