Microsoft has just announced sixth preview of its upcoming Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, which is due for public rollout in September. This latest update brings a number of changes to several aspects of Windows 10, including changes in Edge browser, Windows Shell, Task Manager, Hyper-V, Action Center, Messaging and Input experience. Let’s take a look on all these changes to determine whether you should try it or not:
Microsoft Edge That Can Read the Stuff
Let’s talk about Edge first. The version of Edge browser included in this preview build can read aloud webpages as well as PDF files, and that too while highlighting every line and word. The share UI of browser has also been changed a bit and now it opens below the share button instead of in the center of browser. Plus, it shows up with a theme matching the theme of your Edge browser. Besides this there’re bug fixes, and a number of other small visual improvements as well.
Windows Shell Automatic DPI Detection
If you’re one of those Windows 10 users who has got Win 10 running on a high DPI device, you might’ve experienced blurry screen whenever docking, undocking or remoting Windows 10. The only solution to get Win 10 to recognize the proper resolution in all these scenarios was to log out and log back in. Fortunately, now you won’t have to do that crap.
That’s right – the bug has been fixed in this preview of Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. Now Windows 10 can automatically recognize DPI information from these apps as soon as they’re launched. If you still experience blurry screen, the most you’ll have to do is relaunching the app. That’s it! No need to log out and log in again.
More Accessible and Actionable Notifications
Action buttons for notifications are not right justified anymore – they span the entire bottom of notifications now for easy accesibility. The cross button to dismiss notifications has now been replaced with an arrow because Microsoft believes it’ll help users understand easily that it’s there to slide the notification into Action Center for reviewing later. Notifications from people pinned to your taskbar will now appear with colors that match your theme.
Improved Typing and Messaging Experience
The touch keyboard of Windows 10 is now more responsive and produces sound whenever you press a key. It’s also much better at learning your typing style, which means it can offer more relevant suggestions to help type quickly as you use it more.
While sending messages you can search for emojis by typing keywords related to them. You can also see the exact Unicode character name of an emoji when you hover your mouse pointer over it. And finally, emojis received from people pinned to your taskbar are now called “pops”.
Richer GPU Performance Tracker
The GPU Performance tracker included in this preview is richer than that of other Windows 10 versions launched till now. It now includes more details (i.e. DirectX version, physical location of GPU etc.) and for that reason its UI has also been overhauled completely.
Updated Hyper-V UI
This last major change is for those who create virtual machines on their Windows 10 computers using Hyper-V. Under Quick Create you’ll now find a “virtual machine gallery”, but that looks just a placeholder as of now. The options to give you virtual machine a name and networking have now been hidden under “More options” section. Finally, Hyper-V on Win 10 will now allow your virtual machines to share networking with your computer using NAT.
Bug Fixes
Besides above given changes a number of bug fixes are also included in the update, which include:
- The bug that caused Win 10 PCs to get stuck in a boot loop when resetting from Settings > Update & security > Recovery >“Remove everything” has now been fixed.
- The bug that used to make some inbox apps appear with a name like “ms-resource:” in the bottom of Start menu has also been fixed now, so those apps should start appearing with their authentic names.
- The bug due to which two Connect apps used to appear in Start menu has also been fixed.
- Now the context menu in Start >> All Apps will appear automatically if you touch and hold on an app, without you having to lift your finger from the screen first.
- Cortana now comes with an option from where you can choose whether it should show or not show your cloud content in the search results.
- Chinese (simplified) dication has been disabled, and it’ll be back after being improved a bit.
- Cortana also used to drop the first character of a search term if Microsoft Edge was the foreground app while entering that search term. This won’t happen anymore, as this issue has also been fixed now.
- The issue of up/down keys hanging while typing into some search boxes that offer dropdown suggestions has also been fixed. Now up and down keys can be used easily to navigate between the suggestions.
- Network & Internet Status Settings page declaring a network public even if it was set to private from Control Panel – this has also been fixed now!
- Infinite spinning of preview image while switching away from and back to Windows Spotlight in Lock Screen Settings has also been fixed.
- The issue of Win32 apps (i.e. Command Prompt, PowerShell etc.) being blocked after upgrading from Pro edition on Surface Laptops has also been addressed.
- The issue of content copied from Screen Sketch appearing as a black box when pasted somewhere else has also been fixed. Now a sketch copied from Screen Sketch will appear as a sketch no matter where you paste it.
- In-game dialogue boxes of Xbox Live that previously used to crash before loading (i.e. gamer profiles, achievement details etc.) will also appear without any issues now.
In a nutshell, this update can transform your Windows 10 experience to a much smoother and useful one, and it also increases the Windows 10 build number from 16232 to 16237 (for PCs). All these things make this upgrade worth a try. However, it has also been reported to have seven known issues, so don’t forget checking them before you install it on your PC. If you don’t want to install the update due to any of those issues, you can wait for the final release of Windows 10 Creators Update in September. It’s not too far now. But if you decide to install it anyway, please don’t forget to let us know your thoughts about it in the comments section below.
