As we’re nearing the official release of Windows 10 Creators Update in April, Microsoft is pushing out some final changes to Insiders in the Fast Ring. This build, numbered 15046, comes just four days after the previous and brings some minute feature improvements and changes along with it. There aren’t a cohort of new features as we’re marching towards the RTM (release to mainstream) version of the operating system.
In today’s build, Cortana is yet again bagging a visual upgrade and has now been brought back to its usual self. The AI voice assistant did try a new set of colors and animations with the last preview build but Insiders had a LOT of opinions (as stated in the blog post). Thus, Cortana is returning to its old shade of gray. And this failed attempt of a color experiment is now being replaced with another new experiment.
The Insider team is presently trying to enhance Cortana by displaying suggestions of what you should pick up where you left off, that too across Windows 10 devices. This feature is similar to the one showing website suggestions from Edge in the Action Center. It has been described in the blog post as under:
Cortana now proactively shows you apps, files, and websites from Microsoft Edge. Previously, this feature only displayed websites from Microsoft Edge in Action Center.
Further, another major improvement is coming to how app installations happen on your Windows 10 PC. The insiders have long been requesting Microsoft to provide them with more control over their installation process. And their requests have finally been answered. They now have the option to control what type of apps are allowed to be installed on their PC. The new controls are available under the Settings > Apps > Apps & features option.
This allows you to either allow app installations from anywhere — be it the Windows Store or your local disk, or show a warning pop-up asking you to allow app installations from outside the Windows Store. And if you’re too cautious of your security, you can choose only to allow installs from the Store. The feature already went live in the previous build but is being detailed just now. The blog post further adds,
In some cases, when there’s already an equivalent app in the Store, the warning will provide link to that app. This is an opt-in feature, and the default setting is to allow installation of apps from anywhere.
Other improvements include an updated gaming settings icon, fixes to corrupt registry keys, improved translations and a handful of Windows Defender updates as well. The motive behind these changes is making the current Windows 10 build more functional and closer to release for production.
