Short Takes Weekly: What went on in the world of Microsoft for the week of July 20-24, 2015

This week in the news:  We're your first source for Windows 10 how-to's; here's a preview of the upcoming Messaging app for Windows 10; all your Office 2016 for Mac questions get answered; we've got the rundown on which hardware manufacturers will be offering new hardware with Windows 10 pre-installed; we note the loss of App Sync in Windows 10; welcome Office 365 to IFTTT and see what Microsoft's latest quarterly results mean about the direction Satya Nadella has pointed the company; we analyze the way the new operating system will change how you think about using and maintaining your computer; Cortana becomes culturally aware.

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The SuperSite Windows 10 How To Collection — Upgrading your system to Windows 10 is only the beginning; working within Windows 10 without a whole lot of troubleshooting is the end goal. Consider this slideshow the equivalent of a visual cheat sheet, with all of our most hands-on how-to articles in one place.

How To: Give Titles to Windows 10 Start Screen Tile Groups for Better Organization — The new Start Screen allows you to group tiles in sections. And, once you get the sections just right, you can give each section a title. Here's how to do that.

How to: Create an email account in the Windows 10 Mail App — This process will work for adding multiple email accounts to the Mail and Calendar apps. Here's what to do.

How To: Pinning Websites to the Windows 10 Start Screen — You can customize the Start Screen to host links to your favorite web sites so they are easily accessible directly from Start.

How To: Change How Windows 10 File Explorer Opens — File Explorer in Windows 10 opens to Quick Access each time by default. But, what if you don't want File Explorer to do that? What if you want it to open to another location? Here's how to change it.

How To: Use Quick Access in Windows 10's File Explorer — Quick Access gives you an area in File Explorer to better organize your PC life, but also help you locate recently accessed files and folders. Quick Access is also customizable. Here's how to tweak it.

How To: Add the Home Button Back to Microsoft Edge — The Home button isn't turned on by default in Microsoft Edge – it's an option that is buried under a couple levels of settings. If you think a web browser is simply naked without a Home button, here's how to enable it.

Remote Desktop on Windows 10 and Server 2016 now support remote pen input — Properties of the pen that are available in the remote session if supported by the pen include pressure sensitivity, pen position (inverted, angle) and use of the pen's button(s).

Windows 10 Upgrades or New Hardware: The Fine Print — What's the 411 from your favorite hardware manufacturers about both the upgrade and availability of new hardware with Windows 10 pre-installed? Here's what we know and what you can expect.

No Start Menu and App Sync for Windows 10 — In Windows 8/8.1, users could sync the layout of their Start Screen between devices that used the same Microsoft Account, and new apps also appeared on all Start Screens if the user placed a tile for that application. Both those abilities are going away.

Office 365 joins IFTTT to automate routine tasks — The Office 365 team has created 30 published "recipes" on the Web service so users can automate several of their tasks.

Windows Media Center not Quite Dead Yet — Even though Windows Media Center will not make the jump to Windows 10, that doesn't mean that it's a completely dead product. We don't yet know what Microsoft is planning as a replacement for Windows 10, but a recent alignment with the Xbox One might be the first clue.

How to keep Internet Explorer 11 from crashing so many times every day — Q. My Internet Explorer 11 crashes many times a day.  I want to continue using IE 11. I’ve not found another Web browser to my liking. How can I stop the crashing?

How To: Use Windows 10's Screen Recording Utility — For those that want to do image and video capture on-the-cheap, Microsoft includes a screen recording utility in Windows 10's new Xbox app. Here's how to use it.

How To: Secure Logon for a Windows 10 Tablet without a Keyboard — For tablets without keyboards, the following command sequence will work just like a Ctrl + Alt + Del procedure …

8 Days to Windows 10 -- 5 ways the new OS will change the base of our computing experience — Microsoft’s approach to Windows 10 is forcing us to change our mindset about the traditional Microsoft operating system in many ways.

Surface 3 with LTE arrives on AT&T this Friday — AT&T will carry the Surface 3 LTE, and the tablets will cost more than their Surface 3 counterparts.

Cortana markets will be added slowly so that the experience is right for each country — Rolling Cortana out to other countries and cultures is not just a flip of a switch. 

Nine Days to Windows 10 — As Microsoft moves closer toward the big launch, they've ramped up the PR blitz. Do these ad spots actually work in conveying all the reasons to embrace Windows 10, or will TV viewers be distracted by the cute kid faces and vague promises of a changing world?

How To: Quickly Open Microsoft Edge Pages in Internet Explorer in Windows 10 — If a page doesn’t look quite right in Microsoft Edge, you can open the same page with Internet Explorer just by clicking or tapping the More actions icon in Edge (the ellipses at the top right) and then select Open with Internet Explorer.Ability to Install

Windows 10 Apps to SD Cards Will Come Later — Windows 10 will come with a bevy of new features and a polished UI, but will also come with compromise. What will release on July 29 is really just phase one and a base framework. As such, some features won't be ready yet.

Microsoft Band Tip: Quicker Access to Firmware Updates — Microsoft seems to stage firmware availability differently for the Desktop Sync app and the Microsoft Health app. The Desktop Sync app finds the updates almost immediately upon release.