Microsoft Ships Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14942 for PC to the Fast Ring

Microsoft Ships Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14942 for PC to the Fast Ring

Happy Friday, Windows Insiders: Microsoft has announced the availability of Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14942 for Fast ring testers. The best news? There are several new features.

Let’s jump right in.

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Start menu. Now, you can hide the All Apps list in the Start menu, a top request since Microsoft delivered the reviled new design with the Anniversary Update. Cheers. Your nightmare is over.

New Photos app. I already wrote about this, but Microsoft is also debuting a newly-designed Photos app alongside this new build. This includes a new horizontal navigation bar, a new light viewing mode, new animations, and a true full screen mode. Oh, and it’s available on Xbox One too.

Precision touchpad. Microsoft has improved how gesture and click detction works on precision touchpads (like those found in Surface devices). “This includes enhancing detection and disambiguation of left and right clicks, making two finger taps and clicks a bit easier, reducing false positives in our two-finger tap detection and improving our pinch to zoom detection,” Microsoft explains. “We have also made algorithm changes in an effort to reduce inadvertent zooming when panning. If you have a precision touchpad on your device, please take the opportunity try out with this build and let us know how it feels with these changes.”

PC upgrades. Finally, Microsoft has improved the build over build upgrade experience so that apps you previously uninstalled or not silently reinstalled on the upgrade.

Windows Update. Not a huge deal, but there is a new Windows Update icon in this build.

Processes in Task Manager. Microsoft has changed the way it displays processes in Task Manager, so it may look like there are more processes running. Don’t freak out: on PCs with 3.5 GB or more of RAM, svchost.exe groups are finally being split out so you can see what’s really happening.

Active Hours. Microsoft has expanded the hour range of Active Hours from 12 hours to 18 hours, but only for those on Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise or Education.

Narrator. The Narrator tool picks up form field navigation, and you have a ton of new keyboard shortcuts in scan mode.

Yeah, lots of stuff. And a few known issues and smaller other improvements.Check out the Microsoft blog post for more information.

 

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Conversation 18 comments

  • 442

    07 October, 2016 - 12:05 pm

    <p>Glad to hear they are improving the touch pads.&nbsp; I was getting tired of mis-clicks on my Surface Pro.</p>

  • 699

    07 October, 2016 - 12:27 pm

    Interested to see how the trackpad on my Surface Pro 4 improves/changes/etc. That’s my fast ring machine. Not that I ever had a huge issue with the trackpad on that. I like the start menu customization features, that area was way too cluttered. Glad to see they are rolling out lots of features this time, tho. (Speaking of which, I can now EDIT my posts here, becuase i just did. One suggestion: change how the edit screen works, it’s a little confusing. Maybe an “OK” after you’re done and the box goes away. Thanks!)

  • 5394

    07 October, 2016 - 12:56 pm

    <p>Nothing to get excited about.</p>
    <p>Under PC Upgrades, "that apps you previously uninstalled <strong>or not</strong> silently reinstalled on the upgrade."&nbsp; … <strong>are not</strong></p>

  • 2149

    07 October, 2016 - 2:09 pm

    <p>The trackpad stuff is a pretty big deal for me. On my Surface Pro 4, certain webpages would constantly zoom when I wanted to pan. And the two finger taps to right click have never been consistent. Looking forward to seeing how much improvement they’ve made.</p>

  • 679

    Premium Member
    07 October, 2016 - 2:17 pm

    <p>"Finally, Microsoft has improved the build over build upgrade experience so that apps you previously uninstalled or not silently reinstalled on the upgrade"&nbsp;</p>
    <p>Now if they would just stop uninstalling Media Center on new builds…</p>

  • 2575

    Premium Member
    07 October, 2016 - 2:36 pm

    Anyone else’s Xbox app borked in this build?  Can’t sign in – get an access denied error.

