Did you know that you can customize your Start and New Tab pages in Microsoft Edge to show news and sites based on your preference, so you can quickly get to the content you want?

Both pages give you access to the latest news across business, entertainment, finance and more. Plus, with weather updates, sports scores, recommendations for apps and much more, the Microsoft Edge Start and New Tab Page become your personal dashboard to help you kick-start your web journey every time.

Here’s how to start personalizing your Start and New Tab pages:

On the Start page, click the “Customize” icon on the top right, below the search bar and select the type of news you would like to see displayed under “My Feed.”

On the New Tab Page, you can customize not just your news feed, but also the websites you want displayed as your “Top sites.” You can pin an existing tile, delete it, drag and drop them or add new ones so you can quickly jump in to your preferred content.

Source: Windows Blog

Friday Microsoft released another Build 15007 to the Fast Ring Insiders for Desktop & Mobile, running 15002 on desktop was kind of a challenge, this build has al the blocking issues fixed and runs smoothly!

Enjoy Upgrading!

What’s new in Build 15007 for PC & Mobile

More Microsoft Edge Improvements:

• Sharing your tabs (PC): We’ve added the ability to share a set of tabs you’ve set aside. Just click the “Tabs you’ve set aside” button, and under the “…” menu select the option to “Share tabs” with many apps installed on your PC.
• Import data (PC): We’re making it even easier to bring your data over from another browser when you switch to Microsoft Edge. The new “Import from another browser” button in Settings allows you to bring your favorites, browsing history, saved passwords, and other data from another browser you have installed, in one simple step.

• Running faster (PC): You can now choose to “Run” a download link without first saving it, and we’ve added a “Save As” option to the existing “Save” link.

• Web Notes improvements (PC): We’ve updated Web Notes to now leverage the familiar Windows Ink experience you’ve come to know in Photos and Maps, amongst other places. Tap the pen or highlighter in Web Notes, and you will now see the full set of Windows Ink colors, as well as the new slider released for Windows Ink with Build 14986.

• Text scaling and zoom (Mobile): Based on your feedback, in Microsoft Edge you can now zoom into a webpage regardless of zoom settings defined by the website, matching other mobile browsers. Pages are now zoomable to at least 500%. Because of this, we no longer automatically scale text in Microsoft Edge when you’ve enabled the Ease of Access option to increase the text size, since you can zoom in on the text to reach a size that matches your own comfort level. This addresses feedback that Ease of Access zoom settings made web pages render incorrectly.
• Apps for Websites: Clicking links to websites that support web-to-app linking will now open that page in the respective app.

[Coming Soon] Download themes for your PC from the Windows Store (PC): In Build 15002, we introduced the new themes settings page in the Settings app. Soon, you’ll be able to go directly from the themes setting page directly to the Windows Store to download new themes for your PC! This isn’t working yet in today’s build and you’ll see a Store icon that does nothing at the bottom of the themes setting page. However, you can go to the Store page for themes here to try out downloading themes from the Store.

Cortana can help you pick up where you left off (PC): If you have multiple PCs, you probably know how cumbersome it can be to find everything you need to resume work after switching between PCs. Cortana can now help with that! When you switch computers, Cortana will display quick links in the Action Center to help you easily get back into the Microsoft Edge websites and SharePoint (or other cloud-based) documents you used most recently. For example, if you were working on a PowerPoint deck on your laptop, when you later return to your desktop, a link to that deck appears in Action Center. Or perhaps you’re browsing recipes in Microsoft Edge on your PC downstairs, and grab your laptop to go bake up a storm in the kitchen—Cortana will be there for you and have a link to that recipe ready to go. In adding this feature, we’ve also updated Cortana to take advantage of notification grouping, described earlier, so you can more easily differentiate between the types of messages.

Inline progress bar for notifications (PC): Based on your feedback, app developers can now send toast notifications with a progress indicator to show progress to the user, such as download progress, exercise progress, etc. As a highly related but separate feature, we now also support developers to update an existing notification through “data-binding”. Please go to Tiles and Toast MSDN Blog to find out more.

In a future build, you will see this capability with Windows Store downloads.

Scrollbar improvements for UWP (PC & Mobile): We have made improvements to the XAML scrollbar for mouse to ensure it is available when you need it, while taking up less space and causing less undesirable flashing when you don’t. With these changes, the panning indicator now appears when you move a mouse over a scrolling region and the full scrollbar appears when you want to directly interact with it. This improvement will be visible in any app that uses the Windows 10 Creators Update SDK.

Windows Hello Enrollment Improvements (PC): With Build 15007 we are bringing in some exciting improvements around how you discover and enroll into Windows Hello’s facial recognition. For devices and peripherals that support Windows Hello. you’ll now see a visual guidance that tracks your face in real-time, shows you an improved progress indicator and gives you real-time feedback to quickly and smoothly set your face up for signing in. The best way to know what’s changed? Try it out! You can setup or improve your Windows Hello facial recognition under Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options > Windows Hello > Face recognition.

Rainbow Flag: Microsoft’s continued dedication to diversity brings the rainbow flag to the emoji font and keyboard!

New Bluetooth APIs (PC & Mobile): This is the first build you can try out the new APIs that enable GATT Server, Bluetooth LE Peripheral role and unpaired Bluetooth LE device connectivity. We will be flighting an updated SDK tomorrow, please look for 15003 or greater SDK.  For more information, the Windows developer blog will have post tomorrow on GATT Server once the SDK flights. UPDATE – the blog post is live!

Keyboard navigation improvements for the Snipping Tool (PC): You can now take a screen capture using only your keyboard. Press Alt + N, select the desired snip type and press enter – this will start the capture. Now use the arrow keys to move the cursor to one of the intended corners of your snip, and press either space or enter to start selecting your snip area. Once you have the area you want, press enter or space again to finish the capture. This keyboard navigation also works with the new Win + Shift + S keyboard shortcut.

What’s new in Build 15007 for just Mobile

Sync your settings using Azure Active Directory (AAD) Identity (Mobile): You can now sync your settings on AA-Joined phones using Enterprise State Roaming. With Enterprise State Roaming enabled for your phone, you can sync settings such as passwords, Wi-Fi profiles, Edge Favorites, Edge Reading List, and app data across desktop and mobile devices. To get the most out of this feature, make sure sync is turned on for the same account on both your mobile and desktop device under Settings > Accounts > Sync Your Settings.

App reset (Mobile): One of the features added to PC with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update was the ability to reset an app back to its original state. We’re happy to announce starting with Build 15007, the same will now be possible on Mobile – thanks everyone who logged feedback requesting this! If you have a UWP app in a bad state, open Settings > System > Storage, and navigate to the app. In the advanced settings for that app, you’ll now see a “Reset” option. Tapping it will clear the app’s cache, and reset the app as if it had just been installed (without actually having to reinstall it).

Cortana loves music (Mobile): You can now use Cortana to control music playback on more of your favorite music apps (EN-US only). Starting with this build, we’ve enabled natural language compatibility for iHeartRadio and TuneIn Radio. While you are listening to music in one of these apps, you can also use your voice to control playback and volume. With radio stations, we often want to know what that catchy tune is that has played a million times, so we added support for “What’s Playing”. Try saying “Hey Cortana, What’s Playing” and it will work for all apps playing music. This appeared for Insiders on PCs with Build 14986.

Adding music recognition support to Chinese (Simplified) (Mobile): Cortana can now recognize music for customers in China. Simply tap the music notes icon in the top corner of Cortana’s home page, and Cortana will listen to whatever music is playing and use Netease to tell you what song it is. This works exactly like the feature does in English (United States). This appeared for Insiders on PCs with Build 14986.

Cortana sign-in using Azure Active Directory (AAD) identity (Mobile): This capability will allow you to sign into Cortana with your work or school account instead your MSA, enabling you to use Cortana even if your organization does not support MSA. To sign in to Cortana using your work or school account, just go to Cortana’s Notebook and “About Me” and sign in. You’ll get the full Cortana experience with most of the same features. This appeared for Insiders on PCs with Build 14986.

More recurrence options for Cortana Reminders (Mobile): We’ve heard your feedback, and we’ve added a new option to set recurring time-based Cortana Reminders for “Every Month” or “Every Year” — great for bill payment or anniversary reminders! This appeared for Insiders on PCs with Build 15002.

Web payments: Microsoft Edge now has preview support for the new Payment Request API, which allows sites to make checkout easier using the payment and shipping preferences stored in your Microsoft Wallet. This is currently in a preview state for developers and will not process payment information until a future flight. You can learn more about Payment Request on the Microsoft Edge Dev Blog. This appeared for Insiders on PCs with Build 15002.

Improved legibility for UWP apps in high contrast (Mobile): In order to address some of the most common high contrast issues experienced in UWP apps, we’ve updated the XAML framework to now display an opaque layer behind the text and coerce semi-transparent UI to be fully opaque. This appeared for Insiders on PCs with Build 15002. These adjustments are applied by default in high contrast and apply to *all* XAML Store applications, however apps will have the opportunity to opt out using the Windows 10 Creators Update SDK. More details will be available once the latest SDK has been published. If you find any issues with this work, please log them here, and as always, you can reach out to @MSFTEnable on Twitter at any time about accessibility problems and requests you have for accessibility in Windows.

Helping you find the setting you need in Settings (Mobile): One of our ongoing goals has been to make Settings easier and faster to navigate – based on feedback we’ve made a few design tweaks that appeared for Insiders on PCs with Build 15002, and are now also available on Mobile:

• Settings pages now contain additional information on the right or bottom (depending on the window size) providing links to support, feedback, and any other related settings if available.
• Since our System Settings list was getting quite long, we’ve moved app related settings out of System into a new category called Apps.

Updated device settings (Mobile): The new device settings experience combines the Bluetooth and Connected devices pages to offer a single place to manage your devices/peripherals. We’ve also listened to your feedback and added the ability to disconnect and reconnect your Bluetooth audio devices directly from this Settings page, as well as updated the flow for adding a new device connection. Try out the new page and let us know what you think through the Feedback Hub! This appeared for Insiders on PCs with Build 15002.

New option to pause updates: We’ve added an option that will enable you to pause updates on your phone for up to 35 days. To pause your phone, go to the Settings > Update & security > Phone Update and tap Advanced. This capability will be available on enterprise managed devices on Windows 10 Mobile. This appeared for Insiders on PCs with Build 15002.

