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May 17, 2017
PC

Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16199 for PC + Build 15215 for Mobile



Hello Windows Insiders!

Today we are excited to be releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16199 for PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. We are also releasing Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 15215 to Insiders in the Fast ring. Our first Bug Bash for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update continues – running right now through to 11:59pm on Sunday May 21st. Today’s new builds for PC and Mobile can also be used for the Bug Bash. Be sure to send us all the feedback you can and do all the Quests! And tomorrow, we will be doing two 90 minutes webcasts on our Beam channel for the Bug Bash at the following times:

  • 10:00am – 11:30am (Pacific Time)
  • 5:00pm – 6:30pm (Pacific Time)

Hope you can join us!

Please note: Language Packs via Settings > Time & language > Region & language will be unavailable for this build. If you have Language Packs already installed from the previous build, they will carry over.

An update on the Story Remix feature in the Photos app

Last week at Build, we unveiled Story Remix – an evolution of the Photos app that makes it easier to relive your memories and introduces video story creation from your photos and videos. Story Remix is being rolled out to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring as part of A/B testing. A/B testing is a scientific method to prove the causality of a change on the observed impact. In other words, using A/B testing, we can be sure that the observed impact is caused by the change we made and not simply due to correlation or chance. As you can imagine, this is very important for us to get right when bringing new features to Windows 10. We’ve done experiments like this in the past so this shouldn’t be new to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. We should have been more clear about this up front last week when we announced Story Remix so we apologize for the confusion.

While a large majority of Windows Insiders in the Fast ring should have Story Remix right now, if you do not see it (i.e. the Create pivot or search box), this means you are part of the control group. However, If you want to live on the bleeding edge, you can send the Story Remix Team an email for instructions on getting Story Remix early. UPDATE: We are no longer taking email requests.

What’s New in Build 16199 For PC

Emotive Experience in My People: The next wave of cool features for My People is now available for Windows Insiders! In addition to being able to place your favorite people to the taskbar, today’s build brings even more personal ways to stay in touch and share with the people closest to you. We’re adding:

  • See emoji from your pinned contacts: When you receive emoji from your pinned contacts you can now watch them appear and animate right from the taskbar! Have one of your pinned contacts send you an emoji via Skype (for example “(hero)”) and see what happens! If you’d like to turn this off, open taskbar settings by right-clicking on the taskbar.
    My People emoji flyout
  • Notification Badging: The contacts pinned to your taskbar will now display a counter if there are unseen messages, ensuring you have at-a-glance access to communications you have missed from your pinned contacts. Note: You might need to update Skype to version 11.16.556.0 to see notification badges when new Skype messages come in.My People badging
  • People-first Sharing: You now have two easy ways to share with your people in Windows 10! Drag-and-drop files directly onto the contacts in your taskbar to start an email, or share directly to your contacts via the share picker by choosing from a list recommended people to email.
    Share to people!

Try it out! As always, we look forward to your feedback.

Improved Game Settings: We’ve made some improvements and adjustments that PC gamers will enjoy via Settings > Gaming and the Windows Game bar (WIN + G). Some things to check out:

  • Broadcast using game-only audio: Under Settings > Gaming > Broadcasting, you can now choose “Per-app audio” to broadcast using only the game’s audio to Beam as opposed to the audio for your entire PC.
  • Audio settings is now Game DVR in Game bar: We have renamed the Audio settings page under the settings in Game bar to be Game DVR. All Game DVR settings from the general gaming settings page has been moved to be under Game DVR. Per-app audio settings is also included here as well.

Note: Windows Insiders will see a “Game Monitor” page under Settings > Gaming for potential future functionality which doesn’t do anything right now.

Other Settings Updates: One of our ongoing goals is to help make it easier for you to understand the state of your system and quickly get to the settings you need to tailor your Windows 10 experience. With that, this build brings two new features to Settings:

  • Settings > System > About now integrated with System Health: The About Settings page has been simplified to be accessible to all customers. In addition to the overall UX cleanup, we have also added a health section that pulls in information from the Windows Defender Security Center so you can see your system health at a glance.
    Settings > System > About now integrated with System Health
  • Tips and Videos in Settings: To help you learn more about your options, we’re starting to add tips and videos to Settings. We’re still growing our collection, but to start with you can find them in under Settings > Ease of Access or Settings > Update & security, a handful of other areas. More content is being added all the time and we’re really hoping to get your help figuring out the best tip content for each page. If you have an idea of a tip that would help your least techie friend or family member, please provide us feedback through the feedback hub! Note: Depending on the size of the Settings window, you will find the tips either at the bottom of the page, or on the side.
    Tips and Videos in Settings

