Microsoft releases Windows 10 Build 20221 with Meet Now, Skype's Zoom alternative

Yesterday, Microsoft rolled out a patch to what will be the Windows 10 October 2020 Update (20H2). This is available to those Insiders on the Beta and Release Preview Channels.

Insiders on the Dev Channel shouldn’t feel left out however, as today they can install Build 20221, and this comes with Skype's Meet Now feature.

Meet Now was introduced in Skype earlier in the year, making it easy to call anyone, regardless of whether or not they are on Skype. It’s best viewed as Microsoft’s rival to video conferencing darling Zoom. From this build, Meet Now is being added to the taskbar, To use it, just click on the Meet Now icon in the system tray. The feature is only being rolled out to a subset of Insiders for now however, so if you don’t see it you’ll have to wait until it's made more widely available.

Other changes and improvements include:

• As some Insiders may have noticed, Microsoft is adding a notification to let you know when an app registers to run at startup (Settings > Apps > Startup Apps).
• With most of the launches of the People app coming directly from within the Mail and Calendar apps in Windows 10, the People app no longer appears as a standalone app in Start. It remains as an inbox app and can be launched to manage your contacts from the button in the Mail and Calendar apps.

Fixes in this build include:

• Fixed an issue where the new Manage Disks and Volumes section in Settings wasn’t blocking the ability to change the drive letter of the system volume.
• Fixed an issue that could result in Start menu, and Action Center being totally transparent when certain apps were open in the background.
• Fixed an issue that could result in a crash when opening the Power menu in Start while running Magnifier at a high zoom level.
• Fixed an issue that could result in a virtual desktop thumbnail in Task View showing an empty desktop even after moving an app over to that desktop.
• Fixed an issue when typing with an IME into text fields in certain apps that could result in input no longer being accepted.
• Fixed an issue that could result in the Chinese Pinyin IME candidate pane getting stuck on the first letter when typing into certain games.
• Fixed an issue that could result in Windows Update getting stuck at "Downloading -- 0%" for a long time.
• Fixed seeing generic errors when using wsl --install in the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
• Fixed a bug where the Linux kernel would not be installed when using wsl --install in the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Known issues are:

• Microsoft is looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
• Microsoft is working on a fix to enable live preview for pinned site tabs.
• 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.
• Microsoft is investigating reports of some Office applications crashing or missing after updating to a new build.
• Microsoft is working on a fix for an issue resulting in Settings crashing for some Insiders when opening Manage Disks and Volumes.
• Microsoft is investigating reports of some devices experiencing a KMODE_EXCEPTION bugcheck when using certain virtualization technologies.
• Microsoft is investigating an issue affecting Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 distros where users can receive the error: "The remote procedure call failed" on startup.
• Microsoft is investigating a bug where the vEthernet adapter in Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 distros becomes disconnected after a period of use. For full details please follow this Github thread.

Photo credit: charnsitr / Shutterstock