We already know that Microsoft is planning on giving Windows 10 a major makeover later this year as part of a refresh code named Sun Valley.
Insiders in the Dev Channel can from today start to get an idea of how this new Windows update will look.
Insider Build 21327 debuts an updated look for the ‘news and interests’ feed on the taskbar. Microsoft says this new design makes the upcoming feature “even more delightful to scan and interact with the headlines and stories in your feed. Imagery from articles now shines through with a vibrant and colorful design, making your feed more glanceable, engaging, and beautiful.”
You can see evidence of this at the top of the page.
There are further updates when you click ‘See more news’ to open the feed experience in your browser.
This new feature is rolling out to Insiders so not everyone in the Dev Channel will have access to it immediately.
That’s not the only visual tweak as many of the system icons have been updated using the Fluent Design style. There’s also a new font — Segoe Fluent Icons.
Microsoft says:
Areas of the OS that use the Segoe MDL2 assets such as the Start menu and Settings app will include the new icon designs which have a more rounded and simplified look and feel.
Users of ARM64 devices will also find from this build that the default architecture for PowerShell is now x64 rather than x86.
Fixes in this build include:
- Fixed an issue impacting the reliability of Start and other modern apps in recent flights.
- Fixed an issue where a toggled key on the touch keyboard had the wrong background color when you hovered the mouse cursor or pen over it. This change is currently being rolled out to a subset of Insiders at first to help us quickly identify issues that may impact performance and reliability.
- Fixed an issue where the KANA input mode in the touch keyboard was not persisted on next launch when using the Japanese 106/109 traditional keyboard layout.
- Fixed an issue with the new “Paste as plain text” option in clipboard history where the text was cramped in some languages.
- Fixed an issue for specific clipboard content where if you click the first entry in clipboard history would paste something different than what was selected.
- Fixed an issue resulting in the emoji panel and IME candidate window drawing partially offscreen sometimes in recent flights.
- Fixed an issue that could result in a bug check with IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL when installing certain apps.
- Fixed an issue from recent flights that could result in login screen and DWM hangs.
- Fixed an issue where if your primary monitor uses HDR and your secondary monitors were using SDR, thumbnails for apps in the taskbar on the primary monitor would be black.
- Fixed a bug where display changes might unexpectedly cause a window to grow or shrink. This was mostly isolated to systems with monitors set to different scaling factors (DPI).
- Fixed an issue in recent flights where your PC might freeze if you rotated it while in tablet mode.
- Fixed an issue that could result in lag when using the Xbox Game Bar to record your gameplay on a monitor that was 144Hz or higher.
- Fixed an issue in recent builds that could result in stutter when playing games while using multiple monitors.
- Fixed an issue leading to erroneous notifications after each upgrade indicating new apps had been added to the Startup Apps section in Settings.
- Fixed an issue that could result in upgrades getting stuck at 88 percent.
- Fixed an issue resulting in errors when launching MSIX packaged desktop apps in recent Dev Channel builds.
Known issues include:
- Microsoft is looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
- Live previews for pinned sites aren’t enabled for all Insiders yet, so you may see a grey window when hovering over the thumbnail in the taskbar. Microsoft is continuing to work on polishing this experience.
- Microsoft is working on enabling the new taskbar experience for existing pinned sites. In the meantime, you can unpin the site from the taskbar, remove it from the edge://apps page, and then re-pin the site.
- [News and interests] Microsoft is addressing an issue where news and interests may not be available when signing into Windows without internet access but returns when online.
- [News and interests] Sometimes the news and interests flyout cannot be dismissed with pen.
- [ARM64] Insiders who installed the preview version of the Qualcomm Adreno graphics driver on the Surface Pro X may experience reduced brightness of the display. This issue is fixed with an updated version of the preview graphics driver at https://aka.ms/x64previewdriverprox. If you are experiencing this issue, please see the feedback collection for more information.
- Microsoft is working on a fix to address reports from Insiders that the Chinese text for the lunar calendar in the clock and calendar flyout is no longer displaying properly as of the previous flight.
- Microsoft is working on a fix for an issue starting with the previous flight where the status information is not being displayed under Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update when you’re up to date.
- Microsoft is investigating reports that Insider devices are experiencing hangs when an Xbox controller is connected while shutting down, restarting, or entering sleep in recent Dev Channel builds.
- Microsoft is investigating an issue where devices with Bitdefender installed may experience a black screen and/or explorer.exe crashes after upgrading to builds 21313 and higher. If you are running Bitdefender, you may choose to pause updates until Microsoft releases a build with a fix.
- Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) users who upgrade to this build will be unable to use the GPU Compute feature. Microsoft is working on a fix for this. Users who do a clean install will not be affected.
- Microsoft is working on a fix for an issue where some devices with Realtek network adapters running driver version 1.0.0.4 may experience intermittent loss of network connectivity.
- The About page in Settings is not available in this build — Microsoft is working on a fix. If you need access to rename your computer, you can do so by running systempropertiescomputername.exe.
Photo credit: charnsitr / Shutterstock
