Divorce! It’s Wednesday, and that can only mean one thing. Time for a fresh Insider preview. This time around we have Windows 10 build 18317, which comes with a few notable new features.
As Microsoft notes in the release notes, there are improvements to font management, Start Menu reliability and more in this new version.
But the highlight is the anticipated separation of Cortana and search. They both will be there in the taskbar, obviously. But will continue as separate entities. This is something Microsoft already hinted at, and we have been expecting for a while now.
Some Insiders have, in fact, had this update for a few weeks now.
The decoupling will enable each experience to innovate separately and best serve their target audience and use cases.
Microsoft has also improved the reliability of the Start Menu in this release, by separating it in its own process. This, the company says, provides a number of benefits like simplifying debugging and insulating it from potential issues that that impact other features.
Font management is another feature that has been available in Windows 10 for a few months now, and Redmond has now amped up the experience.
If you are running this build, you can drag and drop font files from File Explorer into the modern Settings panel to install them. This will only install them for the current user, but right-clicking the font in Explorer will offer you the ability to install it for everyone.
Build 18317 also simplifies the Windows Insider Program Settings page, with the goal being to remove some of the clutter. All the same functionality is there, just better accounted for now.
And finally, there are a few improvements to the Windows Console in this build, the details of which you gather from the link above.
All in all, a nice new version of the preview, with a handful of handy new features. This build is from the upcoming 19H1 development branch that is expected to hit RTM status in March. Development of new features is, obviously, slowing down.
We may transition to Skip Ahead builds anytime now for 19H2.
In the meantime, give build 18317 a try by installing it on your machine and taking these new features out for a test drive.
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