Windows 10 Build 16170 - And away we go...

On Friday April 7, less than three weeks after Insiders saw build 15063 also known as the Creators Update and before it became available to the general public - MS released build 16170 to Fast Ring Insiders.   The was a PC only build and marks the beginning of the Redstone 3 branch.

 According the the associated announcement of the release - little if anything changed in 16170 from 15063 - but there was a handful of fixes.

 As with the first few builds of Creators way back in August of 2016 - the focus initially will be on OneCore updates to build the foundation for upcoming features.   

 I expect we'll get a glimpse of the new features during the MS Build Conference coming in in early May.  Until then I don't expect the pace of builds to be overly heavy.  

 Also MS launched the Business Insider program that allows corporate users using Azure AD credentials to be receive insider builds of W10 Enterprise.

From an install standpoint - the build installed cleanly on my desktop and tablet, but it is a bit more painful on my laptop.  My laptop runs the Cisco AnyConnect client for corporate access and during Update Preparation phase I get a pop-up screen that requests that I uninstall AnyConnect to perform the update and then I have to manually reinstall after it completes.  

 In addition my HP Elitebook 745 G3 uses the Conexant Audio chip and B&O sound app.  Windows 10 builds do not include those drivers - so after first boot I get an B&O app failure and then Windows Update runs post OS install and loads the drivers, then performs another reboot.  Add the reboot following the AnyConnect reinstall and I went through a grand total of 5 reboots.  Kind of ridiculous.   

There was no mobile edition of 16170 - and as I expected MS made an announcement earlier this week that another round of Windows Phones will not be supported.   

 The announcement was a bit confusing because it stated that the phones being dropped would not be getting Creators Update.  Well one of the phones was my Nokia Lumia 735 - that is in fact running 15063.2 and was supported through out the Redstone 2 branch.   I felt the announcement was more towards Redstone 3 support.   

 The announcement cut down the number of models that could support Creators and beyond to 13.  

 Alcatel IDOL 4S
Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL
HP Elite x3
Lenovo Softbank 503LV
MCJ Madosma Q601
Microsoft Lumia 550
Microsoft Lumia 640/640XL
Microsoft Lumia 650
Microsoft Lumia 950/950 XL
Trinity NuAns Neo

VAIO VPB051

 This group represents a minute percentage of the potential testing base and there has been a lot of coverage by other MS watcher sites saying its time to kill Windows 10 Mobile and not stop stringing the user and OEM community along.  

 As I've reported in other posts - this spring MS announced a new partnership with Qualcomm and what they call the Windows 10 on ARM program - so versus Windows 10 mobile a full blown version of Windows running on the latest Qualcomm Snapdrgron SOCs - starting with the 835.   So why keep banging away at Windows 10 Mobile when nobody uses it and developers are dropping support left and right.   I feel bad for vendors like HP and Alcatel that committed the resources to develop state of the art devices that really never sold.

 Bottom line is Redstone 3 has started.  The first release was a bit earlier than I thought we'd see one - I was figuring another 1 - 2 weeks.  But here it is.  We'll bump along here in April and then potentially start to see the new features for Redstone 3 around the Build event.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ASUS RT-AC68U Router & WDS - a nice solution for a large home.

I recently had a newer Asus RT-AC87U Router die.  The wireless chipset never seemed to work well and first the 5Ghz bands started to fail and then the 2.4Ghz failed leaving my 25 wireless device household high and dry. So after some due diligence I decided to replace with 2 of the older RT-AC68U and implement a Wireless Distribution System (WDS) configuration. In the past - I've mentioned an open source router OS called DD-WRT.  The Asus routers come pre-installed with their version of DD-WRT.  Asus does utilize their own UI overtop DD-wrt and overall I do not like nearly as much as the traditional UI - but core dd-wrt capabilities are there.   Additionally you can flash the RT-AC68 with native DD-WRT if your so inclined. In my previous configuration I was also using an older Linksys 4200 running dd-wrt configured in Client Bridge mode that allowed clients to connect to the Linksys as well as use some of the bands to connect back to the RT-AC87U. While it worked - I felt that
Read more

Solar Storage - 2023 Update

  A few years back I published a 2 Part post discussing Solar Energy systems.  The discussion focused on all the due diligence and prep work needed and what were some of the key considerations around designing and implementing a solar system. One of the discussion points was around solar storage or batteries.  What were the use cases for batteries and if they were a good investment and should you incorporate them into your design. Back in 2020 - the math around batteries said no - that you wouldn't be able to break even on the cost of a storage system over its normal warranty life of 10 years. So here we are three years later and so I figured it was time to revisit.   There are two primary uses cases for solar storage.    First is what's called peak offset or peak shifting.  This is a concept where you utilize stored solar generation to run your home during what many utilities call Peak Periods that are part of a general category of rate plans known as Time of Day (TOD) plans.
Read more

Home Automation Platforms + Matter - Early Observations

For those of us who have been involved in automating homes by adding "smart" devices from light switches to thermostats, cameras, sensors, controllers, etc - there was always a challenge with managing the wide range of devices. While each OEM had their own app that would allow you to control their devices - you'd often end up with anywhere from 4 - 10 apps that were required to manage the entire home.  And depending on your product choices you also had to have hubs to communicate from your Wifi network to other RF networks like Zigbee or Z-Wave.  With many of these "hubs" they had native support across multiple vendors or you had to add plugins or provide specific OEM support. Some OEM apps were great, some sucked, but it became challenging to provide a solution for a client where they could easily manage their home on their own.  Between having to maintain multiple credentials/logins across the apps and even communicating which app controls what - it sometimes
Read more