Mar 11

Fast Ring: Announcing Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 14283

Here’s what’s new in Build 14283

Improvements to the Phone app: We know how important it is to stay informed when someone is trying to reach you, whether that’s through notifications, Live tiles on your Start screen, or directly within your communications applications. To help with this, we’ve added missed call and voicemail waiting indicators to the tabs inside the Phone app. Once you navigate to a tab with a missed call or voicemail – the indicator goes away. We’ve got another change coming that will keep the indicator in place until you navigate away from the tab. There is also a bug where you might not see the indicator clear right away – a fix is coming soon for this as well. Let us know what you think!

phone-app-header

Updates to Outlook Mail & Calendar: Yesterday, we released an update to the Outlook Mail & Calendar apps that introduces some new features and improvements. In Outlook Mail, you can turn off the message preview text in the message list (Settings > Reading > Conversation and turning “Show preview text” off). You can also quickly get rid of junk email in your inbox by pressing down on a message to bring up the context menu and choosing ‘Move to Junk’. In Outlook Calendar, you can now let others know “I’ll be late” directly from meeting notifications.

running-late-notif

Coming Soon – the Feedback Hub: When you open Insider Hub on this build, you will see a new welcome dialog for Feedback Hub. Coming in the next mobile and PC build – we are bringing together the Insider Hub and Windows Feedback apps into a single app called the Feedback Hub. The Feedback Hub carries over all of the best things from the previous two apps plus some new things Insiders will enjoy. For example, in addition to upvoting feedback, you will be able to also leave comments on feedback. We have also redesigned the homepage in Feedback Hub to bring together announcements and quests. Stay tuned as we’ll have more to say about the Feedback Hub with the next builds for mobile and PC when the app is ready for Insiders to use.

Here’s what’s fixed

  • We have addressed an issue where the background behind the All apps list would not have an overlay (causing it to appear too bright or too dark, depending on your background) if you went back to All apps list after launching an app.
  • We fixed an issue causing the title of a song in volume control to flicker a few times when you pressed play or changed tracks after a pause.
  • We fixed an issue some users were experiencing with Build 14267 where your device could hang while typing and reboot.
  • We made some more improvements to the Live tile refresh logic. First, if there are pending notifications for several Live tiles, we will now update them in one quick sweep across the Start screen rather than one at a time. Second, if a Live tile has both badge and content updates, they will now appear at the same time. Finally, apps will now launch faster from the Start screen if there are incoming Live tile updates at the same time.
  • We fixed an issue where Live tiles for certain apps (such as the Weather app) would sometimes unexpectedly be cleared of active notifications.
  • We fixed an issue in which the Start screen background would appear to stutter behind the tiles when scrolling up and down the Start screen on some devices such as the Lumia 950.
  • We fixed an issue where the keyboard would sometimes pop up when swiping over to the All apps list.
  • We fixed an issue where icons for certain apps would appear too tiny on Live folders on the Start screen if your phone was set to 350% DPI.
  • We fixed an issue where “More notifications” message in Action Center was not properly formatted.
  • We fixed an issue where for certain languages, pressing “@” button could result the contents of the clipboard being pasted.
  • We fixed an issue where notifications using custom sounds would be silent if the underlying audio file had been deleted. Now, if that file is not present, it will play the default notification sound.
  • Connected to wireless displays should now work by going to Action Center and expanding Quick actions and choosing “Connect”.

Known issues

  • We have updated the Bluetooth AVRCP profile on mobile to version 1.5. Some cars only tell Windows what they support and vice versa during the initial pairing ceremony. In order for this update to take full effect, you need to delete your existing Bluetooth pairing with your car and then re-pair. After doing so, if you notice any issues using media playback controls or missing artist or track info, please file a new feedback item including your car’s make, model, and year.
  • If you have a Microsoft Band 1 or 2 paired to your phone, it will no longer sync after updating to this build due to a system API failure that occurs after the update. If you want to get your Band syncing with your phone again – you can temporarily change the language of your phone as a short term workaround until we release a fix. Additionally, you can also choose to reset your phone to get out of this state – however you may experience this update issue again with the next build until we fix this issue. This issue may also impact Skype video and audio calls.
  • We are investigating an issue where the Gadgets app is not able to detect the Microsoft Display Dock on phones running Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview builds, and thus cannot update the firmware version. If you have a dock which has already been updated to version 4 then this will not affect you. If you have a dock that has not been updated, then you may experience some minor issues with USB-C stability.
  • Connectivity to older Wi-Fi networks using the WEP encryption security method may be broken. WEP is an insecure method for protecting your Wi-Fi connection but a small percentage of Windows users still use it.  A workaround would be to configure your wireless routers to use WPA or WPA2 or wait for the next Insider flight when this is fixed.