[ADDED 1/13] Encrypt your SD card (Mobile): Enterprises often need to ensure devices with access to enterprise data have device encryption enabled so that their data remains protected against offline attacks. With Build 15007, we’re happy to announce that enterprise managed devices on Windows 10 Mobile now have the ability to encrypt SD cards that have been inserted into the phone when device encryption is enabled. Head to Settings > Update & Security > Device Encryption to find the new option. When deploying policies through mobile device management (MDM) solutions for the Windows 10 Creators Update, enterprises can require SD cards to be encrypted. Cloud backup for data on the SD card is strongly recommended when using this feature.

[ADDED 1/13] Glance Screen Improvements (Mobile): The “Always show Glance screen when charging” option is back! It is available in Settings under Personalization -> Glance Screen starting with Build 15007! Thank you for your feedback!

Other changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

• We fixed an issue where tearing off a tab in Microsoft Edge (using your mouse to drag a tab into its own window) might cause your PC to bugcheck (GSOD).
• We fixed an issue where going to Battery settings page via Settings > System > Battery crashes the Settings app.
• We fixed an issue where the Virtual Touchpad was is missing from the taskbar context menu.
• We fixed an issue where the touch keyboard button might be missing from the taskbar on touch machines.
• We fixed an issue where Windows Hello was giving a “Couldn’t turn on the camera” error on the Lock screen.
• We fixed an issue where Remote Desktop connections might unexpectedly fail due to an error saying invalid credentials (when in fact the credentials had been valid).
• We fixed an issue that could result in the quick action section being missing from Action Center.
• We fixed an issue where Surface pen clicks might not work after cycling Bluetooth off/on.
• We fixed an issue where the Data Usage page in Settings might not load.
• We’ve updated the Virtual Touchpad to be a little bigger.
• We’ve fixed an issue resulting in the Netflix app potentially displaying a black screen rather than the expected video content.

Other changes, improvements, and fixes for Mobile

• In response to your feedback, alarm sounds will start at a slightly higher volume level. (They will then ramp up to full volume, as before).
• We fixed an issue Insiders with certain devices, such as the Lumia 950, may have experienced where their phone sometimes took an unexpectedly long time to show up after connecting to their PC.
• We fixed an issue where System related notification toasts (e.g. Bluetooth, USB/Autoplay, etc.) didn’t work.
• We’ve updated the experience when using Cortana to receive incoming SMS messages over Bluetooth to make it more reliable. To enable this feature if it is not already, open Cortana settings and make sure one of the following Bluetooth options is on: “Bluetooth and wired headsets” or “Bluetooth only”.
• We fixed an issue where video recorded in portrait mode might not playback with the correct aspect ratio.
• We fixed an issue on recent Insider builds resulting in the Skype Preview tile not updating with an alert badge when a new message had been received.
• We fixed an issue where certain websites pinned to Start from Microsoft Edge when tapped would perform a web search rather than opening to that page.
• We fixed an issue where the SIM Pin dialog would display truncated text in certain languages.
• We fixed an issue that could result in the phone getting stuck at the Goodbye screen when rebooting if Bluetooth was enabled.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the Outlook Calendar sometimes displaying the wrong date on its live tile after a new day has begun.
• We fixed a bug that was preventing Notification Listener apps (like wearable apps) from accessing notifications on recent builds.

Known issues for PC

• After updating to this build, nonstop exceptions in the Spectrum.exe service may occur causing PCs to lose audio, disk I/O usage to become very high, and apps like Microsoft Edge to become unresponsive when doing certain actions. As a workaround to get out of this state, you can delete C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Spectrum\PersistedSpatialAnchors and reboot. For more details, see this forum post.
• We are investigating certain situations in which PCs might bugcheck (GSOD) during the installation of new builds (15002+) causing the PC to rollback to the previous build.
• When clicking on certain elements in desktop (Win32) games, the game minimizes and cannot be restored.
• Desktop shortcuts containing the “%” character (usually URI shortcuts with escaped characters) will result in a cyclical explorer.exe crash. To resolve this, use Task Manager to open PowerShell, and edit the shortcut to not include a % in the path.
• When projecting to a secondary monitor, if you set the connection to “Extended”, Explorer.exe may start crashing in a loop. If this happens, turn off your PC, disconnect the secondary monitor, then restart your PC.
• Windows Insiders will unexpected see a “Holographic” entry on the main page of Settings.
• Brightness changes made via Settings > System > Display will unexpectedly revert after closing the Settings app. For now, please use either Action Center, power flyout or brightness keys to change the brightness.
• The list of apps in the Surface Dial “Add an app” page via Settings > Devices > Wheel may unexpectedly be empty. If that happens, tap the “Browse for an app” button at the bottom of the screen to pick the desired app instead.
• Taskbar preview icons are unexpectedly small on high-DPI devices.
• Quicken will fail to run with an error stating .NET 4.6.1 is not installed. For Insiders familiar with Registry Editor, there is an optional workaround. Take ownership of the following registry keys and edit the “version” value to be 4.6.XXXXX instead of 4.7.XXXXX:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Client
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full

Note: Please take caution when editing the registry. Changing the wrong value can have unexpected and undesirable results.

• Using CTRL + C to copy in Command Prompt won’t work.
• Some websites in Microsoft Edge may unexpectedly show “We can’t reach this page”. If you encounter this, please try accessing the site from an InPrivate tab.
• Dragging apps from the all apps list to pin on Start’s tile grid won’t work. For now, please right-click on the desired app in order to pin it.
• Miracast sessions will fail to connect.
• On certain hardware types (e.g.: Acer Aspire), the Netflix app crashes when starting a movie.
• 3rd party UWP apps would crash on devices if the DPI settings on the machine are >=150% (Generally people do this on high resolution devices – Surface book etc.).
• If you upgrade from Windows 8.1 directly to Build 15002, all your store apps are lost during upgrade process but you can go and re-download all the lost apps from the Store.
• When using Microsoft Edge with Narrator, you may hear “no item in view” or silence while tabbing or using other navigation commands. You can use Alt + Tab when this happens to move focus away from and back to the Edge browser. Narrator will then read as expected.
• Saying “Hey Cortana, play <item> on <AppName>” doesn’t work immediately after installing the app. Wait 5 minutes for indexing to begin and try again.
• ADDED 1/10: Under Settings > Update & security > Windows Update you might see the text “Some Settings are managed by your organization” even though your PC isn’t being managed by an organization. This is a bug caused by an updated flight configuration setting for Insider Preview builds and does not mean your PC is being managed by anyone.
• ADDED 1/13: If you’re experiencing an issue getting stuck at 0% downloading this build – check out this forum post.
• ADDED 1/13: During the installation of this build, Insiders may experience a storport.sys bugcheck (GSOD) causing them to rollback to the previous build. There is currently no workaround.
• ADDED 1/13: If you’re experiencing an issue where your PC gets to 99% and appears stuck – sit tight and don’t do anything (such as rebooting). There is a bug causing the installation to take an abnormal amount of time.
• ADDED 1/13: On some PCs, audio stops working sporadically with ‘device in use’ error”. We are investigating. Restarting the audio service may fix things for a bit.

Known issues for Mobile

• The Windows Hello greeting is missing from the lock screen. Showing the animation and user name is important for letting you know we have securely identified you. Of course, we also recognize the essential purpose of the Windows Hello feature is getting you to your Start screen without delay.  We’re working hard to make sign-in as quick as possible across all Windows Hello scenarios.
• AAD Identity Settings Sync: You may not see your Favorites or Reading List roam down in Microsoft Edge if you try to immediately open these tabs after opening Microsoft Edge. You can open Microsoft Edge, wait 30 seconds, and then open favorites and Reading List to see content.
• AAD Identity Settings Sync: Microsoft Edge does not sync Reading List from PC to phone unless there is a restart.
• AAD Identity Settings Sync: Microsoft Edge is syncing passwords on phone but not showing them in “saved passwords” in Microsoft Edge settings.
• When you receive a new email notification and tap on it to open the message, it doesn’t open the Mail app or message.
• New option to pause updates contains text referencing PC-only Windows Defender.
• Insiders with certain devices, such as the Lumia 635 and 636, may not be able to manually change the brightness. The brightness will still automatically adjust if it is set to do so, so please use that for the time being while we investigate.
• The ninja cat emoji display in two characters on the keyboard instead of the expected one.
• Adding a new card / paying with an existing card will not work in Microsoft Wallet.
• ADDED 1/13: We’re investigating reports of random reboots on some devices with this build.

Upcoming Bug Bash

You all gave us feedback that you LOVED the last Bug Bash and wanted to do one during the holidays. We didn’t have the feature set we wanted in Insider Preview builds nor did we have the team available to help triage Feedback Hub items at that time so we decided to wait. The wait is almost over! Our second Bug Bash for the Windows 10 Creators Update is planned for Friday February 3rd through Sunday February 12th. By the participation levels from previous Bug Bashes, we know how much our Windows Insiders love to Bug Bash alongside our Engineering Teams and for this one, we’ve extended it to cover two weekends to give our Insiders more opportunity to provide us feedback. We’ll publish some new quests as usual for this bug bash as well. We are also planning at least one webcast so we can all Bug Bash together (more details coming soon). Thank you to all the Insiders that have participated in the past and to those who will participate in this upcoming Bug Bash. Your feedback is *very* valuable to us and helps shape Windows 10!

Source: Windows Blog

Yesterday Microsoft released Build 15002 for PC, with al ton of new and exiting features check them out here:

What’s new in Build 15002

Microsoft Edge Updates

The Microsoft Edge Team has lots of new features to share, focused on making it easier than ever to keep track of your tabs and pick up where you left off, as well as a few other surprises!

Tab preview bar: It’s easy to lose track of what’s in your tabs, especially when you have many tabs from the same site, with similar titles and icons. Tab preview bar allows you to easily glance at a visual preview of every tab you have open without leaving your page. You can scroll through the list with touch, mouse wheel, or a touchpad. Just click the chevron icon next to your tabs to get started. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

Set these tabs aside: We often hear that it’s a headache to keep all your tabs organized, and to pick up where you left off. Sometimes you just need to set everything aside and start from a clean slate. We’ve added two new buttons next to your tabs in Microsoft Edge to help you quickly manage all your tabs without losing your flow.

