
With Windows 10, Universal Windows Platform apps became available on Xbox One. The Shared Partition contained the Windows 8 Core at launch until November 2015, where via a system update known as the "New Xbox One Experience", it was upgraded to the Windows 10 Core. One of the partitions, the "Exclusive" partition is a custom virtual machine (VM) for games the other partition, the "Shared" partition is a custom VM for running multiple apps. The Xbox One system software contains a heavily modified Hyper-V hypervisor (known as NanoVisor) as its host OS and two partitions. The Xbox One console runs on an operating system that includes the Windows 10 core, although initially it included the Windows 8 core at the Xbox One's release. The Windows 10-based Core had replaced the Windows 8-based one in this update, and the new system is sometimes referred to as "Windows 10 on Xbox One". In November 2015, a major system update known as the New Xbox One Experience was released, which brought very significant changes to the design and functionality of the system. Since launch, Microsoft has been updating the OS monthly, with updates downloaded from the Xbox Live service directly to the Xbox One and subsequently installed, or by using offline recovery images downloaded via a PC. From June 2014 onwards, entertainment apps no longer required the user to be signed into a valid Xbox Live Gold account in order to use the features advertised for the given app.

The Xbox One allows users to download applications that add to the functionality of the dashboard. It is located on the internal HDD for day-to-day usage, while also being duplicated on the internal NAND storage of the console for recovery purposes and factory reset functionality.

It is a Microsoft Windows-based operating system using the Hyper-V virtual machine monitor and contains separate operating systems for games and applications that can run on the console. The Xbox One system software, sometimes called the Xbox OS, or Xbox Dashboard (when a person is referring to software updates), is the operating system developed exclusively for the Xbox One consoles.
