Dubbed the Windows 10 Creators Update, it should be around in early 2017, and will let mobile devices scan an object on all sides so it can rotate 360 degrees in a photograph. It allows for three dimensional graphics in Microsoft's "popular" PowerPoint presentation software, and a new "Paint 3D" application allows edits in 3D simulations.

Vole is hoping to make its PCs literally stand out from the rest and provide Apple with something to copy and claim it invented.

A desktop computer, the Surface Studio, has a touch screen monitor that can lie flat and be drawn on with a stylus. Microsoft also said it would introduce a new Surface Book laptop with a  battery life that is 30 percent longer at 16 hours.

It will not be cheap though. At $2,999 and up, the Surface Studio will be "out of reach for the vast majority of consumers" but then it does not really have to be available to the great unwashed. However, analysts say that  the upgrade puts Microsoft at the forefront of mass-market 3D technology, with the potential to eventually please average users and intensive gamers alike.

Microsoft's update targets gamers in particular, who are keen on using new virtual reality headsets and have been turned on to augmented reality games. Business partners HP, Lenovo, Dell and others will introduce virtual reality headsets, starting at $299, that work with the new Windows 10, Microsoft said.

Chief Executive Satya Nadella said at a New York event to launch the new products.that "Microsoft was building Windows for each of us (and enabling) people to experience computing in new ways" .