Jump List for Microsoft Edge: You can now launch a new window or new InPrivate window for Microsoft Edge straight from its Taskbar icon. Simply right-click or swipe up on the Microsoft Edge icon in the Taskbar, and pick the task you want!

Component UI: This release introduces a new UWP architecture for Microsoft Edge’s multi-process model, including a new visual tree and new input model. These changes will help improve stability and input responsiveness and make the browser UI more resilient to slow or hung web page content. Be on the lookout for any issues with tab launches and activation or input (including keyboard, mouse, or touch) and share feedback in the Feedback Hub if you have problems!

Flash Click-to-Run: Microsoft Edge will now block untrusted Flash content by default until the user explicitly chooses to play it. This means better security, stability, and performance for you, while preserving the option to run Flash when you choose. You can learn more about this change on the Microsoft Edge Dev Blog: Extending User Control of Adobe Flash with Click-to-Run. We will be evolving this experience in upcoming flights to make the option to run Flash content more contextually obvious.

Web Payments: Microsoft Edge now has preview support for the new Payment Request API, which allows sites to make checkout easier using the payment and shipping preferences stored in your Microsoft Wallet. This is currently in a preview state for developers and will not process payment information until a future flight. You can learn more about Payment Request on the Microsoft Edge Dev Blog.

For a complete list of all the changes in Microsoft Edge, visit the Microsoft Edge changelog.

Start and Shell Improvements

Tile Folders in Start: As part of our ongoing effort to converge experiences across devices, and to address your feedback, we’re excited to let you know that with today’s build you will now be able to group your Start tiles into folders. Tile folders are a way for you to organize and personal your tiles in Start, and we’re happy to now bring this to Windows 10 PCs. To get started, drag and drop a tile on top of another tile in Start to create a folder.

Updated Windows Share experience: We have redesigned the Windows sharing experience to be more app-focused and integrated with where you are sharing from. The new Windows Share experience will pop-up the new share flyout within the app you are sharing from and give you a list of applications you can share to. This list changes based on your usage.

The WIN + H hotkey, used in the old Windows share experience, has been removed.

Capture a region of your screen: OneNote 2016’s popular screenshot feature is now built into Windows 10! You can use Win + Shift + S to capture a region of your screen and copy it to the clipboard for pasting into OneNote for Windows 10 or any other app. Please note that this feature replaces the one in OneNote 2016.

Improved high-DPI support for desktop apps: Continuing from our work with Build 14986, Build 15002 brings more goodness in the way of high-DPI support. First, much like we did with Microsoft Management Console (MMC), we’ve updated Performance Monitor (Perfmon) to now be more crisp on high-DPI PCs. Second, while we’ve enabled these improvements by default for some Windows desktop apps, you can now enable them yourself for other GDI-based applications, too! To do this, you’ll need to find the application’s .exe file, right-click on it, and select Properties. Go to the Compatibility tab, and turn on System (Enhanced) DPI scaling, and click OK. This setting overrides the way that applications handle DPI scaling (which sometimes uses bitmap stretching and can result in applications rendering blurry) and forces them to be scaled by Windows. The setting that was previously labeled Disable display scaling on high DPI settings is now referred to as Application scaling. This works only for apps that use GDI.

Smooth Window Resize: One of the things we’ve heard from Windows Insiders is that the animation when resizing windows isn’t always smooth. We’ve taken that feedback, and Insiders should see improved performance and smoothness when resizing GDI-based Desktop applications (such as File Explorer, Task Manager, and Notepad) and UWP apps (such as Groove Music and Outlook Mail). In addition to this work, we’ve also updated our code so that when rapidly resizing UWP apps, the window frame background will be transparent as the app adjusts, rather than a flat base color.

Desktop Icon Placement and Scaling Improvements: We’ve heard from you that sometimes desktop icons aren’t scaled or arranged as expected, particularly after docking/undocking your device, working with monitors that have different DPI, or projecting your monitor. We want users to feel that desktop icons are stable, scaled properly, and move predictably when changing monitor configurations, so we’ve made changes to how this logic works in order to address your feedback. Now when you change your multi-monitor configuration, dock/undock your device, project your display, add or remove monitors, or otherwise make changes that affect the icon scaling, you should see an improvement in how the system adjusts the layout of your desktop icons. Try it out and let us know how it goes!

Simplified and faster VPN access: A much requested feature from our VPN users, we’ve updated the Network flyout so that after selecting a VPN, you can now click connect from within the flyout rather needing to open VPN Settings. We appreciate the feedback and look forward to what you have to share next! If you encounter any issues, you can still connect to VPN from the VPN Settings (and please log feedback letting us know about it!)

Improved sign-in dialog for apps: We have improved the app sign-in experience for users with multiple accounts. The new sign-in dialog shows your available Microsoft, Work, or School accounts and gives you the ability to add new accounts to Windows.

Lunar Calendar support for the Taskbar: Those of you who follow the Simplified or Traditional Chinese lunar calendar can now use the taskbar calendar to quickly check the lunar date alongside the current Gregorian date. Special holidays are called out in accent-colored text. Go to Settings > Time & Language > Date & Time to pick which additional calendar you’d like to see. Thanks to everyone who sent in feedback requesting this!

Improving our notification experience for app developers and everyone: App developers are increasingly facing scenarios within their applications where they require more flexibility to organize notifications to provide the desired user experience. To provide a more relevant and crafted experience to Windows users, we will now provide app developers a way to create custom subgroups for their notifications in Action Center. Also, to address issues where notifications might have the wrong time stamp (for example, if your PC was asleep when you received a cross-device notification from your phone), we’re enabling app developers to override the notification timestamp. If you’re an app developer, please check out the Tiles and Toasts blog for coming posts about how you can leverage these new features.

Windows Ink Improvements

We have updated the Windows Ink pen, pencil and highlighter control to now visually indicate which color is selected. You can try this out now in the Windows Ink Workspace. Other apps can take advantage of this with future updates of the Windows 10 Creators Update SDK.

In addition, thanks to your feedback, we’ve added point erase to the Windows Ink Workspace’s Sketchpad and Screen Sketch. This means that now you have the option of deleting your whole ink stroke or erasing only pieces of it. You can select your desired option by tapping the eraser icon, where you’ll find new options to switch between eraser types.

We’ve also updated our taskbar logic, so that if you have the Windows Ink Workspace icon on your taskbar, it displays the taskbar of every monitor. Clicking it launches the Windows Ink Workspace on that monitor.

More Cortana improvements

Easier discovery of Cortana’s app-specific commands: Many of our awesome app developers have been adding commands for Cortana to help you get where you need to go even faster—for example directly launching radio stations, playing movies, or searching for recipes. For apps that support these commands, we will now bubble up suggested commands as you type the app name in Cortana. Clicking a particular suggestion launches the app with that command. Once you know the command, you can also trigger it by simply saying it to Cortana. Not sure which apps have added this feature? Check out this handy Store collection: Better with Cortana! Once you’ve downloaded an app, you’ll need to launch it once. Wait a few hours, and everything will be all good to go.

More recurrence options for Reminders: We’ve heard your feedback, and with this build of Windows we’ve added a new option to set recurring time-based Cortana Reminders for “Every Month” or “Every Year” —great for bill payment or anniversary reminders!

Keyboard shortcut change for invoking Cortana: The keyboard shortcut to invoke Cortana in listening mode is changing to WIN + C. This shortcut will be off by default. If you’d like to use it now, head to Cortana’s settings and you’ll find a new option to enable it. WIN + Shift + C will be used to open the App Charms menu, seen in the title bar of Windows 8 apps.

Accessibility Improvements

A more inclusive experience out of the box: The Windows Out-Of-Box-Experience (OOBE) Team has been working to reimagine how people set up their PCs for the first time. Our goal is to make this simpler and more accessible so every person powering on their new PC can independently set it up. While we have made numerous improvements in past releases to achieve this goal, we now want to take it to the next level where people can listen and respond to Cortana verbally (when asked questions*) to further simplify and make the setup process more accessible to even more people.

This new experience is still a work in progress, so there are some places that still include the older OOBE pages and Cortana is unable to help you get your PC fully set up. We plan to continue to do more work on this so stay tuned! While you can’t access the Feedback Hub during OOBE, please take a moment once you’ve reached the desktop to complete the Quest and log feedback in the Feedback Hub.

*Works for languages that support Cortana. For languages that don’t support Cortana, you will still get the new experience without the speech capabilities.  

Note: We are working on making Installation media (ISOs) available for Build 15002 in the next week for Windows Insiders to more easily try out this experience.

Narrator support for WinPE and WinRE: This build also now supports the use with Narrator from WinPE for installing Windows as well as troubleshooting options with WinRE. When we make the ISOs available for this build, you’ll be able to try this out by building a bootable USB drive or other bootable media and using the ISO files. After booting into WinPE, wait 15-20 seconds and then use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + WIN + Enter to launch Narrator. You will need to restart Narrator to use it after any reboot during the install process.

NOTE: Not all audio devices are supported. USB headsets are the recommended option for audio, since the full Windows audio drivers for the PC are not available in WinPE/WinRE. Built-in speakers may also work on some PC’s but if you do not hear Narrator announce that it is starting, try connecting a USB headset and restarting Narrator. Narrator Touch is not supported during OS install.

Braille support in Windows: Not too long ago, we mentioned Braille support was coming to Windows. That work is starting to appear in builds, and you will find a new button that offers the ability to download support for braille via Settings > Ease of Access > Narrator. While this button is present, the feature doesn’t work yet so hold off on giving it a try for now. We’ll let you know in a future post when braille can be used.

Narrator users please take note that the Narrator keyboard shortcut is changing: To help reduce accidental launch of Windows Narrator, we have updated the hotkeys to be more intentional from WIN + Enter to Ctrl + WIN + Enter.

Narrator Improvements: We’ve made several improvements to Narrator for navigation when using Scan mode. You can now navigate to headings of a specific level by typing the number of the heading level you want e.g. 1 for the next heading level 1. Add shift for the previous heading.  In addition, Narrator’s Scan Mode now allows you to press Home and End to move to the start and end of a line of text respectively when pressed. Finally, when in Scan Mode you can press Ctrl + Home and Ctrl + End to move to the start or end of the web page or other content you are reading.

