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Nine years old and still the most-used OS on Earth
Windows XP, released in 2001, was still the most common desktop operating system in 2010, running about half of the world's desktop web traffic. Its green Start button and rolling-hills wallpaper...
The Windows people actually liked, one year old
Windows 7 shipped in October 2009 and by the end of 2010 ran roughly a quarter of the world's desktop web traffic, while Windows XP still ran about half. Its Aero glass window borders, the new...
Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive and a DVD burner
The mainstream laptop of 2010, from Dell, HP, Toshiba or Acer, ran Windows 7 Home Premium on an Intel Core 2 Duo or the new Core i3, with 3 or 4 GB of RAM, a 250 to 500 GB spinning hard drive, a...
The world's biggest webmail, redesigned
Hotmail, by then branded Windows Live Hotmail, had hundreds of millions of accounts in 2010, many of them the first email address people ever created. A mid-2010 update added Sweep, Office Web Apps...
Nudges, winks and display names full of lyrics
Still called MSN by almost everyone, Windows Live Messenger was the dominant instant messenger outside the United States in 2010, with hundreds of millions of users. Its 2011 version, released in...
Samsung Focus, HTC HD7 and the Metro tiles
Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7 in Europe on 21 October 2010 and in the US on 8 November, with phones such as the Samsung Focus, HTC HD7 and LG Quantum. The Metro interface of flat live tiles...
The one everyone skipped
Windows Vista, released to consumers in 2007, was widely disliked for its User Account Control prompts, driver problems and heavy hardware needs. By 2010 it was already being replaced by Windows 7 on...
Metro live tiles and a fresh start for Microsoft
Windows Phone 7 replaced the stylus-era Windows Mobile with a flat, typographic interface of live tiles and hubs, launching in October and November 2010. Reviewers admired the design and noted the...
Tiny, cheap Atom laptops at their peak, then killed by the iPad
Netbooks, the 10-inch, $300 laptops with Intel Atom chips that had exploded in 2008 and 2009, peaked in 2010. They ran Windows 7 Starter or XP slowly, had cramped keyboards and 1024-by-600 screens,...
The default browser of Windows 7 and roughly a third of the web
Internet Explorer 8, bundled with Windows 7, was the single most-used browser version of 2010. It had tabs, a separate search box beside the address bar, Accelerators, InPrivate browsing and a...
Hardware acceleration and HTML5, in a minimal new frame
Released on 15 September 2010, the IE9 beta was Microsoft's answer to Chrome: a stripped-back interface with tabs beside the address bar, GPU-accelerated rendering, and real HTML5 and CSS3 support....
Reader mode and extensions, in brushed aluminium
Safari 5, released on 7 June 2010 for Mac and Windows, added Reader (a clean article view), extensions, Bing as a search option and a faster Nitro JavaScript engine. On the Mac it was the default, on...
The $29 upgrade with no new features, and the Mac App Store on the way
Snow Leopard, released in August 2009 for $29, was the Mac OS of 2010: brushed-metal was gone, the Dock was a 3D shelf, Exposé and Spaces managed windows, and Safari 5 arrived in June. In October...
The Ribbon everywhere, and Office Web Apps in the browser
Office 2010, released to consumers on 15 June 2010, put the Ribbon interface in every application, added the Backstage file view, and launched free Office Web Apps that ran Word, Excel and PowerPoint...
Chat inside your inbox
Google Talk, and the Gmail Chat box built into the Gmail sidebar, let people message and video chat without installing anything. In 2010 it was quietly replacing AIM for many, and Google Voice calls...
A 12-megapixel camera and the last hope for Symbian
The Nokia N8, released in October 2010, had the best camera on any phone, a 12-megapixel sensor with a Carl Zeiss lens and HDMI output. It ran Symbian^3, which reviewers found dated next to iOS and...
The social phone that lasted 48 days
Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two, aimed at teenagers who lived on Facebook and Twitter, went on sale in May 2010 on Verizon and were discontinued on 30 June, after reportedly selling only a few...
A terabyte for under $100, or 80 GB of flash for twice that
In 2010 a 1 TB desktop hard drive cost under $100, but solid-state drives were still exotic: an 80 to 128 GB SSD cost $200 to $300. Enthusiasts installed them as boot drives to cut Windows 7 startup...
Microsoft's IE9 beta brought hardware-accelerated graphics, HTML5 support and a minimal Chrome-like interface, but would not run on Windows XP.
Verified Supported Editorial Labels show how well each record is documented; open any result for its sources.
Microsoft's rebuilt mobile OS with its Metro live-tile interface reached Europe and Asia on 21 October and the United States on 8 November.
