Microsoft’s testing process for the upcoming Windows 10 19H2 update has reached a new milestone today, as the company has just released a new preview build with all new features turned on for Slow Ring Insiders. No more A/B testing, all Insiders in the Slow Ring can install today the build 18362.10019 with new 19H2 features being turned on, and Microsoft noted that “this update also includes the general improvements for these features.”
You can below the list of all new features included in this build:
- Windows containers require matched host and container version. This restricts customers and limits Windows containers from supporting mixed-version container pod scenarios This update includes 5 fixes to address this and allow the host to run down-level containers on up-level for process (Argon) isolation.
- A fix to allow OEMs to reduce the inking latency based on the hardware capabilities of their devices rather than being stuck with latency selected on typical hardware configuration by the OS.
- Key-rolling or Key-rotation feature enables secure rolling of Recovery passwords on MDM managed AAD devices upon on demand request from Microsoft Intune/MDM tools or upon every time recovery password is used to unlock the BitLocker protected drive. This feature will help prevent accidental recovery password disclosure as part of manual BitLocker drive unlock by users.
- A change to enable third-party digital assistants to voice activate above the Lock screen.
- You can now quickly create an event straight from the Calendar flyout on the Taskbar. Just click on the date and time at the lower right corner of the Taskbar to open the Calendar flyout and pick your desired date and start typing in the text box – you’ll now see inline options to set a time and location.
- The navigation pane on the Start menu now expands when you hover over it with your mouse to better inform where clicking goes.
- We have added friendly images to show what is meant by “banner” and “Action Center” when adjusting the notifications on apps in order to make these settings more approachable and understandable.
- Notifications settings under Settings > System > Notifications will now default to sorting notification senders by most recently shown notification, rather than sender name. This makes it easier to find and configure frequent and recent senders. We have also added a setting to turn off playing sound when notifications appear.
- We now show the options to configure and turn off notifications from an app/website right on the notification, both as a banner and in Action Center.
- We have added a “Manage notifications” button to the top of Action Center that launches the main “Notifications & actions” Settings page.
- We have added additional debugging capabilities for newer Intel processors. This is only relevant for hardware manufacturers.
- We have made general battery life and power efficiency improvements for PCs with certain processors.
- A CPU may have multiple “favored” cores (logical processors of the highest available scheduling class). To provide better performance and reliability, we have implemented a rotation policy that distributes work more fairly among these favored cores.
- We have enabled Windows Defender Credential Guard for ARM64 devices for additional protection against credential theft for enterprises deploying ARM64 devices in their organizations.
- We have enabled the ability for enterprises to supplement the Windows 10 in S Mode policy to allow traditional Win32 (desktop) apps from Microsoft Intune.
- We have updated search in File Explorer to show web-powered suggestions in addition to files locally indexed on the PC.
- We have added the ability for Narrator and other assistive technologies to read and learn where the FN key is located on keyboards and what state it is in (locked versus unlocked).
The fact that all Insiders in the Slow Ring are now on the same page is great news, though keep in mind that Microsoft has also shipped 19H2 bits to a subset of Release Preview Insiders recently, and these builds don’t include the same new features included in today’s update for Slow Ring Insiders. The testing process for 19H2 remains a bit complicated with some A/B testing in the Release Preview ring, but things are finally getting much simpler for the Slow Ring starting today.
Unless Microsoft encounters a major issue with this update, we expect Microsoft to complete Windows 10 19H2 (or Windows 10 version 1909) later this month, and this minor update will install like a regular cumulative update when it’s released later this fall for all users running Windows 10 version 1903.
