Microsoft BUILD Event Day1 - Recap - Lots of awesome stuff!

GoodBytes · April 30, 2015

Due to the great amount of images and very long post from my coverage of Microsoft BUILD event day 1, I decided to do a recap post, to keep everyone's Internets from exploding, after complaints.

So, what happened at Day 1 of Microsoft BUILD event?

You can watch the entire Key note of day 1 here, on Microsoft Channel 9 website: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2015/KEY01

You can also download it there as well. Please note that if you pick High Quality, it is 3.7GB, and the Medium quality one is 949MB, for those with data caps.

Here are the key points that was presented of the event:

HoloLens is a stand alone system. No room sensor needed. No external computer. No wires. No phone.
Windows 10 phone will have a desktop once docked!
Windows 10 tablet (those are devices that have a small screen, and won't have a desktop), will get a desktop once docked or connected to a larger display. No log-off needed.
Spartan web browser is now called Microsoft Edge
Spartan / Microsoft Edge will support Web extensions. Little changes needed to make it work with the new web browser, making it really attractive to Firefox and Chrome add-on devs.
Cortana supports deep app search and interact with apps.
You can import your iOS or Android apps to Visual Studio, and have it compiled as a Windows 10 app with little modification. This will make porting of apps to Windows platform MUCH easier.
Developers can bring existing desktop apps into the Windows Store (the crowed was very ecxited on this and cheered)
Desktop apps purchase through the App Store will run virtualized. This means that the desktop app runs isolated from the system for security.
Windows 10 Build 10074 was showed. Lots of cool stuff.
Windows 10 available to upgrade for free within the first year of purchase. (confirms that nothing has changed)
Windows 10 App store will support Business payment methods like purchase orders
Windows 10 App store for businesses and schools (joined domain computers can have the App store customize to highlight apps that they want easy download by the users. For example apps they use, or recommend/trust)
Windows 10 - Carrier billing, not only for Windows Phones but for all Windows devices.
Office 2016 for Windows, Online version, Android and iOS supports add-ons (add-ons will be cross platform)
Visual Studio Code - Free developer IDE for Mac and Linux.
.NET Core Open source (but that we knew this already)
Azure is big. Over 90,000 subscribers

Here are some Microsoft videos that they released.

The first one is on the Windows Phone 10 device that can be docked in some fashion or connected to an external display, and presents a desktop environment, where Windows 10 Universal Apps runs in window mode, allowing you to be more productive. Mouse and keyboard support is provided as well, of course. And you have the full touch version of Office that comes with the device. So you can use PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and even Outlook. You can't run desktop programs (the same ones as your well normal PC, due to the CPU architecture). It must be noted that nor all Windows 10 Phones will have support for this, you need the CPU/GPU power to run it. So it will probably be on the med-hi to high range phones (personal guess).

Here are more videos that Microsoft published:

Some pictures (lots removed), and made smaller:

Source of images and coverage: http://live.theverge.com/microsoft-build-2015-live-blog/

Additional news:

-> Windows 10 is no longer in Technical Preview, it switch to Insider Preview. The latest build of Windows 10 (10074) can be downloaded here if you want the ISO (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-iso-update-1504), and if you already have Windows 10 installed, it should appear for both Fast and Slow ring users in Windows Update.