Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16184 for PC + Build 15208 for Mobile

Windows 10 Blog ^ | Apr 28, 2017 | Dona Sarkar

[dayglored]

Hello Windows Insiders!

Today we are excited to be a) hosting our very first Insider webcast from the brand new #BeamMachine AND b) doing our first ever build release during a webcast. We are releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16184 for PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. We are also releasing Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 15208 to Insiders in the Fast ring.

What’s New in Build 16184 For PC

My People: Technology is all about making it easier for you to connect with your most important people. Whether you want to share a photo, make plans for dinner, or get an answer from a friend or coworker – My People is here to take it to the next level and bring the people you care about most to the center of your experience.

You can now:

• Pin your people to the taskbar – we’ll suggest some to start with, or you can pick your own! (Note: you are currently limited to having 3 people pinned to your taskbar currently.)
• View multiple communication apps together and filtered to each person on your taskbar.
• Choose the app you want to use to chat and we’ll remember for next time.

By now, you are wondering ‘but how do I host this party in my taskbar?’. To start with, go to the Store app and make sure you have all the latest updates for the Skype, Mail, and People apps. Then click on the People icon in the taskbar to activate the first run experience and get setup.

Note: Contact syncing is enabled by default following system settings in versions 11.13+ of Skype. If you have an older version of Skype you will need to manually enable contact syncing via the Skype app settings.

Have feedback you want to share with the team? We want to hear it! You can send us feedback by tapping the ellipsis in the People flyout and selecting “Send feedback”, or by opening the Feedback Hub and sharing your thoughts in the Desktop Environment > My People section. We have some more work on its way for this that will soon be lighting up for Insiders, including our improved Share story for People, so stay tuned!

New experience for Gmail accounts in Windows 10 Mail & Calendar apps: Last week, we announced we’re introducing a new experience for Gmail accounts in the Windows 10 Mail and Calendar apps that brings our latest features such as Focused Inbox and richer experiences for travel reservations and package deliveries that were previously only available to those with an Outlook.com or Office 365 email address. Windows Insiders will be the first to try out the new experience as the roll-out gradually happens over the next few weeks. You’ll know the new experience is available for your account when you are prompted to update your Gmail account settings.

Changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

• We fixed an issue where night light could get stuck in a disabled state.
• We’ve updated Start to use the improved XAML scrollbar style announced during Creators Update development.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where dragging an app from Start’s All apps list into the tile grid would result in Start crashing.
• We fixed an issue for those using Windows in Japanese, where on first login after an upgrade certain apps would unexpectedly appear at the bottom of the Start’s All apps list for an hour or until being launched, instead of the normal sorted position.
• Since the preview picture in Start Settings only previewed background and theming changes, which are already available to be previewed on their corresponding Settings pages, we’ve made the decision to remove it.
• We’ve improved the loading performance of the Notification Settings page.
• Some audio drivers have an “encoding Audio Processing Object” feature; this is commonly known as “Dolby Digital Live” or “DTS Connect”. This takes the output of the Windows audio engine mix, encodes it (as Dolby Digital, DTS, or some other format) and sends it out over a S/PDIF optical link for decoding by an external audio receiver. An issue was introduced which resulted in this feature no longer working, which is now fixed.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights resulting in Photos crashing if you opened a picture from the Collection page and then pressed the back button in the title back.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Counter Strike Global Offensive hanging or freezing during game play on the latest builds (16176+).
• We fixed the issue where pressing F12 to open the Developer Tools in Microsoft Edge while F12 is open and focused may not return focus to the tab F12 is opened against, and vice-versa.

Known issues for PC

• ADDED: PC Reset via Settings > Update & security > Recovery will not work on this build.
• 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.
• Double-clicking on the Windows Defender icon in the notification area does not open Windows Defender. Right-clicking on the icon and choosing open will open Windows Defender.
• 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.
• exe will crash and restart if you tap any of the apps listed in the Windows Ink Workspace’s Recent Apps section.
• Insiders who use Simplified Chinese IMEs or the Traditional Chinese Changjie or Quick IME to input text will find that the candidate window doesn’t appear when typing into certain apps. If you press space, the first candidate will be finalized. Using the number keys will not finalize any other candidate. If the candidate you need is not the first one, for now you will have to enter your text into an app where the candidate window appears, such as Notepad, and copy it into the desired text field.
• 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.
• The “Save” dialog appears to be broken in several desktop (Win32) apps. The team is investigating. This will break things such as Chinese IME, etc.
• Localized apps on localized x64 Windows 10 Insider Preview builds will not work.
• We’ve heard some reports that the Action Center isn’t opening as reliably in recent builds, and are investigating.

Changes, improvements, and fixes for Mobile

• We’ve fixed the issue where some Insiders were unable to open both the Connect UX page and/or the “Add Bluetooth or other devices” setting on the Bluetooth Settings page.
• We fixed an issue resulting in an unexpected extra ~20 sec being added to the phone shutdown process due to a deadlock if you tried to shut down soon after switching from one network to another.

Known issues for Mobile

• A small percentage of devices may experience text message backup loss related to backup and recovery of the messaging database.
• 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!
• Insiders may experience random shutdowns on some devices.
• In some cases, the WeChat app may crash on launch.

[dayglored]

Another big helping of The Bleeding Edge...

[dayglored]

Windows 10 Update - Insider Preview 16184... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

[dayglored]

NOTE

This is the "Insider Preview" -- the latest and greatest changes to the moving target that is Windows 10.

