Microsoft is always striving to improve the quality of their products. When it comes to Windows 10, they have continued working on their feature updates releasing several insider-preview builds.
Insider Preview Build 18912
If you are a member of the Windows Insider Program, in order for you to update your PC to build 18912, follow these steps:
- Go to settings
- Click on updates and security
- Then choose Windows update to check for any new updates
New Features
The build 18912 boasts a new feature with the Narrator. It provides a much-needed solution for the links you may come across on the internet. By clicking Caps + Ctrl + D the narrator is able to give you the title of the page.
It takes the URL and gets the title from a trusted online service. Having this feature is an added advantage in that you are able to avoid a lot of spammy sites. To disable the use of the Narrator on the web just go to the Narrator settings and check it off.
Improvements
With this build, there have been numerous improvements on bugs that caused major issues in the previous build. These issues include;
- A win32k.sys error which caused users to experience unexpected green screens.
- A DWM crash which often resulted in screens going black then resuming to normal
- Focus assist enabling after all app have been minimized
- The taskbar not being visible after connecting to a remote desktop for a better view of the session.
- Settings application crashes after trying to gain access to the graphics settings page
- Reliability of emoji panel and clipboard history
- Not reading certain emojis through (TTS)
- Color filters not taking effect after being selected. It would require you to turn off and back on the color filter option to get your desired results.
It is also important to note that the Ink Workspace also has a few changes.
- It is smaller and has a direct access link to the whiteboard app.
- It improves your ideas and enhances the capabilities of any collaborations
- Enables you to get a screenshot and add notes with the sketch app.
These changes have been effected to optimize user experience.
Issues To Look Out For
- When updating you might not see the progress of your downloads nor the “downloads installed” update.
- PC crashing when running games. To try and minimize this, make sure to update your game of choice to the most recent version.
- Realtek SD cards malfunctioning
- A delay when using the dictation panel
It is also important to note that when downloading this build, some error codes may be produced. This is mainly because of the high “Random Access Memory” consumption. It may take longer to download but will eventually come around. You can expect this issue to be addressed in the upcoming build.
Insider Preview Build 18908
This build mainly focuses on “phone app” improvements. This comes after Microsoft stated that the app is a built-in feature and cannot be uninstalled. The improvements are meant to make the app useful to mobile users and integrate it into their lives.
New Features
- Screen reading
After enabling TalkBack and the Phone Companion, Narrator will activate whatever you select to your phone.
- Focus Tracking
According to Microsoft, with focus tracking, interaction with your phone’s apps can be magnified while in “phone screen”. It will achieve this by following your keyboard focus as well as the mouse input.
To gain access to focus tracking, you need to turn on the accessibility service on the phone companion and also TalkBack. Once this is done you can use this shortcut for the magnifier. Windows key as well as (+).
- Language and layout
It includes an icon on your phone’s screen toolbar which takes you directly to the phone’s settings. On the settings page, you are able to change the language and layout. However, it only applies to your PCs keyboards and not your phone’s keyboard.
- Sending and receiving MMS messages
- Unread messages indicator
- Contact images
Syncs all your contact thumbnails to see who you are messaging
- Replies preceding the original text
Replying to messages from the toast notification directly
- Emoji picker
Ability to use different kinds of emojis in your texts
Syncing through mobile data
In the previous builds, you had to connect your phone to WIFI in order to sync all your photos and notifications. Now you can easily do this by using mobile data.
Go to your phone companion app settings then enable “mobile data” to sync. After this, you’ll see a notification on your phone “connect to your PC”.
Microsoft has also upgraded to new icons which will make your phone app companion closely identical to windows icons.
Improvements
There have been a couple of issues addressed in this build that will help make the user experience better.
Some of the issues fixed include
- Night light not turning on which only left the restart option in order to function again
- Unusual movement in MS paint selections when using arrow keys
- The Narrator stuttering while reading.
Microsoft fixed 12 issues in total which had proven to be a real pain.
Insider Preview Build 18898
New Features
- Task manager displays disk type
This will help you differentiate between the disks and find out what type of disks you have on your task manager.
Improvements
Issues fixed include
- High hitting DWM crash
- High hitting explorer.exe crash caused by a problem with the pcshell.dll
- Showing of prediction candidates even after they had been disabled in the IME settings.
To reverse this, you need to reset your app. Go to settings, then select apps, and click on advanced options. This will fix the issue. There are however a few issues that you may still encounter. But with every new build, more issues are fixed which means upgrading to a newer build is always a good option.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
