On this page, we have collated all the changes and new features brought by all Windows 10 Redstone 5 (Version 1809) insider builds so far. We will keep this page updated with new changes/features brought by newer preview builds.

You can bookmark this page to refer back to see the collated changelog for Windows 10 Redstone 5 (Version 1809).

Windows 10 Redstone 5 (Version 1809): How to install

Microsoft has started pushing Windows 10 Redstone 5 now. The roll-out will however be in phases and it will take around 2 months for the update to become available for everyone. Here is how you can install the update right now on your PC.

Windows 10 Redstone 5 (Version 1809): Issues & Fixes

You can read about common issues and fixes related to Windows 10 Version 1809 aka October 2018 update by clicking here.

Redstone 5 New features hands-on demo videos

Redstone 5 Top New features

Game bar Improvements:

In RS5, we’re making it easier to access the Game bar. In this flight, you can now discover Game bar from the Start menu or bring up Game bar by using the Win + G shortcut at any time.

Here comes Emoji 11:

Hope you enjoyed World Emoji Day, last week! For those who haven’t already heard, Unicode 11 comes with 157 new emoji – as of today they’re now available for Insiders to try in the build. Including superheroes, redheads, a softball, a pirate flag and a llama all made the cut. You can access them using the Emoji Panel (WIN+.) or the touch keyboard.

Alt text: Showcasing 35 of the 157 new emoji. Including kangaroo, cupcake, sponge, tooth, raccoon, foot.

When you get today’s build, you’ll also find that we’ve made tweaks to some of our existing emoji – here are some examples:

PC, Squid, Bee, Dove, Burrito, volleyball, tempura shrimp – before and after.

Our ninja cats got a bit of love too – can you spot the difference?

5 of the 6 ninja cat emoji – the original, astro cat, cat with t-rex, hacker cat, and hipster cat.

If you have any feedback about our emoji and emoji typing experiences, please let us know! We’d love to hear it.

Note: The Emoji Panel is currently available for 190+ locales. Keywords and tooltips for the new emoji in today’s build are not yet implemented.

Mixed Reality Flashlight:

Today we are excited to announce that we are adding the ability to peer into your physical environment through Flashlight – without removing your headset! With the latest Windows Insider Program build, you can open a portal into your real world at any time via the Start menu, a button shortcut, or a voice command. This opens a low-latency pass-through camera feed connected to your controller. It’s comfortable, intuitive, and keeps you immersed.

Flashlight in Windows Mixed Reality opens a pass-through camera feed connected to your controller.

Flashlight finally allows you to mix your physical and virtual realities. Give it a try in this week’s Insiders build and let us know what you think!

Font installation for non-admin users

Have you ever wanted to use your own fonts from your account on a shared school or work PC, but couldn’t because you didn’t have the administrator privileges required to install the fonts? Well, we’ve heard your frustration about this and have made some changes.

In the past, fonts in Windows have always been installed for all users. Because that is a system-wide change, it always required admin privilege. The need for an admin was reflected in the user interface. For example, if you browse in File Explorer to a folder containing a font file and right-clicked on the file to bring up the context menu, then the “Install” option would appear with the security badge, which means that it requires an admin.

If you tried to install a font but didn’t have admin privileges, then you would be presented with a User Account Control dialog, so that an admin could approve the change. If you’re a non-admin user and often need to install (or uninstall) fonts, then that could be a big hassle.

In the Windows 10 1803 feature update, we introduced fonts in the Microsoft Store. To enable that capability, we needed to make changes deep in Windows to allow a font to be installed for a specific user rather than system-wide. That’s why no admin action is needed when fonts acquired in the Store are installed.

Now we’ve extended this further to include font files that you obtain from other sources and want to install. Now when you right-click on a font file in File Explorer, you’ll see two options. “Install for all users” provides the past, system-wide install capability and requires an admin. But now there is another option: “Install” allows any user, including non-admin users, to install a font for their own use.

Context menu when right-clicking a font in file explorer, showing the two options described above.

Often font files come within a compressed folder (that is, a .zip file). The “Install” context-menu option isn’t available in File Explorer when you view the contents of a compressed folder, but you can double-click the font file within the compressed folder to open it in the font previewer, and that provides an “Install” button. In the past, the button in the font previewer had the security badge, and it would do a system-wide install, requiring an admin. Now the security badge is gone, and the “Install” button in the font previewer performs a single-user font install, which can be done by non-admins.

Showing the font previewer with the install button, now available for non-admins.

SwiftKey intelligence comes to Windows

SwiftKey gives you more accurate autocorrections and predictions by learning your writing style – including the words, phrases and emoji that matter to you. It’s available for Android and iOS, and starting with today’s build SwiftKey will now power the typing experience on Windows when using the touch keyboard to write in English (United States), English (United Kingdom), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Spanish (Spain), Portuguese (Brazil), or Russian.

Please take a moment to try typing and shapewriting on the touch keyboard in this build and let us know what you think

Say hello to your new clipboard experience!

Copy paste – it’s something we all do, probably multiple times a day. But what do you do if you need to copy the same few things again and again? How do you copy content across your devices? Today we’re addressing that and taking the clipboard to the next level – simply press WIN+V and you’ll be presented with our brand-new clipboard experience!

Showing the new clipboard UI. 4 entries listed in the history.

Not only can you can paste from the clipboard history, but you can also pin the items you find yourself using all the time. This history is roamed using the same technology which powers Timeline and Sets, which means you can access your clipboard across any PC with this build of Windows or higher.

Our new settings page for enabling this experience is under Settings > System > Clipboard – please try this out and share feedback! This link will open the Feedback Hub to where you can tell us about your experience and what you’d like to see next.

Note: Roamed text on the clipboard is only supported for clipboard content less than 100kb. Currently, the clipboard history supports plain text, HTML and image less than 1MB.

Dark theme comes to File Explorer (and more!)

As many of you know, we added dark theme support to Windows based on your feedback. This setting is available under Settings > Personalization > Colors, and if you switch it any apps and system UI that support it will follow suit. Since releasing this feature, our top feedback request from you has been to update File Explorer to support dark theme, and with today’s build it’s happening! Along the way, we also added dark theme support to the File Explorer context menu, as well as the Common File Dialog (aka the Open and Save dialogs). Thanks again for everyone’s feedback!

This screenshot below is from the very latest code and not what’s in the flight. When you install this build, you will see some unexpected light colors in File Explorer and the Common File Dialog. This is something we’re aware of and are working to address.

A modern snipping experience

Today we’re taking the first step toward converging our snipping experiences. The new modern snipping experience is here to help you effortlessly capture and annotate what you see on your screen. While working on this we’ve been carefully going over all your feedback about taking screenshots in Windows – you’ll find the flow and tools are optimized for sharing and make communicating visually with others quick and easy.

Originally introduced as part of the Windows Ink Workspace, Screen Sketch is now its own app which comes with a variety of benefits including that it can now be updated via the Microsoft Store.

What to expect once you update to this build:

Screen Sketch is now an app! Originally introduced as part of the Windows Ink Workspace, this comes with a variety of benefits, including that it can now be updated via the Microsoft Store, it will now show up in the list when you press Alt + tab, you can set the window size to be your preference if you like multitasking, and it even supports multiple windows (and tabs, thanks to Sets!).

Easy snipping is only a single step away. One of the loudest things we heard is that you want to be able to quickly snip & share a screenshot, and we’re making it happen! WIN + Shift + S will now bring up a snipping toolbar – snip a rectangle, something a bit more freeform, or full screen and it will go straight to your clipboard. If that’s all you need, you can take it from there. Want more, though? Immediately after taking a snip you’ll now get a notification that will take you and your snip to the Screen Sketch app where you can annotate and share away!

Immediately after taking a snip you’ll now get a notification that will take you and your snip to the Screen Sketch app where you can annotate and share away!

ALT-TEXT: Immediately after taking a snip you’ll now get a notification that will take you and your snip to the Screen Sketch app where you can annotate and share away!