Improved legibility for UWP apps in high contrast: As part of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, we improved the legibility of many websites viewed in high contrast by showing an opaque layer behind the text. We recognize that similar to the state of websites on the Internet, many UWP apps have not been tailored to present an optimal experience for users who need increased contrast.  So, we’re taking a similar approach to improve how UWP apps look in high contrast. We’ve updated the XAML framework to now display an opaque layer behind the text and coerce semi-transparent UI to be fully opaque. This addresses the most common issues in apps like in the before/after screenshot below. These adjustments are applied by default in high contrast and apply to *all* XAML Store applications that run on Build 15002 and higher, whether they explicitly target this build (with the SDK) or not. However, applications that render their own text on something such as a SurfaceImageSource do not receive the automatic adjustment from the framework. If you find any issues with this work, please log them here, and as always, you can reach out to @MSFTEnable on Twitter at any time about accessibility problems and requests you have for accessibility in Windows.

In addition, we’ve updated Windows Ink to now support a rich color range experience when using your device in high contrast. Try it out in Sketchpad today and let us know what you think!

Windows Defender Improvements

We continue to make improvements to the new Windows Defender app in Windows 10. Improvements in this build include:

• New options to run quick, advanced, or full scans.
• Device performance and health scans give you a report on your PC’s health.
• Family options has visual improvements and links you to great content/applications on the web to set up a family or view device information.
• Settings pages to change configuration on the app or learn more about it
• General bug fixes and improvements.

Additionally, we are introducing Refresh Windows on-demand in Windows Defender. If your PC is running slow, crashes or is unable to update your PC, this option may help you. This option starts fresh by reinstalling and updating Windows, which will remove most of your apps but keep your personal files and some Windows settings. For more details – see this forum post.

Settings Improvements

Helping you find the setting you need in Settings: One of our ongoing goals has been to make Settings easier and faster to navigate. Previous updates towards this have included improved Settings search, and adding icons uniquely associated with each Settings category. Based on feedback, we’ve made a few more design tweaks with this build:

• Settings pages now contain additional information on the right or bottom (depending on the window size) providing links to support, feedback, and any other related settings if available.
• Since our System Settings list was getting quite long, we’ve moved app related settings out of System into a new category called Apps.
• You will notice that the header on the landing page of each Settings category will now stay in place as you pan the page.

Updated device settings: The new device settings experience combines the Bluetooth and Connected devices pages to offer a single place to manage your devices/peripherals.  Bluetooth accessories, wireless docks, Xbox Wireless controllers, and media devices can all now be discovered and managed from the same place using the same familiar UI on both the desktop and mobile.  We’ve also listened to your feedback and added the ability to disconnect and reconnect your Bluetooth audio devices directly from this Settings page. Try out the new page and let us know what you think through the Feedback Hub!

New Display Settings options: Based on feedback of the most commonly used settings, we have updated the Display Settings. In the refreshed display page, numerous changes have been made to make the page clearer and easier to use, including now being able to change resolution straight from the main Display Settings page.

Lower Blue Light: Windows can now automatically lower the amount of blue light emitted from your PC at night. Settings to turn this functionality on or off and use a local sunset and sunrise or custom schedule are in Settings -> System -> Display. If you need to quickly override the schedule or always want manual control, you can enable this quick action in Settings->Notifications & actions. Use this capability for a couple nights and send us feedback through the Feedback Hub, we’d love to know what you think!

New per app Surface Dial settings: App developers have the option of providing custom tools for the Surface Dial when using it within their app. In addition to this, Windows Insiders with Surface Dials will now be able to customize the default tool set for individual apps starting with this build. Setup the keyboard shortcuts most meaningful for specific apps – like Ctrl + Delete in Word 2016, or CTRL + Tab in Sticky Notes. Head to Settings > Devices > Wheel today to try it out and share your thoughts! We’ve also updated the custom tool creator to now enable you to set keyboard shortcuts that include a number of common symbols.

Windows Personalization now supports recent colors: We understand how important colors are for personalizing your Windows experience, and that sometimes it takes a few tries to find the perfect one to match your background. Sometimes you pick a new color, close Settings, only to discover that the color you picked wasn’t quite what you were looking for. We have a solution! With Build 15002, we’ve added a new “recent colors” section to Settings > Personalization > Colors, so you can easily pick between the colors you’ve decided on in the past.

Windows Theme Management in Settings: As we’ve mentioned in the past, one of our ongoing efforts is to consolidate Settings and Control panel, and we use your feedback to prioritize the convergence into Settings. We’re happy to unveil the next piece of this project: Management of themes has now moved out of Control panel and in to the Settings app. It can be found, along with all your other familiar personalization options, under Settings > Personalization. Pick one of your recent themes, or create and save custom new ones. How would you like to see Settings evolve next? Let us know in the Feedback Hub!

Improved Cross-Device Experiences Settings: With the Anniversary Update, we added the ability for app developers to create cross device experiences. Users could enable or disable this feature for their account via Settings > Privacy > General “Let apps on my other devices open apps and continue experiences on this device”. With Build 15002, we’ve moved this setting to its own page – a new entry under Settings > System, called “Cross-device experiences”, and we’ve added a new dropdown to allow you to switch between My Devices or Everyone. If you’re interested in learning more about experiences an example experience that app developers can create with this, check out this blog post.

Metered Ethernet Connection Support: Based on your feedback, we’ve added the “Set as metered connection” option to the Ethernet (LAN) connections in Settings > Network & Internet > Ethernet. Just like mobile broadband and Wi-Fi connections, this option helps you to restrict background data usage from some applications and gives you more control over how data is used over the Ethernet connection.

Improving your precision touchpad experience:

Adjusting the volume control experience: When assigning three or four-finger swipes to control volume, the volume control UI will now appear as you’re changing the volume. We have also fine-tuned the gesture, so it now takes less swipes to adjust the volume by a significant amount

Polishing the Touchpad Settings page: Based on user feedback, we have made some UI improvements to the new touchpad settings page, including creating two new groups for three and four finger swipes, updating search terms to make them more discoverable, providing more flexibility to control how taps work, and fixing an issue where Touchpad Settings wasn’t showing an icon next to the name.

BSOD is now GSOD

In an effort to more easily distinguish Windows Insider reports vs the reports of those on production builds, we’ve updated the bugcheck page (blue screen) to be green. Released versions of Windows 10 will continue to have the classic blue color, including the final release of the Windows 10 Creators Update.

Quick Virtual Machine Creation in Hyper-V

Hyper-V Manager has a new page that makes it faster and easier to create virtual machines. Just open Hyper-V Manager and click ‘Quick Create’. The simple wizard will help you set up a VM in just a few clicks. After the virtual machine has been created, the confirmation page will allow you to connect to it or enter advanced settings.

This is still a work-in-progress and we would love to hear what you think. Next time you need a VM, please give it a try and send us your feedback!

Improving your update experience

We’ve already made a number of updates based on the feedback you’ve shared with us and today we’re happy to let you know there are some more headed your way:

• We’ve added an option that will enable you to pause updates on your computer for up to 35 days. To pause your machine, go to the Advanced options page of Windows Update Settings. This capability will be available on Professional, Education, and Enterprise editions of Windows.
• We’ve added an option that will now allow you to decide whether or not to include driver updates when you update Windows. This capability will be available on Professional, Education, and Enterprise editions of Windows.
• We’ve added a new icon to the Windows Update Settings page to make easier to see your update status at a glance. This update status and experience is consistent with the experience you’ll find in the new Windows Defender dashboard.

• We’ve made some improvements to our logic to better detect if the PC’s display is actively being used for something, such as projecting, and avoid attempting to restart.
• Windows Insiders with the Home edition of Windows will now also be able to leverage the increased 18 hour max window for Active Hours.

Windows Information Protection improvements for business customers

Placing Work Files on Removable Drives: Some enterprise customers have found that saving Work files to a removable drive would prevent them from accessing the files on a different device due to encryption. We’ve added a prompt to let you choose what you want to do in this case, which should make it easier to transfer work files to a removable drive:

• When copying Windows Information Protection (WIP) encrypted files to a removable drive, we now ask if you want to keep your files as Work, convert them to Personal, or cancel the copy operation.
• When saving Windows Information Protection (WIP) encrypted files to a removable drive, we now ask if you want to keep your files as Work, convert them as Personal, or save to a different location.

Open Dialog for Work Files in Personal Apps: We protect companies using Windows Information Protection (WIP) by displaying a warning message when opening work files in un-allowed applications (in other words, applications that are not on the whitelist of approved apps that can be used in an enterprise setting). When opening WIP files in un-allowed applications, we now inform the customer that the file is a work file and cannot be converted to personal in un-allowed applications.

You can read more about Windows Information Protection in Windows 10 here.

Power usage experiments on select Windows 10 devices

We are running experiments on a small set of Insider devices to evaluate an upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update feature which helps improve Windows battery life. Depending on the experiment configuration, you may see one or more applications reported as “throttled” in the task manager (see insert). The experiment should have no noticeable impact on your user experience and we look forward to hearing your feedback. Please share your experience with us through the feedback hub (under “Power” category & subcategory “throttled Applications”). In support of this experiment, some of you will also see a new power slider in the battery flyout; we’re still experimenting with these power modes that this slider sets. Stay tuned for more updates mid- February 2017.

Input Method Editor (IME) Improvements

Improved access to Microsoft Pinyin IME settings when using the language bar: We’ve heard your feedback – with Build 14986 it was going to be easier to access the appropriate settings with the IME mode indicator. This week we’re happy to announce that the same will be true for those who prefer the language bar, as we’ve updated the settings icon to now directly open IME settings.

New settings page for Microsoft Pinyin IME: To go alongside with the new customization options we’re adding for the IME, we’ve revamped the Microsoft Pinyin settings page – now divided into 5 categories so you can more easily find what you’re looking for. Have a look through the new settings and setup your IME experience the way that feels best to you!

Hotkeys for the Microsoft Pinyin IME: We’ve added some new features to improve the keyboard experience when using the IME. Including candidate window switch keys configuration, Chinese/English punctuation switch, default punctuation mode, Full/half width switch, default full/half width mode, Simplified/Traditional Chinese output switch and 2nd/3rd candidate submission. Learn about this new option in Microsoft Pinyin settings > Keys. We’ve also added a new hot key to open the emoji panel (Ctrl +  Shift + B), so you can open it directly without having to first have the candidate window visible.

