Microsoft releases new Windows 10 preview with Cortana and WSL improvements

Microsoft today released a new Windows 10 preview with Cortana and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) improvements. The update bumps Windows 10 from build 18970 (made available to testers on August 29) to build 18975. These builds are from the 20H1 branch, which represents the Windows 10 update that will arrive in the first half of next year.

Windows 10 is being developed as a service, meaning it receives new features on a regular basis. Microsoft has released seven major updates so far: November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update, Fall Creators Update, April 2018 Update, October 2018 Update, and May 2019 Update.

Now that Cortana is an app, starting with this build you can move and resize the Cortana window. This change has only rolled out to 50% of Windows Insiders so far.

WSL is a compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows. Microsoft is currently working on WSL 2, which was supposed to ship in June. Obviously that didn’t happen, and the company is still plugging away at the new version (release notes).

Also this week, Microsoft relased the first preview of PowerToys. It includes two utilities: the Windows key shortcut guide and a window manager called FancyZones.

Bug fixes

This 20H1 build includes the following bug fixes and improvements:

Fixed an issue resulting in the “Bluetooth and Other Devices” and “Printers and Scanners” not rendering correctly in the last two flights.
Fixed an issue resulting in search crashing on launch for Insiders using certain display languages, including Polish.
Fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders receiving error 0xC0000142 when attempting to upgrade to recent builds.
Fixed a recent issue resulting in some Insiders finding that various File Explorer settings were unexpectedly modified, and in some cases couldn’t be corrected. This impacted File Explorer’s navigation pane visibility, the option for the navigation pane to automatically show all folders, and showing the drive letters. Please note that while this fix will stop it from happening, if you were impacted, you will need to take steps to return these settings in File Explorer to be their desired state.
Fixed an issue resulting in the minimize, maximize, and close title bar buttons not working for certain apps.
Added a new option to turn off the post upgrade setup under Notification Settings. Note, it will only be visible for users eligible for seeing this setup page.
Fixed an issue where the text candidate list, when typing in Korean using the touch keyboard, was in reverse order.
Updated the Chinese Pinyin IME toolbar to now be light when using light theme.
Fixed an issue that could result in the Chinese Pinyin IME not responding the first time you tried to select a text candidate in certain types of text fields.
Fixed an issue that could result in the mouse cursor becoming transparent and not visible when HDR was enabled.
Fixed an issue where if MS Paint was open in the background, using the arrow keys would result in the mouse cursor changing position despite MS Paint not being in focus.
Fixed an issue when using your PC in Arabic or Hebrew, where when maximizing win32 apps you could see the title bar flip for a second to show the close button on the right instead of on the left.
Fixed an issue impacting Action Center reliability in the previous flight.
Some adjustments to help address potential out of memory issues over Remote Desktop that could result in you being unexpectedly logged out of your remote session.
Fixed an issue resulting in not being able to setup Windows Hello during OOBE.
Updated our upgrade logic so that going forward, your preferred scheduled defragmentation settings will be preserved on upgrade. Thanks to those who shared feedback about this.
Made some improvements to help address out of memory issues resulting in users potentially getting logged out of remote desktop sessions.
Fixed an issue impacting Your Phone reliability in recent flights that resulted in seemingly random crashes during use.
Fixed an issue where, when taking a screenshot using the pen after rotating your device, the screenshot might not be in the expected orientation.
Fixed an issue when taking a snip that could result in your screenshot being unexpectedly blacked out.
Removed the option to change Magnifier UI to a magnifying glass and be in the viewport.
Magnifier reading now supports reading in more places.
Several issues have been resolved that caused the Magnifier UI not to scale or resize correctly when users adjusted the Make text bigger or the Make everything bigger settings.
Resolved an issue where users could not use some Magnifier hotkeys after sign-in until Magnifier was restarted.
Resolved an issue where Magnifier Docked and Lens mode would turn into Full Screen mode when User Account Controls were active.
Resolved an issue in Notepad where the text cursor would display, but the text cursor indicator would not.
Resolved an issue in Notepad where the text cursor indicator prevented users from double-clicking to select text.
Resolved an issue where the text cursor indicator preview in Ease of Access settings was not usable when Dark Mode is enabled.
Resolved an issue where the text cursor indicator was randomly filling in with black.
Fixed an issue with Narrator stopping early when reading certain dialogs.
Enhanced Narrator’s reading experience when arrowing through messages in Outlook. When the importance column is read the “importance” header is always spoken before the high or low. If a message has been flagged that column’s information will be spoken immediately after the importance column instead of at the end.
Fixed a bug where Narrator did not play the error sound in certain scenarios.
Raised the volume of Narrator’s link and scroll sounds.
Fixed a bug when the Narrator page summary was not working in the Chrome browser.
Fixed a bug where assistive technology were starting after sign-in when only the before sign-in setting was set.
Narrator is now presenting “flash messages” on a configured braille display as expected for reading the window title and when presenting suggested content.
Narrator is now presenting cell contents on a configured braille display as expected when navigating a table.

Known issues

This build has nine known issues:

The Reset this PC cloud download option is not currently calculating the correct amount of space you need to free up if you do not have enough disk space to proceed. To work around this until the fix is available, free up an extra 5GB beyond what is prompted.
The Reset this PC cloud download option is not currently working when specific optional features are installed. The process will begin, but an error will occur and roll back the changes. To work around this issue, remove the optional features before trying the cloud download option. The optional features are: EMS and SAC Toolset for Windows 10, IrDA infrared, Print Management Console, RAS Connection Manager Administration Kit (CMAK), RIP Listener, all RSAT tools, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Windows Fax and Scan, Windows Storage Management, Wireless Display, and WI SNMP Provider.
There has been an issue with older versions of anti-cheat software used with games where after updating to the latest 19H1 Insider Preview builds may cause PCs to experience crashes. Make sure you are running the latest version of your games before attempting to update the operating system.
Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly.
Some Insiders may experience a deadlock in netprofmsvc.dll on Builds 18967+. This can result in the upgrade to the build freezing at 98%, or if you’re on the build already you may find that various aspects of the system unexpectedly freeze and become unresponsive. We appreciate your patience as we work on a fix.
We are looking into an issue where, after updating to this build, adding a new Language Pack reports successful installation but is not installed.
There is an issue with this build where certain Local Experience Packs (LXPs) may revert to English. We are working on a fix.
Certain 2D apps (like Feedback Hub, Microsoft Store, 3D Viewer) are incorrectly being treated as having protected content within Windows Mixed Reality. During video capture, these 2D apps block their content from being recorded.
When capturing a repro video while filing a bug via Feedback Hub in Windows Mixed Reality, you won’t be able to select Stop video, due to the protected content issue noted above. If you want to submit a repro video, you will need to wait 5 minutes for the recording to time out. If you’d like to file the bug without a repro video, you can close the Feedback Hub window to end the recording and resume filing your bug when you reopen the app in Feedback > Drafts.

As always, don’t install this on your production machine.