As stated in my last article, on September 30th the next Windows Operating System was unveiled – Windows 10. Why was 9 skipped (Windows 8.1 is the latest released so far) has been speculated but bottom line, who cares. Windows 10 is the name of the next one. It is set to be officially released to the general public at some point next year – my educated guess would be fall next year.

So that everyone gets the idea of why the time lapse between the unveiling and the release to the general public, these are the stages the operating system evolution go through:

1. Technical preview – The early stage of beta testing. Unfinished and rough.

2. Beta testing – The stage where the operating system is tested and feedback provided to the developers in order to handle bugs and improve features.

3. Release candidate – A likely-to-be final-version result of the beta testing.

4. Release to manufacturing – when it’s ready for mass distribution to end users.

5. General availability – self-explanatory.

A technical preview of Windows 10 was released yesterday, the day after the unveiling, aimed at experts who want to get a flavor of what’s it going to be like and who want to provide feedback to Microsoft to help shape features the final version will have.

Like many other experts,  yesterday morning I was constantly refreshing the website page that was supposed to contain the Technical Preview download link, scheduled for a 9 AM PDT release. Once the link in the page went live, I downloaded it, installed it, and took a look.

I don’t intend to post a detailed review at this point, mostly because at this stage there might be a considerable difference between what has been released and the final version.  But I will say this as a first impression: Like it less than Windows 7, more than Windows 8. But it definitely has potential. More detailed reviews on Windows 10 as it develops will follow over the next few months.