8 takeaways from the Windows 10 Creators Update

NEW YORK—Microsoft is trying to foster a creative streak within the Windows community with its free update that starts April 11 — even if your definition of being creative boils down to broadcasting the games that you play.

“Our vision is to empower the creator in all of us,” says Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for the Windows and devices group, who refers to the Creators Update as a “pretty major release.”

I’ve been running the software on a Surface Pro tablet/PC hybrid and appreciate many of the improvements and touches that the update brings, though it doesn’t feel as major as Microsoft suggests. And not all of those enhancements fall under the creative bucket. Here are eight key highlights:

*Paint goes 3D. Microsoft’s Paint program dates back to the Reagan Administration. Paint now adds the ability to create and modify 3D objects. I’m challenged as an artist but I did noodle around with a 3D doodling tool. And if you’re more artistic than I am, you can upload your creation to the Remix3D.com site from within the app, and hopefully draw inspiration from others, or at least grab pre-made 3D objects for your own library. You can export your creations in either 2D or 3D formats. If you have access to a 3D printer, you’ll be able to print 3D objects as well.

*Marking up photos and maps. Here's another opportunity to flaunt your creative talents and have some fun via the Windows Ink tool inside the Photos app. You can draw on pictures and videos, as I did with the Surface pen. You can draw inside the Maps app, too.

*Improving the browser. Mehdi says that more than half the time folks spend in Windows 10 are spent in a browser. The bad news for Microsoft, however, is that most often that browser is Google’s Chrome, rather than Microsoft’s own Edge.

As part of the Creators Update, Microsoft says the Edge browser is now faster, more secure and more generous with battery life—Microsoft claims you’ll be able to stream a video up to an hour and half longer with Edge versus Chrome. Such improvements are important, of course, but not easily noticed.

What you will see is the ability to preview visual thumbnails of your open tabs by hovering over a given tab. And you can also set aside all those open tabs to reference later, bringing them back by selecting a “restore tabs” button. This could be useful, say, if you need to return to a work project. Minor quibble: I wish you could name the set of tabs you’ve set aside to look at later.

Among other new browser enhancements, you can personalize Edge with a variety of “extensions,” including a Pinterest Pin It Button, Amazon Assistant (surfacing deals), and a Translator” extension that lets you translate Web pages in more than 50 languages. As you might expect there’s also an extension for Microsoft Office, letting you view and edit files without having installed Office on your computer.

*Read an ebook. While you’re in the browser, you can read an eBook. For the first time, Microsoft has added an e-book store as part of the Windows Store. As with other readers, you can bookmark pages, summon a dictionary definition (through Cortana), and get other basic features. Microsoft isn’t sharing just how many books will be available in the Windows Store at launch.

*Security. Through a new Windows Defender Security Center, you can examine the overall security status of your system. By clicking inside on a “health report” option, I could see get an overview of the most recent scan of my system. Microsoft reported no issues related to battery life, storage or the most recent Windows Updates, but there was a recommendation to update a device driver. Unfortunately, Windows didn’t do a good job of letting me know which driver needed updating.

*Gaming. Microsoft is giving a lot of love to gamers. There’s now a dedicated games section in Windows settings. Microsoft has added a “game mode” (turned on by default) that is supposed to prioritize system resources when you’re playing a game, potentially useful if you’ve got a lot of apps running at the same time.

Also new is the ability to broadcast a game using the Beam streaming platform that the Xbox team acquired in August. You can start to stream a game by summoning a Game bar by simultaneously pressing the Windows and G keys on your keyboard. This Game bar also has shortcut buttons for taking a screenshot, recording your activity or landing on your Xbox page.

Microsoft is also unifying things so that if you buy a game on game on the Xbox console or through a Windows PC, you can play it on either system.

*Adjust a night light. Computer displays emit blue light, which can keep you awake at night. A new night light feature lets you alter the color temperature range on your PC to display warmer colors that are supposed to help you sleep. You can schedule the hours when the night light feature kicks in.

Speaking of bedtime, a parental control feature available on Windows PCs that lets you limit Junior's screen time playing games,  is now through the Creators Update available for Xbox One.

*Supporting mixed reality. Put this more in the coming soon category, but the Creators Update will support the first Windows Mixed Reality-enabled headsets when they arrive later this year from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP and Lenovo, at a starting price of $299. According to Mehdi, the headsets will contain built-in sensors to enable inside-out, six-degrees of freedom, allowing you to walk around without the need for external markers or sensors in the wall. It’s not entirely clear whether these will some scaled down consumer-y versions of HoloLens or something else, but suffice to say I'll be eager to give them a try.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter