Windows 10 build 17074 now available for Insiders in the Fast ring

By Zac Bowden
last updated

Windows 10 build 17074 is now rolling out to Insiders with lots of new changes and improvements.

Microsoft has released the first Windows 10 Insider Preview build of 2018, which is packing a whole bunch of new features and changes over the last build released just before Christmas last year. Today's build is 17074 and is rolling out now to Insiders in the Fast and Skip Ahead rings.

Changelog

Microsoft Edge

  • Hub improvements: We've revamped the Hub view in Microsoft Edge to show more content and to be easier and more intuitive to use. You'll now find the different Hub sections listed with the full name visible in the Navigation view to the left of the content. This view can be collapsed to show icons only if you prefer to save space.
  • Autofill cards on web forms: Microsoft Edge can now save and automatically fill your card information on payment web forms. On submission of a form with card information, Microsoft Edge will prompt you to save card information.
  • New reading experience for EPUB, PDF, and Reading View: We've overhauled the look and feel of the reading and Books experiences in Microsoft Edge, bringing a new, consistent, more powerful experience across all your documents, whether they're EPUB or PDF books, documents, or web pages in Reading View.
  • Grammar Tools for EPUB books and Reading View: When viewing reflowable EPUB books or Reading View for websites, you can now use the new Grammar Tools button to enable new comprehension aids. Grammar Tools can break the words on the page into syllables, as well as highlight different parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
  • New Full-screen reading experience: You can now take Books, PDFs, and Reading View pages full-screen, for a distraction-free reading experience.
  • Improved roaming for progress and notes across devices: For Store books, reading progress, notes, bookmarks, and annotations will roamed much faster across devices on the same account in near-real-time via WNS.
  • General Improvements: We've made many improvements to fixed layout EPUB books, so content should be arranged more predictably on the page. Users of assistive technology will also find several improvements to viewing PDFs or Books with a screen reader, including more explicit narration when opening, loading, and navigating books.
  • Improved Library experience: We've built on the library improvements in Build 17035 with new changes in response to your feedback. Now, in addition to refreshing your library or pinning books to your Start menu, you can see recommendations for new books (when your library is empty) or filter expired rentals from the current library view. When you're reading a book, we now show a Books icon and the title, rather than the URI, for a clearer and less cluttered presentation.
  • Audio Narrated Books: We've added support for EPUB Media Overlays, enabling support for a tailored narration experience, including custom audio and highlight styles. On supported books, you can now hear the book read aloud with custom narration, with the publisher's chosen style applied to the highlight as the book is read. We've also made accessibility improvements when using Narrator to browse, search, or load a book.
  • Favorites bar improvements: The Favorites Bar will now automatically show on Start and New tab pages, if you have at least one favorite in it. When you navigate, the Favorites Bar will automatically hide to give you the most space for browsing. You may still choose to always show the favorites bar if you wish, via a context menu on the favorites bar "Show bar", or via settings "Show the favorites bar". The Favorites bar also now supports hiding names for individual favorite bar items, instead of having to either hide none or all names.
  • Option to never save passwords for domains: One of the top pieces of Windows Insider feedback was to provide an option to never save password for certain sites. When you choose to never save passwords, you shall never be prompted with a save password notification for that site.
  • Autofill passwords when InPrivate: Microsoft Edge now supports auto-filling of saved passwords when browsing InPrivate. To view list of available credentials for a site, click on the username field and it would populate all saved credentials for the website. No user credentials will be saved or updated when the windows is InPrivate.
  • Use Extensions when InPrivate: We've heard your feedback and have added the ability to load extensions when Microsoft Edge is in an InPrivate window. You can grant individual extensions permission to run in InPrivate from the options menu for the extension. We're working with extension developers to enable more features when InPrivate.
  • Variable Fonts: Microsoft Edge now supports CSS extensions for OpenType Font Variations, which allows single "variable" font files to behave like multiple fonts, with a range of weight, width, or other attributes. You can see examples of variable fonts in practice at the Axis-Praxis Playground in Microsoft Edge.
  • Vertically dock the Microsoft Edge DevTools: The Microsoft Edge DevTools can now be docked vertically, fulfilling a a top web developer feature request. Click the new "Dock Right" button in the top-right corner of the tools to toggle the location. In a future update, we plan to improve the UI and flow of DevTools content when docked vertically.

