Microsoft releases Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Build 16199 to the Fast ring

When Microsoft rolled out the previous Windows 10 Redstone 3 build to Insiders (Build 16193), it looked as if the new Story Remix feature was going to be included. However, it turns out the software giant had other plans, and only made it available to a select group of testers (of which I’m lucky enough to be one).

Microsoft says that the "large majority of Windows Insiders in the Fast ring should have Story Remix right now", however, and you can check by launching the Photos app which it’s part of. (If it's not there, and you want to try it, you can request access by sending an email to [email protected].) There’s no such confusion with this week’s new release, Build 16199, as everyone can try all of the new features today -- and there are quite few of those.

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First up, there’s a new emotive experience in the My People app. This lets you see animated emoji from your pinned contacts on the taskbar. Badging has been introduced too, so you can see any missed/unread messages from your contacts at a glance. There are also now two ways to share files with people -- drag and drop an item onto someone on your taskbar, and you can compose an email to them, or send the file to that person via the share picker.

This new build also introduces improved game settings, such as the option to broadcast using game-only audio, and 'Audio settings' in the Game bar is now called 'Game DVR'.

There have been a couple tweaks made to Settings too. Go to About and you’ll see a new Health section. There are also tips and videos starting to appear across Settings.

Narrator feedback has been streamlined, and Cortana can now display incoming call notifications from Android devices. Provided you have the Cortana app on your phone.

In addition, Storage Sense’s abilities have been expanded in this new build. You can now choose to automatically clean up files that have been unchanged in your Downloads folder for 30 days.

Other changes, improvements, and fixes for PC include:

• Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG) will now work as expected on touch-enabled PCs.
• [DEVELOPERS] The XAML designer in Visual Studio 2017 hits an error causing a squiggle error under ThemeResource references to XAML’s generic.xaml resources. Please update to the latest version of Visual Studio 2017 Preview (Version 15.3 -- 26510.00) or later. If Visual Studio 2017 Preview is already installed, users can update by starting the Visual Studio Installer, and clicking the Update button. You can confirm you have the right build of Visual Studio Preview by going to Help > About to confirm you are on Version 15.3 (26510.0-Preview) or later.
• Fixed an issue resulting in many Win32 apps not launching if certain third party antivirus programs were active prior to upgrading.
• Updated Windows Defender Security Center so as to no longer flag disabled drivers as issues. Microsoft has also adjusted the health scan logic so that using maximum brightness when connected to AC power will not flag a warning.
• As a result of low usage, the decision has been taken to remove the Note quick action.
• Going forward from this build the state of rotation lock will be preserved across upgrades.
• Fixed an issue resulting in color profiles being ignored after launching certain fullscreen games.

Known issues for PC include:

• Some Insiders have reported seeing this error "Some updates were cancelled. We’ll keep trying in case new updates become available" in Windows Update. See this forum post for more details.
• Surface 3 devices fail to update to new builds if a SD memory card is inserted. The updated drivers for the Surface 3 that fix this issue have not yet been published to Windows Update.
• Outlook 2016 may hang on launch due to an issue where the spam filter gets stuck reading the Outlook Data File and the UI waits indefinitely for it to return.
• Microsoft is investigating reports that Edge fails to open PDFs with a "Couldn’t open PDF. Something is keeping this PDF from opening" error.
• [UPDATED] You will be unable to type in your password to log in to any UWP apps such as Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Messenger apps.
• Games such as Civilization VI may fail to launch on this build.
• Windows Mixed Reality won’t work on this build. If you are a developing testing and developing for Windows Mixed Reality, you will want to avoid this build. If you update this build and need Windows Mixed Reality, you will need to roll-back to Build 16193.
• VIM is broken for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) users -- Microsoft is investigating.
• The choice command fails when run in a Command Prompt script.

Photo credit: charnsitr / Shutterstock