Microsoft release Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Build 16215 for PC and 15222 for Mobile

Update: My hands on videos for PC and Mobile are now live

After a bit of slip up last week Microsoft have released a new PC and Mobile build for Windows Insiders on the fast ring. Build 16215 is available for PC and 15222 for mobile.

While there are hardly any changes for mobile there are plenty of changes for the PC, mainly an updated Action Center, Edge improvements and improved pen input.

Start Menu and Action Center

The start menu sees a number of changes with more fluent design:

• Acrylic: If you have transparency enabled for Start, you’ll notice it’s now been updated to use the new acrylic design.
• Vertical resize: No more glitches at the bottom of the frame.
• Horizontal resize: The frame now starts resizing horizontally immediately (like vertical resize), as opposed to only “snapping” to certain widths.
• Diagonal resize: The frame can be resized diagonally!
• Resize grips: It’s now easier to “grip” the edge of the frame to start resizing.
• Tablet mode transition: Smoother transition into tablet mode.

Action has a new tiled look and once again the fluent design look and feel.

Microsoft Edge

You can now pin web pages in Microsoft Edge which is great to see back and there is a full screen mode in Edge. When reading EPUB books you can now add annotations.

Cortana

There are a number of improvements to Cortana:

Cortana Improvements

Taking Cortana reminders to the next level through vision intelligence: Most of us have experienced taking a picture of upcoming event poster or bookmarking an event site for future reference, only to forget about it later. With this build, we’re rolling out two new features starting with the en-us market to help you never again miss an event you’re interested in!

Cortana camera roll insights: With your permission, Cortana will now prompt you to create a reminder when she notices event posters in your camera roll! To try it out, make sure you’re signed into Cortana with your MSA or work account, and then give Cortana permission to access your camera roll via Settings > Cortana > Permissions & history > “Manage the information Cortana can access from this device”. The next time you take a picture of a flier for an upcoming event, Cortana will reach out asking if you want to create a reminder for that time.

Pen Input

It is great to see improvements to the pen and the new input button looks good:

Write as much as you want in the panel with the new conversion & overflow model! As you write, you’ll now see your previous words convert to typed text within the handwriting panel. When you fill the handwriting panel and lift your pen off the screen, the text will shift so you have room to continue writing. Press the commit button to insert all the text and clear the slate.

Select text to edit it: See something you want to change? If you select text while the handwriting panel is open, that text will now appear within the panel so you can easily make alterations.

Make corrections within the handwriting panel by overwriting converted text: Was something misrecognized? Instead of using the suggested text alternate, you now have the option of just inking the correct letters right on top of the converted text!

Make corrections using ink gestures: Once your written words have been converted to type, or if you’ve selected existing text, you can now easily make simple edits from within the handwriting panel using our four new gestures: strikethrough, scratch, join, and split. Try it out!

Easier access to emoji and symbols: We’ve added two new buttons to the handwriting panel, so you can easily input emoji or symbols without needing to switch to the touch keyboard Simply tap the button, pick the character you want, and you’re set to go!

Reducing the chance of palm rejection: We’ve added a new setting in Pen & Windows Ink Settings so finger inking needs to be explicitly enabled – this will help avoid inadvertent ink being drawn on the handwriting panel as you’re writing with your pen.

Floating by default: While you still have the option to choose, we’ve made the decision for the handwriting panel to now by default appear next to where you’re writing. To change modes, tap the new keyboard settings menu button in the top left corner of the keyboard.

Improved handwriting recognition for English (United States): We’ve made some changes to our US English handwriting recognition engine to improve its accuracy. Would love for Insiders to try it out and share feedback on how it feels now.

There is also a find my pen feature:

Find My Pen: Don’t know where you put your pen? The pen doesn’t have a GPS, so we can’t help you there, but what we *can* do is tell you where you were when you last inked on your computer. Which is what we’ve done! Head over to Settings > Update & Security > “Find My Device” to see what it’s all about.

Scrolling with the pen has also been improved, its great to see improvements.

Other changes include an easier way to enter emoji via the keyboard:

Entering emoji on your hardware keyboard just got easier: We’ve heard your feedback, and today we’re happy to announce the new Emoji Panel! Press Win + period (.) or Win + semicolon (;) while focus is in a text box and the Emoji Panel will pop up for you to quickly scroll through and pick the emoji you want.

There is a also a new mini keyboard mode which has shape mode writing (US English only)

The share feature now has copy to clip board!

There are a lot of other changes which I will feature in my hands on video and you can read the full details on the Windows blog.

Mobile Build 15222

Once again there are no new features in the mobile build but there are a few fixes:

Changes, improvements, and fixes for Mobile

This build also includes all the improvements from KB4016871 and KB4020102.

The copyright date is correctly showing 2017 now under Settings > System > About.

We fixed an issue where WhatsApp would not launch after updating to the latest Mobile builds.

We fixed an issue with using the Japanese 12 Key soft keyboard where the “right arrow” key did not input a space

We fixed an issue with the Bulgarian keyboard localization for the HP Lap Dock in Continuum.

We have further improved the reliability of notifications for apps with a paired Bluetooth device, such as Fitbit.

Improved the Time & Language settings page UX for Speech and Keyboard language downloads. Previously, the status would show “Downloading” for speech and “Installing” for keyboard. Unless, the user tapped on the language or navigated to the Update & Security settings page, there was no indication that a restart is required to complete the installation. Now when the update reaches the reboot pending state, a “Restart Required” is displayed under the language.

We fixed several enterprise device management issues.

We fixed an issue where notifications and Cortana’s cross-devices settings on your device were not being mirrored to your PC.

Known issues for Mobile

In some cases, the WeChat app may crash on launch.