Microsoft is rolling out its first Windows 10 Insider Preview build to those in both the Fast and Skip Ahead rings today, featuring minor changes and enhancements over the last build released a couple of weeks ago. Today's build is 18309, just four builds newer than the previous release. Let's see what's new.
Changelog
Sign-in improvements
- Streamlined Windows Hello PIN reset experience now available on all Windows editions: We know remembering a PIN can be tricky, so we wanted to provide our Microsoft account users with a revamped Windows Hello PIN reset experience with the same look and feel as signing in on the web. Check it out in today's build by clicking the 'I forgot my PIN' link when signing in to Windows with a PIN. When originally announced on Build 18305, this experience was only available for Insiders on the Windows 10 Home edition. With today's update, Insiders can try it out on all Windows 10 editions.
- We're pushing forward on eliminating passwords and keeping your accounts safe with another cool feature. With Build 18305, we announced support for setting up and signing in to Windows 10 with a phone number account, without having to create, or deal with the hassle of a password for Insiders using the Windows 10 Home edition. Today, that support is extending to all Windows 10 editions! If you have a Microsoft account with your phone number, you can use an SMS code to sign in, and set up your account on Windows 10. Once you've setup your account, you can use Windows Hello Face, Fingerprint, or a PIN (depending on your device capabilities) to sign in to Windows 10. No password needed anywhere!
Narrator improvements
- Add more voices: Users can download additional voices in other languages without having to download language packs. To do that, go to Narrator Settings and select the "Add more voices" link.
- Narrator Home navigation: The main actions on Narrator Home, such as QuickStart and Settings, are now buttons and not Listview items. You are now able to tab between all of them.
- Read Current character phonetics: Added Narrator + 5 twice Narrator command to render current character phonetics.
- Other improvements:
- Improved reading of controls while navigating and editing
- Improved table reading in PowerPoint
- Improved reading and navigating experiences with Chrome and Narrator
- Improved interacting with Chrome menu's with Narrator
Ease of Access improvements
- Cursor and Pointers: Building on our mouse work announced with 18298, we've added 11 additional mouse pointer sizes in the Cursor and Pointers settings. There are now 15 sizes.
General fixes
- We fixed an issue where using Hyper-V with an external vSwitch in addition to the default resulted in many UWP apps not being able to connect to the internet.
- We fixed two issues resulting green screens citing an issue with win32kfull.sys in recent builds – one when using an Xbox controller with your PC, one when interacting with Visual Studio.
- We fixed an issue where changes to Mouse Keys settings in Settings wouldn't persist.
- We've made some small adjustments to the text across various pages in Settings.
- We fixed an issue resulting in XAML context menus across the system sporadically not invoking over the last several flights.
- We fixed an issue resulting in explorer.exe crashing when right clicking a network printer.
- If you press WIN+H to start dictation in an unsupported language, we've now added a notification explaining that this is why dictation isn't starting.
- Based on your feedback, we're adding a notification now that will appear the very first time you press Left Alt + Shift – it explains that this hotkey triggers an input language change, and includes a direct link to the settings where the hotkey can be disabled, if pressing it was unintentional. Disabling Alt + Shift will not impact the use of WIN + Space, which is the recommended hotkey for changing input methods.
- We fixed an issue where the cmimanageworker.exe process might hang, causing system slowness or higher than normal CPU usage.
- Based on feedback, if you clean install Pro, Enterprise, or Education editions of Windows, the Cortana voice-over will be disabled by default. Screen reader users can still choose to start Narrator at any time by pressing WIN + Ctrl + Enter.
- When Scan Mode is on and Narrator is on a slider, the left and right arrows will decrease and increase the slider. Up and down arrows will continue to navigate to the previous or next paragraph or item. Home and End will move the slider to the beginning or the end.
- We fixed the issue where Narrator could not be turned off when Narrator message box "Another Ease of Access application is preventing Narrator from supporting touch…" was displayed.
- We fixed the issue where Narrator did not read process/applications from Task Manager when "More details" view was selected.
- Narrator now announces the state of hardware buttons such as volume keys.
- We fixed a couple issues related to mouse pointer sizes not increasing/decreasing properly when DPI is set to something other than 100%.
- We fixed the issue where Magnifier failed to follow Narrator cursor in Magnifier centered mouse mode if "follow Narrator cursor" option was selected.
- If you were seeing Windows Defender Application Guard and Windows Sandbox fail to launch on Build 18305 with KB4483214 installed, that will be fixed once you upgrade to this build. If you are still encountering launch issues after upgrading, please log feedback about it and we'll investigate.
- We enhanced Windows Sandbox to better support high DPI displays.
- If you were seeing random yet frequent explorer.exe crashes with Build 18305, we made a server-side change to resolve this over the break. Please let us know if you're continuing to experience crashes an we'll investigate. This same issue is suspected to also be the root cause resulting in some Insiders finding Start would reset back to default in the previous build.
As always, you can check the official Windows Blog for a complete changelog, including a list of known issues.
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