Windows Shell

  • Quiet Hours: Are there certain times when you don't want to be interrupted or just need to stay focused on what you're doing? Be more productive with Quiet Hours. With this build you can automatically choose those times when you don't want to be bothered with Quiet Hours automatic rules.
  • Quiet Hours will automatically turn on when you are duplicating your display. Never get interrupted during presentations again!
  • Quiet Hours will turn on automatically when you are playing a full screen exclusive DirectX game.
  • You can set the schedule that works for you so that Quiet Hours are always on when you want them. Go to Settings > Quiet Hours to configure your schedule.
  • Customize your own priority list so that your important people and apps always breakthrough when Quiet Hours are on. People pinned to your task bar with always break through!
  • See a summary of what you missed while you were in Quiet Hours. If you're using Cortana, you can also have Quiet Hours turn on while you're at home.
  • Making your folders more discoverable: In response to your feedback, especially for those upgrading to Windows 10 for the first time, we're making it easier to navigate to the things you care about by showing links to the Documents and Pictures folders in the Start menu by default. If you'd like to customize the folders that appear here, just right click an item and there's now a link directly to the customization settings.
  • Near Share Improvements: Thanks everyone who's shared feedback about Near Share – we've made some important reliability fixes to the feature with this build, so please give it a try once you upgrade.

Windows Settings

  • Improved Storage Settings: If you head to Settings you'll find that Disk Cleanup functionality has been rolled over into Storage Settings as part of our efforts to consolidate our settings experience.
  • Sound Settings Improvements: Continuing our work to make the new Sound Settings page a one stop shop for your audio needs, we've made some more design tweaks and have added some more helpful links. We've also added a brand new "App volume and device preferences" page to help you customize your audio experience to best fit your needs and preferences! Please explore these pages and share your feedback as we continuously work on improving them.
  • About Settings Improvements: We've updated About Settings so you can now select and copy your device name. We've also added a link to System info and updated our search strings so that if you search for "computer name" you'll now see a link that takes you to About Settings.
  • Manage app execution aliases from Settings: UWP apps can declare a name used to run the app from a command prompt – we've added a new page under Apps & Features Settings where you can turn these execution aliases on or off (particularly in the case where multiple apps use the same alias, and you want to choose which to give preference to).

Input Improvements

  • ntroducing the Embedded Handwriting Panel: In this Insider release, users get to experience a new way to handwrite on Windows. Typically handwriting is done in a panel that's separate from the text field and requires users to split their attention between the handwriting in the panel and the text in the text field. Our new handwriting experience brings handwriting input into the text control!
  • Windows can now recognize Hindi handwriting: We've expanding our handwriting capabilities to new languages including Hindi, Welsh, Sesotho, Wolof and Maori!

As always, you can check out the full changelog at the Windows Blog!

Zac Bowden
Zac Bowden
Senior Editor

Zac Bowden is a Senior Editor at Windows Central. Bringing you exclusive coverage into the world of Windows on PCs, tablets, phones, and more. Also an avid collector of rare Microsoft prototype devices! Keep in touch on Twitter: @zacbowden.

