An operating system is only useful as it is customizable. After all — if you can’t make an OS look and act the way you want it to, then who cares if it’s objectively better (faster, more powerful) than any other OS? Good news, Windows 10 users: You can easily customize both the look and …

Some of you have been asking about the dark black-and-gray theme I’ve been sporting in my Windows 10 screenshots. If you’ve installed the latest Windows 10 Anniversary Update — which rolled out August 2 — then you can get this cool dark theme in native Windows apps right now. To do this, open the Settings menu and go to Personalization …

We were all excited to get the Start menu back in Windows 10, and we wasted no time in customizing it to the best of our abilities. But what about the poor, neglected taskbar, who never left us in the first place? Here’s how to make the taskbar look pretty and work for you. Add some shortcuts Enlarge Image Sarah …

Microsoft is totally trying to draw us all into its tablets-with-pens (aka Surface Pro 4) universe with Windows Ink…and it’s totally working on me, because Windows Ink integration is cool. I know, I know. The Windows Ink Workspace (a taskbar hub for dedicated pen-friendly apps like Sketchbook) wasn’t terribly exciting when we first took a look at it, and it …

Microsoft Edge got a decent update in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update — the browser now supports extensions (though only a handful are available at launch), tab-pinning, drag-and-drop, swipe navigation and click-to-play Flash video. But is Edge ready to take on browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox? Not exactly. Edge does have a few tricks up its sleeve — …

How many of us use travel — whether it’s vacation time or a business trip — as an excuse to slack on workouts? Yeah, that’s what I thought. I know, I know. Traveling is hard: you’re out of your comfort zone, you have access to a crappy hotel gym (at best) and you feel like you deserve a vacation from …

Now playing: Watch this: Cortana gets some new tricks in Windows 10 2:30 Enlarge Image Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET Windows’ latest operating system has just received its first major update in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, so-called because it dropped right around the OS’ one-year anniversary. The Anniversary Update is free for all Windows 10 users (Windows 7 and 8/8.1 users …

I hope you’re excited about the new features and functionality Cortana is getting in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, because Microsoft is making its digital assistant an integral part of the operating system. And by “integral,” of course I mean “mandatory,” because once the update hits on August 2, users will no longer be able to turn Cortana off. In …

Now playing: Watch this: Major Windows 10 update coming August 2 1:38 If you’re still on the fence about whether to upgrade to Windows 10 (and you’ve somehow managed to avoid Microsoft’s aggressive upgrade requests), the clock is ticking. Microsoft’s free Windows 10 upgrade offer officially expires today at 11:59 p.m. UTC-10 — that’s July 30 at 2:59 a.m. PT, …

Who doesn’t love emojis? These tiny, colorful Unicode pictographs are perfect for conveying everything from laughing so hard you’re crying (face it, LOL is meaningless nowadays) to…um…poop. Yeah. But while emojis are all over mobile devices, they’re a bit trickier to utilize if you’re using a PC. Luckily — thanks to Microsoft’s quest to create the most universal of universal …