Microsoft is now done with feature development on the next major version of Windows 10. Dubbed the "Fall Creators Update," this update is expected to launch on October 17, 2017, and will focus on a whole bunch of new improvements for Windows 10 users.
There's a lot of improvements coming with the Fall Creators Update that not everyone may be aware of. So, we thought it'd be a good idea to throw together a list of all the changes that are being introduced with the Fall Creators Update!
Our full review of the Fall Creators Update is live!
Windows Shell
The Windows Shell is the main part of Windows that people interact with everyday. It's the Start menu, the Action Center, the Taskbar, and File Explorer. So here's all the noteworthy changes showing up in those locations.
- Resizing Start horizontally is now smoother.
- You can now resize Start diagonally.
- Start now uses Acrylic backdrop.
- Scrollbars will now shrink away when cursor isn't near them.
- Added new context menu icons in Start.
- New Action Center UI featuring Fluent Design.
- Action Center now shares the same Acrylic backdrop as Start.
- Toast notifications now float in the bottom right corner.
- Tweaked design for toast notifications.
- Toast notifications now feature an arrow instead of an X to dismiss.
- There is now a My People Hub icon on the taskbar.
- You can now pin up to three contacts to the taskbar.
- Pinned contacts can send you "pops" that appear as animated emoji on your desktop.
- My People Hub gives you quick access to all your contacts and associated communication apps.
- You can now share with contacts directly from the Share UI
- Taskbar Battery icon has new flyout with a slider for Power Throttling.
- You can now enable Spatial Sound directly from the Volume icon context menu in the taskbar.
- You can now see files saved in the cloud via OneDrive with "On-Demand Sync" in File Explorer.
- You can now share files via the Share option in the context menu.
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft continues to improve Edge in many ways. With this release, Edge now has better PDF and EPUB support, a new readaloud feature, an updated favorites system and a load of under the hood improvements for stability.
- You can now ink on PDFs directly within Microsoft Edge.
- You can now see a PDFs table of contents.
- Microsoft Edge now supports PDF forms.
- General PDF reading improvements.
- You can now pin websites to the taskbar just like with Internet Explorer 11.
- General EPUB improvements.
- You can now annotate EPUB documents.
- Minor UI improvements.
- Reading progress is now synced across devices.
- You can now save favorites into a different location directly from the favorites UI.
- You can now edit the URL of an already saved favorite.
- Share UI now shows up in the top right of the window.
- Tabs that are no longer active will show a semi-transparent icon.
- Edge now features a readaloud mode that reads text for you on a webpage, PDF or EPUB document..
- Under the hood improvements.
- Copy and paste is now more reliable.
- Edge now shows Acrylic in its title bar.
- Pressing F3 when using Find a Page will now go to the next result. Shift F3 will go to the previous result.
- Updated editable fields in PDFs to now have a subtle color to help indicate that they're editable.
Input Improvements
Input improvements include the way users interact with Windows, whether that be with a mouse or keyboard, touch screen, or pen!
- New Emoji Panel (accessed with WIN+.)
- Support for Emoji 5.0.
- Updated Touch Keyboard with Shape Writing and one handed mode.
- Improvements to handwriting panel.
- You can now scroll lists and webpages with a pen.
Settings
Here's a list of all the noteworthy new settings coming in the Fall Creators Update.
- About area has been redesigned with relevant information about system health.
- Storage Sense can now automatically delete files in your downloaded folder after 30 days.
- Storage Sense can now delete the previous version of Windows once an upgrade has taken place.
- Remote Desktop is now in the Settings app.
- A new sidebar is present with contextual help tips and video.
- A new "Video Playback" option has been added with HDR and other video options.
- A new Game Monitor option is present.
- Updates now have individual progress indicators when downloading and installing.
- New update activity monitor that shows statistics on downloads of updates for the month.
- Cortana now has its own area in Settings.
- Slight changes to the order of Settings categories.
- Delivery Optimization improvements
- You can now track update download usage
- There is a new option for linking an Android or iPhone device to your Windows 10 PC
- New options for controlling your PC with your eyes using third party hardware from Tobii.
General improvements
Here's a list of some of the changes that don't belong to any of the categories above. These changes are just as important as all the others.
- Windows is now smart enough to throttle inactive programs.
- Windows can now adjust Win32 programs DPI without needing to logout.
- Android users can now see missed call notifications on the desktop when Cortana is synced on their PC and phone.
- Windows 10 now runs on ARM64 architecture.
- Cortana now supports dedicated Speaker Devices.
- Minor elements of the Fluent Design System are present in some areas of the OS.
- The Photos app now has a new Story Remix area that allows you to create quick video clips.
- You can now recover your Microsoft Account password directly from the lock screen.
- Battery life improvements
- Windows 10 Security enhancements with Windows Defender, Exploit Guard and more.
- Translucent UI elements now have Acrylic noise.
- The Mixed Reality Portal icon has been updated.
- Cortana can now lock, sign out, shut down and restart your PC with voice commands.
- Windows can now automatically re-setup your account after feature-update is installed, automatically opening apps and more.
- The Bahnschrift font is now pre-installed.
- Fixed the issue where USBhub.sys was causing spontaneous reboots due to bugchecks (GSOD).
- Fixed an issue where your PC might not go to sleep automatically after remoting into it and signing out of the remote session.
So there you have it, all the noteworthy changes coming with the Fall Creators Update in October. What are you most looking forward to in this update? If you want an even more detailed changelog, make sure you check out Change Windows for its in-depth Fall Creators Update changelog