It is NOT for the typical Windows user. It is for those of us who like living on the edge.

Like all previews, it has known bugs, is not necessarily stable, and certainly should not be used for production.

But if you want to see what's coming in the world of Windows 10, this is the place to be!

[Gene Eric]

Between the forced updates and App marketing, Windows 10 has become quite annoying; otherwise, it’s wonderful.

[dayglored]

> Pin your people to the taskbar – we’ll suggest some to start with, or you can pick your own! (Note: you are currently limited to having 3 people pinned to your taskbar currently.)

"Pin your people to the taskbar"... sounds vaguely like collecting dead butterflies. What was that focus group thinking? :-)

[Billthedrill]

Lots of fun for certain of us who like development, meaning have skin the thickness of a rhinoceros. I did catch the Photos issue last time around and the Start menu crashing struck me as sloppy QA but I haven’t seen any of the other issues. For anyone considering joining the Insiders program, you’d better have a dedicated box with good image-level backups to even consider this stuff. It is kinda fun if you have a masochistic bent...

[catnipman]

“Whether you want to share a photo, make plans for dinner, or get an answer from a friend or coworker “

Uh, what if instead I want to run a refinery, paper mill, a hospital, a missile factory, a DMV office, an accounting firm, law firm, CAD/CAM design firm, then what?

Oh, yeah. Right. Widows 7 Pro/Enterprise until 2020. But what about after 2020, Microsoft?

[dayglored]

> Between the forced updates and App marketing, Windows 10 has become quite annoying; otherwise, it’s wonderful.

At one time, Windows was a very good operating system with a useful, reasonably intuitive GUI grafted onto it. It's become an advertising vehicle, with a great operating system grafted onto it, but hidden below it.

IMO the underlying operating system of Windows 10 -- the platform the applications run on -- is a beautiful thing, and the most solid Microsoft has produced to date. But all the crap they've ladled over it, Metro and animated tiles and advertising sales pitches... it's really a shame.

I hope somebody figures out how to scrape all that cr@p off, and just let me get some work done. Classic Shell is a sanity-saver, but it only goes partway towards a return to what we took for granted with Windows 7 and XP before that. I wouldn't go back to the XP OS -- it was buggy and insecure -- but the UI sure made it easy to get work done.

I WANT to like Windows 10. It's the future of Windows, and it will be in my future. But for now, Windows 7 is still the sweet spot for me. I view "People in my taskbar" with annoyance, not joy.

[dayglored]

> ...you’d better have a dedicated box with good image-level backups to even consider this stuff

I would not only second that, but say that you should be prepared to re-install from scratch on a moment's notice. Insider Previews are for people (like me, to be honest) who are willing to take chances. That's what spare hardware and VMs are for.

[dayglored]

> Uh, what if instead I want to run a refinery, paper mill, a hospital, a missile factory, a DMV office, an accounting firm, law firm, CAD/CAM design firm, then what? Oh, yeah. Right. Widows 7 Pro/Enterprise until 2020.

I predict a lot of businesses will have switched to Linux by 2020, and lots of home users will have switched to Macs. The rest will continue using Win7 forever, regardless of the lack of security updates.

My fervent hope is that before 2020 rolls around, Windows 10 gets serious, drops this groooooovy teenage obsession with bullsh!!, and again becomes an operating system that is suitable for getting real work done.

I'm gonna need it, because even though I'm totally comfortable with Linux and Mac systems, and use them, I gotta have Windows for some stuff that only runs on Windows.

[Chode]

[dayglored]

> I did catch the Photos issue last time around and the Start menu crashing struck me as sloppy QA but I haven’t seen any of the other issues.

I rather liked this one in the latest:

"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."

That's a click-path that I would never want to see crash. Talk about undercutting confidence. But I understand, because that's the way Insider releases are.

Not for the faint of heart! :-)

[dayglored]

"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"

[adorno]

Actually, I find Windows 10 to be “almost” exactly like Windows 7, but more secure and with a few more features and, actually, faster.

I don’t even use the “metro” UI, and the desktop looks exactly like what Windows 7 used to be like.

So, no complaints from me, and I don’t miss Win7 at all.

[McGruff]

I’ll keep my Windows 7 for as long as I can thank you very much.

[dayglored]

Hi adorno. I do know what you're saying -- my own Win10 production desktop looks a lot like my Win7 production desktop, which in turn looks a lot like Win2K. Okay, I'm a Luddite about simple desktops.

The thing is, I'm a Sysadmin who spends some of my time helping my company's engineers build and test our software products, which have to run on stock Windows 10. So I have to deal with the stock Windows 10 UI a lot.

Likewise our servers are migrating towards 2016. I'm still a fan of 2008... I can live with 2012 with Classic Shell...

So I hear ya. In fact, most of the technical, working guys I know who like Win10 tell me they ditched the stock UI on Day One, just like you and I did. That should tell us something.

[dayglored]

“From my cold, dead hands!”

[Chode]

LOL, ain’t THAT the truth...

[Windflier]

Widows 7 Pro/Enterprise until 2020. But what about after 2020, Microsoft?

That is the sixty four thousand dollar question, isn't it?

I don't know why a group of software developers don't get together and build an operating system to compete with Microsoft. There's a gigantic market opportunity just laying there for the taking.

[Unrepentant VN Vet]

Any good guesses on the timeline for general release of this update?