But wait, there’s more! Is the WIN + Shift + S keyboard shortcut too long to remember? Guess what! We’ve added easy entry options for every input modality:

  • Just click the pen tail button. If you have a pen, go into Pen & Windows Ink Settings – you’ll find Screen Snipping is now an option for single click. This will launch you directly into our snipping experience:

Pen & Windows Ink Settings, showing click once to open Screen Snipping

  • Press Print Screen. You heard it right, just one button! It’s not enabled by default – go to Keyboard Settings – you’ll see a new option that says “Use the Print Screen key to launch screen snipping”. Opening Settings and searching for “print screen” will take you to the right page.
  • Press the quick action button in Action Center. Called “Screen snip” – it should be there as soon as you upgrade, but if not you can always enable it via Notifications & Actions Settings.

We’re looking for feedback! Tell us what you want to see next via the Feedback Hub under Apps > Screen Sketch – just click the ellipsis in the Screen Sketch app and it will take you straight there.

NOTE: After installing this build, please check the Microsoft Store for Screen Sketch app updates. You will need an updated version to receive the ability to crop screenshots.

Sets are here:

Sets is designed to make sure that everything related to your task: relevant webpages, research documents, necessary files, and applications, is connected and available to you in one click. Starting today in RS5 builds, we have turned the Sets experiment back on so any Insider who has opted into Skip Ahead will be able to try out Sets. With Sets, 1st party experiences like Mail, Calendar, OneNote, MSN News, Windows and Microsoft Edge become more integrated to create a seamless experience, so you can get back to what’s important and be productive, recapturing that moment, saving time – we believe that’s the true value of Sets. Additional app integration with Sets is expected over time.

If you are an Insider who was testing out Sets previously, you’ll find the following improvements to the experience:

  • Support for desktop (Win32) apps. Sets now supports File Explorer, Notepad, Command Prompt, and PowerShell. One of the top feature requests by Insiders has been tabs for File Explorer and with Sets you can get a tabbed File Explorer experience! Try it out with these apps and let us know what you think!
  • You can now launch apps from the new tab page by typing the app name into the search box.
  • UWP apps are launched in the same window replacing the new tab page.
  • The tab UI in Sets now shows icons including website favicons and app icons.
  • Resume your project with more control – When restoring your projects you’ll be prompted to restore related apps and webpages. In Timeline you’ll see when a project has multiple activities associated with it.

Here are a few keyboard shortcuts you can try out:

  • Ctrl + Win + Tab – switch to next tab.
  • Ctrl + Win + Shift + Tab – switch to previous tab.
  • Ctrl + Win + T – open a new tab.
  • Ctrl + Win + W – close current tab.

Here are a few things we’re still working on that aren’t quite finished yet:

  • Tab drag-and-drop does not work for re-ordering tabs. You can’t drag a tab to join another window.
  • When launching a supported desktop (Win32) app from a tabbed window, such as protocol/file launch or from the new tab page, it launches in a new window instead of auto-grouping to the existing window. You can work around this for now by holding down the Ctrl key while launching a supported desktop (Win32) app – note, for File Explorer, in particular, you will need to hold down Ctrl until the new tab with File Explorer appears, not just Ctrl + click and immediately release.
  • You may notice some flashes when switching between tabs within a Set.
  • If your display scaling is higher than 100%, using touch to interact with the Sets title bar won’t work.

Sets Improvements

We’ve heard your feedback and have been hard at work updating the new tab page to make it more obvious you can launch apps. When you click the plus button in a Sets window, you will now see apps included in your frequent destinations list. You’ll also find that we’ve integrated the all apps list into this page so you can browse your apps, rather than just using the search box – apps that support Sets will launch into a tab when clicked. If you have News Feed selected, simply click the “Apps” link next to “News Feed” to switch to the all apps list.

Sets’ new tab page, shows apps listed like File Explorer and Word.

The next wave of Sets improvements is here!

We’ve been steadily going through your feedback, and this build contains a number of improvements based on what you’ve been telling us:

  • Bring on the acrylic! We love Fluent Design as much as you do – in today’s build you’ll find that Sets now have an acrylic title bar. We’re also adjusting the window border so that it’s now grey.

Notepad and Microsoft Edge together in Sets with a transparent title bar.

  • Recent Microsoft Edge tabs now show in Alt + Tab: Do you use Alt + Tab to quickly switch back and forth between apps? All of your recent Microsoft Edge tabs will now be included, not just the active one. Prefer it the old way? Use the “Pressing Alt + Tab shows the recently used…” setting in Multitasking Settings.
  • Should apps and websites open in a new window or a new tab? It’s up to you! The Sets section of Multitasking Settings now lets you set your windowing preference. If you choose “Window”, new windows won’t open into a new tab unless you explicitly click the + or drag with your mouse. Choosing “Tab” opens any new windows invoked from your running apps into tabs. As a reminder, if you would like to exclude any particular app from Sets, you can do this from this same settings page.
  • Want to mute one of your web tabs? You can now do that! When a webpage in Sets starts playing audio, you’ll now see a volume icon on the tab. Simply click it and the audio will mute, just like in Microsoft Edge.
  • Tabs will now restore with better performance – they’ll open in the background and use no resources until you go to the tab. This means you can restore a lot of tabs at once with no issues.

We’ve also made other fixes, changes, and improvements to Sets, including:

  • Task Manager has now been added by default to the list of apps where not to enable Sets.
  • We fixed an issue where right clicking a tab in the Sets title bar didn’t bring up a context menu.
  • We fixed an issue where if Microsoft Edge wasn’t already open, clicking the plus button in Sets would open all of your default websites along with the new tab page.

As always, thanks again for the great feedback – keep it coming! This link will take you to the Sets section of the Feedback Hub.

Sets + Office = Awesome

Sets with Office 365 makes it easy to group, recall, and refresh data sources for all your projects. Whether updating your Excel budget each month with stock prices and credit card expenses, incorporating data from multiple reports and websites into a PowerPoint, or managing citations for your book report in Word, Sets with Office 365 helps you get more done, faster.

Sets with Office 365 makes it easy to group, recall, and refresh data sources for all your projects.

With today’s build – Windows Insiders who are also Office Insiders can try out Sets with Office. You must be an Office 365 subscriber running the latest version of the Office 365 desktop apps for the Sets experience to light up. If you’re not already an Office Insider, you can sign-up here. Additionally, if you’re not an Office 365 subscriber, you can sign-up for a trial here.

Sets Improvements

  • Sets is now enabled for most desktop (Win32) apps that use a default and non-customized title bar. Apps that customize their title bar will not have Sets (e.g. Paint.exe).
  • If you’ve opened a Microsoft Edge window within Sets, you can now drag that tab around within the set, as well as drop it in another Sets window. Dragging between a Sets window and a standalone Microsoft Edge window does not yet work.

NOTE: Some Insiders may see Sets disappear temporarily after installing this build. Sets should return in 1-2 days or upon the next reboot of your PC.

Drag and drop app tabs within and between Sets windows is now supported: It works just like it sounds! You can now drag an app tab around within the Set or combine tabbed app windows into Sets.

Note: If you open a Microsoft Edge tab outside of a Set, you can’t drag and drop it into a Sets window. Drag and drop for Microsoft Edge web tabs within Sets isn’t supported yet and you may experience a crash if this is attempted.

Tabs are now bubbled up in Alt + Tab: Have Photos, Microsoft Edge, and OneNote tabbed together? You can now use Alt + Tab to switch between them. Prefer to only show the primary window in Alt + Tab? There’s a new setting – more on that in just a moment…

Note: If you have multiple Microsoft Edge windows in a Set, only the one most recently accessed will be visible in Alt + Tab.

Improved Settings for Sets: We’ve updated the Settings for Sets via Settings > System > Multitasking. To start with, Sets now has its own section on this page, and is searchable (try typing “Sets” or “tabs” and it will appear in the dropdown). We’ve also added a setting to control the Alt + Tab behavior mentioned above.

New Sets section highlighted under Multitasking Settings.

File Explorer & Sets Improvements: We’ve heard your feedback – you’d like it to be easier to get two File Explorer windows grouped together, and we’re working on it. To start with, you no longer need to hold CTRL on the new tab page to launch a File Explorer window in a tab (this was a temporary necessity with the last wave). We’ve also added a new keyboard shortcut to open a new tab when a File Explorer window is in focus: Ctrl + T. Remember, you can use Ctrl + N to open a new window, and Ctrl + W to close the window/tab.

Finally, we’ve added some new UI for easily opening new tabs and windows in the File Menu.

Showing File Explorer’s File menu, with new Open new tab option.

And also, in the context menu when right-clicking on a folder.

Showing a folder’s context menu in File Explorer. Open in a new tab is highlighted.

