Microsoft today released a new Windows 10 preview with Fluent, time, microphone, search, Windows Update, and Mail & Calendar improvements. This build is from the 19H1 branch, which will arrive in the first half of next year.
Windows 10 is being developed as a service, meaning it receives new features on a regular basis. Microsoft has released six major updates so far: November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update, Fall Creators Update, April 2018 Update, and October 2018 Update.
Microsoft’s Fluent Design has made its way to the power and user menus in the Start menu and the power menu on the sign in screen. If you look closely, you’ll notice the added icons.
Microsoft has added an option in Date & Time Settings to manually synchronize your clock with the time server. It also shows when the time was last successfully synced and the address of your current time server.
If you hover over the new microphone icon, it will now show you which app is accessing your microphone. If multiple apps are using your microphone, it will just list how many. Double-clicking the icon will open Microphone Privacy Settings.
When you start a search, you’ll now notice an updated landing page with more room for recent activities, light theme support, a touch of acrylic, and all the search filter options as pivots.
The Windows Update improvement is minor. When your device has an update requiring a reboot, you will see Windows Update icon with an orange indicator in the notification area (system tray) alerting you to restart your device.
The latest Mail & Calendar app (version 11001.20106) makes it easier to keep track of your tasks in Microsoft To-Do — just switch directly to To-Do in the app navigation. This update isn’t tied to this Windows 10 build — you should be able to find it in the Microsoft Store.
Bug fixes and known issues
This 19H1 build includes the following general bug fixes and improvements:
- Fixed an issue resulting in PDFs opened in Microsoft Edge not displaying correctly (small, instead of using the entire space).
- Fixed an issue resulting in mouse wheel scrolling in many UWP apps and XAML surfaces being unexpectedly fast in recent builds.
- Some updates to the taskbar to reduce the number of times you may see the icons redraw. Most noticeably when interacting with the recycle bin, although in other scenarios as well.
- Antivirus apps must run as a protected process to register with Windows and appear in the Windows Security app. If an AV app does not register, Windows Defender Antivirus will remain enabled.
- Fixed an issue resulting in the System unexpectedly consuming a high amount of CPU for prolonged periods of time when enumerating Bluetooth devices.
- Fixed an issue resulting in Cortana.Signals.dll crashing in the background.
- Fixed an issue that caused Remote Desktop to show a black screen for some users. This same issue could also cause freezes over Remote Desktop when using VPN.
- Fixed an issue resulting in mapped network drivers potentially displayed as Unavailable when using the net use command, and displaying a red X in File Explorer.
- Improved compatibility of Narrator with Chrome.
- Improved performance of Magnifier centered mouse mode.
- Fixed an issue where the Pinyin IME would always show English mode in the taskbar, even when typing in Chinese in the previous flight.
- Fixed an issue resulting in languages showing an unexpected “Unavailable input method” in their list of keyboards in Settings if you added the language via Language Settings in recent flights.
- The new Japanese Microsoft IME introduced with build 18272 has been reverted to the one that shipped with the October 2018 Update as Microsoft takes feedback into consideration.
- Support for LEDBAT in uploads to Delivery Optimization peers on the same LAN (behind the same NAT). Currently LEDBAT is only used by Delivery Optimization in uploads to Group or Internet peers. This feature should prevent congestion on the local network and allow peer-to-peer upload traffic to back off instantly when the network is utilized for higher priority traffic.
Today’s update bumps Windows 10 from build 18282 (made available to testers on November 14) to build 18290.
This build has 10 known issues:
- The hyperlink colors need to be refined in Dark Mode in Sticky Notes if the Insights are enabled.
- Settings page will crash after changing the account password or PIN, we recommend using the CTRL + ALT + DEL method to change the password
- Due to a merge conflict, the settings for enabling/disabling Dynamic Lock are missing from Sign-in Settings.
- Settings crashes when clicking on the “View storage usage on other drives” option under System > Storage.
- The Windows Security app may show an unknown status for the Virus & threat protection area, or not refresh properly. This may occur after upgrade, restart, or settings changes.
- Delete previous version of Windows in Configure Storage Sense is not selectable.
- Settings will crash when opening Speech Settings.
- Insiders may see green screens with error System Service Exception in win32kbase.sys when interacting with certain games and apps.
- There’s an update block for this build in place for a small number of PCs that use Nuvoton (NTC) TPM chips with a specific firmware version (1.3.0.1) due to a bug causing issues with Windows Hello face/biometric/pin login not working.
- If you install any of the recent builds from the Fast ring and switch to the Slow ring — optional content such as enabling developer mode will fail. You will have to remain in the Fast ring to add/install/enable optional content. This is because optional content will only install on builds approved for specific rings.
As always, don’t install this on your production machine.