66 Comments
  • Forgot an "I" under input improvements first bullet point. That is a lot of features!!!
  • Dear Windows Central: Your awful website is so awful that I just installed brave browser just because I can't stand your autoplaying videos and laggy ******* scripts (edge complained about that specifically while it was crashing. I've never ever seen it do that before. Meanwhile my headphones are under my desk blaring out like there's a rave for small woodland creatures down there.) **** windows central, you guys need to IT harder and profit off of me less to be worth visiting in a mainstream browser that doesn't protect me from this ****. I was reading an older post, but I don't have the 'reputation' to post there, so, I guess so be it then. You hear this here. I have no interest in reading this post or staying on your website after I press "Comment". Got here via google, will be leaving and not returning.
  • Bye.
  • This is part of the reason I have 3 ad blocker extensions installed...
  • Three ad blockers? I only need one, uBlock Origin.
  • Seems you have tons of ram and cpu
  • Try uBlock 😉
  • Pihole on a raspberry pi is way better. Whole home ad blocker for all devices
  • Except not everyone has a Raspberry Pi or the time to learn how to use it and set it up.
  • Just use the Windows Central app from the Microsoft Store (available for PC, Phone, Xbox, and HoloLens)
  • You mean the one that constantly hangs and doesn't allow you to comment?
  • I just replied to you from the app^_^. May wanna log out of the app, then log back in. I think it was a bug do to Microsoft change there login API.
  • Test.. Huh it does work
  • I've tried that before and it will allow you to comment for a while and then just stops.
  • have you tried an app rest? @neo158
  • Yep, doesn't work
  • Test comment after logout/login. Looks like that worked for me.
  • Test. Ok. Worked. Thanks!
  • Thanks MARTY, if you can see this ^^
  • Try resetting/reinstalling the app. Mine used to take like a whole minute before it finished loading and then only could I even scroll. Turns out the app data as per the settings was like 300MB!!! Reinstalled the app and now it works perfectly with no issues whatsoever.
  • Yup, the app needs resetting once a week-two weeks to function smoothly
  • Once a week? I have to do it just about every launch due to articles jumping around and showing up in random order.
  • Use windows central app
  • Weird, never get any of those problems and I don't use any adblocker while visiting this site. Must be a US thing.
  • AdBlock Plus for Microsoft Edge is in the Microsoft Store. Works very well for me.
  • uBlock Origin is faster though and doesn't Whitelist ads like Adblock now does.
  • Does edge still automatically expand all bookmarks in pdfs? This is the only thing keeping me from using edge as my pdf reader. I regularly work with pdfs that have a detailed bookmark tree and for some reason edge expands all of them making the book mark list unusable 😤
  • Custom audio narration for books is appreciated. All of the updates pertaining to books and reading are a good sign for a future Andromeda device. Plus this is a good sign for me now that I bought Satya's book and plan on buying more.
  • Hmm, okay, was wondering about those continued “investments” in Edge as an ebook reader, but I see your point about preparation for Andromeda. You know what else you’ll be cool for that? Their own music service... badaboom tisch...  
  • Pretty huge update! The Windows Blog is quite lengthy on this one!
  • In consideration of the Edge improvements, I don't understand the organization of Microsoft Edge. Like explain to me why the Add to Favorites and Reading View are on the left of the | thing? Like it seems like they grouped it that way because those buttons apply to the individual pages themselves. So why aren't the Draw and Share buttons grouped with it? Those also apply to the pages themselves. The design of this baffles me.
  • ...just to be unorthodox
  • Visibility the space where it used to be is now taking.
  • Great point! I am pretty sure Add to favorites is placed in that spot because it is so in Chrome... The Hub button that accesses the favorites and everything else should be placed on the left of the address bar and the hub itself should be placed on the left of the content. They could even go so far as to make it possible to add the same kinds of menus that their UWP apps like OneNote has. I honestly think some of the old IE users would be more comfortable with that. Sure it would buck the trend on browser UI design, now that even Firefox has moved to a single address bar, but honestly what do they have to lose? Every browser is looking like Chrome now, but none are succeeding, time to try something a little different.
  • Because the draw and share buttons relate to ALL pages regardless. The favourites button relates to the page you are viewing and "lights up" when you go to a site that is already in your favourites. The reading view button also relates to the specific site as not all sites can be viewed in reading view, bing.com is one of them. Not only that but extensions can add buttons that relate to sites, Bing Translator is a good example. Why do you think buttons for extensions show up outside the address bar?
  • Edge is just plain horrible, especially for sites with lots of content like Facebook or Youtube.
  • Hm, been my daily driver browser for two years, never really had any significant issues. Don't even have Firefox and chrome installed anymore.
  • I use it as my dialy driver too but I often find myself opening up google chrome or firefox because certain sites dont do well in Edge. Sometimes video playback is awful like NBC website to watch shows will always loop advertisements amongst others. It is getting better though.
