Microsoft Ships the First Redstone 5 Build, Launches Windows App Previews

Microsoft Announces the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

Microsoft is today shipping the first Windows 10 Redstone 5 to a small group of Windows Insiders in the Fast Ring. The company is nearing the release of Redstone 4, which is yet to have an official name, and plans to ship the update to the public sometime in March or April of this year. Although Redstone 4 includes a handful of new features and improvements to Windows 10, Redstone 5 is expected to be the bigger update of this year.

With the release of Windows 10 build 17604, Microsoft is officially kicking off the testing of Redstone 5 with Windows Insiders. At this time, the first Redstone 5 build is only available to Windows Insiders part of Skip Ahead, which was originally available to a small group of users and isn’t open to any new Insiders at the moment. So if you were part of Skip Ahead before, you will be able to get the new Redstone 5 build without having to do anything. And if you weren’t as lucky, you’ll just have to wait for Microsoft to open up registrations again. No words on when exactly that’s happening, though.

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“Starting today – Windows Insiders who opted into Skip Ahead will now start receiving new builds for RS5 which is our next Windows 10 release. These builds will come from the RS_PRERELEASE branch,” Microsoft’s Dona Sarkar said in a blog post.

Microsoft is also launching Windows App Previews today, a new testing program for some stock Windows 10 apps. As I reported earlier, Windows App Previews is a way for Insiders to test the latest app updates without having to be part of something like the Fast Ring where builds are usually quite buggy. Right off the bat, Windows App Previews supports Feedback Hub, Microsoft Photos, Microsoft Sticky Notes, Microsoft Tips, Paint 3D, Windows Alarms & Clock, Windows Calculator, Windows Camera, Windows Mixed Reality Viewer, and Windows Voice Recorder apps in Windows 10.

Along with the release of Windows 10 Redstone 5 build 17604, Microsoft is also releasing build 17101 to Windows Insiders in the Fast Ring. Both the builds include improvements to emoji design, emoji picker’s search feature for more regions, a new Ultimate Performance mode for Windows 10 Pro for Workstations, and more. Make sure to checkout the full changelog here.

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Conversation 23 comments

  • Jacob Klein

    14 February, 2018 - 8:04 pm

    <p>This article is a bit confusing to me. I thought 17101 was RS4 (for Fast Not Skip Ahead), and 17604 was RS5 (for Fast Skip Ahead). Maybe we can reword things to make things clearer in the article? Thanks.</p>

    • Mehedi Hassan

      Premium Member
      14 February, 2018 - 9:31 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#245884"><em>In reply to Jacob Klein:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Oops, that's why I shouldn't write things at 12am. You are correct — 17101 is RS4, 17604 is RS5. I have corrected the story now, thanks!</p>

      • Jacob Klein

        14 February, 2018 - 10:56 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#245890"><em>In reply to Mehedi:</em></a></blockquote><p>Nice response time! I enjoy your articles, keep up the great work :)</p>

        • Mehedi Hassan

          Premium Member
          15 February, 2018 - 10:49 am

          <blockquote><a href="#245899"><em>In reply to Jacob Klein:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Thx!</p>

  • feek

    Premium Member
    14 February, 2018 - 8:54 pm

    <p>"Redstone 5 is expected to be the bigger update of this year."</p><p> I'm curious what makes you say that?</p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    14 February, 2018 - 10:32 pm

    <p>Any other cool bits in 17101? Or is it pretty minimal? Seems like they’re in the last stages of development. </p>

  • veermaharaj

    15 February, 2018 - 12:14 am

    <p>I'm still waiting to see them build a media player for the Windows Runtime that can do what Windows Media Player has been doing for over a decade… especially since they haven't done any work on Windows Media Player 12 since Windows Vista…</p>

    • TheFerrango

      15 February, 2018 - 2:58 am

      <blockquote><a href="#245900"><em>In reply to veermaharaj:</em></a></blockquote><p>The ability to stream from DLNA is the reason I'm still using WMP.</p>

    • PeteB

      15 February, 2018 - 11:35 am

      <blockquote><a href="#245900"><em>In reply to veermaharaj:</em></a></blockquote><p>You'll be waiting forever then, or until MS finally stops the charade and dumps WinRT10 (UWP) – an stripped down mess not even powerful enough for web apps. Can't replace Win32 with it, it can't duplicate it's functionality. </p>

