Dona Sarkar and the Windows 10 Insiders team have released a new build for PC! Build 16251 released today into the Fast ring bringing with it some improvements across the board as we inch closer to the Fall Creators Update release window. So without further ado, this is what’s new in the most recent preview build.
Windows 10 PC to Phone Linking
Users will now be able to link their Android phones to their PC in the Fast Ring. Insiders are being invited to test the features by setting up in Settings > Phone options. Doing so will send an SMS to the phone and direct the user through the initial process. This will let you share your browsing experience between your PC to the phone and is quoted as the “first cross device browsing scenarios”. iOS support is said to be ‘coming very soon’.
Web search results from Cortana without opening the browser
Asking Cortana got simpler! Now when you ask the Windows 10 digital assistant what you want to search, the window pane will expand automatically instead of launching Edge. The feature currently only works with quick answers that Cortana can provide such as movies, celebrities, stocks, weather, etc. If she can’t find an answer for you, you can still open the browser with her results list.
Cortana voice commands to control your PC power
Another major addition for Windows 10 is Cortana’s ability to lock, sign out, shutdown, or turn off your PC through just voice commands. Some of them also ask for a verbal confirmation and they can also work over the Lock screen if you have it enabled. If you have voice commands turned on, here’s what you can say:
- “Hey Cortana, restart PC.”
- “Hey Cortana, turn off PC.”
- “Hey Cortana, sign out.”
- “Hey Cortana, lock PC.”
Other Improvements
Improved Boot Up Experience
Use sign-in info to apply settings after a restart or update: The advanced Windows Update feature to use your sign-in info to automatically finish setting your device after an update has been extended to regular reboots and shutdowns. When you log in and initiate a reboot or a shutdown through power options available on the Start Menu and various other locations, Windows will automatically setup your account after it’s has booted back up.
This will help you sign-in faster and will restore your accessibility applications and any other application that has registered for application restart.
Command-line options:
- shutdown /sg
Shutdown the computer. On the next boot, restart any registered applications.
- shutdown /g
Full shutdown and restart the computer. After the system is rebooted, restart any registered applications.
Opt-out: Under the Privacy section of the Sign-in options page of your Settings, you can disable and re-enable using the option show below:
Note: The feature is only available on PCs that are not managed by enterprises. This includes home PCs that are sync’d to enterprise (work, school, etc.) email.
Input Improvements
- We’ve adjusted the size of the onehanded touch keyboard to be a little bigger, as well as added a thicker border as padding around it so you’re less likely to accidentally tap outside the keyboard and dismiss it.
- We’ve updated the new XAML touch keyboard to now support a full keyboard layout option for English (United States), English (Australia), French (France), Italian (Italy), German (Germany) and Spanish (Spain) languages. Appreciate everyone who shared feedback on the subject! To access this keyboard layout, tap the button in the top left of the touch keyboard.
- As you launch and dismiss the touch keyboard, you’ll now notice an animation of it sliding in and out.
- We’ve softened the sound of typing on the touch keyboard – thanks for your feedback!
- We fixed an issue where the touch keyboard might get into a state where swiping across it would move the keyboard contents around.
- We’ve updated the Japanese onehanded touch keyboard specific key labels to be written using the Yu-gothic UI font.
- We fixed an issue where the Japanese touch keyboard might sometimes take multiple taps of the delete key to delete a selected character or phrase in certain text fields.
- We fixed an issue where the touch keyboard’s options in Settings to disable suggestions and disable “add a space after I choose a text suggestion” didn’t work.
- We’ve adjusted two-finger precision touchpad scrolling so it should feel a bit smoother now – please try it out in today’s build.
- We fixed an issue where the Microsoft Pinyin IME candidate window wasn’t visible when Microsoft Edge was in full screen mode (F11).
- We fixed an issue where Japanese IME status notification didn’t appear when the IME was turned on with Kana input method.
- In addition to scrolling, pen can now also select and drag objects when barrel button (a button on the side of the pen) is pressed. This functionality was already available in Win32 apps and Microsoft Edge as of 16215, and today we’re expanding it to include all UWP apps as well. Please try it out in your favorite apps and let us know how the experience is working for you.
- We fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to use the pen to move a Win32 app window up and down by dragging the title bar.
- We fixed an issue where the coordinates were slightly off when using the pen to point erase in the last few flights.
Microsoft Edge Improvements
- Microsoft Edge will no longer re-scale sites when in Tablet Mode with narrow viewport width (such as in a snapped view or portrait orientation). This provides a more natural experience on modern responsive sites in tablet mode.
- We fixed an issue from recent builds where the Copy Link option displayed in Microsoft Edge when you right-click a hyperlink wasn’t working.
- We fixed numerous reliability issues in Microsoft Edge that will improve user experience with crashes and hangs within the app.
- We fixed an issue in Microsoft Edge with PDF failing to open on refresh.
- We fixed an issue in Microsoft Edge with PDF fitting to page for certain books.
- We fixed an issue with Pinned Sites from Microsoft Edge where it wasn’t showing the right favicon on the taskbar.
PC Gaming Improvements
- Some users may see Game Mode enabled in the Game Bar by default for some of their games.
Be sure to check out your Windows 10 Insider device for the Fast ring and let us know what you think of the new features. Also, don’t forget that there is a list of known issues available.
