The Windows Insider team and Dona Sarkar just set launch to the next Windows 10 Insider Preview build 16241 for PC (and Windows 10 Mobile build 15230). As usual, we’ve rounded up the new features and improvements for you to check out while you’re updating.
Last week’s Windows 10 Preview build 16237 snuck in the lock screen password recovery feature, but leave it to Insiders to find it before the team was ready. This week’s update officially revealed the feature, letting users click “I forgot my password” on the login screen with a process to gain access to your account outside of your device. On top of that, the Delivery Optimizations, another feature hidden last week’s build, was also ‘officially announced’ today. Here’s the full changelog – that we know of.
Windows Shell Improvements:
Recover your pin and password from the lock screen: Self Service solutions empower end users, unburden helpdesk/IT admins, and save organizations money. Cloud Self Service Password Reset (Cloud SSPR) has been a really popular Azure AD Premium (AADP) feature and now we want to take this great capability one step further – Windows Integration. If you’re using an AADP or MSA account and you find yourself stuck at the login screen, you can now reset your password and PIN straight from here. Just click the “Reset password” (for password) / ”I forgot my PIN” (for PIN) link and you’ll be prompted to go through the AAD or MSA flow to reset it. Once reset, you’ll be returned to the login screen where you can login with your newly minted credentials.
Refining Acrylic Material: We’ve heard your feedback, and in response in today’s build you’ll notice we’ve softened the noise layer of Acrylic Material. Below you’ll find a side by side comparison of how it was and how it is now. This will take effect in any XAML based UI and apps where Acrylic Material can be seen which targets Build 16241+.
PC Gaming Improvements:
- We fixed an issue preventing profile cards in the Xbox Live in-game experience from working.
- We also fixed an issue causing Game bar to crash while broadcasting.
Task Manager Improvements:
We have made some design changes to the GPU section of Performance tab:
- The GPU name is now shown on the left-hand side of the Performance tab for each GPU.
- We now default to the multi-engine view, which shows performance monitors for the four most active GPU engines. Typically you’ll see charts for the 3D, Copy, Video Encode and Video Decode engines. Right-click on the chart to switch back to the single-engine view.
- There is now a total GPU memory text counter next to the dedicated and shared text counters at the bottom of the Performance tab.
- The Direct X version now also contains the highest supported DX feature level.
We have improved how Microsoft Edge’s processes are labeled in Task Manager: In Build 16226, we introduced grouping an app’s processes together in Task Manager. For Microsoft Edge, tab processes were labeled in Task Manager with their web page title.
We’ve heard your feedback that other Microsoft Edge processes could use better labels. Starting in Build 16241, additional processes (such as the Chakra JIT Compiler, UI Service, and Manager process) are now labeled in Task Manager. We’ll continue to revise these labels based on feedback.
Delivery Optimization Improvements:
Delivery Optimization has been synonymous with “Peer-to-peer” but few people are aware that it is also used as the main downloader for content downloaded from Windows Update and Windows Store. Delivery Optimization, even without P2P, is what makes downloads from Windows Store much faster as well as makes downloads of Quality and Feature updates far more reliable. In line with this, the main settings page – now titled “Delivery Optimization” – indicates that while you can enable or disable the P2P functionality, Delivery Optimization is still used when downloading updates and apps directly from Microsoft’s content servers. You can go to this page via Settings > Update & security > Windows Update under “Advanced options” and then “Delivery Optimization.
You may notice two new links under the Delivery Optimization settings page that provide you with some new features for more control and visibility:
Delivery Optimization Advanced Options: Here you can configure various Download and Upload settings.
Delivery Optimization continuously measures your available bandwidth during a download and dynamically adjusts the amount of bandwidth used in background downloads to ensure these downloads won’t interrupt your use of your device. However, Delivery Optimization may not be aware of download activity that takes place on other devices in your household. If you have limited connectivity and would like to minimize the impact you can now use the Download settings to throttle your download speed for background downloads.
If you own multiple devices we encourage you to allow downloads from other PCs on your local network to reduce the amount of bandwidth used by your devices that are downloading the same updates.
In addition, if you enable the option to download from other PCs on the Internet, you may want to restrict the use of your upload bandwidth by throttling the upload speed or the total amount of bytes sent to other devices by enabling a Monthly upload limit.
Activity Monitor: Here you can see the overall bandwidth used in downloads of OS Updates including Feature and Quality updates as well as Store App downloads and updates on your device. You will also be able to see exactly the amount of data coming from other PCs on your local network or other PC on the Internet based on your settings.
Note that the data reflects the bandwidth used since the first day of the month.
Microsoft also made a number of Mixed Reality improvements with this build.
Fast Ring Insiders are able to start downloading the Preview build 16241 right now, so boot up your Insider devices and get started. Don’t forget to take a glance over at the known issues. The Fall Creators Update is just around the corner in September, if speculation is to be believed. What’s your favorite feature in this release?