Source: Windows Blog

Mar 04

Insider Fast Ring: Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14279

Here’s what’s new in Build 14279

Cortana in more languages: With this build, we are enabling Cortana for the Spanish (Mexico), Portuguese (Brazil) or French (Canada) languages! If you’re running the Windows 10 Insider Preview in these languages – give Cortana a try and let us know what you think. For each new market and language, the Cortana Team works to develop a custom experience that is relevant in each individual market and language. For instance, in Brazil – Cortana is fond of pasteis which is a common food found in many regions across Brazil. And in Mexico, we added local flavor to reflect the accent and language of the country. But our work is never complete and a big part of our development process is getting feedback from you. These are early versions that we will continue improve based on your feedback and we look forward to hearing more from you.

Cortana remembers things for you: We have all had those moments throughout a busy day where we need to remember something, but don’t have time to stop what we are doing to set a detailed reminder. With Cortana, you can now save useful information like the name of a book you want to read (ex: “remind me to read [insert book name]”), or a to-do item without a due date (ex: “remind me to wash the car”). You have the option to set specific details like location, time, and people at a later time so that Cortana will surface it when its most relevant. You can always view and edit all of these in the same place you see your reminders in Cortana today. In future builds Cortana will be able to retrieve these upon request, just like a real personal assistant would.

Updated logon experience: Previously on PC, there were two separate backgrounds for the Lock screen and then the logon screen. We’re merging the experience so there is just a single background – your Lock screen background. This is similar to the behavior seen on mobile. If you have a custom Lock screen background set, you will see your Lock screen background is now used for both the Lock screen and logon screen. If you’re a Windows Spotlight user – hold tight, you’ll see this change soon in a future build. We’re also working on some additional tweaks here to make the transition between the Lock screen and logging in much smoother.

Performance and Candidate improvements in Japanese IME: We have improved performance of IME especially on typing response. So your typing experience will be smoother than before. We also extended our prediction content and you can select wider variety of candidates from prediction candidate list.

A few other things for you to try

Sway integration with Photos app: Try out the Sway integration in the Photos app by going to one of your albums in the Photos app and clicking on “Tell your story with Sway” button. Then your album immediately becomes an interactive, web-based experience where you can use Sway to add section headers, text narration, captions, and other details to enhance the flow of your narrative and create your own story. For more on the Sway integration with the Photos app in Windows 10 – read this blog post.

March updates for the Xbox app (beta) for Windows 10: A new update to the Xbox app (beta) for Windows 10 will be bringing along some new features including a Gamerscore Leaderboard and an updated ‘Featured’ section. If you’re part of the Xbox One Preview, there are some good updates on the way for you too on the console. Read this blog post from Xbox Wire for all the details. You can download the Xbox app (beta) app for Windows 10 here from the Windows Store.

Here’s what’s fixed for PC

  • We fixed an issue where Microsoft Edge and Cortana were crashing for users with roaming profiles.
  • We fixed an issue where Cortana would continue to show reminders that have been completed.
  • We fixed an issue where items copied/moved to the desktop would not display until the desktop is manually refreshed by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing “Refresh” or pressing F5.
  • We fixed an issue where downloading certain drivers from Windows Update was causing some PCs to bluescreen.

Known issues for PC

  • We’re investigating an issue in which some Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, and Surface Book devices experience a freeze or hang and all input such as keyboard/trackpad and touch do not work. The workaround is to hold down the power button to force the device to hard-reboot.
  • We are continuing to track several issues reported by Insiders where some PCs will freeze or bluescreen when resuming from hibernation. Disabling hibernation is a workaround in some cases until this is fixed.
  • If you have Kaspersky Anti-Virus, Internet Security, or the Kaspersky Total Security Suite installed on your PC there is a known driver bug that prevents these programs from working as expected in builds from the Development Branch. We are partnering with Kaspersky to fix this issue for a future release, but at this time there are no known workarounds. While this issue is present, we recommend using Windows Defender or another third party anti-virus product of your choice to remain protected.
  • Turning on the “always show all icons in the notification area” setting disrupts the layout of the notification area (“systray”). Your notification area will look out of alignment.
  • We are seeing reports of crashes with apps such as QQ crashing due to an OS reliability issue we are currently investigating. This bug is also impacting older apps such as Windows Live Mail and Expression Encoder 4.

Source: Windows Blog

Mar 02

Windows 10: Latest Insider Build has Windows Defender Offline integrated

Windows Defender Offline, a great tool to do an offline scan of your pc has been around for a while, enabling you to create a bootable usb-stick or ISO/CD has been integrated into the latest build of Windows 10 Insider 14271.

