Today, Microsoft is releasing the first Windows 10 Insider Preview build to members of the Fast and Skip Ahead rings. This build contains minor changes and improvements over the previous build, which was released a few weeks ago. The current version is 18309, which is only four versions newer than the previous release. Let’s find out what’s new.
Changelog
Sign-in improvements
- Windows Hello PIN reset has been streamlined and is now available on all Windows editions: We are aware that remembering a PIN can be difficult, so we wanted to offer Microsoft account users a Windows Hello PIN reset experience with the same look and feel as web sign-in. Click the ‘I forgot my PIN’ link when logging into Windows with a PIN in today’s build to access this feature.
- Upon its initial announcement in Build 18305, this experience was exclusive to the Windows 10 Home edition for Insiders. With today’s update, Insiders can test it on all versions of Windows 10.
- We’re advancing the elimination of passwords and securing your accounts with a new cool feature. Insiders using the Windows 10 Home edition can now set up and sign in to Windows 10 with a phone number account, without having to create or deal with the hassle of a password, as of Build 18305. Today, this support is extended to all versions of Windows 10! If you have a
- Microsoft account associated with your phone number, you can sign in and configure your Windows 10 account using an SMS code. After setting up your account, you can sign in to Windows 10 using Windows Hello Face, Fingerprint, or a PIN (depending on the capabilities of your device). No password is ever required!
Narrator improvements
- Users can download additional voices in other languages without downloading language packs. To do so, navigate to Narrator Settings and click “Add more voices.”
- The primary actions on Narrator Home, including QuickStart and Settings, are now buttons rather than Listview items. Tab navigation is now available between all of them.
- Read Current phonetics for characters: Added Narrator + 5 to the Narrator command to render the phonetics of the current character.
- Other improvements:
- Improved visibility of navigation and editing controls
- Improved PowerPoint table reading
- Chrome and Narrator provide enhanced reading and navigation capabilities
- Enhanced Narrator interaction with Chrome menus.
Easier Accessibility improvements
- Cursor and Pointers: Building on the mouse work announced in 18298 for the Cursor and Pointers settings, eleven additional mouse pointer sizes have been added. Now available in 15 sizes.
General fixes
- Using Hyper-V with an external vSwitch in addition to the default prevented a large number of UWP applications from connecting to the internet.
- In recent builds, we’ve resolved two instances of green screens citing a problem with win32kfull.sys, one when using an Xbox controller and the other when interacting with Visual Studio.
- We resolved an issue in which changes to the Mouse Keys settings in Settings were not saved.
- We’ve made some minor changes to the text on various Settings pages.
- We resolved an issue that resulted in XAML context menus across the system being intermittently inactive during the last few flights.
- We resolved an issue that caused explorer.exe to crash upon right-clicking a network printer.
- If you press WIN+H to start dictation in an unsupported language, you will now see a message explaining why dictation is not starting.
- Based on your feedback, we’re adding a notification that will appear the very first time you press Left Alt + Shift. It will explain that this hotkey triggers a change in input language and provide a direct link to the settings page where the hotkey can be disabled if it was accidentally pressed. Disabling Alt + Shift will not affect the use of WIN + Space, the recommended shortcut for switching input methods.
- We resolved an issue in which the cmimanageworker.exe process could hang, resulting in system sluggishness or above-average CPU utilization.
- Cortana voice-over will be disabled by default for Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions of Windows following user feedback. Users of screen readers can still launch Narrator at any time by pressing WIN+Ctrl+Enter.
- When Scan Mode is active and Narrator is positioned over a slider, the left and right arrows will decrease and increase the slider, respectively. The up and down arrows continue to navigate to the previous and next paragraph or item, respectively. Home and End move the slider to the beginning or end of its travel.
- We resolved an issue in which it was impossible to disable Narrator when the message “Another Ease of Access application is preventing Narrator from supporting touch…” was displayed.
- We resolved an issue in which Narrator did not read processes/applications from Task Manager when “More details” was selected.
- Now, the narrator describes the status of hardware buttons such as volume controls.
- We resolved a few issues in which mouse pointer sizes did not increase or decrease correctly when DPI was set to a value other than 100%.
- Magnifier now follows the Narrator cursor in Magnifier-centered mouse mode when the “follow Narrator cursor” option is enabled.
- If Windows Defender Application Guard and Windows Sandbox failed to launch on Build 18305 with KB4483214 installed, this issue will be resolved upon upgrading to this version. If you are still experiencing launch issues after the upgrade, please provide feedback so we can investigate.
- We improved Windows Sandbox’s support for high DPI displays.
- If you were experiencing random yet frequent explorer.exe crashes in Build 18305, we made a server-side change during the break to resolve this. If you continue to experience crashes, please let us know and we’ll investigate. This issue is also suspected to be the reason why Start would reset to the default setting for some Insiders in the previous build.
As always, you can find a complete changelog, including a list of known issues, on the official Windows Blog.
