Microsoft releases new Windows 10 preview for PCs with Hyper-V Containers, Windows Ink improvements, and new icons

Microsoft today released a new Windows 10 preview for PCs and phones. The company also announced it is holding another “Bug Bash” this month — just like in April, that means testers will see Quests inside the Feedback Hub that highlight different areas of the product each day.

Windows 10 is a service. As we wrote in our deep dive on how Microsoft is still building Windows 10, this means Windows Insiders are getting new builds even though the operating system launched in July 2015.

This build brings quite a few new features for PCs, while for mobile it is entirely focused on bug fixes.

Desktop

First up, Microsoft has added Hyper-V Container. This means you can now use Docker natively on Windows 10 to build, ship, and run containers with the Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5 Nano Server container OS image. The Docker engine for Windows has been updated to extend support of containers while also improving the DockerFile syntax and getting started experience.

LastPass, a popular free password management extension, is now available for Microsoft Edge. Microsoft is still slowly ramping up this feature — support for extensions was supposed to arrive by the end of 2015, but was delayed until this year. Microsoft still hasn’t shared how long it plans to let testers play with it before releasing the functionality to all Windows 10 users.

Next, the new Windows Ink experience, Microsoft’s latest attempt to let you to write on your device as you do on paper, has gained a few improvements:

• The Windows Ink ruler is now long enough to span diagonally across the entire Surface Book display.
• Fixed an issue with the Windows Ink pencil tool, where the line when drawing along the ruler wouldn’t be flush with the ruler, as well as an issue resulting in a slight flicker visible in the colored section when opening the Pen, Pencil, or Highlighter flyout.
• The Touch Inking icon in Windows Ink Workspace has been updated to be more reminiscent of the Windows Ink Workspace icon.
• Performance has been improved when loading the Sketchpad thumbnail in the Windows Ink Workspace flyout from the taskbar.
• The “clear all” option is now more discoverable in Sketch Pad as the trash can icon in the menu bar.

Speaking of improvements, the app’s Settings navigation pane is now white in light mode and black in dark mode. There is a small block of color (the accent of your profile) to highlight what Settings page you are on, clicking anywhere on the Home button at the top left takes you to the Settings homepage, and the size of the page name text has been increased.

The Blu-ray icon is now more consistent with the other drive icons in Windows 10. Also, the icon for the network Quick Action is no longer a generic globe icon.

This build also includes the following improvements and bug fixes:

• Fixed the issue causing keyboard navigation in Store apps like Netflix or Tweetium to not work.
• Fixed the issue causing certain websites like YouTube to fail to render in Microsoft Edge or IE due to a recently implemented feature called TCP Fast Open.
• Fixed an issue resulting in a strange gray bar frequently being seen on the left side of the Microsoft Edge browser window (for example, after invoking a context menu).
• The window of active hours for when you are using your PC has been increased from 10 to 12 hours under Settings > Update & security > Windows Update and “Change active hours”.
• Updated the download notification in Microsoft Edge to include filename, download status, and site domain on separate lines.
• Fixed an issue that would cause the icons to disappear from the tabs in Microsoft Edge after the DPI change corresponding with remotely connecting to the PC via Remote Desktop.
• Fixed an issue where DNG file thumbnails were not displaying in File Explorer.
• Polished the appearance of Start by reducing the amount of whitespace at the top of Start, and added logic so that the scrollbars will immediately hide once your mouse is no longer hovering over that area. Fixed an issue resulting in clipping on the bottom or side of Start’s context menus.
• Fixed an issue where pressing the Enter key would not submit the Wi-Fi password in the network flyout from the taskbar.
• Decreased the size of icons used in notifications from 64×64 to 48×48 — maintaining the visibility while improving the use of space in the Action Center.
• Improved the reliability of Cortana’s listening after tapping the mic button and fixed an issue that resulted in focus being lost to Cortana’s search box after a typed search has been deleted via backspace.
• Updated Windows Defender to not show recap notifications in normal mode if no scans have been run, or in scan-only mode if no threads have been found.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in certain apps, such as Photos, not being able to set the desktop background.
• Going forward from Build 14361, your Task Manager settings will now be preserved across build updates.
• Fixed an issue where Start wouldn’t dismiss after launching Sticky Notes, leading to Sticky Notes appearing behind Start.
• Fixed an issue resulting in not being able to set your account picture in Settings using the camera option.
• Added a keyboard shortcut for opening the taskbar’s clock and calendar flyout — this shortcut is WIN + Alt + D.
• Fixed an issue where Command Prompt wasn’t maximizing correctly on high DPI monitors and an issue where Command Prompt wouldn’t refresh the windows properly when doing an upwards Ctrl + F search with a long output of text.
• Fixed an issue where the taskbar’s volume icon was showing incorrect states for 0% and muted.
• Fixed an issue where applying a new save location on the Storage Settings page for any one file type would result in any other pending save location changes being lost.

