Windows 10 Creators Update Build 14986 released to the fast ring

Microsoft have released a new Windows 10 Creators Update for Windows Insiders on the fast ring. Build 14986 has some nice improvements to Cortana including being able to change the volume, turn for your PC off and lock your PC.

The main visual change is a full screen view of Cortana when the pc is ide, it looks impressive and maybe could form part of a future HomeHub development. Other changes with Cortana include being able to use Cortana to control media apps like TuneinRadio and iHeatRadio (US only at the moment).

Also added is music recognition for Chinese language installations, you can use Cortana with a work or school account and not just a Microsoft account and support for Enterprise Cloud Printing.

Windows Inking has been improved, it not has an option to restore the previous screen sketch so you don’t lose the previous sketch when opening the app.

Other Ink changes:

Updated Ink Flyout Visuals: The Windows Ink pen, pencil and highlighter flyouts now show a preview of what it would look like to ink with the currently selected color and width. This improvement will be visible in any app that uses Windows Ink with the Windows 10 Creators Update SDK. We’ve also updated the flyouts so that they’ll no longer show what appear to be duplicate color entries when in high contrast, now support using the Esc key to close the flyout, and have returned the flyout to dismissing once you tap a color or change the width (rather than staying open until you manually close it)

Finer control over ruler rotation: We’ve updated the Windows Ink ruler to now rotate in sub-degree increments when you’re moving it with touch, so as to make it easier to line the ruler up with two points on the screen

Polishing your inking experience: The cursor will no longer be shown while you’re inking – we believe this makes the experience feel even more like pen on paper.

There are new Microsoft Edge extensions: Ebates, Intel TrueKey, and Read & Write.

Windows Defends gets a new modern look and feel via a new UWP app. The app is work-in-progress at the moment but it does fit with Windows 10 better than the old Windows 7 style desktop version.

Other changes are improved full screen support for Windows Game Bar, better USB Audio 2 support and Regedit improvments.

Windows Game Bar improved full-screen support: With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, we added support for six full screen games in Game Bar. For the Windows 10 Creators Update, we’re working on adding many more. In this build, we’ve added support for 19 additional games in full-screen mode with Windows game bar. As always, just hit WIN + G to invoke Game Bar to capture a recording or screenshot.

ARMA 3

Battlefield 1

Civilization V

Dark Souls III

Fallout 4

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

Mad Max

Mafia 2

NBA 2K16

Overwatch

Star Wars: The Old Republic

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

The Binding of Isaac

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Terraria

Tom Clancy’s The Division

Total War: WARHAMMER

Warframe

World of Tanks

Here are the list of minor changes and known issues, look out for our hands on video soon.

Other changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

We have improved the Windows Hello face which may require you to “Improve Recognition” to get recognized again. To do this – go to Settings > Accounts > Sign-in Options and under “Windows Hello” and “Face Recognition”, select “Improve Recognition” to go through the Improve Recognition wizard.

We updated the Taskbar’s context menu settings entry to now explicitly be called “Taskbar settings”, as that is where it pointed.

We fixed an issue where the Virtual Touchpad’s left and right buttons might not work on some devices. We also fixed an issue where the Virtual Touchpad wouldn’t launch if the primary monitor was non-touch, and added the Virtual Touchpad icon to the Taskbar settings where you can Turn system icons on or off.

We fixed the issue where apps such as Store, Photos, and People might launch on their own after your PC had been inactive for a period of time.

We fixed the issue where navigating to Settings > System > Battery would crash the Settings app.

We’ve changed the default state of the Handwriting Panel to be floating next to the text field, rather than docked at the bottom of the screen. If you prefer docked-mode, you can still select it by tapping the icon in the top right corner of the Handwriting Panel.

We fixed an issue where using ~ to switch languages using the Thai keyboard when typing in Office apps, such as Outlook or Word 2016, might sometimes result in a hang.

