Skip Ahead Windows Insider RS5 build 17639 fixes include Disk Management and list Settings crashes under known issues

Kareem Anderson

What’s better than new features for an Insider build? Perhaps, fixes and improvements to previously introduced features, for some.

With Windows Insider preview build 17639, Skip Ahead testers are greeted with some spit and polish for some features that were in dire need of addressing.

General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

  • We fixed an issue resulting in duplicate entries in Disk Management.
  • We fixed an issue that could result in certain UWP apps silently terminating when minimized.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in certain devices with BitLocker enabled unexpectedly booting into BitLocker recovery in recent flights.
  • We fixed a race condition that could result in the taskbar not autohiding after opening and closing the Start menu while a fullscreen window was visible.
  • We fixed an issue where typing in Start would switch to a blank Cortana screen if Start was open when the PC went to sleep.
  • We fixed an issue when using Arabic as your display language where after using the X to close the touch keyboard in a UWP app text field it might stop coming up automatically in that field.
  • Sometimes having too many choices can be confusing and less is more. That is why this new build has consolidated the places where users can adjust their display brightness by removing the display brightness slider in Control Panel Power Options and the “Display brightness” section under Power Options Advanced Settings. Don’t worry! You can still adjust your display brightness via Settings > System > Display settings, the Action Center, and via keyboard hotkeys.

As with most releases, build 17639 also has its Known Issues list, but fortunately, Insiders aren’t looking a daunting bullet point for this Skip Ahead preview.

Known issues

  • If you open Settings and clicking on any links to the Microsoft Store or links in tips, Settings will crash. This includes the links to get themes and fonts from the Microsoft Store, as well as the link to Windows Defender.
  • 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.

With all the Microsoft re-org and seeming reprioritization of Windows and its development, it’ll be interesting to see how frequently Skip Ahead builds are released as well as what feature sets we begin to see emerge.