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Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 20221

Written By published September 23, 2020

Hello Windows Insiders, today we’re releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 20221 to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.

What’s new in Build 20221

Introducing Meet Now in the Windows 10 Taskbar

Earlier this year we introduced Meet Now in Skype. Meet Now makes it easy to connect with anyone in as little as two clicks for free and each call can last up to 24 hours. Today, we’re excited to share that we are extending this capability in Windows 10 by bringing Meet Now right to the taskbar. You can now easily set up a video call and reach friends and family in an instant by clicking on the Meet Now icon in the notification area (system tray) of the taskbar in Windows 10. No sign ups or downloads needed.

Create a meeting:

Create a meeting with Meet Now.

Join a meeting:

Join a meeting in Meet Now.

NOTE: Meet Now in the Windows 10 Taskbar will not show up for users logged in to their PC with an AAD account and/or on the Windows 10 Enterprise edition. 

This feature is rolling out to a subset of Insiders in the Dev Channel at first, to help us quickly identify issues that may impact performance and reliability. Rest assured they will be gradually rolled out to everyone in the Dev Channel.

Other updates for Insiders

Your Phone Notifications gets a new pinning feature

We are excited to announce that the Your Phone app has a new pinning feature integrated with the notifications feed. With notifications pinning, you can easily pin to save important notifications that will stick to the top of your feed so they are readily accessible and distinguished from the rest of your notifications.  To try out this feature, find a notification you want to pin and click the ellipses in the overflow menu. There you will see the option “Pin notification”.

Since the notification will now stick to the top of your feed, you no longer have to worry about losing the notification and can easily access the thread and use all your favorite functionality, like in-line reply.  When you no longer need that notification thread, you can simply unpin it by clicking the unpin icon.

Your Phone app on Notifications feature with Notifications menu pinning expanded.

This is a gradual rollout, so it may take a few days for notifications pinning to show up within the Your Phone app. Give this feature a try and continue to provide us with your valuable feedback within the Your Phone app under Settings >  Help & Feedback >  Send Feedback.

Updates for developers

The Windows SDK is now flighting continuously with the Dev Channel. Whenever a new OS build is flighted to the Dev Channel, the corresponding SDK will also be flighted. You can always install the latest Insider SDK from aka.ms/InsiderSDK. SDK flights will be archived in Flight Hub along with OS flights.

Changes and Improvements

  • As some Insiders may have noticed, we’re adding a notification to let you know when an app registers to run at startup (Settings > Apps > Startup Apps).
  • With most of the launches of the People app coming directly from within the Mail and Calendar apps in Windows 10, the People app no longer appears as a standalone app in Start. It remains as an inbox app and can be launched to manage your contacts from the button in the Mail and Calendar apps.

Fixes

  • We fixed an issue where the new Manage Disks and Volumes section in Settings wasn’t blocking the ability to change the drive letter of the system volume.
  • We fixed an issue that could result in Start menu, and Action Center being totally transparent when certain apps were open in the background.
  • We fixed an issue that could result in a crash when opening the Power menu in Start while running Magnifier at a high zoom level.
  • We fixed an issue that could result in a virtual desktop thumbnail in Task View showing an empty desktop even after moving an app over to that desktop.
  • We fixed an issue when typing with an IME into text fields in certain apps that could result in input no longer being accepted.
  • We fixed an issue that could result in the Chinese Pinyin IME candidate pane getting stuck on the first letter when typing into certain games.
  • We fixed an issue that could result in Windows Update getting stuck at “Downloading – 0%” for a long time.
  • We fixed seeing generic errors when using wsl --install in the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
  • We fixed a bug where the Linux kernel would not be installed when using wsl --install in the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Known issues

  • We’re looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
  • We’re working on a fix to enable live preview for pinned site tabs.
  • We’re working on enabling the new taskbar experience for existing pinned sites. In the meantime, you can unpin the site from the taskbar, remove it from the edge://apps page, and then re-pin the site.
  • We’re investigating reports of some Office applications crashing or missing after updating to a new build.
  • We’re working on a fix for an issue resulting in Settings crashing for some Insiders when opening Manage Disks and Volumes.
  • We’re investigating reports of some devices experiencing a KMODE_EXCEPTION bugcheck when using certain virtualization technologies.
  • We are investigating an issue affecting Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 distros where users can receive the error: “The remote procedure call failed” on startup.
  • We’re investigating a bug where the vEthernet adapter in Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 distros becomes disconnected after a period of use. For full details please follow this GitHub thread.
  • ADDED 9/24: We’re investigating reports where after taking this build some users receive a Compatibility Assistant notification that “Microsoft Office is no longer available”. Despite the notification, Office should still be there and working fine.

Important Insider Links

You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here, including a list of all the new features and updates released in builds so far. Not seeing any of the features in this build? Check your Windows Insider Settings to make sure you’re in the Dev Channel. Submit feedback here to let us know if things weren’t working the way you expected.

If you want a complete look at what build is in which Insider ring, head over to Flight Hub. Please note, there will be a slight delay between when a build is flighted and when Flight Hub is updated.

Thanks,
BLB

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Windows Insider Program