Opening Settings / Update & Security / Windows Defender you’ll notice the new option scrolling down to the bottom.

Windows Defender

Pressing the ‘Scan Offline’ Button will immediately start a reboot of your device

Windows Defender 2

Your system will reboot in a ‘mini’ version of Windows only showing the Windows Defender application to work with

Windows Defender 4

Windows Defender 3

Defender runs a ‘Quick Scan’ (scans memory & system locations) and returns to your operating system.

 

Cool new feature to do some quick troubleshooting!

Feb 27

Windows 10 Mobile Firmware Updates – 2016/02/25

Feedback and firmware.  Two things we know you’re passionate about.  It is with these two things in mind that we bring you good news that will make your participation in the Insider Program even easier.

Previously for Insiders, if there was new firmware available for your device you would be required to recover your device to a production image using the Windows Device Recovery Tool and then re-join the Insider ring of your choosing.  This was a painful experience and we listened to your feedback.  That’s why we implemented the Production ring option in the Windows Insider application.  When we made the first change to enable the Production ring, we also made note that we would work on making it even easier.

What is happening today?

Today we are launching firmware updates for a few Windows 10 Mobile devices. The Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL will receive this firmware revision [1078.38.16025] in select markets.  To receive this update today, Insiders will need to switch to the Production ring and check for updates. Windows Insiders that don’t move to the Production ring will receive these updates in early March as we synchronize Insider ring and Current Branch firmware publishing.  Key improvements include:

  • Stability fixes
  • Improvements for GPS reliability
  • Improvements for call audio quality

Additionally, the LG Lancet (VW820) on Verizon and the Lumia 830 on AT&T, both in the US, will receive firmware updates. These new firmware version numbers are as follows:

  • LG Lancet [820.10300.11.101]
  • Lumia 830 [2179.0.15455.24047]

Due to device targeting restrictions, these updates are only available to devices running Windows Phone 8.1. Windows Insiders that would like this firmware immediately will need to recover to 8.1 using the Windows Device Recovery Tool, install the new firmware, and then update to Windows 10 Mobile once again.

What comes next?

Early March is our next key milestone.  The Production ring option makes it easier to obtain firmware, but it doesn’t solve the other half of the equation:  Insiders need to receive firmware updates in a timely manner without ring-hopping.

With this goal in mind we’ve been hard at work developing the necessary update pipeline to make this possible.  What does this mean?

  • When available, the new firmware will be automatically delivered to your device
  • Insiders will no longer need to switch to the Production ring to receive firmware updates
  • This new firmware update pipeline will be completed in early March
  • After this change, Insiders and Retail users will receive firmware updates at the same time, pending availability for a given make/model/variant

For the current wave of firmware updates rolling out, Insiders will see a small gap in time for receiving this new update, pending the pipeline completion.  We know this isn’t optimal.  Insiders want the new firmware too and we don’t blame you!  This is simply a matter of timing for completing the work needed on our side.  As noted, Insiders will see automatic delivery of new firmware beginning in early March, including the new updates released today.  This doesn’t mean that all devices will have firmware updates, but for those that do… you’ll receive them automatically without any additional work required on your part.

Source: MS answers

Feb 24

Fast Ring Release: Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14271 + Mobile Build 14267.1004

windows-10-logo

Here’s what’s fixed for PC

  • We fixed an issue where the window borders on apps would change from accent color to black after every upgrade to a new build.
  • We have updated the music control icons that are shown in taskbar previews in music apps like Groove to look more crisp and clean at higher resolutions.
  • We fixed an issue where the taskbar would sometimes not auto-hide and show unexpectedly on top of full screen windows such as showing above a PowerPoint presentation when in slideshow mode.
  • We fixed an issue where the “Hide notifications while presenting” setting preference is lost after upgrading to a new build.
  • The entire app header in Action Center is now right-clickable instead of just the app name or “x”.
  • We made it easier to dismiss all officiations from a specific app in Action Center by increasing the target area to encompass the entire app header.
  • We fixed an issue where interaction notifications would not show a button to input text in some cases.
  • Fast user switching should work now with Picture Password.
  • We fixed an issue where some desktop (Win32) apps look missing from Start.
  • We fixed an issue where the accent color does not automatically change when the slideshow option is chosen for your desktop background.