New context menu options for tabs in Sets: If you right-click on a Sets tab, you’ll discover we’ve added several options for you to leverage, including “close other tabs”, “move to new window”, and “close tabs to the right”.

Showing context menu for a tab in Sets, has Close tab highlighted.

Improvements to Previous Tabs: We’ve done a few things to improve the experience in this space, including:

• You can now pick and choose which Previous Tabs you want to restore, instead of only being able to restore all tabs.

  • You can now pick and choose which Previous Tabs you want to restore, instead of only being able to restore all tabs. Note: if you use the Sets activity card in Timeline, it will automatically restore all tabs.
  • You can now restore Previous Tabs from any type of activity – whereas with the previous wave of features we only supported restoring tabs when the primary window was a document.
  • When you open a document that previously had tabs, a prompt will appear offering to restore those tabs, and the Previous Tabs button will be in the filled state. For things that aren’t documents, a prompt will not automatically appear, but you’ll know that there are tabs available to restore because the Previous Tabs button will be in the filled state.
  • We added an animation to the experience when there are no Previous Tabs available to be restored.

Other Sets improvements and fixes based on your feedback, including:

  • We fixed an issue where the active tab color wouldn’t be visible until you hovered over it.

  • We’ve been working on our polish, and you’ll notice that switching between open tabs is now a lot smoother.

  • We’ve improved the reliability when restoring tabs, fixing some issues where tabs didn’t restore as expected.

  • We fixed an issue where closing a tab in a Set then immediately opening a new tab might result in the window unexpectedly maximizing.

Redstone 5 UI changes & Improvements

Task Manager Improvements:

Task Manager now includes 2 new columns in the “Processes” tab to show energy impact of the running process on their system. This should help our customers to understand which apps/services are using the maximum power vs. the least power-hungry apps. The metric takes CPU, GPU & Disk into evaluation when calculating power usage.

  • Power usage: This column will provide an instantaneous view of apps/services using power.
  • Power usage trend: This column provides a power usage trend over 2 mins for each running apps/services. This column will be blank when you start an app but will populate based on the power usage every 2 mins.

Power usage metrics in Task Manager, showing two additional columns "Power usage" & "Power usage trend".

Contextual Commanding Improvements to Text Controls

Our inbox text controls are now taking advantage of the new CommandBarFlyout control. This allows a number of exciting improvements including:

  • The ability to quickly cut, copy, and paste in textboxes with touch
  • New icons for common actions
  • The ability to bold, italicize, etc. in our rich text surfaces
  • New animations, acrylic treatment, and depth support

Windows Settings search box, the text “test” has been selected and right clicked, showing a commanding menu with cut/copy/undo/select all with both icons and informational hotkeys.

This change will apply to any XAML based text boxes on this build.

More Acrylic everywhere:

As we mentioned at Build 2018, you will start to see our Acrylic material being used by default in light-dismiss XAML controls and on transient XAML surfaces like flyouts. The controls affected in this first update will be:

  • ContextMenus
  • Flyouts
  • AutoSuggestBox dropdowns
  • ComboBox dropdowns
  • Date and TimePicker flyouts
  • MediaTransportControl flyouts/overflows

With Build 17692 you will notice new acrylic backgrounds in places on the system using these controls – for example when you right-click open apps in Task View. Apps using the SDK for this build or higher will see this change by default as well.

More Fluent Design: Introducing acrylic in Task View

We’ve heard you like acrylic! We like it too – when you update to this build you’ll find that the entire Task View background now has a soft blur effect.

Task View and Timeline now has the soft blue effect called acrylic.

Windows Defender Security Center gets a Fluent Design refresh

We’ve heard your feedback and when you install this build you’ll find we’ve updated Windows Defender Security Center (WDSC) to include the Fluent Design elements you know and love. You’ll also notice we’ve adjusted the spacing and padding around the app and will now dynamically size the categories on the main page if more room is needed for extra info. Last but not least, we’ve also updated the title bar of the app so that it will now use your accent color if you’ve enabled that option in Color Settings – with Sets enabled, you will see this color in the WDSC tab.

We’ve updated Windows Defender Security Center (WDSC) to include the Fluent Design elements.

Mobile Broadband (LTE) connectivity on Windows gets a makeover

Windows is transforming the networking stack after 20 years through the Net Adapter framework. This framework introduces a new, more reliable, network driver model that inherits the goodness of the Windows driver framework while bringing an accelerated data path.

In this build, we are introducing a new and improved Mobile Broadband (MBB) USB class driver based on this Net Adapter framework. We can’t wait for you to try out our new driver in the latest RS5 Insider Preview builds.

If your PC supports Mobile Broadband, i.e., your PC relies on cellular network for connectivity, and you want to help out? Here is what you need to do:

Step 1: Ensure your PC can support SIM cards and USB modems (either over the internal USB bus or using a USB dongle for cellular connectivity).

Step 2: Install this build (Build 17655 and higher) and setup cellular connectivity.

Step 3: Choose the Net Adapter based MBB USB class driver as default driver.

  • Navigate to Device Manager. (You can right-click on the Start button to get there.)Go to Network Adapters -> Generic Mobile Broadband Adapter orxxxxx Mobile Broadband Adapter
  • Right-click and choose update driver -> Browse my computer for driver software -> Click on Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer -> Choose Generic Mobile Broadband Cx Net Adapter -> Click Next.
  • Once installed reboot for the new driver to take effect.
  • Ensure the status of the connection remains “Connected”.

• Go to Network Adapters -> Generic Mobile Broadband Adapter or xxxxx Mobile Broadband Adapter in Device Manager.” width=”476″ height=”230″></a></p><p><a href=• Right click and choose update driver -> Browse my computer for driver software -> Click on Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer and click next.” width=”423″ height=”320″></a></p><p><a href=Choose Generic Mobile Broadband Cx Net Adapter -> Click Next.” width=”445″ height=”328″></a></p><p><em>Note: Follow the instructions in Step 5 to revert to the default driver(xxxxx Mobile Broadband Adapter), in case of issues with Net Adapter driver(Generic Mobile Broadband Cx Net Adapter).</em></p><p>You are all set. We are excited for you to try our driver!</p><p><strong>Step 5</strong>: <strong>For Internet access, try using cellular network primarily by turning off Wi-Fi</strong></p></blockquote><h3 style=Redstone 5 Microsoft Edge Improvements

A Faster Safer Internet with HTTP/2 and CUBIC

Windows 10 Microsoft Edge clients will take advantage of connection coalescing for HTTP/2 as supported in Windows Server 2019. Also, there are improvements in security and performance on Microsoft Edge browsers by guaranteeing HTTP/2 preferred cipher suites.

New Microsoft Edge Group Policies:

The Microsoft Edge team introduced new Group Policies and MDM settings for IT administrators to manage Microsoft Edge. The new policies include enabling/disabling full-screen mode, printing, favorites bar, and saving history; prevent certificate error overrides; configuring the Home button and startup options; setting the New Tab page and Home button URL and managing extensions. Learn more about the new Microsoft Edge policies.

Retired XSS Filter: 

We are retiring the XSS filter in Microsoft Edge beginning in today’s build. Our customers remain protected thanks to modern standards like Content Security Policy, which provide more powerful, performant, and secure mechanisms to protect against content injection attacks, with high compatibility across modern browsers.

New Microsoft Edge Beta logo:

We’re introducing a new Edge “BETA” icon to help users visually differentiate between officially released versions of Microsoft Edge and preview builds where Microsoft Edge is in ongoing development. This logo only will be seen on Insider preview builds.

The Microsoft Edge icon with text saying “BETA” across it.

New design improvements:

 As we continue to evolve how Microsoft Edge leverages the Fluent Design System for a more natural and usable experience, you may notice some subtle tweaks to the look of the tab bar in Microsoft Edge. In this build, we’re adding a new depth effect to the tab bar to help emphasize the active tab.

Showing the tab bar in Microsoft Edge with the new shadows.

Redesigned “…” menu and Settings:

We’ve heard your feedback that the Microsoft Edge settings were getting a little complex for a single page. In this release, we’re overhauling the Microsoft Edge settings to make it easier to navigate, put commonly-used actions front and center, and allow more customization than ever.

Showing the “…” menu, now with a few items collapsed under chevrons (in this picture, “Show in toolbar” is expanded).