    • 364

      07 October, 2016 - 11:35 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#19511">In reply to PaulMD:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Microstoft’s post has it as a known issue, with a solution (I haven’t updated yet so no first hand experience with the issue or fix):</p>
      <p>IMPORTANT NOTE: Xbox sign-ins may fail, as well, as a result of service host separation. To fix this issue:</p>
      <p>Run the following from an admin&nbsp;Command Prompt&nbsp;(or edit the registry accordingly):REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\XblAuthManager /v SvcHostSplitDisable /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f<br />Reboot the system, so that XblAuthManager now shares a service host process with Windows Update and Background Intelligent Transfer Service.</p>
      <p>&nbsp;</p>

  • 5539

    07 October, 2016 - 3:56 pm

    As they have said. Making Windows is like making Pizza for a million. You can’t win. Win 8, where’s my program list? Win 10 AU, Here you go. Wait, what the hell is this programs list? Fine, you can remove it. Damn consumers. The Enterprise is so much easier.They just use what is given them.

  • 469

    07 October, 2016 - 4:14 pm

    Be warned… My upgrade got stuck at 81%, and feedback forum seems to suggest that I am not alone with this!  It has reverted back to 14936 for now

    • 198

      08 October, 2016 - 9:20 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#19543">In reply to Redbreva:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Same here, 5 out of 5 PCs failed (twice)&nbsp;to install this build.&nbsp; All reverted back to 14396 with no issues.</p>

  • 250

    Premium Member
    07 October, 2016 - 7:29 pm

    <p>Absolute fail on every device. 0 for 4. Long slow download followed by long slow installing, then restart, then long blackout period and rollback to 14936. This was the case on (1) a Surface Book, (2) an original Surface Pro, (3) a Dell XPS15 laptop, and 4) a HP Stream 8 tablet.</p>
    <p>Actually, I tried the update twice on each machine, so I am actually 0 for 8.</p>
    <p>I wasn’t watching every screen every minute, but I saw a reference to error 0x80240ff on one device and on another I saw a statement that some updates could not be installed because other updates were still installing.</p>
    <p>I have had update problems with one device or another on other occasions, but never have I had all four of my fast ring testbeds fail at the same time on a new FR release.</p>
    <p>&nbsp;</p>
    <p>&nbsp;</p>
    <p>&nbsp;</p>

  • 6019

    07 October, 2016 - 10:12 pm

    <p>Re: Task Manager, why don’t they just replace it with Process Explorer and be done with?</p>

  • 250

    Premium Member
    07 October, 2016 - 10:51 pm

    <p>If I could revise and extend my previous post I would, but this new comment is the only way to report changing circumstances.</p>
    <p>The HP Stream 8 tablet and the Dell Laptop somehow made it all the way through their last install attempts and are now working well with 14942. Both Surface devices are still unable to complete an upgrade. Maybe magic will strike tomorrow.</p>

  • 397

    08 October, 2016 - 1:16 am

    <p>Just need "Keep the all apps list and hide the tiles on boot" option to complete the circle.</p>

  • 250

    Premium Member
    08 October, 2016 - 1:22 pm

    <p>Well, that’s about as much effort as I feel like putting into forcing an update. I’ll just wait for the next FR release and see if it is any better at letting itself be installed on Surface devices. Since I did manage to get 14942 running on an old Dell laptop and a HP Stream 8 tablet I can check out its features there. But I am perplexed why Microsoft can’t get a beta OS to install correctly on its own hardware.</p>
    <p>Again, apologies for the disconnected posts. I am really looking forward to using the "Edit Comment" feature once it gets enabled.</p>

  • 250

    Premium Member
    08 October, 2016 - 5:03 pm

    <p>Last comment in this thread, I promise. From posts to Feedback Hub and comments in other Windows forums, it appears that the installation problem is tied to anti-virus and anti-malware software. MWB and Kaspersky are frequently mentioned, and Norton was too. Defender, unsurprisingly, is not a problem. I use MWB in addition to Defender on my two affected devices and am unwilling to disable or remove it just to get a preview build. Maybe the next Fast Ring release will be be free of this problem.</p>

  • 3399

    08 October, 2016 - 8:40 pm

    <p>&nbsp;This build hasn’t fixed the issue with accessing networked drives</p>

  • 6315

    09 October, 2016 - 2:09 pm

    <p>My surface pro 3 went through the install no problem, but now the Edge browser is borked. It opens with that annoying "fresh start" screen but when you click anything it shuts back down. Chrome is still fine, as well as IE.</p>

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