Windows 10 Build 14291 - More Features beginning to show
On March 17, MS released Windows 10 Build 14291 to Fast Ring Insiders for both PC and Mobile. The Mobile build is still limited to "Windows 10 Phones" - so only the Lumia 5 series and a small group of others.
The big changes for this build are all about Edge improvements and specifically Edge extensions. MS finally began to support the modern browser extensions with this build and offered 3 initial ones - Translator, Mouse Gestures and the Reddit Enhancement Suite. MS stated that many more are to follow including LastPass.
Additionally there is an updated Maps, Alarm apps as well as a new Feedback Hub app. Finally there some improvements for Japanese input.
One additional change I noticed as well was an improved WiFi experience. With 14279 - one of my machines - a Dell Inspiron 3647 with Dell 1507 WiFi+BT Mini card was acting up and even with the latest driver would occasionally Blue Screen with IRL_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS errors in NetIO.sys or TCPIP.SYS.
Build 14291 does seem to provide a little more stability with WiFi. But it did take a bit to get it working correctly.
When I upgraded from 14279 to 14291 the 1507 card showed up post boot with a driver load error. I uninstalled the card and the removed the driver and tried a fresh downloaded driver - same issue.
It appears as though Windows was expecting something in the .inf file called "XM" that it stated it couldn't find and failed. So I actually has to fail back to an older driver. While the older driver does lite up the card okay - it's performance seems off and it seems to have a harder time maintain connections. Especially with the all too important MineCraft 1.9 app my grand-daughter runs.
I am going to replace the Dell 1507 with an Intel 7260-AC card and see if I can improve the situation.
Otherwise on my remaining desktop and laptop machines 14291 downloaded and installed fine.
As far as the specific new features in 14291. I'll start with Maps since that seems to be a hot topic right now with HERE map support being dropped for Windows 10.
I've had a love/hate relationship with Microsoft's Mapping applications over the last few years. Way back in the Windows 7/7.5 mobile days - I actually thought MS has a great app with their Bing Maps app. But unfortunately MS sold that division and on Mobile forced you to the horrible HERE application suite - which often for me was crap. I've written many times about how poor it was in turn by turn especially in the Los Angeles metro area.
Now with Windows 10 we have this "hybrid" app - so part MS part HERE. And I'm not 100% confident with it - either Mobile or PC versions. I'll use some examples as to why...
First - while it does find my location okay on my Phone, it's inconsistent on my PC, laptop or tablet. There is no reason for that.
Second - it's search is not that good either. For example this last week I was in Sedona, AZ and wanted to get to an attraction called Bearizona in Williams, about 80 miles away. So I entered Bearizona, in search it found it - but then stated that it couldn't give me directions. I ended up going to the website - clipping the address for there and entered it into Maps. I repeated this using google maps and found it and directions in seconds.
So in my opinion MS has a long way to go with Maps to catch up with Google. When I really need proper directions I use an Android device or iPhone and Google Maps. Bottom line is I can't rely on MS Maps - so I avoid using it.
On the Edge stuff. Okay so the translator extension is cool - because there are those times where you want to read a native language site. But in my opinion this should have been in Edge 6 months ago. I'm still not sold on Edge as my daily browser.
So we are approaching the half-way point of the Redstone development branch which in theory is due June 30. So far from my use cases and perspective there is nothing that would drive me upgrade beyond 10586. In fact - I specially kept my wife on Production and overall she has probably has the best experience.
The big changes for this build are all about Edge improvements and specifically Edge extensions. MS finally began to support the modern browser extensions with this build and offered 3 initial ones - Translator, Mouse Gestures and the Reddit Enhancement Suite. MS stated that many more are to follow including LastPass.
Additionally there is an updated Maps, Alarm apps as well as a new Feedback Hub app. Finally there some improvements for Japanese input.
One additional change I noticed as well was an improved WiFi experience. With 14279 - one of my machines - a Dell Inspiron 3647 with Dell 1507 WiFi+BT Mini card was acting up and even with the latest driver would occasionally Blue Screen with IRL_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS errors in NetIO.sys or TCPIP.SYS.
Build 14291 does seem to provide a little more stability with WiFi. But it did take a bit to get it working correctly.
When I upgraded from 14279 to 14291 the 1507 card showed up post boot with a driver load error. I uninstalled the card and the removed the driver and tried a fresh downloaded driver - same issue.
It appears as though Windows was expecting something in the .inf file called "XM" that it stated it couldn't find and failed. So I actually has to fail back to an older driver. While the older driver does lite up the card okay - it's performance seems off and it seems to have a harder time maintain connections. Especially with the all too important MineCraft 1.9 app my grand-daughter runs.
I am going to replace the Dell 1507 with an Intel 7260-AC card and see if I can improve the situation.
Otherwise on my remaining desktop and laptop machines 14291 downloaded and installed fine.
As far as the specific new features in 14291. I'll start with Maps since that seems to be a hot topic right now with HERE map support being dropped for Windows 10.
I've had a love/hate relationship with Microsoft's Mapping applications over the last few years. Way back in the Windows 7/7.5 mobile days - I actually thought MS has a great app with their Bing Maps app. But unfortunately MS sold that division and on Mobile forced you to the horrible HERE application suite - which often for me was crap. I've written many times about how poor it was in turn by turn especially in the Los Angeles metro area.
Now with Windows 10 we have this "hybrid" app - so part MS part HERE. And I'm not 100% confident with it - either Mobile or PC versions. I'll use some examples as to why...
First - while it does find my location okay on my Phone, it's inconsistent on my PC, laptop or tablet. There is no reason for that.
Second - it's search is not that good either. For example this last week I was in Sedona, AZ and wanted to get to an attraction called Bearizona in Williams, about 80 miles away. So I entered Bearizona, in search it found it - but then stated that it couldn't give me directions. I ended up going to the website - clipping the address for there and entered it into Maps. I repeated this using google maps and found it and directions in seconds.
So in my opinion MS has a long way to go with Maps to catch up with Google. When I really need proper directions I use an Android device or iPhone and Google Maps. Bottom line is I can't rely on MS Maps - so I avoid using it.
On the Edge stuff. Okay so the translator extension is cool - because there are those times where you want to read a native language site. But in my opinion this should have been in Edge 6 months ago. I'm still not sold on Edge as my daily browser.
So we are approaching the half-way point of the Redstone development branch which in theory is due June 30. So far from my use cases and perspective there is nothing that would drive me upgrade beyond 10586. In fact - I specially kept my wife on Production and overall she has probably has the best experience.
Comments
Post a Comment