Expanding Storage Sense’s abilities: During development of the Windows 10 Creators Update, we added the ability to automatically free up space using Storage Sense. We’re continuing to grow this feature, and you can now choose to automatically clean up files that have been unchanged in your Downloads folder for 30 days. Just go to Settings > System > Storage and click on “Change how we free up space” to adjust this setting.

Automatically clean up files that have been unchanged in your Downloads folder for 30 days

Streamlining Narrator Feedback: We’ve updated Narrator so that when you press Caps Lock + E + E while Narrator is running, it will now launch the Feedback Hub.

Incoming call notifications: For our Insiders with Android phones, Cortana can now display cross device incoming call notifications! Install the Cortana app on your phone, go to “Settings” > “Sync notifications” and turn on all the Cortana cross-device features. The next time you receive a call, a notification will appear on your Fast ring PC telling you who it is and giving you the option to text back a reply or decline the call.

Incoming call notifications

Changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

  • Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG) will now work as expected on touch-enabled PCs.
  • [DEVELOPERS] The XAML designer in Visual Studio 2017 hits an error causing a squiggle error under ThemeResource references to XAML’s generic.xaml resources. Please update to the latest version of Visual Studio 2017 Preview (Version 15.3 – 26510.00) or later. If Visual Studio 2017 Preview is already installed, users can update by starting the Visual Studio Installer, and clicking the Update button. You can confirm you have the right build of Visual Studio Preview by going to Help > About to confirm you are on Version 15.3 (26510.0-Preview) or later.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in many Win32 apps not launching if certain 3rd party antivirus programs were active prior to upgrading.
  • We’ve updated Windows Defender Security Center so as to no longer flag disabled drivers as issues. We have also adjusted the health scan logic so that using maximum brightness when connected to AC power will not flag a warning. Appreciate all who shared feedback on the subject.
  • As a result of low usage, we’ve made the decision to remove the Note quick action.
  • We’re updated our migration logic so that going forward from this build the state of rotation lock will be preserved across upgrades.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in color profiles being ignored after launching certain fullscreen games.
  • ADDED: To help you quickly find the option you’re looking for, we’ve updated the context menus for apps and tiles in Start to now include icons for more actions, including Share, Uninstall, and Rate.

Known issues for PC

  • Some Insiders have reported seeing this error “Some updates were cancelled. We’ll keep trying in case new updates become available” in Windows Update. See this forum post for more details.
  • Surface 3 devices fail to update to new builds if a SD memory card is inserted. The updated drivers for the Surface 3 that fix this issue have not yet been published to Windows Update.
  • Outlook 2016 may hang on launch due to an issue where the spam filter gets stuck reading the Outlook Data File and the UI waits indefinitely for it to return. We’re investigating.
  • We are investigating reports that Microsoft Edge fails to open PDFs with “Couldn’t open PDF. Something is keeping this PDF from opening” error.
  • [UPDATED] You will be unable to type in your password to log in to any UWP apps such as Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Messenger apps. If you are already logged in to your apps, you should be ok updating to this build but don’t log out.
  • Games such as Civilization VI may fail to launch on this build.
  • Windows Mixed Reality won’t work on this build. If you are a developing testing and developing for Windows Mixed Reality, you will want to avoid this build. If you update this build and need Windows Mixed Reality, you will need to roll-back to Build 16193.
  • VIM is broken for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) users – we’re investigating.
  • The choice command fails when run in a Command Prompt script.

Changes, improvements, and fixes for Mobile

  • We fixed an issue where the Call audio did not move to speaker after removing the headset on some phones.
  • We have improved power and performance for apps, such as Fitbit, for pair, connect, sync and notifications.
  • We fixed an issue where notifications would not be mirrored to the user’s PC and Cortana’s cross-device settings would not persist.

Known issues for Mobile

  • The copyright date is incorrect under Settings > System > About. It shows as 2016 when it should be 2017. Thanks to the Windows Insiders that reported this!
  • In some cases, the WeChat app may crash on launch.

Keep hustling team,
Dona <3