Microsoft releases Build 18990 for insiders within the Fast Ring, paving the way for Windows 10 in the 20H1 branch

Microsoft continues to encourage users who are part of the Insider Program with the release of new builds. If yesterday two Builds reached the insiders within the Release preview Ring, now it is the members of the Fast Ring who benefit from the arrival of Build 18990.

A Build 18990 for the 20H1 branch of Windows 10, which they have announced on their blog and on the Twitter profile of the Windows Insider Program and which arrives loaded with bug fixes.

What's New in Build 18990

Enabled auto-restart for UWP apps: This build has enabled auto-restart for UWP apps just like they did in previous builds builds with the desktop applications registered in your login session.

This way, when you sign in again, most open UWP apps now also automatically restart and make it minimized, in a suspended state, to reduce sign-in time. To enable this improvement, these steps must be taken:

"

Go to Settings > Accounts > Login Options>"

Start one or more UWP apps, such as Feedback Hub, sign out, and then sign back in to Windows.

Launched UWP apps, such as Feedback Hub, should be restarted minimized with a taskbar button.

Windows Subsystem Enhancements for Linux (WSL)

• Improved performance of directory listings in \ wsl $
• Additional startup entropy injected
• Fixed Windows interop when using su / sudo commands

For full details of the changes in this latest Insider Preview build, see the WSL release notes.

"

Xbox Game Bar Update: Initiated rolling out an FPS counter and an achievement overlay on the Xbox Game Bar. The update will come through the Microsoft Store. Simply start a game and press the key combination WIN+G>"

Add that stakeholders may need to sign up for Game Bar updates via the Xbox Insider Hub app to see this update.

General changes, improvements and fixes

"
• Fixed an issue where right-clicking in the File Explorer search box>" "
• Updated the default width of the search box in File Explorer>"
• Enabled automatic restart for UWP apps an issue affecting Action Center reliability.
• Enabled auto-restart for UWP apps an issue where the credentials prompt would sometimes not appear when connecting to certain VPNs from the network dropdown, so it would say Connecting but never completed the connection.
• Fix magnifying bugs at different DPI levels.
• enabled auto-restart for UWP apps an issue where the magnifying glass UI would not close with the Alt+F4 keyboard shortcut.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes the magnifying glass window would turn completely black after switching from lens mode to dock mode.

• Auto-restart for UWP apps has been enabled an issue that caused Magnifier to not work when using the Russian display language.
• They have made it clear how “Read from here” works in Magnifier.
• Improved the readability of reading of the magnifying glass by highlighting the rectangle.
• Improves reading while in Magnifier mode .
• Fix an issue where the text cursor indicator would sometimes not appear, even though the setting was enabled.
• Improved the shapes of the text cursor indicator which are now more readable and aesthetic.
"
• Fixed an issue in Narrator where changing the speech rate with keyboard commands would speak the new rate using the old rate. "
"
• Fix Narrator blank space sound."

• "Improves Narrator dialog auto-reading experience."
• Table navigation hotkeys are now allowed when entering a list view to allow one to navigate through columns while using Narrator.
• Improves the Narrator Page Summary dialog box by allowing the tab and shift key to scroll around the controls of the dialog.
• Narrator will no longer announce notifications for unfocused Chrome web pages.
• Narrator now announces the current “thumb” value in legacy color picker controls.
• Narrator now presents links and play buttons correctly in iTunes.
• Improve the Narrator reading experience in Chrome and Firefox. Certain pages may cause Narrator to revert to previous content.
• Narrator is now updating on an attached braille display correctly when some XAML controls are expanded.

• Adjusted the design based on feedback that the icon glyph was large and blurry.
• Fixes an issue where some Chinese characters in the Common Standard Chinese Characters Dictionary could not be entered with the new version of the Simplified Chinese IME.
• Fixed an issue where switching to English input mode and back to Chinese input mode would cause punctuations to be converted to Chinese punctuations even if “Use punctuation marks in English in Chinese input mode” was enabled with the new version of Simplified Chinese IME.
• Fixed an issue where the new version of the Simplified Chinese IME candidate window would sometimes not appear.
• Fixed an issue where the new version of the Traditional Chinese Bopomofo IME did not display candidates or next phrase candidates on the touch keyboard.
• Fixed an issue where characters typed with the new version of Traditional Chinese IMEs were not confirmed by the Enter key when playing certain games.
• Fixed an issue where the legacy language bar would not display IME mode icons while using the new version of Japanese IME, Traditional Chinese IME, or Korean IME.
• Fixed an issue where the new version of the Japanese IME would not reconvert a word pasted from elsewhere by the Henkan key.

Known issues still present

• Certain 2D apps (such as Feedback Hub, Microsoft Store, 3D Viewer) are incorrectly treated as protected content within Windows Mixed Reality. During video capture, these 2D applications block the recording of their content.
• "When capturing playback video while an error is being presented via the Feedback Hub in Windows Mixed Reality, you will not be able to select Stop Video, due to the previously mentioned protected content issue.If you want to send a playback video, you will need to wait 5 minutes for the recording time to run out. If you want to archive the bug, you can close the Feedback Hub window to end recording and resume archiving when you reopen the app in Feedback > Drafts."
• When viewing optional drivers in the new section of the Windows Update page, you may notice that older drivers are listed as available for download. If they are accepted, they will try to install it and will not. This is a bug related to the revised Windows Update detection logic instead of this new user interface. The root cause is known and a fix will be available in a future build.
• Devices configured for dual scan (WSUS and Windows Update) for updates may not have new versions in the fast ring. When you select Check for updates online from Microsoft Update, it will check for updates, but you may get the message “Your device is up to date”.

"

If you belong to the Fast Ring within the Insider Program, you can download the update by going to the usual route, that is, Settings > Update and Security > Windows UpdateAn update that is focused above all on improving the performance of the operating system."