Customize toolbar items for Microsoft Edge:

When you click “…” in the Microsoft Edge toolbar, you’ll find a refined menu that puts common commands like “New tab” and “New window” front and center. We’ve also added the much-requested ability to customize which icons appear in the Microsoft Edge toolbar – you can remove them all for a tidier look or add as many as you like to bring your favorite functionality to your fingertips!

Last (but not least), this build breaks Settings out into subpages by category, with better-organized options and less clutter on each page. The new Settings experience is designed to match the experience in the Microsoft Edge hub, for a quicker and more familiar experience.

Redesigned Settings menu – looks more like how the Hub menu looks, with a navigation pane on the side.

Control whether media can play automatically:

It’s really here! In this build, we’ve added a new setting in Microsoft Edge to allow you to control whether sites can autoplay media. You can find this setting under “Advanced Settings” > “Media autoplay,” with options to customize the behavior according to your preferences:

In this build, we’ve added a new setting in Microsoft Edge to allow you to control whether sites can autoplay media. You can find this setting under “Advanced Settings” > “Media autoplay”.” width=”532″ height=”471″></a></p><ul><li>“Allow” is the default and will continue to play videos when a tab is first viewed in the foreground, at the site’s discretion.</li><li>“Limit“ will restrict autoplay to only work when videos are muted, so you‘re never surprised by sound. Once you click anywhere on the page, autoplay is re-enabled, and will continue to be allowed within that domain in that tab.</li><li>“Block” will prevent autoplay on all sites until you interact with the media content. Note that this may break some sites due to the strict enforcement – you may need to click multiple times for some video or audio to play correctly. Some sites may not work at all – in those cases, you can enable or block autoplay on a case-by-case bases from the website permissions pane (click the icon next to the address in the Address Bar).</li></ul><p>If you encounter sites that do not work as expected in the “Limit” or “Block” settings, please file feedback in the Feedback Hub app and let us know which site you were using, so we can work with developers and continue to refine the feature.</p></blockquote><h4><strong>New PDF icon: </strong></h4><blockquote><p>Windows 10 now has a new icon for PDFs in File Explorer when Microsoft Edge is your default PDF handler.</p><p><a href=New PNG icon for Windows.

Control whether media can play automatically: 

One common piece of Insider feedback for Microsoft Edge is that you want more control over autoplay videos. In this build, we’ve added a new setting in Microsoft Edge to allow you to control whether sites can autoplay media.

You can find an early preview of this setting under “Advanced Settings,” “Allow sites to automatically play media.” We’ll be improving these options and adding additional controls in upcoming flights and in response to your feedback, so stay tuned!

WebDriver improvements: 

Beginning with this build, we’re making it easier than ever to automate testing in Microsoft Edge using WebDriver. First, we’ve made WebDriver a Windows Feature on Demand, so you no longer need to match the build/branch/flavor manually when installing WebDriver. When you take new Windows 10 updates, your WebDriver binary will be automatically updated to match.

To install WebDriver, just turn on Developer Mode in Windows 10 Settings, or install the standalone feature under the “optional features” Settings page.

We’ve also updated WebDriver to match the latest W3C Recommendation spec with major new improvements. You can learn all about these changes over at the Microsoft Edge Dev Blog.

Microsoft Edge improvements for web developers

Web Authentication preview: Microsoft Edge now includes unprefixed support for the new Web Authentication API (a.k.a. WebAuthN). This evolves our previous support for the WebAuthN specification to enable the updated version of the API by default.

Web Authentication provides an open, scalable, and interoperable solution to facilitate authentication, which replaces passwords with stronger hardware-bound credentials. The implementation in Microsoft Edge allows users to use Windows Hello (via PIN or biometrics) and external authenticators like FIDO2 Security Keys or FIDO U2F Security Keys, to securely authenticate to websites. We’ll have more to share about Web Authentication in Microsoft Edge soon!

Microsoft WebDriver is now a Feature on Demand:

We’ve made Microsoft WebDriver a Feature on Demand (FoD) to make it easier to get the right version for your device. You can install WebDriver by turning on Developer Mode, or by going to Settings > Apps > Apps & features > Manage optional features and installing it standalone.

This should address one of the biggest pain points we see from customers around binary mismatches, as FoD’s match the build/branch/flavor automatically. This also means that the standalone download will no longer be made available for insiders or future stable versions of Windows, as installation is now built into Windows.

Microsoft WebDriver now gets installed to C:\Windows\System32\ and will automatically be on the PATH for the machine once installed. We are now shipping 64-bit Microsoft WebDriver to x64 machines. Note, there is a known issue for x64 machines building in Visual Studio with Selenium, where by default Visual Studio builds 32bit and will only check the C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ folder for PATH variables. To work around this issue, target and build 64bit from Visual Studio. In a future build, we plan to publish both 32bit and 64bit binaries in our FoD for 64bit machines, which should address this issue.

New “settings and more” menu:
A new redesigned “Settings and more” is introduced in today’s build to make things more discoverable for the user. The menu options are now organized into groups, with icons for each entry, and keyboard shortcuts (where applicable).

Organize the tabs you have set aside:
You will now be able to organize the groups of tabs you’ve set aside. Choose the “Tabs you’ve set aside” icon (top left corner), and click on the label for any group to rename it.

Much needed “Show in folder” in “Downloads” pane:
This was amongst those basic features which were missing from its day of debut. Microsoft edge finally has options for “Show in folder” and “Copy link” to the right-click menu for downloads in the “Downloads” pane.

Redstone 5 Core feature improvements

Time Accuracy and Traceability improvements:

  • Leap Second Support– Windows will now support these occasional 1-second adjustments in a traceable and UTC-compliant manner. What’s a leap second? As the earth’s rotation slows, UTC (an atomic timescale) diverges from mean solar time or astronomical time.  Once UTC has diverged by at most .9 seconds, a Leap Second is inserted to keep UTC in-sync with mean solar time.  Since the practice of inserting leap seconds began in 1972, a leap second has typically occurred every 18 months.

  • Precision Time Protocol– For the highest accuracy environments, you can now improve your time accuracy by leveraging a new time protocol that delivers far more accurate time samples to the endpoint (Windows Server 2019 or Windows 10, host or virtual machine).

  • Software Timestamping– You can now further improve your network time accuracy by eliminating the software delay introduced by the Windows networking stack.

For a full write up with more details about these new improvements, please see our announcement here.

See Your Videos Better Outside:

There’s a new viewing mode for you to try out, designed to improve the visibility of your video when you are in a very bright environment. This feature uses the light sensor on your device to detect your ambient light, and automatically adjusts your video accordingly. To turn it on, navigate to Settings > Apps > Video playback, and turn on “Adjust video based on lighting”.

Showing Video Playback Settings with “adjust video based on lighting” setting.

We’d love feedback as we work to refine this feature for the next Windows release! Please use the Feedback Hub and file feedback under Category: “Devices and Drivers”, Subcategory: “Video Playback”. Hit “Recreate my problem” and start the capture of the video playback you would like to give feedback on!

A couple notes:

  • In order for this feature to work, your device must have a light sensor. There are a couple different ways you can check:

    • Go to “Display Settings” in the Settings app. If you have the option to turn on Auto-brightness, you most likely have a light sensor
    • Go to Device Manager. If you have something that sounds like “Light Sensor” under Sensors, you likely have a light sensor.

  • Currently, not all devices have light sensors that are well-calibrated. If you are on a device where video looks really, really bad with this setting on, please let us know via the Feedback Hub!

Storage Sense picks up a new skill:

Starting with the Creators Update we embarked on a journey to help you automatically clean up storage when low on disk space. We expanded on that with the Fall Creators Update (here and here), and today we’re taking the next step by adding the ability to automatically make any downloaded Files On-Demand online-only if you haven’t used them in a certain number of days. Head to Settings > System > Storage > Storage Sense to try out this new feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Game bar Improvements

We’re now rolling out more functionality to the RS5 Game bar. In this flight are the following new features:

  • Audio controls. Change your default audio output device and mute or adjust the volume of games and apps running.
  • Performance visualizations. See your game’s framerate (FPS), CPU usage, GPU VRAM usage, and system RAM usage.

Playing Forza Horizon 3 with the new game bar UI showing. Has a performance monitor, recording controls, and audio options.

