Right after the Build 2017 Day 2 keynote finished, Microsoft released a new Windows 10 preview for PCs. This is the first build of the upcoming Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, which is slated to arrive later this year (likely in September). New features include the Windows Story Remix app the company just demoed onstage, a small power throttling update, and individual volume control for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps.
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.
Windows Story Remix is a creative app built with .NET that feels like the successor to Windows Movie Maker. But Microsoft says Story Remix is “an evolution of the Photos app.” Here’s what the app can do in today’s build:
- Videos made easy: Understands your content to find relevant collections and automatically bring it together into video stories with a soundtrack, theme, and transitions. You can save these suggested video stories, share them, remix them with a click for a new version, or edit them directly in story editor.
- Search: Uses deep learning and AI to automatically tag your content. You can search by people, places, or things to find photos for use in creating a story.
- Updated UX: Elements of Microsoft Fluent Design System like connected animations, conscious scrollbars, and acrylic. The Explore page is the hub for your entire collection of photos and videos and the Create page is the jumping off point for creating new stories.
- Discovery bar: Quick access to common tasks, making it easy to create a new story, see automatically created stories, and discover past memories of people, places, and things.
- Share your stories: Upload your video stories quickly to YouTube and Facebook, or share them via email or OneDrive.
Next, the Background Moderated column in Task Manager has been changed to Power Throttling. This is just an aesthetic change to bring the Task Manager in line with the power and battery life improvements the company is bringing to Windows 10 later this year.
The Volume Mixer (right-click on the speaker icon in the taskbar) has been updated to include UWP apps so you can set their volume without affecting the overall system volume. This means you can individually control UWP apps, which will only appear in the Volume Mixer once they start playing sound.
Lastly, there’s also a new Ninjacat background. Unfortunately it’s in a rather small resolution, so for most monitors it’s rather useless.
The desktop build includes the following bug fixes and improvements:
- PC Reset via Settings > Update & security > Recovery works again on non-English Insider Preview builds.
- Navigating to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen should no longer crash Settings app.
- Fixed an issue where Settings would crash on launch for Insiders using certain display languages, including Russian, French, Polish, and Korean. If you were impacted by this on Build 16188, that means you won’t be able to open Windows Update to check for updates. However, your PC will download the new build in the background. Once the build is downloaded and staged, your device should automatically restart to install it when idle and outside of your configured active hours. Or you could go to Start and Power and choose to Update and Restart to install the build.
- Fixed the issue causing XAML designers in Visual Studio and Blend for Visual Studio to show an exception when a XAML file from a Universal Windows Platform project is opened.
- Fixed an issue resulting in some fonts not rendering properly in Greek or other single-byte system locales such as Hebrew or Arabic.
- Fixed an issue where the “clear all” button in Action Center wouldn’t work if a notification had been expanded.
- You can now use Ctrl + Win + N to directly open Narrator Settings.
- Fixed an issue where the Windows Store App Troubleshooter was erroneously showing the message “Not Fixed” instead of “Fixed” after following the steps to troubleshoot the error “Windows Store cache may be damaged”.
- Fixed an issue from recent flights that could lead to the PC no longer recognizing any USB device until the USB Root Hub had been disabled and re-enabled in Device Manager.
Today’s update bumps the Windows 10 build number for PCs from 16188 (made available to testers on May 4) to build 16193.
This build has seven known issues:
- Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG) will fail to work on touch PCs, showing a solid black window on launch. Non-touch enabled devices should not experience the issue. A temporary workaround if you would like to use WDAG is to go to Device Manager, expand Human Interface Devices and disable the “HID-compliant touch screen” and “Intel Precise Touch Device” if they are present. After a reboot try WDAG again. Re-enable these devices to restore touch.
- [DEVELOPERS] The XAML designer in Visual Studio 2017 hits an error causing a squiggle error under ThemeResource references to XAML’s generic.xaml resources.
- 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 an 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.
- You will be unable to type in your password to log in to the Facebook, Instagram or Messenger apps. A workaround is to use the “Login with the browser” button.
If you’re OK with the above and want to get build 16193 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 that the OS didn’t even get a mention at Build, we’re not sure why it’s still bothering.
