Hands-On with Windows 10 Build 10134

As noted previously, there are official builds of Windows 10—the so-called Insider Preview releases—and then there are the often more-interesting leaked builds. Build 10134 is of the latter variety, and while it doesn’t appear to be much newer than the latest Insider Preview build, 10130, it does have a few interesting changes. Here’s what I’ve seen so far.

It’s not reliable. If you’re champing at the bit and wondering whether you should upgrade your existing test rigs to build 10134, my advice is simple: Don’t. I’ve noticed a number of regressions in this build, including some very basic issues like an inability to pin things to Start and theme color issues. Build 10130 isn’t perfect, but it’s of higher quality. And it’s also available now on ISO, for you clean installers.

Microsoft Edge. Still called Project Spartan in this build—yes, still—Edge picks up some nice fit and finish improvements, including the very basic ability to type ALT + D and actually select the Address bar, something that never worked for me before. But you can also display a Home button on the toolbar, if you’re old fashioned, and import favorites from other browsers, which is a key feature for upgraders.

Music. The new Music app comes flying out of Preview, which isn’t unique to this build, but you can also enable a nice new Dark theme in Settings if you want, which I really like. There’s also a new tile/icon design.

Movies & TV. The Video app has been renamed and gets a new tile/icon design, like Music. But there’s no Dark theme, at least not yet.

Windows Update. It looks like we’re getting a lot closer to what this interface will look like in the shipping product: You can stop receiving Insider builds—yes, they will continue post-RTM if you want to live on the edge—and enable additional feature tests if you really want to live on the edge.

People. The People app still seems curiously light on UI, but there’s a new welcome page at least. And when you select a contact, the contact picture—a circle, because “people are circles”—rolls in with a cute animation.

Photos. Nothing major, but the Albums view is starting to come to life, and notes that the app will automatically create albums for you if you just “add a series of related photos to your Pictures folder.”

Cortana. As with many of things, Cortana is updated just a bit too, in this case with some more explanatory help at first launch.

MSN apps. I could be wrong—again, it’s hard (and pointless) to keep track of exactly when things change; this is observational only—but I believe this build is the first time we’re seeing how Microsoft plans to add advertisements to the MSN apps. Which is to say obtrusively.

Get Skype. Not sure again, but I believe this is the first time a “Get Skype” app suggestion appeared in Start. It snags the desktop version of the app, too, which is great.

Network Beta. Not a lot to say here, but a new Microsoft logo animation appears at launch. And then the app is still blank.

I’m sure there’s more. But that’s what I’ve noticed in the past 24 hours.