We’ve updated our migration logic, so that going forward from 14986 the default user’s numlock setting will now be preserved across upgrades.

We fixed an issue where double-clicking on an Excel document to open it from File Explorer would crash Microsoft Excel.

We fixed an issue where Windows Hello might get stuck “Looking for you”.

We fixed an issue Insiders with Surface Dial may have experienced recently where rotating the Dial could result in unexpected beeps.

We’re moving some things around in Storage Settings – stay tuned for future updates. For this flight, you’ll notice that the settings to change save locations has moved to its own page. We also fixed an issue where Storage Usage for the Other category might show an unexpectedly high number.

We fixed an issue where the PowerShell entry in File Explorer’s File menu would sometimes be unexpectedly greyed out.

We fixed an issue where the Clock and Calendar flyout in the taskbar wouldn’t launch when the display language was set to Chinese (Traditional) and the system was using the phonetic sorting method.

We’ve updated the full screen Settings search results to now use smaller icons – we feel this delivers an overall more polished feel, as well as enables more search results to display on the page at a time.

We fixed an issue where some notifications might draw too high or too low, and then be seen moving itself to the correct position.

We fixed an issue where the outline incoming notification toasts could still be seen if notification banners as a whole for that particular app had been turned off.

We fixed an issue Insiders may have experienced where the Favorites bar on desktop might appear empty, despite having items in the Favorites folder.

We fixed an issue that could result in CPU throttling when idling on certain webpages with many gifs or looping videos in Microsoft Edge.

We fixed an issue that could result in Alt + D sometimes not being able to set focus to the address bar in Microsoft Edge.

For Insiders with PCs that upgraded to builds 14926-14959, some default power settings may have been lost and not recovered on subsequent upgrades. The effect of this causes devices to potentially use more power, change the power button behavior on tablets, etc. Starting with 14986, an attempt to detect this issue and re-apply the power settings will be made during upgrade. This attempt is a temporary process to help address this issue for Insiders, and will be removed once we’re closer to the Creators Update release.

We’ve heard your feedback, and updated our Windows Error Reporting logic so that uploading crash data should no longer interfere with online game play, video streaming, Skype calls, or other network-intensive activity. Please keep an eye out for this if you experience any crashes and let us know how it goes.

We fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Studios games like Microsoft Sudoku, Jigsaw, Minesweeper, Taptiles, and Treasure Hunt potentially freezing at the splash screen on launch.

We fixed an issue where, if the taskbar location was set to be on top, it was visible on the Welcome screens after upgrading.

Known issues for PC

Using keyboard monitor hotkeys to adjust brightness won’t work as expected. Desired brightness change could be done via the Action Center or by going to Settings > System > Display.

You may see a popup “Catastrophic Error” dialog when opening OneDrive folders. If you do, the workaround is to open an elevated Command Prompt or PowerShell window and enter “attrib -O <path to OneDrive failure that resulted in the error dialog>”.

We’re currently investigating reports that DirectAccess isn’t working for some Windows Insiders.

When using Microsoft Edge with Narrator, you may hear “no item in view or silence when tabbing or using other navigation commands. You can use Alt + Tab when this happens to move focus away from and back to the Edge browser and then Narrator will read as expected.

Hey Cortana, play <blah> on <AppName> doesn’t work immediately after installing the app. Wait 5 minutes for indexer to kick in and try again.

Currently, the Windows Defender dashboard is primarily aimed at providing some minimal read-only status for Antivirus/Firewall, with some very limited functionality for interacting with the app. Here are some of the known issues with the dashboard to be aware of (not a comprehensive list):

Doesn’t accurately roll up status of Pillars

Doesn’t accurately show status when a 3P AV is on the machine.

History is not yet available in the new app

Advanced/Custom scans are not yet available in the new app

Settings are not configurable through the new app

Firewall control panel not launchable from new app

Firewall settings are not configurable through the new app