  • Tony Barrett

    15 February, 2018 - 6:01 am

    <p>Many don't care anymore. CU, FCU, RS4, RS5, Insider builds, skip ahead, slow ring, fast ring. Whatever. It's just Windows 10, and always will be just Windows 10. It will always have bugs. It will always break things – it rarely improves things. MS want people to 'love' Windows again, but this type of updating as a service actually causes the opposite problem – it's never ending, and the big updates cause more problems than they're worth, and actually sometimes completely break the PC.</p><p><br></p><p>I feel for the guy in the US who's just filed a class action lawsuit to get his Windows 7 back. Another individual trying to use Windows for this work, and 10 just made everything a whole lot worse. Win7 just worked. No fuss, no fail. It just worked. When will MS listen and just give people something that works!</p>

    • Johannes

      15 February, 2018 - 6:16 am

      <blockquote><a href="#245912"><em>In reply to ghostrider:</em></a></blockquote><p>I completely agree with all you said. It’s just a platform(usually the best) for running your stuff. But now it is mostly just updating itself and makes it harder to use. </p><p><br></p><p>Also had to completely reinstall the OS when Creators update borked everything……</p><p><br></p><p>looking at Linux right now. I ca develop there using dotnet core and the OS does not bother me with stuff I dont need and just stays out of my way.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • NT6.1

      16 February, 2018 - 9:06 am

      <blockquote><a href="#245912"><em>In reply to ghostrider:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>The other day I was installing the latest security patch on Anniversary (downloaded manually from the Microsoft Catalog) and I made the mistake in let the update install with my WiFi on. I don't know how Windows Update service installed all kinds of drivers, downloaded Fall Creators and kept nagging me to upgrade when the service was set to Manual. My File Explorer thumbnail was corrupted and I just couldn't fix. I was so mad that I made a clean install of Anniversary so I wouldn't deal with any of this bullshit. Set up everything real quick and now a have a proper OS again.</p><p><br></p><p>My Windows 7 desktop remains rock solid. Last time I had to clean install was 2 years ago. Windows Update on, warns me when there's new updates, I pick the security patches and everything installs with no issues.</p>

  • compunut

    Premium Member
    15 February, 2018 - 8:23 am

    <p>And I am still waiting for Redstone 3 to be released to my 2 year old HP Envy that is on the stable branch… &lt;sigh&gt;</p>

  • PeteB

    15 February, 2018 - 11:28 am

    <p>Still not one single must have feature, still no telemetry opt out.</p>

    • MutualCore

      15 February, 2018 - 11:51 am

      <blockquote><a href="#245996"><em>In reply to PeteB:</em></a></blockquote><p>Another duplicate account of karmapolice777.</p>

  • IanYates82

    Premium Member
    15 February, 2018 - 4:09 pm

    <p>Every time Paul or Brad said "why do we still need skip ahead?" this is what I thought… You're in the skip ahead for the next major release. 75% of the time you're on the current track train, but in the final sprint you either finish this track race or jump over to the new track. </p><p><br></p><p>Frequency of builds is mostly the same (for that 75% of time) so a faster sounding speed (ludicrous) probably isn't right. I guess skip ahead isn't such a bad name </p>

  • markbyrn

    Premium Member
    16 February, 2018 - 10:42 am

    <p>How does one get to be part of the Windows Apps previews program?</p>

  • robinwilson16

    16 February, 2018 - 1:59 pm

    <p>It is also possible to join the skip ahead branch by changing ContentType to Skip and Ring to WIF in the registry (it will already be set to WIF if you selected to receive updates as soon as possible).</p><p><br></p><p>It needs to be changed in two places:</p><p>Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsSelfHost\Applicability</p><p>Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsSelfHost\UI\Selection</p><p><br></p><p>Then checking for updates should download the latest skip ahead build.</p><p><br></p><p>This has worked for me on a few different devices.</p><p>Of course this may make your device more unstable as any good beta tester will know!</p>

    • robinwilson16

      16 February, 2018 - 2:01 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#246237"><em>In reply to robinwilson16:</em></a></blockquote><p>There are still bugs in the comments. Slashes are stripped when you post the comment but can be put back in and save if you update the comment. Please can someone fix the comments system?</p>

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