Windows 10 Anniversary Update: Is it all it’s cracked up to be?

The Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been rolling out to computers around the world for a little bit now, and while Windows 10 has gotten much better over the last year, this update is boasted as making it even better with even more features. Is that true?

Below you will find out about some of the new things in the Anniversary Update, as well as things that are breaking people’s machines and some words of warning.

New Features in the Anniversary Update

• Sticky Notes – these are also synced between your devices, which honestly could be pretty handy
• New Emoji Keyboard – this could save a little bit of time instead of having to search for them in the WikiEmoji.com site
• Dark mode theme – this wasn’t part of Windows before?
• Lock screen music controls – this could be kind of handy if you play a lot of music and lock the screen (can see it being even more handy for parents with teens who love to blast their music… LOL)
• Support for Android Phones via the Cortana Android app
• Updates to Microsoft Edge to support Browser Extensions similar to Google Chrome and Firefox, and at launch many of the popular extensions, like Adblock Plus will be available
• The controversial Password-Sharing “feature” is now gone Yaaa!
• Cortana is getting harder to turn-off, and actually has to be done either through manual registry* modifications, or through group policy settings
• Now has a Linux Command Line
• More changes to the Start Menu (a little nervous about this, but we’ll see)
• For a more in-depth look at all the changes in the Anniversary update, check out the “What’s New in Windows 10’s Annivery Update” article by How-to Geek

* You can mess up a lot of things manually editing your registry – even make your system unusable. Always make sure to back-up the registry first. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this yourself, hire a trained professional.

What’s broken in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update

Sometimes, you have to wonder if Microsoft even tests these updates before just rolling them out…

• Webcams crash after the Update, and require a manual registry edit to fix*. This crash was due to Microsoft “blacklisting” two video compression formats that many popular webcams use
• Plug-in your Amazon Kindle, and you get the Blue Screen of Death
• Some people are reporting that their computers “freeze” when they go to log-in… but that only happens if you have a solid-state drive, and have your apps/data on a different drive.
• Other users have reported that after the update, their machines won’t boot and only gives a blank screen

So, over all… should you update? Honestly, it’s up to you… and our word of advice — BACK UP EVERYTHING!