Yesterday afternoon Microsoft released its latest Fast Ring version of Windows 10, build 10576. While rumors are swirling that this may be The Chosen One, a closer look shows this build -- while on the way to RTM land -- hasn't quite arrived.
In fact, the changes in build 10576 are so tiny you may miss them entirely.
Gabe Aul’s Windows blog entry for the build emphasizes that the Microsoft Edge browser works with Microsoft’s Miracast. Which is puzzling, because Windows 10 has had Miracast support since day 1 (Windows key + P). Builds 10565 and 10547 both had Miracast support in Edge, although it didn’t work very well. I have no idea why it’s being heralded now, unless Aul encountered the blogging equivalent of a slow news day.
Other changes in build 10576:
- You can highlight text in a PDF being viewed in Edge: Right-click, and choose "Ask Cortana" to bring up a Cortana search, along with an offer to search using Bing.
- The Metro Xbox "beta" app in Win10 works better. It no longer grabs gigabytes of memory to handle Win32 games.
- You can now run Hyper-V containers inside Hyper-V machines. If you want to experiment, remember that you have to run a build 10576 VM inside build 10576 -- which is hard to do without ISO files.
- Windows now generates missed call notifications, and lets you send text messages from Cortana. Search works in regions where Cortana doesn't.
All of which sound like a bunch of bug fixes. Be still my beating heart.
Aul also posts a list of known issues: Pop-up notifications lower the background volume by 75 percent for an extended period of time; Skype messages and contacts are gone, but there's a workaround; tiny tablets that boot while rotated may blue screen, and roll back to the earlier build; the power button on the Surface Pro 3 doesn't work right; and WebM and VP9 codecs are still missing in Edge, as they were in build 10565.
Of course, Edge still isn't usable for many of us because it doesn't support extensions -- and we won't get that feature until next year. Zac Bowden at WinBeta quotes a Microsoft representative as saying:
We're committed to providing customers with a personalized web experience, which is why bringing extensions to Microsoft Edge continues to be a high priority. We're actively working to develop a secure extension model to make the safest and most reliable browser for our customers, and look forward to sharing more in a future Windows 10 update in 2016.
Starting with build 10565 and continuing with build 10576, if you run winver from the command line Windows reports that it's "Version 1511… © 2016 Microsoft Corporation."
Russian leaker WZor keeps tweeting about build 10576: "99.99% it is Sign-Off "gold" build th2." But there are still a few rough edges and too many known issues with seemingly straightforward solutions. Also, the "Build 10576" watermark appears on the Start screen. (Remember that build 10240 dropped the watermark just before it was revealed as the one true July 29 RTM version.)
We're obviously close to RTM on this one, but not quite there yet.
Windows Mobile 10 also saw a release yesterday, build 10572. Rumors run rampant that it's going to be the RTM build for Windows Mobile 10 as well.
Almost there.