  • I've never had any issues. What PC do you have? I've noticed on my small laptop, Edge doesn't perform nearly as well as it does on my large laptop and my desktop. Not sure if this is going to matter at  this point, but that's been my experience.
  • I use Edge on my super cheap Nokia 6 for facebook.Have not noticed any lag/problems yet.But it was disastrous on my lumia.
  • Any way to enable Sets via a registry tweak?
  • Stuck on 17025 here, GSOD when trying to update.
  • "Certain devices may hang on the boot screen after upgrading. If this happens to you, go into the BIOS and disable virtualization." was in the release notes.  You might try.
  • I don't know why Edge is part of the OS still. Why not decouple it for faster updates?
  • Right. I'm still waiting on tablet full screen mode from 3 years ago.
  • Up-vote the feedback for it if you haven't already. Hopefully they'll do this sooner rather than later.
  • The Edge rendering engine is crucial to UWP and to upcoming support for progressive web apps. On top of that, in a serious operating system, you want a browser that people can use on a daily basis as well, even if usage rates are horrible. Otherwise you might as well roll over completely... it would send a horrible signal: “what? They don’t even offer a browser??” or “what? they are offering Firefox instead of having their own browser??” especially when they would have had it and killed it... What they should do imho and if possible, is decouple the UI development from the rendering engine and offer Edge in the Store so that it could get more frequent updates, even for non-insider users.
  • Does anyone get high memory usage when browsing the internet with any browser? I still have that issue since 16299.192, even after reset.
  • Fckkkkkk Edge!! Losing my reading list that I've spent time saving. Not the first time it's happened. This is NOT stuff that should be lost with updates. Same with favorites. What a joke. How hard is it to keep that stuff synced in the cloud and not get lost?
  • The big deal for me is they fixed the issue with Windows Mixed Reality headsets on notebooks with both integrated and discrete graphics(aka, optimus) they introduced last month that was causing nothing to be displayed in the headset(but the computer knew nothing about it, no errors and you could still interact, just couldn't see a thing like the headset was asleep or something).  SOOOO DAMNED HAPPY I CAN USE MY HEADSET AGAIN.  Note, the same bug was introduced in non-insider patches last month too(so even after a factory reset and not going insider, I was still screwed).
  • All the Quiet Hours stuff isn't new as it is in W10M and was even in Windows 8 and WP8 before it. I just don't understand why it was gutted to become a toggle only in Windows 10 in the first place.
  • It should've been just a toggle in the first place instead of being tied to Cortana. As it still doesn't work for me on the phone because Cortana isn't available in my country
  • Never understood that part either.  Looked for the setting for hours in Settings app until a Google search told me it was a Cortana setting... duh doesn't make sense.  I can use Cortana where I am so I use Quiet Hours, but why tie it to Cortana when it's not even related to it?
  • A toggle with no options is useless, Cortana integration allowed Quiet Hours to be controlled automatically, just like it is in this build. Unless you like to enable it manually but the whole point of Quiet Hours is to set it and forget it!!!!
  • I never have any issues with this website. Don't use adblockers, use Edge and this site is awesome.
  • I just hope that a slow ring build will come out soon so that the problems in 17025 can be fixed and we can get timeline.
  • Yeah! Audio works again in Firefox! :) Good to have fixed
  • I'm crazy excited to try this build but still just a couple deal breakers for me in the "known issues" even to try on my spare Surface Pro.
  • I'm really exited about being able to ink "directly" into a text box control! It's a little rough right now, and Edge, Mail, etc. are not enabled yet because they're doing a custom version, but all of that is coming. This is going to be a HUGE update for pen users.
  • Nice changes re reading epub stuff. Just a pity you have killed the instrument it would have benefited - mobile.
  • I like the audio part. It sounds cool (get it? sounds?). Yes, I know that I easily amused. And I have a question: See you all are computer geniuses and I am not. So please step lightly on my old toes. But my question is...the recent situation with Mudflap (I mean Meltdown) and Screwup ( I mean Spectre...Scepter...Sign Language...Oh hell, whatever it is!) was enough of a concern that I will be shying away from all things beta for years to come. I mean look  what happened there? Geez, I had to pray on my knees to the Techno Gods for a  miracle to keep things copasetic (like how I did that?) in Ruthie's Windows Whacko Land! I finally cobbled things together between Micro ( "Sit There Til We Fix It")  Soft and my overpriced and barely understood anti-virus software.  Now that I have that whole ball of balderdash out of my way, I wonder how messing  with any of this stuff is going to affect my computer. I was living under a big neon  sign that flashed the letters "Uh Oh" for the past two weeks. Now that I moved on with a smile on my face...I really am hesitant to go off on a "Wild Adventure With  Windows." Just sayin.' But I really do like the sound of that audio thing.  
  • I can never comment on these things from the app
  • Nevermind
  • Input Improvements. The imbedded handwriting feature mentioned here is not showcased in any build video I can find. After updating myself I can't find it either. Is it even real? Is it in this build at all?
  • Ooh I found it! It's just only in some UWP apps at the moment, not across the whole OS
  • Quiet Hours new options very best :)