Today’s update bumps the Windows 10 build number from 14352 for PCs (made available to testers on May 26) to build 14361.

This build has five known issues:

• If you have a French Windows 10 Insider Preview build installed on your PC, you will not receive Build 14361 because of an issue with the French translation process that reverts a lot of text back to English.
• Text prediction using the Japanese IME will freeze your PC. You can turn off text prediction by right-clicking IME mode icon “A” or “あ” in systray, selecting Properties, clicking Advanced, navigating to the Predictive Input tab, and checking off “Use predictive input system.”
• Navigating to the Privacy pages in Settings app will crash the Settings app and prevent you from adjusting your privacy settings.
• If you click on a file download link outside of Microsoft Edge, sometimes Edge will open a tab and close it without doing anything. The workaround is to go to the Download pane and start the download there by clicking “Save” or “Save As”.
• For certain languages, such as Chinese or Portuguese (Brazil), you will not be able to launch Start while an app is installing.

If you’re OK with the above known issues and want to get build 14361 now, head to PC Settings, select “Update and recovery,” then “Preview builds,” and then click the “Check Now” button.

Mobile

As we noted, this Windows 10 Mobile build doesn’t include much aside from the following bug fixes:

• Fixed the issue that was causing your phone to freeze after touching the screen immediately after enabling Narrator.
• Fixed an issue resulting in a strange gray bar frequently being seen on the left side of the Microsoft Edge browser window (for example, after invoking a context menu).
• Going forward from Build 14361, your preferred DPI setting will be backed up and reapplied when restoring your phone.
• Fixed an issue where “Find on Page” in Microsoft Edge wouldn’t always scroll the word into view and an issue resulting in videos played on Facebook flickering if you started playing them after rotating the phone with the video in full screen mode.
• Fixed an issue where text was being truncated instead of wrapped in the Windows Insider Program page in the Settings app.
• Polished the notification dismissal model. Now if you receive and dismiss multiple interactive notifications in a row, the black transparent background will not start fading away between them.
• Fixed an issue that was making it more difficult to dismiss a notification with a hero image, an issue where peeking at a notification while watching Netflix would result in the video pausing, an issue where the keyboard could end up covering the quick reply text box, and an issue where certain notifications might just say “new notification” after a reboot.
• Fixed an issue where Action Center would close unexpectedly quickly if a notification had been expanded when you start moving the Action Center’s border up and an issue where an incoming notification would stop Action Center from opening if you were in the process of swiping it down when a notification arrived.
• Fixed an issue resulting in the “now charging” sound frequently playing twice when the charging cable has been plugged in.
• Fixed an issue where the “Everytime” setting for how often to prompt for pin would be blank on the Sign-in Settings page after opening Settings from the Lock screen.
• Fixed an issue resulting in not being able to infinitely cycle left or right through the Phone app’s tabs.
• Fixed an issue where the Lumia 535 and 540 were not displaying a flash toggle in the Camera app.
• Updated the text prediction engine for multilingual users, so now the candidates you see when selecting a word will be based on the active keyboard language, rather than the language that was active at the time the word was written.
• You can now use the keyboard with one hand with additional 5-inch devices such as the Lumia 640 and 830. To use this feature, press the space bar and slide the keyboard to the left or the right — whatever feels most comfortable for you! To return the keyboard to the center, press the space bar again, and slide it back to the middle. You can also slide the keyboard up, using the same method, so it’s closer to the top of the screen if you prefer a higher grip on your phone.

We’re not paying as close attention to Mobile builds as Microsoft is slowly deemphasizing its Windows 10 Mobile business. The future of the platform is murky at best.