Roaming self-learned phrases: In the last build flighted to Insiders we mentioned that the Microsoft Pinyin IME now supports imported and exporting self-learned phrases. This week, we’re happy to announce the natural extension of that work: If you have an MSA connected to your device, your self-learned phrases will now roam between all of your MSA connected PCs.

The Microsoft Pinyin IME emoji panel gets a redesign, new predictive emoji, and stickers: Since their conception, emoji have become an important tool for quickly convey thoughts. Along with our new keyboard shortcut (CTRL + Shift + B), we’ve updated the look of our emoji panel to make it easier to find the emoji, kaomoji and symbols you’re looking for. We’ve also added a totally new section: Stickers! The stickers tab will appear for apps that support sticker input. In addition, based on the words you type, we will now bubble up suggested emoji and stickers. Simply type something and then click on the face icon in the candidate pane (or use the new hotkey, tap the thought bubble, and the emoji predictions will be presented to you.

Making it easier to type complex input faster: Since there isn’t any pinyin starting with U or V, previously the Microsoft Pinyin IME would primarily just give English suggestions in that case, Knowing that about how pinyin is written, we’ve taken the opportunity to add two new modes: U-mode and V-mode. U-mode can now be used for advanced input features, like inputting complex characters, and V-mode can be used to input content which normally is not easy/quick to type (for example, 2016年6月6日”, “十三时三十分”, or “壹仟贰佰叁拾肆”). Try these new modes out today and let us know what you think! Once you start typing “u” or “v” with the IME on, a tip will appear displaying all the available options.

Name input mode: Since most names are not commonly used words, it can be difficult to type with the IME because the correct candidate will appear far down the list (or not at all). In order to solve this problem, we’re introducing a new name input mode for the Microsoft Pinyin IME. When you enter name input mode, instead of your normal candidate predictions, all candidates will be from a dictionary of names, thus making it more likely you’ll find the one you want. Press the “;” key (in double pinyin mode, press “Shift +;” key combination) and then press the “r” key to enter the name input mode. Name input mode can be disabled or enabled in the Microsoft Pinyin settings page.

Custom double pinyin schemes: Double pinyin is a method for creating shortcuts that speed up typing. Microsoft Pinyin IME users can now add, edit, or delete custom double pinyin schemes, so you can create the one that feels best to you. To do this, go to the IME > General settings, and switch the pinyin style from Full to Double. You will then be presented with options for setting up the scheme of your choice.

Japanese Input Method Editor (IME) Improvements:

• When the IME is turned on or off (by you or an application), we will now display a large indication of the current mode in the center of the screen. This is to help be more aware of active mode and avoid unexpectedly typing in the wrong mode. This large indicator can be turned on or off in the IME Properties.
• We’ve changed the trigger timing of showing the predictive candidates, from typing 3 characters to 1. This will not impact those who have previously adjusted the length. If you’d like to change the length, there is an option to do so on the IME’s Advanced Settings > Predictive Input page.
• We’ve changed the logic to show English words more frequently as predictive candidates so that IME users can input English words more easily if they choose to leave the IME on.

Windows Insider Program website updates

We are starting to update the Windows Insider Program website with new content, first starting with the landing page. We would love to hear your feedback on other changes that you would like up to plan for future updates at http://aka.ms/De57bq.

Other changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

• The 3D Builder app has been moved to the “Windows Accessories” folder on Start.
• We fixed an issue where the display brightness keys on some devices weren’t working as expected.
• We fixed an issue where the display may stay black after resuming from sleep if a USB display is connected.
• We fixed an issue where opening an app that uses the camera, such as the Camera app, would sometimes result in a bugcheck.
• We fixed a crash in the RPCSS service which in turn was resulting in some Insiders experiencing CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED bugchecks on recent builds.
• We fixed an issue for touch keyboards sometimes requiring multiple clicks to invoke on non-touch PCs.
• We fixed an issue where Disk Cleanup would sometimes unexpectedly show 3.99TB worth of Windows Update Cleanup files.
• We’ve updated our logic so if the Microsoft Edge window is narrow and Cortana has a tip, Cortana will only appear as an icon in the address bar. If you expand the window, you’ll see the full suggestion as before.
• We’ve updated tooltips for the Microsoft Edge favorites bar to wrap around for longer website names rather than truncate.
• We fixed an issue where Touchpad settings page via Settings > Devices > Touchpad wasn’t displaying an icon next to its name in the navigation pane.
• We fixed an issue that may have resulted in a recent drop in Action Center reliability for Insiders.
• We’ve updated the Speaker Properties dialog to now allow you to configure Spatial Audio for different endpoints. If the current playback device has Spatial Audio enabled, the volume icon in the notification area will now indicate this.
• We’ve made some tweaks to the backend for how users connect to devices, such as Miracast displays and other PCs. Use the Connect UI (WIN+K) as you normally would, and file feedback if you encounter any issues.
• We’ve removed the rerouting of mspaint.exe to Paint 3D – appreciate everyone who’s shared feedback on the Paint 3D experience, please keep it coming.
• We fixed an issue Insiders may have experienced on recent builds where navigating to OneDrive folders could unexpectedly result in popup saying there had been a “Catastrophic Error”.
• We fixed an issue that could result in a Visual Studio crash when trying to open, add, or save a file.
• We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders using PCs with certain older chipsets from seeing colored boxes in the place of text and various other UI in UWPs apps.
• When you use Miracast to a device that supports input (for example, an Actiontec Screenbeam or Miracast-enabled Windows 10 PC), you will now see a toast notification to help you enable input (touch, keyboard, etc) on that device.
• We fixed an issue where the Home and End keys were unexpectedly not working in certain Settings pages, for example “Apps & features”.
• Fixed an issue that could cause some progress indicators in UWP apps to appear to wobble or glitch.

Known issues for PC

• Opening Battery settings page via Settings > System > Battery will crash the Settings app.
• The option to enable the Virtual Touchpad is missing from the taskbar context menu.
• Cortana’s cross-device scenarios won’t work on this build (including notification mirroring, missed call, share photos, share directions, low battery, and find my phone).
• Some websites in Microsoft Edge may unexpectedly show “We can’t reach this page”. If you encounter this, please try accessing the site from an InPrivate tab.
• Dragging apps from the all apps list to pin on Start’s tile grid won’t work. For now, please right-click on the desired app in order to pin it.
• Using CTRL + C to copy in Command Prompt won’t work.
• When projecting to a secondary monitor, if you set the connection to “Extended”, Explorer.exe may start crashing in a loop. If this happens, turn off your PC, disconnect the secondary monitor, then restart your PC.
• The touch keyboard button may be unexpectedly missing from the taskbar. If this happens, open the taskbar context menu, and select “Show touch keyboard button”.
• You may see an error from Windows Hello saying “Couldn’t turn on the camera” on the lock screen.
• Brightness changes made via Settings > System > Display will unexpectedly revert after closing the Settings app. For now, please use either Action Center, power flyout or brightness keys to change the brightness
• The list of apps in the Surface Dial “Add an app” page via Settings > Devices > Wheel may unexpectedly be empty. If that happens, tap the “Browse for an app” button at the bottom of the screen to pick the desired app instead.
• Miracast sessions will fail to connect.
• The Netflix app may display a black screen rather than the expected video content. As a workaround, you can use Microsoft Edge to watch video content from Netflix.
• On certain hardware types (e.g.: Acer Aspire), the Netflix app crashes when starting a movie.
• 3rd party UWP apps would crash on devices if the DPI settings on the machine are >=150% (Generally people do this on high resolution devices – Surface book etc.)
• If you upgrade from Windows 8.1 directly to Build 15002, all your store apps are lost during upgrade process but you can go and re-download all the lost apps from the Store.
• When using Microsoft Edge with Narrator, you may hear “no item in view” or silence while tabbing or using other navigation commands. You can use Alt + Tab when this happens to move focus away from and back to the Edge browser. Narrator will then read as expected.
• Saying “Hey Cortana, play <item> on <AppName>” doesn’t work immediately after installing the app. Wait 5 minutes for indexing to begin and try again.

Source: Windows Blog

Ran in to this nice blog post by the Office Team, a good read:

According to the Association of Corporate Counsel, unintentional employee error is the top cause of data breaches. And with 87 percent of IT professionals concerned about the security of cloud data, according to a Dimensional Research survey conducted for Druva, it’s easy to feel vulnerable. Preventing these unintentional errors can help keep your data protected.

The problem—simple passwords

Simple or reused passwords open the door to hackers. According to SplashData, the top five worst passwords of 2015 were:

1. 123456
2. password
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. 12345

But even a great password can pose problems when used on multiple sites. Hackers know that people like to reuse passwords, so when they crack one, they test it on multiple sites, especially those that may contain higher value information.

Your solution—Educate employees on how to create a strong password. Then put a policy in place to ensure passwords meet minimum complexity requirements and require that users change them often. Also, encourage secure password-keeping practices such as using third-party services that store passwords in the cloud and secure them all with a master password.

The problem—falling for phishing

According to a Verizon Data Breach report, phishing is the second most common threat and is implicated in around a quarter of all data breaches. If a phishing message ends up in an employee’s inbox, there’s a good chance they will click the link.

Your solution—In addition to top-notch security and secure email filters, encourage users to report suspicious-looking messages—similar to reporting junk mail. Once reviewed and identified as a threat, add these messages to service-wide filters.

In Exchange Online, Email Safety Tips provide an additional layer of protection with a warning to the user in messages that are marked suspicious.

The problem—BYOD practices

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies are widely used in today’s business landscape, but employees accessing sensitive information from personal devices can open the door to security threats. According to research from the Ponemon Institute, a total of 67 percent of respondents cited employees using their devices to access company data as likely or certainly the cause of data breaches.

Your solution—Create clear BYOD policies and educate employees on how to follow these guidelines—including what’s at risk if they’re ignored. For additional layers of security, require the use of approved secure mobile apps and multi-factor authentication when accessing company information.

The problem—lost or stolen devices

Lost devices are another leading cause of data breaches. And not just employee-owned devices—even your company’s devices are at risk, leaving your organization exposed to threats if they are lost or stolen.

Your solution—Educate employees on proper device security on- and off-premises, and instruct them to report lost devices as soon as possible. Enable security policies to ensure you can remotely access, locate and wipe a device if necessary.

Keep your business and email secure

Help protect your organization’s data with the email security features you need to move your business ahead. Office 365 has built-in, always up-to-date security and compliance features for greater peace of mind.