Game Mode Improvements

New options are now available for Game Mode that are expected to improve the gaming experience on desktop PCs.  Gamers on PCs with many background processes may also see performance improvements when they toggle “Dedicate resources” in Game bar.

Search Improvements

Find software downloads faster in Search!  Continuing our theme of improving the search preview experience, we’re rolling out an update to make it easier to find official download pages for Windows software you want to install. The team is continuing to develop this experience and more is coming. Check out the example below, and let us know what you think!

Search showing with GitHub download example, in the search preview pane a download button is visible.

This is a server-side change so Insiders may see this update outside of Build 17692.

Windows Mixed Reality Improvements

Starting with this build you can stream audio to both the headset and the PC speakers simultaneously. To try it out make sure that you can hear sound from your normal PC speakers when not running the Mixed Reality Portal (MRP) and from the headset’s audio jack or built-in headphones when mixed reality is running. Then close all apps, including MRP, and go to Settings > Mixed reality > Audio and speech to turn on “When Mixed Reality Portal is running, mirror headset audio to desktop.” You should now hear audio from both the headset and PC speakers when running mixed reality.

You may also notice some new error codes in Mixed Reality Portal to be more specific to certain failures. The Mixed Reality Portal app will also begin updating through the Store as we make infrastructure changes over the next several releases to support faster updates of mixed reality.

Improved Local Experience

We have introduced a new Region page that allows overrides to default regional format settings such as Calendar, First day of the week, Dates, Times, and Currency. Please go to Settings App – Time & Language – Region and give it a try.

Region Page in Settings app.

Local Experience Packs are Microsoft Store apps that deliver Windows display language quality improvements. You can now access them easily via the Settings App. Please go to Settings App – Time & Language – Language. Once here click on Add a Windows display language with Local Experience Packs link to download a Local Experience Pack from the Microsoft Store and start enjoying Windows in your preferred language.

Acquire Local Experience Packs from Settings app’s Language page.

Privacy Improvements

We wanted to let you know that if access to the microphone has been disabled in your privacy settings, we’ll now pop a notification the first time an attempt to use the microphone is blocked so you can review the settings if desired.

Notification showing “Your privacy settings blocked access to the microphone. Review these privacy settings”.

New Diagnostic Data Viewer features to improve your Privacy Experience

To showcase improvements in our privacy tools made in our next release of Windows, we are providing Windows Insiders early access to new improved features coming to the Windows Diagnostic Data Viewer. At Microsoft, we understand that your data is your data. That’s why we are committed to providing full transparency on what diagnostic data Windows collects, when it is collected, and how you can control what you share. We care about your privacy and helping you build trust and confidence in our products.

Windows Diagnostic Data Viewer

We first introduced the Windows Diagnostic Data Viewer on Data Privacy Day earlier this year. The Windows Diagnostic Data Viewer helps you understand exactly what diagnostic data is received from your Windows device.  Available to anyone through the Microsoft Store, the tool provides you full transparency when it comes to diagnostic data.

Through the viewer, you can see the different categories of diagnostic data which includes:

  • Common Data like the OS name, version, device ID, Device Class, and diagnostic level selection
  • Device Connectivity and Configuration such as device properties, preferences, settings, and network information
  • Product and Service Performance such as device health, performance and reliability, and device file queries (this is not meant to capture user patterns or habits)
  • Browsing History such as frequently visited sites
  • Product and Service Usage data like applications and services used
  • Software Setup and Inventory such as installed apps and device update information.

Each of these categories are important so that we can diagnose performance issues and ensure your device is secure. The viewer provides you full insights into exactly what we collect so that you are aware of what’s happening on your device. Through this tool, you can do things like search by keyword, filter data by category, export the data to a separate file, and provide feedback about the tool or a specific data point.

The Diagnostic Data Viewer shows you each diagnostic data point sent to Microsoft in detail. You can do things like filter the view by category (to right of search bar) and export the data to a separate file (top right of tool).

New to the Diagnostic Data Viewer

We are excited to say that users can now directly view Problem Reports that have or will be sent to Microsoft. Problem Reports help us identify crashes and other disruptions on your device so that we can improve your Windows experience. On the Diagnostic Data Viewer, users can view specific details about each report collected such as when it was sent and what application or component caused the report to be created.

The Diagnostic Data Viewer shows you each Problem Report sent to Microsoft.

Along with the ability to see Problem Reports, the Diagnostic Data Viewer comes with new changes to the UI as well. For example, the filter feature to view data points by category is now directly to the right of the search bar, and the export data feature now exists at the top right of the tool.

How to get it

Whether you’re new to Windows, or If you’ve just updated your OS to the new build, you’ll want to check out these steps.

You can get the Diagnostic Data Viewer on your Windows device through the Microsoft Store. Once you install the tool, open the app through the Start menu.

If you see “No events found”, go to “Open diagnostics and feedback menu in settings panel” on the bottom left of the tool (the middle icon). On this page, double check that “Diagnostic Data Viewer” is enabled. Once it is enabled, it will take some time for the tool to show events.

Windows Mixed Reality Improvements

This build includes several improvements for Windows Mixed Reality users:

  • This build no longer requires a physical monitor to be connected while running Mixed Reality in cases such as backpack PCs. Setting up WMR for the first time in Mixed Reality Portal and unlocking the PC on the sign in screen still, require a monitor to be connected initially. However, you can configure auto login to prevent needing to sign in for subsequent usage here. Using Windows Mixed Reality while standing requires setting up a room boundary.

  • Apps running in Windows Mixed Reality can now make use of the Camera Capture UI API to capture images of the mixed reality world using the system capture experience. Try running Mail in the Cliff House and inserting an image from your camera in a new message to share an image of the scenic view.

  • We’ve also made some adjustments to the mixed reality video capture experience in this build to make it easier to stop videos from the Start menu.

RSAT is now available on demand!

What does that mean? You no longer have to manually download RSAT every time you upgrade! Just go to “Manage optional features” in Settings (the fastest way there is to search for that) and click “Add a feature” – you’ll now see all of the RSAT components listed. Pick the ones you want, and the next time you upgrade Windows will automatically ensure all those components persist the upgrade (just like any of our other on-demand features, like speech resources or OpenSSH). Thanks to everyone who logged feedback asking for this! We’d love for you to try this out on today’s build and let us know what you think.

Showing Add Optional Features page in Settings will RSAT listed.

Note: The “Add an optional feature” page will take a long time to load the features the first time you go to the page. Some Insiders may find they have issues installing these features in this build, we’re investigating. If you do encounter installations issues, deleting this registry key may resolve them: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Servicing\LocalSourcePath.

Post-upgrade setup

You may see this window showing after you upgrade. Don’t worry – all your stuff is still there! We know some of you bought and setup your devices a long time ago – the features available in Windows have changed since then, so we’re giving you an opportunity to go through the setup questions you may have missed to ensure your device has the best setup possible. Click “Let’s Go” to go through those setup questions or click “Skip for now” if you want to go straight to your desktop. The conditions for showing this page are cloud programmable and may change over time.

Full screen setup window saying “Let’s make Windows even better – this shouldn’t affect what you’ve already set up.

Managing your wireless projection experience

One of the things we’ve heard from you is that it’s hard to know when you’re wirelessly projecting and how to disconnect if your session especially if started from file explorer or from an app. In today’s build, just like remote desktop you’ll see a control banner at the top of your screen when you’re in a session. The banner keeps you informed of the state of your connection, allows you to quick disconnect or reconnect to the same sink and allows you to tune the connection based on what you are doing. This tuning is done via the settings gear, which optimizes the screen to screen latency based on one of the three scenarios:

  • Game mode minimizes the screen to screen latency to make gaming over a wireless connection possible.
  • Video mode increases the screen to screen latency to ensure the video on the big screen plays back smoothly and without glitching.
  • Productivity modes strikes a good balance between game mode and video mode where the screen to screen latency is responsive enough that typing feels natural, while ensuring videos don’t glitch too often.

By default, all connections start off in productivity mode. Stay tuned to this space as even more functionality is coming to the banner! Can’t wait to hear what you think of banner. Let us know via the Feedback Hub!

The new banner when projecting.

Narrator’s scan mode now supports selecting content in Microsoft Edge, Word, Outlook, Mail and most text surfaces. For a full list of selection commands, you can refer to Narrator’s Show Commands List by pressing Caps+F1.

