Microsoft told us a little bit about its next version of Windows back in September, but a new leak seems to give us a closer look at a few features that haven't been officially revealed just yet.
Screenshots published by blog WinBeta and The Verge's Tom Warren, who has a solid track record when it comes to Windows news, reportedly show an early build of Windows 10 called "9901."
Microsoft is calling its next big software update Windows 10 since it supposedly represents such a major overhaul that it made sense to skip "Windows 9" entirely in the Windows naming convention.
Based on what we've seen so far regarding Windows 10, it seems like Microsoft is making a big effort to fix many of the complaints surrounding Windows 8 — especially when it comes to the desktop experience.
With Windows 10, Microsoft is adding a new Start menu that combines the classic menu from previous versions of Windows with the tiled "Modern UI" introduced with Windows 8.
Microsoft showed us this in September, and it appears again in the batch of recently leaked screenshots.
The screenshots also includes a polished version of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri competitor, which gives us a pretty clear idea of how it would look in Windows 10.
Microsoft hasn't confirmed that Cortana is coming to the desktop version of Windows, but we've seen several leaks that hint otherwise in recent weeks. A video that leaked out earlier this month also reportedly showed Cortana running in Windows 10, but it didn't look as detailed and refined as what we're seeing in this new leak.
We're also getting a clearer idea of how Microsoft will redesign some of its native apps. It looks like Microsoft is ditching the tiled interface in favor of a new layout that lets you see your activity feed, any friends that are online, achievements, and more.
WinBeta has compiled all of these screenshots into a video, which you can view below. We're expecting to learn more about Windows 10 at a press event on Jan. 21, where Microsoft is likely to tell us more about the consumer side of its new update.
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