Windows 10 Mobile Fall Creators Update: The ultimate changelog

Similar to our "all the changes so far" article for the Fall Creators Update on PC, we thought it'd be a good idea to round up all the changes coming in the Fall Creators Update for Windows 10 Mobile, also known as the "feature2" release.

So far, this update is mostly bug fixes and general improvements. There are currently five new features in testing for Insiders at this time. That doesn't necessarily mean more new features won't show up in the future, however, as Microsoft has said they are working on "Enterprise related features" for Windows 10 Mobile.

New Features and Changes

• You can now manually change the orientation of Continuum when projected to an external monitor. This is useful for those who may have monitors in the portrait orientation. Previously, Continuum would display when in landscape mode even when on a monitor in portrait mode.

• Added support for the latest Unicode updates – including new snacks, actions, dinosaurs, and even fantasy characters like genies, fairies and zombies
• Two factor Authentication: We are excited to announce that we've introduced a two factor authentication unlock mechanism for Windows 10 Mobile. With two factor unlock, an enterprise can enforce an additional security layer to their sensitive data via an MDM policy. Once two factor unlock is enabled, a phone user will have to enter a numeric pin followed by an enterprise-defined factor to unlock the phone.
• AppLocker Improvements: A number of customers have provided feedback on the warning prompts for apps that are blocked by enterprise policies. We've improved the UX and updated the MDM SyncML scripts associated with the policies.
• VPN Improvements: In the modern corporate workplace, mobility is mainstream and secure access to corporate data via VPN has become the norm. We are bringing a range of improvements and features that enhance the reliability of VPN on Windows 10 Mobile. The key updates to our VPN capability are:
  • Lots of reliability improvements for VPN connectivity in Windows 10 Mobile.
  • IKEv2 Sleep and Power Enhancements.
  • VPN completes all pending actions before sleep and disconnects.
  • Automatic reconnection on resume.
  • Force tunneled improvements for UWP platform.
  • Proxy improvements for UWP VPN profile.
  • Enabling MMS usage when VPN is connected.

