Windows 10
Windows 10 update 1903 has been rolling out to devices for a few weeks now, so here’s a quick insight into some of the new and changed features it provides. It’s a big update so set aside some time before installing it, and make sure your device is plugged in and charging!
More details about this update can be found here.
If you haven’t already received the May 2019 (1903) update, you might find that it’s waiting for you in the Windows Update settings. Click on Start > Settings (the cog icon) > Update & Security > Windows Update and look for the ‘Feature Update to Windows 10, 1903‘ download and install now link.
Alternatively you can use the Update Assistant Tool to install the update manually. This will bypass the automatic install checks.
Remember the Spectre vulnerability?
In order to fix the flaw in affected CPUs, Microsoft applied a patch, but a side effect of that patch was a reduction in PC performance on some types of CPU. An update in 1903 should see your PC’s performance creeping back up while maintaining the patch.
Microsoft have gone into more detail about these changes here.
There are quite a few welcome changes to the Windows Update process after 1903 too.
First of all, if you’re on a network with other Windows 10 computers, there’s better peer-to-peer sharing of update files, meaning less duplicated downloading of updates from the Microsoft servers.
When a big update, like this May 2019 update, is released in the future, it won’t automatically download and install. This will help users who are on metered or slow internet connections manage their bandwidth. It also means you can choose if you want the update installed or not. If you choose not to install any of the big six monthly updates, you can remain on your current build of Windows 10 for upto 18 months. At this point you’ll be forced to install the update as Microsoft will not supply security updates for Windows builds over 18 months out of date.
Windows 10 Home users will also get the ability to pause Microsoft Updates for one month, this feature has been available to Windows 10 Pro users for a while now.
If you do a clean install of Windows 10, Windows will automatically reserve about 7GB of disk space for future update files. While it’s not being used for updates, other programs will be able to store temporary files in this space, these will get deleted to make way for the updates files if needed.
Active hours are available to prevent Windows from installing and restarting your device while you’re using it, the smart active hours will monitor how you use your device to make sure updates don’t interrupt your work.
Microsoft will monitor the feedback it gets from your device to identify any potential problems, and recommend fixes to keep your device working.
The more information you choose to return to Microsoft, the better automated troubleshooting can be.
Some improvements to the user interface included a slider for screen brightness on the action bar, and the ability to switch between light more and dark mode in the personalisations settings.
There’s been some improvements to the Windows emoji keyboard, accessible by clicking Windows Key + full stop when on a text field.
The touch screen keyboard has adaptive technology to help with accurate key hits, monitoring how you type and adjusting the hit zones dynamically.
There’s a slider in the display settings (Start > Settings > Ease of Access > Display) to allow you to make text bigger if you’re finding it hard to read on the screen. To make everything on the screen bigger, choose an option from the drop-down menu under Make everything bigger.
There’s also a slider for the mouse pointer size and colour.
There are colour filters (Start > Settings > Ease Of Access > Colour FIlters) that allow you to add filters to the display, helpful if you have colour blindness or light sensitivity.
Notifications can be hidden when you’re using any full screen app with enhancements to the Focus Assistant.
You can switch to taskbar notifications of updates, a Windows update icon with an orange dot on it will appear to alert you to a required restart.
A new globe icon is used to indicate no internet connection, and we’ve heard that after the update, some users have had to re-enter their WiFi access details.
A microphone icon will appear when a program is accessing your devices microphone, right-clicking on the icon will give you options to see which app is listening to you!
The start menu has been cleaned up too, this will only be visible to new user accounts. You’ll see fewer tiles by default, and the ability to unpin groups of tiles by right-clicking the group header.
Cortana and Search have been separated out, you can now manage them independently as they have their own icons on the taskbar.
The Search feature will show you most recent files and popular apps when it’s opened. Searches can be filtered by files, emails and so on using the options along the top. Switching to advanced search (Settings > Search > Searching Windows and select Enhanced (Recommended)) will include all files on your PC, search results have an enhanced display on the right of the search pane with additional features to open, install and pin apps.
Also, you’ll be able to right-click and uninstall more of the system installed apps. Some are still restricted from uninstalling such as the Microsoft Store and the Edge browser.
The Storage Space (Settings > System > Storage) details have been enhanced to give more information on what types of files are taking up space on your device, with more options to manage the files built into the settings panel.
Other minor changes to settings include the Time & Date synchronisation, Static IP Settings and Active Hours settings.
Finally, the Command Prompt screen has had some updates. You can ‘zoom’ in and out by holding CTRL and scrolling the mouse wheel, and you have more options in the Command Prompt settings.
Signing in with a Microsoft account and using OneDrive gives you some new and improved options.
The Windows clipboard can be integrated and synced across devices, go to Start > Settings > System > Clipboard to make changes to this. If you enable sync, your clipboard contents is synced to all devices signed in on your account. A great and easy way to copy information between devices.
The device backups have been improved, access the settings for this from the OneDrive icon > Settings > Backups > Manage Cloud Backups. This can help backup your Pictures and Documents folders automatically, protecting your data if your device is lost, stolen or damaged. Do you want to know more?
If you’ve made use of a passwordless account from Microsoft (using your phone as verification) you can now log into Windows 10 with that passwordless account.
Some more updates to the built in Notepad app include restoring text and files that were open when Windows closed/restarted, notifications for unsaved changes and more details about a files encoding in the status bar.
A new feature available to Pro, Education and Enterprise users is Windows Sandbox. It’s an optional install that can be installed via the Windows Optional Features applet (Control Panel > Programs > Turn Windows Features On or Off)
You’ll need to have a CPU and BIOS that supports virtualization, most modern ones do, and you’ll need to make sure virtualization is enabled.
If you’re running from within a virtual machine already, you’ll need to enable nested virtualization, this can be done via PowerShell on your host machine.
Set-VMProcessor -VMName <VMName> -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true
After install, run Windows Sandbox (it’ll require administrative privileges to run) and you’ll see a window open up with a clean installation of Windows 10 running in it. The files are dynamically taken from your host operating system, so the virtual computer is always as up-to-date as your host operating system.
If you’ve not used virtual computers before, think of it as a completely different machine sharing your display. You can install and run programs on the virtual sandbox machine, change settings, go on the internet, do anything you can do on your host machine, but with the safety that it’s isolated from your real files, and once you close the sandbox machine, it’s files and settings are deleted.
This means it’s great for testing out new programs, if you’re not sure if you want to keep them, or your suspicious of the installer, you can fire up the sandbox virtual machine, copy and past the install file onto the sandbox desktop and run the installer to see what happens. Once you’ve finished, close the sandbox machine and you’re back to your own files.
Next time you open the sandbox virtual machine, it’ll go back to it’s default clean install state.
If you’ve been using the Linux subsystem, you’ll now be able to use Windows explorer to access the Linux files without the worry of breaking anything. While in BASH type in explorer.exe to open the Windows explorer with read/write access in the current directory.
Enhancements to the Gaming Bar include more details about your system performance and integration with Xbox.
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