Microsoft releases Windows 10 19H1 Build 18277 with fewer annoying notifications, additional emoji, improved high DPI settings

While there’s still no sign of a re-release for the botched Windows 10 October 2018 Update, Microsoft is rolling out new builds for the feature update that follows it, codenamed 19H1.

Today’s new release, Build 18277, gains a new focus assist option that will spring into life whenever you’re doing anything full screen on your PC so you’re not bothered by notifications.

This new addition can be found under Settings > System > Focus Assist.

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Elsewhere, the brightness Quick action in the Action Center is now a slider rather than a button, and you can now customize Quick actions from within the Action Center, saving you time.

In addition, new Build 18277 comes with some extra emoji designed in preparation for the future Emoji 12 release. Some of these will likely change in coming builds.

Build 18277, and future flights on the 19H1 branch will handle high DPU scaling better, and the 'Fix scaling for apps' setting introduced in Build 17063 is now enabled by default.

Windows Security gains an additional Windows Defender Application Guard setting that lets users manage access to their camera and microphone while browsing using Application Guard for Microsoft Edge.

Other general changes, improvements, and fixes in this build include:

• Fixed the issue causing WSL to not work in Build 18272.
• Fixed an issue resulting in text not rendering on the screen if you had a large number of OTF fonts, or had OTF fonts that support the extended East Asian character set.
• Fixed a recent issue where Task View failed to show the + button under New Desktop after creating 2 Virtual Desktops.
• Fixed an issue resulting in Timeline crashing explorer.exe if you pressed ALT+F4 while it was visible.
• Fixed an issue significantly impacting Start menu reliability in recent builds when pinning, unpinning, or uninstalling apps.
• Fixed an issue where the expected context menu wouldn’t appear after right-clicking on a folder in File Explorer from a network location.
• Some Insiders may notice small differences in File Explorer over the coming flights -- Microsoft will have more to share later about this later.
• Fixed an issue resulting in the home page of Settings having no visible scrollbar in recent flights if the window was small enough to need one.
• Updating the icon used to identify the Region page in Settings.
• Fixed an issue resulting in Settings crashing sometimes in recent flights when going to Sign-in Settings.
• Fixed an issue where Settings would crash if you were typing in the search box with the embedded handwriting panel and went to switch languages within the panel.
• Fixed an issue where playing videos might unexpectedly show a few frames in the wrong orientation when maximizing the window after changing the orientation of your screen.
• Fixed an issue impacting Emoji Panel reliability in recent flights.
• The touch keyboard’s feature to input a period after two quick taps on the spacebar was recently also accidentally enabled when typing with the hardware keyboard and has now been disabled.
• Made some adjustments to improve the performance of WIN+Shift+S bringing up snipping.
• Some Insiders may notice changes to the snipping experiences, as Microsoft explores ideas for the future – more details to come.
• Fixed an issue that caused Far Manager to have a significant pause during a long running command like 'dir' (see Microsoft/console#279).
• Fixed an issue that caused Windows applications running from WSL through interop and applications using the *PseudoConsole APIs to redraw the top left corner excessively (see Microsoft/console#235).
• Fixed an issue resulting in running "start" from Command Prompt failing in the previous flight with an access denied error.
• Fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders experiencing bug checks (green screens) with the error KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED on the previous flight.
• Fixed an issue where certain devices might hit a bug check (GSOD) when shutting down or when switching from a Microsoft account to a local admin account.
• Fixed an issue resulting in wuaueng.dll repeatedly crashing in the background for some Insiders in the last few flights.

Known issues are:

• Some users will notice the update status cycling between Getting Things Ready, Downloading, and Installing. This is often accompanied with error 0x8024200d caused by a failed express package download.
• PDFs opened in Microsoft Edge may not display correctly (small, instead of using the entire space).
• Microsoft is investigating a rare condition resulting in blue screens if your PC is set up to dual boot. If you’re impacted the workaround is to disable dual boot for now.
• The hyperlink colors need to be refined in Dark Mode in Sticky Notes if the Insights are enabled.
• Settings page will crash after changing the account password or PIN, Microsoft recommends using the CTRL + ALT + DEL method to change the password
• Due to a merge conflict, the settings for enabling/disabling Dynamic Lock are missing from Sign-in Settings.

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