A surprise night build was released last night, build 16294, to fast ring insiders. As mentioned on the blog page, this build might not be available for everyone right away, so if you don’t see it, don’t worry too much. However, I was able to get it on both my desktop and my Surface Pro 4.

What’s new? Not a whole lot. As we wind closer to the Fall Creators Update release, the main focus is on polishing and stabilizing the features and OS so the end user has a great experience when they upgrade.

General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

• This build has the fix for the bug that was causing some Surface Pro 3 devices to end up in a “unbootable” state where the Windows OS will not load and it appears to be stuck on a “spinning dots” screen. After installing this build, Surface Pro 3 devices should no longer get into this state. If you have a Surface Pro 3 in a bad state – follow the instructions on this forum post to get back up and running.
• We fixed an issue on Dutch builds where explorer could go into a crash loop if an app-requested downloads notification popped up from OneDrive.
• We fixed an issue where expand.exe couldn’t expand CABs that contained Japanese characters in the file name.
• We fixed a race condition that could result in window content being transparent (but showing the window frame) or stale after unlocking your desktop.
• We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders seeing error 0x800B010C when attempting to upgrade to the last few flights.

A new build for Fast Ring Insiders on Windows 10: 16291. As we edge closer to the final release of the 1709 released, dubbed the Fall Creators Update, there will be less new features and more features and polishing of the current features. As usual, hit Windows Update for the latest update and check out the Feedback Tool if you have any issues!

What’s changed this build?

What’s new in Build 16291

Resume from phones to PC with Cortana: Cortana users can now resume articles, news from their iPhones and Android phones to PC from within the Cortana app. This exciting feature comes in addition to the existing features where users can sync reminders, notifications and SMS across their devices and stay connected on the go!

General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

• We fixed an issue where sometimes after an upgrade Windows Update’s update history would be missing a listing for the feature update you’d just done.
• We fixed an issue where scrolling with touch or precision touchpads wasn’t working with the F12 Developer Tools.
• We fixed an issue where pin reset above lock (“I forgot my PIN”) would only work the first time the password was reset.
• We fixed an issue where Microsoft Edge would crash if you added a Favorite to a Favorites folder and then immediately sorted that folder by name.
• We fixed an issue with the indexer from recent flights that could result in Outlook 2016 search failing to index the body of messages.
• We fixed a recent issue resulting in the Skype UWP app not being launched if it was minimized when you clicked an incoming call notification.

Tomorrow the Windows Insider team will be hosting a Mixer webcast to present the Flighting system with the Windows Insider builds and how things work behind the scenes. It begins at 10am PDT (5pm UTC). Be sure to check it out. These are always very informative as well as entertaining. The Windows Insider team is always fun and receptive to answering any questions you may have, as well.

For those that have recently downloaded or updated CCleaner for Windows on a 32-bit system, be sure to update immediately, as they unknowingly distributed malware for roughly a month. The VP from Piriform, the company that creates and distributes CCleaner, has released a blog post describing the incident.

Currently, they are not sure how the code appeared in the software, but they are conducting a thorough investigation.

Again, we would like to apologize for any inconvenience this incident could have caused to our clients; we are taking detailed steps internally so that this does not happen again, and to ensure your security while using any of our Piriform products. Users of our cloud version have received an automated update. For all other users, if you have not already done so, we encourage you to update your CCleaner software to version 5.34 or higher, the latest version is available for download here.

The Windows Insider team has released a new build for Fast Ring. Also, some notes for what to expect with the upcoming builds leading up to the final release of this update.

Today we are releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16288 for PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring only(not Skip Ahead). As we mentioned previously, we are now at the point of the development cycle for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update where our focus is now on stabilization for release to the world. This means that we are releasing new builds to Insiders more quickly and that these builds will include mostly bug fixes. You’ll notice that this build continues to include a bunch of good bug fixes Insiders will enjoy.

On Build 16288, you will notice that the watermark at the lower right-hand corner of the desktop has disappeared. You will also see that the OS now reports as “Version 1709” which is the official version number for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update release. However, this is NOT the final build as we’re not done yet. We’re just now beginning the phase of checking in final code to prepare for the final release. So we will have more builds to release to Windows Insiders between now and then. And the desktop watermark may re-appear in these builds.

The Windows Insider team has released a new build for Fast Ring and Skip Ahead folks. Also, some notes for what to expect with the upcoming builds leading up to the final release of this update.

As explained when we introduced Skip Ahead, we have “forked” the release into its own branch we call “RS3_RELEASE”. Many Windows Insiders will recall we did the same thing for the Windows 10 Creators Update when we started flighting builds from the “RS2_RELEASE” branch. Insiders in the Fast ring have been getting new builds from this branch over the last few weeks now. We are now at the point of the development cycle for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update where our focus is now on stabilization for release to the world. This means that we intend to release these builds to Insiders more quickly to both the Fast and Slow rings as these builds we include mostly bug fixes.

While millions of people across the US are staring up towards the sky as the sun is covered by the moon, Microsoft will be having a livestream of the new Age of Empires Definitive Edition. Age of Empires has been a favorite of mine since it was first released. I’m glad it’s coming back in a great new way. I’m not saying it’s bad timing for this livestream….. but, it’s bad timing.  

20 years after its launch on PC in 1997, we announced at E3 2017 that Age of Empires: Definitive Edition is coming exclusively to Windows 10, with a closed beta available for registration now. Created as an homage to fans of the series and PC gamers everywhere, Age of Empires: Definitive Edition will bring back the original Age of Empires and its Rise of Rome expansion with 16 civilizations to explore, all the while including beautifully enhanced graphics, entirely re-orchestrated soundtrack, brand-new narrative, major gameplay improvements, Xbox Live support for multiplayer, and more.

Microsoft has announced a new edition of Windows 10, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations. This is targeted for the higher end workstations that can include multiple server grade CPU’s, large amounts of RAM, and multiple HDD’s in a RAID configuration. So, naturally, it includes some home hobbyists!  This is great news for those in various industries that require an OS that can take advantage of the much higher powered systems they are required to use. The new edition of Windows is expected to be released as part of the Fall Creators Update this fall.

Performance is a very important requirement in this new world of fast paced innovation and we will continue to invest on Windows 10 Pro for Workstations to enable Windows power users to maximize every aspect of their high-performance device. Windows 10 Pro for Workstations utilizes significant investments, that Windows has made in recent releases, for scaling up across a high number of logical processors and large amounts of memory. Our architectural changes in the Windows kernel take full advantage of high-end processors families, such as Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron, that package a high number of cores in single or multi-processor configurations.