Technology Ramblings

On June 21, MS released Windows 10 Build 16226 to Fast Ring Insiders.    This was another big update with a lot of new features for Edge, Gaming, Input Methods, OneDrive, Touch keyboard, Hyper-V, Windows Explorer, Settings and more.  The build also contained nearly 40 fixes that came out of the recent Bug Bash. The good news was that the build installed pretty well on all my platforms.  With the previous 16215 my desktop ran horribly and I had to revert back to 16199 - but 16226 fixed those issues and seems to be running smoothly. On my laptop - I had to uninstall/re-install Cisco AnyConnect & NAC post update and still waited post install for Conexant Audio drivers to install. But the updates themselves are still slow - typically well over an hour end-to end and even longer on my Dell tablet - so with all the improvements to differential downloads, etc - the overall experience is slower. Looking more closely at the Edge improvements, I have to say ...

On Thursday June 8 some 22 days after the release of build 16199 - MS released build 16215 to Fast Ring Insiders This build began to introduce new UI components - specifically Start and Action Center based on the Fluent Design System introduced at the BUILD conference. There were a bunch of improvements to the struggling Edge browser as well as Cortana, Pen and Ink, Keyboard, Input, Font and Settings improvements. All in a a pretty large set, but as with many of the Creators Update approach is focused on touch and ink based computing. I attempted the update on my typical group of devices - a traditional desktop, laptop and tablet.   One thing I did notice is that instead of the multi phase approach - a couple of my machines performed a download and installing updates then prompted for reboot and did the configuration and working phases. Old my three machines - the old Intel Atom based tablet actually took the update easiest.   The laptop was slightly more painful -...