Task Manager Memory Reporting Improvements:

The main memory column in Task Manager “Processes” tab will not include memory used by suspended UWP processes.  If you have several UWP processes suspended in the background, the OS can take back memory from these suspended UWP processes if needed and use it for something that requires more memory.

LTE connectivity makeover:
After Twenty Years Windows is transforming the networking stack through NetAdapter framework. This framework introduces a new, more reliable, network driver model.

Introducing extended line endings support for Notepad

Announced at Microsoft Build 2018, we’re excited to let you know that in addition to Windows line endings (CRLF), with today’s build Notepad now supports Unix/Linux line endings (LF) and Macintosh line endings (CR)!

For more details, check out the command line blog.

Notepad Search with Bing

To use simply highlight any words or phrase in Notepad and you can search Bing using the following methods:

  • Right click on the selected text and choose “Search with Bing” via the right-click (context) menu.
  • Edit menu ->”Search with Bing…”
  • CTRL + B.

With Sets, a new tab will open that will include the Bing search results page:

Save time with Search Previews!

It’s been great seeing your positive feedback for the web preview we added last year and developments we’ve made to it since then. Now we have expanded previews to support apps, documents, and more. Search previews are here to help you:

  • Get back to what you were doing, such as a recent Word doc or Remote Desktop session
  • Jump-start your task, be it a new Outlook meeting, a quick comment in OneNote, or changing a setting
  • Disambiguate between files by seeing more info including file location, last modified, or author
  • Access quick answers from the web like “are bananas good for you?” “height of mt everest”

We made the Search experience wider so you can access information and actions in the preview faster than ever. The previews will be updated and improved over time, as we develop and add more features. Stay tuned!

Three examples of different previews side by side. PowerPoint, a Word doc, and a Bing search.

Start tile folder naming

You may have noticed the theme of feedback throughout today’s flight, and this announcement is no different. We understand that customizing your Windows experience is important to you – today we’re adding the ability to name your tile folders! To create a tile folder in Start, just drag one tile on top of another for a second then release. Continue dropping as many tiles into the folder as you’d like. When you expand the folder, you’ll see a new option to name it. The name will be visible when the folder is medium, wide, or large-sized. We appreciate everyone’s feedback requesting this!

Have a question about Settings?

We’ve heard your feedback that settings can be confusing sometimes, so we’re working with Bing to bubble up some of the most common questions we hear right into the Settings pages themselves. The FAQ’s are contextual in nature and aim to you to quickly get the answer you’re looking for to complete configuration tasks. It may even help you discover something you didn’t know was an option! Clicking on these questions will take you to Bing.com to display the answer.

Picture of Recovery Settings, now with “Have a question?” including the questions “How to create a Windows 10 USB recover drive”, “How to use System Restore on Windows 10”, “What are the system recover options in Windows.

NOTE: Currently this experience is supported in all en* markets (en-us, en-gb, en-ca, en-in, en-au).

Your phone and computer have made a new connection

From this week’s Build keynotes and Joe Belfiore’s blogpost on Microsoft 365, you may have seen what we’ve got instore for you in a future Insider Preview build release. There’s a new way to connect your phone to your PC with Windows 10 that enables instant access to text messages, photos, and notifications. Imagine being able to quickly drag and drop your phone’s photos into a document on your PC in one swift movement – without having to take your phone out of your pocket. Today, this experience allows you to link your phone to your PC. Surf the web on your phone, then send the webpage instantly to your PC to pick up where you left off to continue what you’re doing–read, watch, or browse with all the benefits of a bigger screen. With a linked phone, continuing on your PC is one share away. We’re working hard to expand these experiences so check back here for updates.

Improving HEIC support

We announced support for the High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) in Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17623. We are happy to announce that in build 17661 you can now rotate HEIF-format images in File Explorer, and edit metadata, such as “Date taken”.

The new functionality requires the latest version of the HEIF package. The latest version will be installed automatically be the Store. If automatic updates are disabled you can download the HEIF package manually using this link.

HEIF files use the HEVC video codec to compress the image into approximately half the size of JPEG. If your Windows PC does not already have the HEVC video codec, it can be purchased from the Windows Store using this link.

To rotate a HEIF image file, simply right-click on it in File Explorer and select “Rotate right” or “Rotate left” from the menu. “Date taken” and other properties can be edited by clicking on “Properties” and selecting the “Details” tab.

Please stay tuned for additional functionality related to the HEIF file format in future Windows 10 Insider Preview builds!

Showing File Explorer and Properties dialog, having added properties to a .heic file.

Data Sense Improvements:

Roaming Usage: Does your device have a SIM? We’ve updated Data Usage Settings to let you know how much data you are using while roaming! The roaming usage info will appear once you start using roaming data. As a reminder, if you’d like to enable or disable roaming altogether, you can find the option under Cellular Settings.

Settings open to Data Usage page, showing 138 MB of roaming data used

Make Text Bigger:

We’ve heard your feedback and are excited to announce that the ability to increase text size across the system is back and better than ever! When you go to Settings > Ease of Access > Display in today’s build, you’ll find a new setting called “Make everything bigger” – this slider will adjust text across the system, win32 apps, and UWP apps.

Ease of Access Setting, Display page. Make everything bigger option.

That means you can now make text bigger in Start menu, File Explorer, Settings, etc., without having to change the overall scaling of your system. Please try it out and share feedback!

Note: We’re investigating some issues with text clipping, not increasing in size everywhere, and problems when changing DPI settings.

Narrator Quickstart:

When Narrator launches, a new Quickstart tutorial experience will be available. The Narrator Quickstart will help you get up and running quickly with Narrator. It teaches the basics of using Narrator, such as learning the keys on your keyboard, navigation, the most used commands etc. At the end of the Quickstart there is a link to the User Guide where you can continue learning about Narrator.

When Narrator launches, a new Quickstart tutorial experience will be available. The Narrator Quickstart will help you get up and running quickly with Narrator.

When the Narrator Quickstart launches, Scan Mode may not reliably be on by default. We recommend going through the Quickstart with Scan Mode on. To verify that Scan Mode is on, press Caps Lock + Space.

Narrator Keyboard improvements: We have added the scan mode secondary action command and Spell current selection command. Please refer to Intro to New Narrator Keyboard Layout doc for more information.

Updated Ease of Access > Display Settings UI: We’ve made some tweaks to the Make text bigger section under Settings > Ease of Access > Display Setting to make it a bit clearer.

Narrator Improvements

Based on your feedback you’ll find we’ve made a bunch of updates to Narrator with today’s build:

  • Narrator Standard Keyboard Layout: Narrator now ships with a new keyboard layout that is designed to be more familiar to screen reader users. Please refer to the accompanying documentation for details on these changes (Intro to New Narrator Keyboard Layout doc).
  • Automatic Dialog Reading: Narrator will now automatically read the contents of a dialog box when brought to the foreground.  The experience is for Narrator to speak the title of the dialog, the focused element within the dialog and the static text, if any, at the top of the dialog. For example, if you try to close a document in Word with unsaved changes, Narrator will speak the title “Microsoft Word,” the focus “Save button” and the static text within the dialog.
  • Narrator Find: You now have the ability to search for text using Narrator’s new Find feature. If the text is found Narrator will move to the found item. Please refer to the accompanying keyboard layout documentation for command mapping.
  • List of Objects: Narrator now has the ability to present a list of links, headings or landmarks present in the application or content. You are also able to filter the results by typing in the list or the text field of the window. Please refer to the accompanying keyboard layout documentation for command mapping.
  • Selection in Scan Mode: Along with being able to select content in Narrator’s scan mode using Shift-selection commands, you can now also select a block of data by first moving to one end of the block and pressing F9, moving to the other end of the block and pressing F10. Once F10 is pressed the entire contents between the two points will be selected.
  • Stop on Controls in Scan Mode: Scan mode is a feature of Narrator that lets you use just a few keys to move around your screen. Scan mode is already on by default in Edge and you can toggle it on and off by pressing Caps lock + Spacebar. While you’re in scan mode, you can press the Up and Down arrow keys to read different parts of the page. With this update, the press of a Down arrow in Scan Mode will stop on interactive elements, so that they are easier to use. An example of this new behavior is that if you are reading a paragraph with multiple links, Narrator will stop on these links when you press the Down arrow.

We would love to hear what you think as you try out these improvements. This linkwill take you to the Narrator section of the Feedback Hub, or you can press Caps + E while Narrator is running.

