I’d like to share my personal Windows 10 experience. It’s been almost a year since I began using Windows 10 on my first device. I was skeptical at first. I had used Windows 7 for years without any real issues. I had tried Windows 8 and found that it had its enjoyable moments on the right device, but it was intimidating at times. The Windows Insider program, which gathered feedback from customers about their Windows experiences, gave Microsoft the insight to develop Windows 10 in alignment with customers’ wants. The result is Windows 10 – the Windows you know, only better.

I now have 3 devices running Windows 10: a Microsoft Surface Pro 4, a Dell Latitude 7350 2-in-1 laptop, and a Dell OptiPlex desktop. What I’ve found is that this really is the best version of Windows yet. That may sound bold until you consider that Windows 7 was launched about 6 and half years ago, and a lot has changed since then. For one thing, the “cloud” has become mainstream. Netflix, Hulu, OneDrive and iCloud have become household names because of the cloud – and that has a lot to do with Windows 10.

Unlike its predecessors, Windows 10 is a cloud-enabled operating system, and was built with future needs in mind. Some say it’s the last “packaged” version of Windows to ship, since Microsoft has begun describing it as “Windows as a service.”  Time will tell what that ultimately means, but what we do know is that Windows 10 is designed to take full advantage of the cloud’s potential.

For example, you can login to Windows 10 both with your consumer Microsoft account and the account provided to your organization, whether a company, a nonprofit, or an educational organization. This new feature leverages Microsoft’s continued investment in Azure Active Directory (or Azure AD, for short). It’s the same platform that manages all identities for Office 365.

Windows 7 enthusiasts will be happy to find that the Start Menu is back, but with a modern twist. It includes smaller, more configurable live tiles, a feature originally introduced in Windows 8, that allow you to stream live updates about things you care about, such as weather, calendar, stocks, or news.

Windows 10 also claims to be the most secure version of Windows yet, incorporating a huge, underlying security architecture addition known as virtualization-based security (VBS). In a nutshell, VBS makes it very difficult for attackers to mess with core components of the operating system. VBS isn’t just an improved defense; it represents an architectural change that vastly reduces the attack surface area and which attempts to eliminate the attack vectors themselves. Of course, all hacking and malware won’t magically go away, but VBS creates a secure environment where key parts of the operating system are less likely to be modified, and critical data is less likely to be stolen.