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Microsoft Releases Windows 10 19H1 Preview Build 18309

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Microsoft has released Windows 10 preview build 18309 to Insiders in the Fast ring and includes a new push toward a password-less login experience.

Microsoft today released Windows 10 preview build 18309 to Insiders in the Fast ring. This is the first new preview build for 2019 and is the follow-up to last month’s build 18305. In addition to some under the hood changes and improvements, Microsoft is pushing for a password-less sign-on experience for all Windows 10 versions starting with this build.

Windows 10 Preview Build 18309

Windows 10 19H1 Preview Build 18309

This big story from today’s build is the company is pushing to eliminate passwords during the sign-in experience all while keeping your accounts safe. The company introduced the ability to sign in with a phone number account and not having to create yet another password. You can associate your iOS or Android phone number with your Microsoft account, you can use an SMS code to sign in. After that, you can use Windows Hello Face ID, fingerprint, or a PIN (deepening on the device’s capabilities).

Here the list of other changes and improvements to expect in today’s build:

  • We fixed an issue where using Hyper-V with an external vSwitch in addition to the default resulted in many UWP apps not being able to connect to the internet.
  • We fixed two issues resulting green screens citing an issue with win32kfull.sys in recent builds – one when using an Xbox controller with your PC, one when interacting with Visual Studio.
  • We fixed an issue where changes to Mouse Keys settings in Settings wouldn’t persist.
  • We’ve made some small adjustments to the text across various pages in Settings.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in XAML context menus across the system sporadically not invoking over the last several flights.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in explorer.exe crashing when right clicking a network printer.
  • If you press WIN+H to start dictation in an unsupported language, we’ve now added a notification explaining that this is why dictation isn’t starting.
  • Based on your feedback, we’re adding a notification now that will appear the very first time you press Left Alt + Shift – it explains that this hotkey triggers an input language change, and includes a direct link to the settings where the hotkey can be disabled, if pressing it was unintentional. Disabling Alt + Shift will not impact the use of WIN + Space, which is the recommended hotkey for changing input methods.
  • We fixed an issue where the cmimanageworker.exe process might hang, causing system slowness or higher than normal CPU usage.
  • Based on feedback, if you clean install Pro, Enterprise, or Education editions of Windows, the Cortana voice-over will be disabled by default. Screen reader users can still choose to start Narrator at any time by pressing WIN + Ctrl + Enter.
  • When Scan Mode is on and Narrator is on a slider, the left and right arrows will decrease and increase the slider. Up and down arrows will continue to navigate to the previous or next paragraph or item. Home and End will move the slider to the beginning or the end.
  • We fixed the issue where Narrator could not be turned off when Narrator message box “Another Ease of Access application is preventing Narrator from supporting touch…” was displayed.
  • We fixed the issue where Narrator did not read process/applications from Task Manager when “More details” view was selected.
  • Narrator now announces the state of hardware buttons such as volume keys.
  • We fixed a couple issues related to mouse pointer sizes not increasing/decreasing properly when DPI is set to something other than 100%.
  • We fixed the issue where Magnifier failed to follow Narrator cursor in Magnifier centered mouse mode if “follow Narrator cursor” option was selected.
  • If you were seeing Windows Defender Application Guard and Windows Sandbox fail to launch on Build 18305 with KB4483214 installed, that will be fixed once you upgrade to this build. If you are still encountering launch issues after upgrading, please log feedback about it and we’ll investigate.
  • We enhanced Windows Sandbox to better support high DPI displays.
  • If you were seeing random yet frequent explorer.exe crashes with Build 18305, we made a server-side change to resolve this over the break. Please let us know if you’re continuing to experience crashes an we’ll investigate. This same issue is suspected to also be the root cause resulting in some Insiders finding Start would reset back to default in the previous build.
  • [ADDED] We fixed an issue resulting in upgrades failing with error code 0x800F081F – 0x20003 if Developer Mode had been enabled.
  • [ADDED] We fixed the issue where the Task Scheduler UI may appear blank even though there are scheduled tasks. For now, you’ll need to use the command line if you want to see them.

Of course, as is the case with all early Insider preview builds, this one includes a healthy list of known issues for both users and developers. Make sure to read Microsoft’s full announcement for all changes, known issues, and workarounds.

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