At the Windows 10 consumer preview event yesterday (the full presentation can be seen here), Microsoft’s Operating System Group chief Terry Myerson announced that people running Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 on their devices will receive the upgrade to Windows 10 at no cost. The free upgrade will be available for one year from when the new OS is commercially released, likely in the fall of this year.

Windows 10 could be the last OS you ever need, or at least that’s the way it sounds. Myerson wrote in a blog post today that the Windows 10 will last as long as the device lasts, constantly evolving.

“Once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost,” wrote Myerson, adding,  “With Windows 10, the experience will evolve and get even better over time. We’ll deliver new features when they’re ready, not waiting for the next major release. We think of Windows as a Service – in fact, one could reasonably think of Windows in the next couple of years as one of the largest Internet services on the planet.”

The OS, dubbed as the new era of personal computing, will put an end to the annoyance of having to deal with different versions of Windows. From now on, there will be only one. An OS that works across all your devices, from PC, phone, tablet, Xbox, with only slight differences to each, and all sharing one app store.

This unification of desktop and mobile software, something Apple also has in mind, will not only be a great incentive to developers working on PCs, but be a delight for consumers wanting to play Xbox games on their PC, or using various universal apps on Xbox and other devices. When content is saved on one device to OneDrive, it will then become accessible on all your other devices.

Cortana plays a role in Windows 10

Another of the highlights at the event was a little chat with Microsoft’s new personal digital assistant Cortana and Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore. While some critics are dubious about just how much use a personal assistant can be, Belfiore talking with his computer did at least receive the information that the weather will be temperate tomorrow, and so he didn’t need a jacket. He might have also looked out of the window the following day. Nonetheless, talking with computers is less a thing of science fiction these days, and it will be interesting to see how Cortana develops.

On the giant screen in Redmond, Spartan, Microsoft’s replacement for the beleaguered Internet Explorer, was also given a test run. Here Cortana plays a role again giving the user relevant information to enquiries, while one of the stand-out features of the browser is its annotation feature which allows users to scribble, check, leave notes on webpages and then save and share them to other devices, and with friends. Although perhaps the biggest head-turner at the event in terms of innovations was HoloLens, an augmented reality headset, we which wrote about in detail earlier today.

All in all, and it seems to be an opinion pervasive throughout much of the tech milieu today, is that Microsoft is moving in the right direction, making friends, finally getting things right again. SEO Satya Nadella speaking at the event put it simply, “We want to move from people needing Windows to choosing Windows, to loving Windows.”

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