It’s been quite some time since Microsoft released a new build on a Friday, but Windows Insiders on the Beta channel are up for a treat today. The Windows 10 19H2 build 19042.421 has just been released, and it brings pretty much all of the new features and improvements that Microsoft has been testing in the Beta channel recently.
In this build, you’ll see that Live Tiles in the Start Menu are now theme-aware, with a much slicker partially transparent background that will adapt to your current theme. You can go into Settings > Personalization > Color to apply your accent color to the Start frame and tiles.
The new Alt + Tab experience that has been testing in the Dev channel is also available in this build. Microsoft Edge tabs will now appear when you use use Alt + Tab, but you can still go back to the previous experience in Settings > System > Multitasking.
Starting with this build, Clicking a pinned site on your Taskbar will now show you all of the open tabs for that site across any of your Microsoft Edge windows. This feature only works with recent Edge Insider builds from the Dev and Canary channels, and it will also not work with existing sites on your Task Bar (you’ll have to re-pin them).
Microsoft has also changed how notifications work in this build, adding app logos at the top of toast notifications. The Focus Assist notification and summary toast you usually see after Focus Assist has been turned on and off automatically have also been disabled by default, though you can re-enable them in Settings.
If you’re using a 2-in-1 device with a detachable keyboard, you’ll now switch directly into the new tablet experience when you detach your keyboard. Previously, a toast notification would ask you if you wanted to switch into tablet mode, and you can go back to this experience if you prefer. Microsoft has also removed the tablet mode quick action on non-touch devices in this build.
You’ll also notice some minor changes in the Settings app, with Microsoft bringing information found in Control Panel’s System page into the Settings About page under Settings > System > About. Microsoft plans to bring more settings from the legacy Control Panel to the Windows 10 Settings apps going forward.
June 16 and July 14.