Magnifier Improvements

Choose where to keep the mouse cursor: We’ve heard your feedback asking us for a way to keep your mouse centered on the screen in Full-Screen mode, and with this build, we’re making it happen! This new option under Settings > Ease of Access > Magnifier > “Keep your mouse…” > “centered on the screen” enables easier tracking and use of the mouse, especially helpful at higher magnification levels.

More options for increments:

You’ve also been asking for even more control of your zoom level increments, so we’ve taken a moment to add two new increments to the list: 5% and 10%.

We love feedback! In case you haven’t noticed it already, we have a new Magnifier node in the Feedback Hub under Ease of Access > Magnifier. We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts about using Magnifier – click this link to open our section in the Feedback Hub.

Bluetooth battery percentage in Settings:

In Bluetooth & other devices Settings, you can now check the battery level of your Bluetooth devices. For Bluetooth devices that support this feature, the battery percentage will update whenever your PC and the device are connected.

Bluetooth page in Settings. Shows Surface Pen with 71% battery.

Windows Defender Firewall now supports Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) processes

You can add specific rules for a WSL process in Windows Defender Firewall, just as you would for any Windows process. Also, Windows Defender Firewall now supports notifications for WSL processes. For example, when a Linux tool wants to allow access to a port from the outside (like SSH or a web server like nginx), the Windows Defender Firewall will prompt to allow access just like it would for a Windows process when the port starts accepting connections. This was first introduced in Build 17627.

Miscellaneous changes:

  • You can now refresh the Books pane in Microsoft Edge using a pull gesture.
  • When you pin books to Start from Microsoft Edge you will now see a live tile that cycles between the book cover and your current completion progress.
  • When printing PDFs from Microsoft Edge, you’ll find a new option to choose the scale of your print out (Actual size, or Fit to page).
  • We’ve updated Timeline so that in addition to seeing the number of available tabs to restore associated with a particular Sets activity, you can now cycle through them.
  • We’ve made some adjustments to improve the quality of audio when recording clips using the game bar (WIN+G). Thanks, everyone who shared feedback about this – please take a moment to try it out in today’s build.
  • When you hover over the leaf icon in Task Manager’s Status column, you will now see a tooltip describing what it means (this app is suspending processes to help improve system performance).
  • Building on our work from Build 17639, in addition to showing Bluetooth battery level in Settings for supported devices, you will now see a notification when one of those devices is low on battery.
  • For our WSL fans out there: if you’ve enabled WSL, you’ll now see an option to “Open Linux Shell here” when you Shift + Right-click on the whitespace of a File Explorer folder.
  • We’ve introduced preview support for same-site cookies in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11.

Redstone 5 Cortana improvements

Cortana Show Me now supports voice queries:

Last week, we introduced Cortana Show Me, a preview app designed to show you around Windows 10 settings. We’re here with some updates to try – you can now launch the app through voice queries. Simply say to Cortana, “Show me how to change my background,” and you’ll get the previous help results, with a new “Let’s go” button below, which launches the guided help experience. Everything else is the same as last week – the app is available in English (US and Great Britain) and in German, and there are 15 settings guides. While most Insiders don’t need pointers like this, it’s for all the friends and family we have who need a pointer – please share it with them.

You can download Cortana Show Me from Microsoft Store.

Note: If you’re using keyboard navigation with your device, you will need to use Alt + Tab to move between Settings and Cortana Show Me.

Here are some voice queries to try:

  • Update Windows – Try, “Update my Windows device”

  • Check if an app is installed – Try, “How to see what apps are installed”

  • Uninstall an app – Try “How to uninstall apps”

  • Change your desktop background – Try, “Show me how to change my background”

  • Use Airplane Mode – Try, “How do I turn on airplane mode”

  • Change your display brightness – Try, “Show me how to change my screen brightness”

  • Add nearby printers or scanners – Try, “How to add a printer”

  • Turn off Windows Defender Security Center – Try, “Show me how to turn off Windows Defender Security Center”

  • Change Wi-Fi settings – Try, “Show me how to change Wi-Fi network”

  • Change your power settings – Try, “How to change when my computer goes to sleep”

  • Discover Bluetooth devices – Try, “Show me how to discover devices”

  • Check your version of Windows – Try, “How do I find my current version of Windows”

     

Redstone 5 Security improvements

We’ve continued to work on the Current threats area on the Virus & threat protection section, which now displays all threats that need action. You can quickly take action on threats straight from this screen.

Screenshot of the Windows Security app showing a scan in progress under the Current threats heading on the Virus & threat protection page.

You can enable a new protection setting, Block suspicious behaviors, which brings our Windows Defender Exploit Guard attack surface reduction technology to all users. To enable this setting, go to the Virus & threat protection section and click Manage settings under the Virus & threat protection settings heading, as shown in the following screenshot:

Screenshot showing Block suspicious actions toggle in the Windows Security app, in the Virus & threat protection section.

With Controlled folder access you can help prevent ransomware and other destructive malware from changing your personal files. In some cases, apps that you normally use might be blocked from making changes to common folders like Documents and Pictures. We’ve made it easier for you to add apps that were recently blocked so you can keep using your device without turning off the feature altogether.

When an app is blocked, it will appear in a recently blocked apps list, which you can get to by opening the Virus & threat protection section, clicking Manage settingsunder the Ransomware protection heading, and then Allow an app through Controlled folder access. After the prompt, click the plus button and choose Recently blocked apps. Select any of the apps to add them to the allowed list. You can also browse for an app from this page as well.

Screenshot showing how to add a recently blocked app by navigating to the Virus & threat protection section, opening the Manage settings link under the Ransomware protection heading, and then interacting with the Allow an app through Controlled folder access link and choosing an app.

In the Device performance & health section, we’ve added a new assessment for the Windows time service. If we detect that your device’s time is not properly synced with our time servers and the time-syncing service is disabled, we’ll provide the option for you to turn it back on.

We’re continuing to work on how other security apps you’ve installed show up in the Windows Security app. There’s a new page called Security providers that you can find in the Settings section of the app. Click Manage providers to see a list of all the other security providers (including antivirus, firewall, and web protection) that are running on your device. Here you can easily open the providers’ apps, or get more information on how to resolve any issue that they have reported to you through the Windows Security app.

Screenshot showing the Security providers page in the Windows Security app. The pointer goes to the Settings link on the navigation pane, and then opens the Manage providers link under the Security providers heading.

This also means you’ll see more links to other security apps within the Windows Security app. For example, if you open the Firewall & network protection section, you’ll see the firewall apps that are running on your device under each firewall type (domain, private, and public networks).

Windows Security improvements

Windows Defender Security Center is now called Windows Security. You can still get to the app in all the usual ways – simply ask Cortana to open Windows Security or interact with the taskbar icon. Windows Security lets you manage all your security needs, including Windows Defender Antivirus and Windows Defender Firewall.

We’re also bringing some changes to how we present threats and actions that need your attention, and we’re continuing to refine that over the coming months.

More improvements

The Windows Security Center (WSC) service now requires antivirus products to run as a protected process to register. Products that have not yet implemented this will not appear in the Windows Security UI, and Windows Defender Antivirus will remain enabled side-by-side with these products.

For testing purposes, you can disable this new behavior in Windows Insider builds by creating the following registry key and rebooting the device.  This key will be removed as we get closer to release.

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\Feature
DisableAvCheck (DWORD) = 1

Redstone 5 Accessibility improvements

Narrator Improvements

We have made the following changes and improvements:

  • Reliability: We have made improvements in Narrator reliability.

  • Scan Mode: Reading and navigating while in Scan Mode has been improved. Selecting text in Scan Mode has also been improved. Selecting forward in Edge has some known issues that we are actively investigating.

  • QuickStart: The link in settings to relaunch the QuickStart should now reliably be working and will launch from the very first Welcome page. The QuickStart should also more reliably take focus when Narrator is launched, which means Narrator should start reading it automatically.

  • Providing Feedback: The keystroke to provide feedback has changed. The new keystroke is Narrator + Alt + F. This will work both in the Standard and Legacy layouts.

  • Note: The Legacy layout also allows you to use Narrator + E to send us feedback.

  • Move Next, Move Previous, and Change View: When changing Narrator’s view to either characters, words, lines or paragraphs the Read Current Item command will read the text of that specific view type more reliably.