Get the free eBook

Continually educate employees to minimize risk of common user-error breaches. Security features available with Office 365 help mitigate the risks introduced by employees. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) proactively scans emails and notifies users before they send sensitive information. Information Rights Management (IRM) allows you to control email access permissions to keep unauthorized people from printing, forwarding or copying sensitive information. Additionally, Office 365 gives you the option to use Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to safeguard mailboxes against sophisticated attacks in real time.

Learn more

• Explore the email threat landscape in “The Current State of Email Security.”
• Learn why now is the right time to take your email to the cloud in the “Elevate Your Email” eBook.

New Build 184986 released to the Fast Ring Insiders, happy upgrading!

Great news, Direct Access is up & running again in this build!

What’s new in Build 14986

Making Cortana awesomer:

• Turn off your computer, change volume with voice commands: Being able to control your computer with just your voice is one of the top requests we get with Cortana, so we’re excited to say that we’ve added several new features to Cortana that let you do just that. Now you can shut down your PC just by asking Cortana. You can also restart, lock, or put the system to sleep, and raise and lower your system volume with just your voice. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

• Cortana loves music: You can now use Cortana to control music playback on more of your favorite music apps (EN-US only). Starting with this build, we’ve enabled natural language compatibility for iHeartRadio and TuneIn Radio. This will work on both, above the lock screen (PC is locked) as well as below! You can try queries like…

Play <Artist/Track/Title/Genre> on <AppName>
Play Drake on iHeartRadio
Play Christmas music on iHeartRadio
Play NPR Hourly News on TuneIn
Play jazz music on TuneIn

Play <Frequency/Call Letters> on <AppName>
Play 90.3 on iHeartRadio
Play KUOW on TuneIn

While you are listening to music in one of these apps, you can also use your voice to control playback and volume. With radio stations, we often want to know what that catchy tune is that has played a million times, so we added support for “What’s Playing”. Try saying “Hey Cortana, What song is Playing?” and it will work for all apps playing music. As a bonus, we made Cortana smarter by remembering the last played music app so you don’t have to say “on Groove” over and over. All you need to do is say your desired app one time, something like “Play jazz music on iHeartRadio”; then the next time, just say “Play rock music” and it will play on iHeartRadio. Please look for the Quest and give us feedback!

• Adding music recognition support to Chinese (Simplified): Cortana can now recognize music for customers in China. Simply tap the music notes icon in the top corner of Cortana’s home page, and Cortana will listen to whatever music is playing and use Netease to tell you what song it is. This works exactly like the feature does in English (United States). You can also say “Hey Cortana, what’s playing?” (except, in Chinese, of course, so you’d say 你好小娜，这是什么歌) and Cortana will start listening to the song.

• Full screen when Idle: We’ve made major improvements to Cortana’s look when using “Hey Cortana” when your PC is unlocked and idle. When your PC is in this state, asking Cortana questions will result in a gorgeous full-screen experience that is optimized for far field viewing! Give it a try by enabling “Hey Cortana” and then wait for about 10 seconds or so without touching your PC. May we recommend asking to see if it will snow tomorrow?

• Cortana sign-in using Azure Active Directory (AAD) identity: This capability will allow you to sign into Cortana with your work or school account instead your MSA, enabling you to use Cortana even if your organization does not support MSA. To sign in to Cortana using your work or school account, just go to Cortana’s Notebook and “About Me” and sign in. You’ll get the full Cortana experience with most of the same features. AAD join is currently only available on Windows 10 PCs.

Enterprise Cloud Printing: The new Enterprise Cloud Printers discovery UI under Settings > Devices > Printers & scanners will enable corporate users to discover corporate printers when on Azure Active Directory joined devices when the IT admin deploys and configures the backend services.

This feature requires the corresponding backend services to work, which are not yet available. Please continue to use existing UI to discover and install printers in the interim.

Windows Game Bar improved full-screen support: With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, we added support for six full screen games in Game Bar. For the Windows 10 Creators Update, we’re working on adding many more. In this build, we’ve added support for 19 additional games in full-screen mode with Windows game bar. As always, just hit WIN + G to invoke Game Bar to capture a recording or screenshot.

• ARMA 3
• Battlefield 1
• Civilization V
• Dark Souls III
• Fallout 4
• Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
• Mad Max
• Mafia 2
• NBA 2K16
• Overwatch
• Star Wars: The Old Republic
• StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
• The Binding of Isaac
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
• Terraria
• Tom Clancy’s The Division
• Total War: WARHAMMER
• Warframe
• World of Tanks

Tip: You can control this feature through the Windows Game bar settings. In the settings dialog, look for the “Show Game bar when I play full-screen games” checkbox. See Major Nelson’s post on Game bar for more info on how to adjust settings for best game performance.

Taking your Windows Ink experience to the next level: We’ve already announced and released some of the improvements that will be coming for our pen and Windows Ink users with the Creators Update, and with this build we’re excited to announce some more!

• Resuming previous screen sketches: We’ve heard your feedback that it can be too easy to accidentally lose your Screen Sketch sketch, so we’re excited to announce that with build 14986 you can now resume previous sketches! By default, when you open Screen Sketch, it will always open to a new screenshot, but now you can click on the Resume button and it will take you back to the sketch you were working on when Screen Sketch last closed.

• Updated Ink Flyout Visuals: The Windows Ink pen, pencil and highlighter flyouts now show a preview of what it would look like to ink with the currently selected color and width. This improvement will be visible in any app that uses Windows Ink with the Windows 10 Creators Update SDK. We’ve also updated the flyouts so that they’ll no longer show what appear to be duplicate color entries when in high contrast, now support using the Esc key to close the flyout, and have returned the flyout to dismissing once you tap a color or change the width (rather than staying open until you manually close it)
• Finer control over ruler rotation: We’ve updated the Windows Ink ruler to now rotate in sub-degree increments when you’re moving it with touch, so as to make it easier to line the ruler up with two points on the screen
• Polishing your inking experience: The cursor will no longer be shown while you’re inking – we believe this makes the experience feel even more like pen on paper.

Try it out and let us know what you think!

New Extensions in Microsoft Edge: Great news! We have new extensions to share with Windows 10 users. Please take a look at Ebates, Intel TrueKey, and Read & Write. Try them out and send feedback to the Feedback Hub or @MSEdgeDev on Twitter.

Updated Rendering Technology: We’ve changed the rendering technology used for many types of UWP app content, so please provide feedback through the Feedback Hub if you notice any new visual glitches in UWP apps. For additional context on this change, we are now widely using the same Windows.UI.Composition API that app developers have access to for XAML UWP app and shell rendering.

Narrator improvements: Making our products more accessible is a goal of ours and improving the experience when using Narrator is a big part of that. As such, this flight comes with a number of improvements, including:

• Narrator has a new feature to give you additional information about fonts, colors, line spacing, margins and more. Press Caps Lock + F to hear this information.  Continue to press Caps Lock + F to cycle through nine categories of information. Use Shift + Caps Lock + F to move through these categories in reverse.
• The default level for a Narrator feature called Context Awareness is now set to 2.  You will hear additional information as you move around areas such as the Start Menu, Office ribbon and more about the areas you are in. Use Alt + Caps Lock + / to cycle through the different options.  Zero means off for the feature.
• The key to get advanced information about the item with focus has been changed to Caps Lock + 0 from Caps Lock + F in Narrator.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where Narrator would only say “No item in view” when placing focus on the Start menu tiles.

If you haven’t already read our plan for what to expect in 2017 with the Windows 10 Creators Update, and Office 365 – we invite you to go over it now. Lots of exciting things yet to come!

New Windows Defender dashboard: We are making it easier for you to view and control Windows 10 device security and health features available on your PC or tablet with the availability of a new dashboard coming in the Windows 10 Creators Update. Windows Insiders will get a preview of the new experience beginning today. After upgrading to this build, Insiders will have to restart their PC. After that, they can find the dashboard by searching for “Windows Defender” and clicking on the search result that says “Windows Defender/Trusted Windows Store app”. Remember, the dashboard is a work-in-progress and not fully functional just yet.

Registry Editor improvements: Continuing our theme of enhancing your registry experience, we’ve taken your feedback and added the familiar File Explorer keyboard navigation shortcuts to Registry Editor, so you can now easily go up (Alt+ Up arrow), backwards (Alt + Left arrow) or forwards (Alt + Right arrow) in the registry. We’ve also added a new entry point in the View menu so you can customize the font Registry Editor uses.

The USB Audio 2 Class Driver and You: Previous builds flighted to Windows Insiders have contained a Microsoft class driver for devices that support the USB Audio 2.0 standard. However, if you had a third-party driver which was specifically written for your device, Windows would use that instead. In order to get more miles on the class driver, we are temporarily changing things as of 14986 to prefer the class driver over third-party drivers – this is so we can flush out device compatibility issues and other bugs in our driver.

When you have a chance, please go through all your regular listening scenarios and see how they sound (we’ll be adding a Quest about this too!). If everything works fine for you, awesome! If you do run into a problem where our class driver does not work with your device, please let us know by filing a problem report, and then manually switching to your specific third-party driver

Some things that we are already aware of:

1. Our class driver does not support ASIO
2. Our class driver does not work in WASAPI exclusive mode in certain applications

For the most recent information on USB Audio in Microsoft Windows, see https://aka.ms/usbaudio.

Improved Update Experience: Windows strives to keep your device running the most secure, reliable and feature rich version of Windows available with minimum impact to you. We’ve heard your feedback, and as such, 14986 comes with two more improvements in this space:

• Involving you more when specifying a time to update: For some of you though, receiving these updates has resulted in your device not being available for use when you needed it. For those of you that happened to fall into this category, you will be happy to see that we now have moved to involving you more in specifying when to successfully apply a pending update.  If Windows Update in unable to find a good time to restart your machine to apply the latest updates, you will now get be prompted to “restart now”, “Schedule” a time that works for you, or simply “Remind me later” which will not apply the update but offer you these options again.

Improving Windows 10 in Asia

Along with Cortana’s new music recognition support for Chinese (Simplified) that we mentioned above, we’ve also done a few more things to improve the Windows 10 experience in Asia based on feedback.

Chinese Input Method Editor (IME) Improvements: We’ve heard your feedback about the Chinese typing experience, and we’ve happy to announce that we’ve made some changes based on what you’ve told us!

