While Windows 10 barely got a mention at Build 2018, Microsoft today released a new preview for PCs with Sets, clipboard, dark theme, Notepad, search, Start, and Settings improvements. This build is from the RS5 branch, which represents the Windows 10 update the company plans to release later this year.
Windows 10 is being developed as a service, meaning it receives new features on a regular basis. Microsoft has released five major updates so far: November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update, Fall Creators Update, and April 2018 Update.
Microsoft continues to tweak Sets, its new tabbed windows interface. There’s a new acrylic title bar, courtesy of Microsoft’s Fluent Design. Alt + Tab now includes Edge tabs, though you can change it back under Multitasking Settings — incidentally, that’s also where you can now choose whether apps and websites open in a new window or a new tab. Finally, tabs will now restore with better performance by opening in the background and using no resources until you bring them to the forefront.
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Microsoft is adding some cloud functionality to the Windows clipboard (Settings => System => Clipboard), letting you paste something you have pasted before and paste across devices. When you hit WIN+V, as opposed to CTRL+V, you’ll be able to paste from the clipboard history and even pin the items you find yourself pasting more than once. Your clipboard will also roam via Timeline and Sets, which for now means it will show up across any PC running this build or higher.
The Windows 10 dark theme (Settings => Personalization => Colors) has arrived in File Explorer. The dark theme also now supports the File Explorer context menu and the Common File Dialog (the Open and Save dialogs).
Notepad is finally going beyond Windows line endings (CRLF). In this build, Notepad now supports Unix/Linux line endings (LF) and Macintosh line endings (CR). To say this is long overdue would be a massive understatement.
Speaking of Notepad, you can now highlight any words or phrase in the app and search for them with Bing. The feature is accessible in three ways: via the right-click (context) menu, via the Edit menu, and by hitting CTRL + B. With Sets, a new tab will open that includes the Bing search results page:
Search previews have expanded to support apps, documents, and so on. The Search experience is also now wider, and Microsoft is promising that previews will be updated and improved over time.
In Start, you can now name your tile folders. Just drag one tile on top of another, and when you expand the folder, you’ll see a new option to name it.
The Settings app now uses Bing to answer some common questions. The FAQs are meant to help you complete configuration tasks. Clicking on these questions will take you to Bing.com for the answer.
This desktop build also includes the following general bug fixes and improvements:
- Task Manager has now been added by default to the list of apps where not to enable Sets.
- Fixed an issue where right clicking a tab in the Sets title bar didn’t bring up a context menu.
- Fixed an issue where if Microsoft Edge wasn’t already open, clicking the plus button in Sets would open all of your default websites along with the new tab page.
- Fixed an issue with dll from the previous flight that could result in explorer.exe crashing every few minutes.
- Fixed an issue resulting in VPN potentially not working after updating to the previous build.
- Fixed an issue from the previous build where apps may appear to be missing in secondary accounts after receiving app updates from the PC’s primary account.
- Fixed an issue from the previous flight resulting in a bugcheck with the error IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL in tcpip.sys.
- Fixed an issue where a border would be visible when you maximized windows in the last few flights.
- Updated the design of This PC so that there’s no longer space displayed for the cloud files state icon (which isn’t relevant on this page).
- The snipping toolbar (with WIN + Shift + S) will now follow your desired theme, light or dark.
- Fixed an issue that could result in the Emoji Panel and the touch keyboard not displaying correctly if invoked immediately after restarting explorer.exe.
Today’s update bumps the Windows 10 build number for the RS5 branch from 17661 (made available to testers on May 3) to build 17666.
This build has 13 known issues:
- If your PC appears stuck at “Preparing to install…” somewhere between the 80%-100% in Windows Update – please be patient and wait up to 30 minutes (or in some cases – longer than 30 minutes) for this stage to complete.
- After completing the Windows Mixed Reality First Run experience, OOBE is black. Motion Controllers are also not recognized in exclusive apps. For Insiders who want to keep Windows Mixed Reality working – you might want to consider hitting pause on taking new Insider Preview builds until these issues are fixed. You can pause Insider Preview builds by going to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Insider Program and pressing the “Stop Insider Preview builds” button and choosing “Pause updates for a bit”.
- On resuming from sleep, the desktop may be momentarily visible before the Lock screen displays as expected.
- When Movies & TV user denies access to its videos library (through the “Let Movies & TV access your videos library?” popup window or through Windows privacy settings), Movies & TV crashes when the user navigates to the “Personal” tab.
- Narrator reads extra text when invoking Alt + Tab.
- If you complete the setup for a Windows Mixed Reality headset on this build, the headset will remain black until it is unplugged and reconnected to the PC.
- Sets UX for Office Win32 desktop apps is not final. The experience will be refined over time based on feedback.
- The top of some Win32 desktop app windows may appear slightly underneath the tab bar when created maximized. To work around the issue, restore and re-maximize the window.
- Closing one tab may sometimes minimize the entire set.
- Tiling and cascading windows, including features like “View Side by Side” in Word, will not work for inactive tabs.
- The Office Visual Basic Editor window will currently be tabbed but is not intended to be in the future.
- Opening an Office document while the same app has an existing document open may cause an unintended switch to the last active document. This will also happen when closing a sheet in Excel while other sheets remain open.
- Local files or non-Microsoft cloud files will not be automatically restored, and no error message will be provided to alert the user to that fact.
As always, don’t install this on your production machine.