Known issues for PC

  • We are tracking an issue reported by Insiders where some PCs will freeze or bluescreen when resuming from hibernation. Disabling hibernation is a workaround in some cases until this is fixed.
  • If you have Kaspersky Anti-Virus, Internet Security, or the Kaspersky Total Security Suite installed on your PC there is a known driver bug that prevents these programs from working as expected in builds from the Development Branch. We are partnering with Kaspersky to fix this issue for a future release, but at this time there are no known workarounds. While this issue is present, we recommend using Windows Defender or another third party anti-virus product of your choice to remain protected.
  • Turning on the “always show all icons in the notification area” setting disrupts the layout of the notification area (“systray”).
  • When browsing in Microsoft Edge, charts displayed using D3.js library will not display correctly – e.g. render as black, positioned incorrectly. Known affected sites are Cortana, Bing.com, and PowerBI.com.

Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 14267.1004

Build 14267.1004 is the same build we released on Friday but with two very important fixes and one new feature:

  • We fixed the issue reported by Insiders in Build 14267 where the Lumia 550 no longer charges or connects via USB. If you hit this issue on your Lumia 550 – we have laid out guidance on various methods to get back into a good state here.
  • We fixed the issue preventing Visual Voicemail notifications from happening.
  • We’re introducing Visual Voicemail for dual-SIM devices such as dual-SIM Lumia 950 XL! Work for this feature was in Friday’s release but due to the above mentioned bug impacting notifications it was not working correctly. But now the experience should be working as expected.
  • We’ve released an update to the People app that brings back the history feature. For a given contact you communicate with, you can view the interaction, whether by today, yesterday, last week etc. Right now, your Skype messages won’t show up in history yet but we’re working on enabling this in a future update. Also – we’re tracking a bug in which opening an email item in history might not take you to that specific email.

We also have some additional known issues we’d like to note:

  • If you have the Windows Feedback app pinned to Start, after upgrading from Build 10586.107 it will no longer show as pinned.
  • We are seeing reports from Windows Insiders of issues connecting to wireless displays. We’re investigating.
  • When using Continuum on the Lumia 950 XL – the trackpad experience is not working correctly.

Source: Windows Blog

Feb 20

Mobile Fast Ring: Windows Mobile Insider Build 14267.1002

Here’s what’s new

Search for music easier in Cortana: We have made it easier to invoke music search in Cortana by adding a music search icon to the top right of Cortana. You can now open Cortana and tap on the music search icon to have Cortana listen and search for the song that’s playing.

cortana-music-search

Word Flow now works in the address bar in Microsoft Edge on your phone: For fans of Word Flow, we heard your feedback, and we have re-enabled the ability to use shape writing in the address bar in Microsoft Edge on your phone!

Open InPrivate tabs more easily in Microsoft Edge on your phone: We take the need for private browsing seriously, and InPrivate has been a feature of Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 Mobile from day one. However, we received feedback from Windows Insiders that the InPrivate feature was either hard to find or missing on their phones. As a result, we’ve moved the button to create a new InPrivate tab to appear right next to the new tab button. The next time you need a private tab in Microsoft Edge, you’ll find it right in your tabs view. Try it out on your phone and let us know what you think.

new-tabs-inprivate

Improved Download Prompts in Microsoft Edge: Microsoft Edge will now show a prompt when you start a download, allowing you to cancel unwanted downloads.

Messaging + Skype improvements: You can now attach photos to your Skype messages by tapping on the paperclip icon at the lower left as you’re composing a new Skype message to a contact. Additionally, you can also invoke the Camera app to take a photo to attach to your Skype message too or send along your location.

Here’s what’s fixed

  • We fixed an issue where shape writing would ignore every second word when typing into a text box on a website in Microsoft Edge.
  • After installing the Polish keyboard, typing a word that should be accented now offers the recommended accented word. For example – if you type the word “milosc” it should properly autocorrect to “miłość”.
  • We have resolved an issue where you could not hide the navigation bar in Windows Phone 8.1 apps like WhatsApp, Twitter, Weibo, Flixster and others.
  • We fixed an issue where videos recorded onto SD memory cards would result in a large number of dropped frames.
  • There should be improved app launch reliability and certain crashes that were causing the phone to reboot are also fixed.
  • We’ve polished the Live tile animations and improved the logic for refreshing Live tiles.
  • We’ve made reliability improvements for keyboards with large dictionaries such as the Hinglish keyboard.

Known issues

  • Visual Voicemail notification and delivery is not working in this build; causing devices to not receive any new visual voicemails. You can manually check your voicemail by calling your voicemail to listen to any new messages. You can call your voicemail within the Phone app by clicking “…” > Settings > “Change more settings for Phone” > “Call voicemail”; this will also leave the Voicemail call in your history to make checking voicemail easier.
  • On my Lumia 950, the screen was dark after the upgrade, had to reset it, all is fine after that

Enjoy the new blazing fast app-launching in this build!