• Smart fuzzy matching for pinyin and updated Microsoft Pinyin IME candidate pane experience: As part of our effort to improve the efficiency of Chinese input, the Microsoft Pinyin IME candidate pane has been updated to make it easier to find the candidate you’re looking for. The IME now more clearly indicates fuzzy pinyin candidates, along with tips for how to change the related settings. When you’re typing, this feature will be triggered automatically when fuzzy pinyin candidates are detected and it will show them in the candidate window. We’ve also added a small icon to indicate when a particular cloud candidate is trending. In addition, since most of these trending candidates are related to hot stories, when you have that candidate highlighted, we’ve made it easier to search and learn more about it.

• New context menu for the IME mode: The IME mode indicator in the taskbar now has a context menu if you right-click it when using the Microsoft Pinyin or Wubi IME! It contains options to easily access that IME’s settings page, or show the language bar.

• Microsoft Pinyin IME now supports importing and exporting self-learned phrases: If you enable self-learning, the Microsoft Pinyin IME can learn and store the phrases as you use it to type. With this build, these phrases can be now be exported and imported. This means that if you re-install your PC, or have multiple PCs to maintain, you can now keep the same user lexicon.

• Wubi IME has been updated to support user-defined phrases: You can add custom phrases manually, or import and export custom phrase files. In the Wubi IME settings, click the “user-defined phrase” button to enter the custom phrase page.

Line Mode for Chinese (Simplified) Handwriting: With the Anniversary Update, the Chinese (Simplified) handwriting panel only supported entering text using box mode – writing a single character in each box, and then the character would disappear after the candidate had been finalized, and there was no way to edit the ink. We’re excited to announce that with 14986 that is now longer the case! Just like the Japanese handwriting panel, the Chinese (Simplified) handwriting panel now supports line mode, so you can write and edit your characters all in one continuous sentence. We’ve also added two editing gestures for users – a strikethrough to delete, and a circle to grouping.

New experience writing Chinese characters:

Deletion gesture:

Grouping gesture:

Japanese Input Method Editor (IME) Improvements:

• It’s now possible to remove text prediction candidates. To do this, hover over the entry in the candidate list and an ‘X’ button will appear. Removed candidates will not be suggested next time.

• Improving the Japanese IME conversion accuracy: Improving the conversion accuracy of Japanese IME is an ongoing goal of ours – with this build, we’ve enhanced our logic how we take into account previously determined context. To give an example, with the Anniversary Update, when typing “にんげんをやとう” in one shot and then converting the text, the IME would return the correct conversion. However, if you were to do the conversion in two parts (aka, type “にんげんを”, convert, and then type “やとう” and convert), the IME would return a different and potentially undesirable conversion. With the work lighting up with 14986, the IME will now return the same result in both cases. We have also improved learning behavior when user registered shortcut word (短縮語) is involved and added a new keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+.) so that you can flag particularly bad conversion errors. Conversions flagged in this way will be prioritized among all other mis-conversions when we investigate. We rely on your feedback to improve our conversion accuracy so please do report bad conversion errors when you see them!
• Improved reliability and responsiveness: We’ve improved the responsiveness of the Japanese Input Method Editor (IME) and fixed an issue where key input might sometimes get stuck in certain environments. We also fixed an issue where the Japanese IME’s self-learning wouldn’t work in certain environments, and fixed an issue resulting in being unable to use the IME to enter text in a program that had been launched using Command Prompt’s “runas” command.

Other changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

• We have improved the Windows Hello face which may require you to “Improve Recognition” to get recognized again. To do this – go to Settings > Accounts > Sign-in Options and under “Windows Hello” and “Face Recognition”, select “Improve Recognition” to go through the Improve Recognition wizard.
• We updated the Taskbar’s context menu settings entry to now explicitly be called “Taskbar settings”, as that is where it pointed.
• We fixed an issue where the Virtual Touchpad’s left and right buttons might not work on some devices. We also fixed an issue where the Virtual Touchpad wouldn’t launch if the primary monitor was non-touch, and added the Virtual Touchpad icon to the Taskbar settings where you can Turn system icons on or off.
• We fixed the issue where apps such as Store, Photos, and People might launch on their own after your PC had been inactive for a period of time.
• We fixed the issue where navigating to Settings > System > Battery would crash the Settings app.
• We’ve changed the default state of the Handwriting Panel to be floating next to the text field, rather than docked at the bottom of the screen. If you prefer docked-mode, you can still select it by tapping the icon in the top right corner of the Handwriting Panel.
• We fixed an issue where using ~ to switch languages using the Thai keyboard when typing in Office apps, such as Outlook or Word 2016, might sometimes result in a hang.
• We’ve updated our migration logic, so that going forward from 14986 the default user’s numlock setting will now be preserved across upgrades.
• We fixed an issue where double-clicking on an Excel document to open it from File Explorer would crash Microsoft Excel.
• We fixed an issue where Windows Hello might get stuck “Looking for you”.
• We fixed an issue Insiders with Surface Dial may have experienced recently where rotating the Dial could result in unexpected beeps.
• We’re moving some things around in Storage Settings – stay tuned for future updates. For this flight, you’ll notice that the settings to change save locations has moved to its own page. We also fixed an issue where Storage Usage for the Other category might show an unexpectedly high number.
• We fixed an issue where the PowerShell entry in File Explorer’s File menu would sometimes be unexpectedly greyed out.
• We fixed an issue where the Clock and Calendar flyout in the taskbar wouldn’t launch when the display language was set to Chinese (Traditional) and the system was using the phonetic sorting method.
• We’ve updated the full screen Settings search results to now use smaller icons – we feel this delivers an overall more polished feel, as well as enables more search results to display on the page at a time.
• We fixed an issue where some notifications might draw too high or too low, and then be seen moving itself to the correct position.
• We fixed an issue where the outline incoming notification toasts could still be seen if notification banners as a whole for that particular app had been turned off.
• We fixed an issue Insiders may have experienced where the Favorites bar on desktop might appear empty, despite having items in the Favorites folder.
• We fixed an issue that could result in CPU throttling when idling on certain webpages with many gifs or looping videos in Microsoft Edge.
• We fixed an issue that could result in Alt + D sometimes not being able to set focus to the address bar in Microsoft Edge.
• For Insiders with PCs that upgraded to builds 14926-14959, some default power settings may have been lost and not recovered on subsequent upgrades. The effect of this causes devices to potentially use more power, change the power button behavior on tablets, etc. Starting with 14986, an attempt to detect this issue and re-apply the power settings will be made during upgrade. This attempt is a temporary process to help address this issue for Insiders, and will be removed once we’re closer to the Creators Update release.
• We’ve heard your feedback, and updated our Windows Error Reporting logic so that uploading crash data should no longer interfere with online game play, video streaming, Skype calls, or other network-intensive activity. Please keep an eye out for this if you experience any crashes and let us know how it goes.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Studios games like Microsoft Sudoku, Jigsaw, Minesweeper, Taptiles, and Treasure Hunt potentially freezing at the splash screen on launch.
• We fixed an issue where, if the taskbar location was set to be on top, it was visible on the Welcome screens after upgrading.

Known issues for PC

• Using keyboard monitor hotkeys to adjust brightness won’t work as expected. Desired brightness change could be done via the Action Center or by going to Settings > System > Display.
• You may see a popup “Catastrophic Error” dialog when opening OneDrive folders. If you do, the workaround is to open an elevated Command Prompt or PowerShell window and enter “attrib -O <path to OneDrive failure that resulted in the error dialog>”.
• We’re currently investigating reports that DirectAccess isn’t working for some Windows Insiders.
• When using Microsoft Edge with Narrator, you may hear “no item in view or silence when tabbing or using other navigation commands. You can use Alt + Tab when this happens to move focus away from and back to the Edge browser and then Narrator will read as expected.
• Hey Cortana, play <blah> on <AppName> doesn’t work immediately after installing the app. Wait 5 minutes for indexer to kick in and try again.
• Currently, the Windows Defender dashboard is primarily aimed at providing some minimal read-only status for Antivirus/Firewall, with some very limited functionality for interacting with the app. Here are some of the known issues with the dashboard to be aware of (not a comprehensive list):

• Doesn’t accurately roll up status of Pillars
• Doesn’t accurately show status when a 3P AV is on the machine.
• History is not yet available in the new app
• Advanced/Custom scans are not yet available in the new app
• Settings are not configurable through the new app
• Firewall control panel not launchable from new app
• Firewall settings are not configurable through the new app

Read more at Windows Blog

Last week Microsoft Released Build 14971 to the Fast Insider Ring, This build is running smooth! Here’s what’s changed: Native support for epub files in Edge & Paint 3D are my favorites!

What’s new in Build 14971

Read EPUB books in Microsoft Edge: The reading experience will get even better with the Windows 10 Creators Update! In addition to providing a great reading experience for PDF files – you can now read any unprotected e-book in the EPUB file format with Microsoft Edge. When you open an unprotected e-book in Microsoft Edge, you will be taken into a customizable reading experience where you can change the font and text size and choose between 3 themes: light, sepia, and dark. As you read, you can leave bookmarks. To navigate through an e-book, you can use the table of contents or seek bar at the bottom of the browser. And you can also search for words or phrases and use Cortana to define specific words.

You can download and read unprotected e-books from places like Feedbooks, Project Gutenberg, Free eBooks (requires sign-up), ePubBooks (requires sign-up), Open Library and even our own Microsoft Press. Try out reading an e-book in Microsoft Edge and let us know what you think!

Bringing 3D to Everyone via the Paint 3D Preview app: Starting with this build and going forward, the Paint 3D Preview app is now included as part of Windows 10. Opening Paint from Start will now take you to the Paint 3D Preview app. Please try it out and let us know what you think we should improve or add next! Currently, Paint 3D Preview is only available in English (aka, regardless of your display language, the text will be in English) – support for other languages will be coming soon. Remix 3D Preview, the community counterpart to Paint 3D Preview, is expanding to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland for Windows Insiders today! Remix 3D Preview is currently only available in English but we will continue to expand our region and language support. You can check it out at Remix3D.com and from within the Paint 3D Preview app.

