It's Wednesday, and that means that it's time for a new Windows 10 Insider Preview. In fact, we've gotten a new build almost every Wednesday since 19H1 has been available in the Fast ring, with the exception of last week, as there was a U.S. holiday that week.
Today's build is 18290, and it's the latest build from the 19H1 development branch, meaning that it's a preview for the next feature update to Windows 10. Once again, it contains mostly minor improvements.
Here's what's new in Windows 10 Insider Preview build 18290:
A touch of Fluent for menus in Start
Following up on our jump list improvements with Build 18282, when you update to today’s build you’ll notice we’ve polished up the power and user menus in Start as well – including adding icons for easier identification.
This will also be visible in the power menu on the sign in screen.
Sync your clock
In response to your feedback, we’re adding an option in Date & Time Settings to manually synchronize your clock with the time server. This will help in scenarios where you think the clock might be out of sync, or if the time service has been disabled. We’ll also show the last time that time was successfully synced, and the address of your current time server.
Note: This feature is currently only supported for non-domain joined PCs, although in today’s build it will be visible on all devices.
See which app is using your microphone
In Build 18252 we introduced a new mic icon that would appear in the notification area letting you know when an app was accessing your microphone. Today we’re updating it so if you hover over the icon, it will now show you which app. Double clicking the icon will open Microphone Privacy Settings.
If multiple apps are using your microphone, then it will just list how many are actively using your microphone. We still have a bit more to do, stay tuned!
Improving your Search and Cortana experiences
We’re exploring some options for improving these experiences in Windows. When you start a search now, you’ll notice we’ve updated the landing page – giving recent activities a bit more room to breathe, adding light theme support, a touch of acrylic and including all the search filter options as pivots from the get go. We’d love to hear your feedback – you can report issues and suggestions to us here. You may notice some other changes as we continue flighting, we’ll have more details to share later.
Windows Update Notifications
Starting with 19H1, when your device has an update requiring reboot (including new builds we release) you will see Windows Update icon with orange indicator in the notification area (system tray) alerting you to restart your device.
Other Updates for Insiders
Mail & Calendar (Version 11001.20106): It is now easier to keep track of your tasks from Mail and Calendar in Microsoft To-Do! With the latest Mail & Calendar update from the Store, we’ve added the ability to switch directly to To-Do in our app navigation. This update is rolling out to both Insiders and Retail users as we speak.
As you can see, there's nothing crazy in here. There's a bit more Fluent Design in the Start Menu, the ability to sync your clock instead of having to turn off and on automatic time settings, you can see what app is using your microphone, and Microsoft is continuing to improve search and Cortana.
Microsoft also noted that older builds are going to be expiring soon. This is nothing new, as Windows Insider Preview builds always have an expiration date, and the date for current builds is December 14. If you're on an older build, you'll start getting a warning once a day, and at some point, the build will just stop working. You can avoid this by upgrading to today's build.
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