Feb 20

Fast Ring: Windows Insider 14267 Released

Here’s what’s new in Build 14267

Search for music easier in Cortana: We have made it easier to invoke music search in Cortana by adding a music search icon to the top right of Cortana. You can now open Cortana on your PC and click on the music search icon to have Cortana listen and search for the song that’s playing.

Music search button (top-right) in Cortana

Favorites bar improvements in Microsoft Edge: If you have the favorites bar enabled in Microsoft Edge, you can now right-click on the favorites bar and choose to have it only show the favicons only. You can also right-click to add new folders in your favorites bar as well.

Improvements to favorites bar in Microsoft Edge

Clear browsing data when you exit Microsoft Edge: You can now choose to have your browsing data cleared when you exit Microsoft Edge. Just click on the three dots at the top right in Microsoft Edge and go into Settings, click on the “Choose what to clear” button under “Clear browser data” and enable “Always clear this after I close the browser” after choosing what data you want cleared.

Improved Download Prompts in Microsoft Edge: You can now configure Microsoft Edge to show a prompt when you start a download, allowing you to choose where to save the file. Just open the Microsoft Edge settings pane (the three dots at the top right) and look for the option under “Downloads settings”.

Messaging + Skype improvements: You can now attach photos to your Skype messages by clicking or tapping on the paperclip icon at the lower left as you’re composing a new Skype message to a contact. Additionally, you can also invoke the Camera app to take a photo to attach to your Skype message too or send along your location.

Here’s what’s fixed

  • Choosing “Reset This PC” under Settings > Update & Security > Recovery should now work as expected.
  • You should no longer see a WSClient.dll error dialog after logging in.
  • The front-facing camera should be usable again on PCs with Intel RealSense cameras and you should be able to use Windows Hello again.
  • We fixed an issue where incorrect storage capacity was provided for the system volume (the hard drive in which Windows is installed on) under Settings > System > Storage.

Known issues

We have only one known issue for this build. If you’re using Hyper-V and upgrade to this build with more than one vswitch or have multiple virtual networking adapters (including legacy), you may lose networking connectivity after upgrade. To get network connectivity back, there are two workarounds available:

  • Remove all the virtual network adapters connected to the vswitch, delete the vswitch and recreate it, then reconnect their virtual NIC to the new vswitch.
  • Admin command prompt, do “netcfg -d” will wipe-out all the vswitch settings so that you can start from scratch.

 

So far noticed extra issues in this build:

  • After shutdown only the boot logo comes up, no progress indicator… cold boot fixes the issue
  • When trying to opt out of insider builds the gui crashes

Enjoy updating!

Feb 11

Office365: New User Downloadable Software Selection Options

Powered_by_O365Together with the availability of the Deferred Channel (previously named Current Branch for Business) the Office 365 portal now has a new user software page.

Enabling you to easily select what software is available to your users and if you choose for monthly feature updates (Current Branch) or getting feature updates only once every 4 months (Deferred Branch)

The selections are there but go in effect on the 23rd of this month

O365_New_ Software_Selections

Source: Office Blogs

Feb 11

Windows Insiders: Introducing the Release Preview Ring

Today a new ring was added to the Insider Rings, the Windows Insider Release Preview ring for both PC and mobile. The Release Preview ring will focus on Insiders that want to stay on the Current Branch (currently builds based off of 10586), but continue to receive early access to updates, application updates, and driver updates.

The 3 Windows Insider rings are:

  • Fast – Best for Insiders who enjoy being the first to get access to builds and feature updates, with some risk to their devices in order to identify issues, and provide suggestions and ideas to make Windows software and devices great.
  • Slow – Best for Insiders who enjoy getting early access to builds and feature updates, with less risk to their devices, and still want to provide feedback to make Windows software and devices great.
  • Release Preview – Best for Insiders who enjoy getting early access to updates for the Current Branch, Microsoft applications, and drivers, with minimal risk to their devices, and still want to provide feedback to make Windows devices great.

For more details on branches and our rings, check out one the first post in our new series called ‘Inside WDG’ here in Insider Hub.

 

Feb 11

Announcing Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 10586.107

Today Gabe Aul announced the release of mobile build 10586.107 to the Fast Ring

This update includes some additional fixes:

  • Fixed an issue where in some cases a device could be missing tiles on the Start screen after going through the device out of box experience.
  • Improved support in Narrator to speak in multiple languages.
  • Improvements to the device reset experience when BitLockerDevice Encryption is enabled by enterprise policy or by the user.

Happy Upgrading!

Source: Windows Blog