Thanks for being patient with us as we upgraded some of our engineering tools last week. Our build monitoring system is purring again and today we are excited to be releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14926 for PC and Mobile to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring.
An important note about build expiration
Just as we’ve always done with pre-release versions of Windows, Insider Preview builds have expiration dates. Starting tomorrow September 15th, PCs running really old Insider Preview builds will start to see build expiration notifications once a day. Then on October 1st, these PCs will start rebooting every 3 hours and then on October 15th – these PCs will stop booting all together. If your PC is running one of these old Insider Preview builds, please make sure you update to Build 14926 via Settings > Update & security > Windows Update. Build 14926 has an updated expiration date of May 1st, 2017. If your PC is running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Build 14393) in the Slow and Release Preview rings today – this does not apply to you and you will not be notified of your build expiring.
Introducing Microsoft Rewards
There are now more ways to get rewarded with Microsoft. Microsoft Rewards is a new rewards program that just launched earlier this week. It builds on the foundation of Bing Rewards, but with expanded ways to earn. With Microsoft Rewards, you earn points for searching with Bing, shopping at the Windows and Microsoft stores, and browsing the web with Microsoft Edge. As a Windows Insider, you can continue to earn points even on Insider Preview builds. Then you can redeem your points for Xbox or Windows gift cards and pick from thousands of games, movies, TV shows, music, and apps. Or you can use your points to get Microsoft Store discounts, Skype Credits, Xbox Live Gold memberships, and more, or even donate them to charity. To join, click here!
What’s new in Build 14926
Snooze in Microsoft Edge: We know you all love when we get creative with you, so we have added an experimental “Snooze” action on a tab in Microsoft Edge which provides you with a way to set a Cortana reminder on the website you are viewing. People often keep tabs open in their browser indefinitely as a “to do” list, and do not close those tabs until the action associated with that website is complete. This feature lets you put a site into a Cortana reminder that will show up as a notification and in Action Center, allowing you to quickly open that site in Microsoft Edge when you’re ready to get back to it.
Updated Wi-Fi settings page (Mobile): As part of our experience of unifying the settings experience across devices – we have updated the Wi-Fi settings page via Settings > Network & wireless > Wi-Fi on Mobile to match how it works on PC. The new Wi-Fi settings page isn’t complete yet as we continue to port over functionality. If need, you can fallback to using the Wi-Fi (legacy) settings page to access any missing functionality. In addition, we added the capability for you to connect to WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) networks on your phone.
Improving your PC upgrade experience: One of the ongoing feedback items we’ve heard is how the apps that come preinstalled with Windows will reinstall after each upgrade – particularly noticeable for our Insiders that receive multiple flights per month. We’ve heard your feedback, and starting with Build 14926, when your PC updates it will check for apps that have been uninstalled, and it will preserve that state once the update has completed. This means if you uninstall any of the apps included in Windows 10 such as the Mail app or Maps app, they will not get reinstalled after you update to a newer build going forward.
Making pin login easier: Ever tried to enter your pin, only to discover the numbers you’ve been typing are nowhere to be seen because Num Lock was off? We’re happy to announce that that will no longer happen! With this build, regardless of your Num Lock state, numbers will be input if you’re typing into the pin password field. Let us know what you think!
[ADDED] New Extensions in Microsoft Edge: We’re working with partners on adding new extensions before and want our Insiders to try them out first! We have two new releases which we need your help testing and giving feedback on before we publish them to the general public. TamperMonkey is a popular userscript manager that lets users customize the content of pages across the web. Microsoft Personal Shopping Assistant is your smart shopping cart across the web, which collects your browsed products and lets you get price alerts for saved products and compare products between sellers. You can install these at the links above and try them out on any Development Branch build – send feedback to the Feedback Hub or @MSEdgeDev on Twitter.
[ADDED] Export favorites from Microsoft Edge: We have added the ability for you to export your favorites from Microsoft Edge to an HTML file. Just click the “More” icon at the top right (the three dots), choose “Settings”, then “View favorites settings” and you will see the new option.
Other improvements and fixes for PC
- We fixed the issue causing Adobe Acrobat Reader to crash when you try to launch it.
- We fixed the issue causing the Settings app to crash when navigating to Settings > Personalization.
- We fixed an issue where Windows icons and text are not rendered correctly on some devices with Intel Atom (Clovertrail) processors.
- We’ve improved scaling for full screen games where the aspect ratio doesn’t match the native display resolution, for example, when playing Counter Strike: Global Offensive using a 4:3 stretched resolution.