  • Keyboard command changes: The keystroke to Move to beginning of text has changed to Narrator + B (was Narrator + Control + B), Move to end of text has changed to Narrator + E (was Narrator + Control + E).

  • Braille: Improved usage of Braille commanding when using the Narrator key from the braille display.

Redstone 5 Input improvements

Typing Insights

Windows now shows you insights about how its AI has been helping you type with efficiency. If you use the software keyboard on Windows, there are many features built into the typing experience that leverage AI and ML to help you be more efficient. Some examples include autocorrecting your spelling mistakes, prediction of the next word you would type, word suggestions as you start typing so you don’t have to type the full word and the number of words you’ve typed by swiping over the letters on the software keyboard (yes, you can do that, try it out if you have not yet).

Windows now shows you stats about each of these features. Go to Settings > Devices > Typing and click on “View typing insights” link to see them.

Showing Typing Insights page with stats described above.

Currently these stats cover the typing insights for software keyboard usage and hardware keyboard prediction features. If you like to see additional insights in the future releases, head over to the Feedback Hub and share your thoughts.

Taking the Microsoft Pinyin and Wubi IMEs to the next level

Do you write in Chinese (Simplified)? We’re updating the Microsoft Pinyin IME! We’ve been focusing on addressing your performance, reliability and compatibility feedback. You’ll also notice a number of other improvements, including:

Design improvements – a new logo (for the Microsoft Pinyin IME), new IME toolbar, and dark theme support!

The new logo, new IME toolbar, and an example of the candidate pane in dark theme showing results for nihao.

An updated context menu. We’ve added a bunch of options to the IME mode indicator’s context menu in the taskbar, so you can quickly access the things you need.

Screenshot of the context menu that appears when you right click the mode indicator. Includes options such as send feedback, emoji, user defined phrases, and more.

The IME now uses the same UX for Expressive Input as other languages. You can bring it up by clicking the emoji button in the IME toolbar, or use the Emoji Panel hotkeys (WIN + period (.) or WIN + semicolon (;)). You can browse between Emoji, Kaomoji, and Symbol input when Chinese (Simplified) is the active locale.

The emoji panel, showing emoji page, kaomoji page, and symbols page.

We’d love to hear what you think of this new experience – this link will take you to the Feedback Hub where you can share your thoughts.

Redstone 5 major app improvements

Focus assist improvements when gaming

Now Focus assist will turn on automatically when you’re playing any full screen game. No more interruptions when you’re crushing it. This behavior should be turned on automatically, but you can always check by going to Settings > System > Focus assist and ensuring the “When I’m playing a game” automatic rule is enabled.

Continuing our Sound Settings migration

Consolidating our settings experiences is an ongoing priority for us. We started our work moving Sound settings to Settings with the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, and we’re happy to announce the next piece of that with today’s flight. Device properties has now been integrated into Settings – just click on the links in Sound Settings and you’ll find a new page where you can name your device and select your preferred spatial audio format.

: Device properties page in Settings. Speakers have bene renamed to be “Jen’s awesome speakers”

Windows Calculator Improvements:

Windows Calculator has been updated (version 10.1803.711.0) to now correctly calculates square roots for perfect squares (integers that are squares of other integers). Because of the arbitrary precision arithmetic library used by the Calculator app, the square root calculation is an approximation calculated using the Exponential Identity function.

Previously, when you would calculate the square root of 4, the result would be 1.99999999999999999989317180305609 which would be rounded to 2 when displayed, because we calculated enough digits to do the rounding correctly. However, as soon as you subtract 2, you would see the remaining digits.

After this update, the square root calculation now recognizes perfect squares and correctly returns exactly 2 for the square root of 4.

Search is now available in Calendar for Windows 10!

Now you can find past or future events by searching for the name, location, people included or words in the event body. Events that match your search will be clearly visible on your calendar, while those that don’t will be greyed-out so you can find what you need quickly.

Find past or future events by searching for the name, location, people included or words in the event body in Calendar for Windows 10.

Search will work for Outlook, Hotmail, Live and Office 365 accounts. We do not yet support searching Exchange Server, Gmail, Yahoo or other IMAP calendars.

You love your phone. So does your PC.

Coming soon, we’re bringing the first set of features to Your Phone app for Windows Insiders with an Android device. Snap a pic on your Android, see it on your PC. You can finally stop emailing yourself photos. With Your Phone app, your Android’s most recent photos sync to your PC automatically. Need to add a photo to your presentation? Want to spruce up that selfie with some Windows Ink action? Just drag and drop.

And rolling out in the coming weeks, Android users might also start to notice a desktop pin taking you directly to Your Phone app – for quicker access to your phone’s content.

To light up this experience, open Your Phone app. You will receive an app from Microsoft which you must download to your mobile phone and follow the setup prompts. Android 7.0 and above are compatible with Your Phone app. For PCs tied to the China region, Your Phone app services will be enabled in the future.

For iPhone users, Your Phone app helps you to link your phone to your PC. Surf the web on your phone, then send the webpage instantly to your computer to pick up where you left off to continue what you’re doing–read, watch, or browse with all the benefits of a bigger screen. With a linked phone, continuing on your PC is one share away.

Skype for Windows 10 gets a big update!

This new Skype for Windows 10 update brings all the latest and greatest Skype capabilities to Windows 10 users.

Skype for Windows 10 update brings all the latest and greatest Skype capabilities to Windows 10 users.

Here’s a sample of what’s new:

  • Best in class calling experience – We’ve added several new calling features to make Skype’s calling experience even better than before.

  • Flexible group call canvas – Customize your group call experience and decide who appears in the main call canvas.  Simply drag and drop people between the call canvas and the overflow ribbon to select who you want to focus on.

  • Take snapshots – Use snapshots to capture images of important moments within a call.  Snapshots makes sure you never forget important memories like your grandkid’s funny antics or crucial information like the content that’s been screenshared during a meeting.

  • Easily start screensharing – We’ve made sharing your screen during calls even easier.  Look for the ability to share your screen with the top level call controls.

  • New layout – Based on your feedback, we’ve made your contacts easier to access and view

  • Customizable themes – Choose a color and theme for your Skype client through your application settings.

And much more – Improvements to our media gallery, notifications panel, @mentions experience and more!

Redstone 5 Enterprise improvements

Improved Kiosk Setup Experience:

We have introduced a simplified assigned access configuration page in Settings that allows device administrators to easily set up their PC as a kiosk or digital sign. This new page provides a wizard experience that walks you through the kiosk setup flow including creating a kiosk account that will automatically sign in on device start.

Please go to Settings, search for assigned access, and open the “Set up a kiosk” page to give it a try. We would love to hear your feedback! Let us know via the Feedback Hub.

Set up a kiosk Settings page. Showing floating dialog “Create an account”.

We are very excited to announce that Microsoft Edge now works with assigned access which allows IT administrators to create a tailored browsing experience designed for kiosk devices. Microsoft Edge kiosk mode supports the following four types:

For Microsoft Edge kiosk mode running in single-app assigned access the two kiosk types are:

  1. Digital / Interactive signage that displays a specific website full-screen InPrivate.
  2. Public browsing supports multi-tab browsing and runs InPrivate with minimal features available. Users cannot minimize, close, or open a new Microsoft Edge windows or customize it using Microsoft Edge Settings. Users can clear browsing data, downloads and restart Microsoft Edge by clicking “End session.” Administrators can configure Microsoft Edge to restart after a period of inactivity.

Showing Public browsing Microsoft Edge kiosk mode on a single-app kiosk device.

For Microsoft Edge kiosk mode running in multi-app assigned access the two kiosk types are (Note the following Microsoft Edge kiosk mode types cannot be setup using the new simplified assigned access configuration page in Windows 10 Settings):

  1. Public browsing supports multi-tab browsing and runs InPrivate mode with minimal features available. In this configuration, Microsoft Edge can be one of many apps available. Users can close and open multiple InPrivate windows.

Showing Public browsing Microsoft Edge kiosk mode on a multi-app kiosk device.

  1. Normal mode runs a full version of Microsoft Edge, although some features may not work depending on what apps are configured in assigned access. For example, if the Microsoft Store is not set up, users cannot get books.

Showing Normal Microsoft Edge kiosk mode on a multi-app kiosk device.

Learn how to setup Microsoft Edge kiosk mode in the Microsoft Edge kiosk mode deployment guide.

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