New Fixes and Improvements

• There is a new privacy page to the Windows 10 Mobile OOBE experience that allows you to quickly and effectively make common privacy changes while setting up the device. (This change was backported to the Creators Update.)
• Fixed the issue where the keyboard would sometimes not appear when a text input field is selected in Microsoft Edge.
• Fixed an issue where Continuum would stop working when HP Elite X3 case is closed.
• Fiixed an issue where Continuum would hang or render incorrectly after disconnecting on devices like the Lumia 950.
• Fixed an issue with Microsoft Edge where you might get into a bad state after opening a new Microsoft Edge windows and screen off with the JIT process suspended.
• Fixed an issue with where the device screen might stay black when disconnecting from a Continuum dock after screen has timed out normally.
• Fixed an issue with backup and restore which impacts users with slower network connection.
• Fixed an issue around Microsoft Edge reliability.
• Fixed an issue where some Insiders were unable to open both the Connect UX page and/or the "Add Bluetooth or other devices" setting on the Bluetooth Settings page.
• Fixed an issue resulting in an unexpected extra ~20 sec being added to the phone shutdown process due to a deadlock if you tried to shut down soon after switching from one network to another.
• Fixed an issue with the Glance screen where the time was not updating.
• Fixed the token issue so when your device syncs to the service, text messages should show back up.
• Fixed an issue where the Battery Settings page caused the device to become unresponsive and appear to have hung.
• Fixed a general issue where certain background tasks were being incorrectly starved under resource contention. This issue would impact music and video playback.
• Under low memory conditions, additional app launches will cause the OS to run out-of-memory and the device will restart unexpectedly to recover. This fix detects the condition and blocks app launches until memory is freed up.
• Fixed an issue with Microsoft Edge which prevented the phone from entering Connected Standby which caused battery drain.
• Fixed an issue where the word auto-correction service would crash.
• Fixed 2 issues causing the device screen to stay off when unplugging from the Continuum dock after screen has timed out normally requiring the device to be rebooted to recover.
• Fixed an issue with the Notifications Settings page which made the UI appear unresponsive.
• Fixed an Enterprise MDM issue where the policy could hide all pages except the Work Access page.
• Fixed an issue where the Call audio did not move to speaker after removing the headset on some phones.
• Improvements to power and performance for apps, such as Fitbit, for pair, connect, sync and notifications.
• Fixed an issue where notifications would not be mirrored to the user's PC and Cortana's cross-device settings would not persist.
• The copyright date is correctly showing 2017 now under Settings > System > About.
• Fixed an issue where WhatsApp would not launch after updating to the latest Mobile builds.
• Fixed an issue with using the Japanese 12 Key soft keyboard where the "right arrow" key did not input a space
• Fixed an issue with the Bulgarian keyboard localization for the HP Lap Dock in Continuum.
• Improvements to the reliability of notifications for apps with a paired Bluetooth device, such as Fitbit.
• Improved the Time & Language settings page UX for Speech and Keyboard language downloads. Previously, the status would show "Downloading" for speech and "Installing" for keyboard. Unless, the user tapped on the language or navigated to the Update & Security settings page, there was no indication that a restart is required to complete the installation. Now when the update reaches the reboot pending state, a "Restart Required" is displayed under the language.
• Fixed several enterprise device management issues.
• Fixed an issue where notifications and Cortana's cross-devices settings on your device were not being mirrored to your PC.
• Fixed an issue where only the first VPN profile was being displayed in the VPN settings page via Settings > Network & wireless > VPN.
• Fixed an issue where a meeting Time Zone was garbled in Chinese or Japanese.
• Based on Insider feedback, this release has changed "Phone Update" to "Windows Update" under Settings > Update & security.
• Fixed an issue where some apps could not subscribe to SMS receive notifications.
• Fixed an issue for Windows Insiders where some binaries stopped working when transitioning from Insider Preview builds to officially released builds.
• Fixed an audio issue with Bluetooth headphones after Cortana reads an incoming SMS message to the user.
• Fixed notifications (SMS, Calendar) with all Fitbit trackers.
• Fixed crashes reported while using Photos app.
• Fixed a deployment issue in where if an admin uses ActiveSyncCSP to provisioning email account on device running the Windows 10 Creators Update without providing a valid password, and the email server enforces a limited number of denied access retries, then the server will lock out the email account.
• Improved battery performance by fixing a bug in a scenario where 30% more power was used during Camera app preview and capture mode.
• Some Insiders provided feedback that playing video on phone resulted in a black flash and/or stuttering when in landscape mode. Microsoft has fixed this issue.
• Improvements to Bluetooth connectivity with Garmin Wearable devices.
• General improvement in reliability of phones by fixing top crash issues.
• Fixed an issue where VPN profile appeared to be always ON.
• Fixed a notification issue between the Bluetooth Support Service and device background services for fitness bands.
• Fixed issues with Caller ID matching in Japan & Denmark.
• Fixed an issue where downloading large apps could report out of disk space when there is sufficient space available.
• Fixed an issue where installing apps (particularly games) from the Windows Store would sometimes fail with "Error, see details".
• Fixed an issue where a device could not be unlocked after removing/turning off Windows Hello.
• Fixed an issue where Cortana would not provide the region when saying "Your region is set to" and then "Is that right?".
• Fixed a Turkish localization issue where the string "We need to fix your Microsoft account before you can use shared experiences …" was shown in English.
• Improvements to the Field Medic Store app, where we fixed an issue with collecting Watson crash data, enabled spell checking when editing a report, and updated the PowerOn/PowerOff profiles to include additional battery info.
• Fixed an issue where the screen would occasionally flash black after launching or rotating the Camera app.
• Fixed an issue with the HP Elite X3 reporting that the SD card had been removed from the device when it had not.
• Fixed an issue with Continuum where, after the attached monitor is unplugged, occasionally the mobile LCD does not power off and the mobile battery could be drained.
• Fixed an issue with the Windows inbox NFC driver where occasionally the wrong card type data was reported.
• Improved the Cortana resume-from-suspend behavior to enable a Cortana skill to be authenticated before the user interacts with the skill.
• Fixed an issue with the behavior of the hardware search button in countries where Cortana is not available. In this case, the OEM provides the search app or URI.
• Fixed the issue where trying to update Windows Store apps saved to your SD card resulted in an 8007000B error. Apps installed on SD cards should update without any issue.
• Fixed an issue where there was no icon shown for Windows Update for either new notifications or on the settings page under Settings > System > Notifications & actions.
• Fixed an issue where the MTP service would sometimes crash when you disconnected your phone while a file transfer is in progress.
• Fixed a spin loop that was occasionally triggered by deleting a VPN profile.
• Fixed an issue where apps which call into the firewall (such as Microsoft Edge) have the potential of becoming deadlocked and the app hangs until you reboot your phone.
• Fixed an issue in the routing engine used by apps like Maps where the initial direction was always set to North which could result in unnecessary route segments.
• Fixed an issue where Silverlight apps that use GPS would either not start or crash.
• Fixed an issue where a non-default Messaging app (e.g. Skype) would crash with an Access Denied error when changing Download messages settings.
• Fixed an issue where the new Privacy Consent popup would block loading of apps which used the activity detection and pedometer sensors.
• Fixed an issue where turning on/off Reset Protection could cause the phone to reboot.
• Fixed some issues where the Maps app navigation would start navigating a route and after performing a reroute, would present a list of possible routes instead of adjusting to the current route.
• Improved map-matching particularly for routes using ferries.
• Fixed an issue where an app using the routing engine (e.g. Maps) would timeout on providing the route if suspended for more than 30 seconds.
• Fixed an issue where tiles on the Start screen would occasionally be blank.
• Fixed an issue where a VPN profile that was created via the VPN Management API would always be a dial-up profile.
• Fixed an issue with the MDM policy used to control Build Flighting by Mobile Enterprise.
• Fixed a couple of navigation issues when changing from highway to highway (occasionally, signposts were copied from the original highway to the destination highway) and highway to non-highway (erroneous instruction to "enter highway").
• Fixed a rare issue where the user's call history was shown as corrupt after an upgrade.
• The product version number has been updated to 1709 just like PC.
• Fixed an issue where, on powering the screen off/on, high demand for CPU could cause several apps to crash. Background processing of photos is an example of high CPU demand. In a photo shoot session, you may have seen the Camera app crash.
• Fixed an issue with the Messaging app where conversation text was displayed incorrectly. Thanks to our Insiders that quickly highlighted this issue.

There are a total of 80 fixes and five improvements/features currently in testing with the feature2 builds.

Updated with changes introduced in build 15252.