Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 19592 Heads to Fast Ring

The latest Fast ring build sees the return of the “tablet posture experiment” that it briefly tested with version 20H1. So yes, there are new features. Sort of.

That is, Microsoft being Microsoft, these features aren’t really new. And they’re not rolling out to everyone in the Fast ring because this company can’t stop giving Insiders the middle finger.

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To my first point, the new table experience was first rolled out as an “experiment” to Insiders starting with 20H1 build 18970. But that experiment ended with build 19013. So now it’s being reintroduced “after some refinement,” and Microsoft says it will “deliver this experience to customers in a future Windows 10 update.” Which should be Windows 10 version 20H2. But I guess we’ll see.

To my second point, Microsoft says only that only “some Windows Insiders in the Fast ring” will see the (not) new features, which appear when you’re using a convertible PC in a so-called “tablet posture.” Which, confusingly, is not the same as Tablet mode.

“In order to help ensure quality, the feature will be rolling out slowly, starting with a portion of the Insiders that [sic] have never detached their keyboard before, or have their tablet [sic] mode settings set to ‘Don’t ask me and don’t switch’,” Microsoft writes. Maybe it should try Grammarly.

The (not) new features include:

  • Taskbar icons are spaced out
  • Search box on [the] taskbar is collapsed into [an] icon-only mode
  • Touch keyboard auto invokes [sic] when you tap a text field
  • File explorer [sic] elements will have a little more padding, [sic] to make them comfortable to interact with using touch
  • Some Tablet-related settings in Settings > System have been updated

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Conversation 13 comments

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    25 March, 2020 - 2:05 pm

    <p>Sounds exactly like "Tablet Mode" to me…</p>

  • genecrispr

    Premium Member
    25 March, 2020 - 2:44 pm

    <p>Ohh my goodness. I'm tired of all these changes. Why can't MS shunt development off to 10x or whatever its called and just leave Windows 10 alone for three years.</p>

    • will

      Premium Member
      25 March, 2020 - 6:02 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#533806">In reply to GeneCrispr:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Well I do think they can and should fix what is already NOT finished (dark mode, icons, control panel move, various other items) but I agree with you just maybe a year vs 3 years.</p><p><br></p><p>Focus on what is there, especially this year, and then in 2021 when we all can get together as a group bring on some new features.</p>

      • hrlngrv

        Premium Member
        25 March, 2020 - 6:16 pm

        <p><a href="https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/233399/windows-10-insider-preview-build-19592-heads-to-fast-ring#533888&quot; target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em>In reply to will:</em></a></p><blockquote><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">control panel move</span></blockquote><p>Since some 3rd party hardware configuration applets will remain in Control Panel, there'll always be Control Panel. Also, there are some decades-old items, e.g., dial-up, which may never find its way into Settings. Given that Fonts appear in both Control Panel and Settings, it looks to me like MSFT isn't willing to expend any resourced on removing Fonts from Control Panel . . . unless there's some functionality I've never come across where applications interact directly with Fonts through Control Panel. If so, then it'd seem MSFT is unwilling or unable to move that kind of functionality to Settings.</p><p>tl; dr — Control Panel will never disappear, at least not in the longer of your or my remaining lifetimes.</p>

      • wright_is

        Premium Member
        26 March, 2020 - 3:41 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#533888">In reply to will:</a></em></blockquote><p>They need to get the new settings to work reliably first! About half of our machines say that local administrator and domain administrator do not have privileges to open the settings, let alone change things!</p><p>On one server, that also affects Windows Updates!</p>

  • red77star

    25 March, 2020 - 3:19 pm

    <p>I think Microsoft will remove the current Tablet Mode in Windows 10 and introduce new Windows 10X layout.</p>

    • jimchamplin

      Premium Member
      25 March, 2020 - 5:11 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#533810">In reply to red77star:</a></em></blockquote><p>That would be nice. The garbage tablet UI that they’ve had since 2015 is a festering turd. </p><p><br></p><p>They had a better tablet UI – Windows 8.1 – but had to ruin it because the marketers thought they knew what was best.</p>

      • hrlngrv

        Premium Member
        25 March, 2020 - 6:26 pm

        <p><a href="https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/233399/windows-10-insider-preview-build-19592-heads-to-fast-ring#533859&quot; target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em>In reply to jimchamplin:</em></a></p><p>It may be telling that not even StarDock has bothered to recreate the Windows 8.x full screen Start Menu/All Apps mode. That is, demand for a Windows 8.x Start screen may be a lot less than demand for a Windows 7-like (or earlier) Start menu. That in turn may mean there aren't many Windows tablets used primarily as tablets.</p><p>Then again, MSFT doesn't usually waste developer resources, so it'd seem MSFT believes there's some untapped potential for Windows tablets as tablets if it just had a UI better suited to tablets. If so, I agree that they should just revert to the Windows 8.x Start screen.</p>

      • red77star

        26 March, 2020 - 9:27 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#533859">In reply to jimchamplin:</a></em></blockquote><p>Honestly, </p><p><br></p><p>Windows 10x layout for tablet and other devices would be awesome and what would be even better is for MS to fully integrate into current Windows 10 as Tablet option. And if they update Start Menu and other UI elements for desktop to closely match Windows 10x theme, we got the winner. I believe that for Panos that is going to be one of the top priorities, a guy is perfectionist and we need such person to clean up this Windows 10 UI mess.</p>

  • truerock2

    25 March, 2020 - 11:26 pm

    <p>So here is Microsoft's problem…</p><p><br></p><p>Apple has iOS for touch, Mac OS for keyboard/mouse PCs, and now… iPadOS where Apple is experimenting with doing both.</p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft has one OS that is constantly being pushed around between the 3 different GUI scenarios which is something that cannot be done.</p><p><br></p><p>I think iPadOS is going a fascinating experiment. I'm way, way over due for a new iPad – but, I'm not going to be buying a new one until Apple figures out what iPadOS should be.</p><p><br></p><p>If Microsoft thinks its aim is to make Windows into some type of iPadOS,,, oh well. That's going to take some heavy lifting to figure out.</p>

  • sherlockholmes

    Premium Member
    26 March, 2020 - 1:09 am

    <p>Is it just me or does Microsoft dont have any new ideas for Windows 10 anymore. Dont get me wrong, Im ok with it but then they should make the move to reduce the feature Updates to once a year. For the last two Updates they did only some minor make-up changes. Do we really need a new version number for that? </p>

    • eric_rasmussen

      Premium Member
      26 March, 2020 - 12:48 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#533943">In reply to SherlockHolmes:</a></em></blockquote><p>I think some of the improvements they're making these days are to the core of the OS, trying to reduce code bloat and make it perform better. They've done a ton of work to the Windows Subsystem for Linux which required a lot of changes to the underlying OS I'm sure.</p><p><br></p><p>You know what would be great for them to do though? Get their UX designers to make a full pass across the OS and make everything consistent again. Either make all settings UWP, or strip out the UWP settings and make it all control panel again. Use the fluent UI scheme across the entire system. Make the icons match. Stuff that like the would make it feel like a whole new OS.</p>

      • jdawgnoonan

        26 March, 2020 - 12:54 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#534091">In reply to Eric_Rasmussen:</a></em></blockquote><p>This. Make the OS consistent. Pick any one era of Windows and make it look like that everywhere. </p>

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