Microsoft just released Windows Insider build 18970 for the 20H1 Fast Ring, and along with some new features like a more tablet friendly desktop experience, and the official introduction into “Cloud Download” as an installation option, there are a number of changes and fixes, as per usual.
Included in this build are a fix for a crash involving lsass.exe that has been plaguing “a small number of Insiders,” and a note that Windows 10 Home and Pro users without a first party backup solution will now see a “friendly reminder” to “consider setting up a backup option that is included with Windows.” This notice will apparently fire if you have no backup solution in place, or even if you do but it’s not the built-in Windows solution. The notification will include an option to turn this setting off.
Along with this news about upcoming annoying backup reminders, there are a number of other changes and fixes. Here’s the full list:
- We fixed a DWM memory leak that was impacting the previous two flights.
- We fixed an issue resulting in some WSL distros not loading (Issue #4371).
- We fixed an issue impacting a small number of Insiders, involving a lsass.exe crash and resulting in a message saying, “Windows ran into a problem and needs to restart.”
- We fixed an issue resulting in WIN+(period) closing if you tried to search for an emoji when focus was set to a text field in an Electron app.
- We fixed two issues that could result in Settings crashing when interacting with options on the Search page.
- We’ve done some work to help improve the launch performance of Settings when the Setters header is visible.
- We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders experiencing a bug check with BTHport.sys in recent flights.
- It’s important to periodically back up your data. Starting in recent Insider builds, Windows Home and Pro users without a first party backup solution will now see a friendly reminder to consider setting up a backup option that is included with Windows. If you’d prefer to turn this off, there’s an option to do so in the notification.
- We’re working on addressing feedback about the acrylic in certain surfaces not appearing immediately. In this build, it’s fixed for Start menu, the volume flyout, the network flyout, the clock & calendar flyout, and notification toasts.
- We’ve made some bug fixes and improvements to Magnifier reading capabilities.
- Improved Magnifier performance when moving the mouse around the screen.
- We resolved an issue where Control + Alt + L would not put Magnifier into Lens mode.
- No one likes bugs, so we squashed several of them related to the new text cursor indicator. Text cursor indicator now appears and disappears more reliably. We also fixed an issue where text cursor indicator preview in settings did not change size when text scaling was on.
- We have made improvements in Magnifier reliability.
- We fixed an issue in Narrator where it would speak “unknown” if you had the “Header Status” column enabled within Outlook as you arrowed between different email messages.
- We fixed a couple Narrator dialog reading issues. Narrator would sometimes speak “empty document” or stop the dialog reading too early.
- We fixed an issue where Narrator would not always speak the group name of a radio button on web pages.
- We fixed an issue with Narrator and Excel not speaking the column header when arrowing between cells in a table.
- We fixed an issue where Narrator would only speak “item” when navigating by table cells in an Outlook email instead of reading the entire cell’s contents.
- Narrator will now read webpages from the top of the page and not at the main landmark with a fallback to find a paragraph. Thank you for your feedback!
- Narrator now supports the aria-haspopup property.
- Improved Outlook performance and stability when reading mail messages in Outlook.
- We have made improvements in Narrator reliability.
- We made a change to Narrator input learning, so you just have to press Narrator + 1 once to turn input learning off. Thank you for your feedback.
- We fixed an issue when a user navigated to a webpage in Edge, Narrator would read just the URL field and not the webpage.
- We fixed an issue when a user was replying to an email in Outlook, Narrator was automatically reading the message while the user was trying to type.
There is a also a smaller set of known issues, including the usual nods to anti-cheat software and Realtek SD card readers: here’s that full list:
- There has been an issue with older versions of anti-cheat software used with games where after updating to the latest 19H1 Insider Preview builds may cause PCs to experience crashes. We are working with partners on getting their software updated with a fix, and most games have released patches to prevent PCs from experiencing this issue. To minimize the chance of running into this issue, please make sure you are running the latest version of your games before attempting to update the operating system. We are also working with anti-cheat and game developers to resolve similar issues that may arise with the 20H1 Insider Preview builds and will work to minimize the likelihood of these issues in the future.
- Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly. We are investigating the issue.
- We’re working on a fix for an issue resulting in the minimize, maximize, and close title bar buttons not working for certain apps. If you’re using an impacted app, Alt+F4 should work as expected to close the app if needed.
- Text on Devices pages in Settings for “Bluetooth and Other Devices” and “Printers and Scanners” isn’t rendering correctly.
- Search isn’t working for Insiders using certain display languages, including Polish. If you are impacted by this, switching your display language to English then back to your preferred display language should resolve it.
This weekend is the US Labor Day holiday, with most of America (including, we’re sure, Microsoft) taking Monday off, so this will probably be the last Insider build until well into next week at the earliest. Enjoy your holiday, if you have one upcoming, and get to testing!