- We fixed the issue where some people would experience a bugcheck (bluescreen) after plugging/unplugging certain types of Kindles such as the Paperwhite and Voyage.
- This build improves the performance on websites with changes to large numbers of HTML Elements containing text by improving spellchecker efficiency. This results in substantially improved performance on websites like TweetDeck.
- We have addressed the largest cause of reliability issues in Microsoft Edge running on Insider Preview builds. This should improve reliability on major websites such as Facebook and Outlook.com.
- We fixed an issue resulting in certain links (for example, Facebook) displaying a default favicon in the Microsoft Edge Tab, rather than the logo intended by the website.
- We fixed an issue where the Wi-Fi icon in the taskbar might show full bars when connected to a Wi-Fi network with low signal.
- We have fixed the issue which prevented the wireless network adapter in Surface Pro 1 and Surface Pro 2 devices from working. This also fixes the issue with the Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows not working. and other wireless network adapters from third-parties such as D-Link.
- We fixed an issue where File Explorer’s “Open Command window here” context menu option was opening set to the C:WindowsSystem32 path, rather than the desired directory.
- We fixed an issue potentially resulting in the taskbar no longer auto-hiding when a full screen window has focus (for example, when watching videos, gaming, or when using Remote Desktop). Note: If there’s an app that is asking for attention, it’s by design that the taskbar won’t hide (so you can see that there’s something trying to notify you).
Other improvements and fixes for Mobile
- We fixed a scaling issue on devices such as the Lumia 635, 636, or 638 where the bottom of certain apps, like Messaging and Maps, would get cut off and rendered off screen.
- We heard you and we have addressed the largest cause of reliability issues in Microsoft Edge running on Insider Preview builds. This should improve reliability on major websites such as Facebook and Outlook.com.
- We fixed an issue resulting in the sound of key presses and lock/unlock being barely audible when the phone was using a moderate volume.
- We fixed an issue where, if Quiet Hours had been turned on, banner notifications might not start appearing again until Action Center was opened or an interactive notification popped up and was dismissed.
- We fixed an issue where Cortana would crash when trying to open Reminders page.
- We have improved the reliability of VPN Settings page via Settings > Network & wireless > VPN.
- We fixed an issue resulting in the thumbnail for portrait videos displaying with an incorrect aspect ratio in the Photos app when panning through the Camera Roll.
Known issues for PC (UPDATED)
- While using Narrator and Groove Music, if you navigate to the progress bar while a song is playing then Narrator will continually speak the progress of the song e.g. update with the current time of the progress bar every second. The result is you will be unable to listen to the song or hear any other control you navigate to.
- You may experience a black screen when signing out and switching to another user account and will be unable to log in to that account. A reboot of your PC should allow you to log in to that account.
- Oracle VM VirtualBox will crash on launch after upgrading to this build.
- Optional components may not work after upgrading to this build. To get it working again, go to “Turn Windows features on or off”, scroll down and check the right optional component and click ok. After a reboot, the optional component will be enabled again.
- UPDATED: After updating to this build, built-in Windows 10 apps such as Calculator, Alarms & Clock, and Voice Recorder may not work. To get these apps working again, go to the Store and re-download/install them.
- For keyboard users, using tab to navigate the Settings app will not work in this build. The arrow keys should work as a temporary workaround.
Known issues for Mobile (UPDATED)
- Some devices such as the Lumia 650 will fail to install this build with Error 0x80188308. We are currently investigating this issue.
- Action Center no longer closes if you swipe up on the empty space (area of Action Center that doesn’t show any notifications).
- Using your phone as a mobile hotspot will work the first time but subsequent attempts to use the feature will result in the inability to enable the hotspot until the phone is rebooted.
- ADDED: We are investigating small set of isolated reports that after upgrading to Build 14926, the pin pad is no longer visible to unlock the phone even after rebooting the phone. If you have hit this issue, you can follow the steps here for resetting an unresponsive phone (hard reset) which gets your phone back into a working state on Build 14926.
- ADDED: We are also investigating reports that after upgrading to Build 14926, some phones lose the ability to use their SIM card. A hard reset also fixes this issue as well. See this forum post for more information.
Team Updates
We heard feedback from many of you Windows Insiders that you’d like to organize #WINsiders4Good events in your own city. We are putting together a “Create-A-Thon in a Box” which we will publish to the Windows Insider website and invite our Insiders to “flight” the kits and let us know how they work. We are going to kick this off in October in partnership with the Microsoft retail stores to celebrate the Microsoft-wide GIVE campaign. Stay tuned to this spot for more news on that.
Keep hustling,
Dona <3