PowerShell in the Shell: In an effort to bring the best command line experiences to the forefront for all power users, PowerShell is now the defacto command shell from File Explorer. It replaces Command Prompt (aka, “cmd.exe”) in the WIN + X menu, in File Explorer’s File menu, and in the context menu that appears when you shift-right-click the whitespace in File Explorer. Typing “cmd” (or “powershell”) in File Explorer’s address bar will remain a quick way to launch the command shell at that location. For those who prefer to use Command Prompt, you can opt out of the WIN + X change by opening Settings > Personalization > Taskbar, and turning “Replace Command Prompt with Windows PowerShell in the menu when I right-click the Start button or press Windows key+X” to “Off”.

Fun fact! It’s PowerShell’s 10 year anniversary this week. Hop over to Channel 9 to see some of the videos we’ve been sharing about it. If you’re looking to learn more about unleashing the “power” in PowerShell, this page is a great resource.

Improved Typing Experience with Japanese and Chinese Input Method Editors (IMEs): This build includes many improvements in this space – here are some of the highlights:

• Improved Chinese IME reliability. In particular, we fixed an issue where the IME might crash due to an incompletely downloaded or corrupted dictionary file
• Improved Conversion Accuracy for the Japanese IME. We also fixed various issues, in particular, when conversion was used mixed with prediction, and an UX issue when trying to change phrase segmentation.
• Improved resource usage when typing with the Japanese IME. In particular, we fixed an issue that could result in unexpected graphic glitches after using the IME for an extended period of time.

Get Office (Beta): We’ve heard your feedback about the Get Office app, and today we’re happy to announce Get Office version 2.0 for Insiders in the Fast ring! (Well, technically, version 17.7614.2377.0). Whereas before Get Office was largely a collection of links to help you get started with Office, the new and improved app will help you explore and manage your Office experience. Easily discover and launch apps and see all your recent Office documents in one place! We still have the familiar help links, but we’ve redesigned the experience to make easier to find what you’re looking for. As you try out the new app, please log feedback – we’d love to hear your thoughts!

Other changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

• First introduced to Insiders in Build 14926, the experimental “Snooze” action on a tab in Microsoft Edge which provides you with a way to set a Cortana reminder on the website you are viewing is no longer available. Based on data we gathered and feedback we received, we decided to remove it from the product and re-evaluate the feature for a future release.
• We’ve improved reliability when using the protractor and inking in Sketchpad.
• We’ve updated some of our desktop wizards (including “map a network drive” and “extract from zip”) to now be proportionally sized when moved across monitors.
• We fixed an issue where Magnifier’s keyboard shortcuts sometimes wouldn’t work on the Lock screen.
• We fixed an issue that could result in sometimes not being able to completely remove files in the Windows.old folder using Disk Cleanup.
• We have enabled OAuth support for Yahoo Mail accounts. This will improve sync reliability for those accounts, and provide a more secure experience in the Outlook Mail app.
• We fixed an issue where trying to shut down the PC while certain Device Manager dialog boxes were open would result in the PC being stuck at the “Restarting…” screen.
• We fixed an issue where, as closing multiple tabs with middle click in Microsoft Edge, the width of the tabs might change, resulting in potentially unexpectedly closing the wrong tab.
• We fixed an issue where the copy link option when right-clicking a hyperlink in Microsoft Edge wasn’t work.
• We fixed an issue where, if you changed the size of the Microsoft Edge window, and then closed the app by closing the final tab, the next time Microsoft Edge is launched it would once again be the default size, rather than retaining the preferred window size.
• We fixed an issue where pinned tabs in Microsoft Edge were not being restored.
• We’ve made a number of translation improvements, including for Chinese speakers fixing a translation error in the dialog that appears when installing multiple fonts at once, as well as one in Settings > System > Battery. If you see any other translations that aren’t as you’d expect, please log feedback – we’re listening!
• We fixed an issue where, if you already hand a notification expanded in the Action Center, clicking the chevron to expand a second notification would result in it expanding then immediately closing.
• We fixed an issue where preferred Start menu width might not be preserved after rebooting.

Known issues for PC

• Navigating to Settings > System > Battery will crash the Settings app.
• Using keyboard monitor hotkeys to adjust brightness won’t work as expected. Desired brightness change could be done via the Action Center or by going to Settings > System > Display.
• Apps such as Store, Photos, and People may launch on their own after your PC has been inactive for a period of time. To stop these apps from launching on their own, un-maximize the app before closing it.
• Double-clicking on an Excel document to open it from File Explorer will crash Microsoft Excel. The workaround is to open the document from within Excel.
• Microsoft Studios games like Microsoft Sudoku, Jigsaw, Minesweeper, Taptiles, and Treasure Hunt may freeze at the splash screen on launch.
• As we have previously announced we are working on the Windows Holographic Shell that is going to be included in the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update. In today’s flight you will see the Windows Holographic First Run app. While you will be able to launch the app and walk through the first few screens, it won’t detect any hardware. This app and the Windows Holographic Shell is still under active development here at Microsoft and with our partners.

Office 2013 can now block macros to help prevent infection

In response to the growing trend of macro-based threats, a new feature in Office 2016 allows an enterprise administrator to block users from running macros in Office documents that originated from the Internet.

This feature was documented back in March: New feature in Office 2016 can block macros and help prevent infection, and the predominant customer request we received was for this feature to be added to Office 2013.

We are pleased to announce that, as of September 2016, this feature is now part of Office 2013 – and it works in the same way as it does in Office 2016.

Administrators can enable this feature for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint by configuring it under the respective application’s Group Policy Administrative Templates for Office 2013.

For more information on how this feature works, and some background information on how macros can be abused for malware, see our blog from March 2016.

Yesterday Microsoft released Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14959 for Mobile and PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring.

The Windows 10 Creators Update

Last week, we held an event in New York to share our aspiration to empower a new wave of creativity with the Windows 10 Creators Update and new devices such as the Surface Studio and Surface Dial. You can catch up on all the details on the things we announced at the event by checking out this blog post from Terry Myerson. As I mentioned last week, Windows is an iceberg, the features that people “see” are quite a small percent of the engineering work that we do to enable new UI to be visible. Windows Insiders running the latest builds have already been trying out the Creators Update – including last week’s build (Build 14955). The new and exciting visible features you saw shown off at the event will start rolling out in builds in the coming weeks. Features such as the Paint 3D Preview are now available for Insiders to try right now! We’re excited to get more of the new Creators Update features in the hands of Insiders in the next couple of months.

What’s new in Build 14959

Unified Update Platform: This build for Mobile is being published using our new update publishing system called Unified Update Platform (UUP). For more information on UUP – check out this blog post from Bill.

Controlling the Display Scaling of your Virtual Machines (PC):  We’ve heard your feedback that Hyper-V Virtual Machines sometimes aren’t scaled as you’d expect, so we’ve added a new Zoom option in the View menu, where you can override the default scaling and set it to 100, 125, 150 or 200 – whichever matches your preference. Along the way, we also fixed an issue where certain VMs wouldn’t display the remote desktop connection bar after entering full screen mode. We are still refining the experience so there might be some rough edges. For example, although we added zoom levels to handle high DPI more gracefully, when zooming you won’t be able to see the VM’s whole screen without scrolling.

Other improvements and fixes for PC

• We fixed an issue for Insiders resulting in the automatic brightness setting unexpectedly being turned off after upgrading. In doing so, we’ve re-enabled automatic brightness adjust for users that have never changed their auto-brightness setting. If you have already manually configured your auto-brightness setting, then this fix will not affect you. If you would like to enable or disable automatic brightness adjustment, please go to Settings > System > Display, where you can adjust your preferences.
• We fixed an issue Insiders on domain connected PCs may have experienced where login might fail when the computer was disconnected from its domain network.
• We fixed an issue resulting in certain apps, such as Outlook Mail and Calendar, failing to update for some Insiders with the error code 0x800700B7.
• We fixed an issue for Insiders with certain device models where ejecting an SD card might result in a system crash.
• We fixed an issue where disliking one of the Spotlight lock screen images would show the new image immediately, followed by a transition animation from the previous image to the new image.
• We fixed an issue where launching an app from another app while in Tablet mode no longer launched it side by side, and instead launched it fullscreen (for example, when launching a web link from the MSN News app).

Other improvements and fixes for Mobile

• The data usage page in Settings via Settings > Network & wireless > Data usage has been updated with performance and UI improvements.
  
• We fixed issues preventing Insiders from adding cards to Wallet and paying using tap to pay.
• We fixed an issue resulting in being unexpectedly able to close Start in the task switcher.
• We fixed an issue resulting in certain options for default calling app via Settings > System > Phone > Default apps from being unexpectedly missing.
• We fixed an issue causing apps that play media in the background, such as Groove Music, to stop when Battery Saver turns on.
• We fixed an issue Insiders may have experienced where the phone would get into a state where copy/paste wouldn’t work until the device had been restarted.
• We fixed an issue where Settings might hang after unchecking “Let apps automatically use this VPN connection” in VPN Settings.

Known issues for PC

• If you have a 3rd party antivirus product installed on your PC – your PC might not be able to complete the update to this build and roll-back to the previous build.
• We’re aware of an issue where Internet Explorer may crash a few seconds after launch and working.

Known issues for Mobile

• If you used the previous ‘date change’ workaround to update to Build 14951 or Build 14955: Please don’t use it any longer! The Microsoft account (MSA) ticket on your device needs to expire and then you’ll be offered today’s build. If you changed your date by 30 years… you’ll want to do a device reset.
• You will be unable to install additional languages, keyboards, and speech packs on your phone for the next few weeks. If you have existing languages, keyboards, and speech packs installed – they will carry over when you update to new builds. You just can’t install any new ones. If you do a hard reset of your phone on these builds – you will also be unable to install additional languages, keyboards, and speech packs. You can use Windows Device Recovery Tool to go back to Windows Phone 8.1 or Windows 10 Mobile, install any languages, keyboards, and speech packs you need and then update to the latest build in the Fast ring as a workaround.

November 2016 Bug Bash begins next week!

We are moving the Bug Bash start date up to Monday, November 7th 12:01 AM PST. We wanted to give you, Windows Insiders, and our Windows Engineers the same dates for finding bugs (in the past our engineers started a day early)! We will start the Bug Bash on Build 14959 that is being released today so you can have time to get your PC’s and phones updated prior to the Bug Bash so you can start Quests as soon as they are published.  The Bug Bash will still finish at the end of the day on Sunday, November 13th (PST). Our whole team will be bug bashing with some fun events in-house and we are looking forward to seeing a lot of participation from Insiders!