Microsoft today released a new Windows 10 preview for PCs with both new features and improvements. The main additions include new PDF Reader features, Windows Defender Application Guard for enterprise users, and various improvements to settings.
Windows 10 is a service, meaning it was built in a very different way from its predecessors so it can be regularly updated with not just fixes but new features, too. Microsoft has released many such updates, including three major ones: November Update, Anniversary Update, and Creators Update.
It’s already great that on Windows 10 you don’t need to install Adobe Reader. But Edge’s built-in PDF Reader is about to get even better:
- PDF Form filling: You can now fill in PDF based forms directly in Edge, save, and print them.
- PDF Annotations: You can now annotate PDFs as well (use the “Make a Web Note” button on the top right to invoke an annotations bar). Inking, highlighting text, and erasing your annotations are all supported.
- Table of Contents: For reading longer documents, you can now use the Table of Contents on the left of the PDF toolbar for easier navigation.
- Better viewing and navigation: You can now rotate PDF documents, adjust the reading layout from one page to two pages layouts, and change to page-wise scrolling for better navigation and readability.
Announced back in September 2016, Windows Defender Application Guard for Microsoft Edge is now finally available to testers. Edge running in Application Guard provides enterprises the maximum level of protection from malware and zero day attacks against Windows. To try it, turn on Windows Defender Application Guard using the “Turn Windows features on or off” dialog (just search for it), open Edge, click on the Edge menu, and choose “New Application Guard window.” Any site you visit will be isolated in Application Guard.
Lastly, Microsoft has made a bunch of changes to Windows settings. There’s now a Ninjacat Icon to represent the Windows Insider Program, Cortana’s settings have been integrated into the main Settings app, and the Magnifier Settings page has been redesigned as well as gained a few new options.
The desktop build includes the following bug fixes and improvements:
- Fixed an issue resulting in the candidate window not appearing when typing in certain apps when using Simplified Chinese IMEs or the Changjie and Quick IMEs.
- Fixed an issue where explorer.exe would crash and restart if you tapped any of the apps listed in the Windows Ink Workspace’s Recent Apps section.
- Double-clicking the Windows Defender Security Center icon in the notification area will now open Windows Defender Security Center.
- Universal dismiss of Cortana reminders is now enabled across Windows devices on this build or higher.
- Localized apps on localized x64 Windows 10 Insider Preview builds will now work. We believe this will also address the issue some Insiders were reporting where the Open and Save dialogs weren’t opening in certain desktop (Win32) apps.
- Fixed an issue resulting in decreased Action Center reliability in recent flights.
- Fixed an issue with the Chinese Pinyin IME where typing a sequence of characters beginning with ‘hu’ into certain apps would result in an unexpected delay before the candidate window updated to reflect the current composition.
Today’s update bumps the Windows 10 build number for PCs from 16184 (made available to testers on April 28) to build 16188.
This build has eight known issues:
- PC Reset via Settings > Update & security > Recovery will not work on non-English Insider Preview builds.
- Some Insiders have reported seeing this error “Some updates were cancelled. We’ll keep trying in case new updates become available in Windows Update.”
- 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.
- Navigating to Settings > Update & security > Windows Update may crash Settings app. You can simply re-open the Settings app again and it should work again.
- Navigating to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen may crash Settings app.
- 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.
- Your PC may hang when shutting down the PC.
- In certain cases, Start may fail to launch but launches normally on the second try.
If you’re OK with the above and want to get build 16188 now, head to PC Settings, select “Update and recovery,” then “Preview builds,” and then click the “Check Now” button.
Microsoft also released a new Windows 10 Mobile build today. Given the continued losses of its Phone division, we’re not sure why it’s still bothering.
