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In a move that raised a few eyebrows yesterday at the WinHEC event in Shezhen, China, Microsoft announced that they will be giving Windows 10 for free to all users, including those who are running illegal versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.  Piracy has always been a challenge for Microsoft and has known no borders although it is worse in parts of the world over others.  Interestingly, this announcement was made in China where it is estimated that upwards of 70% of all Windows installs are illegal.  With this move, Microsoft is effectively eliminating the desire or need to get Windows illegally which will cut down on support and spyware issues.

The WinHEC event in China has been a big event with a lot of news about the release of Windows 10 this summer and, for the first time, the hardware requirements for Windows 10 for PC, Tablets and Windows 10 for Phones.  The minimum specifications do have some interesting tidbits in the information but equally not a huge change from Windows Phone 8.1.  Perhaps the biggest change is the screen sizes that Windows 10 for Phones will run on as well as the minimum memory requirements based on the screen sizes of those devices.

The Facebook Messenger app for Windows Phone has received an update that brings significant performance improvements along with the ability to message people using their mobile numbers from within the app.  The update, version 9.1.0.0 for those keeping score at home, is the latest evolution in the Messenger app where Facebook wants to be your one-stop shop for messaging friends on the social network as well as those not on it.  The browser war may be over but the messenger war rages on between Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype and others.

Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone – Free – Download Now

I am writing this post, at least the beginning of it, from my Toshiba Encore 2 Windows tablet cruising at 32,000 on my way to Orlando. The first fifteen minutes of this flight where a challenge for no other reason than the inability for Modern Internet Explorer being able to sort out the inflight WiFi service.  The browser kept timing out and failing as I watched others around me quickly and easily get online with their various devices.  That was my indicator that the inflight WiFi was working just fine.  Frustrated, I dropped into Internet Explorer on the desktop.  I was online in 3 minutes.

This experience is all to common when it comes to using Modern apps in Windows 8.1.  They often do not play nice or are so out of date from a feature perspective that they border on being useless.  Modern IE is not alone in this quandary and if Microsoft wants Windows 10 to be successful, the Modern app experience has to improve.

Why would I suggest such a thing when the desktop and Start menu dominate the Windows 10 PC experience? Because it is these modern apps that will be the universal apps across all your devices. And while I have suggested that universal apps alone will not make Windows 10 a success, they will certainly be a part of it.  That means Microsoft themselves and the developer community must – absolutely must – improve not only the performance of Modern apps but the features to bring them inline with the desktop or other platform counterparts.