On Thursday, Microsoft started rolling out its first Windows 10 preview for PCs after the Build Developer conference. And much to the delight of developers, the new preview brings in few new features like Bash and many major updates to existing services too.
The build, numbered 14316, will be available to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. This preview is the next step towards the Windows 10 Anniversary Update coming this summer.
The update brings in native support for Bash on Ubuntu for Windows. The feature was welcomed with catcalls and woohoos during the Build conference a few days ago and will enable developers to run Bash without any external media on Windows.
To do so, you need to turn on Developer Mode via Settings > Update & security > For developers. Here search for “Windows Features” and choose “Turn Windows features on or off” and enable Windows Subsystem for Linux (Beta). To get Bash installed, open Command Prompt and type “bash”.
The latest preview also brings in several new features to Cortana, most of which are deal with cross-platform support. This means that even if you are using Cortana on your Android device (in US or China only), you’ll be able to enjoy these features.
Cortana will now be able to notify you when your smartphone battery is running low. She can also help you find your phone in case you’ve misplaced it. This new feature will use GPS location to track your phone and ring it to help you find it. Cortana will also allow you to access navigation details across devices. This means you can start up navigation via Cortana on one device and the details will be shown across all your devices.
Cortana is also easy to setup now. Until now, users in the Cortana-supportive regions felt it was a chore to get the voice assistant up and running. With this new update, your PC will automatically download the necessary speech language, if needed, and enable Cortana for you.
You will also get two new extensions for Microsoft Edge called Pin It Button and OneNote Clipper. The existing services, Reddit Enhancement Suite, Mouse Gestures and Microsoft Translator have also been updated. In order to install these new extensions, just click on “More” (…) at the top right in Microsoft Edge and click “Extensions” to open the Extensions pane and select “Get extensions”.
The latest build of Windows 10 also brings along the Skype Universal Windows App Preview the company had announced a couple of weeks ago. The app, apparently comes in with all of the basic Skype features with others to come in the future.
You can now prioritize app notifications according to your needs. Windows 10 will now allow you to set the priority of notifications of an app on a scale of 1 to 3. The default priority of all apps will be 1. To manage the notification settings for individual apps by going to Settings > System > Notifications & actions. Here, select individual app to change its settings.
New emojis are also part of the new Preview from Microsoft along with enhanced personalization improvements. You can now set light or dark colour schemes via Settings > Personalization > Colors. There are other subtle improvements here and there, too.
Here’s what Microsoft says it has fixed on this new preview:
- Issue where on some PCs with TPM chips, such as the ASUS Zenbook UX31, you may have experienced glitchy audio and jumpy movement when using the trackpad due to the “tpm-maintenance” task running constantly in the background instead of once per boot-up like it should.
- Issue where if you use Hyper-V and have a Virtual Switch configured for your network adapter, you might see an error indicator (red-colored “X”) for your network adapter in the notification area of your taskbar.
- “Polished” the Wi-Fi flyout UI and fixed an issue where text entry into a Wi-Fi password field was noticeably top-aligned rather than centered.
- Fixed an issue for where when using multiple monitors and full-screen apps like PowerPoint or Remote Desktop would crash Windows Explorer.
- Fixed an issue where Cortana wasn’t showing Settings pages in the search results.
- Updated the Windows Update notification after updates have been installed so now clicking on the notification will take you straight to your update history.
- Fixed an issue where desktop (Win32) apps pinned to the Start menu would sometimes move after updating to a new build.
- Fixed an issue where “Update and Restart” and “Update and Shut Down” wouldn’t start an update.
The update doesn’t come with just good things, there are a few known issues, too:
- The Visual Studio emulator for Windows 10 Mobile and Hololens will fail with “An authentication error has occurred. The Local Security Authority cannot be contacted”. If you are a developer and require the emulator for building apps, you should rather move to the Slow ring and skipping this build until we can fix this issue.
- Microsoft says that it is continuing to investigate issues with Narrator and other screen reader apps that make them unable to read selected text in the Feedback Hub, Cortana, and other apps.
- In Microsoft Edge, some large downloads may appear to get stuck at 99% completion. You can work around this issue by renaming the file in your downloads after closing Microsoft Edge. This workaround skips security checks on the file, so it should be used only with files from a trusted source.
- In some cases, attempting to turn on Developer Mode on may crash the Settings app. If this happens, the workaround is to use these steps here to enable Developer Mode.
- Some apps notifications may only show the icon – however the full text of the notification will be visible within Action Center.
